mjm wired :: Technology

Lenovo Thinkpad T61 Failure

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 13:50:45 -0400

Towards the end of last summer I purchased a new laptop since I was on road quite frequently. I selected a Lenovo Thinkpad T61 notebook for two reasons: well known reliability and a I got a good deal from a friend. It was working flawlessly till I updated it with XP SP3 (note that I purchased Windows Vista Business but later installed Windows XP). I found myself having occasional lockups and reboots. I downgraded SP3 but I still found it occasionally problematic. I decided that I would eventually re-install everything when I got the chance.

Several weeks ago a collegue informed that several laptops with Nvidia video were failing due to overheating or packaging or something. I really did not pay attention for several reasons. I thought my problems were software related, I never saw noticeable video failures, and the heat/fan noise from my laptop never seemed unusual. In any event my Thinkpad totally DIED the other night. I'm reporting this information in case others might find it useful.

I have a Thinkpad T61. Core 2 Duo 7500 2.2Ghz. Nvidia Quadro 140M 128MB. My laptop info.

1. I noticed a higher number of lockups recently. The only time I could see a blue screen i noticed the following error: MACHINE CHECK EXCEPTION Which according to Microsoft help indicates a hardware error.

2. I had updated almost every component using both Windows Update and the Thinkvantage System Update. I did manually update to BIOS 2.19-1.08 (2008/06/11). Additionally I did update the Nvidia driver.

3. A hour before the failure occured I had played with the Microsoft WorldWide Telescope application. I do not know if this is taxing the system too much.

4. When the failure occured I was not there, and upon returning I found the screen totally off. I had left the lid open. I assumed it had gone to "Standby" or "Sleep". So I tried to push the Power button for it to wakeup, but it did not respond. I tried rebooting. With no luck. The screen would not start.

5. The behavior when turning it on is as follows. The LED's blink as if it was turning on. The screen never powers up. The hard drive does power up, but I hear no major disk activity. I cannot tell if the CPU fan is active, it seems like it is. I hear no beeping or any indication that maybe just the screen is not working. Battery or external power does the same. Pretty much dead.

What to do? Well I postponed calling support because I plan to use my external SATA adapter to back up (and clean) my data. I highly recommend everyone keeps an SATA to USB adapter for times like this. (I also have a IDE to USB adapter, also about $20)

Fortunately, I did do a warranty upgrade for 2 years, drop off service. So even though I am in my original warranty period, I do not have to ship it anywhere, I can take it to a local service center. I have heard of some reports online of users insisting Dell (or other manufacturers) giving a warranty extension. I have not tried that yet, so I will make the call this week after my backup.

More to report later.

Cleaning My Digital Music Collection

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:08:22 -0400

I spent almost 4 weeks cleaning my music collection. It was one of the most tedious, time consuming, frustrating things I've done on my computer.

I started by systematically re-ripping every CD I own. In my foolishness a few years ago many, if not all, of my albums were ripped in the Ogg Vorbis format which led them to be incompatible with my MP3 player, a Creative Zen Vision:M. Anyway for ripping I started with free ware options, but their reliance on the often error filled "freecddb" forced me to pay $20 for a utility that gathered proper CD information. That was the easy part seeing as I only have a few dozen CDs.

Then came the hard part, sorting through all the files which I had accumulated. I had to eliminate the duplicates and the songs I really didn't enjoy any more. Then I fixed up file names to better match a somewhat consistent file naming scheme. Then came the ID3 tag issue. I would say that almost 75% of the single tracks I had some type of error. Worse yet, 10 years ago when I first started with MP3's I would put "MJM" somewhere in my music. Why? I was a dumb college student. And then last year when I first got my MP3 player I had all sorts of quirks with IDv1 tags and IDv2 tags. So inconsistency was abound. The "Auto Tag" feature in Winamp was pretty helpful, but even that created funny matches.

I did totally reset my Creative Zen which lost all music, videos and worse: my playlists. Well I considered that the playlists would all be wrong anyways.

Anyway once I finished, I backed it all up to my server. Then I copied it to my Creative Zen. Oddly, I found that syncing through Winamp messed up the album art for the full album rips. So I had to use Windows Media Player 11 to sync with the album art. Once done, I used Winamp to transfer the remaining files. Of course after copying a few thousand files, I realized that certain characters were lost a plus "+" became a dash "-". Well I didn't bother fixing those.

At least I could listen to music again in the car or at work when the people across the cubes need to talk really loud about their diminishing stock returns. Unfortunately the lack of playlists is incredibly frustrating as I haven't found a good application that can manage the same playlists on both PC and MP3 player. Suggestions anyone?

