I haven't bought a new cell phone since day one, but a New To Me phone needs a parallel test.

I'm fine with having somewhat old, or at least "older" electronics.

My long time friends might be surprised about that.  At one point I had to have the newest items.

I came to the realization that these things are tools.  I simply need them to "just work".

I am fortunate that I have a ready supply of these "older" electronics come through my sticky little fingers.

I am using 5 year old laptops running Debian Linux and they just work.  As in Super Fast.

I giggle at the people standing in a line at the gadget stores before dawn.  Sure, that's a bit rude but... come on.  It is manufactured demand.  Perhaps "manufacturing demand" might be the point.

I am using a phone that is 4 versions old right now.  I hate the thing because the Apple Walled Garden concept is faulty.  At least it is faulty to me.

I resent being told that I must back my phone up, and pay them for the privilege because they are giving me a "generous" 5GB of space, while the phone has 128GB on it.  Let me back the damn thing up to my own computers, or somewhere else, and step the hell off.

Every time I try to get something off the phone, I have to start a third party program to get my photos off the thing.  It is a computer.  If I plug it into another computer, it should come up reliably as a drive.  It does not every time, and it gets confused.

Anti-Apple rant aside, the newer versions are evolutionary and not revolutionary.

Slightly better camera, slightly better speakers, slightly more spyware I assume. 

I don't trust them.

More important I use the thing for a few very important, to me, items.

Photography.  Most of the pictures on this blog are taken by me, for my own entertainment.  Occasionally I'll grab something from elsewhere.  I try to remember to attribute the original person but I do forget.  Those pictures get big fast.  I have to get the third party software started, bring them into a browser, cut, paste, annotate them with a title and my URL and post them.  The camera does get better, but it tends to be a few steps behind the state of the art for the time the phone was put out.

Athletics.  Once upon a time, I was "Picked Last" for sports.  I was kid who had no clue about "ball sports".  I still am not good at those.  Doesn't matter, I had a resting heart rate of 50 yesterday and I regularly bicycle and inline skate at a heart rate above my theoretical maximum for my age.  My personal motto is "Lead, Follow, or Get Out Of The Way".  I will help you along, and give you information on nutrition and training to get to my level.  For my age bracket, I am in the 99% percentile for inline skating - my goal is 25,000 miles in my career and at 24645 miles, I am very close.  Once around the world on Inline Skates.

So I monitor my heart rate, distance, and speed.  Assertively.  The phone does help.  In order for it to help I measure out the trail on the phone via GPS.  It tells me the trail is 4.5 miles.  I verify that aggressively via mapping software and obsessively measure that out.

Entertainment.  Music.  I have a data plan that lets me listen to international music for unlimited time.  I am also using it to watch video internationally in two languages.  News as well.  I see nothing wrong with walking the dog an hour and a half before dawn listening to the CBC for news bulletins and switching to BBC for in depth coverage.

When I was given a New To Me phone, it was because my old one had a battery in it that was wearing out.  I could have had the battery replaced, but the New To Me phone had a brand spanking new battery with "96% health".  More importantly it is slightly larger and a number of generations newer.  Faster processor, although frankly, I did not notice that.  Once upon a time I had an android phone that I could snap the battery in and out, and repaired the daylights out of it.  Tech is not getting better, it's getting more annoying to maintain.

I am in the process of migrating onto that phone.  It means I have to proofread the thing and make sure that everything I depend on works.

I listened to my preferred music which is surprisingly diverse.  Classical, Classic Disco, Happy Hardcore, and EDM as well as Norteño from Mexico, and news outlets in 5 different countries.  I could do that from my chair, and did.

Then I had to workout "in parallel".  I had once been given a New To Me phone that had a bad GPS.  It told me that the 2 mile walk I had with the dog was actually 1.9 miles, roughly.  I knew better.  But I also knew that phone was damaged. 

Tuesday I had a workout on the bike.  Along with the GPS enabled sport watch, the GPS enabled bike computer, and the GPS enabled phone, I had the second phone with me telling me where I was in a woman's voice to let me know it wasn't the main phone which was in a man's voice.

The differences were .01 mile over a basis of 27.18 miles.  52 feet or less than the distance across the front of the house, and I can live with that.

Good workout Tuesday as well, but I won't strain my shoulder patting myself on the back.

So the New To Me phone seems to pass the athletics test.  The only thing I need to do is try a different sport and see how the walk is with Mr Dog. 

Some folks are less demanding, they just slide it out of the box, charge it up, and shrug because it works.  Me... nothing is simple.

Mind you, yesterday?  I was taking my old daily driver laptop with a bad USB C power port apart.  I used the monitor to repair a laptop that was dropped and shattered the screen, the hard drive was swapped, and it was tested to be completely functional. 

Yes, Ramblingmoose runs on old stuff. 

Now! Let me tell you about my 23 year old car!

The Story Of The 100 Mile An Hour Hurricane Tape

Tape fit for a Hurricane, or 100 Miles an Hour or so.

Ok, if you must, how about 162kph?

What...Ever!  How fast is that measured in Bananas?  Giraffes?  Tardigrades?

Anyway...

Once upon a time I worked at a university.  Mind you working at a Uni can be great but in this case I had a boss who would tell stories about gambling at the casinos in Atlantic City and dreamed about taking a trip to Las Vegas.

At that point he'd go off on an hour long tangent and I'd fall asleep in the chair.

Not that he lasted there as my boss all that long, they shuffled him off to the side and installed a crony, a friend, who was just as inept at management as my old boss was.

At least my old boss was a nice guy, this one... wow!  Listen out there in Blog-Land if you ever end up with a person trying to manage you who was a coach in a martial arts dojo, do your career a favor and quit.  I did, and frankly I know of others in that same department who did and are happier that they put that incompetent behind them.

But about a year before I left there, I took all my banked vacation time and had a long vacation.  With holidays, weekends, and so forth I was away for a month at the quiet time of year. 

Felt great, less filling.

So less filling that as I traveled South I got hungry in Northern Virginia.  There's a barbecue joint there on US1 just off the interstate.  The food was OK, and they have another joint about two miles North of me...

Ok, 3KM.  Damn! Metric People! chill!

And we pulled into the parking lot.  Had a meal in the converted fast food place.  The parking lot was chock full of locals who worked in the area out of their trucks.  Plumbers and Electricians if I misremember right.

As I am getting ready to mount my Jeep and head on South for my month away from incompetent managers in IT in a largish university in North Philadelphia (narrows things down huh?), someone started backing up out of a parking space.

He hit the gas and rumbled on around the back. 

As he moved, his truck dropped a roll of tape.  I looked at it and it was very "military" looking.  Being Northern Virginia, well there's a lot of current and former military people there and while a bit conservative for my tastes, they'll help you out in a fix.

That tape... It turned out to be legendary.  Had a "MilSpec" rating on its inside, and was low gloss Olive Drab.  I don't know if the guy got it from a PX but I was happy to find it.  Tossed it behind my seat in the Jeep and continued on my way.

After researching the roll it turned out to be truly Military Issue, so I put the stuff to use.

This was in winter of 2005.  I still own items made and repaired out of that tape.  I only tossed it in the trash this year when I got very close to the end of the roll and finally it began to "de-laminate".

