Dark mode

The next version of Android (Q) and iOS (13) all come with something called dark mode or dark theme. I feel so old when I read this. I remember way back when computer monitors were all black with glowing green text. For a while I had a Toshiba laptop with plasma screens that had amber text and it always drew attention whenever I used it. When "active matrix" LCD monitors came out it was said that white backgrounds is more like paper and easier on the eyes. It took me quite a while to get used to the shiny white background, but it was actually such a huge improvement for someone that sites in front of the monitor more than 10 hours a day eventually I got used to the white backgrounds.  However, whenever I need a terminal I still like to have a black TCC/LE terminal or blue PowerShell (actually PowerShell Core is now black too).

Although everything had gone white there are some exceptions, for example Photoshop has always had a dark interface, which I feel is beneficial since it allows focusing on the work. This is the same reason I like having a black Kindle since it makes the text easier to read. But dark mode? Everything is backwards all over again. Since when is black easier on the eyes?

Logitech R500 Laser Presentation Remote

I have the Logitech R400 Laser Presentation Remote and I love it. So when I noticed that the R500 was released I looked for an excuse to get one. Unfortunately, since the R400 is so good, I had a really hard time of coming up with an excuse, until I was driven to the brink of madness by a user who doesn't know the difference between "press" and "hold".

Whenever I let others borrow my R400, they have a really difficult time of figuring out all the buttons. It's just not obvious for some people that the right-pointing arrow button with the bump on it is the next slide button, and the left-pointing arrow button is the previous slide button. And let's not talk about the start/stop slide button and the blank screen button. And with all the keys placed close together they keep accidentally pressing the wrong button and gets totally lost and confused. And as mentioned above, what always drives me crazy is that I like to set my key repeat rate really fast, and they often press and hold the next slide button and end up on the very last page then exits the presentation. Gah!

The R500's three separate, giant buttons really helped with the wrong button problem. The huge button with the right-pointing arrow is instantly obvious that it's for going to the next slide. And to my greatest surprise, the R500 no longer has the repeat button problem. Powerpoint slides will only change when the change slide buttons are pressed and then released. It doesn't change immediately when the buttons are pressed, but rather changes when the buttons are released, and if you realize you made a mistake or changes your mind about changing slide, just keep holding down the button and the press will be canceled. (Note: not true, see paragraph below.) No more accidentally going through multiple slides with a long press. I feel a lot of thought must've gone into designing this feature and after using it for a few minutes it became second nature to me. Unfortunately, as I'm writing this I have a bad feeling that the users will be confused again, especially since the slide change action happens at button release rather than button press.

One other difference is that the R400 sends out PgUp/PgDn keypresses to the computer, while the R500 sends out Left/Right keypresses. A side effect of this change is that when using the R400 to change pages in PDF documents, in can scroll until the very end. The R500 couldn't page down to the very end since the Left/Right keys only changes pages but won't scroll to the very end like PgDn does.

Oh, since the R500 has less physical buttons, the start/stop slide and blank screen functions can only be enabled by installing a driver (Windows / MacOS only) and holding down buttons. But I think for most users the driver installation would be unnecessary and press and hold will only confuse more people. Ooh, I just realized what I wrote above about holding down a button to cancel the press is actually hold down for second function. Yeah, I'm totally sure that so many people will be confused by this. Therefore, installing the driver is totally not recommended.

Even though the USB dongle is now tiny compared to the one on the R400, the R500 supports Bluetooth connectivity which is a really nice plus for computers that no longer have standard USB ports (Macbooks) or for mobile phones. Reviews on the net says there's frequent disconnect with Bluetooth but I had no such problems. Another change is the R500 uses a single AAA battery vs. two on the R400. Probably shorter battery life. Oh, and no power switch on the R500, so if you leave it in your bag, accidental presses could shorten battery life. Another tiny difference is that the laser on the R500 is "less stable" than the R400's. Probably not noticeable for most people, but I noticed with cheap laser pointers or low powered laser pointers, the laser point tends to flicker or drift, and the R500 does this, but as I said, not really noticeable and most people probably can't hold the remote that steadily anyway.

