Trend blocks the IEEE 1394 port

I tried connecting my external hard drive to my work laptop via IEEE 1394 earlier today. For some reason, Windows wasn’t showing it in My Computer or in Device Manager. I tried turning the external drive on and off a couple of times as well as a different cable. Nothing worked so I started to panic thinking that I’d lost my files.

I figured out what the problem was once I remembered another issue I had earlier. The earlier issue was that none of the VM’s I run on my workstation would connect to the network. I had to shutdown the Trend Micro Personal Firewall service in order for them to work properly. We use the Trend Micro Office Scan suite at work so the firewall is loaded by default. Once I shutdown TMPF on my laptop, and reset the drive, everything worked fine.

The weirdest part is the fact that I can’t just disable the TMPF service. If I do, none of my network devices work properly. It has to be allowed to start and then shut down.

A man who is “of sound mind” is one who keeps the inner madman under lock and key. – Paul Valéry

12.Nov.07 Hardware, Software Comments (5)

Duel UPS

The power in my office sucks. Even with an APC UPS (Back-UPS350), any small fluctuation in power would cause my workstation to reboot. The problem got even worse when I connected a small laser printer to the UPS. Just sending a print job to the printer would cause my system to reboot! It still happened after connecting the printer to a surge protector connected to a different outlet.

Connecting to different outlets didn’t help because all of them close to me are on the same circuit. I needed a beefier UPS to handle the power load but we didn’t have anything bigger. My boss said I could just go buy a better UPS so I put in the necessary paperwork. Almost a week later, I’m still waiting on the PO.

I was getting tired of the reboots happening at least once a day so I started using a second UPS. The set up I’m using now is like this:

That has stopped the reboots until either they can fix the power or my PO comes through to buy a better UPS.

If you kick a stone in anger, you’ll hurt your own foot. – Korean Proverb

09.Nov.07 Hardware Comments (0)

The thunder killed it

It all started last Friday. One of the secreta…administrative assistants called and said, “I saw on the news that they are expecting some storms this weekend. Can you, or someone in IT, come in early Monday and bring all the computers back up? Maybe we need to shutdown the servers, too, so that they don’t get damaged.” Uh, thanks for the concern but no. Everything should be OK because all workstations have surge protectors and all servers are on APC battery backups. I told her that if she was worried about it to just shutdown her computer. Plus, I saw the forecast and they were calling for rain. No lightning or high wind at all.

Move forward to this morning. I get another call from the aforementioned admin. assistant. “I told you we would have problems! My computer, monitor and printer won’t turn on! The thunderstorm knocked out everything. Will I get a replacement before lunch?” Again, no. I went to her desk to see what was going on. Queue chugging the last bit of coffee as to not waste the caffeine.

The first thing checked, naturally, was to see if she had tried to turn on the equipment. She was right. Nothing would power on. The next place I looked was the surge protector. I wanted to check it but it was gone. As in not there. As in “why are the power cords all dangling but not connected to the surge protector?”. Her response was beautiful.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh,” she drug that out,”I disconnected it because of the storm. I don’t trust surge protectors and didn’t want anything to happen. I thought you had came in early and set it back up for me. Guess I should have checked first.”

No, you should have heard me when I said “No” to the request you made on Friday. She reached into one of her desk drawers to retrieve the missing surge protector. Why she felt the need to hide it, as well as assuming I would know it was there, was beyond me. I didn’t ask because I was ready to run. After connecting everything back up, a miracle happened. Everything worked! I was out of there before another word could be spoken.

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. – Confucius

22.Oct.07 Hardware, Humor Comment (1)

Another Linux laptop given away

Today, I gave a friend one of the old Dell Inspiron 4100’s that I picked up from my employer a while back. It’s a pretty good system: 1 GHz processor, 1 GB RAM, 20 GB HDD, 802.11b WiFi, 10/100 built-in NIC, 24x CD-ROM (can be replaced with 2nd battery). The laptop will help her a lot more than the recycler who usually gets our obsolete equipment.

She needed it for her daughter that is homeschooled and takes classes online. Our copy of Windows XP Professional was loaded so I had to wipe the hard drive before I gave it to her. Instead of giving her a blank system, I loaded PCLinuxOS 2007. I chose PCLinuxOS because it’s even easier than Kubuntu for someone that has never used Linux.

The system fit her needs perfectly. Firefox, Flash Player 9, OpenOffice.org and MP3 support is installed by default so I didn’t have to install them post-OS install. She couldn’t believe everything that was installed didn’t cost anything. I made sure to show her that OpenOffice.org will open and save Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. I also showed her how to use Synaptic to download updates, install software and how to use the Administration Center to configure the system.

I was impressed with how well PCLinuxOS ran. All of the hardware worked without any special configuration. The boot time was noticeablely shorter than Kubuntu on a similar system I had given to someone else. I noticed that it has an easy way to configure Active Directory login in the Administration Center. I’ll have to test that out in a VM at work to see how well it works.

I put a dollar in one of those change machines. Nothing changed. – George Carlin

19.Sep.07 Hardware, Linux Comments (0)

The firewall burns again

Thanks to a friend at work, my firewall is back to operational status. He had an extra laptop drive in his office from when we decommissioned some old Inspiron laptops. The drive he gave me is exactly like the drive that was in the firewall (20 GB, 4200 RPM). I had a config backup so it only took about 15 minutes to load the new drive and restore the settings.

I still think its odd that I don’t get full throughput (6 Mb) if I use the Linksys router (BEFSX41). I used it while the pfSense system was down. The Linksys router is rated for 30+ Mb throughput but I barely get 3 Mb.

Studying for the SQL 2005 upgrade certification exam is going slow. I hope to knock it out within the next 3 or 4 months but it will probably take a little longer. There are some database projects I’m having to work on right now that are eating up study time.

If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing you have to do is wake up. – J.M. Power

09.May.07 Certifications, Hardware Comments (0)