geordie.is-a-geek.net is down, not out

...and has been for a few weeks. My 'puter was "bricked" for a while there. It's back up and running now, but it's basically just an overqualified web-browsing terminal. This is a good reason why I should just pay up and get a commercial host for my little hobby site!

TECH-TALK ALERT:
My Leadtek A7600GT video card I bought in Nov '06 was dying a slow death. It's spent weeks back at Aus PC Market & their distributor; should be back soon. That should have been a trivial thing to remove from the computer and return, except Windows decided to crap out and lose all it's security information (after a while lot of driver conflicts/problems). Even Microsoft's Knowledge Base article said I was stuffed (can't do a repair install, can't log onto recovery console, must re-install). So I did a clean nuke - which isn't to be taken lightly with Media Center... It is a harsh mistress.

So now I'm on Integrated Graphics - the nForce2 IGP in fact, which is roughly equivilent to a GeForce2MX. Bonus annoyances: my CPU is now acting like a Athlon XP 2500+ instead of a 3200+, due to the vaugarities of Shuttle mobos... can't play HD video coz the graphics are so slow... can't play Battlefield 2142, can't even RUN Media Center or my HDTV tuner card (video card isn't compatible)...

So I'm gimped until my 7600GT returns. Here's hoping for a smooth installation.