Buck Fusion

The TWO HUNDRETH blog entry!

2011-09-18T07:38:00.000-07:00

Today's entry celebrate's the 200th addition to the Buck Fusion blog. I just wanted to send a quick note of thanks to all 8,400+ of my readers, whether you are a humans or computer. (And thanks Mom for all your hard work!)

The mission at Buck Fusion is "random rants regarding relatively ridiculous research." This is probably the worst mission of any blogger. The reason is a writer cannot build up a following based on random rants. Everyone in business knows the brand must be predictable. If you can't build a predictable brand then you cannot build up a group of followers. If you don't have followers then you can't monetize people's interest in your products. It's like Tom asks Fred "What's that guy trying to sell?" and Fred says "Heck if I know. That blog looks like a pile of junk to me."

However, every once in a while, something gets written here that gets people's attention. The top three blog entries are (presented in descending order):

#3 The dangerous flight of the S032 Fiery Dragon (25 JUN 2010)
#2 Kippered Snacks Taste Test (19 JUL 2009)
#1Upgrading a Seagate Momentus XT to firmware SD25 (25 APR 2011)

If the statistics at Blogger are correct then what my (few) readers in the United States, Germany, and Turkey really want on this blog are more stories about hard disks, kippered herring, and helicopters.

Changing to emphasis of the blog to hard disks, kippered herring, and helicopters is probably going to get me on a list somewhere. You know the kind of list I'm talking about. Being the "go to guy" when the Chief Inspector says "To solve this case what we need is a guy who's an expert on hard disks, kippered herring, and helicopters!"

All joking aside, I really do like writing about hard disks and helicopters. I'm not all that fond of kippered herring, though. But maybe I'll move up and get higher quality kippered herring. Besides, kippered herring is easier to write about than hard disks or helicopters because tins of fish are way cheaper than hard disks or helicopters.

And with that, we move onto ideas for the next 200 entries of Buck Fusion.

Review of Nokia SU-36 Stylus

2011-09-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

Let's get this out of the way: I'm an old school stylus guy. I like those pointy sharp tipped styli that came with the Palm III, the HP Jornada, and the Compaq iPAQ. Heck, if a sharp stylus was good enough 4,000 years ago for the mighty Hammurabi, then it's good enough for me.

I guess there was a bit of a problem with resistive touchscreens, though. The very fine and very delicate wires that provided the X and Y coordinates broke. When that happened the screens went a little crazy. I personally experienced this on two devices. Once I had the screen of a Handspring Visor Platinum go wacky because an entire section of the screen would not register the pressure of the stylus. This also happened to me when I was using a Toshiba Portege M100 Tablet PC. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, if you pressed on the entire screen - weird things could happen as the screen's sensors were overloaded and the application responded to the input.

Someone once said something like "If you see a stylus ... 'they blew it.'" That someone also had a lot of influence and helped migrate the industry from our sharp pointy stick loving resistive touchscreens to the current generation of capacitive touchscreens. Capacitive touchscreens are awesome because instead of carrying around a sharp pointy stick, we could use our fingers to accomplish the same task.

Until the day comes when we are wearing gloves. Or we are eating messy finger food. Then we either can't use the capacitive touchscreen or won't use it. At this point, we are back to our old friend, the stylus.

Except the modern stylus that works with a capacitive touchscreen has either a foam or rubber tip. No more beautiful turned aluminum sharp pointy styli for us. Now we have soft rubber or foam tipped styli.

The Nokia Stylus SU-36 is a foam tipped retractable stylus. The product was announced in May 2010. It is designed to work with the Nokia N8-00 smartphone and devices with similar touchscreen technology. The overall design is a telescoping aluminum tube that's been partially crushed to provide the necessary friction to keep the components together. Unfortunately, the stylus has a serious design flaw. The capacitive nib can get stuck in the cap of the stylus. One customer review of the Nokia Stylus SU-36 said:

The stylus is small and does the job although the brush end is a bit large. However, on second use the brush came out of the tube remaining in the retaining cap. Rather than returning etc. I superglued it back in and am waiting to see if this holds.

The capacitive nib of my Nokia SU-36 also came out of the tube. The nib is held in place by friction. Unfortunately, on my unit the friction fit of the nib-and-cap was stronger than the friction fit of the nib-and-body. So, after pulling out the nib I too superglued the nib back into the body.

I was only partially successful. I only got the nib partially in - and at an angle - before the epoxy seized. So now the foam nib is at a slight angle. It works, but quite literally the nib is a bit off center.

So how does it compare to our old sharp pointy sticks? Well, I have used the Nokia SU-36 with my Nokia N8-00 and it works pretty well. Sometimes I have to press hard to get the thing to work, and other times a slight brush is all that is needed. I have found there is a "sweet spot" that works best. If I can find that sweet spot the Nokia SU-36 works very well indeed. I love using the Nokia SU-36 with Swype!

Right now the Nokia SU-36 is on my key chain, and I think it will stay on it forever. There are times when I can't or won't touch the screen of the Nokia N8-00. For those infrequent situations the SU-36 will come in handy.

Nokia N8-00 and Bluetooth Mini Keyboard review

2011-09-17T19:11:00.000-07:00

If you have a Nokia N8-00 you might be surprised to learn that a small Bluetooth keyboard designed for thumb typing may be your best friend. I have a small Bluetooth keyboard that I use with my Nokia N8-00 because I can enter more information into the Nokia N8-00 this way than I can using Swype.

In my case, I own a Bluetooth mini keyboard that is sold as "The Rocksoul BK-100 Bluetooth Keyboard for iPad/iPhone." This keyboard really stands out in the Apple iPad accessory aisle. Most Bluetooth keyboards marketed for the Apple iPad cost around $80USD. The Rocksoul BK-100 Bluetooth Keyboard for iPad/iPhone retails for $30USD (and that's pretty high for what you get).

The keyboard is designed for thumb typing, lacks a decent manual, and requires the user to know a bunch of information about bluetooth profiles and how to pair Bluetooth devices. However, it does support Nokia Symbian S60 (V3.0 & later) and Symbian^3.

Now, this keyboard is sold under a lot of different names by different companies so there must be something wrong with the product. It even feels "fly by night." I don't know why, but it does. In fact, most of the user reviews that I found about this device (marketed under different names and manufacturers) were evenly split between declaring the keyboard OK or craptastic.

On the Web, the price difference between the highest price ($30USD) and the lowest price ($16USD) is about $14USD. Here are a bunch of URLs that describe this keyboard:

http://www.myrocksoul.com/bluetooth-keyboard--mini.html
http://www.frys.com/product/6612194?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
http://www.sourcinggate.com/mini-bluetooth-keyboard-for-your-mobile-phone-black--p-9161.html
http://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-Wireless-Keyboard-Android-Smartphone/dp/B0043862N4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1316299443&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B0042HGAS8/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&qid=1316299443&sr=8-3&condition=new

The documentation says the keyboard supports Symbian, so I took the leap of faith to believe the keyboard would actually support the Nokia N8-00. I am happy to report the keyboard does actually work with the Nokia N8-00. Even thumb typing I can operate most of the screens on the Nokia N8-00. Except when I can't. I don't get mad because I know "It's a Symbian thing, I won't understand."

Communication between Bluetooth devices is supposed to be encrypted. I'm going to guess that the link between the two devices is "sort of" encrypted. Meaning that if there is any encryption at all it's easily defeated. So if you are planing on using this device my recommendation is to avoid using it if you worry about people snooping your Bluetooth link or horsing around with "man-in-the-middle" attacks. Having said all that, here is how I use the keyboard with my Nokia N8-00:

Top up the battery of the Bluetooth keyboard
I found the keyboard needs about 3-4 hours of charge time. When my keyboard is charging a red light comes on. When the battery is topped off, the lamp is extinguished.

Setup - Bluetooth mini keyboard
The keyboard has two lights, an on-off switch, and a button to initiate pairing. The keyboard has a red light to indicate charging. The blue light does three things: it indicates power up, the keyboard is in pairing mode, and low battery condition.

When the keyboard is powering up the blue light turns on and stays lit for about six seconds.

After the pairing button is pressed, the blue light flashes for over 30 seconds. The light is on for about one second duration and off for one second. My particular keyboard has stayed in pairing mode for five minutes or more, so it's happy to wait for the other device to wake up and get ready to pair. Usually if I can't get the keyboard to pair with a device I just turn off the keyboard and restart the process. If the pairing button was not pressed and the blue light starts flashing in one second intervals, that means the keyboard's battery is low and needs recharging.

Setup - Nokia N8-00 (Symbian^3, pre-Symbian Anna)

Goto Menu Key > Settings > Connectivity > Bluetooth
If necessary, tap the "Bluetooth" tab, set "Bluetooth" from "off" to "on" and set "My phone's visibility" to "Shown to all."
Tap the "Paired devices" tab, press the Options soft key, then press "New paired device," then press "more devices." When the "Search for:" dialog box opens press "Input devices."
Note: You now have about 15 seconds to turn on the Bluetooth keyboard and press the pairing button on the Bluetooth keyboard. If you flub this the Nokia N8-00 will ask "No Bluetooth devices found. Try again?" then select "Yes."
Devices found: Bluetooth mini keyboard.
The Nokia N8-00 will ask "Passcode for Bluetooth mini keyboard:" press the zero key four times (0000) and press OK.
Now, on the Bluetooth keyboard press the zero key four times (0000) and press the Enter key.
Pairing is now complete.
The Nokia N8-00 will ask "Authorize device to make connections automatically?" Select "Yes."
Then select keyboard layout. In my case, I selected "US English."
Press the "Back" key until you work your way out of the menus and then press the "Exit" key to get back to your Home screen.

Bluetooth Mini Keyboard Symbian-specific key combinations
The Nokia N8-00 has a few Symbian^3 key combinations that are unique. Fortunately, the keyboard knows how to send the keycodes to the Nokia N8-00. Here are the key combinations between the keyboard and the Nokia N8-00:

Fn+W = Up Arrow
Fn+A = Left Arrow
Fn+S = Down Arrow
Fn+D = Right Arrow
Fn+Alt = Left Key / Options
Fn+Ctrl = Right Key / Call / Exit / Cancel
Fn+Left Shift = Call
Fn+Right Shift = End
Fn+Space = Menu
Ctrl+Enter = OK

Conclusion

One of the most annoying things about this keyboard is if I turn off the keyboard or reboot the phone then I have to re-run the pairing procedure. Another annoying thing is I have to keep the Nokia N8-00 visible to all for the Bluetooth mini keyboard to maintain the connection with the Nokia N8-00. And the final irritation is I'm assuming everything transmitted is in the clear.

But the convenience of entering large amounts of information quickly outweighs these annoyances and irritations. I'm keeping the keyboard. I won't buy another one like it, but I'll use this one until it breaks.

Nokia N8-00 USB On-the-Go Review (Pre-Symbian Anna)

2011-09-17T18:30:00.000-07:00

So why did I buy a Nokia N8-00, in August, in North America?
The other day I bought a Nokia N8-00 "pre-Symbian Anna" smartphone. Yes, I bought it months after the "burning platforms" speech was delivered by Nokia's CEO. Yes, I bought the Nokia N8-00 knowing customers and developers were abandoning Symbian. And I bought the Nokia N8-00 knowing full well Nokia plans to abandon Symbian smartphones in North America. So, in other words, I bought it with the same criteria I buy a microwave oven: Is it cheap and does it work?

As for cheap, heck yeah the Nokia N8-00 is cheap! Well for a smartphone, it is now! Thanks to the clumsy and ham-handed way Nokia announced the transition to Windows Phone 7 (or 8, or 9, or whatever) we are talking fire sale prices on all things Nokia! Especially old stuff like the 2010 Nokia flagship N8-00! The "burning platform" speech made every retailer panic and press the big red "flush old inventory now" button at the same time.

So, I got the cell phone for a very low price. How does the Nokia N8-00 work you ask? It works in its own fiddly pre-Symbian Anna way. Imagine every totally eccentric engineer being able to transfer some of their intransigence into the phone and you've got it.

As a phone (i.e. reception, voice, and text) the Nokia N8-00 is awesome. Voice reproduction is very, very good. I really have to say that Nokia hit the basic stuff out of the ballpark.

And the camera! Wow. I used to keep a small camera with me in the car but now I don't. The Nokia N8-00's camera takes decent pictures and there are a few tools that allow image manipulation right on the smartphone. For example, here's a picture of a stream at dusk capturing the effects of a forest fire's smog in the mountains and sky beyond:

If I had taken the same picture with my RIM Blackberry Bold 9700 all you would see is a nasty greenish-blackish and orange image. And my Alcatel OT-800 Tribe! Let's not go there!

About USB On-the-Go (USB OTG)
Besides being a low-cost high-capability smartphone (thanks, champ!), and working in its own fiddly way, the Nokia N8-00 has a unique capability. The Nokia N8-00 has USB On-the-Go.

A long time ago (like summer of 2010), Nokia demonstrated USB On-the-Go as a feature of the Nokia N8-00. Basically, USB OTG allows you to connect various USB devices to the phone. Examples of this are USB keyboards, mice, and thumb drives. The feature was really well received:

Unfortunately, USB OTG was more-or-less dropped as a feature right before the release of the Nokia N8-00. It has become The Feature Nokia Does NOT Talk About. Ever. However, the code is still there, still buggy, and given the right equipment USB OTG works quite well. Here is my experience with USB OTG on my particular Nokia N8-00 smartphone:

USB OTG and Thumb drives
I tried several USB thumb drives. Most were 4GB models that supported the ancient and crusty USB 2.0 standard and were formatted using FAT. All worked. What did not work was a 16 GB USB thumb drive. Also, the Nokia N8-00 did not like thumb drives of any capacity that used "modern" allocation schemes like exFAT and NTFS or had multiple partitions. Stick with one partition and good old FAT.

USB OTG and USB Hard Disk
Wow. Total failure. I connected a 320 GB Western Digital external USB hard disk to the Nokia N8-00 and (wow!) did the Nokia N8-00 squeal. Actually, the Nokia N8-00 made that weird double knock error sound. On the screen the Nokia N8-00 complained there was something wrong with the USB cable. As for the hard disk, well, it just powered up and clicked and rebooted. I later connected the external USB hard disk to an Apple Mac and it was fine. So the take away is the Nokia N8-00 isn't pumping out a lot of power from the USB port.

USB OTG and wired USB Keyboard
I tried several wired USB keyboards and they all worked great. No problems at all. Using a wired USB keyboard is a great solution for entering a bunch of contact information or notes.

USB OTG and Logitech Wireless Keyboard K360
Oh how I wished this little toy had played well with the Nokia N8-00. I'm going to have to say this experiment was a failure. What happened was the Logitech Unifying receiver and keyboard would work great for about 30 seconds, maybe even a minute and then ... nothing. The Logitech Wireless Keyboard K360 became totally unresponsive. I'd have to pull out and re-insert the Logitech Unifying receiver. Darn all that power saving code in these devices! This was such a bummer because I liked the crazy Victorian wallpaper print on the keyboard.

USB OTG and wired USB Mouse
I tried several wired USB mice and they all worked great with the Nokia N8-00. A little mouse cursor showed up on the display of the Nokia N8-00 when the Nokia N8-00 detected a mouse. The mice were manufactured by Logitech or Microsoft. I'm not sure what to make of this capability because it's pretty useless. But cool.

USB OTG and HP Wireless Mini Keyboard
Basically, the HP Wireless Mini Keyboard is an awesome 10"-wide little keyboard with a built-in optical mouse. The product specifications don't really spell out how well it's made. Unfortunately, to make cost the design team left out lamps for On/Off, Caps Lock, and all the other good stuff that is useful for troubleshooting. I had high hopes for connecting the keyboard to the Nokia N8-00. If everything worked properly, the Nokia N8-00 would show a mouse pointer and the keyboard would work. Unfortunately, my HP Wireless Mini Keyboard is incompatible with the Nokia N8-00. I'm not exactly sure what happens, but I think the Nokia N8-00 goes into a power save mode and the HP Wireless Mini Keyboard also goes into power save mode. When either goes into power save mode the connection is broken until the HP Link-5 dongle is removed and inserted into the Nokia N8-00. When the two are working the result is awesome. The pre-Symbian Anna OS really comes to life with a mouse and keyboard. It must be all that code left over from the Psion Series 5 PDAs.

Conclusion
USB OTG is a pretty cool technology that somehow left the lab half-baked and completely un-removable by product launch. Personally, I'm happy that it's there. USB OTG makes the odd and off-beat Nokia N8-00 one of the last great smartphones.

Portable Navigation Device (PND) madness

2011-08-28T08:53:00.000-07:00

There is something fundamentally wrong with the business model of companies like TomTom, Garmin, and other vendors of portable navigation devices (PNDs). Garmin's Form 10-Q for June 2011 states the problem like this:

Automotive/mobile segment revenue decreased 19% from the year-ago quarter, as volumes decreased 11% and the average selling price (ASP) decreased 9%. Volumes declined in the North American market as competitive technologies reduced the portable navigation device (PND) market. ASP declines resulted from product mix shifting toward products bundled with lifetime maps requiring the net deferral of $62 million of revenue and the impact of $27 million of revenue from mobile handsets in the year ago quarter, which had considerably higher ASPs than other automotive/mobile products. Revenues in our fitness segment increased 25% from the year-ago quarter on the strength of recent product introductions that expand the addressable market and ongoing global penetration in the segment. Aviation revenues increased 13% from the year-ago quarter as the Company began to ship updated panel mount avionics products.

(The full document is available at EDGAR.)

It's all a little complex, but let me boil it down to real world experience: updating a PND is too hard!

