Adventures in flooring

Dave Farquhar Personal

My wife and I went shopping for a new kitchen floor tonight.

I think we may have found perfection.Everyone I’ve talked to who has linoleum floors loves them. They’re durable, water resistant, and easy to clean. I’ve read about linoleum floors in 100-year-old houses holding up just fine. I think 100 years sounds good to me–that’s more years than I have left. And it’s made from materials that grow in friendly countries, which is something we would do well to consider more often.

There’s even a company named Forbo making a product called Marmoleum Click, which is a linoleum floor that clicks together like laminate. So potentially I could rip out the old floor on a Saturday and spend Sunday afternoon and early evening putting down the new floor, and have it ready to go immediately. Or with some luck, I could finish the project in a day.

The problem is that Marmoleum (and linoleum in general) isn’t something you can run down to the local big-box store and buy. Forbo has exactly one dealer in St. Louis, but fortunately it’s a charming store not far from where my wife lived when we met. And supporting a small locally owned business appeals to me.

At $4.99 per square foot, the price is comparable to any other kind of floor worth having, if not lower. Plus I’ll save a bundle by being able to put it down myself, and it has a 25-year warranty, not to mention the track record of lasting 100 years or more. Stingy Scottish misers like me really like that aspect.

Buffer overflows explained

Dave Farquhar security , , , , , , , , , , ,

Buffer overflows are a common topic on a Security+ exam. The textbook explanation of them is confusing, perhaps even wrong. I’ve never seen buffer overflows explained well.

So I’m going to give a simplified example and explanation of a buffer overflow, similar to the one I gave to the instructor, and then to the class.

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How to clean up your computer before you sell it

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , , , ,

I went to a huge garage sale this morning. I walked home with a 7-year-old Dell 15" LCD monitor. What I paid for it wouldn’t buy lunch for my wife and me. When I got it home and saw how well it worked, I felt guilty.

So if you’re thinking of selling some computer equipment, take my tips (as someone who attends literally thousands of garage sales every year) for getting decent money for it.The main reason I got this monitor for so little is because it looked like it sat in a dusty garage or attic for several years. It was filthy. I’ve seen identical monitors sell for 50 bucks as recently as June. Identical except for the dirt, that is.

I cleaned the monitor up using nothing more than an old dish towel and some all-surface biodegradable cleaner I buy at Costco. But dish detergent would work in a pinch. Dampen the towel, wring it out, add a bit of cleaner, and clean all the surfaces except for the screen. You’ll get more money if it looks like the unit was taken care of. You want it to look like you just bought its replacement yesterday.

You’ll also get more if you can demonstrate it works. Run an extension cable or two if necessary, and hook the stuff up so shoppers can see it in action. Many shoppers assume bargain-priced computer equipment at garage sales doesn’t work. In my experience, about half of it does. So I pay accordingly.

Finally, price realistically. These are the same people who get up at 4am the day after Thanksgiving to wait in line until Office Depot opens. I know because I do that too, and I see the same people I see every Saturday. So you’re competing with Black Friday’s prices, with used equipment.

That said, a working computer that runs Windows XP decently (and has a legal copy of XP on it) should fetch $75-$100, depending on its speed. A 1 GHz PC will run closer to $75, while a 2 GHz PC will fetch $100. And at that price, it should sell fairly quickly.

If a computer is decent but doesn’t work, it won’t sell for much. I’ve paid $10 for computers that need hard drives before, and I’ve passed on $10 computers that need hard drives. Sometimes I regret not buying that Pentium 4 that worked except for the hard drive, but my back hurt that day and I didn’t feel like lugging it home.

CRT monitors are hard to give away these days, but if you can demonstrate it works and it looks presentable, a 17-inch monitor is worth $10-$20. Your best bet for getting rid of one of those, though, is to bundle it with a working computer that runs Windows XP.

A working 15-inch LCD monitor should sell for $50 without any trouble.

Keyboards and mice are giveaways. I literally wish I had a dollar for every time someone’s tried to give me a keyboard. Anyone who wants one already has too many. The lone exception to this rule is an optical mouse. But a new, mid-range Microsoft optical mouse sells for $20-$25 on sale, so don’t expect to get more than $5-$10 for one. I paid $2 for one this year, and it didn’t work. I was willing to take a chance at that price, but no higher.

