PGA for 2/10 -- PIX!!! and deal. You gotta read the pix story or no deal.

Bill Martino

Bill Martino

Joined
Mar 5, 1999
Messages
34,096
First the pix story and if you don't read this part and swear you read it no deal.

I went out this AM and bought a Sandisk Image mate, model SDDR-31-01 --$24 out the door at Best Buy. Right on the package and everywhere else I looked this little unit is touted "EASY TO INSTALL. SIMPLE TO USE."

It took me four hours of struggle to get this thing to work. I did every damned thing according to instructions and when I got the new hardware alert it said it couldn't find the driver. I even went to the SanDisk website and downloaded the new driver for this critter. No luck. Then somehow it destroyed my CD reader and I have to shutdown and jump up and stick the CD into the reader when it hops out during shutdown. Can't get to the CD reader any other way now.

I finally got the thing working by pulling the USB plug, inserting the flash card in the reader, restarting the computer, plugging into the USB port. And it works about 75% of the time now. When it refuses to work I have to to the pull the USB plug, restart, hook up to USB again and it'll work for a couple or three shots.

But, I'd be disappointed if anything I had worked 100%. I'm so used to the everyday adversity for no reason I don't think I could live without it.

Now if you've read this far you can take this deal.

20 inch, 19 ounce, Kobra by Bura. Quick as a cat this thing. It's perfect. Saatisal handle but I "think" handles on karda and chakma are hill walnut. (Wal, take a look and offer expert opinion, please).
Scabbard is old style leather but nicely done with pretty decent tooling. Frog is standard 100 year HI super.

If you swear you've read my bitch about "easy, simple" you can have this lightning fast khukuri by the old Master delivered to your door for $75 and that is a true giveaway for this khukuri.

I'm still pretty frustrated but recovering and by the time I drink 10 Heinekens tonight and play a thousand games of nickle video poker I'll be ok -- not fine, but ok.

Call or email if interested and send sworn statement that you've read the card reader story.
 

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I'd be disappointed if anything I had worked 100%. I'm so used to the everyday adversity for no reason I don't think I could live without it.
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Every program or application I have has some little glitch that requires a homemade workaround not found in the manual or known to tech support, and learned only after countless hours of experimentation and cursing, trying to make the cotton-pickin' things work like the maker says they're supposed to!
 
Well, I never have computer troubles...and if you believe that, I have some wonderful swamp land in Arizona to sell you.

Windoz and Internet destroyer,er, Explorer lock up on me at least 3 times a week. Nothing to do but reboot....but nothing compared to Uncle's troubles.

The only trouble I have is getting one of these special deals...they always seem to elude me....perhaps it's my karma :(

--Mike L.
 
Uncle, I can't tell from the pics, and possibly might not be able to do so if I held them. A couple of mine have had lighter wood on the K and C handles, but when oiled showed just a hint of the Saatisal "gold chip" grain. I think the difference is in the size of the piece that is selected for the big blade, and the smaller ones used to handle the K and C. You've related that some of the wood is brought in to BirGorkha for sale, as "pretty pieces" that the woods people know the kamis will like for handles. I'm assuming (yeah, I know the joke) that the larger chunks are set aside for Khukuris, and they hunt through the smaller chunks for an approxmate match on the small handles, or let the apprentice do it. My Chitlangi has perfectly matched K and C, and it is obvious that Durba did all three handles himself, or watched very closely while they were done. Sanu's big UBE, with the "mystery burl" handle has Saatisal handled K & C, with all the grain of some of the Khukuri handles, but the wood is the darkest Saatisal I've seen so far - not dyed, because I took off enough surface, prepping them for oil, to determine that. Someone must have looked for a color match for these, even though the wood is different. Not "out of the clouds", but "in from the woods" :D
 
Berk, you are a man after my own heart. I think you have an inkling of what I live thru each day. I have received several emails since making this first post from people wanting and trying to help and there is no help that can be given.

I view it like this. One of the great shortcomings in my life has been a lack of patience. Therefore this is the area in which I am tried and tested the most. It is simply my karma.

I remember once as a boy I worked two days building a two wheel trailer to pull behind my bicycle. On the first test run I realized it was not going to work as I wanted. Because it lacked any suspension system it did not track properly and jumped like a frog on the rough streets of Cherokee, KS. I pulled it home, got grandpa's axe from the shed, did the Uncle Bill vs the Sirupati on it, and burned it -- which is often exactly what I would love to do with all this electronic $hit I have scattered about the Titanic. But, I have learned a LITTLE patience, not enough but a little so I plod on, trying every conceivable possibility until I find one that works.
 
Whatwas the old saying decades ago that if you sat a monkey behind a typewriter long enough he'd eventually come up with "War and Peace"?

One wonders if rather than the twin towers, Osama had targeted Microshaft's corporate offices with Gates office being ground zero and Gates and all his bigwigs inside?

Would Osama now be a folk hero like Jesse James instead of ( deleted deleted deleted deleted... deleted )?
 
Everyone knows what "give it the ax" means....very few realise what "give it the sirupati" really means...

Just another thought from your local Samurai. :rolleyes:
 
I'm sorry to hear this - I thought the reader would be a quick and easy fix, not create more problems. I'm sure it's software-related though.

