First Rule of Demos: It will Crash

The first rule of doing any live demo is that it will crash regardless of how stable the product is. That is why you will often see videos of computer demos instead of an actual live demo. Today the first rule of demos reared its ugly head at the most inopportune time.

I had a meeting with my boss and he brought up the topic of needing to delete some data from our data warehouse. Not deleting the data puts us in jeopardy of being sued and so I wanted to show him all the different areas that contained the data. I made sure I had logged into our company's virtual private network (VPN) so I could get into the data warehouse. Then I tried to bring up a virtual desktop which is required to log into the database system. It immediately crashed. I tried several more times only to have the same thing happen. Ultimately I had to describe the many different places engineers had squirreled away the information.

Fortunately I didn't need to actually do a demo as I accurately described the many copies of the data. My boss explained that because the copies of data are anonymized, meaning there is no way to associate with with specific people, they do not need to be deleted, just the non-anonymized data. That came as a relief. Ultimately nobody is using the data and so there is no need to keep it around but deleting it is not an emergency.

I finished my video call with my boss and decided to troubleshoot what went wrong. As you would expect, everything worked fine. That only shows the validity of the first rule of demos. 

Its the Little Things

I am always excited to get a new computer but also dread moving from my old one. Why? It is the little things that get forgotten. The Migration Assistant from Apple did a great job copying all of the files from my wife's old computer to her new one. Unfortunately that is not the only thing that needs to be done when setting up a new computer.

Yesterday morning my wife needed to print something. She discovered that while she had all of her files, she did not have access to either of her two printers. Unfortunately I had a lot to get done and couldn't help her out. Due to time constraints, we couldn't print what my wife needed and had to due without. In hindsight we should have tried to print the night before.

There are probably one or two more little things that need to be set up on my wife's computer. Right now we don't know what they are and won't until we need them. Hopefully we won't be under a time constraint and can get them configured correctly when that happens.

Computers in Cars

Yesterday I had to take my car in for its annual emissions test. When you buy a new car in Utah, you only need an emissions test every other year until it gets to a certain age. Then you need one every year in order to renew the registration. My car is old enough to require a test annually.

There are a number of places you can go to have the test done. I have a favorite place I have been taking my cars to for decades. They don't do anything other than emissions tests and the state restricts what they can charge for the test. Once the test is completed, the state has an immediate record if it passed or not. When it passes, I can log onto the state website and can see that information, pay the registration fee, and wait for the state to mail me my license-plate decals.

Yesterday I drove to the state test site and waited my turn. I didn't have to get out of my car, I just drove to an open garage door and waited for the car in front of me to complete its test. Then the service technicians waved me into the waiting bay. They connected a cable to my car's OBD-II port and my car's computer gave them all the information. A few minutes later the test completed and I found out I passed. I drove out the back of the garage bay and the guy waiting behind me pulled right in.

I remember buying a new car a couple decades ago and having the salesman tell me that the rapid rise in automobile costs had to do with the addition of new computers. Those computers have helped increase the reliability of most engines. They can tell you when a part has failed and needs to be replaced. They can also tell you how much your car is polluting. It is good that states around the country can tap into that information without any difficulty and help keep our air clean.

I left my house yesterday knowing I needed to get my car's emissions tested. Only twelve minutes later, I returned home with the task completed and ready to submit the results to the state. This is one case where computers have helped create efficiencies in my life. Hopefully you feel the same way.

Dead-End Technology

Growing up the world seemed full of endless possibilities. I remember reading a story about how one day we would travel on supersonic aircraft regularly. I also saw promises of personal jet packs and flying cars. Those ideas seemed wonderful to a young kid and the future looked bright. Unfortunately none of that has really materialized. Why not? There are physical limitations that create what I call dead-end technology.

While we did have supersonic passenger flights for several decades, the fuel costs made it prohibitively expensive for all but the super wealthy. Friction and gravity require a lot of energy to overcome and there are physical limits to what can be achieved. The same hold true with personal jet packs. When it comes to flying cars, there are numerous safety issues but technology may catch up to where that may be possible, just not soon.

