Booting from the Shadow of a Broken Mirror

Yea Books!

2010-01-21T22:37:00.004-05:00

When I got home from work today, this greeted me:

30 lbs box from BMC Software. The vendor for BMC Remedy... My books are in.

Upon unpacking, I found nearly 20 books and a hand full of pamphlets for the new BMC Remedy ARS 7.5.00 series:

There is now much reading to do! ~sigh. I suppose that reading Iain M. Banks isn't exactly going to help me develop better ARS code now is it?

100 points to anyone who can identify the book in this photo that is nearly 10 years out of date.

Snow Leopard

2009-10-24T00:09:00.005-04:00

After a good three years of use, I finally upgraded my MacBook from Mac OS X Tiger to Mac OS X Snow Leopard. So far the system is quite stellar. It behaves just as responsively and all the functionality seems to be there. I'm still playing around with all the new features, but it seems to be quite a quick and simple OS to use.

One of the beautiful things about the OS is that upon first boot, it automatically detected that I had one incompatible application, Parallels Desktop, installed on the machine. When I first got the Mac, I was using Boot Camp with Parallels to access my Boot Camp partition while in Mac OS. However, since that time, I've hardly ever used Parallels (it seemed to have issues trying to run Mac OS, Parallels, and Windows simultaneously), I decided to get rid of it. I also had not used Windows in ages, since the partition was too small to be of much use (only 10gb), I removed that as well (very quick and easy to resize the partition in Mac OS X Snow Leopard without reformatting the drive).

The only blip I had was that after I deleted my former Boot Camp partition, the system acted a little strange. I tried to empty the trash, and I would get a strange Mac OS X generic error. I would try to move a file, and I'd get the same error. No matter what I did, it seems that if I was updating the file system, the system would have a fit and wouldn't let the operation complete. I was really worried at this point, I thought I had corrupted the file system or something, so I ran Disk Utility, both Verify Disk and Verify Permissions. The system came out clean. Upon Restart, the system was running smoothly and I had normal access once again. Perhaps I missed reading a prompt instructing me to reboot once the removal of the Windows partition was complete? Or perhaps it was just a fluke.

Outisde of that, I've been taking a look at the new 27" iMac with the Magic Mouse. It looks like quite the beautiful machine, but it's price tag is a little high for me and and I'm still not much of a fan of the all-in-one design. I'd much rather have a Mac Pro, but those are even more costly! Ahh well, such is life. I plan on making a trip to the Troy Apple store to check out the new iMacs and the Magic Mouse specifically, as well as taking a peak at the new MacBooks. However, from what I'm getting from my fellow Mac Fanatic, Mark, the Apple Store at Somerset is closed for remodeling! ~sigh, very disappointing. It should be open again in a few days, I'll have to make a special trip sometime after work next week.

Updated Remedy Servers

2009-10-24T00:00:00.003-04:00

This post is related to For Review.

In my previous post, I detailed how our Remedy ARS Server 7.0.01 patch 003 with MidTier (MT) 7.0.01 patch 010 was generating ARWARN 66 upon logon to the system. Well, our team team implemented ARS Server 7.0.01 patch 011. This rectified the issue, however, it generated a few issues with the default intrinsic permissions in our Remedy forms. In the end, we did have some forms that loaded without any data. Fortunately it was none of our major forms.

A few things to keep in mind when updating is dealing with the multilicense file, which we had some issues with, causing our server to go into Demo mode for about 20 minutes (during our down time window). And planning to go into Admin Only mode for the server... We didn't do this last one, usually our upgrades are pretty smooth, so we let the help desk continue to use Remedy and switch over to our Hot-Standby server. However, this time, when our main server came back online after the upgrade, our system took the services off of the Hot-Standby and placed them onto the main server, which was in Demo mode. ~sigh.

We switched it back over quite quickly, but we were really worried there for a minute.

For Review...

2009-09-25T20:49:00.003-04:00

It has been a while since I last really got in-depth with a post. For the past eighteen months, I have been working with one of the (few) growing mid-size (now large) IT companies in the Detroit Metro area. I now work with a ticket tracking system utilizing BMC Action Request System (Remedy) version 7.0.01 (and an older server running Remedy 5). It's a much different work environment than I'm used to, seeing as now I'm doing a lost of administration and some development for this system which supports supports coming up on 2000 support users and also has a directory of a 100,000 people and tracking for nearly 2 million incidents.

Since we deal with complicated contracts and HIPPA regulated information, I am very cautious about what information I provide, but there are a few things that we are working with presently that we just have not been able to solve.

On to the issues...
The Details
Our ARS (7.0.01 patch 003) also runs Mid-Tier 7.0.01 (patch 010). Recently, we began tracking of users logging into our system upon loading of the default form (one of two customized forms that is set as default by the system administrators) and we have set a Temp field which contains a list of the groups (by ID number - eg: "101, 210, 6027" and not "Help Desk, Software Support, and AS400 Development" - this runs a search of our "notification records" form, not of the default BMC Remedy User form's "Groups." This is set so we can list just the support groups, and none of the permissions. We also now don't run into accidental over-flow of information, for example users who are a member of the "Help Desk Triage" group cannot see tickets for the "Help Desk" group in the "Tickets assigned to your other groups" table on our primary default form (the original cause of this problem was the command $GROUPS$ LIKE "something%", which is enough of a wild-card to cause these issues, but not something that we can really process in a way that is significantly different.

Not long after these two new concepts were deployed, we began getting the following message from using logging into the Mid Tier: "ARWARN 66 - The query matched more than the maximum number of entries specified for retrieval." and in most situations, the error message will display twice.

The Conditions
The only time this message occurs is when a user has logged into the Mid Tier (web-version of Remedy) and is a non-Administrator user. The message only occurs on one of the default forms (as far as we have been able to detect). It affects users system-wide, regardless of if they are logging in via the web locally or remotely, it even occurs in Firefox, IE, and doesn't seem to be cross-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux) sensitive. The warning message does not occur on the Windows User Tool (WUT) which most users have installed 7.0.01 patch 10, nor does it occur in our Citrix implementation of Remedy (which are also based off of patch 10).

One of our active links has required us to use the special run-if qualification: $CLIENT-TYPE$ != 9 (or whatever it is for the Mid-Tier) allowing us to write a second active link for $CLIENT-TYPE$ = 9. The workflow is associated with the support group listing detailed above.

The default form that loads has several tabs, most of which contains between 1 and 4 tables worth of data that runs some type of query. When right clicking on the table and selecting "Refresh" the error does not occur. Only when loading the form itself. NOTE: There are several hidden tables which are inaccessible to regular users (including my test ID) which I cannot refresh with our current implementation.

Troubleshooting
Note: Only our PRODUCTION system currently connects to the Mid Tier. All testing has been preformed on our production system, with the specialized workflow limited down to execute only for our test user.

We have tried setting and clearing the limits in the form AR System User Preferences. No change

We have attempted to modify the active links and filters that are associated with the two bits of code above which would "deflect" my test user logon from executing any of the recently implemented code that seems to generate the error.

We have tested the limitations of the server by running high-result searches, which up to 10,000 entries have returned successfully (albeit a little slowly).

And for those ARS Admins concerned about the MT's Cache, we are flushing it after implementing new test code and before logging into the MT again.

We have checked arerror.log and found nothing major in there.

We have ran Active Link and Filter logging from both the WUT and the MT. We have also ran Filter logging on the server. Nothing shows "ARWARN 66" but the last bit of code that executes in all three situations before the ARWARN displays is the code for tracking users logging into the system.

FWIW: We are running in a Windows Server 2003 environment with MS SQL 2005. Some of our code was pushed out from ARS Admin Tool 7.0.01 patch 10 into our patch 3 server. We have resaved the primary default form from a downgraded (patch 3) version of the Admin tool. We have not changed the code on any of the tables.

Situation Analysis
After working with one of our vendors, we are working toward upgrading the server itself from 7.0.01 patch 003 to patch 010 due to a BMC ARS Software bug that causes ARWARN 66 when a filter has executed with an "Create New Request" or "Modify first result" action in it. Unfortunately, due to scheduling conflicts, we keep having to push this off.

However, we have somewhere around two-thousand filters in our system, none of which have caused this issue in the past. Many of which execute only on other forms, but upon loading of those other forms, even now, we still do not get this warning.

I am curious to find out if anyone else has had the ARWARN 66 mysteriously pop-up on their ARS Servers and what you have done to fix it or what troubleshooting steps you took to pin-down the issue.

iPod Insanity

2009-07-24T23:38:00.004-04:00

See Update Below

I am really in a strange situation here... I've got my good ol' iPod Nano (gen 1 baby!), where I keep a lot of my tech Podcasts in a Playlist so that I can easily manage just one show at a time.

Today however, I realized that in the Windows Weekly podcast playlist shows that episode 75 is still the first on the list, but I'm up-to-date with the podcast and should have just the most recently episodes (episodes 100+) on there. So I did some checking, and it looks like the iPod has Episode 75 listed in the playlist, but nowhere else on the iPod.

I don't want to just delete it from the playlist, I want to remove it completely from the iPod. The file has long since been removed from my Mac. So the question is, where is the data file at on the iPod?

My first thought, "Oh, it must have been classified incorrectly, and is hanging out in the Music folder." WRONG. I searched there, to no avail. I even checked the Audiobook area just incase, but I also had no luck with that.

Then I thought, "Well, it's gotta be on the iPod somewhere, so if I do a 'Get Info' command on the file, I should have some rudimentary information about where the file is located at on the iPod." WRONG. Get Info did not list a single thing about the actual location of the audio file. Just gave me an indication that the file was playable on the iPod and had several variables that I could set.

That's when I realize that I might be able to push the episode from being a "Podcast" to being "Music" or something. I tried that out as well from the Get Info prompt, but had no luck. I can change the Genera, but the media type is greyed out.

I tried moving the song from the playlist to the iPod in general, but also had no luck. I tried moving it to my Music on iTunes and to the Mac desktop, but I had no luck in this at all. The only thing I can do (or so it seems) is move it between playlists on the iPod or delete the entry from the playlist (and I would rather not have the space wasted on an entire episode like that).

Googling so far has not returned any useful results. I'm not even sure what to be looking for, just trying to come up with some solution.

I'm going to keep looking, but I've got a looming fear that I may have a decision to make, either format the iPod to remove the episode, or just delete the file from the playlist and not worry about the extra space that it is taking up.

***Update
Not wanting to give up so easily, I fired up the one sure way to view the contents of the *true* file system, and not these virtual folders with hidden objects that Finder gives you, I'd use Terminal!

I enabled my root user (for just a bit, I promise) and did


AkiraBook:~indigo$ su
Password:
AkiraBook:/Users/indigo root# cd /Volumes/Saji-chan/iPod_Control/Music/F03
AkiraBook:/Volumes/Saji-chan/iPod_Control/Music/F03

From here, I did an ls -sk to show me the files and size in Kb. I looked though F00 to F05, but there was only one file that was close, WDXV.mp3 that was 35700-some Kb, which is really close to the 35.1 Mb that I was looking for. Not wanting to be unsure, I copied the file to the desktop and opened it. Sure enough, it opened in iTunes and said that it was "Windows Weekly 75."

I did a quick rm -v command, and it got rid of the file. The iPod now has an additional 35 MB of free space, and I promptly removed episode 75 from the Windows Weekly playlist. SUCCESS!

Good Things Come in Small Packages

2009-03-12T21:36:00.002-04:00

But serious innovation comes in the smallest designs.

I just got the announcement today that Apple has released a new iPod. My first response: *Yawn* I didn't even look at the email. Apple keeps releasing new iPods. The newest Nano was pretty decent, but nothing major changed. Just got rid of the fat shape and replaced it with a sleek and skinny version. The iPod Classic hasn't changed in ages and there's never any big innovation on the Shuffle, since it is a pretty bland device... No screen? What can be done on a device without a screen?

Apparently, a whole lot. This new iPod (shown above, with its immediate predecessor) looks awesome. Smaller than ever before, and even though the old shuffle wasn't really thought of as bulky or fat, it wasn't really thought of as stylish. The new guy is the definition of sleek and stylish. It's got an awesome 10 hour batter (according to Apple) and uses "VoiceOver" a new technology from Apple that will read out song/album titles and with this feature, the new Shuffle now supports playlists... The first Shuffle to support playlists!

I plan to be visiting the Apple store within a week to check this guy out. My own Nano (first generation) is really showing its age, but I've loved the Nano style so much, I was really leaning toward a new Color Chrome Nano, but perhaps a Shuffle is in my future instead.

Visit: iPod Shuffle

so long, old friend

2009-02-08T17:13:00.003-05:00

Last night, I came to the conclusion that my old iPod with Video (5G) had finally died out, it was my first iPod, my first HDD-based MP3 player, and the first to be over 1GB in capacity (my iPod was 30 GB).

The symptoms of impending failure were very minor. For about two years now, I've occasionally got the "You need to restore this iPod" message at start up or as I connected the device to iTunes, but the messages were really rare, and when they did occur, disconnecting the iPod and doing a reset (hold down "Select" and "Menu" for 6+ seconds) cleared up the issue. Occasionally, the iTunes database would be corrupted, and I would have to restore the iPod. Very annoying, but not the worst thing that could happen.

That is, until yesterday, when I synched up some video podcasts. I was getting behind on them and decided that using the iPod 5G would be the best option to get caught up -- the battery on my nano is starting to go anyway, requiring it to be on the charger more and more these days than. However, upon trying to play the video podcasts on the iPod 5G, the video would start although it would eventually have some type of processing problem and skip to the next episode or continue playing the sound while not updating the video. Sometimes, it would just give up and out-right freeze, requiring a reset of the device to get it up and running again. At first, I thought this was just symptoms of a poorly encoded video file stressing the iPod's CPU and causing it to crash and require a reset.

Unfortunately these frequent resets only seemed to make things worse over the evening. After two or three of those force-resets, the device powered back on and said that it was corrupted and needed to be connected to iTunes to be restored.

The restore went fine, but when I attempted to synch for the first time (a manual synch of a few dozen audio podcasts), the iPod crashed again and needed to be reset, and once again, restored.

But, this time, the restore function didn't work out so well. It seemed to freeze up as the iPod System Software was being installed, and even though the device wasn't disconnected from the Macintosh, the Mac said that it had been improperly removed. Retrying the restore didn't work either, the device was getting worse, freezing right after being connected via USB and by this time, it was crashing iTunes as well.

It seemed I was out of luck. None of the diagnostics said that there was anything wrong with the iPod, yet it seems to be having more and more difficulty starting up. It even seems to have trouble getting past the Apple logo and into diag mode now, which deepened my concern that the iPod was in serious hardware failure.

I'm pretty sure that it is hard drive failure that is getting to the device, but the Apple system diagnostics (upon reset, press and hold "Select" and "Previous" as the iPod is starting up), I found nothing wrong listed in the system diagnostics for the HDD... But, the diagnostics only list the SMART data for the drive, it doesn't actually do any sector by sector analysis.

I did do some research on running SprinRite on the iPod, but it looks like if I am to do that, I'll need to order special drive converters, disassemble the iPod and then attach the iPod's HDD to my computer (via IDE) and run SpinRite that way. I was hoping for an easier fix, such as being able to run SpinRite via USB, but it seems "via usb" isn't an option.

My only other recourse available last night was to run Disk Utility on the device, which returned no problems. The only remaining thing I can think of to try would be some of the Mac drive diagnostic utilities, which may have something in there that can work on a USB drive - I haven't gone though this option as of yet.

For the interim, I am more than able to just get by with my iPod nano (1G). I'll be looking forward to getting the latest iPod nano once the battery in this one starts to go so I can start watching videos on my iPod again, yet at the same time, I really will miss my nano 1G. Perhaps a trip to the Apple store is warranted after work sometime this week.

Error 643

2009-01-14T20:58:00.003-05:00

I have the unfortunate luck of running into this issue after being told 30 minutes before the end of my day that this particular laptop needed to have a Norton Ghost image loaded onto it and then deployed.

My co-worker indicated that she was unable to figure out the problem.

It took me about five minutes on google... Mostly because the fist few posts went on and on about adjusting the pagefile size. That is until I ran into a fellow blogger's post, cloning a hard disk with Ghost 10 and a USB external disk from Mark Lund. He had several notes at the end of his post, including details about Error 643, where he indicated to get around the error he deleted the partitions on his hard drive and the loaded a new image onto the drive.

This is exactly what I did. Simply, I used the HP Drive Sanitizer that our new laptops come with (in BIOS). I quickly got rid of the partitions and then got Ghost up and running.

[Side Note]
I did have a much more detailed description of this issue written up on my corporate laptop... Which promptly crashed yesterday evening, losing my post. :(

Adobe is annoying.

2009-01-10T14:47:00.003-05:00

For the past few days, I've been working on an Adobe problem at work. We had to reinstall Windows on an end-user's computer, so we pulled her licensing logs and reinstalled all her software.

Except for Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional. Her licensing code wouldn't work. After spending three hours on the phone with Adobe support, I finally got to someone who would "Re-serialize" the software... Under the contingency that I provide proof of purchase. After spending an hour pulling detailed records of her software install requests and then working with our Purchasing department to find all of our requests for Adobe software from just one of our software providers, I finally pinned down her PO, which allowed me to request the proof of purchase from our software vendor.

I cannot articulate how frustrating this has been. I'm in the process of waiting for our end user to become available for another round with Adobe support - hopefully this hasn't been a total waste of time and money.

I sense a disturbance in the Force...

2008-12-31T22:12:00.004-05:00

...it's as if dozens of voices cried out in terror and were silenced.

Seems the Zune wasn't ready for leap-year 2008... 366 days in 2008 have caused the Zune to crash at boot.

May I say, Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha~~~aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Stupid Microsoft.

Also Reference:
Zune 30 Faq [Zune.net]
Zune Freeze Result of Leap Year [blog.wired.com]
Zune.net (forums) [forums.zune.net]
Microsoft Zune Committing Mass Suicide [it.slashdot.org]

Synergy Love

2008-12-21T00:50:00.002-05:00

Oh, how I love the program "synergy"

But, that is like saying, Oh, How I Love VI!.

Synergy is old, not developed anymore, and difficult to configure; however, once it has been set up, it works great!

What Synergy is... A quick summary
Synergy is a small console program that when configured and ran will allow you to connect two computers and two monitors to one keyboard and mouse over a network connection. This allows you to have something that looks like dual monitors with an extended desktop. But it has a huge advantage in the fact that it is an entirely separate computer, allowing for different not only different processing power and storage, but even an entirely different operating system.

I just got done configuring up synergy to connect from my Linux desktop to my MacBook. But, I added a stipulation, from Linux, it will only transfer from the lower right side of the monitor to the laptop and from the MacBook will only go back to the Linux PC from the middle (range 25% to 75%) of the left side. This decreases the number of times that I'll accidentally move from one computer to another.

Also, this seems to allow me to use the open rage for another computer. I've configured the upper right half of my Linux desktop to connect to my PowerMac G4, however, I don't have this guy powered on presently, so I haven't verified that this works yet.

How May I Ruin Your Day?

2008-12-08T23:02:00.003-05:00

On 11/26, I sent an email to one of our vendors (who shall remain nameless).

Their response back on 11/28 was: Please provide your Financial Account and Billing Account numbers.

On 11/29 I provided such information.

On 12/4, I asked for a status update.

On 12/5, they asked for an order number.

On 12/5, I indicated that we didn't have an order number and I was getting more and more concerned that the order was never placed.

On 12/8, they informed me that I didn't have authorization to place the order, but my co-worker, who had requested that I have access to such ordering abilities and confirmed with her manager that I was authorized for such a level of access in October, could email them and place the order in my place.

Oh, and the order? It is for a small chip that our vendor ships for free. Apparently, I don't have that level of clearance.

If fonts were people...

2008-11-09T22:59:00.002-05:00

Thought I'd share this... I originally found this by listening to an episode of net@night.

Parallels (17 months later)

2008-09-12T21:51:00.013-04:00

I'm one of the Mac supporters at work. Recently, I was assigned the task of reloading a MacBook Pro (2.16 Ghz, 2 GB RAM) with OS X Leopard and Boot-Camping with Vista SP1 and using Parallels to have access to the Boot Camp partition.

Things were going well (aside from a few slow downs due to shipping issues). Until I started working with Windows Vista in Parallels.

After I got all my software installed, including items such as Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Office, I started my testing of the software in Parallels. This didn't turn out so well. I fired up a few Adobe applications, such as Photoshop and ImageReady. Along with IE (7 of course, per Vista's requirements) and Microsoft Office. The only problem that I found was that the system was unable to run Photoshop. Granted, we were running the Parallels Virtual Machine hardware, so I can't really blame either Parallels or Adobe for the problems I was having. --Where I can blame Parallels is for the system being unable to free up memory and being unable to shut down afterward.

Once I was done testing, I was getting ready to gather up a few things and return the laptop to the Director that assigned me the task of getting the computer configured.

All I had to do was shut Parallels down, and test the system one more time in Windows Vista under Boot Camp. This is where my problems began...

Parallels just wouldn't shut down. The system got far enough in the shutdown process that I was unable to bring up task manager. After waiting for over half an hour to shut the system down, I finally gave up and clicked on the Parallels "Stop" button, which informed me that it was possible that I would lose data if I agreed to the improper shutdown. Since I had waited for so long, I did agree, and the unit powered off. I tried to turn it back on, and guess what happened....

The system was unable to boot. It would "blue screen" at boot. It was really quite frustrating. So I booted into Boot Camp, and loaded the system in safe mode (regular mode also wasn't working for Boot Camp). I found the .SYS file that wasn't working correctly, one of the Parallel Tools system files, I moved the file, and restarted the computer. I didn't notice any other major problems, so I called it "Stable" and moved on to restart the computer into Mac OS X Leopard for Parallels testing.

