Midnight Cheese

My custom built desktop has had problems off and on the last 6 months. Most commonly, when turning the machine on, it powers everything up but never gets to POST.

I’ve replaced or borrowed all my hardware trying to figure out the bad piece: 3 motherboards, 2 PSUs, 2 graphics cards, 3 CPUs, 2 hard drives, 2 optical drives, 2 CPU fans, countless RAM sticks, even set the machine up outside of the case and still get the same result.

Sometimes the machine powers up and works great. This usually occurs after replacing a piece of hardware. Fan, drive, PSU, etc. But eventually it goes back to the blank start.

With this latest iteration of components, I believe I’ve narrowed the problem down to the motherboard. When powering the machine on (with minimal components: graphics card, RAM, CPU & CPU fan) the machine spins up for a few seconds then shuts itself down. Then it turns itself back on again and off again and so on and so on until I hit the PSU switch.

When I unplug the small power cable used to power the CPU, the machine turns on and stays on, but never POSTs. I’ve tried two other CPUs with the CPU power cable test and get the same results. I know my CPUs are good because they came from working systems.

So this leads me to the motherboard. The problem is, I’ve replaced the motherboard before, only to have the same problems happen again down the line.

I’m thinking about selling everything and starting fresh.

Since Comcast announced their 250GB per month bandwidth caps I decided to start tracking my monthly usage. So far I’m well below the limit at 25GB in/4GB out for the month of October.

I wanted to post some basic impressions regarding my first two months of my 24 month iPhone/AT&T contract.

The bottom line being, it’s pretty much not worth the cost and AT&T could give a damn about their customers.

AT&T
Compared to Sprint, AT&T reception is terrible at my house. Even though I’m in ‘Good’ coverage on the map, I’m lucky to get 1 bar. Sometimes I have no service. I have to go outside to make important phone calls.

AT&T prorates your first bill and charges you for the upcoming month of service you haven’t yet used. Two weeks into using my new carrier I received a bill for $143. Charges included two weeks of service, a $36 activation fee (total BS), ~$10 of state taxes and about $18 of federal taxes, plus the fee for the next month of service that I haven’t yet used. I’m on the $70/mo. plan.

I know technically and legally they can do it, but what a way to stick it right into your new customer’s ass right from the start. When I cancel my contract in 22 months, will I get money back for the month I’ve already paid ahead? I’ll be surprised.

So, AT&T gets zero points for service, both product-wise and customer-wise.

Apple
It’s pretty amazing that this device can do what it does, but I won’t go into all that because you can read that elsewhere. With that said, I’ve never had a cellphone that can’t keep time, but this one sure can’t. I don’t know if it’s an Apple issue or an AT&T issue, but this thing is off. And I mean randomly off. 46 minutes, 8 hours and 13 minutes… you name it. Random.

The G1
With the release of Google’s G1 on the T-Mobile network today, I’m disappointed in myself for giving AT&T my money.

The T-Mobile folks got up at the unveiling today and went on and on about opening up this platform. The whole thing is Open Source. That’s really something special.

Apple puts out excellent software and hardware, and there are excellent apps available through their system, but there’s still a good amount of freedom missing in that system.

Another thing that impressed me was when the T-Mobile rep said they would offer existing customers a benefit. (I don’t remember the exact benefit, maybe an earlier release.) But that shows that they’re at least actively thinking of their customers in a way that isn’t just a moneygrab.

I think Android will turn out to be an excellent platform. I’m not big on the HTC phone, but more devices will come.

I hope in 22 months I’ll be able to either move my iPhone over to the T-Mobile network, and if I’m lucky, have the option to put Android on my iPhone as well.

Let’s say Comcast’s bandwidth cap is equivalent to the property owner of a mall charging you for an hour’s worth of shopping access. You could shop at any store you choose (net-neutrality) but once that time limit is up (250GB data cap), you’re going to have to pay extra for more access.

Are either one of them entitled to charge you that way? Sure. Does it seem right? Not so much. But why not?

The property owner doesn’t have to charge you access to the mall because they’re getting rent from the stores. Unfortunately, Comcast isn’t getting rent from websites. So it seems they should be able to charge users access to those sites however they please.

No one wants bandwidth caps, but there doesn’t seem to be a compelling reason why Comcast can’t do it, or shouldn’t do it. Comcast owns the road and can certainly set up as many toll booths as they please.

And that saddens me.

It’s about that time to do the ol’ OS reinstall on my work machine. This is something I truly dread. Backing up and restoring files is fine, but reinstalling applications and getting all my settings and prefs straight is the tough part.

I could backup and restore all my pref files, but then you run the risk of the same issues continuing with the new install.

The two major issues requiring reinstall involve Adobe apps, naturally. Every day I turn on my computer Adobe wants to update Acrobat (which will let me print through the Adobe PDF printer). Well, the installer quits halfway through every time.

I’ve tried reinstalling Acrobat but the installer won’t complete because I installed Fireworks CS4 Beta some time ago and it’s looking for the Fireworks CS4 disk, which I don’t have. (Fireworks CS4 crashed upon every launch so I never even got to use the software!)

This is truly retarded.

And finally, Safari refuses to update to Flash Player 9. Safari is my default browser, but every time I come to a site that requires Flash 9 I have to open up FireFox.

So this may be an Adobe issue or it may be an Apple issue, but with Adobe’s track record, I blame Adobe. All I can do is reinstall the whole thing.

Jimmy pointed me to Passenger (mod_rails) which is by far the easiest way to deploy a Ruby on Rails app through Apache.

Simply install Passenger (single command install, nonetheless) and point Apache to the folder that contains your Ruby on Rails app (DocumentRoot /your/cool/folder/) and you’re done.

Restart Apache and your Rails app is running. This is amazingly simple after dealing with lighttpd and some of the others.

I set this up on my home Ubuntu server and am now in a daze of awe.

In an effort to spend more time using Linux I’ve taken the liberty to install Ubuntu on my MacBook Pro. Referencing a couple different guides, the process is terribly easy.

Boot Camp creates the extra partition and rEFIt (boot menu for Intel Macs) is a simple package install through OS X.

With the system prepped, I just had to pop in the Ubuntu CD and everything installed like a dream.

Ubuntu is lightning fast on the MacBook Pro and nearly everything worked straight from the install. Wireless, Bluetooth, audio and keyboard controls adjusting screen and keyboard brightness all worked. The only true issue I’m having is the lack of sleep support. I haven’t researched anything into it yet, however.

One thing that I would like to see added: The ability to turn off the Wi-fi and Bluetooth cards when not in use. I rarely use a Bluetooth device and normally keep Bluetooth turned off. Often times I don’t have the need for wi-fi and turn that off. This helps save a little bit of battery life when operating sans plug.

Update: I just noticed the lameness of the leftover window bar from the screencapture app. Come on Ubuntu! Lettin’ me down!