Does this exist?

I've been looking all over the internet for something which probably doesn't even exist for my laptop.

I have two hard disk drives for it. One has Windows 7 that I am using as a client connected to a test Windows Server 2008 machine. The other hard drive has Windows XP Pro and it is more or less my daily driver and tester. I've reformatted both of these drives a number of times to try different things, but ideally I would like an easy way to boot from either of these two drives.

Dual boot you say. Well I thought about it at first, and may still go that way, but I do have two separate 320gb drives at my disposal.

How about a dummy hard drive sleeve, the same size as a hard drive with SATA connector with a SATA connector on a short cable. That way I can plug it into my laptop's hard drive slot and easily switch between different bootable hard drives. Oh yes, and a handle of some sort to pull it out of the hard drive bay. It sounds a little makeshift, but this is for my work office and not for portability as I seldom take it on the road.

Right now I pull the hard drive, swap the caddy that covers the end of the drive, so I can grip the drive to remove it, then put in the other drive. If anybody invents this gizmo, let me know.

Gigabit, more or less

I just recently bought a Trendnet 5 port gigabit switch for the house. My goal was to speed up file transfers from my main office computer to the home theatre PC.

The switch itself had good reviews from a couple different websites. It has metal case and seems to be well built. It supposed to be 'green' by using less power to the unused ports. It comes in a 5 and 8 port version. It's unmanaged which isn't a problem.

So far, after a few tests I'm not getting true gigabit speeds from it. I really didn't expect to since there are many factors to take into account such as hard drive speed, size of files and overhead associated with all network traffic. I'll be trying out a utility called iperf which is supposed to give good information regarding network speeds.

Screw UPS

I must say I was quite surprised when I finally got my package that had been lost by UPS. Not sure where it went, but everything was intact. It took a week and a half to find it and a few more days for me to get it due to a work closure for the holidays, but its here.

Again, I'll say, UPS handles millions of parcels a day, and we have gotten a lot of stuff delivered by them, but it seems the few times we've had problems, it has been with UPS. Just bad luck I guess. The bad part is that I paid a couple bucks extra to have the package shipped by UPS air to have it before the Christmas break. I guess I wasted some time and money there.

UPS Courier (UPS, they did it again)

I am currently waiting for the results of a UPS trace investigation after an NCIX.com order went missing. (I am waiting for a new 320gb 7200rpm hard drive for my laptop) Apparently, it was delivered to the wrong address. When I first checked the UPS tracking info link provided by NCIX, it said the package had been delivered and signed by somebody I had never heard of at this office. (I have most of my packages delivered to me at work.)

They said it was delivered to a different address and they would have the driver pick it up and deliver it here. The next day there was still no package. I called UPS again and they said the shipper would have to initiate a trace to find the package. I called NCIX and they said they would contact UPS to do a trace.

Personally I don't think it will ever show up because 1) the address UPS claimed the package was delivered to doesn't exist as far as I can tell and B) it was delivered to the wrong address as well.

I do understand that UPS, Purolator, FedEx etc, ship millions of packages a day and drivers deliver hundreds of packages a day, but it still sucks. The way I understand it, is that the drivers don't even look at the address on the box, there is a number on the shipping label that tells them the destination, which makes some sense. You don't want to rely on a dozen different people who handle the parcel on it's journey to be able to properly read a shipping address, so it is done once when the package is first received and then on it is identified as a number.

I was hoping to have this for the Christmas break which starts tomorrow, but traces take between 2 and 8 days. We'll see if anything turns up.

Wiring The House for a Network

Shortly after we moved into our current house we finished part of the basement which soon became my office. With my wife's computer upstairs and mine downstairs I could either go wireless on one or more of the computers or run cables. I decided to run cables since I had access to large amounts of Cat5e cables and running the cables wouldn't be particularly hard by using the cold air return as a wire chase.

I don't know of any problems with running network cabling this way. It seemingly should be pretty safe. Since it's cold air returning to the furnace, there won't be any temperature issues and it should be isolated from any other electrical interference. The only difficulty may be getting into and out of the return. I'm not sure if it's really allowed by building codes, but the cable I am using does happen to be plenum rated.