My newest PND is a Garmin nuvi 1390T. Right now it is about 8 months old. To update the firmware and maps I needed to go through a lot of steps. In general terms, here is what was needed to update the firmware:

Go to the manufacturer's Web site.
Create a user account.
Plug in the PND.
Wait for USB drivers to load.
Wait for the computer to recognize the PND.
Wait for the browser plug-in to download from the manufacturer's Web site.
Wait for the browser plug-in to communicate and authenticate the PND.
Select available software from the manufacturer.
Select firmware.
Wait for firmware to download, install, and reboot the PND.
Wait for the PND to finish rebooting, reauthenticate with manufacturer, and learn of available firmware.
Repeat the last two steps another two times.
Use the manufacturer's standalone Web app to see what voices and other software needs updating.
Wait for updates to download and install. (At least this was fairly painless).
Reboot device.

Oh, that was easy, wasn't it?

As for updating the base map of North America, that process was simpler, but still painful. Because of the enormous amount of time involved in downloading the map update I opted to order the DVD. What did that require me to do?

Install DVD.
Find that the instructions printed on the DVD's sleeve to run SETUP was bogus because there was no SETUP.EXE file at the root of the DVD.
Read the content of the autorun file to find the location of the install application.
Run the install application and wait for it to download two updated copies of itself.
Wait through a six step process.
Finally learn that the updater worked and successfully transferred map data from the DVD to the PND.
Reboot the PND.

This is insane.

Do the suits at these companies realize that for over 40 years computer scientists have automated configuration management and practically perfected how to execute a simple file transfer? Have the corporate suits even heard of configuration management? All that is happening are two file transfers! one to update the firmware and one to update the base map. This is not new "How do we do this?" stuff.

Some of my coworkers view PNDs as throw away items. They say that the prices of PNDs have dropped so much that there is no reason to update the maps. I must say, after going through the process of updating my newest PND, I have to agree.

If the sale price of a new PND is $99, and the map update price is about $50 and several hours of time, then the value of each is about equal. Even making the maps free for the lifetime of the product is a non-starter if the update process is a time sink. I want to live my life, not herd bits from the cloud to a PND.

In the end I think standalone PNDs are doomed. My cell phone (a Nokia N8) can act as a PND. As a PND the Nokia N8 has its own unique set of problems, but the Nokia N8 is trivial to update. It's sort of like the Nokia N8 seems to know something about version control, configuration management, and how to update itself.

Hey, isn't that what makes Apple's App Store awesome? The store maintains version control and informs the end user when updates are available. Then the update process is trivial.

So, Garmin, I have provided you a solution free of charge. You can thank me by fixing your goofy model for updating your devices.

Going for a drive

2011-08-16T08:44:00.001-07:00

The open road calls. Going to snowy mountains.

Indicator and warning of a recession?

2011-08-15T21:15:00.001-07:00

I love driving the roads of the American West. A driver can literally see how well the economy is doing. If there are long trains and lots of tractor-trailers, then the economy is doing well. If I see short trains and a few trucks carrying stuff to Wal-Mart, I know we're in a recession. The other day I took a picture of a blazing fast train that passed by the Multnomah Falls in Oregon. I was a little worried that it was a bit short. I suppose it is an indicator and warning of a coming recession or something.

Taurus 905 review

2011-07-29T17:34:00.000-07:00

If the day begins with black coffee, doughnuts, and a sky full of weirdly shaped clouds then it's Range Day.

I should have known those weird clouds forecast a weird day at the range. This day's shooting centered around a Taurus 905 9mm revolver. The Taurus 905 is a 5-shot snub-nosed revolver chambered in 9mm Luger (the cartridge is also known as 9mm Parabellum, 9x19, 9mm, etc). These days 9mm revolvers are as rare as hen's teeth, mostly because the idea doesn't quite work right. Like the mighty Smilodon, the 9mm revolver looks impressive but in the long run it just kind of dies out.

That said, there is nothing wrong with the Taurus 905. The model I used was nicely blued and locked up tight. The revolver looks like it will last for years, if not decades.

Usually, a straight-walled cartridge like the 9mm Luger will fall right out of a revolver. If the chambers of the revolver are cut as they are in a semiauto pistol then extraction of the spent case is a problem. The solution is to use a small device to hold the cartridges by their rim so they headspace correctly and can be extracted. In revolvers chambered for .45 ACP these devices are called moon clips. Taurus took the idea of a moon clip and named their proprietary devices "stellar clips."

So what is there to say about this revolver? How about this:

The Good:

Well built
Locks tight
Widely available
Acceptable accuracy
Uses commonly available ammunition
Fast reloads

The bad:

Sharp recoil
No +P or +P+ ammo
5 shots and then reload

The ugly:

Occasionally locks up tight due to stellar clip misaligning cartridges
Stellar clips are expensive and flimsy
Stellar clips can drop cartridges

The Taurus 905 is a fun range gun that uses widely available ammunition. Shooting one of these revolvers does help to slow down time on the line and break up the monotony of shooting a semiauto pistol. But! Because of reliability issues the revolver isn't suited to being carried in the field.

Oh, right, I almost forgot. The revolver comes with the Taurus Security System. This means you can make your revolver inoperable during long-term storage. I guess lawyers like that sort of thing, so its worth mentioning.

About the Montblanc Starwalker Midnight Black Metal Fineliner

2011-07-22T22:26:00.000-07:00

Any pen that needs six words to describe it - even before you get to how it feels or writes - is gonna be expensive. It's no surprise that the suggested price of the Montblanc Starwalker Midnight Black Metal Fineliner is USD $575. Plus tax. If you get one of these things you could easily leave six Benjamins on the table.

That said, what makes the Montblanc Starwalker Midnight Black Metal Fineliner writing instrument interesting? For me what's interesting is the idea that the barrel, cap, clip, and rings are plated with ruthenium. Well, maybe not ruthenium, because that would be shiny silver, but ruthenium oxide. You know, the cheap black stuff that works almost as well as chrome for rust resistance but is a lot weirder.

Yeah, now I'm feeling chuffed! According to Wikipedia, only about 12 tons of ruthenium is pried out of the ground each year. Considering this is planet-wide production, that isn't much folks. On the other hand, the price per ounce is only about USD $180, so as a metal ruthenium isn't that valuable.

Where ruthenium oxide does shine (eh, sorry about that), is in how a little bit of ruthenium oxide goes a long way to making cheap metals like stainless steel hard and resistant to corrosion. Unless, of course, ruthenium meets its arch nemesis: bleach. Ruthenium dissolves in bleach. Bummer, huh? If your Montblanc Starwalker Midnight Black Metal Fineliner writing instrument goes through the wash all that cool Montblanc ruthenium goes away and you'll be in your bunny slippers crying like a stockbroker during the Stock Market Crash of 1929.

So keep your Montblanc Starwalker Midnight Black Metal Fineliner out of the wash and you'll be fine. The Montblanc Starwalker Midnight Black Metal Fineliner has a nice feel to it and has a look of understated competence to it. This pen's design might not go over well in the boardroom, but if you are in the field working with some tough guys then this pen will fit right in with their tactical pens.

Yup, after much thought I decided that the Montblanc Starwalker Midnight Black Metal Fineliner is Montblanc's interpretation of the combination of kubotan and fine writing instrument. You wouldn't think Montblanc would be into personal weapons, but I suppose the tactical pen niche is hugely profitable. This particular market segment could not be ignored. I suppose that in an emergency the Montblanc Starwalker Midnight Black Metal Fineliner could make a fair, if overpriced, improvised weapon. Except if your adversary is carrying a bottle of bleach. Then you're gonna have a bad day.

World UFO Day

2011-07-02T18:04:00.000-07:00

Recently I completed an assignment where the coffee tasted like stale cigarettes and the jalapeno flavored bagels needed a good dunking in Tabasco green pepper sauce. Still, all projects - even death marches (or especially death marches) - come to an end. This one did just in time for me to celebrate World UFO Day.

Tonight I think I'll just hang loose outside and stare at the stars with my binoculars. Who knows, maybe something near Algol will get my attention.

Anyway, I might as well stay up late. It's going to take a while for all that caffeine to work its way out of my system.

Parasite fighters and carriers

2011-06-02T08:03:00.000-07:00

The other day I read a news article that announced a defense contractor had developed a launch system for drones from cargo planes.
I love this idea.
It'll never work, of course, because it never does. For example, in the mid-1930's the USS MACON was a large airship that carried little fighter planes. In the 1950's there were other attempts at the idea with more modern aircraft. The problem always boils down to this: size and space. To be effective the carrier becomes a huge lumbering target. The fighters are never very good because they are designed with severe space and weight constraints.
Still, like the saber-toothed cat (another design that's been tried several times) these carrier-and-parasite-fighter combos are cool looking.

Going back to pre-paid cell phones

2011-05-29T11:46:00.000-07:00

It's all so predictable. Some guy at AT&T watches a re-run of Conan the Barbarian and comes up with a business plan to buy T-Mobile USA. The regulatory paperwork says a lot of nice things about how after the merger the world will be filled with unicorns and rainbows, but if you look past that you can hear Conan say the phrase "crush your enemies, drive them before you, and hear the lamentation of their women."

Since AT&T's business plan is based upon a bad movie, we can easily predict the next phase of the merger: Plunder the wealth of T-Mobile's remaining customers. I hope the suits at AT&T have looked at a calendar because if I were in the boardroom I'd suggest they complete the merger on September 19th.

For me the timing of this merger couldn't be better. Personally, I've given up on "3G" speeds for Web browsing. I've also given up on 4G since the wireless carriers implemented data caps on their "unlimited plans." I don't really care about email anymore, and Facebook is getting boring too. (Except for those spectacular posts where someone really screws up).

I suppose that as a wireless user I'm traveling on an arc where the end point is a small camera-free handset with crappy T9 input. For me It'll be so 2001.

Funny how the more things change the more things stay the same.

Hypervisor madness

2011-05-28T22:04:00.000-07:00

Recently I found myself working with hypervisors. I fiddled around with Xen, Oracle's VirtualBox, VMware Workstation, and Microsoft's Virtual PC.

In their own way, all of these products are great. Some are more fun to use, but all require a certain amount of tweaking to achieve total optimization.

After fiddling around with hypervisors (and doing things with them that generated kernel panics in the guest virtual machines), I have come to the conclusion that hypervisors need one last thing to be perfect: emulating a CPU.

For example, wouldn't it be cool if the host system's CPU is an Atom and yet the hypervisor allowed the operator to select an Intel Core i5-750? Or maybe an AMD Athlon CPU? That would be cool.

Maybe we'll see something like this in another 10 years. The VMs will all be in the cloud anyway.

Safety warning: not all hard disks are metal

2011-05-27T21:30:00.000-07:00

The other day one of the engineers at Buck Fusion Labs determined an external USB 2.0 hard drive was beginning to fail. Our protocol at the lab is to destroy the hard disk before tossing the material into the eWaste bin. Previous hard disks used metal platters, this one did not. In destroying the hard disk platter the engineer was nearly injured.

What caused the accident is the engineer did not know that the hard disk industry has moved from metal to ceramic/glass platters.

Following lab protocol, the engineer removed the disk platter to the external hard disk. The engineer said he noticed the platter was lighter than usual but he did not stop to inspect the platter. As he had done many times in the past, he bent the "metal disk" in his hands. This time the platter was made of ceramic/glass and when he bent the platter towards him, the platter shattered and sharp shards of ceramic/glass flew towards him. Pieces of ceramic/glass ended up in his hair, on his shirt, around his work area, and even several feet from his desk. The mitigating factor in this story is the engineer is near-sighted and wore glasses, thus protecting his eyes.

If you've been around hard disks for a while then you might think they are all made of metal. This is not so. Some are made of ceramic/glass. For more reading, follow these links:

http://www.storagereview.com/guide/mediaMaterials.html
http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20100062287
http://www.helpwithpcs.com/courses/hard-drive-mechanics.htm

Review of 128 GB Crucial RealSSD C300 SSD

2011-05-26T19:00:00.000-07:00

If you want the bottom line, it is this: I installed a 128 GB Crucial RealSSD Solid State Drive into a notebook computer and discovered the drive was incompatible with the system's RAID controller. I returned the Solid State Drive to the vendor. Before buying this drive spend some time looking around your computer to learn what's in it and review posts at Crucial's forums to verify the Solid State Drive is compatible with your disk controller.

+++

Solid State Drives (SSDs) are technological wonders. I was hooked on them years ago when I bought an Asus 701 netbook. The netbook came with an SSD sized to a whopping 4 GB. The next SSD I owned was an Intel X25-V that was sized to 40GB. That SSD was 40x more awesome than the one in the Asus 701, and as such I put the Intel X25-V SSD into an Asus 1000HE netbook running Windows XP. I think the tricked out Asus 1000HE netbook caused a few of my more competitive friends to buy brand new high-end laptops because they could not stand the speed difference in my netbook and their existing laptops. Heh.

Now, the thing about an SSD is some operating systems understand how to work with them, and other operating systems are totally clueless. Windows XP, for example, is totally clueless. Windows 7 understands how to work with SSDs but needs some post-install help. Whether your operating system is clueless or not, you as the end-user are required to configure the operating system or download utilities so the relationship between the operating system and SSD is optimized. Bringing an SSD on-line is a fiddly time consuming evolution. Make sure you have plenty of coffee nearby because you're gonna need a few pots before you're sure the SSD is working right.

Having loads of coffee at my disposal I was prepared for some serious fiddling. I was ready to fiddle around with my operating system. I was even prepared to fiddle around with the system's BIOS. Most importantly, I was prepared to fiddle around with search engines and the term "solid state drive."

If you enter the phrase "solid state drive" into a search engine the search engine will return advertisements for products from companies like Vertex, OCZ, Crucial, and other SSD vendors. Looking at the prices of the returned products I more-or-less settled on the Crucial C300 SSD. (It was on sale). So, I typed "Crucial C300 SSD review" into a search engine and received a bunch of hits linking to accolades by bloggers and gadget reviewers. Most of the reviews were exceedingly positive. So I blithely purchased a Micron / Lexar / Crucial 128 GB RealSSD C300 SSD.

If I had looked past the gushing "this is awesome" tripe of professional reviewers and bloggers and looked at actual user reviews (like this one), I would have found out that on some systems the Crucial C300 had a tendency to freeze up or "stutter" for 30-60 seconds.

Blissfully unaware of the stuttering problem I installed the RealSSD C300 into the notebook. Performance was worse than when the notebook had a hard disk! The SSD stuttered; I cursed. I had never witnessed stuttering before - the computer would sort of freeze with the hard disk light stuck "on" for about 40-60 seconds. I then decided to do some serious research on this SSD. I mean, all those reviewers couldn't be wrong, could they? None of those guys would do something like write a good review in exchange for continued "first looks" of hardware, would they? Would they?

Maybe.

At least Crucial was aware of the problem and working on a fix. Crucial released a firmware revision specifically designed to fix the stuttering issue being reported from users in the field. Having nothing to lose I downloaded the firmware update and I flashed the SSD from version 006 to 007. Fortunately the firmware upgrade went off without a problem. Unfortunately that didn't really solve the stuttering problem for my machine.

The firmware update did improve the performance of the SSD and computer. Now I could go several hours (maybe all the way to 6!) before the computer would stutter. For short bursty activities like surfing the Web or writing a quick email the system was fast and the stuttering problem didn't show up. Life was good. Maybe it even approached totally awesome.

But ... when I asked the computer to do something that was write intensive the stutter problem reappeared. The root of the problem seemed to lie with the way the SSD interfaced with the Link Power Management subsystem. My computer uses a RAID controller manufactured by Intel. Somewhere along the line some programmer in the SSD pipeline didn't correctly implement Intel's published link power management specification. Hey, it could happen! Intel's only published information on Link Power Management since 2007. Who'd think to read that old stuff?

At any rate, based on recommendations I came across in the Crucial forums I made the following changes to Windows 7 on the notebook:

Disable write caching to the SSD.
Turn off Link State Power Management in Power Managment.
Turn off disk defragmenter.
Verify TRIM is operational using "fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify" (got a 0).
Use RegEdit to alter iastor's parameters from [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port0] to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port5] and set "LPM"=dword:0x00000000, "LPMDSTATE"=dword:0x00000000, "LPMDSTATE"=dword:0x00000000, and "DIPM"=dword:0x00000000.

Disabling link state power management cost the notebook a couple hours of runtime, but it was totally worth it. The notebook could run for hours and hours and hours without stuttering.

All was unicorns and rainbows until I tried running a Ubuntu distro as a guest virtual machine in VMware Player. That software combination would bring the computer to a complete friggin' halt. Not a stutter, but a full-blown halt. I'm talking about the kind of halt that froze the computer so hard that not even the light on the Caps Lock key worked. What a disaster. Kind of reminded me of a little thing called a "non-maskable interrupt" (NMI) that signaled a non-recoverable error. I hadn't seen an NMI since I stopped using my Leading Edge Model D in the early 1990's.

That hard freeze behavior was the last straw for me. Out came the Crucial C300 SSD, back went the glass/ceramic hard disk. Yeah, the old hard disk is way slower than the SSD, but I'm going to have to go with reliability over speed.

Until I get my hands on an Intel Solid-State 320, that is....

An experience with HP Total Care Customer Support

2011-05-25T22:00:00.000-07:00

An old friend decided the time had arrived to retire his 5-year-old Dell desktop PC. Huzzah! I said. I expected this guy to buy a super-fast gamer from Alienware. Well, I was wrong. He bought a $260 HP Pavilion Slimline desktop that was not much more powerful than a netbook. And, because he's up there in his 70's he wanted me to help him migrate all his stuff off the old computer and put it onto the new computer.

"Yeah, sure" I said. "No big deal."

Well, the data migration was no big deal, but I suggested that before we congratulate each other on a job well done we create recovery media and then backup his computer to DVD+R or DVD+R DL media.