The one drawback I found is that the R500's plastic body and buttons feel really cheap. I don't really care for so called "premium" leather body products, but the R500 just feels cheap in the hand. As for the buttons, if I have to make a comparison, it's as if the R400 has high quality laptop style keyboard keys, while the R500 has cheap calculator keys.

Siemens PG 720 PII

The Siemens PG series was specialized notebook with a special port for connecting to their PLC devices. Many years ago I asked Siemens whether we could use a regular notebook and buy just the special PLC adapter, they said it was possible and is actually recommended. However, the the purchasing people said we're rich, and Siemens notebooks are very rugged and should last much longer than regular notebooks, so we ended up buying a PG 720 PII for a lot of money.

And rugged they are! I got called in recently to support the PLC, and was surprised to find that the PG still worked.

This is what a new PG 720 P looks like, picture found on the net. The PII is identical except for better hardware specs. Oh, one special thing about the PG 720 PII we have (not sure about the P) is that it has a 2.88 MB floppy disk drive with laser tracked heads so it was able to read any floppy disk we throw at it. Back when we used a lot of floppy disks I used to borrow the PG just to read the bad disks.

It has a keyboard that also works as the screen cover, ours was long broken so it was just unplugged and replaced with regular mouse and keyboard. The LCD screen still works but is cracked and faded, so we use an external monitor. The plastic around the screen was all brittle. I wanted to move the PG a bit for a better angle to photograph and another huge chunk of plastic broke off. The engineers yelled at me to get my hands off his precious. Good times.

Fake Logitech Wireless Presenter R400

I've been looking to buy a Logitech Wireless Presenter R400 since my ex-boss stole mine. The R400 is like the pinnacle of the PowerPoint remote since it does everything so well without any fuss, and it's backed by a well-known brand. I briefly considered again getting the R800 with green laser and vibrating alarm, but the few times I used green laser pointers in my presentations, the overly bright green laser only served to annoy my audience.

Anyway, if you've looked at online shops selling the R400, you might've noticed there are tons and tons of cheap "genuine" R400's. I found a shop selling one slightly cheaper than retail, and it showed the packaging with the Logitech logo, and it has hundreds of feedbacks claiming the shop is really good and the product is genuine. All the signs point to it being fake, so I bought one immediately.

Well, I couldn't lose anything. If it's fake I'll just return it, if it's genuine I've got myself a good deal, so here it is. Oops, I forgot to take a picture without the outer wrapper, but it says Logitech R400 on the box, and it has the old Logitech logo. Hundreds of online shops show this genuine blister packaging. Inside the plastic shell it still looks fine, but once unwrapped...

Comparing to a genuine R400. All images has the genuine on the left and fake on the right. I lost my original R400 when my ex-boss stole it. The one pictured in this post is a new one I just bought from an authorized dealer at list price after the fake one turned out to be, well, fake. Click the images to see close-ups.

The genuine one has better plastic and all the silk screening on the buttons as well as the buttons themselves are well-aligned. The genuine one has somewhat shinier plastic on the buttons, but the rest of the body feel similar.

As said above, the bodies feel quite similar, so that's a good thing for the fake one if you just want a cheap PowerPoint remote and don't care much for quality. There are many really cheap "R400-style" presenters being sold without the Logitech logo, but this is being sold as a Logitech R400, so I'm calling it a counterfeit. Notice my genuine one has the new Logitech logo that they started using around mid-2015.

The laser covering of the genuine one is curved and shaded. The fake one is flat and clearer so you can see the hole behind the covering.

The power slider of the fake one is really difficult to slide, and the shape of the switch doesn't quite fit inside the cutout so you can see a bit of green there. On the fake R400, the red sticker that's supposed to be shown when the remote is off is missing.

The battery compartment look similar except for the text, but the springs are lower quality on the fake one, and the batteries don't sit so well. Oh, and the fake one doesn't come with batteries. The genuine one has the newer R-R0008 part number while the fake one has the old R-R0004 part number. The fake one is missing a serial number.

The battery covers look similar, but the genuine one is shiny inside while the fake is matte. The battery cover of the fake one doesn't fit quite well and will fall inside if pushed too hard. Funnily enough the two battery covers are incompatible with each other.

