After Alexa's HP desktop computer got a brand new power supply, I suspected the computer to be a happy piece of machinery for a long time to come. (Ref. The tale of the HP Pavilion, below) But I was wrong. Last Friday I got another phone call from Alexa, and she could tell that the computer had got a bad virus and it was now impossible to use. I offered to help once again, and went over to her house last Saturday.
I have always run some sort of anti virus software on my computers, everything from expensive (and overpriced?) Norton, to good freeware like AVG and Avast. This has probably saved me from ever having to deal with any really bad virus infections. But Alexa definitely had a virus or some bad malware running. Pop-ups telling me that the computer was infected kept popping up, and if I clicked them, an interface popped up and told me that the computer was being scanned, and recommended me to buy some kind of software. This was of course fake alerts generated by the virus, so I never clicked the link. I don't know what you could actually find there, but probably nothing that could solve this problem. IE also kept popping up from time to time, telling me where to find and buy adult entertainment. Nice..
The fake antivirus popups seemed to come from a little icon on the notification area, so there was obviously some process going on. I tried to find out more about it, but no matter what I tried to run, MRT (Malicious Software Removal Tool), taskmanager, search, etc, I just gor error messages telling me that the process was infected and could not be executed.
I suspect that there had been no working anti virus software on the computer, so after getting the virus, Alexa had bought and downloaded some software. But the install was corrupted, probably because of the virus, and the application would not start. So I went round and round with the anti virus software and different anti malware software for a while, both in safe mode and normal mode. Some of them could not be installed in safe mode, while others could be installed but would not perform scans in safe mode. Back in normal mode, the applications were corrupt and would not start. At last I managed to install Malware Bytes, and perform a full scan, but it didn't find anything.
So I took the HP back home, and started looking carefully into it. Without network it took a while for the virus to start, so I got task manager opened, and took notes of the processes running. After the virus started sending pop ups, I discovered a process named "xydisftav". I didn't find any information online, but both Jenn and I agreed that this seemed suspicious, so we stopped the process. That seemed to halt the virus , so I did a file search, and found the file xydisftav.exe under C:\Documents and Settings\user\Application Data. The file got deleted, and I was happy to see that the pop ups didn't show up again. The virus was gone!
I decided to put some kind of basic anti virus on the computer, but the AVG download process caused me two BSODs and I don't like the Avast user interface, so I decided to go with Avira Antivir. A lightweight free anti virus application that has a decent interface and does a good job according to online sources. For the next days, I let the computer run day and night, performing various virus and malware scans. In the end nothing more was found, and a happy Alexa could stop by and pick up her computer again. The poor HP has had some unfortunate experiences lately, but I hope life will treat it better now, and that I won't have to see it again for a while.
Bjørn Sveigdalen
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
Malware and slow bootup
One of my concerns when it comes to my computers is the bootup time. Sometimes when I have borrowed other people's computers (particularly laptops, it seems) I experience devices that use several minutes to boot up and load Windows. I don't know why this annoys me so much, but I guess the combination of impatience and seeing a poorly maintained system might be the reason. Bootup isn't supposed to take that long, and it can be a sign of an overfilled harddrive or that something is wrong with the installation.
My IBM T43 has always had a fairly quick bootup, and I have always made sure to take actions if any changes I do seem to affect the bootup time. If it does, I take a quick peek into msconfig/startup to see if some strange process is suddenly added to the list. So far, the thing that has affected the bootup time the most is actually my AVG antivirus. Especially the upgrades to newer versions. But I guess that's the price to pay for being up to date. New antivirus applications are created to take advantage of newer computers’ increased processing capabilities, to offer the best possible protection. Which means that older computers, like my T43, get a harder time dealing with these applications.
But I shouldn't complain. It only takes 70 seconds from I push the button and turn the T43 on, until I see my desktop with the icons. When my XP installation was new it did the same in between 40 and 50 seconds, but after going through a whole bunch of upgrades, installations and uninstallations during 3 years, 70 seconds is still not too bad.
So what happened last weekend really gave me a headache for a while...
My wife was using the T43, when she suddenly lost internet access. It later turned out that our Packet8 phone modem caused that, but we didn't know that then. Jenn does IT support and computer troubleshooting for a living, so she knows what she's doing, but this time she had to deal with a computer that had menus in norwegian. So instead of disconnecting from the wireless network, she ended up disabling the T43’s wireless card. It took me a while before I figured out why I couldn't see my wireless connections anymore, but I got it enabled again and did a reboot. Then I suddenly noticed that the T43 took forever to reboot. Between 2 and 3 minutes would be my estimate. Wow, what had happened?
Usually, the root cause of a problem is the most recent change you have done to the system. Could a bad driver cause Windows to look for my wireless card as a missing hardware component? After trying to update the driver, I realized that could not be the case. So I took a quick peek into msconfig/Startup, and noticed there were a couple of new entries there. Most of the names doesn’t really explain much, so I did an online search for all of them. A site that returned good search results was bleepingcomputers.com, and I indetified two entries as “Undesireable programs” . These two were ld08 and mstre18, pointing to the ld08.exe and mstre18.exe files in the C:\Windows folder. The ld08 is described as a Trojan that displays fake antivirus messages.
The actual .exe files were no longer in the Windows folder, so I have no idea if they have ever been there at all. I suspect they have been there at one point, even though I have never had problems with fake antivirus popups. But as soon as I unhooked these two startup items, bootup was back to it’s old, and maybe even slightly faster than it’s been for the last two months or so. Windows apparently spent time looking for these two files, and that caused the slow bootup.
If you are curious, and want to check this on your own computer, the Startup Items menu is found by opening Run (Kjør), and running the commando msconfig. The window named System Configuration Utility will appear, and you select the tab Startup. My startup list contains 39 items, of which 8 are now disabeled. But be very careful! Some of these are processes needed to make your computer and operating system work. So make sure to do a search, with the search text msconfig, followed by the name from the column Startup Item. An example of a search term from my computer is “msconfig syntplpr”. SynTPLpr is a process needed to make the T43’s touchpad work, so this can not be disabeled. In my case, the search results from bleepingcomputer.com gave me the answers what the items were, and if they should be disabeled or not.
