09:26
- Barbara and I gave her sister and brother-in-law a digital
camera for their wedding anniversary. That raised a slight problem,
because their home PC runs Xandros 2, and the 2.4.x kernel used by
Xandros 2 doesn't have very good USB support. So I decided to upgrade
them to Xandros 3, whose 2.6.x kernel works perfectly with USB mass
storage devices like cameras.
Barbara picked up the system unit and hauled it home. When I fired it
up yesterday, it got part way through the boot process and hung. That
seemed odd, but I just rebooted it and it came up normally. I did a
full backup of their data and installed Xandros 3. When I restarted the
system again, it hung at the BIOS boot screen with a S.M.A.R.T. error
message telling me that the hard drive was failing and that it was time
to backup my data and replace the hard drive immediately. Hmmm.
That's the second hard drive that's failed in this system in a year or
18 months. Both were Seagates. It may be a coincidence, but of the
scores of Seagate hard drives I've had running around here for years,
those are the only two failures. That makes me wonder if the problem is
really the hard drives, or if there's a problem with the disk
controller or something. I pulled that drive, and when I get a spare
moment I'll put it in a test-bed system and run in-depth diagnostics on
it.
I needed to replace the hard drive, and I didn't have any parallel ATA
hard drives in inventory. All of them were in systems, and most of
those systems had served their purposes here and been donated to local
non-profits long ago. Fortunately, Barbara remembered that we'd
installed a parallel ATA hard drive in one of the systems that's still
sitting in storage. I popped the cover on it, and found a 160 GB Maxtor
parallel ATA drive, which I pulled and installed in the problem system.
I installed and configured Xandros 3 on it, restored all their data,
and set the system to burning in. If that drive fails quickly, I'll
know there's a problem with the motherboard or some other component.
One failure is unfortunate. Two begins to look suspicious. Three is the
result of enemy action.
And I need to keep an eye out for sales at Best Buy and pick up one or
two parallel ATA drives to keep in inventory.
I'm working on USB flash drives at the moment. I have several on the
way in. When I last looked at these things a couple of years ago, they
were interesting but pretty useless in practical terms. They had much
too little capacity and their transfer rates were limited by USB 1.1 to
less than 1 MB/s. The current generation is much more interesting.
Capacities range up to 2 GB, and USB 2.0 High Speed transfers make them
fast enough to be useful. So I'll be playing around with them quite a
bit under Windows and Linux.
11:11
- I plugged the "failed" 120 GB Seagate hard drive into a
test-bed system and ran SeaTools on it. An odd thing happened. I ran
the Quick Diagnostic first, and it told me the hard drive failed the
test. I was about to pull the drive and discard it, but I decided to
take Seagate's advice and run the Full Diagnostic, which takes some
hours to complete. When I checked the system this morning, it had
passed the Full Diagnostic with flying colors.
The test-bed system I used is actually ripper, a Sempron system that runs
DVDshrink and a lot of Windows-only astronomy software. I think I'll
pull its current hard drive and install the questionable drive in its
place. The hard drive takes a beating in that system, so if it's going
to fail it should fail there. I'm really curious to see if the drive is
really failing or if there's something about the system that it was
running in that's causing the repeated hard drive problems.
UPS showed up yesterday with a pair of Crucial
Gizmo USB flash drives, one 512 MB and one 1 GB. I did a couple
quick benchmark tests on the 1 GB model, copying a 673 MB ISO file to
and then from the Gizmo. The write speed was about 8 MB/s and the read
speed 10 MB/s (using the base-10 definitions that all the manufacturers
use).
Crucial doesn't advertise read/write speeds, but from what I've seen
performance is mid-range for a USB 2.0 drive. The slowest USB 2.0 flash
drives are typically rated at 6 MB/s read and 4 MB/s write. The fastest
USB 2.0 flash drives like the Kingston DataTraveler Elite claim 24 MB/s
reads and 14 MB/s writes. Of course, the 1 GB Kingston DTE costs about
30% more than the 1 GB Crucial Gizmo.
Crucial takes a minimalist approach to bundled software. They don't
include any. Many USB 2.0 flash drives include a sync utility and an
encryption utility. Crucial simply provides a USB mass storage device
and leaves it up to you to decide how you want to synchronize and
encrypt your data. At first glance, the lack of software may appear to
be a drawback, but I think I actually prefer Crucial's approach.