My oldest daughter asked me if I am concerned about the increasing size of hurricanes and I told her there are physical limitations that will keep them from getting much bigger. What will increase is the number of large hurricanes and that is something to worry about. The highest sustained winds ever recorded came from the Pacific hurricane Patricia in 2015 with sustained wind speeds of 215 miles per hour (345 km/h). I doubt we will get above that number by more than one or two miles per hour. We'll just see more hurricanes getting close to that number.

So what about computers? How come they continue to get smaller, faster, and less expensive? The limitations placed on them have not been based on dead-end technology. The switch from vacuum tubes to transistors allowed them to shrink and require a lot less power. Advances in photo lithography have continued to allow them to get smaller. Unfortunately we are getting to a point where it will soon be physically impossible to continue the shrinking trend. Right now, the smallest traces on computer chips are only 3 atoms wide. That is tiny.

So have we reached the limit on computers? Nope. Currently computer chips are built in a very 2-dimensional way where they are mostly, but not completely, flat. Instead of computers being built on chips, we can build them into cubes. Let's see how far that gets us but I think there are plenty of advances that can be made.

About 20 years ago I helped my brother-in-law make some decisions about buying a new computer and told him to get the biggest and highest-resolution monitor he could afford. I told him it would last a long time because monitor technology seemed very stable and his monitor would last through multiple generations of computers. Then flat-screen monitors entered the market and proved me wrong. It took an unforeseen technology advancement to enhance the art of computer and television displays.

So what will it take to have supersonic air travel for the masses? Or those personal jet packs? We will have to throw away the dead-end technology like we did with cathode-ray tubes (CRT) and embrace new technologies like we did with LCD and LED screens. What that is for transportation, I don't know. It may be as simple as devising a low-energy method of defeating gravity or cheaper and denser forms of energy. All I know is I hope someone figures it out cause those personal jet packs look like a lot of fun.

If It Is Not Broke

There are several ways to finish the title of today's post that begins with, "If it is not broke . . ." Some will respond with, "Then don't fix it," while others will say, "Then break it." Both are valid continuations of the phrase. Use the first if you are trying to avoid creating more work for yourself and the second if you are looking to improve something. The trick is knowing which philosophy to subscribe to for a given situation.

When it comes to computers, you may often feel you don't need to create more work for yourself. You know how to use your specific program and how to get it to do what you want. Then the only time you need to fix something is when it actually breaks. The only downside is that there may be a better way and you just don't know it.

As you spend time on your phone, tablet, video game console, or computer, think about how long it takes you to do a specific task. Things like responding to an e-mail or looking something up on the Internet should not take more than a single step. If you go to look something up on the Internet and first go to Google, you are adding an extra step. Simply start typing keywords into the URL bar and your browser will perform the search for you. If you are working in a specific program and find yourself spending a large amount of time on a single task, do an Internet search and see if it can be streamlined.

Unfortunately there are a number of cases where the designers of software want you to jump through hoops and there is no way to speed up the process. Recently my wife was working through a State of Utah application to get help for her aging mother. First she had to fill out a 25-page application online. Then she had to print out said application and initial or sign each page. Then she had to scan each page and attach it to the original application. Talk about a hassle. How many 82 year-old women do you know that have the technical skill to do that? Fortunately my wife filled out the application and submitted it successfully. Now I just wish the State of Utah would figure out they have a problem and fix it. Right now, it is definitely broke.

Whatever Happened to Computer Documentation?

I was cleaning out a bookcase recently and wondered whatever happened to computer documentation. When I got my first personal computer, it came with 3 one-inch-thick manuals. I know that those manuals became a sore point when Apple introduced the first Macintosh computers. However those manuals were useful. In contrast, the Macintosh operating system has become so complex, it could use at least 5 of those one-inch-thick manuals now.

In the days before the Internet, you would purchase a piece of software and it would come on a number of floppy disks. Included with those disks were printed manuals that provided all sorts of information on how to run the software. As more companies started releasing more software, a certain uniformity of the documentation emerged. If you upgraded from one version to the next, you might get a whole new set of manuals but all you really needed was the release notes which talked about new features and which bugs had been fixed.