If you are not aware, plenum rated cable is designed to run in the ceilings (plenums) of offices. Normally used to circulate air in a building, plenums should contain cables that are designed not to give off toxic fumes if it were to burn. Of course the wire cost more and personally I don't think it really would make a difference as there are plenty of other materials in the typical building to give off toxic gases other than network cables.

We are looking at buying or building another house hopefully in another 5 years or so and I think I would also go with a wired home. I would go with Cat5E or Cat6 and if needed throw a wireless router onto the network for any laptops.

Home Theatre PC

As with anything I do lately, money is a big issue, so when I wanted to put together a home theatre PC, I decided to do it cheaply. I had most of the parts, so all I needed was a motherboard and RAM. It's a pretty basic system stuffed into a small form factor case. As the rest of the home video equipment is still connected to the TV, I didn't put a TV tuner card or DVD drive in it. I download most of the movies and TV shows from the Internet on my office computer in the basement and copy it to the home theatre PC through the home network. For a front end interface, I'm trying MediaPortal, an open source application. I've just been using it, but so far I highly recommend it. And it's free!

Heart Touching

We just got in a new motherboard here at work to upgrade one of our machines. Looks pretty nice.

I don't know if Asus is trying to change their image, but in addition to Asus motherboards being Rock Solid, they are now also Heart Touching. I thought I was the only one who felt that way when they got a new motherboard.

Network Cabling Tips

At my workplace I run cable off and on when needed. I thought I'd share some tips I've learned throughout the years.

- Document all cabling - Keep diagrams of where cables are being run in walls and ceilings. If you have a CAD layout of your workplace, even better. You should have a spreadsheet of each of the wires, patch panels, switches and hubs so you can quckly track down a particular wire to a specific location and port.

- Label the cables - Invest (I say invest, because it takes time and some money) in labels for the cables themselves. You can buy specialty sheets of laser labels made for cables or a Brother type label maker. In many cases we pull out the cable in a hallway to label them on the floor before running them in a ceiling.

- Cable management - Use zip ties, velcro and whatever else is needed to keep the cables tidy and neat. In the ceilings, use cable hooks or trays. Try not to have any cables laying directly on suspeneded ceiling tiles. Try to keep wires grouped together as long as possible before it branches off to a particular room. By that I mean don't take shortcuts with cable to save a few feet.

- Avoid interference - Try to stay away from light fixtures and wires carrying power. I once heard that if you have to cross over a flourescent light fixture, do it perpendicular to the ballast.

We are still trying to overcome some bad habits that have developed over time and simply because we didn't know better in the early years. Improper cabling techniques will cost time and money, so try to do it right the first time. (or at least from now on)

Bad Batteries - Part 2

I've been shopping around for a second battery for my new camera. I bought a Canon XSi digital SLR. It came with one battery, but I'm trying to get a second one as backup.What I'm finding is that these batteries are very expensive. The original OEM battery for my camera runs about $80 Canadian. Once I found that out, I checked out eBay to see if I could find a cheaper one. There seem to be only a few compatible batteries offered for about one quarter the price of an actual Canon. According to some posts to photography forums, some users have had good luck with third party batteries and others won't touch them. Also on eBay are original OEM Canon batteries for about $15 each. They do say they are Canon, but for that price, who knows. (They are being sold from Hong Kong, but I guess that doesn't matter as counterfeit batteries can come from anywhere.)
Here is a good link with more info on how to spot a fake. Unfortunately you normally can't tell a fake battery until you actuall have it in your hands.
http://www.chrismak.com/ebay_images/counterfeit.htm
Counterfeit batteries have been known to explode in your camera and of course it would not be covered by Canon. I might go with a third party compatible battery and see what happens.

Bubbling Batteries

Our server room at this site is pretty small, so we have only 9 UPSs for battery backup of important servers and equipment. Most are 700 to 1000 VA APC brand UPSs. It seems as if we are constantly changing the batteries for our UPSs. Apparently the life of a sealed battery is 3 years or less. When the replace battery indicator comes on, and the audible alarm sounds every 6 hours or so, we usually find batteries like the ones pictured above. The swelling happens when the battery will no longer take a charge from the UPS and the overcharging generates hydrogen gas which causes the battery case to swell.
It's a little scary looking, but we've never had any kind of 'spillage' as the UPS alarm usually gives us a heads up.