Category Archives: IT

Dude, you’re getting A Dell SCREWED!

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This list of events comes from a coworker that is trying to get a nice present for Christmas.

Good luck dude.

Dec 8, 2007 – Purchased a Vostro 1500 from the Dell Outlet Store online. Good deal – $609.00

Dec 11, 2007 – Laptop arrives quickly. Looks like a nice machine. But, the battery wouldn’t stay locked into the machine. It looks like there are two clips that hold it locked into the case, but they’re broken off..

Dec 11, 2007 – Called support talked to Patrick, who sent me a replacement battery. He was apologetic, Patrick tells me he’ll call to follow up to confirm that everything is ok. I packed up the laptop and waited for the battery.

Dec 11, 2007 - While packing up the laptop I took a look through all the accessories. The power cable they sent me doesn’t fit into the power adapter. The cable is a standard monitor/pc power cable. Uh what? Did anyone check this thing out? Broken battery and incorrect power cable?

Dec 11, 2007 – Called support AGAIN, talked to Arvin. Arvin walks me through the same stuff again and looks up the cable and sends me the cable. This is getting annoying – especially the explanations about getting put on hold. Yes, I know it will take a little while. Yes, I’ll hold on. Yes, YES YES!!! Just GO DO YOUR WORK! I understand the concept of being put on hold. This is not new to me! I’m interested in getting off the phone sometime today so please go do whatever it is you need to do!

Dec 12, 2007 – Battery arrives. It has the clips intact and works. Though it only has two bars of charge left – the clip-less battery was full. So I can’t do much since I can’t charge the battery – remember… no power cable. Doh!

Dec 13, 2007 – New cable arrives. Guess what? It’s not the right cable. This one has three rounded prongs. I need two rounded prongs without a ground, that’s angled and plugs into the adapter. They sent me Dell Item Number 5N020. This shouldn’t be this hard. Hell, the guy even checked my original order to find the cable that goes with the adapter’s correct part number. That’s pretty logical right?

Dec 13, 2007 – Called support again, talked to Tammy. Tammy apologized again and says she’ll find the right part number and send me the correct cable. She says the cable will ship overnight today and I’ll have it tomorrow. She also tells me that she’ll call to follow-up as well. I wait. Again.

Dec 14, 2007 – Tammy calls to tell me that the package shipped overnight and would be arriving today. Great, that was nice.
Dec 14, 2007 – Power cable arrives. It’s the SAME incorrect cable. Again. Wow! Could this be worse? This time I received Dell Item Number K2490.

Dec 14, 2007 – I called again and talked to Suresh. He offered to have a 3rd replacement cable sent. Yeah about that third cable…. No thanks. At this point I want a whole new power adapter and cable set sent. This thing is a gift and I want it to work before Christmas. What’s the change that I get a 4th incorrect cable? Pretty high in my estimation.

Dec 14, 2007 – He put me on hold to check with his supervisor and came back to tell me that a power adapter and cable "set" was going to take 1-2 weeks to ship. What What WHAT? I questioned whether all new Vostro laptop orders were now delayed a 1-2 weeks because they were out of power adapters. Of course not. But my adapter wasn’t part of a new machine, so those are delayed. Are these not the same power adapters? Is this the difference between ordered a refurbished vs a new system? Did anyone even CHECK this laptop and its accessories?? So I end up with 1-2 weeks. Yeah that’s not gonna work. I explain that 1-2 weeks isn’t an option.

Dec 14, 2007 – So he says he’ll sent the replacement cable. Fine. Whatever. I make a point to ask for the dell item number. I was told the item was number DF771. I ask him if he’s got an image of this thing, so he can describe what it looks like. No such luck. So, I tell him to hold as I do his work and search the internet for a picture. At this point I want to see the damn thing, before he ships it. It looks right.

