Hi folks. I'm here.

Although I had an account here before, I still tended to post to LiveJournal... although not that often.

It appears the LiveJournal servers are moving to Russia.

Ah... no.

With all the leakage and data mining and browser scrapping that goes on on the Internet... having my semi private thoughts being on Russian servers? No thank you.

It's good to see that many of the same people ... and some that I haven't seen in a while... are posting here.

I've deleted a lot of stuff from my LiveJournal account. It Putin wants the disk space he can wipe me from their serves because I give zero f*cks about it. I'm done. This past year - 2016 - has sucked so I'm hoping for a fresh start here.

It might take a while to get back up to speed but I'm just looking to settle in.

-m

The Snow Box Project 1

This is something from my last few posts on LiveJournal. I'm putting these here for reference.

I walk about 20 minutes nearly every morning. Occasionally, on Garbage Day - I get to look over and see if there's interesting junk I can snag. I've pulled a few XBoxes from the trash in the past but never really got to do much with them and they got discarded. Both had busted DVD drives.

This time I found an XBox 360 lying in the snow. Complete with connecting cables and a 120gig hard drive. The front plate was completely smashed up and it was filthy and wet... but hey, why not take a look. No power cord but the power supply brick was there.

I shuffled the thing into the basement to dry out for a few days.

After that I gave the thing a good wipe down with Clorox wipes. It stank of cigarette smoke. I let it dry another day, then plugged it in, expecting it to be completely dead.

It booted up. It logged in as one of the users and then booted the game disk that was still in the drive.

I could not get the disk drive to open so I guess that explains the smashed front.

Google time.

So what I've got is an XBox 360 from 2009 - Jasper motherboard, Lite On DVD drive. Connecting a USB keyboard gave me functionality to the console but not the games. There were 11 users on it! Yep... they tossed it an didn't wipe the drive.

No, I'm not going to use the accounts on the box. That's not nice.

I did plug it into the Internet and it said there were updates to it! Go for it Bill Gates! It installed a new kernel and updated at least on of the profiles so I decided to keep it off line for the time being.

I decided that a 20 dollar investment in a controller and 10 dollars into Torx screwdrivers was justified. This could be interesting.

The power brick was making grinding noises so that was the first thing that needed fixing. Peeling off the rubber plugs on the brick I stabbed myself (FIRST BLOOD) but I got them off and revealed the 4 screws holding the brick together.

They were not Phillips like the Internet said. They were Torx. Well, I got the wrenches...

... and I immediately stripped all 4 of them. I put in some WD40 and let them sit while I did some more Googling.

to be continued

-m

The Snow Box Project 2

Also know as the woman with tools verses the inanimate object.

Googling 'stripped screws' led me to some interesting ideas - most of which I had tried already. One I hadn't tried was using Super Glue to attach the screwdriver to the screw, then leftie loosie. I don't care much for Super Glue, I never found it that good.

The other idea was using a Dremel with a cutting wheel and turning the stripped Torx screw into a flathead screw.

I have a Dremel with cutting wheels. However, since the screws are recessed I'd have to cut into the plastic to get at them.

Do I care if I put grooves in the power brick? Nope.

A few minutes with the Dremel and the brick was opened. Needless to say, the inside was filthy.

More Clorox wipes and some Q tips and alcohol I got it cleaned out. The fan was full of fuzz! I picked it out, wiped it out, Q tipped it clean *then* used the canned air. I squeezed the brick back together - I'm not going to try to screw it back together at the moment - that's what tape is for!

Now, with a clean power supply with a working fan I felt safe to plug it in, I got out the controller (Game Spot was a mad house the day after Christmas) and did some digging. There were 11 accounts on this puppy! I played a few rounds of Bejewelled that was on the hard drive - it's a freebie/demo game - but I didn't connect it to the Internet again.

Oh, did I mention that with Googling and a paper clip I was able to eject the disk from the DVD drive? I now have a copy of Diablo III.

I closed DVD drive and it won't open again. It acted pretty sluggish when it did eject so it might just need a good cleaning.

-to be continued

-m

The Snow Box Project 3

I'd like to take a moment to rant about how manufacturing sucks and how we're getting ripped off.

