October 2007 Archives

Because I run a game news site, I use Google Alerts to scan the Internet for gaming news and deliver me a list of potential articles by email each day.  Today's list of potential material included the following listing (modified slightly to fit this site's format) about a new Nintendo Wii (pronounced "wee") game that cracked me up.  When I read Google's excerpt from the article, it just got funnier:

If you don't get the joke, read this site's entry for the word "wee" (which sounds like Wii).

Then consider the site's definition for "whack off".

Then put the two things together...

Then read the article excerpt for an added laugh, talking about allowing the player to have an artificial sensation based on arm and hand movement...

The laptop experiment continues.

I realize that earlier I didn't explain why this laptop is going to be running Linux. I looked for a system capable of running Mac OS X 10.3 and there weren't any on eBay, even some that needed work, in the under-$100 range I was aiming for. Otherwise, I would have considered picking up a Mac so that I could continue to find Mac-related topics to write about here, since I'm doing less Mac work at the office now. (However, if you have such a laptop lying around that you'd like to give me, by all means feel free to so. My email address appears in the "Contact" section on this site. Let me know you want to send me a Mac laptop and I'll give you the address to send it to. If it's one of the Intel models, I'll even refund your shipping via PayPal.)

I could have considered running the "Hackintosh" (i.e., hacked OS X) environment on a non-Apple laptop, but that would have meant not only breaking the law (which I wasn't about to do) but also acquiring a system with at least a Pentium 4 CPU (to have SSE2 and/or SSE3 instruction sets needed by OS X). The only laptops in that performance range on eBay when I looked were well outside my $100 budget constraint.

In fact, the only laptops within my budget constraint were Pentium III and below. In the Pentium III category I found several in my price range, including the one I eventually purchased. It had 128MB of RAM, a 10GB hard drive, no battery, no CD-ROM or DVD drive, no AC adapter, no carrying case, and no operating system or operating system sticker on the bottom. Fortunately, I had a couple of used batteries that were compatible in my basement from when I used to repair Dell laptops on the side. I also had a "universal" laptop power adapter that could power the unit. I even found a 64MB SODIMM to boost it to 192MB of RAM. I also had a PCMCIA wireless card I picked up a couple of years ago, made by Hawking. Amazingly, it all worked smoothly together and I was able to cobble together a dual-battery wireless system with only $46 out of pocket.

The only thing missing at this point was an OS. I think I still had a Windows 98 license around somewhere, but I didn't have a legal license to Windows 2000 or Windows XP, so I couldn't load those on the machine. Windows 98 is no longer supported by Microsoft and isn't such a great OS for random wireless browsing anyway. That left options like ReactOS (which is a Windows clone that isn't quite yet ready for primetime, but getting there), BeOS, Linux, and the like. Linux has the best hardware and software support of all those, so I opted for Linux. The next question was which Linux "distro" (distribution) to get. I already had CDs/DVDs for Red Hat Fedora Core, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Linspire, Debian, Gentoo, and 1-2 others I'd made for past experiments around the house. I ended up trying several of them. Ubuntu would boot into Live CD mode file, but the CD-ROM drive just ground and ground on the copies I had. Eventually I gave up because I would click an install option and have to wait an hour to see the result. For whatever reason (and I admit that it makes little or no sense to me), Kubuntu 6 worked and Ubuntu 7.04 didn't. So I chose Kubuntu because my copy of that distro's disk happened to be the one that worked.

Now that my eBay Special was up and running with the latest Kubuntu release, I was ready to start actually trying to use it. I was able to connect it to a nearby WiFi network successfully after loading it with Kubuntu, a Ubuntu Linux variant. While connected to the WiFi network, I upgraded it to the latest Kubuntu release (7.04 - though a newer one is about to come out) using instructions I found online. At that point, I was ready to begin loading it with applications, and I have to tell you it was easier than than either OS X or Windows would have been... by far!

To get the apps I knew I wanted loaded on the machine, I launched the Adept Installer, selected those applications from a list, and clicked "Apply Updates". Kubuntu obediently downloaded the applications and their dependencies, and installed them for me, all from that single click. Within minutes, I had FireFox, Scribus, Inkscape, and all the other applications I planned to use on the machine running for me. It was very slick and very impressive. And the apps all seem to work.

I loaded FireFox with some of my favorite extensions, including NoScript, AdBlock, Extended Copy Menu, DownThemAll and a few others. I populated it with bookmarks to all my sites (like this one) and some of my personal favorites like woot.com.