Now there really isn't much of a reason to install software on your computer as most things are run in the Internet. That's fine, but how about including some quality documentation for those sites or tools? It seems as if most companies have come to the conclusion that if you can't figure it out on your own, they don't really care. Then someone that does care will create a video and post it to YouTube to help you figure it out. If YouTube isn't the right forum, then there are any number of online forums that will have the answer for you. Does that absolve the software producers from needing to create documentation? I don't think so.

Computers have evolved a long way from command-line interfaces and the need to have bookshelves full of printed instructions next to your desk. I just wish companies would do a better job of disseminating information about their latest products and not leave it up to users to create documentation for them.

More Monitors or More Screen Real Estate

This morning as I rode my bicycle, I thought back to an experience I had with one of my Electrical Engineering professors. A group of us were talking about the rapid advancements of computers and a new interface had just been announced that allowed you to watch television in a window on your computer. I thought it was great as you could work on your computer and watch TV at the same time. My professor remarked, "Why? Just get a TV and put it next to your computer."

He was right as this was back in the days when most computer monitors could only display 640x480 pixels, which is about the size of a regular NTSC television picture. While I had a more advanced computer that could display 1024x768, it could only do so with 16 colors per pixel. To get more colors, I would have to reduce the screen resolution. Furthermore the price of card for the computer came in at around $500 while a new television only cost around $300.

Fast forward a few years and I remember attending one of the last COMDEX shows in Las Vegas. I stopped by one of the Linux booths and they had 3 monitors built into a single unit. Of course it required that you have 3 VGA outputs on your computer to run all of the monitors but I thought it was spectacular and wanted one badly. Unfortunately it was cheaper just to get 3 monitors and I could not justify the extra cost. Consequently I never added the necessary hardware to my computer and continued running with a single monitor. By this time, resolution had increased to 1280x800.

At around this time, my primary computer became a laptop as I spent a lot of time traveling. The standard laptop resolutions seemed to be fine and I didn't really worry about needing more screen real estate as there is only so much space on an airplane. During this time you can guess that I traveled a lot.

Eventually I moved into more of a development role and worked on a project that needed a second monitor. Rather than fall back to the default monitor size of the day, I splurged and picked up two 1920x1080 monitors and put them side-by-side on my desk. I really had to clean a lot off so they would both fit. I also had to get a new computer with dual monitor outputs to drive both displays. I enjoyed having all the extra space.

My dual monitors lasted for quite a few years. They worked well and I discovered that I could keep them both filled with information to help me in my work. Of course technology continued to progress and so when the price of 4K (3840x2160 pixels) monitors dropped to where everyone could afford them, I jumped at the chance to get one. They are the equivalent of having four 1920x1080 monitors grouped together. It is the monitor I am using right now and guess what? I have the entire screen filled with 10 different windows. I also have a second computer with the laptop screen and a third 1920x1080 monitor. Both of those screens are also filled.

I guess the whole point of this post is that the answer to the question posed in the title is, "Yes," for both. You can always use more monitors and more screen real estate. At least I can.

The Fortnite Phenomenon

This morning I attended a meeting where we talked about the Fortnite video game. It is one of those hugely successful games that has everyone scratching their heads wondering how they can repeat the process for their own titles. It is from Epic Games, which is also the creator of the Unreal game engine. As a side-note, if you want to try your hand at creating a video game, you can use the Unreal engine for free. You only have to pay Epic when you sell copies of your game and then it is just a small percentage.

So what makes Fortnite so successful? I can try to answer that question but the reality is that if I could explain it, then everyone would use the same formula to make their own games successful. So let me begin by saying that filling a need at the right time is part of the equation and that makes duplicating the game's success very difficult.

Fortnite is very simple to understand. When I played my first Fortnite match, I did so with a small description of the game. I didn't need any lengthy instructions nor in-game tutorials (as is often the first hour or two of many games). All I did was jump out of a flying school bus and try to stay alive as long as possible. I managed to do so more than half of the players in that match and felt pretty good about myself.

Fortnite allows you to play online with your friends. It is no secret that I started playing the PS2, thanks to the console as a birthday gift from my  brother who worked for Sony at the time. Then my Dad, brothers, and I would go online every Thursday evening from 7pm until around midnight playing with and sometimes against each other. Our favorite game was SOCOM 2 and we had a lot of fun. Our group eventually grew to include a brother-in-law as well as a few nephews. At the all-time peak of our gaming, we met together with our consoles at Thanksgiving and played in the same room. This is quite a feat given that one of my brothers lived in San Diego, the other in Portland, and me in Salt Lake City. Fortnite builds upon the ability to play with friends and does a pretty good job of keeping it fun for everyone.

