Eh?

This morning has been interesting! I woke up about 15 minutes ago by an apparent earthquake in Indiana. I was dead asleep on my couch in Bloomington and was woken up by the apartment creaking and by a strange shaking sensation. By the time I was fully awake it was tapering off but still occurring enough for me to feel it. Turning on the news I see all the Indy stations reporting a 5.4 magnitude earthquake apparently having felt it as far North as Chicago and as far South as Evansville. Very cool! Also sounds like it may have been felt even further away, they are still determining how far away it was felt.

I usually try to give some latitude towards pc technicians when there is a mis diagnosis or only part of a problem is corrected. However lately I've been picking up after some serious botch-jobs. This past summer I helped a cousin out by fixing her HP system when Geek Squad wanted $400 to replace the memory in the system. This was after they spent $50 for "expedited" 3-day turn-around service. And two weeks later they still hadn't heard back. My cousins husband retrieved their PC and brought it to me. After a quick inspection I saw it would boot to the desktop and then Explorer would crash about a half dozen times in a row and then stay dead. I tried using the XP "step back" function to go back to the last known good running config. Instantly the system was back in top condition. I don't know what caused this problem to occur but I left them with directions on how to do this on their own should it happen again. It's been 6 months, they still haven't had any problems with it. Now I know that some people have a hard-on over Geek Squad and hate them by design. I mean, a corporate outfit coming off as exaggerated geeks is stepping on sore territory. However, personally I have never had any issues with them, however I've had limited exposure to their service quality. That being said, there's no excuse for charging a customer to replace hardware for a software problem. And even less excuse for not even trying an OS's built-in troubleshooting and recovery tools. It took all of 15 minutes to hook up the system, verify the problem and recover it.

Next up is a friend that received a "dead" Sony Vaio mini-laptop. According to Sony, it would cost $1000 to fix the computer because the hard drive failed. Pft. My friend brought the new toy over and we started work on it. I should have first tried verifying the problem but we wanted to see inside it anyway so we just popped it open. The hard drive was something I had not encountered yet, a micro-ATA Toshiba hard drive. After some quick Ebaying I found that it was the same 40GB drive used in the Ipod. Before I hit buy-it-now I decided we should at least poke at it and see how it was failing. A safe-mode boot revealed a message about a corrupt or missing registry. So, we booted off an XP install cd into recovery mode and copied a backup of the registry over the corrupted files. After that it would boot to a login and hang trying to connect to a domain controller. I tried wiping the administrator password with a linux boot-cd however that had no affect. So my friend wiped the drive and reinstalled XP, good as new. Now, this one really irks me even more than Geek Squad, this was ridiculous.

However, I have just now recalled an interaction with Sony PC tech support. Once upon a time I worked for a company that performed outsourced in-home PC service for all the major name-brand PC companies (IBM, Dell, Acer, HP, Apple, Sony, and other companies that sold 3rd party repair plans like Sears aka Packard Hell). Sony service support was one of the worst. I recall having a very hard time explaining to a person that the system was hanging during the BIOS screen.

Me: Hi, I'm on-site and this monitor doesn't fix the boot problem. The system hangs at the bios screen.
Sony: Ok then, I'll ship you out a video adapter
Me: Huh? The system hangs during the bios load, the video works fine
Sony: Ok, then start a system reload and leave the customers house.
Me: No, they are pissed off and that won't do a darn bit of good. Please ship a new system system board.
Sony: No, it's a video problem, I'll send another monitor and video card.

30 minutes later of me explaining the problem over and over again...

Sony: Oh, you mean it's hanging with the BIOS information still on the screen?
Me: YES!
Sony: Wow, that's wild man, we'll ship the customer a new system.
Me: Okidoke!


At least it turned out ok for the customer but they made it as painful as possible for the on-site technician.

I should have gotten a patent on my idea for securely wiping hard drives (my last conclusion in this article) but I guess I was a year too late. I stumbled across a patent for this very same idea today: "Dead On Demand" - a self destructing hard drive utilizing the same method I concluded was the only way to securely wipe a hard drive.

The patent was filed a year to the month before I published my article apparently. It goes on to describe a process that uses two chemicals that combine to cause physical harm to the magnetic platters. Once this happens the magnetic bits literally float away. Since the order that they appear on the disk is what makes data this permanently erases the disk for good.