A couple of quick questions - is your CDROM (CD-reader) internal or external? I mean, is it in the same 'box' with the hard-drive & everything else or is it separately connected?

It sounds like you have a 'conflict' between the two devices (Flashcard reader & CDROM) - on what level though, I'm not sure. I think the Flashcard reader should be coming up as a 'drive' with a letter assigned to it. One possibility is that the CDROM & the flashcard-reader are trying to use the same drive letter.

But before we get into complicated tests, &c. I noticed that the Sandisk people have a FAQ page on their website:

http://www.sandisk.com/tech/faq_search.asp

though I couldn't find anything about CDROM conflicts here.

I'd suggest you just contact SanDisk directly through:

http://www.sandisk.com/tech/s_central.asp

Since it seems to be their product causing the problem after all! I think they're supposed to be pretty good with customer support.


Rusty - blowing up Microsoft seems like about the only way to get rid of them - they seem to slip through of the legal recourses.


Something someone mentioned before, another thing to do, in general, is - the next computer you buy, buy a Macintosh! I'm using a PC, I admit, but that's because I want access to various pieces of software, games, &c. not available on the Mac. But if you just want a working computer (stress on working ;) ) - Macs are very good, much more user-friendly and generally more stable.

cheers, B.

ps. Nice khukuri! I'd determined my next buy from HI would be a custom-order from Bura, though what I haven't figured out. I was lured into buying the Garud AK though - that one seemed to good to pass by! I find the cho on these a bit odd though....
 
but i had a question for all you who are knowledgable in bladeware. this nice khuk that i bought here(20" bura kobra), who knows where i could get a micarta handle made and installed, and who could make me a kydex/concealex/etc... underarm rig? thanks in advance for your input fellas...
 
Originally posted by charels
but i had a question for all you who are knowledgable in bladeware. this nice khuk that i bought here(20" bura kobra), who knows where i could get a micarta handle made and installed, and who could make me a kydex/concealex/etc... underarm rig? thanks in advance for your input fellas...
Click to expand...

Charels I would post this in a new post. It's definitely a legitimate question and deserves a thread of its own.:)
It will get buried here pretty quickly.

But for a quick answer.........
You might ask in the Shop Talk Forum as to the Micarta handle and the scabbard.
There's some budding knife makers there who may consent to do a handle job on your khuk.
I would also do a search in the Busse and General Forums for scabbards and sheaths as I understand there's quite a few people here on Bladeforums.com who make some very decent concealex/kydex scabbards.
From some of the pix I have seen I have to heartedly agree!!!!:D
One of them may be able to help you.:)
 
Uncle,

I feel your pain! Giving it the Surapati would be very threaputic, but wait for the day that you get a newer computer first :D .

I'd try to think the problem through, but things like this usually take a personal appearance to fix. I'd love to come down and give it a shot, but then I'd deny you the *pleasure* of learning all this cra* yourself. In fact, I learned a ton of stuff when Windbloz 3.0 came out. The damn thing crashed ever 15-20 minutes and required much troubleshooting to get running again.

If you can find a copy (I'm trying to get my hands on it), there is a great song out by a band called Three Trolls and a Baggie (I think that's right). The song is called, "Every OS Sucks!" I think they nailed it pretty good.

Good luck!

Alan
 
Uncle,
I don't believe in karma therefore I have none! No such thing, to me! However I "do" believe in the Sirip. fix!! Does away with mistakes,totally distroys problems AND makes one feel soooo much better!
jim
 
Was I was much younger I thought messing around with computers was so much fun that i would do it for free... just punch a few keys and evrything comes up on the monitor... and they give me money as well, suckers! Ahhh, the innocence and naiveity of youth...

On the other hand, I am seldom at a lost for fine swear words now that I've had constant practice for the last 8 years or so. I have come close to throwing the whole blasted contraption out of my 14 floor window trying to install some crappy hardware/software.

Andrew Limsk
 
I have come to expect that nothing will work as advertised -- and it doesn't. There is not a single piece of equipment I use that works as it should and all the programs I use have some sort of glitch that you must work around.

Printer is eternally slow but once started there is no way to stop it. When you click cancel print it ignores you. If you want it to stop you have to pull the power plug. And the printer itself spits out small springs and plastic parts from time to time.

The scanner takes five minutes to get fired up. It is faster than the printer but paints a yellow strip about 1/2 inch wide down the entire length of the page. And about half the time it paints black stripes across the picture. Trying to scan print into some word processing program is one of the biggest jokes known to man. The scanning program once started refuses to shut down. When you try to close it the computer grinds away for maybe 5 minutes and then you get the message HPscan has performed an illegal operation but at least you can close that window and get rid of the program.

The keyboard has some fancy buttons to do shortcut operations -- some have never worked and those that did have quit working.

The mouse sometimes refuses to move the arrow where you want it to go.

The monitor flashes bright, then dim, back to bright for no known reason. If ambient temp gets above 90 degrees what was white on the screen turns yellow.

Both DSL and AOL just disconnect from time to time for no reason -- generally when you are about 95 percent of the way thru a 4 hour project -- which is lost when the connection goes.

And now the trusty Sandisk card reader -- sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

But what would I do in my spare time if everything worked as it should?
 
Yours looks like the mate to the one that I just received. I think mine's also a Bura (marked with a crescent). I don't really care who made it, I just love it.

S.
 
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