Late Weekend

Wow, am I tired. This weekend was a struggle. Its good to be back at work.

Friday night I decided to extend the WinGraph Pascal unit to include the ability to load and draw images on the screen. Finding the code to load bitmaps in the Win32 API is much more difficult than from the .NET RTL. Once I found the code getting it to work didn't take long, though I did make a few really simple mistakes (like passing b then a to a procedure rather than a then b) that took a while to find. Once I got the code basically working I modified the MazeGame and made a little graphical version. Sleep - 1

On Saturday we decided to buy a new TV Tuner and HDD from the Media Center PC. I remember reading somewhere that Media Center can support upto 3 TV tuners, so we planned to get the Fusion Dual tuner and a 300GB HDD. The purchase went ok, and we spent the next part of the day shopping for my brothers birthday present. Got home around 4ish and thought that I would install the HDD and TV Tuner quickly... Big mistake. Basically installed the TV Tuner, and HDD (at the some time) and booting windows failed. My first thoughts were, "damn TV tuner card". Removed the card and tried again. Same problems, wouldn't even post this time. Something did not like the new HDD. Removed the other tuner card, and the wireless network card. Basically the same problem. Got a little further then the machine froze. Change cables, change SATA ports, repeat, repeat, repeat... Anyway, at 6 we went to my brothers party which was great fun. Didn't even think about the PC for a few hours. Got home about midnight and started it again. Thought I had it working, formatted disk (almost 1hr). Then post failed again... Crap. Finally gave up on HDD.

Next trick was to install the tuner. Which turned out to be easy. Plug in, follow instructions. All working in about 1/2 an hour. Go into Media Center, turn them on and get the error "Select one or two tuners only". ARGH... Upto 3 turns out to mean "2" outside US, or "3" (1 digital, 2 analog) in US. Bummer. I could have saved some $$$ and just got another the same as the one I had. So at 3:30 I head off to bed.

Sunday I went to take back the HDD. The guys I got it from check it and it worked ok in their machine. Not much good to me, but they suggested a bios update. So back home update bios. Same problem. Install original drivers, same problem. Install latest drivers, same problem. Back to shop with PC. The technician had told me "Bring it in and I'll have a quick look at it.". When I took it back he wanted $35 to have a quick look at it... Stuff that. There is nothing left for him to change. The customer service rep and technician were quite rude, and unhelpful. I now know why you should use MSY, everyone I know who has had a problem with their equipment has been well treated. Anyway after a little arguing I got them to exchange it for another brand of disk. "There is a 10% repacking fee", fantastic, the customer service here just gets better and better. So I ended up with a 250Gb HDD and a little change + some happy memories. I had always wondered why the shop had so many "Email complaints to ..." signs around the store. Now I know.

Spend the remainder of the day driving around shopping for other things. Finally got home about 6:30pm and installed HDD. Amazing (sarcastic), it worked. First time, no problem. I had some drivers issues with the Tuner card, which I reinstalled. So everything is working well now.

Last thoughts, don't shop anywhere that has a prominent "complaints" signs. You may have to queue for a while, but MSY is worth the wait.