I added somethign new to the webside of the BBS, a flash based Telnet client that runs in a web browser.

Flashterm is an ANSI capable telnet terminal for the web written for the Adobe Flash Player plugin developed by Peter Nitsch.

From what I can tell it works much better than its Java counterpart, though the Java version will stay for those who do not use Flash.

To log into the BBS via Flashtern, just click here

A month or so ago I purchased a 1st generation, DiY TiVo. It is a refurbed unit that is missing its hard drive, I figure for 15.00 (+ shipping) what could go wrong? quite a bit actually.

Firstly, you have to format your new hard drive so the unit will understand what in the heck you want it to do. After searching the web for instructions on a fresh install, I gave up and purchased a program called InstantCake. To use it, you have to use a PC, move your CD/DVD ROM (by itself) to the primary slave position, and the drive(s) you want to bake in the secondary IDE master (slave) position. They suggest disconnecting any other drive not associated with this process.

The hard drive I originally selected was a Western Digital 320GB Caviar Blue... that was a mistake, Do not try and use this drive for an upgrade, it will not work, they don't play nice with the TiVo and will not boot. Luckily I had an extra 120GB Seagate laying around which will give me up to 120 hours of recording.

Overall, the complete system ran less than 150.00 (including the hard drive that Im using in a backup PC instead)

UPDATE: I had to make one more trip to Best Buy and grab a $10.99 cable splitter, mainly because the HD channels couldnt be tuned in using the TiVo, the TiVo is using the s-cable input on the TV now.

Ever since this BBS machine was built, I would get a high pitched beeping that sounded like an erratic system beep, I thought we had narrowed it down to a memory issue. I swapped out RAM with no success, so me and my tech buddy figured it was some system cache causing the issue.

After two years, I got tired of the noise and decided to hunt it down, or maybe shut off the system speaker. As I was pulling the machine out of its cubbyhole, I noticed the noise was on the wrong side of the case, if sounded like it was coming from the Hard Drive. A quick search on google confirmed that my seagate HD was the culprit.

I downloaded Seatools and ran a couple of tests, the drive passed, and actually shut up for the most part for a good 6-10 months.

It started chirping again last week, and a seatools test failed that drive this time.

I purchase a new drive (actually, I used the 160GB drive I was going to use on my DiY Tivo, I purchased a 320GB for the Tivo now)

After fighting with some cloning tools for the last 8 hours, we are back online (otherwise you wouldnt be reading this). if the upgrade would have faile, it probably would have been the end of the BBS, as both the OS and the BBS were on that drive, and I wouldnt want to spend the weeks it would take to rebuild everything

I'm quite happy... I managed to pick up another Ertl Cowtown for a reasonable price.

Other pickups were a batch of figures from Superfigs, mostly figures that can be used in a pulp style game... my favorite? the Monkey pilot, he will be the first one I start on when I fire back up my weekly painting schedule.