Dust is bad

Decided to do some cleaning on my Athlon 1.2.

Since the fan on the heatsink of the processor has been so noisy, I decided to try to replace it with the fan on my smaller heatsink. Unforetunately after looking at the two fans, it was clear that they were different sizes. What was also obvious was that the heatsink would really benefit from a cleaning. I'm kicking myself for not taking before/after photos, but trust me, the dirt was CAKED on. I spent a good 20 minutes cleaning the whole thing.

After putting everything back together, the computer started up with a reassuring whine. Immediatly there was considerable improvement on sound. Though still loud, the fan was no longer as high-pitched. An unexpected improvement came in the temperature department. Before the cleaning, the Athlon 1.4(running at 1.2) was a constant 43C (CPU) under full load. After the cleaning, I'm getting 36C (CPU)max full load, with a 26C case temp. That is a great improvement.

Of course it's possible that the sensor is faulty. I compared the temperatures with my sister's 1800+ and she's getting 40C cpu with a 32C case. The almost 10 degree difference in cpu temp can be attributed to the different architecture (Thunderbird vs. Palimino) and situations (1800+ running at stock 1.53ghz and 1.4Ghz processor underclocked to 1.2ghz). But the difference between case temperatures seems a little strange. The 1800+ is in a more enclosed case and the case itself is in a more enclosed location, but they are still in the same room.

All in all, the I would say the cleaning was a complete success.

Changes to ... Friskett?

Over the past month or so alot has happened to my humbe little Athlon 800. Since giving mom the PIII 733 (Bob), the Athlon 800(Friskett) has been my main machine. It started out with 256MB of ram, 52x CDRW and that's about it. Here are my little additions:

1. Mad Dog 4.1 Sound Card: At first I thought I was just gonna use my laptop 24/7 and use Friskett as a file-server. I found out that a) when you're on a computer 15+ hours a day, you need a pretty big screen. My laptop is perfect for mobile computing, but at home it's nice to have something bigger. b) you don't want to keep a laptop on 24/7 without letting it sleep. I ended up hooking Friskett up to my old 15" CRT that i use for a TV. (Looking for a 17" LCD soon). Well I got tired of Friskett not being able to play any sound, and I found a sound card for cheap (if the rebate gets here already).

2. Zonet Firewire/USB 2.0 Combo Card: One of Maggie's xmas gifts to me. Got it so I could use the Iomega USB 2.0 burner that Kuya BJ left me. At this point Friskett had no optical drives. Unfortunately it seemst that I left the drive in Fresno, sooo...

3. NEC 3500A DL DVD+-RW: Another of Maggie's xmas gifts to me. Been burning DVD's since I got it. Works awesomely. Computer is kinda slow to burn movies though, but it gets the job done.

4. Athlon 1.4GHZ upgrade: John gave me some of his old spare parts. I got 2 SDRAM sticks and 2 DDR266 sticks. So far only one of the SDRAM sticks work. But the real story is the Athlon 1.4. It uses a 266mhz FSB, unforetunately my motherboard only supports the 1.4 with a 200mhz FSB. I replaced the 800 with the 1.4. Tried to boot, and mess with the multiplier settings. Long story short, best I could do is 1.2Ghz with a 200mhz FSB on a 12x multiplier. In contrast this proc was made to run at 1.4GHZ on a 266mhz FSB on a 10.5 multiplier. So far it's been stable, let's hope it stays that way.

So almost instantly my humble little 800 has become a very respectable 1.2Ghz athlon. Only complaint is the new Heatsink/Fan is LOUD. It's a pretty high-pitched whine too. Ohh well, for a 400mhz difference I'll take it.

Easy Rebates?

According to this
Staples has implemented an "Easy, no clipping, no mailing" rebate system, in that customers rebate submissions are completely online. If this works as advertised I see a major boom for Staples. I know I personally patronize stores that I know have a good rebate history (Circuit City comes to mind).