It turns out that backing up his HP Pavilion Slimline computer to DVD+R discs required four hours. After about 2.5 hours the DVD burner in the HP Pavilion Slimline kind of faded out and started giving block errors. The DVD's were hot, too. So we decided to call HP Total Care Customer Service and request a replacement DVD burner. I mean, we are only talking about a $30-$40 item (retail), so how much grief would HP give us?

It turns out that HP was prepared to give us quite a lot of grief. The first tech support guy started running down the backup utility that comes with Windows 7 Home Premium. His solution was to buy a $100 external USB hard drive and backup to that device. The second tech support person tried to convince us to return the PC to the store we bought it from and have it exchanged for a different model of computer.

Eventually, I just said "Look, this is a $30-$40 item at retail prices. We are wasting time totally out of proportion to the value of this device." After that, we were bumped up to the next tier in Customer Support Land.

If HP Total Care is the best type of customer service the PC industry has to offer, we as an industry are in a world of hurt.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. I backed up the HP Pavilion Slimline computer using an old LG external USB Super-Multi optical drive, Windows 7 Backup and Restore, and a bunch of DVD+R DL discs. The backup took hours, but the optical drive performed flawlessly.

Discussions to replace the OEM DVD writer in the HP Pavilion Slimline desktop PC continue.

P.S. 25 May 2011: Well, someone at HP relented. A new Super-Multi DVD burner is on the way.

Review of SIIG SuperSpeed 4-port hub

2011-05-24T20:30:00.000-07:00

After the fiasco with the Jargy 7-port USB hub, things got a bit more serious in the lab. We all sat down and said "Hey, look, what are we going to get that will allow us to add an external hard disk through a USB hub?" We also wanted the device to have some future proofing because clearly USB 2.0 "high speed" has reached its end-of-life.

In the end, for a test, we settled on a SIIG SuperSpeed USB 4-port hub. This hub was chosen mostly because the hub was cheap and available at a nearby store. The hub only has 4 USB SuperSpeed ports, but when we tested them they all worked at USB 3.0 and 2.0 speeds. We connected a USB mouse, keyboard, and USB high speed external hard drive to the SIIG SuperSpeed USB 4-port hub and they all worked too. The computer didn't complain, Windows 7 didn't complain, and most importantly the end users didn't complain.

Unfortunately, this devices may only be an interim solution. The users at NewEgg.com rate the hub as a "2-out-of-5 egg" device. A lot of the user feedback said their devices became flaky after two months and stopped working after four months. Oh dear, oh my, never mind.

Review of Jargy HUB-247 device

2011-05-23T20:30:00.000-07:00

Some days a guy just needs a bunch of USB ports. Preferably fast USB ports, but sometimes any kind of USB port will do.

The other day I found myself in just such a predicament. I was using a laptop that had only two high speed USB ports. The problem was I wanted to use a USB mouse, charge my phone, use an external hard disk and thumb drive, etc., etc., etc. You get the picture - two USB ports were not going to cut it. So, I went over to CyberGuys (one of my favorite vendors) and ordered a 7-port stand USB hub. CyberGuys sells the device as Jargy 7 Port High-Speed Hub with Adapter Black HUB-247BK.

After the hub arrived in the lab we connected it to several computers running Windows 7 without a problem. I also connected several different devices to the hub and everything worked well. That is, until I connected a USB external hard drive to the hub. Oh, man, was that a mistake!!!

I don't know what went wrong. All I know is we connected several different hard disks to the USB hub and they all had problems. The hard drives were Seagate Momentus drives that used the old SATA 3GB standard and were connected via USB 2.0 adapters. One drive went absolutely nuts and made all sorts of clicking sounds immediately after being connected to the hub. Another drive seemed to work but afterwards we performed a few tests on the drive and found the file system was hosed. Maybe the power supply to the hub was flaky. I don't know.

In the end we decided to keep the hub but not use it for disk drives. In this case we connected the hard disk directly to the laptop and all the other USB peripherals went into the Jargy 7 port USB hub. That solution worked. Yeah, it's a workaround, but sometimes that's good enough.

Review of Cyber Clean product

2011-05-22T20:54:00.000-07:00

I hate dusty, grimy keyboards. Dust and grime can render an otherwise functional piece of equipment totally useless. Back in the day code monkeys (such as myself) could smoke and eat while sitting at the bank of Lear Siegler ADM-24 and Digital Equipment Corporation VT-100 terminals. The keyboards were gross. How gross, you ask? Well, the tobacco goodness left the keys brown and sticky from tar and for fun the programmers sprinkled little bits of food between the keys. That is, when they weren't re-arranging the keys as a joke for the next shift.

Back then someone would occasionally break down and get a can of compressed air and blow the crud out from between the keys. They would usually follow-up by spraying some ammonia-based cleaner on the keys, too. The ammonia would clean up the brown stuff left by the tobacco users, but little bits of paper would be lodged between the keys. And ammonia is pretty harsh on keyboards so too much and the terminal was dead. Back then work was just dangerous.

One thing we could have used to make the office marginally safer is a product called "Cyber Clean." Cyber Clean is basically a slimy, slightly sticky substance that captures small particles. Basically you press Cyber Clean onto a keyboard to remove dirt and dust. At least that's how it advertises itself.

Here at Buck Fusion Labs we've got several different styles of keyboards in various states of use. Cyber Clean does pick up small particles, but things like hair are too heavy for the product. Also, Cyber Clean does not remove drops of dried soft drinks very well.

On the other hand, it's great fun to toss around the office. There is nothing like tossing a ball of slime over the partition wall and hear someone say "Oh dude, that's gross!"

As a cleaning product, I would have to rate Cyber Clean as marginal. A can of compressed air works a lot better for getting material out from between and under keys. Also, modern cleaners can clean the keys at least as well if not better than Cyber Clean.

If you are interested in Cyber Clean, the URL is here: http://www.cyberclean.tv/

Upgrading a Seagate Momentus XT to firmware SD25

2011-04-25T18:00:00.000-07:00

This is a story about upgrading the firmware of a hard disk. Please understand that if you decide to upgrade the firmware of a hard disk, you can brick your hard disk.

Before attempting to upgrade the firmware of a hard disk be sure to back up your data and prove you can restore it. After all, if things go wrong you many need to restore to a new hard disk.

+++

So, the other night I'm bored out of my mind. To pass the time I decided to roam around the Internet and upgrade the drivers on a Toshiba Portege R700 that I use for schoolwork. The only upgrade I've performed to the machine is replace the small, slow OEM hard disk with a large, fast Seagate Momentus XT 500 GB hybrid HDD. The laptop runs Windows 7 Professional and I make considerable use of VMware Workstation. I'm not sure that the Seagate Momentus XT is worthy of "gee whiz, that's cool!" but I can say that when it reads stuff in the cache it does speed up the machine. The bummer, of course, is that the Momentus XT is basically a 7200 rpm hdd most of the time. All those disk writes are written to disk the old fashioned way.

To update the laptop's drivers I went to the support sites for Microsoft, Toshiba, and Intel. The drivers from those companies were all current. For grins I decided to look at the support site for the Seagate Momentus XT hard drive. While there I discovered Seagate had released a firmware upgrade for the Momentus XT hard disk. What I didn't know then is that by upgrading the firmware of the hard disk I would become part of The Saga of the Seagate Momentus XT Firmware Upgrade.

Way back in December 2010, when I purchased my Momentus XT, the hard disk was provisioned with firmware release SD23. Apparently, something didn't work out quite right with that software. To fix whatever problems were annoying the user base, in December 2010 Seagate announced the release of firmware SD24. Unfortunately, the announcement occurred without much fanfare or the publication of release notes.

Well, as these things go, SD24 was great for a bunch of users, but actually made things worse for others. In February 2011, ComputerWorld.com ran a story called "Users frustrated with Seagate's next-gen hybrid drive." This story really brought to light the fact that the combination of the Momentus XT drive in certain hardware configurations resulted in a laggy machine with reliability issues. StorageReview.com apparently had a good experience with SD24 because in March 2011 StorageReview.com ran a positive review of SD24. To be honest, I never upgraded the firmware on my Momentus XT from SD23 to SD24.

I don't know what was wrong with SD24, but Seagate took the complaints about SD24 seriously enough to release an update at the end of March 2011. The new firmware carried the unimaginative name "SD25." Again, Seagate did not publish release notes with the new firmware so no one really knew what bugs were fixed or functions improved.

This is where I came into the story. Completely oblivious to the firestorm of complaints directed at Seagate regarding the Momentus XT, I blithely followed the directions posted at Momentus XT Firmware Update [215451].

The actual upgrade process went flawlessly. I followed the directions in the firmware update and downloaded Seagate's Drive Detect software. This software confirmed I had the right type of Momentus XT hard disk, but oddly it did not recommend an upgrade from SD23 to SD25. In fact, Drive Detect suggested I keep the firmware at SD23.

Having gotten the "go code" from Drive Detect (eh, well, sort of), I downloaded and ran the SD25 firmware update utility. Talk about a slick little upgrade! The update process exited Windows, rebooted the laptop and entered its upgrade environment. After a couple of minutes the word "SUCCESS" appeared on the screen and the computer rebooted back into Windows.

To be sure, according to the forum posts at Seagate, other machines did not fair well with their update to SD25. In my case, my Portege R700 seems to have survived the update OK. The time needed to boot up remains about 40 seconds. I have noticed the system's fan is on much more frequently and at higher rpm. That makes no sense to me at all. However, what has decreased is the time needed to boot VMware virtual machines. There is a noticeable increase in responsiveness. I wouldn't go back to SD23.

For me, applying firmware revision SD25 to my Seagate Momentus XT was a worthy (if risky) upgrade. Best of luck to you should you decide to upgrade the firmware in your Seagate Momentus XT.

April, the month of routers

2011-04-23T09:30:00.000-07:00

I think 2011 will become known as "The Year Wireless Took Off." People have inadvertently built complex home infrastructures. Look at all of data slurping devices people "must" have in the home: wireless enabled HDTVs, game consoles, smartphones, laptops, netbooks, printers, cameras, you name it. Perhaps the worst sort of infrastructure problems are occurring at quasi-public venues like church halls or club houses. Assuming each person is now carrying two wireless devices (e.g. laptop and smartphone), a gathering of 10 people can easily overwhelm a wireless router that just last month "worked great."

Because I'm "a computer guy," I was thrust into the router upgrade vortex. All the old 802.11 b/g routers are being replaced by 802.11 b/g/n routers. You know, the big boys that can stream video and sling gigabit ethernet. This month isn't even over and already I've had to help friends and neighbors set up or replace the following makes and models of routers:

Linksys WRT-54GL
Netgear WGR614v10 (two of them!)
Netgear RangeMax N150 Wireless Router WPN824N
Netgear WNDR3700
TRENDnet TEW-691GR
Cisco Linksys E3000

As if that weren't a bewildering assortment of hardware, the firmware on these things were either stock or some third-party image like DD-WRT or Tomato. That meant I became familiar with How The Router Works as presented by Netgear, Linksys, DD-WRT, and Tomato. All I have to say is relative to the other user interfaces on the routers, the user interface to Tomato is beautiful.

What's funny to me is I never really fool around with routers. I'm not a router guy. But ... I guess the time arrived for a crash course in consumer grade wireless routers!

At this point in the story, all I can say is it appears to me that by the end of 2011 router manufacturers should see high-end consumer routers fly off the shelves. Especially the units that have large amounts of internal bandwidth and fast CPUs. The first vendor who can deliver to market a consumer-grade, low cost router that can handle four ports of gigabit ethernet going full tilt and 802.11 a/b/g/n streaming to a dozen devices without puking is going to make a fortune.

Cisco Linksys E3000 Fail

2011-04-22T08:42:00.000-07:00

This is a short post that describes why a Cisco Linksys E3000 was returned to a vendor despite the fact it flawlessly connected up to 11 wireless devices and 2 wired devices to the Internet.

The Cisco Linksys E3000 had a few days to sling data. As a data slinger, the device performed well. Not great, not awesome, but well. However, the device had a problem with heat. Apparently the industrial designers at Cisco/Linksys created an ultra-modern case that traps heat like the atmosphere of Venus. The bottom of the router got hot. I thought the case felt hot, but I wanted to know "how hot." I also wanted to know what is the difference in temperature if the router sat on a netbook cooling fan (a.k.a. active cooling system) or just had about an inch of clearance under the router (a.k.a passive cooling system). Here are the results of my investigation.

Test Tools and Environment
To measure the temperature of the router I used a Ryobi infrared heat thermometer. This is a point and shoot type of tool that is great for quick and dirty temperature reads.

The active cooling system was a netbook cooling fan from Gigaware. The active cooling system's official name is "Gigaware Adjustable Netbook/Notebook Cooling Fan" (see http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3813044 ) and is available at Radio Shack. This USB powered cooling fan is not too noisy and blows plenty of air. The specs of the cooling fan are:

Airflow: 16.09 cubit feet per minute (CFM)
Fan speed: 2300 rpm
Current: 0.13A
Power consumption: 0.7W

The passive cooling system consisted of four 25mm x 30mm Foam Marshmallows.

The test environment consisted of placing the Linksys E3000 on a sheet of .25" thick glass. The router stood off the glass by whatever height was provided by the router's feet. The temperature of the air was 67 degrees Fahrenheit (67F). The temperature of the glass was 71F. I then fired up the router and put it to work.

Baseline Temperature
After running for two hours the temperature of the bottom of the Linksys E3000 climbed to about 123F.

By comparison, 125F is the proper internal temperature for cooked salmon (according to Answers.com (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_proper_internal_temperature_of_cooked_salmon )).

If the outside of the base is about 123F, then that means the internal temperature is higher still. This looked like a great time to put the Linksys E3000 on the Gigaware netbook cooler and see what happened.

Active Cooling System Results
After running the router while sitting on the netbook cooling fan for a couple of hours, the temperature of the base of the Linksys E3000 dropped from about 123F to 71F. This was as much cooling as the fan could provide with 67F air.

Passive Cooling System Results
Now the time arrived to see what happened using a passive cooling system. I removed the router from the Gigaware netbook cooler and let the router warm up to its baseline temperature again. Once the temperature of the base of the router returned to about 122F-125F I placed the router on four 25mm x 30mm tall "Foamie" Foam Marshmallows.

The router operated in this configuration for two hours before I measured the temperature of the base of the router. Allowing air to flow freely under the base of the router brought the temperature down to about 100F.

Conclusion and Parting Shots
For me the Cisco Linksys E3000 is a disappointment. I did not like the fact the router heated up to 123 degrees Fahrenheit at all. Here's something to think about: if the netbook cooler passes 16 CFM and I ran the fan for 120 minutes, then the fan blew 1,920 cubic feet of air onto the base of the router. Imagine a building that is 12 feet high, long, and wide. That's how much air was blown onto the router. Ultimately, I said in my "slow practical way, 'this s**t's going back and I'm buying Netgear.'" I returned the Cisco Linksys E3000 for another router.

P.S. A URL you might like regarding the E3000
Since I took a crash course in all things related to Cisco Linksys E3000 routers, I want to share the best review of the Cisco Linksys E3000 that I came across: "Cisco Linksys E3000" at C|Net (see
http://reviews.cnet.com/routers/cisco-linksys-e3000/4505-3319_7-34041744.html#reviewPage1 ). I think the review is fair and gives potential buyers a good understanding into the finicky nature of the Cisco Linksys E3000.

Cisco Linksys E3000 first impressions

2011-04-17T22:52:00.000-07:00

After the fiasco I had with the TRENDnet TEW-691GR I was in no mood to work with craptastic software. However, an old acquaintance told me I am living my destiny, so tinkering with craptastic software is what I am fated to do. What a stupid, pointless fate to endure!

The sun was rising and in an odd way that meant time was growing short. Taking a few minutes to slurp down some black coffee and chew on a few spicy bison meat sticks (like a Slim Jim but better), the TRENDnet TEW-691GR was swapped out and replaced with a Cisco Linksys E3000 Wireless-N router.

The mission statement was rather inflexible in that 13 devices needed to connect to the router. Eleven of the devices are wireless and two are wired. The wireless devices use 802.11 b/g/n. For a consumer grade router, this is a challenging environment.

Fortunately, I can say that the Cisco Linksys E3000 worked out well. All 11 WiFi devices were able to connect and transfer data using 802.11 b/g/n. The stock firmware allowed large amounts of data to transfer over the air and across the wires without resorting to rebooting the router. The data transfers weren't at lightning speed, but the important thing is the router stayed on its feet during the testing.

For grins, the router was flashed from stock firmware to DD-WRT and back. The only problem that cropped up (and it was expected) was after tweaking the router's configuration via the Web interface Cisco Connect said it will not connect with the router. So that's broken and we're at the point in the decision tree to reset the router to factory default and start all over again, or, settle on a DD-WRT build and flash that to the router. For now, the router is usable but the loss of Cisco Connect's functionality means we've lost some control over the router. And that is not acceptable.

I'm not going to write much about how craptastic is the product called Cisco Connect, as many people have ranted and raved about this stupid bit of software all over the Web. All I'm going to say is this: Cisco, Cisco, Cisco, you have lost your way. Consumer grade systems must be bulletproof because at least half of the population has below average intelligence. Those morons aren't going to say "the hardware's good, so I'll just flash DD-WRT on this baby." No, they're gonna say in their slow practical way, "this shit's going back and I'm buying Netgear" (or D-Link, Asus, Buffalo, or whatever). Cisco Connect must be changed so it CONNECTS with the ROUTER and transfers DATA because Cisco's core business is to CONNECT ROUTERS THAT TRANSFER DATA.

So the E3000 stays put as infrastructure. However, I suspect this router is going to get a new personality. I'm going to guess a DD-WRT type of personality.

