BSOD Update with a Twist

Today I came across a friend with a computer experiencing the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) caused by the CrowdStrike update on Friday. He and I are both computer experts in that we work solving computer problems on a daily basis. We both knew the steps to deal with the problem once we got the computer to boot in safe mode. The trick was figuring out how to get it up in safe mode.

The computer in question had two ports to connect to monitors but only had a single monitor. One port had an HDMI interface while the other had a DisplayPort interface. They are slightly different but have somewhat similar cables. As luck would have it, the monitor for the computer only had a DisplayPort cable and so that is what the computer used. Unbeknownst to us, when Windows tries to boot in safe mode, it cannot talk to the DisplayPort and has to use the HDMI one.

The way to recognize this is that the computer will reboot twice and on the third time nothing will be displayed. Hitting the return key will cause the computer to reboot and try to do 3 more reboots before going dark again. My friend and I tried a number of ways to force the machine booting into safe mode but that only brought the blank screen.

On a whim, I suggested we remove the DisplayPort cable and try to boot using an HDMI monitor. This means we had to grab a TV from another room and bring it into the same room as the computer. We also had to completely unplug the DisplayPort cable from the computer and connect the HDMI cable. Once we did that, we went through the required three reboots and on the third time got the computer running in safe mode. We deleted the offending file and rebooted the computer. It worked well. Furthermore we just unplugged the HDMI cable and re-inserted the Display-Port cable. We didn't have to shut down the machine or change any hardware settings. The original display worked fine and we could use the computer.

If you find yourself getting to the third reboot and a blank screen, you may just need to try an HDMI cable instead of a DisplayPort one. My hope is that this advice helps someone out there still experiencing trouble.

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.

Different Vacations

For the past year I have been training to climb Mt. Rainier. Now that the trip is over I find myself with a lot of extra time in the evenings and on weekends. This is both a blessing and a curse. While the training for climbing a mountain overwhelmed my schedule, it provided a needed focus in my life. While I have another vacation approaching, it is much less physically demanding.

In September I will be headed to Disney World with two of my grandchildren and wife. I am making sure to keep up on my evening walks so we won't get tired by all the walking we plan to do. I am also leveraging online resources to help plan the event. With Mt. Rainier, I utilized a lot of material from the Uphill Athlete. With Disney World, there are a lot of YouTube videos to help with the preparation. Fortunately most of the work can be done on the computer while relaxing on the couch.

Tomorrow starts a week of getting on the Internet early and making dining reservations to maximize my grand-kids' time with princesses and themed meals. It won't be nearly as physically draining as waking up early and hiking a thousand vertical feet. To be honest, I miss the physical preparation.

I had a friend ask if I am going to let my physical fitness decline now that my Mt. Rainier trip is over. I don't think I can as I have come to enjoy being able to walk up hills faster than I ever have before. As soon as we get some early season snow, I plan to hike up Alta with my skis and do my best to avoid rocks on the way down. There are also a lot of mountain peaks in the area that we couldn't climb earlier in the summer because of dangerous snow. The snow is all but gone and so my wife and I plan summit some of them in the coming days.

Ultimately I need another physical vacation in the next year to train for. Do I pull out my bike and plan for a century ride (that would be 100-miles in a single day) or try for another mountain? My wife has asked about doing Mt. Whitney in California or perhaps Mt. Adams in Washington. Ultimately I have worked hard to achieve this fitness level and while I have joked about sitting on the couch for the next 3 months, I'd prefer to continue improving my fitness.

Learning From Failure

We are often told that we learn the most from our failures. While it may be true, that doesn't make failure easy to deal with. This past weekend my wife and I attempted to summit Mt. Rainier in Washington. We have been training for a year and both felt prepared to make the 9,000 vertical-foot trek up the mountain reaching a height of 14,410 feet. As you can guess from the title of today's entry, we didn't quite make it.

We signed on with the RMI guide service at the end of last summer and then trained relentlessly to make our goal. I would say that I bordered on over training every week. During the process of our lengthy hikes, I developed a nasty case of Plantar Fasciitis. In the course of the year, I have tried a number of remedies and the one that seems to work the best is good old fashion stretching. I guess I need to add that to my daily exercise list. Who knew? Probably about every exercise instructor on the planet. Now I have first-hand experience in why stretching is important.

My wife and I felt very prepared for the climb and had a workout schedule that had us increasing our long hikes progressively higher each week. Often times we would have to cut our distance short because of snow. In hindsight, we should have embraced the snow and continued upwards with crampons and ice axes. Instead we turned around, hiked down, and then back up to reach our vertical goal. As part of the training from RMI before starting our climb, they taught us how to walk up and downhill safely in the snow. As an avid skier, I thought I had those skills already. I didn't but now I do.

