Diary of a Wolfeman

As a full-time professional Geek, one of my biggest pet peeves is when my own technology fails me and I am forced to futz with it to make it work. My computers have, unfortunately, taken great pleasure in finding odd little ways to fuck with me, and as such I have become less and less daring over the past couple of years with how I play with them. Case in point: I am no longer even trying to run Linux on Hyperion / Rodimus Prime anymore, because there are times when I work from home and I just can’t have the thing acting up on me when I need to work.

This month, I have tried two modifications to my electronics. One should have been dirt-simple and simply worked, the other had the chance of actually damaging (if not outright bricking) the target device.

We’ll start with what should have been the simplest: I bought a new keyboard / mouse combo for Hyperion, my home workstation. A Logitech MX3200 wireless kit, with a Laser multi-button mouse. The main purpose of this was to change things around for appearances’ sake (much like moving the furniture or getting new artwork.)

The second purpose was for a little improvement in usability – my old BTC LED backlit keyboard is cool, but the space bar is sunk a little below the frame and I tended to miss it whilst pecking away at emails. I have also gotten spoiled by my work mouse which has programmable extra buttons, and I have set one of these to trigger a double-click with a single press. This comes in handy during remote-control sessions where a standard double-click may not be sensed right by the remote-ed computer.

I hooked everything up fairly easily, only to discover that when I built the machine something apparently went wrong with the USB driver installation and it would not accept any USB mouse I tried – it was throwing me “the data is invalid” errors every time I tried to install the mouse. I was eventually forced to do a repair install of Windows after verifying with a Linux live CD that the hardware was kosher. Which also meant I was forced to re-install all of the security patches released since that particular install CD was pressed. Ugh.

Even after this was finished, though, shit didn’t work. Ok, the keyboard linked up just fine and I had access to all the special functions, and the mouse would install and function, but it would grab the stock Micro$haft driver instead of the Logitech one. A quick trip to the Logi site got me an updated driver, and in it went. To my horror, however, I lost all the advanced keyboard features and still couldn’t get the right mouse driver.

So I rolled back to the original driver set and regained full keyboard, then went looking through the user forums. Lo and behold, there is much ranting about how these drivers just DO NOT WORK AS PACKAGED. PERIOD.

Gorramit!!

There is hope, however: if you edit the .inf file for the mouse, it is possible to get it to install directly. So, I chop away at it, but it still refuses to install. (It fails at a different point, however.) Time to talk to Logi support then. Their answer was to do a “clean boot” of Windows and try again – use msconfig to turn off everything for the next boot. (You basically get the next best thing to “safe mode” with this method.)

I can understand turning off antivirus and firewall, but EVERYTHING? Surely this can’t work!

Sonovabitch – it worked. With my modified driver, I might add. Points to TS for finding the solution, but serious negatives to the driver engineers who released this batch of absolute horse shit driver package. You guys need to take up self-flagellation.

On to the second improvement: modifying the memory settings of my T-Mo Wing PDA/phone.

This one is scary.

Short story: cell phones use memory for program and file storage AND running programs. If you add a removable memory card you can gain program / file storage, but it doesn’t help the basic running program space – even when you have installed the program to the card and not internal memory.

So, while my phone was typically running with 12-15MB of free storage-side internal space, the running program side of things only had 4-8MB free on average – which meant that space-hogging applications would crash frequently and I would have to reboot the phone every day or so – or any time I wanted to take a picture.

My original thought was to try and find a way to alter the amount of internal space allocated to file storage and free up some of that room for running programs. From the complete lack of mention of any sort of method to do this, I must assume that this is encoded in the hardware and unchangeable.

Dammit!!

There is hope, however: Paul at MoDaCo has researched this very same problem and discovered that the HTC Touch and the T-Mo Wing (also made by HTC) both share something in common: an overly-large pagepool.