Cocoa Apps ... by me

I've started my trip into the wonderful world of Cocoa programming. I've been following a few tutorials, which have led me to create my first few Cocoa apps. The articles can be found at MacDevCenter.

My first program was a Currency Converter, which was basically a simple app that multiplied two numbers and printed it back to the screen. Very simple stuff, but it helped me get a feel for the Model-Controller-View concept of Cocoa and Xcode. If you're running OSX Panther (10.3) you can try them out yourself. Currency Converter.

My second and third programs were browsers based on the same engine that Safari uses. I'm actually posting this comment in my own browser. I was gonna create .dmg's for them but decided against. Version .1 and Version .2. Version .2 includes support for multiple windows, javascript and a reactive URL field.

Enjoy.

Optimizations...

Was looking around last nite (doing anything except studying) and ran across this article.
Run a G4 or G5 Optimized version of Firefox

I had to use Xbench to actually figure out what G4 I had in my powerbook (7455). I looked around the precompiled binaries provided in that link and downloaded the one for my processor family (7450). I've been running that version ever since. Using my completely informal and unscientific trials (does it FEEL faster?) I have concluded that yes the optimized versions are a touch peppier than the generic Firefox 1.0

This got me thinking, I'm sure the same thing could be done for the windows and linux versions (if they haven't been already). To that effect I'm looking forward to trying to compile an athlon optimized version of firefox for my desktop. Those of you with spanking new P4's and A64's might want to consider doing the same. But then again, if you have a computer that new, it's probably already plenty fast.

Another thing I thought of, I wonder how much faster would the OS be if it was optimized in the same way? Gentoo Linux came to mind. I've had some people swear to me that by doing full optimizations, they've got Gentoo linux to literally scream on old hardware (old being 300mhz and lower). I never really believed them, but after this first hand experience, I might give it a go. Of course that requires that I have a spare computer lying around, and due to space contraints (my room is tiny) I left all those in Fresno. \

Linux..

A nice blog entry about the state of x86 linux. Particularly Fedora Core 3 and Ubuntu linux.

Link here

Visor Also...

After a complete and utter desire to not do anything school related... I started messing with Maggie's Visor Deluxe. She stopped regularly using it about a year ago, when the batteries ran out and she never got around to getting new ones. But since she had a set of 2 AAA NiMh batteries laying around, I decided to charge them up and bring the beast back to life. After being without power for so long, the Visor was completely blank. Fortunately everything seemed to still be in working order. Because I reformatted her computer recently (spyware, adware, etc..) and didn't think to backup her PIM info, all the data that used to be on her PDA is completely gone. But since she stopped using it so long ago, it's not a huge loss. Getting it set up on her Dell was simple enough, download Palm Desktop from palm (for some reason Palm insists that only the older version 4.1.something could work with her Visor), and away we went.

After a short while I remembered that the cradle for the Visor was USB, which means that physically it was possible to connect it to her Powerbook. I set to work trying to get it working with iSync. This was a little more complicated than setting it up on her PC, but still very simple. Download Palm Desktop for Mac, install, configure HotSync Manager to sync her Visor through iSync, go into iSync, add her Visor as a device and voila it worked. Her Visor now contains all the info that's in Maggie's Address Book and iCal. Hopefully she'll use both the programs more extensively, that way they'd be of use to her.

Next project... trying to get my Palm V to talk to my Powerbook (serial to usb adaptor?)

Palm V back on!

For about 4-5 months my Palm V has been out of commission. It's been plagued with a few maladies, the biggest two were the battery life (dying) and the skewed digitizer (the thing that figures out where i'm tapping on the screen). The former problem actually sorted itself out. When I moved out of GrandMarc, I basically threw the palm into a box and forgot it for till a few days ago. Before hand I had kept it in the cradle, charging. Well to my suprise, about a month ago, as I'm digging through some boxes for some screws, I happen upon the Palm and lo and behold it still had power! I find the screws and stick the palm back in the box. A few days ago I get it in my head to set the palm up (just to charge the poor thing). After about an hour of searching I find all the components (adaptor, cradle, keyboard and the palm itself). I try to turn it on... and nothing. I guess the battery had just given up the ghost. On a whim I leave it plugged in for a few days. Later on I try the power button and soft reset a few times, success! It comes to life. I quickly hook the cradle up to the PC and sync, to save the datebook and contacts.