Upon starting Parallels, I didn't seem to have too many problems. I had to reactivate, but that was a problem that Parallels clearly documented as a known issue with Parallels software. Strange that it would come up now, after the previous problems I had with the system, but not quite unexpected. And, after activating Vista, the system did boot normally. I tested the software, and found everything to be operational. So I called it "Stable" and shut the Parallels virtual machine down. I then rebooted the computer, to load up Boot Camp to be sure that the system was still stable on that side.

I was quite surprised to find out that Windows, on the Boot Camp side, needed to be activated. I thought it was strange, but once again, this issue was documented by Parallels. So I reactivated Windows. Things were working just fine. I was able to access all of the programs and all of the drivers seemed to have installed correctly. I called it "Stable" and decided to reboot into Leopard to test Parallels (post Boot Camp side activation) to see how it held up).

Boot Camp started normally, but it needed activation. Once it was activated, it worked swimmingly. I found no major problems, aside from the fact that Photoshop wouldn't start up. No big deal, since most of the graphic design would be done from within the Boot Camp partition.

For certainty, I decided to reboot the PC into Boot Camp to see how the install of Vista came though. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out so well --once again, it needed activation. I went around with Boot Camp and Parallels for nearly three hours, trying to figure out what was causing the system to deactivate itself. The only thing that I could conclude was that the .SYS file that I moved was the source of the problem. Unfortunately, since the system was being so stable without that file, I decided to actually delete the file, and reinstalling the Parallels System Tools did not seem to help my problems at all.

My options, that were once limited, now seemed to be down to one: reinstall Windows and see what happens.

I did just that. The system was behind schedule by two days now, but it was coming along well enough. I was able to get the operating system and the software configured and tested within a few hours. I found no obvious problems. So I called the Director, and informed him that the PC was ready for pick up. I went though a tutorial on how to use some of the features of Parallels and reiterated the limitations (and apparent sensitivity of the software). I didn't want him to be out of the state and have the system crash on him.
* * *
The following Monday, I received an email stating that the system wasn't able to boot into Boot Camp or Parallels - it was blue screening at boot. Mac OS was working fine though.

I made it into work early that day and immediately took to working on the MacBook Pro. I met up with the Director, he explained that he was finally able to get the Mac to boot into Windows after following instructions he was able to dig up with extensive digging though the internet, but found that the Parallels Tools, which he no longer trusted (since it was the cause of the blue screening issues) was unable to be uninstalled unless it was running from within Parallels - which he uninstalled from Mac OS (I would have done the same).

Unfortunately, the only option I could figure out, was to reinstall and reconfigure the Parallels software and uninstall the tools from within Parallels, and hope for the best.

The first attempt didn't work so well. The cursor turned into it's new version of the hour glass and was just "clocking" as we waited for the control panel to load up. After waiting for a decent bit of time, Windows returned that Explorer.exe had failed. We had to power down Parallels from the Parallels Stop button. Luckily, upon rebooting it, we were able to get the system into Parallels and we were able to remove the software without problem.

* * *
Well, the happiness and joy of a job well done didn't last long. It was only a few hours later that the Director contacted me to let me know that the drivers for the audio in Windows died out, he was in a desperate state to get the system up and running as soon as possible or he would miss a plane shortly there after. I did a quick check of the system, but I was unable to find a cause for the hardware problems. The system kept reporting that there was no audio devices installed. It was also reporting that all the drivers of the system were installed, just that there was no audio devices installed in the MacBook Pro.

The director eventually had to switch to using a regular Windows based laptop to take with him out of state, but he wanted to take the MacBook Pro with him to tinker with it to see if he could get it back up and running.

A few days later, he contacted me to let me know that he wants to try reloading Windows Vista to see if that will rectify the issues. This time, Parallels will be a "no-go for launch."

42 Years of Star Trek

2008-09-08T23:25:00.008-04:00

42 Years of Going Boldly Where No One Has Gone Before.

I do have to disclaim that Star Trek is one of the biggest reasons that I got into Technology. This show has inspired so many people in so many ways. It has not only driven a new generation of scientists and space enthusiasts, but also helped mold a population of people more willing to accept one another and to venture outside of their comfort zone, to do something different - to boldly go where they haven't been before.

It's unfortunate that this anniversary comes upon the heals of The Star Trek Experience closing (last Monday, 1 September 2008).

Happy Anniversary Star Trek.

If it aint broke, don't fix it...

2008-09-05T22:57:00.008-04:00

Such simple words for such an important statement.

Managing the Firefox executable in Linux (my install of SuSE 9.3, I should say) is fairly simple. One just opens up File Manager as root, and then navigates to /opt/MozillaFirefox/lib/ and copies lib for a backup (I leave the backup in the same directory, but name it with the Firefox software version at the end, such as lib2.0.0.16). This works fairly well. Step one done: a backup of the current version of Firefox has been made.

Next, take the new Firefox tar.gz file, decompress it. I keep mine in /home/user/daniel/My Downloads/*latest version of Firefox*/, so I went to /home/user/daniel/My Downloads/firefox-3.0.1/ (still in super-user mode in my file explorer) and opened up the one folder in there, "firefox" - so very simple and benign. Things were looking good.

Inside "firefox" is the core application of firefox and firefox-bin and all it's core "Firefox centric" files, like chrome and whatnot. Do a "select all" and then copy all the files.

Continuing on, (once again, still in super-user mode in my file explorer), and paste the contents of the folder firefox into /opt/MozillaFirefox/lib/ and permit an over-write of the files in there. It'll over write of the files that need to be updated, while maintaining anything special that one already has in there.

Update of MozillaFirefox is now done.

Note: This is more complicated than the Windows version of this update, and far more difficult than the very simple Mac version of updating software. However, backing up ones installation of Firefox is much simpler in Linux than in Windows. It is about the same to backup ones programs in Mac OS though

Now, just click on your usual Firefox icon and the browser starts.
~or, at least that is the theory.

* * *
One may get: nothing at all.

I thought, "Perhaps I didn't click it..." - so I clicked it again. No dice.

~sigh, it must be some strange error. I fired up Konsole and navigated to /opt/MozillaFirefox/lib/ and executed firefox, which returned:

daniel@Suzi-lnx:/opt/MozillaFirefox/lib> ./firefox
./firefox-bin: error while loading shared libraries: libpangocairo-1.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

All I could think was " f r e l l . " (see references in the American Sci-Fi show Farscape) I was looking down the long slope to dependency hell, which has been known to on many occasions to cause serious over-hauls of the system's software, and on some rare major cases, reinstallation of the OS itself. I wasn't about to go down that route unless I was really aware of what I was doing, that meant research time.

Since I didn't have an operational Firefox, I chose to use Opera to google up some results, I chose to use firefox 3 suse 9 error while loading shared libraries: libpangocairo-1.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file as my search "tearm" (if one can call such a long string like that a "term") and found some results. The first result was pretty spot on, ./firefox-bin: error while loading shared libraries: libpangocairo-1.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory at the Firefox Support Forum. Page 2 [.link] is even more useful. This second page informed me that there was a work around for this issue on good 'ol mozillaZine (my most trusted site for Mozilla application troubleshooting). The article I was told to look up is Firefox 3 on CentOS 4?

The results were pretty poor however. Install Firefox 3 though a package manager. Upgrade your pango libraries by hand. Use wine and run the Windows version of Firefox instead. Upgrade your OS - maybe it'll have Firefox 3 preinstalled.

The worst line: "It's probably not recommended, but here's one way."

Even though the post moderator has the best intentions, I find it hard to go to such extremes.

I think for now, I'm going to let FF 3 in Windows and Mac OS, and I'll work on upgrading it after work-arounds for this pango issue become well documented.

For those of you who are in need of the link to the old Firefox software releases, see Mozilla Firefox 2: Download Firefox 2.

Help - Help is not avaliable in this version of Windows!!!

2008-09-04T18:41:00.006-04:00

Today at work, I was tinkering with a Vista computer (trying to pin down what can be done about it's excessive RAM utilization), and upon closing all of the open Windows on the computer, I found this notice behind everything.

I loved the wording of the message. "Windows Help Program is no longer included with Windows." - Strategically worded so they don't say "Help isn't included with Windows anymore... we gave up on "helping" with this version of Windows."

* * *
Why couldn't this be phased out anyway? I've even got help file viewers on Linux and Mac OS X computers, it seems a little odd that Microsoft would just stop including it with Windows. What I would have done is include the old help viewer, but start writing all the new help documentation in the new format. Maybe with the next version of Windows, include the old help viewer as an optional addition, but not have it installed by default.

At least Microsoft does include it as a download from their website [.link] - however, there is a total of 6 pages of documentation, over half of which is "known issues after installing WinHlp32.exe" - sigh.

Well, that's my two-cents anyway.

Firefox 3.0.1 (Mac OS X version) Preliminary

2008-09-01T19:34:00.008-04:00

This afternoon, I finally decided to start some testing of Firefox 3, I've been putting it off for ages now, and with the frequent notices by Firefox about how version 3.0.1 is available (as well as the fact that the Firefox people have made it to version 3.0.1 already) I decided to give it a shot.

The way I work with new releases like this, I start by using the Mac OS X version of the software, where backing up old programs and demoing new versions is so much easier than in Windows (and lets not even talk about how hard that is to do in Linux), but I found something interesting while using the browser in Mac OS X 10.4.11: the menu bar repeats itself. On Mac, you should see something that looks like this:

[click the image below to see a full-sized version]

But, what I'm seeing with Firefox 3.0.1 is a bit different than usual Apple interface standards:

[click the image below to see a full-sized version]

The items seem to "slide" -- sometimes, the "Firefox" item is the furthest to the left, other times, "Help" or "Window" or "File" will be furthest to the left.

Presently, closing and reopening the browser has not helped the software out. I'll keep tinkering with the software, perhaps Firefox 3.0.1 isn't quite ready for Mac OS X 10.4.11 yet. I'll keep running it for now, and maybe I'll find something out there on the MozillaZine that will help out.

[update]
Since restarting the MacBook, Firefox has worked just fine. It seems restarting the software several times was not the root cause of the issue... Something must have been running resident in memory that needed to be cleared out before the menu bar would work correctly.

Still a strange error, one that I've never encountered before in the many years that I've been running Mac OS (from System Software 7 to OS X 10.5).

NewEgg's DVD store no more?

2008-09-01T00:30:00.000-04:00

I was looking up prices on "China's First Emperor" that aired on the History Channel, it's around $35 USD + Shipping and Handing from History.com [.link]

I was hoping that I'd be able to find a better price, and not seeing the DVD listed at Amazon.com, I decided to proceed to the NewEgg DVD store - I didn't think that I'd be able to find it there, but if I did, I figured it would be at a better price.

But when I loaded up NewEgg.com, I could not find any references to the DVD store. I even did a NewEgg.com search for "Movies" and "DVD" -- nothing turned up but blank media, DVD burners, etc. So, in a last ditch effort, I did a google search for "NewEgg DVD store" which found the NewEgg DVD store [.link].

The page looked oddly blank, but it did not display an error or reference the store being closed - it is even titled as having "Blu-Ray DVD & HD DVD" movies, making me believe that it had to have recently been accessible. So I ran a search for "China's first emperor" - which returned no results. Searching for "Anime" also returned no results, and searching for "DVD" returned the same results that searching for "DVD" at the NewEgg main page did.

I can only conclude that the DVD store is gone. :( I always found good prices at the NewEgg DVD store, but I never got the change to order anything from there, I hardly ever order DVDs (I prefer to buy them at a local FYE). I guess it'll be back to FYE and Amazon's DVD store for me.

Good ol' Microsoft Software

2008-08-12T22:00:00.000-04:00

China's Olympic coordinators trying, to stun the audience with images displayed on the walls and roof of "the bird's nest" at the Olympics [.link], stunned themselves when one of their advanced Lenovo PCs hooked up to a projector to display these images, blue screened [.link]

Also see: slashdot.org, sydney morning herald, power apple (chinese).

Note: there is some debate as to the truth of these images, but with the sheer volume of photographs showing up, it is gaining acceptance.

Windows Antivirus 2008 Woes

2008-08-11T19:13:00.005-04:00

With the many antivirus notifications users receive, it has become second nature to click on them and start scanning or cleaning their computer. Some even now have the ability to receive a notice in the program about the subscription expiring and be sent to a web site (for example, Symantec Anti -Virus) where the end user just puts in his or her credit card info and then receives a special code or is emailed a file.

The big problem with this... Modern spyware/malware is taking advantage of this. Anti-Virus 2007/2008/2009 (ad nauseam) is a perfect example of this. This program displays false pop-ups (usually though IE 6 and other older browsers) that look incredibly like a pop-up from one's own Anti-Virus software.

However, once the user clicks on the request to thoroughly scan the system (or whatever sly message they are displaying for the day) the software then installs itself in a more malicious way into the system, ensuring that pop-up messages invade the system followed by notices that purchasing the software is highly recommended.

I have recently seen infections like this propagating though corporate networks. Unfortunately, after a brief stay on the system, the software can cause such damage to the OS that it is nearly impossible to get the system back up and running in a timely fashion. Reloading the PC and reinstalling the necessary applications is the only resolution I have come up with.

Needless to say, fighting malware is becoming an increasing problem in the IT industry, especially when that malware is labeled as being a solution to the problem itself.

Now comes the new title: Grey-Ware. Half on the dark side, half on the light.

~sigh.

Time for an Upgrade

2008-05-11T11:29:00.003-04:00

It has been a while since I last did any real management of my Linux box. I believe that the last time that I actually shutdown the computer and put in a new component was over a year ago. Those are also the times that I usually spend some time cleaning the system and doing general maintenance.

Since it has been over a year now, I decided that once I get my next paycheck, I'd purchase something small that the computer needs: RAM.

The RAM in the PC isn't too bad, it's 1.0 GB with 1.0 GB Swap. But it does have an excess of memory being used by applications (not HDD caching), which annoys me, especially when there is some application that uses a lot, and ends up causing the system to flip out, pulling data out of and putting it right back into swap,

I hope things will run a little smoother with the extra 2.0 GB, and at under $55 (after shipping), it was a decent enough deal that I just had to pursue it.

Printer Woes

2008-05-03T23:30:00.003-04:00

Friday, I spent most of my day working on various printers. I'm convinced that the biggest problem with computers is the devices responsible for conversion from analog to digital. Printers and scanners; mice, keyboards (HIDs) are okay... but scanners and printers always seem to be troublesome.

I had one printer that had a report of having "black streaks."

Found nothing major wrong, accept the rollers were worn a bit.

Another printer was out putting black dots along one side. It was a problem with the drum, which I tried to clean off a bit, which minimized the black dots, but suggested be replaced anyway.

Finally a fax had white streaks. Dead fuser.

These devices are incredibly annoying. Especially the ones that are used rather frequently.

Living out of one hotel room or another.

2008-04-28T19:37:00.002-04:00

To say my professional career has done a "180" would be an understatement. It's been more like a "540."

When I started at CareTech, I thought I'd be doing menial jobs for quite some time, as I worked my way into the corporate structure. I by far am not doing anything major as of yet, but I have been assigned to work with CareTech teams in both Cincinnati, Ohio and Elkhart, Indiana since I started just six weeks ago.

Things are showing no sings of stopping. I already know that there is a Chicago, Illinois trip planned for me sometime soon, and there is also other teams that I may visit in other sites. Mostly for learning "the CareTech ropes" or training, but it's already so different compared to my previous jobs.

At CyberMedics, I hardly left the county that the store was founded in. I spent most of my time being lead support in-store and later on, on-site as well. Once I left the business, that quickly changed. I was just "another CareTech guy" once I got there, but there was so much more responsibility and drive at CareTech compared to CyberMedics.

It'll be interesting to see what CareTech has in store for me in the future.

Two Weeks Later...

2008-03-12T14:15:00.004-04:00

indigo@Suzi-lnx:~> uptime
  9:25am  up 116 days 23:30,  10 users,  load average: 3.58, 3.23, 3.13

As of Saturday, March 8, 2007.

Shortly there after, the system was powered off... For moving to Sterling Heights, Michigan.

I have left CyberMedics, as of Friday, February 29, 2008 at 6 PM. I have also found a new job in Troy, Michigan and have moved into a condo with a friend of mine in Sterling Heights. Much has changed in the past two weeks.

At the new job, I'll be in the Help Desk department, and I'll be doing field support (building and upgrading computers). The start date is tentatively set for Monday, March 17, 2008. We'll see how things go. I count myself as lucky to have some pretty decent connections to be able to get a decent job in such a short period of time.

On a side note, I believe that one of the Hard Drives in my Windows 2000 Pro box has died... The 250 GB drive. I'm going to try running Spin Rite on it here some time soon, but Spin Rite has had problems with the BIOS on that computer before, preventing it from accessing the 250 GB HDD. So, I suppose that I'll have to do some extra work to run the program.

Invisicons... what?

2008-02-07T20:16:00.000-05:00

I found this on my desktop today... Just went and did a drag to select operation, and it found several other "squares." I can drag them around, if I click and drag on the "real folder" first. I cannot open them however. I wonder what they are....

BTW: refreshing the desktop does not make them go away. Selecting the mysterious icons by them selves also highlights them, but they cannot be dragged anywhere. Deleting the CMC Contract folder has no affect. Finally, I cannot delete the "invisicons."

Strange.

A trip to Lansing?

2008-02-06T17:47:00.000-05:00

Today, Mitch (one of my best friends) called me up from his work place in Lansing. We were doing some basic checks of his server... He needed to open the case and check to see the motherboard model and if all the RAM slots were full. He was planning a RAM upgrade, and I needed details, especially since I was getting different information about his server from different sources. Opening the case would be required.

He said he would call me back once he got the information. I told him not to break the server -- I was headed off to a service call in East Owosso, and would talk with him afterward. The roads were bad, a good 3" (7 cm) of slushy snow. Driving back, it was a little worse, but not too bad. The snow was tapering off, but still, I made the decision that all other service calls were canceled, save for mission critical support.

Once I walked into the store, returning from my service call less than an hour after I left, Mitch was already on the phone with Joel, co-owner of CyberMedics. First words out of Joel's mouth: "Mitch is on the phone, apparently the southbridge heatsync fell off... the server has shut itself off."

This was critical in Mitch's work environment. They only had one server, and everything was loaded on to it. Exchange (mail), Data Server, Domain Controller, everything. It simplifies administration, but it also is one whopping single point of failure, and it was down.

I stopped Joel as soon as he finished speaking and instantly responded, "Transfer him to me." I needed to speak with him immediately to get the details. I was quickly regretting not polishing off my cup of coffee before heading into work.

Yes, it was that bad. Mitch opened the case and the heatsync just fell off... No apparent reason why, it just fell off. It took only seconds for the server to over heat and shut down. And now, the server was unable to boot. Thoughts rolled though my head: circuitry failure from over heating, power supply failure, motherboard failure. All of which are hardware related, none of which were a quick fix.
Status: Server is Down, support required, mission critical, productivity has been stopped.

I was to prepare for a trip to Lansing, a 35 mile (55 km) drive. There is now nearly 8" (17 cm) of slushy snow on the ground. Calls were going crazy, authorization needed to be made before I headed out to work with Mitch, and I needed to schedule things with CyberMedics before heading out.

Within half an hour, a strategy was made, and the trip was planned. I was to head out, stop by my apartment and grab a second set of clothes, a blanket, some food, and something to drink (all but the first were in case my car broke down or I got into an accident, as well as planning on staying the night on site, since the roads were to get worse until after 1 AM) -- if I could, Mitch asked me to pick up some Cheetos for him, if I passed a convenience store, we were planning for a serious all-nighter. The 2-mile drive home took me nearly 20 minutes. While I was there, I took a moment to leave a note for my roommate with emergency contact information, in case I was in an accident or didn't return from Lansing within a day or so; I told myself, "Just in case, ya know?"

Upon leaving with my supplies, I got a few blocks before I determined that the storm had become a lot worse, there was now around 9" (22 cm) of snow on the ground. The snow had picked up visibility was down to nearly nothing, and my little car, basically a Ford Escort without anti-lock breaks, was unable to safely navigate the roads in town... The 35 miles to Lansing seemed quite impossible without getting into an accident or losing control of my car. And I was really beginning to think that those emergency contacts I left my roommate would need to be used if I did go to Lansing this evening. My logic stepped in full force, I had serious doubts that I'd be able to drive though town, let alone to Lansing, without getting into an accident. I needed to cancel on Mitch.

I felt bad. All I could do was call Mitch and talk with him over the phone. I really wanted to be there and help him with his network in this critical state, but it was too dangerous to drive this evening... I told him that I would try to come out the following day if he wasn't able to get the server up and running that evening, if the roads cleared up. I told him to call me with updates as he worked this evening.

The roads were so bad that I even called into work and talked with Joel, I told him that it was unwise to drive my car presently and would not be returning to work. It took me another 10 minutes to drive the half mile back home, down a single road, sliding with each turn, sharing a near-miss with the Shiawassee river at one point.

I just hope Mitch makes it home safely. I'm going to call him later this evening just to be sure.

iPod of Love?

2008-02-05T19:54:00.000-05:00

32 GB iPod Touch? Ohhhh, that is awesome.

iPod Touch: 32 GB: $499USD.

Just switch that wire....

2008-01-27T14:44:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago, I was working on site with a business planning on doing a minor change-over. Scheduled service was for Friday at 1pm. Due to another business having serious issues, I wasn't able to get on site until 3:30, at which time the in-house technician had already started some basic adjustments, nothing serious though.

Our goals were pretty simple. Migrate from the DSL internet connection to the T1 per the instructions of the ISP, adjust the backups on the server to be sure that they were working correctly, and ensure that the antivirus software was working correctly throughout the network, including the satellite offices (via remote desktop) several of which are located in Canada. Estimated time on site: 3 to 6 hours.