Why is it so good?  Not because it has Uncle Sam's signature of approval, but more because it wasn't some of the usual garbage imported and manufactured to a low WalStarMart or other BigBox Store standard.

This stuff was nicknamed 100 MPH tape or Hurricane Tape.  The story told to me was that it is actually used to patch helicopter blades in an emergency and is so strong that it holds things together in flight. 

Yeah Hurricane Wind Speeds.  I'm in Florida, that is important.

I am also an endurance athlete.  Even at my *ahem* Middle Age, for me to mount my inline skates and roll for a marathon workout at 27 miles roughly (40Km sheesh) in a couple-of-hours is a normal thing.   

I did five marathons in January 2022, alone.

So all this distance means that there's abrasion of sock against liner of the boot.  As I was told once upon a water stop by a team mate on the Philadelphia inline skating team, "We just put duct tape in our boots and get another year out of it". 

Another year with their tape, but another five or more with mine.  This 100MPH tape would go for years with my heel and achilles tendon rubbing against it and sliding against the 12 or 13 micron thick olive drab vinyl.

Don't have it?  Well what are ya waitin' for?

Can't get it in Your Country?  I know Amazon has it because that's where I got it this time.  I know that I will be lining my hotspots in my boot liner to get another 2000-3000 miles out of them.

A 25 dollar roll of tape vs a 75 dollar liner for my boots ... twice?  yeah I'll go with the tape.  It's low rent but my sponsorship dried up when the sport did.

But here I am in the South Florida Sun, greased up with sun block, sweaty as they come, but happily squeaking along in my sk8boots chalking up the miles.

Only 1500 miles left to once around the world!

On Yer Left!

Ok, I give up, I'll get a new heat gun.

OK, I give up.

I try hard not to buy tools online or in a store.  There are too many thrift stores around me to justify splashing out on a brand spanking new thing but in this case, well blah here we go.

Hey, feel like a trip to the hardware store?

Yep.  I'm off.  You see, I'm in the middle of this month of self imposed exile from the trails.  It gave me plenty of time to give a long hard look at my skates and a couple other projects here, and I came to the conclusion that I need to buy a new heat gun.

The hair dryer did not work, it just is not hot enough to melt the plastic sufficiently. 

Mind you, the skates I bought last year are great but they have a quirk in the fitting that I need to remedy.  It rests against a bone under my right ankle as I give power to the wheels and it needs to be heated and pushed outwards to give me a little more room.

The standard skater tricks of surgical tape and double socks only worked so far and I am convinced a heat gun will do the trick.

There are also a few things that need to be "melted".  Having a Jeep Wrangler means that you have grey plastic parts after a while, and treating them with a heat gun will turn them back to black.

The first thing I did was to take stock of what was online and find a benchmark for price.  $10 is a great price but I didn't want to drive to Miami in a Jeep that gets 18MPG highway (23 with a tail wind on the overseas highway to the Keys). 

Then to one thrift store more.  Nope.

Then I went onto the online retailers and found it for $17. 

Even went to a craft store and they had a low end one for $26.  No, those sell online for under $10 thanks.

Oh and those plastic bottles everyone seems to love to hate?  If you wrap one around something and blast it with a heat gun it turns into shrink wrap that you'll never get it free without cutting it!

Cool huh?  Better than "Recycling" it because you understand nobody has figured out how to recycle plastic.

By The Way... use a reusable bottle for your water needs.  Mother Earth will thank you, and so will I.

Supposedly if you do it right, it can be used for heat shrinking and making things waterproof and ... 

You get the picture.  I got the heat gun last night.

DIY Addict Goes On The Hunt For A Special Skate Screw With A Rare Thread

(Stands up)Hi, I'm Bill!

(Hi Bill!)
I'm a DIY Addict!

And here's my story. 

Not to minimize other's challenges in life, but this should be easier.

I'm that guy.  I drive a 19 year old Jeep Wrangler.  I still have and use radios, some of them have tubes in them.

Yes, actual Tubes.  Orange glow, hot musty smell, and so on. 

They may smell like old wood, but they really do sound much better than the internet feed I'm listening to at this moment.

That would be Valves for my friends Ol' Blighty.

Why is that?  Simple, I fix things.   Always have.  All the way down to soldering individual components on a printed circuit board.

I remember deeply annoying my father because before he had a chance to get his tape player fixed in the car, I did the repair for him.  It was just a thrown belt off the tape mechanism. 

I could see him wind up to get loud and start a shouting match but "Hey, it works now, go play your tapes" was all I said.

Then I walked out and hid in the bedroom where I kept the shortwave radio and tuned in Radio Canada International.  9625 MHz.  They aren't there anymore.  Too bad, the news was always better there. 

That era was where I got hooked on listening to the World Service Of The BBC and the time signal "pips" from the relay in Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada.

I know, I was weird.  Still am, now it's all in Spanish and I tell myself it helps my studies.

But all this equipment needs maintenance. 

My car, My radios, and even my skates.

I just didn't think that having "Old Things That Need Maintenance" would include my workouts.

You see, I beat myself up on the trails, hard.  Yesterday was a 2 hour, 2000 calories, 15 mile endurance skate.  Average heart rate is 170BPM, or near enough to that.

I consider that an easy morning at the park.

I have three pairs of skates that I trade off with.  Two are from the last century.  I always have a spare pair in the Jeep when I get to the park.  If the chafing is too bad from the hot spots, I can always stick a square of moleskin on the spot and go on, or if I 'Throw A Bolt" and lose a wheel, I can swap out the skates and get back on the trail.

That throwing bolts thing.  You see, that's why god made Lock Washers.  Oh, and Permatex Blue.  You have both of those things and your bolts won't fly off when you're on a corner, and at the speeds I do, falling is guaranteed to cause injury.  They just aren't standard issue on a pair of skates.

I had found some $5 Skates at a local thrift store, still in the box with the original information.  They weren't anything special but they were NEW.  With that new boot smell.  Tried once and tossed away.  My Good skates are from before 2003 and parts are dry rotting off of the boots.

So I snagged them, used my discounts, and eventually tried them out.

If you are one of the new people considering skating as a sport instead of just tootling around the neighborhood behind your children on the Cul De Sac in the suburbs, let me clue you in.

If your skates are less than $150, they are going to be junk.  If you don't have a truck (frame for the wheels) that is either Carbon Fiber or some sort of metal, there will be too much flex and you will hate them.

I knew these were ... ahem ... modest boots, but I had skated more than 10,000 miles on similar boots back in the first skating boom.  I had modded them with a Speed Kit and Heat Molding.

Heat Molding is applying a heat gun to a plastic part to make it soft and to use something that is not heat conducting to push that part into a better shape.  I used a bamboo stick I cut from my yard, and the boots are much more comfortable.

Now, I could have a skate shop here.  Easily.  As in a proper "Pro Shop".  It's not a brag, I have skated total just under 22,000 miles (in old money) or 35,405 KM for the imperially impaired. 

You don't do that without picking up some tricks.

In this case, you replace the bearings with some faster ones.  I have a couple of old cottage cheese containers crammed with bearings that have been cleaned, lubed, and certified for use.

Next, you replace the wheels with harder and larger wheels.  80 MM wheels, at least 80A hardness, but closer to 90A is better for speed.  Some folks ride on wheels that belong on the bottom of my wheely bin out front - 125 MM tall - Five Freakin' Inches tall!  On Inline Skates!  WOO HOO!  Speeeeeeed!  I CAN'T STOP!  (OOF!)