Bjørn Sveigdalen
My IBM T43 has always had a fairly quick bootup, and I have always made sure to take actions if any changes I do seem to affect the bootup time. If it does, I take a quick peek into msconfig/startup to see if some strange process is suddenly added to the list. So far, the thing that has affected the bootup time the most is actually my AVG antivirus. Especially the upgrades to newer versions. But I guess that's the price to pay for being up to date. New antivirus applications are created to take advantage of newer computers’ increased processing capabilities, to offer the best possible protection. Which means that older computers, like my T43, get a harder time dealing with these applications.
But I shouldn't complain. It only takes 70 seconds from I push the button and turn the T43 on, until I see my desktop with the icons. When my XP installation was new it did the same in between 40 and 50 seconds, but after going through a whole bunch of upgrades, installations and uninstallations during 3 years, 70 seconds is still not too bad.
So what happened last weekend really gave me a headache for a while...
My wife was using the T43, when she suddenly lost internet access. It later turned out that our Packet8 phone modem caused that, but we didn't know that then. Jenn does IT support and computer troubleshooting for a living, so she knows what she's doing, but this time she had to deal with a computer that had menus in norwegian. So instead of disconnecting from the wireless network, she ended up disabling the T43’s wireless card. It took me a while before I figured out why I couldn't see my wireless connections anymore, but I got it enabled again and did a reboot. Then I suddenly noticed that the T43 took forever to reboot. Between 2 and 3 minutes would be my estimate. Wow, what had happened?
Usually, the root cause of a problem is the most recent change you have done to the system. Could a bad driver cause Windows to look for my wireless card as a missing hardware component? After trying to update the driver, I realized that could not be the case. So I took a quick peek into msconfig/Startup, and noticed there were a couple of new entries there. Most of the names doesn’t really explain much, so I did an online search for all of them. A site that returned good search results was bleepingcomputers.com, and I indetified two entries as “Undesireable programs” . These two were ld08 and mstre18, pointing to the ld08.exe and mstre18.exe files in the C:\Windows folder. The ld08 is described as a Trojan that displays fake antivirus messages.
The actual .exe files were no longer in the Windows folder, so I have no idea if they have ever been there at all. I suspect they have been there at one point, even though I have never had problems with fake antivirus popups. But as soon as I unhooked these two startup items, bootup was back to it’s old, and maybe even slightly faster than it’s been for the last two months or so. Windows apparently spent time looking for these two files, and that caused the slow bootup.
If you are curious, and want to check this on your own computer, the Startup Items menu is found by opening Run (Kjør), and running the commando msconfig. The window named System Configuration Utility will appear, and you select the tab Startup. My startup list contains 39 items, of which 8 are now disabeled. But be very careful! Some of these are processes needed to make your computer and operating system work. So make sure to do a search, with the search text msconfig, followed by the name from the column Startup Item. An example of a search term from my computer is “msconfig syntplpr”. SynTPLpr is a process needed to make the T43’s touchpad work, so this can not be disabeled. In my case, the search results from bleepingcomputer.com gave me the answers what the items were, and if they should be disabeled or not.
Bjørn Sveigdalen
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2 review
So finally it was christmas, and I was to unpack my main gift this year. From Bjorn - To Bjorn.
For those of you who didn't read the blog below, this is a Lenovo Ideapad S10-2 netbook. I ordered mine with a N280 processor instead of the standard N270 processor, which gives a 0.06GHz increase in speed to 1.66GHz. The FSB (Front Side Bus) speed is also increased from 533MHz to 667MHz. If this will give any noticeable difference in daily life is doubtful, but I chose to do this to get the most up to date specs. The other specifications are pretty similar to most other netbooks; a 160GB hard drive (Western Digital) and 1GB of RAM in one single SODIMM slot. According to crucial.com, the maximum possible RAM is upgrade is to 2GB, probably limited by the chipset. On the outside we find the standard 3 USB ports, a VGA port, a RJ45 network port, SD card reader and headphone/microphone jacks. The 3rd USB port is really nice, as you can end up using 2 of them for mouse and keyboard if you use the netbook for a office desk setup.
At first glance, out of the box, the build quality of the S10-2 seems to be good, and the good and slim design is pretty similar to the Samsung N110. Otherwise the lid gives a good smooth feel when you open it, and the Lenovo doesn't seem to have any noticeable flexing when it's opened or carried around by it's edges. Even though I try to avoid doing that. I have never liked the glossy surface on the cases, and even less the glossy screens. But that's the way most netbooks/laptops seen to have gone. The colors and the picture quality seems to be pretty good, but visibility in bright light and sunlight seems to be a little limited.
The 6 cell battery peeks a bit out below the base, so it raises the back of the S10-2 a bit. It also creates a "handle" that most people would grab to carry the netbook around, but I don't think the battery attachment is actually designed for holding the netbook's weight in the long run. The downside is that the big battery makes it hard to fit the S10-2 in it's carrying sleeve, and all in all Samsung seem to have succeeded better in making a compact sized 6 cell battery. The battery life also seems to be a little bit down compared to the Samsung, but I have not made specific measurements on this.
Side view. VGA, USB and headphone/microphone jacks.
Notice how the battery lifts the back.
The accessibility to internal parts on the S10-2 is excellent with two covers underneath. One small cover for the SODIMM slot, and a big one for the HDD and the two Mini PCI slots. One Mini PCI slot is free, and what seems to be a slot for a SIM card is located behind the battery, so there is a possibility to install a mini PCI mobile 3G card here. The Samsung only has a single small cover for the SODIMM slot, so a removal of the HDD requires a dismantling of the netbook.
