Coopernundrums » Computers

Laptopsolipsism

JayCooper — Sat, 28 May 2011 01:01:02 +0000

I post a lot about my computer adventures. If you are a friend of mine or a regular reader you will find this post pretty standard computer fare.

The tenants of Solipsism postulate that MY experiences are the ONLY provable experiences. When you speak about pain, such as, you cannot really speak accurately about someone else’s pain but only your own. It also implies that you cannot really ever describe your pain to another person since it is uniquely yours and anyone trying to interpret your description can only do so using analogs in their own mind from their own experiences. Deep shit right?

Well, I had a situation that was uniquely painful that I want to share with you. I have a nice laptop from a major computer maker that I am sure you are all familiar with. lets just say they had a catchy ad campaign a while back where a jerky teen went around pointing out that folks were “gettin’ a (insert manufacturer here)”. This laptop is small and portable like most laptops are and had been a fun, useful machine for me for a long while now. Suddenly the last few weeks it gradually has been harder and harder to power on. Some thorough testing and research revealed to me that the coin cell, sometimes called the button cell battery that powers the BIOS was failing and needed to be replaced. Much to my dismay, more research on the process of replacing the battery yielded a sobering answer. I will have to tear t his damned machine UTTERLY apart to do the job. I don’t just mean removing some parts and pieces I mean, the process involves taking the machine apart to the BARE METAL!

Not only is the battery positioned under 5 layers of other components but it is upside down on the bottom of the motherboard which must be removed to get to it. I sat shocked and quietly crying for an hour while I mulled around in my mind what options I have. The battery itself is a standard button type 2032 used in everything from hearing aids to remote controls. That’s easy to get. The process seemed very daunting. I even went as far as asking my buddy Jim, who is a much more detail oriented guy than I am how much he would charge me to do the job. He refused to quote me stating that’s what friends are for. What a guy my buddy Jim is.

I bought the battery but just could not bring myself to take the machine over to Jim’s shop. I felt half guilty at sticking him with such an inane job and one half stupefied at my reluctance to do it myself. A week went by and I cam home early today for the long weekend and decided I would not let this job scare me. So I started about 3:00 PM. It was not as hard as i thought it would be, just tedious. I had a collection of small quarter sized, plastic ice cream container lids to put all the sundry screws in. Thanks to my honey who saved them just for situations such as this. I grabbed some small post it notes and a set of jewelers screwdrivers and set to work.

About 4:45 the job was done. It was time to test the machine. Would it boot? I can happily say that this post was done entirely on that little laptop as a burn in test. HOWEVER…

I would not wish that experience on anyone. Sophists say, you can’t really understand unless you have done it anyway.

Hard Drivin’

JayCooper — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 01:28:47 +0000

So I had another friend ask me what the best solution for large scalable backups would be. I get this question often and my answer usually is that it’s always dependent on the situation. One would think that a portable hard drive would be the way to go but lets look at that solution for a moment.

Hard drives by nature are NOT portable. Yes manufacturers can put them in fancy shock proof containers and call them “portable” but the device is should still not be moved about to any great degree during use or even when powered down. Long ago I worked for del.l During their orientation they described how a hard drive operates in real word equivalents. The example was that of a Boeing 747 jet flying about 25 feet of the ground at full speed. The read/write head assembly across the spinning disks travels at a very high-speed and even if the actuator of the drive has shock resistance any movement of the drive can bang the head against the disk causing scuffs, scratches and the like. The bane of a hard drive’s existence is fine particles of dust or any other detrius such as chips of disk platen that could potentially bounce around ruining whole sections of the disk while it is spinning. Now hopefully you see what I mean.

Equipped with your newfound knowledge you can clearly see that old style hard disks are not a great long-term backup solution. Solid State Drives have few or no moving parts. These are the best choice if you need to move the backup medium around from place to place . Such drives do not suffer the ill effects since there are no heads to damage and no platens to damage.

This is still only part of the solution since no matter what medium you choose for your backups, having all your proverbial “eggs” in one “basket” is a bad idea. Double or even triple backup redundancy is a must if you value your data at all. That is where writable Dual Layer DVDs come in. I often use these as a secondary backup method.

So there you have it. In a perfect world you use a SSD for your daily backups. You can even carry that around with you wherever you go without worrying too much about your data. Backup every month or so to a stationary hard drive, portable or otherwise. Lastly, I would also suggest every 6 months or so a backup to hard media is the amount of data and cost is within reason.

Remember kids backup, backup, backup.

Magnetic Personalities

JayCooper — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 02:49:27 +0000

Throughout the course of my life I have met some extremely colorful characters. I have a large circle of people who I am happy to call friends. I have a lot of clients that I work for that I don’t really consider friends. I want to tell you about a couple that fall into the former group.

These folks originally joined my group of acquaintances by becoming customers of mine. I was approached to update their existing business website, MagnetQueen. It was a long process as their website was a bit larger than I anticipated. Long jobs, as any developer or graphic designer will tell you, tend to stick with you. This one introduced me to Brian and Liza, Native New Yorker’s that migrated their business here to Tennessee. They make Save the Date Magnets for weddings, birthdays, graduations, you name it.