So I spent today helping Zach move into his new place. He's been moving for a month now and still has a house full of stuff where he's moving from :0. Today we got about 99% of everything he's keeping into his new place which included the Geeks Unleashed arcade cabinet. I have sworn off moving that thing ever again. Again. It probably weighs about 400 pounds including a 22" SVGA display, even on a dolly with "stair steppers" it's murder to move it up and down stairs. So in exchange for Zach graciously keeping the arcade at his place I'm taking his 36U rack for a while. That and the fact his new place just doesn't have room for both an arcade cabinet and a full size server rack. I've just spent several hours making room in my computer room for the rack, I can't wait to get it in here now :). Also the Ocho equipment will be here for a while until I can find a victim that will let me put the transmitter up in their backyard. I am starting to think that maby I'd like to see about getting it setup at my apartment but I doubt they will let me install the mast in the court yard... Unless I can do it inconspicuously but I really doubt that. Well thats about all for now.

Like a lot of people I have an unhealthy attraction to the world-wide on-line garage sale. I usually go long periods between visits and then in short spurts spill the contents of my paypal account on junk I know better than to bid on. My latest cherubs of choice are high security locks. I got into locksport a while back and then needed even more devilish devices to work on than my local locksmith could provide. Then I started getting locks that have no known method of being picked (EVVA MCS, ASSA Twin, etc). Sure, some of them can be bumped but not outright picked. That's when I realized that I fell into the lowest category of Ebayer, the "Collector". This means I pay more for my treasures than they cost new. "Oh, but you can't order that from the US, it's ok". "They don't make that model anymore, it's ok". "I once saw one in a Stephen Segal movie, it's ok". I'll admit that I have occasionally checked list prices for current model locks and drawn the line at paying more than retail+shipping from it's country of origin, but that doesn't happen as often as it should.

However, I did realize there was a class of Ebayer lower than my own. That would be the retired old man with nothing better to do than frustrate all who encounters him online. Here is a message I received from one recently:

"WHY HAVE I NOT RECEIVED THE $10.55 ?????? this auction ended on NOV. 27TH & I EMAILED YOU RIGHT AWAY.... AS OF TODAYS MAIL I -- STILL --- HAVE NOT RECEIVED PAYMENT..... PLEASE CONTACT & EXPLAIN WHY ......"

Name and address withheld. Now mind you, I sent this guy a message 5 minutes after the auction ended and asked if I could pay with paypal despite his wish to receive payment with a money order. Eleven days later I get not one, not two, but FIVE copies of this email. I guess he still was left in front of his keyboard for most of that day because he immediately responded to my second request for payment details. He insisted on having an additional dollar added for paypal and I was happy to oblige him. I could have paid directly from my bank account forgoing the credit card surcharge he would have incurred but I already knew too well he would not understand me and would likely accuse me of trying to "take him". So I paid from my credit card, paid him his extra dollar for the "paypal privelege" and all was well. Not before receiving all of his messages in quintet form though. And of course the next day he still hadn't checked his paypal account and asked me 5 times where the payment was. I politely asked him to recheck his paypal and then all I got was a message that the package would ship shortly.

I thought that saga was all behind me and then the actual package arrived. Now mind you, it was just a key without a lock so he shipped it in an envelope which was fine. But taped to the envelope was another brown envelope from the post office explaining that I owed them $.17 for this transaction. I've never seen anything like this before, how exactly do you charge the recipient for a shipped package? Obviously there's a standard procedure for this hence what was looking me in the face but this was a totally new experience for me. So, I deposited a whole $.17 into the envelope and put it in my mail box. The next day it was gone so I assume there will be no further paperwork over this ordeal. That rambling old buzzard slumped over his afternoon keyboard time had managed to get one last laugh at me I guess. I usually try to be nice to n00bs of all ages but this one was odd enough that I had to make special mention of him here ;).