Fortnite makes it tough to cheat. One of the reasons my brothers and I stopped playing online video games together is because of cheaters and campers. As Fortnite serves as a showcase for the Unreal game engine, Epic took care to make it very difficult to cheat. That doesn't mean cheats don't exist but they are few in number. Fortnite also developed a shrinking environment which makes it difficult for someone to find a hiding spot and stay there for the entire game. You may be able to hide for a few minutes but then a storm causes the playable area to shrink and not moving to the active area eliminates you from the game.

Fortnite does not require a huge time commitment. I just finished playing Red Dead Redemption 2 and it took me over 100 hours to complete. While I didn't play the game in a single sitting, sometimes I would play for several hours at a time. With Fortnite you can play in 10-minute increments. That makes it very easy to fill small blocks of time and doesn't require multi-hour commitments.

Fortnite is free to play. You can download it to your video game console, computer, or smartphone for no charge. Free is always an attractive price for any video game.

Finally, Fortnite levels the playing field for everyone. There is no advantage by paying for anything in the game. You all start out with the same inventory and are required to scavenge for weapons and supplies during each match. That means that your friend whose mom has spent hundreds of dollars in the game does not have any advantage. He or she may have a really cool outfit or be able to do a nice victory dance after killing you, but it is skill that ultimately wins the game.

Yes, People are starting to grow tired of Fortnite and it looks as if the number of active players is on a slow decline. Ultimately it will take quite a while before those numbers drop to zero and so Epic shouldn't worry too much right now. Besides that gives them time to think about what to create to replace it. I hope they come up with something equally spectacular.

Cleaning an Old Computer

For the past several years I have had an unused computer sitting under my desk at work. The power supply failed and I never bothered to replace it. Instead my company just got me a new Linux desktop and my change in responsibilities meant that I didn't need anything off the old one. This week I finally got tired of having a useless computer and so I had our IT department take the old computer away. I also asked them to pull the hard drive out and see if we could pull anything off it. They couldn't and so I resigned myself to have lost anything of importance off that computer. As a last-ditch effort, we put the drive in a new computer and tried to boot it. Guess what? That worked.

Going through the files on the old computer disk felt like traveling back in time. It reminded me of how my current work is so different from the work I originally got hired to do. My old disk had about 57 Gigabytes of files. I sorted through it rather quickly and copied import stuff to my relatively new Linux box. Anything that I knew I didn't need, I deleted. Then just to be safe, I saved everything else and will put it in a safe place in case I need it again.

Cleaning off an old computer is something I usual when I get a new one. I often find that I place more value in stuff I won't actually need. Having my useless computer sitting under my desk helped me realize that I should be a lot more discerning the next time I have to clean up an old computer. After all, if I have not needed something in a 2-year period, chances are I won't need it any time soon.

No Exciting Computers

I had a bit of time to think as I walked the 3 miles to my office this morning. Mostly I thought about how I had already crossed the threshold of distance to where summoning Uber seemed a waste even though it was raining. What driver would pick me up for such a short drive. I did think about other things and one of them surfaced again when I go to the gym at work and prepared to get another 30 minutes of exercise. I briefly glanced at the locker-room TV and noticed that one of the ESPN commentators has the same laptop I do. It seems like the vast majority of people have settled on the same few laptops. There just doesn't seem to be any exciting new computers these days.

Naturally I have spent part of my day thinking about the state of computing hardware and what would make me excited. The size of a laptop is something that used to differentiate various models. Now it seems we have settled on small, medium, or large and each has its merits. We also used to have peripherals such as floppy, CDROM, or DVD disk drives. Now it seems that everyone relies on network connections and doesn't need removable media any more. What about case material? Well you have the brushed aluminum look, solid black carbon fiber, or some colored plastic cover. All of that is boring. About the most exciting difference between laptops is the lit brand logo that appears on the back of the screen. Some love the simple Apple logo while others prefer the 3 intertwined-snakes for the gamer specific Razer laptops.