The death of Lyman Bostock

Dave Farquhar Baseball , , , , , , , , , ,
The death of Lyman Bostock

In September 1978, the death of Lyman Bostock rattled the California Angels’ heated division title race with the Kansas City Royals. The Angels’ star outfielder was murdered in Gary, Indiana at the age of 27.

ESPN has a tribute.

He’s the best baseball player you’ve never heard of, and quite possibly also the greatest human being you never heard of.

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So is a Costco membership worth it?

Dave Farquhar Saving money , ,

One gift my wife and I gave ourselves after paying off our mortgage was a Costco membership. We didn’t get one before we paid off that debt, just in case it wasn’t worth it. I’d carried a Sam’s membership for years but found I didn’t use it much. So is a Costco membership worth it?

I think Costco is worth it, with caveats.My wife and I eat whole-grain bread without trans fats or high fructose corn syrup. It’s hard to find anything that meets that criteria. At grocery stores, only a couple of national brands make the grade, and they cost $4 per loaf. We go through one a week, on average. Costco’s house brand makes the grade, and two loaves cost $4. So buying bread at Costco every other week saves us $104 a year, plus about $6 in sales tax. For us, that covers the $50 membership.

I recently read some advice from Andrew Tobias. Johnny Carson asked him what the best investment for $1,000 would be, and Tobias said non-perishable consumer staples. Everyone thought he was kidding, so he clarified. Buy $1,000 of nonperishable necessities (stuff like toilet paper, toothbrushes, shampoo, soap, and the like) on sale, and the return on investment is tremendous.

And you beat inflation. Let’s say inflation continues at 10% annually for a couple of years, which seems likely. By that measure, a toothbrush that costs $3 today will cost $3.63 in 2010 if I’m doing the math right. So if I behave and use four toothbrushes a year, I automatically save $2.56 by buying them today instead of 2010.

Needless to say, I feel pretty good about getting that 10-pack of Oral B toothbrushes today for $9.99 minus a $2 coupon. I saved $20 over buying them one at a time at Kmart. And I got a 20% return on investment.

About those coupons: Costco sends out coupons every couple of weeks. They don’t make substitutions when a hot seller runs out, so get there early. Today we spent $122 and used $15 worth of coupons. We only bought things we knew we’d use: shampoo, baby wipes, coffee, toothbrushes, bar soap, and laundry detergent.

Looking at it from an investor’s viewpoint, $68 worth of the stuff we bought had coupons, so we saved 22%. Where else am I going to get a 22% return on a $68 investment?

So when the next batch of Costco coupons comes in, we’ll look them over and buy anything that we’ll be able to use. I don’t know if $15 is a typical savings over the course of two weeks, but that would be $390 a year if it is.

As for the savings of the regular prices over retail, I looked into that too. The toothbrushes cost $3 if purchased singly, but slightly less in larger quantities. The laundry detergent gives 110 loads for the price of 64 loads purchased most other places. The shampoo isn’t a great deal, basically giving you a name brand for the price of a generic on an ounce-for-ounce basis, but with a $2 coupon it’s a good deal. Coffee is in essentially the same boat, but when you can get Maxwell House for the same price per pound as Chase & Sanborn, do it. If you’ve never had it, Chase & Sanborn makes Folgers taste like your favorite $5-a-cup coffee.

I don’t remember the specifics on how baby wipes and bar soap compared, but the prices were favorable. Even without a coupon, I would have saved something.

The two things I don’t like about Costco is that if they run out of a product with an active coupon, they won’t substitute a similar product. I also don’t like the hard sells on the executive membership. As you wait in line at the register, an associate will hound you to upgrade to the executive membership, which costs $50 more per year. The benefit is a 5% rebate at the end of the year on your purchases. Once I heard them tell one person, “Well, you’ve already spent $3,000 here, so you would have paid for the executive membership three times over.”