The underside of the S10-2. Notice two covers that give access to the
HDD and the two Mini PCI slots (left) and the SODIMM slot (right)
The S10-2 key's don't give as good a feedback as the Samsung, and they seem to be slightly harder to hit correctly. The reason can be that the top of the S10-2 keys is slightly smaller, because of more beveled edges, and sligthly more space in between the keys. However, I think it's also an issue of me being used to the Samsung after using it for almost 3 months. The S10-2's touchpad has a lot of settings, and after narrowing the scroll zones around the edge, it works pretty well. Compared to a Dell Inspiron Mini that I tested, it seems like the Dell has the biggest and best keys of these 3 netbooks, but the worst touchpad solution. Dell includes the left/right click buttons in the bottom corners of the touchpad, and that causes the cursor to jump off the target most times I try to click. Both Lenovo and Samsung use separate buttons.
The S10-2's bootup is quick (Which it should be on a clean install) and XP SP3 has no big surprises for us. The 1st bootup gave me the option of installing certain software, but I decided to wait until I knew what I actually needed. Unfortunately this setup was available only on 1st bootup, so I had to locate these .exe files in the "First bootup" folder and install the applications I wanted from there. The harddrive had a 30GB D: partition, containing only 1 GB of Lenovo drivers, which I found to be a waste of space. So a quick deal with Easus Partition Manager, put 25GB back into the C: partition where I need the space. A hidden partition, with recovery possibilites from a One-Key recovery button, is also there. Anyway, I chose to create a Clonezilla image, so a new HDD can be reset to day 1 state.
The pleasant surprise comes with the Quick Start. By pressing the Quick Start button, the S10-2 loads a Linux based Quick Start mini OS that allow you to run a browser, Skype and a few other nice applications. I often put the Samsung to sleep to avoid the XP bootup, but the S10-2 can be turned all the way off to save battery power, and I can still have quick access.
So the Lenovo S10-2 was a good experience. I am still debating who is the best; the Samsung or the Lenovo. The keys and the slightly lower battery life are drawbacks for the Lenovo. On the other hand, the Quick Start and the service accessibility are pleasant surprises. The Samsung scores good on most things, but on the other hand, there are no real highlights that creates any kind of enthusiasm.. So all in all this comes down to what your preference is. If you get a good deal on a Samsung, go for that. But if the price is the same and you see the Quick Start and the easy component access as things you like, go for the S10-2.
I am used to the IBM, later Lenovo products, and have good experiences with them. So it felt natural for me to stick with Lenovo. And I think that Lenovo managed to make an overall good product here, with some nice features, but no really big drawbacks. That makes this into a tool I will probably use for years to come.
Source for all pictures in this review: http://www.notebookreview.com/
For those of you who didn't read the blog below, this is a Lenovo Ideapad S10-2 netbook. I ordered mine with a N280 processor instead of the standard N270 processor, which gives a 0.06GHz increase in speed to 1.66GHz. The FSB (Front Side Bus) speed is also increased from 533MHz to 667MHz. If this will give any noticeable difference in daily life is doubtful, but I chose to do this to get the most up to date specs. The other specifications are pretty similar to most other netbooks; a 160GB hard drive (Western Digital) and 1GB of RAM in one single SODIMM slot. According to crucial.com, the maximum possible RAM is upgrade is to 2GB, probably limited by the chipset. On the outside we find the standard 3 USB ports, a VGA port, a RJ45 network port, SD card reader and headphone/microphone jacks. The 3rd USB port is really nice, as you can end up using 2 of them for mouse and keyboard if you use the netbook for a office desk setup.
When it comes to computing resources, it's interesting to see that the S10-2 is almost on par with my Thinkpad T43 (2005 generation) laptop. The T43 has a 1.75 GHz processor and 2GB of RAM, so I see no real difference in performance between the T43 and the S10-2 on the few lighter applications I have run on the S10-2 so far. In comparison, a similar Thinkpad from today's range (T500) can run a 3.06GHz Core2 Duo /1066MHz FSB processor and have 8GB of RAM. Which leaves any netbook in the dust when it comes to pure power. But the point is actually to see the netbook for what it is. Not as a replacement for a full size laptop, but as a tool for those who want something small and portable. So no use in complaining about a small screen and keyboard, and a lack of processing power: That's the trade off for the compact size and the portability!
The Lenovo S10-2.
At first glance, out of the box, the build quality of the S10-2 seems to be good, and the good and slim design is pretty similar to the Samsung N110. Otherwise the lid gives a good smooth feel when you open it, and the Lenovo doesn't seem to have any noticeable flexing when it's opened or carried around by it's edges. Even though I try to avoid doing that. I have never liked the glossy surface on the cases, and even less the glossy screens. But that's the way most netbooks/laptops seen to have gone. The colors and the picture quality seems to be pretty good, but visibility in bright light and sunlight seems to be a little limited.
The 6 cell battery peeks a bit out below the base, so it raises the back of the S10-2 a bit. It also creates a "handle" that most people would grab to carry the netbook around, but I don't think the battery attachment is actually designed for holding the netbook's weight in the long run. The downside is that the big battery makes it hard to fit the S10-2 in it's carrying sleeve, and all in all Samsung seem to have succeeded better in making a compact sized 6 cell battery. The battery life also seems to be a little bit down compared to the Samsung, but I have not made specific measurements on this.
Side view. VGA, USB and headphone/microphone jacks.
Notice how the battery lifts the back.
The accessibility to internal parts on the S10-2 is excellent with two covers underneath. One small cover for the SODIMM slot, and a big one for the HDD and the two Mini PCI slots. One Mini PCI slot is free, and what seems to be a slot for a SIM card is located behind the battery, so there is a possibility to install a mini PCI mobile 3G card here. The Samsung only has a single small cover for the SODIMM slot, so a removal of the HDD requires a dismantling of the netbook.