Now, bearings and wheels are upgraded.  What next?  What sick trick is Mr DIY going to do with this pair of (ahem) low end skates?

Speed Kit.  At least that is what we called them back in the first skate boom. 

I have a different cottage cheese container with a bunch of speed kits.   Typically low end skates come with white plastic things that fit between the bearings to space out things and give rigidity.   Put them in the trash.

My cottage cheese container is stuffed with Aluminum Spacers.  To be fair, they're probably good enough for "you". 

In my case, I need faster.   I need a pair with bolts.  They're screwed in place to minimize friction and stiffen them.   They are set up so that the wheels run free when spun for as long as you have a mind to lube the darn things up.

I had a bunch I scavenged off old skates and closed up skate stores over the years but as time goes on, you start losing parts.  Move 1200 miles south and you lose more.

I found I have 16 speed kits, but only 7 complete sets.   A Set is a spacer that is threaded, a pair of lock washers, and a pair of screws.

So this being a precision set up, turning a Leisure Activity into a proper Sport, of course I needed another speed kit, at least.

Should be easy to find those screws, right?

WRONG.  BUZZ!  TRY AGAIN!

Apparently the two big box hardware stores, that everyone knows, decided that they don't have the demand to carry that specific screw to hold everything in place. 

Lock washers we have! 

But those bolts.  Have you ever considered how many different bolts there are?

Mr DIY has.  There are bolts with three kinds of methods to tighten them, more if you want to be really annoying.  Regular slotted screw heads are no good on a trail.  Phillips cross head screws can work but that means you take your skate tool with you for the eventual breakdown.   The original speed kit had two "1/4 inch, 28 thread, button head socket cap, 3/4 inch long". 

Yeah I didn't think so.  Apparently it's only used in weird applications.  Different threads you see.  Like my soon to be upgraded cheap skate boots.

Went to Orange Big Box store #1.  Nope

Went to Blue Big Box store #2.  Nada, although I really entertained the folks there when I rolled in on a pair of skates to the screws and bolts needed on my skates for more parts.  They were unnerved by me being over 7 feet tall in skates, helmet, pads and sweaty from the workout.   Sorry folks.

Went to old line hardware store with the helpful hardware man.  Helpful but sorry.  Had a nice chat about my 19 year old Jeep Wrangler TJ.  4 liter AMC Inline six.  Never kill engine.

Finally went to the other old line hardware store with a different hardware guy. 

I won't say success.  I ended up finding a screw with the right threads and length but it has a cross head Phillips in the top.  Everything else fits.

So if you are out on the trail in Pompano Beach and throw a bolt on your speed kit, I have a spare.

Even if the Sport is getting slowly more popular, it's doubtful you'll spot me fly past so I'll skate on happily.

You see, my own Pro Shop Standard is a minimum of 30 seconds worth of free rolling once you start.   I really want a minute.  I'll let you know how that all works out.

Badblocks - Conclusively Diagnosing a Harddrive with Linux

I was presented with a computer hard drive that "died". 

Since it was a SSD and useful size of 500 GB, I really did not want to throw it out.

Step 1 was to use FSCK to check the device.  Similar to CHKDSK on windows.  The drive was clean.  fsck -y /dev/sdc1

Step 2 was to clone my existing drive to it to test whether DD would detect problems.  The drive was clean. dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdc conv=noerror,sync status=progress

Step 3 was to realize there had to be a better way.

Badblock. 

It came on my Debian distribution.  Oh and "free" since I am using Linux for everything here.  If you are running Windows or Mac, download a "live" disk of Linux, find instructions on how to boot from a live computer and give it a go. 

What it will do is conclusively, and exhaustively test a hard drive by writing a pattern to it, byte by byte.  Then badblock will compare to see if it actually wrote onto the hard drive.

The end of my story is that drive was perfect, and I recommended to the client a replacement of the computer.  They did not want the drive back, and since the computer was "past the warranty" it was recycled.

Badblock is not generally recommended to be used to do a read only test.  Everywhere I have seen suggests using badblock to destructively test a hard drive.


Warning: This will destroy any data on the drive if you use the "-w" flag. 


This is also a way to securely wipe the data since you can tell badblock to do a number of passes using the -p flag.  For 1 Pass include -p 1 in the entry.  Five passes is -p 5 .

Set aside a block of time to do this.  My drive was on USB 3.0 and it took 29 Hours to complete.  YMMV!  Use USB 3 if you can, or plug it directly into the computer.

Step 1 - Connect the offending drive into a USB drive container, plug it into the testing computer, and power it on.

Step 2 - As Root, run "dmesg" in Terminal.  It will tell you at the end that you plugged a drive into your computer, what the device name is such as /dev/sdc,  and the block size of the drive in bytes.

Step 3 - Run the command.  Running this with the "-w" flag will destroy any data on the drive.

Final Warning - RUNNING THIS COMMAND WILL DESTROY ANY DATA ON THE DRIVE.   Badblock will refuse to run if the drive is mounted, so you may have to turn the drive off, and back on, to make sure the drive is unmounted. 

The Command that will wipe all data and conclusively test the drive for me was:

badblock -w -p 1 -b 512 -c 1024 -s /dev/sdc

First, if you see the picture at the top, I should have used 512 and not 4096.  It simply means that Badblock was a bit less efficient.  See the line in the picture that starts "[224902.607064]".

Second the -c 1024 seems unnecessary since it is testing 1024 blocks at a time.  64 is default.

Third since I did not specify the "-e" flag, it was to run to finish or report an error and terminate.  That was intentional.  If you have a lot of errors already on the drive, you can estimate the errors and list them in a text file to be used in badblocks to skip those. 

If you wanted to get fancy.

Mine ran to end of job and finished with a simple "Reading and comparing: done" message.

I now have a new-to-me 500GB SSD.  Yay for me, right?

Oh and that weird "^[[15~" stuff was from when I dropped my keyboard about 6 plus hours into the whole thing.  It spewed garbage into the terminal session but kept running.

Training Rack at Lowes or Lost in Hardware

To train a Herding dog you have to keep their minds busy.  Physical exercise and mental exercise.  You know, like a Greek Athlete.

I don't think that my little McNab SuperDog (TM), Rack will ever throw a discus or take a philosophy course but he's an amazing creature.

He just wants to help.  He wants to be involved.

He wants to come along. 

But we have a long term project.  Low voltage lighting.

You know that weird stuff that can run off of a car battery.  Since it runs at low voltage it doesn't need quite as much protection and anyone can do it.

We figure that we have about 40 watts of the stuff and you can read on my front porch at midnight due to them.

I have a couple of those three AAA battery lights that are basically a flashlight, and they can be converted over to this system.  I have done that already to a coach lamp that is on my fence.

The rest come piece after piece.

This weekend was a Big Project though.  Run 20 feet of conduit, sink a lamppost in the front of the house, and rehang the mailbox.

Don't think it's much?  Stand outside in the front yard holding a post for a solid hour when reinforcements are sent off to the store to get some quick drying concrete.

Since it is winter, do it in full sun, on a cloudless day at 80F/26C.  Give or take a C.

