Well that's good. Fantastic. That gives us 20 minutes to save the world and I've got a post office. And it's shut!
Tuesday, January 20
The Mysterious Ticking Noise
No, it's not a pipe bomb, it's my two brand new 1.5TB Seagate drives waiting to go off.
Thanks a bunch, Seagate. That's two critical firmware bugs in your leading product in the space of two months.
I've just ordered two 1TB Western Digital drives and a dual-bay external case. There's a firmware upgrade coming from Seagate, but I don't trust that not to make things worse, so I'm going to back everything up first.
Update: I was planning to order one more of the 1.5TB drives. That would have been a lot cheaper (two 1TB drives plus the external case is about the same price as two 1.5TB drives) and would have given me enough room to back everything up, and it's pretty unlikely that more than one of the Seagates would have bricked themselves at once. Probably. Eh. Oh well. All the extra hours I'm spending at my day job that have been keeping me from mee.nu have at least been paying me reasonably well, so I can afford it.
Update: My drives might not be affected. The great majority of reported failures so far have been on the SD15 firmware, and my two drives are SD17 and SD19. Found an online database tracking 80-odd failures, and none of them were on those revisions. So I might have just spent a few hundred dollars for... Well, for a nice 2TB USB/eSATA external drive.
Update: The Windows Search service really slows things down when you're trying to do backups. And it's a stubborn little bugger. I stopped it, and performance improved for a while, and then things got slower and slower and maybe my drive was on the way out but no! Windows Search had started itself up again.
So I broke its legs.
Update: My shiny new 1TB drives are Caviar Green models - which the online store didn't say - which are 5400RPM - which Western Digital doesn't say. Shades of 1992. On the other hand, they use just 2.8W when idle, which is perfect for an external drive case.
No, it's not a pipe bomb, it's my two brand new 1.5TB Seagate drives waiting to go off.
Thanks a bunch, Seagate. That's two critical firmware bugs in your leading product in the space of two months.
I've just ordered two 1TB Western Digital drives and a dual-bay external case. There's a firmware upgrade coming from Seagate, but I don't trust that not to make things worse, so I'm going to back everything up first.
Update: I was planning to order one more of the 1.5TB drives. That would have been a lot cheaper (two 1TB drives plus the external case is about the same price as two 1.5TB drives) and would have given me enough room to back everything up, and it's pretty unlikely that more than one of the Seagates would have bricked themselves at once. Probably. Eh. Oh well. All the extra hours I'm spending at my day job that have been keeping me from mee.nu have at least been paying me reasonably well, so I can afford it.
Update: My drives might not be affected. The great majority of reported failures so far have been on the SD15 firmware, and my two drives are SD17 and SD19. Found an online database tracking 80-odd failures, and none of them were on those revisions. So I might have just spent a few hundred dollars for... Well, for a nice 2TB USB/eSATA external drive.
Update: The Windows Search service really slows things down when you're trying to do backups. And it's a stubborn little bugger. I stopped it, and performance improved for a while, and then things got slower and slower and maybe my drive was on the way out but no! Windows Search had started itself up again.
So I broke its legs.
Update: My shiny new 1TB drives are Caviar Green models - which the online store didn't say - which are 5400RPM - which Western Digital doesn't say. Shades of 1992. On the other hand, they use just 2.8W when idle, which is perfect for an external drive case.
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Monday, December 29
They Made A What Out Of What?!
Disney has made a TV series out of Terry Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule, without question the worst book I have ever read.
Even if they have removed all traces of the torture porn (about a third of the book) and the more loathsome actions of the so-called heroes, such as when they cripple and disfigure a young girl, they are left with an insipid fantasy setting, a monumentally stupid story, frankly idiotic political and philosophical themes, and a uniformly unpleasant cast of characters.
They* canceled Journeyman. They canceled The Dresden Files. And in their place, we get... This?