The underside of the S10-2. Notice two covers that give access to the
HDD and the two Mini PCI slots (left) and the SODIMM slot (right)
The S10-2 key's don't give as good a feedback as the Samsung, and they seem to be slightly harder to hit correctly. The reason can be that the top of the S10-2 keys is slightly smaller, because of more beveled edges, and sligthly more space in between the keys. However, I think it's also an issue of me being used to the Samsung after using it for almost 3 months. The S10-2's touchpad has a lot of settings, and after narrowing the scroll zones around the edge, it works pretty well. Compared to a Dell Inspiron Mini that I tested, it seems like the Dell has the biggest and best keys of these 3 netbooks, but the worst touchpad solution. Dell includes the left/right click buttons in the bottom corners of the touchpad, and that causes the cursor to jump off the target most times I try to click. Both Lenovo and Samsung use separate buttons.
The S10-2's bootup is quick (Which it should be on a clean install) and XP SP3 has no big surprises for us. The 1st bootup gave me the option of installing certain software, but I decided to wait until I knew what I actually needed. Unfortunately this setup was available only on 1st bootup, so I had to locate these .exe files in the "First bootup" folder and install the applications I wanted from there. The harddrive had a 30GB D: partition, containing only 1 GB of Lenovo drivers, which I found to be a waste of space. So a quick deal with Easus Partition Manager, put 25GB back into the C: partition where I need the space. A hidden partition, with recovery possibilites from a One-Key recovery button, is also there. Anyway, I chose to create a Clonezilla image, so a new HDD can be reset to day 1 state.
The pleasant surprise comes with the Quick Start. By pressing the Quick Start button, the S10-2 loads a Linux based Quick Start mini OS that allow you to run a browser, Skype and a few other nice applications. I often put the Samsung to sleep to avoid the XP bootup, but the S10-2 can be turned all the way off to save battery power, and I can still have quick access.
This YouTube video shows how the S10-2 boots
to Quick Start in less than 10 seconds.
to Quick Start in less than 10 seconds.
So the Lenovo S10-2 was a good experience. I am still debating who is the best; the Samsung or the Lenovo. The keys and the slightly lower battery life are drawbacks for the Lenovo. On the other hand, the Quick Start and the service accessibility are pleasant surprises. The Samsung scores good on most things, but on the other hand, there are no real highlights that creates any kind of enthusiasm.. So all in all this comes down to what your preference is. If you get a good deal on a Samsung, go for that. But if the price is the same and you see the Quick Start and the easy component access as things you like, go for the S10-2.
I am used to the IBM, later Lenovo products, and have good experiences with them. So it felt natural for me to stick with Lenovo. And I think that Lenovo managed to make an overall good product here, with some nice features, but no really big drawbacks. That makes this into a tool I will probably use for years to come.
Source for all pictures in this review: http://www.notebookreview.com/
Sunday, December 13, 2009
The tale of the HP Pavilion
Last Friday, my in-laws neighbour Alexa called my wife and complained that she was having some problems with her desktop computer. The were stripes across the screen, so she couldn't see anything, and she asked Jenn if we could take a look at it. Jenn promised her that we should look into it, and Alexa dropped the computer off at out house later that evening.
In the back of my mind, I thought that this sounded like either a bad monitor, and bad cable, or worst case: a graphics card gone bad. So I decided to make an attempt, and felt pretty confident that I could fix this. The computer had both a ATI Radeon AGP card and an onboard VGA. 1st test revealed a really bad picture, so the ATI card got taken out. The second test, with the monitor connected to the onboard VGA showed a perfect picture. To make sure it was a card issue and not the AGP interface, I tested with a similar ATI Radeon card we had lying around. That gave a perfect picture too, so this was pretty obvious: The ATI card had gone bad.
While the computer was running anyway, I ran some other checks and tuneups, just to be nice. After a while I noticed that Windows had an update ready, and surprisingly this was XP SP3. For some reason this computer hadn't had this update done yet, so I let it start. The update made the CPU run high, and I could hear the CPU fan come on at full blast. It ran like this for almost 20 mins, then I suddenly smelled burned plastic. I got a bit confused, and while I was trying to locate where the smell came from, the computer shut down. In the middle of the SP3 install. Ouch..
I soon found that the smell came from the power supply, and it was so hot that I couldn't touch it. I also found that the cooling fan inside the supply was stuck, so the reason for the fault was obvious. I opened up the power supply and put a new fan in, but the power supply never came to life anymore. The fan had probably been stuck for a while, but I put more stress to the system with high temperature, fans running, power consumption etc. than had been done for a while. I had never had a computer shut down in the middle of a SP3 update process before, so I wasn't even sure if the OS would work at all after that. How inconvenient.. How do you explain to someone that their computer only had a minor issue, easy to fix, until I tried to fix it. Then it broke, and now you need to reinstall your OS and all your applications.
After some thinking, I took the power supply out of one of our spare computers and plugged it on. The HP computer ran POST, and I was very relieved to see the Windows XP screen. XP apparently sensed that the update had been aborted, and ran a roll back process that took quite a while. After one more reboot, XP was fine, and I could do the SP3 update all over again.
I was very relieved about this, and could happily make a phonecall to the owner and describe what was wrong, and tell that I needed to buy a new power supply to make the computer work properly again. When I mentioned the supply failure, the 0wner said that the computer had shut down a couple of times because it was "too hot". So the supply had overheated before as well, but apparently I killed it for good. A new and identical power supply was bought at RJM, and I fitted it in the computer. The owner was happy to be able to keep her computer one more year, and I was happy to have gotten a new experience.
In the back of my mind, I thought that this sounded like either a bad monitor, and bad cable, or worst case: a graphics card gone bad. So I decided to make an attempt, and felt pretty confident that I could fix this. The computer had both a ATI Radeon AGP card and an onboard VGA. 1st test revealed a really bad picture, so the ATI card got taken out. The second test, with the monitor connected to the onboard VGA showed a perfect picture. To make sure it was a card issue and not the AGP interface, I tested with a similar ATI Radeon card we had lying around. That gave a perfect picture too, so this was pretty obvious: The ATI card had gone bad.