As I thought about the lack of excitement in the computer market right now, I realized that we can't really blame the hardware manufacturers. It is tough to get excited about new hardware when it all runs the same old software. You have your choice between Windows, MacOS, or Linux. Even then Linux really isn't an option for most people as it is still more of a hobbyist's operating system unless you are working with servers.

So what will it take to get me excited about a new computer or laptop? I don't know. Perhaps this just means there is a new opportunity out there for something extraordinary to come along. I would hate to think that computers have evolved as far as they will go.

Final Answer

My son finally made it home safely after two years in Armenia. I have been struggling with the decision on what computer to get him for his first year in college. I presented several choices to him and let him do some research for several days. He came back with a computer choice. Then I felt I needed to make one last look to make sure we reviewed all possible options.

There are several online computer vendors that allow you to specify the features you are looking for and so I visited Best Buy's. They have a store really close to my house and so I knew I could order it, have it shipped there for free, and pick it up rather quickly. I used the configuration tool and put in the options I thought would work best for a college freshman looking to start in the Mechanical Engineering department. Surprisingly I found a computer I had overlooked. I presented it to my son as a viable alternative to his choice and let him decide. I always believe that any large purchase should be thought about for at least a day. When I go to buy cars, I often tell the salesperson I want to sleep on it before I make a purchase. They hate that but then I don't have buyer's remorse. So I let my son sleep on the decision.

He came back and settled on a MacBook Air with an Intel i7 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 128 GB solid-state drive. Sure I could have gotten more disk space, but with terabyte drives costing $70, why would you need to? I agreed with his decision and so I ordered the computer. The only problem with his choice is that the i7 is an upgrade and so it is not kept in stock at the Apple stores. I had to have it custom built. It will be here next week but is coming all the way from China. School starts on Monday so I hope my son doesn't need his computer until Wednesday when it is due to arrive.

Time for a New College Laptop Again

Back in February I wrote about how my youngest son will soon need a new laptop. I didn't see the urgency in making a decision at the time because heading to college seemed so far off. In two weeks he will be home after spending two years in Armenia and getting ready to attend college.

As I wrote before he will need to talk with his academic advisor to see the best recommendation for his engineering program in school. Some engineering software is only available for Windows and so a Mac might not be a good choice. Or the opposite could be true. I doubt it, but it could be.

A quick stop at Best Buy shows that there are even more choices than before. In addition to Windows or Mac, you can also choose a Chrome OS laptop. If you can get by with using online applications for everything you do, then it is a viable option. I don't think it is a good choice for an engineering student though and so I won't bother looking at one of those.

The next question boils down to budget: How much do I want to spend for my son's laptop. I always joke with my other children about how I like my youngest son the most. They all think that is true but reality is that whatever I do for one child, I have to make it fair for all of the rest. When my older son went to pick his laptop, I looked at the lowest price MacBook Pro and used that as the maximum budget. Why? That is what I got his two sisters. While time passes and laptop specifications change, Apple has done a pretty good job identifying realistic price points for student computers. Yes you can get a lower-priced computer but they don't last nearly as long as if you spend a bit more. Just look at my oldest daughter's experience as most of her college roommates needed new computers before the end of the first year.

I am often asked if brand makes a difference. The short answer is, "Yes." You want to be careful about what you purchase online. However if you are visiting a reputable store like Best Buy, they won't carry a junk brand and so your choice will boil down to features for a given price. I recommend more RAM over a faster processor. I also favor a solid-state drive over rotating disk even though you can get enormous disks for next to nothing. If you think your child will have a lot of large files, spend $60 and get an external USB drive and factor that into the cost of the computer.

Writing all of this down has helped me organize my thoughts as I get ready to help my son with his computer. Hopefully it helps you as well. Naturally I will be sure to let you know what I decide.

Researching a New Laptop

My youngest son will be starting his first year of college in the fall and our family tradition is that I purchase him a laptop. My very first post for this blog contained my recommendation for my oldest daughter when she started college. When my youngest daughter headed to school, I followed my original advice and got the same brand of computer. When it came time for my oldest son to head to school, I had him help with the process and he decided on something else.

