Yahoo has posted an interesting little article on IBM this morning about their new washing machine technology. Apprently, with their new system, washers and dryers can now plug into the Internet so that students can pay for laundry with a credit card. Wow, so no more looking around the room for quarters, huh? Slashdot also carried the article if you want to see some interesting user opinions.
I came across a pretty interesting article tonight while browsing the web. Scientific American published a brief explanation on the differences between CD-Rs and CD-RWs. Rewritables actually use dye to store data instead of etching grooves on the disc. I didn’t know that prior to the article. Also, CD-RWs using phase change metal which can be reverted back to original state in the drive. Pretty dang cool. Check out the article for a good read.
I’ve been using NTFS for almost a year now and I’ve like its stability and low maintenance. NTFS doesn’t fragment as much and allows for greater disk security. However, ever since I installed Windows XP, I’ve gotten a cryptic error when running chkdsk.exe from the command line. I talked to Microsoft and one of their tech support agents replied back today. Read on to see how the conversation went.
Problem Description: I’ve been running Windows XP Home for almost a year now. I have been using it with my other computer, a Dell Dimension 8100. The problem started with that machine but I have seen it now manifest on this one as well. Originally that system ran Windows ME (Dell installed) and then I upgraded it to XP Home using the XP upgrade CD. I converted the file systems on that machine to NTFS via the command prompt. I have three hard drives on that machine, two of which are EIDE and the third is firewire.
I noticed that somehow a glitch happened in my NTFS file system on that machine. I started getting messages identical to the attached file, chkdsk.txt. I would run chkdsk while logged on and it would say that there is an error with my volume bitmap. However, this error only appears when checking C:, not the other two hard drives.
When I went to upgrade this computer, I backed up all of the files across my HPNA (homeclick homeconnect) home network to my firewire drive on the Dimension 8100. I then clean installed Windows XP Home on this machine using a store bought boxed upgrade edition of XP. I did a long NTFS format of the primary drive. I installed all of my essential programs and ran a disk check via the command prompt. The error had not manifested.
However, the minute I copied files from my firewire drive on the other computer, chkdsk reported volume bitmap errors on my freshly installed copy of XP on this machine. This leads me to believe that there is some sort of “glitch” or error in my documents that messes up the NTFS file system.
The documents are primarily graphics (GIF, JPG), Word documents, or MP3s. I had recently run a virus scan and nothing came up.
CHKDSK recommends to run a check with the /F switch, and I did that. Windows just doesn’t repair the error. I don’t know if there is anything wrong with CHKDSK, but this error has now appeared on three of my computers, including one that was running Windows 2000.
I was wondering if there is any way to resolve this error. I am willing to format to FAT32 to get rid of the problem, but three of the hard drives I own are over 32GB and Windows XP will not format them to FAT32.
Any ideas? Thanks.
As I understand, the issue is: You received the following error report when performing chkdsk.exe tool on your Windows XP:
Security descriptor verification completed.
Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.
Windows found problems with the file system.
Run CHKDSK with the /F (fix) option to correct these.
If I have misunderstood your concerns please let me know.
According to my research, I have included the following information for your reference:
This problem occurs because when Chkdsk is run against an NTFS volume, chkdsk.exe may report that security descriptors are in the database that are no longer referenced by any file or folder, and that it is removing them. However, Chkdsk.exe just reclaims the unused security descriptors as a housekeeping activity, and is not actually fixing any kind of problem.
Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in Windows. Fortunately, this error message is an informational message, and can be safely ignored.
All NTFS volumes contain a security descriptor database. This database is populated with security identifiers that represent unique permission settings applied to files and folders. When files or folders have unique NTFS permissions applied, NTFS stores a unique security descriptor once on the volume, and also stores a pointer to the security descriptor on any file or folder that references it.
If files or folders no longer use that unique security descriptor, NTFS does not remove the unique security descriptor from the database, but instead, keeps it cached. Like any caching strategy, you want to keep the cached information as long as possible because it may be used again.
To determine if more serious problems exist before scheduling or running chkdsk.exe with the /f switch, run chkntfs <drive letter>:. If this command reports that dirty bit is set, there may be real damage that needs to be fixed.
Mozilla, Netscape’s experimental browser, turned heads with its ability to disallow unrequested pop-up windows. Pop-ups have gotten way out of hand in the first place. About five minutes ago pop-up windows crashed Internet Explorer on my home computer. I downloaded Mozilla 1.1 today and I absolutely love it. They are very close to the perfect web browser.
However, online advertisers are corrupted by evil and their craftiness has surpassed the developers at Netscape. I was just on the New York Times web site and found that when I exited the page, an unrequested pop-up window appeared. I don’t currently know how it happened but I saw it. A couple of other sites I have been on have done it as well.
Why do companies and advertisers feel the need to ruin what’s good about the Internet?
Movable Type has released a cool new feature called “Trackback,” which enables you to let users link to your site via their weblog. When they reference you a ping is sent to your site so that due credit for the article is given. It is a very cool feature. This way you can write about articles you see on other sites and you instantly give them proper reference. I’m going to play around with the feature a little bit. However, I heard it breaks W3C validation, but I don’t really care about that.
Today was a good day. First off, I got up at 10:30, which was just enough sleep for me. I grabbed a bowl of cereal this morning then I hopped a ferry into the city to meet my dad for lunch. We ate at Boulevard, which is usually the top ranked restaurant in San Francisco. I had a filet mignon, which was quite tasty.
