If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past couple of years working closely with the purchasing and marketing teams at NCIX, it’s that you should never spin something around the assumption that something will go wrong with your product/your server/whatever else.

It’s little things like instead of writing “Please go through your invoice carefully in case we missed something” compared to “The package should include all items listed on the invoice”. It’s subtle, but it makes a difference.

Sheesh.

So I spun my car on a highway exit the other night. To give you some context for the images below, I was travelling about 50km/h in the outside lane when suddenly I completely lost traction and drifted to the right. I geared down into first to slow myself down and get traction with the road, and was able to brake enough to keep the car from rolling into the barrier (as you can see, it was VERY close).

Thinking that the problem was mechanical (couldn’t see anything obvious, but hell, I’m no expert) I called up BCAA for a tow, and while I was explaining the problem to them, a truck a little bit further back on the turn spun out and did a 180 turn so he ended up facing the car behind him. That made me think it was not a problem with my car so I got in, gave it a shot, and sure enough my car is fine.

Goes to show how dangerous driving can be. If someone had been in the next lane over I would have hit them for sure….

I just had a cheap drive enclosure die on me. There’s no warranty support of course, so even though it only cost me $7 I have to buy a new one. I could go through 3-4 enclosures in the life cycle of a drive, not even including the ones that are DOA.  So it occurred to me the best way to get enough drive enclosures would be to order bulk from China.

If I’m going to place a large order I might as well resell them to others as well. So that means I have to come up with a brand. Stay with me here because it’s about to get a little crazy…

El-Tek is the perfect brand. The intentional misspelling of the abbreviation tech. (for technology) is to demonstrate the hip, rule-defying attitude we have at El-Tek. The “El” is a play on my name and it gives potential customers a good idea of the quality level of the product. By coming right out and saying how cheap it is I could completely ignore all warranty claims and reduce my overhead, allowing me to sell everything for dirt cheap.

Look for El-Tek products at an NCIX near YOOOOUUUUUU!

The AeroRacer Pro case is the first in the world to feature…. A 400mm side panel fan!! TA DA!

I actually laughed out loud when I saw this. Not only the first time, but also the second time. The worst thing about it is that other than the side panel, it’s a case I would actually consider an attractive gaming case.

The case name may actually be a typo. I think they meant “AeroRicer Pro”

Quite honestly this is one thing I really never thought would be an occupational hazard of working at a computer store….

Mike, if you’re reading this, no I do not frequent California, USA…

Well I decided to take my birthday off of work and go to the PNE. For those who don’t live in Vancouver, the PNE or Pacific National Exhibition is like a big homeshow, livestock show, flea market, and amusement park all rolled into one with live entertainment such as SuperDogs, street performers, pig races, and musicians.

This is the Peking Acrobats. They did quite a few stunts, but I thought this was one of the most impressive ones. Note that the bottom chair is balanced on pots, NOT sitting on its 4 legs

Here’s me racing my little brother around a race course made of bales of hay. These are little tricycle style tractors. I don’t think it was built for my weight, but oh well :p

Over the course of the day I got a variety of stuff for free by telling people it was my birthday. I got cotton candy, kettle corn, face painting (pictured above), free rides for my mom (too cheap to buy a ride pass and hasn’t been on a coaster in 30 years. It was hilarious!), and a sno cone. I was actually asked for ID to prove it was my birthday by the girls in the sno cone concession stand. Haha.

And for no particular reason at all…. An alpaca.

If you were thinking “Predator”, you weren’t too far off the mark. Acer has their product page up for the Aspire Predator, a gaming machine that they want to use to compete with the boutique builders.

It’s liquid cooled, SLI ready, features 8GB of RAM, and one of the funkiest cases I’ve seen in a long time. All of that said, who wrote the marketing materials?

NCIX will of course be carrying these machines, once they’re released, but if you want more information now, you can get Faster, Deeper, Harder, and Further here

Microsoft has a handy error message that pops up on Windows Home Server if you press anything other than Ctrl+Alt+Delete before you log in.

Thanks for the instructions, guys!

So my leather paintballing gloves were too hot. I ripped out the liners and then they left dye on my hands all the time (looked super disgusting). I had a brilliant idea:

Why don’t I wash them and get as much of the dye out as possible.

I don’t know why, but I decided to use hot (nearly boiling water) thinking that I could put the gloves on really fast and then they’d be super form-fitting.

Well they shrunk so fast I didn’t have a chance to do anything about it.Ugh.

Well… They’ve finally done it. They’ve topped the “Caution! Hot!” warnings on the side of coffee cups.

I just opened up an Acer Aspire One sub-notebook for a Tech Tips round up we’re going to do and the warning that was laid out on the keyboard read as follows:

“Please do not hold the Aspire One as shown, as this may injure your fingers when closing the cover.”