The USB receivers look very similar, but the genuine one is shinier. The fake one appears to have markings that look used, but it came that way.

They come with different storage bags. This is just a difference with the year of production. Older R400's also came with the pouch on the right side, while newer ones have the low cost cloth pouch. The fake R400 comes with the old style pouch, but it feels rough compared to the genuine one that my ex-boss stole.

And finally, this is what a current genuine Logitech R400 packaging looks like. Even though the Logitech website still shows the old logo, but they're being sold with the new logo and new style packaging. And instead of being called wireless presenters, they're now called laser presentation remotes.

Can't boot into Windows after BIOS update

I think the scariest thing for a sysadmin is Windows failing to boot, especially after an unnecessary (?) BIOS update. Recently we got two Lenovo ThinkServer TS150's. They're cheap and work really well, and we quickly put one into production since the old server just suddenly up an died. So I was staring at the other server sitting there doing nothing except having a brand new install of Windows Server 2016, and seeing that the BIOS is dated 2016 and the latest is 2018, so I decided to upgrade the BIOS.

After the flashing was completed and the system rebooted, I got a black screen and this text: Error code 1962 - No operating system found. Well, the BIOS must've been reset to defaults. Go into BIOS, nope, everything is same as before. Maybe there are new BIOS options... tried some different configurations... didn't work... tried every possible configuration... didn't work... tried resetting to defaults... tried optimized setting... tried swearing... nothing worked. Luckily I have the other TS150, but since it's in production I had to wait until midnight to take it offline to look at the BIOS. Compared all settings and they're all identical except for the BIOS dates. Tried all possible configurations again just in case I missed something.

Next, I tried using Linux Live CD's, Windows 10 Live DVD's, and also Window' own rescue mode to flash different versions of the BIOS. Nothing worked. Tried going back to the original BIOS dated from 2016 but it wouldn't let me. Apparently there was a security update in 2017 and they disabled going back to older versions.

Next, I used rescue mode and the bootrec command to tried to fix the boot sectors. No go.

Gave up. Tried installing Windows from scratch. Nope, Windows complains that it can't be installed to this disk because the hardware may not support booting to this disk. Nooooooooooooooo.

Punch reset button in frustration. So while I was tearing my hair out again and pondering what to do next, I suddenly saw the familiar screen.

And next thing I know, Windows Server 2016 was booted up like nothing has happened.

After much head scratching, I discovered the reason it booted was because it was booting from the Windows install DVD, and because I was tearing my hair out and ignoring the server, the "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD..." prompt timed out, and it automatically booted into Windows. Nothing was changed in the BIOS, the boot sequence was correct, and after testing I confirmed that it will only boot Windows if it was booting from the DVD initially then let the prompt time out.

So... apparently after any BIOS update, something somewhere got modified in the boot sector and it would no longer boot correctly. But booting from the DVD then letting it time out seemed like a really strange thing, since this suggested the hard drive's boot sector was still functioning properly, it just wouldn't boot as the first boot device. Tried searching Google for this problem and found thousands and thousands of people with similar problems and no real fix except things I've already tried. Most ended up reinstalling Windows, which didn't work for me.

Well, after a week of even more head scratching, I finally came up with a working and reproducible solution (workaround). The ThinkServer came pre-configured with two hard drives which are configured as RAID1 array using the onboard Intel RSTe. I'm guessing the problem could be related to the Intel chipset and the RAID array configuration, but a BIOS update should not mess it up so much. Anyway, the fix was to remove one of the hard drives from the RAID array by booting into the Intel RSTe configuration screen and selecting the option "Reset Disks to Non-RAID". Remove one of the drives then add it back immediately. After that reboot into Windows using the DVD workaround method above. After the array was re-built, Windows could boot normally again.

Now let me go test this on my production server.

300 dpi

Twenty years ago, I bought my very first laser printer, the HP LaserJet IIIp. It had amazingly sharp printout compared to typical printers of the day, and it was 300 dpi. Today, we have 300 dpi on a tablet computer. I wonder what we'll see in another twenty years?

Slave to PowerPoint

PowerPoint remotes are one the most ovepriced things on the planet. I could get a whole set of wireless keyboard and mouse for less than the price of a wireless remote with three buttons. Sure, I get an integrated laser pointer with the remote, but laser pointers are such cheap things they shouldn't bring up the price of hte remote.