Which reminds me - were there any good new shows in 2008? I was dead and would have missed them.
* I know it's not the same they. Journeyman was Fox; The Dresden Files was Sci Fi Channel. Shut up. I'm ranting here.
Disney has made a TV series out of Terry Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule, without question the worst book I have ever read.
Even if they have removed all traces of the torture porn (about a third of the book) and the more loathsome actions of the so-called heroes, such as when they cripple and disfigure a young girl, they are left with an insipid fantasy setting, a monumentally stupid story, frankly idiotic political and philosophical themes, and a uniformly unpleasant cast of characters.
They* canceled Journeyman. They canceled The Dresden Files. And in their place, we get... This?
Which reminds me - were there any good new shows in 2008? I was dead and would have missed them.
* I know it's not the same they. Journeyman was Fox; The Dresden Files was Sci Fi Channel. Shut up. I'm ranting here.
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Monday, December 01
Die, Microsoft, Die
System Restore was using up 100GB of disk on my new system.
The only indication of this was that there was 100GB of missing space that I couldn't account for - and that after I turned off System Restore, I got it all back.
In Windows XP, you could control the amount of space System Restore would use. In Vista, it's fixed at 15% of your disk space, and bad luck to you if that's a problem.
Sigh.
Currently copying about a terabyte of data off my old Vista box in preparation for switching over to the new one. If I get paid this week I'm going to pick up another 1.5TB drive. Don't absolutely need it, but it will make the migration process a lot easier.
System Restore was using up 100GB of disk on my new system.
The only indication of this was that there was 100GB of missing space that I couldn't account for - and that after I turned off System Restore, I got it all back.
In Windows XP, you could control the amount of space System Restore would use. In Vista, it's fixed at 15% of your disk space, and bad luck to you if that's a problem.
Sigh.
Currently copying about a terabyte of data off my old Vista box in preparation for switching over to the new one. If I get paid this week I'm going to pick up another 1.5TB drive. Don't absolutely need it, but it will make the migration process a lot easier.
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Friday, November 21
Bugger, It's A Sony
My Kannagi OP video on YouTube is probably about to go offline. Sony has issued a copyright claim against it.
Which is fully within their rights (I think) but bugger them anyway. It's the opening credits. No, I can't even claim fair use, but it's the opening credits.
Interestingly, the claim came from Sony Music Entertainment, who presumably have the rights to the CD release. Not the anime, but the CD.
Still seem to be plenty of other copies of the Kannagi OP online for now. We'll see what happens there.
Update: Apparently they've just released the OP CD single and are about to release the ED single, so naturally being mindless corporate control-bots (this is the same company that brought you the rootkit CD, after all) they're going around removing anything that might interest people in those CDs.
Having said that, the video still works, at least for me.
Meanwhile, I've loaded up the trial version of Flash CS4 and tried out the new H.264 encoding. So far I haven't got a file that will even play, so I can't say what the quality is like yet.
Update: Ah, not actually Adobe's fault there, just a missing codec. Of course, it would be nice if it alerted you to the fact instead of processing the file into something unuseable. A little box that said, oh, "HEY DUMBASS, YOU DON'T HAVE A CODEC INSTALLED TO PLAY THAT FILE, SO WHAT DO YOU EXPECT ME TO DO?!" would be fine.
Update: Okay, the results now play in Flash and QuickTime, but not in Zoom Player.
Corrupted in Zoom Player 5.5, and don't work at all in 6.
My Kannagi OP video on YouTube is probably about to go offline. Sony has issued a copyright claim against it.
Which is fully within their rights (I think) but bugger them anyway. It's the opening credits. No, I can't even claim fair use, but it's the opening credits.
Interestingly, the claim came from Sony Music Entertainment, who presumably have the rights to the CD release. Not the anime, but the CD.
Still seem to be plenty of other copies of the Kannagi OP online for now. We'll see what happens there.
