I'm no spring chicken.
There, I've admitted it. For those who know me, this isn't news. For those who don't know me, I am not deluding myself into believing that they care about this. But admitting that we are changing as we age is part of the optional wisdom available from aging.
Like lots of men my age I have a bunch of aches and injuries. Sometimes -- only sometimes mind you -- when I get together with my friends, we spend a few moments enumerating those aches and pains. Fortunately, we quickly realize that we're sounding like stereotypical old men and laugh it off.
For me, I have a repaired knee, a broken back and pain in my shoulder. And I still get out to swim, ride and run nearly every day. Because if I don't...
Because if I don't then I will really be an old man before my time.
All things physical wear out. My printer wears out. I get more comments on my printer repair posting than anything else. Gosh, but I wish I could write about taking a few screws out, pulling out the bad vertebra and epoxy the broken protuberance back into place. The printer I can repair. My back I have to manage.
Another part of that wisdom thing is knowing when you need to push against the ache and pains and when you need to respect them. And it isn't always obvious. Recognizing the difference takes experience. The danger, I think, is erring on the side of not doing enough.
So, when the shoulder aches, I can choose to not go swimming. But that lets the shoulder get weaker, which makes it ache more, so I postpone swimming even more. Et cetera until I can't go swimming because I've let my body weaken to the point of unusability.
At some point, my printer will wear out to the point of being too expensive to repair. We don't really have that luxury with our bodies. All the wonderful things that we can do in hospitals are still a shadow of the miracle of our own bodies.
Use it or loose it. Even if it takes more time to warm up and more time to stretch out. No one is a spring chicken for ever. It's what you do after you've stopped being young that makes the difference.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Friday, October 12, 2007
Feeling Manipulated by the Media
I heard a news headline from the BBC that caught my attention. Something along the line of "The American military says that it accidentally killed some women and children in an attack against militants in Iraq."
I am very saddened to hear that yet more people were killed.
What caught my attention was that the focus of the headline was the admittance that women and children -- let's say "non-combatants" -- were killed. After all, non-combatants have been victims all throughout pressing of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. As a matter of fact, I thought it was odd that we had been hearing so very little about the depth and breadth of havoc and utter destruction wrought upon non-combatants. Why have we not been hearing about what full impact our presence has been having?
Is it the same reason that we, the American public, were not allowed to see pictures of the coffins of our service men and women? That was pretty strange -- it felt very manipulative. In light of the significant -- and let's leave it at that -- lack of information about the war, the news headline was highly notable for its frankness and disclosure.
You know, I wouldn't be at all surprised if we started hearing more and more about the "collateral" damage in Iraq (and Afghanistan). Almost as if we, the American public, were supposed to be seeing more things that will undoubtedly further reduce the publics willingness to sustain this war effort.
I am very saddened to hear that yet more people were killed.
What caught my attention was that the focus of the headline was the admittance that women and children -- let's say "non-combatants" -- were killed. After all, non-combatants have been victims all throughout pressing of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. As a matter of fact, I thought it was odd that we had been hearing so very little about the depth and breadth of havoc and utter destruction wrought upon non-combatants. Why have we not been hearing about what full impact our presence has been having?
Is it the same reason that we, the American public, were not allowed to see pictures of the coffins of our service men and women? That was pretty strange -- it felt very manipulative. In light of the significant -- and let's leave it at that -- lack of information about the war, the news headline was highly notable for its frankness and disclosure.
You know, I wouldn't be at all surprised if we started hearing more and more about the "collateral" damage in Iraq (and Afghanistan). Almost as if we, the American public, were supposed to be seeing more things that will undoubtedly further reduce the publics willingness to sustain this war effort.
Monday, April 09, 2007
There Is No Box
Here is a concept that came to me a while back when I started my own product development company, Innovatium: "There Is No Box"
The reference, of course, is to "out of the box thinking." That was practically a mantra at a previous company. At the time it was a good mantra. Engineers had a tendency to look at a problem from their perspective and apply to it their known solutions. The Out Of The Box mantra helped to express that, as engineers, we needed to push ourselves out of our comfort zone for more creative solutions that would benefit our customers.
For example, did we really need a $24,000 multi-card computer when two $4,000 PC's networked together would do the trick? We came up with all sorts of new things following that mantra.
However, it's not enough.
