There’s nothing terribly important about this post. I just changed the header image, and consequently updated the Facebook picture that gets published to Facebook automatically when I make a new post.
That is all!
– admin
This is a small update, but an important one, nonetheless…
As mentioned in an earlier post, I just recently switched my hosting to a new host. After getting fully switched over, I decided to rerun my test that I made to check the MySQL query performance of the database on the host. I set up the exact same test, with the exact same code, and got the following result:
New Host: Total Time – 0.03s, Average Query Time – 0.000031s
Let me just repost what I had on the previous entry:
Network Solutions: Total Time – 5.9s, Average Query Time – 0.0059s
1and1: Total Time – 0.293s, Average Query Time – 0.0003s
Local MBA with a SSD: Total Time – 0.078s, Average Query Time 0.000078s a query
What does this say? It says:
Let’s just let that sink in for a moment… I was satisfied with my previous host. I am blown away that my new host performs DB queries even faster than my MacBook Air! But I’m in total and utter shock at how much faster it is than our Network Solutions account. And no, I’m not using a VPS or a dedicated server. I am still on the same-o shared hosting type of plan that I was on before.
Tsk tsk… you disappoint me, Network Solutions.
Just a quick note about the downtime that occurred overnight. I migrated my domain from one host to another, to help consolidate some of my outlying hosts. Consequently, the blog was down while the DNS records propagated, and data was migrated, both on the front end and the backend.
Please let me know if you notice any unusual behavior after the migration, and I’ll fix accordingly. Sorry for the inconvenience!
– admin
And now, a change in background color to match with a new header image! Stay tuned for other subtle changes in the near future, as I tweak the overall layout and theme to meet my style!
– admin
OK, so admittedly, this isn’t that exciting. But bear with me, as I wanted to call attention to it anyway (because I’m a geek like that!).
Since I started this, I was using the default WordPress Twenty Ten theme. It served me well, and I did zero modifications to it. I then updated a few things the other day, and decided to go ahead and upgrade the theme to the new Twenty Twelve theme instead. Why? Well,
As mentioned, I do love the font. I’m an avid Day One user, and have loved the fonts on that application. I think I particularly like the change from a Serif font to a Sans-Serif font. The previous font was a bit too detailed for me, and I wanted a simpler, less cluttered font. I felt it detracted away from the point of the blog, and didn’t do me any good.
I also love the fact that the font is pulled in from Google Web Fonts. While it’s not that unique and exciting, it does bring about an interesting and intriguing way of dynamically building a website based on “layout” generated from another site. And of course since Google is involved, one does wonder in the back of his or her mind what Google stands to gain from the use of Google Web Fonts. But no matter, I like how the font looks, and appreciate the ability to use it via a simple CSS rule and JavaScript import.
Additionally, I like the fact that the layout is minimalistic. It doesn’t say much, other than the fact that I don’t want unnecessary stuff cluttering up the blog. (Of couse, it might also say that I’m lazy and don’t want to take the time to build my own unique layout and color scheme…) I feel that with the fact that my blog isn’t popular by any stretch of the imagination, that I don’t need to overload it with additional content and clutter up the page. I decided to strive for a simple, easy to read, quick to access site that has just what you’re looking for, without having to look too hard for it.
Lastly, I love the fact that it’s designed with “mobile-first”. I can now bring up the blog on my phone, and get a nice, easy to read layout that quickly gives me access to everything I need, without the clutter. Sadly, the design still loads everything on the page and simply presents it in a more mobile-friendly layout. This results in a waiting period while the entire site loads; especially on a slower mobile connection. I’d prefer if it didn’t have to load everything in the meantime, and could instead load a smaller, more mobile-optimized version of the site. But alas, beggars can’t be choosers, and the designers of the theme did an outstanding job as it is.
See any compatibility issues with the new theme? If so, leave a comment below, and I’ll try to get anything fixed up that looks out of place in the new theme. Thanks!
– admin
I’ll be brief in this post, because there’s not too much to say. But I wanted to make a point of calling out Antec, and their recent customer service experience that I had with them.
I normally have bad luck trying to deal with large companies, and their technical support necessary for their equipment that I may need serviced, replaced, etc. As an IT guy, I normally am able to fully diagnose the problem before I contact them for their support. Consequently, it quickly becomes frustrating when I need to rehash all of my diagnostic work with them, etc. However, in the case of Antec, it wasn’t as much of a technical support request, as it was a generic request.
