Yes, all the bottles on the shelf are empty.
freeversing.com
Another man has grabbed a soap box to stand on. This time it’s the owner of our favorite hosting company, Network Redux. Tom shares the things he loves about the world of web hosting, and by love, I mean drives him nuts. It should be an excellent read even If he only publishes half the funny stories he tells us.
For example, Aniel let some broke-ass query run to see how long it would take to complete now that we weren’t being held back by a slow* server. After reaching a page timeout we gave up. The query didn’t. Days later, I get an IM from Tom saying he noticed a 600,000 second query, and killed it. I think that’s a record.
*Thanks Surpass Hosting, and your commitment to sucking.
Google Sitemaps
By way of a Google AdWord, I came across Google Sitemaps. I’m I the only one that didn’t know about this service?
It’s awfully useful for those who are interested how Google looks at their site, and naturally SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Almost every week comes with a new Google surprise, though this one happens to have been around for a while.
dualhead2go woes
So at this point 2 people have contacted me with difficulties getting their dual monitor setups working. I have a good number of details from one, but very few from the other. For the fearful, the monitors which do not appear to “just work” are the Dell E196FP, and Samsung Syncmasters.
However, for me the setup still works fine. For people who bought it but are having some trouble with it, the settings I’m using are below. No guarantee they’ll work for you, however:
Custom:
Pixel Clock: 168.91MHz non-interlaced
Active: 2560H, 1024V
Front Porch: 24H, 1V
Sync Width: 32H, 12V
Back Porch: 24H, 29V
Scan Rate: 63.981H, 60.02V
Scale to: 0H, 0V
Positive Sync: H – Yes, V – No
Both of my monitors are able to sync properly to this signal. If this doesn’t work, try experimenting with the settings. The vertical scan rate should really be as close as possible to 60Hz, any higher, and the dualhead2go starts producing very lossy pictures, any lower and the monitors have a difficult time syncing. The sync width and porches are the primary modifiers here.
Unfortunately without an oscilloscope I can’t see exactly what the adapter is doing versus what normal output should look like, so it really boils down to try, try again. However, I have confidence that there is some setup that will work for everybody.
If anyone has any info or questions, please feel free to contact me.
The PowerBook’s Brief Trip
A few months back some of the keys on my PowerBook G4 1.33 started to make a clicking noise when pressed and provide additional resistance. Most of the affected keys centered around the “F” key, and though their functionality wasn’t entirely diminished, it was mildly irritating to use. The same issue came up almost a year ago on Mac Fixit. Supposedly there is a layer of foil underneath the keys that has the tendency to shift when heated. The PowerBook is excellent at producing a fair amount of heat, and the keyboard is often used to dissipate it. To the best of my knowledge this foil shifted enough to bunch up under some of the keys causing the clicking and stiffness. In retrospect, probably not the best design idea.
Having the PowerBook in the office most of the time and attached to an external keyboard often made me forget about this issue altogether. Still I felt that I should get it fixed, lest I forget and my Apple Care* quietly expires. I was going to arrange to take it the Apple SoHo store which supposedly could replace the keyboard on site, but deadlines, laziness, and general forgetfulness got the best of me. That was till I picked up some additional RAM.
Not being content with 768 MB of RAM, I decided to purchase a 1 GB chip with my new recently obtained Ingram Micro account. RAM keeps getting more affordable, especially at a wholesale level. There must be a whole fleet of trucks dedicated to moving product between the warehouse and Manhattan. It doesn’t seem to matter what shipping speed I pick, as long as it’s in stock in the PA warehouse, it magically arrives the next morning. I digress, I happily slapped the RAM in my Mac, removing the extraneous stock 256 MB chip.
Everything seemed to be running well, aside from a random crash here and there, which admittedly happened every few months. After installing one of the 10.4 updates I noticed that only 512 MB of RAM was showing up. So I checked to make sure it was all seated correctly, I reset the open firmware, did a little voodoo dance and rebooted. The 1 GB chip was back. A day later the Mac crashed again, and the chip was gone. Worried that I got bad RAM, I moved the 1 GB chip to the upper slot and the 512 MB to the lower, reset the open firmware, skipped the dance and rebooted. 1.5 GB of RAM showed up, until it crashed again, leaving me with only the 1 GB chip. Oddly enough Mac Fixit had mentioned that certain versions of OS X are a little more picky about RAM, and that some updates would leave people with some or all of their RAM disabled. In the case of some PowerBooks, as in mine, the updates helped to identify a latent logic board issue. This probably accounts for infrequent crashes I’ve gotten over the duration I’ve owned the machine. However, not until recently did the OS disable my lower RAM slot, most likely sparing me the sporadic crashes.
Now I had two reasons to send my PowerBook back to Apple. On March 2nd I called Apple and filed report. The next day a box arrived for the PowerBook to be shipped back in. I waited till Tuesday, the 7th to send it off so I could have the laptop for the weekend. The following day I got an e-mail saying the repair center received it. By the 9th, they finished fixing it, and mailed it back. This morning I received it. All I can say is that’s phenomenal turnaround time. Departs Tuesday morning, back by Friday morning. It took considerably longer for Jon to get his Xbox 360 repaired.
According to the invoice, the logic board, keyboard, and top plate (wrist-pad, track-pad, etc.) were all replaced. I was hoping for a little surprised like a backlit keyboard, or maybe a faster processor, but getting a new track-pad thrown in works for me. The RAM is working properly, and so is the keyboard. Chalk one up for the Apple Service Center.
*Apple Care is essential for any portable Mac.
mini 4 sale
When we set up the company, we bought a batch of mac minis to get running. They perform admirably, and I’ve been pleased with them.