With my youngest son I am rethinking all of my decisions. My daughters really only need a computer for word processing and e-mail. My oldest son will finish up his Computer Science degree this April and his laptop decision was the correct one for him. My youngest son has already been accepted into the Mechanical Engineering department and so I am torn between a Windows laptop or another Mac computer. Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I wound my way through Electrical Engineering school, Windows was the operating system of choice. A number of the software programs throughout the discipline relied on it and could not be found for the Mac. Now I am sure things have changed but it has me wondering what the laptop of choice will be.

One nice thing about the Mac is that it will also run Windows and do so quite well. Sure I may have to set up Boot Camp on the Mac, but that isn't really that difficult. However you still pay a premium for Apple computers and can get more for your money with other laptops.

Fortunately I have some time and don't have to make that decision right now. I want my son to talk with his academic advisor and see what the school recommends. I think I know the answer but would like to be pleasantly surprised. If my son and I do decide to go with a Windows laptop, then I will have to also figure out which manufacturer to buy. I'll keep you posted what I decide.

Time to Clean up my Computer

The end of the year is one of those times where we think about changes in our lives that we plan to make for the coming year. A lot of people resolve to lose weight. In fact it is probably one of the most broken new year's resolutions. So instead of trying to lose weight yourself, see if you can't help your computer or mobile phone lose a little weight. It is rather simple and can be done quickly with immediate results.

Start with your screen desktop on your computer. Go through all of the files and see if you really need all of them. If not, go ahead and delete them. If there is a question as to if you will need it or not, simply move the file to another directory or onto some form of backup. Also make sure to review computer programs and applications. Most Windows computers come loaded with a number of applications that you don't really use or need. Simply uninstall them.

Now move to your phone. Do you really use all of those apps you downloaded. Perhaps you downloaded a game and played it a lot in the past but don't any more. Be sure to check your download directory on the phone to make sure you don't have any files there that are unneeded. Finally go through and delete any photos that are not wanted or needed. I am always taking pictures of whiteboards and then making notes from them. The photos can be erased once the notes have been sent out.

The best thing about helping your electronic devices lose weight is that you can do it while eating the last of the Christmas cookies and not feel guilty about it.

A New College Computer Recommendation

One of my first postings when I created this blog back in 2009 was my recommendation for a laptop to take to college. I have pretty much stood by that original decision until this year. Both of my daughters took Apple laptops to school. Now it is time to buy my oldest son his. As he is a computer science major, I am breaking away from Apple and suggesting a different computer.

What is the reason for this change? Well there are actually a few reasons. When Steve Jobs was at the helm of Apple, they put out a better product than they do now. At first the slip in quality was hardly noticeable. Now it is becoming more pronounced and so you can find an equally well-built laptop from a number of other vendors. Furthermore Apple continues to charge a premium for their hardware and so you can now get higher-performing laptops for the same price. When I first made my comparison, there wasn't much of a difference, if any.

So what did I decide for my son? I actually let my son pick out his own computer. There are a number of manufacturers that give college discounts and Sony is one of them (look for the Education Store link at the bottom of the page). I then told him he had $1000 to spend, as that is what the least expensive Mac would cost with Apple's education discount. He opted for their S-line of computers as he felt that represented the best deal and performance. That $1000 gave him 8 GB of RAM instead of only 4 and a 750 GB hard disk instead of 500.

I am still a fan of Mac OS X and despise any operating system made by Microsoft. My son's new computer comes with Windows 8 but he has a plan to fix that. He will keep Windows and install an Ubuntu virtual machine (VM). This is how he has his work computer set up right now, only with Windows 7 instead of 8. It has worked out very well and will be much more flexible as he works on his programming assignments in school. While this setup may not be as polished as OS X, I think it will better for him as Linux seems to be ubiquitous at universities these days.

It took a few years for other computer manufacturers to catch up with Apple, but now that they seemed to have stopped innovating, it is a good time to look at other vendors. Your dollar will go farther.

One Child, One Computer

I must confess that we are headed into the best time of the year. Football season is about to start. Ski stores have started gearing up for their preseason sales. Of course, let's not forget that school is just around the corner. Last year at this time, I mentioned that now is the time to start getting your computer ready for those kids in your house. I second my recommendations from last year and encourage you to make sure you have plenty of ink/toner for your printer and that your word processing software is up-to-date.