I do quite a bit of presentation these days, and it's always a pain to hover over my notebook to advance to the next slide instead of being able to walk around and mesmerize the audience with my charisma and wit. Fortunately, a few weeks ago I discovered a Chinese-made wireless remote in a local shop that doesn't cost several arms and legs. Surely enough, the first one I got had stiff buttons with bad contacts that took several presses to register a single press. I took it back to the shop and got a second one. The second one still had stiff buttons (I realized then that's how it was designed), but at least each press would register correctly, so I was actually very happy with it. It's a really simple remote with just three buttons: PgUp, PgDn, and laser pointer. It doesn't even have a power switch, but the buttons are stiff enough to not be pressed accidentally. (Funnily enough, I discovered Amazon.com sells this particular remote here.)

However, PowerPoint remotes are like crack, so after using the cheapo remote for a while, I finally ended up with the Real Thing (tm). The Logitech Wireless Presenter R400. There is also a more expensive "Professional" Presenter R800 with Green Laser Pointer and vibrating alarm. But I tested some green laser pointers and they only proved to be a distraction.

Officially, the Logitech R400 (and R800 as well) don't work with Mac OS X. The reason is quite simple really. The presenter is seen by newer Macs as a regular keyboard, but the buttons on the remote are hard wired to send out F5/ESC (start/stop presentation), "." (blank screen), PgUp, and PgDn; which are the standard keys for PowerPoint for Windows. The remotes are not magically designed to work only with PowerPoint for Windows, they just happen to be mapped that way because those key presses are the de-facto standard, which is why they work fine for Windows and even Linux. But OS X people prefer different keyboard shortcuts, so for Keynote or whatever other OS X apps that don't follow the Windows style standard, you can either change the default shortcut keys using Keyboard Shortcuts from System Preferences, or re-map the remote to send the correct key presses. This post and KeyRemap4MacBook (great name!) teaches you how accomplish this.

In fact, even though I do use Windows and PowerPoint, I still need to remap the F5/ESC key since it's such a pain in the butt to accidentally press the start/stop button during a presentation, and then accidentally press it again to start my presentation all over from the beginning! (They should've at least made it Shift-F5 to resume presentation from the current slide.) The solution is to use HID macros, which can detect key presses originating from different keyboards (or really HID devices) and re-map them accordingly. So I can re-map the F5/ESC on my R400 to send out something besides F5 and ESC, without messing with my actual F5 and ESC keys.

Oh, while writing this, I discovered that Epson finally has 64-bit USB display drivers for their projectors. They used to only have 32-bit drivers. Using a USB cable to connect to the projector is far better than connecting using a regular VGA cable.

Fixing lock up on SerialPort.Close()

Earlier this year I bought several Arduino boards to do some hardware interfacing and programming. It all worked out pretty well excep the part where the application locks up completely.

The Arduino connects to the computer using USB, but it emulates a serial port, it's really easy to communicate with the Arduino using the standard SerialPort Class in Visual Basic 2008, but the application sometimes locks up when I'm done using the serial port and attempt to close it. A Google search reveals hundreds of other people facing the same issue, and apparently no easy solution. So after some head banging, I found that the trick was to put the SerialPort.Close() method into a thread, and also handle the I/O exception that sometimes happens. See below for code.

Instead of just closing the port, I created a thread:

Dim t As New Thread(AddressOf ClosePort)

t.Start()

And put the actual Close() method into a subroutine:

Public Sub ClosePort ()
    SerialPort1.Close()
End Sub

In the subroutine that handles DataReceived events, I added an exception handler:

Private Sub SerialPort1_DataReceived(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.IO.Ports.SerialDataReceivedEventArgs)
    On Error Resume Next
    Me.Invoke(New myDelegate(AddressOf updateTextBox), New Object() {})
End Sub

In this example, the subroutine invokes the updateTextBox subroutine, which does a ReadLine on the serial port and sends the captured data to a textbox.