Well, our biggest problem was that due to the previous net admin's total lack of documentation, we were running into this with high-hopes while also being a little blind. We totally didn't think about the router configuration. A Cisco 800 SOHO router.

The switch over directions from the ISP were pretty much "just switch over the ethernet cable from the DSL to the T1 and you'll be all set." Well, we didn't have a crossover cable, we just had a standard ethernet. Doesn't work when connecting between the Cisco 800 SOHO and the Cisco 1700 T1 router.

So, after a few hours of troubleshooting, we go that situated with the help of the local ISP. We then realized that the configuration of the Cisco 800 SOHO wasn't correct, but we didn't have the password to it... Here's where the trouble started coming in...

We got the Cisco Console cable from the ISP and instructions on how to reset the password on the router without reseting the configuration. A few simple commands.

Even with our best efforts and constant contact with the ISP, the router configuration was lost. It was now coming up on 2 AM, I had been on site for over 10 hours and was losing the ability to think straight, so we decided to call it a night and resume troubleshooting the following day.

Day two's priorities were different. Get the router up and running. Everything else is secondary. So that's what we did. I contacted the ISP and had them out on site to take a look at the Cisco 800 SOHO and figure out what was wrong and if we could restore the system back into a running state.

The ISP guy informed me that we needed to get the config file from the other network site, to get the configuration details. So at 5 PM, we made the final decision to head deep into Canada and get done what needed to be done.

The drive was going to take 4 hours. Quite a haul. And I don't have a passport, so it was a little risky, for the most part the problems would arise when coming back though, and the priority would be to just go over there and get the config file and email it back to the ISP. Simple.

So, that's what our goals for "the Canada trip" were. As everything else, it didn't go smoothly.

Canadian Boarder Crossing Services stopped us for nearly an hour, (apparently, they don't like Americans that are going into the country to work) but they eventually let us in. We headed on to site an hour behind schedule and got to work right away.

The work was simple... Meet up with one of the Canadian employees to let us in the building, adjust set up a computer near the router, directly access the router, copy the config and send it to the local (American) ISP and have them adjust what needed to be adjusted. We would then test the config to be sure that everything was working and then go home. Total estimated time on site: 45 to 60 minutes.

Once again, things didn't go as planned. Once we got the computer hooked up, we found it to be incredibly slow. And once we started working on the router, we found the data transmission to be faulty. After talking with the American ISP guys to see what they thought, they told us to replace the computer with a different one to check to see if it was a problem with the COM port on the PC. So we did that (it wasn't easy to set up these computers in the networking closet either, it would take around 15 to 20 minutes just to plug everything in). The second computer was no better. But we lived with it. Once again the communication wasn't working correctly though. So we called the American ISP again to see what they thought...

Well, there's several areas of configuration for the HyperTerminal configuration. First, we had to figure out which COM port was used. After some troubleshooting, we figured it must be COM3, it was the only port that displayed anything when we tried to connect to it. But, the port would only display gibberish. After talking with the ISP again, they suggested playing around with the Bit Rate settings. Over an hour of troubleshooting later, we finally found the correct bit rate. We made some setting adjustments and hacked the password on the router (very carefully) and copied the router configuration. All we had to do then was to email it to the American ISP.

That's when we realized that the internet was down. We spent a good fifteen minutes or so troubleshooting that, when we finally gave up and did some resets to the router to get it back online. We finally were able to send the email to the American ISP. Me and the In-House IT guy snacked on some chocolates that the office had laying around. We talked a little about what else we needed to get done and what we needed to test before heading back home.

It didn't take long before the American ISP got back to us and told us that the router should be back online and running as it should be. We did some basic checks and tested the ability to communicate over the VPN and called it good at 5 AM, where we decided to head back to the US.

Once at the boarder at 8 AM, the US Department of Homeland Security didn't take too kindly to us not having passports, but let us back into the country anyway, after inspecting the vehicle. We didn't get back to Owosso until 10 AM, 24 hours after I got up to go to work. I was glad to be home and be free of tinkering with an international network.

There were some problems come Monday, but nothing major and nothing that we couldn't get fixed remotely. By Wednesday, everything was fully operational.

Thin as Air

2008-01-17T00:53:00.000-05:00

Yesterday evening, I got an email that I just couldn't ignore for more than a day. Apple has released a new notebook computer, the MacBook Air.

Quite the impressive design, weighing in at under three pounds and no more than an three-quarters of an inch thick at its widest point, it is by far the smallest full-sized laptop ever released by Apple, and perhaps the smallest the IT industry has seen yet.

The unit still retains many features of the every-day MacBook, complete with the built in iSight camera and microphone, as well as the 13.3" screen. But it does come with some differences one may want to consider before buying the unit.

For one thing, the unit only has one USB 2.0 port and no firewire port. It has a single headphone jack, but no audio in (beware podcasters!) The unit also has no Ethernet (although, a USB adapter is available, for an additional charge).

The Mag-Safe adapter is a common feature, but it's not the same adapter that the previous MacBooks have used, so don't expect to have a spare power adapter from that ol' MacBook Core Duo.

There are some nifty features of the unit that aren't as highly publicized.

For one thing, the screen is lit using LEDs instead of a CCFL tube, which makes for less energy consumption, which is quite handy. And for those of us on the plane frequently, or in dark college dorm rooms, a back-lit keybaord may come in handy, especially when trying to finish up that term-paper at 4 AM.

One of the more astonishing aspects of the laptop is that if you are willing to be an early-adopter of the new "mobile computing concepts," you could get the $3,000 version of the Air that comes with a solid-state drive instead of the usual thin PATA that the less expensive ($1800) version comes with.

Personally, this is something I'd buy in a heartbeat...
...If I were rich.

PS: Check out Air's web site to watch the promo, guided tour, and if you have the navigation skills to stumble accross it, even the Steve Jobs keynote, presenting the new unit.

Enjoy.

Octadecimal

2008-01-08T20:18:00.000-05:00

Today I got an email from Apple announcing that they are upgrading the standard again. The default configuration for the Mac Pro now is eight-core. It's really an insane default configuration. The configuration can easily handle just about anything a video guru can throw at it,

This incredible power stems from all-new Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Harpertown” processors, featuring speeds up to 3.2GHz and 12MB of L2 cache per processor.

Apple Store

The default configuration, starting off at $2,799.00USD may be a bit much for most home Mac users, but this computer is no iMac.

Leopard Upgrade

2008-01-06T15:33:00.000-05:00

So, the trip home wasn't too bad. The annoyance of having to make a special trip to manage a Macintosh because the correct OS wasn't preinstalled is really annoying, but I did need to manage the firewall directly, and there was some other family issues that needed to be addressed, so it wasn't exactly just a "tech support" thing.

I must say, the OS is beautiful. My family is quickly adapting to the Mac OS lifestyle, and they are really loving it. Especially Photobooth.

The biggest issue so far has been the side buttons on the Mighty Mouse, they kept hitting them, causing Expose to fire-up. So I decided to disable that button (#3 on the mighty mouse). I enabled right-click though (button #2) on the mouse, to make troubleshooting with them over the phone easier.

Unfortunately, Remote Desktop doesn't seem to be working so well over the internet. I believe that it is the firewall at home that is doing it, since everything is spot-on with the Mac, but each time I try to RA into any computer from outside the network, I'm blocked. Very disappointing. The ISP is also bouncing the IP address around all the time now, It seems to change every 12 to 48 hours, making remote access almost impossible. I'm really starting to think that it is time for my parents to change ISPs again.

Outside of that, the iMac itself is running wonderful with Leopard (upgrade only disk, requiring Tiger to be installed before Leopard can be installed). There's really no complaints about it, other than I'm not so sure that I like the new folder icons. Everything else is nice though. I'll be tinkering with it on and off again over time though, if for nothing else than to decide if I want to upgrade to it myself. ^___^

About This Mac

2008-01-04T20:35:00.000-05:00

Well, I cannot emphasize how disappointed I am in Apple right now.

The new iMac that my parents just got, it did not come with Leopard.

Leopard is in the box, but it's not on the computer. Blue swirly background. Old dock. About This Mac: "Mac OS X Version 10.4.11."

I'm really annoyed by this. I may have to make a special two-hour drive south tomorrow to go fix it. In the mean time, I just might call Apple about this.

One heck of a way to start the new year.

Update: I am making a special trip home tomorrow to upgrade the iMac. I just cannot believe how stupid it is for Apple to sell an iMac (ordered on December 23, nearly two months after the original release of Leopard on October 26). I am utterly dumbfounded. Is this the way all new Macs are shipping? If so, why?!? If not, then why is my parents computer configured the way it is?? And no, it's not like it was a "pre-boxed special" or anything, it was a modified order placed at store.apple.com.

The Broken

2007-12-28T22:01:00.000-05:00

So, after three months, I've got a basic review of my "new" keyboard.

When I got it, there was some signs of wear and tear on the keyboard and mouse. For one, some of the text on the bottom of the keyboard was faded. It looked like from being slid across a desk. The same goes for the mouse and for the glide pads on the bottom of the mouse. Rather disappointing.

Minus 1 Point

One of the little flippers on the bottom of the keyboard just fell off the other day. I don't even use them, so it seems odd that it would just fall off one day without any reason.

Minus 1 Point

They removed the scroll lock button, because "it's not often used" however, they added in an "F-Mode" key... for being dumb, I feel they are in need of... They also put the "connect" button in an odd place on the bottom of the keyboard, so it's a little too easy to hit when picking the board up. And the new layout of the "home-end" keys area of the board and moving of the "insert" key completely into a different area of the board. Not to mention the missing left windows key. Not major issues by themselves, but for us KVM users out there, I must say:

Minus 1 Point

The mouse doesn't have an off button. Even with my lack of using the mouse, it has already died, within three months of use. I picked up rechargeable batteries shortly there after.

Minus 1 Point

The keyboard has a simple and sleek "black" design. Smooth keys. Not to mention the special utility keys, such as backward, forward, and volume controls.

Plus 1 Point

The keyboard batteries, which I really utilize, have not failed. I have replaced them with rechargables anyway, but they went three months without so much as a single issue. I did have to reconnect once to the receiver for the keyboard, but that was after taking a vacation for almost a week, leaving the keyboard and mouse sitting idle without anyone using them.

Plus 1 Point

The mouse, lefty-compatible, fits well in the hand and is quite simplistic, utilizing the standard three button with scroll wheel. And the optical light hasn't cause me any issues as of yet, working just fine on my desktop, my mouse pad, the edge of the bed, even on the leg of my pants once.

Plus 1 Point

It's wireless, need I say more? And I already knew about all of it's flaws before I purchased it.

Plus 1 Point

Final Score:
0
Break Even.
I'm not exactly impressed with my Logitech EX110 Cordless Desktop, but it's not exactly bad either. There is definitely room for improvement, and there were a few corners cut by both Newegg and Logitech, but nothing too serious. I'd buy another in a heart beat. As a matter of fact, I noticed several of these wireless guys when I was on site earlier today and was impressed with the wise decision of the owner to purchase a decent wireless keyboard. It really did help the office seem less cluttered.

Buying a new computer for your parents is like shooting yourself in the foot.

2007-12-27T21:24:00.000-05:00

Or so Mitch would say.

Last week, on Sunday, December 23, 2007, I went home for christmas. My dad had complained that the computer, a Dell Dimension from 2001 (yes, it uses RD-RAM) was shutting down randomly. I brought my PC repair kit from home, and dinked with the system shortly after walking into the house (and after my two-hour drive down south).

I noticed that the system was booting slow, but the system logs didn't show anything too abnormal. So I decided to run a few more intensive scans on the hard drive. From those scans, I found that the hard drive was starting to fail. I was able to restore it to normal operation, but it is now only a matter of time before the drive is gone far enough that it'll just die off one day.

My dad was determined. Finally, he had an excuse to get a new computer. Mom was none-too-happy, but she'll live with it. My dad has had his eyes set on a new iMac for quite some time now, and finally, he was an excuse to get one. He's going with the 20" iMac 2.0 Ghz Core 2 Duo with 2 GB DDR2 RAM and a 250 GB Hard Drive. Ordered Sunday night, arriving, tentatively on Saturday, December 29, 2007. If it does arrive on that day, I'll be heading home either that day, or the day after to set up the system for them and retuning home the following day. My biggest concern is the fact that it won't be just a new computer for them, but also an entirely new operating system, one that is really new. I've never so much as booted a Leopard machine, and with only a year or so of Tiger experience, I'm a little worried to say the lest, but I am confident in being able to use VNC to manage their computer. Besides, how bad could running the world's most user-friendly operating system be? Never mind, parents always find a way to break computers.

More on this as it develops...

100th Post! Good Bye Vista, Hello XP?

2007-11-27T01:46:00.001-05:00

Today at work, the Vista machine started acting oddly. We hate Vista at work. It's system requirements are too high for our used hardware and the system is sluggish. Worst of all, we didn't install XP as a boot option with Vista, so we didn't really have an XP option to use at work, outside of our register.

Well, we finally had it today. Vista had lost all it's network shares, connection to the internet, it's desktop background, and a few other minor things, along with the problems we have been having using the Vista operating system instead of XP. So, we backed up what was necessary and reinstalled Windows XP. Vista just wasn't cutting it, and we weren't about to spend hours running through the software to get it up and running the way we want.

So, we've got our new Techroom system, which Mitchell has dubbed "Milton" after the doofusy character from Office Space. A fitting title for our strange an unusual Tech Room system.

We'll probably just run Vista in an emulation mode, but more on that later, after it has been implemented.

BTW: the odd behaviour in Vista turned out to be more related to a bad network cable than a problem with the OS, including the desktop background, which was being loaded from one of our network drives. Ahh well.

24: The Unaired '94 Pilot

2007-11-20T04:17:00.000-05:00

Remembering The Little Guys

2007-11-04T19:35:00.000-05:00

Back in the late 90s, there was a lot of wild and crazy operating system development projects. Linux was growing in it's early days, Windows was in it's hay-day, and Apple was floundering, but would shortly gain a bunch of strength once again with the return of Steve Jobs and the development of OS X.

But there was much more out there than what we know of as the Big Three in the IT industry... Unix was still quite common, BSD was commonly used, NextSTEP was in development, and so many others were out there.

There was a little guy out there though, one that was distributed for free yet still had closed source: BeOS.

Be was the little guy on the block. Having dealt with being only for AT&T Hobbit architecture, and later PowerPC only, before adding in x68 in the late 90s, which was when I first started using it.

The OS seemed as easy, if not easier than using KDE and GNOME in Mandrake Linux back then, so I was tinkering with it. The system was stable and there seemed to be just about everything I wanted on the system pre-installed. I was continuing to work with the software, but due to school requirements, I couldn't keep running BeOS running, especially since I didn't understand the concept of "dual booting" at that time and was unable to figure out how to do things in open source that would be compatible with my Microsoft-centric high school.

In the end, I only worked with Be for a few weeks before I headed back to Windows 98, an operating system that paled in comparison to BeOS.

There are some out there that may question me, "Well, if it was so nice, where is it now?" Unfortunately, due to their failing business model, BeOS didn't make it much past 2001. Be Incorporated folded, selling shares off for just a few dimes.

Controversy was followed, albeit a few years later. Be's source code somehow got to yellowTAG, a German company, which began re-releasing BeOS under the new name, ZETA in 2004. Zeta looked interesting to me, especially since I was nursing along my Windows 2000 machines, and I was none-too-interested in switching to Windows XP and the prospective Longhorn (later Windows Vista) seemed even worse. In that situation, I was getting more and more disillusioned with the Microsoft model of development and their ever-growing paranoid obsession with software piracy.

I never switched to Zetta, because of their custom license agreement and their closed source model... In the end, I chose openSuSE Linux.

Now, I'm pretty grateful. Zeta was only for for a few years before it was found to be legally questionable to such a degree that yellowTAB (now bankrupt) stopped all software development and distribution.

I must say, when I found out about this, I was really disappointed. When Be folded, I was really hoping that the OS would go open source, and be distributed and modified by the community, since the business had failed. When I heard about ZETA, I believed that they were close to the appropriate solution, however not being open source, I was a little disappointed, but I could understand the mentality. But to once again go through seeing Be and later ZETA go through these failures is very disappointed. There was so much potential for these operating systems... It's sad to see that business-related troubles has once again stopped development cold of a quality operating system.

A Public Letter

2007-10-25T21:14:00.000-04:00

Today I want to take a minute to write a letter to someone. This person has been posting items about CyberMedics and me on the community forms where I live, posts that I believe are not true.

Dear Poster,

If your intention was to hurt someone's feelings, you should know you have. Your posts on the forms have really hit a key with me and will be taken to heart. I am sorry that your experiences with Don, Joel, and myself have given you cause to be so angered with us; to the point where you don't feel comfortable talking with us anymore.

I respect your rights to post about your experiences at CyberMedics. I can only ask that you post only the truth.

Respectfully,

Daniel,
CyberMedics Computers,
Departments of PC Repair, On Site Support, and Accounting
117 E. Main St.
Owosso, MI 48867
989.729.2667 x115
dan [at] saycomputer [dotcom]

However, if these posts were from a customer, I feel that I must also write a response:

Dear Poster,

I am sorry that you feel that my service to you was less than what you expected. Policy at CyberMedics is to make ethical and logical decisions on the repair process of every computer and to keep the customer informed to the highest level of detail regarding the repair process. If I have failed you in any of these aspects I express my apologies.

As an IT professional it is not only unethical, but could also jeopardize my career if I install the wrong operating system on a computer. That being said, we are required to install the operating system listed on the product code on the side of your computer if we cannot repair the operating system on your system. If I did not make this clear, I take full responsibility for the situation.

Information is the most critical part of any computer system. In your post, you stated that a back up that you paid for was not performed and your information was lost. This is a most serious issue for a PC repair technician. I can only ask that you please stop by CyberMedics, preferably with your receipt or work order, and I will offer a full refund for your data back up and I will personally speak with the owners of the shop to see if I can offer you a full refund for all labour performed on your system.

If you do have any questions or would like to speak with me in person, please feel free to contact me in person at CyberMedics, 117 E. Main St., Owosso, Mi, 48867 or on the phone at 989.729.2667 x115. I am frequently out on service calls, but if you leave me a message, I'll return your call within two business days.

Once again, I offer my apology for any inconvenience you have had.

Daniel,
CyberMedics Computers,
Departments of PC Repair, On Site Support, and Accounting
117 E. Main St.
Owosso, MI 48867
989.729.2667 x115
dan [at] saycomputer [dotcom]

Keepon!

2007-10-23T22:53:00.000-04:00

Razr Hell

2007-10-22T00:49:00.000-04:00

I cannot emphasize how much I cannot stand this phone anymore. At first, it was beautiful. It had a better camera and was quite stylish to use. Best yet: it was easy to sync up with my MacBook via Bluetooth. Excellent.

That is, until I started playing around with my own mp3 ringtones.

I quickly found out that to get a ringtone onto my razr (a V3m from Sprint, USA - CDMA) phone, all I had to do was upload it to the \audio\ directory and then set the phone to use that as it's ring tone.

Excellent! In a test, I uploaded "My World Down" from the Animation Beck OST. However, I did that a year or so ago now... I've since got a few complaints that the ringtone sounds like a failing HDD and my co-workers freak out each time they hear it. I was getting a little tired of it too, and the ring tone was the full song (around 3 minutes) and over 2 MB, taking up a lot of space on the phone.

So, I decided to delete the mp3 from my razr. Simple enough, right? Just go in through bluetooth and delete the file like I do with the photos.

I keep getting an error, "Operation failed" each time I try to delete the file. There also seems to be no area of the phone itself where I can delete the ringtone. It doesn't show up in the "Ringtones" section of the phone, but it is listed as a ringtone. But, in the "assign a ringtone" section, I cannot delete ringtones. Frustrated, I tried connecting the phone via USB. No luck at all.

After doing some google searching, it seems that the Razr phones will do this to a lot of people. Requiring one to set the phone to silent, load it up as a USB disk drive, go into the "audio" subdirectory, delete two *.db files, and restart before deleting the MP3 can be done. --Getting it to load as a disk drive isn't bad, but I'll also have to use a special "razr explorer" app to view *all* the files on the phone. ~sigh. Okay, whatever... I'll follow the directions and do this.

Well, it didn't turn out so easy. First, the Mac directions won't work on a Razr V3m Sprint CDMA phone. Okay, what's next: using "hack the razr" to do it via USB in Windows XP. No prob, fire up XP in Parallels and we'll be all set. Parallels for some reason tonight freaks out my Mac however. Eating RAM and CPU like nothing else.

So, I'll just grab the link from Firefox and email it to myself and reboot the Mac into Windows XP (boot camp) and we'll go from there. Well, that's when I found out Firefox had freaked out after Parallels used up so much of the system resources. Took some time, but Firefox eventually came back to me. I quickly grabbed the link, pasted it into an email and sent it off, and restarted the Mac into XP.

Once in XP, I found the site really well laid out. Including video examples. Nice! I did exactly what they said, and loaded my phone into the system. Took a while to do everything just so, but it was going well. Drivers successfully loaded all I had to do was plug the phone in and wait for Windows to see it.

Apparently, Windows can't load the correct device drivers and it displays a message, "An error occured... Yadda yadda yadda... Device might not work." Great. Well, Hack the Razr says that I can get the most recent drivers from MotoDev, okay, no problem.

Registration required. Crap. At least it's free. Okay, do that. Signing away my identity again (*garbage in, garbage out*) and logged in. Downloaded the drivers, only to find that the device still won't work. Great, I can't even get the first and most critical step done. Grrrrr.

By now, I've spent over an hour and a half working on this dang phone, just to DELETE A SINGLE RINGTONE!!! I was so enraged, I was willing to just stomp on the phone to be done with it. ~sigh... This happens, lets try Bluetooth in Windows, maybe that'll have better luck... No dice. Bluetooth in Windows is even more shitty than Bluetooth in Mac OS X. Okay, well, the *.db files are probably hidden files, so how about using Onyx on OS X to view hidden files and connect via Bluetooth to delete the files. No dice once again. Too frustrated to continue on, I shut the phone and Mac off and decide that I'll just have to live with the ringtone until I get up the desire to get peeved by it again.