Paul explained it best, so I’ll quote him:

Deep in the depths of the operating system of your device, there is something called the ‘PagePool’. Without going into too much detail (and as I understand it!), the PagePool is a special area of memory reserved for loading apps into from ROM. This PagePool is a lot faster than ROM, so when things are executed from this ‘cache’ instead, the performance of a device will be quicker. On the flipside, if you have a 8MB pagepool (HTC Touch) and you’re using, say, 4MB of the pagepool, then 4MB of space is wasted that could be program memory. Similarly if you have a 12MB pagepool (!) (T-Mobile Wing) in this instance you would we wasting 8MB of space!

Using serious amounts of Geek-Fu, Paul also discovered that it is possible to change this setting and reduce the size of the pagepool to free up space for running programs. The catch, however, is that this is not a setting or even a registry tweak: you must alter the ROM of the device.

This is a moderately tricky task involving downloading the ROM from your device, making the change, and loading it back in. When you reboot, the phone will read the new ROM and use those settings. If you make the wrong edit, however, you could screw things up badly or even completely brick the device.

Not for the faint of heart, obviously. But, being annoyed enough with the performance of my phone and needing to run a particular memory-hog of an app for work, I was left with little choice save for switching carriers and buying a new phone.

So I did some more reading and found a tool that reportedly will be able to restore the phone should the worst happen (this was released after Paul’s tutorial was written). Then I read the tutorial about 20 times to make sure I knew what I was doing and dove in.

I downloaded. I read the ROM into a hex editor and found the setting to change, changed it, saved it all, and crossed my fingers, toes and eyes as I depressed the LOAD key.

This is really scary here, because you load it from a command prompt, and it just sits there staring at you for about ten minutes doing nothing. You have no idea if it is doing anything at all, let alone working, and so you sit there drumming your fingers on the desk and waiting and watching and waiting and watching and…

*Blink*

The prompt is back and flashing at me.
The boot-cycle sound wave plays.
Time slows to a crawl as I watch the Today screen load piece by piece. Is it slower than usual? Has it speeded up any? I can’t tell.
Finally, some ten millenia later (subjective time) it finishes booting and it looks like everything has worked.

No way. It worked?!?

I tap away to get to the memory status page, and there is the result: 14Megs free.

Only time will tell, of course, but I have thrown everything I can think of at it tonight, and the darn thing just keeps running.

Paul, I bow to your expertise and daring in having figured this out before there was any way to fix it should you have screwed up.

Now do me a favor and get a job at Logitech, will you? they need your skills.

One of the benefits of working for my Boss is the fact that he’s a bloody magpie when it comes to technology. If it is new and shiny, and even remotely usable by us or our clients, sure as shit he will buy one. even better, he is often too busy to play with the new toys, so he will hand them out to us to play with first :)

This week, he ran across an ad for Drobo, the “Storage Robot”. Yeah, it’s a silly name, but it got his attention. The marketing hype says “…we’ve created Drobo, the first fully-automated storage robot to take the pain out of keeping your important digital content safe.” They even have a video of the thing in action.

What it is, is an external storage device that uses a USB interface. Unlike all of the other USB drives out there, though, Drobo is a user-configurable multi-disk configuration that uses a proprietary control interface similar to a RAID array. You buy the box, then you go buy SATA drives to fill it with, stuff ’em in the drive bays (no trays), and then fill it with files. The cool part is that you can swap out disks whenever you like – WITHOUT having to back everything up somewhere else while you rebuild your RAID array.

“Too good to be true!” I thought – then I got it on my desk.

I’ll be darned – it works exactly as advertised.

Short story:
It uses a proprietary modified RAID, completely controlled by the unit (there is no need to install software on your computer, the initial activation can be done through disk management tools.) If you format the disks to FAT32, the unit can then be used on any operating system that recognizes USB storage. If you live in a simpler network, it can be formatted for Windoze or MacOS too.

Long story:
You will lose the largest capacity drive to data protection / overhead. I started with an 80GB and a 250GB disk, and was given +/-70GB of storage. I copied 6GB of data to the device, then popped out the 80GB disk. Lights went to warning, then I loaded a second 250GB. The dashboard software then told me not to do anything drastic while it went into “Data protection mode” I.E., it mirrored everything to the second disk. Once that was done all lights went green, and I had 250GB of storage available.

Then I stuck the 80GB disk back in, and in 15 seconds I had 297GB of space available. Popping one of the 250’s puts it back into data protection mode, and popping that one disk back in did not cancel this – I think it assumes that any disk inserted is a new disk.