And after all that, I still have plenty to do. Many albums belong to one of my brothers so I couldn't find the original. So next time I meet up with them, I need to get some CD's. Also I didn't bother cleaning up the separate sets of MP3's for Christmas music, comedy routines, self help CD's and a few hundred Hindi songs that I couldn't correct if my life depended on it. But for the time being I don't think I care much if those show up on my Zen.

Almost everyone I know who has an MP3 collection says that they've been meaning to this ... eventually. Yeah, I know what that's like. About 10 years on my TODO list and I'm almost completed.

U2 3D Rocked!

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 18:42:17 -0400

I finally got around to seeing the U2 3D and did it ever rock! It was released to IMAX theatres in February but I've been so busy to see it. Luckily I did before it stops playing at the end of this month. I know this old news to people who've seen it, but I really enjoyed it. I would even go so far to say that with some minor tweaking, I might prefer to see concerts like this, instead of waiting and standing for hours like I did for Vertigo in 2005. The last time I saw an IMAX show I was in Chicago and it was something about the Gulf War in 1993.

The "3-D" is really what makes it worthwhile. This was my first 3-D movie. At first it felt weird but you soon get used to it and some close up shots of Bono made it feel like you physically there. It was interesting how they made some parts stick out. Some scenes had fans jumping up out of the audience and instinctively I wanted to tell them to "sit back down" - almost as if someone was standing in the theater in front of me. Some shots of the sea of fans really were amazing. Other than that there were only a few times they pushed the limits of the 3-D effect. Once when Bono was drawing pictures in the air, they showed up for us. And once during the usual U2-is-gonna-save-the-world appeal there were words flying into the audience. Overall great for a first time, but really they could have done sooo much more!

The annoying part of the 3-D was the glasses were so bulky and uncomfortable for people who wear eye glasses like myself. The only other annoyance I had was that for some scenes my eyes would go "out of sync" and I could start to lose the 3-D effect and see the 2 composite images on the screen. Luckily it only happened at the end. I wonder if it was just me?

In any event it seems like IMAX theatres are popping up all over the place and I'm looking forward to more shows like that (non-nature based, like 99% of the normal 3-D material). I think some screens may be playing U2 for maybe another week if you haven't already seen it. For $12 definitely worth the price compared to normal theaters!

Cell Phone Companies Suck

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 22:20:22 -0400

I hate cell phone companies. I truly do. Yesterday I got a call from my provider during dinner trying to get me to renew my contract. I signed up 2 years ago and in the past few weeks I've been getting nonstop mailers, emails and now calls trying to get me to renew.

Cell phone guy: "So how many minutes do you use per month?"
Me: "Like 100-200"
Him: "Hmm, so it looks like ... umm, good ... so how often do you exceed your minutes?"
Me: "Never"
Him: "Oh, never, well ummm ... so I can see you only have a very basic LG flip phone. I can upgrade your phone with a $150 discount to something with music or video. Would you like that?"
Me: "I am NOT going to get a new phone if it will require me to renew my contract."
Him: "Umm, well, umm, can I ask why you do not want to renew your contract?"
Me: "I don't understand why I am expected to get into a new contract when YOU GUYS can go and change rates and fees on me during the contract. Why did my messaging fee increase? Why did the data rate increase? What's the benefit of the contract to me?"
LONG PAUSE
Him: "Hmm, well, ummm, I can see you have 1 phone on your account, I can add a new line and increase your minutes for a low rate, would you like that?"
Me: "I don't have any reason for a second line for a single person."
Him: "Hmm, well, okay, I ... ummm ... thank you Mr. Miranda for taking the time to talk with me."
CLICK - Call Time: 5:32

I was waiting anxiously to mouth off about the rates and fees changes but for whatever reason I held back. I guess that's just the poor guy's job and I don't need to make his job any harder. But that doesn't change my view of how much I hate cell phone companies. I think they are evil, greedy, cheats, monopolistic, and more bad things.

I was glad to read a Wired Blog post about 10 Reasons to Hate Cellphone Carriers. It summarizes everything I don't like and then some.

Okay enough brooding. No one calls me anyways.

I Hate the Internet

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 20:56:04 -0400

I've been juggling quite a few different tasks and projects over the past few weeks. Some technical but most are just random personal things. I haven't had much time for blogging or even maintaining my website due to other priorities. But what adds insult to injury is having to keep up with the idiots on the internet.