I just publicly analyzed to death what I spent this week, so I guess I don’t care much if my line-mates know what I’ve spent at Costco this year, but I know some people will resent that. Personally I don’t resent that, but I do resent the tone I usually get. I’m careful with my money and I’d like to think I’m pretty good at handling it.

Right now I know we’re spending $100 a week there, but I don’t know how long that will last. This week we bought a 170-ounce bottle of laundry detergent. A couple of weeks ago we bought 250 ounces of dishwasher detergent. Once we have a Costco-sized quantity of everything like that, will we still spend $100 a week? Maybe. But it could just as easily drop to $35. I don’t think it would drop to $19, which is the point where the membership doesn’t pay for itself, but I don’t know that yet, and if I don’t know that, there’s no way a Costco employee can know that either.

What I do know is that it’s become pretty easy for us to justify the $50 membership. The key is to buy things only because you need them, not because it’s a good deal. It’s not a good deal if it spoils. And use the coupons they send you. So far, storing Costco-sized quantities of shampoo and toilet paper isn’t a problem, but maybe you should talk to me in a year about that.

SSDs come of age?

Dave Farquhar Hardware

Intel released its first-generation SSDs this week. I haven’t seen one and I don’t plan on rushing out to buy one just yet, but what I’ve read makes it sound like this is going to be big. Not big like the release of Windows 95 was, but frankly if what people are saying is true, it should be as big of a deal. This is the first disruptive technology I’ve seen in years.

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My hot water heater: 1984-2008

Dave Farquhar General , , , , , , , , , , ,

I think my hot water heater died today. I thought my shower seemed colder than usual today, and in the late afternoon my wife reported no hot water in the kitchen.

It could be something simple, but even if it is, it’s time.Let’s consider this. In 1984, Ronald Reagan was president. The Kansas City Royals went to the playoffs. The big name in video games was Atari. People were predicting that video game consoles had no future. The big names in personal computers were (alphabetically) Apple, Commodore, IBM, and Radio Shack. Only one is still in that business. It was the year that Chrysler popularized the minivan. It was the year Apple introduced the Macintosh, popularizing the graphical interface and the mouse. Not only did MTV still play videos, but that was all they played. Not every home had a VCR. For that matter, not every home had a microwave. It cost 20 cents to mail a letter, and on average, a gallon of gas cost $1.21. (I remember it being a lot less than that in Missouri.)

The world that built that hot water heater is a lot different from the world we live in today.

About four years ago, a plumber came out to work on it. It was giving me problems then, but under the conditions of my home warranty, he had to bubblegum it back together. I asked how long it had. He said its realistic life expectancy was about 12 years, so it was about 8 years beyond that. It could last another six months, but it could last years.

So now the question is what to replace it with. The stingy Scottish miser in me sees tankless water heaters claiming to save you $150 a year and really likes that. I went to Lowe’s this evening and tried to buy one. There were several reasons why I don’t own one right now.

First, they don’t keep very many in stock. They had exactly one, even though their website said they had two of two different models. The one they had wasn’t the model I really wanted.

Two, they don’t install them. They’ll sell one to you, but then you have to find someone to install it on your own.

Three, they cost more to install than a conventional tank heater. Sometimes as much as the heater itself.

And then I found a controversial column that did the math, and said that a tankless heater might not actually save you any money anyway. I can’t find fault with his logic.

One thing I noticed is that the tankless heaters that the big-box stores sell are 85% efficient. The tank heaters are 76% efficient. The propaganda for the tankless heaters always assumes lower efficiency than that. As best I can tell, the heater I have is 67%, a little lower than the literature assumes.

So it seems to me that if a tankless heater that’s 18% more efficient than what I have now will save me $100-$150 a year, then a conventional heater that’s 76% efficient ought to save me $50-$75 per year, right?

The tank heaters sell for around $320, and installation is about $260. By the time you pay for taxes and the nickel-and-dime extras, it’s $600-$700.

Half the savings for 1/3 the price sounds pretty good. And I can buy one pretty much anywhere and have it installed tomorrow if I make the purchase before noon.

And it will pay for itself in 8-12 years. A tankless heater would pay for itself in about 13, if all the claims are true. If I make a mistake today, either way I go I’ll be likely to be revisiting it in about 12 years anyway. By then, tankless heaters will be more common and probably cost less than they do now (adjusting for inflation of course).

