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Week of 1 March 2004 Latest Update : Monday, 29 March 2004 07:33 -0500 |
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Monday, 1 March 2004
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{Five Years
Ago Today]
7:45 - The start of a new month, and I'm going to be writing all month long. I won't be on hiatus, exactly, but I won't have time to write much here, either. This month will be a flurry of writing and system building. I really wanted to do something about replacing my den system, but that'll have to wait as well. The new book is starting to come together, and that's always the busiest time.
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Tuesday, 2 March 2004
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{Five Years
Ago Today]
9:09 - Still heads-down writing. The next couple months are going to be the Months From Hell.
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Wednesday, 3 March 2004
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{Five
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8:20 - Still heads-down writing. This weekend I should be building some systems.
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Thursday, 4
March 2004
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{Five Years
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8:22 - Since the beginning of the fiaSCO many people, including me, have believed that SCO is just a stalking horse for Microsoft. OpenSource.org has posted an email that, if genuine, is the smoking gun. According to this email, Microsoft has given SCO not the $10 million to $11 million originally they were originally reported to have paid for a UNIX license, but at least $82 million to $86 million, with more to come. If this email is genuine, it appears that Microsoft has propped up SCO financially to enable them to continue to attack Linux. Without this funding, SCO would have completely run out of money and gone bankrupt long ago.
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Friday, 5 March
2004
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{Five Years
Ago Today]
11:35 - Still writing...
This from Ron Morse.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: PC Power and Cooling power supply failure
Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2004 08:50:32 -0700
From: Ron Morse
To: Robert Bruce ThompsonRobert,
I know you highly recommend PC Power & Cooling power supplies (as do I) so I want to let you know that I had one fail in service yesterday. It was a 425W Turbo Cool model, and had been in service approximately 3 years.
The unit didn't exactly fail...the computer was still working normally but, during routine cleaning I noticed some heat discoloration on the 3.3V pins on the ATX motherboard connectors. Closer inspection (the old flashlight through the vent holes trick) of the PS revealed some additional discoloration inside the unit.
Subsequent removal of the cover revealed that both of the large filter capacitors (200V/1000uF) had apparently leaked, and another displayed the "domed" top associated with excess internal pressures. The brand name on all of the caps is TAEPO.
I know one sample does not a representative cross section make, but it may indicate that PCP&C could be another victim of the counterfeit capacitor fraud.
I've notified PCP&C and asked if they want the unit back for evaluation. I don't have the purchase documents so I'm not sure if the unit remains under warranty or not, perhaps they can determine that from the serial number but I'm confident they will do the right thing in that regard.
In any case, the possibility that PCP&C could have been taken by the counterfeit capacitor scam is worth noting and I wanted to alert you to the possibility. Will keep you posted.
BTW...replaced the bad PS with an Antec Sonata case/PS unit on your recommendation. An excellent choice in every respect, as usual. Well done. If PCP&C replaces the the failed unit under warranty it will go on the shelf as a spare.
I'm sorry to hear that. I really hate it when people have problems with a product that I've recommended. That's the first I've heard of the capacitor problem with a power supply. I hope, as you say, that it's a one-off problem rather than the beginning of a trend. I've emailed my contact at PC Power & Cooling to ask if he has any additional information. I'll let everyone know if he has anything to tell me.
14:14 - It has to be intentional. I'm getting very weary of notification messages from mail servers that think I'm infected with a virus/worm/Trojan. When was the last virus/worm/Trojan that used a real address? Years ago. You'd think Norton, McAfee and the other AV vendors would have noticed by now that the apparent sender of a viral-laden message is almost certainly not the real sender.
So why do they send virus notifications to the apparent sender? If you ask them, they'll tell you that that is the default setting for their products, and the administrator can turn it off. So why is that the default setting at this late date? The only reason I can think of is that the AV vendors are fully aware of what they're doing and use the miserable default settings of their products to spam all of us in the hopes of selling more of their products. Why haven't Norton, McAfee, and the rest been blackholed for spamming? They richly deserve to be.
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Saturday, 6
March 2004
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Sunday, 7
March 2004
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