On one of our last hikes preparing for Mt. Rainier, we hiked to the top of Mt. Olympus in Utah. It is a hike of about 4200 vertical feet over the course of 3.5 miles. The last quarter mile is more of a rock scramble than a hike and rock climbing skills come in handy. You go up about 700 vertical feet in that short distance and that turned out to be incredibly useful as there is a similar section on Mt. Rainier, only much longer and sketchier.

So what went wrong? We started hiking Mt. Rainier at around 10am on Friday morning and hiked about 5,000 vertical feet up to Camp Muir over the course of 4 miles. We knew about that as that is what we trained for. The whole team took a nice pace that we all felt we could keep and made it to our stopping point at about 3pm. Then we got some food and rested. Some of us even fell asleep. Then at 10pm our guides came into our bunkhouse and told us to get ready for the push to the summit. Unfortunately, I never trained for that. I probably should have as there is a mental element I didn't quite anticipate.

We started hiking up the Cowlitz Glacier and about 100 yards later, I had a wind gust blow me off the trail and onto the ground, spraining my ankle in the process. I jumped right back up and didn't tell anyone about my ankle as I didn't want to end my climb that early. We continued up to the Ingraham Glacier where we took our first break of the night. The guides asked how we felt and I wanted to continue.

Next came Disappointment Cleaver, an aptly named feature on the mountain. For those that don't know, a cleaver is an outcropping of rock that cuts a glacier in two. Imagine a shark fin slicing massive blocks of ice as they slowly work their way down the mountain. A cleaver has the advantage that you are walking on solid ground instead of ice and snow. Unfortunately that rock is crumbly and very unstable. It made the rock scramble on Olympus look super easy. We fought our way to the top of the cleaver and had our second break of the night. I felt spent. I tried to eat a Snickers bar as I needed calories and food. My stomach politely informed me not to put anything else in it or I would experience a Technicolor burp. Who can't finish a Snickers bar? Well this is one instance I couldn't. When the guides asked me if I could continue, my stomach said no, my ankle said no, and before I could stop my mouth, it said no loud enough for the guides to hear. I had reached my high point of the trip. I had thought everyone else had too as the winds gusted into the 50 mile per hour range. The guides almost made that the high point for the entire group. Fortunately for the others, they persevered to the top.

In hindsight I know I could have made it to the top. Getting all the way to the bottom safely is a different story. If I had gone to the top, my other team members would have gotten to see a helicopter rescue and that isn't good for anyone. Instead I safely made my way back to Camp Muir with several other climbers and a guide. I waited for the rest of the team to descend and then headed all the way back to the parking lot. Fortunately I could glissade below Camp Muir which is a fancy way of saying I slid down on my butt. It is a highly effective means of travel on snow and I highly recommend it. I don't think my ankle could have made it down without it.

The final lesson I learned from this adventure is that I need to be in better fitness condition. While I exercise a lot and am in better shape than 98% of the general population, I really need to be better than 99%. Upon hearing about our adventures, my daughter now wants to give it a shot. Perhaps I will try to improve my fitness and accompany her. If not, I may give up mountain climbing and enter a few pie eating contests instead.

Video Game Review: Helldivers 2

One of the fondest memories I have is playing video games on Thursday evenings with my brothers and dad. This is when online gaming started taking off and so you didn't have to be in the same room or even the same house. We would log onto our PlayStation 2 consoles and play SOCOM 2 with each other. I have missed the online game playing and so I thought I would start something similar with my own 2 sons. I have one that lives across town and another that lives across the country. Once again we have designated Thursday evenings as our night to play and our game of choice is Helldivers 2.

I started playing the original Helldivers when I still worked at Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) and enjoyed the top-down shooter platform. It didn't feel natural though and took awhile to get used to. The latest version of the game is a 3rd-Person shooter very similar to SOCOM 2. It feels like so many other shooter games that it should be easy for everyone to play.

While I am no longer at SIE, I still work for Sony and have access to discounted versions of the game. I purchased 3 copies so I would have one for myself and my 2 sons. Retail price for the game is $39.99 and well worth it if you are looking for a fun online playing experience.

The game is very similar to the movie Starship Troopers from 1997 where you are part of an elite team of soldiers sent to eradicate either bugs or robots from planets throughout the area. There is a lot of propaganda shown throughout the game relating to how you are spreading freedom throughout the galaxy and it adds a level of humor to the game play.

One difference between Helldivers 2 and SOCOM 2 is that you are always on the same side as the people you play with. The bugs or robots are controlled by the game. That means that the only competition you have with your teammates is to see who has the most kills or other similar statistics. This makes for a much more friendly environment.