The cool part, however, was just like in the demo video – I had access to all the data during the whole process of adding / removing disks. As long as you don’t mess with it while the lights are flashing different colors, you should be fine.

Now you might think it’s a bummer to lose your largest disk, but the way it works (as best as I can tell) is that it will store your data in the smallest disk first, then mirror it to the next largest drive, and use any remaining capacity for parity and future expansion. In the end, you get all the benefits of RAID, with the ease-of-use of a USB device that you can upgrade whenever.

I want one!

So The WBGF has been living on dial-up for ages (she gets her high-speed fix at work) but I’m an addict, and I sometimes get pinged for on-call work on the weekends while I’m at her place and essentially disconnected. I finally conned her into getting DSL, and tonight went over to set up the new modem.

Run the setup program on her PC, and it crashes the install. Gotta love stupid software. Hook everything up, install the filters, but the modem won’t train. Get out my wiring kit, trace the line back to the box, rewire to another pair and clean 30 years of corrosion off the jacks – still won’t train. Bite the bullet and call TS. Get nice, enthusiastic native-born-English-speaking lass on the phones who can’t have been employed long, as the disdain and lack of faith in her fellow man had not set in yet. Anyway, they try some things with Tier II, but still no love from the modem. Schedule a truck roll for Saturday. Ten minutes later, I realized that I had forgot to remove the line cord from the frelling dial-up modem.

D’oh!!

Okay, re-arrange the wires, and the modem links up no problem. Back to the install software, which just never quite gets it. Being prepared, I whip out my trusty laptop and run the setup program from there – lo and Behold! We have Internet! (Yay!). Now to set up the wireless router. Look at the install poster, follow the instructions, and the software can’t figure a damn thing out.

Why am I not surprised?

Ditch the install disk, fire up the router, pull an IP address and Firefox to the admin page. Type the default password from memory, and bingo. Ten minutes later, new admin password, new SSID and one happily convoluted WPA key is programmed in and I have wireless.

And Tolerant’s first question (smart girl that she is) was “so, where’s the power switch on this thing so I can disconnect you when you get sucked in?”

Posted by mobile phone:
So I finally joined the ranks of the truly geeky. You used to be able to spot us by the pocket protector or the physics book in our hand, but nowdays it’s all about the cellphone you carry – and I am now the proud owner of a T-Mobile Wing.

My pocket protector is truly big now, as I am writing this from my phone. This was made possible by the WordPress Mobile Plugin from Andy Moore, which not only makes your blog readable on a tiny phone screen, it makes it possible to blog from anywhere.

I told you I was geeky.

Okay, while that was fun and all, I type even slower by thumbnail than I do on a regular keyboard, so I’m going to finish this post from the laptop. Sure, it’s a cool feature to have for when I get really bored out in the world, but really. Back to talking about the phone.

For those of you who just gotta know, specs can be had here.

I have to say, I’m pretty happy with it so far, which is good considering how many clams I had to shuck out to buy it. I love T-Mobile’s plan pricing, but their phone selection could really use some help. There are one or two phones out there I may have liked better, but I wasn’t about to try and sever my contract and go through all of that hassle just to get a slightly shinier toy.

The Wing has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, so they can fit a nice big screen on the front, which was the main selling point for the device. The only other models on the T-Mo lineup with that feature are the SideKicks, which really feel flimsy to me due to the way the screen rotates out of the way. the last thing I want to do is slide that screen off every couple of months.

The phone runs Windows Mobile (PocketPC) 6, which means the Exchange server at work can talk to it directly to push out my work emails. In practice, I get an echo when I’m working at my desk since both the phone and the laptop have the same email notifier, and the phone gets the email about a second behind the laptop. (I will probably turn off that notifier on the phone.)

Another cool feature is the fact that for the first time, I can actually get my computer to talk directly to my phone for transferring files and such, instead of only being able to download ringtones from my provider’s website – no more of this $2.50 for a 20-second crappy segment of a song! So now, if you’re ever out and about and you hear machine-gun fire super-imposed on tinny Muzak, you know I’m close by and just got a call :) (24 Hours Open, from the Cowboy Bebop: Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door Soundtrack.)

