I decided to put Windows 7 on my laptop. I had an RTM key and iso left, so I thought I'd just install SP1 afterwards. The OS installation completed without a hiccup, installed Steam and Guild Wars 2, got the mess of updates prior to SP1 and did a quick test to see how well Guild Wars 2 would run (it ran alright on low/med). Curiosity satisfied, I installed Service Pack 1 and things went downhill.
After SP1 installed, Guild Wars 2 and every game I installed on the machine instantly crashed with either StackHash, d3d9.dll, or nvd3dum.dll (something like that) as the culprit. The first seemed to have to do with DEP, but everytime I selected a program to exclude I got a "You can't do that" message. The second led me to running Microsoft's DirectX web installer, no dice. The third resulted in trying 2 legacy video drivers, still crashed. I managed to get the Guild Wars 2 launcher running after deleting it's .dat file, but I reloaded a fully downloaded copy and that broke it all over again.
I poked around a bit and found that installing Service Pack 1 can cause this and that there was a hotfix for it. A couple links later, I found the hotfix only to be hit with a "You need to validate" message. Fine. No problem. I'm running legitimate copies of Windows 7, so this should only take a second. Uh...no.
Because I was using Firefox, Microsoft's site started a download for the Genuine Advantage Validation tool. Quick download, but upon executing it, it said it was no longer supported and I should check my system clock. After confirming my clock time across multiple devices, I decided to give Internet Explorer 64bit a run. This resulted in an ActiveX popup to install the validation tool that, after allowing the download, failed to download without any error messages. It just didn't work. Fine. IE 32bit then. That worked, but the website said I already had the update installed.
This left me with a couple options: Use a Windows SP1 disk and reformat or continue fiddling. I went with the former. So, now I've formatted the partition and fully updated the new installation. I've spammed restore points and I am now getting ready to install a game on it. Here goes nothing.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Thursday, September 20, 2012
A+ Certification Study Cards and Practice Tests
I've found a couple online practice tests and flash cards to help study for A+ Certification, but I'm not too confident with them. Why? Take a look at some of the questions and answers:
Apparently DVD-/+RW (1997/1999), DVD-RAM (1998), and BD-RE (2006) do not exist. This is for the 2009 test I believe. However, the dates were grabbed from the first 5 results of a Google search, so take them with a grain of salt.
According to this practice test, the correct answer is the second one. Is a printer with only a USB A or B connector not considered a USB device then? Some portable USB devices used mini-B. I haven't seen a mini-B connection on a PC, laptop maybe, but not a desktop. I also haven't seen a USB B on a PC.
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Seeing how I measure up to A+ Certification
I'm looking into A+ Certification. I'm already familiar with assembling/disassembling PCs, installing an OS, and troubleshooting, so I might as well put another bulletpoint on the resume. There's just one problem: The practice tests I've found have quite a wide range of topics, with a few that are oddly specific.
So far, I have failed every practice test I've taken. Why? I didn't know the following:
I guess I'm still on the consumer side of things and reliant on web searches and, to a lesser extent (way less), books, to find relevant information. However, I don't believe memorizing every ISO standard and every connector pinout is a good measure of a PC Technician.
I need to overcome my mental roadblock of "I don't like the game, so I won't play. It shouldn't be this way. Should it?"
So far, I have failed every practice test I've taken. Why? I didn't know the following:
- Minimum and Recommended System Requirements of Windows 2000, XP, Vista Basic, and Vista Home Premium/Business/Ultimate.
- What "1x" speed is for CD, DVD, and BluRay.
- How long SATA and PATA cables can be. (1mr and 45cm, respectively)
- The history of ATA, revisions, and when features were added as well as what they do.
- The most common form factors of usb flash drives (ex: 1.8in, 2.5in)
- The form factors of CompactFlash devices ("Type I (3.3 mm) and Type II (5.0 mm)")
- Region codes of BluRay (A, B, and C, not 0-8)
- That CPUID is . Not the program of the same name I have used in the past that reads that information and has some system monitoring capabilities. *This question was an A, B, C, or D with both the definition of CPUID and the features of CPUID as possible answers.*
- All cpu sockets, their names, functions, pin counts, and what CPUs used them. (Did you know Socket 7 could accept processors from multiple manufacturers?)
- The default addresses used by the primary and secondary IDE controllers.
- How a laser printer works.
- Reading a question about optical drives speed ratings of 48x 32x 52x as having commas and thus getting the Write, Rewrite, and Read speeds question wrong.