The typical problem we encountered (and I lived it at multiple companies and through multiple projects) was that we were thinking outside of the engineering box, but within another box. We often failed to understand our customer, their business, their priorities, their fears, and other critical factors.
What I learned from running my own company is that there is no box, so don't go climbing into one. You are not beholden to following the "way things are done". There are problems to solve and there is creative thinking to solve those problems. Ignore good experience at your peril, but don't limit yourself to doing things the way they worked last time just because it worked last time.
Remember, remarkable things are not often accomplished by mediocre people. If you want to accomplish something remarkable, you need to be willing to risk yourself in the pursuit of that thing. Just stay focused on the goal -- creating something remarkable for your customer -- and don't get fettered by someone else's ideas about How It Must Be Done.
The reference, of course, is to "out of the box thinking." That was practically a mantra at a previous company. At the time it was a good mantra. Engineers had a tendency to look at a problem from their perspective and apply to it their known solutions. The Out Of The Box mantra helped to express that, as engineers, we needed to push ourselves out of our comfort zone for more creative solutions that would benefit our customers.
For example, did we really need a $24,000 multi-card computer when two $4,000 PC's networked together would do the trick? We came up with all sorts of new things following that mantra.
However, it's not enough.
The typical problem we encountered (and I lived it at multiple companies and through multiple projects) was that we were thinking outside of the engineering box, but within another box. We often failed to understand our customer, their business, their priorities, their fears, and other critical factors.
What I learned from running my own company is that there is no box, so don't go climbing into one. You are not beholden to following the "way things are done". There are problems to solve and there is creative thinking to solve those problems. Ignore good experience at your peril, but don't limit yourself to doing things the way they worked last time just because it worked last time.
Remember, remarkable things are not often accomplished by mediocre people. If you want to accomplish something remarkable, you need to be willing to risk yourself in the pursuit of that thing. Just stay focused on the goal -- creating something remarkable for your customer -- and don't get fettered by someone else's ideas about How It Must Be Done.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Ooooh, this makes me angry!
A substitute teacher in Connecticut has been found guilty of child endangerment because the PC in the classroom where she was substituting was unprotected, had been infected with viruses and adware, was displaying porn pop-up ads, and she was too much a computer neophyte (and computer-phobe to boot!) to know how to deal with the situation.
Here is where I learned about it: http://windowssecrets.com/comp/070222/#story0
Here is the NY Times story (tinyURL): http://tinyurl.com/255wq2
Finally, here is the blog her husband has made: http://julieamer.blogspot.com/
This is wrong on so many levels.
Here is where I learned about it: http://windowssecrets.com/comp/070222/#story0
Here is the NY Times story (tinyURL): http://tinyurl.com/255wq2
Finally, here is the blog her husband has made: http://julieamer.blogspot.com/
This is wrong on so many levels.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Email Security Breach
The company where I am contracting experienced a security breach today. This morning when I got into work, there was a posting on the company news dashboard about a Virus Alert. When I opened my email, there were a handful of files with .zip attachments and the icky feel of spam. For example, "cyber thomas" sent me a picture, and "serv" informed me of "Security risk found in message 'Mail server report.'" with the following text:
Mail server report.
Our firewall determined the e-mails containing worm copies are being sent from your computer.
Nowadays it happens from many computers, because this is a new virus type (Network Worms).
Using the new bug in the Windows, these viruses infect the computer unnoticeably.
After the penetrating into the computer the virus harvests all the e-mail addresses and sends the copies of itself to these e-mail
addresses
Please install updates for worm elimination and your computer restoring.
Best regards,
Customers support service
Not very likely that I was going to install the updates for my computer restoring.
But I was curious as to how the breach occured and asked around a bit to try and understand how this happened. The company uses Lotus Notes and requires remote users to connect to the network via VPN to access the Domino server. Idle thoughts include someone on the sales force on a public wireless network somehow had their address book copied. Another possibility is a disgruntled employee or contractor. Of course, a classic worm could be the culprit. Something that was opened internally and walked through the address book.
So, I googled around to see what I can find. One of the more shocking discoveries was at www.privacyrights.org, which has a list of data breaches from the last 20 months that have been disclosed by various companies and news organizations.
What is shocking about this is the number of records that have been breached, recalling this cannot be a full list since there are doubtlessly companies that do not report some breaches. The number -- are you ready? -- is nearly 94 million records containing sensitive personal information. Holy Servers, Batman!