While the computer was running anyway, I ran some other checks and tuneups, just to be nice. After a while I noticed that Windows had an update ready, and surprisingly this was XP SP3. For some reason this computer hadn't had this update done yet, so I let it start. The update made the CPU run high, and I could hear the CPU fan come on at full blast. It ran like this for almost 20 mins, then I suddenly smelled burned plastic. I got a bit confused, and while I was trying to locate where the smell came from, the computer shut down. In the middle of the SP3 install. Ouch..
I soon found that the smell came from the power supply, and it was so hot that I couldn't touch it. I also found that the cooling fan inside the supply was stuck, so the reason for the fault was obvious. I opened up the power supply and put a new fan in, but the power supply never came to life anymore. The fan had probably been stuck for a while, but I put more stress to the system with high temperature, fans running, power consumption etc. than had been done for a while. I had never had a computer shut down in the middle of a SP3 update process before, so I wasn't even sure if the OS would work at all after that. How inconvenient.. How do you explain to someone that their computer only had a minor issue, easy to fix, until I tried to fix it. Then it broke, and now you need to reinstall your OS and all your applications.
After some thinking, I took the power supply out of one of our spare computers and plugged it on. The HP computer ran POST, and I was very relieved to see the Windows XP screen. XP apparently sensed that the update had been aborted, and ran a roll back process that took quite a while. After one more reboot, XP was fine, and I could do the SP3 update all over again.
I was very relieved about this, and could happily make a phonecall to the owner and describe what was wrong, and tell that I needed to buy a new power supply to make the computer work properly again. When I mentioned the supply failure, the 0wner said that the computer had shut down a couple of times because it was "too hot". So the supply had overheated before as well, but apparently I killed it for good. A new and identical power supply was bought at RJM, and I fitted it in the computer. The owner was happy to be able to keep her computer one more year, and I was happy to have gotten a new experience.
Friday, December 11, 2009
More space
With a 60GB / 7200 hard drive, my Thinkpad T43 didn't have an amazing storage capacity by today's standards. The XP install and my applications, took up closer to 30Gb, so with the bare basics, I ended up with a 50% filled up HDD. With all my private files stored there, I would have exceeded the recommended 75% limit. So I chose to keep all my mp3 files, videos and pictures on an external Seagate USB drive. The Seagate is slim and is USB powered, so it was easy to bring along and connect when I was on the go.
Still, I kept running into annoying issues. The T43 has only 2 USB ports, so when I used an external keyboard and a mouse, I couldn't use the drive. I also like to have my files backed up, so I had to copy them onto a second external drive as well, instead of just keeping them on my local drive and backed up on one external drive. So a bigger hard drive in the T43 would be very convenient for me.
Luckily I consulted my friends at forum.thinkpads.com, and it turned out that a bigger hard drive in the T43 wasn't as straight-forward as you would think. As opposed to the older T40/41/42 laptops, the T43 has a chipset with Serial ATA interfaces, but a SATA / PATA bridge chip is used to make this work with older Parallel ATA drives. (Or simply ATA drives, as this was refered to in the old days) This was a stepstone in the transition to SATA drives: Chipsets with SATA interfaces were developed, but IBM did for some reason chose to stick with the PATA drives. I read somewhere they were afraid of running out of SATA drives if they were to implement them in the T43, but I don't know if that's true.
A Thinkpad hard drive. Basically a small box, with magnetic plates turning at 7200 rpm inside it.
This causes some problems. Whether it's due to special requirements for the SATA / PATA bridge, or if IBM simply chose to do it this way is unknown to me. But the T43 doesn't accept other than IBM approved hard drives. The use of non-proprietary drives causes the laptop to give a 2010 error and loud beeps at POST. By using the latest BIOS update, the BIOS can be set to bypass the error and continue booting, but you have introduced an error to the system. Everything will work like it's supposed to in other ways, but I wasn't interested in doing this.
Another option could be to buy a hard drive adapter for the UltraBay. This is the bay where the optical reader is located, but this can also be used for a secondary hard drive or a secondary battery. Because this runs from a pure PATA IDE interface, you can basically put any drive in here and it will work with no error. But I wasn't interested in sacrificing my CD-R unit, so that was out of the question. So I was left with the option of getting an IBM approved hard drive, which are limited to 120GB in size and actually hard to find these days since they are not manufactured anymore.
Luckily there are people on the forum that runs their own little Thinkpad business, and I got a message from Brad, who had a brand new 100GB / 7200 rpm Lenovo labeled drive to sell me. The price wasn't too bad, and this gave me exactly what I was looking for. The drive was paid by check, and arrived a couple of days later. Still in a sealed bag inside a sealed box. So definitely never used. To be able to use the drive straight away, I booted up from a Clonezilla cd and put an image of my existing drive onto the Seagate drive. Then I installed my new hard drive and put the image back on the new drive. And it worked! Since the image was an exact copy of the old drive, the C: was still only 60GB. So I had to download an application to extend my partition to 100GB. Then I was ready to go. And what a relief to just open Windows Explorer and browse my pictures and mp3's without attaching the external drive. And thanks to Brad for the help!
Still, I kept running into annoying issues. The T43 has only 2 USB ports, so when I used an external keyboard and a mouse, I couldn't use the drive. I also like to have my files backed up, so I had to copy them onto a second external drive as well, instead of just keeping them on my local drive and backed up on one external drive. So a bigger hard drive in the T43 would be very convenient for me.
Luckily I consulted my friends at forum.thinkpads.com, and it turned out that a bigger hard drive in the T43 wasn't as straight-forward as you would think. As opposed to the older T40/41/42 laptops, the T43 has a chipset with Serial ATA interfaces, but a SATA / PATA bridge chip is used to make this work with older Parallel ATA drives. (Or simply ATA drives, as this was refered to in the old days) This was a stepstone in the transition to SATA drives: Chipsets with SATA interfaces were developed, but IBM did for some reason chose to stick with the PATA drives. I read somewhere they were afraid of running out of SATA drives if they were to implement them in the T43, but I don't know if that's true.