The game is limited to squads of 4 and so it will not accommodate larger groups. You can play as a single person, but that can be really tough as you often need others to help unlock storage garages or align communication dishes. Fortunately the game won't keep you solo too long as other players may decide to join your mission and help out. This allows you to see how others play the game and learn from their technique.

My son who lives in Ohio will be gone this evening (Thursday) and so we played Tuesday this week. After an hour or so of running around and squashing man-eating bugs, he sent his brother and me a text saying how much fun he had. I agree, we did have a great time.

Helldivers 2 has an ESRB rating of M for mature due to intense violence and blood and gore. As you can hear other players playing, you will often hear strong language as well. The original version had a rating of T and the new one does deserve that M rating. The game is somewhat limited to the PlayStation 4 and 5 consoles but is also available on the PC. Naturally I play on the PS5.

Go Ask Alexa

My wife and I hosted our grandkids for a couple of days this week. We love having them over and had a great time. One day I found myself in the kitchen working on cleaning things up and could hear my soon-to-be 7-year-old grandson carrying on a delightful conversation with my Amazon Echo Show. While I generally ask the device a single question at a time, Alexa would respond only to have my grandson ask another question.

This opened my eyes to the beauty of artificial intelligence (AI) and how to keep from getting frustrated at the millions of questions young kids seem to always ask. You know the kids. The ones always asking why? While I don't mind playing that game for a bit, the kids always win with more questions than I feel like answering. With Alexa, you can have the kid ask away and the device never gets tired nor bored.

I also learned how to answer some questions based on Alexa's response. My grandson would ask two or three questions without waiting for a response. In those cases, the device would often respond with, "I'm sorry, I don't know the answer to that question." As responsible adults it is difficult to admit ignorance but talking with an overly inquisitive kid is the perfect time to practice that response.

The day after I listened to my grandson having his lengthy conversation with Alexa, my wife and I took the grandkids hiking up at Silver Lake near Brighton Ski Area. The kids loved it and kept running off ahead. I didn't want them to get too far away and so I called them back. I told them that they should remain close as there could be bears in the area. Without blinking, my grandson challenged that statement by asking, "Aren't bears nocturnal?" Perhaps the kid might be learning too much.

Experience Matters

Several years ago my wife and I wanted to bring our sailboat from the Antelope Island Marina to the South Shore Marina on the Great Salt Lake. We knew a storm would be blowing in the next day and wanted to get the task done before it came. We staged a car at the southern marina and then drove to the northern one. We loaded up the boat with ourselves and some winter-weather gear because of the month, February. Then we rigged a few safety devices to help protect us just in case something surprised us. Adding a preventer to the mainsail help ensure we wouldn't break the boat in a sudden wind shift.

The first 15 minutes of the trip went well and the wind filled in nicely. While sometimes you have to use the boat motor on such trips, it looked like we would be able to sail the whole way. At about minute 16, the weather changed dramatically, the storm arrived 15 hours early, and we found ourselves in 60 knots (about 66 miles per hour) of wind pushing us in the direction we wanted to go. Unfortunately our sailboat is not built to handle such wind and things got crazy. We ended up dropping both sails and still scooted along at a blistering 16 knots. That doesn't sound very fast but is 3 times the speed we normally sail.

One would think we had our excitement and once the wind died down all would be well. The wind did die down but then a snowstorm rolled in. I had planned to navigate visually but when the snow started falling, we couldn't see more than a few feet in front of the bow. The large smokestack from the smelter at the south-end of the lake that we aim for quickly disappeared. I had never bothered to install a compass in the cockpit and so I couldn't use that to help me. Ultimately I used the direction of the waves to guide me for the next several hours.

Eventually I could see a vertical line of blinking lights in the distance and hoped it to be the smokestack from the smelter as I knew it had aviation lights to warn low-flying planes. When the depth-finder on the boat went from 20 feet of water to 8 in about 2 feet, I knew I was off course and had to decide between turning hard to the left or hard to the right. I guessed and went right. The guess paid off and we quickly saw the breakwater for the South Shore Marina. We had blindly made it within a couple hundred yards of our final destination. As we continued I could see the expected lights on the smokestack and realized I had been heading towards a radio tower I had never noticed before.

We got into the marina at the south-end of the lake and quickly tied up the boat. I think my wife even kissed the dock once safely off the vessel. We both felt glad to be unharmed and relieved not to have to file an insurance claim for running the boat aground.

The moral of the story is that there is no substitute for experience. Sometimes we think we know something, like navigation but it isn't until we are tested that we know for sure. Since that day, I now know there are two tall objects at the south end of the Great Salt Lake with flashing lights. More importantly I know that the radio tower has brighter lights but the smokestack has 2 lights per row instead of just one. These are things you don't pay attention to on a sunny day. After all, why would you?