This year I only have one child at home using the family computer. That makes it effectively his own computer. My son knows better than to ask to put the computer in his room as we have a rule about that in the house. Good parents understand the dangers of allowing children, that is anyone under the age of 18, to keep computers in their rooms. While there is a lot of useful information on the Internet, there is also a lot that can harm your children as well. Even my college-age kids are encouraged to use their computers in the family room as opposed to their bedrooms.

My oldest daughter's laptop needs a new battery and so she wasn't able to fully comply with the laptop-in-the-family-room rule. That was not good for her this summer as she was constantly staying up late and watching Netflix into the wee hours of the morning. As she is 23, it didn't really bother me, but I use her as an example to other parents to show that pornography is not the only problem caused by computers in the bedroom. Luckily my daughter is wise and cancelled her Netflix subscription before heading off to school. She doesn't need anything else competing with her study time.

The Death of a Power Supply

A few months ago, I started noticing some weird behavior on my desktop Linux computer at home. I have been able to work around it until I got home from the airport this past Friday night. I went to turn on the computer, but it wouldn't boot. There were not lights nor fans that came on. It was like I was pressing a random part of the computer as the "On" button seemed to have no effect. When this has happened in the past, it was just a matter of disconnecting all of the cables from the back, re-inserting them, and turning it on. Friday night, that didn't work.

It is a good thing I have several other computers in my office at home as I was able to search the Internet for help. My Linux desktop is a Dell. In fact, it is one of the first Dell computers to have the new Intel i7 processor and it seems the engineers never got full credit on their homework assignments in college. Searching on my model number and a few other key words like "won't turn on" brought up numerous accounts of other Dell customers experiencing the same problem. When Dell built my computer, they put in a 300 watt power supply, which turns out to be way too small. Judging from the number of posts, I was lucky my power supply managed to last as long as it did.

Computer power supplies are relatively cheap. I probably could have ordered one online and gotten a better price, but I needed to get my computer running immediately. As it was 1 am by the time I felt I knew how to solve my problem, I went to bed. The next day I added a stop at Best Buy to my list of chores. I read about a 600 watt power supply that solved the problem nicely, but the largest my local store had was 450. I asked to make sure it would fit in my Dell case and was told all power supplies were interchangeable. In truth, they are not, but I decided to give it a shot.

I got home and opened the case only to be amazed at how many wires come out of a power supply. I had removed the case of my computer before but never really noticed all of those wires. There were really only 4 bundles that mattered: 2 for the motherboard, 1 for my graphics card, and 1 for my disk drive and DVD drive. I unplugged them all and pulled out the defective power supply. Getting the old one out took a bit of skill. Putting the new one in was almost impossible. When you build a computer, the first thing you put in the case is the power supply. I didn't want to pull everything out of my case and so it was rather difficult to work the new supply around heat sinks and cooling fans. Bending a bit of the sheet metal in the case helped but it was a non-trivial process. Besides, with the cover back on, nobody can tell I had to bend anything.

I connected everything back up only to discover that the power cable running from the supply to the hard drive and then to the DVD drive wasn't long enough. A quick internet search showed me I could get an 8-inch extension cord for around $5 and so I ordered one. After all the case bending, I didn't want to take out the new power supply and return it for one with more of the newer SATA power interface pig-tails. Right now I don't have a DVD drive as I had to choose between it or the hard drive, but that will be fixed on Wednesday when the part arrives.

I left a panel of the case off and made sure the computer would turn on. It did and so I turned the computer off and put the case back together. That was a huge relief as I really need my Linux desktop. It is nice to have it back from the dead.

School Starts Again

It seems as if school starts earlier each year. Yesterday my kids went back to school. When I was younger, I remember starting the day after Labor day. I remember the school year shifting so that it started the week before Labor day as my own kids became of age. Now they are starting two weeks before.

Last night we headed down to the store to buy new school supplies. We keep a fairly well stocked stationary cabinet in my home office and so there wasn't much we needed. A few spiral-bound notebooks, highlighters, colored pencils and we were set.

