Politics, Economics and other Stuff

Mysterious CD-Burner/iTunes Failure

Hm, it looks like my CD burner has failed, but it could also be some mysterious iTunes failure.  In any case, it doesn't look like I'll be making any CDs to listen to on my drive to CT tomorrow evening.  I need to get to bed. 

Oh well, CD burners do have moving parts. 

The stupid CD won't eject either without rebooting the whole machine.  Agh..

Weird, I can write 10 MB jpgs with Nero.  But it seems very slow.  I have no time for this. 

Back online

I've got my internet dependency covered...trying to join the modern world and get a N-band wireless router to work.  The non-wireless connection speed is good, 24 MB/s downloads and 10MbB/s uploads or higher, better than at the old house, where it was 15 MB/s and 2MB/s.  Not great by world standards but not bad.

Update #1: well, I got the N-band wireless connection going and it says I have a 'weak signal' but I'm getting more than 100 MBs bandwidth.  When I test it my internet connection speed I don't get any fall off compared to the land line.  So it looks like we're okay.  This is, I believe, the lower bandwidth N-band, since you're supposed to save the higher one for media (i.e. TV).  This should hold us over for  a while (indeed, a bit unclear if we need this much bandwidth in the next few years, but I assume we'll grow into it -- I've not been following wireless technology much). 

Here's a speed test over wireless -- for some reason uploads are now faster (is there some sort of compression being used here?).  Speedtest.net says this is a 98%tile connection for the US and the world. These upload speeds seem very high, about ten times the US average (which is low).  Ah, being in northern Virginia. 

   

Update #2: David comments:

Damn. Just ruined my sense of well-being. I got 16.88 mb/s download and 6.24 mb/s upload. I thought cable modem with their high end "business class" service was supposed to be really fast. Feeling cheated. I was feeling satisfied until now. Shows that it's all about relative, not absolute, happiness.

Beat this -- and this is wireless:

 

Turns out this is Verizon's mid-range internet service which is rated as 'up to' 25/15 MBs.  It comes bundled in their cable-internet-TV plan.  The high range service is 50/25 MBs and is much more expensive.  And I don't think this connection is a limiting factor for anything I'll do -- I'd need to buy quite a few more media intense machines to get there. 

GPS U.S. Household Penetration

via GPS Magazine -- in short, we are now at 56% market penetration -- but what is non-portable GPS?  Or is that double counting: 48% if you don't double count, 56% if you do double count?  Seems like there would be more duplicate systems.  Don't pay attention to the meaningless forecasts. GPS isn't going to get to 96% market penetration in 2013.  Cell phones don't have that sort of market penetration (what is the figure for cell phones?).

Household penetration, U.S.	2009	2010	2013
U.S. Households	117.1M	118.6M	122.9Mh
In-vehicle navigation systems	8.1	9.1	13.6
Dedicated navigation devices	34.9	37.4	32.6
Smartphone/PDAs w/navigation	6.6	9.7	27
Handsets w/navigation	6.8	9.7	36.9
Total portable navigation systems	48.3	56.8	96.5
Total navigation systems	56.4	65.9	110.1
Per capita penetration, U.S.	2009	2010	2013
U.S. population	307.2M	310M	318.1M
In-vehicle navigation systems	3.1	3.5	5.3
Dedicated navigation devices	13.3	14.3	12.6
Smartphone/PDAs w/navigation	2.5	3.7	10.4
Handsets w/navigation	2.6	3.7	14.2
Total portable navigation systems	18.4	21.7	37.3
Total navigation systems	21.5	25.2	42.5

* Source: iSuppli

Household penetration, U.S.	2009	2010	2013
U.S. Households	117.1M	118.6M	122.9Mh
In-vehicle navigation systems	8.1	9.1	13.6
Dedicated navigation devices	34.9	37.4	32.6
Smartphone/PDAs w/navigation	6.6	9.7	27
Handsets w/navigation	6.8	9.7	36.9
Total portable navigation systems	48.3	56.8	96.5
Total navigation systems	56.4	65.9	110.1
Per capita penetration, U.S.	2009	2010	2013
U.S. population	307.2M	310M	318.1M
In-vehicle navigation systems	3.1	3.5	5.3
Dedicated navigation devices	13.3	14.3	12.6
Smartphone/PDAs w/navigation	2.5	3.7	10.4
Handsets w/navigation	2.6	3.7	14.2
Total portable navigation systems	18.4	21.7	37.3
Total navigation systems	21.5	25.2	42.5

* Source: iSuppli

Rumors of an iPhone being tested on Verizon's 4G Network

Fone Frenzy reports, which would  most likely mean much better service and much better data transfer rates.  Rumors also elsewhere and this follows up previous rumors in the Spring.  May just be rumor mongering by hedge funds with the recent Apple earnings release...via ghacks. 