I mistrust synchronization software. I keep my data organized into
directory structures that can easily be copied directly to the USB
flash drive without worrying about whether the sync software is doing
its job. And I really mistrust bundled encryption software. If I wanted
to encrypt the data I was storing to a USB flash drive, which I don't,
I'd prefer to use my own encryption software. Otherwise, I'd fear I was
writing my data into a Hotel California. One competing drive, for
example, claims to disable itself permanently after a certain number of
failed access attempts. Superficially, that sounds attractive to those
who are concerned about security, but it scares the hell out of me. One
small glitch, and my data might be gone forever, locked into the device.
At any rate, the Crucial Gizmo is the first USB 2.0 flash drive I've
had a chance to look at. I have others on the way in, so I'll be
testing and comparing them as well.
| Please give a moment's thought today to Alison Krause,
Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Schroeder. Thirty-five
years ago today at Kent State University, the Ohio National Guard
murdered those four students and wounded nine others. Two of those dead
were merely spectators at the anti-war protest that occurred that day.
The other two were minding their own business on their way to classes.
No students were armed. No Guardsmen had been injured, nor were they in
any danger. The Guardsmen fired randomly for 13 seconds--13
seconds--into a group of unarmed civilians, killing students as much as
700 feet away. No one has ever been brought to justice for this
massacre, nor even suffered administrative discipline. |
I was sixteen years old the day it happened. That day, the
government
irretrievably and completely lost my trust, as it did that of many,
perhaps
most, of my generation. Whatever one's position on the war--I supported
it--murdering unarmed and peaceful American college students was an
action from
which the government could never recover. Until that day, most
Americans
believed and trusted their government. Since that day, well, let's just
say that
most Americans no longer believe what the government tells them or
trusts it to
do the right thing. As Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young said, "Soldiers
are
gunning us down." Us.
Lest we forget.
09:42
- Many authors are obsessive about checking the Amazon rank and
reviews for their books. I don't check mine from one month to the next.
In fact, I think the last time I checked Building the Perfect PC was in late
2004. But last night I happened to follow a link to the Amazon
page for Building the Perfect PC,
and I'm glad I did. I found a one-star review that had been posted
yesterday by someone with the pen name "Flying Tiger".
Ordinarily, I don't let bad reviews faze me. It's impossible to please
everyone. I'll read the bad review, and if it makes any valid points,
I'll keep them in mind for the next edition. But reading this review
made me wonder if the reviewer had even read the book. I'm not sure why
I did it, but I clicked on the link for "Flying Tiger", which told me
that the real name of the reviewer was Mark Chambers. That name sounded
vaguely familiar, but I couldn't remember where I'd heard it. I noticed
that the nickname was listed as "mlcbooks" so on a whim I entered http://www.mlcbooks.com in my
browser.
So, I find that mlcbooks is the home page of computer book author Mark
L. Chambers, who just happens to have written a book titled Building PCs for Dummies. Although
he criticizes our book for being out of date, his own book is a year
older than ours. And, whereas our book has 35 reviews averaging five
stars, his book has 30 reviews averaging three stars. Amazon is subject
to "grade inflation" so in fact a book that averages five stars is
probably pretty good; one that averages four stars is probably
mediocre; and one that averages three stars is probably piss poor. I
doubt even 1% of all books listed on Amazon have average ratings below
three stars, at least those books with multiple reviews posted.
So, we have the author of an old, poorly-reviewed book trashing Building the Perfect PC. That's
pretty pathetic, but it still pissed me off. I immediately clicked on
the link on Amazon to report the review. That simply generates a
message to Amazon, without allowing you to enter the specifics. I
expect to hear from Amazon soon, at which time I'll tell them
specifically why I objected to that review.
I also contacted several people at O'Reilly, and they're going to try
to get the review pulled. One of them suggested that the best way to
counter it would be to post another review pointing out that "Flying
Tiger" is actually the author of a competing book. I can't do that
myself because my absolute policy is never to write reviews of my own
books or competing titles, but if any of my readers care to post a
review to counter Mr. Chamber's underhanded action I certainly wouldn't
object.