A Thinkpad hard drive. Basically a small box, with magnetic plates turning at 7200 rpm inside it.
This causes some problems. Whether it's due to special requirements for the SATA / PATA bridge, or if IBM simply chose to do it this way is unknown to me. But the T43 doesn't accept other than IBM approved hard drives. The use of non-proprietary drives causes the laptop to give a 2010 error and loud beeps at POST. By using the latest BIOS update, the BIOS can be set to bypass the error and continue booting, but you have introduced an error to the system. Everything will work like it's supposed to in other ways, but I wasn't interested in doing this.
Another option could be to buy a hard drive adapter for the UltraBay. This is the bay where the optical reader is located, but this can also be used for a secondary hard drive or a secondary battery. Because this runs from a pure PATA IDE interface, you can basically put any drive in here and it will work with no error. But I wasn't interested in sacrificing my CD-R unit, so that was out of the question. So I was left with the option of getting an IBM approved hard drive, which are limited to 120GB in size and actually hard to find these days since they are not manufactured anymore.
Luckily there are people on the forum that runs their own little Thinkpad business, and I got a message from Brad, who had a brand new 100GB / 7200 rpm Lenovo labeled drive to sell me. The price wasn't too bad, and this gave me exactly what I was looking for. The drive was paid by check, and arrived a couple of days later. Still in a sealed bag inside a sealed box. So definitely never used. To be able to use the drive straight away, I booted up from a Clonezilla cd and put an image of my existing drive onto the Seagate drive. Then I installed my new hard drive and put the image back on the new drive. And it worked! Since the image was an exact copy of the old drive, the C: was still only 60GB. So I had to download an application to extend my partition to 100GB. Then I was ready to go. And what a relief to just open Windows Explorer and browse my pictures and mp3's without attaching the external drive. And thanks to Brad for the help!
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
The world of Netbooks
Over the years we have seen that the evolution of technology has allowed us to put more and more electronics into very small units. Cell phones of today, compared to what they were 20 years ago is probably the best example. Laptops have also been subject to extensive development. From the expensive and bulky plastic boxes of the 90's, to the very affordable and light laptops we can buy today. After it became an important issue to stay connected to the internet, the wireless 802.11 technology gave the laptops a new important advantage: You could still move around with no cable connected. Their performance has also caught up with the stationary computers. So unless you are an advanced user who needs slots for multiple extension cards, run RAID or have other complex setups, a laptop will usually do the job for you. And the laptop gives you the benefit of being able to bring your computer along, with your files and applications, to either work, a vacation or simply over to your parents house to show them your new pictures.
A couple of years ago the whole concept of portable computing was then taken a step further with Asus' Eee PC. The term Netbook was created, and this lightweight ultraportable little "computer" became a hit. Even though it had limited resources compared to a full size laptop, people loved the level of portability this little computer offered. Soon most other laptop manufacturers rushed into the netbook world as well, and created their own little netbooks. Varying in sizes from 7 to 10", but with fairly similar performance and storage capacity.
The Asus EeePC
I really didn't pay much notice to this whole thing. I already had a couple of laptops in addition to my stationary computers, so I felt that I was portable enough as I was. I once looked at one of my friends' Eee PC, but this white little plastic thing reminded me more of a kids toy than a computer. This Eee PC didn't even boot up, so it was a disappointing first experience. Then, a couple of months ago, Jenn brought home a Samsung N110 netbook from work. The next two days we went to a conference, and we brought the little Samsung along and used it all day. It even stayed with us during the weekend, so I got a chance to explore it and use it for basics like checking email, browsing and typing.
The Samsung N110, the netbook that opened my eyes for netbooks.
I soon realized that I enjoyed using this little thing, and the netbook also revealed some limitations of my full size laptop that I hadn't put much thoughts into earlier. First of all was the size and the weight. I could just carry the Samsung around the house by one hand and put it where ever I wanted. It even goes on the inside of my jacket. My laptop, an IBM Thinkpad T43, is light for its size, but still twice the weight. So in order to avoid applying too much twisting and bending forces to it, I usually carry it around using both hands. (Read the blog below "Too much information" to see the reason why) So the IBM is usually never moved around much. It stays docked, and it's only removed when I need to bring it somewhere out and away from the house. I have never spent much time with the laptop in my lap either, as I find this way of working and typing to be slightly uncomfortable. But that was a totally different experience with the smaller and lighter netbook.
When I have been on the move, the Blackberry 8310 phone has been my main way of checking email and do light browsing. With a QWERTY keyboard and a big screen, this phone works well enough for this purpose. But as soon as I want to do something more, like writing a lot of text, up/downloading files, or display large websites, the phone comes short. So I see the netbook as the device that I can bring along to fill this hole. It's capable of doing browsing and other useful tasks that are to difficult to do with the phone, but on the other hand not something I would consider bringing the IBM along to do.
The netbook's number two benefit is the battery life. I have never had laptops with more than 1.5 to 2 hours of battery life. This means that in any meeting, any conference, I need to bring the AC adapter along and find a place with access to a power outlet. Otherwise I risk running out of battery and lose access to my notes and my documents. I can fit an extended life battery, but that adds a lot more weight, and makes the IBM so big that it probably no longer fits in my laptop bag. And some laptops don't even have the possiblity of adding a bigger battery. This wasn't any concern with the Samsung netbook. The 6 cell battery gave 7 hours of battery life, so the whole day could be spent on battery power. In addition, it had a built in camera. That is a feature I love, as an external web cam and its cable is a hassle if you need to move around with the camera installed.
So I have now decided to order a netbook. Jenn has 200$ off deal on Dell netbooks, but unfortunately I didn't like the Dell that much. So I chose to go with Lenovo (former IBM), a brand that I am familiar with. (Yes, I know that IBM sold the laptop division to Lenovo, and that the IBM laptops are gone for good. But luckily Lenovo kept IBM's good design and hopefully they will also keep IBM's awesome build quality)
The Lenovo S10-2. Fairly similar design as the Samsung N110. But as a Lenovo/IBM fan, I like to think that Samsung copied the Lenovo and not the opposite.
