Interesting…Disappointing, But Very Interesting…

I was trying to figure out if the ‘GPS’ on my new iPod Touch was broken, or something, when I found this page.

Since it’s probably pretty safe to say that no one from Skyhook will be driving around Yukon with their wi-fi scanner and GPS any time soon, I think we should all do our geekly duty and submit our access points.

As they say, many hands make light work, and those of us not crazy enough to buy an iPhone that can’t be used here (as well as our Touch-equipped visitors) will be able to use location-aware apps.

Dell XPS M170 Overheating/Acting Weird

My M170 notebook was being weird (crashin' 'n' stuff) and was really hot in places. I thought my video card might be on its way out, but when i opened 'er up to see what was goin' on, i was surprised to find a different problem that, once fixed, made everything 'all better'!

Noisy Cooling Fan

I've considered myself a hacker ever since I discovered, IMHO, the real meaning of the word (#7 from the Jargon File definition) back in my university days when I started reading alt.hackers.

I've hacked on a regular basis for most of my life, but have never bothered to share my hacks because:

1. they're usually so obscure, I couldn't imagine anyone else finding any value in them
2. I never wanted to share bad enough to figure out the hack required in order to post to alt.hackers

And so, now that I have something that I think might be useful to others and I have a medium through which I can share it, I present the, "Noisy Cooling Fan Hack."

I purchased the computer I'm using to write this post in October of 1999. It started life as a top-of-the-line PIII 450 w/128MB of memory, a DVD drive w/hardware decoder, and a 19" Trinitron monitor. As you can imagine (since I'm still using it), it's been through some upgrades. It's now a 1.4GHz Celeron (cool processor upgrade from PowerLeap), w/384MB of RAM, another hard-drive, a CD-burner and a whole swack of USB and Fire-wire peripherals. It still has the same motherboard, and the same monitor (which, I think is on its last legs), and, of course, the original power-supply.

Enter the noisy fan. A lot of times you can cure this problem just by vacuuming out the case and fan(s) - enough crud on a fan's blades can throw it off balance. Tried that on the weekend, but, just like The Cat, it came back (♪♬ the very next dayyyyy...  ♪♬). So, yesterday, I opened 'er up again, to see what my hackerness could see. I've replaced a power-supply fan in the past (it was surprisingly easy), but didn't have a spare one around, so I thought some 3-in-1 oil might do the trick. N.B.: As tempting as it may be with that little straw and the propellant, DO NOT use WD-40. It's more of a cleaner than a lubricant, and will do more harm than good. The sources I've read on the 'Net actually recommend sewing machine oil for its high viscosity and the fact that it's made for high-speed applications.

Anyways, the next question was how the heck to get the oil where it needed to go. There's really no access to the hub without totally disassembling the power-supply as well as the fan itself, and they're really not made to be taken apart - figured I'd just end up breaking it. There's also no way to get the spout of the oil can through the grille on the power-supply housing and the guards on the fan - there's hardly enough room to get a toothpi<light-bulb-turns-on-over-my-head>ck through there.....Remember that demo in school where the teacher poured water along the string? There ya go...just stick that pick in the joint in the hub's housing, pour the oil onto it, and let gravity do its thing. Keep a paper towel or rag handy - you're probably going to get oil on the housing. It wasn't until I was re-assembling that I realized that the spot where the two wires enter the hub is probably the most direct route (duh...), so you might want to shoot some oil in there instead/as well. [I know, photos would be nice, but I didn't think of posting until after the 'puter was back in its cubbie-hole in the desk... :(  ]

Voila! My PC hasn't been this quiet since....well, it's never actually been quiet - there's still the processor fan, the case fan, the two internal hard drives, the external drive...oh well, at least that annoying noise is gone.

(And you Mac people can just keep your, "Ohhhh....Myyyy Mac is soooo quiet....You really should get one...," comments to yourself....I really don't want to end up castrated, waiting for a spaceship, with a plastic bag over my head.... ;P )

What was your first computer?

This week's the anniversary of the ENIAC unveiling. This CNET New.com article has the answers of some industry big-wigs. Heh...most of them are too old for me to know what they're talking about, but here's my list:

• First computer I used (also first one I programmed!): Apple ][e
  I remember doing the standard, "blinking, hello world," program and a 10-question trivia quiz in Apple Basic. Fond memories of playing Hart-hat Mac, Spy Hunter, and a few other games in the library after school....(ahem...in grade 4).
• Honourable mention goes to the Apple //gs. I spent weeks, an hour or two at a time, in the computer lab after school, writing a number-guessing game with a story-line and graphics: Guess the number before the nuclear missile reaches Earth and destroys it! Building those images one pixel at a time took a lot of statements in Basic....and man, did I use a lot of graph paper!
• First computer my family bought: Tandy 1000 RLX
  Ah, DeskMate.....I upgraded my skills to GW-BASIC for this computer.
• First computer that was, 'all mine': IBM PS/2 Note N51/SX (no luck finding a picture of this one, but now I know where to get batteries!)
  This puppy, along with my 1200bps modem, allowed me access to the Computer Science Unix mainframe. Spent lots and lots of hours reading and sending e-mail in elm, doing my CS assignments in C and surfing a building web pages with Lynx and vi...oh yeah...and playing Nethack.

To think of the progress just in my own computing history of 20 years is staggering (my latest purchase is a Dell XPS M170). I can't wait to see where we go in the next 20....