Guess What Broke Down Again

2007-10-11T00:35:00.000-04:00

Early this morning, my MS rep called me, wanting mostly to close the ticket. I bet his manager is breathing down his neck to get the account closed... We've already spent nearly 8 hours on the phone together. I finally let him talk me into it.

About 15 minutes later, I found out that the backup from the night before failed. ~sigh. Nothing sucks more than realizing that you just paid Microsoft $259 to waste two days of work. I'm still troubleshooting it now myself, while I've been in contact with my MS rep (via email only, apparently he doesn't feel like calling me back anymore) trying to get the back ups running again.

Damn you Exchange, you suck.

BTW: I also found this guy who actually did hit the 16 GB limit. Thank God that didn't happen in my Exchange environment... But it seems the two of us are having "post maintenance" troubleshooting. I'm glad that at least my users are able to send and receive easily, but without having decent backups, we definitely having a ticking time-bomb that is known as Microsoft Exchange Server.

[update]
I just finished some basic management of Exchange, I ran eseuitl /k (checksum checks) which turned out well, as well as eseutil /d, which defraged the database just fine. I then ran NTBackup and was able to backup the database... However, Veritas backups still don't work. ~sigh. I might look into troubleshooting that, but I'm not so sure that I'm as worried as I was earlier.

Exchange Sucks

2007-10-10T00:57:00.000-04:00

I have no clue why Microsoft doesn't really design a better concept for Exchange. It works, and it works really well, until something goes wrong and undetected for a few months.

The repairs I ran with my Microsoft Support guy did get the job done... We did eseutil /k on the priv1.edb and priv1.stm files. Priv1.edb was find. No errors. Priv1.stm: a few thousand errors. My tech literally said "Oh My God" twice as the errors scrolled up the screen.

He then informed me that deleting the STM file and recreating it would be the best option for this situation. Repairing the file just wasn't as likely to succeed.

Unfortunately, both the database and our server were in bad shape. The server has very little storage space available on it. It was so low in fact, that we had to do much of our database management on an external USB hard drive and to expedite our troubleshooting, we also used the tape drive to back up the MDBData directory.

Once we got everything done, which we started at 5 PM and ended at 9:30, we made a backup of the MSExchangeIS and proceeded on to basically conclude the ticket. People were able to access their storage, the database was able to be backed up again, and I was even able to do an offline defrag of the database. Things were looking good and we were done long before I thought we would be.

I left the building after speaking with my "on-site boss." Neither of us got home until well after 11pm. I then spoke with Don, my "boss/mentor" down at CMC. We talked on the phone until 2 AM about the service call and what needed to be covered a few other things that needed to be done on site to be sure that we had everything under control. I was finally able to get into bed at 3AM.

I woke up at 7:30 to turn on my cell phone, just incase something happened on site, I went right back to bed.

At 8:30 AM I received a call from my on-site boss. There were problems. Apparently, after the work done on Monday night, now ever one on site who connected to Exchange had lost all of their external emails. They had emails from the local domain, but anything outside of that, including emails that have been saved for years were lost. It caused quite a stir come Tuesday morning. Fortunately, the most affected people were the IT staff.

I spent some time on the phone with Microsoft technicians and eventually we decided that further work was needed on the database. I worked with a new MS Technician for over an hour, before I got a call from the tech that I worked with the night before. We ended up deciding to switch the contact from my new support technician back to my original and continue work. I talked with my support tech and we decided that we needed to back restore the database to an alternative location and then we needed to get a second server up and running and mount the database on that guy to retrieve the data if at all possible.

Getting a decent computer, installing Windows 2000 Server and MS Exchange 2000 SP3 w/ Roll-up was troublesome enough. It was worse when I got back on site and received a call from my support tech at 4:30 and was informed that "Oops, we can't actually do that. It won't work unless everything is really similar." Great. 4 hours wasted. At least I got half an hour of sleep while the server OS was installed by Joel and Mitchell.

So, my support tech and I decided that it would be best to take our database offline, mount the old one and use ExMerge to pull out the six mailboxes that we needed. The process should be relatively quick compared to Monday's work.

Assuming, that is, if it works... Which it didn't.

ExMerge got one mailbox out of six. It was the largest mailbox too, at nearly 2 GB. At least that was something.

We then went and loaded up client machines and pulled their mailboxes off right from outlook instead of trying to do it through exchange. A much slower process, but at least it is much more likely to get the correct data. It seemed that it had. We remounted the "good" exchange database and all we needed to do was import the data back into Exchange.

Right then and there, my tech seemed really interested in getting me off the phone. We had pulled the mailboxes off of the server to back them up and we had reconnected the good exchange database, but we had not restored anything to Exchange.

I managed to talk him into helping me restore a single mailbox and keeping the trouble ticket open for another 24 hours before he closes it. And he quickly ushered me off of the phone. I can understand, the two of us have had busy days, but it was a little crappy there at the end... And I was not exactly pleased about the whole "Make a server by 4pm!" thing either.

~sigh. This is why I cannot stand Exchange.

Finally, The Horrors of Exchange, part 1

2007-10-07T23:04:00.000-04:00

Last week, Wednesday, September 26, 2007, I was assigned to an on-site contract for a local Owosso business. On day 1, I focused on getting oriented with the network there, mostly just familiarizing myself with the 5 on site servers and the one off site server.

The network is interesting, it is international, two exchange servers, and a whole kaboodle of other traits of the system that give it a personality all its own.

Standard IT policy for managing a network, be it from day one administration or having a new administrator come into a network, the first place we look is at the domain controllers and fire up the event viewer to find out what errors the system is having.

I noticed several errors labeled as "MSExchange..." This is one of my nightmares. Exchange is really sensitive, and can be easy to break or lose data if it isn't dealt with according to Microsoft policy. I'm not sure why Microsoft made Exchange in such a sensitive way, but they must have had a reason for it, seeing as how they've been doing it for over a decade now [Microsoft Exchange Server, Wikipedia]. One of the interesting design concepts of Exchange is how messages are stored on the server. Exchange drops messages into one of several databases: priv1.edb priv1.stm pub1.edb pub1.stm or into an ever-increasing amount of log files. But one of the annoying features of Exchange is that it requires everything to be 100% operational for most of it's own functions to work correctly.

For example, while on site, I found that the Exchange wasn't backing up correctly each night and it had been doing this for several months. After doing some tinkering, I also noticed that it was running out of space. The MS Exchange database --the database is priv1.edb + priv1.stm, was 15.9 GB, while Microsoft has set maximum capacity on the Exchange database to be 16 GB. Email doesn't exactly come in at an extreme speed for the network, so it wasn't slated as a major thing, so we scheduled Exchange Database management for the upcoming Saturday, which would give me plenty of time to check to see what commands I need to run on the database and what contingencies I should be prepared to deal with (cough-disaster recovery-cough).

One day went by without major events, but then on Friday, I arrived on site to find that the Exchange had crashed and was re-enabled. It had crashed, according to event viewer, because the hard drive had gone down to less than 10 MB of free space (thankfully, Exchange was hosted on "D drive" instead of on C). However, when I fired up My Computer to see how much space was presently left on the drive, and found it to be under 512 KB, I immediately reported to my on-site boss that the Exchange server was going to go down any minute, due to the drive being filled up again and I was going to have to shut Exchange down to prevent it. He quickly remote into the server to take a look at the data, and noticed that the drive had 2 MB free and was growing?? And then several people immediately stated that they had suddenly lost email... Yup, Exchange had crashed again.

Now, this isn't a huge issue, Exchange is designed to protect itself in situations like this, by shutting down and displaying error messages so we avoid data loss. However, now that the drive had less than 10 MB free, we were in a bit of a bind. Exchange needs to be defraged (that would be the command eseutil /d) --the defrag command deletes information in the database that has been deleted by users or mailboxes that have been deleted by administrators, which should free up a decent bit of space in the database. The recommended procedure by Microsoft is that we take a backup of Exchange and then run the defrag command. While it is very common for the defrag command to cause problems with the database, it is still a possibility, especially if we have undetected hard ware problems.

So started the second fiasco. Backing up Exchange. Now, we have known for a while that the Veritas Backup Exec backups have been failing on that server for a while now, but they were backing up the entire server, and while it was getting an error while backing up Exchange, it wasn't clear if the Exchange errors were causing the backups to fail, or if it was more related to a tape/tape drive issue. So, I decided to just do an NTBackup.exe backup and save it to an external drive. It was redundant enough for our situation.

The backup started, and 2.5 hours later it had not displayed an error message and switched to data verification. 2.5 hours after that (a total of 5 hours after starting the backup), it returned "Backup failed." I checked the logs, and it said "\Mailsore (%servername%)" failed. The database may be corrupt or inaccessible. The file will not restore correctly. This was a becoming a major stressor for me. I have to do a defrag on the database, which a backup prior-to doing the defrag is highly recommended by Microsoft, yet I am unable to do the backup due to a corrupt database.

To keep this story from getting horribly long, I eventually was able to just run Defrag on priv1.edb, pub1.edb, and pub1.stm, which freed up nearly 6 GB of space. However, I was not able to defrag priv1.stm, which seems to be corrupt. I spent a lot of time with other variations of the eseutil command, but wasn't able to get the database back. I could use eseutil /p [database] /i to rebuild the indexes between priv1.edb and priv1.stm, however, the P switch will not only repair the database, but it will also delete anything it determines to be corrupt. Which, frequently will cause other problems with the database. But, there is one nice thing, even if it does delete files that it shouldn't, we can use the *.log files to replay transactions in exchange to get it back up and running with the correct information.

Once again however, my hopes were dashed. To save space, some log files had been deleted. There is no guarantee that we'll be able to use the log files to get the database up and running again. Hopes dashed. And upon further research, I'm suck between a rock and a hard place. There is no other options available. The only options I've got are to break the RAID array and tinker with one half of the mirrored image to see what happens (no guarantee of success, and it is possible to damage the RAID array in the process), or I can call Microsoft and start a support ticket. My boss at CyberMedics suggests the latter, after talking with the guys on site, we'll make the final decision come Monday.

More details as the story progresses.

The 'k' is for krazY!

2007-10-05T22:01:00.000-04:00

Krazy 3-D Sudoku!

Now That's Comedy

2007-10-04T01:41:00.000-04:00

And yet, it's sooooo true!

Sorry the weekend article has been postponed. Upcoming (sometime soon) will be an article about the horrors of Exchange Server... You'll see why once I post it.

365 Days Later...

2007-09-25T01:33:00.000-04:00

A little over a year ago now, I got frustrated with a customer at CyberMedics. I had one of "those weeks" and just wanted to go home early and watch TV or sleep the day away or something. Since I was in the middle of work, I didn't do any of that. But I really wanted to treat myself to something, so since I was getting ready for a new laptop, and the new MacBooks had been on my shopping list, I ordered one right from work.

The Positives
A few weeks later, what would later become known as Akira (A for Apple), arrived. An Intel Core Duo MacBook SuperDrive (DVD+RW DL), with upgrades from the standard model of 1 GB RAM and an 80 GB SATA hard drive. It came preloaded with OS X 10.4.7 (now Running 10.4.10).
Score: + 1
The hardware is still better than industry standards

I must say, the laptop has impressed me in ways I couldn't even imagine. It dual boots with Windows XP, thank you Boot Camp. The dual core processor has made emulation and virtualization not only easy, but also low-impact on the system.
Score: + 1
Booting XP or Vista on a Mac? It's still insane.

The built-in iSight and microphone makes for quick and easy "myspace-esk" photos or simple audio blogs. I still love tinkering with some of those simple "time-waster" games that were preloaded on my MacBook, the ones that will automatically load up my iSight if I'm playing with another person. It's just fun.
Score: + 1
Cool, but it's a time waster.

I've been really getting to love iPhoto. Especially when I was on vacation and wanted to just load up the photos from my camera quick... Without really having to spend half of the day configuring the program.
Score: + 1
This program is just awesome.

The white coloring of the MacBook allows it to stay cooler in the sunlight, making it just that much easier for me to utilize outside and near windows, without having the fans on the unit kick up to full power.
Score: + 1
White? Perfect color for a notebook computer.

Speaking of power, the MagSafe power adapter has already saved me a few times from having my MacBook tossed to the floor, or worse, going into CMC for a "laptop powerjack replacement."
Score: + 1
Powerjack Replacements are Expensive! Yea for big savings!

The power brick also came with a "travel adapter," which instead of having the power brick with the detachable wall cable, the wall cable could be removed and the travel adapter used in place of it, allowing for one to keep cabling to a minimum while traveling (as a matter of fact, the 5' power cable for the MacBook was the only cable I need to run it).
Score: + 1
Travel adapter: added convenience that I soo love!

The magnetic latch is quite excellent. It really gives the notebook a sleek look and feel to it, without having those ugly little latches sticking out.
Score: + 1
Style. Need I say more?

The Negatives
There is a little "divot" in the bezel of the laptop so it's easier to pull up the LCD display... Unfortunately, this is right in front of the iSight on the notebook, making it easy to get finger prints on the lens of the iSight.
Score: - 1
Blury iSight Photos... That sucks.

The MagSafe power adapter has a tendency to fall out a little easily, not a major problem, and it is basically "playing it on the safe side," but it does become a problem when the MacBook is running low on battery power.
Score: - 1
MacBooks going into suspend when least expected. Not cool.

The LCD is designed to be flush with the bezel of the MacBook, however, mine is slightly off set by the smallest degree. However, it annoys me to no end to see such a beautiful device, with such a flaw, albeit minor.
Score: - 1
Minor structural failings, not cool.

Vibration! For some reason, when I first got my MacBook (Akira), there was a major vibration sound coming from it when the LCD was in certain positions or when the back light was set to specific intensities. It didn't really make much sense to me, but it eventually went away. I was happy when it did so.
Score: - 1
Vibration noise... Annoying!

Final Total: 8 out of 12
Not bad, for a first edition.

Major Microsoft Change Slated --Did We Learn From History?

2007-09-23T03:44:00.000-04:00

In July '08, Craig Mundie and Ray Ozzie will each be taking over a portion of Bill Gates' role at Microsoft, as the Chairman steps down. This will be a major change in Microsoft that may have an impact on the entire industry.

A "slightly similar" situation has happened in the past, when Apple Computer (now Apple Incorporated) Partner and Co-Founder Steve Jobs [2] was ousted from the company by the board of directors and then CEO John Sculley. Apple started to fall behind in industrial development. The Apple line of computers were slowly being phased out while the Macintosh line kept taking more and more power away from the Apple line. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough major changes in the Macintosh line, which was focused mostly on "Portable Computers," which seemed to hit it's prime with the Macintosh SE and Color Classic. Inevitably, Scully was removed from his position of CEO and replaced with Michael Spindler, who further compounded Apple's problems, including problems areas such as allowing other companies to develop "clone" systems that were not developed by Apple, continuing research into a new OS (Code named: Copland) and failed negotiations of a take over with companies IBM, Phillips, and Sun.

While this was going on in the early 1990s, Microsoft was perfecting it's Windows, improving on Windows 3.1 with 3.11, NT, and 95.

With the industry being geared toward freedom of thought and design, having one primary company stressing innovation within it's own set boundaries while also having a concept of "Think Different" [2] ended up being counter intuitive. By the late 90s, when Windows 95 and later Windows 98 were gaining market share from new computer users and Macintosh people that had converted to Windows, either by necessity or by preference, began to dramatically gain power is when forecasts of Apple's demise began to circulate, citing them as a computer company that just didn't understand modern thinking in the IT industry.

With the limited changes with Mac OS, decreasing market share to Windows, and increasing financial problems, Mac became a minor player in the industry by the late 1990s, when Microsoft's Windows reached 90% market share for the first time. In 1996, Spindler was replaced by Gil Amelio [2], Apple's shortest lived CEO.

Many people link this "down-swing" of Apple's status directly to Apple's longest running and then CEO --Scully. Mac OS 7 (1991 to 1997) was in it's final life, it's foundation (System 6) and age was making programming difficult and implementation of new hardware concepts increasingly challenging. Scully attempted to implement Mac OS 8, its development starting back during the days of System 6, however the project, known as Copland suffered from stagnation...

Eventually ignored by Apple itself, the Copland project finally dried off in 1996 as Apple began talks with the now defunct Be Incorporated for development of a new Mac OS. However, the Copland project wasn't a total loss however, its features that were favored were slowly integrated into OS 7, while the development of a new OS was abandoned for purchasing of a third party OS that would be purchased by Apple Computer.

Then the shock came. Be Inc. refused to settle for anything lower than $400 Million for Be OS, while Apple refused to pay more than $125 Million for it, by some, the cost of $125 million was considered to be three times as much as it was worth; citing bad blood between then Be CEO Jean-Louis Gassée (a former Apple official) and Apple Computer. Due to the stressors of encountering such resistance and lack of development of Mac OS 8, Amelio turned to NeXT. A NeXTSTEP OS and Mac OS merger was quite unexpected by the Macintosh industry, whom cited concern over the NeXT CEO and the short duration of negotiations between Apple Computer and NeXT Computer.

The primary concern of Apple Fanatics was the similarities between the Be negotiations and the NeXT negotiations... After Apple Partner and Co-Founder Steve Jobs was forced out of Apple, he founded NeXT, and began work on a new OS concepts and design. Based on the UNIX Mach kernel and BSD Source, the system was slated to revolutionize the OS market. However, differently from Be, and once again a failing of Steve Jobs' business model, the proprietary foundations of NeXT held the company back; NeXT being designed to only run on NeXTSTEP computers, with their high price tag (of around $10,000) limited adaption, and the company was struggling to keep itself afloat. One desperate move after another was made to try to keep the OS going, and then along came Apple... Desperate for a new OS, Jobs required Apple to pay through the nose of NeXT Computers. It isn't clear exactly how much Apple had to pay for NeXT, but it is commonly believed to be at least $375 Million, but no higher than $450 Million; however NeXT also required approximately 1 million shares of Apple for the merger, and placing Jobs as the interim CEO for Apple in 1999.

The story is sweet and simple from there on. Apple released Mac OS 9 shortly after Jobs took over as interim CEO. iMac, iTool (now, .Mac), iTunes and later OS X (based on NeXT) was integrated into Apple's line up, as Steve Jobs took over as Apple's present CEO in 2000.

It is now considered that Steve Jobs saved Apple from folding in 2000, it was an expensive and long term process, but with the salvation of Apple comes a new line of thinking for the IT industry: how dangerous is it to have a major software player have huge changes with its founders? This concept came up when Bill Gates stepped down from CEO to chief software architect and Chairman of the Board, placing Steve Balmer as CEO; allowing Bill Gates to further reduce his role in Microsoft, eventually removing from all day-to-day activity at the business. Bill Gates has slated Ray Ozzie [2] for "day-to-day management" of Microsoft and Craig Mundie [2] as "chief research and strategy officer." While it remains to be seen what will Develop for Bill Gates and Microsoft come 2008, it's ramifications won't be obvious for several years after.

This will definitely be an interesting turning point for Microsoft, and the IT industry in general.

Gaming Macintosh

2007-09-19T23:19:00.000-04:00

This evening, I received an email from Apple, titled: "The best EA games are now available for Mac." It seems that EA and Apple are working hard together to get more games onto the Macintosh platform. From checking out the Apple Store, there seems to be increasing advertisements for video games, especially the EA derivatives, such as the Sims 2, Battlefield 2142, and Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars.

It'll be interesting to see how the Apple change over from PowerPC Processors to Intel Core series processors will turn out to influence the gaming industry.

Doovde Player?

2007-09-19T16:20:00.000-04:00

JOOVC DOOVDE Player!! On sale now!

It's so funny because it's true.
This kind of thing happens all the time in the IT industry, with so many acronyms, people get really confused about what they need. Not to mention the horrors of terminology. I can't tell you how many times I've told a customer that a "new modem costs around $15 to $20" only to find out that they are calling their "computer" a "modem." ~sigh. Serenity Now.

Just One More!

2007-09-19T02:51:00.000-04:00

This guy owns one too many Macintosh computers. Although, I'd love to visit and see all of them running!

Is that a Lisa?!?!

Keycombos Can Define Life Itself!

2007-09-19T01:46:00.000-04:00

A friend of mine sent me this image the other day: [image: shortcuts]

Enjoy.

Is Privacy Dead or has it just become Publicized?

2007-09-16T20:44:00.000-04:00

With the recent innovations like Google Maps: Street View and MSN/Live's Virtual Earth, there has been growing concern about privacy. No-one really says that better than private investigator Steven Rambam, who is mentioned in the blog Privacy Is Dead: Get Over It [HomelandStupidity.us] (Homeland Stupidity contains links to Steven Rambam's Nov. 16, 2006 presentation, "Privacy is Dead: Get Over It.")

While Privacy is very difficult to maintain in this technological-centric society, it may still be possible, or at least controllable... Some of this is explained in further detail at the Opinion Editorial Is privacy possible in the digital age? [MSNBC.com] there is also a lot of easy common-sense things to avoid to help maintain one's own privacy. For example, avoid publishing blogs that reveal information that you wouldn't want seen in public... Be it your boss, your grandma, or worse-- someone that wants to trash your reputation. Remember that there are sites out there like Archive.org and Google's "search cache" that maintain a "back up" copy of a decent bit of the internet... The first search for "booting from the shadow of a broken mirror" at Google reveals IndigoJake.com's Black Friday Shopping, from November, 2006. IndigoJake.com is too new to be archived at Archive.org.

Do enough digging around, and you can find the other blogs that I'm associated with, including blogs that are much more personal than this one. It can be a little scary. I've dug up old friends from middle school with creative Google searching! In this situation, the best one can do is to control what information is posted on the internet. Anonymity is difficult, if not impossible, flexing basic control may be the best option for many out there today.

