The Love Story of Michael & Ana

I hope you guys are bored at work today (and maybe tomorrow). I've got something great to entertain you!

I found these 4 items in a huge box that contained cassettes, CDs, book, and floppies. I'm kicking myself for not taking pictures of the box these came in, because the items were quite telling of the person who owned them. It contained a LOT of Spanish language teaching materials and cassettes of the band UB40.

Most of the floppies contained Spanish language tests and exams... except these three. These disks have a collection of emails that were sent to the owner (Ana) from a lover named Michael. Michael's writing style is unique, humorous, and highly entertaining. Dare I say that this collection of writings is more interesting and addictive than Agnes's journal which I posted years ago.

The emails come to a dead halt just before Christmas. What happens afterwards is anybody's guess. As a bonus, you also get to hear Ana's answering machine tape.

Feel free to put your workload aside, and waste some of your employer's time by reading this moving, heartfelt, and humorous love story.

CLICK HERE TO READ!

The Dust Cake-Ridden 386

This is one of the few computers I found during the winter. The inside of it was caked in dust and it refused to turn on despite the power supply being in working order. So, the hard drive got pulled out and put into my test box. Windows 3.1 really flies at 833 MHz!

Here's something cool I found on it... Remember when Yahoo.com looked like this?



Yeah, neither do I. It's a cached HTML file from 1996.

The computer was also packed with software, most of it being quite useless to me. However, I did find the sweet spot... the place where all documents were stored. I sat and read a few files, and I couldn't help but burst out laughing!

If you've been poking around this place for the past week or so, you may have noticed that I've created a new blog. Like all the others, this blog contains data from a computer I found in the trash. However, this one's a bit different... It's the first blog with files that were written by a male. Normally when I find a computer that belonged to a male, it's filled with porn. Not this one... it's filled with business letters, and they're mostly complaints.

So, I invite you to come along and join me in the exciting journey of Donald's Business Ventures!

In The Pines... Another PC Full of Goodies!

Here's another rescued computer that was chock full of goodies. The thing was loaded with spyware, and I also found the loveletter worm on it. For those of you who don't remember, the loveletter worm swept across the world on May 4, 2000. I remember quite well how it showed up in my inbox at work, and I excitingly clicked on it to read what the funny content would be. Needless to say, the computer crashed and wiped out any .jpg files I had stored on my machine, which is exactly what it did to many of the .jpg files on this machine. Too bad.

But, there's still plenty of good stuff to be found. Imagine my reaction when the login screen popped up:

  

You can't see it in the screenshots, but it had a Jesus Fish for a mouse pointer, generously provided by a piece of spyware.

It really amazes me how people can just dump their computers when they contain some very sensitive information; sensitive enough that it could lead to identity fraud. Take a look:



So, I'm going to do these people a favor and wipe out this sensitive information from the computer. Of course, there's a small price to pay for such a service. The remainder of the data is going to be posted in a new blog titled...

THE LIFE OF STEPHANIE!

It may take me a while to compile each post, as pictures, MSN chats, and Word documents were scattered all over the place. But, I hope you enjoy reading into the dramatic life of this teenager.

Another Journal Going Public!

On Thursday, I was finally able to wrap up Agnes's Journal. It took almost 4 months to post 105 entries.

Now, for those of you who have been paying attention, you may have noticed as early as a month ago (if you looked at my favoite books) that I have yet another Journal to put online for your reading pleasure (or displeasure).

The Journal was written by a woman in her mid-20s named Kim. One thing that distinguishes the difference between Agnes and Kim is that I've actually met Kim.

At the time of writing her journal, Kim was a single woman in her 20s. She is also a Jehovah's Witness. I inherited her journal when she gave me her Commodore 64 back in the mid-90s. I was able to extract her journal using a program called The Star Commander:

Kim's spelling is atroucious, her joural is extremely depressing, but her entries are nice and short. Her journal only spans about one year as opposed to Agnes who's journal spanned a total of 8 years.

So now, I bring you Kim's Life Journal. Enjoy!

Hidden Treasures on a PC-XT

I found this old PC-XT in the trash. It's a damn good thing it came with a monitor because I no longer have a stash of these old monitors with the 9-pin connector. I had a bit of fun finding a keyboard to work with it, but I was quite lucky that I had one with a AT-XT switch.

So I hooked this thing up to see if it works. I notice a bit of a rank smell, somewhat like cat piss when I turn on the monitor. But it works, and after all, I'm in the garage. It's got a nice 20M hard drive in it, and a couple of 5 1/4" floppy drives.

After doing a bit of browsing on this computer, I found a directory with a bunch of files that are apparently journal entries. I load up DosEdit and view a couple. They are indeed journal entries! Unforutunately, it looks as if they were written in Wordperfect. I'll be damned if I actually remember how to use Wordperfect (it's been about 20 years) and I'll be damned if I use Wordperfect, let alone this old yellow-screened PC-XT to read the files.

So, I start digging around for some 5 1/4" floppies. The only ones I had were the ones that survived my parents' house fire. I came across a couple of duds, but I found a couple that were fine. I've said it before and I'll say it again, 5 1/4" floppies are incredibly resiliant. They beat the hell out of those piece of shit 3 1/2" floppies that we've been stuck with for freakin-ever.

I take the floppies into the house and put some software on them (yes, I have an old 5 1/4" drive on one of my PCs.) I make copies of the Ace Archiver, Pk-Zip, Q-Edit, and Procomm. Here's a breakdown of what these pieces of software do:

Ace: A fantastic piece of software used to archive files
PK-Zip: Used by Ace to put files into a .zip file (I know how to use the command line, but Ace make it much easier)
Q-Edit: A simple text editor, nicer than DosEdit.
Procomm: Software used to send files over the serial port, and to connect to BBSes. I normally use Telix (which I use on my laptop) but Telix normally doesn't run well on computers this old.

So I install the software, look at some more files, and zip everything I want to look at.



Then, I transfer all of it over to my laptop using a serial cable, Procomm on the PC-XT, and Telix on my Win98 Laptop. I could've used floppies, but I like to avoid them when possible. Even though I like 5 1/4" floppies more than the 3 1/2" ones, they're a pain in the ass when they don't work. Transferring files through a serial cable is much more reliable anyway.



The result? After a couple of months of cleaning out the WordPerfect formatting, translating some French entries through Babelfish, and compiling everything into a workable order, I am able to bring you two extra Blogs: Agnes's Life Journal, and Agnes's Dream Journal.

I will be posting in each journal every couple of days; one post in the Life journal, and two posts in the Dream journal. Agnes is actually a very good writer, so it shouldn't be too dull nor difficult to read.

This journal should be read from the last post to the first. This blog seems to only allow you to sort by newest post first. If anybody knows how to change this, please let me know!

If you think what I'm doing is wrong, please remember that Agnes has expressed the desire through her journal to publish her life story. If you still think it's wrong, then please vent your anger in the comments of this post. Any ethical posts made in the Agnes journals will be deleted.

Now, for those of you who have been waiting, I hope you enjoy! Here's the links again:

Agnes's Life Journal
Agnes's Dream Journal