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Ever seen one of these before?

If you’re a geek like me, you will recognize this as the fancy Microsoft “dynamic” volume. I have two such volumes on my PC today, and much to my chagrin. I’ve read numerous times from Microsoft fanboy sites that these are the volumes to use for large storage due to some substantial capabilities over standard volumes. Yet it has always escaped me why it still makes sense when it comes at the cost of complete elimination of low-level access to the data contained within. Someone please enlighten me.

Case and point - I am rebuilding my PC, currently. I got Norton Ghost this spring… the last time I rebuilt my PC. After considerable work setting up the perfect virgin build, I saved the build to my big 400Gb volume for safe-keeping.

Well, come time to benefit from my labor, I first shuffle some disks around to add a big new 500Gb SATA I got ahold of. (tipping my PC over 1Tb All happy so I boot into the Ghost recovery console to blow my virgin image (hehhe), and what do you know… it says I have NO DISKS. Well, I know they are happy and functional - long story short - dynamic volumes render the disks unreadable to any access save an already running OS into which I can import the volumes. Well, I already broke my stripe set, so the old OS is gone. So much for that idea, and so much time wasted.

Now I get to rebuild from scratch - luckily I already have the WinXP source I painstakingly slipstreamed my SATA driver into. I guess I can’t expect the windows OS distribution model to support keeping up with changing hardware drivers… oh wait… I CAN expect it to. It just doesn’t. Why should it when we’ll do it for them the hard way? Ubuntu is looking better all the time. (speaking of which - if you haven’t tried out 7.10 - omfg - for once I haven’t anything to complain about - beautiful, even on my lappy.)

So back to my point - someone help me understand this whole windows dynamic volume thing! And to further extend the challenge - help me understand how it is not just a feeble attempt to make up for the fact that it isn’t a journaling file system. If it were, wouldn’t need such app-layer remedial extensions to provide these capabilities, and I wouldn’t still need to frigging defrag, now would I?

As per the humiliation of the previous post, henceforth I shall only speak of football with proper attire:
My boys fell 34-0, and showed absolutely no offensive capabilities whatsoever. All they did was try to run their fancy runningback, and it’s not like the Packers didn’t see that coming. I don’t even really have anything much to critique, or any suggestions for improvement! It’s like art. You can’t suggest how to improve the painting if there is no bloody paint on the canvas to begin with. For shame.

Guess I’ll start doing draft calculations. That is all.

-The Unknown Vikes Fan

It’s tough being a life-long Vikings fan. So tough, in fact, that I have always found myself waffling in and out of “the closet”. Some days I wear my purple on my sleeve, and others I just sink into a corner. But such is life as a Vikings fan.

Today, (actually in about 10 minutes) they are actually going to AIR a vikings game on network TV here in Ohio. Here in Columbus, the unworthy duo of Browns/Bengals invariably occupies 2 of the three Sunday TV slots, which gives me only a 1 in 3 chance of seeing the Vikes’ usual Sunday games. It’s a good thing college ball doesn’t play on Sunday, or else I’d never see a game.

Today it happens that the Bengals play the 4:00 game, leaving the 1:00 FOX game slot open. So hey, they actually are playing the Vikings/Packers game. At least this is a good rivalry, and my boys did score some press last week with Adrian Peterson running up a record game, and generally carrying the otherwise flat offense. And the networks are fickle enough that if he hadn’t had the game he had last week, I bet they’d be playing another game.

But we’ll see how they do. I am hopeful of victory, and can’t wait to actually get to see them play for the first time this year, but clearly I am guarded in my optimism. They have a spectacular way of making me weep with frustration. Just ask my television room I occupied during the NFC championship game in 1998.

We shall see. Oh well, the game is starting, so I’m out.

Well, I own an old one, and was unaware that they had re-introduced the M6 to the illustrious BMW Mpower line! Well they did, and it’s actually pretty pimpin’. I’m not much on the new bodystyle they are rocking at BMW - even the new 6 series is a little lame to my taste.

But, the car pictured to the left, sporting a CLR 600 body kit by Lumma actually tempts me! It is working some serious drool factor. And sharing the same powerplant as the M5 (V10, 500Hp, 8500+ rpm redline), this puppy must be fun to drive.

I wonder if I can fit a V10 in my ‘88?

Haven’t had time to post the progress on the bimmer’s suspension overhaul!

I had fun last weekend ripping out this fancy 80’s technology below:

And replacing it with this more modern and simple box of piecesparts:

Really this was just a shock/spring replacement, so it was pretty easy with one exception. The bolts that attached the top of the strut assembly to the body were buried in a finger-bending location in the TRUNK. They were a pita to get to, but otherwise this would have been a two-hour job but:

I attempted to figure out how to replace the rear subframe bushings at the same time, and failed utterly. Without the uber-expensive special tool, these puppies aren’t going anywhere. So that’s another job, but should be pretty quick once I arrange for the tool. The bushings are like so much cracked and de-vulcanized mush… so they need it badly.

Despite this, the replacement of the other bits went swimmingly, and WHAT a difference. I can’t wait to do the last bushings, as I understand they are mostly responsible for body-roll, which I’m still not terribly happy with. But the suspension handles the bumps well, and is a hell of a lot better. One last bit left, and it’ll be good-as-new.