Computers

Computers — 5 Comments
22
May 10

Adding a desktop graphics card to a laptop

The bane of Integrated Graphics, as the last remaining major hitch to gaming on an otherwise fantastic computer, I made it my mission to find a solution. No longer will the crappy Intel graphics chip (X4500MHD aka GM45) hold me back from fully enjoying contemporary PC games. And just in time too – Starcraft II is just around the corner.

The solution is called a (DIY) ViDock (Video Dock). Subtract the DIY portion and you’ve got a commercial product made by villagetronic. After seeing how outrageous the price was – it was ~$400 – I dug a bit deeper. It turns out that the components that make up the ViDock are pretty simple and easily obtainable.

To guide me throughout the quest I utilized a vibrant DIY community on notebookreview forums spearheaded by a diligent fellow by the alias of nando4. His knowledge hsa allowed the DIY’r spirit to flourish in many, myself included. Plus, the current form in which the technology now exists, it doesn’t take a genius to do what we’ve done.

Interested in using a 3d graphics card such as one produced by ATI or Nvidia? Then read on for a step-by-step account how.
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Computers — No Comments
6
Apr 10

A Windows-centric Migration Path to a new Solid State Drive

As a fan of Windows 7, and of new hardware technology in general, I took the train to SSD-land some two months ago.  Presented here is some of what I learned whilst accomplishing the migration. The specifics apply to Windows 7 based PCs, but the concepts could be adapted for other OSs.

Do you need to read all this?  You may need to completely reinstall Windows to take full advantage of the SSD. For instance, if you installed Windows 7 using any SATA mode (as set in your PC’s BIOS) other than AHCI, you will probably need to reinstall, though this workaround may work for you.

Not migrating to an Intel SSD? Rumor has it this SATA mode (AHCI) is not necessarily required. OCZ drives may function normally under IDE mode.

Regardless, I recommend that you read on, SSD adopting reader, for tips and insight in the great migration to a speedier computing experience.

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Computers — No Comments
25
Mar 10

What the FEFF?

Since I’ve been thinking I ought to write about my work more often, and inspired by the strangeness of this incident, here goes.



Visual of the Culprit

I’d been trying to debug how a few ?s came to be in an ad banner tag submission. I’d dug into change logs and other points where we log transactions to no avail. Since we’d never seen anything like it before, I’d basically decided I’d spent enough time on it and was about to resort to a “it was caused by network ghosts” type explanation. I figured the ?s came from some erroneous network transmission.

On our system, there was nothing strange in the tag field whatsoever. On the adserver though, there appeared some question marks, looking like this:

???<iframe src=”http://view.atdmt.com/M0N/…” frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no” marginheight=”0″ marginwidth=”0″ topmargin=”0″ leftmargin=”0″ allowtransparency=”true” width=”500″ height=”250″><script language=”JavaScript” type=”text/java …

Then, though when I don’t really know, it hit me. I should view that offending code in a more verbose setting, don x-ray specs if you will – my first choice was VI. Lo & behold, the offending characters appeared before my eyes.

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Computers — 1 Comment
16
Feb 10

Aboard the SuperSpeedDrive train

Alright, this isn’t really about a train, at least not the one that transports people and things from here to there. This “train” is more like a train-station; as in, one that stores and transports people to and from itself. The faster the station can process each person, or transaction, the quicker trains can come and go.

Until the past couple years, in a computer system, this station/storage-engine has been the slowest element. The SSD (Solid State Drive) is a new generation of hard drive that is really fast. Speed that is leaps and bounds above the current mainstream technology. It just can’t be stated enough, SSDs positively bring an entirely new level of performance to the slowest component in a modern computer. In order of magnitude, lets go back to that train metaphor:

The Traditional Hard Disk Drive

Speed of a new SSD

One primary source of speedup is the demise of the last truly mechanical internal computer component – not counting fans.  These mechanical hard drives are literally a spinning disk with a small arm that reads from them. The very nature of this interaction has physical limitations that electrons moving across silcon chips do not.  This fact alone gives these SSD drives speed potential far beyond their mechanical ancestors.

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Computers / News — 3 Comments
27
Jan 10

Apple’s new shit, the iPad

Apple has officially become predictable and trite.  Their newest product was unveiled today, by the big Apple ego, Jobs.  It is a super-sized iPhone/iPod.

big iPod

big iPod

It can’t play Flash, is tied to Apple’s various stores, intended for AT&T’s network, can’t <acronym title=”Meaning: only one application may run at any one time”>multi-task</acronym>, and its design is utterly and completely devoid of originality.  It is a “giant” [~10"] iPod touch with 3G [certain models only].  Thankfully MadTV already made fun of the name, which also screams of routine.

I’d love to see this product flop, but I hold no such delusions.  Apple’s golden age is in full effect.  Their shit is gold to a vast array of much-disposable-income consumers.  It will sell and probably pretty well.  Fact is, there isn’t anything quite like it.

My biggest complaint is that there are zero surprises.  None of that unique innovation that got Apple where it is today, is evident in this “new” device.  Do not pass go, but somehow collect $200 million dollars.  We know you’ll find a way.

Computers — No Comments
2
Jan 10

Considering the usefulness of computer lights

Are computer hardware activity indicators (in the form of flashing LEDs) an antiquated level of abstraction? Notifying the user ought to be left up to the software layer, i.e. the OS.  It is the best position to relay relevant information as directed by the level of user knowledge and interest.

Modern Apple computers got rid of nearly all the external LEDs.  But they didn’t go far enough for all users, as I have oft missed the flashy hardware-is-busy indicators.  Especially when the system is loaded-down and unresponsive; wtf’s going on? Hard disk activity lights are fairly good for this; oh, it’s caching to disk-hell.  MacBook’s have none and that swirling beach ball [of death] definitely doesn’t cut it.

IBM/Lenovo machines, namely the ThinkPad line, excel at these, possibly to the point of excess.  On my X200, there are sleep, A/C, power-on, battery, hard drive, caps lock, num lock, WAN, bluetooth, wireless, SD card, and ethernet LEDs.  They can be a bit distracting.  But my main quip is that even with all the lights, there’s much to be desired in terms of system-to-user info transfer.  As a computer hardware aficionado, I need to know what my system is doing.

many green lights

many green lights

Something in the system tray would serve just as well as all these LEDs; I don’t always want to see them.  Process Explorer, for Windows, is the best I know of.  It lives in the sys-tray and is an indicator light, of sorts, for processor/system load.  That little app’s feed back in tandem with the hardware lights provides a quick overview of my machine.  process_explorer
(For Linux, top and system-monitor serve nicely.)

If the little chart isn’t peaking and the hard drive light is flashing a bunch, the bottleneck is in the I/O layer, and vice versa.  While this is a rather simple generalization, it usually serves well enough to answer the wtf’s.

All things considered I rather have em than not. Also, the blinky lights provide some nostalgic value, like being on the bridge in the enterprise. Nostalgia sorta explains why that ridiculous *bong* Mac start up sound still lives on.