Derek starts at ASU tomorrow (Monday). I think his declared major is Pre-Med.
August 19, 2007
August 13, 2007
Color Laser Printer
I have had my HP Deskjet 890 for almost 10 years. I’m not exactly sure when I bought it, but the date of manufacture is 08/1997. Local stores no longer sell cartridges for it and refilling only works about half the time. It’s been a workhorse for me, but I decided it was finally time to get with the civilized world.
I bought an HP 2605dn from Costco, for less money than my old inkjet cost 10 years ago.
The color is astonishingly good. The usual consensus is that color laser printers don’t print color graphics, especially photos, as well as inkjet printers do. I think this one is an exception. Even on plain paper, photos have saturated colors, and a glossy finish. It’s definitely better than my old (10 years old!) inkjet. I’m sure modern inkjets are better, but it’s still very good.
This modern, capitalistic world! We thrive on new toys.
August 8, 2007
The Springer
A few weeks ago I tried to take Apollo for a run on my bicycle. I had one hand holding the leash, and the other on the handlebars.
Everything went fine until he saw a cat (or dog, or bird — I never knew what it was for sure). He took off running, pulling me off flat onto the pavement. I held on, but paid for it with a skinned knee, elbow, shoulder and hands. It could have been worse, as my helmet bonked hard against the pavement, but the helmet absorbed the shock and my head wasn’t hurt at all.
That ended the bike-with-leash-in-hand experiment.
So I did some research on the web, and discovered “The Springer“. It’s an attachment that bolts on to the bicycle frame just below the seat. The dog is harnessed to this through a strong spring.
The attachment below the center of mass of the bike-and-rider, and the spring to absorb shocks, gives the rider complete control. I was quite surprised, but even if Apollo sees a dog or cat and lunges towards it, it’s just a gentle pull on the bike that I can easily control. The assembly just next to the pedal means that he can’t bump into my foot. He learned quickly to cooperate with me, and loves to go for a run.
Watch the Springer promotional video. The first part is exactly what happened to me when I was trying to hold the leash in my hand. The next part, where the German Shepard is lunging away from the calmly riding bike rider is accurate too.
August 4, 2007
When DMA drops to PIO
Warning: This is a fairly technical discussion that will probably not be of interest to Mom.
A few times lately I have struggled with people’s computers trying to find out why they are running so sluggishly. When no programs are running, Task Manager shows the CPU usage at 50% – 80%, though the process list doesn’t show anything using any of that processing power. Normally, CPU usage should be between 0% and maybe 4% when idle (at the bottom of the Task Manager window.) I thought at first that there must be a hidden virus, or rootkit running in the background. But I was wrong.
What happens is that the hard drive is not being accessed in fast DMA mode, but rather in a much slower PIO mode. Windows monitors hard drive errors, and when they reach a certain level it assumes that the drive can’t handle DMA and switches it to PIO. Usually the hard drive can still run in DMA just fine.
Check it out in Device Manager. Look under “IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers” at the “Primary IDE Channel”. In Properties, on the Advanced Settings tab, “Current Transfer Mode” should be “Ultra DMA Mode” or something that has the word “DMA” in it.
If it has fallen back to PIO, the solution is to uninstall the Primary IDE Channel in Device Manager, then reboot. The system may require a second reboot, but in the end it will reinstall the controller, usually back in DMA mode. It will make a huge difference in your performance.