To make it completely usable for all my web work, however, I would need to find a Linux replacement for a tool I use to monitor game manufacturers' web sites for my game news site, gamerhotsheet.com. The tool I had been using up to this point was written for Windows using one of the Microsoft visual development tools, so it would not run as such on Linux (at least without WINE, which I would consider if I couldn't find a good alternative).

I've also decided that the 128MB of memory (plus another 64MB SODIMM I had lying around) wasn't going to be enough to keep this system running at peak efficiency. In fact, it seemed to be a bit sluggish already. I found some 256MB SODIMMs on eBay going at below $20 each and bid on those. If I get them, I'll be able to max the system at 512MB. That should help performance.

I've also decided that since this machine might be banging around in the car a lot, it might be good to ruggedize the data storage. Toward that end, I found a CompactFlash to 2.5" IDE adapter online and bought one. I'm hoping later to pick up a good-sized, fast CF card to place in it, then replace the old internal IDE drive with the adapter and CF card. That should minimize the potential for shock damage, at least to the data. To protect the screen, I ought to be able to find a decent-sized sleeve to put it in when I'm not using it, maybe something made out of thick neoprene.

To this point, I've spent $46 for the laptop, including shipping. If I can get the SODIMMs cheaply, I should be able to go to 512MB for $40-50, keeping inside my $100 budget. However, to implement the CF-to-IDE idea, I'm going to have to go over budget. The adapter was only $16. The CF card, though, could be a lot more - especially if I choose something like a 16GB Ultra III, which is perhaps the right thing to do. First, I want to test the adapter with one of my existing CF cards to see what the speed is like. If the adapter with an Ultra II flash card performs reasonably well, then it's worth investing in the bigger card. If it is too slow to be usable, then I can abandon the adapter and look at other options (like a decent backup or a spare drive).

I should point out that I am still waiting for word back from Dell on the master BIOS password to the unit so that I can fix some of the errant settings in the machine, such as date/time information and boot order.

Earlier this year, in my work as a system administrator, I was assigned to investigate why approximately 40 co-workers (out of 1700 using a PC or Mac) were having USB optical mouse issues. The symptoms were generally the same. While using the computer, the user's USB optical mouse would simply stop working. If they flipped the mouse over, it was as though the mouse was powered off. The laser would appear to have shut off. If they unplugged and re-plugged the mouse, it would nearly always come back to life. Only once in a while was it necessary to reboot the machine. Once in a great while, the USB keyboard would stop working as well. Again, unplugging and re-plugging seemed to fix it.

When I went through my first round of problems early in the year, a lengthy investigation proved that all of my 40 cases could be solved by performing the following steps:

1. Update the system BIOS from the manufacturer's web site. Sometimes this corrected the issue and no more work was needed.
2. Update the motherboard chipset drivers from the manufacturer's web site. Sometimes this corrected the issue and no more work was needed.
3. Update the mouse drivers from the mouse manufacturer's web site. Again, sometimes this corrected the issue and no more work was needed.
4. Replace the mouse with another mouse from stock.
5. Replace the keyboard with another keyboard from stock.
6. Install a self-powered USB hub between the computer and the mouse/keyboard.

The above 6 remedies seemed to take care of all 40 users.

Then, about 3 weeks ago, the problem reared its ugly head again. This time, the above 6 steps didn't work. People who were run through all 6 of them still had the problem. Our help desk bumped the problem back to me to resolve, since I'd handled the one earlier in the year.
This time I went through a pretty thorough search on the web, Microsoft's knowledgebase, Dell's knowledgebase, etc. What I learned was interesting. When I searched for mouse failures as a whole, probably 99% of the time it was an optical mouse that failed. Moreover, it was almost always a USB optical mouse that failed. This was true on Mac OS X, Linux, Windows, and one or two other lesser-known operating systems. The brand of mouse didn't seem to matter, either. I read about the problem existing with every major brand and even some generic types. It made me wonder about the reliability of USB optical mice.

As a troubleshooting step, I suggested that we identify 1-2 of our users who were having the most "mouse failures". We swapped them with some new mechanical (i.e., old "ball style") mice from stock. The problems vanished for those users. As a follow-up step, I attacked the users' former optical mice to my system. Sure enough, I began seeing the problem myself.

An interesting observation occurred when we had one user who wanted to attach both an older mechanical mouse and an optical mouse to his Windows XP Pro system at the same time. He found that his optical mouse would fail, while the mechanical one kept working normally. (And again, when I swapped his optical mouse for mine, I began to see the problem myself.)

Another interesting observation was made after we installed Microsoft Windows XP Hotfix 914015 and 918365 on the affected systems. Occasionally the mouse would stop working as before, but within a couple of seconds it tended to come back to life on its own without any effort. (Please do not ask me for these hotfixes. If Microsoft won't provide them to you, I can't help as it would be illegal to do so.)