It's no surprise then that millions of folks have their identity ursuped each year, now is it?
Mail server report.
Our firewall determined the e-mails containing worm copies are being sent from your computer.
Nowadays it happens from many computers, because this is a new virus type (Network Worms).
Using the new bug in the Windows, these viruses infect the computer unnoticeably.
After the penetrating into the computer the virus harvests all the e-mail addresses and sends the copies of itself to these e-mail
addresses
Please install updates for worm elimination and your computer restoring.
Best regards,
Customers support service
Not very likely that I was going to install the updates for my computer restoring.
But I was curious as to how the breach occured and asked around a bit to try and understand how this happened. The company uses Lotus Notes and requires remote users to connect to the network via VPN to access the Domino server. Idle thoughts include someone on the sales force on a public wireless network somehow had their address book copied. Another possibility is a disgruntled employee or contractor. Of course, a classic worm could be the culprit. Something that was opened internally and walked through the address book.
So, I googled around to see what I can find. One of the more shocking discoveries was at www.privacyrights.org, which has a list of data breaches from the last 20 months that have been disclosed by various companies and news organizations.
What is shocking about this is the number of records that have been breached, recalling this cannot be a full list since there are doubtlessly companies that do not report some breaches. The number -- are you ready? -- is nearly 94 million records containing sensitive personal information. Holy Servers, Batman!
It's no surprise then that millions of folks have their identity ursuped each year, now is it?
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Samsung ML-1430 Won't Feed Paper
My printer had stopped feeding paper reliably a while ago. This had reduced me to manually pushing each sheet of paper into the machine until the roller caught it. Which, in turn, often resulted in many expletives directed towards said printer.
All in all I like the Samsung ML-1430, which has been discontinued. It was pretty inexpensive, the toner cartridges aren't too bad considering I really have gotten thousands of pages (at Staples, which has a wicked good customer loyalty program, IMHO).
However, after only two years, there is this feed problem. I found the answer in an Amazon posting (thank you brs for posting this). Here is the solution from there:
BTW, brs on Amazon also provided a repair part number: JC72-00109A. However, searching on Samsung for this part yielded nothing. I suspect this is due to the machine being discontinued.
Have fun!
All in all I like the Samsung ML-1430, which has been discontinued. It was pretty inexpensive, the toner cartridges aren't too bad considering I really have gotten thousands of pages (at Staples, which has a wicked good customer loyalty program, IMHO).
However, after only two years, there is this feed problem. I found the answer in an Amazon posting (thank you brs for posting this). Here is the solution from there:
- You need to rotate the rubber band on the feeder roll to a fresh surface. Start by turning off the printer, disconnecting it from power & data feed.
- Remove the two screws from the back panel and press the small tabs to pull the back panel off.
- Open the front of the machine and remove the two screws that hold the top panel in place. Take note of how the sheet feeder sits in this assembly. The sheet feeder is not screwed in, but rather held in by the other pieces.
- Remove the toner cartridge and set aside.
- There are four screws that go through the metal plate now visible at the top. Leave the wires connected and remove these screws. Take note that there is a grounding cable that needs to be reconnected.
- You need to remove that top assembly, so take note of how the roller fits into the black tie rod that actually turns the roller. I found that lifting the unit up and sliding it to the right (as viewed from the back) disconnected the roller from the tie rod.
- Remove one screw from the roller pickup assembly and disassemble the roller.
- Note that one side of the rubber band is shinier than the other. This is the problem. Carefully work the rubber band off, rotate it 180 degrees and slide it back on to the roller.
- Reassemble and test
BTW, brs on Amazon also provided a repair part number: JC72-00109A. However, searching on Samsung for this part yielded nothing. I suspect this is due to the machine being discontinued.
Have fun!
Name Change and Why
I've changed the name of this blog from something silly to something (hopefully) better. I thought initially that I would use this for entries about science, politics, and other serious topics. However, I really like fixing things and get a real kick out of that, so I decided to re-name the blog after a cartoon that I have drawn on and off over the years, "Monday by Portnoy"
Voila! Out with the old bits and in with the new!
Yes, I suppose I will have to get some of those old cartoons up on the blog.
Voila! Out with the old bits and in with the new!