Brian is a Fordham University graduate and Liza is a graduate of the Parsons School of Design. Together they have owned and run their own successful business for many, many years. They would tell you that they wish they could be a lot more successful but, what other person wouldn’t tell you the same? They are a fun couple that likes the arts and are superb conversationalist and over the years I have grown very fond of them. Most importantly they make some of the coolest magnets you can imagine. My refrigerator is covered with picture magnets and fun magnets they have made for me over the years.

If you are in the market for some unique invites to give for your next event. I hope you will consider my friend’s work. I think you will be very pleased.

Here’s to you Brian and Liza.

http://www.magnetqueen.com

Thai One on with Friends

JayCooper — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 03:55:20 +0000

I often work on peoples computers. I do it for fun. I do it to make connections with people. I do it because there is a need. I lost count long ago of how many friends I have made with this philosophy. Most of the time I get paid in the end by having improved my friendships or making connections that lead to other paying jobs. I don’t look at it as work. I look at it as a way to share with folks and get to know people.

Well, tonight I had the distinct pleasure of getting to know one of my coworkers and her family better while taking care of a little computer issue they had. Not sure I helped much, just checked the main components, vid card, memory, power supply, you know. Luckily it wasn’t anything major. Few component reseats and a bios reset and viola, a booting PC.

What made the night super special was that payment I mentioned. I had AMAZING Thai food cooked in a real, as they put it, “working kitchen” by my friend’s husband. I have had Thai before but after this meal I would like to say I have NEVER had Thai until tonight. Thai beer, Green Curry with Beef, Lemon grass Shrimp soup with Thai chilies, read that as super HOT, and fresh fried rice with chicken. I loved every bite. I loved the company and conversation. I don’t write about every meal but I felt like this one was worth noting.

So here’s to Lisa and Rick who treated me like family just for helping them with a computer problem. Thanks guys!

Do or Do not..there is no TRY

JayCooper — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 04:00:47 +0000

I had the distinct pleasure of speaking with a very interesting fellow today. I won’t put his name out there because folks deserve theirprivacy. I was introduced to this guy through an old friend originally for a business discussion. I have had hundreds of these meetings and like sales, many don’t pan out and become reality. I am always prepared for anything but I was not prepared for what I encountered.

This gentleman seemed immediately like a kindred soul as he was a larger person, like myself, and seemed to be very funny and engaging. I immediately liked him and we all set about discussing his desired endeavor. Dealing in web design and graphic development I have heard a lot of fantastic business ideas that just need a “website” to get the thing started. I listened intently as he spelled out his needs. It became evident right away that this was more to this joe than just a business venture. This was a passion.

After the pitch, I always have a standard barrage of questions that I ask of any prospective client (after getting burned several times in the past). I always ask a key question. ”Are you prepared for this investment to fail?” the normal response that I get is “oh it won’t fail its a sure thing” or it’s greatest thing since sliced bread” and the oft annoying “ its the next wheel”, and so on. Well not this time.

My new acquaintance thought for a moment and then casually answered, “Yes I am, but since this means so much to me, it would be worse for me NOT to try than to try and have it fail. I have never in 14 years of doing this ever received this kind of answer. It made me feel an immense respect and admiration for his conviction and wisdom.

You can clearly see that it impacted me. I don’t always like my job. Hell, who does? Today I liked my job. Cheers to you sir. I look forward to working with you, and I don’t ALWAYS mean that.

Durability of Computers

JayCooper — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 02:49:04 +0000

I became fascinated recently by the realization that we all take for granted the durability of computers now days. In the early days of computers many parts, for example vacuum tubes, had to be replaced constantly, almost every hour and sometimes more often. Later on spools of magnetic tape had to be juggled in and out of use, being replaced or reused throughout the day whilst a computer churned away its massive calculations. Even when PCs shrank down to the size of a small desk the parts inside the thing were often likely to break and need replacing with what sounds to us now absurd frequency. Once a week or once a month seems shocking I know!

We are very lucky to live in an age where most parts in a modern computer can last well into the 5 year range. With proper cooling and regular maintenance such as dusting components and keeping vents clean and clear they can last much, much longer. With this in mind, you can see how one might forget the age of a PC altogether as long as it dutifully continues to perform its tasks.

The same thing applies somewhat to software. Windows Server 2003 which was released in, go figure, 2003, while aging quite gracefully is now over 7 years old. I was speaking with another technical support professional that gleefully informed me that he was still in middle school when that operating system was released. Needless to say it made me feel super old.

Recent advances in hard drive technology, removing most of the moving parts mean that computers will be lasting longer and longer before they breakdown. This means that the operating systems we use on them will start lasting longer and longer. I am astounded even today that Windows XP is still alive and kicking even as the wind down all the methods to buy it. Every day I hear creative stories from my user base telling me how they manage to keep implementing XP on new PCs that they introduce into their networks.

Wrapping this up, put that all into perspective as we move forward into the future the next time you think about how terrible it is that your PC is running slow or that some part has failed after many years of faithful service. We are all really lucky.