Results matching “hard drive” from Ye Olde Rad Blog III

My buddy eDawg just built himself a new beast. Here's a copy-n-paste from the invoice (totaling $1325 + tax). He's using dual flat-panel monitors imported from a previous system. See here:

• Case Antec | Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Retail » $100
• PSU Corsair | CMPSU-750TX 750W SLI + CrossFire Ready Retail » $110
• Motherboard ASUS | P6T Deluxe V2 LGA 1366 X58 Intel Chipset Retail » $290
• CPU Intel | Core i7 920 Bloomfield 2.66G 45N Quad-Core - Retail » $290
• 2 x Memory | Corsair XMS3 6GB DDR3 PC3 - Retail » $320
• VGA XFX | Radeon HD 4870 1G 256-bit GDDR5 HD-487A-ZWFC PCI Express 2.0 x16 Retail » $145
• Hard Drive 250G | Western Digital Caviar Blue 7200-RPM 8MB Cache SATA2 - OEM » $45
• DVD Burner Lite-On | Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 22X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW SATA - OEM » $25
• Windows 7

This system has 12 gigs of memory (2 x 6-gig sticks). That's downright decadent. I think he could arrested for having so much memory (without a permit). We hate you, eDawg. Actually, that motherboard can handle (up to) 24 gigs .. in triple-channel mode.

I said, "Dang, you probably oughta call your local power company and let them know whenever you're fixin' to start that beast .. so they can tweak bus frequency up to 62-cycles, so you don't bring down the whole western grid."

I asked why he didn't opt for a giant 2-TB drive for storage, or a 10K-rpm Raptor to run his system & programs .. or better yet » a solid state drive (drool).

I remember back when we ordered and built his very first custom system. That wasn't long after eDawg's dad married my friend » Maria. We all lived in this big 5-level Euro-style mansion that eDawg's dad built (which later sold for several $mil) cut into the hillside high above Laguna .. with a killer 180-degree view of the Pacific. Ah, the good ol' days .. sitting out on the deck and watching the sun go down.

An article posted in last week's NY Times has been gnawing at me all weekend. It cites a study performed by two Israelis & a "leading American expert on the psychology of motivation." The single-page piece is titled » "When a Parent's Love Comes with Conditions" .. or » "When 'I Love You' means 'Do as I Say'."

The article can be summed with the following quote:

"The primary message of all types of conditional parenting is that children must earn a parent's love. A steady diet of that, Rogers warned, and children might eventually need a therapist to provide the unconditional acceptance they didn't get when it counted."

Doesn't it seem odd that a study was required to determine that rationing of love & acceptance (like gasoline during a shortage) based on 'performance' .. is detrimental to children? Duh.

First, conditional love is not love. Let's call it by its real name » manipulation. And it's the worst kind of manipulation, cuz children, especially young ones, are at the mercy of their parents.

Moreover, they do not yet possess the skills necessary to recognize and defend against such insidious tactics  .. from people they're so dependent upon (for eveything).

Now, do you know anyone who enjoys being manipulated? Cuz I don't. Heck, even people who enjoy pain don't like being manipulated. Cuz it doesn't really hurt; it just feels slimy. [Speaking of slime & pain, refer to my comments about boiling a frog near the end.]

Not very difficult to tell the difference, either. Kids (who happen to be particularly sensitive) can spot a fake all-the-way across the coffee shop and will turn away .. while gravitating wholeheartedly to the genuine. You can actually observe this play out.

There are many things a parent can use as leverage to encourage (or discourage) a particular behavior. But love should never be included in the leverage toolkit. Same goes for affection & attention .. things too precious to be used as mere bargaining chips.

Withholding love & affection based on behavior is cruel. Sure, it might elicit the desired response .. in the short term. But the child will grow to resent it (.. as does anybody who's being manipulated). Used consistently and frequently enough, it will instill deep-seated feelings of inadequacy .. that may never go away. (You might even know someone like this .. with deformed self-esteem.)

Many times, when a child is acting out, I'd wager it's *because* he or she is not getting the emotional support they need (from a parent). That would be like telling a hungry child » "Stop fussing or I won't give you any food."

[ In the military, we had a saying » "The beatings will continue until morale improves." Same principle. ]

Whichever side of the great nature vs nurture debate you tend to favor, you always return to » the parents .. as the prime causal agent for how a child turns out .. whether it be on count of their genes or their parenting methods (.. or a combination of both).