In the past few weeks I've been slammed with spam email, spam blog comments, bot attacks, script kiddies and just plain stupid wannabe hackers. Someone used my private paid email address (which very few know) as the return address on some spam system. As a result I was getting hundreds of bounces and rejects from mail servers all across the world every flippin hour. Just a week ago some asian (I won't name the country, though you probably can guess) did some type of lame denial of service or bandwidth drain attempt and sucked up a few gigabytes of paid bandwidth in less than 24 hours before I noticed it. Then there are the idiot comment spammers. You know I might understand if they kept posting about Viagra and their useless stocks, but I have one who scripted some sort of scheduled junk comments. So I get crap like "ozdhs vksaznopm qbuap qujscawyr jegucfs dy" every couple of minutes. What purpose could that possibly serve other than just to annoy me? People need to get better hobbies.

And I feel bad for all the people emailing me asking for help and other requests. Often I can barely keep up with cleaning the above garbage, that I miss quite a few emails. People will never realize how much work it can be to run a simple website. And I regret I have not run a backup in a long time. My computer will be temporary without internet for the next few days.

So if you email PLEASE NOTE that I am unable to respond in a timely manner. I am doing my best.

10 Years of Email

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 19:16:42 -0400

It just occurred to me that I started using email almost exactly 10 yrs ago. Being the compulsive weirdo that I am, I actually have them all saved. Why? I have no clue. I guess I'm prepared for when my (future) child will ask me one day: "Dad when did you first have email?" ... Wow 10 yrs. Man have things ever changed.

Once upon a time, I would sit and wonder: "How come no one emails me?". That stage did not take long to pass.

Then some years later, I thought: "People sure rely on this email waaayyy too much. How annoying! Can't you just call me?". That took a little while longer to pass.

Then came the SPAM. And it came. And it hasn't stopped. So I started thinking: "Wow, how is it possible that this many super hot girls get my email???". Hmm, maybe I shouldn't have opened some of those. Goodbye "guaranteed organ growth", hello BULK MAIL folder!

Then came the goodies included in the mails. ... "I Love You?" - umm, not really ... "Code Red?" - should I be scared? ... Anna Kournikova - hmm, tempting, but I'll pass. I wish the rest of the computer users of the world passed too.

Then came the technical emails, the professional emails -- the important stuff. Sending stuff to people higher than you can be intimidating - and worse yet, they take forever to reply or sometimes never. Yeah, well, if they took forever to reply and demanded a quick response from me. Well, you know what I did, I ... well, I responded right away. And at the end of the day I could keep those emails somewhere and not have to mix them with my personal emails.

Which brings me back to all my personal emails. Thousands saved, none of them new. I can't help thinking - how come no one emails me anymore?.

Google Maps Across the Ocean

Sun, 22 Apr 2007 22:09:00 -0400

I saw this in the newspaper and I thought it was pretty funny. Go to Google Maps and get directions for 2 major cities that are separated by an ocean. Say for example New York and London.

Try it for yourself.

Pay close attention to how Google recommends you cross that ocean. And of course don't forget the disclaimer:

These directions are for planning purposes only. You may find that construction projects, traffic, or other events may cause road conditions to differ from the map results.

In this case you might be missing your road.

Computer Waste

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 20:10:40 -0400

So in 1997 I was excited to get a 14.1" Sony Trinitron monitor. It worked at a pristine 800x600 SVGA resolution (and I could push it to 1024x768@85Hz, rare for the time). However that was only for my main computer at the time, a 166Mhz AMD K6 (sorry I couldn't afford a Pentium MMX). So the rest of the 286's and 486's at my house (all second hand) were running monochrome (remember Hercules?) or EGA. So I would scour the used computer shops for monitors. I was looking for any VGA at the time. I bought several $5 or $10 semi-broken monitors (otherwise $50-100 used) thinking I could get my dad to fix them. Sadly in the end they all landed in the trash.

A few years later I remember helping with some replacement monitor purchases at a place I worked. I would select the UPS Ground Service for shipping (typically 1 week) - saving a whopping $50 over faster delivery. Of course that stopped when I was scolded over the fact that if someone needed a monitor for their work and had to wait 5 days, that's 40hours X their hourly wage of less output or in some cases no work at all. Okay, so I could see first hand how time waste translated to dollars.

Wising up, on occasion I would pay more attention to the parts needed to fix a monitor. So it takes a few hours to open it and isolate the board or part that's faulty. Then a few days to order the part. A few more hours to put it back together. Voila! Good as new. However someone will do a cost estimate and find that actually buying a new replacement will take less time and overall cost. And their numbers are correct.

So I dump a monitor in the trash. But somehow I know that doesn't translate well for the environment. While I "potentially" saved money, I know that probably a few resistors or diodes would make that junk into not-junk. Obviously I can't recycle a CRT like you can paper. And then someone will give me an argument that throwing that monitor is probably better for the environment, but I just don't buy it ... yet.

