Statistics Galore

I have to track web site usage on a regular basis, but not on the scale described in this video. Pretty amazing stats!

SysInternals

Essential tools for Windows that I've been using (more like millions are using... or should) are the SysInternals tools. Of course it's now owned by Microsoft, but the tool quality is still there (if you ignore the Use Agreement at first run they added). For those that know what a process is and can troubleshoot, they are the Swiss Army Knife of tools.

I keep a copy on my toolkit (aka USB key) for quick use. The Live tools are great, but many times I'm having to use them on a network-disabled computer (usually for good reason, either to do a known virus issue or an unknown system security state).

My top 5 most used tools:

• procexp - I practically have this run at login (as Administrator on Vista/7) for easy visibility into what the system I'm on is doing.
• tcpview - need to know where your system is connecting? This will show you interactively, with options to turn on/off name and port name resolution.
• autoruns - nothing better than this to find out what loads at startup and logon - and a quick way to disable it. Sure I still remember most of the registry key locations but this brings it all together in one place.
• psexec - run as whoever wherever, nothing better than running a command prompt on a remote server or workstation for some quick info without having to remote desktop logon.
• procmon - the replacement for filemon and regmon, once you figure out the filters you want this will identify the life cycle of any process.

If you want a quick explanation of how the tools can be used in practical applications, check out Mark Russinovich's blog, in particular The Case Of The Slow Logons.

A dead XBox 360

Call of Duty 4 was going fine, then suddenly the graphics pixellated. A reboot and it was fine... until it happened again. This was a sign of an impending graphics failure, possibly an overheating GPU.

The next day it was a Red Light and an E74 error with "system error" showing in 10 other languages.

Fortunately, this error is now covered by a 3-year warranty and this was bought 2 years ago (so it's out of normal warranty).

I tried to register for a repair on xbox.com and received a registration error in the same languages as the Xbox error. Ironic.



After two days of trying to get a ticket opened, I finally found the phone number and called it in. After about ten minutes on the phone I had a repair ticket number and a promise that I'd receive a shipping label and other information via e-mail. This came quickly and with instructions to remove the face plate and hard drive and to ship only the console without accessories like power supplies. Within a day the package was at UPS being shipped back.

I thought that while the XBox 360 was being repaired, the original XBox would get more use but as fate would have it, the next day the XBox got the red ring of death. Fortunately I have 3 of these kicking around so another one was put into service.

E-mail confirmations along the way, when it was received for repair, and when it was shipped back out two days later, kept the process moving along. It took a week from drop-off to receipt at the repair depot.

On Christmas Eve I received a call from Cameron in the morning... "It's a Christmas miracle! The X-box is back!". He set it up and was back in business gaming within minutes.

The console was a replacement, so one thing I forgot about was to set the new MAC address in the allow list on my wireless router.

Boxing Day online purchases now included a few more games for the Xbox 360!

Building a greener world

Similar to carbon offsets, there's now code offsets available for purchase from codeoffsets.com.
I love the idea of offsetting bad code on a line-by-line basis with a donation to an open source project. Perhaps the next time we come across a project that cuts the time in half without shrinking the deliverables, we budget for an estimated quantity of bad code offsets.

Toshiba M400 repair

Things happen to laptops - they get dropped, they get things spilled in them. I happened to do both at once - may tablet fell off a table, landed upside down, and wine spilled into it (lots of nice open vents on the bottom). Needless to say, it didn't work anymore.


After detaching the power and battery and letting it dry out - it would power on for a couple of seconds, then go off with the power indicator blinking yellow. Bad sign. Time to rip it apart and check for loose connections and clean it out.

Fortunately, I found a great guide to disassembling the Toshiba Portege M400 with photos on www.irisvista.com. A few notes and additions to the guide:

• Step 11 - there's a third screw, right in front of the pivot point that needs to come out.
  
• Step 15 - wireless card cables be very careful with these, the white cable came out of the connector and it's really small to rebuild (but rebuild I did).
• Step 16 - there are two really small screws on the right side to take out before lifting the top case, above the card reader and multibay. Note that if you have left the DVD drive in the multibay and didn't remove it in Step 1, remove it now.
• Step 21 - take compressed air and blow out the fan and the vents. I had about 1/4" of dust crammed up against the inside.
  
• Step 22 - unplug the battery, it's worth if even if it means having to reconfigure the BIOS settings and setting the time.
  

Through various parts of the disassembly, I had to clean a few parts with isopropyl alcohol to remove sticky wine or in some cases just dirt.

The laptop works better than before, cleaning out the fan has made it run so much cooler now that the vent is not blocked.

Windows 7 Launch

Today October 22 marks the official retail launch of Windows 7. As I blogged earlier, I've been using Windows 7 Ultimate for a few months now.

Given this was a 32-bit version, my next challenge is running Windows 7 Enterprise x64. I need to take the 64-bit plunge as my new work computer has 8GB of memory and I intend to use it (plus the 4-head video card).

I'm finally going to retire my Windows XP workstation though it will live on after going through a Disk2VHD conversion and become a virtual running on the new Windows 7 workstation.

PC vs. Mac

Where do I sit on the PC vs. Mac issue? It should come as no surprise that I'm more of a PC guy, but that doesn't preclude using a Mac. I just have much more access to non-Mac hardware, so that hardware tends to run either Windows (everything from Windows 98 to Windows 7) or Linux (typically Ubuntu). So call me 90% PC.

Star Wars Guide for Kids

Fortunately my kids have seen every episode of Star Wars somewhere between 10 to 50 times, so hey don't need a guide to know which episode is which.

For everyone else, here's a great learning aid: How To Tell Which Star Wars You're Watching