We were all kids once. (Well, most of us.) So we all have many years of first-hand experience from which to derive our opinions .. of what works, and what doesn't (.. and what really suks). My point is, it's not rocket science.

It's possible to learn to drive a car without ever understanding how one works. (e.g. » what the pistons do, the crankshaft, transmission, differential, etc.) And many drivers do just that. No problem. But I like to know how things work. This includes my study of Programming.

My degree-path specified one "sciencey" Computer Science class. So naturally, that's all I took.

The first half covered the various components of a computer and their functions (» the processor, memory, hard drive, etc.). The second delved into programming (with Pascal) on a rudimentary level.

Our instructor seemed more interested in the girls in the class than teaching. In fact, the hottie (red-head) who I studied with in the hours immediately prior to the Final exam, told me she'd spent the night at his place. (Her hair was messed & she referred to him by his first name.)

Based on the material she suggested we review, I did not doubt her claim. Because it quickly became clear, soon as the Final was handed out, that her suggestions mirrored the material contained therein. (Much of this material was never covered in class.)

I basically got an 'A' in that course cuz that girl spent the night at the instructor's place .. cuz many of those questions I'd never seen before. But that's ancient history now.

I have however, been delving into HOW programming languages work (crankshaft, pistons). I forget how I stumbled upon it, but there's an online version of this book: Programming Language Pragmatics .. located » HERE (Google books).

Actually, the online version is 2nd edition (2006), while the one for sale at Amazon is the 3rd (2009). But I doubt there's much difference .. that would matter to a rookie like me, anyway.

Bouncing on the trampoline with me yesterday, the Bug asked, "Did you have to go back-n-forth when you were a kid?"

"No," I answered, waiting for his mom to come pick him up.

"Did your mom & dad live in the same house?"

"Yeah," I said, almost apologetically. [ Both my parents passed long ago, so he's never met them. ]

There I was, fielding questions I never expected to hear. (He's 4 .. and becoming more aware.) Caught me off-guard. Wasn't sure how to respond.

The Bug has been bouncing on that trampoline (and going back-n-forth) since he first learned to walk .. for most of his young life.

The neighbors, who have 2 boys of their own, generously let us use it "whenever." Consequently, he has become a pretty good bouncer. If I jump just before he does, I've noticed it launches him. ( "I get your energy, dad." )

While bouncing one time he told me, "Your hair looks like a jellyfish."

Later, he started jumping (pretty high) and touching my head, as I tried to avoid him. When he does make contact, I freak out, saying, "Ahhh, the jellyfish stung my face," which makes him laugh .. so hard it makes me start.

Many interesting conversations have occurred on that trampoline. It's one of his favorite things to do (.. up there with catching butterflies). And the neighbors are so nice to him. They say the nicest things .. pay him the sweetest compliments.

Last month I mentioned a quest to learn the Unix shell .. specifically » bash (the Bourne Again SHell). Almost done. Currently ~80% complete .. enough to feel reasonably confident at a terminal.

The 'shell' is simply a program that lets you interact with the operating system (actually the kernel, to be more precise) ..

.. by taking your (text-based) commands and passing them on to the kernel. In my case, this kernel happens to be » Linux (which is but one variant of Unix).

The term 'shell' comes from the notion that this software acts like a 'layer' that sits between you and the operating system .. similar to the way an egg-shell sits between you and your hard-boiled breakfast.

The shell can be intimidating, cuz it uses a (text-based) command-line interface (CLI). No intuitive GUI to help you along. You either know the commands or you don't.

Didn't take me long to realize the CLI was where Linux's true power resides. When we upgraded the site, for example, to a Virtual Private Server, the support-techs who helped me with the move all used the command-line to work their mojo.

Most Linux distros do indeed come with an excellent GUI (usually either KDE or Gnome). But (but!) the Rad VPS does not. Which is why it became necessary to learn the Unix shell. (Something I tried to avoid.)

The Rad VPS is based on CentOS (Community ENTerprise Operating System), an off-shoot of Red Hat, which is probably the most popular of all enterprise Linux distros (.. and now a new member of the S&P 500, a development you may find telling).

GUIs (such as KDE or Gnome) require lots of memory/RAM. My laptop, for example, has 2-gigs, but the Rad VPS comes with an allotment of only 512-MB (.. upgraded from 384 just today).

