Death of a Laptop/Windows Vista Review

My HP/Compaq a220n died on 13 July, 2007. It does not complete the boot process, and appears to be hanging while executing the optical drive Power On Self Test (POST) code from the system BIOS.

I have since acquired an Acer AMD 64 Dual Core machine [will post the specs later] which came from Walmart pre-loaded with Windows VIsta.

I've been using the Acer for a couple weeks now, and am finding that Windows Vista sux even harder than Windows XP - this is Win95 territory, in fact. Crappy OS, crashes regularly, and runs slower the new, better hardware (this new system has a 64-bit dual core processor w/ 2Gig of RAM) than XP did on a system with only 512M of RAM and a 2 generations older processor.

This system is so slow that the cursor hangs for seconds at a time just while trying to move it across the screen, w/ nothing in particular running in the background.

The Vista user interface is ever cluckier to use than the XP interface (e.g. the new Start Menu is just utter crap - it doesn't fit on the screen, and going to "All Programs" gets me into a mess that need the arrow key pad to get out of without doing serious collateral damage to the menu itself as the brainded trackpad driver tries to drag and drop your menu items in places that, while not specified ahead of time, appear to be more malicious than just random.

In short, this machine

1. Appears to have a malign intelligence all its own
2. Obviously and very "vocally" HATES the user.
3. Appears to be pursuing some other-motivated agenda that has to have been conceived and implemented by Microsoft Corp at the expense of anyone with the temerity to actually try to do useful or productive work with a laptop computer.

Next order of business: Install a 64-bit OS that supports full multi-tasking. [note that Vista seems to be running 32-bit code in a 32-bit emulated environment running on top of the 64-bit hardware - probably why the machine is so slow - HAL is not your friend, anymore, it seems]

So despite the gifting a brand new, higher-end-than-what-we-had replacement for the HP, we still aren't able to accomplish any non-trivial tasks with the new machine until the system software is rebuilt and properly configured. Film at eleven.

USR Ethernet / WiFi Bridge Model 5430

This article discusses the use of the US Robotics 5430 802.11g Wireless Ethernet Bridge device to connect to a Ethernet-connected PC to a "managed" WiFi network. This article does not discuss use of the 5430 as an "Ad hoc" network device/node.

By default, the USR Ethernet / WiFi bridge boots up using 192.168.1.201 as it's "Management IP Address". The IP address used can be changed by accessing the 5430's management interface via HTTP.

1. Connect a CAT5e Ethernet cable from the PC NIC to the 5430; this is a "straight thru" Ethernet patch cable, not a crossover cable, although a crossover cable might work here, don't know yet]
2. Perform a "hard reset" on the 5430; this may be acccomplished by holding down the reset switch on the back of the device while power is applied - the reset switch can be depressed using a matchstick or a paperclip - hold it down for about 30 second after power is applied in order to restore the device to its "factory default" settings [30 sec may be overkill in that some smaller amount of time may be all that is required, but 30 seconds works, and we use it here until we have a chance to refine the process.
3. At a Bash prompt [on the computer that is connected to the 5430], do something like

    sudo ifconfig eth1 192.168.1.111 up
   

   This will bring up the 2^nd Ethernet interface on the PC with an IP address in the same sub-net as the bridge's management interface, allowing access to the 5430 using a web browser [HTTP client].
4. Open e.g. Konqueror or Firefox and enter 192.168.1.201 in the Location bar; make sure Javascript is enabled for this address, since the 5430 appears to user Javascript in the web forms that make up the device's management interface. [If there is a username/password prompt/dialog box when opening the 5430 management interface pages, the default userid/password for the 5430 when set to factory defaults is admin/admin]
5. Use the Site Survey on the Tools page of the 5430 management interface to see what wireless networks are available [note that the 5430 firmware does not seem to any channel or signal strength info for the available networks - see below for firmaware version number].