All this activity had Rack confused.  He wanted to come along.  Anywhere.  When he thinks he's taking a ride in the CAR!!! he starts to burble and basically speak in tongues.  Its comical.  He starts running wind sprints back and forth from the front to the back door whining and making weird coffee-percolator sounds. 

Sometimes he is right.

We stopped work so we could take him to the Vet.  That's fine because it's one of his favorite places to go.  We went, he got fussed over and we came home.

But there was a stop first.  We needed another piece of conduit to glue to the first pieces laid in the trench I had dug that morning with Rack sitting at the front door looking hopeful.

We took Rack.

You see, Lowes Hardware has a policy of allowing dogs into the store.  This seems to be as official as can be, and it isn't like some idiot taking a dog into a supermarket, this is a hardware store. 

Securing a cart, I picked Rack up off the ground and placed him in the blue plastic apparatus.

He didn't like that.  Immediately tried to get out.  I did because I didn't want to be asked to leave because my dog decided to water the plants.

We walked into the store with a 47 pound black and white dog being disrupted by the rattling of the cart across the asphalt.   Getting into the store, he wanted no more of that.

When I say SuperDog (TM) I mean it.  He is a McNab Dog.  One of the most intelligent dogs on the face of the Earth.  But he is fearful.  Fearful means to run.

Or in this case, to leap.

From a sitting position.
Inside of a cart.
Right in front of the orchids.

When he landed on the concrete floor, he was flat, legs pointing to the cardinal points on the compass.  Confused.  Looking very surprised that It Worked.

I put him back in the cart and looped a thumb under his harness and we went about our business.

He was thinking "Hmmm.  To attempt this again or not?  Not completely sure."

But, by the time we left, he was enjoying himself.  Not acting quite so crazed.  He actually smiled at a kid walking past.

Yes, certain dogs smile.  Others grimace.  I can tell the difference.

But this was a training expedition.  Rack got about a C+ grade.  A little better than average.   Form on the High Dive was a solid 9.

Not olympic form, but a good solid performance.

That's what training dogs is about.  Taking steps and keeping their minds engaged.

Sometimes all it takes is two sections of PVC Conduit, and a couple bell end 90 degree sections.

(You, British people!  Stop giggling, that's what they're called here!)

Thinkpad X201 Dissambly and The Flu

I have to ask myself what is this fascination of tearing apart computers when I have "a cold".  In this case, The Cold turned out to be The Flu.  It wasn't fun.  I'm at about day 5 and this is the first day that I'm clear enough to sit down and write.

The back story goes that I was handed a wee little laptop.  Thinkpad X201 if you are following along.  It's a pocket rocket of a machine, i7 processor, 8GB of memory, 500 GB mechanical hard drive.  All of that was crammed into a 12 inch case.  It predates the whole "Ultrabook" computer thing where people started building machines that were thin, light, and powerful.  The Mac Book Air is a prime example of what they tried to emulate.

I think they got the power right.  I was told "I have data on this that I need recovered, then see what you can do with it, it's got a heat problem".

What Thinkpad doesn't?  Lenovo switched to a heat sink compound a while back that has the consistency of Silly Putty or dried tub caulk.   That is to say that it dries out and flakes away.  I found that out later when I opened the machine and had little grey bits of goo fall out onto the table.

What I did was to recover the data, there wasn't much because the machine was not trusted, and then reload it.  It came with Windows 7 so I reinstalled that, then I made sure that Windows 10 would never get onto the machine by turning Windows Update to manual only and checked each update on the list to make sure it wasn't rumored to be either Windows 10 Related or Windows Telemetry.  I don't like what Microsoft is doing to a once very stable operating system and neither should you.

There is also a registry setting that will help keep that horrible pest off your computer, but if you have that little nag box sitting in your task bar you can be guaranteed that you will be "upgraded" to Windows 10 Home. 

No.  Not on your best day.  I am not allowing that.

When I was chatting with someone he suggested I put it on a torture test and recommended Prime 95 which calculates prime numbers.  It also turns any given machine into a furnace.  I was typing in chat that it was playing well when "Black Screen".  The processor hit 100C and turned off.   Yes, as in Boiling Water Temperature.  Processors these days tend to run 50C or cooler.  100C under load is going to shorten the life of the machine.  It needed help.

I found a series of videos, one that showed how to disassemble the machine so that the motherboard could be removed.  The second one showed the reverse order how to reassemble it.  By the time I had fully tore this little machine apart, I had nothing left in the case and a mother board on the table with the heat sink below it with a few random coins for size comparison.

If you are curious, there's a game token, a penny, a UK Pound and a UK Two Pound coin.



I ran that video in stop motion, and every time that the author removed a screw, I removed the same.  It took me about 20 minutes to tear it down.  The picture at the top is the result.  The blue squares are the processors and the heat sink compound.  They were cleaned with Rubbing Alcohol, and the lot was reassembled with the second video one screw at a time.



So if it was so straightforward, why am I writing about it?  So I have the info for later.  Complete with the videos.

Oh, make sure you have a little cup to put all those little screws into.  There were two sizes and they have to be put back in the same holes.  Luckily the video went "Large Screw" first, "Small Screw" Second.

Good luck, Future Me if you have to tear it down.  But after a week of beating it up, it's a great little laptop to go onto its owner if I can convince him to take it back!

And if you are not "Future Me", the Standard Internet Warranty applies - this is at your own risk, if your following these instructions turn your laptop into a dragon that consumes you or starts a fire, or causes any sort of damage, you are on your own because I can't take any responsibility for that. 

Besides, I still have the flu.

A Security Camera View On The World

Lately I've been preoccupied.

When we're home, I have video to look at.

What you see here is my view on the world.  I have another three cameras to place, and we already know where they will go.

It started with me getting "A Deal" on a security camera set up.   It came with no hard drive, so once we got one of those, dropped it in the machine with a cable and four screws, we were on our way.  Not too shabby for $150 US.  It came with eight cameras and a bunch of wires, mounts, and power bricks. 

Low price to live on the set of The Truman Show.  No, I will not allow cameras inside the house.  That's just Beyond The Pale.

The machine is self maintaining, so none of the usual "Operating System Twiddling" that everyone was used to.  There is a whole world of terminology to learn.  I had done all this before.   I "Specified, Procured, and Deployed" two of these same units at the mall that I was the IT Director for.

The hardest part of setting the second one of these up is running wires in uncomfortable places. 

The hardest part of setting up the first is learning all the terminology.

Things like "TVL", IR, and PTZ become second nature after a while.

You have to know that the more TVL you have, the better the picture.  TVL being TV Lines, which is just how "HD" your HDTV Picture would be.  These cameras are only 640 lines so they're below HDTV spec, around the same as your old square Standard Def TV used to be.

IR is Infrared.  In this case, each camera has a ring of 28 infrared LEDs around the lens.  They glow red at night, and some may not even be able to see that frequency due to color blindedness.  In my case, they're quite bright and give me a view on the world of everything that goes on at night.

PTZ is something I truly want simply for the flexibility and the Coolness Factor.  Stands for "Point, Tilt, Zoom" and it's something you need to be able to do even if you never get a camera that will support it.  It will allow an operator, you or me, to Point or Tilt the camera at something, and then Zoom in on it.

Just like any technology, there is a world of jargon to fool the outsiders. 