Feeling pretty good about myself, I actually try to use the palm... the digitizer problem pulls me back down to earth. Hnmm... the the digitizer is so screwed up that I can't get to the recalibration screen. No problem, a hard reset should get me there, and since I just synced up, I can restore all my data. I try it, digitizer is calibrated. All seems fine. I sync up, an the problem comes back. Back to the drawing board.

The next day a quick google turns up that it's actually a common problem. Of the two proposed solutions, redigi works for me. It can be found here. So now the palm seems to be working fine. I'm not quite sure about the battery life, i'll have to take it around and actually use it to test that. But it's nice to have an old friend back from the brink of death =).

Swiss Army Goodness

Maggie got me this for my birthday. After a few weeks of playing with it. I can honestly say it's great! The thumbdrive part works great. It is even removeable, incase the knife doesn't fit next to the USB slot. The knife is sharp, as are the scissors. The light is suprisingly bright. The only thing I can really find fault with is that it's so nice that i'm scared to scratch it. Also 256MB would have been perfect, but I don't think the swiss army knife comes in that size. All in all an awesome present.

New iPods

New iPods came out a few days ago.

New 20 gig U2 Special Edition iPod:


It's basically exactly the same as the current low-end 20 gig iPod. Only difference is of course the black face and red click wheel. It has the signitures of all the U2 members on the back and it costs $50 more than the standard iPod. That $50 premium is offset partly by giving the buyer a $50 discount on the complete U2 digital set. If you're a big U2 fan or just like the new look or both then you'll like the black/red iPod.

New 40 and 60 gig:



The new color iPods have a color screen, can sync your iPhoto collection (through iTunes), show album art when playing a song, and run a slideshow complete with music on either the color screen or a tv. It also has improved battery life (15 hours), but is slightly thicker and heavier than normal iPods. I'm not quite sure about that I think about the new color iPods. On the one hand they are nifty, who wouldn't want a color screen? On the other hand, how often do you really want to carry around every picture you own?

Bleeding Edge Hardware + Linux = ???

Not to knock Linux or anything like that, but I just don't get why you would make a hardcore, bleeding edge system... solely to run linux. Before the hate mail begins, please let me explain. Linux is an excellent OS if you

1. Know what you're doing
2. Don't really play many games (DOOM3, etc..)
3. Know what you're doing
4. Have ALOT of time to beat the OS into submission
5. Know what you're doing
6. Enjoy beating the OS into submission
7. Know what you're doing

Linux can fully utilize almost every component on a rig. Faster Proc? Check. Huge LCD? Check, Fast SATA NCQ HD? Check
oodles and oodles of RAM? Doubly check. $650 Video Card? .... umm... there's drivers for it...

That's what I want to know about. By admission most review sites place linux video drivers anywhere from "a step or two behind windows" all the way to "doesn't work, buy a new one". Why spend all that money if the drivers aren't even mature enough to fully utilize it? Also, unless you're running something like Maya or CAD (which if you are, you should probably get a Quadro or workstation class video card for anyway) there's nothing to use all that power. Yay, $650 video card to play... tux racer...

You can always argue that full system utillization is only a dual-boot away, and you'd be right. But what about those that simply refuse to run windows, yet still insist on having bleeding edge components? Enlighten me. Please.