Some people might say that I am a fool for letting down an offer for getting 200$ off of a Dell netbook. But nothing makes me more annoyed then a product I am not satisfied with, and 200$ isn't going to break me. The Lenovo has the same Intel Atom N270 processor as the Dell and the Samsung, but I upgraded my specs on my order to the N280 one. The increase in speed from 1.60 to 1.66 Ghz might not give any other noticeable result than increased power consumption, but I chose to do so. I also added Bluetooth and ordered a sleeve to carry it in. The notebook will probably be here in 9-10 days, but I am actually considering letting this be a christmas gift for my self. I am not sure if I can stand the exitement for 3 weeks, and keep my self from unpacking it, but we will see. I will definately be back here with a review of the Lenovo and to share my experiences as I step into the netbook world.
Written by Bjorn Sveigdalen
A couple of years ago the whole concept of portable computing was then taken a step further with Asus' Eee PC. The term Netbook was created, and this lightweight ultraportable little "computer" became a hit. Even though it had limited resources compared to a full size laptop, people loved the level of portability this little computer offered. Soon most other laptop manufacturers rushed into the netbook world as well, and created their own little netbooks. Varying in sizes from 7 to 10", but with fairly similar performance and storage capacity.
The Asus EeePC
I really didn't pay much notice to this whole thing. I already had a couple of laptops in addition to my stationary computers, so I felt that I was portable enough as I was. I once looked at one of my friends' Eee PC, but this white little plastic thing reminded me more of a kids toy than a computer. This Eee PC didn't even boot up, so it was a disappointing first experience. Then, a couple of months ago, Jenn brought home a Samsung N110 netbook from work. The next two days we went to a conference, and we brought the little Samsung along and used it all day. It even stayed with us during the weekend, so I got a chance to explore it and use it for basics like checking email, browsing and typing.
The Samsung N110, the netbook that opened my eyes for netbooks.
I soon realized that I enjoyed using this little thing, and the netbook also revealed some limitations of my full size laptop that I hadn't put much thoughts into earlier. First of all was the size and the weight. I could just carry the Samsung around the house by one hand and put it where ever I wanted. It even goes on the inside of my jacket. My laptop, an IBM Thinkpad T43, is light for its size, but still twice the weight. So in order to avoid applying too much twisting and bending forces to it, I usually carry it around using both hands. (Read the blog below "Too much information" to see the reason why) So the IBM is usually never moved around much. It stays docked, and it's only removed when I need to bring it somewhere out and away from the house. I have never spent much time with the laptop in my lap either, as I find this way of working and typing to be slightly uncomfortable. But that was a totally different experience with the smaller and lighter netbook.
When I have been on the move, the Blackberry 8310 phone has been my main way of checking email and do light browsing. With a QWERTY keyboard and a big screen, this phone works well enough for this purpose. But as soon as I want to do something more, like writing a lot of text, up/downloading files, or display large websites, the phone comes short. So I see the netbook as the device that I can bring along to fill this hole. It's capable of doing browsing and other useful tasks that are to difficult to do with the phone, but on the other hand not something I would consider bringing the IBM along to do.
The netbook's number two benefit is the battery life. I have never had laptops with more than 1.5 to 2 hours of battery life. This means that in any meeting, any conference, I need to bring the AC adapter along and find a place with access to a power outlet. Otherwise I risk running out of battery and lose access to my notes and my documents. I can fit an extended life battery, but that adds a lot more weight, and makes the IBM so big that it probably no longer fits in my laptop bag. And some laptops don't even have the possiblity of adding a bigger battery. This wasn't any concern with the Samsung netbook. The 6 cell battery gave 7 hours of battery life, so the whole day could be spent on battery power. In addition, it had a built in camera. That is a feature I love, as an external web cam and its cable is a hassle if you need to move around with the camera installed.
So I have now decided to order a netbook. Jenn has 200$ off deal on Dell netbooks, but unfortunately I didn't like the Dell that much. So I chose to go with Lenovo (former IBM), a brand that I am familiar with. (Yes, I know that IBM sold the laptop division to Lenovo, and that the IBM laptops are gone for good. But luckily Lenovo kept IBM's good design and hopefully they will also keep IBM's awesome build quality)
The Lenovo S10-2. Fairly similar design as the Samsung N110. But as a Lenovo/IBM fan, I like to think that Samsung copied the Lenovo and not the opposite.
Some people might say that I am a fool for letting down an offer for getting 200$ off of a Dell netbook. But nothing makes me more annoyed then a product I am not satisfied with, and 200$ isn't going to break me. The Lenovo has the same Intel Atom N270 processor as the Dell and the Samsung, but I upgraded my specs on my order to the N280 one. The increase in speed from 1.60 to 1.66 Ghz might not give any other noticeable result than increased power consumption, but I chose to do so. I also added Bluetooth and ordered a sleeve to carry it in. The notebook will probably be here in 9-10 days, but I am actually considering letting this be a christmas gift for my self. I am not sure if I can stand the exitement for 3 weeks, and keep my self from unpacking it, but we will see. I will definately be back here with a review of the Lenovo and to share my experiences as I step into the netbook world.
Written by Bjorn Sveigdalen
NWELC and Bjorn goes Web 2.0
The last two days, Jenn and I have been attending the NWELC 2009 (Northwest eLearning Conference) at Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa. Jenn works as technical support and Blackboard admin at IDLA (Idaho Digital Learning Academy), so she is attending this confernece because it is related to her job. So this should really have little or no interest for me.
I have been doing some voulenteer work for IDLA though, and I have a general interest for computer and IT, so I decided to come along with her to the conference. And the funny thing is that it turned out that I DO have some interest in this. During this conference we have seen how new technology is incorporated in learning, and we have even seen how online virtual games are used. I had no idea that learning is taken to these levels, and I found it to be slightly silly but also fascinating to see our instructor being in an online environment with several of the attendees present in the room at the same time as he was talking to us in person. Imagine students doing scientific experiments in this virtual environment. That surely puts less limitations to what can be done, compared to students doing experiments with things that can be toxic or even catch fire and explode.