Add to it that the Chinese who wrote the manual wrote it in crystal clear "Engrish".  Which is to say there was a passing acquaintance with the rules of English Grammar.   They passed the rules when they were on the bus in the town center.  They were in the book store they rode past at 50KPH.  They didn't read the rules, but the book was there.

So you have to step back and read between the lines.  The documentation is there, and you just may be able to figure it all out.  Once you do you can twiddle and I have a stack of settings that I can twiddle with.  Getting all that set just so is the goal.  Motion Detection should be just enough that you're not looking at 8 hours of uninterrupted video every night.  The IR light should not be reflecting against the eaves of the house so you're looking at solid grey video.   There is a screen where I can block off certain areas of the screen from Motion Detection at all meaning if something happens in the upper third or the neighbor's house, I don't care.  I can tell it not to record during certain hours which I'm trying to figure a reason that would be helpful. 

All that is really quite involved.  Just like anything it's the sum of the parts.  A lot of little parts make a system.

Unfortunately, the software has limits.  The web interface only runs on Internet Explorer which runs like molasses on my i7 laptop, and like crap everywhere else.  The query function is creaky.  I could write some serious improvements to the system if I had "root access" to the operating system but even that isn't available.  The help messages are written badly, more of that Engrish. 

That's one very strong reason why this sort of thing should be open.  Chinese Software is horrid.  Give me a LAMP server and let me write my own PHP code or Java.

But it does work, after a fashion, and it is open enough that third party software will work with it - if you are brave enough to try to get it to.

So if you're coming down the block, wave hello to the camera.  I'm sure I'll get to watch it on the DVR.

Replacing the Heatsink Fan in a Thinkpad T60

I have an old workhorse of a laptop that had a fan go bad on the heatsink.  It sounded like someone was rolling a plastic jar down a table with a marble in it.  We replaced the machine, but I didn't want to throw this one out.  I kept it for "parts" but kept it running.

Finally one day I decided to try one last time to find a cheap heatsink or fan for the old machine.  Instead of throwing out a machine that worked, I was able to replace the fan for $7 from a vendor on Amazon.  It took three weeks to get here from Shenzhen in China, but after about 15 minutes of work, I now have a perfectly good computer. 

The fan works like a champ, and now the computer breathes instead of rattles.

Remember, this is more than a basic repair to your computer.  Your mileage may vary - it is completely possible to have an accident that will render your computer unable to be used.  In otherwords, you can break your computer if you aren't careful so you are following these instructions at your own risk.  There are guides online at the website at Lenovo that will also help you.   A search for "T60 Repair Manual" found me this guide that I distilled to make these notes.  Please be careful, this is something that pretty much anyone can do it they take their time, but I have seen people kill their computer because they weren't careful.

To replace the fan, you have to remove the keyboard and loosen the back.  I have had this machine apart a number of times, so I may have misplaced a few screws.  Yes, go ahead, I do have a screw loose.  Why else would I write a blog for four years?

Make certain you have a clean work area and have discharged your static electricity since that could kill your computer.  Remove the laptop battery and power cord from the back of your T60.

The picture below shows the location of the screws circled in Yellow. 
Well, strictly speaking, they are "O"ed since Photoshop wasn't behaving.  18 point Transport font of a Capital Letter O worked fine.

Look for the icon on the back of your machine that looks like a Keyboard.   There are five screws to remove.   Set them aside for the eventual reassembly of your machine.

This will allow you to flip over the machine and remove the Trackpad mount.   Remember to be gentle since the trackpad is connected to the motherboard with a thin ribbon cable.  The cable will pop off the motherboard with a snap.

Second, remove the keyboard.   It should lift right up, however, there is a thin ribbon cable underneath it connecting it to the motherboard.  As you can see in the next pictures, I simply set it back on top of the computer.  Depending on how brave you are, you can do either.

The seven screws holding down the upper bezel, the heat sink clamp, and the heat sink itself can be removed now.  Set them aside.  Remove the clamp for the heat sink, flip the grey wire out of the clamp that holds down the bezel at the top center of the laptop, and finally you can remove the heat sink itself from its place on the motherboard.

Remember that there will be a wire for the old fan that needs to be removed from the motherboard.  Make a note of where it goes and how the plug goes back onto the motherboard for later.

When all the pieces have been gently removed, your laptop will look like this picture.

At this point, your machine has been disassembled.  You now need to bend vertical the copper clips holding the fan to the heat sink so that the old fan may be removed.  Do so gently, but firmly.  You need the copper clips to be intact to attach the new fan, so don't break the things! 

The fan will be held in place with a piece of tape, in the case of my machine, Aluminium tape.  It will also have the wire held in place with a clip.  Gently remove the wire from the clip on the heat sink.   Bend the fan out of the way so that the tape is holding the fan.  If the fan does not lift up from the heat sink easily, check to make sure the clips are all bent away from the old fan.  I removed the fan from the tape - you will need that tape so that air flow will be maintained.

To mount your new fan, place it in the same spot as the old fan.  Attach the tape to the fan to hold it in place, then bend the copper clips in place as the picture above shows.

The replacement of the heat sink goes as follows:

I cleaned off the three contact points on the motherboard - The CPU, Video Chip, and the third contact point (what ever the thing was!). 

Then, I reshaped the grey heat sink putty to be more square for when I replace the heat sink.  I placed one drop of heat sink grease on each of the heat sink putty blobs since I had it, but I doubt it is strictly necessary.

I lifted the bezel and connected the wires for the fan to the motherboard.

I slid the heat sink assembly back in place.

Screwed down the heatsink, then the silver clip, then the bezel with the screws that I removed before.

Placing the keyboard ribbon cable in its connector, then the keyboard in place, followed by the Trackpad ribbon connector and the Trackpad mount were next.

Then I flipped the machine over and replaced all the five screws that I removed at the beginning of this exercise.

At this point you may replace the power cord and battery to the computer.

I was able to power on the machine and it came back up.  Allow the machine to come to operating temperature and you will hear the fan the entire time if you place your ear next to the heat sink vents.

If you forgot to connect your fan to the motherboard, the T60 will beep at you and display "FAN ERROR" on the screen, then immediately shut off.

In my case, I was able to use the machine immediately and allow the machine to out and update the operating system while playing a few games and surfing pages.  My old machine was fully functional again!

Harvesting Laptop Batteries for a few 18650 Cells

Ok, First the warnings:

Don't Try This At Home.
If you do this wrong, you could be exposing yourself to this list and other things that I am not remembering:

• Explosion
• Fire
• Caustic Chemicals - acid or base
• Poisonous Chemicals
• Extreme Heat
• Sharp Edges
• Delayed Reaction of any of the above
• Maybe even more, really it can be quite dangerous

If you do this, it is at your own risk, I take no responsibility.  You're a big person, make your own choices...

Even once you have taken these things apart, you must, MUST charge the batteries in a charger that is specifically designed for the purpose.  If you charge the batteries in an unapproved manner by using too much voltage or too much current you'll have that list above to contend with. 

As the video at the end of the article shows, they do explode.

Really these are dangerous objects.  Be careful.

On the other hand, if you are using a laptop, chances are you had one sitting on your leg or your belly safely.  You just didn't try to puncture the thing.