It is also time to make sure the computers are set up and ready for the year. I need to update the operating system on the family computer as it is a few releases behind where it should be. I also need to make sure we have enough paper and toner for the two printers (one is color, the other black and white). It will probably be a few weeks before the first papers are due, but it is important to get these things taken care of before you are up into the wee hours of the morning helping your kid get that term paper printed. Running out of printer supplies at 1:00 am can lead to kids learning a whole new vocabulary.

Sailing This Weekend

I finally have a weekend where I don't have any other commitments. I don't have to go camping. I don't have to do any projects around the house other than mow the lawn. That means I get to do what I want and that means I am going sailing.

Sailing at the end of summer is always the best. The weather has cooled a bit yet is still warm enough for shorts and t-shirts. The wind is generally pretty good. Most importantly, the hectic summer schedule draws to a close and ski season hasn't started yet.

About five years ago this month, I was sailing a 37-foot race boat from Hawaii to Los Angeles. It was a 21-day trip. Cell phones stopped working about 5 miles from shore and so communication required different technologies. Even though I was out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, it was still important to stay in contact with family and friends.

Sailboats doing trans-oceanic voyages are generally equipped with single-side-band radios (SSB). They are very similar to HAM radios and bounce the radio signal off the ionosphere to communicate with people half way around the world. The only problem with SSB is that very few people have them. Not to fear, there is SailMail which allows you to connect your laptop computer to a special MODEM that works with SSB. That allowed me to send and receive daily e-mails to and from the family. My wife would then update everyone with my position and how things were going on the boat.

It was great to have e-mail for the trip. However it is also nice to be able to talk to someone directly. For that you need a satellite phone. There are three companies that you can use: Inmarsat, Iridium, and Globalstar. Globalstar generally only works 200-miles offshore and so that was not an option. We opted to rent an Iridium phone which worked flawlessly all the way from Hawaii to Los Angeles. The only problem was that talk time is about a dollar a minute. You really want to keep calls to a minimum at those rates. However it was good to talk to the family on Sundays and Thursdays.

Communication is very important and it is nice to know that with today's technology it is possible to stay in contact even when crossing an ocean. Luckily for me, my cell phone will work just fine when I am out sailing this weekend.

Happy Birthday

Today is my 41st Birthday (I like Mounds candy bars for anyone thinking about getting me a gift). When you are a kid, the whole world can stop while you take time to celebrate. As an adult it generally means that you are just one year older and nobody but your immediate family really cares. That being said, I have already received several congratulatory e-mails and phone calls from friends. Now if we could only figure out a way to send someone Mounds bars through the phone or e-mail, my morning would be complete.

Every year I see my birthday approaching and wonder how I am going to spend it. My Dad thinks I go a bit overboard and says I am building unrealistic expectations in my children as to how birthdays should be spent. I just want one day a year to stand above the rest as truly "special" (besides Christmas).

One year for my birthday I rented a little 4-seater plane and flew down to Moab, Utah for a day of mountain biking. Since I don't have a pilot's license, it was quite the adventure. One of the guys I invited to ride was a pilot but he still let me fly most of the way. I took us off but was more than happy to let him land. The only unfortunate part of the trip was that one of the guys with us fell off his bike and broke his collar bone. It makes a great story though.

When my wife turned 30, she cashed in all my frequent flyer miles and took the family to Hawaii. That was a fun trip as we got to do the tourist thing all over Oahu. On the actual birthday, we had a fabulous Luau and ate like Samoans (they don't eat until they are full, they eat until they fall down).

Yesterday I logged onto my frequent flyer mileage account and looked into getting a ticket to Hawaii. With the downturn in the economy I actually could have taken a non-stop from Salt Lake to Honolulu in the morning, spent the day in Hawaii, and then flown back during the night. The only catch was that I needed to pay a rapid redemption fee of $150. When I was a Platinum frequent flyer member the airlines would waive the fee. I could think of better ways to spend frequent flyer miles and $150 and so I decided against it.

Tomorrow a big company is looking at some software I wrote over the past year. There could be a paycheck in it for me and so I want the demo to go flawlessly. So instead of doing anything exotic on my birthday today, I am going to spend the next several hours in front of the computer sprucing things up a bit. I guess I have to be a grown-up every once and awhile.