Update: Apparently they've just released the OP CD single and are about to release the ED single, so naturally being mindless corporate control-bots (this is the same company that brought you the rootkit CD, after all) they're going around removing anything that might interest people in those CDs.
Having said that, the video still works, at least for me.
Meanwhile, I've loaded up the trial version of Flash CS4 and tried out the new H.264 encoding. So far I haven't got a file that will even play, so I can't say what the quality is like yet.
Update: Ah, not actually Adobe's fault there, just a missing codec. Of course, it would be nice if it alerted you to the fact instead of processing the file into something unuseable. A little box that said, oh, "HEY DUMBASS, YOU DON'T HAVE A CODEC INSTALLED TO PLAY THAT FILE, SO WHAT DO YOU EXPECT ME TO DO?!" would be fine.
Update: Okay, the results now play in Flash and QuickTime, but not in Zoom Player.
Corrupted in Zoom Player 5.5, and don't work at all in 6.
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Friday, November 07
Boot To The Head!
I know I often rag on Microsoft for their knowledgebase articles, but frankly, they deserve every bit of it. And a boot to the head:
I know I often rag on Microsoft for their knowledgebase articles, but frankly, they deserve every bit of it. And a boot to the head:
- Click the Microsoft Office Button
, and then click Access Options, Excel Options, PowerPoint Options, or Word Options.
- Click Trust Center, click Advanced Trust Center Settings, and then click Privacy Options.
- Select the Download a file periodically that helps determine system problems check box.
- Wait about a week to allow the file to be downloaded, and then run Microsoft Office Diagnostics again.
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Wednesday, November 05
stdole32.tlb To You Too, You Piece Of Crap
I needed to process some data for my business partner, so after mangling the source files appropriately with a little Python script I wrote for the purpose, I fired up Excel so I could convert the text output from Python into a handy spreadshet.
Quoth Excel, stdole32.tlb.
And reinstalled itself.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained; I rebooted but soon was pained to hear Excel once more proclaim
stdole32.tlb
I searched the web but all in vain; no page I found could well explain the reason that Excel laid blame to
stdole32.tlb
I ran Regedit at this point and discovered that my registry has pretty much lost its marbles, not only did no-one have access to HKEY_ACCESS_ROOT (which would explain certain difficulties I've had installing software), but I couldn't grant access to anyone, because it had lost whatever registry setting allows it to grant access to users. I could grant access to things that aren't real users, various system default things like SYSTEM. Which I did.
And then all the shortcuts in the start menu stopped working and turned into .lnk files, which makes using Windows pretty bloody difficult, let me tell you.
For one thing, it comes up with a helpful message telling you to use the Control Panel to fix the problem. The Control Panel which you now have no way to access.
Then, while I was faffing about again in Regedit trying to fix this new problem, it suddenly fixed itself.
Yes, I'm running a virus and malware check. But I do that regularly anyway, and AVG scans all downloaded files automatically. And I've been having strange issues with the registry on and off for a while now.
My Linux box hasn't even been rebooted in the past year, while it looks like my Windows box needs a complete reinstall.
Bah.
I needed to process some data for my business partner, so after mangling the source files appropriately with a little Python script I wrote for the purpose, I fired up Excel so I could convert the text output from Python into a handy spreadshet.
Quoth Excel, stdole32.tlb.
And reinstalled itself.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained; I rebooted but soon was pained to hear Excel once more proclaim
stdole32.tlb
I searched the web but all in vain; no page I found could well explain the reason that Excel laid blame to
stdole32.tlb
I ran Regedit at this point and discovered that my registry has pretty much lost its marbles, not only did no-one have access to HKEY_ACCESS_ROOT (which would explain certain difficulties I've had installing software), but I couldn't grant access to anyone, because it had lost whatever registry setting allows it to grant access to users. I could grant access to things that aren't real users, various system default things like SYSTEM. Which I did.