Laptop Batteries are a strange beast.  They come in a couple different types.  I've seen "Flat" batteries like the one in your cell phone, and I've seen ones that look like a AA battery on steroids.  Those are 18650 batteries.  The laptop I am using uses six of those cells in series to power the machine for 3 hours.

The reason I looked into all this weird danger is that I have a flashlight that I depend on.  It puts out as much light as a 75 watt light bulb in a very tight beam - 1200 Lumens.  With a 18650 instead of the 3 AAA battery pack, it throws more light.  This light is really more than anyone needs to follow a dog at night, but when you live in an area with power pops, blackouts, hurricanes, and other strange events, you need a bright light.

Since the 18650 is rechargeable, I can relax about waste and pollution and so forth.

The battery pack you see in the picture has 7 of those batteries.  One was dead.  They normally do that after around 1 year of regular use so I thought to take it outside and disassemble it.  They were taped together and glued in place.  It all came apart with a little bit of wrangling.

The laptop battery packs will cost you around $90, and with these batteries, I can "refurbish" mine once it finally goes to the land of "15 minutes between charges" by finding the bad cell and replacing it.

After cutting the leads between the wires to separate them, I was able to charge all but one.  With those six, I was able to replace the batteries in a number of appliances and put them back to use.   Since each battery costs between $5 and $25, there was a significant cost savings.

As for charging, the charger was put on a long extension cord out to the cement patio and each battery was charged once to see if they "took a charge".  They did with a few that were dead..

That flashlight?  Oh it's much brighter than the little AAA Battery pack could have managed.

Strange weekend project but successful.  Just remember, Don't Try This At Home, and if you insist, forget you read about it here!

The video below is more proof that this is not quite safe.  Youtube is chock full of videos of people doing stupid things to these batteries like burning them or overcharging them.  This is the result.  That result is why I went to the extremes of doing it outdoors, charging the batteries outdoors and so forth.   You just never know if you get the bad battery and you're having a bad luck day. 

Be safe and take precautions.

OOBE and Desktop Support

I'm doing something we call "Desktop Support" this week.

It isn't strictly speaking, Desktop Support since I am working with some 5 year old laptops, but the discipline is the same.

When Kevin came back from Key West, he brought back two computers that needed some help from someone who I do some occasional work for. A friend and in this case a client. He gets these machines about every six months and when I go down there, I set them right. I don't mind helping him out since we've known each other for quite a while.

It was easier this way since he's due to come up here - or I'm due to go down there soon. I could use a week off my quirky little island, and Key West is a fascinating place, although it's losing a lot of that wonderful Conch flavor since the locals are being edged out and it's changing into a combination "1% and day tripper" compound.

The first computer wouldn't see the internet. I fixed that in five minutes - the little switch that controls Wifi was turned off. After I updated antivirus to Microsoft Security Essentials, and all the software, it's been set aside. Got to do all this sitting in my comfy chair while watching the TV.

The second one was the trial. It may or may not have a bad hard drive on it. Starting the machine took about a half hour and then it would go "zombie" on me. Meaning it would forget it was a computer and just not do much other than run the clock and make the mouse move very slowly. I was able to grab the personal items from it and put them on the other laptop so the decision was made to completely reload this beast.

See that is where the Desktop Support comes in. It's a 17 inch monster that will level your tables and hold down papers in a hurricane.

It also needed me to start it on its way for that reload.

5:30AM I was up, clicking on the button saying "Next" to load Windows Vista onto the hard drive before going out for the dog walk.

Yes, Windows Vista. Every Tech Guy's least favorite current operating system.

Oddly it seems to be taking to that machine fairly well. The load took about the same time as it took me to walk Lettie, feed both her and myself, then sit down with the coffee to click through some buttons.

The problem is that I had the "Oobe Experience".

I'm not used to home computers. I have never actually gone to a store and bought a computer retail. I've always gotten computers meant for the "corporate" market which means the extra software that was installed was a minimum.

This is an HP and apparently HP is well known for putting "crapware" on their computers.

Or at least they did when I started with this HP a year ago.

When you load a computer with a "retail" or "OEM" copy of windows, you get just the operating system. Period.

When you get a computer from the store meant for the home market you get all sorts of icons on the desktop that the manufacturer was paid to put there by the website or software company.

When that computer gets to me, I remove them all. No questions, they're gone.

Why? Well all that crapware takes up space and slows you down.

When I started the computer the first time this morning, I didn't expect it to even work, after all I suspect that the hard drive is failing. It took me about 30 minutes to come up to a desktop since all those pieces of software were coming up, demanding attention, begging for my contact information, and generally being a nuisance.

I'll be removing all of that later. Toolbars on browsers first, since we all seem to live with browsers and the operating system is more of a background thing. I'll be getting rid of Norton, Ebay, HP Games, MSN, Sling Box, Microsoft Office Trial, and a few others.

After all, it's Vista. If you want to speed up a Vista computer, here's a hint - remove it and install Windows XP or Windows 7 depending on how comfortable you are with either. I'd say Windows 7 since I've grown to like it but I know of a few folks who still have XP and don't want to change.

If it becomes mine, it's getting Linux.  CentOS or Ubuntu are excellent choices, and I could use a proper Linux Server here.

One more "helpful hint". When you are installing new software, always, I mean ALWAYS, take the "expert" or "Advanced" or "Custom" install. You will find out that you have the choice to not have the "Ask Toolbar" or the "Yahoo Toolbar" or the "Google Toolbar" added to your browser. They just slow you down and spy on what ever you are doing anyway - you simply do NOT need them.

Now why the video of the little lamb?

 It's cute. Enjoy.

What to do with your Old Hard Drive

Simple, put it in a box and use it.

I've been doing this for years.  You see, for years I've been recycling computers by going through them and setting them back up and passing on to someone who needs them.   Sometimes I hear of a story of someone tossing their old machines and keeping the hard drive in a closet. 

Because it's safe.

No, not really.   You see data is "forever".   I've dropped memory sticks in the pool and after drying them off (and out thoroughly) they work.  Sometimes.   Sometimes not. 

But that old hard drive on a shelf?   You can still read the data. 

So today I was going through the normal morning digital chaff and found a deal for an external drive case.  It's a little metal box into which you plug your old hard drive.  Once you assemble the stuff (two screws typically for a laptop, a few more for a desktop drive) you can plug that drive into your new computer and get the data off of it or run a program to "securely delete" the data.

Oh sure, the government and some police agencies know how to recover some of that but for the most part, the yahoo that ends up with that drive next won't know how. 

Here is one article from an old ZDNet posting from 2007 that goes into all that secure delete deeper.  If you're really curious and don't want to fiddle around with weird command line stuff, there are other programs that will do a "Secure Delete", just search your favorite search engine for the term.

The deal is that you now have what is in essence a big fat floppy drive that runs really fast.   What you do with it then is up to you, but if you've gone through and formatted the drive, and have an empty drive, you can treat it as a place to store a copy of your "most important data". 

You know, things like tax records, receipts, recipes, pictures of the dog, a copy of the check you sent to me because I'm such a good guy... that kind of stuff.

Only kidding about that dog thing.

The deal is that the hard drive in your desktop machine is about the size of a paperback book.  A thick one, but a paperback book.  The hard drive in your laptop is even smaller, thinner than a cigarette pack and probably about 1/4 as thick.   You can store these things with data in them for years in a secure place like a safe deposit box or inside grandma's mattress and not worry about all of that stuff getting lost or someone getting hold of it by trash picking it out of your bins.