TRENDnet TEW-691GR 802.11a/b/g/n router review

2011-04-16T22:30:00.000-07:00

TRENDnet TEW-691GR

Opinion: The TRENDnet TEW-691GR is like a single seat dragster or hydroplane. It's fast, expensive, tempermental, and used for short bursts of speed. This router is not the type of unit that is turned on and forgotten, and I would not recommend its use outside of the hobbyist community. It's probably best to pass on buying this unit until Trendnet updates the system's software with something containing more capabilities and less bugs.

What happened: I connected the router on a network containing 13 WiFi devices and started transferring files via 802.11n and/or 802.11g and/or 802.11b. I also connected systems to the wired ports using Gigabit ethernet and 100 Mbps ethernet. The systems using WiFi for file transfers would occasionally report "unknown errors." The file sizes were 6+ GB VMware Workstation virtual hard drives. The wired ports had to download 1.2 GB of data from the Web. The wired ports only got about 400 MB down before the transfer faded out. After a large file passed through the router it was best to reboot it.

What's missing: No VLANs, lack of a "guest SSID," the subnet mask must be 255.255.255.0, no real support for VPNs. Lack of frequent updates to the system's firmware.

Recommendation: the router has the potential to be one of the great boxes of all time - IF Trendnet can get the router's software sorted out. I would recommend that Trendnet collaborate with the DD-WRT project and just ship this box with a port of DD-WRT as the native firmware image.

Reviews: If you are interested in what others have written about the TRENDnet TEW-691GR, look at these links:

Final thoughts: The TRENDnet TEW-691GR doesn't feel like it's quite ready for prime time. The user interface and software just feel rushed. I can't recommend this device for anything other than a hobbyist application.

Winzip 15 v. 7-Zip 9.20

2011-04-06T20:05:00.000-07:00

I spent the weekend creating VMware virtual machines (VMs) of Ubuntu 10.10, Kubuntu 10.10, Lubuntu 10.10 and Linux Mint 10. Naturally this effort created hundreds of files and numerous directories. The easiest way for me to manage this menagerie was to compress them using Winzip or 7-Zip.

The question of efficiency came to mind. Which product produces the most compact archive? There was only one way to find out. Compress the directories and look at the size of the archive. The table below summarizes the results for Kubuntu and Linux Mint:

Distro VM	Uncompressed size (bytes)	Winzip 15.0 Archive (bytes)	7-Zip 9.20 Archive (bytes)
Kubuntu	4,305,289,216	1,078,113,119	1,083,573,516
Linux Mint	3,022,020,608	671,263,316	675,639,502

So, in the end Winzip 15 and 7-Zip compressed the Kubuntu VM to about 1GB and the Linux Mint VM to about 644 MB.

Both products are very good and have their strengths and weaknesses. Winzip's ".zipx" format compressed the VMs to a smaller size. However, 7-Zip is free to use and created nearly as small archives. I'm going to call this test a draw.

Running XP on 256 MB of RAM

2011-04-01T13:51:00.001-07:00

So I fired up the atomic pile and waited for the core to come up to temp. Once the sensors telegraphed the optimum temperature, the SCADA system played the MP3 clip of the Emperor shouting "Unlimited power! Mwuh ha ha ha!"

Then and only then I fired up the eMachines T3xxx series computer used for today's tests.

The eMachines T3xxx system has an Intel Celeron D running at 3 GHz, 7200 rpm 300 GB HDD, and 256 MB of RAM. What better machine to run Windows XP?

Well, here's the deal: Symantec EndPoint Protection (SEP) balked at installing. SEP said an install was already in the works so that had to finish first. McAfee said it needed a minimum of 256 MB of RAM to run (only 208 MB was available). This left Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) to leap into the breach.

MSE loaded without much of a complaint. I can't say it ran quick because after all was said and done the system needed 300+ MB of RAM. Since the system only had 208 MB of RAM available, the whole system was in Swap City. But it still ran.

Slowly.

(Originally posted 1 APR 2011)

Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center review

2011-03-31T20:17:00.001-07:00

I found myself by Dulles International Airport and had a few minutes to look around the area. I decided to visit the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.

This is a great museum! There are loads of aircraft and space vehicles on display. I liked looking at the commercial aircraft because they reminded me of the days when ~~flaying~~ flying was comfortable and fun.

The only complaint I have is the cost of parking is outrageous. Yeah, I know the point is to deter yahoos from parking at the museum and flying out of Dulles, but really! Can't you just tow their cars and turn them loose for a couple thousand dollars?

Anyway, that minor complaint aside, if you are an aviation buff you are sure to find something at the museum you'll like.

Visit to a cemetery

2011-03-30T18:43:00.001-07:00

While visiting Northern Virginia I paid my respects to a veteran interred at the Quantico National Cemetery.

The cemetery is well laid out and quite moving in a quiet and dignified way.

After paying my respects I drove around the cemetery. On a small hill I saw a cherry tree blooming before trees still in winter sleep. The scene reminded me of the interconnection between life and death.

R.I.P. buddy.

Finally, Spring!

2011-03-30T13:40:00.001-07:00

To me, nothing quite announces the return of Spring like cherry blossoms.

Personally, I look forward to forgetting the Winter of 2010.

I look forward to Spring.

Toshiba NB305-N600 review

2011-03-25T22:30:00.000-07:00

For 2011, Toshiba is selling two small, highly portable computers. These computers are referred to by the company as "mini notebooks," "stylish netbooks," "mini laptops," and "highly-portable netbooks." Recently I purchased a Toshiba NB305-N600 mini notebook. No matter what the NB305-N600 is called by Toshiba's marketeers, I like the little computer. Oddly enough, the Toshiba NB305-N600 wasn't my first choice.

The netbook must survive"Economy Minus"
My worst case usage scenario for any netbook is running for hours in "Economy Minus" on a Boeing 757 or Airbus A-319 as the plane waddles across the sky on a cross-country flight. I am a big guy and take up all the room in my seventeen-inch-wide economy seat. What I want to do is lower the serving tray on the seat in front of me, place my netbook on the tray, run the netbook, and leave enough room on the serving tray for a small soft drink. I don't really mind the shower of carbonated droplets being ejected from the cup and landing on the keyboard. The way I see it, at 30,000 feet a fine film of sticky Diet Coke or Ginger Ale goodness merely improves the tactile response of the keyboard.

Why buy a Toshiba NB305-N600?
According to my requirement's checklist, I should have bought an Asus Eee PC 1015PEM netbook. The Asus Eee PC 1015PEM netbook has three USB 3.0 ports and a fast (for a netbook) CPU. However, the Toshiba NB305-N600 kicks the Asus Eee PC 1015PEM to the curb because the NB305 allows the end user easy access to the hard disk and RAM bay. On a more banal level, the layout of the keyboard on the NB305 is just better.

NB305-N600 technical details
The technical details of the Toshiba NB305-N600 are fairly standard. The netbook uses an Intel Atom N550 dual core CPU running at 1.50GHz. The netbook comes with 1GB of RAM standard, although Toshiba offers a RAM upgrade to 2GB that the end user gets to install. An Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 3150 subsystem provides 256MB for gaming graphics. Screen resolution is the netbook standard 1024x600 pixel count. The hard disk has about 230 GB of storage space (Toshiba says the HD is 250GB) and the system's battery is advertised as lasting about 7 hours although my real world experience indicated 2 to 5 hours of power, depending upon the stress placed on the system.

Rounding out the hardware beauty pageant, the NB305-N600 has the usual boring assortment of three USB 2.0 ports, audio and microphone ports, SD/MMC/SDHC card reader, VGA output, a webcam, a 10.1" widescreen display, 801.11 b/g/n WiFi, and a 10/100 LAN adapter. Basically, from a hardware perspective the NB305-N600 comes with all the stuff that we've seen on netbooks since 2008.

The power adapter isn't very heavy, or large, and comes with long cords. Best of all, the power supply uses 30W. That's about 10W lower than some of the other power supplies for netbooks provisioned with Intel Atom N550 CPUs. I would have preferred a light on the power supply to show that it is receiving power, but I'm funny about that sort of thing.

Aside from the Intel Atom N550 CPU, the small amenities that Toshiba included in hardware and software with this system are quite welcome.

For example, the keyboard is awesome for a fast touch typist. The keyboard has decent sized keys and Shift keys, although the function keys are a little cramped. A nice surprise is Toshiba included a small light on the Caps Lock key. I have never liked software solutions that leave Caps Lock indicators on the Windows Task Bar, or briefly display a big honkin' upper case "A" when the Caps Lock key is activated. I have always wondered what is the big deal with putting a light on the keyboard or system chassis to say the Caps Lock key is on. Toshiba finally showed the industry how to fix the problem.

The NB305-N600 comes with a full set of lights that say what the system is doing. There are lights for power, on/off, battery, hard disk, SD card, WiFi, 3G connectivity, Fn keys, and Num Lock. The only change I would recommend is the WiFi light blink or change color when traffic crosses the interface.

NB305-N600: what's right
Toshiba got several things absolutely right with the NB305-N600 netbook. Here is a list presented in no particular order:

The keyboard is very comfortable to use and well laid out.
Easy access to the system RAM and hard disk.
eco Mode! The netbook comes with preset power settings to stretch out the system's battery. If you really get into power management you can get the battery to last quite a while.
Loads of information about the system is available to the end user. The user guide is very well written and highly informative. Toshiba has included a lot of utilities that describe the system's health. This is very welcome information indeed!
Keyboard overlays! If, for whatever reason, you need to reproduce the key codes of the numeric keypad and navigation keys (e.g. "Home," "PgDn," "PgUp," "End," etc), you can do that with this machine.

NB305-N600: what's wrong
Some elements of the system are less than ideal. Here's my list of what's wrong with the NB305-N600 presented in no particular order:

The system is provisioned with a boatload of third-party software that is so outdated the only reasonable choice is to remove the third-party software and reinstall it with current releases.
The machine is sold with 1GB of RAM. A machine in this netbook class should come standard with 2GB of RAM.
The SD/MMC/SDHC card reader leaves the SD card hanging out about 5mm from the system chassis. Leaving 5mm of a rectangle hanging off the netbook is not a snag-free design. This is annoying considering the fact that netbooks are purpose built as highly mobile devices.
The NB305-N600 lacks a Bluetooth radio. At this price point support for Bluetooth should be a given.
Toshiba could have done better with the lid attracting fingerprint smudges. Is there some sort of secret agreement amongst netbook vendors that netbooks must have lids that are magnets for fingerprints?
The screen colors are washed out. For example, the color "black" was a washed out deep gray. This was corrected by using the "Intel Graphics Media Accelerator Driver for mobile" color correction utility. Pressing Ctrl-Alt-F12 gets the accelerator pop-up window to appear. A few tweaks to the screen's contrast and blacks were black.
Gray Fn-key lettering on silver keys? That's seriously wrong. How about blue lettering on silver keys?

Jumping from Windows 7 Starter to Windows 7 Home Premium
I upgraded the Toshiba NB305-N600 from Windows 7 Starter to Windows 7 Home Premium. I also increased the system RAM from 1GB to 2GB. With these changes, Windows 7 calculated the Windows Experience Index for the netbook as 2.9 on a scale of 1 to 7. Because the video subsystem is not particularly robust, I turned off the Windows 7 Aero interface and switched to the Windows 7 Basic theme. That made the ol' NB305 one snappy and fun box!

There is one caveat with upgrading a Toshiba NB305-N600 from Windows 7 Starter to Windows 7 Home Premium, and technically the problem lies with Microsoft not Toshiba. Basically, if you take an upgrade product key and execute a Windows Anytime Upgrade your authorization to use Windows 7 may be turned off by Microsoft. I think Toshiba could do its customers a favor and use the Toshiba Bulletin Board or Toshiba Service Station to clearly identify how to perform an upgrade from Windows 7 Starter to, say, Windows 7 Home Premium using an upgrade DVD.

For example, the wording of the document could go like this:

"If you execute a Windows Anytime Upgrade and enter the upgrade Product Key without running the upgrade from the DVD, the Windows Software Licensing Service will probably flip out and deactivate your authorization to use Windows 7. The specific error code returned is 0xC004F061. Once the Software Licensing Service flips out, Microsoft will block your Product Key for Windows Home Premium 7, prohibit activation of your product, and start the 30-day self destruct timer built into Windows 7. If you executed a Windows Anytime Upgrade and entered the upgrade Product Key without running the upgrade from the DVD, the solution is to contact the support people in the Microsoft Genuine Advantage department. All-in-all the resolution of the problem takes about 2 hours of an otherwise wonderful Saturday morning as you place calls to about a half-dozen Microsoft support numbers. If you wish to avoid that time sink, just drop the upgrade DVD into your external DVD drive and execute the upgrade instructions precisely."

Let's run VMware on a netbook!
So what can the Toshiba NB305-N600 do with its big, brainy Intel Atom N550 dual-core quad-threaded CPU? How about run a couple of Virtual Machines? That ought show off a bit of "multitasking."

I downloaded VMware Player and installed it to the Toshiba NB305-N600. On a separate computer using VMware Workstation I created two virtual machines (VMs). One VM ran Ubuntu 10.10 and the other VM was configured to run the 1987-era Windows 2.03. I also re-activated the Windows 7 Aero interface and turned off "eco Mode." After configuring the VMs and netbook, I transferred the VMs to the Toshiba NB305-N600 and watched the fireworks.

I was able to get the VMs up and running and take a screenshot. Task Manager peeked out from behind the VMs to show the system's usage of CPU and memory resources. Arranging the windows on the 1024x600 screen to show the most amount of information was a bit of a trick, but as you can see, I got the job done.

Windows 7 HP host, Ubuntu 10.10 (VM), & Windows 2.03 (VM)

The bottom line is the Ubuntu 10.10 VM ran a bit slowly on the Toshiba NB305-N600. As expected, the bottleneck was the weird Intel GMA 3150 video subsystem. Most of the time the speed decrease was tolerable, but if Ubuntu touched off the graphical screen saver the load on the Intel N550 CPU went to 80% usage on both cores.

It turns out that 2GB of RAM is fine for running a couple of non-resource-intensive VMs under Windows 7. I think that I can get Ubuntu to perform much better if I tweak a few settings in the VM and host. A VM running Ubuntu may never be entirely happy running on a netbook, but it might not be entirely exasperated, either.

Conclusion
So, after all that fun, what is the verdict on the Toshiba N305-N600 "mini notebook" / "stylish netbook" / "mini laptop" / "highly-portable netbook? The combination of a great keyboard, small size, long battery life, "eco Mode," easy field upgrades, the ability to host VMs, and general user friendliness makes this computer a keeper. Oh yeah, bring on Economy Minus!

Toshiba NB305-N600 Code 0xC004F061 Windows 7 error

2011-03-23T21:20:00.000-07:00

The Toshiba NB305-N600 netbook ships with Windows 7 Starter Edition. Apparently there is a known problem where executing a Windows Anytime Upgrade with a Windows 7 upgrade product key will eventually cause an authorization error. To fix the error you will need to call Microsoft for help.

In my case, I started building up a Toshiba NB305-N600 netbook by applying patches at Windows/Microsoft Update, including Windows 7 SP1. Then I executed the Windows Anytime Upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium using the product key from an upgrade kit. I did not run the upgrade DVD. From my perspective, the activation process went smoothly and Windows 7 Home Premium started working.

About a week later, Windows' Software Licensing Service decided that in fact no authorization occurred and started Windows 7 self-destruct countdown timer. I therefore went through the Windows activation procedure and received a dialog box that said:

The following failure occurred while trying to use the product key:
Code: 0xC004F061

Description:
The Software Licensing Service determined that this specified product key can only be used for upgrading, not for clean installations.

This caused me to start the recovery process. The bottom line is I needed to speak to a customer service rep who worked in the Microsoft Genuine Advantage department. More important, to end the runaround with Customer Service I needed someone at Microsoft to create a Reference Number and a Case Number.

Once I had a Reference Number and Case Number, then a resolution could be executed.

Unfortunately, Code 0xC004F061 is a common problem. Microsoft knows how to fix it although for some reason the company initially acts like you are the first person on the planet to receive the error code.

The solution is for the end user to execute the Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool (MSDT) that ships with Windows 7. MSDT, in turn, vacuums the system for "interesting" data and pukes it out on one of Microsoft's servers. (MSDT probably also left behind some goodies). Once the "interesting" data is sent to Microsoft the Customer Service person will generate a passkey and MSDT will reset the activation file. That's all there is to it. Once the activation file is reset everyone shouts "Hooray for the good guys."

The entire process of recovering from the upgrade required a little more than two hours. During that time I made at least seven calls to Microsoft; of those, five calls were to unique numbers. I talked to five customer service people (one of whom I spoke to twice). The problem and solution are well known within Microsoft's galaxy of technical support people.

Understand that you and your system are on trial. The trick is to prove that you are one of the good guys and the Software Licensing Service returned a false positive.

Performance Scores for Several Netbooks

2011-03-21T03:00:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while it is good to look back and see where we've been, and look forward to see where we are going. Sometimes it is good to see where we are at. This evening I decided to do just that by comparing the Windows 7 Windows Experience Index (WEI) Scores for three netbooks that span the time from 2008 to 2011.

The netbooks used for this test are an Asus 1000HA, Acer Aspire One D255 (AOD255), and Toshiba NB305-N600. Of the three netbooks used in this test, the Asus 1000HA is the oldest, having gone into service way back in October 2008. The Acer Aspire One D255 is a late 2010 model, and the Toshiba NB305-N600 went into service in the first quarter of 2011.

WEI scores are calculated on a scale from 1 to 7. The actual score is determined by the slowest subsystem of the computer. For example, the system's processor, memory, graphics, etc. might pull down "5's" but a slow hard disk could give a system an overall rating of "3." I find the WEI score sort of a nebulous rating, but with netbooks we can get a very close apples-to-apples evaluation.