- Associating "Master/Slave" and "Standalone" modes for PATA as the same thing. Why? Because I did that all the time in my Computer Diagnostics class. I'd plug a drive in, set as CS or Master and that was "Standalone".
- Vocabulary. I.e. What is a "Stepper motor" used in? "What is a stepper motor!?" (It is, in a sense, what I've been using consistently in my Portal 2 maps: MOMENTARY_ROT_BUTTON. Well, the SetPosition input at least.)
- Forgetting Decimal to Hexadecimal conversion (25 is 19, not 1a)
- Forgetting the pin counts of floppy and IDE ribbon cables. (34 and 40. However, you can also have 80pins for IDE. And the number 1 pin is not always denoted by a red stripe along the side like it says in the tests. Sometimes it is black or blue, depending on color scheme and aesthetics.)
- Why am I being asked how to change the desktop background in Windows? Granted, I've met someone who didn't know how to do that. But given the multiple ways you can do it (MS Paint, PhotoViewer, Desktop properties) and only being able to select one way as being correct, there's something wrong here.
- "How many devices can a SCSI controller support?" They don't ask which version (1, 2, or 3) and all their numbers are off by 1 which, I'm assuming, means they are zero-indexed.
I guess I'm still on the consumer side of things and reliant on web searches and, to a lesser extent (way less), books, to find relevant information. However, I don't believe memorizing every ISO standard and every connector pinout is a good measure of a PC Technician.
I need to overcome my mental roadblock of "I don't like the game, so I won't play. It shouldn't be this way. Should it?"
Thursday, September 13, 2012
The Leather Duster Returns
Well, Guild Wars 2 is fun. Sadly, I haven't been playing it for a couple days because 1) I was trying to get video capture cards working on Windows Server 2008 R2 and 2) I can't log in because of, well, I don't know. My friends are able to log in, but I'm practically locked out of my account because authentication emails never arrive. I'd make a post on the forums or a support ticket but, ding ding ding, no authentication email. Awesome.
Sure, I could disable it, but I'm still hanging onto the idea of being able to see when my account is accessed and allowing/denying it. And I still get this odd feeling I'd have to authenticate the opting out of authentication.
-------
While I was trying to log in to GW2 for the past 2..wait...3 days, I was also getting frustrated with capture cards.
I've had this Pinnacle Dazzle DVC100 in my closet for maybe a year and haven't done anything with it. So, I dusted it off and installed it only to get constant "No valid input signals" for a day. Sometimes VLC, VirtualDub, or Media Player Classic would pickup audio, but I wouldn't have video. The rest of the time, nothing.
I spent a day reading 2-4 year old forum threads all dealing with the same problem. The bigger issue was all of the "solutions" consisted of making sure I selected the right capture card, unplugging the card, downloading drivers, and restarting the computer. Something I'd already done half a dozen times before turning to the net. Most of those threads were left unsolved as well. Great.
Solution? Use an internal capture card I removed from a machine to make room for a graphics card. And...the opposite of the problem happened. Video, no audio. Followed by flip flopping between one or the other with the occasional neither. So, I put the DVC100 back in and thought I'd try using both cards at once...then decided I really wanted only one to work since, well, they SHOULD work without resorting to this.
Now, I was running a server OS so, after getting frustrated with "solutions" online, I decided to see if I could dual boot the machine. Bad idea. I only have a copy of Vista Business I never got around to using and I'd probably wind up in the same "You're missing APIs and stuff" problem. So, I finally took a look at http://www.win2008r2workstation.com/, the site I used to Workstation-ize the OS. Lo and behold, there was an installer that added the missing components. I was rather dubious given how old the thread was, but the installer worked. Now, instead of only having audio and no video, I had video and no audio.
Several bluescreens, restarts, and settings windows later, I managed to get Pinnacle's software and VirtualDub to detect both audio and video AND record it. However, only Pinnacle's software would play both video and audio in realtime, but the video was halfsize because it was only a "preview". Virtualdub would show the video fullsize, detect the audio and show the volume level, but refused to play the audio in its Preview window. Seeing as how I wanted to be able to watch tapes in real time as well as record them, I was a bit upset. Sure, I could have a realtime stream with audio and video, but that was only if I wanted to a) put my face against the screen or b) use the Magnifier at 500% zoom and watch pixels talking.
Apparently, the Dazzle system doesn't like to work with anything but the software that came with it, *surprise surprise*. And, despite following a dozens "how to fix" tutorials, nothing worked. A bit of a letdown, but I had my fullsize transfers and decided to call it a day.