With that limited amount, I need to run not only all the standard web applications .. such as Apache (web server), MySQL (database), Perl (scripting language), etc. but also cPanel/WHM.

So there's not much RAM left to run a GUI. [ Don't think I didn't inquire about installing a GUI. =) ]

Bottom line » if you wanna administer your own VPS, you need to learn the Shell. So that's what I'm doing. (Of course, there have been distractions, making progress uneven.)

XML is the foundation for several next-generation web technologies, such as XHTML, Ajax, RSS and Web Services. So it sounds like a good thing to know.

While HTML (the language of the web) is used to display information (how data looks), XML is used to structure & describe information (what data is).

XML is easy to learn, but comes with a set of related technologies, such as:

• XPath .. which is used to extract data from within an XML document (similar to how SQL works).
• XSLT .. a styling language which transforms an XML document/file into something else (such as HTML, PDF, ASCII or another XML file).
• XQuery .. provides advanced query functions on XML data, similar to SQL. More powerful than XPath.
• XPointer & XLink .. which work together to create hyperlinks to XML documents and to sections within XML documents (even if/when no named anchors exist, which is pretty cool).

So there's a lot to learn. (I'm about knee-deep into it.)

Since XML is just plain text, XML documents/files can be created or edited with any text editor, such as Notepad or Wordpad, which come with every version of Windows. But they provide no advanced features such as:

• line numbering
• tag completion
• syntax color coding
• checking for well-formedness
• validating XML files (against DTD & Schema)
• collapse & expand sections of code

I heard that the best (most feature-rich) XML editing software that's FREE is » Microsoft's Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition .. which I downloaded and installed.

Holy moly. Big download. Couple of gigs. They make you register the software, too. Took me a long time to finish everything .. after downloading all the updates (including the security patches & SP1, plus installing Microsoft's SQL Server 2008 Express).

Back when I investigated how to create a webpage template, a couple weeks ago, I really had in mind the notion of using a template as the basis for a new Rad guide .. not one on Dreamweaver Templates however, but rather one for » Drive Imaging & Disk Cloning. Today I created that template, and began a new Rad guide.

Definitely takes longer to get up-n-running when using a template, cuz you first must determine exactly how the guide will be structured .. and what items to include in the template, and what parts need to be editable.

Can't just start cranking out pages of text and entertaining new ideas (.. like I used to) .. leaving the details of page structure to deal with later.

Templates force you to pre-think everything up front, before you begin generating content-one. They even force you to anticipate changes .. which is new for me .. especially since I've grown accustomed to the ready-fire-aim approach, which leaves the details of page structure for later .. but by then it's difficult to make changes .. cuz each page must be edited individually (.. hence the need for templates).

I was so eager to get started on the guide that I actually had to start over (several times) .. due to major template modifications. (Arrgh!) Kept getting new ideas .. things I wanted to add/tweak.

You can always modify a template, as that's what they are designed for. But when a template requires many edits, it seems easier to just start over and create a new one. (Something I'm getting good at .. from all the practice.)

Frontline is airing a special tomorrow (9PM, May 12th) titled » The Madoff Affair. Should be an eye-opener.

A statement Madoff made in court following his arrest caught my attention cuz it reflected my impressions of the Wall Street culture .. (after I watched » Inside the Meltdown) .. that it seems like everything on Wall Street is about turning a profit .. at any cost .. regardless of the suffering & misery their actions might bring to countless Americans. And that enough is never enough.

How can $50 billion not be enough? That's billion with a 'B' .. as in » $50,000,000,000.00 .. enough to turn 50,000 paupers into millionaires .. 25,000 hobos into multi-millionaires. Feed the hungry (steak & lobster for a lifetime).

Madoff's comments confirmed my impressions .. (nearly word-for-word) .. tho this mindset is difficult to understand, cuz life is short and (very obviously) no one gets out of here alive.

And I dare say he's not the only one. Madoff is merely the poster boy for Wall Street greed.

What kind of dysfunction drives such a culture? Hard to believe that greed alone is responsible .. and there are not more serious psychological defects at play.

Upgraded the Rad Community forums .. to » YaBB v2.4 (released a few weeks ago). The boys at YaBB have adopted a new, fast-n-furious (3-month) release cycle, which keeps me hopping.

The 'upgrade' process begins with a new/fresh/clean install of the new version .. to a new/unique directory.

I then configure the new version to make it look like the version currently in-use.

