An 8-Year Old with 8 Computers

Yesterday I talked with one of the kids in my neighborhood who is about 8 years old. He talked about how he had 8 different computers. Naturally I asked how he came to be the proud owner of so many computers. His dad answered that the local thrift store, Savers, sells used computers for around $5 and an amazing number of them actually work. That made sense and for a kid totally interested in computers, he probably loves playing with them as a hobby.

My next question amounted to what he does with all of them. He responded that he installs different operating systems. This got my mind wondering. While I imagined he played with Microsoft Windows, I wondered if he knew about the many other operating systems available for standard computers. I followed up with which is is favorite. He surprised me by answering MacOS.

While you can install MacOS on some Intel-based computers, it requires very specific hardware and I asked about that. His father responded that he has played with Hackintosh but it didn't sound very successful. That implies that you can find Mac hardware at Savers which is what is required when installing MacOS. I may have to go see if I can find a decent computer for $5.

Next I asked about Linux as that is an obvious choice for older Intel-based computers. The young man mentioned that his favorite flavor is Ubuntu and it impressed me. There are quite a few variants but Ubuntu is my current favorite flavor of Linux.

I remember being young like that and having a huge interest in computers. My dad did too and we actually had a large computer in our house. Back then it looked like 3 refrigerators and 2 dishwashers next to each other. It had a total of 256 kilobytes of memory and 20 megabytes of hard disk space. Calculators have more memory and storage than that now.

It is always interesting to see young people interested in computers and my neighbor surprised me. I enjoyed talking with the little guy and wish him the best of luck as he learns about this magnificent technology. My hope is that he continues with the hobby as it will serve him well later in life.

The Windows Blue Screen of Death

This morning I woke up and headed down to my office in the basement. I knew something was wrong when I saw a light as I walked down the darkened stairs. It came from my work laptop and that is not normal. I figured an update happened overnight and that turned out to be the case. Then I looked at the screen and saw the dreaded Windows Blue Screen of Death or BSOD for short. I only have one meeting on Friday's and so I followed the on-screen instructions to try and get the laptop ready for that 11am appointment. With no luck, I stopped playing before I did some damage to the laptop and went for my morning bike ride.

That last sentence probably is worth repeating: I stopped playing before I did some damage to the laptop and went for my morning bike ride. Often times when experiencing a computer problem it is best to take a step back and think through ALL of your options before proceeding. During my ride I figured that I probably was not the only one experiencing this issue and I should figure out how to check my work e-mail to see if there might be a memo about the problem.

Fortunately there is a website I can go to on my personal Mac. It took some hunting around but I found it and had no fewer than 5 e-mails telling me about the problem and that there is a fix. My company, Sony, also sent an e-mail to my personal e-mail account telling me to file an IT ticket with our internal help system. I did.

This is not an isolated issue. CrowdStrike is a security vendor that a lot of companies use to help secure their computers. Last night they sent an update that caused the BSOD for not just a number of Sony computers but also airlines, banks, and government offices. There is a simple workaround to get your computer back from the dead. The only catch is that you have to have administrator privileges for your computer. Sony has locked me out so I can't delete the file. Should you have administrator privileges, here are the steps to get your computer working again:

1. Boot your computer in Safe Mode. This means letting your computer try to reboot 3 times and then it will bring up a screen that asks you to Troubleshoot or turn off your computer, among other options. Use the arrow keys to select "Troubleshoot." At the next screen, select "Start Up Settings" and choose option 4 or 5 which boots the computer in safe mode. Here are Microsoft's instructions.
2. Once your computer is up and running, open the command-line tool. Usually you can go to the search bar at the bottom of the screen and type "cmd" which will bring up the command-line tool.
3. Change the working directory to the right one using: cd C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike
4. When I try to change directories I get an "Access Denied" error but if you don't get that error you are in the right place to delete the offending file which can be done with: del C-00000291*.sys*
5. Reboot your computer and you should be good to go.

Hopefully this helps you get back on your computer. Unfortunately I need to wait until I hear back from my IT department. Too bad it isn't winter or I could totally get away with going skiing. Instead I will work on something else that I can do with just e-mail and limited network access to the office.

Video Game Review: XBLAZE Lost : Memories

After a month or so of playing XBLAZE Lost: Memories, I finished the game on my PlayStation Vita this morning while waiting for service to be completed on my car. I mostly finished the game last night on the flight from San Francisco to Salt Lake City but had to watch the credits and final scene after the credits.

