A weblog of how I set up my new Dell at home

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Mon, 13 Oct 2003

Mon Oct 13 21:31:33 2003 End-of-Day Status Report

1. Got display working.
2. Got internet and workgroup working
3. Created a user or two.
4. Moved My Documents and Downloads from Intergraph. This was surprisingly easy: given #2, it took only 30-45 mins to transfer all the files.
5. X server up and running. Cut and paste seems to work fine between xterms and notepad.
6. Shared printer appeared (as default printer!) when I reached the rest of the workgroup.

Still to be done:

• Install Mozilla. Can't do this as myself if I want to install it in C:\Program Files.
• Get ssh & emacs clients working nicely: copy config files, etc.
• Install Quicken
• Test speakers

Mon Oct 13 17:23:24 2003 Creating New Users
On XP, it looks there are only two kinds of accounts: Computer Administrator, and Limited.

On W2K, there are at least 4 classes of accounts: Administrator, Power Users, Users, and Guests, and they tell you not to run as Administrator all the time.

I wonder what I should do on the new machine. I've created "wand-admin", who is an administrator, and "wand" as a limited user. We'll see how that goes.

Now copying My Documents from one machine to the other via the network. It is claiming 23 minutes or so. We shall see.

posted at: 17:37 | path: | permanent link to this entry

Mon Oct 13 17:12:46 2003 Microsoft networking up
Ran the network creation wizard, now I can see the other computers on my home network (yay!).

Now I can start serious work. Next steps:

• Create some users
• Create shared printer
• Copy data from Intergraph to Dell: docs, photos, Downloads folder.
• Install Quicken
• Get X, etc., working nicely
• Install software from downloads folder

But this is the end of my working window for today, back next Saturday. :(

Oh hell, maybe I'll create a user so I can start moving data while I'm out to dinner.

posted at: 17:20 | path: | permanent link to this entry

Mon Oct 13 16:58:00 2003 Bypassing proxy server
Now I can see my display <:-/> and now I can see the net: I have DNS, and I can ping mit.edu, and I can connect to my office computer via ssh. But IE refuses to work. For every site I try (eg www.google.com), I get

Access Denied:  Access control configuration prevents your request
from being allowed at this time.  Please contact your service provider
if you feel this is incorrect.

Your cache administrator is squidadmin@ccs.neu.edu

Mon Oct 13 16:52:30 2003 Display Issue Solved
Colin wrote:

In the bundle of cables that you got with that computer there should be a
V shapted cable with at least two white ends. One end will plug into a
port on the back of your CPU. The two white ends are labeled 1 and 2. You
should find that the white cable that you tried earlier will now connect
your CPU with your monitor.

Mon Oct 13 12:44:47 2003 OK, the display works
I tried plugging display into my laptop. This worked fine, I think, and with the laptop displaying on the big screen, I could get the onscreen menu to appear. As soon as I put the laptop back on its own screen, the OnScreen menu stopped displaying.

So we know the problem is not on the display side.

Hmm, now, how can I debug the CPU if I can't get a display to work on it???

posted at: 12:48 | path: | permanent link to this entry

Mon Oct 13 09:39:18 2003 No image on screen
I just set up my new Dell Optiplex with the nice big flat-panel display at home.

My big problem is: that I get no image on the display. I get "Dsub Power Saving Mode".

Here are the various things I tried:

1. As per display setup manual, I unplugged the blue video cable. I got the "self test: check cable" display, which is right.
2. I tried pushing the second button to display the onscreen menu (to check the display settings), but I could not get the onscreen menu to appear. As per the CD that came with the display, I tried to unlock the controls; I did manage to get "controls locked" to appear. By using the same key sequence, I got "controls unlocked" to appear. But I still can't get the onscreen menu to appear.
3. I tried hooking up the machine to 2 different displays that I had in the house (one of which is known to work :-) and the screens stayed dark.
4. The CPU seems to be active; I can hear the disk chattering away, and the four lights on the back are all on.
5. I tried both of the blue video cables (yes, you did give me an extra set). I also tried using the white digital video cable, but couldn't see where that would plug into the CPU.

Item #3 suggests the problem is with the CPU; #2 suggests that it is with the display.

posted at: 09:41 | path: | permanent link to this entry