OSX + Terminal.app + X11.app

Here's a little tidbit:

In order to get Terminal.app to launch X11 applications. You need to
set your $DISPLAY variable to ":0.0". In bash this would be:

export DISPLAY=":0.0"

If you leave off the colon, it will NOT work.

iMac G5

iMac G5 was released recently. The thing basically looks like the Apple Cinema Displays except that their white, and cost a bit more. Oh yeah they have a 1.6 or 1.8 GHZ G5 processor in them! From the pictures and the keynote speech I think the new iMacs look gorgeous. Alot of people have been complaining that the front looks too much like an eMac, or that its not as revolutionary a design as the original iMac and "desklamp" iMac were, I agree somewhat. It's not really a revolutionary, but more of an evolutionary design. For me the next logical step for the iMac was to get rid of the base.

There are 2 models, a 17" and a 20". The 17" is available in 1.6 or 1.8 Ghz configurations. The 20" is only available as a 1.8 Ghz model. The two 1.8Ghz models come with a VERTICAL SuperDrive while the 1.6 comes with a Combo. The 1.6 Ghz model comes with a 533 mhz bus while the 1.8 Ghz model comes with a 600mhz bus. The GPU is an NVIDIA FX5200 with 64MB of Video RAM. Prices have gone down, 1.6Ghz models start at $1299 all the way up to the 20" 1.8Ghz at $1899. Shipping is expected mid-september.

Rants:

1. GPU, GPU, GPU. The FX5200 is NVIDIA's bottom of the line card. I'm not sure if it was for heat or space considerations, but a better video card would make the new iMac more future proof. At the very least I thought they would have a BTO option.

2. System BUS. These processors' busses are at a 3:1 ratio, instead of the PowerMac's 2:1 ratio. A 533 and 600mhz bus is nothing to sneeze at, but we've been spoiled by the 900, 1ghz and even 1.25ghz buses of the new PowerMacs. A good thing about this situation is that it more clearly defines the "pro" lines and the "consumer" lines.

3. 1.8ghz for the top of the line 20" iMac? I'm not sure about Apple's reasoning for putting the entire iMac line below even the slowest of PowerMacs. It could be a move to further seperate the lines. Maybe they just couldn't find enough 2.0 GHz chips.

4. The ports. They look great when nothing's plugged into them. But what if you actually start to use those ports? I can see it getting mighty messy with 2-3 USB devices, a FW HD or so, and some external Speakers. Then again, all I've seen are pictures, and pictures rarely do apple products justice. I'll just have to head to Irvine to take a look in person.

Do YOU know what you're typing on?

According to a study, a public keyboard has more dirt/bacteria/crap on or in it than the average public TOILET SEAT! Here's the proof.

I'm leaving the dell at home so my mom will have something to play her
PopCap games on(awesome games btw). I dug the original keyboard out for her to use. After taking one look at it, I decided i'd try to clean it up a bit. After about 10 minutes of trying to clean it with a Qtip, I knew it was time to take it apart and just dunk it in some soupy water. Here is a pic I took, halfway through taking off each individual key.



If you look close you can make out some of the dirt. But this picture doesn't convey just how dirty this thing was. Time for a close-up.



It gets worse as more keys come off.



How about each key? Those are pretty bad too, I think this is the shift key...



After about 5 mins of soaking/scrubbing with dish soap...



Every key was scrubbed and dried... yes I had too much time on my hands...



Finally, everything back together. This keyboard has not been this clean since
I first got it, 4 YEARS ago. Ahh the memories.



Makes you think twice about eating near your comp huh?

Queen of the Damned

Just finished watching Queen of the Damned. Overall an ok movie. Its
along the same plotlines as Interview of a Vampire. It has some of
the same characters (Lestat). Whether it's set before or after Interview
I do not know. The plot itself wasn't very good, the action is based on
a vampire turned rocker Lestat. He leads a band called "The Vampire Lestat".
A complete summary of the movie can be found here. Overall not a terrible
way to spend 1.5 hours, but not great either.