Here is the firmware version info for the 5430:

 Boot Loader Firmware Version:  CFE 3.51.21.0.2
 OS Firmware Version:    Linux 3.51.21.0.3
 Firmware Date:        Mar 9 2004

Once you have the SSID of the wireless network to connect to, select it from the Site Survey popup and follow the prompts. [It may be necessary to enter the desired SSID string directly into the SSID text input element on the Wireless page of the 5430 management interface, as well].

Once the wireless network has been selected within the 5430 management interface, the 5430 will immediately attempt to retrieve a network IP address for the new wireless network association the next time the PC requests DHCP provisioning for the NIC connected to the 5430.

Use the command

 sudo ifconfig eth1 0 down

to close down the static IP configuration for the NIC [created above], and use

 sudo ifup eth1

to bring up the NIC using the default [DHCP] NIC configuration.

Note that the syntax

  sudo ifconfig eth1:1 168.192.1.123 up 

Can be used to re-establish a connection to the 5430 Management Interface once eth1 [or whatever the device name is] has been provisioned using DHCP to have the same WiFi netowkr address as the bridge (I.E. the IP address assigned to the 5430 by the selected wireless network association).

High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)

[this item cross-posted to earth_food at http://blogs.earthside.org/earth_food/2007/07/high-fructose-corn-syrup-hfcs.html]

We've been hearing that "high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is not good for you" for a couple years now, but up until now it has just been something to avoid if possible (i.e. choose the brands that don't have it in the ingredient list if and when an alternative is available, pass up certain "SALE" items because they contain it, etc), but - at least up until this point, no evidence concerning HFCS has been presented (to me), and no critical warnings have been raised about its use in human food products.

Today while moderating a discussion at slashdot.org entitled PubPat Kills Four Key Monsanto Patents, I ran across a post (#19982005 by an "anonymous" author) which - while substantially directed at the issue of genetically modified (GM) crops, mentions some of the reputed [according to the anonymous author] problems with HFCS and includes some [supporting] internet links.

We've had HFCS on a sort of "probationary" status for some time since it's lack of usefulness for human consumption was first brought to our attention a few years ago.

At the present time, HFCS seems destined for infamy on that list I carry around in my head of "poisonous items which are disguised as food and to which the U.S. FDA turns a blind eye." Items which are already on that list include, but are not limited to:

• aspartame
• fluoride

The [anonymous] author of the /. post quotes from a source at http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Dangers-of-High-Fructose-Corn-Syrup&id=28535, which quote is reproduced again, here, in part:

When high fructose corn syrup breaks down in the intestine, we once again find near equal amounts of glucose and fructose entering the bloodstream. As covered in recent newsletters, the fructose short-circuits the glycolytic pathway for glucose. This leads to all the problems associated with sucrose. In addition, HFCS seems to be generating a few of its own problems, epidemic obesity being one of them. Fructose does not stimulate insulin production and also fails to increase "leptin" production, a hormone produced by the body's fat cells. Both of these act to turn off the appetite and control body weight. Also, fructose does not suppress ghrelin, a hormone that works to increase hunger. This interesting work is being done by Peter Havel at UC Davis.

Some of the problems associated with high fructose corn syrup:

• Increased LDL's (the bad lipoprotein) leading to increased risk of heart disease.
• Altered Magnesium balance leading to increased osteoporosis.
• Increased risk of Adult Onset Diabetes Mellitus.
• Fructose has no enzymes or vitamins thus robbing the body ofprecious micro-nutrients.
• Fructose interacts with birth control pills and can elevate insulin levels in women on the pill.
• Accelerated aging.