I had Wednesday 12/26 off of work and despite two days with highs in the 50's Paoli Peaks was still open! That meant I needed to unpack the snowboard from the back of the closet and head South. I always enjoy the drive down, it's a nice 60 minute drive through the country passing through several small towns. I hit the trails at 2:30pm and managed to get 7 hours of snowboarding in without any major injuries. With the sun still high in the sky it was a little too warm with my coat on but once it started dropping over the hill side the temp started falling with it. It's fun seeing the younger kids going down the slopes in t-shirts but I'm not quite that adventurous. While I'm certainly no pro I am going into my fourth year of snowboarding and that counts for something. One pattern I've come to recognize is that I start really slow, have a lunch break, and then immediately my skill peaks. This year I really thought I my skill was nearly lost until I took a break after a couple hours. I had a cheeseburger and soda and then out of nowhere I was right back where I was at the end of last season. Actually I was feeling even better, last season ended poorly with my ankle twisted and my body in sorry shape after several bad falls. It was a week before I could walk without a limp. My largest hurdle has always been transitioning from left to right in order to maintain control. I have never felt comfortable doing it at speed or over rough terrain. I always feel sluggish or that I can't move quick enough which usually ends in a hard endo. This year was no different until after my magic cheeseburger, now I can confidently transition from side to side at full speed going down the largest hills at the park. I was feeling very good, however I'm still not quite ready to start playing with jumps again.

Later in the day I hooked up with a couple of brothers named Jarad and Shea on skis, we all had a good time. Jarad was in 7th grade and Shea was in 8th, but you would have thought it was the other way around. They where super fast, it was all I could do to keep up with them. Apparently Shea had just learned to ski the previous day and he was already faster than me! I ended up wiping out really hard once trying to keep up. I'm not sure how it happened, I know some part of my body hit the ground first but I have no recollection which part it was. All I know is that I landed in a kneeling position looking back up the hill. The only pain I felt was the eerie sensation of my back getting squished like an accordion. I am really lucky I didn't twist when it happened. I got right back up and down to the bottom of the hill but my back needed the time in the lift chair to recover. I almost stopped there but I still had a few runs left in me. It was also around this time I started to notice that Jarad was quite a driven young man for a 7th grader. He was always establishing which hill we would go on next, where we would meet, who should go on the lift first, etc. Since I was on a snowboard I was holding them up slightly since I had to stop for 45 seconds after each lift to reattach my right foot to my board. The nice thing with ski's is that you can just jump right off the lift and head right back down with no delay. After a short while I realized I was being led around by this kid which was an odd feeling since I was more than twice his age. I don't know what kind of background led him to be this way but I'm sure it will serve him well in life. Even if it was a little annoying at times, I can't imagine being so extremely organized at his age. It's fun to try to keep up with the youngins from time to time but I definitely found I have my own pace which is different (ok, slower) from everyone else.

All in all it was a great outing and I hope to get several more in before this season is done for good. I'd really like to make a trip to a real ski resort in the mountains again some day soon though. We'll see what this winter holds yet.

Every day I get an email with all referrers to packetsniffers.org. It's been quite some time since we've put out a new episode so there hasn't been a huge amount of interest in our site except for a few small trends I see every now and then. It seems every few weeks a new discussion breaks out comparing the new Xbox controllers to the Sega Dreamcast controllers. And apparently I have the only photo online looking down at the top of a Dreamcast controller. Here's the message board hotlinking to my image. And my original VMU page.

It was for a project I did for a while that involved VMU programming, the memory card for the Dreamcast platform. The VMU was a neat little device, not only was it a memory card but it had it's own LCD screen and NES style controlls so that games could be played directly on the device. I removed one of the VMU sockets out of a used Dreamcast controller and made a docking station that connects to the parallel port, and now apparently the only interest it carries is for Xbox controller style flamewars. So somehow people find this image and hotlink directly to our site. Now granted, it's not a huge amount of traffic so I'm not too anoyed but it's funny to see.

We also get a lot of traffic from Mugen boards because of Geeks Unleashed, our Mugen based 2-D fighting game. However, there's less interest in our game and more in the original Mugen character tutorial that we host as well (Comes with the game source).I've refrained from goatse'ing the previous two examples because they are A) usually kids interested in these two things B) I don't mind being a good data steward and giving back to the net for all those times when I was young and stupid and hotlinked to other peoples sites. However my last example (very bottom) has been proudly flying the goatse banner for about 6 months now.

While that specific link pops up a lot because of the topic (How to Hack Roadsigns), the main template for this particular message board uses two images directly off our site. One is a button for BinRev, the other is for Twatech Radio. Now, I like both of these organizations, however come on, at least put a Packet Sniffers button up too if you're going to steal our bandwidth! So, now they have a button for Packet Sniffers that links to BinRev and a Goatse that links to Twatech Radio. Lastly, the highest traffic thread on this board shows a contruction road sign 0wn3d by goatse, so I get extra points for a goatse of a goatse. Score!