I lied about two Seagate drives failing. The most recent failed drive
was a Seagate, but the first drive that failed in my sister-in-law's
system was in fact a 160 GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9. I'd labeled the
Maxtor "BAD" with a marking pen, but my tendency not to throw anything
out came to the rescue this time. I still had that first failed drive
sitting on the shelf, so yesterday I stuck it in the test bed system as
the Secondary Master and ran SeaTools diagostics on it. Like the
"failed" Seagate drive, the Maxtor drive passed SeaTools diagnostics
with flying colors.
So, the upshot is that I don't believe there's really anything wrong
with either drive. I suppose it might be the ATA cable. I wish now I'd
changed it out when I installed the replacement drive.
11:05
- The PayPal phishers are at it again, this time apparently with
the aid of a virus that gloms email addresses and sends their phishing
mail to those addresses. They include the other addresses as visible
CCs, apparently hoping that'll make their scam more credible.
They did a pretty good job on the appearance of the email. It really
does look like an email from PayPal. Of course, they kind of ruined the
effect with the "Congratulations!Papal®" line. Unless they're
congratulating the new pope, I suppose.
15:02
- Well, they reached the right decision in the case of the Marine
accused of murdering a wounded enemy at Fallujah last year. He
won't be court martialed. I am flabbergasted that anyone even
considered court martialing the guy. He did his job properly, just as
he'd been trained to do. A wounded enemy combatant is no less dangerous
for being wounded, and may in fact be more so. When one considers
Islamic so-called culture, one would be insane to risk assuming that a
wounded Islamic was harmless. These are, after all, the same people who
have so many volunteers for suicide bombings that they have to turn
them away in droves.
When I was in college, one of my friends was a professor, Al Brower,
who'd landed at Omaha Beach on D-Day as a sergeant in the US Army and
carried his Thompson Gun all the way to Berlin. I remember Al talking
about the time his platoon attempted to allow two SS soldiers to
surrender. They approached Al and his buddies in single file, one
behind the other, with their hands up. When they got close to the
American soldiers, the front guy bent over and the rear guy snatched an
MP-40 submachine gun that had been strapped to the back of the front
guy and opened fire on the Americans.
Al and his buddies gunned them down, of course, without suffering any
casualties of their own, but they did learn a lesson. From that point
forward, none of them ever allowed SS to surrender. They shot down any
SS who attempted to surrender, and they didn't feel the least bit
guilty about doing so. I'd certainly have done the same, as would any
sane person. The laws of war were on their side, as they were on the
side of the corporal charged in the Fallujah shooting.
And the Waffen SS were real sweethearts compared to what our soldiers
are up against in Iraq. The Waffen SS, for example, honored the Red
Cross and rarely shot enemy prisoners. (Yes, I know about Malmedy and
other massacres; there were exceptions, but generally the Waffen SS
obeyed the rules of war on the Western Front except when it came to
false surrenders.)
The Islamic terrorists our soldiers face in Iraq obey no laws of any
sort, and our forces are legally entitled to treat them savagely. In
fact, even if that Marine Corporal had knowingly shot an unarmed
prisoner, he'd have been fully within his rights in doing so. By the
laws of war, the Islamic terrorists in Fallujah were subject to summary
execution, just as any terrorist is.
No one would have heard about this incident were it not for the
presence of a television reporter, which to me is a good argument for
eliminating television reporters from war zones. It all started with
Viet Nam, with the TV news bringing war scenes into our living rooms.
Nowadays, better technology allows the TV networks to broadcast war
scenes in real-time, which only makes matters worse. War is inherently
unpleasant. The folks at home shouldn't be subjected to the gory
details, not because they should be spared the unpleasantness but
because they don't need more reasons to interfere in matters they don't
understand.
Let our soldiers do their jobs. They don't need armchair quarterbacks
criticizing them. And they certainly don't need to fear being charged
with a crime for doing their jobs.
As to that corporal, I think he should be praised for his actions,
although I'm sure he'd be the first to tell you that he was only doing
his job. Think about it. If you were in that life-and-death situation
in Fallujah, who would you rather have backing you up? That corporal,
or the news weasel who made such a big deal out of nothing? I know
which one I'd choose.