FEMA Continues to Contribute to Katrina Death Toll

Democracy Now! is reporting that FEMA suppressed warnings of toxic gases [formaldehyde] in trailers issued for the use of persons evacuated from the destruction wreaked by Hurricane Katrina. From the Headlines page for 20 July 2007:

FEMA Suppressed Warnings on Toxic Gas in Evacuee Trailers

[…] documents show top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials have suppressed internal warnings about dangerous levels of toxic chemicals in trailers inhabited by Hurricane Katrina evacuees […] FEMA field workers warned the evacuees were living amidst levels of potentially cancerous formaldehyde gas […] seventy-five times the recommended maximum […] Hundreds have complained of health effects […] emails show FEMA officials were only concerned with avoiding any legal liability … a FEMA official wrote [that] agency lawyers had advised against carrying out tests because doing so: “would imply FEMA’s ownership of this issue.” […] FEMA lawyer Patrick Preston wrote: “Do not initiate any testing until we give the OK … Once you get results […] the clock is running on our duty to respond to them.” Eleven days later, an evacuee who had complained about the chemicals was found dead in his trailer. […] FEMA attorneys rejected calls for an independent investigation into his death […].

It is interesting to note that as of 08:21 EST Saturday 21 July 2007 [the time of this writing] the GSA auction site at http://gsaauctions.gov/gsaauctions/gsaauctions/ where these trailers are being auctioned is unavailable, returning an HTTP 503 "503 Retry request – Service will be available shortly. Please retry request" error for repeated retries.

This sort of incident brings forcefully to mind the actions of the European settlers to North America in giving blankets contaminated with smallpox to the native tribes residing in the territory upon which the Europeans wished to settle. I.E. There have been repeated allegations amongst the Katrina survivor community to the effect that the Federal government planned to use the disastrous events surrounding the hurricane to depopulate New Orleans in order that the city might be turned over to corporate interests.

The story in the Washington Post titled FEMA Announces Trailer Air Testing Plans, also dated 20 July, mentions several other FEMA-trailer-related deaths and lawsuits which have been filed.

A point which is mentioned in the Washington post article is that at least one of the lawsuits which has been filed, and which is attempting to gain class action status, is against the trailer manufacturer.

1. Why is/was FEMA concerned with liability when in fact the manufacturers who produced trailers purchased by FEMA are the ones who ultimately bear liability for their unsafe product?
2. These trailers purchased and distributed by FEMA are brand­name, commercially available "Recreational Vehicles" (RVs) – if the formaldehyde levels in them are sufficient to kill the occupants – even if the occupants killed are "infirm" or suffer from respiratory problems – how is it that the manufactures are allowed to sell these deathtraps to the public?
3. If private individuals purchase these trailers and resell them, will they be responsible for "cleanup" of the toxic materials in them, and if so, what sort of toxic materials handling and disposal certifications will be required of them?

[note that the GSA auction site is back online as of 09:24 EST today, 21 July 2007 - no explanation of the outage provided on the GSA page]

Additional info about Konqueror, Blogger Dashboard, and Spell Checking

Apparenlty the prooblem with Konqueror dying trying to load the Blogger.com Dashboard was temporary. This post is made using Konqueror 3.5.2 (KDE 3.5.2). It appears that the problem may have had somewhat to do with the Spell Checker problems I was trying to post about earlier (at the time the Konqueor crash occurred.

The problem then was that Konqueror as configured by default under Knoppix 5.0.1 was still using the German language dictionary for spell-checking, even though I had changed the KDE language preference to US English (US-EN) using the KDE Kicker panel [I.E. "toolbar"] widget.

I have since restarted KDE (due to some problems that seemed to have been caused by my moving the system /tmp directory to an internal drive partition while KDE was still running) and Konqueror starts up and runs and has not [yet] crashed on the Blogger Dashboard interface.

The earlier crash which killed Konqueror for the duration of that KDE session occurred after the problems with the spell checker manifested, and after I clicked the Save Now button to save the post. The Save Now button did not "depress" at that time, and no draft of the message was saved. Immediately after the save operation failed is when I clicked the Dashboard link, which is what caused Konqueror to crash.