There have even been lists of search queries posted on the internet, including easy tracing options that can return what user, and eventually, the person and home address/phone of the searcher! While searching for directions to the nearest air port may not be much of a problem, searching up about "whistle blowing" or medical problems may end up with one getting a pink-slip at work or denied health benefits when applying for insurance.

What is easy to overlook is just how much information one posts to the internet, and how easy it is to index and use that information. For a potent example of this, check out the social engineering experiment, "We Feel Fine," and tinker a bit... The results were astonishing to me.

Even modern computing technology, including major programs such as Microsoft Window's Genuine Advantage report back to Microsoft information, albeit basic information, about your computer and it's connection to the internet. That's why when one changes certain components in a computer, the Windows Activation wizard will appear.

Is this a good thing? Many people say no... However, there are still many people that prefer to purchase a vehicle with OnStar available and will sign up for Kroger shopping cards, not even giving a second thought to the fact that they are permitting more and more information is being tracked about them. There is no need for George Orwell's "1984" to happen... But we may already be on the road to it, however in our reality, it is being pitched as "just a few pieces of information that will bring discounts on products and better service..." However, it may also lead to employer's later finding out what medical issues one has or lovers finding out about that ex from six months ago.

Pointless?

2007-09-14T21:58:00.000-04:00

Far be it for me to state that someone else's work is of questionable rational, but "How to install and boot 145 operating systems in a PC" from the JustLinux forms is hopelessly pointless. There just is no logical reason to boot that many operating systems on one computer.

The author, saikee, states that "[the 'How to install and boot 145 operating systems in a PC'] thread is to show how booting is laughingly simple in Linux."

~sigh, sounds like a waste of time to me. Go GRUB for being able to boot so many operating systems, but even the author states that he has been using an old obsolete version of GRUB that is being phased out. I can only imagine why he would do this, outside of the fact that it is cool to say "I had a PC that booted 145 operating systems, in one GRUB menu."

The Second Big Bang, Seven Lives On!

2007-09-14T01:39:00.000-04:00

History
Back when I first started with computers, the first system that I fell in love with was a computer at my middle school, my Mac SE. I loved the little critter. It was fairly portable, and so cool and technological! --At least, it was for it's day. Throughout my time in middle school, I secretly wanted one. I didn't tell my parents that, since we just got a Packard Bell 486dx just a year or so before [image: example of pb 486dx, google image search]. However, that didn't change my dream of having an SE of my own.

When I got into high school, I was developing into being an expert at Windows 9x and later Windows 2000. My days as a Mac user were far behind me and the newer versions of Mac OS (7.5.x and 8.x) seemed to pale in comparison. Their graphics seemed basic and as I got further into Windows, it just seemed that I was able to do more with the OS in comparison to Mac OS... But I still wanted a good ol' SE to grace my desk... Even if it was just to have Tetris, Oregon Trail, and my favorite: Brickels (Break Out).

As time went on, I developed a rapport with Garrett, a classmate of mine who went to the same elementary and middle school as I did. We never became good friends, especially since he was the King of Mac at school, whereas I was more of a PC Fanboy. Garrett and I still managed to forge a friendship, and one day, when my school district was having an auction selling off old computer equipment that they were phasing out in favor of newer equipment (namely, PCs).

At the auction, I was able to get my hands on two Mac SE systems. They had the spiffy 20 meg hard drive and everything! They even came with OS 7.1 and loaded with software, like Microsoft Office version 2.1 and Claris Works and games like, you guessed it Break Out, Tetris, and Oregon Trail! I was loving it. I not only had a ol' Mac SE to grace my desk, but I also had a second one in case something failed with the first one. I spent a lot of time tinkering with these two Macs, and even had them networked together for a while, sharing the entire hard drive of of each computer to the other.

Eventually, I tired of using the old systems, and put one away and left one out on my desk, just to tinker with occasionally. Eventually, it became more of "potted plant" on my desk that a commonly used system... However, I did make one exception, I kept a journal on that old SE, a kind of "Year in Review" thing, written late in December or Early in January. They also included a quick snip-bit of a look into my day, to give me something to look back on and smile. I tried to do some homework on the SE, but with only a dot matrix printer and with commonly required fonts, like Times New Roman and what not being required, they quickly lost that job as well.

The computers nearly became forgotten once college became my focus, and Windows 2000 my primary OS with a few experiments into Mandrake Linux. The old SE systems dropped further out of range after I got my Indigo iMac 350 Mhz running OS 9.2, and later OS X (10.0 -- and quite badly at that). When college started, I didn't even bring a single Mac with me, including my new iMac. I only brought one PC and one laptop, and went into my computer programming degree. I still occasionally had a desire to use good ol' 7, but I just never had the space in my little dorm room to bring in an old SE unit nor was I able to find a decent emulator for one. So I just lived without... Besides, when I had requirements to meet for school, I wasn't about to take the slowest and oldest computer that I had access to and bring it into the dorms... Besides, my SE systems were special to me, and I didn't want to lose them at college.

Eventually, I was able to get my hands on two more Mac SE systems in 2003. Further adding to my Mac collection and my ability to combine the software from the four machines into one collection of games and programs. I never even brought the SE systems into the dorm, much to the complaint of my college roommates who wanted to "check the system out." Instead, the systems went staight home where they were placed into my collection.

I even eventually lost the iMac Indigo... After loaning it to my cousin, who didn't have a computer of his own; and then finding out later that he left it in his apartment, which he abandoned. To this day, I have no clue where the computer is. I hope it found a good home, but with the issues my cousin was going through at the time, I suspect it may have been the innocent victim of my cousin's ex-girlfriend's wrath.

After that, I hardly used Mac OS for a long time. I would tinker with it when ever I got the chance on one of the campus Macintosh computers (we had two Baker College of Owosso Macintosh computers, Power Macs which were only used by the graphic design students).

In September 2006, I decided to purchase a new Macintosh, a MacBook with the Intel Core Duo processor. It would be much faster than the old Macintosh computers I had used in the past and being built on OS X, it would provide me with a stable *nix-like environment that is easy to use. I loved the thing, but there is still something to be said about sitting in-front of a desktop computer and actually having some serious power under the hood, which just isn't possible to replicate on a laptop.

Earlier this Week....
I happened across this website SE Item, a clear Mac SE, limited to 10 production units and "only released" to Apple "SE Project Managers," which got me looking into older Mac SE info, which directed me to Mac ITX, a site where a guy moded his old Mac SE into a modern Windows 2000 computer, running an emulator for Mac OS 7, that emulator was called Basilisk II, which is the emulator which is enabling me to type this blog in SimpleText running in Mac OS 7.5.3 rev. 2 [image: simpletext in os 7].

The system was difficult to install at first, finding an old Mac to get a ROM image from, then getting the correct .dsk image to use in Linux, and then again getting the installer to work correctly, but it eventually turned out totally swankin' [image: mac os 7.5.3 installer].

I don't have much software in the emulated Mac OS, but that may soon change with my good old-school Mac connections I have. I may even invest in some other version of the OS just to tinker with. Good ol' System 6. And apparently, BasiliskII supports Mac System Software starting with System Software 0.X, the earliest releases of what would eventually become Mac OS. It'll be interesting to play around with as time goes on.

Drawbacks
For one thing, I cannot find the "Option" key on my keyboard.
- Control maps to control
- Command maps to Alt
- Windows doesn't map to anything.
No combination of shift or holding multiple keys (CTRL + ALT) and what-not have revealed which key I need to press to get Option to come up...

The emulator keeps my PC running at high-utilization [image: ksysguard].

The emulator can be quite unstable, crashing frequently and randomly (save often, there's no "auto save" in SimpleText 1.3.1!

No Ethernet access... yet. I want to bridge BasiliskII with my Ethernet adapter and see if I can get an old version of Netscape on the puppy. On the "to-do" list for this weekend, along with testing of the CD ROM interface.

Trouble writing to "Unix" -- although, this may be by design, I would love to be able to quickly and easily save documents between OS 7 and "Unix" (which is "/" in my SUSE Linux system).

Awesomeness
Sound works just fine, including the "speaking" functions of Mac OS 7.5... Well, as good as can be expected from an OS that's well into it's 12 year of operation and running in an emulator. I actually wasn't expecting sound to work at all!

Quick response time. OS 7 was designed to run on a 68K processor, yes, but running in emulation mode it has quite the speed boost. The system takes only a handful of seconds to boot up. And loading extensions is nearly instant. Swankin' I can't wait to try out some of my old games on this bad boy, just to see if things work as well now as they did in the past, or perhaps, as the Mac ITX people have said, maybe running the 68k emulator is the "ultimate hack for an Mac SE."

klickity-klack

2007-09-12T00:39:00.000-04:00

My new keyboard has arrived today. This blog is half an early review, half a test of how easy it is to utilize the keyboard. The keyboard is unique in appearance, layout, and design concept. It'll be interesting to see how extended use of the board will turn out.

But, starting with the basics...

Initial impressions: The 'board
The keys are totally membrane-esk, even more so than any previous keyboard I've used; while nothing can beat the old IBM "Classic" keyboards, which had a distinctive "clack" with each key press, making it quite obvious when one had actually depressed a key. The classic IBM keyboards where where I founded most of my typing skills (I actually started on a Mac SE keyboard as well as a standard membrane keyboard that I utilized on my Packard Bell 486dx back in the day; so I adapted well to membrane keyboards later on).

The closest I've come to the feel of the EX110 is some of the more "modern" Dell keyboards, the ones with the odd shape. Their keys have a similar feel, almost as if one isn't typing at all... They keys move in a more solid motion on the EX110 however, decreasing the plastic-on-plastic sound, however, they still have the "gooey" feel of a well-designed membrane keyboard.

The biggest, and most noticeable features of the keyboard are the new layout for the secondary keys. There is a large space between keys F8 and F9, it focuses one on the Logitech logo, but there doesn't seem to be much more of a reason for the space than that. There is also a new "F-Mode" button, which toggles the function keys from being their standard, "F1, F2, F3... F12" to launcher keys, such as Word, Excel, Powerpoint and so on. I'm not a huge fan of MS Office programs having their logo white-washed on my keyboard, but at least it's in a dark blue color, which is hardly noticeable.

The board has also been "relieved" of two keys: "Right-Windows" and "Scroll Lock," two keys that are not commonly used. However, the Windows key has become more and more of a short-cut-enabler key, similar to Alt, and removing it from the left side of the keyboard may cause some people quite an inconvenience.

There has also been a slight layout change of the "Home/End/Page-Up..." key arrangement, which is usually in a 3x2 arrangement. They have changed this area of the keyboard dramatically. Insert has been moved up next to Print Screen, on the same row as the function keys, but further to the right. The "Home/End/Page-Up..." area of the keyboard has also been re-designed to function in a 2x3 arrangement, and Logitech has also elongated the delete key, so it is similar in size and shape to the "+" and "Enter" keys on the number pad.

Other than that, there are even more specialized keys now than there were on my iTouch, not only do I now have extensive media keys: "Play/Pause, Stop, FF, RW, Vol+, Vol-, Mute," but Logitech has added in "Web-Browser-Stop" and "Go-Back," and like my old iTouch, there is still the hot-keys for "Email," "Home," and "Calc." Fortunately, these keys fit well into the design of the keyboard.

I've also noticed that the keyboard font seems to be something a little block-esk for such a newly designed board. It reminds me a lot of the good-ol' Windows system font. At least the key-markings are centered (they used to be in the upper left of each key) and non-italic (commonly used on Mac keyboards until recently, and some PC keyboards).

So far, my most common mis-typed key is "Insert," frequently when pasting in URLs, I'll do "Shift + Insert" instead of "CTRL + V", it utilizes both hands for doing an Insert instead of a paste, which I have to rely entirely on my left hand to do. It simplifies things for me, but with insert being move nearly two inches on this new deign, I keep heading over to the "Home" key, which is in the position that "Insert" used to be on my old keyboards.

However, it is a nice board. The design seems to be based mostly on symmetry instead of standard QWERTY-extra-keys layout that has been common in the tech industry for nearly a decade. Non-standard keyboard layouts are starting to make a come-back on desktop units, as can be seen with the Apple Bluetooth Wireless Keyboard, which doesn't implement a number pad and uses a "Fn" key to emulate some keys that otherwise are not available.

The one remaining comment I have on the keyboard is it's over-all sleek-style. The keyboard is quite thin, light, and it contours well to the touch. Lesser used keys (such as the function keys) are thinner, to decrease the keyboard area they take up, while more commonly used keys, such as the spacebar are over-sized, making them easier to hit. The black keyboard with glossy-highlights and silver accents and white text is really quite beautiful.

Now comes the true test of this keyboard... Active operation and use. I've kept all my documentation and even the box with the foam peanuts in it at work, just in case it doesn't turn out the way I want.

Initial Impressions: The Mouse
The mouse is rather quite unremarkable. It's designed to be the usual Logitech uni-handed mouse. It is black with glossy-highlights and silver accents and white text, just like the keyboard is, and is quite sensitive, for the same performance settings as my old Logitech USB ball mouse, this guy really zips across the screen. My only concern is what everyone else is complaining about, without having an off button on a "AA battery" powered optical mouse, the batteries could easily drain. That can only be revealed over time. There is a slight "cheap-ness" feel to the scroll wheel on the mouse, but it functions well, and make just take some getting used to.

Remaining Concerns
There are a few reservations I have about the keyboard and mouse of EX110... And that is just that there are signs that this might have been an open box. On the back of the keyboard, there is some writing that is worn off, which to me looks like it may have stemmed from use over time. The mouse also is showing some extensive wear on the glide-pads. These could both easily be due to the manufacturing of the components, but there is also a possibility that this EX110 combo was once returned to NewEgg. But, NewEgg has always been very good about clearly labeling returned items as "open box," which makes me doubt that it is a returned product... However, it is still a concern that'll be in the back of my mind for a long time to come.

For this guy, only time will tell if it is a ripe cherry, or a rotting lemon.

GoDaddy v. Blogger, IndigoJake Style

2007-09-11T02:40:00.001-04:00

It all started Sunday afternoon, when I was tinkering with some settings in my blogger account. Minor profile adjustments and what-not. But then I thought, "Gee, back when I first signed up, there was an option to utilize a domain instead of a 'user.blogspot.com' address (Blogger accounts are 'housed' at username.blogspot.com)... I wonder if I can manually transfer my indigojake.blogspot.com blog over to www.indigojake.com?" Ohhh, and guess what I found out! Blogger not only supports it, but they have a tutorial for several popular hosting providers, and number one on their list: GoDaddy, my domain provider.

History
Since I only tried out web hosting once (Andrew, my former roommate was the web-hosting provider), and I didn't really take to it, IndigoJake.com has never truly had a "web-site" per se... I never really enjoyed managing a website, and with the hosting options that Andrew had, including Coppermine and Xoops and C-Panel, there was just too much for me to really want to tinker with. So, for six months or so of operation, IndigoJake.com was just a directory listing. So very pathetic for a website designed in 2005. I nearly gave up on the domain, but at the same time, I was also working on my Blogger "professional-esk" blog, and decided that I wanted to have my blogger associated with IndigoJake.com... It seemed simple enough at the time...

So, I decided to go into my GoDaddy account and enable domain forwarding. Ever-since I gave up on the web site hosting and just forwarded the domain to indigojake.blogspot.com, I was quite happy, and so lived IndigoJake.com for over a year.

But there was a flaw in my Blogger <3 GoDaddy merger... If one went to (www.)IndigoJake.com, they would indeed be redirected to http://indigojake.blogspot.com... However, the domain would change in the address bar, something I did not like. I wanted it to stay "http://www.indigojake.com" --it just looked cleaner. I enabled masking with my GoDaddy account, but for some reason, it never worked. I grew frustrated and just left it as is... That is, until Sunday, September 9, 2007.

The Horrors of DNS
I totally hate DNS. With a passion. Now, don't get me wrong, but the Domain Name System is a god-send for the internet... Without it, there just wouldn't be much out there. No more "www.google.com" nooo... we'd be going to "http://64.233.167.104" Try to remember that! Or we could still use the hosts file and WINS... Oh joy. So, DNS is better. Yet, it still sucks. And I still just cannot fathom the concept of it. Web stuff is difficult for me to grasp, but DNS is just horrid.

Well, guess what the primary requirements for me to get indigojake.blogspot.com swapped over to www.indigojake.com... You guested it, I had to just do a little DNS modification, and I'd be all set. Yea, right.

I did exactly what google said, "change your 'www' data entry from '@' to 'ghs.google.com' and click apply. Save your 'forward to 'http://--yourwebsitehere--' at blogger and you are all done!"

Sounded simple enough. But, as soon as I did that, I got an error message at my blogger account: "Another blog is already hosted at this address!" For one thing, there shouldn't have been a blog already there, I had broken the domain forwarding, and waited for that to propagate though the DNS system (took a few hours) and then I was ready to transfer from blogspot to godaddy. But I kept getting that error message.

Since I thought it might have been something that I was doing/did, I decided to try it a second time, this time around, suggesting that http://indigojake.com be the site, instead of just http://www.indigojake.com. This, while it didn't generate any error messages, it didn't work out so well on the godaddy side of things, since I didn't have a C-Name record I could modify, there wasn't much that I could do.

So I tried part three, creating a new sub-domain, blog.indigojake.com... "blog" had a data-entry of "ghs.google.com" and I then went back to blogger and told it to transfer indigojake.blogspot.com over to blog.indigojake.com... And within an hour, it was up an running. But each time I tried to do www.indigojake.com, no matter how hard I tried, I kept getting the "Another blog is already hosted at this address." Frustrated, I finally went to google and did a search on the error message, and came up with site after site about the issue. It seems that this error is something that crops up every now and again, usually when moving from a username.blogspot.com blogger to a custom-configured domain_name.XYZ... It didn't really seem to matter about the domain provider or anything like that, it just seemed to happen on occasion. And there was little to nothing that blogger could do to fix the issue, as there have been numerous trouble-tickets lodged with nearly no rectification yet. And the basic help, "delete the 'www' entry and save it, wait for it to propagate and then recreate the 'www' entry with the 'ghs.google.com' data again, and try a second time," didn't help at all.

At one point, I had a dozen tabs open from blogger, another dozen from google searches on the error message, and then two or three open from my godaddy account. It was really starting to drive me insane. And things were acting really weird... www.indigojake.com was getting "infinite loop" errors in Firefox, blog.indigojake.com was getting 404 errors, while indigojake.com kept forwarding me to http://www.google.com. I was really starting to lose my sanity. I even started writing a trouble ticket to blogger, but I decided that it wasn't worth it, and I decided to just give up on it all an reset indigojake.com to just forward to indigojake.blogspot.com and be done with it.

So that's what I did. I enabled forwarding and masking (just for giggles) and guess what... Masking worked. And not only that, but http://www.indigojake.com and http://indigojake.com both go to my blogger page... What I wanted in the first place.

Keeping Tabs
DNS
The Negatives: Confusing, Slow, Complicated
The Positives: Simplifies the internet, enables otherwise impossible features of the internet

Blogger
The Negatives: Easy to enable features that aren't exactly "working" correctly
The Positives: Very easy to use, very configurable

GoDaddy
The Negatives: ...nothing really, can be a bit complicated if you go into the advanced features area though.
The Positives: Very configurable, "reset to defaults" for some areas.

Over all, the whole thing just sort of sucked. I'm glad that things are back up and running again!

control-freak

2007-09-05T23:42:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I spilled a limited amount of water on my wireless keyboard. The keyboard seemed fully functional after a quick "upside-down shake" to relive the keyboard of the water. However, over night, the board lost it's "control" keys. Yes, keys. Neither control key presently functions, nor does the "caps lock" key... Which doesn't make any sense!!

The water was only spilled on the right side of the keyboard, keys like B N M < >, H J K L : " Enter and Shift got hit with the water. However, for some unclear reason, the left and right control keys as well as the caps lock key are now not functional. It's quite confusing!!

Since I lost my CTRL key, I've started to notice how often I use it... CTRL + T for a new tab, CTRL + F for find. CTRL + A for select all, CTRL + F# (in linux) for the TTY sessions, CTRL + Backspace to delete entire words instead of individual characters, CTRL + PgUP/PgDWN for moving between the different tabs! I couldn't even lock my computer this morning (CTRL + L in linux) nor log into my Windows box (requires CTRL + ALT + DEL to access the log on prompt). ~sigh, a sad life it is for the IT pro who can't use the control key. I even thought about looking through linux to see if I could find a mapping program to make something like the Windows key map to the CTRL key, at least until I can get a new keyboard, but I'm holding off on doing that, just because of the trouble it can cause.

My wireless keyboard, a logitech itouch, is quite old, I purchased it back when I was still in high school, using it sparingly until I got well into college, around 2004 I believe. And now it's finally starting to kick the bucket it seems. I've found a decently cheap and decently workable keyboard/mouse combo at NewEgg/Walmart, so I'll be looking into that later this week. The problem is that it is only available online... No "in-store inventory" was found based on the info from either website. It seems that I'll have to purchase a new one online to drop by staples/walmart to see what they have laying around. ~sigh.

For now, I think I can deal with out a CTRL and Caps Lock key... At least for a few days. With wet electronics, it's quite possible the system will come back to me tomorrow! Besides, ensuring that a new keyboard and mouse will work correctly with linux (via wireless over a usb wireless receiver) can be quite a pain and all too frequently involves returns. ~sigh. According to several websites however, they are indicating the EX110 Logitech Cordless Desktop works just fine over USB in Linux.

it didn't go quietly into that good night

2007-09-01T13:07:00.000-04:00

Due to my needs as an IT professional, I decided that I did need to get a new Cruzer Micro, however, my favorite model was not available, which is quite understandable, since that model was last popular in 2004. So I bit the bullet...