See, I recently purchased an Antec Three Hundred Two computer case for my home server. I purchased the case specifically because of its toolless design, and perpendicular drive rails. It supports 6 total internal hard drives, and previously I had used 5 of them. Unfortunately, I happened to lose the last pair of drive rails that I needed to mount a sixth drive, which I had recently acquired.
So, I hopped on Antec’s website, filled out a request, and stated that I was wondering if it were possible to purchase replacement rails for the case, as I didn’t know where mine was, and didn’t want to buy a brand new case, just to get two plastic drive rails.
A day later I received a support ticket response back from Antec, stating that the Three Hundred case doesn’t use drive rails, but rather simply screw the drives into supplied mounting holes.” NO! I was frustrated. I had explicitly stated that I had the Three Hundred Two, and that it does, in fact, use drive rails! I was immediately annoyed, and vowed never to do future business with them again, if this was going to be the quality of their service if I had any questions.
I quickly responded back to them, reiterating the fact that I had a Three Hundred Two case, and that I did actually use drive rails, and needed to purchase a set of replacement rails. I hit send, and waited…
That was Tuesday. That very same afternoon I received yet another response back from Antec. I was scared to read it, because I didn’t know how much more fighting I would have to do to try to buy some stupid replacement rails. Much to my surprise, this was the response I received:
[…]I will be mailing just two rails free of charge since you need those two for one HDD. You should be getting them within 5-7 days from now.[…]
Wow! Talk about service! I didn’t even need to actually put in an order for two. They voluntarily sent me two, free of charge! I promptly responded back to the rep, thanking him for that, and that I would anxiously await the delivery of the rails.
Of course, that very night I happened to find the two missing rails that I needed, sitting in a pile of junk in my office! But, that’s beside the point…
Fast forward only two days ahead to Thursday. In the middle of the afternoon I received a text from my wife, stating that I had a package waiting for me at home, from Antec. Sure enough, there were my drive rails!
So, I went from an incredibly frustrating encounter with Antec’s support, to an extremely pleasing outcome. Antec went above and beyond to ship me free drive rails, including paying for the shipping as well, and I received them in just two days!
Now that’s customer service that will keep me around for a future purchase!
– Admin
The Problem
It happens to the best of us. The computer you’re working on dies. Kaput, no more usefulness. After some checks, you determine that the hard drive has died. Either the circuit board has fried, dust has gotten on the drive platters, or the read/write head has met its maker. Either way, the hard drive is toast, and along with it is all the data you’ve put on it. Unless, that is, you have a backup and recovery mechanism for dealing with it (which is a totally different article in and of itself!).
Enter me, and my situation. Similar to the above, I had a hard drive go bad on my HTPC. However, it wasn’t due to a bad platter, a busted read/write head, or a bad circuit board. No, this hard drive was a SSD. It was even a popular branded, highly rated SSD. But it gave up the ghost. Well, actually it did it very slowly. So slowly, in fact, that it would just lock up randomly when the computer was running, force a reboot, and then no longer be detected by the BIOS. So, at that point you would shut down the computer, wait a while, and turn it back on, and the drive would be back, almost as though nothing happened.
Fortunately, that happened a few month ago. I took down the HTPC, pulled the drive out, sent it in for replacement, got a brand new one in the mail as its replacement, popped it in, and recovered the OS (I use Windows Home Server, so I was able to recover it quite nicely). At that point, my encounter was over, and I was able to enjoy my HTPC again. Again, that was, until recently…
A few weeks ago the same thing began happening again. The computer would randomly lock up, randomly restart, and BIOS would fail to detect the hard drive. A careful scan of the SSD determined that it had died as well, and needed to be replaced. Repeat the process of getting an RMA, and send off the drive, and go without a HTPC again until a new one came in.
The Alternative
It was at this point that I became sad. Why should I have to go for a few weeks (AGAIN!) without a HTPC in my living room, and without a quick and easy way to watch TV in the livingroom while waiting for my replacement of the replacement of my SSD to come in the mail? After all, my HTPC was comprised of two HDDs – the SSD drive used as an OS drive, and a separate 500GB HDD used to record all the TV shows on. And then it hit me. I could partition the 500GB HDD to accommodate the OS that used to be on the SSD, and I could boot into the system and watch TV again while waiting for the SSD to come in the mail! Surely it wouldn’t be that difficult, would it? Oh how I wish it were easy!
