The Distracted Geek

SOPA and PIPA in infographic form

2012-01-27T14:22:00.000-06:00

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Repairing the Windows registry using Knoppix | Bloggy Hell

2008-10-16T18:12:00.003-05:00

Repairing the Windows registry using Knoppix | Bloggy Hell
This would have been useful a week ago -!

Using Knoppix as a windows recovery tool

2008-10-10T15:49:00.006-05:00

Using live linux distros to recover windows is not new. However, I've been having a problem getting any distro to run on my machine, but I finally figured out how to get knoppix to go.

knoppix all-generic-ide irqpoll

gets rid of the following error:

Can't find knoppix filesystem ...
dropping you to a (very limited) shell.

In its normal configuration, Knoppix seems to have a problem with SATA CD drives (on my system). Using the all-generic-ide irqpoll option, forces knoppix to work with devices in a basic, generic way. Woo hoo, I can get at my WinXP NTFS drives, so that I can backup and restore!

An amazing difference in performance

2008-09-10T18:00:00.010-05:00

Last month, I rebuilt my PC. I've had it since late 2004, and I've been dying to upgrade so I could play cool games like Crysis, and edit video in a more timely fashion. Well I finally saved up enough, and I now feel that I can run everything I want to with good performance. As we all know, nothing is future-proof, but I'm sure I can live and like, this machine for a few years.

In the process of upgrading, I observed something that I had not anticipated. I don't know if the conclusion is definite, ut it is something I will now be aware of...

You can really hurt your performance when you keep a PATA 100 drive in a system with SATA II drives. When I finally removed the PATA drive from the system, the shift in performance was like night and day. You'll have to take my word for it:-). Whenever I opened explorer - for any drive - there was a definite pause while they system waited for the PATA drive to spin up. It wasn't until I had finally removed the PATA drive, that I experienced the moment of ahhhhh - satisfaction!:-)

The system that I left:
Aopen AK-86L
AMD 64 3200+
1GB DDR 333
AGP8x
SATA1.5 10k Raptor
PATA 100 (External seagate drive, moved internal)
WinXP sp3

and the new system:
Asus P5Q-E (Intel P45 chipset, Marvell IDE)
Core 2 Duo E8400
4GB DDR2 1066
PCIe 2.0
SATA3.0 7.5k
WinXP sp3

The Asus P5Q-E uses Intel's P45 chipset which doesn't provide IDE support. So, where is PATA handled? IDE support is from a Marvell chipset. Asus provides IDE support using the Marvell 88SE61xx chipset, BIOS version 1.1.0.L70d. This external chip lives on the PCI bus - along with several other devices such as sound and networking.

The real question is why did the PATA keep falling asleep? The power policy in XP was set to Always On.

Windows error opening Internet shortcut or local HTML file - Firefox

2008-09-04T12:38:00.005-05:00

I don't know if this happens in FF3, but it does in FF 2.0.0.16. Yes, I still use the 'old' version because I like some old plugins, but mostly, I like the oldstyle bookmark management. I have more control.

Everytime I've had this problem, the fix has been to fix the file types. A little tedious, but it works and it's simple.

ARCnet is NOT an 802 standard!

2008-09-03T18:57:00.008-05:00

MeasureUP is a company offering certification education: cbt, practice tests, etc. They have a demo for the Network+. One nice feature is the note taking tool - it has a convenient button that pulls all text from the current page into current notes. The notes can be edited and saved at any time and are in ascii.

However, in my experience, no company making cert software is infallible. Case in point from Measure Up:

(The callouts are my commentary, not Measure Up's)

ARCnet is NOT an 802 standard! Check out this wikipedia article which indicates that, indeed ARCnet was standardized - as ANSI ARCNET 878!

Comptia's A+ Certification

2008-08-02T13:27:00.002-05:00

Ok, so I just passed my A+ Cert (Essentials and 602 IT Technician), and it was easier than I thought it would be. I made it out to be harder - but it was all in my head - I stressed myself out, so much so, that it took over 4 years, but I finally committed to taking the tests. And I passed! Woohooo!!

As far as study aids, I used several items:

Mike Meyers All In One Series Book
CompTIA A+ 2006 In Depth by Jean Andrews, Ph.D
and Preplogic's A+ LearnSmart Video Training

In his A+ All In One, Mike is great at explaining the subject matter using a conversational tone and analogies. I'd recommend his books for any certification. Incidentally, I'll be using his Network+ All In One very soon!

Jean Andrews' book is also very good. It is thorough - too thorough, in that it covers some things that are no longer relevant to certifying A+ (Win9x)! A good reference nonetheless.

Finally, the video's, which are expensive, are a great option if you are a visual learner like me. Just like his books, Mike's conversational style and analogies are effectively reinforced using animation.

As a takeaway, with regards to the test taking process, it's not really possible to predict what will be on the test. In my case, my weakness is printers, so I placed a lot of emphasis on this area. At test time however, I didn't get a single question asking to identify a print problem given it's symptom, e.g. horizontal lines, speckles, etc.

'Certification' could be likened to "a box of chocalates. You never know what you're gonna' get."

Stop that USB device before unplugging!

2008-01-01T23:26:00.006-06:00

While playing/tweaking my computer for performance, I came across some suggestions for increasing performance in the MojoPac environment. I thought this would also generally increase performance of all my USB storage devices. And it does. However, there is a gotcha.

By making a small change in Windows XP's drive policy, can give you greater performance, but you gotta be ready of the following: remove the USB device without stopping it at your own peril. If you don’t do this, you can trash your data. I found this out the hard way when, I unplugged my external Seagate drive without first stopping it. This resulted in several days of intense anxiety and stress – Windows XP says my drive space was unallocated! Argghh!

However, if you pay attention to the warning, feel free to tweak away. The following screens describe the option.

Ultimately, I was able to restore the drives partition table and recover all data using http://www.partition-recovery.com/ It worked quickly and correctly, and it only cost me $50. And no, I don't work for them :-)