Here are the WEI scores for the three netbooks:

Asus 1000HA (in-service since 2008): 2.3
Acer Aspire One D255 (in-service since 2010): 2.3
Toshiba NB305-N600 (in-service since 2011): 2.9

In reality the performance difference between the netbooks is negligible. The complete WEI scores for the three netbooks are these:

WEI Component	Asus 1000HA scores	Acer Aspire One D255 scores	Toshiba NB305-N600 scores
Processor	2.3	2.3	3.1
Memory (RAM)	4.5	4.6	4.8
Graphics	2.4	2.7	2.9
Gaming Graphics	3.0	3.0	3.0
Primary Hard Disk	5.3	5.8	5.7
Overall Score	2.3	2.3	2.9

For this test, all the netbooks were provisioned with Windows 7 Home Premium. They had 2GB of RAM, and plenty of hard disk space. The Acer Aspire One D255 and the Toshiba NB305-N600 both use the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3150 for the video subsystem. The Asus 1000HA uses the old Intel 945 Express Chipset for its video subsystem. According to the WEI Graphics information, there is no difference in the video subsystems between the three netbooks. For example, all of the netbooks report the total available graphics memory is 256MB, 0 MB dedicated graphics memory, 64MB dedicated system memory, and 192MB shared system memory. All the netbooks report a primary monitor resolution of 1024x600 pixels and support DirectX 9.0 or better.

Where netbooks shine is in battery run-time and mobility. The WEI scores do not account for battery run-time, size and weight of the netbook. If we assume the Asus 1000HA is the gold standard for netbook performance, then I think it is interesting to see that there have been no appreciable performance increases for netbooks since 2008.

Acer Aspire One AOD255 netbook RAM Upgrade

2011-03-19T00:16:00.000-07:00

In the old days, cartographers would warn mariners of dangerous waters by writing on the map "here be monsters."

In contrast to the succinct warnings of the ancient cartographers, Acer's Aspire One AOD255 FAQ says this:

Q: How do I replace the RAM memory on the Acer Aspire One AOD255 netbook series?

A: While the Acer Aspire One AOD255 netbook series supports a total of 2GB of DDR3 RAM memory, due to the design of the netbook, the RAM memory on the Acer Aspire One AOD255 series is not replaceable by the customer and Acer does not support upgrading or replacing the RAM memory by the customer.

Note: If the RAM memory has failed, the netbook will need service.

I think Acer should have said "Don't think about replacing the RAM because here be monsters."

Recently, on an Acer Aspire One D255 netbook I replaced the OEM 1GB RAM module with an after-market 2GB RAM module. The reason why I disregarded a serious corporate warning is I wanted to upgrade the operating system from Windows Starter Edition to Windows Home Premium. Windows Home Premium needs about 700MB of RAM just to wake up, so bumping the system memory from 1GB to 2GB is a must.

Because I was "way out there" I decided to test the system with not one, not two, but three different 2GB RAM modules. Basically, because of the slow speed of the Atom N450 processor and weird performance characteristics of the Intel Graphic Media Accelerator 3150 video subsystem, I found out that all memory performs slowly with hardly any real difference in performance. In the end, I went with a stick of Kingston RAM with the part number KAC-MEMF/2G. Newegg advertises the memory module as "Kingston 2GB 200-pin DDR2 SO-DIMM Unbuffered DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) System Specific Memory for Acer Model."

The Acer Aspire AOD255 netbook uses an Intel Atom N450 Pineview CPU running at 1.66 GHz with a Front Side Bus running at about 665 MHz. The CPU has one core and two threads. The system as-built comes with 1GB of PC2-6400 (400MHz) RAM. What this means to your average Joe is Windows 7 Home Premium calculates the Windows Experience Index at 2.4. Or, maybe 2.3, depending on if you are using PC2-6400 or PC2-5300 memory.

The key here is the RAM that is delivered as OEM does a bit of funny magic. According to CPU-Z, the OEM RAM is running at 400MHz, not 333MHz, and definitely not 667MHz. If you pop in a stick of bog standard 2GB PC2-5300 DDR2 667MHz RAM you'll find your Windows 7 system is slightly slower than if it were running with the OEM 1GB RAM stick. Maybe that matters to you, it didn't to me.

As shipped from the factory the Acer Aspire One AOD255 comes with Windows 7 Starter and a bunch of useful utilities. The netbook has a good feel to it, but has a certain cheap quality about it.

It turns out the Acer Aspire One AOD255 is not particularly hard to disassemble, but disassembly does require great care. You will need to plan for one to three hours of time to complete the upgrade. There are several distinct steps to getting at the system's RAM slot, installing the RAM, and reassembling the netbook.

To disassemble the Acer Aspire One AOD255 netbook, you'll need a small Phillips head screwdriver and two very thin bladed X-Acto knives.

To get at the system's RAM, the steps I took are:

Back up all data on the netbook.
Verify the data can be restored from the backup.
Remove the keyboard. To do this you have to push in on four spring-loaded latches located near the F4, F8, F12, and INS key. Then you pry the fragile keyboard up and pop it out from three plastic non-moving tabs located near the "|\", "TAB", and "ESC" keys.
Unlatch and remove the ribbon cable that connects the keyboard and mainboard. The ribbon cable lock is extremely fragile, so be careful. If you apply too much pressure you will break off a plastic tab. To remove the lock, you can use the tip of a fine blade and pull back on the lock. Pull straight back.
Remove four screws that secure the access door to the back of the netbook. For some weird reason, Acer clearly marked these screws with a big "1."
Use a screwdriver to push the access door off the back of the netbook. This is an easy step because Acer marked the hole with a "2."

At this point, you turn the Acer Aspire One AOD255 upside down and then replace the old memory module with the new one. Now the time has arrived to reassemble the netbook.

The steps used to reassemble the netbook are these:

Push the access door back onto the netbook.
Replace the four screws that hold the access door to the back of the netbook.
Slide the keyboard's ribbon connector back into it's slot and lock it in place. (You may need about three hands).
Gently snap the keyboard into place.

At this point test the functionality of the keyboard. If you did not get the ribbon connector inserted correctly, your keyboard won't work right. If your keyboard won't work right, depending on your password you may not be able to get back into your computer. The function tests you need to perform are these:

Turn on the computer.
Press the F2 key to get into the BIOS. If you can't get into the BIOS you've goobered up the ribbon cable. Shut down the computer and remove the keyboard and re-seat the ribbon cable and start over.
Verify the system recognizes the increase in RAM. Exit and let the computer reboot.
Log into the system.
Open Notepad and hit every key. Upper case, lower case, embedded number, special characters; all of them. At this stage if you have a dead key, or a dead letter you may have to replace the keyboard. You can try to re-seat the ribbon cable again, but I think you might as well start planning on migrating your data off that machine. If all went well, all characters show up and your machine is back in service.
Congratulate yourself on a job well done or start looking for a new netbook.

So that is all there is to upgrading an Acer Aspire One AOD255 netbook from 1GB of RAM to 2GB of RAM. Should you decide to upgrade the system RAM, I wish you well because ... here be monsters.

Damaged luggage blues

2011-03-13T23:00:00.000-07:00

You would think that in this day and age of super high-tech stuff we'd have practically indestructible luggage. But you'd be wrong. Between the indifference of the baggage handlers and the abuse meted out by the automated handling systems, quality luggage doesn't have a chance.

Upon arrival at my home airport, I was greatly annoyed to find my luggage had suffered grievous injury while being transported across the country.

Well, actually, the tear in the bag looked like it was created from from being overstuffed with my coat.

But those monsters at TSA really annoyed me anyway!!! They broke off the lock to the main compartment! The lock was one of those goofy TSA approved locks, too.

Hey, where is the TSA approved lock, you ask? Heck if I know. It was lost somewhere between the shining seas that bracket this fair land.

Personally, I don't like traveling without a lock on my luggage. The purpose of luggage locks is to keep your stuff in your suitcase, not to keep people out. I can't tell you how many times I've witnessed someone's bloomers coming down the luggage chute because the zipper opened. It's hideous.

Well, I'm a glutton for punishment. I can hardly wait for my next trip: Q-class, middle seat, economy. Oh, how I hate traveling.

Review of the Belkin F5U404 Mobile USB Hub

2011-03-11T23:00:00.000-08:00

(Updated 20 MAR 2011)

For whatever karmic reasons, this period of my life involves travel. This means that my personal gear needs to be small, lightweight, sturdy, and above all: cheap. After all, not every TSA employee is honorable, and don't even get me started on the weirdness that can occur in hotels.

So, on my last trip I identified the need for a couple of high-speed USB ports. The problem statement included "must be able to power external USB hard disks and be Windows 7 compatible." Oh yeah, full up electrical power delivered to multiple USB devices, that's what I'm talking about. But I'd settle for the drives getting enough power to work reliably.

The product description of the Belkin Mobile USB Hub P/N: F5U404PBLK (aka Hi-Speed USB 2.0 4-Port Mobile Hub (P/N: F5U404-BLK, F5U404 BLK)) is available at this URL: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817394040&Tpk=Belkin%20F5U404

So what's my experience with this device? In a word, OK. After plugging the external power supply into an electrical socket I plugged into the USB hub a mouse dongle, USB keyboard, and external hard disk. Everything worked fine as far as I could tell. The only complaint I have about the design is at least one, and probably two ports should have had one more millimeter added to either side of the port. USB devices that have non-standard sized widths (e.g. SanDisk Cruzer USB thumb drives) will block access to a USB port. This problem can be solved with the purchase of a Type A male to Type A female cable. One such cable is the Ziotek 7.5in USB Shortys Extension Cable Type A Male to Female ZT1310938 available at the Cyberguys URL: http://www.cyberguys.com/product-details/?productid=4632#page=page-1

Yeah, this device means yet another friggin' power supply to drag around the world, but that's OK. Jacob Marley forged his chains in life but couldn't see or feel them. That's not the case with me.

P.S. After using this device for a while I've grown to dislike it. For one thing, the weight of the power supply, hub, power cord, and supplied USB cable is 6 oz. For what the hub does, it takes up a lot of room in a back pack. Too much weight, too much volume. Not good.

P.P.S. Another peeve is Belkin did not include an "1d10t" light on the device. Is the hub receiving power? Heck if I know. It's all black and shiny and just sits there. Perhaps the most irritating thing is the arrangement of the ports. They ARE too darn close.

Pele Signature Pens

2011-03-09T23:00:00.000-08:00

While visiting Oahu I stopped by Pele Signature Pens and picked up one of their unique pens.

Pele Signature Pens offers ballpoint and fountain pens. The pens start at about $200USD and go up from there. All the pens are constructed of exotic wood and are sold as works of art first, and writing instruments second.

The pen used to illustrate this post is constructed of three different kinds of wood. Unfortunately, because of the thinness of the wood the pen is relatively fragile.

As a writing tool, the Pele Signature Pen holds its own with Montblanc. The ink in the Pele Signature Pen flows from a Schmidt Safety Ceramic 888 Rollerball cartridge. This is not a bad choice for an ink cartridge. The Schmidt Safety Ceramic 888 Rollerball cartridge lasts longer than Montblanc cartridges, look about the same on paper, and cost about two-thirds less, too.

If you want to show a little personality in the boardroom and have a functional fine writing tool, a Pele Signature Pen is hardly a bad choice.

Dude

2011-03-08T06:52:00.001-08:00

There are some times where I witness something that just makes me want to say "Dude!"

Not "Dude!" as in "Dude that's totally awesome!," but "Dude!" as in "Dude! What were you thinking!!!"

For example, at about 06:30 this morning I used a public restroom and some guy is in a toilet stall talking on his cell phone and doing his business. Dude! This is so wrong! Next time, text and save everyone the ridiculous business conversation mixed with theatrical grunting!

I can't imagine a person gains status with the boss when a conversation sounds like "We'll make our numbers ... hunnhhhh-oawww-ahhh .. If we move ... he-ahhh-ettt ... More productttttt ... Ahhhh."

And don't forget to wash your hands and wipe down your handset with alcohol, moron.

Upgrading the Asus 1000HA from XP to Windows 7

2011-03-07T23:00:00.000-08:00

In 2011, upgrading the Asus 1000HA from Windows XP to Windows 7 is a relatively straightforward process thanks to the writings of many people in 2009. Unfortunately, the gems created in 2009 are scattered all over the Internets. Hopefully this collection of information will save you time should you decide to upgrade your Asus 1000Hx netbook from Windows XP to Windows 7.

Upgrading the Asus 1000HA from Windows XP to Windows 7 will result in a computer that runs a mix of drivers and applications written for Windows XP and Windows 7. So, if you want a clean "Windows 7" install, this is not the path for you.

If however, you are constrained by finances or affection for your Asus 1000HA, you'll be happy to know that after the upgrade process the system works great. Even if it is a hodgepodge of software. So, with that, here's the process:

Step 1: Prepare for success
Goto the Asus Technical Support site and download the Windows 7 Self-upgrade Guide in the Eee PC 1000HA/XP library at http://support.asus.com/.The Windows 7 Self-upgrade Guide hints at the amount of work to be completed.

Read through "Complete Guide to Install Windows 7 on the eee PC 1000 series (Drivers, ACPI, and All)" available at http://www.greenwireit.com/complete-guide-to-install-windows-7-on-the-eee-pc-1000-series-drivers-acpi-and-all/

Upgrade your netbook's BIOS to version 2204. While you are messing around in there, you'll want to disable Boot Booster.

Upgrade the RAM in your system to 2GB. I used a 2GB stick manufactured by Kingston that is available at Newegg as Kingston 2GB 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Laptop Memory Model KVR667D2SO/2GR.

Step 2: Gather software
Backup your system. Back it up again. Verify you have a good backup!!!

Get antivirus / antimalware software written for Windows 7.

Inventory your system's software applications and locate their install media and license keys.

Goto the Asus support site and prepare to download utilities and drivers. Once you are at the support site, select WinXP then:

Download under ATK: Advanced Configuration and Power Interface Driver V4.00.0010 2009/08/11 update.
Download under TouchPad: Touchpad Driver Version 7.0.4.3 2009/02/18 update.
Download under Utilities: Super Hybrid Engine Utility Version 1.22 2010/05/24 update, CapsHook Utility Version 1.0.0.3 2010/05/24 update, and Asus Instant Key Utility Version 1.08 2008/10/29 update.

Step 3: Install Windows 7
Install Windows 7 by following the instructions for upgrading a Windows XP system to Windows 7. You'll want to follow the directions exactly.

Step 4: Enable Function Keys - load Asus drivers
After Windows 7 is installed on your machine, you'll find the Function Keys and Instant Keys no longer work. Also, device manager will have a yellow question mark for the Asus-specific stuff in the netbook. Now is the time to install those utilities you downloaded from Asus.

I installed the drivers in the order I downloaded them, starting with the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface driver followed by the TouchPad driver, Super Hybrid Engine Utility, CapsHook Utility, and Asus Instant Key Utility. Once these are installed all the keys on the keyboard are functional.

After the Asus utilities are installed then goto Intel's Download Center (http://downloadcenter.intel.com/) to check for updated Intel drivers. In this case, the system's INF files were updated for Windows 7.

Step 5: Post Install Tasks
Re-install your XP software as necessary.
Goto Windows Update and download critical and important patches.
Go back into the netbook's BIOS and enable Boot Booster.

Step 6: Normal Operations
Enjoy your netbook!!

IE6 Countdown Clock

2011-03-05T20:56:00.000-08:00

For many, many reasons, people need to stop using Internet Explorer 6. Even Microsoft recognizes this fact. Heck, Microsoft is actively trying to get people to stop using Internet Explorer 6. If you don't believe me, take a look at the IE6 Countdown page. It's located at

http://www.ie6countdown.com/

and it's a pretty cool page.

Remember, friends don't let friends use Internet Explorer 6.

The last Asus Eee PC 1000HA RAM upgrade

2011-03-04T23:11:00.000-08:00

I really have to hand it to the industrial design engineers at Asus. Especially the team who came up with the design of the Asus Eee PC 1000HA. I bought one way back in 2008 thinking I'd ditch it by 2010, but I was wrong. The little netbook keeps chugging along and generally staying useful as a tool for Web surfing, checking email, and occasionally hosting the odd Linux distro.

For those of you who came in late, the Asus Eee PC 1000HA was introduced in 2008. The netbook uses an Intel Atom N270 Diamondville CPU @ 1.60 GHz. This means the CPU has one core and two threads. The netbook came standard with 1GB of PC2-5300 (333 MHz) RAM, so that means the RAM is slow and cheap. The good news is slow and cheap RAM is often very sturdy.

Despite the handicaps of a sedate CPU and slow RAM, when running Windows XP the overall feel of the machine was reasonable, almost snappy (if the CPU wasn't too busy).

The other day I gave into dark urges and upgraded the Asus Eee PC 1000HA from Windows XP to Windows 7 Home Premium. Why? Because I could, that's why! And because Microsoft will stop supporting Windows XP in 2013. I thought I'd get ahead of the herd and get a little Windows 7 upgrade action in before it became passe to brag about such things.

The upgrade was flawless and super easy, but it did reveal a weakness of the machine: that 1 GB of slow RAM. Windows Task Manager indicated the system RAM was really used and lots of paging was occurring. To compensate for the excessive paging I bought a Class 6 SDHC card and dedicated it for ReadyBoost. That helped take a bit of the load off the hard disk, but the underlying problem remained.

No problem! On the bottom of the Eee PC 1000HA netbook the designers left a gigantic port to access the system's RAM. I bought a stick of Kingston 2GB DDR2 PC2-5300 667MHz ValueRAM and slapped that module into the RAM bay and voila!! The system woke up and had 2 GB of slow RAM. Totally awesome.