This is my new cruzer, which is quite a disappointment compared to my old cruzer micro. It is made of much thinner plastic than my original cruzer, and instead of having a nice case like the original, it's USB port retracts into the plastic. This way, there is no cap to loose.

However, there is a cost to it... There actually isn't any way to completely cover the USB port, and with the thin plastic, there is a possibility that the first time the drive goes through the was, and trust me, it will happen one day, it has a high likelihood of coming out in pieces. The worst thing about the new cruzer is the U3 software. It's supposed to manage the drive for you, enabling special features in Windows XP and crap like that. It tossed a "hovering icon" over on the lower left of my screen as well as putting an icon in the notification area (by the clock)... All without notifying me of what it was doing. It also auto-mounted a disk image into XP... And Mac OS X! I was so enraged by this fact, that I nearly returned the drive. However, after doing some digging, I found the U3 uninstaller on SanDisk's website and removed the damn software before it could drive me far enough up the wall to throw it into the garbage disposal.

I am a bit disappointed with this model flash drive as opposed to the older cruzer style, but then again, I could have paid twice as much for a cruzer titanium, but I didn't want to pay so much without knowing if the product would suck or not. The two-gig size is nice, and the so is the thin-ness of the device, yet at the same time, the giant orange LED is ugly and it's annoying that the drive is longer than the old version.

~sigh. I suppose I shall say that the verdict on the drive is still out for me... I don't trust it yet, so I'm doing some more stress-testing on the thing (namely, I installed a video game to it instead of to my notebook. Depending on how much the game modified the registry, I might be able to take the game to another Windows computer and play it there, which is pretty swankin', if it works.

There is one thing I can say for sure... I wish my original cruzer didn't die.

goodbye, my friend

2007-08-31T02:25:00.000-04:00

Today has been "one of those days" again for me, this time, something didn't survive.
My most durable technological possession of all time, my USB flash drive, my SanDisk Cruzer Micro, 512 MB version (click on photo to go to the Amazon store for a better photo).

I bought the flash drive in 2004 or so after my IT classmates kept joking around that I was the only one in the class still using floppy disks to transfer my work back and forth from classroom to home and vice versa.

Once I did buy it, I was really impressed with the design and abilities of the Cruzer Micro. It had nearly the capacity of a CD-R, was small enough to fit into the "key pocket" on my jeans, and even withstood the tortures of going through the wash three times and the dryer twice! I was astonished that the drive held up so well. And was behaving just fine the other day. As a matter of fact, I used the drive on Thursday at work, copying off files before I went on a service call. The drive was fully functional.

Today though, I only needed the drive once. I powered on a computer that couldn't see it's USB keyboard. It couldn't see the CyberMedics "internal store use only" USB keyboards or mice, so I thought there might be a problem with the HID (Human Interface Devices) subsystem on the computer... So I plugged in my flash drive and waited for it to be auto detected. During this process, the computer crashed. I was too focused on the customer, explaining things, when I finally decided that I should reboot the computer and run some diagnostic utilities on the system. To prevent erroneous readings, I powered the computer down and then removed the flash drive, which never was auto-detected by the computer, nor did the big bright blue LED light up on the drive either. I figured it was never detected by the computer. But when I pulled my cuzer out, it was hot. Not to the point of burning me or anything, but a good fifteen degrees or so hotter than it should have been, especially for not being detected by the system.

I decided to leave the flash drive out on the table to cool off while I troubleshooted the system further. Eventually, I decided to plug my flash drive into my g4 Mac (the "MacBench") at the store to see if it recognized. It did not. Just a quick blink of the blue LED, no mount point on the desktop, no detection by Disk Utility. A bad sign. So I let it sit for another few minutes and went back to trouble shooting the computer that started this whole mess.

Eventually, I started a hard drive diag on the computer that murdered my flash drive, and then went to plug the cruzer into a Windows Vista station we have at CyberMedics. Unfortunately, it yielded the same exact story. A quick blink of the LED, no mount point in "My Computer," no detection by Disk Management. Ditto goes for when I got the drive home on both my MacBook and SUSE Linux systems. If the drive doesn't come back by Friday, August 31, before I leave work, I'll be heading off around town to see about getting a new one.

It should be noted that I in no way fault SanDisk or the cruzer micro series of drives for this issue; in fact, I so favor the cruzer micro drives that I will lean very far toward buying only those flash drives, however, the new style just isn't the same. I've even thought about checking out Amazon and buying another cruzer 512 MB drive, same model as mine. It's price has dropped quite a bit, from the $45 I paid back in 2004 to around $12 at Amazon.

If it comes to that, I'll be writing an IT obituary for the drive this weekend.

Note: the above photo was taken shortly after the flash drive was removed from the dryer, after going through a fully cycle of laundry. It functioned for several months after ward, including going through the wash twice after this incident, and the dryer one more time. That is, until it ran into a defective computer that was putting excessive voltage though it's own USB ports, effectively killing various USB devices.

beating the horse

2007-08-29T01:16:00.000-04:00

For the past few weeks Apple has been advertising their new iMac line, and with rumors of Mac OS X: Leopard (10.5.x) coming out soon, they are making some major headlines in the Alt-OS circuit.

But there is one Apple product that has been overlooked, the one item from Apple that I've never been able to understand or truly endorse: the Mac Mini. At the announcement earlier this month, Apple, Inc. announced the upgraded Mac Mini, which is, (IMHO) a total joke. It's got the Core 2 processor now, instead of the Core/Solo processor. It also have a few minor changes, but it is still the slower of the Mac series, starting off at 1.83 Ghz with a Combo (no DVD burning) drive, I believe it is the only Mac still available without a Super (DVD burner) drive.

And then there is the logic behind it:
FOR: The computer makes a great home theater PC
AGAINST: Since replaced with the Apple TV
FOR: It's small profile allows it to fit easily onto one's desk
AGAINST: the iMac does this as well, and going with small form factor, the MacBook/MacBook Pro function in the exact same way a mini does, plus they have the ability to be uber-mobile.
FOR: It's a great entry-level desktop-mac for those of us who want more than a MacBook/iMac but less than a Mac Pro
AGAINST: unfortunately, it's slower and less-functional than the MacBook/MBP... Which makes me wonder WHY does Apple still sell them?

I can only gather that there is enough of a niche market out there for them... But with Apple being in itself a niche market for computers, it's odd that they would cater to a further declining area.

The biggest selling point of the Mac Mini is the price, starting at $599, it happens to be the cheapest Mac available, however one should note that this configuration doesn't come with the DVD burner nor does it come with a monitor, both aspects are standard features of all of Apple's computers, save for the Mac Pro, which doesn't come with a monitor in the default configuration.

The biggest thing against the MacMini, of which I can only hope they've improved in this new version, is the horrendous upgradeability of the unit... Popping the case requires the use of one of three tools: an "Apple specialized" tool to open the case, a putty knife, or a lot of wire -- all operations require a decent bit of time and patience to actually "crack" the case. The design could not have been more horrid! It is so difficult, that there actually isn't a single user-serviceable internal part on the unit; even the MacBook and MBP can have their RAM and HDD upgraded by the home user.

Apple, this horse is dead... It's time to put it to rest.

Keynote: The Presentation

2007-08-24T02:35:00.000-04:00

The presentation went well... I would have been happier with questions during the presentation or at least a little less yawning! Seriously. I suppose I understand, I used to yawn all the time during my MCSE classes with Tim Brock, even though I would be really interested in the class... Just too tired not to yawn, especially when the lights are dimmed and one has to listen to someone talk for half an hour straight!

After the presentation, we had a "hands-on" session, with three broken down old Dell Optiplex systems (PII processors, 2.0 GB HDDs, etc.) -- easy to open, no worries if they break afterward.

The only part that was truly difficult for me to deal with was how so many of the students would try to talk over one another, and it was really difficult for me to deal with two or even three students trying to ask me questions at the same time. Over-lapping voices like that yields one confused guest speaker. I suppose I should have been prepared for that, seeing as how I was speaking to a group of high school freshmen on their second day of class and not a group of college seniors on their way into their professional careers.

I thought about putting up the presentation here on IndigoJake, but there really isn't much of a reason for it... Just a bunch of pictures of the innards of an eMachine... I still hate putting text into presentations, much preferring to just use photos and sort of wing-it.

Keynote

2007-08-17T00:17:00.000-04:00

On Thursday, I'll have to make an IT presentation "keynote" at Spring Vale Academy to a collection of 15 or so high school freshmen. It's been ages since I last did this, I'd like to do a cut-a-way presentation, but since computers aren't really layered so well, that's not going to work. Perhaps an "activated first," "activated second," strategy would be okay, but things are just so instant on computers that'll be a chore to figure out. Perhaps most important first? But if even a single component is too far out of range, a computer won't boot.

~sigh, I'll just have to do it in a seemingly random order. I think my keynote presentation is setup as motherboard, processor & cooling, hard drives, optical drives, and a few other minor things. I suppose that'll do.

iWork '08

2007-08-11T00:03:00.000-04:00

After all the hype, and countless recommendations of using Keynote for presentations instead of PowerPoint, I've finally decided to take the plunge and try out the new iWork '08 that Apple announced only a few days ago... Especially after I found out that iWork '08 has a free 30 day demo as well as finding out that my ol' iWork '06 demo was activated back ages ago when I first got my MacBook, sat unused, and finally expired (about 10 months ago).

I think it's time to try out a new version! Now, with Numbers.

To get your free copy of iWork, just click the image above to be redirected to Apple's website.

Best line from Apple

2007-08-09T01:11:00.000-04:00

iMac is the ultimate accessory for your iPod or iPhone.

Apple: iMac: Technology: iTunes

When did the iMac itself become an accessory for the iPod?
Tuesday, August 7, 2007.

Mac Attack!

2007-08-08T01:24:00.000-04:00

Quick post: new iMac line is out. Faster processors, new design, new commercial! Nice to check out.

New keyboard (both wireless and wired) are out. Super thin!

Adjustments to the Mac Mini line, definite plus... I've never been much of a fan of this line.

iLife and iWork 2008! Gotta love that.

No major changes to the iPod, MacBook, Apple TV, iPhone or Mac OS X... Leopard is estimated out by the end of the year.

Firefox Memory Leaks: Feature?

2007-08-08T01:10:00.000-04:00

For those Firefox users out there, I just happened to stumble across information regarding the trend of Firefox (including the most recent releases of 2.0.x) to leak memory. Turns out it's a "feature."

Yes, a feature. A feature that was commonly used back in the days of dial up, according to John C. Dvorak, on TWiT: 42. The problem stems form the browser cashing the previous 8 pages as one navigates the page. There is also concern that this feature may be compounded per tab, of which has been refuted by MozillaZine. TO adjust the setting, you need to type in your Firefox address bar: about:config and then set a filter for browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers. Check out the MozillaZine article for more information about what the number means. Set it to "0" to disable the cashing feature.

Do to my seemingly never ending problems with Firefox in Linux ballooning to an extreme in SUSE Linux 9.3, I've decided to give it a try on my Linux machine, and we'll see if this improves performance at all.

Insomnia!

2007-06-02T04:56:00.000-04:00

So, my recent insomnia has prompted me to do some work to improve my computer! Yesterday, I decided that Firefox (2.0.0.2) was out of date, so I decided to update it to the latest version (2.0.0.4). Not a major update, but something that I had been meaning to do for a while now. I tinkered with it for a while, but still, Flash wasn't playing correctly. I had downloaded version 9 ages ago, but the system was still utilizing version 7 for YouTube and other sites, half the time, not being able to output sound, the other half, it would either not work at all or send the fox up to 100% CPU and crash it.

~sigh, too much trouble to fix... Unless you are an insomniac for the week! Instead of reading through forum post after post, I decided to tinker with it myself to see what conclusions I could come up with. Well, I found a solution... In the directory /opt/MozillaFirefox/lib/plugins, there was one .so file (libnullplugin.so) and one link to an .so file (libjavaplugin_oji.so). I knew this wasn't the correct directory or the proper place for plugins, but if Firefox states in "about:plugins" that those two plugins are installed and running correctly, then if I copy the .so (libflashplayer.so) from /usr/lib/flash-plugin/, then it may just work.

And it does! I was totally surprised that I was able to upgrade flash so easily after all this time. For 18 months now or so, I haven't been able to get flash to work the way I wanted it to, and after the change-over from Macromedia Corp to Adobe, the updates haven't quite worked the way I've wanted them to. And while I would have prefered a pointed to the file, or a conf file adjustment to get the correct result, I'm just happy that Firefox can play flash files with audio and without crashing or freezing! Swankin'.

gotta love the 'switch

2007-05-19T16:24:00.000-04:00

Today, I decided to check my in-store voice mail... I got this:

Your mailbox is near maximum capacity. Please delete some messages. You have one saved message. To listen to messages, press 1 [...]

I bet someone here at the store hasn't been checking their messages and has filled up the general mail box. ~sigh.

Irony, is just so funny.

2007-05-13T02:26:00.000-04:00

It's the little things in life that'll drive one crazy...

I've been working with Rosetta Stone for a while now, but I hate using it in Windows... As a matter of fact, I had to dual boot my MacBook, named "Akira" (アキラ) into Windows XP to even use the software, since all my other Windows computers are too old or are unavailable to run the software. Well, I had the Mac installer as well, so I thought, "Let's just install it to Mac OS, it'll work out just fine!" Granted, my ideal solution would be to run Rosetta Stone natively in SUSE Linux 9.3, but that isn't an option I'm likely to see any time soon.

So, I went ahead and installed the software in Mac OS X. I got this:
Director Player Error: Script Error Continue? [No] [Yes]"
Clicking yes will bring pass through that prompt and bring up another one, saying exactly the same thing. This holds true for each time I clicked yes.

So what happens when one clicks no? Rosetta Stone exits.

I've spent weeks trying to find a solution. I looked for updates available on the internet (I didn't find any), I searched forums - yet found nothing, I even went as far as downloading a torrent of the software to see if I could get that up and running... No dice. All were the same "Director Player Error: Script Error"

I was really getting peeved, when I finally went back to the internet looking for a solution on the forums. Someone had to have encountered my problem somewhere out there... Right? It must just be buried out there in cyber space.

I was totally right... Kind of. It seems Rosetta is made by a company called Plato (oohh, familiar name, Plato makes all sorts of edu software out there, including software that I had to use down at Support Services when I worked there) I always hated the Plato software... it was soo very annoying.

After some digging and this time throughly reading each post I came across, I found this one single forum post that came in handy (image here). As you can see, it talks about installing a French version of Rosetta Stone (Mac OS edition) to an English Macintosh. The installed worked successfully, however, when running the application, the system program would display "Director Player Error: Script Error" and cause serious issues for him to use the program... All because the program was looking for "Préférences" (French spelling) instead of "Preferences" (English spelling).

The only foreign text displayed on my Mac. I changed the name of my Mac's HD to "Akira HD" (no Japanese text) and then system took right off. Rosetta runs without any problems at all. Go figure, a program designed to help people learn foreign languages, including reading in those languages (Japanese included) doesn't understand those same foreign languages when actually utilized on the system.

I suppose it's understandable... Durring some of the installers, Rosetta's included, it listed the installation hard drive oddly:

Note the installation HD... I've seen this before, even when doing a dual boot with Windows, when when the boot loaded comes up, it lists Windows and those same random characters. So far, no applications have had any problems... However, Rosetta seems to be a little more sensitive than the others.

At least I can be happy that I have rectified the problem... Even if it did take me several weeks to do so.

one man short

2007-03-09T02:52:00.000-05:00

Today CMC lost a technician.
Such things happen in life.
Right now, the store is busy rescheduling items that will need to be taken care of this week to ensure that everything our former tech was assigned to gets done on time. Rush rush rush. I guess that's the way things are in business, regardless if that business is IT or pet grooming. It looks like the Apple Reseller program we've been looking into is going to be put on the back burner for a while. ~sigh. I was looking forward to getting the ACT, but I guess doing a standard MCP will be fine as well.

what a day at cmc

2007-03-07T23:06:00.000-05:00

Once again, there's been some trouble at CyberMedics. Why is it that the business I'm so tied to has such an abundance of luck?

First, I had to rush to a service call in Chesaning, Mi today... About a 20 mile drive. But, first came the delays. Customers rushing in and bosses leaving the store required me to stay at CyberMedics up until 2:30 (I was scheduled at Chesaning at 2:30). I managed to get a call to the site before it got late... Our reason was two: 1) our primary wiring tech was out sick... He had even spent some time in the hospital too (but is getting better) and 2) we were out of Cat5e Ethernet (I didn't inform the customer of this, but it was a cause for us being late).

Since our tech was out sick, I had to quickly pick up the pieces and get someone that didn't have much of an issue with heights to come along with me... That person was Steve. Zack was also supposed to show up, but he didn't make it to the store before 3pm, so I went ahead without him.

As soon as we left, we head off to our local Ethernet vendor, and it was after 3:30 before we were able to get the correct wire! The gods of fortune just weren't with us today! Even when we went to pay, we weren't even able to get though the registers with any expediency... The system wasn't taking our $100 bill, so the cashier had to do some adjustments to get our order processed though, taking twice as long as it should have at the register.

Leaving from Owosso after 3:30, we finally arrived on site at 4pm. Our 10' ladder was about 2' too high to use on site (which was also about how much of the ladder was sticking out of the back of Steve's truck on the drive over here as well), so we ended up having to stand on chairs at the site instead to do all our work, which looked horrible, but at least allowed us to get our work done. I spent most of the time I was there trying to make Ethernet cables to go from the wall jack to the computers. I was having no luck, spending most of my time cutting the wire and re-cutting it, trying to get it to fit correctly in the Ethernet head. ~sigh. I never even finished that... I ended up helping Steve every few minutes anyway, which caused a lot of slow down in my progress.

Steve was spending most of his time there drilling holes for the cabling to go though, since it had to go from a panel in the wall, up the wall, across a dropped ceiling, and then down again to another wall drop about 30' away (total distance is approximately 50' or so). We were doing okay with our work until we go half way across the room, when we ran into a rather tough piece of wood that prevented us form being able to drill though. We called Joel (the boss back at the store) and asked him what we should do... He said that we should reschedule it for another day to finish it, and then we can bring along some more powerful drills.

So, we talked to the receptionist, and scheduled a follow-up visit on Friday to work on the cables. We cleaned up our mess and finally began to head home. Packing up our stuff took quite a while, since we had so much of it, and that damn ladder was sticking out about a foot or so from the end of the truck, but at least with it being bright orange no one was going to hit it on the drive home.

Since it had been a rough day, and especially since Steve hadn't had anything to eat all day, we thought it would be nice to stop by Burger King to get a snack. We both ordered the same thing, that chicken tender sandwich thing. Whatever it is. We were there for 15 to 20 minutes before heading back to Owosso, spending most of our time chatting about work and relationships (Steve found out I was gay the other day, so I feel much more at ease talking about such things around him now). Steve finished his meal before I did, but I tossed the last half of my fries and we headed out. We had to do a quick acceleration out of the BK drive way to avoid getting hit (the speed limit out there is 45 or so). And then again we had some issues at the first stop sign we came to (who ever heard of a stop sign at a busy 4 lane intersection anyway!??!?!). We turned from that and accelerated quickly again. That's when Steve noticed a problem. He had looked in the rear view mirror to ensure that our networking equipment and ladder were still snugly in position for the drive home.

This time, there wasn't a ladder in the back. Our 10' ladder, which is not able to fit completely into the back of Steve's truck was missing! I told him we should turn around, and that it probably fell out at the intersection or when we pulled out of Burger King. I watched the side of the road intently and I kept watching for traffic behaving oddly (such as swerving to miss a ladder in the middle of the road) but I noticed nothing. Our bright orange ladder wasn't on the road/side of the road! It wasn't in BK parking lot, it wasn't around back or off to one side as a practical joke, and the management had no clue (apparently there aren't cameras out there).

I called Joel, he suggested we just head home, the police wouldn't really respond to a $139 ladder that we bought on sale for $99. It would just be a little report and that would be the end of it. Chances would be slim that we would ever see that ladder again. However, the BK manager wanted us to file a police report, so she called them and they said they would send an officer out to take our report. The police station was just two blocks away, so it wouldn't take long for them to get there at all, and even if they sent the State Police (which have a station in Saginaw, just a few miles away) we should hear from them in less than half an hour!

Riiight. An hour later and the cops weren't even there. The manager suggest that she take our contact information so we could get back to Owosso before the store closed. It was almost 7pm before we left the restaurant anyway, but I was getting tired and had some in-store systems to work on after hours anyway. So, we left all of our names, including Don and Joel, just in case they wanted to talk to them. Along with the address for CMC, and then we headed off back to the site to see if we managed to drop the ladder there (which we didn't) and then right next door to that is the police station, where we stopped by to chat with an officer to give them the information, but no one came to the door when we rang the door bell as requested by the note posted on the door. So we left, once again scouring the sides of the road to see if a bright orange ladder was tossed to the side, and once again, we found nothing.

Once we arrived at the store, it was pretty much business as usual. Don was on the phone, Joel had left for the day, and Steve and I tried to get caught up on a few things before heading home for the night. Steve left before I did, leaving just Don and I in the store.

While Don was in the middle of a conversation and I was working on a computer, we heard a knocking at our back door. Both Don and I went to check it out, I figured it was one of Don's guests knocking on the back door, but this time it wasn't... There was a young woman in her late 20s saying that an older woman fell outside the store and needed some help. Both Don and I went to assist. Don wearing short-sleeved scrubs and me wearing my long sleeve tee-shirt. It was quite cold in our sub-zero Celsius mid-Michigan winter, but helping was more important. We helped her to her apartment and she thanked us. While I was helping her up, I recognized her as the dog lady who frequently walks a black Labrador as I'm leaving CMC every evening between 7 and 9pm. I had only talked to her once, when her dog really started barking at me once when I was leaving the store. But, at least she was okay. A scrape here and there, and a few bruises, but nothing major. I was glad we didn't have to call the ambulance or something! What and end to a day that would have been.