What really irked me about the tutorials was that the makers in all but one video already had their setup working and went "if you do this, it should work". No proof, just "Well this worked for me, see?" The one that didn't was solving some "no color" problem that I wasn't having. All of them were recounting the same or similar steps that I had already come up with on my own or followed. Ugh.
-------
So, I got back to work on my leather dusters for Skyrim. There isn't much to say about this. I followed the same Garment Maker tutorial series to form the duster on a male_0 body, weighted it, remade the texture since the UV maps weren't exactly the same as the female duster's, and spent a day trying to make a male_1 version. The physique change (not the modifier) is quite drastic from male_0 to male_1. You pretty much go from a twig to a walking mountain of meat.
In the end, I resorted to using the SoMuchMorpher plugin to get the duster to fit. Then I used a Skin Wrap on the male_0 duster to get the weights right. After that, some testing of each duster to make sure they worked and another test with the weight slider enabled before uploading to Steam.
I don't have a 1st person model for the dusters, yet. I tried plugging in the 3rd person model and that didn't work at all. So, I think I need to look at an existing 1st person model's nif structure. I also have Nightasy's tutorials to go through.
-------
Verb tenses are everywhere!
Sure, I could disable it, but I'm still hanging onto the idea of being able to see when my account is accessed and allowing/denying it. And I still get this odd feeling I'd have to authenticate the opting out of authentication.
-------
While I was trying to log in to GW2 for the past 2..wait...3 days, I was also getting frustrated with capture cards.
I've had this Pinnacle Dazzle DVC100 in my closet for maybe a year and haven't done anything with it. So, I dusted it off and installed it only to get constant "No valid input signals" for a day. Sometimes VLC, VirtualDub, or Media Player Classic would pickup audio, but I wouldn't have video. The rest of the time, nothing.
I spent a day reading 2-4 year old forum threads all dealing with the same problem. The bigger issue was all of the "solutions" consisted of making sure I selected the right capture card, unplugging the card, downloading drivers, and restarting the computer. Something I'd already done half a dozen times before turning to the net. Most of those threads were left unsolved as well. Great.
Solution? Use an internal capture card I removed from a machine to make room for a graphics card. And...the opposite of the problem happened. Video, no audio. Followed by flip flopping between one or the other with the occasional neither. So, I put the DVC100 back in and thought I'd try using both cards at once...then decided I really wanted only one to work since, well, they SHOULD work without resorting to this.
Now, I was running a server OS so, after getting frustrated with "solutions" online, I decided to see if I could dual boot the machine. Bad idea. I only have a copy of Vista Business I never got around to using and I'd probably wind up in the same "You're missing APIs and stuff" problem. So, I finally took a look at http://www.win2008r2workstation.com/, the site I used to Workstation-ize the OS. Lo and behold, there was an installer that added the missing components. I was rather dubious given how old the thread was, but the installer worked. Now, instead of only having audio and no video, I had video and no audio.
Several bluescreens, restarts, and settings windows later, I managed to get Pinnacle's software and VirtualDub to detect both audio and video AND record it. However, only Pinnacle's software would play both video and audio in realtime, but the video was halfsize because it was only a "preview". Virtualdub would show the video fullsize, detect the audio and show the volume level, but refused to play the audio in its Preview window. Seeing as how I wanted to be able to watch tapes in real time as well as record them, I was a bit upset. Sure, I could have a realtime stream with audio and video, but that was only if I wanted to a) put my face against the screen or b) use the Magnifier at 500% zoom and watch pixels talking.
Apparently, the Dazzle system doesn't like to work with anything but the software that came with it, *surprise surprise*. And, despite following a dozens "how to fix" tutorials, nothing worked. A bit of a letdown, but I had my fullsize transfers and decided to call it a day.
What really irked me about the tutorials was that the makers in all but one video already had their setup working and went "if you do this, it should work". No proof, just "Well this worked for me, see?" The one that didn't was solving some "no color" problem that I wasn't having. All of them were recounting the same or similar steps that I had already come up with on my own or followed. Ugh.
-------
So, I got back to work on my leather dusters for Skyrim. There isn't much to say about this. I followed the same Garment Maker tutorial series to form the duster on a male_0 body, weighted it, remade the texture since the UV maps weren't exactly the same as the female duster's, and spent a day trying to make a male_1 version. The physique change (not the modifier) is quite drastic from male_0 to male_1. You pretty much go from a twig to a walking mountain of meat.
In the end, I resorted to using the SoMuchMorpher plugin to get the duster to fit. Then I used a Skin Wrap on the male_0 duster to get the weights right. After that, some testing of each duster to make sure they worked and another test with the weight slider enabled before uploading to Steam.
