Platform Update KB2670838 Casuing Blue Screens
As many of you know I work at a computer repair store, this gives me a unique opportunity to diagnose problems across various models. In a recent windows update (a platform update for windows 7 SP1 and server 2008 R2 SP1) KB2670838 many Dell Vostro 3450′s have begun to get constant blue screens of death. In order to fix this you must uninstall this update (either through a system restore or through the uninstall updates window). Then once you have it uninstalled, hide the update that way it will not be reinstalled later to have the issue come up again.
The Blue Screen error code you will be getting if this affects you is error code 50, page fault in a non-paged area. So if you are getting this issue and have a vostro 3450 which just installed updates, you may want to check if this is the issue.
Virtual Boxing
Virtualization is a big part of server administration today and I have finally taken the plunge into it. When it comes to virtualization I was told that there is only one way to go, vsphere.
Okay lets take a step back to catch everyone up. If you have been living under a rock, you will not have heard about VMWare. VMWare started out as a software to create virtual machines on your home computer. VMWare expanded to servers and is now at its server version called vspehere. Vsphere is able to install directly on to a server as what is essentially a stripped down operating system that only handles running virtual machines. This is called a bare metal installer (BMI). You then connect by some software to allow you to upload images and thereby have a running server. At least that’s the theory. Lets look at what actually happened.
Arduino Interrupt Problem
So I’m working on a small project using the Arduino (which is overkill but that’s besides the point), and have run into a snag, not a major issue, but a worrisome one. For some reason my Arduino is using the wrong pin to listen for interrupts. I have it coded to listen for interrupts on pin 2 however it is listening on pin 3 which is making me worry there is a more major issue with the board. After the jump is a small section of code, if anyone sees that there is an issue of my coding causing this then please inform me in the comments, otherwise I’m guessing this bad boy is DOA. Read more
400 level classes: you’re doing it wrong
This is kind of a spur of the moment post done using my phone so there may be some minor errors, and I apologies for that. It seems like the 400 level classes I am in currently are being done wrong, ELE 470 had us doing a hello world iPhone app as the first program. In CSC 402 I am basically able to write the programs that are due for homework using the notes. I feel like these courses are being taught wrong because so far they are not really challenging us to think at all. Hopefully the professors step it up so I actually have to think in these classes and not just tweak the notes to hand in my assignments.
Facebook’s archive download is down
Although this is not the most used feature among facebook users, in fact it is one that most people probably do not even know exists, as of right now the download your archive option on facebook appears to be down. The earliest reports I can find are on facebooks help center are from Saturday (August 18, 2012), which seems very strange since facebook is usually on top of solving issues like this. The way it is supposed to work is that you click the Start My Archive button, and it gets deactivated until the archive is done being made when you can download it, however it is currently getting reactivated immediately and waiting on the page you will never get the download. Hopefully facebook fixes this issue soon so that those of us who want to download our archives can use it. For the unofficial support thread about this go here.
The law of the land
This week has been an interesting week in the world of technology, and the law. As many of you may know, Sergey Aleynikov appealed the decision that his stealing code from Goldman Sac’s violated the National Stolen Property Act, and the Economic Espionage Act of 1996. However there was one other case that was decided this week. See what happened
Microsoft failiure
Well as you may have already read, Microsoft failed today in India. The site was hacked by EvilShadow team, who took down the site. The team also appear to have downloaded the user database (or at least a portion of it), where they revealed that the passwords were stored in plain text! This is security 101, you never store sensitive information in plain text, you always encrypt it, or in the case of a password, take a hash of it and then salt the hash. The website is currently down (which stands to reason that Microsoft regained control and took it down intentionally), however this is a serious problem, on roughly the same level of the Sony PSN hacking. Hopefully Microsoft will release a press release soon to enlighten us on what exactly was affected, and what they plan to do in order to prevent this from happening again.
via: engadget
Dell Vostro 3400 Design Failiure
In a previous post I outlined a design flaw with the Vostro 3450, where dell made it so that you have to remove the motherboard to access the hard drive, well the Vostro 3400 is its little brother, and it seems to have its own design flaw. Recently I have had to replace a-lot of LCD Top Cases on this model, all of which were sold at roughly the same time (Summer 2010), so after a few I had a feeling that there was something wrong. I finally found one that told me the whole story, one which was damaged enough to where I could see what the engineering issue was. Read more
mind = blown
While surfing the web, you never know what you are going to find, and this is just another example of that. Among that is a drill bit that cuts square holes, yes, something that moves in circles at a fast rate cuts a square. This is quite an odd invention, which seems to defy physics, and blows my mind. However one thing I notice which may just be coincidence, or design is that the chuck holding the bit in place seems to wobble. This may be an effect of the way that it is drilling, or it could be programmed to do that, I’m not sure. However I do know that if I ever see one of these while at the hardware store, I will be buying one just to see how well it works, and just so i can say “I have a drill bit that will cut a square!”