Well, the option value of waiting means AT&T is def. not getting any business from me.  Not that this is news.

Reverse Image Lookup on the Web

See Lifehacker. 

iPhone Color

Rumors from the front:

Apple likes to say their products “just work”, but their definition of “works” seems to be a little different when it comes to the iPhone. A recent visit to the Apple store by one New York iPhone owner ended with a rather confusing diagnosis from the Apple Genius.

Manoj Gupta became frustrated with his iPhone’s propensity for dropping calls. Suspecting there was something wrong, he had the local Apple store run some tests. Luckily, the Genius reported that no repairs were needed. However, that’s not to say nothing was wrong. The phone dropped 22% of calls, which is totally normal for New York apparently.

The report stated that most phones drop over 30% of calls. So clearly, Mr. Gupta is downright lucky to only be dropping 22% of calls. We’ve long heard that AT&T’s network is in a terrible state in New York City, but has it really gotten this bad?

My enthusiasm for spending on money for an iPhone stuck with the AT&T network isn't all that great.

Update #1: David comments:

Yes. It is a problem. But the iPhone is more of a great gadget/device than a phone per se. I know people who get a Verizon phone to use as a reliable phone and also carry around an iPod Touch, which is basically an iPhone without the phone. But that's a lot of clutter to lug around. At least I get one device that works (mostly) like a phone and also handles podcasts, music, satellite radio, Japanese lessons and flashcards, medical database, to do list, appointments calendar, on line instant medication information, websurfing, text messaging and games (to keep kids from fighting in the backseat). And the screen resolution and OS for that part of the iPhone blows everything else away. So on the whole, I'm still happy and not planning on taking it back.

But I already have a first edition iTouch, though the wi-fi on it broke a few months ago.  It would be nice to get web access, but I'm not going to pay for a 2nd phone. 

Matlab as parser...

Not a good idea.  Slow. 

Or I did something stupid.  Sort of likely...time to learn python in any case. 

Hard Drive Troubles

Well, I cannot figure out how to break the Raid 1 and not have the computer freeze on boot up.  Oh well.  I think I made one mistake and now I don't know how to undo it.  So I have a Raid 1 with 160GB on two 500GB disks.  There has to be a simple way to clone the boot disk, but not this evening. (see for instance this discussion) 

The new Hard Drive

The new hard drive in place.  I did end up ordering one additional -- and faster for an extra $6 -- 500GB hard drive to bring my Raid array up to 500GB. I may also, if that install goes well, buy one more faster hard drive for my machine and move this slower one over to my wife's machine, where I can use it for storage as a network drive.  Supposedly 1TB Raid 1 boot drives aren't a good idea, at least not for disk drives I can afford.  And storage can be done with cheaper  and slower 1TB drives...so I'll most likely end up buying one or two of those at some point in the near future.  The costs of digital photography. 

How to get by with computers

from xkcd.  So true. 

Raid 1 is back up

Was very easy, indeed an actual case of plug-n-play.  Just pop in the new hard drive and recreate the Raid 1.  Three min of messing with the hard drive holder -- the plastic part was less obvious than I expected -- and 15 min or so to rebuild the Raid. 

Now on the the harder part, buying another 500GB hard drive and building a 500GB raid to replace my current 160 GB raid.

Update #1: the standard problem: in order to register the hard drive with WD I need the serial number, so I'll need to pull it out again.  It comes, I think, with a three year warranty, so should be worth doing.  Hm, need to check the warranty...yes, three years, not clear if you need to register or not. Ooops, the raid controller provides serial numbers.  So why do instructions say write them down.  Also on the packing slip. 

Update #2: evil people want to have scanned receipts for a 3 year warranty.  They are currently giving me a bit over a year.  The claim on the Western Digital site is that it automatically provides a 3 year warranty from date of manufacture.  Do I have an almost 2 year old HD?  Don't think so...produced in September 2007?  Seems non-credible. BTW, this is 500GB Western Digital Caviar Blue.  May not be the best i.e. fasted drive out there, but it is $59 with free shipping from B&H, a reliable vendor. 12 cents per GB. 

The copy of Acronis True Image that WD provides also refuses to install since it claims I don't have a WD hard drive (isn't it smart enough to recognize a WD HD in a raid?).   Not that Acronis doesn't provide a free trial version that does, I think, do what I need it to do to clone this drive. 