For those of you who are not familiar with partitioning a drive, partitioning simply involves breaking up a HDD into more than one “logical device” known a a partition. In the Windows world, these can then be given drive letters, and appear to the user and the OS as individual disk drives. My goal was to replicate three main partitions:
I started out by thinking that I could simply use the Windows Home Server Recovery CD, boot into the recovery console, repartition the drive, and then restore the various partition data to their respective partitions. Unfortunately, it didn’t work that well. After bringing up the Windows partition manager, I attempted to shrink the volume on the HDD to make room for the two additional partitions that I wanted. And, in popular Windows fashion, I was treated with “An unknown error occurred. Please check your system logs to determine the cause of the error.” Good one, Windows. I don’t have a system log to check, since I don’t have a Windows install with which to check the system log!
GParted Live
Enter Plan B. After doing some digging online, I found various ideas as to the root cause of the problem. Most of them involved defragging the HDD, disabling System Restore, and deleting the pagefile.sys. Unfortunately none of them seemed relevant to my issue I was experiencing, since I wasn’t even able to shrink the partition a very small amount. So, tapping into my previous knowledge and experience with Knoppix, I came across GParted Live, a bootable CD that contains GParted and various other utilities. Bingo! I downloaded and burned the ISO and tried it out on my HTPC. To my excitement, it worked! The partition was shrunk, and I figured I was in business. Time to restart back to Windows Home Server Recovery and try again.
After waiting and getting back into the recovery console, I once again brought up Windows partitioning tool. I checked at the size requirements of the System partition and the OS boot partition, and created two new partitions of that size in the tool. I crossed my fingers, and they worked. I didn’t bother formatting them or giving them a drive letter. I figured I’d let Home Server do that busy work. I backed out to the recovery screen, selected the partitions and told the recovery console which ones to restore to, and clicked to proceed. I couldn’t actually see the sizes of my two newly created partitions since they were given random GUIDs that overtook the viewable space on the screen. I started the recovery process, and came back in a half hour.
Damn.
Apparently I attempted to recover the partitions backwards, since the recovery failed. So, I had to start all over again. This time, I formatted each partition (quick) and gave each a drive letter so that I could identify them during the recovery process. I then tried to recover again. After a short while I came back, and success! They had been recovered. Now, to reboot and enjoy my HTPC!
Damn again…
After rebooting, I was greeted with “BOOTMGR is not found” and a failed boot. Great, must have marked the wrong partition as the boot partition. So, at this point it was time to reload GParted, and mark the right partition as the boot partition. Once restarted, I noticed the wrong partition was in fact marked as the boot partition. Ok, simply need to change that to the right partition, and try again. Restart the computer, and?
You guessed it. Damn again. “BOOTMGR is not found.” What the heck now? Time to do some more Googlin’.
Windows Recovery
After some digging, I came to the realization that even though Windows Home Server recovered the right partitions as expected, it did not recreate a boot manager on that drive. However, the problem was that I had no way to recovery the boot manager, since I didn’t have a Windows 7 disc available to run. Enter some more Googin’.
Some more research led me to instructions on how to create a Windows 7 System Repair Disc. To do so, you needed Winodows 7 installed on another PC, and you were limited to the following restrictions:
Thankfully, my main desktop was running Windows 7, 64-bit, and my HTPC was as well. So I quickly burned a Windows 7 repair disc using the build in utility (by running recdisc.exe in the search box). I then plopped it in my HTPC and crossed my fingers, and booted it up.
The system repair booted up, and as it was searching for OS installs on the drive, immediately noticed that the drive was missing boot entries for the main OS that I had recovered. It asked if I would like it to add the record (yes!) and then was complete, and restarted. I kept my fingers crossed waiting for my last boot into Windows, and got…. “BOOTMGR not found!” Gar!
Ok, must have missed something. One more boot from the recovery CD, and I was presented with a few options. I selected “Startup Repair” and let it look for problems with the OS. It then came back to me and said that it was missing the boot manager, and that it properly built a new one for me (hurray!).
One more restart later, and…… Welcome to Windows 7! Finally!