This is really the first time I have ever played a Japanese visual novel and I have to say it was kind of strange. It felt like I played 3 different games all nested within each other. The first game consisted of a well-drawn story where you mostly just watched events unfold between a group of teenagers that also fought magical bad guys. Then you had another story of two sisters in a completely different universe trying to unlock the secrets of their mother's death and father's experiments. Once again, you mostly just watch the events unfold similarly to a movie. Then the third game is a clunky 8-bit graphics treasure hunt with quizzes that sort of ties everything together.

While the game kept me entertained over the past month or so of flights, I can't say that I really enjoyed it. At least not to the extent that I have enjoyed some of the Telltale games where it feels like you have more control over the choices you can make. Towards the finale of XBLAZE, you do have to make a number of choices, some of which take you down a dead-end and you have to go back and redo them in order to finish. The fact that it came at the conclusion of the game confused me and I almost stopped playing the game prematurely. The thing that kept me going was knowing I only had two more trophies in order to Platinum the game and it would be a shame to get that close and not complete it.

In addition to the trophies, I continued playing the game because the dialog is entirely in Japanese with English subtitles. I spend a lot of time in Japan and am always trying to improve my language skills. By the end of the game I had a better comprehension of a handful of more Japanese phrases. I wouldn't recommend this as the only tool for learning the language as you won't pick up much unless you have a foundation to build upon.

XBLAZE Lost: Memories has an ESRB rating of M for Maturity because of Violence, Language, and Brief Nudity. The brief nudity isn't anything beyond well-drawn cartoon characters in skimpy swimsuits but I wouldn't recommend this game for anyone under the age of 18. It is available for the PS Vita, PS3, and Windows PC platform. I got the game in a bundle of PS Vita games I purchased for $5 and so I didn't pay much for it.

Unless you love Japanese visual novels or are looking to brush up on your Japanese language skills, I would not buy the game. If someone gives you a copy of the game and you are interested in a cultural lesson then go ahead and play it. Hopefully this has been helpful.

Time To Upgrade Linux

I found a new program to help me program my VHF ham radio and tried to install it on my Linux system at home this week. The flavor of Linux I like to run at home is Fedora and I was still on Fedora Core 10. The latest version right now is Fedora 18. That represents a significant difference. When I tried to install my ham radio software called Chirp, I needed to upgrade a bunch of different libraries. Instead of just upgrading the libraries, I decided to update the whole operating system.

Right now there are two major releases of Linux that most people consider: Fedora or Ubuntu. We are moving to Ubuntu at work and so I will be updating my computer there from CentOS, which is very similar to Fedora. As I will have computer running Ubuntu, I figured I would keep my home desktop on Fedora. That way I can compare both systems and find out for myself which flavor of Linux is really better.

Before deciding on the upgrade, I researched both Linux distributions thoroughly. You had the usual religious battles between both groups combined with a bunch of "impartial" comparisons claiming it is a tie between the two. We will see how much truth there is to that.

Unfortunately the Linux upgrade did not go as smoothly as I had planned. I made sure to back up all of my data and directories. Then I backed up my e-mail. When I tried to restore my e-mail, none of my messages appeared on the new system. Fortunately there is a way to import raw mail files into my e-mail program (Evolution) and so I just had to restore each e-mail folder one at a time. It was fairly painless once I figured out how to do it. Now it is just a matter of loading up all of the programs I normally use.

One nice thing about upgrading Linux versions is that I can now access my Windows partition, not that I have missed it. When I installed Fedora Core 10, I saved a part of my hard disk for Windows, but was never able to access it. Now it has started working again. So if I need it, it is available. I sure hope I don't need it though. I hate Windows.

Apple Blue Screen of Death

Friday night I was at the airport in Oakland headed back to Utah when my MacBook Pro's screen went blue and stayed that way. I was hoping it would fix itself, but it didn't. I had to turn it off so I could get on the plane. Needless to say I wasn't happy to have my Mac crash like that.

All I could do on the flight home was worry about what went wrong. I have been working on a number of projects and if my solid-state drive (SSD) went bad, I would have to recreate everything. I was also headed to Utah for the week and if I couldn't get my Mac back from the dead, I had no way to log into the servers back in my office.

I got home and used another computer to do a search on the Internet trying to figure out how to do a hard reboot for my Mac. Normally I would unplug the laptop and remove the battery. Unfortunately these new MacBooks don't have a removable battery. A quick search told me to plug in the laptop and then press the shift, control, and option keys at the same time as the power key. That resets everything on the computer.

I followed the instructions and then turned the computer back on. It booted right up and was back from the dead. The whole reason I moved from Microsoft Windows to the Apple Mac was because of Window's blue screen of death. Now I am getting it on the Mac, albeit not nearly as often.