TITAM - Technical issues that affected me

Having upgraded the hardware, the software must follow, sooner or later.  The old Photoshop Elements wouldn't run on my shiny new SSD-equipped Core i7-2600K Win7 x64 machine.  Eventually it was time to upgrade, once PSE10 went on sale for Xmas. I liked Elements for the tagging and organization, but always hated it for it's slowness.  On my 'old' Latitude notebook, it would take at least 10 seconds to flip between full-screen photos - something Irfanview could do in milliseconds.  Tagging, importing, and all that was OK, but not being able to view the pictures to rate them quickly was a ball-breaker.  It got so unbearable that I stopped putting new photos in, figuring I'd fix it all on the new workstation. So I got Elements 10 installed, and it found and imported the old catalog (after performing some kind of 'conversion' that it never explained).  Unfortunately, it mangled the links to over half of my 10,000 photo collection, forcing me to the dreaded ...

The TI MSP430 Launchpad is absolutely great.  For a great take on the thing, watch EEVBlog #92 .  [Dave, you are great.  Sometime I hope I can do similar stuff, even if I can't be as good as you are.] I like the Launchpad too, but it has been a bit of a love-hate relationship so far. Every emulation tool has quirks.  However, I must be the only one having problems with the Launchpad, as nobody else seems to be mentioning it.  That makes me very unlucky, very inventive, or very dumb (or all three). Here's what I've found so far: "Failed to initialize" error:   can be caused by several things.  I've had a terrible time figuring this one out. Fixes so far: -  If you unplug the Launchpad while IAR EW is running, IAR may fail to reconnect.  Restart IAR. -  Oddly enough, rebooting the machine does actually help sometimes. -  In one case, the mini-USB connector was plugged in far enough to give power, but not fully engaged,...

I downloaded Camera ZOOM FX during the Android Market 10 cent sale.  Here's what I found out in the first 30 seconds: Good: Stable shot mode is cool. Macro focus.  Awesome. Zoom is fast. Bad: There is no exposure compensation.  Pretty piss-poor. FX settings are useless.  Seems to be the main claim to fame, really. Pressing the hardware camera button caused a crash.   Restarting it, it claimed it "could not connect to the camera", and suggested either a task killer (without suggesting which task to kill) or a phone reboot. Finally, on the Xperia X10i, Camera ZOOM FX is unable to mute the shutter sound.  The FAQ claims this is unavoidable due to operating system restrictions - yet, somehow, the native app manages to take silent photos just fine.  Obviously there is something there the CZF developers don't know (or don't have access to). The non-muting shutter sound is a dealbreaker for me, as I generally do not want people to know w...

Windows 7 file sharing has got to be the biggest PITA since Windows 2000.  It may be in the name of security, but come on!  2 hours to set up a damn share is stupid. Like so many others, I tried every snake-oil fix and setting I could think of.  Basically running through a zillion sites telling me to turn off password protection.  No shit, Sherlock! However, W7 has things locked down so tight that the required settings are no longer obvious, nor will they be applied "automatically" according to your desires.  You will probably need help. Fortunately, I found a decent video that walks you through the correct share setup process.  You need to set up the network sharing.  So follow the steps below. This guide assumes your XP machine can "see" the W7 machine shared folder/drive, but cannot access it (yet).  If not, you have other problems. Here's what *I* had to do.  YMMV, so good luck. In the "Advanced sharing settings", you may ha...

Yet another self-fulfilling prophecy has come to pass, courtesy of the mass media. Anyone who follows the news (especially technology news) will have heard about the floods in Thailand. It would seem these events are newsworthy not for the infrequency, severity, or consequences of the events.  Indeed, flooding is common in Thailand, as well as other nearby countries and regions.  Disruptions in basic services are also common, as are health problems, food and supply shortages, and their accompanying hardships on the people who live there.  Over one hundred thousand people have been displaced - a number roughly on par with the number of evacuees from the Fukushima area of Japan.  I have not been able to find out how many facilities, factories and homes have been affected, nor what the impact will be to basic necessities and in terms of human suffering. Oddly - or perhaps not so oddly - the media has chosen to largely ignore most of this.  Perhaps floodi...

