Rebranding Quick Notes - Faughnan's Tech

Faughnan's Tech

Rebranding time. I first started using Blogger when my brother Brian was lost -- as a way to communicate readily to friends and family. After Google bought Blogger I started a blog for which I hurriedly assigned a somewhat silly url: http://googlefaughnan.blogspot.com/. I called it Quick Notes, or something like that. It included purely technical notes with commentary on technology and science.

A bit later I started blogging in the classic sense -- around news, events, etc. That got the URL http://jfaughnan.blogspot.com and the name Faughnan's Notes.

The two have evolved, even as other blogs of mine have waxed and waned. For now, two main blogs seems about right.

Faughnan's Notes continues with the same name. Most of the science and technology commentary has moved to that forum.

Quick Notes has become more purely tech, and really more of a notebook for my own use. It's not just quick jottings about things -- it's really notes for my benefit about OS X and tech in general. Hence I've renamed it Faughan's Tech -- without changing the URL (I hate breaking links).

My Firefox Extension List

Mozilla Update :: Extensions - Add Features to Mozilla Software

1. DOM Inspector
2. Sage
3. Copy Plain Text
4. BlogThis!
5. A9 Toolbar
6. BugMeNot
7. ieview
8. Magpie
9. Named anchors
10. Tabbrowser preferences
11. FoxyTunes

-- I'll update this post as I discover new extensions. I'm looking for an extension that will list all tabs across all Firefox windows.

The problem with tabbed browsing: where's my window?

Mozilla Firefox - Tabbed Browsing

Safari and Firefox have the same problem with tabbed browsing. There's no view that of all open tabs across all containers. So one can flip from container frame to frame and searching tabs within each.

They need a drop down that lists all windows. Ideally the view would be an expanded hierarchy, as in:

container: Name of first tab within the container
- second tab name
- third tab name
container 2
- second tab name
- third tab name
container 3
- second tab name
- third tab name

Maybe this could be a Firefox extension?

Preserving analog video tapes

Slashdot | Preserving VHS Recordings For Another 20 Years?

This May 2003 Slashdot thread was cited in a more recent thread on the death of VHS. Interesting comments about digitizing analog material. I'm waiting for my G5 iMac to take this one. I frankly hate to throw out our very reliable and robust analog SONY camcorder.

WPA Wireless Security Update in Windows XP: SP2 includes WPA

Overview of the WPA Wireless Security Update in Windows XP

I'd been wondering if I could switch my home WLAN from WEP to WPA. The clients are iBooks, but occasionally I need to add a Windows portable to the mix. Looks like that may be possible now, at least with SP2.

For wireless clients that are running Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1) or Windows Server 2003 and that are using a wireless network adapter that supports the Wireless Zero Configuration service, you must obtain and install the Windows WPA Client. For wireless clients that are running Windows XP service pack 2 (SP2) and that are using a wireless network adapter that supports the Wireless Zero Configuration service, the Windows WPA Client is included in Windows XP SP2.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/826942 instructs how to download the WPA client for XP SP1.

iKey 2 with an Adam Engst authored manual too

TidBITS#756/22-Nov-04: "Take Control Expands with iKey 2 Manual"

iKey 2 is an OS X automation tool. I'd not have considered testing it, but now I see it comes with a manual authored by Adam Engst. That puts it in a whole new light. I love manuals (I know, it's a perversion). So now I'll try the software.

Software who's primary sale point is the manual?

What a revolutionary idea.

Why Macs are so vulnerable to bad RAM

MacInTouch Home Page

Because they've missed a step in computer evolution:

I manage about 150 Macs in a creative agency. Over the last year and a half I have noticed a sharp increase in the discovery of bad RAM.

My fifty or so G5s (all dual 1.8 or 2.0) have been subject to about 5 instances of bad RAM. That's a ridiculously high percentage (granted we have 4 DIMMs in each, but please...). I don't understand why this would suddenly become such a bigger problem. We have more mirrored-door machines (and more DIMMs) and don't have anywhere near this level of trouble. I pull RAM from machines at the first sign of multiple kernel panics now. I never used to think that way, but if a user is getting panics, the odds are these days that it's the hardware, not my system.

What's more (and most importantly) is that none of the available utilities diagnose the bad DIMMs. I have to send them to a break/fix shop with a hardware-based RAM tester to see if the RAM is OK. I recently ordered 4 GBbytes from CDW and immediately just sent it to the shop for a check. 1 of the 8 was bad. I'm now pricing a RAM tester to use in-house so I can be rest assured about what I'm putting in my machines.

The bottom line is that this is a major quality concern that both Apple and the VARs need to take more seriously. Aren't they testing this stuff themselves? Why does it seem like G5 RAM is much more prone to problems? My main point is to check that stuff (with a hardware-based diagnostic) and don't be surprised to find your OS is fine but your RAM is not.

[The Xserve G5 is the only Mac that bothers to use ECC memory to avoid this pernicious problem. Here's Apple's description from the Xserve G5 Architecture page. -MacInTouch:

Xserve G5 uses Error Correction Code (ECC) logic to protect the system from corrupt data and transmission errors. Each DIMM has an extra memory module that stores checksum data for every transaction. The system controller uses this ECC data to identify single-bit errors and corrects them on the fly, preventing unplanned system shutdowns. In the rare event of multiple-bit errors, the system controller detects the error and triggers a system notification to prevent bad data from corrupting further operations. You can set the Server Monitor software to alert you if error rates exceed the defined threshold.]

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PC's use ECC memory. So vendors know the ECC will catch errors of a certain type -- it's no longer cost effective to prevent those errors from occurring. This makes sense -- you get more reliable memory for less money.

Problem though -- Macs don't use ECC. So they get the less reliable and cheaper memory -- without the compensatory mechanism. Bad news.