It's obvious by now that because SerialPort.Close() sometimes waits on DataReceived and the UI, so just closing the port when that occurs hangs the application. By putting SerialPort.Close() into a new thread, instead of the application hanging, the DataReceived event started giving exceptions due to the port being closed, so handling the exception fixed that issue. At first I tried removing the event handler, but that only reduced the frequency of the exceptions, but did not completely get rid of it. Using an exception handler was probably best, but also see disclaimer below.

Disclaimer: I'm not a programmer, and this may not be the best way or even the right way to solve the serial port lock up issue, but it works for me.

WRT54GL vs. H2O

This is the PCB of a good old Linksys WRT54GL that was completely submerged for approximately one month during the Great Thailand Flood of 2011. Oh, the router was actually placed on a desk, the water level was much much higher than that.

My domain and database servers were all safe since they were on the second floor, but I had to evacuate them (by boat) to another site, which I'll write in detail the next time. Computers that were on the ground floor were all dead, either directly by water or rusted by the humidity. Some I could actually salvage the hard drives or CPU's since the water level was lower, others were completely underwater.

Samsung S1 Mini

I have a 32 GB Kingston DataTraveler 200 Flash drive that I carry with me wherever I go for installing warez^H^H^H^H^Happlications. I have an older 4 GB Kingston DataTraveler Elite that I use for data.

Frankly, 32 GB isn't enough in these days of multi-gigabyte applications, and I really don't like to carry around a 2.5" portable drive, even though I have several of those. I've been wanting to get something larger, perhaps the 128 GB DataTraveler 200, but the price is just slightly out of my reach. (Actually, I paid more for the 4 GB DT Elite back in 2005 compared to the 128 GB DT 200 today, but it's painful to pay such high prices year after year to get the latest and greatest.) So when I came across the Samsung S1 Mini, a portable 1.8" with a reasonable price, I bought it immediately. The S1 Mini comes in six different colors, I bought the black one to go with my ThinkPad. The S1 Mini has been out for around two years, but it was never available here.

Here's a comparison shot between the WD My Passport Essential 500 GB portable drive, the Samsung S1 Mini, the Kingston DT 200, and Kingston DT Elite. The keyboard below is a ThinkPad X61 so it's slightly smaller than a standard sized keyboard.

One thing that always worries me when buying shrink-wrapped hard drives is how the USB port looks like. Sometimes drives claim to use standard USB ports, but they need a proprietary cable to fit into the proprietary hole. The iPhone was famous for this: it had a standard earphone jack, but it's recessed and most earphones won't fit into that hole. Portable hard drive reviews need to show how the USB port really looks like.

The drive speed is nothing to write home about. I didn't expect it to be any fast since it's a 1.8" drive, but it still me a long time to copy all my installation files from the DT200 to the S1 Mini.

Oops. I just noticed my mouse pointer got captured into the photos in this post. I was doing a demo earlier and needed to capture the mouse pointer, and I forgot to turn it off. I'm too lazy to remove them so I'll leave them as they are this time.

Acer D255 with Atom N550 available in stores

The picture above taken with my phone is way too blurry to read the spec list in the palm rest, but it's the Acer Aspire One D255 with the newfangled dual core Intel Atom N550 CPU that was just announced last week, and it's already in stores this week.

Specs are: Atom N550 (1.50 GHz, dual core), 1 GB DDR3 RAM, 320 GB HDD, 6-cell battery. No OS. For only 11,780 Baht, 7% tax included. Which would be US$375 at today's exchange rates. Three colors are available, blue, purple, and black.

Stupidly enough, right next to the new D255 was the older D255 with the Atom N450 (1.66 GHz, single core), 1 GB DDR 2 RAM, otherwise identical specs, selling for exactly the same price. I asked why anyone would want to buy the older model, and the salesperson looked at me strangely and told me that 1.66 is faster than 1.50, and DDR2 is cheaper than DDR3 so it's more affordable to upgrade. Right.

Lenovo S10-2 in da house

The newly introduced Lenovo S10-2 in shiny black.

The almost-full-size keyboard is much easier to type on than the S10's. The touchpad buttons are also much easier to press than the S10's.

Shot from the hinge area, showing the protruding 6-cell battery.

The very dim indicator lights. This picture actually shows the lights being on. The wireless indicator light blinks if Wi-Fi is turned off while Bluetooth is turned on.