On browsing for a new phone (yes, I still have my Xperia X10i), I realized that I never posted any feedback about where I bought it. I got my Xperia from Omegacell Communications .  I checked them out beforehand, and they had a decent physical store and all the phones physically in stock (i.e. in hand, you can pick them up and use them).  I was initially leery because they appear to sell 'grey market' phones.  These phones don't seem to be distributed in Canada, but they get them anyway.  Which probably means they're not "sanctioned" by the manufacturers.  However, I took the chance after seeing that they actually had a phone to sell. The advantage is that they sell several leading-edge AWS compatible phones.  Good news for those of us who like WIND Mobile, but don't like the WIND Mobile phone selection.  They also correctly identify the 2100 MHz band as being completely unnecessary, kudos for that. Anyway, I did end up buying from them, and e...

Steve Jobs is dead. Much will be made of his accomplishments, followed (inevitably) by much being made of his shortcomings. He may be the best example possible of how enormously successful people are still - well - people.  Like you and me - only human.

So today I receive an email from My Cable Mart , a cable vendor in the USA that I used some years ago.  I used them because I needed long HDMI cables (50') and they were one of the only places that had them at a reasonable price. The email was punting a 15% off sale they are having.  It's been a long time since the last promo email - I can't even remember when that was - so either this is something unusual or times are tough (or both). Looking back, I paid $105 ($USD) for a 50' HDMI cable back in 2007 - same cable is now $102, with a much better exchange rate.  A quick check shows Future Shop selling them - finally - at $200 now, for their "house brand" no-name cable. I have nothing against no-name cables.  I love them.  They work, and you don't pay for all the marketing and other bullshit.  But it's pretty plain that the markup on cables is still huge. And why not?  When I worked in retail, we sold camera filters worth $1 to people for $15-$30...

Somewhere along the path of Firefox upgrades, my FireFTP menu item got lost.  It is no longer in the Tools menu where I expected it to be. The solution was simpler than I thought.  It got moved under Tools/Web Developer.  Why anyone thinks it belongs there is beyond me, but there it is.

Gridmove is a fabulous little utility for those of us with lots of screen real estate to manage. Having become somewhat addicted to Gridmove, I was sore to see that the default .grid files didn't support my new third monitor. Fortunately, this was easier to fix than I thought.  If you're interested in custom grids, skip the help file - it's loaded with terminology.  Just open up an existing .grid file with notepad, you'll see how it hangs together pretty fast. Here's the grid.   All I did was expand it to three monitors.  Eventually I might delete the elements I don't use, but it works well as-is.

So the neighborhood video store is now a thing of the past.  But not quite in the way that everybody expected. There never were a lot of services in my immediate neighborhood, but when my family moved in we were pleased to see a Blockbuster just down the street.  Very handy for picking up the weekend entertainment for the larger family - being the only couple with a theater room, we were the de facto nominees every weekend. About three years ago, the Blockbuster closed.  Pity, we said, it seems the grocery store next door is moving in to the space.  We ended up going to Rogers Video, only a few more minutes away, for the most part.  Occasionally a trip to the next closest Blockbuster was in order, but for the most part it worked fine. Oddly enough, the grocery never moved in.  Eventually we realized that particular Blockbuster location was an early casualty of the shrinking DVD rental business. Then BAM! - all gone.  Blockbuster is bankrupt, ...

Moving on to the last item in my little rant about the antique-ness of most emergency 'preparedness' lists: The #1 item missing?  The smartphone.  Lest ye think I'm off my rocker, let me explain. The smartphone represents many things in an emergency situation.  First, and most obviously, it's communications.  Communications are so important that emergency first responders invest millions of dollars into infrastructure-independent communication systems for their personnel, so there can be little argument that it's important for Joe Public as well. Sure, the infrastructure can fail, or be overwhelmed.  This happens pretty often during disasters in urban areas - the cellular infrastructure just can't handle the call volume.  So it's certainly not perfect. On the other hand, some people don't even have a landline any more, and many people that do have moved on from the POTS network on to IP phones or other such rigamarole.  (The author is among the...

Like most people, I don't worry overtly about disasters.  We live in an area that has few severe disasters, and are so used to long winters that most of the time we can cope. For whatever reason, Irene prompted me to get curious as to what the latest thinking was with regards to disaster preparation.  I don't know why - perhaps photos of stores charging $10 per bottle of water or some fool buying 52 frozen pizzas had something to do with it. Anyway, I poked around a little bit.  And, you know, it's a bit disappointing. Now, don't get me wrong.  The basic "disaster preparedness" lists out there - many of them furnished by various levels of government - are helpful and pretty good.  They list all the basic things, along with a few useful guidelines.  If you use them, you should be good for most of what life may throw at you. What amazes me, however, is what these lists do not say. It looks to me like these lists are antiques from the 1950s.  As...