Windows 7 Home Premium woke up and realized it had more headroom. Consequently, it asked to recompute the Windows Experience Index (WEI). I agreed.

Let me tell you that RAM upgrade sure made a difference!!! The WEI went from 2.2 to ... 2.2. (Although a new, different kind of 2.2).

Oh well, that's to be expected. The most important thing is the system RAM in use by Windows 7 Home Premium dropped down to 33% and the hard disk caught a break, and that's a good thing.

I must say that as I replaced the RAM on a netbook purchased in 2008 I wondered if I were crazy or just foolish. After all, I had upgraded the OS from Windows XP to Windows 7 Home Premium, dedicated a Class 6 SDHC card to ReadyBoost, and upped the RAM to 2GB. This isn't normal user behavior.

Ever heard the song "Heaven Beside You" by Alice in Chains? In the song the chorus sings "I'm just see-through faded, ... out of my mind."

Yeah. That's about right.

The Nisqually Quake - Ten Years On

2011-02-28T10:54:00.000-08:00

Ten years ago, on 28 February 2001, the Nisqually earthquake struck the Pacific Northwest. The quake registered 6.8 on the scale, which should have meant widespread death and destruction. Fortunately, the quake occurred about 30 miles below the surface of the earth and in a less populated area of Puget Sound. This meant quite a lot of mass absorbed the energy that made its way to the surface and fewer people were in harm's way.

I remember where I was for two reasons. First, that was a big quake. Second, at the time I was an IT consultant trying to sell disaster recovery services to a bank. My boss and I were sitting in the office of a Vice President of Operations talking to a more senior Vice President. The sale pitch was not going well and so my boss said "What would you do if an earthquake struck?" Just then, the shock wave of the Nisqually quake arrived at our location and shook the crap out of the building.

As the shaking went on and on women started screaming and numerous people raced for the doors. Pandemonium raged. I looked at my boss, and we looked under the conference table for cover, then decided "oh what the hell, if this building pancakes that table isn't going to stop anything."

Eventually my boss and I left the building and went to a diner for a bite to eat. One of our coworkers was able to reach my boss on his Nextel phone and said "I can't believe you guys are eating!!! I couldn't eat after that!!" We replied via speakerphone "Well, we don't know when we'll get a good meal. Could be a couple of hours, could be days."

I found out later that one of the bank's employees was near Mt. Rainier when the quake struck. She just happened to be looking into the valley below and saw the wave approaching. She said it was weird watching the earth rise up like a wave of water and it was coming towards her...

Believe it or not, but ten years have passed since the Nisqually earthquake struck Washington State. You will be glad to know that the City of Seattle and the State of Washington are just now getting around to resolving the question of what to do with the viaduct that was damaged in the quake. Nothing like moving with a sense of urgency....

Well, that it then. Here's to earthquake drills, and planning, and preparing. And knowing that when The Big One does hit Puget Sound, we're toast.

Mini Maglite Hell Night

2011-02-27T00:51:00.000-08:00

You know not to do it, and I especially know not to do it, but I did it anyway. At the beginning of the night I had four working Mini Maglite Flashlights; within an hour I had two functional flashlights.

Over the years I had bought several flashlight accessories for Mini Maglite flashlightes that were manufactured by Nite Ize. Generally speaking, I have found the equipment made by Maglite and Nite Ize to be reliable and well made.

The first Mini Maglite AA Flashlight sported a Nite Ize LED Upgrade Kit and a I. Q. Switch. This combination worked great for years. The only downside is the LED Upgrade Kit actually didn't put out all that much light when compared to the Nite Ize LED Upgrade II, or the top end bulb offered by Maglite.

The second Mini Maglite had the Nite Ize LED Upgrade II lamp. The beauty of the LED Upgrade II is the beam is bright and you can focus it. Plus, it seems that with this lamp the batteries never wear out.

The third Mini Maglite had the on-off tail cap from the Nite Ize LED Combo Upgrade Kit. Basically, the tail cap allows a person to turn the Mini Maglite on or off by clicking on the cap with a thumb.

The fourth Mini Maglite was completely unmodified. I used this one as my control.

OK, so the plan was this: On one Mini Maglite I would remove the LED Upgrade lamp and replace it with the LED Upgrade II lamp. Then I'd put the I. Q. Switch back in place on the tail and be done.

Except, it didn't work out that way. When I put the leads of the LED Upgrade II lamp into the socket of the Mini Maglite, the leads popped out the guts of the Mini Maglite. "Holy Crap!" I thought. "That's pretty weird!"

So, off I went to the next Mini Maglite. Same thing happened again. OK, something was definitely wrong, so on the third Mini Maglite, I inserted the lamp correctly. Now I had two dead Mini Maglites with Maglite guts all over the floor.

Screwing the I.Q. Switch to the body of the Mini Maglite with the LED Upgrade II lamp revealed a nasty surprise. When the LED Upgrade II lamp shut off, it shut off the I.Q. Switch too. I fiddled around with the switch but it would stop blinking and just not work right.

In the end, the survivors of the debacle were the stock Mini Maglite AA Flashlight and one modified Mini Maglite. The modified Mini Maglite sports the on-off tail cap from the LED Upgrade Kit and the LED Upgrade II lamp. Not quite what I wanted, but better than nothing.

I don't know what went wrong with the I.Q. Switch, perhaps the one I tried was an early model. Current accessories from Nite Ize include the LED Upgrade II lamp and I.Q. Switch.

The lesson here is don't start mixing old and new technology. It's sort of like taking the ACPI drivers from Windows XP and bringing them forward to Windows 7. Or new wine in old skins. Mixing the worn with the new is really asking for trouble.

Requiem for the Thumb Drive

2011-02-26T17:34:00.001-08:00

I mourn for the thumb drive. This little USB port with a bit of silicon hanging off of it was truly a technical marvel.

The thumb drive provided dependable, fast, and compact storage. The device pictured with this post contained an entire operating system and user applications. Plus, the read/write speeds were quick, too. So it was all good.

Except for one, small problem. Almost all operating systems implicitly trusted these devices. This was not good and fairly weird since *nix and Windows had been clobbered by viruses and worms that relied on removable media for propagation.

In many corporate environments thumb drives are sort of forbidden, and that makes me sort of sad. And sort of bewildered; because reading from and writing to DVD and CD-ROMs are OK.

There is a silver lining to the decline and fall of Thumb Drives: the SanDisk/Microsoft U3 scheme bit the dust. I can't tell you how many corporate morons tried to use U3 drives to evade IT Information Assurance controls and instead sabotaged their career. Eventually even the suits agreed something had to be done and authorized the deployment of software to lock down USB ports.

So here is to the Thumb Drive! For a brief moment we corporate drones had a storage medium that was cheap, reliable, and stored a decent amount of data.

Late night in the lab

2011-02-26T07:42:00.000-08:00

Another late night in the Lab supporting an indifferent user base. I really can't complain about it, since I appear to be living my destiny. Still, one wonders why the Universe would go to all the trouble of creating such a boring destiny. I suppose someone had to do it, and it's OK that it was me.

This evening's adventure is to install two fresh operating systems and upgrade one system's operating system from Windows XP to Windows 7. And patch and lock them down before dawn.

This is where things get tricky. Because I know math and have 34 years of experience in IT, and the suit's don't. Simple arithmetic tells me that the volume of data to be slung from DVD's and patch repositories to hard disks and flash media exceeds the time allotted. This is because the bean counters at Buck Fusion Labs buy cheap kit. The throughput of these devices and our ISP will not allow that much data to fly through the interfaces in such a "short" amount of time.

For example, USB 2.0 has a nominal speed of 480 MB/s. The reality is this: for the machines in this lab, throughput is a pokey 25 MB/s. Sometimes it gets all the way up to 35 MB/s, depending upon the capabilities of the connected device. Would it have killed the bean counters to have bought kit that contained speedy USB controllers on the motherboards? Even the eSATA ports on these things only get up to 50 MB/s. Sheesh. (Oh how I wish the suits knew something about Firewire).

Anyway, there's really not much to do except go through the pre-flight checklist and then execute. Fortunately the "A" team of Buck Fusion Labs is here, so the fridge in the break room is stocked with beer and essential condiments (ketchup, catsup, yellow mustard, and dijon mustard). I've gone all out and brought in some tins of kippered herring and crackers. One of the other engineers has brought in a set of Bose external speakers for tunes. This fellow likes jazz and blues, so I suppose at some point we're going to rock out to Peter Gunn. Personally, I can't think of anything more absurd than a couple of engineers patching computers to the tune of Peter Gunn, but there you have it. Universe, right back at ya!!!!

(No, we are NOT going to waste bandwidth on Pandora, because these pokey machines need every bit (get the joke?) of bandwidth available).

Oh, great. The Windows 7 box just made that mocking "Ha ha!" sound to inform me I've been logged off. Back to work.

Valentine's Gift Idea: Violate Rule No. 52

2011-02-11T20:00:00.000-08:00

As we all know, Rule No. 52 originated with "Wired" magazine's August 2009 issue that featured Brad Pitt wearing a Bluetooth (BT) headset. Basically, Rule No. 52 says "Ditch the headset. He can barely pull it off—and you are not him."

Yeah ... sadly, that's true. Too true.

But here at Buck Fusion Labs we've never been too worried about personal appearance (or hygiene, for that matter). So we're cool with BT headsets.

Recently the market's been dumping Samsung WEP475 progressive noise filtering BT headsets on the market for practically pennies. If you need an inexpensive BT headset, consider this one!

What's the sound quality like? Well, awful. But it's a cool sort of awful. Both parties can understand each other and the noise canceling works pretty well.

BT pairing was a breeze. I paired the Samsung WEP475 with several handsets and everything worked great on the first try.

The most important thing about this BT headset is it knows it is a consumable. There are no pretensions about the WEP475. No Jawbone "military grade" nonsense or fashionista chic bling. Yup, the WEP475 is designed with the knowledge that after 18 months this thing's headed for a landfill and after that the sifting screen of a mutant archaeologist from Cockroach City. It's a Totally Awesome Future.

Anyway, since engineers treasure utility, form and function, and low cost, consider this gizmo on your short list of Valentine's Day gifts for engineers.

Valentine's Gift Idea: LED light

2011-02-08T20:00:00.000-08:00

CyberGuys! has an awesome Valentine's Day gift for your engineer. The Flipo Motion Activated 4 LED Under Cabinet Light Bar. I bought one of these and I have to say that it is awesome. The passive infra-red sensor works well. The 10-second pulse of LED light is just enough time to find something.

Highly recommended.

You can get the light bar here. Or learn about it from the company at Flipo.com

NRA Tactical Knife review

2011-02-05T19:35:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day is right around the corner, and what lucky young lady wouldn't appreciate an NRA Tactical Knife and a box of chocolates? The combination is irresistible! Cupid will wink and nod with approval.

The image to the right illustrates the NRA Tactical Knife. For whatever reason, the NRA sent me TWO of the things. The girls in the lab will be so pleased! (Uh, yeah, Buck Fusion Labs doesn't have many females working in the labs).

The NRA Tactical Knife weighs approximately 3.9 oz (112 g), has a blade length of about 3", and a handle length of about 4" for an overall length of 7". The fit and finish of the knife is mediocre, at best. The knife mechanism contains a mechanical assist, but there is something wrong with the design. An enormous amount of finger pressure is needed to activate the opening sequence. Once the sequence is initiated the knife blade pops out with authority, but man! Getting that thing started is a pain.

I do not like the materials used, nor do I like the feel of the handle in my hand. The surface of the knife contains all sorts of right angles and sharp edges, so it is not user friendly. I suppose if I were wearing gloves the handle would be alright. Maybe.

If you are willing to really grip the knife, you will find it mostly stays put. I'll tell you what: with a tight grip you won't want to spend a lot of time with this thing performing drills.

Is the knife sharp? Heck yeah! It'll cut alright. Treat the edge with respect.

So, what is the bottom line? This knife is the type that lives in the box of fishing tackle, acts as a letter opener, or flops around the glove box of the pickup. It's fine for that sort of use. I wouldn't recommend using it for your breakfast of kippered herring and eggs.

Nokia + Microsoft = NoSoft

2011-02-04T03:02:00.000-08:00

The tech news blogs and news sites are buzzing with the rumor that Nokia will merge with Microsoft. The idea is that Nokia will provide hardware and Microsoft phone software. I have one thing to say to the executives of Nokia and Microsoft: DON'T DO IT.

This is one of those ideas that looks good on paper but will not work out in real life.

The reasons why are these: I've watched Microsoft's lineup of mobile offerings founder in the market since the late 1990's. Because of the wasted space due to icons and window manipulation controls, the whole Windows paradigm does not work well on big screens. Scaling down the screen and keeping microscopic icons, widgets, and controls doesn't make the experience any better. Especially when most of the rich on this planet are over 40.

Nokia, if anything you ought to haul down the flag and sell your parts 'cuz you are finished. Sorry about that; used your handsets and other devices all the way up to the Nokia N800 before I was sure you were lost in the wilderness....

In terms of sheer disaster, a Nokia+Microsoft entity is going to rival the union of Chrysler-Mercedes in destruction of shareholder wealth. Maybe even the towering disaster that was RJR Nabisco.

Anyway, that's my humble opinion.

Backing up data

2011-01-12T17:53:00.000-08:00

The other day a coworker brought into the lab a "friend's" hard disk. Apparently the five-year-old drive started making clicking noises before it stopped working altogether.

So we lab rats went at the drive. We tried everything: forensic software, manufacturer utilities, utilities from several operating systems, invocation of occult rituals, use of ouija boards, everything. Nothing worked. That drive was dead.

And this brings me to why we back up data. Most people back up their data without approaching the problem correctly. The correct way to approach the problem is to start with this question: "what is the value of the data on the drive?" The backup solution should cost no more than the value of the data. And if the data is priceless or one-of-a-kind then you really ought to buy a full-up backup solution.

The other part of the equation is being able to restore the backed up data. Loads of companies back up their servers every night and they have no idea that their backups are worthless because they cannot restore the data. Every once in a while it's a good idea, no ... wait ... a great idea to attempt to restore data from backup.

Well, anyway, we gave our best shot at recovering the data but it was not to be. I think we all went home and backed up our data.

The TU-154

2011-01-01T18:58:00.000-08:00

Ages ago I flew from Helsinki to what was then called Leningrad on a Tu-154. I must say that as the plane pulled up to the gate it was a little embarrassing because a member of our group suddenly shouted "Hey, look! Commies!"

As I recall, the flight crew and flight attendants were all business. For example, the pilot got the plane on the runway and immediately sent it straight up as if trying to achieve a low earth orbit. We passengers in the plane could see the cotter pins holding down the chair in the row in front of us, and we were quite happy that the pins were the right type to bear the load. Otherwise, we would have been squashed.

After the pilot was satisfied that we had achieved a low earth orbit, the flight attendants passed out refreshments. My memory is getting hazy, but somehow I remember banana juice being served in brandy snifters. I guess that year Mother Russia got a great deal on banana juice from a Third World client.

When the time had come to begin our descent, the pilot dumped the nose over and we fell out of the sky and landed. Just like that.

I do have a lot of respect for the old Tu-154, as it saw service in places that would make a Boeing 7x7 cry for its momma. If you find yourself aboard an old Tu-154, don't worry, it'll hold together.

Happy New Year!

2010-12-31T16:18:00.000-08:00

They say that whatever you are doing at midnight on New Year's Eve, you will be doing that the rest of the year.

Sadly, I'll be patching Windows XP. At least through most of 2011.

Happy New Year to all!

Range Day!

2010-12-29T20:36:00.000-08:00

If the day starts with black coffee and gingerbread, then the day must be Range Day!

I hadn't been to the range in a while, so to make up for it I brought along two pistols and a sack full of cartridges.

Both pistols pictured here represent game changers in the 20th century firearms industry. The GLOCK 17, of course, is perfection. I know this because GLOCK ads say "Perfection." As in "GLOCK pistols are perfect." I'm good with that because the GLOCK (you always spell Glock as "GLOCK") always goes bang. Unless, of course, some moron forgot to correctly size the case before using it as a reload. Then the GLOCK, like any other semiauto, will cease functioning.

The Bauer .25 was the first example of the Baby Browning in stainless steel. The little Bauer .25, unfortunately, does not always go bang. At least this example doesn't. This pistol fails to fire or jams from 5% to 12% per 100 rounds. That's too bad.

So there you have it. The ying and yang of pistols. Large vs. small, reliable vs. unreliable, dark vs. light, plastic vs. stainless steel, Made in Austria vs. Made in America, millimeter vs. ACP, etc., etc., etc. It's just weird how opposites attract.

Buck Fusion Travel Awards for 2010

2010-12-28T13:53:00.000-08:00

This year I spent a lot (I mean a lot) of time flying, driving, or sailing from somewhere to someplace.

Here are the "Buck Fusion Travel Awards" for 2010, beginning with awards for worst performance:

Least effective implementation of the concept of "defense in depth:" Transportation Security Administration. You guys in the blue shirts who X-ray or physically look through my stuff are OK, but you must work for morons. Since I'm already pulled aside for "random" screening, one day we can have an honest chat about how your bosses are clowns. Maybe we will have that conversation sooner rather than later, because I'm not going through any machine that uses ionizing radiation. I get enough of that stuff already and I don't need any more. Thanks for understanding.
Least "safe" airline: Alaska Airlines. There are probably many airlines with worse safety records than Alaska Airlines, but it's going to be a long, long time before I forget how one of your planes aborted a takeoff at San Diego with gallons of fuel pouring out of the starboard engine while I sat helplessly aboard. The morons who run the airline made a brilliant decision in outsourcing aircraft maintenance, didn't they? Maybe it's time for Alaska to start deadheading maintenance crews aboard the planes. Perhaps if the maintenance crews think their ass is on the line they'll follow procedures.
Least comfortable airline: United. There was a time when United Airlines was always a solid "B+." United was never an "A-" airline, nor was it an airline that rated a "B." Now, however, the disregard for passenger comfort approaches levels of contempt usually reserved for mutts at a show for purebred dogs.