Other things I like about it: easy customization (just about everything is configurable since it is running a Windows variant) and easy software installation. Just copy over the .cab file and click it in most cases. Multiple email accounts, with the above-mentioned Exchange integration. Built-in WiFi access that has worked every time I try it (Yay!), and a 1.3 megapixel camera that beats the hell out of the one on the last phone.

While the Wing has alot of cool features, no device is ever perfect. The big bummer for me right out of the gate is that it only comes in that damn blue color, so I can’t stick to my black-or-silver forever motif. I make up for that by keeping it in a black leather holster on my belt.

The biggest headache, however, is the fact that the phone is already short on resources. It comes with only 128MB of internal RAM, and about 1/3 of that is being sucked up by the OS. The OS then assigns the rest of that memory to storage and running applications at about 50/50. Sure, you can get an expansion card for it (I got a 2GB card) for file storage, but there are a number of folders that can’t be re-directed to the card without doing a registry hack. That scares me a bit, so I won’t be messing with that.

What this all means is that after poking around on it for a couple hours, I had to reboot the phone to get the camera to work due to lack of program memory available. It also means that if you want to install any additional software on the phone, you will need to install it to the storage card instead of system memory so it can actually run. Annoying to be sure, and something I will probably just have to get used to.

the last bummer, and one that kind of surprised me, is that it only comes with two games, and one of them is Solitaire. That will have to change! Other than that though, I am happy with the phone and would recommend it to anyone else on T-Mo looking for an upgrade. You might want to hit a couple auction sites though, to see if you can get it cheaper than retail.

Con Zymaris posts a pretty well-reasoned treatise on why we need to take regulatory action and force manufacturers to stop bundling Windows with new computers.

For the most part, I heartily agree with him. Where I disagree, is his closing statement:

Question: How is it possible to provide for both consumers who demand Windows and also ensure a fair and open marketplace for competing platforms?

Answer:That’s the $64 billion question, isn’t it? Here’s how it can be done.

All hardware manufacturers should ship personal computers with no pre-installed operating system. They should include within the packaging of the computer a media copy of the then current Microsoft Windows recovery CD. They should also include a copy of one of the main Linux distributions which are freely-redistributable at no charge.

Upon unpacking the computer, the consumer must then make a choice of either:

1. loading Windows from the Windows recovery media, then using the brochure included with the recovery media to contact Microsoft and through some form of financial transaction, acquire a licence to use Windows, or

2. load the Linux operating system from the CD/DVD included, and use it as their computer operating system.

(Legal bits:Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this document, provided this permission notice is preserved on all copies.)

I have two major problems with this statement:

1) The average computer user is not skilled enough to install an operating system. You’d like to think that they are, but having worked in both retail and corporate computer support, I can tell you truthfully that John and Jane Doe are clueless about the procedure, and more importantly don’t want to learn.

They can barely get through unpacking it and plugging all of the color-coded connectors in the right place. Once they’ve gotten that far they just want to be able to turn the thing on and have it work. Shit, have you ever looked at the installation manual for a Dell computer? It’s a glossy color poster with pictograms on it because that’s all the average user can manage.

2) Mr. Zymaris keeps referring to a Windows “restore CD”. A restore cd is typically a digital image of a hard drive that has had Windows installed on it and configured for a fresh user, then packaged into a nicely useful two- or three-click install procedure. And those three clicks are usually “Are you sure?” A Linux install CD, however, is packed with options and choices that John and Jane Doe won’t know the answers to.

If you really want to level the playing field, give them a restore CD for Windows and another one in a popular Linux flavor that has had equal care given to the configuration. Better yet, do what Dell has (grudgingly) done and offer either OS pre-installed. There is no reason the user should be forced to do the final install. Have you ever seen a car dealer that would sell you an upgraded stereo option – and then make you install it yourself?

On top of that, the manufacturer should provide the same level of support for both OSes. J&J D might be willing to give Linux a try if they knew they could call someone for help – and it needs to be real help too, not the typical “oh, you have installed unsupported software on your system so now I can’t help you” bullshit.