Bug kudos to Ben Hirashima   for saving (at least some) of my sanity with Android. Like most other Android phones, the X10i provides for a pattern password.  And, like most, it doesn't allow you to disable the regular "swipe to unlock" screen.  This forces the user into having two lock screens - an incredibly dumb move that The inconvenience made me remember my Palm days, where I could activate and unlock my Treo in seemingly no time at all.  Granted, it wasn't the same - the Treo had no password protection - but I didn't need it then and I wonder if I need it now.  Everything is encrypted in Note Everything Pro anyway. It was getting to the point where I was going to turn off the password.  It took so long to unlock the phone, start apps, and do anything that any speedup was welcome. Even worse was the common occurrence of turning off the phone, just to remember - after the screen went dark - that I forgot to jot something down.  Then you hav...

Android is full of little tricks.  The latest one involved email notifications. I recently set up a new email account for server error messages, and wanted a "special" ring tone associated with that email account.  It's important that I know right away if my servers have problems, whereas I really couldn't care less about knowing precisely when email arrives to my other accounts. Naturally, I couldn't find a decent notification message in the pre-installed list on my X10i. So I downloaded a new ringtone, learning via Google that you had to put it into a directory called "ringtones" - even the all-lowercase is mandatory - for the phone to see it. Well, it didn't.  Or, to be more precise, it did see the new ringtone as a ringtone, but it still did not show up in the ring tone list for email .  Lovely separation, that.  One wonders exactly how many ring tones a person might need to have before it would be confusing enough to be worthwhile main...

This seems to be a bit of a common problem out there in Androidland, but I haven't run across it before. Today - or sometime yesterday, more likely - all of the calendar data disappeared from my handset.  The events were still on my Google calendar, but the handset had no data whatsoever (past, present, or future). Rebooting, the de facto first step for all debugging, did not help.  Manually changing something on the Google calendar would refresh that single event on my handset, but no others. What I didn't see was a way to force a synchronization between my Xperia X10i and my Google calendar.  (Why they couldn't have had a "sync now" option like the email app is beyond me.) The fix is documented in many places, but the best description of the solution I found was over at XperiaX10.net.   Here it is, reproduced verbatim from contributor "rookwise": Goto settings/applications/manage applications. Press the menu button and select Filter and then...

As I think I posted earlier, my favorite application in the universe - Automate 4.5 - failed to operate properly on my new Win7 x64 machine. The problem was mostly that Automate was unable to send keystrokes to some applications.  Most notably, Altium Designer, which is my electronic CAD tool of choice. I spend hours on Altium daily.  For anyone unfamiliar with professional CAD software, "professional" does not always mean "efficient".  While keyboard support is second to none in Altium, Altium has scores of features locked away behind clumsy UI.  If you use it a lot, it eats time. Every PCB layout professional I know has invested in an X-keys, Logitech gamepad, or other such programmable device to help automate the repetitive tasks - I've just gone one better and used macros too. Over the years I have built up an impressive array of Automate macros for Altium, as well as Excel, Word, and several others.  Automate fills in the gap by killing adware windo...

When specifying my latest workstation, I lost a lot of sleep over the video card. First, I wanted a multi-monitor setup - 3 monitors, to be exact.  I had a dual-monitor setup and wanted to upgrade. Second, I wanted a Solidworks-capable video card.  That means a "workstation" class card.  SW does not screw around, and although it is not the most graphics-intensive program in the world, it's up there. Third, I needed (not wanted) something that would run Altium 2006 and Altium Summer '09 flawlessly. And therein lay the problem.  Altium, in their infinite wisdom, recommends a list of obsolete gaming-class video cards, last updated 2010.  They have never tested a workstation-class card like a Firepro or Quadro - or, at least, never said they did.  Most of the cards on their 'good' list don't even exist any more. Altium even goes so far as to recommend gaming cards over pro cards, as well as saying bad things about OpenGL-based cards. This contrast...

Today I decided I'd like to watch a bit of film on my brand-spankin' new workstation.  I haven't even so much as popped a DVD in the drive yet. I try it and Windows Media Player has no sound.  Probably doesn't understand AC3.  I could have tried to hack in the codec, but I'm rather partial to WinDVD anyway. After buying (gasp!) and installing WinDVD Pro 2010, I fire it up.  Looks good!  Lots of nice logos. Until I get about three seconds into my movie, only to see "Your display environment does not support protected content playback."  WTF!?! So it turns out that the "new" players simply do not like multimonitor setups.  Apparently, without HDMI to "properly" protect the digital signal, it can't "guarantee" that my triple monitor setup isn't some kind of surrogate for a devious copy-protection bypass mechanism. So I've gone and sprung for a beautiful triple monitor setup, with requisite massive (and expen...