The most striking session though, was one that included refernces to Web 2.0. I didn't know the exact meaning of this and did a quick search for "Web 2.0". I expected to maybe find a development tool like .net or a web page creating application, but I realized that this is a term for the "new" internet. And it turned out that there is also a Web 1.0. So what is this, and what kind of improvment is Web 2.0 over Web 1.0? Hasn't the internet always been the same? Different types of html brought to us over a http protocol?
The session didn't give me any answer to that, but the things I picked up during the session, added to the things I know form before and my own experience, gave me something to think about. I started looking back to the early days like 10-12 years ago when I had my first experiences with the internet. Back then I had a dial up 56K connection, and the internet was something that was made by people out there. The funny thing is though, I had such an interest in my car that I decided to create a website about it. So I got a copy of FrontPage, and created pages with history, pictures and specifications about these kind of cars. Then I contacted a friend of mine, and he provided a domain and server space for me through his company. Then he gave me login details and an adress to a ftp server, and I downloaded a ftp client and managed to upload my files. I still remember the feeling when I opened up IE, typed the adress to my index page and browsed my page for the first time. Wow, I was on the internet! I am still a little bit surprised that I managed to pull of this project, but back then I had an unlimited amount of time to spend on this, including the entire nights during the weekends. In additon, I had a huge interest in computers.
This was basicly Web 1.0. The content had to be made by people with the skills to create and upload their stuff, using special tools and applications. Once it was there, it was static content for other people to display and read only. Nothing more. Well, after a while, I added a guestbook to my page. Other people could leave feedback and to some extent put content into my page. I believe that must have been the first signs of what we know as Web 2.0.
Today, things have changed a little bit. If I wish to create a website today, the only thing I need is Google Applications. Or something similar. There I have all the tools and everythig I need to create a website quickly and upload it. When done, I would of course post links to my Facebook account, and maybe even Twitter about it. Maybe I don't need a website at all. Some pictures and comments on Facebook would probably do the same, and people could leave feedback directly on each picture. Not to mention a blog.. Wow, that would be even better. I can add both pictures and videos like I did in the blogs below about my motorbike.
So while listening to the discussion about Web 2.0, it suddenly dawned to me what Web 2.0 really is. And how things have changed since I did my first attempts to become one of the important guys creating content on the internet that I could push down to other people.
Sadly I didn't continue developing my website, because I sold the car, and my friend could no longer provide proper server space for my stuff. What is left of it can be found at www.evo500.no. But after being moved to a private server with no room for pictures, there is very little to see of my Web 1.0 project now.
Written by Bjorn Sveigdalen
I have been doing some voulenteer work for IDLA though, and I have a general interest for computer and IT, so I decided to come along with her to the conference. And the funny thing is that it turned out that I DO have some interest in this. During this conference we have seen how new technology is incorporated in learning, and we have even seen how online virtual games are used. I had no idea that learning is taken to these levels, and I found it to be slightly silly but also fascinating to see our instructor being in an online environment with several of the attendees present in the room at the same time as he was talking to us in person. Imagine students doing scientific experiments in this virtual environment. That surely puts less limitations to what can be done, compared to students doing experiments with things that can be toxic or even catch fire and explode.
The most striking session though, was one that included refernces to Web 2.0. I didn't know the exact meaning of this and did a quick search for "Web 2.0". I expected to maybe find a development tool like .net or a web page creating application, but I realized that this is a term for the "new" internet. And it turned out that there is also a Web 1.0. So what is this, and what kind of improvment is Web 2.0 over Web 1.0? Hasn't the internet always been the same? Different types of html brought to us over a http protocol?
The session didn't give me any answer to that, but the things I picked up during the session, added to the things I know form before and my own experience, gave me something to think about. I started looking back to the early days like 10-12 years ago when I had my first experiences with the internet. Back then I had a dial up 56K connection, and the internet was something that was made by people out there. The funny thing is though, I had such an interest in my car that I decided to create a website about it. So I got a copy of FrontPage, and created pages with history, pictures and specifications about these kind of cars. Then I contacted a friend of mine, and he provided a domain and server space for me through his company. Then he gave me login details and an adress to a ftp server, and I downloaded a ftp client and managed to upload my files. I still remember the feeling when I opened up IE, typed the adress to my index page and browsed my page for the first time. Wow, I was on the internet! I am still a little bit surprised that I managed to pull of this project, but back then I had an unlimited amount of time to spend on this, including the entire nights during the weekends. In additon, I had a huge interest in computers.
This was basicly Web 1.0. The content had to be made by people with the skills to create and upload their stuff, using special tools and applications. Once it was there, it was static content for other people to display and read only. Nothing more. Well, after a while, I added a guestbook to my page. Other people could leave feedback and to some extent put content into my page. I believe that must have been the first signs of what we know as Web 2.0.
Today, things have changed a little bit. If I wish to create a website today, the only thing I need is Google Applications. Or something similar. There I have all the tools and everythig I need to create a website quickly and upload it. When done, I would of course post links to my Facebook account, and maybe even Twitter about it. Maybe I don't need a website at all. Some pictures and comments on Facebook would probably do the same, and people could leave feedback directly on each picture. Not to mention a blog.. Wow, that would be even better. I can add both pictures and videos like I did in the blogs below about my motorbike.
So while listening to the discussion about Web 2.0, it suddenly dawned to me what Web 2.0 really is. And how things have changed since I did my first attempts to become one of the important guys creating content on the internet that I could push down to other people.
Sadly I didn't continue developing my website, because I sold the car, and my friend could no longer provide proper server space for my stuff. What is left of it can be found at www.evo500.no. But after being moved to a private server with no room for pictures, there is very little to see of my Web 1.0 project now.
Written by Bjorn Sveigdalen
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