I hate April Fool’s Day. So nobody thinks this is an April Fool’s joke, I’ll just write more about what I wrote about yesterday, concentrating on media reactions to Paul Allen’s memoir. Then, tomorrow, I’ll revisit a very serious, important topic. Read more
Paul Allen’s tearing into Gates seems familiar
You’ve probably heard by now about Vanity Fair publishing an excerpt from Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen’s autobiography, which doesn’t give the most flattering portrayal of Bill Gates, his former business partner.
I’ve heard most of these stories before, though I’m trying to figure out where. What surprises me is the people who are acting like this stuff came out of the blue. If I’ve heard most of this stuff before, then so have a lot of people.
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Can you set an HP slimline computer on its side?
Here’s a question that came up the other day. Can you set an HP slimline computer on its side?
Yes.
How anticlimactic of me.
Replacing old Lionel DC transformers
For a while in the 1970s and 1980s, Lionel used DC power in its least expensive O27 electric train sets. They stopped this practice in the mid 1980s, but there are still plenty of those sets kicking around in basements or attics and on the secondary market. They tend to be very inexpensive, especially compared to new sets on the market today.
Here’s how to figure out what you have, and track down a suitable replacement. AC and DC power supplies are not interchangeable, and you can seriously damage your train if you use the wrong kind. Trying to run a DC train on AC results in a train that won’t move and makes a ton of noise.
SSDs and built-in encryption–and how to enable it
Update: This entry was based on preliminary information that turned out to be incorrect. Please see the following update.
One of the last knocks on SSD performance is that they don’t perform well with full-drive encryption. But on Sandforce 1200- and 2200-based drives, and the next-generation Intel 320 drives introduced today, that’s not an issue anymore. Encryption happens on the drive, in hardware, with no performance penalty.
The problem was that nobody talked about how it works. I found the details buried in Anandtech‘s review of the Intel 320 drive. The takeaway is this: If you set your BIOS password, the drive will be unreadable if you remove it and put it in another system. Update: No it won’t. But you can add ATA password support, under some circumstances.
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So why didn’t Commodore make the Commodore 128 differently?
I grew up on the Commodore 128. We got one for Christmas 1985 (an upgrade from a Commodore 64). It was a bit of a quirky machine, but I liked it.
On the retro computing forums, it might be the most controversial thing Commodore ever did. Which says something, seeing as some computer historians have summed up Commodore’s history in four words: Irving Gould‘s stock scam. But that’s another story.
The cool thing about Commodore was that its engineers weren’t shy about talking about their projects. Bil Herd, Fred Bowen, and Dave Haynie have all weighed in over the years, talking about what they did and why and what they would have done differently.
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My connection to the new center of the U.S. population
The new population center of the United States is a town I’m sure you’ve never heard of before, though I have. It’s Plato, Mo., a town 22 winding miles southwest of Fort Leonard Wood. The population is 109, up from 74 in 2000.
As you approach Plato from the east on Missouri 32, you pass a road on the right called Groves Drive. My great grandmother was a Groves. The next street on the right is called Kimrey Drive. My great grandfather was a Kimrey. They both lived and died in Plato. I’m probably exaggerating if I say I’m related to all 109 residents of Plato, but I’m related to a sizable percentage of the people who live there, and perhaps an even more sizable percentage of the people buried in the cemetery there.
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Is it OK to paint an AC adapter?
I got a weird question the other day. Is it OK to paint an AC adapter? Or: Can you paint an AC adapter?
I wouldn’t. For a couple of reasons. Read more
I have a job.
I have a job. That’s a good thing, because for about three hours today, that was in doubt.
It was nothing personal. My whole office was out of work for that three hours. It turned out to be an administrative error. I’m not quite sure how an administrative error leads to an entire office being let go for three hours, but maybe I’ll understand when I’m older. And Mike Judge, if you’re out there anywhere, I can tell you some stories that make Office Space seem positively tame.
I’ve had worse days than this. Definitely.
Firefox 4 is out
And although Firefox 4 isn’t officially released until tomorrow, copies have leaked out via FTP staging servers. I grabbed a copy from betanews to do my upgrade early.
I’ve played with pre-release versions, so no real surprises. It’s quick. The look changed quite a bit, but you can easily configure it to look like older versions if you want. I did on my desktop; on a netbook I might not.
If you’ve liked Firefox all along, you’ll like Firefox 4. If you’ve preferred IE or Chrome up to this point, I don’t think Firefox 4 changes enough to change your mind on that. It has a faster Javascript engine and makes better use of graphics hardware on Windows Vista or 7, but aside from that, it’s still the same basic browser. IE9 has all that too, and Chrome has fast Javascript and isn’t far behind with graphics acceleration of its own. Of course Firefox and Chrome have the advantage that they’ll still run under XP. I think Firefox 4 will even run under Windows 2000, if you’re still using that for some reason.
I like it, but I was using it when it was still a side project called Phoenix. Then it was Firebird. Then it became Firefox.