After everything looks hunky dory, and appears to be working correctly, I place both (old & new) forums in Maintenance mode and copy all the member-accounts and posts (» folders labeled /Members and /Messages) .. from old to new directories.

That's always the trickiest part, cuz there are so many files to copy (more than 15,000). Our old Shared hosting server choked on this file-transfer. The forums contain ~5K threads with 40K posts (which I'd hate to lose).

Our new VPS however, seems to be handling the load much better. And I can now work from the (powerful) Linux shell (command line).

With world-economies teetering somewhere between a nasty recession and full-on depression, more folks are turning to open source (free) software to meet their home computing needs.

If you've been Radified any length of time, you know that cloning programs are our specialty, especially when used as a tool to backup your system partition (where Windows resides) by creating an image file.

So the question naturally becomes » What's the best free cloning program?

I've tried many options, such as Macrium and O&O DiskImage Express, but never quite found what I was looking for .. until today, that is.

Perhaps I should interject by saying that, regarding the NOT-free solutions, I've found that Ghost, along with Image-for-Windows to be the best for-co$t disk-cloning tools. (By 'best' I mean » most reliable.) Ghost is also way faster than any other cloning product I've demo'ed .. if speed is important to you.

Lots of people also like True Image, but I had problems with it. (Errors I couldn't resolve.)

But what if you can't afford those apps? Then what? We still need an industrial-strength (nuclear-grade) backup tool. Enter Clonezilla. (Standing ovation.)

First, I'm not crazy about the name .. nor the website's design, especially the tiny menu on the left-side that I can barely read. (Update - looks like they fixed the tiny-menu problem after I posted this.)

Heck, I don't even like their logo (white Linux penguin inside orange penguin). But I *am* impressed with the tool itself .. now that I've had a chance to try it.

Yes, it's significantly more complicated to use than either Ghost or Image-for-Windows, but I don't feel this complexity is a barrier to those with a moderate degree of computer sophistication. (Such as the folks who frequent Radified.)

Note that .. a cloning program can (if used inadvertantly) trash your entire system and wipe out every every file on your hard drive .. with a single click. So you can't experiment like you can with other programs (.. such Photoshop Elements or Sound Forge, for example). In other words, you need to know wtf you're doing.

Perhaps I should begin by defining some terms.

Got rid of the Bug's last few diapers today. He hasn't worn diapers for months, even at night. Seemed symbolic when I dropped those Huggies into the trash. End of an era. (He's 4 now.) Good that he's developing, but kinda sad, cuz they're only small once .. for such a short time.

Speaking of little ones .. the Dog called today and said his wife is pregnant. Due in October. I'm so happy for him. Couldn't stop smiling.

He's in New York. He will make a great dad. (His first.) He married a girl from the Czech Republic. (You know what they say about Czech girls.)

My laptop had a sticky i-key. So I popped it off with a thin flathead screwdriver and broke the dang mounting clip that attaches the key itself to laptop. Or at least it popped off too.

Tiny parts. Hard to work with. Broke out a magnifying glass. Hard to do anything with a magnifying glass in one hand.

Regulars might recall when I installed a copy of Ubuntu Linux last summer .. an operation I prepared for by creating a separate 20-gig partition (on my new hard drive), which I formatted as EXT3.

Somebody in the forums (Nigel, I think) suggested using VMware (.. either the freebie 'Player' or full-boat 'Workstation' ..) to run a 'virtualized' installation.

I initially balked at the idea .. cuz I didn't grok how virtualization works. But you don't need to understand how an automobile works in order to benefit from driving one. Same goes for virtualization. And the benefits are substantial.

The coolest thing about 'virtualizing' a Linux installation .. is that you can run it from (within) Windows .. just like you can run Photoshop (from Windows) .. or any other Windows-program for that matter .. multitasking all of them at the same time.

I found that .. if you can only use/access Linux by booting into it (and thus leaving Windows behind), you're less likely to use it (.. or so it has been my experience).

So last week I deleted my EXT3 partition, and reformatted it as NTFS .. where I installed a virtual machine containing Ubuntu 8.10 'Intrepid Ibex'.

Intrepid even found my wireless adapter upon initial boot-up. (Woo-hoo!) No more having to troubleshoot wireless connections and installing proprietary drivers just to get internet access.

The only drawback I've found is that you can't copy-n-paste info/text (such as passwords, etc.) between programs running in Windows and those running in (virtualized) Linux. (Tho I wonder if this might help.)