However, I’ve been offered a g5, and would like to sell one of the minis to pay for it. The mini is a 1.25ghz machine with 512MB of ram, in box. It’s running 10.4.5 with the stock 40GB hard drive. It’s got the Radeon 9200, with 32MB ram.
In addition, I’ll no longer need my dualhead2go. (I wrote about the setup previously at https://blog.firefall.com/2006/02/mac-mini-dual-monitors-using.html). This thing has been great, but the powermac has dual outputs built in. I have the box for the dualhead2go as well.
I’d like to get $400 for the mini and $120 for the dualhead2go, but first fair offer takes them. Sold separately or together. Tell your friends!
Aniel
EDIT: I changed my mind. I’m keeping the mini, and all your base are belong to me. Too.
Front Row Enabler: Bringing back your menu bar items.
The following is a roundup of how to fix your missing menu bar items after running Front Row Enabler.
Why: The menu bar items fail to launch because the bezel services file ends up getting “doubled” patched, IF you have already used an earlier version of Front Row Enabler in the past.
The Quick Fix: Download this ZIP file (Credit: “Weisheng“) or download the 10.4.5 combo updater from Apple. The “/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/BezelServices.framework“, needs to be replaced, and “/System/Library/LoginPlugins/BezelServices.loginPlugin“. To replace the files, first drag the old ones to the Trash, you will most likely be asked to authenticate to continue (e.g. putting in your user name and password). Then drag in the new copies, again authenticating if need be.
Once replaced, you need to run the following commands in the terminal to correct the ownership of the replaced files:
"sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/BezelServices.framework"
"sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/LoginPlugins/BezelServices.loginPlugin"
What this does is, sudo (do the following command as a Super User), chown (change ownership), -R (recursively: to each item within that directory, and below).
If you do not do this, the files you have replaced will not have root (a.k.a system) ownership. This may cause all sorts of problems later on.
Note: It is not necessary to remove Front Row from “/System/Library/CoreServices/ to bring your menu bar back!
Next, to get Front Row running again. If you haven’t removed Front Row, run the LATEST version of Front Row Enabler, and hit the enable button. This will patch (once) the files that just have been replaced. Then logout, Front Row should run again and your menu bar should be fine. If you have removed Front Row, then you must carefully follow the instructions at: http://www.andrewescobar.com/frontrow/.
If you have questions for me, please post them.
Google’s Blogger Dashboard Widget
Yay, my first post using Google’s new Dashboard Blogger widget! Hopefully this will work better then DashBlog, which had a tendency to lose unpublished posts.
Already it’s proving to be really cool. As I type the text area in the widget grows. I’ve also rebooted once and the widget hasn’t lost my work-in-progress. The only downside that I can see is that I don’t have any way of enabling OS X’s spell check.
Like a pack of wild search dogs…
It all started this morning when a co-worker handed me an IC that literally boggles the mind. She told me that she had found it under who knows what and that there was only one of them, maybe a few in all the land. Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory Golden Ticket? I was setting myself up for disappointment.
I quickly went and did a few googles on it (note the use of google as a verb…+10 mana points). I first looked up the logo and quickly identified it as BI Technologies. Going to their webpage I was impressed that they were ‘A leader in electronic components for over 50 years’. That, my friend, is a long time in any business. It was just unfortunate that they hadn’t updated their product catalogue in 50 years. And of course, this IC was probably made 49 years ago which left me with no choice. I called BI Technologies.
Upon getting a live human to talk to, I told her I needed information on a product. I quickly gave her the product number (RM85) and she asked me if that was all. I also gave her the other number in the right hand corner (9134) and she mentioned that was the date code. So that means the chip was made Sept 1, 1934 or 9/13/04 … whichever you think is right. Although there has been some discussion on the format of the date code around the water cooler, it doesn’t really matter because BI Technologies has no clue what this thing is. Then she referred me to BI Technologies’ website ‘to look at the pictures so I can identify it’ (thanks!) . Good enough for Scott, but I just had to dig deeper.
My fine co-worker Aniel was running parallel searches on the IC name and found a distributor in Texas that had 23 in stock. I made the call and was talking to a human within a minute. I asked if they had a spec sheet on the part they were selling. Obviously not, since when I asked if they knew what it’s function was, the man replied, “…I think it’s some sort of relay?”. I thanked him for all his hard work and hung up faster than you can say ‘Javascript error’ three times backwards.
My next plan of action is to email the following pictures to BI Technologies and see if they can identify it, tell me what its function is, or let me into Wonka’s factory, which in reality is what keeps me going these days.
-Dan
Why is Blogger so angry?
The transfer was complete, but Blogger was real pissed about something. Every time I tried to make a post or republish the blog I’d get this error: 001 java.net.ConnectException: Connection timed out/archive/2006_02_01_archive.html
. Only one folder would end up being created, after about 10 minutes of 0% progress.
After filing a support request with both Blogger and Network Redux, the latter was able to determine it was some sort of side-effect of using our domain name, versus our static IP. This is now the second time that having a static IP has bailed us out.
Thomas Brenneke, of Network Redux believes it could have something to do with Blogger having a bad cache of our domain name. Blogger was able to create the archives folder each time, but failed on everything else. This might have something to do with the logic Blogger uses to determine base paths for automatic links, like those in the “Previous Posts” section on the main page.
Blogger hasn’t gotten back to me yet, so I’m still unsure as to what the exact cause was. For now I’m content to using the IP address with Blogger. Though it would be nice to know what happened. If they respond, I’ll be certain to update this post.