Yes, I suppose I will have to get some of those old cartoons up on the blog.
Friday, June 02, 2006
Get Perpendicular
Hitachi has a great animation that does a superb job of explaining their new perpendicular storage model. Get ready for terabytes on your home system. Time for some big, fast pipes from hard drive storage to CPU.
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/research/recording_head/pr/PerpendicularAnimation.html
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/research/recording_head/pr/PerpendicularAnimation.html
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Hallelujah
Finally, finally, finally.
I got the new system up and running. It took only about two dozen installs, an hour or so of phone calls with Asus, an RMA with NewEgg (they really are wonderful!), slipstreaming SP2 into my SP1a installer, a new case with a larger power supply and nearly three weeks of elapsed time.
As I give the final answer, there will be sage nodding from those in the know. However, I hasten to point out (in my own defense) that the Asus people, both Level 1 and Level 2 tech support didn't help me to the final answer.
The final answer was.... (drum roll, please):
Use the latest drivers!
What do you mean, anti-climatic? Everyone knows that? Who? Tech support didn't. The folks on the forum didn't.
OK, I'll be less obtuse.
Asus tech support got me to the point of installing the latest BIOS and chipset drivers. The process is this: Update the BIOS at POST. Install the OS, then run the executable to update the chipset drivers. Every time, except the last, the PC would hang upon next boot. I had tapped out Asus. They really couldn't do more. I was using the latest BIOS and chipset drivers. However, the chipset is made by nVidia, so I went to their website.
Asus had version 6.65 for the Force4 chipset. nVidia had version 6.70. That seemed better so i downloaded it and used it. And it worked!
Yea! I don't have to RMA all the hardware and ship it back to NewEgg!
Yea! I finally built a machine after all these years.
Yea! I can once again say "I am geek"
Thanks for reading
I got the new system up and running. It took only about two dozen installs, an hour or so of phone calls with Asus, an RMA with NewEgg (they really are wonderful!), slipstreaming SP2 into my SP1a installer, a new case with a larger power supply and nearly three weeks of elapsed time.
As I give the final answer, there will be sage nodding from those in the know. However, I hasten to point out (in my own defense) that the Asus people, both Level 1 and Level 2 tech support didn't help me to the final answer.
The final answer was.... (drum roll, please):
Use the latest drivers!
What do you mean, anti-climatic? Everyone knows that? Who? Tech support didn't. The folks on the forum didn't.
OK, I'll be less obtuse.
Asus tech support got me to the point of installing the latest BIOS and chipset drivers. The process is this: Update the BIOS at POST. Install the OS, then run the executable to update the chipset drivers. Every time, except the last, the PC would hang upon next boot. I had tapped out Asus. They really couldn't do more. I was using the latest BIOS and chipset drivers. However, the chipset is made by nVidia, so I went to their website.
Asus had version 6.65 for the Force4 chipset. nVidia had version 6.70. That seemed better so i downloaded it and used it. And it worked!
Yea! I don't have to RMA all the hardware and ship it back to NewEgg!
Yea! I finally built a machine after all these years.
Yea! I can once again say "I am geek"
Thanks for reading
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Agony of DIY
Actually, I should call it "Agony of Duh"
It has to do with building a new computer. The foundation (the loss of the original machine and some of the difficulties) is described in another post, which I started to keep, ah, pleasure separate from business. However, since I had a good amount of business data on the lost machine, and I am considering merging blogs, I thought I would continue the tale here.
Briefly:
The motherboard support CD-ROM was bootable. Who knew? It certainly wasn't documented anywhere, not in any manual, not in a FAQ, not in a forum. The bootable motherboard CD can make the driver disk needed to install XP
Asus wins awards for a reliable motherboard, and for reasonably fast phone support, but looses big time on the whole "self-service" concept for the internet. The forums are really the worst I've ever experienced. First, they work only in Internet Exploder. Every time you click on a link for another area (Support, Download, Forum), a new browser window opens. The search in the forum will show you the question with the subject that matches your query, but none of the threaded answers to the question. Oh, and it seems like all the data is coming from Asia b e c a u s e i t i s s o s l o w.
Here's the real beef. After going through the pain of making a RAID driver disk (see the other story for that fire drill!), the system boots up (YEA!!). Time to update Windows (I have XP-Pro SP1a). Need a network controller device driver. Pop in the support CD. Install the drivers.