Weird screws, propriety hardware and counter-intutitive assembly locks many of the devices that we buy today. The problem with your toaster oven, lamp, or in this case your game console - could come down to a bit of dirt or a 5 cent piece of plastic that's broken. But with uncommon tools needed to disassemble something most people - especially those with little time or resources - can't fix what they own. They need to *buy new*.

The electronics inside the XBox seem to be okay - it's the mechanical parts that are broken. Not only are the DVD drives unlike the ones you can buy at your local electronics store - they're actually have special code inside them that matches them to the motherboard. So even it you do buy a new DVD drive of the same make and model it won't read any disks. You either have to copy the internal key on the DVD drive chip (hard) or transplant the circuit board from the old drive to the new drive. Not to hard, but it requires delicate soldering work and mechanical aptitude. I understand that this is to prevent piracy of games but it SUCKS.

I can tell by the stickers on the (smashed) front of the console that this thing's probably been in the shop a couple of times before. This doesn't bode well for how well this thing is constructed. On the other hand, I'm guessing that the owners were not real gentle when handling the drives and they've been replaced at least once before.

And with the new XBox One out - it's time to update your console - right? Buy buy buy! And if you try to fix it yourself... there goes your warranty! Because to open up the box you need to break that Special Seal which is a no-no.

Not that I care at this point - it's long out of warranty.

So... time to wipe the drive and start over. I don't want to accidently sign in under somebody else's account and I don't want to mess with their saved games. So... console number... system set up... delete all.

Now to sign in with a new account enter my e-mail account... and it won't take it. It wants a Microsoft email account.

This is a little weird because I've heard of other people using normal email accounts without a problem. Back to the computer I go.

-to be continued...

-m

The Snow Box Project 4

- where Internet security and snooping gets me outraged -

From a recent Boing Boing article I checked to find out what can be scraped from the browser. I can understand grabbing information like browser type but operating system? WTF? You don't need to know that.

And you really don't need to know where I live - it gave me a location within half a mile.

I understand that a lot of this is for 'advertising purposes' - so it can know who I am, where I live and tailor ads *just for me*! Well no, most of the time the ads that are served up have little interest to me and I use an ad blocker. I understand that many web site use ad revenue to run but damn... do you have to be so nosey?

So I installed NoScripts so the websites wouldn't be so snoopy. Things got interesting after that.

Some sites loaded just fine - without a lot of annoying clutter. Some sites displayed strangely or not at all. And when I went to get a Microsoft email account it would *NOT* let me create one... or it would create one then say it doesn't exist!

Okay... deactivate NoScripts. Not disable, deactivate.

Okay, I got my email account. I go back to the console and *finally* was able to make an XBox account. I even got a gamer tag and everything! I changed the name and the tag and downloaded Bejewelled because it's free/demo.

Since the DVD drive is still dead I'm considering using it for a media box. There seems to be a lot of movie services available, it's choosing the right one. I'd like something where I can just order a movie and have it streamed to me or temporarily downloaded - not one with a monthly fee. I know the monthly fee is what the companies *want* you to use because they get a guaranteed check from you every month. That's not how I roll. If I want something I'll buy it. Memberships just a way to pick your pocket every month.

But if I can get the DVD drive to work... now that makes things more interesting. It's disassembly time.

-to be continued...

-m

The Snow Box Project 5

-open that puppy up-

After skimming some of the disassembly web pages and videos I have my Torx screw drivers and my flat head screw driver. Let's take the plastic shell off this puppy.

The sides/top bottom came off fairly easily. I suspect that the box has been taken apart before. A few bits of plastic came off with them so this thing has seen some warfare. Inside was filthy and I used up more Clorox wipes.

Then came the top/sides. I managed to get one half of the plastic shell off and was dissssssgusted. Screw the wipes I took the plastic pieces to the basement sink to wash out the fuzz and dead bugs. Yuck. Dead bugs. More Clorox wipes for the metal case.

This is where I goofed up. I didn't watch the disassembly videos close enough. After removing the first half you're supposed to remove 6 really long screws to release the other half. I ended up breaking the plastic mountings for the screws. I'm not concerned as I have no interest in reassembling the console back into the plastic shell. More Clorox wipes and another round of washing the plastic shell.

Then I took the metal box and sprayed it with bug killer. Then I cleaned the floor where I had disassembled the console.

I still need to open up the metal box to get at the DVD drive... but I'm pretty sure I know what I'm going to find inside - more fuzz, dirt and possibly dead bugs.

-to be continued

-m