At this point I clicked on Windows Media Center, crossed my fingers, and was happily presented with a Windows Media Center interface, complete with all of the recorded media from the recorded TV partition. It was almost as though I had my SSD!
It’s important to note at this point that even though the HTPC is working fine without the SSD, it is working much, MUCH slower than before. Obviously it’s slower due to running a traditional platter-based HDD, rather than the newer SSDs. However, the big difference overall is that it is trying to run the OS on the same drive as it is trying to record media to constantly. Furthermore, at times, it may be doing three things at once; running Windows 7, recording TV to the HDD, and reading previous recordings from the HDD for viewing purposes. Talk about head thrashing on the drive! So although it’s working now, I will be impatiently waiting for the day that my third replacement SSD comes in the mail to help get the HTPC back to peak running performance.
Summary
Whew! That was a long process. But if you’re at all involved in IT or computers, I’m sure you understand that even the most seemingly mundane tasks can quickly explode into much more complicated, time-consuming tasks at the drop of a hat. Hopefully this article will give someone an idea of what to do the next time their HDD goes kaput, and they need to repartition, or even just to repartition in general. Good luck, and make sure you have plenty of beer on hand!
– Admin
Unfortunately, this blog is of nothing important. I am simply trying to test out the facebook plugin. That is all.
-admin
I’m not dead! I am alive, I promise! I made this blog with the intention of continuing to post, but unfortunately life, the universe, and everything has gotten in the way of my posts, and this has taken the back-burner. Unfortunately, I am also paying for the domain with which this blog is being hosted, so in essence I’m simply throwing money out the window for no good reason. But no more! Hopefully I can get myself reacquainted with my blog, and can get posts cranking out again. So, here we go! (And hopefully this will be the last post that needs a paragraph like this explaining that I’m not dead…)
Back to the point of this article at hand – “Paper, or plastic?” We’ve all heard this question many times when going through the checkout line (that is, if you’re of the age group when they still regularly used paper bags to bag things up with, and the store actually did the bagging). It’s a simple question: “Do you want your groceries in a paper bag, or in a plastic bag?” Of course, most of us don’t care. As long as we get our groceries, and we get what we want, and can take it home safely and use it, that’s all that matters to us. We take what the popular answer is and run with it. Nowadays, it’s plastic. But, what does all this have to do with the real point of this article – “Physical, vs digital?”
There’s a shift in media paradigm going around in our society today, dividing a strong rift in between people. When it comes to media-oriented purchases, such as movies, music, or video games, should one purchase a physical-media format, or instead opt for the digital-media format? The choice may not be as simple as it seems.
You may be wondering what spurred me on to make a post, comparing physical media to digital media. After all, I haven’t posted for months (at least half a year, I believe!), and then suddenly I post about this. Well, it all began for me with a little concept known as Steam. Yes, yes, let the flogging commence, but I just tried out Steam for the first time a few days ago. Why did I wait so long to try out Steam? Well, first of all, I’m not a huge PC gamer (though I love me my console games!). Secondly, for those PC games that I normally would buy, I usually get them from the big box stores locally, or online through Amazon. Although, that point is fairly irrelevant, since I believe the last physical PC game that I purchased was Prince of Persia, in early 2009. So, I’m pretty inexperienced with PC game purchases. So, this then leads to the question of why I bought a game through Steam. The answer? Price, and convenience.
After purchasing the game (Just Cause 2, for $5.00), I have become hooked. Not to PC games in general, but the ability to have all of your PC games together, under one gaming “umbrella”, and not have to keep track of the discs, or the activation keys of the games themselves. Rather, you simply log in with your Steam account, click the game that you would like to play, download it if it hasn’t yet been downloaded on your PC, and begin playing. Voila! Easy as pie. Sure, there are some minor details of whether you have to be connected to the internet to play, and other details, but I will keep those outside of the context of this blog post. So, right now, as it stands for me, simply being able to have all of my games, in all their full glory, right at my finger tips, is amazing, and definitely a plus in my book.