Break break down

Today was moving day for my grandma, as such we were moving some of her stuff
to her new place. Nothing much, a fridge, washer/dryer, and a few pieces of furniture.
The fridge was the biggest thing, so we needed a UHAUL truck. Went to Blackstone
(street) to get the truck, when we get there, my dad's van's instrument panel lights
up like a xmas tree. Turn off the engine, and it promptly starts to spew large amounts
of white smoke. We try to cool it down, but only get a few hundred meters away before
we have to stop again. That happens once or twice, then we decide to just call for a
tow truck. We call at 3:15, the guy says the truck should be there within an hour.
Keep in mind we're sitting out in 106 degree heat, no shade, no water.


us at 3:30,


3:45,


4:00,


4:20. We spent over an hour in the friggin heat. Took it to Pep Boys, turns out the radiator cracked.
~$400 to fix.

Drool

Me want....



2.5 GHZ Dual G5 (Water-cooled)
23" Cinema Display Aluminium edition

Computer + Car = ?

Got a brilliant idea in the shower.

Read about it here.

It's pretty rough, basically a big mess of a brainstorm. Hopefully I can
collect my thoughts and organize and post it here.

Home Setups

My Setup:





This is where I am most of the day. I actually had to buy the table
at costco, it's amazing how hard it is to make do without a table.
I'm not sure if I'm going to bring the table with me to Riverside.

Pictured:

12" 867mhz Powerbook G4
256MB DDR266 RAM (going to be upgraded to 640MB when I get more money)
Combo slot-loading DVD-ROM/CDRW
Firewire 400
USB 1.1
Logitech Mouse


15GB G3 iPod
Griffin iTrip

P3 733mhz
256MB PC-100 RAM (SD-RAM is way too expensive now to get more)
64MB Geforce MX440 PCI
120GB of HD total
52x32x52 Lite-On CDRW(temporarily, usually has a 8x DVD-ROM)
ATP3 2.1 Speakers
Logitech Wireless KB/Mouse

Unforetunately the desktop doesn't have a modem anymore (gave it to
sister a year or two ago) so the laptop has to play modem if I want
the desktop to get some internet. A laptop/desktop combo is very useful.




Sister's Setup:





This is my sister's setup. Before I got my own table, this is where
I spent most of my computer time. The tower was a gift for my sister
my dad's birthdays and xmas'. It was the first computer I ever
built. With some help from my friend, it went off without a hitch.
Specs are as follows:

Athlon XP1800+ (1.57ghz)
256MB DDR333 ram
8x12x12x32x DVD-ROM/CDRW
ATI Radeon 7000 AGP Video Card
40GB IBM HD
Logitech Optical Mouse

At the time it cost around $600. It really needs more memory and maybe a
better video card, but for what my sister and parents use it for, it's
fine the way it is at the moment.

They also got a 19" CRT for it. I'm let her use the speakers that came with
my dell. Not the greatest sound, but better than the cheapo speakers she
had before. Oh yeah, see that scanner? My sister fixed that all on her own,
i was soo proud.



Bonus Setup:





This setup was actually given to me by my uncle. He was cleaning out his
closet and gave me a bunch of "old computer junk" someone had given him
years ago. Went I went through all the stuff, I found a few gems and put
them together. What started life as a PowerTower 166, with a 166mhz 604e
processors has been upgraded to a 400mhz G3. It has 256MB of RAM and what
I think is a CDROM drive, no idea what the speed is. My mom threathened to
throw it away if I didnt find a place for it, off the carpet. So I set up
a little workstation in one of the rooms. The computer itself runs pretty
well and is actually quite speedy running OS9. I'm in the process of trying
all my old games (circa 1989!) on the powertower. Some games just break outright
while others run way too fast or way too slow. But some are robust enough
to still be quite fun (go tetris). It is true, one man's junk is another man's
treasure.

Link

There's almost no chance this blog will be used... if you really want to know, go to:

www.xanga.com/lilrabbit129