Smart is knowing how to fix something.
Smarter is knowing how not to break it.
The day after the big wedding, my younger daughter popped the SmartMedia card out of her digital camera and slid it into the card reader. After copying the contents to the computer, she removed the memory card from the reader and slipped in the second card. She couldn't read it, so she brought it to me.
I slid the card into my camera and the camera dutifully reported "media failure". Considering that would be half of the pictures she had taken at her older sister's wedding, I concluded that we had a problem.
"Did you use the 'eject' function?" I asked "Or did you just pull the card out?"
She had just pulled one card out and put the other in. Windows 2000 and Windows XP use a "delayed write" mechanism to make operations faster. To make sure everything that's supposed to be written has been written, removable media such as memory cards should be "ejected" instead of just being removed. I'd told her that, but it had been a year ago and she hadn't encountered the problem before.
Knowing what caused the problem couldn't fix the problem, but it could keep the problem from occurring again. Already she was smarter.
But what to do about the missing pictures? I knew they were on the card. The primary problem was that the directory had been scrambled in such a way that cameras and readers saw the media as "unformatted". Because the images were still on the card, all I had to do was find a way to get them off the card; but (catch-22) the reader knows there's nothing on an "unformatted" card and it refused to allow me to copy the data onto the hard drive where I might have a chance to figure out where one image's data stream ended and the next image's data stream began.
So I called Olympus and described the problem. They confirmed that the information would probably still be on the card and suggested a $40 shareware program from LC Technology (http://www.lc-tech.com/), a company that specializes in tools for file undelete, data recovery, image recovery, digital media recovery, and training courses in computer forensics and security assessment.
I bought the program, downloaded it, installed it, and within 5 minutes had all but 2 of the images from the card. The application, PhotoRecovery for Digital Media, recovers images from SmartMedia, CompactFlash, Memory Sticks, SD Cards, CD, MiniDisk, and most other media used by digital cameras.
Among the company's other products is FileRecovery for Windows, to retrieve files that have been deleted from a hard disk, even if those files are no longer in the recycle bin. The company says that the search engine makes finding deleted files a task anyone can perform. Based on the way PhotoRecovery for Digital Media, I'm inclined to believe them.
For heavy duty needs, there's FileRecovery Professional. This application allows the user to recover data from damaged disk drives. FileRecovery Professional scans drives and finds lost partitions, boot sectors, and other file system components. It features what the company calls a "Recovery Wizard" so that even novice users can successfully recover lost data.
Smallest KVM may be the best
I have 2 (and sometimes 3 or 4) computers on the desk. Giving each a keyboard, a mouse, and a monitor would mean that I have no desk left. To avoid computer gridlock, I installed a pricey KVM (keyboard video mouse) switch several months ago. It had a nasty habit of locking up the keyboard about every 5th time I pressed the Ctrl key.
And because I use a lot of keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl-S at the end of every paragraph, frequent Ctrl-C or Ctrl-X followed by Ctrl-V, Ctrl-W, Ctrl-Q, and more, I experienced a lot of keyboard lockups. To clear the problem, I had to reach out to the KVM, press the button, wait a second, and press the button again.
Then IOGear sent me a small (they call it bagel-size) inexpensive (about $50) KVM that doesn't even have a switch to push. It sat around for several weeks until I had to move some wires around to install a hardware firewall. That seemed like a good opportunity to swap KVM devices.
Now to switch from one computer to the other, all I have to do is press the Scroll Lock key twice. No need to even take my hands off the keyboard. And since installing the IOGear KVM switch my keyboard has locked up how many times? None. Not once.
Because the "bagel" part doesn't have a switch, I can stow it behind one of the computers and that gives me back a small (but still useful) piece of my desk.