There are three checkboxes (nVidia SMBus Driver, nVidia Ethernet Driver, and nVidia IDE Driver). The IDE Driver install gives me severe warnings and then says that I probably don't need to install it after all, 'cause the Microsoft one works just as well. That's OK, I'm in for a penny, in for a pound, so I say "Yes" to everything.
Heck, I even install the built-in Firewall and one other do-hickey when the prompt comes up. Reboot. Hang.
Yup, something broke the install.
Re-install, quick-format, boot, install only the Ethernet driver (cause I've done this before and know that one builds a Windows system one piece at a time, if it don't work out of the box). Reboot. Hang.
Much searching, time on the phone with Asus. Mobo (that's the cool term) is defective. RMA, new board, repeat one mo' time. Reboot. Hang.
More phone time with Asus. Slipstream SP2 into my 1a installation CD, burn a new CD, do the whole thing again. Reboot. Hang.
Pull the mobo out of the case to elminate electromagnetic interference (EMI). Re-install, reboot, hang. This will be funny one day.
Meanwhile, days are slipping by, bills are starting to pile up, yada yada.
On the phone with Asus, my case get elevated to Level 2. In a single two minute phone call, the technician says that I need to have -- get this -- all three check boxes checked. Yup, the drivers are a set and must always get installed together. I mean, doesn't this beg the obvious question of why, oh why, are there checkboxes? DUH!!
At this point (ATP, for you old time coders), system is SP2 with a network. I'm going to put the the whole kit and kaboodle back into the case and see if it will still work.
Wish me luck.
It has to do with building a new computer. The foundation (the loss of the original machine and some of the difficulties) is described in another post, which I started to keep, ah, pleasure separate from business. However, since I had a good amount of business data on the lost machine, and I am considering merging blogs, I thought I would continue the tale here.
Briefly:
The motherboard support CD-ROM was bootable. Who knew? It certainly wasn't documented anywhere, not in any manual, not in a FAQ, not in a forum. The bootable motherboard CD can make the driver disk needed to install XP
Asus wins awards for a reliable motherboard, and for reasonably fast phone support, but looses big time on the whole "self-service" concept for the internet. The forums are really the worst I've ever experienced. First, they work only in Internet Exploder. Every time you click on a link for another area (Support, Download, Forum), a new browser window opens. The search in the forum will show you the question with the subject that matches your query, but none of the threaded answers to the question. Oh, and it seems like all the data is coming from Asia b e c a u s e i t i s s o s l o w.
Here's the real beef. After going through the pain of making a RAID driver disk (see the other story for that fire drill!), the system boots up (YEA!!). Time to update Windows (I have XP-Pro SP1a). Need a network controller device driver. Pop in the support CD. Install the drivers.
There are three checkboxes (nVidia SMBus Driver, nVidia Ethernet Driver, and nVidia IDE Driver). The IDE Driver install gives me severe warnings and then says that I probably don't need to install it after all, 'cause the Microsoft one works just as well. That's OK, I'm in for a penny, in for a pound, so I say "Yes" to everything.
Heck, I even install the built-in Firewall and one other do-hickey when the prompt comes up. Reboot. Hang.
Yup, something broke the install.
Re-install, quick-format, boot, install only the Ethernet driver (cause I've done this before and know that one builds a Windows system one piece at a time, if it don't work out of the box). Reboot. Hang.
Much searching, time on the phone with Asus. Mobo (that's the cool term) is defective. RMA, new board, repeat one mo' time. Reboot. Hang.
More phone time with Asus. Slipstream SP2 into my 1a installation CD, burn a new CD, do the whole thing again. Reboot. Hang.
Pull the mobo out of the case to elminate electromagnetic interference (EMI). Re-install, reboot, hang. This will be funny one day.
Meanwhile, days are slipping by, bills are starting to pile up, yada yada.
On the phone with Asus, my case get elevated to Level 2. In a single two minute phone call, the technician says that I need to have -- get this -- all three check boxes checked. Yup, the drivers are a set and must always get installed together. I mean, doesn't this beg the obvious question of why, oh why, are there checkboxes? DUH!!
At this point (ATP, for you old time coders), system is SP2 with a network. I'm going to put the the whole kit and kaboodle back into the case and see if it will still work.
Wish me luck.
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