Carnival of Wank

When to post a quick CRON job snippet on Twitter today using my iPhone, only to discover there’s no | on the virtual keyboard. I never really noticed before as I’d use the popup menu in Terminal for all special characters when grep’ing, etc….

I guess it’s time to start digging through iKeyEx files and find out how to make a custom virtual keyboard with one. After all, I don’t think I’ve ever used ¥, °, £, or €…

Update: I’m an idiot – I’ve been using a Blackberry Storm keyboard theme, and the pipe symbol was obscured by a different symbol – went back to the standard keyboard and BAM! There it was.

Well, this may be the end.

When I last left you (See Aspire One BIOS of DOOM – Update), I had discovered a write-error on the flash chip. After a little more poking around, I found the ‘/e’ switch for the flashit.exe program included with the BIOS ROMs.

WARNING! BIG MOTHER-OF-ALL-FUCKING WARNINGS!
****DO NOT RUN THE FOLLOW COMMANDS – THEY WILL BRICK YOUR LAPTOP WITH NO CHANCE OF RECOVERY****
****I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOU FUCK IT UP BY TRYING WHAT FOLLOWS HERE****

The Insyde H20 BIOS flashing program, flashit.exe, has a switch that allows you to specify extra options when flashing. The command is as follows:

flashit romname.fd /e: offset,filesize,address

Offset: In hex, the start of the ROM file (typically 00000000)
Filesize: In hex, the size of the ROM file (for the 1MB Acer ROMs, 00100000)
Address: In hex, the memory address on the flash chip where the ROM resides (on the Aspire One, it appears to be FFF00000)

So, after putting two and two together, I decided the following must be true:
1) The memory location with the write error seemed to be the first block of writable flash memory (FFF00000)
2) The command syntax of the command above allows for you to specify where the start of the ROM file is, and the start of the writable memory is
3) If I skip the first block, I’ll bypass the problem!

So I ran the following command:

****LAST WARNING: THE WILL BRICK YOUR LAPTOP!****

flashit zg5ia32.fd /e:00000001,00100000,FFF00001

The flash process proceeded as normal, then promptly errored out with “Error: IHISI 14h write failed. Address: FFF00000″ (Or something close to that), and turned off.

Sighing, I inserted my Recovery Flash Drive, held Fn+Esc, then hit the power button.

Nothing.

I tried again, with the same result. Starting to worry, I unplugged the power and removed the laptop. Leaving it for a few minutes, I plugged the AC adapter back in.

The power and battery lights light a beautiful orange, and then promptly faded. And that was that.

Apparently, in skipping that first block, I completely mangled the BIOS to the point where it didn’t even know what to do with electricity. Sweet.

So I called Acer, explained to them that my laptop wouldn’t turn on, and got a service request number so I could send it in for repair. I shipped it off yesterday using UPS, and upon checking the tracking number today, found the following:

CONTACT UPS FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION / ALL MERCHANDISE DISCARDED. UPS WILL NOTIFY THE SENDER WITH DETAILS OF THE DAMAGE

I called them, and they told me another local delivery computer had the box, and they didn’t know what had happened because the local office was already closed for the day. I have to call the local guys tomorrow to find out what happened, but it’ presumably a write-off.

I think I’ll replace it with an MSI Wind.

Update: UPS is pissing me off!

Apparently the local shipping company never touched the box, and they think it was just a scanning error, but no one at UPS has any idea what the actual status of my package is, as it’s now in transit again. I suppose I’ll find out Monday when Acer gets it.

Please refer to my new blog for this post: http://www.laslow.net/?p=12

1680 x 1050.

</2008><2009>

I used to train call center agents how to troubleshoot technical issues with a specific piece of software (a tale for another time), and one class a particularly outspoken agent (who had a tendency to ask rather personal questions) asked me “Do you like grilled-cheese sandwiches?” Please keep in mind that the subject of the moment had nothing to do with grills, cheese, or eating.

I stood in front of the class, slightly perplexed, and pondered for only a moment before answering, “Yes….”

Undeterred by the skeptical look on my face, she asked another question: “If I made you a grilled-cheese sandwich, would you eat it?”

This time I didn’t hesitate before answering with a firm, blunt, “No.”

Everyone laughed. The girl didn’t seem at all surprised, and dropped the subject. I honestly have no idea why she asked (I never did ask her), but based on some of her other questions (again, a story for another time) I can only assume she had a mild crush on me.

I did, however, explain to the girl, and class why I wouldn’t eat the offered sandwich, and why I no longer take my shoes off if someone else me not to.

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While looking through Event Viewer logs on a few servers today, I came across this gem:

The master browser has received a server announcement from the computer COMPUTERNAME that believes that it is the master browser for the domain on transport NetBT_Tcpip_{AF4FC9E2-13C7-E47B-A. The master browser is stopping or an election is being forced.

It seems the server was trying to keep in line with Canadian Politics, however it got the outcome a little wrong.

I’ve made slight progress with the BIOS issue on my A110 Aspire One. After performing a Recovery Flash (as described here) with the original BIOS (v3109), and using the following switches, I’ve been able to get another error! Unfortunately, even if I use the /n switch with the flashit.exe program, the machine reboots and the only way I was able to clearly see the error was to record it with my iPhone. The command and error are as follow:

flashit zg5_3307.fd /a /c /n

Error: IHISI 14h read comapre fail after write. Address: FFF00000

Note: That’s no typo – the error actually spells it comapre instead of compare.

The nearest I can tell is that at one point, I did an crisis recovery with the original BIOS version (3109) after having upgraded to a newer version, and that corrupted the Bootblock to a degree. Next step: dump the current BIOS to disk, then compare them and see what’s what.

Edit: It should be noted that the /a and /b switches for flashit.exe aren’t documented in the help for it (flashit /?). There appears to be a /f switch, but I’m not sure of it’s effects. Time to do a little digging as to what other switches are supported.

Flying cars do indeed suck

I don’t know how I’ll ever live this one down. I really don’t.

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For the first time in ages, I’ve found myself on the other end of the phone. I worked in tech support, providing telephone and ticket-based troubleshooting for the past my-resume-doesn’t-go-back-that-many-years. Today, at the end of my first week of my new job as a Systems and Networks admin, I got to experience the joys of calling on of my former brethren.

It wasn’t pretty.

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One would think that after watching a day of election coverage, and watching my party-of-choice come in fourth overall, I’d comment on it.

Instead: Best Article Title Ever! “A little pee came out: Ars reviews the scares of Dead Space“.

Classic!