One rating that's applied to KVM switches is the screen resolution and refresh rate that the switch will handle. My monitor is a 17-inch LCD with a native resolution of 1184x1024, which is near the top end of the switch's rating (1920x1440). LCD monitors need to be run at their native resolution whenever possible to avoid image problems and I've noticed that the IOGear KVM introduces just a little fuzziness into the display. While this is troubling, I'm more than willing to accept slight image degradation if it means I can eliminate they frequent keyboard-lockup problems.
If the fuzziness becomes too annoying, I can use the KVM to switch the mouse and keyboard. Because the monitor has two inputs, I can plug both computers in to the monitor and use the monitor's switch. Or I could pop for one of IOGear's higher-end models. I suspect that a switch rated at 2048 x 1536 would reduce or eliminate the minor problems I see with the "bagel".
If your desk has multiple computers and you want to get rid of some of the clutter, take a look at what IOGear has to offer.
Our new best friend: The light-emitting diode
Last year I was in St. Louis and I spent some time driving around the city. I decided that the city must have been visited by a traffic control device sales representative because every single traffic light I saw was new. How could I tell? The lights weren't the traditional bulb-and-lens assemblies. Each light had three arrays of light-emitting-diodes. These are the same lights that are becoming common on trucks, on buses, and (increasingly) on cars.
It costs more to create an array of light-emitting diodes than it does to install a reflector, a light, and a lens, but LEDs will be lighting the future because they save money -- possibly a lot of money -- in the long term. Some of the advantages:
- LEDs use 80% less electricity than standard light bulbs.
- LEDs appear to be brighter.
- LEDs last 10 times as long as standard bulbs. (For traffic control devices, this means that the city won't have to send people out to change the bulbs as often and that motorists will rarely approach an intersection where a bulb has burned out.)
LEDs aren't yet lighting our homes and offices, but they will begin to show up there by the end of this decade. For the home and office market, there are additional advantages:
- Little or no heat.
- They turn on instantly and there is no flicker.
- The user can change the color.
Color? You won't see this at home right away because to accomplish it, your lights will have to be hooked up to a computer of some sort. But for commercial buildings, this is something that's being talked about today. Imagine a restaurant that could change the mood of its lighting at the flick of a computer program -- vibrant for lunch, romantic for dinner. Or a theater that could match the low-level lighting that remains on during the movie to the action on the screen.
Nerdly News
Intel: "Oops!"
Intel has been promoting the latest and greatest 3GHz Pentium 4 processor, but now the company has halted shipments. There's a bug in the chip. It's not as significant as the floating-point math bug several years ago, but it's sufficiently serious to halt shipments.
The bug doesn't affect the entire production run. An Intel spokesman says it's a problem with only a small number of the processors with an 800MHz bus. Those in a position to know something about the problem have indicated that it appears to be in the front-side bus interface.
Dell is still listing its Dimension 4300 system, which is built with the processor. Gateway is continuing to list its computers built with the chip, too, so manufacturers apparently are expecting a short delay in shipments.
For most of us, this isn't a big deal. The Canterwood/800MHz FSB Pentium 4 systems are designed for the high-end performance segment. These aren't machines the casual user buys. Perhaps a few hundred thousand chips may have to be recalled.
The 3GHz Pentium processor is the first to ship with a 200MHz frontside bus (800MHz effective data rate). The CPUs, in standard 1000-unit quantities sold to manufacturers, are priced at $417.
GoodbyeSpam update
Since I started using it, GoodbyeSpam has examined 25,180 messages. It has blocked
7,115 (28%),
approved
15,827
(63%) and quarantined
2,238 (9%). Most of the quarantined messages end up being deleted. On Friday, GoodbyeSpam looked at 619 messages, blocked 199, approved 356, and quarantined 64. The accuracy continues to improve and it's now properly identifying about 99% of the spam I receive properly (meaning 1 or 2 spams get through per day). It also misidentifies as spam 1 or 2 messages per day; these are errors that are caused by my somewhat overly broad definition of terms that might be in a spam message.
Let us know what you think about this program! Write to:
Bill Blinn --
(wtvn@blinn.com still works)
Joe Bradley -- |