And now, for the "best" in 2010:

Best transportation experience: Delta Airlines. Delta, we hardly knew ye, but we loved ya. And we flew enough to get status.
Best airport: Narita, Japan. I like Narita. It's a nice airport that's all business. And I gotta tell ya, having those little sleeper rooms is awesome!
Best flying experience: Flying outside of the United States. You poor bastards who have only flown U.S. domestic routes have no idea what flying can be like. Oh, sure, the tickets cost more, but then you get treated like a customer, not like a sack of fertilizer that's being bulk hauled from one failed urban center to another via Chicago.

Unfortunately for me, I think 2011 will require travel. On commercial airplanes. Ugh. Oh well, I'll keep meticulous notes for the Buck Fusion Travel Awards 2011.

Safe travels to all!

Between the storms

2010-12-17T11:44:00.001-08:00

Only the hardy live in Pacific Northwest during late Fall and Winter. During late Fall and Winter the rains and storms create a soul-sapping gloom. Some people become depressed, sometimes dangerously so.

Every once in a while the weather breaks and people see spectacular natural beauty. Today was such a day.

Storms return tomorrow.

Bring it on.

Tis the Season in Seattle

2010-12-04T20:04:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays to all!

BTW, I saw an ice sculpture of a snowman. It was so COOL.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

He said, "That's not expensive enough!"

2010-11-30T19:26:00.000-08:00

So I'm at my workstation at Buck Fusion Labs sitting in the Seat of Chaos juggling the four elements when I receive an email from a young engineer. The email said "Suggest a good 9mm for me."

Uh oh, that's equivalent to asking "Which girl should I date?" Guardedly, I replied, "Well, what do you intend to do with it?"

The reply was "Shoot, it!"

Obviously this was going nowhere. Knowing my next email would only lead to more questions, I wrote "Glock 17 or 19."

Pretty soon the engineer showed up at my desk asking "How much does a Glock cost?"

"I dunno, maybe $500."

The engineer replied "That's not expensive enough! It's got to cost more. I can't be seen with something that cheap!"

"Okay," I replied. "If you want to burn money, then get a Browning Hi-Power. It'll shoot 9mm just like a Glock."

Browning Hi-Power MK III

The engineer looked at me. "Yeah, well, maybe a Beretta. I'll have to check into the Brownings." And with that, he left.

I guess he got a really, really good Christmas bonus.

Icy days in Seattle

2010-11-24T12:49:00.001-08:00

According to the weathermen, this winter is supposed to be "bad."

Now, "bad" is a relative term. What is a bad winter in the Donner Pass is not the same as a bad winter in the Virgin Islands.

However, there is one word that strikes terror, if not fear in the hearts of Seattleites: ice. Ice will shutdown Seattle. We are talking about a small amount, too. If Seattle were a super hero, then "Captain Seattle's" ultimate weakness would be ice. (Think of Superman and kryptonite, and you get the picture).

Personally, I think Seattle ought to augment the sanding trucks with those old fire spraying tanks from World War II. Those will clear the roads! Fight ice with fire! That's what Ol' Bucky says.

About Lemons

2010-11-19T19:51:00.001-08:00

Lemons are awesome fruit. To Ol' Bucky (that's me) they are associated with the finer things in life like iced tea, relaxed summer days, and awesome meals.

So why, then, is the mighty lemon associated with bitter experiences such as owning stock in GM or one of the automotive products of GM? Are there some lemons that can't be used for lemonade? Or lemon cake? Or lemon pie?

BTW, this year Ol' Bucky was on the road for 101 nights. I was able to drive a bunch of rental cars, some of which were modern GM releases. Cars made by GM are fine for rental fleets, I guess. I can't imagine using real money to buy one of those things for personal use.

Sorry. I really can't make lemonade out of those lemons.

Another CF bulb self-destructs

2010-11-13T18:28:00.000-08:00

If there is one thing I keep an eye out for, it's Compact Fluorescent (CF) bulbs in the early stages of self-destruction.

This afternoon I kept smelling burning plastic and hearing the sound of glass hitting the floor. Fortunately, my natural scientific curiosity caused me to search out the source of the smell and sound. Imagine my shock when I found this bulb slowing self-destructing above my workspace in the lab.

CF bulbs suck.

If H. P. Lovecraft were alive today, he wouldn't write about the Mountains of Madness or Cthulhu. Nope, he'd write the Foothills of Irritation and how CF bulbs are the harbinger of doom for an entire civilization.

Fun with Crooke's Radiometer

2010-11-10T14:05:00.000-08:00

There are some days when the Chief Lab Rat just feels like watching the vanes of a radiometer spin around and around and around. Radiometers are sold as novelties for about $12USD, but in reality they are quite sophisticated (in a 19th century sort of way). If you are interested in learning more about this type of radiometer, Wikipedia has a great article on Crooke's radiometer.

Fun with prisms

2010-11-09T18:18:00.000-08:00

OK, so the other day at the Lab I pulled out the prisms from a monocular. Don't ask me why I pulled out the prisms, that leads to awkward questions about funding and why we had a monocular in the Lab. I mean, for crying out loud, ages ago someone figured out that a microscope needs a solid base to hold the optics steady! But when the Lab has budget cuts, invariably some bean counter will change the Lab Manager's purchase order from a decent $400 microscope to a $4 monocular procured from the local sporting goods store. And that leads to having to remove the prisms just to show the bean counter the monocular doesn't hold up in the lab environment.

Anyway, I put the prisms to good use. The picture for this post was composed using a cleaning cloth, an old bottle filled with water and food coloring, and a couple of flashlights. Voila!

The Perfect Hot Sauce

2010-11-06T22:27:00.000-07:00

Here at Buck Fusion Labs one of the most important rooms in the entire facility is the lunch room. It is in the lunch room that lively disagreements break out amongst otherwise boring and bland personalities. Most of the arguments are about what types of food are better for engineers and for what reason. For example, Twinkies are regarded as an awesome culinary achievement that every engineer should study. This is because Twinkies have a very special property: when they are fried, the filling develops a slight banana-like flavor. Name any other food that tastes like a banana after being fried in an old fryer! (And you can't say "Bananas!")

Anyway, hot sauce seems incredibly divisive amongst the workforce. There are factions for Tabasco sauce (and its variants), Frank's Hot Sauce, and all the other ones. In fact, there are engineers at the lab who have twenty or thirty bottles of hot sauce adorning the walls of their cubicle. In spice racks.

One thing that we all agree on is this: the perfect hot sauce has not been invented. The perfect one will have a certain light to itself as if to say, "I dare ya!" It'll be of such tremendous power that a glass container will show stress cracks from holding in the Power of the Sauce. The perfect hot sauce will have angry red clouds of hot sauce swirling around the bottle - on its own! Restaurants would serve bottles of hot sauce in specially heat treated bottles that have a built-in spill apron.

If the perfect hot sauce were to exist, it would look like this:

Well, since the vision exists, we decided to make it! We in the labs are working on home made variants of classic hot sauce recipes. The aging process seems to be the stumbling block. Aging the pepper sauce two to three years is tricky because none of the engineers are sure they will be working in the Labs two to three weeks from now, let alone two to three years from now.

Lousy economy! It's getting in the way of our developing some really awesome hot sauce!!!

Unauthorized Merchandise Packaging

2010-11-05T10:54:00.001-07:00

In early November Ol' Bucky strolled through the aisles of a Wal-Mart looking for super sale prices. Not much in the way of killer sale prices, but wow! Look at the unauthorized merchandise packaging!

Halloween faux pas

2010-10-31T14:02:00.001-07:00

Ever said something at a Halloween party that made people's eyes bug out?

Researching DOME-iciles

2010-10-29T15:53:00.001-07:00

Wouldn't it be great if would place domes over our houses? At Buck Fusion Labs we're going to work on creating fantastic new domiciles called DOME-iciles.

Nutmeg flavored chili

2010-10-29T13:44:00.000-07:00

Whatever you do, never lick a Rough Skinned Newt. Just banish the thought from your mind and be done with it. Now, why are we even discussing this?

Because one of the interns at Buck Fusion Labs likes the holidays. Halloween makes her go all goofy with pumpkins and spices. Generally speaking, this is not a bad thing. She fills the break room with pumpkin pies, baked pumpkin seeds, hot apple cider, and she fills the lab with the smell of cinnamon. That's a much better smell than warm lead, rosin, and hot shrink tubing.

Unfortunately, this holiday stuff sometimes gets out of hand. We had to tell her that the lab ovens are for work, not baking.

Today, however, things went terribly awry. After manning the lab's Great Chair of Chaos, I went to the lunch room for, um, lunch. That's when it happened. I mistook a jar of nutmeg for cumin and dumped nutmeg all over my chili.

Oh, wow, was that awful. Blinded by the sensory overload, I staggered out of the break room, down the hall and into the outdoors with my tongue dragging along the floor. A whole bottle of Diet Coke didn't get the nutmeg flavored chili out of my mouth, either. Then, I saw the Rough Skinned Newt. I looked at it, it looked at me. I looked at it some more, it looked back at me some more. Hmm, I thought ... Nah, Rough Skinned Newts are dangerously poisonous. That's why they have orange bellies. Nature only paints things orange if they are dangerous. Tigers are orange. Certain poisonous fish are orange. Pumpkins are orange!!!

Well, let's just say there's an intern who's going to spend some time learning how to properly label the spice jars.

We owe so much money!

2010-10-29T08:49:00.000-07:00

Yeah, you an' me both owe a ton of money. Want to get an idea of how much? Drift on over to TreasuryDirect Public Debt Reports. That will make for fun reading.

Late night blinky lights

2010-10-27T23:25:00.001-07:00

OK, the time is about 23:11 and I've got LED's blinking and glowing all about the lab in blue, white, red, and green. I'm sure an LED or two is glowing amber, too. Oh well, sometimes the Chief Lab Rat himself needs to man the Great Chair of Chaos.

Flippin' CRC errors at this hour! Sheesh.

ReadyBoost Wednesday!

2010-10-27T19:44:00.001-07:00

Recently, Buck Fusion Labs received a boat load of laptops from our buddies in the Far East. All of the laptops are preloaded with Windows 7, thus making them candidates for ReadyBoost Wednesday!

Now discussions about ReadyBoost have been going on for ages, but as far as I can tell no one has reported the fact that the same USB device may generate numbers that vary by 20%-40%.

Anyway, the lab rats tested five 4 GB USB thumb drives with a system running Windows 7. The slowest recorded Random Read Speed was 3.85 MB/s, and the fastest recorded speed was 5.25 MB/s. The slowest recorded Random Write Speed was 2.32 MB/s, and the fastest recorded speed was 4.5 MB/s.

Maddeningly enough, the vendors tended to load their devices with chips designed for fast writes and slow reads or vice versa.

One vendor's discontinued 4 GB USB thumb drive was balanced with good read and write capabilities. That device clocked 4.6 MB/s Random Read Speed and 4.2 MB/s Random Write Speed.

If you are curious about your device's speeds, Windows 7 will tell you. Just go to Event Viewer > Applications and Services Logs > Microsoft > Windows > ReadyBoost > Operational.

Seattle as a tourist destination

2010-10-26T13:16:00.001-07:00

Come visit Seattle in the Fall or Winter! Ride a Washington State ferry and enjoy the view!

Mourning Seattle

2010-10-26T09:50:00.001-07:00

Seattle exists to move people and finished goods from the ports of Southern California to Alaska, and to move raw material from Alaska to California. As a port Seattle is "okay," as it remains open year-round. It will never be a great port because moving goods from the port inland is tricky in the winter months.

Seattle doesn't actually make anything useful and is in state of slow decline. For example, the Nisqually Quake damaged the Alaskan Way viaduct nearly 10 years ago. Today, thousands of drivers risk being crushed because the convenience offered by the viaduct outweighs the risk of a horrible death. There is no real due date for a replacement of the viaduct.

Also, years ago a pier used by NOAA burnt down to the waterline one 4th of July. The pier's owner was never able to rebuild the pier and NOAA is now sailing away to Newport OR. Funny how no one realized the fire would give NOAA a new independence. Remarkably, neither Sen. Murray (D-WA) or Secretary Locke (former Governor of Washington State) was able to stop the move.

Boeing put Seattle on the map for airplanes but that company is in a slow motion divorce from Seattle. One day Boeing will be known as a great Southern company that is oddly headquartered in Chicago.

Another indication of decline is the loss of Seattle's NBA basketball team.

The arts ain't that great in Seattle, either. While Seattle did produce two musicians who became very successful, but those guys didn't live to see middle age. Seattle does have a few museums, theaters, and performance halls, but as one visitor from the UK sniffed, "definitely not world class."

Some people associate Seattle with high tech. But the reality is this: Microsoft is headquartered in Redmond and the IT workers that support Microsoft hang out in Bellevue. The city of Seattle is not known as a hub for software development or innovation.

In the 1970's, Seattle understood its purpose as a hub for commerce between California and Alaska. Back then, the waterfront catered to the needs of merchant sailors, truckers, and longshoremen; i.e., easy girls, cheap rooms, guns, liquor stores, bars, and a certain rugged competence. Now the waterfront is trying to re-invent itself as a family-friendly tourist attraction. The problem is, as a functioning port the waterfront will always have truckers, longshoremen, and merchant seamen. Mixing the two populations is asking for trouble. Trying to separate the two populations increases the cost of moving goods through the port.

This brings me to what I think is the problem with modern Seattle. There is a large group of people who live in the city that mistake an idle, coffee fueled lifestyle as being productive. That's sort of sad. Shippers will move their product to Vancouver, B.C. and accelerate Seattle's decline into irrelevance.

Landfill Sunday!

2010-10-24T10:06:00.000-07:00

Today is Landfill Sunday! This is the day when the lab rats at Buck Fusion Labs empty the lab of "stuff." Not just any kind of stuff, but the stuff the lab rats can't normally bring themselves to toss! What kind of stuff are we talking about? The guts of old cell phones, old computers, etc. The lab rats hang onto this stuff because occasionally the lab rats think "I might use this stuff one day."

So off this stuff goes to the landfill. One day, after the human race has died out, a giant cockroach will dig this stuff up and be relatively pleased. Mmmm, crunchy.

Fire, wind, rain, & darkness

2010-10-23T20:41:00.001-07:00

"Just listen to the old Pork Chop Express and take his advice on a dark and stormy night, alright? ..." -- Jack Burton, "Big Trouble in Little China"

The oysters were on the grill, as were the shrimps. The bonfire was lit and the beer was cold. Trouble was, the rain was coming down in buckets, the temp was about 50F and dropping, and a steady 35 mph drove the bonfire horizontal across the ground in circles.

The bonfire looked like a caged animal pacing about the cage looking for a way out. The incessant rain merely irritated the fire.

Ah well, braving the elements to generate a bit of tribal fellowship is a good thing. Pushing forward in the teeth of a storm gets a person thinking like Jack Burton, if not acting like him.
One of my favorite Jack Burton quotes is this:

"Just remember what ol' Jack Burton does when the earth shakes, and the poison arrows fall from the sky, and the pillars of Heaven shake. Yeah, Jack Burton just looks that big ol' storm right square in the eye and he says, 'Give me your best shot, pal. I can take it.'"

Magnum by Boker Sleekster - Craptastic!

2010-10-22T10:30:00.000-07:00

Checking off my list of "to do" stuff today.

Way back in July 2010 I ordered a "Magnum by Boker" Sleekster knife. Within the Boker knife universe, the Magnum name means "budget" knives that sell for less than $25. For you and me, this means the knives are borderline junk, if not junk.

Here at Buck Fusion Labs we have knives all over the place from all over the world. Sharp knives, dull knives, and all sorts in between. We've been known to pick up knives, buy expensive knives, but mostly we accumulate super cheap (and often free) knives. We accumulate so many knives of such varying quality so quickly that the waste management people maintain a special rail car for our excess cutlery.

In this case, Ol' Bucky must report the "Magnum by Boker" Sleekster earned the distinction of being labeled "Craptastic." Bucky called Boker USA to say that somewhere in China there is a quality control problem. Unfortunately, the customer service rep at Boker USA unleashed a fusillade of abuse about how there is "nothing that can be done" and "you'll have to return it to the company that you bought it from." Maybe the poor fellow was having a bad day, or maybe he hates his job or whatever. The point is I was calling to say I'm sending the knife back.

Which I did.

BokerUSA can toss the knife in their rail car that's headed to a landfill.

Anyway, what's wrong with the knife. you ask? What makes it craptastic? I think the best example is the torn screw head. The entire knife exhibited similar sloppy workmanship. The picture of the screw head illustrates the point very well (look at the small screw).

That's all I'm going to write about this worthless piece of junk. We have many knives, some given away for free that are sharper, hold an edge, and show high quality workmanship. And they come from China, too. Probably from the same mammoth factory....

And the winner is ... Zebra F-301!

2010-10-17T16:21:00.000-07:00

This week Buck Fusion Labs held an informal popularity contest between the Zebra F-301, F-402, and F-701 pens. Of the three, the F-301 was clearly the favorite of the lab rats. The Lab Rat in Chief (i.e., Buck Fusion), liked the F-701 best of the Zebra pens so he declared the F-701 "most popular pen in the lab." The F-402, through no fault of its own, was not very popular.

Even though the contest ended, the lab rats continued to advocate that the F-301 was the most popular pen in the lab. They claimed they had the most "votes" or something. In fact, one lab rat even submitted a picture showing the pens in the order they received "votes." (Reproduced with this post).