So what I would like to see is three options for configuring a computer on the manufacturer’s website: No OS, Windows, or Linux. That way you have the choice of rolling your own, taking the safe road, or taking the scenic route and seeing something new.

We will likely never see this happen though. At the retailer level such as Best Buy or CompUSA, it means they have to devote more shelf space to each individual product to showcase both factory-supported options, which will cause some griping and foot-dragging. At the manufacturer level, the same grumping will happen due to the increased training and staffing required to fully support a second option. Combine these two, and you have a lot of lobbying dollars going toward backing up Microsoft and maintaining the status quo.

If the un-bundling were to happen, you would not see a reduction in price for probably a couple of years as the manufacturers and retailers paid for the extra training and shelf space.

Just my two cents.

Now that you have read through the first course, it is time to move on to the next:

Wolfe’s Guide To Computers 102 – What to do when things go Wrong

“The computer allows you to make mistakes faster than any other invention, with the possible exception of handguns and tequila.”
– Mitch Ratcliffe

Things will eventually go wrong with your computer; the steps below will be helpful in determining exactly what it was, and should be followed in this order.

1) Reboot the computer.

Microsoft Windows Operating Systems have a number of faults in them that will on occasion cause your computer to freeze up, spaz out or generally quit working. If this happens, you will normally just need to reboot your computer to solve the problem.

Click on Start, then click on “Shut Down” and choose “Reboot” at the pop-up window. If this option never becomes available (wait at least ten minutes) then you may perform a Hard Shutdown by pressing and holding in the Power button on the computer for 5 seconds. This should shut down the computer. Let it sit for a 10-count then press and release the power button to start the computer again.

As a last-ditch effort, you could pull the power cord out of the computer – it should be noted that this could cause permanent damage to the machine, so it should only be done as a last resort.

If the problem persists, continue with the next steps.

2) Check all of the cables on the computer and the peripherals. Sometimes cables can get knocked loose from the computer, so you should make sure everything is plugged in and turned on. (Obviously, you will not be able to print if the printer is turned off.) If you are having Internet problems (the most common sort), then make sure that all of the cables are plugged in to the modem and / or router and that these devices are turned on and have the proper status lights lit.

3) Read The Fine Manual! If you are having trouble getting a particular program or device to work, there is quite probably some very useful information in the User’s Guide or the Help Files written into the program. Read the manual to make sure that you are doing it right to begin with. Better yet, there may be a troubleshooting guide that can help you before you call Tech Support.

4) If you still have not found a solution, you may need to call Tech Support. Before you do this, write down everything you can about the problem you are having, in the most technically descriptive manner you can. If an error message appears onscreen, write it down verbatim and in its entirety, including any number sequences that may be present. Your Tech Support agent will want this information.

You should also write down the sequence of steps that led to the problem appearing. If you are having trouble getting to a website, for instance, you should say that you “launched the web browser, but it was unable to display the website”, not “teh Internets are broken”.

Your Tech Support Agent will not know what you mean if you do not use standard terms. If you are not sure what the standard terms are, ask someone who is more computer-savvy than you are to help you describe the problem.

It will also be beneficial to write down the steps you have taken to try and fix the problem. The Agent will likely have you repeat these steps, but it shows them from the start that you have at least tried to fix it on your own – they will be more likely to go that “extra mile” to help someone who tries to help themselves first. Whiners get the worst treatment.

5) To ensure that you get the most help from Tech Support, remember this: you are dealing with someone who is trying to help you, and they may need some more help from you to solve the problem. If they ask a question, try to answer the best that you can. If they ask you to do something, follow their instructions to the letter in the exact order they are given – don’t jump ahead and don’t skip anything.

Above all else, remain as calm as you can. Yelling at them will get you transferred to the back of the call queue or just plain disconnected. Tech Support usually runs on a first-come, first-served basis, and they do not play favorites. Expecting special treatment for any reason (and telling them so) will earn you nothing but bad attitude. Ask nicely, say “thank you”, and don’t make any unfounded accusations.