Now, the question is whether or not the same can be said of movies and music. And it is at this point where I have issues with digital versions, and side with the physical copy of the media. For starters, let’s look simply at music. The obvious physical form of music is the CD. One can walk into their favorite store and pick up a CD, for roughly $0.99 a song, pay it, go home, and listen to it. It’s wonderful. Or, a person can go online to Amazon’s music store, iTunes, etc, and buy the same list of music, again for roughly $0.99 a song, and have them store “in the cloud”, always accessible anywhere and everywhere. In looking at this context initially, it could easily be said that buying a digital copy of a CD is leaps and bounds better than buying a physical copy, both for convenience, safety, and cost (since you don’t need to buy every song if you want only a select few songs from the CD). However, for me, the kicker is the quality of the music downloaded, vs. the quality of the music on a CD.
While a CD may never be as good as being in a live recording session, it is still exponentially better than that of the simple MP3 that you can download off of your favorite online digital distributor. While a fully uncompressed track off of a CD may range in the size of roughly 30MB per song. However, you simple MP3 downloaded may only be roughly 3.5MB in size. Where did all of that extra data go? It was lost in a lossy compression format, never to be heard by your ears ever again. While this may not normally be a problem for some, for those of us who have built higher quality home theaters, and don’t like listen to highly compressed MP3s, the online digital formats don’t work for us.
The same concept can be extended further to that of the digital movie distributions. Obviously the first company that comes to someone’s mind when they think of online movie distribution is Netflix. Second to that is probably the “digital version” that comes alongside a number of Blu-Ray / DVD combo packs one can buy in the store. However, once again these qualities drastically pale in comparison to their Blu-Ray counterparts. Comparing Netflix-quality streaming to a Blu-Ray movie is like comparing cable TV to a Blu-Ray movie, in my opinion. Once again, many people may be satisfied with Netflix-quality movies, or the digital versions that come in the combo packs. Unfortunately for me, I am not.
So here I am, stuck in a quandary. Do I settle for lower quality digital versions of movies and music, and enjoy the ability to play them wherever, and whenever I want to, or do I opt for the physical copies, with better quality, but require the additional restrictions of needing the media every time I want to play / listen to them? The answer, for me, is a hybrid solution of the two.
Let’s go back to the music topic. For me, I would like the ability of the “buy once, play anywhere” concept, but with the high quality I’ve come to expect. My solution is to use a combination of Exact Audio Copy, and the FLAC open-source codec to create a CD-quality rip (of my own CDs, mind you – none of this illegal stuff), but with a compression level that keeps me from having to chew up all of my HDD space, just for my music. Then, by simply downloading a codec that supports FLAC, I can now listen to any of my rips I have made. Coupling that with my Windows Home Server and my HTPC, I can now listen to all of my music whenever, and wherever I want to, without the restriction of the physical media. And furthermore, I maintain full quality that I demand with my music.
As far as movies, I follow in a very similar pattern. Currently, I do not own a Blu-Ray drive, so I am stuck at the moment with requiring physical use of that media. However, with all of my DVDs, I have followed in a similar scheme to that of my music. Using a combination of a few pieces of software, I am able to rip all of my DVDs into a single full-quality rip (full loss-less format, fully burnable in the future if I lose my disc), and can stream them over my network at will, again through my Windows Home Server and my HTPC. Once again, I am able to keep my full quality I need, while still maintaining all of the advantages normally reserved only for the digital copies. Unfortunately, I do need to sacrifice some HDD space to support all of the DVD rips I have. However, in my opinion HDD space is cheap, and so this issue is pretty much non-existent to me.
Winding things down, I suppose I should give my ideal solution in the future that would make me incredibly happy. As stated above, I love the way Steam works, and love the ability to have the fully copy of all PC games I purchase digitally “stored” online, so that I can play them when I want to, without the need for the physical copy, and without the need for the activation key, since they’re all stored online. This route still gives me the ability to enjoy the entire game, without crippling it in any form or fashion (such as lowering the resolution so that it can be downloaded quicker). If the same could be done for movies and music, where I could purchase a movie or a CD / song online, and get the same, full quality that I would expect out of a physical copy, I would be in heaven. But until that point, I will have to be subjected to the requirement of ripping my own copies of stuff, an converting them to a digital format so that I can get the advantages of digital media as well.
Now I leave the floor open to you. What do you prefer? Paper (Physical), or Plastic (Digital)? And why? Do you have issues with lower quality media? What is your setup like to take advantage of your decision to go with physical or digital? I’d love to hear of your setups, your environments, and your situations. Let’s hear it!
– admin