In completely unrelated news. I also got a G-Shock DW-5600E. One of the cheaper ones, but I've wanted one for the longest time.

Update (2009-11-18): Five months later, the S10-2's hinge developed a crack. The S10-2's hinge suffers from a design problem: the screen can't be opened too wide without hitting a rubber stop. Unfortunately, often times if the netbook is placed on a low table or on the lap, the screen needs to be opened up wider for a better viewing angle.


This picture actually shows the screen opened up to the maximum angle. The area right behind the crack is the "screen stopper" that causes a stress point at the crack area.

AHCI vs. DVD writing

By far the most popular post in this blog is my AHCI article, which incidentally, was also one of the reasons I started this blog in the first place. On our most recently mainboard purchase spree, we bought the Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-US2H, which is a small upgrade over the GA-MA78GM-S2H. We also got some Phenom X4's this time for these boards, since they will be running as terminal servers. Oh, and since I liked these Gigabyte boards so much, we've not bought any more ASUS boards.

Eventhough I wrote the AHCI article, I've never paid much attention to actually putting it into practice, i.e. sometimes I still don't bother to swap the hard drive to the special SATA port to install the AHCI driver. But this time around, while "testing" the new Phenom X4 systems, I ran into a strange new problem: whenever I burn a DVD, the system locks up solid. After some head scratching, I noticed that the one difference with this new system was that it had a SATA DVD writer, and the system was still running in the default IDE mode.


So after doing the AHCI installation per my own instructions, everything was smooth, no more lockups. So it appears that using AHCI is still important, especially if SATA DVD writers are involved.

Lenovo IdeaPad S10 in black (day 7)

So, I've used the IdeaPad S10 extensively in the past week. Here are some additional thoughts. Some of the items are expande from my two previous posts.

The battery isn't that bad. Like I've already mentioned, battery life will keep going up as the battery is conditioned. I can easily get 3.5 hours of battery life now. I also have the LAN disabled since I never use LAN. Unfortunately it still can't compare to the Aspire One's 6-cell battery. A friend bought an Acer Aspire One ("A1") a few days ago, and it can easily get 5 hours of battery life, even on the very first charge. But then my ThinkPad T60 with the standard 6-cell battery gets less than two hours of life, so I'm happy.

The PgUp and PgDn keys are really badly done. Eventhough they have their own keys which sounds nice in theory, but in actual use, the keys are located in an awkward position, are too small, and I have to reach for them. It would have been really nice if they were put together with the cursor keys and accessed using the Fn key combination, like on the EEE PC. The cursor keys are full-sized, which means the right shift key has to be shifted to the right. The A1 has a standard right shift key, but then the arrow keys are tiny.

The Ctrl and Fn keys might be a problem for non-ThinkPad users, because the Fn key is on the outside/left, and Ctrl is on the inside/right. This is identical to the setup on ThinkPads, but opposite to other brands. Because my regular notebook is a ThinkPad T60, I have no problems. (And I do keep pushing the wrong key on the EEE PC.)

The keyboard is really really nice. I'm a fast typist (120+ WPM) and I can type at my regular speed on the S10. But then I can also type very fast on the EEE PC 701. (This post is typed on the EEE PC 701.) On comparison with the Aspire One, the A1's keyboard looks and feels nicer since it has sculpted keys that look more like the keys on a regular keyboard, while the S10's keys look flattened. But the flattened keys actually give the keys more surface area, so they feel better when typing.

My S10 has Bluetooth. The Aspire One that my friend has doesn't. My EEE PC 701 was first generation and doesn't have Bluetooth. There's nothing special about the Bluetooth, it just works.

I read that others have issues with the S10's heat output. But it doesn't feel any hotter than my EEE PC, and it's just like the A1. Maybe this is because I live in an air-conditioned country.

I also installed Windows XP Pro SP3 from scratch on the S10, using a standard Lenovo USB-powered external DVD-R drive. The exact name of this wonderful drive is USB 2.0 Super Multi-Burner Drive with LightScribe, and the part number is 41N5629. I also used the same drive to install XP Pro on my EEE PC 701. There was no need to change the SATA mode in the BIOS from AHCI to IDE prior to installation. However, I also tried using a standard SATA DVD-R drive with a cheap SATA to USB converter. But the S10 couldn't detect this combo during the boot process, eventhough it worked fine once Windows is booted.

