LGBT community

[Bleedingyamato]

22 hours ago, Comic_Sans_MS said:

168 day lasting prepaid plans are usually expensive, or they use the Vodafone network, so it is very expensive for something you can never use.

 

I think I should look around for cheap plans, not just prepaid.

That's why I suggested you get a cheaper prepaid with a normal 30 day lifespan for credit on your account.  

 

Though I agree a cheap normal cell phone plan would likely be better.  

 

22 hours ago, wcreek said:

Pretty much the same. If I need cash, I can just do cash back at the grocery store or at work since I work at a grocery store and the nice thing about our store is we don't have a minimum but our maximum for Visa, MasterCard and Amex is $50. I guess Discover cards can only do $25 cash back. But most Discover and Amex cards are Credit Cards so there's really not a thing such as cash back like that. Though both do have their own form of checking and non-consumer credit card services. Discover is a little more traditional in their non credit related banking services. Since their offerings are standard checking accounts where Amex doesn't have any kind of service like that. They used to with Walmart, the Amex Bluebird thing but since the creation of their Serve program it's changed a little bit to become more like a prepaid debit card rather than a checking account alternative. Then again I guess its still considered an alternative to checking accounts.

Ah my mom already banked at US Bank so that's why I started off banking there. I wanted to open a second account at a different bank in hopes of sort of managing my cash flow. Having two accounts for two different purposes has helped me not overdraw my account since I've opened the second account (Okay I did have one occurrence with an overdraft but that was because I didn't realize I didn't need to pay something right away and I couldn't cancel the payment.) But aside from that one issue, I've been much better with my money. I've only had the account for almost 2 months, and well I've spent almost every last penny I've made in those two months. But as we get finances sorted out (my mom and I) I should be able to start accumulating money for more expensive things that I may want or do currently want. Which so far we've almost gotten that all sorted out so I am looking forward to my plan to kinda unfold. I believe having my pay go 60/40 is a decent balance between having enough money in one account for any bills that I have and a cushion for a "soft" savings and my weekly spending money goes into the other account. The 40%. If I did move out of state, I would likely flip the uses of the accounts. 
My US Bank account would become my spending account and my BMO account would become my bills and "soft" savings account. I would probably want to look into a high yield savings account as a more "hard" savings eventually. I feel a CD (Certificate of Deposit) would be too solid for me to keep money set aside granted CDs to have much higher interest yields than most savings accounts.

Yup.

Their footprint is much larger than that of BMO Harris. 
BMO Harris is mostly isolated to the Midwest (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and a few locations in Arizona, Missouri, Kansas, and Florida.)

US Bank has locations in Minnesota (it's based here), Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Florida (2 locations).

 

US Bank Footprint

  Reveal hidden contents

BMO Harris footprint

  Reveal hidden contents

 

I think it varies at other businesses but at least at pick n save stores (food store) they have only do cash back in $20 increments I think.  I forget if there's a max limit but there likely is.

 

They used to allow for smaller increments but it got changed a few years ago.  

 

Couldn't you have just made a second account at the same bank?

 

I did that back in May to put the money I got from graduating with my Master's degree.  Haven't decided what to use it on yet.  

 

Having a plan for saving money and separating savings from money you consider freely available to spend is very smart.  Better than I do.  ?

 

12 hours ago, AshleyAshes said:

Really, the first thing that someone should do with a brand new laptop is to reinstall Windows right away, fresh and only with the software that you want on it.

What do you do if the laptop (or desktop) doesn't include a full copy of Windows for reinstall purposes?

 

My old laptop only came with a repair disk for W7 ultimate so when I'd needed to do a clean install when I replaced the HDD I had to borrow my brother's retail copy of W7 ultimate to use with my license code to do the install.  

 

If he hadn't had the copy of W7 to use idk what I would've done.  

 

 

5 hours ago, hey_yo_ said:

You should disable Secure Boot from the UEFI settings first. 

Would that cause a problem otherwise?

[iamdarkyoshi]

Mom vs Dad

 

Topic: Net neutrality

 

Me: LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

[handymanshandle]

33 minutes ago, Bleedingyamato said:

Couldn't you have just made a second account at the same bank?

I didn't want that as I don't think I would be able to have separate logins for the accounts and the accounts would likely be linked to the same card so it would've defeated the intention. Anyways, BMO Harris is a nice bank. For a bills and "soft" savings account if/when I do move out of Minnesota, online/mobile banking will be plenty for an account like that.

33 minutes ago, Bleedingyamato said:

Having a plan for saving money and separating savings from money you consider freely available to spend is very smart.  Better than I do.  ?

Yeah, I still need to figure out an actual plan for savings but I consider the money that I keep in the other account that is excess from bills and what not as like a "soft" savings where I can freely access that money with no real steps to go through. The other account is what I can spend on whatever. 

