I discovered something last night on my own system which is a huge relief to me, so I figure I’ll share it on the off chance that someone Googles for the exact same thing.

Essentially, when I opened up Windows Explorer and clicked on my C drive, it was taking forever (i.e., several seconds) to show me the folders and files from the root directory. The D drive showed me things pretty much instantly. In light of my recent hard drive troubles I was concerned that this was my C drive’s way of telling me it was about to die.

But then last night it hit me what was happening. In the root of my C drive I had a zip file. And not just any zip file – one with thousands of files in in (the Torque source). Every time I was calling up the root of the C drive it was scanning that zip file in order to treat it as a folder, since I hadn’t disabled native zip file support in XP. I moved the file and everything was fine. I’ve disabled zip file support and placed it back, problem solved.

I guess it’s kinda sad that a lot of my peace of mind is tied to how well my PC perceivably functions, but whatever.

Some months back, roughly towards the start of this year, I bought a 200GB IDE Maxtor hard drive. After four or five months, it gave out, which surprised me completely. I figured with its one year warranty it would last at least that long. So I did what anyone would do – send the thing back in and get a new one under the warranty period. Maxtor in particular has a nice policy wherein you can have them send you the new one first and then you send the bad one back – in the proper packaging they sent you the first one in. This of course requires you send them your credit card number in case you try to screw them.

So all was well until the night before QuakeCon, when the replacement one gave way. I had to switch out for the 40GB one in my server so I could play games at QuakeCon. Oddly enough, I found myself hoping that this second drive was out of the warranty period – they do this thing where the replacement drive’s period is the original drive’s period, or 90 days, or plus 90 days, or something. Say what you will about Western Digital, I’ve got drives from theirs that can take normal use. Oddly enough everyone I talk to has no problem with Maxtor drives. I think they even pioneered the 200GB models.

However, the warranty period goes until October so I did what anyone would do – sent it in again. I got it back in last week and as I was opening the box I thought to myself that the least they could do was send me a better drive. Kinda like when you send in something and they don’t make it anymore. I guess that’s what happened since the drive they sent me was 250GB. That’s more additional space than the Windows boot volume I have (another 40GB WD drive). I never really bothered to do this but I think I could fit every game I have on this drive and still have space left over (how sad is it that I didn’t think that about my 200GB drive?).

We’ll see how this goes. Since I only keep crap like games on my second hard drive it’s far from the end of the world when it gives out, but it’s still annoying. If this thing lasts a year I’ll be happy (again, how sad is that?) but I think that, warranty be damned, if this one goes out I’m through with Maxtor as a brand.

Fool me Once…shame on…shame on you…Folmuah can’t get fooled again

I updated my PDF resume above, in case anyone cares.

I was discussing C++ with a colleague and came up with the following analogy.

Writing in VB or VB.NET is like building a house on a foundation.

Writing in C# is like pouring the foundation and then building the house on top of it.

Writing in C++ is like having to invent concrete, chopping down the trees to make 2×4’s, discovering blacksmith techniques to make nails, and inventing every single appliance from scratch, before pouring your foundation and building your house on top of it. All the while being told that in theory you could go next door and use the same building materials on your neigbor’s home only to find out that you can’t.

You also can’t go next door with VB.NET or C# but at least you don’t even have the vague premise that you can.

We’re closing on a home at the end of the month – house analogies will probably replace car analogies for a while.