Update #3: now that I'm reading reviews I'm wondering if I should have gotten a faster drive since they are not that much more expensive.  Probably not worth it for a three year old machine.  Time to get a new computer anyway and pass this one on to the rest of the family, since the older machine they mostly use is getting annoyingly slow. I even get annoyed by it just browsing the internet. 

Also time to get a bigger and better monitor.  24 inch and 1920*1200 resolution compared to my current 19 inch 1280*1024. 

GPS says its accurate to 15 feet

If you tap on the signal strength bars on the first page of the Garmin 755T you can pull up a page on the GPS signals.  While standing just now in the parking lot the machine told me it had 15 feet accuracy, after having acquired about eight satellites and having, I assume, verified that it wasn't moving, allowing it to average its location over time. 

Update #1: not clear what the definition of accuracy here is.  I think it is within 15 feet 95% of the time, but that is a guess. I should try this on an open field in good weather.

The trick on finding this page via this blog:

 

  

Hard Drive Failure

Well, my 160GB main disk drive failed this morning when I booted up my computer.  My 2nd hard drive failure ever in my private life, the first one led me to buy my current computer three years ago and give my previous one to my wife.  It also led me to set up my main hard drive as a RAID 1, so I lost no data.  I ordered a 500GB hard drive for $59 including shipping -- 160GB drives aren't any cheaper than 500GB drives nowadays it seems, at least retail -- and I may eventually try to replace my other 160GB drive with a 500GB as well, once I figure out how to ghost it onto the 500GB drive.  Supposedly Acronis True Image works well, but I'm not going to research it now. 

My current computer has 6000 times the RAM of a 1986 Apple McIntosh

Since I just realized that desktops with the newish Intel i7 chip are being sold with up to 24GB of RAM, I looked up what a 1984-1986 Apple McIntosh -- the machine that was around when I was a college freshman, though I didn't get a computer until later, if my memory serves me correctly -- RAM was: 512 KB.  Which is astounding, I email 1MB jpg files all the time to my parents and I think of them as small files.  I only have 4 process running now that use less than 512KB of RAM, and 66 processes that use more.  Firefox is currently sitting on 350MB of RAM.  Opera is using 133MB, McAfee 59MB.  Software bloat all around. 

Not that 24GB of RAM would be useful for most users.  6-12GB should suffice and my 3GB isn't ever a constraint, instead it is my Pentium D processor, which I got just as dual core processors started coming out.   Getting a SSD instead of more RAM would speed things up more and even the additional gain from a set of good  SSDs in a RAID 0 would be more noticeable. [For instance, people building 2.2GB/s writing speeds to the hard drive, though with 16 SSDs in a Raid 0.]

So there is a new computer lurking in the next two years, most likely when my other computer, from the year 2000, becomes too slow to run modern programs.  It is already chocking on Firefox 3.5 and more than 10 tabs -- response times aren't great. 

Update #1: if I'm not confused, my first computer was the McIntosh Plus with 1MB of RAM. 

'Full Commodore 64 Emulator Rejected from Apple's iPod App Store'

Here, via Cheap Talk. 

iPhone App

This made me smile:

iPhone only: Email n' Walk overlays an email composition window on top of the view from your iPhone's camera, so you can type out an email and watch where you're going.

Insane? Ridiculous? Of course. It also kind of works. And while we don't recommend putting your life in the hands of your iPhone's camera, it's a clever idea. Though I can't imagine actually using it for its intended purpose, I can imagine using it to do a little spying while I'm sitting down and typing out an email. When you finish composing an email in Email 'n Walk, hitting send will open up a proper email window in Mail so you can choose your recipient and send it. Email 'n Walk is a free, iPhone-only download for a limited time from the iTunes App Store.

Email 'n Walk [iTunes App Store via CNET]

iPhone only: Email n' Walk overlays an email composition window on top of the view from your iPhone's camera, so you can type out an email and watch where you're going.

Insane? Ridiculous? Of course. It also kind of works. And while we don't recommend putting your life in the hands of your iPhone's camera, it's a clever idea. Though I can't imagine actually using it for its intended purpose, I can imagine using it to do a little spying while I'm sitting down and typing out an email. When you finish composing an email in Email 'n Walk, hitting send will open up a proper email window in Mail so you can choose your recipient and send it. Email 'n Walk is a free, iPhone-only download for a limited time from the iTunes App Store.

Email 'n Walk [iTunes App Store via CNET]

Five Second Undo Feature for Gmail

A five second undo feature for gmail, allowing one to revoke sent emails for a brief moment. 

Categories

I'm going to give category labels a shot for my blog posts.  Kids, photography, etc.

I'm also getting rid of the 'search' feature since it performs terribly for some reason.  Just use the google search tool for search within a site or domain, which in general is what you should use anyway.