Dec 14, 2007 – Suresh tells me I’ll get the cable in about a week. WHAT? A week.? Prior to this everything was shipping overnight. I questioned why it would take a week and he told me he could not be certain that it would come in 1-2 days. Ok so "I can’t be certain" about 1-2 days means I guess he can safely say "in about a week". I have no choice at that moment, but to accept to have a 3rd replacement cable sent, Fine. Send away. I’m not holding my breath.

Dec 14, 2007 – At this point this is just stupid. Was this laptop even checked? How could it have been certified refurbished with a broken battery and the incorrect power cable? If this had been taken care of swiftly, I wouldn’t be so annoyed or question the purchase as much. But this was just stupid. I went online and requested an RMA. I’m now waiting for confirmation.

Dec 14, 2007 – To make this crazier, I still need a laptop. So I check out a few deal sites and low and behold the same laptop is currently selling for $50 bucks LESS than the refurbished piece of garbage I got. And its NEW!!! Vostro 1500 $549! Save $410 instantly, it’s a better deal all around. It’s the same laptop and this machine had a larger hard drive to boot – 160gb instead of 120gb. I added another gig of ram and pulled the trigger. And now… I wait. Again.

What could Dell do to convince you to remain a customer?

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Use Server 2003 to get files to your Xbox 360

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EDIT: It seems I should have read all the comments. Apparently 2k3 lacks two services that won’t allow it to share media using wmp11. I set up sharing using my desktop to test if it was worth it, seems I see a tiny fraction of my media, it looks like only stuff in Microsoft format. So far the old xbox has been spared being moved from the entertainment center.

I’ll start with this, since everyone has the same response: Yes I own 2003 legally, why is this such a surprise that an individual could care to have a real (lets forget the linux vs MS bashing on this one) server environment in their home? I have need to host a few small web sites, run some simple PVR software, and to run data collection from my weather station as services, I enjoy the ease of maintaining the box since I have no useful experience with linux servers, and I use it as an environment with RAID to store my photos and mp3 collection.

So when I discovered there was no easy way to stream any of that media to my xbox 360, I was a bit disappointed, but I didn’t give up. I’ve long been using my Xbox (1) to stream files to my entertainment center using the awesome, Xbox Media Center. Of course this meant if I wanted continued functionality, I had to keep both machines in the already over crowded entertainment center.

In order to share media with a 360, you either need a machine running XP and Media Player 11, or a media center pc. I had no desire to bring up yet another pc that was on all the time just to share files. With a bit of searching, I found an excellent article on getting WMP11 on to your 2k3 box. So far, I’ve got it installed, the only gotchya (if your sans-sleep) was that the search does not check hidden files and folders unless you specify to do so under “More Advanced Search Options.”

When I found the desired files I decided to copy them out on to my desktop, where I also pasted the article into a text file. This way I can burn all this to a cd and use it later, without the searching if I lose my OS. Install was easy, all files did need to be run in compatibility mode, and it was a bit scary restarting the machine remotely, but hey, WTH right?

So I got it installed, with the help of that article, and it has been configured to use my media, of which is a bit limited in file types. The next test will be to see if I can truly fire up the 360 and use the media, at least some of it anyway.

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Belated. . .

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I’d make a horrible Dad. I know it. Know why? Got any clues? Well, in 2006 on 10-25 at 9:57 P.M. I posted my first article here on Brickblog. Why, I remember when this blog was still in diapers, I was excited to get 1 visit after posting oh so many articles. To date, I’m up to 4,694 visits since I installed Google Analytics (November 9, 2006) to track such things. Truly amazing. What’s even scarrier is when I analyze what kinds of articles bring people to my site, I see when you search for d40 vs d70 my site comes up #1 in google.

So lets think back to what brought this blog to life. . .

Oh thats right, those damn raccoons. They’re still around, in fact I had great fun, ehr, I mean I was left no other option, then to shoot one a couple weeks ago with my paintball gun while I had the electric fence repurposed on the garden for the summer.

But of course, I wouldn’t be here with such an audience if it wasn’t for my peeps. Those folks that both read my insane ramblings, and those that link to my blog. So since I can’t thank every single one of you by name, I’ll be certain to report out what WordPress tells me are the good folks linking to my site.