For whatever reason, Adobe Acrobat will not properly repaint the screen when resizing internal windows.  It 'sticks' the image at the previous window size. The only fix I've found so far is to show or hide a secondary pane, such as the bookmarks.  This forces Acrobat to repaint the screen to the new scaling. This problem may be unique to my FirePro 8800 triple monitor setup, or it might be a W7 thing, I'm not sure.  Acrobat is not the only program having this problem, but it is by far the worst. [Addition]:  You can quickly force a refresh with F4.

I've been reading a lot of conflicting information about what the "status bar" in Windows 7 does and does not show. For those that don't know, the "status bar" is the banner that shows at the bottom of your Windows Explorer windows.  (If you have it enabled, that is.)  It's intended to give you quick details about the file or folder that is currently in focus. (Note I said Windows Explorer, not Internet Explorer.) Anyway, in XP, the status bar typically gave you fixed information.  One of these was the file size. For whatever reason, Windows 7 does and doesn't give you the same information. It doesn't in the sense that the attributes shown in the status bar change according to file type.  All files show an icon for the creating/assigned program, and the file name, which is redundant. After that, you get different tags.  The current folder gives "offline status" and "offline availability".  A text file gives "...

 My new PC came with Bluetooth on the mainboard, which is cool.  But pairing my headphones with the PC didn't work, which is not. Here's what worked for me.  Note my system has the Realtek audio installed. Go to the system tray, and double-click on the Bluetooth icon.  The Bluetooth Devices panel from the Control Panel should show up. Click "Add a device". Put the headphones into pairing mode; let Windows find it. Note:  If Windows can't find it, stop here and fix the problem.  I didn't have that problem. After pairing, you will see the "Stereo Headset" in your devices, but probably won't get any sound. In Bluetooth Devices, right click the new headset and select Properties.  Go to the Services tab and make sure "Headset" is checked. Go back to the system tray, and right-click on the speaker icon.  Note: my system shows two, which is confusing.  The one you want is shown in the tray by default - that is, you do not h...

A nice little bit of Excel macro magic allows you to delete rows if a particular column is blank. I deal with data sets that are always scrambled, but usually in different ways.  This precludes the use of macro-scripting programs (like my personal favorite, trusty old Automate 4) because the patterns just different enough for pre-programmed key macros to fail. Thanks to this little macro by Chip Pearson gets around the problem nicely.  Thanks, Chip!

I had to drill some mounting holes in a stainless steel tray I bought.  It was harder than I thought. Here's what worked, in the end: Use cobalt bits.  Home Depot sold some cobalt bits my Milwaukee called "Thunderbolt" that were expressly stated to work well on stainless and iron.  They did the trick for me where gold titanium bits just dulled and broke. Use a slow drill speed.  The second-slowest speed on my 18V cordless did well.  I tried high speeds, and they just made the drill bit tip cherry-red, melted and useless. Use moderate pressure. Drill straight down.  Drilling on an angle makes it more likely you'll bust the bit off. The above notwithstanding, I found a little bit of wiggle on the drill helped the bit gain some bite.  YMMV.  I wouldn't do this on thicker metals. Use a nail or something to dent the metal where you want to start.  The "Thunderbolt" bits did a good job of staying put to start, as long as you went really sl...

Having had my stand set up for a week or so, I do like it. The weight-assist mechanisms are set to the stiffest possible setting at the factory.  However, you can crank them down to minimum without bother.  The mechanisms never become loose or floppy, and it's designed so you can't accidentally unbolt anything. My 19/22/19 setup does just fine at minimum stiffness.  It doesn't sag or move around on it's own. The final height of my monitors did change, but after the first two hours I stopped noticing.  So by the next day you'll have forgotten anything was different. Overall, I would recommend this unit.  It is well made and does a good job. It's a good price - comparatively speaking, of course.  I spotted a comparable system at a local shop for $1800 with monitors - that's $600 per monitor, well over what each of those 23" LCDs are worth.  Granted, it looked totally slick, used a different mounting system that guaranteed perfect alignment of...