Don't throw out electronics if you can, after all it will just pollute, but you do get the idea.

What got me thinking was that I have a stack of old laptop drives in the back room, all 40GB or larger.   A memory stick of 32GB is around $32, the case cost me $4 each and I have the drives.   May as well use them.

Just make sure that when you pull the cables off the old drives you look at the connectors.  Pins mean IDE, Slot connectors (typically grey) mean SATA.   Buy the right type and it's pretty foolproof.

You'll sleep better knowing that there isn't some wierdo looking over your old data.  

Spending time with Dad's Picture

Over the weekend I did the impossible.  I fixed a printer.

Father John of New Divine Mercy Church had a printer that got into a jam.  Literally.  In fact, HP Printers have a nasty habit of doing that. 

If you have an HP Printer be exceedingly careful with clearing a paper jam because even the slightest misalignment can kill the device for you. 

We don't know if John's printer was broke because of that, but the flimsy thing was in a permanent jam state and refused to even go past that into "Limp Along Mode".  In fact many of these devices ended up in the dump because these instructions do not necessarily work.

After cleaning everything with rubbing alcohol, I gave up and let it sit on the coffee table.  Giving myself a week to cool down, I attacked it again.  I got the canned air and sprayed everything liberally to blow out the dust and give myself a nasty headache.  Then I got some dental floss and threaded it in the back of the cartridge mechanism behind the famous metal strip and flossed it clean.   Finally I managed to rethread the metal strip under the guide that is hidden impossible to see behind the printer. 

Through a comedy of errors, around 5 hours of trial and error, and leaving cleaning solution on my coffee table in error, I managed to breathe life into the printer.

Yes, Frankenstein, the printer is alive.  Heroic efforts on my part saved the thing.

At that point, for the first time in years, I was the happy owner of a Scanner/Printer/Fax Machine.  It now sits on my network and I can do all of the above via the network software.

So what to do with the thing.  After all, it's nice to have something come back to life after it was consigned to the trash bin, make it work.

I had a few pictures that I had liked from the family when I was a wee brat.  The one up at the top of the article is the one I started with.  Dad circa 1940s, back when he was a Sergeant or a Master Sergeant in the US Army.   I don't have all the details, and dad's been gone since 1976, so I won't have them all, but I liked the picture and it has moved with me.

So what to do with it?  After all I can lose the picture if the house gets destroyed.  I did what I called an Archival Scan.  You see that printer will spit out 600 tiny drops of ink per inch.  I thought since that was good, I wanted photographic quality so the original scan was 2400 dots per inch.  An hour and a half to do the first scan. 

The picture is reduced for the web, but the original could be printed out in high fidelity or retouched.  I'll probably do that some day I have an afternoon to kill, but for now, I've got it here in 29.1 megs of JPEG beauty. 

I'm sure it doesn't mean much to most readers, but for my sister and some of the family, they'll enjoy seeing him up there with my copyright written across his nose.  If they want an original, or a reduced scan, I'll send that along.  For now, I'm enjoying being able to do that sort of thing for the first time in a very long time.

There you go, Pat!  Enjoy!

Thinkpad too hot? Here's what to do

I've had a series of Thinkpad laptops over the years.  By the time I get them, they are always "surplus" machines, and I can still get my use out of them.  Usually, I get them at 3 years, and I can get at least another three out of them.

If the Thinkpads have a weak spot in them, they always run hot.   At least the ones I have had do.   When I got this, the first thing I did was to "flea dip" the machine.  It was filthy, and encrusted from the last owner's ... funk.  It also required that I blow out the fans to get the dust and grime out of them.

The problem was that getting to use the machine meant getting it hot.  After using the machine for about an hour, I'd look at my leg and realize that it's basically turned into something that resembled a lobster.

I've had this happen with each of the hand-me-down Thinkpads that I owned.

Luckily there is a solution.  Each time I get a new Thinkpad, I end up "testing" the same piece of software and it's called "TPFC".  ThinkPad Fan Control.

I had found this link for the software, and if that does not work, do a search for "Thinkpad Fan Control" and start reading.

The sensors and all the software heavy lifting work has been done for you.  This particular version I am running goes out and takes control of the fans under Windows from the hardware and will keep the speed up.

Sure it is noisier, but you won't end up with sweaty Lobster Legs.

There are other tricks but this is a good one if you're using a Thinkpad.


I found the full discussion for the software at this link.   One thing to concern yourself with is that it is also possible that it just won't work.   They try to keep this up to date, but it is somewhat "experimental".  The only thing I can say is that it "worked for me but it may not work for you".  Luckily Lenovo has kept the same hardware controllers that IBM had on the older models - however that is NOT a guarantee.

The software was a download, unzip and double click on the "setup.exe" file inside the zip.  There is a read me file in there too to help you figure out how to configure it, but I just set the thing to run at full on Manual which was how it was set up when I started it.

Once that is done, you will need to do two things.
1) go to the folder C:\tpfancontrol\ in explorer and run the link "Install Service".
2) TPFanControl from the start menu and drag and drop it into your start up folder.  Now it will run every time you start up the laptop.

You Mileage May Vary - but my legs are not red.

Good luck!  Hope it helps!

Oh one other thing that I found out - if you pop the DVD/CD drive out of the bay and run your machine, airflow is better and it will stay cooler without software.  That *may* be just enough.

A Trip Back in Time with Linux

Don't let the topic scare you, more than a Tech article, this is more of an expression of shock.  I can't believe that this actually worked!

Way back in the bad old days of the early part of the century, perhaps back around 2001, I was given a computer.  This was so long ago that I can't find a comment as to when it was originally built.  That is my best guess on the date, but I do remember that the machine was at the top of the line when sold, and it held its own for years.

The best review I found was in 2000 at this article, for the little HP Omnibook 900.  It was an ultralight machine sold with an external CD ROM in a caddy that connected to the machine with a weird non-standard cable that was as thick as my little finger.

That machine was the one that cemented my preference for Small and Light machines.  I could always plug a computer into a USB CD Burner, but lightening the machine by removing one from a computer was usually not a reasonable way to go.

This little machine came with Windows 2000 and I had it on there until around 2003 when it became clear that software was getting cranky to run on 2000.  I had gotten a faster desktop computer so this became my walk around the house machine since it was so light.

When I finally upgraded the operating system, I installed a new operating system "Ubuntu Linux" and found it was even faster.  It didn't have the bloat of all that "digital rights management" nonsense that Microsoft feels is necessary to have on it since everything was completely free.

Yes, in the Linux World, Software is free.  You install what you want, and it runs and all is well.  The drawback is that you have to have the right machine to run on it since drivers for network cards and sound cards were notoriously hard to come by in the beginning of the popularity rise for Linux.

I managed to install version 6.04 onto that machine and after a few wrinkles it "just worked".  I used Open Office for any documents I had to create, and found that I could run some Windows programs with something called "Wine", and it suited my needs for a Couch Bound Laptop.  Light multimedia, some surfing, and maybe a chat session or a Word Document here and there.  Think of what you do on your computer while watching TV - that was what I was using this for.

