Geek Stuff category archive

Jeffrey lays it out. Complain. Now.

Most people buy computers one at a time, but Google thinks on a very different scale. Jimmy Clidaras revealed that the core of the company’s data centers are composed of standard 1AAA shipping containers packed with 1,160 servers each, with many containers in each data center.

Read about them at CNet.

I just got off the phone with Dell Technical Support, with satisfactory results.

The times I call Tech Support are few, since I can almost always fix software problems and, with desktop computers not under warranty, hardware problems, but this was a netbook hardware problem.

I had already concluded that the AC adapter for the netbook had gone west (probably to Colorado, but that’s another story). I had metered it and it didn’t. Adapt, that is.

Hey, stuff breaks. That’s reality.

The Tech Support guy, of course, had to verify my diagnosis. He had me make sure that the computer was not in “airplane mode” and reboot. (What that had to do with AC power I don’t know, but Dell was paying for the phone call, and it did allow him to verify that the computer did, indeed, compute.)

He then had me plug in the adapter and check whether the power icon reported “AC power.” It didn’t.

Next, he had me shut down the box, remove the battery, and attempt to restart the box using the AC adapter. It did a convincing imitation of a paperweight.

The result: Dell well be sending me a new adapter. When I get it and test it, I’m to send the old adapter back to them at their expense. He also gave me a direct number to his department in case the new battery arrives damaged or not at all.

Conclusion: He did good. He did exactly what I would have done had I been wearing his headset.

By the way, he was in India. I thought he was from his accent, but the guy who runs Claymont Liquors a mile and a half up the road has a similar accent. So I asked.

[EDITORIAL MODE ON]

I am sick and tired of Americans criticizing techs simply because the techs speak with foreign accents. A good tech is a good tech is a good tech. It’s called “globalization” and it’s not a policy. It’s an irreversible force.

[EDITORIAL MODE OFF]

Addendum:

They sent it overnight express. It works.

Andrew Sullivan weighs in.

Earlier tonight, I made my first PC to Phone call using Ekiga, calling a phone number in another state.

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And you are still using Windows why?

Learn how to install Debian here: Step One, Step Two, and Step Three.

Not just me.

Judging from the error messages that their POP3 server has been throwing, they’ve suffered a major hardware failure and their IT gnomes are trying to pick up the pieces.

It is a good day not work in Comcast IT. I’m sure the adrenaline level is out the roof.

Slightly later:

It appears to working again.

The weakest link in security: the Problem Exists Between the Chair And Keyboard.

The moral of the story: Whatever OS you use, do not go online without a firewall and an anti-virus.

Bloomberg:

Corporate fascination with Twitter, a blend of instant messaging and blogging known as “micro-blogging,” is intensifying as companies seek new ways to reach consumers in the recession. Twitter users post 140-character “Tweets” about whatever’s on their mind, giving companies a unique opportunity to pounce on consumers right as they express an interest in buying something, said analyst Charlene Li.

“It’s the ability to tap into somebody’s interest at the moment it’s expressed,” said Li, founder of Altimeter Group, a San Mateo, California-based research firm that specializes in social technology.

Todd, in a recent podcast, stated that he had learned the GoDaddy, one of his sponsor, has started providing tech support via Twitter, in addition to using more traditional methods.

Man, when I worked support, I would have loved to limit some of the callers the 144 words.

In their latest podcast, Free Linux Help Line explodes the anti-Linux old Windows’ wives’ tales.

To downadup or not to downadup:

Malicious software that has infected millions of computers across the globe failed to wreak havoc on Wednesday as some feared, but researchers warned the powerful Conficker worm could still strike.

Also known as Downadup or Kido, Conficker turns infected PCs into slaves that respond to commands sent from a remote server that effectively controls an army of computers.

The fears of an attack, however, may have been a windfall for anti-virus software makers, who warned consumers about the worm, industry analysts say.

In my Linux world, we do not have to worry about this stuff.

I’m too lazy to write it twice, so read about it at Geekazine.

This is really neat. It’s a map of the locations of TLLTS listeners who choose to sign up are located.

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Twitter decides to try to make some money.

I broke the screensaver.

Then I fixed it.

Upgrading the OS on the laptop.

Addendum:

I wasn’t able to get my Favorite LInux Distro on the box. Slackware is a three-CD set and, after the first CD ran, the CD drive opened and would not remount for the next CD.

This is definitely a hardware problem. The Slackware CDs have been tested in another machine.

The CD drive in this box has been acting weird for over a year. Sometimes it mounts and sometimes Dell throws a message that it “cannot detect the device in the modular bay blah blah blah.” Pressing the CD drive more tightly into the machine and rebooting solves the problem.

I’m not springing for a new CD drive for an almost-five-year-old laptop.

So I went with the Debian web install, which is a one-CD install, but pulls down three CD’s worth of software.

I’m now running Debian 5 with Gnome. Debian, like Slack, is a rock-solid distro that just works. It does not have Slackware’s elegant simplicity, but, what the heck.

It was tough fight, but I wrestled the computer into submission. (I always do.)

The firewall is working, the AV is working, the network is working, the theme is configured to my liking, and Opera (which includes my email database) and Pan have been restored from backup. Total time from install boot to full functionality: Two hours.

Here. If you use a computer (and, if you are reading this, you do), read it.

When someone logs into a Slackware computer at the beginning of a session, the computer displays a saying, a joke, or anecdote. It’s a Unix thing. Today, my computer told me to

Behold the warranty–the bold print giveth,
the fine print taketh away.

Some nice, mostly funny pictures here. (To understand some of them, remember that the Linux symbol is Tux, the penguin.)

My favorite is below the fold.

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Here, via GNC.