Erich Stauffer

Author: Erich Stauffer

  • How does your home PC compare to these ol’ supercomputers?

    IBM Cluster (arapahoe, comanche, navaho, chief): 1992–1997: 26 megaflops
    CRAY 1-A: 1977–1989: 80 megaflops
    CRAY X-MP/48: 1986–1990: 55 megaflops per processor (220 megaflops for the whole computer)
    CRAY Y-MP8/864 (shavano): 1990–1997: 1 gigaflop
    CRAY C90 (antero): 1996–1999: 5.2 gigaflops
    The IBM SP RS/6000 (blackforest): 1999–2005: 237 gigaflops
    IBM p690 (bluesky): 2002–present: 8.32 teraflops

  • Cell Phone Vibrations VS. Ringtones; Why Does a Cell Phone Always Vibrate Before It Rings?

    Have you ever noticed, that when I a cell phone is set to vibrate and ring at the same time, that it will vibrate before it rings?  It could be that the electric signal inside the phone is sent at the same time, but since the vibration is mechanical, it happens immediately, but the ring tone has to be accessed from a drive which has read-times that are slower than than the vibration.  What do you think?  It seems to happen on all models.

  • Speed Up Your PC by Moving the Paging File and Print Spoolers to Another Drive

    This only works if you have another physical drive to move it to:

    Moving the Paging File

    1. In Control Panel, double-click System.
    2. Click the Advanced tab.
    3. Click Settings under Performance.
    4. Click the Advanced tab, and then click Change under Virtual Memory.
    5. Select the new drive that you want to use to store the paging file.
    6. Set Initial Size (MB) and Maximum size. For the initial size, Microsoft recommends that you use the recommended value in the Total Page File Size for All Drives box.
    7. Click Set, and then click OK twice.
    8. Click Restart Now.

    Moving the Default Spool Directory for All Printers

    This procedure applies a new default spool directory to all printers that are configured on this computer.

    1. In Control Panel, double-click Printers and Faxes.
    2. On the File menu, click Server Properties, and then click the Advanced tab.
    3. In the Spool Folder box, type the path that you want to use, and then click OK.

    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314105

  • Unix 2038 Date Problem

    There is a Unix date problem!

    What?!

    In case you weren’t aware of the Unix 2038 problem, on Unix, 2038 will roll over to 1970 as things are currently set up. As Unix vendors move to support 64 bits, this problem will disappear.

    Why?

    UNIX stores time as seconds since January 1, 1970 (the 32 bit representation overflows in early 2038).

    When?

    Most 32bit Unix implementations will fail at 3:14:08 AM (GMT) on January 19, 2038.

    Oh!

    There’s that weirdness surrounding the leap-year-day in 2000. Fun stuff.

    hee hee.

    Oliver O. Fross

    Last Updated:06/19/2003 18:48:54

    Time Travelers

    John Titor, a time traveler from the future that visited us in the past, references the 2038 Unix date problem as his reason for traveling.

  • Cabling Conundrums – Megabit VS. Gigabit Ethernet Cables

    What’s the difference between Megabit (Cat 3-5) and Gigabit (Cat 5e-7) unsheilded twisted pair ethernet cabling?  It uses the same wires and the same connections, so why is it faster?
     
    It comes down to how tightly the wires are twisted.  The more twists, the less electromagnetic interference.  The less electromagnetic interference, the less packets get damaged.  The less packets get damaged, the less packets have to be resent.  The less packets that have to be resent, the faster the network can run.  One third of all network traffic is the header of the packet, one third is the contents, and one third is the footer.  If the header doesn’t match the footer, the packet is damaged and needs to be resent.  You can see how this would slow down the network (and speed it up without it).

  • Attach a Router to another Router Successfully

    How do you connect a router to another router?  The ethernet cable connection has to be a crossover cable (Type A on one side, Type B on the other) to connect inputs to outputs and vice versa.  You'd have to verify which type is currently being used, either cut off one of the heads and redo it opposite, or in the case of a jack, just repunch.
     
    Why would you do this?  You might want to extend the range of a wireless router by placing another wireless router at the end of an ethernet cable.  This cable, as mentioned above must be type A on one side and type B on the other, also known as a crossover cable.

  • Defining Generations

    Generations

    Sometimes it feel like the generations are getting smaller, or at least the names for the generations are getting named more often. A generation is generally defined as 20-30 years as this is the time it takes one person to grow up and have a new family. After Generation X (1961-1981) the names for generations began to take off. First there was Generation Y (1976-1997). In general, Generation Y is the offspring of Generation X, but since Generation X and Generation Y overlap by five years, both my older brother and I are both Generation X and Generation Y and our parents are part of neither generation. So what generation are my parents?

    My parents are Baby Boomers (1946-1964). Generation X, also known as Echo Boomers, Cold War Generation, or Baby Busters, is the offspring of Baby Boomers so by definition my brother and I are from Generation X even though we fall into the potential range of Generation Y. Because our parents were Baby Boomers (the 12th Generation of Americans), we are by default, Generation X (the 13th Generation of Americans). But if I am definitively Generation X, and by definition my children are Generation Y (1976-1997), I had my children seven years too late. So what generation are they and what went wrong?

    They are officially Generation Z (2001-2???). Did we skip a generation? Yes and no. To answer this question, we need to defined sub-generations. These are much more specific and this chart does a great job of explaining it. I am a member of either the Baby Busters (1960-1981) who are defined by experiencing Vietnam War/Cold War or a member of the MTV Generation / Boomerang Generation (1974-1985) defined by the Rise of Mass Media/End of the Cold War. Being that those generations overlap by 4 years, I am going to go with the MTV Generation because culturally, that is what I identify most with. What then, is the sub-generation of my parents?

    Even though my parents could be considered Baby Boomers, they themselves have never identified with that generation and so I think them better fit to be in Generation Jones (1951-1971) and within the sub-generation called Beat Generation. Beats are considered the first modern sub-culture, but my parents were not “Beats”. They are simply the lost generation between Baby Boomers and Generation Xers which probably highlights why I feel lost between Generation X and Generation Y. My children’s generation will probably be more defined due to better tracking with technology such as the Internet and the World Wide Web.

  • Technology That Has Changed My Life in the Last Decade

    Technology that has changed my life in the last decade (roughly in order by appearance):

    • camcorder
    • win 3.1
    • pop email
    • win 95
    • wwweb
    • geocities
    • hotmail
    • p2p file sharing
    • win xp
    • cell phone
    • dvd authoring
    • digital camera
    • web 2.0
    • win mce / dvr
    • gmail
    • cell phone camera
    • txt mesging
    • blogging from cell
    • gmail on cell
    • gmaps on cell
    • sms searching

    [Update 1/7/2012: This was written on April 20, 2007 so the time period is from 1997 to 2007.]

  • Maximum PC – May 2007 – Report

    Turn Your PC into Two Using Mojopac for $50

    This software clones your Windows installation onto an external hard drive (iPods included) and runs as if it is your other machine, because its using the same hardware, just a different hard drive. So what? Heres why it matters: you can install programs and keep files on this hard drive that are completely separate from your original machine. This means that you could go over to someone else’s machine, plug in, and pick up where you left off or be able to play games at work that you couldn’t install otherwise. Just pull the USB plug when you want to turn it off.

    Decrypt iTunes Music Using QTFairUse6 for Free

    To strip the DRM from your iTunes libray, download QTFairUse6 here. It only works with iTunes versions 7.02 or earlier and iTunes must be started and running before loading QTFairUse6. You can do one song or your entire library at once. Once converted, they may not play in all versions of iTunes, but you’ll be able to play them in any other AAC player.