Whatever. This insubordination will be noted during their Annual Review. In other words, no Corn Nuts in their Christmas stockings!

Oregon sunset

2010-10-17T16:05:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to clearing out some photos in my camera from last week's trip to Portland. While I was there the city was treated to a spectacular sunset. The attached image hardly does justice to the sunset.

Dude

2010-10-15T16:58:00.000-07:00

Let's see, can anyone spot where a quality control process broke down?

October Surprise!

2010-10-15T14:38:00.001-07:00

If the morning starts out with black coffee, a bowl of red chili (and crisp garlic pickles), AND the stereo is blasting out "Jack Sparrow," then the time to read this year's voter pamphlet has arrived.

Old Bucky views voting as a right of dubious worth. Maybe this cynical point of view was crystallized when Ol' Bucky was deep in Commie territory and tip toeing around the walls of the Kremlin. After all, them Commies prided themselves on getting 99% voter participation. For every vote.

And let's not forget, France is on its Fourth Republic, the Germans voted in Nazis, the Italians voted in Fascists, etc., etc., etc. Even the American government is an experiment. The Founders knew every Republic tried before in history failed. All the previous republics degenerated into dictatorships.

But duty calls and we must answer the call. So I bought two new pens to fill out the ballot. Yeah, one would do, but my life experiences say two is better than one.

The pens I selected are the awesome Zebra F-701 and the mighty Parker Jotter. Both are metal barreled mechanical wonders and reasonably priced. My old friends who work in highly technical fields go completely wacko when discussing these pens. Basically they fall into two camps: those who like knurled barrels, and those who don't.

Well, the time has arrived to open the voter education pamphlet. Let's see, a quick scan for buzzwords on the first page: Lincoln, responsibility, rights. Yada yada yada.....

What luck, PDX on a holiday!

2010-10-10T16:37:00.000-07:00

Lucky me, I ended up in Portland during a holiday. Time to take advantage of tax free merchandise that's on sale. Heck, the whole state is like a giant duty free shop.

Range Day!

2010-10-01T08:38:00.000-07:00

If the day starts with a handful of Tabasco flavored Cheez-Its and black coffee then it must be Range Day!

Today I'm focused like a laser on hunting. I've got the dial turned all the way up to 11. That's why I broke out the 10mm and PEEPS Bunnies. The Peeps Bunnies are awesome targets because not only can they be eaten, but they possess mighty unusual properties. For example, according to the Peeps entry in Wikipedia:

Peeps are sometimes jokingly described as "indestructible". In 1999, scientists at Emory University performed experiments on batches of Peeps to see how easily they could be dissolved, burned or otherwise disintegrated, using such agents as cigarette smoke, boiling water and liquid nitrogen. They claimed that the eyes of the confectionery "wouldn't dissolve in anything". Furthermore, Peeps are insoluble in acetone, water, diluted sulfuric acid, and sodium hydroxide.

Staring into the dead eyes of a Peep bunny may be a recklessly dangerous thing to do, and those eyes may not dissolve in "anything," but we'll see if the mighty 10mm makes them blink.

Old joke about Delta

2010-09-28T16:56:00.001-07:00

I was trapped at an airport. Delta needed three tries before they found an airworthy ship. But then, oh dear, they didn't have flight attendants. The flight attendants had gone home. Yet more delay.

This situation reminds me of the old joke about Delta: Doesn't Ever Leave The Airport.

I'm seriously thinking of finding a new job. Maybe I'll find a job that doesn't require flying.

The Big Board

2010-09-26T04:44:00.001-07:00

Ah, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport at "oh dark thirty." This is the perfect time to watch the airport wake up.

I like to watch the wake up of the Big Board located in the Pacific Marketplace. Watching the display light up with the morning's first flights is awesome.

And flabbergasting! Even at "oh dark thirty" the Big Board forecasts delayed flights that do not depart for hours!. You'd think that if the maintenance crews have all night to work on the birds, each would be ready on the flight line in time for sunrise.

Just saying.

NRA Tactical Pen review

2010-09-22T08:46:00.001-07:00

If the morning begins with black coffee, kippered herring and eggs then it must be range day!
Unlike other range days, today I was unable to make it to a range. What's the next best thing to going to a range? Helping out the National Rifle Association (NRA)!

Today the best way I can help out the NRA is to write a review of the NRA Tactical Pen.
What is the purpose of a tactical pen? Heck if I know. I suppose the concept of a tactical pen represents the convergence of two physically similar devices that have different purposes: pens and kubotans (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubotan).

The NRA Tactical Pen reminds me of a Smilidon (aka saber toothed tiger). Like the big toothy cat that annoyed Fred Flintstone and his buddies back in the day, the NRA Tactical Pen looks impressive, has all the important stuff, but ultimately represents a dead end due to compromises in design.
As delivered, the NRA Tactical Pen looks nice and has a good feel. The pen is about the length of a kubotan and has one pointy end that is isn't designed/sharpened for penetration. Oh, don't get me wrong about the pointy end. It will and does hurt, but no worse than being jabbed with the fat end of a Montblanc Meisterstück pen.

The pen is constructed of sturdy aluminum and uses Parker-style refills. Unfortunately, as a writing instrument the NRA Tactical Pen is all out of balance. Screwing the cap over the pointy end exaggerates the effect so the writer is fighting the pen instead of concentrating on writing.
Also, the body of the pen is absolutely smooth. This is no good if a person's hands are wet, gloved, or oily. The writer really has to grip the pen and if the writer must take notes for a long period of time the excessive pressure tires the hand.

On a positive note the pen is supplied with a quality ink cartridge. Then pen takes Parker style refills so replacement cartridges are cheap and plentiful around the globe.

So, can I recommend this product? The answer is no and yes. The barrel is too smooth for hand-to-hand combat. As a writing instrument the grip required is excessive and the pen's weight is out of balance. However, as a pen of last resort (you know, the one you grab to sign a document when you can't find your favorite pen) the NRA Tactical Pen works quite well and should last a lifetime.

When an emergency is declared as a precaution

2010-09-18T10:52:00.000-07:00

One 17 September 2010, the Seattle Times reported "Cabin smoke causes plane to land in San Francisco." Basically, the story was about a US Airways Boeing 757 that was flying from Phoenix to Kahului, Hawaii, and had to abort the flight due to smoke in the cockpit.

I've flown over the Pacific many times. The image on this post shows a view of the Pacific from 30,000 ft. No land in sight for as far as the eye can see (or the Boeing 757 can glide).

Because the pilots were able to get that bucket out of the sky in one piece and without any injuries I can only say: "Well done!"

Boeing 757's are well made, but if they are not properly maintained, well, their airworthiness becomes less like an airplane and more like a rock. I'm always impressed when I fly safely from Location X to Location Y because I'm certain no one knows whether commercial aircraft are actually airworthy. I cannot get a warm fuzzy knowing minimally trained contractors perform the minimum amount of maintenance on the plane that is then reviewed by an overwhelmed inspector.

"A spokesman for the airline says the emergency was declared as a precaution." In other words, "we are not changing our maintenance practices."

So it's back to toss the dice and take your chances.

ORD - Oh, Really Delayed

2010-09-13T11:19:00.001-07:00

The topic of this post is Chicago O'Hare and United Airlines. O'Hare's three letter airport code is ORD. In my mind, that translates to "Oh, Really Delayed."

Recently I flew from the East Coast to Seattle via Chicago O'Hare on United Airlines. I really dreaded going through ORD because I wasn't taking the first connecting flight of the day; I was passing through ORD in the afternoon in early September (so delay due to thunderstorms was a real possibility); and, I was flying on United! and scheduled to fly on one of their ancient Boeing 757's!

As luck would have it, the weather held but my connection was delayed due to a broken plane. The delay wasn't that bad, only about an hour. United was its dysfunctional best, sending our planeload of people from the middle of the "C" concourse to a different gate at the end of the concourse. The problem was a plane load of people were already at the gate expecting to go to a different city. They weren't happy to learn their flight was delayed. But United is all about winners and losers, so that lot was told they were a bunch of losers and that was that.

This leads me to ask: why not just put question marks around departure times? Travel itineraries would look like this:

DPT IAD 0700 ARR ORD 0830?
DPT ORD 1030? ARR SEA 1230?

I think the addition of question marks would make an itinerary much more realistic.

Steaming across the Pacific

2010-09-12T20:52:00.000-07:00

For the record, I do not like going to sea. I've been to sea, and believe me, I don't like it. Especially when going to sea involves getting aboard or departing via the jacobs ladder.

So while I complain about air travel, I know it can always be worse. Sometimes when flying above the Pacific I take the time to look out the window for ships sailing to God-knows-where. One morning I was particularly lucky. The sky was reasonably free of clouds, the sea was calm, and we were flying at about 20,000 feet. I spotted a ship sailing along and cranked the camera over to 12x optical and took a snapshot.

As luck would have it, the plane held steady and its vibrations weren't too great. I got a decent shot of the ship as it proceeded to its destination.

I wish fair winds and following seas to all mariners ....

Just another 14 hour day

2010-09-11T10:06:00.001-07:00

A quick look at the sky revealed blue sky and few clouds. That was a promising start to a 14 hour day. Hopefully the weather would hold through Chicago.

The iPod selected a couple of tunes written by Henry Mancini for the old TV show "Peter Gunn." In a way, I thought the selection of the "Easy Listening" genre was funny. Flying is anything but "Easy Listening." If I were to associate a musical genre to commercial air travel it would be "Soundtrack." All the airlines do today is repurpose other people's success and mangle it to fit an arbitrary schedule.

Oh well, at least the sky looks pleasant.

Farewell 4 SEP 2010

2010-09-04T16:23:00.001-07:00

Farewell 4 SEP 2010.

Update 12 SEP 2010: I realize this post may be confusing. What was so special about 4 SEP 2010? Well, I had spent the day at the Great Allentown Fair and had a blast. (I figured that if the Allentown Fair was good enough for General Douglas MacArthur in 1951, then it would be good enough for me in 2010).

Unfortunately, I was not able to stick around for the Justin Beiber concert. I had several hundred miles to drive to get to my next hotel. So, fortified by a few Philly cheesesteak sandwiches, I headed West and into the sunset.

Running swine

2010-09-04T11:43:00.000-07:00

Stopped by the Allentown Fair and watched the pig races. Totally awesome.

Grits and Liberty

2010-09-03T21:32:00.001-07:00

Easy day today ... Merely a 500 mile drive. So happy to avoid air travel!

Since I won't have to worry about "turbulence" or pilots who "forget" to turn off the "fasten seat belt" sign, I was free to indulge in a medically unsound breakfast.

Today's feast consisted of grits, corned beef hash, scrambled eggs with Tabasco (splashed on like water), coffee, juice, water, and a bagel. And get this: I could eat without keeping my arms folded like a human origami exhibit.

It's amazing how comfortable life can be when you know there will not be a line for the lavatory. Four or five hours of travel is not that bad in a seat designed for human comfort, not stacking and racking bodies.

Grits and hash, I never thought I'd use them as an symbol of personal freedom. But today grits and hash are right up there with a Gadsen Flag.

20 hours in the air

2010-08-29T17:14:00.000-07:00

My latest trip involved 20 hours in the air and loads of time sitting in airports waiting for the sun to set. The picture that accompanies this post shows how night has fallen on a small town while the day's light fades away at higher altitudes.

As I watched the day turn into night, I sat in the gloom thinking of how glad I was that some of the trip was outside the United States. Get this: on my flights outside of the U.S., passengers in economy (in economy!) were served food with real metal dining utensils! It is such a bummer going through U.S. passport control knowing what lies before me on U.S. domestic flights.

Fortunately, I didn't spend all 20 hours of air time sitting in a 17-inch-wide seat on a Boeing 757. If I had done that, I'd probably be writing this post from a room in a hospital instead of a room in a hotel.

I was able to get window seats for about 7 hours of air time. That's not bad, almost 50%. I am one of those passengers who likes to look out of windows. I like to watch the weather, see other planes, and look at the ground as it rolls underneath the aircraft. If you do sit in a window seat, remember to occasionally look up. Once I saw a very strange looking aircraft fly above the pokey Boeing 757 at an amazing speed, and once I saw another Boeing 757 blow past the 757 I was in even as the pilot said "we're flying as fast as we can."

Tropical morning surprise

2010-08-23T02:08:00.000-07:00

So I'm staying in a hotel that warns its guests that because we're in the tropics exposed food will attract ants into the hotel room. That's fair enough because tropical ants, like all ants, are voracious scavengers.

Unfortunately, this hotel has another problem: roaches. The one-inch and bigger kind of roach. The high speed, jumps about six inches, common to tropical islands kind of roach. The "I found it in the bathroom at oh-dark-thirty this morning" kind of roach.

I'm sorry to report the poor creature didn't live long after its picture was taken.

Anyway, this cockroach is not the largest I've found in a hotel room. One was a true monster, about 3" in length. I stepped on that bug and it kept walking with my foot on it. That big cockroach seemed to say "is that all you've got monkey-boy?" To which I replied with a nasty grin, "no, it ain't."

Fortunately, I'm soon going to check out of this hotel and check into a different one. Hopefully, my new lodging will make use of more effective pesticides.

Don't slam the door!

2010-08-22T00:30:00.000-07:00

So I check into a hotel that has obviously seen better days. The hotel remains busy, but the little things are starting to add up. For example, I firmly shut the door to my room and the door peep almost fell out. Uh oh.

Then there are the other little things... like the paint peeling from the ceiling, the light fixture that was almost ripped from the wall and improperly repaired, the discolored walls where holes were patched and painted - but the painter used "brilliant white" instead of "dingy white" to cover the patch. I can't accurately describe the weird smell that emanates from the building. It might be a combination of stale cigarettes, molds, and pesticides.

Oh well, I can't really complain. The service is good and the staff is friendly.

Again, I took flight

2010-08-20T12:52:00.001-07:00

Ah, more time spent at SeaTac (SEA). The skies looked pleasant and the wait was boring. (I've learned from bitter experience that combining "airport" and "exciting" leads to a bad day).

Today's jaw dropping experience at the TSA checkpoint involved a couple who must live in the back of a deep, deep cavern.

The line I stood in was halted for 5 minutes while a woman unpacked her wheelie. Oh yeah, we got a good look at her unmentionables and assorted toiletries. I guess the entire "gels and liquids" thing didn't register.

Anywhoo, she was sorted out. But I am starting to favor the idea of fining travelers who show up at the checkpoint with gels and liquids in excess of the allowed limits.

I think making an example of a few hapless travelers would do the trick. Perhaps a fine of $10,000 would even seep all the way to the back of the cavern.

Repurpose BB 63 as an orbital bombardment platform!

2010-08-15T21:04:00.000-07:00

I went aboard the old USS MISSOURI for a bit of tourism. The old war machine had a long and distinguished career. Now she sits as a museum of sorts, but I say she still has a lot of life in her. I say we convert her into a spaceship!

As a space warship, MISSOURI could defend the planet against hijacked commercial space transports, rogue asteroids, out-of-control satellites, UFO's or whatever. And it would make a dandy platform for orbital bombardment, if that should become necessary.

With the requirements set, now all we'll have to do is grab some guys from NASA and have them implement the requirements. It's merely an engineering problem.

Seatac at midnight

2010-08-15T00:01:00.001-07:00

At midnight SeaTac needs a good diner. And way less weirdness.

She cut in line to ...

2010-08-14T15:48:00.001-07:00

While standing in line for a TSA screening at Honolulu, I wondered what rock some passengers call home. I mean, "9/11" happened way back in 2001 and there are loads of people who haven't gotten the word as to how to behave and what cannot be brought aboard.

For example, recently I departed Hawaii for the U.S. Mainland. I'm one of those travelers that needs three bins for personal stuff. One bin is for my shoes, and I need two more bins for electronics. In this case I was transferring laptops from my backpack to the bins when the blonde who was behind me in the line, cut in front of me and tossed her wheelie in the x-ray machine. Then she went back in line behind me.

I said "you can go ahead," but she said no and waited behind me.

You know what happened next.

I got through being scanned for weapons and then had to wait for my stuff to finish being x-rayed. However, because the young woman tossed her bag in front of my three bins and backpack, her bag popped out of the x-ray machine first.

"Sir, is this your bag?" Enquired the TSA agent. I shook my head "no" and pointed at the blonde behind me.

By this time my stuff was coming out of the x-ray machine so I started to lose interest in the clueless blonde and her bag.

The TSA agent then asked the blonde about the bag. "Is there something wrong?" asked the blonde. The TSA agent pulled out a jar of something old timers would call "cold cream" and told the blonde to follow her as she took the bag for secondary screening.

"I have to follow you?" Asked the blonde. I stifled saying "well, DUH! you moron."

I don't know what happened to the blonde and her bag. I just really hoped that on my flight across the Pacific, if there was an emergency with the plane, she wasn't sitting in an exit row. It was obvious to me she'd never figure out how to open the emergency exit door.

And that reminds me, shouldn't the airlines make people who sit in exit rows prove they have the strength, intelligence, and dexterity to open the emergency doors?

Things are not what they seem

2010-08-14T15:14:00.001-07:00

One of Ol' Bucky's favorite songs has a lryic about things not being the way they seem.
The picture that accompanies this blog post is just so. The red light that illuminates the palms came from a sign that said "Exit."

Sunset at Waikiki

2010-08-10T01:32:00.001-07:00

Sometimes a stroll through the concrete canyons of Waikiki is a study in contrasts. Light and dark, blue and gray, rich and poor.

Airport slobs Pt 2

2010-08-08T10:40:00.001-07:00

Ok, so the dim hive mind of the airport slobs tried to do the right thing.

Unfortunately, that resulted in a concentrated mess.

The sine waves of stupidity amplified each other instead of cancelling out each other.