So now I have one of last nice Trinitron monitors on my desk. It's only 17" but it manages nicely at 1280x1024@100Hz. But I want more! I want a wide LCD with a ton more screen space. However I can't get over the fact that I'll be effectively turning this one into trash. Could it a new Dell 24" Wide Panel make me more productive? Sure! Would I be $700 more productive? Tough sell.

I go through computer hardware parts (motherboards, CPU's, memory) almost regularily every 18 months or so, but I never throw them away. Yes, I still have my 166Mhz K6. But with big monitors, they take up lots of space and I can't keep them around. I feel guilty contributing to the growing electronic waste problem, but at the end of the day I might really need that 2GB RAM upgrade or that WUXGA 1920x1200 resolution.

If you don't keep up, the waste of your skills or abilities seems like a greater tragedy.

Windows Vista Hardware Requirements

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 21:10:07 -0500

From Microsoft's own website. In order to run Windows Vista in any other mode than Home Basic (i.e. no effects, and with removed functionality) Microsoft recommends the following:

1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor 1 GB of system memory 40 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space Support for DirectX 9 graphics with: WDDM Driver 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum) Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware 32 bits per pixel DVD-ROM drive

Huh?

Most personal computer manufacturers cut costs by shipping lower quality hardware that runs pretty well (since Windows XP is over 5 years old now). Microsoft has tried pushing their otherwise unpopular Windows Media Center Edition (MCE) and Windows Tablet Edition stimulating different software/hardware usage. But I guess no one really buys it because they don't need it or just plain don't care. Video gaming in Windows hasn't changed much in the past few years (hello Xbox 360!!). And for the most part people don't do much more on their PC's than they did a few years ago. Even video editting was perfectly useable in the pre-XP days (anyone heard of a Macintosh?). The bottom line is that if you bought a new computer in the past 2 years or so it should run Windows XP pretty decently and other than space issues (downloading "stuff", taking pictures, etc.) it probably meets all your needs.

When the Pentium processors came out (1993?) originally people used Windows 3.1 (3.1.1 32bit if you were lucky). Windows 95 was revolutionary in many aspects and finally allowed you to do significantly more from your computer than ever before. So 12 years later ... Windows has not really changed much past Windows 95. Sure there are plenty of improvements, but realistically it is essentially the same. So can this Vista do for XP what 95 did for 3.1? That's easy to answer.

And yet, hardware manufacturers see that people eventually stop caring for the most wham-bam latest-greatest hardware (64-bit, Dual-Core, etc.). A $500 computer from Dell seems to work just fine. Ahhh, so now a new revolution begins. Having unnecessary software just to use your unnecessary hardware. Progress at its finest.

The whole push for obscene requirements just for the basic operating system seems so idiotic it just boggles my mind. Microsoft really has given hardware manufacturers something to smile about. Will this Vista cause sales for hardware and computers to increase? I doubt it.

There's something to be said about innovation. How about - it should be innovative? I know it's wishful thinking.

Digital Cable Newbie

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 21:15:45 -0500

"Nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there." Everytime I visited a friend or relative with digital cable, I always thought "how cool". Yeah, so I have digital cable now, I didn't choose to get it, it's sort of just there, so I sort of use it. And it's somewhat of a disappointment. Yeah, not as nice as the brochure.

Biggest pain: It effectively killed my urge to channel surf. You know when there isn't anything on, but you just want to flip? Now it takes like 2 seconds for the image to display and for the "information" to show. And worse, sometimes the channel doesn't update on the screen, so it jumps like 2 or 3 channels. A co-worker recommended I start flipping through the "tv guide" menu and read the words. Unfortunately, its not quite the same.

The On Demand Movies feature is very disappointing. The free movies are either all black and white or they are those movies that no one really wanted to watch. Chances are if it's good, I have already seen it. So the new movies are all $3.99 - but in 10 minutes I can rent the DVD for $3.00 in wide screen and 5.1 surround sound. Worse yet, the fast forward and rewind are incredibly non-responsive. And to add insult to injury the sound sometimes "blips" and on occasion there is some digitization or loss of frames.

So you pay more for a premium service right? The TV channel guide actually has ads!!! It shows 3 channels and their schedules and in the forth row is a little banner for another TV show or movie. And I watched a (free) On Demand horror movie and every 30 minutes at the bottom flashed an advertisement for Fear.net. Not small - taking up a quarter of the screen.

So everyone who has had digital service probably already knows this, but to me I'm shocked how pathetic it all is. I remember reading in the early 90's how cool this technology would be, unfortunately it has quite a ways to go.