Note that at this time, the spell checker does not seem to be working at all in Konqueror (the Auto Spell Check option is checked, and the Check Spelling context menu command does nothing), and that

1. There is no "typeahead" pattern matching in the tags field of the blogger.com Posting interface as there is with Firefox v2.x
2. The layout of the blogger.com Posting interface in Konqueror is munged - there is a large whitespace block below the text entry area, between the bottom edge of the HTML textarea element and the the bottom edge of the boarder which encloses the HTML element. (above the Post Options link, the Labels (sic) [tags] entry field, Publish Post and Save Now buttons, etc.

erratta: KNOPPIX audio is working

This is to correct a statement I made previously in a post on this log [earth tech] about KNOPPIX and the audio capability on the HP Pavilion a220n.

The audio input does in fact work under the KNOPPIX 5.0.1 LiveCD release. I missed this because, while the audio output worked fine once the audio sub-system was enabled via the KDE Control Center | Sounds & Multimedia | Sound System control panel, the mic input levels were defaulting to zero, so no singal was being captured.

Links:

• Knoppix
• The K Desktop Environment (KDE)
• HP Pavilion a220n

Additional problems with blogger.com

Another problem that has shown up recently with blogger.com recently is some strange behavior under Firefox v2.0.0.4 and v2.0.0.5 - specifically, the Posting interface, when certain buttons are clicked, does not behave as expected.

For instance, the "Link&qut; button [supposed to add an HTML anchor (A) element in the text box where the blog post is entered and/or edited:

When the link button is clicked, Firefox apparently initiates a "Drag and Drop" operation for the button image. The URL entry box pops up as expected, but the pointer cursor is changed to indicate that a drag/drop is in progress, and if the user clicks within the URL entry field on the popup, the URL of the button image [at blogger.com] is pasted into the URL entry field. If the user clicks outside the text entry field on the popup, the "drop" part of the drag/drop operation fails silently and text can be entered.

For some reason the drag operation does not provide the "NO" symbol cursor on screen areas which will not accept the dragged image.

This is almost certainly a Firefox issue, rather than Blogger issue, but it is possible that it is something funky w/ the Javascript Blogger uses. I have not examined the Javascript source or tried to replicate this error on other sites or with other browsers (although the same issue does exist with Iceweasel under Debian).

Blogger.com Dashboard Crashes Konqueror

Well, the Dashboard page at blogger.com seems to have killed Konqueror web browser under KNOPPIX. Konqueror crashed first while I was trying to post about the spell-checker problems that exist in Konqueror under the KNOPPIX LiveCD distro - at that point I was logged in to blogger.com - then it crashed again when I re-ran Konqueror and tried to log in to the blogger.com dashboard. Both times it gave the DrKonqi crash-handler screen.

Now, after I created a persistent installation of Firefox 2.0.0.5 and ran it to make this post, I find (while trying to run Konqueror to get the version number to use in this post) that Konqueror won't run at all [from the toolbar button, at least - haven't tried any other approaches, yet]; it shows the bouncing "wait" cursor for about 15 or so seconds, then just dies silently.

This is Knoppix 5.0.x - I don't have the version number to-hand, but I may be able to post it later. I see that Knoppix 5.2 is released, so the problem may be solved by burning a new LiveCD. Note, however, that the version of K3B that shipped with this version of KNOPPIX does not work - or at least, it doesn't work on this computer, so the burning of a new CD is problematic, right now.

Bash du+sort Script

This is a one-liner that shows something about why grep has behaved so strangely in the past when we've tried to feed it regular expressions as the pattern to match:

  du -h | grep  "^[1-9]\+\.[0-9]\+[M]" | sort 

The trick here was to add the backslashes ('\') in front of the plus signs ('+'). apparenlty grep interprets the '+' literally if it is not escaped.

Note A: the Debian-blows-goats version of grep is not built with support for Perl regular expressions (bug #15051), which figures, since the Debian-POS developers only seem to know Python.

Note B: it apparenlty makes no difference to [this version] grep if the quote delimiters used in the above command are single- or double-quotes [this is counter-intuitive, since use of single quotes typically means no escape characters are needed], but the quotes must be there for the command to work - leaving them out causes the command to emit no output.