Hammering Hank, Say Hey! Willie Mays, and Barry
To top it off, I even went to the Giants game tonight. The 600 Home Run Club ceremony happened right before the game, and it was awesome. I got to see Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Frank Robinson, Willie McCovey, and Barry Bonds all together at Pac Bell. Barry even got an SUV out of it. They lost, but Barry hit his 602nd home run in the 9th inning and I saw it from a great angle. We were walking out of the stadium and I was standing from a vantage point right behind him when it hit it.
After the game, when we were driving back, I saw something even more entertaining. An elderly lady ran a stop light ahead of us and was broadsided by an SUV. She totally deserved that. Her car took a beating but apparently nobody was hurt. I have to say, that was great.
All in all, a very good day.
Okay, so my Internet connection wasn’t really in jeopardy. But, my sanity sure was. Succeeding the purchase of my second PC, I was more than eager to network. But, my inexperience caught up with me and my setup was less than satisfactory.
For some reason, some pages wouldn’t load, IM applications were slow, and the connection would randomly disappear. All this was due to the fact that I was using the default XP PPPOE software that came with WinXP. Sure, it was easy to use, but to put it simply: it sucked.
Thus, on one of my daily Internet surfs I happened to stumble upon RASPPPOE. It is an alternative to XP’s PPPOE in that it is a lot more functional and powerful. I do not know for sure the technicalities, but all I know is that I’m happier than ever.
Setup and installation was a breeze. It took less than five minutes of actual work, preceeded by twenty minutes of reading and research, to complete the entire setup.
ALL my pages load, and they load faster than ever. Thanks to the author of RASPPPOE; now I can surf and be sane at the same time.
For anyone using PPPOE for ADSL connections and NOT using RASPPPOE, I strongly urge you to stop what you’re doing and get it!
I was playing around with my home network setup this morning and I discovered a cool trick. Red Alert 2 can easily be configured to use IPX network protocol for a networked game. I am currently running Windows XP with ICS, so this trick may not work for everyone. First, I installed the IPX protocol on both machines. What you do on XP is go to Network Connections, right click on your Ethernet card and go to “Properties.” Under Properties click “Install…” For me, the IPX protocol appeared right in this window. If it doesn’t for you, I heard that selected “Microsoft” will cause an IPX protocol driver to appear. Use this. Make sure that NetBIOS and IPX is bound only to your network card. If NetBIOS is bound to the other adapters, this is okay. Next, boot Red Alert 2 on both computers after the protocol is installed. Go to Options/Network. Play around with your network setting on both computers until you can get them to appear simultaneously in the Lobby. Once you have done that, you are set. I hope this works! Enjoy.
Being an inexperienced user of networks and the like, I sought the easiest way to network my old PC (a Celeron 1.2 Ghz) and my new rig (an AMD Athlox XP 2000+). I thought it was as simple as plugging in a cable to connect them, and thus, my journey began from there.
There are a host of concepts when dealing with networking. I didn’t understand the differences between router, gateway, switch and hub. I looked at all the pictures and read all the diagrams. They don’t really help until you get your own hands on the hardware.
So as I continued to build my computer, I kept hiding the thought that I knew I would screw up the networking aspect later. And when my new box was finally done, I bought a switch and some CAT5 cables.
I hooked everything up like they had in the pictures, and I thought everything was running smooth. Windows XP’s ICS system is so simple to use you can do it with your eyes closed. It’s only when you try to get fancy that you get yourself into trouble. Perhaps it’s just me, but every time I try to improve ICS, it gets worse.
Up to now the connection on my new box is not perfect. I can’t check some email accounts, and some pages don’t ever load. Since it is summer I am too lazy to repair it, or spend time thinking about how to repair it.
I just have to find a place for all these extra NICs I happened to amass.
Everybody knows how to rip a CD. I’m not going to go into that because it doesn’t need to be explained. If you need help, go to the CDex web site to learn more. I also recommend going to cdfreaks.com. However, making a great backup of a mixed CD is another story.
What is a mixed CD you ask? Well, if you’ve ever bought a live CD or a trance album, then you have a mixed CD lying around the house. When you play back a mixed CD in your stereo, the track gaps on the disc are set to zero seconds. The resulting is a great sounding recording where the audio never ceases until the playback is complete. Making a copy of these types of CDs is relatively difficult and most copies you find on the Internet are just bad.
What’s the problem with most copies on the Internet? A live CD that is compressed into MP3 should not be split into tracks. For some reason that I don’t know, a microgap is present at the beginning of every MP3 that is almost unnoticeable. However, when you try to rip a continuous album made up of split MP3s, you can hear popping during each track change.
The solution lies in a program called Exact Audio Copy. EAC is a freeware program written by Andre Wiethoff that is simply excellent. With EAC you can make a single MP3 file of the entire album and a CUE sheet. A CUE sheet stores the track information for the MP3. You can then burn a CD using the CUE sheet in programs such as CDRWIN and Nero.
If you want to try it out, simply pop a CD in your drive and fire up EAC. Let the configuration guide run. Next, click on the Action menu then go to Create Image & Cue Sheet / Compressed. This will make a perfect copy of your mixed CD in MP3 format.