12:37
- That was quick. Amazon has already pulled the "review" written
by Mark Chambers. Thanks to all of you who posted counter-reviews or
sent mail to Amazon, Mr. Chambers, and his publisher. I hope Mr.
Chambers won't try this nasty trick again, although somehow I doubt
he's learned his lesson.
Actually, I have a problem with the whole anonymous review process at
Amazon. There's no doubt that favorable Amazon reviews can help a
book's sales, or that unfavorable reviews can harm sales. It seems to
me that allowing anonymous reviews is an invitation to abuse either
way. Amazon should require that any reviewer be clearly identified, and
not just by a pseudonym.
A year or two ago, Amazon Canada screwed up and posted the actual
reviewers' names on previously anonymous reviews. For the day or so
that lasted, many authors, including me, checked a lot of books and
authors to see who had and had not reviewed their own books and
competing books. All of us who did that now know who is honorable and
who is without honor.
I was pleased to find that none of the authors of whom I thought highly
had reviewed their own or competitors' books anonymously. Conversely, I
was unsurprised to find that many authors of whom I have a lower
opinion had reviewed their own books favorably and/or their
competitors' books unfavorably. But the real solution to this problem
is for Amazon and other on-line booksellers to eliminate anonymous and
pseudonymous reviews.
I'm still working on the PC hardware book, but I'm also doing some
other stuff. I need to write a couple astronomy articles for O'Reilly's
web site. Those will probably be Astronomy Hacks that I didn't have
time to write before deadline for the book.
I also need to write a proposal/TOC for our next book for O'Reilly,
which will be another astronomy title. The new astronomy book will be
larger than Astronomy Hacks,
and will be more in the nature of a field observing guide. It'll be a
lot of work, but it'll also be a fun project. As usual, I'll post
material as it's completed on the Subscribers' page so that subscribers
can follow the whole process of writing the book, from outline to
completion.
And I really need to get a semi-permanent Windows XP test-bed system
built, if only to run Windows-only DVD ripping software and astronomy
software.
15:14
- Good
news about the broadcast flag. A federal court has struck down the
FCC ruling that would have prohibited the manufacture or sale of
devices after 1 July that do not recognize the broadcast flag. This
decision is a major win for the EFF and a major loss for the MPAA and
other copyright pigs. Of course, it may be set aside by a higher court
or rendered moot by Congress, but for now it looks as though at least
some of our Fair Use rights will remain protected, at least for a while
longer.
What disturbs me about all of this is that the MPAA and RIAA
pigopolists have put us on the defensive, reacting to their outrageous
proposed laws and regulations. We should go on the offensive, and a
good place to start would be to write your congressweasel to demand
that the DMCA be repealed. We can't buy their votes like the MPAA and
RIAA do, but we can and should make it clear to them that we do
everything possible to make sure they are voted out of office if they
support the pigopolists.
And there are many other measures that need to be taken. First, we need
to rationalize the copyright laws. Copyrights were intended to be of
limited term, and what we have now is essentially unlimited terms. We
need to return to something reasonable, say a five-year term renewable
for another five years. That should be retroactive, so anything that
was copyrighted more than 10 years before the new law passes should
automatically enter the public domain.
The intial copyright registration should be free or low cost, but
copyright renewal fees should take into account the value of the
copyright. That way, works of limited commercial value would enter the
public domain after five years. Works that retained substantial
commercial value after the initial five-year term would be renewable
only at a fee that reflected that commercial value.
That might be implemented by allowing upset bids, where the initial
copyright holder could set the expected value of the work during the
five-year extended term and pay some reasonable percentage of that
value, say 10%, as a copyright renewal fee. Anyone who wanted to could
upset the bid of the original copyright holder by paying a copyright
renewal fee of ten times that amount, which would buy the copyright for
them.
Once we get copyright terms rationalized, I'd think the next step would
be to modify copyright law to legalize non-commercial copyright
infringement, recognizing the reality of how people behave. Any law
that makes the majority of the population criminals is a bad law, and
the laws against non-commercial copyright infringement do just that.
It's time to make the copyright pigs squeal. Write your congressweasel
to get things rolling.
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Copyright
© 1998,
1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 by Robert Bruce Thompson. All
Rights Reserved.