 

I like that the US Bank account uses Visa and the BMO account uses MasterCard.

[comicsansms]

1 hour ago, Bleedingyamato said:

That's why I suggested you get a cheaper prepaid with a normal 30 day lifespan for credit on your account.  

Normal in terms of phone plans, a month is 28 days (for Australia at least), therefore there are 13 and 1/28 payments per year.

 

[captain_to_fire]

While watching Master Chef, I just realize that I can't join that culinary contest because of one reason, I don't garnish the food I'm making. 

 

And I kinda feel bad when a restaurant says to me that they've ran out of friend chicken breasts (which I consider the gold mine of fried chicken) and the only thing available are the dinky leg parts. 

[captain_to_fire]

3 hours ago, Bleedingyamato said:

Would that cause a problem otherwise?

Secure Boot doesn't allow dual booting of two operating systems. In order to dual boot Windows and Linux, it has to be disabled in the UEFI settings.

[comicsansms]

Damn, just spend 3 hours and 20 minutes in public transport. 1 hour and 50 minutes on a coach, then 1 hour and 30 minutes on train.

 

Coach replacements for trains are the worst. The train trip is usually just 2 hours.

[AshleyAshes]

5 hours ago, Bleedingyamato said:

What do you do if the laptop (or desktop) doesn't include a full copy of Windows for reinstall purposes?

 

My old laptop only came with a repair disk for W7 ultimate so when I'd needed to do a clean install when I replaced the HDD I had to borrow my brother's retail copy of W7 ultimate to use with my license code to do the install.  

 

If he hadn't had the copy of W7 to use idk what I would've done. 

Just download it?  Downloading a Windows ISO, even from a torrent, is perfectly legal if you have a legit serial key.  MS doesn't care about where you get your install media from.  For Windows 10 MS has a tool you can download that will just burn you a DVD or make a bootable USB key with the latest Windows 10 installer including all patches.

[Zorbeltuss]

22 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

Just download it?  Downloading a Windows ISO, even from a torrent, is perfectly legal if you have a legit serial key.  MS doesn't care about where you get your install media from.  For Windows 10 MS has a tool you can download that will just burn you a DVD or make a bootable USB key with the latest Windows 10 installer including all patches.

If you have a Microsoft account I think you can even download it from them (may have to give them the serial first though).

[AshleyAshes]

That said, I love that with the Windows 10 tool it'll not just make you install media but UP TO DATE install media.  So you have the latest updates and service packs already installed.  I have a dedicated USB3 key just for Windows and I just 'refresh' it every 6 months or so for when I need it.

[AshleyAshes]

So I'm going to do a weird bit of unorthodox HDD juggling.  My main livingroom HTPC uses a 2TB Seagate Green drive that's clocked nearly 7 years on it.  However, with my Patriot Surge 960GB SSD from my workstation being RMAed a second time, I'm unwilling to put the RMA unit back in the workstation.  Going with Samsung EVO 850 for the workstation.  This leaves me with a 'brand new' Patriot Surge but since the last two blew up, I'm not quite willing to trust it.

So my going plan is to migrate the HTPC OS from the 2TB HDD into an old 250GB 2.5" HDD (Made in 2009 but only has 2006hrs or 86days worth of power on time clocked to it) and then use that in tandum with the Patriot SSD, but the Patriot will ONLY be used for Steam game install.  So it'll speed up gaming on the livingroom HTPC while never holding any 'important' data that might blow up.  HDD OS, SSD big files.  Kinda a backwards approach I know, but when the HTPC literally only runs two programs, Kodi and Steam, it's not a typical 'desktop'.

 

Oh and THEN the 2TB Seagate drive gets plotted down into my server to expand it's storage.

 

Storage juggling all weekend!

[ProjectBox153]

12 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

This leaves me with a 'brand new' Patriot Surge but since the last two blew up, I'm not quite willing to trust it.

What happened to the others?

12 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

Storage juggling all weekend!

I actually really enjoy storage juggling!

7 minutes ago, wrathoftheturkey said:

In completely unrelated news, my Amazon order dissapeared. Just, poof. Even got the confirmation email, and now it's just gone. No record on their site.

Oh no! What can you do about something like that? I've never experienced that kind of thing before. Severe delays? Yes. Disappearing purchases? No.

[AshleyAshes]

Just now, Jamiec1130 said:

What happened to the others?

They died.  I mean, windows froze and that was it.  They were just dead.  Well, no, the first one dying could KINDA work for like 2mins after power on and then it'd stop responding.  The second one just turned itself into a brick one day.  The first one died at 11 months and I RMAed it and the second one died 6 months after it arrived.  Patriot has stood by their warranty and replaced each one with me only paying to ship to them, but I'm still not going to buy their drives anymore.

https://patriotmemory.com/patriot-blast-solid-state-drive-firmware-issue/

Maybe the problem is related to this?  I dunno.  I'll obviously make sure that this third unit gets it's firmware updated but still, it'll only be employed in 'non-critical use'.

