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, the last time I left this topic, it appeared that UPS had destroyed my netbook. Today, I found that it had actually made it to Acer in one piece. Not only that, but they replaced the motherboard (even though I added RAM, stripped a screw, and voided the warranty) and shipped it back priority overnight!

So now I sit working on my next project – Windows 7 on the Aspire One. I’ll post the results later!

I was sitting down for lunch today, eating a steak sandwich and reading a news paper, when it struck me: when did I grow up?

Seven years ago I graduated from high school. Five years ago I moved out for the first time, going halfway across the country in the process. Four years ago, I moved back. Three years ago I fell in love, and Two years ago I got married. One year ago I was layed off and had to take a job I hated. Eight months ago a Neurologist confirmed that the pain I’ve experienced episodically for the past eight years has a name: Cluster Headaches. Six months ago I quit that job and moved to a better one. Three months ago I quit that one for my dream job.

Even after breaking it down, I still can’t figure out when I grew up. Does it even matter?

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>

If you can’t show un-bias political segments, split from Canwest Media and shack up with Fox. You’ll enjoy each other’s company.

Bah.

Sometimes I wonder why I bother watching. I guess I’m just a bit of a sadist.

Today at Wendy’s:

Customer: What’s that awful beeping?
Manager: Well, either the deepfrier is reversing or we’re all going to die.
Customer: *Runs screaming from the restaurant*
Manager: …

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.

I worked as a field technician for a small computer for five or so years before starting the training job, and in that time developed a set of rules. Every tech that I know has some variation of them, and for good reason. The rules I’m referring to are how to keep yourself safe when out in the field, and they are as follow:

1) Never, under any circumstances, eat or drink anything offered by the customer, no matter how clean the house is or how healthy the customer/family looks.

- The story behind this rule: I came down with food poisoning no fewer than three times in the first two months of doing field work, all traced to what I’d eaten at customers homes. Hence the refusal of the offered grilled cheese. A clean house does not mean that the owner can cook.

2) When someone says, “Oh, don’t worry about your shoes – this place is a mess!”, DON’T TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES!

- I’m your stereo-typical overly-polite Canadian, and I always used to take off my shoes when entering someones house. Not anymore. It took half-a-dozen ruined pairs of socks and a can of fungicide to learn that lession.

3) Always carry a pair of rubber gloves, a dust mask, and an apron in your car/truck.

- I had a new customer call up asking if we could pick up her computer. Not unusual in the slightest, as we offered the service to people with disabilities or those without transportation. After driving out to her apartment, I knock on the door, and nearly gag as the door opens. Inside the apartment were at least a dozen birds, some in cages, most not. Feathers and bird shit covered everything, and her computer was directly under three cages. I informed the customer that she’d need to clean the computer, and I’d come back to pick it up later. When I got it to the shop (after sealing it in a bag), I wore the aforementioned attire while cleaning the inside of it. This customer became know as ‘The Bird Lady’, and standing policy to tell her to clean the computer before we got there, and to take the near-hazmat-suit along. This is also when I started asking about Danger Pay.

4) Don’t worry about hurting someones feelings.

- See rules #1 and #3.

5) If someone says, “Don’t look in the folder named ‘Lioness‘ on the desktop!”, don’t look in the folder named ‘Lioness’ on the desktop!

- One of my co-workers (we’ll call him Tyler) experienced this one, and shared the lession around. A customer of ours, who was married and had (still does, from what I hear) a major crush on our boss, dropped off her computer and told him (our boss) not to look in the Lioness folder. Then she winked at him and left. The boss gave the computer to Tyler, who thought “Why not?”, fired up the computer, and had a look. Inside the folder? Gigabytes of home-made porn, with Mrs. and Mr. Lioness staring. The nickname stuck, and Tyler still can’t get the images out of his head years later.

So if you ever plan on doing some some field work, be it as a computer tech or an HVAC servicer, I’d strongly advise you create some rules of your own, or borrow these. Trust me – your body will thank you.

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.