Oh, I did find an issue in the BIOS. I can't seem to put a password in the BIOS that's only used to protect the BIOS setup screen. When I set the setup password, it always prompts for the password both when entering setup and normal boot. Because I don't want my normal boot process to be interrupted by a password, I ended up having to remove the setup password.

IdeaPad S10, Acer Aspire One, and ASUS EEE PC 701. Sorry for the mess in the background.

IdeaPad S10 with the Lenovo USB drive. I took this picture while XP was installing, but I noticed later I happened to take the shot when it was rebooting, so the screen is blank. The drive does not need any additional power to work with either the S10 or the EEE PC.Pictures of the Bluetooth module. Taken from mobile01.com.

P.S. Sorry for the quality of the photos in this post, at least compared to the previous post. I really need to get a pocket camera.

Lenovo IdeaPad S10 in black (day 2)

This is continued from my previous Lenovo IdeaPad S10 post.

Apparently the S10's being sold currently in the US don't have Bluetooth. Mine does. This is the software wireless device control panel accessed by pressing Fn-F5. There is also a hardware button that toggles all wireless devices simultaneously.

Just to prove again my S10 does have Bluetooth. This is the device manager.

The pre-installed battery management control panel. You can choose the battery saving scheme manually, or let it change automatically according to the battery level.

Each scheme can be customized further by double clicking on the scheme icons.

Everything is customizable.

The Super Energy Saver scheme has an additional tab that lets you enable or disable individual hardware devices.

After cycling the battery a few times and also customizing my battery saving schemes a bit, I can easily get 3+ hours of battery life now. The backlight on the S10 is so bright I never needed to use more than half in the screen brightness setting. The CPU is also fast enough that I can use the "low CPU frequency" setting without any speed problems.

As mentioned in other online reviews, the wireless sensitivity is extremely good. I happened to need to find out today if a remote location at work can be reached using wireless or if we need to run a cable. Turns out the S10 can easily reach our main access point from the remote location, while my ThinkPad with the Intel 3945BG couldn't even find the access point.

Update: continued in day 7.

U Can't Touch This

At work we have some Siemens SIMATIC Touch Panels. They are really nice looking touch screen panels that run Windows CE. The interface programs can be programmed in Windows using WinCC or other SIMATIC tools in Windows, then downloaded onto the panels to be used during production. It all looks really nice on paper (or in the website, rather).

The website describes them as rugged and stable. But in real life, we found out that the touch screens broke easily during actual use in an oily and humid environment. So to protect the screens, we installed thick Plexiglass panels in front of the touch screens and forced the operators to use USB mice to control the panel instead.

Unfortunately, the single onboard USB port seems to have been designed to have a device plugged in permanently. Because the mice also get damaged easily in the dirty environment, they need to be replaced constantly, sometimes even weekly, and so the USB port gets damaged quite often. And when the supply of mice run out or damaged USB ports don't get fixed in time, the operators start pressing down really hard on the Plexiglass in order to press on the screen. The result? Damaged touch screens, again.

The panels save data in standard CompactFlash cards. But Siemens wants us to believe that they use Special Cards (tm) and our purchasing department got tricked into buying them directly from Siemens. They paid something insane like $500 each and received standard SanDisk 128 MB cards. (We have about 50 of those panels.) I complained to Siemens about the price, but they want me to believe that the cards only looked like standard SanDisk cards, but actually were produced specifically for use in industrial settings (no, they were not SanDisk Extreme cards), and that they were formatted specifically for use with the panels. They even threatened that if I used other CF cards, I would void the warranty on the panels.

Anyway, after like a year of daily use, the SanDisk cards started failing one by one. Luckily, this time I stopped the purchasing department in time and helped them buy standard CF cards. I had found a supplier of small sized CF cards earlier, and I managed to get Lexar 128 MB cards for $1 each. $24,950 saved!

What warranty?