 

Meanwhile, Samsung backs their EVO 850's for five years.

[ProjectBox153]

40 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

They died.  I mean, windows froze and that was it.  They were just dead.  Well, no, the first one dying could KINDA work for like 2mins after power on and then it'd stop responding.  The second one just turned itself into a brick one day.  The first one died at 11 months and I RMAed it and the second one died 6 months after it arrived.  Patriot has stood by their warranty and replaced each one with me only paying to ship to them, but I'm still not going to buy their drives anymore.

https://patriotmemory.com/patriot-blast-solid-state-drive-firmware-issue/

Maybe the problem is related to this?  I dunno.  I'll obviously make sure that this third unit gets it's firmware updated but still, it'll only be employed in 'non-critical use'.

 

Meanwhile, Samsung backs their EVO 850's for five years.

Oh wow. Hope nothing happens to the Samsung drive. I only have a 240GB Kingston SSDNow V300 (the older one with better speeds), but I got it and the upgrade kit for like $40 US, so I've gotten my money's worth out of that drive. I have seriously abused it, and it still works like a charm. Good luck with the storage juggling!

[Zodiark1593]

I do love the viewer comments of the FF12 Zodiac Age videos talking about the PS4 Pro only running 1440P.

 

When you have a game engine that doesn't utilize shaders, the greatest tool in the modern gpu arsenal goes unused, and using similar fill rate heavy rendering techniques as the PS2 will demolish bandwidth at 4K resolution. 

[Nowak]

Hi, we're getting more rain today. For the 3rd day in a row.

[PlayStation 2]

1200 pages of text.

We could make a fucking encyclopedia-sized book out of this.

[iamdarkyoshi]

2 minutes ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

1200 pages of text.

We could make a fucking encyclopedia-sized book out of this.

Wikipedia is about 13GB compressed, go download that

 

Or download and uncompress http://www.unforgettable.dk

[AshleyAshes]

Gosh it's fun moving 600GB of Steam games from one drive to another. D:

[captain_to_fire]

5 hours ago, Daring said:

Hi, we're getting more rain today. For the 3rd day in a row.

I want rain to pour so badly right now. 

[Nowak]

3 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

Gosh it's fun moving 600GB of Steam games from one drive to another. D:

I'm gonna have to move 317GB of data, including a Windows installation, when I upgrade my laptop's SSD to a 1TB SSD.

[AshleyAshes]

2 minutes ago, Daring said:

I'm gonna have to move 317GB of data, including a Windows installation, when I upgrade my laptop's SSD to a 1TB SSD.

In this case I'm splitting the drive.  Steam games will go to the SSD and then I'll clone the rest of the drive, OS and such, to smaller mechanical drive so that the initial 2TB drive can be moved to the server for storage.

[Nowak]

2 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

In this case I'm splitting the drive.  Steam games will go to the SSD and then I'll clone the rest of the drive, OS and such, to smaller mechanical drive so that the initial 2TB drive can be moved to the server for storage.

Oh, fun.

Also, I have a question. I got this 512GB Samsung 850 Pro lying around, and I'm thinking about putting it in my desktop to upgrade from the currently-installed 256GB Crucial MX100. However, the MX100 isn't the only drive I have in my rig, and I've never cloned data from one thing to another in a system with multiple storage devices. How would I go about the process?

[AshleyAshes]

Just now, Daring said:

Oh, fun.

Also, I have a question. I got this 512GB Samsung 850 Pro lying around, and I'm thinking about putting it in my desktop to upgrade from the currently-installed 256GB Crucial MX100. However, the MX100 isn't the only drive I have in my rig, and I've never cloned data from one thing to another in a system with multiple storage devices. How would I go about the process?

WHile there are ways of using some software to move an OS from the system it's installed on, the best bet is to remove the source and target drive from the computer and use them in another computer to clone them.  I have a two drive USB3/eSATA dock that does the job nicely.  

 

https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

 

I've not used this yet but it'll be what I'll use later tonight when it comes to it.  THough right now moving steam games is literally a copy and paste job then pointing Steam at new location and letting it rediscover the games in their new home.

[Nowak]

1 minute ago, AshleyAshes said:

WHile there are ways of using some software to move an OS from the system it's installed on, the best bet is to remove the source and target drive from the computer and use them in another computer to clone them.  I have a two drive USB3/eSATA dock that does the job nicely.  

 

https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

 

I've not used this yet but it'll be what I'll use later tonight when it comes to it.  THough right now moving steam games is literally a copy and paste job then pointing Steam at new location and letting it rediscover the games in their new home.

I only have one USB3 to SATA adapter, but I do have a machine with enough spare SATA ports to plug in both drives + the already-installed drives. Should I use that machine for the cloning process?