Author: Dave Farquhar

The future of flash memory might not be so bleak after all, either

Dave Farquhar Hardware

PC Perspective’s Allyn Malventano stopped in earlier this week and sent me a link to his take on the bleak future of SSDs and flash memory: http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Editorial/NAND-Flash-Memory-Future-Not-So-Bleak-After-All

He didn’t agree with me entirely–he argued that the problems outlined in the study in question are solvable.

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Handling data recovery

Dave Farquhar data recovery , , , , ,

I took a strange phone call from the field today, asking for advice about creating policies and procedures on data recovery.

There’s no easy answer.
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Libre Office grows up some more

Dave Farquhar Software , , ,

Libre Office 3.5 is out. I need to look at it. My big beef with Open Office all along was that it made current hardware, whatever it was, feel like Office 97 running on a 486. Or perhaps a Pentium-75.

They’re saying all the right things now. Lots of new eyes looking at the code, reviewing the code, dropping obsolete code, streamlining it and making general improvements. Netscape 4.5 was a bloated mess too, but once the Mozilla team got some fresh eyes looking at it, the situation improved. Eventually they had to break the browser out into what became Firefox, but they had the freedom to do that.

And in the meantime, I suppose if it’s too slow, you could throw hardware at the problem. 8 GB of RAM costs $40 or less right now. Carve out a ramdisk of 1-2 GB and install Libre Office in that, and it’ll load pretty fast. It’ll eliminate any I/O-bound bottlenecks.

Quick and dirty OCR, included with Office 2003 and 2007

Dave Farquhar Software ,

At work we have a document scanner that outputs files to PDF and e-mails it to us, but the PDFs are really just full-page images mashed together as a PDF because the scanner doesn’t have OCR capability.

Here’s how to extract the text using Microsoft Office 2003 or 2007. It’s imperfect, but here’s what you can do with the tools you already have.
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Review: The Lutron MS-OPS2 occupancy sensor switch

Dave Farquhar Saving money , , , , , , ,

I installed a Lutron occupancy sensor switch this weekend. It detects you entering the room, turns the lights on, then turns them off five minutes after it detects nobody is in the room. The timeout period is adjustable. It comes in four models: MS-OPS2-WH (white), -AL (almond), -LA (light almond), and -IV (ivory) and retails for $29.

Installation was surprisingly easy–it took about 15 minutes, which is about how long it takes me to change a regular switch, and unlike most models in its price range it works with modern CFL and LED lighting, but I recommend some prep work ahead of time. Read more

SCO v. IBM winds toward resolution

Dave Farquhar Linux, Retro Computing , , , , , , , , , ,
SCO v. IBM winds toward resolution

Slashdot reported yesterday that SCO v. IBM is back on. Well, it is, sort of. The case never was fully resolved, due to SCO running out of money and filing for bankruptcy. Groklaw has the details.

If this sounds vaguely familiar, I’ll try to refresh your memory.

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I’ll miss you, Gary Carter

Dave Farquhar Baseball , , , , ,

I was really sorry to see that Gary Carter lost his battle with cancer this week. He never played for my team and was never my favorite player but I can’t think of a player who exemplified baseball in the 1980s and everything that was right with it more than he did.

In the 1980s, he picked up the torch from Johnny Bench to become the best catcher in the National League. At the beginning of the decade, he was a perennial All-Star. He won a World Series in dramatic fashion in 1986, while playing for the hated New York Mets. By the end of the decade, he was a part-time player. But he never quit smiling, and he played the game in a way fitting of his nickname, “The Kid.” He kept on playing, even if only as a part-timer, until his body wouldn’t let him do it anymore. The same way we played baseball in the back yard.
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LED lighting gets cheaper

Dave Farquhar Saving money , , , , , , ,

I saw this week on Cnet that Pharox is selling basic, bare-bones LEDs direct from its web site, hoping to get consumers to try out LED bulbs.

The Pharox 300 is a 6 watt, 360 lumen bulb priced at $6.95.

The Pharox 200 is a 5 watt, 240 lumen bulb priced at $4.95.

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SSD future isn’t bleak, just flash

Dave Farquhar Hardware , ,

Computerworld is predicting that the end of the line for SSDs will be the year 2024.

That’s based on the projected year MLC flash memory becomes impractical to continue producing. There’s one problem with that assumption: it assumes SSDs will still be based on flash memory in 2024.

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HP has a brilliant idea

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , , , , , , , ,

After last year’s flip-flopping on getting rid of its not-quite-as-profitable-as-they’d-like PC business, and the resulting self sabotage, HP needed a good idea to try to undo the damage.

Their idea is completely unoriginal, but it’s tried and true and more likely to work than anything else they could possibly do: Bundle their premium PCs with premium-level customer service and charge a little more.

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