So it appears to me at the moment that we may have two separate issues here. The first issue is that there is a bug in the Windows XP Pro USB stack that causes a mouse to go offline if it asks to have the USB controller reset due to an error. The Microsoft hotfix takes care of that. The other issue is that we seem to have quite a few defective USB mice on-hand. In fact, I pulled one randomly out of stock and tested it, and it turned out to be defective. I confirmed this by attaching it to a Mac OS X system (in addition to a Windows XP system) and finding the same result, the mouse quit working.

I have a suspicion that the reliability of USB optical mice is not as high as we all might think. Just gauging from the numbers I'm seeing at our site, as many as 3% of the optical mice in use are in fact defective. Whether this is just the failure rate we should expect or whether it's symptomatic of a widespread defect in USB optical mice, I don't know.

In any case, it's caused me to add a few items to the above list of 6 steps:

7. Apply Microsoft Hotfix 914015 (if it's a Windows XP system).
8. Apply Microsoft Hotfix 918365 (if it's a Windows XP system).
9. Test the user's mouse on a system that isn't currently experiencing the mouse issue and give the user a mouse that hasn't been shown so far to have the problem.
10. Swap the optical mouse with a mechanical (roller ball type) mouse.
11. If the system and mouse support it, try installing the mouse on a PS/2 port instead of USB. We didn't see these issues with PS/2 mice on any platform.

Those steps, so far, seem to eliminate the problem in all cases. Perhaps they'll help you if you're experiencing a problem with your USB mouse.

Given that WiFi seems to be proliferating throughout the areas where I live, work, and vacation, I thought it might be nice to have a laptop I could keep in the car with me and pull out whenever I happened to be stuck somewhere bored and do some blogging, writing, or whatever. My requirements for the system would be the following:

Total expenditure: $100 or less. That way, if someone breaks in the car and steals it or I smash it in some way, I'm not going to be too devastated since I will hopefully have gotten my $100 worth out of it.

Technology: Needs to be WiFi capable. Needs to be able to run something "reasonably current" in terms of operating system (e.g., Windows 2000, Mac OS X 10.3 or later, Linux 6.x kernel). Needs enough storage to hold a basic set of applications, including but not necessarily limited to the OS, an Office Suite (probably OpenOffice.org), web browser(s), GIMP, and other apps useful to me in blogging and writing.

I began searching eBay for used laptops. The ones listed as being in actual working order were all close to $200 when they sold. That was way out of the budget for this little experiment. Eventually, I settled on a Fujitsu LifeBook S-4546 that was listed without a hard drive or power adapter for about $40. I managed to win the auction and receive the laptop. Unfortunately, it's either dead or I haven't found the right power supply for it. I put it aside when I found that it also was missing a hard drive interface cable.

I searched eBay again, and managed to get a Dell Inspiron 3800 for around $50 shipped. Like the Fujitsu, it was missing an optical drive, battery, and AC adapter.. However, unlike the Fujitsu, it happened to use parts I had on hand from an old Dell Latitude CPxJ 750GT that I once used. I slapped a battery and DVD-ROM drive into it. Unfortunately, some idiot left an admin password in the BIOS and I couldn't convince it to boot from an operating system CD.

Since I work with Dells a lot, I know that they have a "master BIOS password" that can be used to unlock a system if you forget the password you (or someone else) has set. To get that password, however, you have to be able to prove ownership and possession of the laptop. I started a chat session with a Dell tech and managed to convince them to have someone look the password up for the system. Unfortunately, the techs who did that particular task were gone for the day.

The next day, I chatted with another Dell tech. They went to get the password for me, but found that their internal communication system was down and they couldn't reach the appropriate person(s).

Later in the same day, I chatted with another tech, who told me that they were having internal communication issues and she couldn't get the password either.

In the chat log she sent me, there was a reference to an address I could email to get help if the chat system wasn't doing it for me. I compiled all the information Dell's technicians had previously asked me into simple paragraph and emailed it to that address last Friday. It's late on Monday and no response yet.

In the meantime, I borrowed a Dell Latitude CP laptop (which is very similar to the Inspiron) and swapped hard drives with the Inspiron. I planned to load Ubuntu 7.04. Unfortunately, something about Ubuntu 7.04 just didn't get along with that laptop. It literally took 5-10 minutes to boot (from multiple copies of the CD). I then tried Linux Desktop XP 2006, which worked fine but I decided I didn't like. I then tried the new Vixta.org distribution, which loaded fine and looked great, but wouldn't install for some reason (even though the system met the specs). I pulled out an old Ubuntu 6 CD and booted from that. It installed without a hitch. I put the drive back in the Inspiron and it was once again functional as a laptop.