And then all the shortcuts in the start menu stopped working and turned into .lnk files, which makes using Windows pretty bloody difficult, let me tell you.
For one thing, it comes up with a helpful message telling you to use the Control Panel to fix the problem. The Control Panel which you now have no way to access.
Then, while I was faffing about again in Regedit trying to fix this new problem, it suddenly fixed itself.
Yes, I'm running a virus and malware check. But I do that regularly anyway, and AVG scans all downloaded files automatically. And I've been having strange issues with the registry on and off for a while now.
My Linux box hasn't even been rebooted in the past year, while it looks like my Windows box needs a complete reinstall.
Bah.
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Wednesday, October 08
Crap
My server costs have risen nearly 50% in three months.
Some software and font purchases I was planning for the next version of Minx, which I'd put off because I needed the funds for moving house, have increased in price by 30%. (Those ones are in Euros.)
Bleah.
My server costs have risen nearly 50% in three months.
Some software and font purchases I was planning for the next version of Minx, which I'd put off because I needed the funds for moving house, have increased in price by 30%. (Those ones are in Euros.)
Bleah.
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05:10 PM
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It's a suite of graphing/charting/mapping modules in Flash. By buying one developer license I can put it into Minx and all of mu.nu and mee.nu can use it. It cost me €450 for the unlimited license, but the alternative is for each user who wanted to set up maps or graphs paying €85 themselves, so it makes a lot of sense for me to spend the money once.Sunday, October 05
Dear Electronic Arts
Die in a fire.
Sorry, that was rude.
Please die in a fire.
Die in a fire.
Sorry, that was rude.
Please die in a fire.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
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Thursday, September 11
(VERY BAD WORD)
Turns out that while modern graphics cards have temperature sensors, when something goes wrong - like, say, a stray cable caught in the fan - and they overheat, they, well, overheat.
And burn out.
Permanently.
I almost bought a passively cooled 9600, but no, I had to go for the fancy 9800, which is now a $200 paperweight. My PC won't even turn on with the card installed. Fortunately, it runs fine now that I've yanked the card out again.
Back to the trusty - and passively cooled - 6600.
Update: Just thought of something. My case - a Lian-Li V600 - mounts the motherboard upside-down, as it were. So in a normal case, the fan would be facing downward, much less likely to get fouled by a loose cable. Just my luck.
Turns out that while modern graphics cards have temperature sensors, when something goes wrong - like, say, a stray cable caught in the fan - and they overheat, they, well, overheat.
And burn out.
Permanently.
I almost bought a passively cooled 9600, but no, I had to go for the fancy 9800, which is now a $200 paperweight. My PC won't even turn on with the card installed. Fortunately, it runs fine now that I've yanked the card out again.
Back to the trusty - and passively cooled - 6600.
Update: Just thought of something. My case - a Lian-Li V600 - mounts the motherboard upside-down, as it were. So in a normal case, the fan would be facing downward, much less likely to get fouled by a loose cable. Just my luck.
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12:36 AM
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Saturday, August 30
Die, Firefox, Die!
My notebook just updated to Firefox 3.
The "awesome bar" is as craptacular as ever. Maybe more so. I hate it with the fury of a thousand suns.
It learns, yes. After a week, two a the most, it is useful. And installing the Oldbar plugin at least makes it not ugly as well as stupid.
But the default settings are retarded.
My notebook just updated to Firefox 3.
The "awesome bar" is as craptacular as ever. Maybe more so. I hate it with the fury of a thousand suns.
It learns, yes. After a week, two a the most, it is useful. And installing the Oldbar plugin at least makes it not ugly as well as stupid.
But the default settings are retarded.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
09:19 PM
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Post contains 65 words, total size 1 kb.
70kb generated in CPU 0.0252, elapsed 0.1542 seconds.
56 queries taking 0.1379 seconds, 256 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
56 queries taking 0.1379 seconds, 256 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