AMD 780G vs. AHCI

I really like ASUS boards, but recently, ASUS boards for AMD CPU's become pretty hard to find locally, so on our most recently mainboard purchase we ended up getting some Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H (rev. 1.0) boards. Gigabyte isn't too bad, but who can remember a name like GA-MA78GM-S2H (rev. 1.0)? That's one of the reasons I've always liked ASUS boards. We also got some relatively cheap Phenom X3 8450 to go with the boards.

I've never used AMD chipsets with SATA/AHCI before, and I thought it would be easy like on Intel chipsets, where you just set the drive controller type in the BIOS to IDE mode, then install Windows XP, then install the SATA/AHCI drivers after first boot, and then set the BIOS to AHCI mode.Obviously that's what I tried first, but since the SATA device didn't exist, the driver can't get installed, and there's no special install program like for Intel chipsets, and if I set the BIOS to AHCI, it either blue screened as expected, or rebooted immediately without any warning.
Fine, I'll just create a boot floppy, and press F6 during setup to install the driver... but that didn't work either, there's an error copying ahcix86.inf and ahcix86.sys, and then the install fails.
The next thing I tried was creating my own Windows XP with the AHCI drivers slipstreamed. Didn't work either, can't even find the hard drive eventhough the driver is loaded. Tried slipstreaming again, with different drivers, still didn't work. Tried a few more times. More coasters. Nothing worked.
So I tried googling for a solution, and it seems that others were having the exact problem I was having, and the people offering solutions apparently don't actually have the board, and only suggested stuff like using F6 floppy or creating a slipstream installation disc. All of which I've already tried without success. It seems others just gave up on using AHCI mode, or argued that there's no difference between AHCI and IDE mode.
Anyway, after much headbanging and trying random things, I figured out a way to do it. This may not work on other AMD 780G boards and may not even be very smart, but it worked for me. The Gigabyte board has a BIOS setting that can separate the 6 onboard SATA ports into independent 4 SATA plus 2 IDE ports. (The setting is in the Integrated Peripherals page: OnChip SATA Type=AHCI and OnChip SATA Port4/5 Type=IDE.) First plug the SATA drive into port 4, which is mapped as IDE, then install Windows. This lets the installation use the drive as an IDE drive, but since the SATA device exists, the SATA/AHCI driver can be installed successfully. After Windows installation is done, either move the drive back to one of the SATA ports, or disable IDE mode entirely.
Oh, just to prove that this method works even if Windows is already installed, I tried installing Windows XP again with all the SATA ports set to IDE mode, then move the drive to port 4 after installation, set the BIOS to the SATA+IDE mode, then boot into Windows again to install the SATA/AHCI drivers. It all works as expected.

Free hard drives

Couple of weeks ago I was looking for a simple backup solution and saw that Buffalo now has the TeraStation Pro II Rackmount available locally. The base model (1 terabyte) wasn't that expensive, but prices increased exponentially for the models with more storage, and the top model was 4 TB.

After some googling, I found that the drives can be replaced with your own without much difficulty if there's no data on the drives. I did some calculations and noticed that if I get the 1 TB model and four 500 GB drives, the cost is exactly the same as buying the 2 TB model. So it would be like buying the 2 TB model, and getting four 250 GB hard drives for free! So I immediately placed an order for two TeraStations, and eight 500 GB drives.

The drive replacement process was simple. The drives were mounted in rails that can be pulled out without any tools, so I replaced the drives one by one, and after each drive replacement, I booted up the TeraStations and let it detect each new drive. After all drives have been replaced (4 reboots per TS), just rebuild the RAID. I would've had to rebuild the RAID anyway, since the 1 TB model came as RAID0 by default, and I wanted to use RAID5. (A friend had bought a 2 TB model, and the 2 TB model came pre-configured as RAID5 by default.)

Each TeraStations came with four Samsung HD250HJ 250 GB drives, and they were replaced them with Western Digital RE2 500 GB drives, turning the base 1 TB (4x250) model into the 2 TB (4x500) model.

Unfortunately, when it was time to put the new drives into the TeraStations, I noticed the screws locking the drives into the drive trays have little tamper-proof warranty stickers on them.

Looks like my TeraStations won't be warrantied for three years.

The Samsung drives pulled from the two TeraStations.


Building the RAID after installing the new Western Digital drives.