Now I'm at home, listening to The Postal Service [alt link] trying to relax from this trying day. ~sigh, I'll be glad when tomorrow comes.

Parallels, it's swankin' (or not...)

2007-03-04T00:28:00.000-05:00

I've been tinkering with Parallels, a software similar to VMWare and Virtual PC, but used primarily on Mac OS X. The software can do some very interesting things... Just look at this photo here, and it demonstrates me using the software... It's called "Cohesion" and if that isn't an interesting screen shot, I don't know what is.

Unfortunately, I've been having some trouble with the software... Most recently, I've been getting this when I boot into Windows XP. ~sigh, this is going to be an annoying thing to fix... if it's possible to do so at all. Stupid XP SP2 upgrade *grumble, grumble*

The eMac Horror

2007-03-02T03:24:00.000-05:00

Today, Steve (one of my co-workers at CyberMedics moved his eMac from home down to the store. It's a G4 700 Mhz system, not the latest eMac, but still a nice little machine, and quite speedy when booting into Mac OS X 10.4.

The only issue is that this beautiful, although, oddly designed:

system kept booting into Open Firmware (Windows users, think BIOS). Occasionally, the eMac, wouldn't even boot up! He was not in the greatest mood over it, especially since recently the system was functioning normally.

So, since the issue of the eMac booting into Open Firmware at each power on is a symptom of bad memory, he decided to take the back side of the shell off and take a look at the innards, revealing an image similar to this:

Needless to say, doing a minor memory adjustment is not cool on an eMac, but it needed to be checked. As Steve was tinkering with the eMac, he found what was really causing the trouble: a small part on the back of the power button had broken off, leaving the eMac thinking that the power button was being held down each time the unit was powered on. The part requires soldering, but is way too small for our utilities at CMC, so Steve is just going ahead and ordering a new power button. But man, was that eMac ever troublesome!

Vista Vista bo Bista banana fana foe Fista, mi my moe Mi-sta... Vista.

2007-03-01T00:04:00.000-05:00

What do you do when your state-of-the-art OS on a high-end laptop won't connect to the Internet? Ya call CyberMedics.

We just had a laptop come in, exceptionally new laptop, with Vista Home Premium pre-installed on it. The computer was able to get online for a while and then it wasn't able to. Our "Triage" diagnostic (performed by yours-truly) came up with a preliminary report that Norton Internet Security or the built in Windows/Internet Explorer security settings were set so high that they prevented the laptop from getting online. Triage showed that the laptop was able to get online, and was able to ping the router and DNS server, but it wasn't able to ping any domains, use IE7, or utilize any third-party programs to access the Internet.

After working with the laptop for a while, I was confused to say the least. I lowered much of the security related to connecting to the Internet, including Norton Internet Security. I even went through some of the automated diagnostic software included with Windows to check the system over (which seemed to work well, but in turn, revealed nothing of consequence). However, at one reboot of the system, MySpace IM was able to get online, however no other applications were. Thinking there must be a software issue going on, I restarted the computer in safe mode.

It was the first time I attempted to boot Vista into safe mode. I managed to hit the wrong key the first time, which brought up the Windows Boot Loader, much like Grub in Linux, upon hitting the correct key on the Grub screen will allow the user to pass different startup options to adjust how the OS boots. Now, it seems that Windows has a similar feature. I quickly showed by boss who was quite surprised and pleased with this new feature of Vista.

Not to become distracted by a new feature, I moved right along to get the system into Safe Mode. The first thing I noticed about the new "Advanced Startup Options" menu was that there was a "reverse print" title bar at the top that said "Advanced Startup Options," anyone who has used the Linux "man pages" knows what this looks like, the centered black text with the white "bar-like" background stretching from one side of the screen to the other.

There was also a new option, "Repair your computer" [link]. This looks like the Windows XP repair installation that has so many times saved a system that has crossed my bench at CyberMedics. If it is, and I am having trouble finding much details on the "repair your computer" option in the Vista ASO, then it would simplify matters from XP, which always had to be run from the CD after going through the preliminary section of the Windows XP installer. By the way, one should take note that the "Repair your computer" options is not always on the ASO screen, it seems that the option is only available if the system has the necessary system files stored on the computer itself.

The last thing that I noticed about the new ASO screen is that as you move between options, a section at the bottom (in bright white text) displays a description of what the option will do. This should help decrease the number of people that select Debugging or Directory Services Restore Mode... Neither of which are really needed on the average home user's computer.

Oh, and that customer's computer, after entering safe mode, the Internet was working correctly. 10 to 1 odds: the Internet isn't working correctly in Vista because of a conflict in Norton Internet Security.

grrrPod

2007-02-27T22:36:00.000-05:00

Meet the scourge of my week: My iPod Nano...

I love listening to music while driving, and being able to listen to j-pop and coldplay and a perfect circle all without having to change the station, miss the end of a song, or listen to the dreaded commercial is dang sweet.

However, my iPod has recently not been turning itself off after being unplugged from its headphones (it should pause and eventually go to sleep, but recently it's been playing right on through), which happens to be the most common way that I let the iPod "shut down," since actually taking the time to grab the iPod, go through the menu system, select sleep, and then reattach the iPod those extra few second that I usually spend doing something else.

My other big annoyance is that I'll frequently find the thing playing... It's like I've bumped it or something and it's started playing when it was off earlier. Recently, I've had to go as far as not only manually putting the iPod to sleep, but also putting the iPod on hold. It's an extra step that I didn't have to take a few weeks ago that now needs to be done diligently to keep the thing operating nominally. ~sigh.

Things just keep getting easier

2007-02-12T03:09:00.000-05:00

I've been looking into the next version of Mac OS X Leopard, which is set to include some dang spiffy new features that are destined to move the computing industry right along. The first, and perhaps most relevant for Mac OS X is dubbed Time Machine. Time Machine is a revolution in data backup utilities, making things much simpler and specifically designed for the average PC user, whereas normal backup solutions are usually quite complex to use let alone setup. Time Machine is quite simple to use, basically select the appropriate program that you want restored, lets say iPhoto. Then click on Time Machine in the dock, up pops this very space-age looking user interface, with two arrows on the side: one going "into space" the other going away from it. Basically, going back into the past and coming closer to the present respectively. This isn't exactly easy to explain in words, but Apple has a wonderful video of Time Machine in action at Apple: Max OS X: Leopard Sneak Peak: Time Machine.

The other new things with Leopard is Spaces. Spaces is a feature quite common to Linux users, known as Virtual Desktops in the industry currently. Neither Mac OS X nor Windows derivatives have included Virtual Desktop technology nativly (reports of Windows Vista having the function, but not having it enabled are currently circulating the IT industry), however, this technology has been available as a third-party add-ons for both operating systems starting as early as the 1980s!

Linux has included this feature for quite some time, including some very smooth graphics similar to Spaces in Leopard, thanks to the Novel Xgl technology (Xgl in action, Xgl demonstration videos from Novel). When first released, the Xgl technology made a huge impact in the Linux community, redefining the way newer distributions accomplished desktop switching. However, with recent issues regarding using and distributing the closed-source drivers from nVidia and ATI under the GPL, there have been some setbacks; notably, the Kororaa Linux LiveCD, which was heavily touted as a demonstration CD of the Xgl concept; Kororaa now does not include the drivers for nVidia or ATI, making implementing Xgl on computers with these commonly used cards difficult. There have been some distributions that have successfully worked these closed source drivers into their OS, notably openSUSE, Mandriva, Ubuntu, and Gentoo.

But I digress, Spaces in Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) should be quite the interesting experience, especially for the Linux/Mac OS users of us out there... It'll be interesting to see the similarities between the two, especially in regards to Xgl. I can't wait to see Leopard in person and really get my hands into the OS.

Other sources
ComputerWorld: Apple's Time Machine: Forward into the Past?
ComputerWorld: Spaces: A look at Apple's take on virtual desktops in Leopard

Vista by-gosh!

2007-02-11T01:00:00.001-05:00

At work, Vista is just a name of an OS that we hardly ever see. With Microsoft's release time between Vista and XP being around five-and-a-half years, we still see a majority of Windows XP systems in the store (and a frightening number of Windows 98 systems). But, we have seen a few Vista systems pass though our doors recently.

So far, reports have been bad. With Apple's suggestion of delaying upgrading (for their Windows iPod users), and with the recommendations [more details] for 1 GB of RAM for users wanting to use the Aero interface are just annoying. Mac OS X and it's interface work just fine starting as low as 128 MB of RAM, granted, things are better with more memory, but it's not a requirement like it is in Vista.

The security is quite a concern for me. Bill Gates has recently been quoted along the lines of saying Vista is extremely secure, enough to run as Life Support machines while daring hackers to break Vista. They've hacked Vista already, at least pirated it. Hacking Vista is going to be a chore of the serious hackers and crackers out there, but it is quite possible, and with Microsoft's recent statements of the intense security and the market saturation Microsoft has, I'm betting in a years time, I'll be seeing a rush of virus riddled Vista boxes with customers complaining that "Microsoft said I wouldn't get viruses if I used Vista." Note to everyone reading this blog: if you are using a Microsoft OS (hell, if you are using Microsoft software on your system) get an Anti-Virus... Microsoft software is just attacked too much. It's wise to have an AntiVirus solution anyway, just to be sure that your systems (including non-Microsoft OS systems) aren't filled with virus infected files that could infect Windows boxes that connect to you. For reference, there are free AntiVirus solutions out there:

Windows:

Mac OS X Users:

ClamXav: Free AntiVirus for Mac OS X

Linux:

Note: Vista versions may not yet be available. While Avira and Grisoft offer their software for free, they are distributed under an EULA that, from my understanding, requires their software to be used at home or not-for-profit industries. Clam uses the GPL EULA, which includes stipulations against such legal mumbo-jumbo. However, to be sure always read the EULA before installing!

After the release of the OS, I was glad to learn exactly what the OS versions are. Home Basic, to Business, things are looking okay, but Vista Enterprise still is a bit of a mystery to me. I'll have to delve into my IT circles to figure out the details on Enterprise... To a degree, it seems geared to replace Windows Server 2003, which I am throughly trained, however not certified yet... The most annoying thing for me would be to go in to be going through the MCSE process, only to get stopped mid-way by a OS revision.

This is something that Microsoft always does, and it usually does major OS revamps every two to four years, whereas Vista took five to six because of Microsoft's big security overhaul back in the first half of this decade, shortly after the XP launch. I shouldn't bother too much, for the Apple Certified Techs things are much worse, with certs costing ten-times as much as the MCSE, and occurring nearly annually, things must suck for them. However, at least their OS isn't going through such a major change as the XP and 2003 Certifieds are with the change to Vista.

Right after Microsoft releases a new revision to the Windows series, there comes new issues with installing. Not only is this is first version of Windows to be distributed on a DVD (as opposed to a CD), Vista also has a new activation routine. Back in the day, there weren't even product codes! Then came number codes, followed by longer codes, and then random letters were thrown in starting with Windows 98 and 2000. Windows XP upped the ante with activation and product lock outs if the program wasn't activated in a timely fashion. Windows Vista will take the XP activation to the next level, by not only requiring the system to be activated within 30 days, but also limiting functionality during that time frame, finally after the 30 days are up, users are limited to logging in and getting access to Internet Explorer for a period of 60 minutes before the system logs off, allowing no other functionality aside from activation of course.

This activation is unlike anything seen in the "Alt OS" department (dominated by Mac OS X and Linux derivatives), both of which have made it into the twenty-first century, without having such intrusive security requirements... With Apple being around for just as long as Microsoft, one would think Apple would have the same concerns... But Apple seems to trust their users, and the GPL and foundations of Linux in general are for freedom of source, nearly to the point of requiring the OS to be distributed freely.

Worst of all happens to be personified in a recent Apple commercial entitled: Security [caution: QuickTime Video link]. I've actually seen this happen in Vista! It can get quite confusing to the user, especially one not experienced with Microsoft Windows Vista security. I even find it hard to understand why it asks so often to "Cancel or Allow" actions that should be trusted in the first place.

On a side note, I still think it's too early to make a final judgment for or against Vista, only time will tell if the OS will "make or break" the Microsoft empire, but one thing is for sure... There are going to be some interesting times coming up at CyberMedics, as Vista makes its presence known in our humble repair shop... It might not be long before we're all running out to get Vista certified, or OSX, or L+.

Once again, in annoyance of Microsoft's recent business goals, this has all been proudly written on a computer running exclusively Open Source Software: openSUSE Linux (the OS), using OpenOffice.org for word processing and the Firefox web browser for research and blog management.

Research for this blog used the following sites:
Apple: iTunes and Windows Vista --Apple's notice about Vista screwing up iTunes files and iPod devices.
Apple: Still the world's most advanced OS --Apple's comparison about the similarities of Vista vs. OSX.
Microsoft: Vista --Microsoft's Vista "homepage" – check out the sub-sites in there to get detailed Vista info, including upgrade options and system requirements.
Will Your PC Run Windows Vista? --eWeek Contemplates having Aero interface as a main selling point, and not having that function in machines with low RAM.
MyMac.com: Vista better than the Mac OS X --MyMac.com's publisher Tim Robertson debates Bill Gates' recent statements about the security flaws of OS X while Gates' also touts Vista as the "most secure version of Windows yet."
Slashdot: Hack in the Box meets Windows Vista --Slashdot discusses having Microsoft security programmer Dave Tamasi and Microsoft penetration engineer (the guy that tries to break security) Douglas MacIver at the 2006 Hack in the Box conference.
InfoWorld: Vista: hard to crack, not to pirate --InfoWorld Daily discusses the new Anti-Hacking touts of Microsoft, while pointing out that piracy is already firing up for the final release.
ZDNet: Microsoft to lock pirates out of their PCs --ZDNet discusses the new lock-down features of an unactivated Windows Vista PC, and what preinstallers, after-market installers, and corporate installers can expect to have to work with.

The Cube

2007-02-07T21:47:00.000-05:00

Courtesy of MacMan Computers (Owosso, Mi) and it's proprietor, Steve, I was able to check out a...

A day or two after bringing the cube down to CyberMedics, I was able to head over to Steve's place to check the system out. He had managed to get the full setup for the cube... LCD, Mouse, Keyboard... And USB speakers are being shipped! Swankin'!

digital bypass

2007-02-04T23:47:00.000-05:00

This morning, I was working in Firefox on my Linux machine. I had dozen upon dozens of tabs open, I wouldn't be surprised if it numbered close to one-hundred. Well, The Fox has always had a memory leak problem, and even though it's much better these days, there are some things that just cause the browser to balloon, such as flash animations (I've noticed this problem in Windows, Linux and Mac OS versions of Firefox). Well, I was too determined to finish my research to allow a little memory leak to stop me. I was keeping an eye on it, and even though my RAM was maxed out (both the 1.0 GB of RAM and 1.0 GB of swap), I keep trudging on, closing other applications each time my memory (both RAM and swap) got above 95% utilization.

Then ForecastFox attempted to update. Firefox had trapped both my keyboard and my mouse into the browser itself, CTRL + ALT + F1 didn't switch me to terminal, CTRL + ESC didn't bring up KDE System Guard, and worst off, CTRL + ALT + ESC didn't bring up xkill. I was in a bind. I let the PC sit there for a good fifteen minutes... No go.

Then I got an idea... If I could remote in, I could get KDE System Guard up and kill Firefox. I did have the system set up for VNC, so I grabbed my MacBook and attempted to log in; however I couldn't remember what port VNC was on! I was debating on spending time looking the information up on the Internet or just power cycling my system after 65 days... I decided to do neither. All of a sudden, while trying to remember which port VNC was on, I though, I bet I can SSH into Suzi-LNX... But I'll have to get an SSH capable client for Mac OS X.... or is it built in?

HA! It was. I just opened terminal and typed SSH and Suzi's IP address and I was off! I was able to log in and I executed the top command, which lists all the processes on the system (currently Suzi), and noticed that Firefox had indeed maxed out the RAM and swap, taking up over 1.6 GB of memory, when it should never come to that. I immediately killed the PID for Firefox, and turned to see Firefox close on Suzi and the system behaving normally again! Needless to say, I was happy.

* * *

I would like to note that this was a combined fault... Firefox shouldn't have bloated like that, but I also shouldn't have been attempting to work with so many tabs open. Also, there was some tabs with active flash animations going on, which is the frequent cause of Firefox maxing out both RAM and CPU.

Shuffle This!

2007-01-31T07:18:00.000-05:00

Apple has just released another "color revision" to the iPod line. I'm an avid iPod fanatic, using both the 4GB Nano (original, black) and the 30GB Video (white)... I love the concept of colors, having the ability to choose which color suits my personality best is quite delightful. And the original iPod, with its white head phones that screamed: "I'M AN IPOD USER! HEAR ME ROAR!" -- was actually originally just for uniformity... White iPod, white headphones. Nothing special, until after the digital music revolution, sparked by the iPod. So, seeing as how we have half a dozen colors of iPods, why not have matching headphones? Maybe it's a bit too much... Maybe the white headphones are still as much as a trade mark as the glowing Apple logo on the MacBooks are.

But each time Apple does one of these color series, I can't help but think just how cool it would be to have all five! And why five colors? Both the nano and shuffle have have colors, but the nano doesn't have orange whereas the shuffle doesn't have black. Hmmm, it makes me wonder what the goal of Apple's marketing team is for the colors series...

Back when the iMac was just getting off the floor, there were two revisions of the iMac 5-Colors series, revisions C and D... Both with colors like "Blueberry" and "Tangerine" -- then a following series -- not specifically "five" this time, however there were five colors, just not released at the same time. This time, the colors were a little more sophisticated, such as "Indigo" and "Ruby." Followed up by further "additional" colors, such as Graphite and White -- each indicating a change in a small feature here or there. Then came the insanity of the "special colors" (if you can call them that) of "Blue Dalmatian" and "Flower Power" -- but, aside from ascetic changes to these Macs, there wasn't much of a serious over-hauling of the hardware or the software no matter which color one purchased. The point in going so crazy with colors seemed almost a "Collect All 5" thought pattern... In other words, "let's make more money!"

Over Hauled

2007-01-30T04:39:00.000-05:00

It's finally happened, Microsoft has officially released Windows Vista. Computers are now coming with Vista preinstalled, and the IT industry is about to go through a transitional period from Windows XP to Windows Vista (always a painful experience, but usually, it's for the better).

Unlike previous editions of Windows, which were released as server series, sometimes with a business client included with that release (such as with Windows 2000 Server with it's business client Windows 2000 Professional) or in more of a home user series, such as Windows Server 2003 with its client, Windows XP Professional being released two years prior with XP Home; Vista is completely different. From my resources, Vista is the complete package, Vista Enterprise being the "server" series, only coming pre-installed on Microsoft approved servers. To keep current network administrators happy though, there is a version of Windows Vista that functions as a server that can be bought and installed on any compatible hardware (just without the added assurances from Microsoft that it won't crash), called Windows Vista Business (designed for small businesses). At this time, I haven't been able to confirm if Vista Enterprise and Business editions are designed to replace Windows Server 2003 or just supplement it.

Moving right along with this confusing array of software versions, Microsoft has also broken down the home user version of Vista into three groups now instead of the usual two, however, this time, there is no clear "business client" version, such as XP Home and XP Pro. This time, we've got Vista Home Basic, Vista Home Premium, and Vista Ultimate. Each with more features than the previous. Vista Home Basic is designed for the general home user with limited multimedia experience, such as just web and email functions -- this probably will only be seen rarely, most commonly in systems designed for very basic "Internet and Word processing" boxes. Home Premium has more features, and is the most likely candidate to be used in the average home system... But as with all previous versions of Windows, I can't help but wonder if there can be some over-rides applied to add functionality.

With the cost of Vista Home Basic Upgrade starting at around US$100 and Vista Ultimate Upgrade upwards of US$270, the question of "which version is right for me" will suddenly take on a new financial concept, seeing as how there is $170 difference! Also, notice the "upgrade" appendage to each, requiring a version of Windows to be pre-installed before upgrading. This is not the same ol' installing the OS with having an old CD-copy of Windows and it's associated CD-Key. Now, it has to be fully installed. Weather it can be older operating systems (such as 2000 -- which don't require activation) is as yet unknown to me.

And, for the first time that I'm aware of, Microsoft is now releasing it's OS via a "digital locker" (courtesy of Circuit City). The price is approximately the same, but it is yet unclear to me as to how this works (is it a burnable CD? an upgrade .exe file?).

There is much to this operating system that will take much more time to adjust to. Things are definitively going to be interesting in the industry for the next few months.

In protest of all of Microsoft's difficult to understand and highly intrusive software licencing, all of this was proudly written on a Macintosh.

Avoiding Microsoft and in search of Open Source Software?
openSUSE | Ubuntu

Xerox of Snow

2007-01-28T00:53:00.000-05:00

Work can be stressful at times, especially with the many computers that just don't work right. The same is true for all sorts of devices, including stupid Xerox machines. We've had one in our office for ages now... One day, I found it outside the office, just sitting by the back door. The boss obviously got annoyed by it taking up space in the office and just sat it outside to get it out of the way...

It's January in Michigan.

oddity...

2007-01-19T05:45:00.000-05:00

I just got this mailer-deamon failure message in my email:

Notice the received date: 19 January 2007 at 4 AM
Notice the actual sent date: 3 March 2005.

I sent this message nearly two years ago! In all honesty though, it seems to have something to do with my instructor (at that time) -- it looks like he's now switching from Ameritech to Comcast. But it's still quite odd, and that would be horribly annoying if this stuff was going out to everyone in his address book!

But even odder yet... It was an actual message from me that got bounced, not a notification of address change, and I even have the copy of the original message at my gmail account, including his response! Crazy.