I don't have a 1st person model for the dusters, yet. I tried plugging in the 3rd person model and that didn't work at all. So, I think I need to look at an existing 1st person model's nif structure. I also have Nightasy's tutorials to go through.
-------
Verb tenses are everywhere!
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Bassrath-Kata Longsword
I took too long with the Bassrath-Kata Longsword. The basic geometry was simple and I shaped a new sword, UV mapped it, and joined the pieces in a few hours.
The big issue was creating the wrap for it. I couldn't get my UVs to allow me to do it all in a texture easily. By easily, I mean placing a series of lines, skew them, and have them align perfectly on the mesh. The way the handle is, the UVs are slightly distorted on every polygon and no amount of unwrapping or pelting would fix that.
I had no idea how to make one using polygons. The last time I made details using splines was the Vigilance Longsword and that was...arduous to say the least. I kept stacking modifiers, collapsing, deleting all but the outlines, restacking modifiers, tweaking, and manually optimizing the resulting 8k poly lines. This time around, I decided there had to be another, better, way. This lead me on a 3 day hunt for some way to make a proper ribbon/leather strip to wrap around it.
At first, I looked for ways to make geometry/splines shrinkwrap around an object but all I found were guides for projecting in a single dimension and only if the objects boundaries didn't intersect (ball and a box instead of a coil around a pole). So, I made a spline with its points centered on the original model's texture handle wrap and moved each point close or into my handle. Then I found this forum post (http://forums.tutorialized.com/showpost.php?p=71033&postcount=3) saying how to make a decent looking wrap. Following that, I applied a loft to my helix-ish spline and now I had a handle wrap...that wasn't following the object I wrapped my spline around.
That's when I came across a nice property: Loft's Deformations rollout. This allowed me to rotate the resultant geometry around until I had a good angle, but it was too cumbersome to use on such a small scale. I was constantly placing points on the graph really close together and it didn't let me move segments of the wrap around so some were on top of others like on the texture.
So, I kept what I had done in place and went straight to the spline driving the loft. By changing all the vertices to either Bezier or Bezier Curve, I was able to both move the depth order of the segments around and change the curvature by hand. It was a bit tedious as sometimes rotating in X would instead rotate Z and each vertex had a different...twist, shall we say. This might have been alleviated by using Local mode instead of World, but I was so happy with my progress I didn't care and kept chugging along.
After that, it was a quick job with the texture, a little optimization, and off to NifSkope and the Creation Kit to put it all together.
The big issue was creating the wrap for it. I couldn't get my UVs to allow me to do it all in a texture easily. By easily, I mean placing a series of lines, skew them, and have them align perfectly on the mesh. The way the handle is, the UVs are slightly distorted on every polygon and no amount of unwrapping or pelting would fix that.
I had no idea how to make one using polygons. The last time I made details using splines was the Vigilance Longsword and that was...arduous to say the least. I kept stacking modifiers, collapsing, deleting all but the outlines, restacking modifiers, tweaking, and manually optimizing the resulting 8k poly lines. This time around, I decided there had to be another, better, way. This lead me on a 3 day hunt for some way to make a proper ribbon/leather strip to wrap around it.
At first, I looked for ways to make geometry/splines shrinkwrap around an object but all I found were guides for projecting in a single dimension and only if the objects boundaries didn't intersect (ball and a box instead of a coil around a pole). So, I made a spline with its points centered on the original model's texture handle wrap and moved each point close or into my handle. Then I found this forum post (http://forums.tutorialized.com/showpost.php?p=71033&postcount=3) saying how to make a decent looking wrap. Following that, I applied a loft to my helix-ish spline and now I had a handle wrap...that wasn't following the object I wrapped my spline around.
That's when I came across a nice property: Loft's Deformations rollout. This allowed me to rotate the resultant geometry around until I had a good angle, but it was too cumbersome to use on such a small scale. I was constantly placing points on the graph really close together and it didn't let me move segments of the wrap around so some were on top of others like on the texture.
So, I kept what I had done in place and went straight to the spline driving the loft. By changing all the vertices to either Bezier or Bezier Curve, I was able to both move the depth order of the segments around and change the curvature by hand. It was a bit tedious as sometimes rotating in X would instead rotate Z and each vertex had a different...twist, shall we say. This might have been alleviated by using Local mode instead of World, but I was so happy with my progress I didn't care and kept chugging along.
After that, it was a quick job with the texture, a little optimization, and off to NifSkope and the Creation Kit to put it all together.
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