Thanks!


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Via Truck

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I’ve got some great friends, some unfortunately, I’ve never met in person. It never occurred to me when one of them asked me for my address, what they may be up to. When I returned to the office today from a conference I was surprised by an odd box siting in my cube. Not one to jump to conclusions, I didn’t immediately call the bomb squad.

On closer inspection, I realized that it was from the sender “PU Joint Subcomittee on Inter-Campus SNK Proliferation” I couldn’t wait to open it and see what the PUSOICSNKP had sent me! My boss thought it was Lego, but I knew it would be better, and I was right. I was sent several useful items, that no geek could live without, the most important of all, caffeinated beverage. Behold, the glorious bounty, Arr.

The address label, typed, because computer folks can’t write. You wouldn’t be able to understand it.

Layer 00: They’ll regret so hastily giving up such a fine treasure as a authentic Microsoft Intellimouse PS2. That’s some classic architecture there. Also useful, coffee filters to make some Java while reading a timeless book on Director! Also included, the envelope from a parking violation. . . Yes I did check it to see if there was a ticket inside. ;-)

Layer 01: Lets see if I have the lingo down. . . More gr8 reading material!

Layer 02: After finishing the previous layer, it didn’t take a dummy to see a gift guide, I wonder if someone is hinting at something here. . .

Layer 03: I was on to the next layer in a flash.

Layer 04: I drew a blank on the significance of layer 04.

Layer 05:Then I realized that a drive blank had to make way for precious cargo.

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Consume and Display Atom Feeds w/ Coldfusion

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I’ve recently had need to consume and display an ‘rss’ Atom Feed from a blog I’ve set up using Blogger. Blogger more specifically addresses Intellectual Property for your posts, which was mandatory for this use. I need to display the article feed on various sites, all using Coldfusion as the application server. I also have need to pull only specific entries marked with a certain category for the post.

When I started looking at the XML created for the atom feed it was much more complex then RSS, and a bit problematic to process. When I looked for someone who had tackled this in the past, most if not all, of the current working code was try and buy. Bah, no good. So I tackled it myself, and as the communities reward, here is the code. FREE, as in FREE, YOU DON’T HAVE TO PAY, TAKE IT USE IT. The only condition is that I do not guaranty the code, I most likely will not support the code, and it’s commented well enough that you should be able to use it.

That’s not to say I won’t answer questions posted as comments, I will also take comments on how to make the code better, but I may not release updates.

So what’s it do? It expects a full Atom Feed, it reads it into a variable, it finds the entries in the XML, and pulls the ones marked with a specific category that you can set.

There should be nothing remaining hard coded, the user should be able to set what they need at the top. It’s displayed with simple HTML markup.

Download the cfm file. Change the extension to cfm and enjoy.

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Hold off on CS3 Master Collection folks!

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After getting a little bit of a run around today, myself and another coworker got to the real issue we’ve been having with Adobe’s Creative Suite 3 Master collection.

According to Adobe tech support, the media is hosed.

It seems with a volume license key, you are prompted to activate. Upon attempting to activate, “This key has been activated too many times” is your reward message.

What makes this even better? As purchasers of VLK, we should not even need to activate the software. The key, is supposed to be recognized as such and no phone home should be required. In our case, at least on the PC side of things, this is not the case. On my Macbook Pro, I’ve already started editing some photos with no problem.

Right now, tech support has no idea when this will be fixed. “hopefully by the end of next week” is the target date and they have no idea how the fix may be done. Maybe a patch, maybe a reissue of the media. We’ll wait and see.

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Apple Boot Camp Evaluation

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I just got a Mac Book Pro at work. A coworker and I are evaluating and comparing virtual machines versus native installs of Windows. Beside the utter feeling of shame for jamming Windows on to my nice new pristine Mac, here are my findings from making Boot Camp work.