Ubuntu had appropriate video drivers, keyboard drivers, mouse drivers, sound drivers, etc. Everything seemed to be working properly when I went to bed last night.

The next step will be to plug a Dell wireless card I have into the machine and see if I can make it "speak WiFi". If so, I'll move on to working with the software configuration on the machine.

Consider this a "cautionary tale" about rental cars... Names are being altered to protect the innocent and not-so-innocent...

Earlier this year, my wife and I rented a mini-van from an outfit we'll call "Nifty Rent-A-Car" (though that's not their name). We picked up the vehicle at a nearby Nifty rental office and headed off for a vacation. The next day, at our destination, we were rear-ended by a young driver. He was going so fast in the 35 mph zone that he knocked our stopped mini-van into the vehicle in front of us, knocking that vehicle into the car in front of it, and spinning his own vehicle two lanes over and in front of the three others. In other words, it's unlikely he was going anywhere near 35 when he hit us.

The damage to the back of our rental van and his vehicle was extensive. The rental van and the two other cards were drivable. His car had to be towed. We were all shaken, but fortunately there appear to have been no serious injuries... at least nothing that has shown up yet.

After getting the police report, having breakfast, and going back to our rented condo, we called the rental car company to tell them about the accident, provide police report information, etc. We also contacted my insurance company to have their involvement. The insurance company, which I'll call "Commonwealth Ranch" (though that's not their name), treated me extremely well. They spoke with me at length about the accident, explained what I needed to do at each step of the process, etc. I have always been pleased with that insurance company and this didn't change that.

Nifty Rent-A-Car wasn't quite so easy to deal with. We left messages, called various numbers, and asked to have the car swapped with another since the tailgate in this one was no longer usable. After several very frustrating calls, we were given two options. One was to continue driving the van, but if Nifty's people spotted it and decided that it was in their opinion "disabled" they would tow it away and we wouldn't have one. The other was to drive 3-4 hours away to their nearest location and exchange it. Since I was on vacation, the last thing I wanted was 6-8 hours in the damaged van doing nothing else, after having had an 10 hour drive to get to the vacation destination. So I opted for option one and made the mental note never to rent from Nifty ever again.

The next day, someone else at Nifty got one of the messages we left on their voicemail. This person must have been having a better day. He not only volunteered to replace the car, but offered to send someone to us to pick up the damaged one. It was a total 180-degree turnaround from the earlier frustrating calls. (Can you say bi-polar company?) The driver showed up when he promised he would, with a van that was comparable to the one we had originally, though not in quite as good a shape. But hey, it was an improvement and it wasn't wrecked, so that was fine with me. We swapped vehicles, I filled out some paperwork, and we finished our vacation.

When we returned home, we received a call from Countrywide Insurance (not their name) saying that they were accepting fault for the accident and would cover the costs of the claim. "Good," I thought, "that will be the end of that."

It wasn't. Last week I received a letter from Nifty, telling me that the insurance companies had paid all they were planning to pay and that I still owed them $5200+ for repairs to their vehicle. If I "agreed" all I needed to do was give them a credit card number or check. That didn't sit well with me. It didn't sound right.

I called Commonwealth Ranch (my insurance company) and checked in with my claim adjuster there. She looked up the records and said that the insurance companies were disputing Nifty's claim that $4800 worth of damage was done to the van. She told me that they're aware that car rental companies negotiate repair parts and labor discounts with body shops, and that while it might have cost you or me $4800 to repair the damage done to the van, Nifty probably paid a bit less. She said they'd asked Nifty to provide an invoice showing the "actual" amount of damages to the vehicle, but Nifty had not provided one, so they naturally had no paid.

She also told me that some car rental companies, and apparently Nifty was one of them, would try to get the customer to pay money if they didn't like how fast the insurance companies were or weren't moving. Essentially, if I had paid the $5200 Nifty was asking for, I was paying for the repair, their "loss of use" of the rental car, and various other fees, which were the responsibility of Countrywide Insurance. Countrywide had by no means told Nifty they wouldn't pay what they owed them, they just wanted proof that Nifty had paid that much to fix the car. As soon as they provided that proof, they'd get their money. So the request they sent to me was essentially an attempt to scare me into paying for the damage in lieu of the person who caused the accident and their insurance company.

Uh, no, Nifty... I wasn't at fault for the accident, my insurance isn't finished with you, and the driver who was at fault has insurance which hasn't paid you yet. When you've gotten what you can from the insurance companies and the other driver, we'll talk about what I might owe you - but I think that will be a big fat zero.