That was around 2003, and Linux lived on that machine for the most part until 2010 until it simply wore out.  I upgraded the Linux install from Ubuntu 6.04 through version 11.04 when it came out.  When the machine finally died, it was like losing an old friend.   It was wildly underpowered for today's standards, running with 1/10 of the memory and processor that most folks consider necessary for daily use, but it did everything with grace and style.

That machine had been cobbled together from parts out of a "recycle pile" by Kevin when he received it with the story that it had been thrown into the back of a cab in NYC and was shattered.  He was uncomfortable with giving it to anyone at work but I made it my own.

Last night I was given some very old laptops.  These were so old that the little rubber bumpers on the bottom of the machine that are there to stop them from scratching the table had melted due to the pollution in the air and age.  Those bumpers literally melted into the fabric of my favorite khaki cargo shorts.

I laughed at myself and said "hey, these machines are the same era as the old Omnibook" so a quest was begun - find the old Linux hard drive.

I have kept that hard drive with the intention to put it into another machine if I can "clone" it onto the right one.

Plugging the 12 year old hard drive with the 8 year old Linux install that had been upgraded back in 2010 into the "new" laptop from 2001, I pressed the power button and waited.

Guess what?  It worked.  Yes, the Frankenstein monster on my lap that was a purple Sony Vaio with another laughably under powered processor started to hum and churn, but within 2 minutes I was staring at the desktop of my old Omnibook install.  Yes, Linux Worked.

Sure, you can take an old hard drive out of an old computer with Windows XP on it and plug it into a new case with new components.  It will go over all of the hardware and put up a message demanding to be re-registered with the mothership that is Microsoft.  It may even work.  I've had some luck doing this sort of thing in an emergency, but it is a random thing.  Sometimes it gets it wrong and I end up with a dead XP install and have to go back to the CDs for a fresh install.  Sometimes it works.  It's rarely a stable install when you try that, it usually gets most of it right but not always.

I'm just shocked that this little hard drive (only 8GB) with the 8 year old Linux install that has been carefully shepherded through the years worked.  In fact it worked well even after I told it to upgrade. 

Yes, it's back from the dead, surprisingly quick, and up to date.  I've got my Linux machine back.  It may be on 12 year old hardware, but it is back. 

Electric Razors and the Disposable Society

Admittedly I am an odd character.

This society has moved so firmly away from "Mend and Make Do" as the British were told during the Second World War and the Austerity years thereafter, that here it is a rare person who knows how to fix something.

Getting my start as a toddler repairing my father's 8-track player (remember those?), broken things became my playground.  If it was broken, a repair would be attempted since, after all, it's already broken isn't it?

Years of fixing radios, TVs and oddball household appliances earned me the curiosity that eventually worked its way into Computer Programming and Project Management.  If there was a piece of software, it could be fixed as well as enhanced.

Sitting here in the living room on a Poang Chair that had it's upholstery replaced, listening to SiriusXM radio on an iPhone 3 that had a broken screen and worn out battery that were replaced, next to the dog who was a rescue from a no-kill shelter, there really is no reason to stop fixing things.

It is probably more accurate to say that the dog rescued me.  After all, she was fine, we were the ones who have benefitted from having her.

This morning, going through the ritual of clicking on and rejecting inappropriate job interview requests in strange places far from home, it was found.  A new electric razor.  The market price for this particular model is $35 in the South Florida Area so it was a good price at $25.

The curious thing was that instead of being able to get the blades themselves at a price cheaper than the whole razor, the razor is cheaper.   Coming with a new blade, the economic choice was to pull out the credit card, go deeper in debt by $25 and change, and get a new razor.   Never mind that the NiCd batteries in these razors will last for the life of three blades before getting annoyingly short.  Never mind that you can shock a NiCD battery back to life with "high current at a high voltage".   The blades cost more than the entire item.

Replacement blades are around the same quality as the razor itself, so why buy those when the whole unit costs as much.

Basically it goes against my "mend and make do" mindset and there was a pang of Green Guilt as the Checkout button was clicked on that razor.  Shouldn't be that way, but it is.  One more step further into the Disposable Society. 

There's a nice collection of these razors in the bathroom vanity.  They have become surplus and diseconomic.  At some point, a visit will be paid to the local flea market with the number for the blades in the back of the mind.   Hopefully there will be someone with a cache of those blades at a more reasonable price. 

In the mean time, the radio in the kitchen still works.  That was repaired after someone tossed it out, batteries still in its compartment and the batteries are still good.  It sits next to the Glider Rocker and the matching Ottoman that were recently cleaned to make them acceptable for someone since they were replaced by a perfectly good second Poang chair and matching Ottoman.

Need one?  What do you have to trade?  We're so very wasteful these days...

Confessions of a Data Pack Rat

The nice thing about the digital age is that clutter has become virtual.

I got a deep discount on a case the other week.   It's an external drive box that allowed me to put a hard drive on the network instead of inside of a PC.  My largest drive is around 3 years old, and is a 750GB drive.  All those numbers aside, it's tough to put a desktop drive into a laptop.   The technical word for it is a NAS or SAN drive.

NAS - Network Addressable Storage.
SAN - Storage Area Network.

This way I treat the thing as yet another drive when I'm sitting at home on the network and keep a cache of the most needed files in places like a memory stick or on the hard drive of the laptop so it's available immediately when I need them.

Think of it this way, if I'm at home, I have a new drive that pops up and will be accessible if I need it. 

The case is small, and will be put somewhere better than being hid under clutter, and it's about the size of a small hardback book.  For $12, it's a steal.   One of those external cases without the network "upgrade" would be around $30.  They sold out of the one that I got, especially at $1 plus $11 shipping.  If you are looking for something like it, the place I ordered from has a replacement for $23 with free shipping at this link.

Getting that little case to work on the network with some rather odd software that came with it meant I could look around and put files where the belonged.  There's one thing.  I have a lot of files.  Specifically picture files.  I post a lot of pictures on this blog, and will continue to do so.  On the other hand, I just found out that I have around 3,308 picture files. 

I'm not talking about stuff I "collected" on the web, this is a directory of what I have taken myself over the years.  That translates to 5.08GB according to Windows 7.

I've never found anyone who has a "lot" of pictures that had a good suggestion of how to store them.   I use my own pictures here and try to make sense of how they're stored, but the reality is that it's kind of tough to remember 3300 of anything.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, I have three million three hundred eight thousand words.

Give or take a syllable.

A stroll down a memory lane like that will take quite a while, especially since the Achilles Heel of this drive is that it doesn't like to do more than one thing at a time.  In fact what got me started writing about this is that I made the mistake of starting a copy to the drive and hit delete on one of the folders on the drive at the same time.  Now, it's stuck churning its way through all of that.   SLOWLY. 

Ok, but it's cheap right?

At least if it is doing just one thing at a time, it's quick.  It's about as quick as any other networked drive, in fact it's quicker than trying to grab a file from one of the other machines here.

In the drive, just like any other folder is the "Pics" folder.  Inside that they're all labeled in sub folders by date and description.  Hundreds of folders.  Bloody hundreds of them. 

If anybody has a better way to categorize this stuff, I'd entertain your suggestions since its rather a lot. 

On the other hand, a casual stroll down that particular memory lane has some things on its swale that may help with writer's block if I ever get it again.