At the time of this documentation, Boot Camp is in Beta at version 1.3, is freely available for download, and is targeted to be released with the next version of OSX. Though the installation and use of Boot Camp is fairly straight forward, this technique would only be recommended for users requiring the use of a windows operating system running natively for use in
such tasks as video editing, heavy data analysis and computation tasks.

Overview of Process

What Boot Camp Does.

Boot Camp allows a user to easily, and non-destructively repartition their hard drive to make space to install additional operating systems such as windows, or Linux. It also provides drivers to be burned to disk, or written to a folder on a hard drive to be installed in your Windows Operating system so it can recognize the Mac hardware properly.

Installing Boot Camp

After downloading Boot Camp from the Apple site, you install it by running the install Boot Camp Assistant package. This setup will prepare your Mac for use with Boot Camp. After installation you will need to run the Boot Camp Assistant that is installed under applications\utilities.

Boot Camp Assistant

The Boot Camp assistant serves several purposes. The first time you run it, it will remind the user that the software is in Beta and is for temporary use. It will also provide you with the opportunity to print the Boot Camp Installation Manual, which is highly recommended.

The assistant will also prompt the user to burn a CD of drivers which will be used in the Windows operating system. This step can be skipped if you already have the drivers burned to CD, or if you do not have blank media at the time.

The user then is presented with a screen with which they decide how much space on the hard drive to make available to your secondary operating system. The default setting is 5gigs. There are options for predefined amounts such as 32 gigs, or an even split of available free space between Mac and Other. The user can also specify a custom amount of drive space to use.

Once your selection is made, the assistant non-destructively reparations the space, or in Boot Camp terms, resizes the Mac’s drive size to make room for another operating system.

When done, the assistant prompts for the install CD/DVD for the new OS to be inserted, or to return to the finder.

If the user chooses to install another OS at that time, the machine reboots and installation of the operating system (Windows XP, Vista, etc) takes place the same as installing the operating system on any PC.

Other uses for the Boot Camp Assistant

Once you have run the assistant, you can return to it to burn a copy of the driver CD if you did not do so earlier, or if you misplaced your driver CD. You can also start the windows installer, if you chose not to start it when initially running the assistant. Or you can use the assistant to return your hard drive to it’s original state, erasing the secondary partition.

Dual Booting

Choosing the next OS to run

Once you have run the assistant and installed your desired operating system, it is best to install the drivers that you burned. Beside installing drivers for the hardware in your mac, they will also provide a control panel option that will allow you to choose which operating system will boot the next time you start the machine. This also seems to set the default operating system to run when turning on the computer.

Choosing the OS at start up

When you turn on the machine, you can also choose the desired OS by holding the option key. The user will be presented with graphical representations of available operating systems. Simply click on the icon of the drive representing the desired OS and click the arrow that appears bellow it.

Analysis

Boot Camp is free for Operating systems and Macs that meet the requirements making it an attractive option for users to run multiple operating systems on their Mac.

The install process is simple, if you follow the directions.

I attempted many different scenarios for installing both Vista Business and XP Pro. Using XP partition tools, may result in an inability to boot the computer to any operating system. The OSX setup disks were able to repair this issue, but it is not a guarantee that they would be able to overcome this mistake in every iteration.

Installing XP, then Vista as a dual boot in the windows environment (in reality triple boot) appeared to work until trying to boot Windows XP. With my experience with dual booting PCs with Windows OS, I believe that to be an issue with the Vista installer, but I did not spend time diagnosing the problem.

The simple solution was to go back into Mac OSX and restore the drive to original state and install Vista on it’s own. Then using VirtualPC 2007, which is freely available from Microsoft, I installed Windows XP Pro as a virtual machine in Vista.

Using Boot Camp differs from virtualization using Parallels or VMware Fusion, in that if you want to use the other operating system, you need to restart the computer.