-------------------------------------------------------- Please donate to assist in the Japanese disaster.  Visit http://disasterjapan.wordpress.com/ for a list of reputable agencies that make a difference. -------------------------------------------------------- Two-plus weeks on, and the ludicrous media hysteria around Fukushima is finally starting to die a painful, gasping death. We also start to see the occasional rational analysis of the entire affair: Your Man In Japan Praying for meltdown: The media and the nukes (The Register) Fukushima scaremongers becoming increasingly desperate (also The Register) Unfortunately, these are still few and far between. As horrible as it may seem, one wonders what would have happened if all the affected nuclear reactors had simply been destroyed. More lives would have been lost.  But they would only be a small fraction of the total lives lost, and probably wouldn't even be remarked upon by the mainstream media. The ...

Using the same Samba share, Windows XP would delete read-only files, and directories with read-only files in them.  It would, of course, prompt you with a "Are you sure you want to delete the read-only file" message. Windows 7, for some unfathomable reason, did not do this with the same Samba share.  Instead, it came up with a very irritating message that said "File access denied", "You need permission to perform this action" message.  It would not progress past that. This affected file moving and (I think) copying as well, in at least a few cases. The simple fix, of course, was just to clear the read-only flag on the file and re-attempt, in which case Windows 7 will delete it quite happily.  This is stupid, however - W7 should behave like XP, and just bloody well do it if I want it to. Thanks to this post , written by some other poor schmuck with the same problem, I found my solution: In smb.conf: [global] map readonly = no delete readonly =...

Windows 7 x64 doesn't ship with the driver for the 2600n, and won't recognize it if you try and add it. If you try to get the driver for the 2600n from the HP website, you will find on run that it asks you to plug in the USB cable - which this printer does not have.  Good one, HP. However, for some reason, running the package up to the USB connection and hitting 'cancel' installs enough stuff for Win7 to correctly identify the 2600n. So, the recipe is: 1.  Download the latest driver from the HP website. 2.  Run it. 3.  When it asks you to plug in the USB cable, hit "Cancel" and quit. 4.  Go to Control Panel / Devices and Printers and run Add Printer. 5.  Select Network Printer, then IP address, and type in the correct IP for your printer. 6.  W7 x64 should correctly recognize the printer at this point, where previously it did not.

I've mounted my existing dual-monitor setup on my Ergotron.  Everything pretty much went as expected. The tipping hazard mentioned by others is real, but is not necessarily a given.  If you have relatively small side monitors, the unit won't tip over.  Put monsters on it and all you need are a few books to brace the unit while you mount monitor #3. Because I have mismatched monitors, the bezels do not perfectly line up.  Part of the problem is the depth (thickness) of each monitor is different.  If you have a thicker monitor in one position, the bezel will be closer to you than the bezel of the neighboring monitor. This didn't bother me - I kind of expected it - and like most other reviewers don't even notice it when using the system.  If you're a perfectionist with unrealistic expectations, trust me - you'll get over the "problem" in no time. The spring-assist mechanisms in the unit are very strong, and were set to maximum from the factory.  M...

To go with my new workstation I invested in a Ergotron LX Triple Display Stand (#33-296-195).  It seems expensive, but given what you get it really isn't. I will post some pictures eventually.  To get an idea of the size of this thing, watch the YouTube video here, courtesy of motherboards.org . Obviously it's large, so one significant concern I had was how (or if) it would fit on my desk.  Unless you have a deep 'boss' desk, you might be restricted as to the total depth you have available. As you can see in promo pictures, the stand has a foot, a post, an arm, and a mount that joins the arm to the post.  In my case, the size and positioning of the mount was important, because I wanted to put a shelf behind the stand. A few points that may be helpful on this stand: The stand will need to be about 9-1/2" away from the front edge of your desk, minimum.  Otherwise you won't really have enough space to make a standard keyboard work. The mount sticks out...

Ever since the nuclear accident at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station No 1 began, the entire news media has been in an absolute frenzy. And yet, for all of the improvements in the 'information age' - with updates happening in real time from the far side of the world (to us) - there is so little actual information.  The news sites talk, babble, scream, moan, and publish endless one-liners from so-called "experts" that range between guarded optimism to predictions of total apocalypse.  And yet they say nothing, all the while trying to generate excitement about their meaningless utterings. The causes are many.  Certainly Tokyo Electric Power has not been saying a whole lot to reporters.  And why should they?  Do they not have enough to do without further goading the media machine?  Like talk to the IAEA, which they can (and should) be doing better?  Or maybe devoting every second of time towards pursuing every possible, potential solutio...