Solution to Debian's Problem with 'mount /dev/sda1'

There is a problem - as mentioned previously - with the default Debian-blows-goats install. For whatever reason, the system refuses to mount a USB mass-storage device when it is connected - that is, the Debian-POS system neither automounts the new storage device, nor will it allow either root or any loggeg-in use to mount it, despite the appropriate entries in /etc/fstab and the expected messges in /var/log/messges.

The forum thread /dev/sda1 missing [now closed] at LinuxForums describes the problem, some attempts at solutions, and some "workarounds" (see our post Found a workaround, maybe...) in detail, but the information we're posting here is not there [or if it is, it's in another thread and we didn't find it], and since the thread is "closed" we are posting it here...

Basically, the solution is very straight-forward: Install the udev package.

While that sounds straight-forward, Debian-blows-dogs-for-quarters has [again] gone out of their way to make the administrators life as difficult as possible by making sure that there is no apparent way to navigate to 'stable' distro from the 'untable' distro, and furthermore there is no clea way to select which Debian-POS distro you want to get .deb packages from. There appears to be no way to do a substring match when seraching packages. And there seems no way to either know which distro (eg.. 'stable', 'unstable', etc) the packages installed on a given machine came from, either.

And now IceWeasel-POS is crashing - randomly deleting characters from the textarea on blogger.com, and taking a good .7sec per charcteer typed to echo the characters typed - andddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd this with dysfunctional spell checking! Also, as you can see, the IceWeasel-POS is repeating characters and words randomly when blogger does its autosave operation.

So this is like : I'm typing a sentence, then stopping and waiting fffffffffffffffffffffffor the words to appeare. - and when they do- the repeats.

We have [sort of] found a solution. Note that in the log below, the 'apt-get install udev' command output is from the second run of same command. Ran it, then ran it again. Not sure why, but it worked.

root@juggalo:/dev# apt-get install udev
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  bluez-bcm203x hotplug
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  udev
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 2 to remove and 2 not upgraded.
Need to get 263kB of archives.
After unpacking 471kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Y
Get:1 http://ftp.de.debian.org stable/main udev 0.105-4 [263kB]
Fetched 263kB in 1s (183kB/s)
Preconfiguring packages ...
(Reading database ... 139905 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing bluez-bcm203x ...
dpkg: hotplug: dependency problems, but removing anyway as you request:
 atmel-firmware depends on udev (>= 0.070-3) | hotplug (>= 0.0.20040329-12); however:
  Package udev is not installed.
  Package hotplug is to be removed.
Removing hotplug ...
Selecting previously deselected package udev.
(Reading database ... 139875 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking udev (from .../archives/udev_0.105-4_i386.deb) ...

**************************************************************
* Please purge the hotplug package!
* (/etc/init.d/hotplug has been found on this system)
**************************************************************

Setting up udev (0.105-4) ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/init.d/udev ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/udev/links.conf ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/udev/persistent-input.rules ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/udev/persistent.rules ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/udev/cd-aliases-generator.rules ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/udev/udev.rules ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/udev/devfs.rules ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/udev/hotplug.rules ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/udev/permissions.rules ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/udev/persistent-net-generator.rules ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/scsi_id.config ...

Note that it is not clear how or why bluez-bcm203x hotplug got installed - it was not requested or wanted, as this machine has no Bluetooth devices, and probably never will.

Other notes of note:

• The udev package was already installed, but wasn't working right.
• The installed version of udev did not include the documentation that was [according to the Debian udev package description] supposed to exist in /usr/share/udev/
• As with so many other Debian-POS commands, there was no man page installed, despite the fact that 'apropos udev' showed a number of [non-existent] man pages for the command. This seems to be a pervasive problem with this particular Debian-lies-like-a-whore distro - many [we're inclined to say "most" actually] of the administrative manual pages are notably missing, even though 'apropos' claims they are there - perhaps there is some issue with the configuration of the 'makewhatis' cron job on Debian-blows? Why would these man pages be left out? And if they are going to be left out, why lie about it through apropos?

So yes, we seem to have fixed this problem, but Debian still sux0r.