In Mac OSX, the partition in which Windows is installed appears as a second hard drive. In Windows, the Mac drive can be found using Disk Management tools, but it did not appear that I would be able to mount it without causing damage to the Mac partition. I did not attempt connect to the drive out of fear of needing to rebuild the Mac.

Viability

Dual booting the Mac using Boot Camp is a viable solution to running multiple operating systems. It provides you the full power of the hardware to your operating system, and is relatively simple to set up.

Efficiency

Clearly, needing to reboot your machine to complete a simple task in Windows is not very efficient, unless you need the full power of your hardware.

Recommendation

From my experiences, and the results from my coworker experimenting with Parallels, Boot Camp is not recommended for the general computer user. If you need to share files between the operating systems, and need access to a few tools in Windows, while working in OSX, Parallels, or another virtualization tool is by far the better solution.

If you have need for Windows to run natively, for full power, Boot Camp will work well for you.

Other Options

VMware is developing a virtualization tool to run in Mac OS called Fusion. At this time, it can be preordered for $40, and when released will be similarly priced as Parallels.

A third option to virtualization I discovered in this process is a product called Q (http://www.kju-app.org/kju/) which offers a free virtualization environment, which is currently in Beta. I have not yet personally evaluated either of these solutions, but will look forward to working with Q at some point to see if it will work.

UPDATE: IT appears that because Windows and Mac handle time differently, my Mac is unable to keep the correct time. From what I have found the solutions are varied, the best sounding though is to get rid of windows. ;-P I found a lot of info here. That confirmed that the reason my clock was reseting to show an AM hour and correct minutes was due to Boot Camp and Windows use.

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Parabolic Mic Pt. I

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Some people call me a space cowboy, some people call me. . . Well no one even calls me Maurice. But hey, what I have been called is, turbo nerd, and geek. Tonight, I elevate it to the next level. I’ve been really into this wildlife photography stuff, if you couldn’t guess. But one thing it’s been missing is the ability to capture a little more then still imagery.

So I started experimenting with with my little camcorder to see what I could get. Video wise it was o.k., as one would expect from a consumer grade miniDV cam. Audio, is where I was really lacking. So I started looking online for technique. What I found was this gentleman’s plans for a parabolic microphone. So of course, I had to give it a try!

With print outs of parts I needed I stopped in at the local Radio Shack on the way home from work, and picked up the electronics I needed to make two of these microphones. Since they are mono, I’ll need two for stereophonic recordings for the camera machine. I’ll only make one paraboloid which will give me very targeted audio. I may use the second when in the field for ambient sound.

It was a fairly simple electronics project requiring reading the previously mentioned gentleman’s wiring diagram. Total cost so far for the parts is $45, which leaves me with 2 condesnser microphones, and a few extra parts for future projects.

DSC_8869

So basically, I followed the wiring diagram above and made a few minor modifications. I housed the mic in a housing of opportunity, otherwise known as an empty pill bottle. I drilled a 3/8″ hole in the cap to hold the mic, and a smaller hole in the back to allow the mono wire through.

DSC_8873

I then cut a small groove down the side of the bottle to allow the 9-volt connector and switch to be outside the bottle. I twisted the wires together and ran a functional test prior to soldering to ensure that everything was working. Then a little electrical tape over the cooled solder to make sure I wouldn’t get any shorts, and I assembled the rig. Some more tape and we were done.

This is purely a functional test, once I get a paraboloid built, we’ll run a test to ensure that I like the results, and I’ll build the second mic a little better to mount on the ‘super ear.’

I’ll have audio samples published tomorrow night. Google video is being a real bugger right now and its time for me to stop futzing with this stuff for the night.

DSC_8882DSC_8879DSC_8883

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Adobe D40 Raw Update available

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Short and sweet. Raw update 3.7 for Photoshop CS2 now includes the D40.

Narrator:And there was much rejoicing.
Monks:[Sullenly] Ya

http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/photoshop/cameraraw.html

For Windoze go to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Plug-Ins\CS2\File Formats.
backup the original file and put the new one in place.

Or download updates through the help menu.

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