~sigh, Macworld

2007-01-10T19:26:00.000-05:00

Well, if that wasn't the most disappointing Macworld I've seen in ages. Nothing seriously significant really happened, there wasn't any new changes to the Macintosh PC line-up, the biggest news was Apple TV and iPhone, both don't have much of an impact for the average home computing user that was waiting for the newest innovations in design from Apple.

Granted, the Apple TV is dang sweet, and I'd love to have one myself, and the iPhone is really something that I'd love to tinker with for a day or ten, but it just isn't the same without a major overhaul of the Mac line up... especially when I was hearing rumors of a larger iMac screen and quad-core processors in the Mac server line-up.

One thing is interesting though, with Apple Computer, Inc. changing it's name to Apple, Inc. -- that was interesting. Also, there is to be some upcoming news regarding the iPhone (Cisco lawsuit). I wonder how things will turn out, for this rather uneventful Macworld.

Mac WORLD!

2007-01-09T01:09:00.000-05:00

Hahah, I love that video...
But, in all seriousness, MacWorld is today (2006.01.09) -- time to see what crazy things Apple will be coming out with here soon! I can't wait! And I just got my Blue and White G3 tower (the MacBench) up and running at work! It makes me happy.

Dumb Error Messages

2007-01-07T01:48:00.000-05:00

From QuickTime 7.1.3, in Mac OS X 10.4.8

On Sunday, January 7, at 1 AM.
Grrr.

The Evils of Automatic Update Utilities

2007-01-05T23:47:00.001-05:00

Damn software update utilities! I've never liked any of them Windows Update will update anything and then requests a restart. Selecting "restart later" only causes the prompt to close for a few minutes before prompting again, and most of the updates seem like they shouldn't require the system to be restarted anyway!

Apple's Software Update is just as bad, but it executes far less frequently, which make's it not so bad… But today, I got an encryption update for iChat… After applying it, I was prompted to either "Shutdown" or "Restart" -- I didn't even have the option of doing anything else. I decided to risk it by just force quitting the application -- the next time my MacBook (now named 「アキラ」"Akira") truly requires a restart, the update will be applied…

SUSE's YOU (YaST Online Update) is nicer about the restarts, but one has to be really careful, YOU keeps notifying me that my Firefox is out of date and needs to be upgraded to such-and-such a version of Firefox 1.5.x.y -- However, I have long since manually updated to the 2.0 series of Firefox… If I'm not very careful on exactly that I select in YOU, it'll downgrade my Firefox (and in the process make me really grumpy).

Black Friday Shopping

2006-11-24T16:37:00.000-05:00

Happy Belated Thanksgiving! And happy Black Friday...

I hate shopping on Black Friday... I do all of it online, which is nice, but it still sucks! Last night at 4AM I placed an order for a 500 GB Seagate Hard Drive for my computer, on special at NewEgg for $149.99... However, there were many issues with processing this order....

First, the system needed me to utilize some "secure banking" thing where I had to create an account (through my credit card company), setup passwords and special lines of text to ensure that "I'm entering information into a legitimate website" and all that crap. To annoy me further, the site was poorly designed, annoying to navigate, had minimal features, and to kick it all off, it was being slow processing my request! Risking my black friday order!!

Then, I was returned to the NewEgg site, where NewEgg said "You have to ship to a confirmed address (billing address) or ship to a secondary address that needs to be on file with your bank. If the address isn't on file with the bank, order processing may be slowed for up to three additional days." I was a little worried that would screw up my processing, since I wanted the stuff shipped to work instead of home, so this morning, I spent half an hour on the phone with my bank, only to come away with, "We're sorry, but there can only be one address associated with your account." GRRR! It'll slow processing down, but at least it won't be a major problem.

Then I got an email from NewEgg... Apparently, I typoed one thing on my order... My expiration date on my credit card. Grrr. The email said that my card didn't process, and it asked me to resubmit my card information, so they could reprocess it. I did so, and then got another email... Same thing -- and even though I put in the correct information, I noticed that it still said the incorrect expiration date, so I tried it again. Third time, it didn't take the updated information as well! So, not to be daunted, I canceled my order and went to redo it from scratch... *OUT OF STOCK* GRRRR!!!! The worst news possible for a Black Friday shopper... Now I know how those 12:01 AM wal-mart shoppers feel!

Luckily, I was able to re-initiate my old order, and get the thing processed. This time, with the correct expiration date, with the "secure banking" already set up, and it seems they have already started doing the address confirmation from my first order request! ^_^ Now, I'll just have to see if I'm in the queue where I was before, or if I'm going to get an email from NewEgg that says, "We're sorry, but that hard drive is *out of stock* now." That would just be the kicker, but things are looking up... Everything seems to be processing though just fine, as the image below shows.

Core 2 Duo Now, Eh?

2006-11-09T11:45:00.000-05:00

Apple just released their new MacBook line, featuring the Core 2 Duo processor in their MacBook. This less than two months after I bought my MacBook! It's so infuriating, but these things happen in the computing industry.

It's a little more expensive than what I bought (and I did customize my MacBook to include the 1 GB of RAM and 80 GB HDD), but it's still just a little annoying. But, I am really happy with my MacBook, and I did get a free iPod out of the deal, so it's not all that bad ^__^

Apple-Apple-Apple

2006-11-01T21:49:00.000-05:00

I finally got that Apple rejection letter today. I immediately checked Apple.com/Promo, and found that they have started processing my claim again. ~sigh... Another waiting game to see if I get it this second time around or not.

Apple also has recently upgraded their processors in the MacBook Pro series to the Core 2 Duo... Faster, but also much more expensive than my ol' MacBook with the classic “Core Duo” processor. I'm still flabbergasted by the sheer speed of my MacBook, I cannot imagine anything that would be faster than it is right now. I'd love to see the new MacBook Pro, as well as what's just over the horizon for CPUs and the computer industry.

I do have a few complaints about the MacBook, most of it is structural design however... The processor is speedy and seems to stay quite cool, the “mag lock” charger and LCD latch are delightful, and I'm getting quite used to the software and how things work on the Mac. It's power management is second to none, the graceful OS is like dancing when I'm operating the system.

However, everything is not wonderful in wonderland... There is still much room for improvement... some of the issues I'm having are that the iSight is placed right where I would usually put my thumb when opening the LCD. Each time I open it, I'm worried that I'll damage the camera. Also, the bezel of the laptop, albeit beautiful, is quick to get dirty and scratched. The more you use or move the laptop, the worse off it gets. The touch-pad's mouse button also has some issues, it's a little difficult to click sometimes, others it's just really loud – that is at least when you don't press right down on the center of the button. And worst of all is FRONTROW!!! I love the concept of it, but it tends to crash on occasion, as well as it seems to be rather slow when accessing the harddrive. I also haven't figured out how to make it play a “playlist” of video files, and worst of all, I have yet to figure out how to start the application without using the Apple Remote. Grrr.

I would walk five-hundred miles

2006-10-31T03:00:00.000-05:00

Or in this case, that would be five-hundred phone calls.

I've been trying to redeem a rebate from Apple for their “Major in Mac” rebate: buy a Mac and get an iPod free (up to $179 off). Well, Apple has been having trouble processing my claim for quite some time now.

First, they didn't want to accept my claim since the MacBook didn't ship until September 21, a few days after the end of the promotion (September 16, I believe)... However, I ordered the MacBook (and iPod) on the same day, September 14.

After talking to an Apple technician, I was able to get that cleared up by her saying, “Just submit it by the hand-written form or set the MacBook's shipping date prior to the end of the promotion.”

~sigh... I felt like I was being told to lie or something. Well, Apple should have all of that information on file anyway.

I ended up submitting the rebate the first week of October, getting closer and closer to the end of my submission window. I still was able to get it in on time, thankfully!

However, on October 28 (late at night), I happened to check Apple.com/promo again to see what the status of the rebate was. “Rejected” was at the top of my browser window. I was so frustrated that as soon as I saw that there was a phone number to call for questions, I immediately dialed it up. I was only slightly relieved when the automated system informed me that I needed to “submit additional information” for my rebate to be processed. Since the promo center was closed by the time I got that message, I called the following day and talked to a tech.

When I talked to the tech, she supplied me with the necessary information about what I needed to submit (the invoice for the iPod seems to have been missing) along with all the required claim numbers and fax numbers. Hopefully, with this additional information, I'll be able to get that rebate check back to me here a little sooner.

The odd thing about this is that the iPod invoice was on the same sheet as the MacBook invoice... It was once invoice for both products. Well, at least I've still got a chance to get that rebate... Fortunately, I was able to reprint the invoices (this time separately) from the Apple website, and the technician I talked to informed me that I can fax in the invoice or wait for the letter to come in the mail and submit the rebate the old fashioned way (envelope-and-stamp method). I'll see if I can fax in the information tomorrow at work though, hopefully that'll get things done faster.

But, I must say, that all these issues I've been having with Apple Promo have been rather infuriating. The last thing I want is for my rebate to be rejected, but I can't wait for all of this dancing around to be done... whatever the outcome.

Screenshots of the Week

2006-10-22T15:51:00.000-04:00

I’ve found some really interesting screenshots in the past week at work, and I thought I’d share them…

A CD-R designed to look legit? And I actually think it is!
It seems the system is a refurbished one… but who knows.

Oh, and that same system came with this,
“Operating System NOT Installed On Your System”
Annoying, since it says you can install it, but they
Don’t provide you with a key!!

712 Viruses! And the system was only connected to
the network for 5 minutes, unprotected, after an
Operating System Realod! Also, you can see
where Automatic Updates has crashed! Sadly,
the system didn’t survive the OSR. :(

And what’s even better: 8,675 viruses deleted
from a computer that Joel was working on at the same time!
Note to self: turn off that “Beep for each detection” seeting
In AntiVir

And best of all…

And finally, this week’s AntiVir Notifier… Shockingly insane!

Firefox Frustration

2006-10-20T18:57:00.000-04:00

Firefox 1.5 has been annoying me recently. The browser will stop responding if left running for an excessive amount of time (days to weeks) or if there is a lot of tabs running. I'm not sure why the browser does this, but it's quite infuriating, especially when I lose web sites that took me hours to find.

I was presented with a few options for a solution:
1 – Use a different web browers (Opera)
2 – Attempt to find a solution to this issue by searching google
3 – Upgrade to Firefox 2.0 RC3.

In this case, I was lazy and chose the latter...

I've been running F'Fox 2.0 RC3 in Mac OS for a while now, but Mac OS X is easy to manage installation and uninstallation of programs, allowing me to have two copies of firefox installed at the same time with out a single problem. Linux is a little different, but still easier than Windows (which has to use registry files and “shared” system files), but I was still worried about loosing my bookmarks, and worse yet would be the possibility that it may just screw Firefox over.

To ease my mind, I made a simple backup of both my bookmarks (export to .htm file) and my /opt/MozillaFirefox/lib directory, one for Firefox 1.5 (a second lib file now exists, called lib 1.5) and installing F'Fox 2.0 RC3 to lib, over-writing the old 1.5 files. Things went swimmingly, and I'm quite pleased with it so far. Hopefully, it'll keep going this way as I start to use it as my primary browser on more and more of my computers. --Hey, at least it loads faster now!

Also, I have upgraded my Thunderbird from 1.5.0.6 to 1.5.0.7 – that installer was managed by YaST, so it was nice and easy, and it was a change from 1.5.0.6 to 1.5.0.7, so there isn't much different, at least not that I could tell.

One last thing... I have also tried out SeaMonkey (also from Mozilla), and once again on my MacBook... I was none-too-pleased with it. The interface uses the old “Mozilla” web browser interface (pre-Firefox years) which turned me away from it right from the start. I'm not sure if they just used the old Mozilla skin or if they actually used the old Moz core... I've got a feeling it's the latter, and I haven't been able to really warm up to the program after that.

Maybe one day I'll start to really use it, but not until they get it set up using Firefox.

So Much Has Changed…

2006-10-07T22:17:00.000-04:00

Since my last post, there have been a lot of changes in my IT life.

Lets start at the beginning, shall we?

Hardware

My laptop, a Dell Inspiron 2650, dubbed “Miki-ni” was damaged on vacation. The laptop had been showing it’s age for a long time and was in dire need of some upgrades, and after the damage to the system (and since it was getting closer to needing a total system overhaul) I decided that it would just be a better move to replace the entire unit.

After shopping around, I decided that I wanted to go with a Mac. Apple was going to accept my student discount (Dell wouldn’t) and I have had very little opportunity to work with Macs, even at CyberMedics. So, the decision wasn’t all that difficult. I even got a free iPod out of the deal! (assuming that they will accept my rebate!)

Around that time, my Windows machines began to fall apart… Shortly before I ordered the MacBook, my Windows 2000 fileserver (which spends most of it’s day powered off now – damn energy bill) lost it’s primary storage drive: the E drive, at 250 GB! Fortunatly, it was just a damaged MFT index table that was easily repaired, although a few folders lost their names. Although, things could have gone much worse!

The same thing happened to my Inspiron shortly after I got my MacBook… Both were repaired by doing a check disk on the drive. Thankfully, I was able to use my CyberMedics resources for both computers when I needed them. My bosses even offered to assist me if it was something more serious.

Software

Needless to say, I’ve been experimenting with software of all types now that I’ve got the MacBook. I’ve been tinkering a little with Microsoft Office:mac 2004 and Front Row. I love Front Row, although I have yet to figure out how to start the application without using the Apple remote!

I’ve also started to go a little Mozilla crazy. I’ve got two versions of Firefox installed (versions 1.5 and 2.0rc), as well as SeaMonkey – I’m not much of a SeaMonkey fan though, it seems to be based on the old Mozilla Browser engine, and acts a lot like the old Mozilla browser, the pre-Firefox years. So, I haven’t been able to really warm up to it, but maybe one day I will.

Firefox 2.0 has been doing wonderful on my Mac so far. I haven’t tried it out on Windows (don’t have any Windows machines running), nor have I tried it out in Linux yet –Mac has the easiest software management!

Skills and Education

Other than that, my IT hardware support skills have been going up and up and up. CyberMedics usually gets mostly hardware support issues that I have to find solutions for, and after working there for five months now, two of which have been 25 to 50 hours per week, I have had a lot of time to spend figuring out things that I just have never ran across before.

This is a good place for me to be right now, since my classes are coming to an end and I really need to start getting that work experience going. I was really concerned about what kind of IT job I would be able to get after all those years of college, and having next to zero IT job skills, not to mention nearly having no work experience in general!

Well, aside from that, I think there isn’t much really to say about technical life in general. I’m still a big fan of Open Source Software and plan to stick with it for a long time, just because I have a Mac doesn’t mean that I’ll be using it for everything, also I do have a lot of things to experiment with at work for Linux solutions! I’m even trying to get the bosses to start pushing OSS a little more at work. We’ll have to see how that turns out in the end!

What ya've got there is a serious case of not enough HDD space!

2006-05-09T01:38:00.000-04:00

How many times I've been downloading some anime and then got the ol' running out of space notification. I've seen it in operating systems ranging from Windows 3.11 - to Windows 2003 Server, SUSE 8.x to 10.x - even in a few versions of Mac OS. Now this spreads DECADES. And it's getting a little old.

Well, once again, I recently had to say good bye to my OSx86 machine - to make room for a new SUSE 10.0 rc1 file server - dubbed Suzi10. My SUSE 9.3 box (Suzi-LNX) had packed it's 250 GB HDD full with various torrents, of which most were various anime. As I continued to download my torrents though, I needed more storage space... Hence the creation of Suzi10. And now, I'm maxed out on both machines (making for approximately 275 GB of used space).

It's hard to believe that I've maxed out both machines, but I have. Not to mention that I have another 250-350 GB of torrents down in Adrian waiting for me to come get them. I swear, I'm going to download the Internet here soon.

Well, I guess there's one good thing, however annoying it may be... The college has started blocking torrents again, so I can't download anymore (sad and pout). But, the good thing is, now I'm not going to max out my HDD. *Happy happy!* Bad news: I'm 18 out of 20 GB done for one specific torrent. Grrr... I guess it'll have to wait for the end of the term, or at least until I move out of the dorm next Wednesday, and we get cable Internet in the new place.

But, there is a serious need for cheep TB storage in my life.

OOps, ya broke it...

2006-04-15T01:03:00.001-04:00

Because I forgot to mention that you shouldn't be doing that!

I cannot tell you how many times I've run into people unqualified trying to fix a problem that they don't fully understand... Just about everyone does it at one time or another in their life! Not long ago, I tried to work on my car a little bit, and ended up making the problem worse (lesson: don't attempt to fix car - ask someone who knows about cars to do it!).

But still, it is tempting isn't it? Today at work, I kept seeing people walk up to the printers and start pushing buttons, loading paper, and the notorious "resending the print job over and over again."

Since this is quite annoying, makes me look like a lazy computer lab assistant, and can easily lead to paper jams, I thought, "Why do people keep doing this, even though I rush over each time to fix the problems they have made?"

And then, it dawned on me as a student once again informed me that the "it's probably just that the color printer takes a while to warm up," (as I read which tray is the source of the paper jam)... People believe that they truly know the answer to these computer problems, but in reality, in their "attempt" to fix the computer, they make the problem ten times worse!

So, without being rude (and just telling them "ALWAYS ask the lab assistant") how do I communicate that same idea... The best way, is always the easiest... Make a simple 8.5x11 inch poster! "Document didn't print? Paper low? Blinking Lights? See your handy lab assistant for help!"

I posted, after approval of my boss, two of these posters (which were stylized a bit more than can be described in text form) - one at the set of black and white laser jet printers, and one by the solid-state color printer. Have a clear line of communication about policies and exactly what we would like the users to do is really the best way to keep the patrons of Support Services doing what we need them to do.

Image of my poster publication.
It's missing some fonts in my "at home" version :(

2006-04-05T14:53:00.000-04:00

OSX86: Natively!

When I returned to college, I had a few things in mind on what I was going to do with my machines to get everything running the way I wanted it to be, and I had a few tests that I wanted to run on some of the boxes to troubleshoot some potentially failed PSUs or Motherboards.

Turned out, that my computers were all fine, accept for two of the power supplies failed! That was annoying, but with the purchase of one 400 W PSU from a roommate of mine, I was doing okay. But, I did make the mistake of leaving a few hard drives at home, one of which is critical for the boot process of Windows 2000 Pro.

Sooo... Seeing as how I had no ability to utilize that box, I decided to install OSX86 to it! It took me a while to get all the hardware configurations right (since I played around in BIOS when testing out the PSUs), but it worked easily!

I made one mistake of doing an upgrade from 10.4.5 to 10.4.6, which screwed up the boot process (note to self: let's not do that again), but other than that, it's been pretty smooth sailing. I'm loving the dashboard even more, and I've been playing around a little with X11 in OSX86, with limited success. Surprisingly, X11 is quite limited in OSX86, whereas the standard terminal is nearly fully functional!

Since it's so cold in the dorm at this time of year (drafty rooms, with the boilers running at low power), I've been keeping all the computers I can running at maximum CPU output, to help keep the room a little warmer... Hence, I've been running folding@home for a day now, and it's working beautifully. Oddly enough, it's the PPC version... The linux version didn't work at all (that's where I noticed X11 was fairly limited).

BTW: You can see my folding running behind the dashboard screenshot, and you can view my folding stats here!

2006-03-29T09:14:00.000-05:00

OSX86

It's like eating ice cream with a fork...
I'm finally back in OSX, but it's not the OSX that I remember from that old days... I'm running OSX on my Intel P4 (it is a hacked version of OSX, but I do have a legal copy that isn't installed on anything, so I think that gives me the right to test out OSX on a Pentium, well... At least I think it gives me the right).

It's taking some getting used to, since I'm trying to figure out all the short-cut keys, and why some applications randomly crash (verrrry unapple like), but over all I think it's been a quite interesting experiment.

Since I'm in VMWare, I've had some odd issues... First, it took me about 6 times before I could get the OSX installer to work (some guess work, and a little bit of determination, and things ended up fine). I'm not so sure how much I like the system yet though... It seems to be a bit of a CPU hog (although, that may just be because of how the OS is set up in VMWare), but I'm really enjoying the widgets! At first they were a bit of a pain to get configured and placed, but once I got them set, they make for quite the pleasant addition to the OS.

If there's one thing that justifies spending all that money on a macintosh, it is definitely how awesome the operating system looks. I've got a minor bug with this, since I have no control over my refresh rate (seems to be a VMWare problem), and my mouse and keyboard seem to be a bit delayed (seems to be an OSX issue).

I was even able to configure Japanese text input (いけ、いけ！日本語！) fairly easily, much easier than in Windows (and Linux is a bit difficult to get input methods to work just right anyway) but overall, I'm quite impressed with the operating system.

Coming Soon: Windows Vista: The Resurrection of Windows
and: Xgl (for linux) The Future of *NIX GUIs

2006-03-18T22:13:00.000-05:00

MCSE

70-290

It's kind of sad, but I should have expected it...
As the term came closer and closer to ending at Baker College, I decided to peruse the online book catalog of the Owosso campus library. I ended up finding five or six MCSE test prep books, none of which looked like they had ever been removed from the shelf since they were put there!

With the upcoming Cram Session, I decided that it may be in my best interest to check out the 70-290 book and read it... But I knew that I wasn't going to be using it at all during exams week, so I decided that I would check it out after exams week, where it would either become checked out by one of my classmates, or I would get it and have it for all of break.

And that's exactly what happened. I grabbed the book, checked it out (had to have an override -- all books were due back on Friday of the last day of the term, and therefore, it was checked out for a maximum of 3 hours. ~sigh.) but now I've got the book in my possession and I'm already a decent bit into it.

My goal is to have the entire thing read by the end of spring break, and be well prepared for the upcoming cram session, which is supposed to take place sometime during Spring quarter. I sure hope this helps me out, I may end up watching some of the test prep videos that I have for 70-290 as well, before I return to campus in two weeks.