These simple steps will not only help you solve the problem, they may earn you the respect of the tech support team if you end up having to call them, and they may not hate you for being an idiot like all of their other callers. Good luck.

Mental note: when setting up a new mail server, double-check your spelling of names. Because sure as shit, the one name you mispell is going to be the one person who will neep about it incessantly until you go through and clear the names cache out of every email client in the organization.

Luckily for this particular idiot, there are only 5 computers in the org, so it didn’t take that long. But still.

Oi.

The day after the previous post, I got a bit of a shocking email:

Someone at Symantec had seen my post, and then emailed me directly about it.

(stunned silence)

I have no delusions of grandeur here, I have seen my stats and I know that roughly 5 people ever read this blog – so I’m betting that someone in the PR dept over there must be tasked with Googling daily for bad press, and they must have showed it around the office, because I got more hits that day than I have in the past two months.

The thing is, the guy was genuinely trying to be helpful, and not once did he request that I take down the post, so I will give them an “E for Effort” in trying to resolve my issues. Of course, since I keep my professional life and my electronic alter-ego strictly separate, I had to reply in generalities, so I don’t expect to see any immediate change.

There is always hope for the next version, though.

Installed Backup Exec v11d for a client yetserday, after finally jumping through enough hoops to register the serial number so I could download the product. (That was a hell all on its own.)

Get everything installed, and try to run a LiveUpdate – keeps failing on the first file. I figure we just need to reboot the server one last time, so I do so and go home (it was already after 5).

Today, I run LiveUpdate again – fails on the second file. Info box says I have to restart LU – so I do. This time it sees that the 1st update downloaded, and goes straight to #2 and finishes. Fails on #3.

And again on #4

And again on #6 – with another LU restart in between each failure. Somehow, it managed to make it all the way to number 8 after this, so it starts installing the updates. Another window pops up, this time saying the BE services have stopped.

O.o?

The box then brings up the BE “login to media server” box with a button for “Services”. Clicking this gets me a window with several buttons, one of which is “Start all services”. Clickety. Chug-chug-chug, click on OK. Then it makes me log back in to the media server, and of course it hasn’t saved the password. Once that goes through, it pops up 11 (ELEVEN!!) informational windows saying it restarted the various services and that I will need to reboot to finish the update.

It then goes through this same ridiculous process for EVERY FUCKING UPDATE IT INSTALLED.

And we paid how much for this barely functional piece of shit that can’t even re-start its own services or download an update without handholding?

Just shoot me.

So I’ve taken up leatherworking, right? Well, Tolerant and I schlupped down to the supply depot Saturday and I managed to score a pretty decent half-side of 2-3 oz soft black leather that would make a pretty decent pouch. I also picked up 2 dozen d-rings for making skirt cinchers – but forgot to pick up some of the larger sized rivets I will need to make them. Duh.

So, Sunday finally rolls around and I’ve been itching to get to this new leather so bad I cut out of Guys Game Night an hour early so I can come down to the garage and play. I start in on a new scabbard for an old belt knife, but the new leather, while being the right thickness, is too soft. So, on to the next bit: the prototype belt pouch.

I measure carefully, I cut twice as carefully, I lay everything out and plan it in my head. I start small, by attaching the belt loops to the back, since two of the four seams will be inside the pouch if I do the side seams first.

Now remember, sewing with this grade of leather isn’t done with a machine. (Ok, it could be, but I don’t have THAT kind of money to throw at a hobby.) It is done by stabbing a very thick needle attached to a screwdriver handle through almost a 1/4 inch of leather, pulling it partway back out, feeding the loose end through the loop I just made and then pulling the needle and tightening the stitch. It takes about 15 seconds per stitch once I get rolling.

So, I get started on the side seam, which I am really interested in, because it is going to be a bitch on two places where I turn corners. I’m stitching merrily along and rounding that second corner, feeling pretty good about having actually followed a straight line when I stop for a moment to stretch out my neck a bit and admire my work. That’s when I notice it:

I’ve spent the last 45 minutes sewing the right-side of the insert to the wrong-side of the main piece.

In the immortal words of apprentices the world over as the realize their mistake:

“Awww, fuck.”

If you’ll excuse me, I have a seam to rip out now.