Sunday, March 16, 2003

Source: [Archipelago]   Zen and the Art of Bugfixing: I am a happy man, and even though I had to pull out the enormous bulldozer of the scientific method, wait a week for some decent observations, and spend time pulling my hair out trying to figure it out on my own, my faith is unshaken and I stand victorious. * 3:25:33 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

Source: Simon Fell; 3/16/2003; 2:56:03 PM Tivo. Some handy Tivo hacking links. adding larger drives hardware bits from 9thTee Tivo hacking FAQ Newbie TiVo Hacker How-To Guide [Simon Fell] 3:16:48 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

Source: X-log; 3/15/2003; 6:06:51 PM. Drivel:  My HP PC laptop has a number of documented design flaws in addition to poor operating system (Windows XP Pro) and hardware integration, despite the fact that has a label on it stating "Designed for Microsoft Windows XP".  In a sentence, this is why I am switching to a Mac.  Here are some hard numbers that support my switch.  My HP laptop cut out on me roughly six times a week.  It takes me about ten minutes to recover each time it cut out on me.  Additionally, each time it cut out on me I lost an average of two hours of work.  I lost an hour a week due to actual power failure and thirteen hours of work.  This is 676 hours of lost productivity a year due to my laptop's inadequacies.  This translates into approximately $68,000 in lost revenue a year for my business.  Any questions?  The G4 PowerBook, that I have not yet purchased, has already paid for itself. I would hate to see someone target hardware and software integration as the primary issue of a productivity study.  If I am loosing $68,000 a year as a result of these fairly common issues, how much is Microsoft loosing a year?  How much are IBM, Dell, HP, and Gateway loosing a year?  Not to mention even larger companies like GE, Boeing, AT&T, and everyone else who uses PC laptops as their primary computing device.  The productivity loss numbers have got to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars.  This is hundreds of billions of dollars being lost (just pissed away) because someone wanted to get to market faster, beat the competition’s prices, or add a new feature that their market research departments said would increase sales by 15%. [X-log] One of the messages from the documented design flaws link above. I'm sad to say that I have this problem as well on a zt1180! I bought it in January and didn't really use the battery much because i'm always near an outlet. I went to use it on battery one day and poof! no power. Plugged it in and it was fine. unplugged AC power wile it was on and the whole thing shut off! I called support and they told me to run calibration by pressing F6 at bootup. I did that and I see a calibration menu, asking that I hit C to calibrate or s to skip. I press C and the unit shuts off and no charging indicator lights are lit. If I unplug it and plug it in, the charging light comes on. HP says there should be something that displays while the 4 hour calibration process happens. Has anyone else tried this and seen this mythical display? If so, i have to send this thing back for servce! 2:20:23 PM    trackback []     Articulate []