I’ll call the plumber who bubblegummed my old unit back together in the morning. Depending on what he says about the cost of installing a tankless heater, I’ll make a decision. But at this point, I think I’m leaning towards buying the most energy efficient conventional heater I can find.

DOS nostalgia?

Dave Farquhar DOS, Games, Retro Computing , ,

I’ve been getting nostalgic for DOS lately. Well, certain DOS games *cough* Railroad Tycoon *cough*.

One of my coworkers’ wives is nostalgic for ’80s boy bands whose name I refuse to mention, so there certainly are worse things for me to be nostalgic about. Sure, DOS is terrible, but not that terrible.I’m using an old 128MB compact flash card in a cheap CF-IDE adapter. While 128 megs isn’t a lot, it’s adequate if you’re not going to have Windows and Windows apps loaded. After all, you can get all the DOS you’ll ever need for game playing in less than 1.5 megs. Even still, I’ll probably pick up a bigger card the next time I order stuff from Newegg. A 4 gig card is cheap, and to DOS, 4 gigs is huge.

DOS boots to a C prompt in about five seconds off the CF card, and a good chunk of that is the CD-ROM driver scanning the IDE channels for drives. The system takes a lot longer to POST than it does to boot.

The system itself is an old Micron Pentium II-266. Severe overkill, but I hear Railroad Tycoon Deluxe really wants a fast CPU. Plus, my 486 is missing in action right now anyway.

Now that I have the system running, I need to hunt down drivers for the system’s Sound Blaster card. Then I’ll get Railroad Tycoon Deluxe loaded, and then all I’ll have to do is find a little time to play it. That last step will probably be the hardest part.

If the games I want to play don’t like the P2 (unlikely but possible), I’ll just dig out a Pentium 75 or a 486 from somewhere. That won’t be a huge setback, since I’ll have everything I need gathered up to build the system at that point.

Psst… Wanna compete with Best Buy?

Dave Farquhar Software , , , , , , , ,

Best Bait-n-Switch is offering a service where they’ll remove crapware from a PC for 30 bucks.

You can offer to do the same thing for 30 bucks, but do a better job. Here’s how.Of course, the first thing you do is go into Add/Remove Programs and remove everything in sight, unless it’s something the client actually wants. That’ll take about 20 minutes, tops, and it’s probably the extent of what Best Buy does. That’ll help, but it doesn’t bring back all of the new PC peppiness.

Next, you need to install and run a couple of utilities. Start out with CCleaner to remove any stray registry entries that may linger behind. Hopefully there won’t be too much. Then grab the unbeatable Donn Edwards bundle of JK-Defrag, NTREGOPT, and Pagedefrag.

Run NTREGOPT to remove the slack space from the registry, then run Pagedefrag and reboot. You’ll end up with a defragmented pagefile and a fresh-as-a-new-install registry.

Finally, run JK-Defrag to move all the useless data to the end of the drive, and all the stuff people actually use to the front. It’ll do a much better job than Microsoft’s built-in defragmenter, even on a new system.

The tuneup should take less than an hour, and most of it is time you can just walk away from the system and let it do its thing. You can advertise your service as better than Best Buy’s and compete solely on that, or beat them on price by a few bucks while providing a better and more worthwhile service.

If you’re feeling really industrious, you can even consult the appropriate Black Viper services list and disable unnecessary services to free up a little RAM and CPU time. If you don’t want to do a lot of reading, Computer Browser and Remote Registry are two services that always make sense to disable in home environments. My personal list used to be a lot longer, but Windows’ defaults are a lot more optimal than they were 5-8 years ago. The other stuff I always used to disable is disabled by default now.

And here’s one last piece of valuable advice you can give your clients. Rather than buy the Norton or McAfee antivirus product that’s probably installed on their computer as trialware, delete it and have your client buy NOD32 instead. The price is comparable to the other products, but it consumes a lot less CPU time and memory than the rest. So if you want antivirus protection but also want the computer to stay peppy, that’s the best choice in town.