Erich Stauffer

Category: Technology

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Hope For Black Screens after Laptop Lid Closed and Reopend in Vista

    Dear NVIDIA Customer,

    On behalf of the NVIDIA Vista Quality Assurance team, we would like to thank you for your participation and assistance in improving our products.

    We are writing to let you know that there will be a new Windows Vista Beta driver release available to download from NVIDIA in the next few days. This is a new driver which will support GeForce 6, 7 and 8 series graphics boards; it does not support GeForce Go mobile GPUs. Please continue to check with your notebook manufacturer for a new driver for GeForce Go GPUs. GeForce FX users should continue to use the v96.85 driver.

    The Vista Quality Assurance homepage has up to the date information on when the driver will be available to download, so please continue to check this website: http://www.nvidia.com/object/vistaqualityassurance.html.

    Here is a summary of new features and bug fixes this new driver addresses:

    New Features

    • GeForce 7 series SLI support
    • GeForce 6 series SLI support
    • GeForce 7950 GX2 support (both GPUs are now operational)

    Key Bug Fixes

    • Improved OpenGL performance
    • Improved NVIDIA SLI performance at high resolutions
    • Brief corruption (flickering, boxes) on screen at Windows Vista login, CTR-ALT-DEL (Task Manager), or other function that requires Vista User Account Control
    • Playback issues when playing TV/DVD/video in Media Center with Aero enabled
    • Outputting via TV-Out shows only a black and white display
    • HDTV output does not keep HDTV resolution after restart
    • Adjusting Video Color settings from the NVIDIA Control Panel are not getting applied.
    • Change Flat Panel Scaling page does not correctly work in the NVIDIA Control Panel.
    • Brightness, Contrast and Gamma values remain the same in Adjust Desktop Color settings once closing and opening the NVIDIA Control Panel.
    • Corruption on DVI monitor while going to hibernation from standby
    • Call of Duty 2 has no performance gain when SLI is enabled
    • Madden NFL 07 while playing the screen will freeze, but the game will continue to run and you hear the in-game sounds.

    General application compatibility fixes

    • Products Supported
    • GeForce 8800 GTX/GTS
    • GeForce 7 series
    • GeForce 6 series

    When the driver is available, please view the driver Release Notes for a full list of bugs fixed, known driver issues, products supported, and operating system and application limitations. NVIDIA will continue to provide new drivers that will fix more known driver issues.