Earlier this evening a magnitude 5.6 earthquake hit the bay area. This is my first earthquake experience and I have to say even for such a “minor” one I’d rather not have that happen often. I think I’d rather live in the Midwest. At least with tornado’s you’re not likely to be hit.
The USGS has a map and some info on local quakes. I’m just glad my TV didn’t fall over. I don’t need plasma shards in my rug, and have my TV die after a month.
I’m currently searching for a new bank to open a checking account with. It seems that due to a race condition with my direct deposit, and a mid month statement date, I managed to dip under a ridiculously high minimum balance (waived with direct deposit) in my checking account. Since the account pays a whole 0.010% interest the $12 fee is more than I’ve ever earned from that account in it’s entire history.
As Wells Fargo offers terrible rates and wasn’t willing to do anything about the charge the account is now closed. I just hope my next paycheck doesn’t try to go into that account despite my removing it from direct deposit.
If anyone knows of any good banks out in CA that have good customer service please let me know. I’m seriously considering just banking from my online money market or brokerage accounts, the only downside is ATM operators stick you with fees for being out of network (neither of my banks charge). So if anyone knows of fee free ATMs in the bay area that might work too.
NVIDIA has launched their 8800 GT this is a DX 10 midrange card that currently performs about as well as the higher end 8800GTS but costs significantly less. The suggested retail is between $200-250 for a 512 MB model. Don’t go buying these on newegg.com at the moment since they’re gouging the early adopters. Fry’s, Bestbuy and any regular retailer should have these in the $220 or so range if you can find one in stock.
I’m considering getting one for my system but I’m not sure I want to fork over the cash quite yet.
It appears that Gmail now supports IMAP in addition to POP access. This is a big upgrade for those of us who prefer a regular mail client to a web interface.
If interested you can enable IMAP support under “settings” “Forwarding and POP/IMAP”.
Well I decided upgrade my Athlon 64 3000+ to an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600, on an NVIDIA 680i SLI EVGA mainboard. I also ended up going with Microsoft Vista Business 64 bit rather than XP for the new setup.
There is one downside to the new setup. Unfortunately, my 7800 GTX just locks up once Vista starts. It seems that once any 3d stuff kicks in the card hard locks. Luckily, a friend of mine was willing to loan me a 7900 GTX to use since he’s planning to upgrade soon.
The nice part of the new setup is that I can game, watch an HD movie, and extract a large file all at the same time with no real slowdown.
Welcome to my new blog. I’m still getting stuff setup, and hopefully I’ll have more on here later.