Since my new job is going to require me to commute roughly 30 miles to work every day, we’ve been looking at getting a second car.  Initially we thought we’d pick up something used and cheap…  But my father wanted us to get something solidly reliable.  So he’s giving us a chunk of cash to help pay for a new car.

I’m not real familiar with the whole “shopping for a new car” process…  We’ve only ever owned used cars and we’ve never had to do much bargaining or financing.  So I was kind of surprised.

We looked at a number of cars that claimed to “start at” $14,000 or so…  But once you’d added automatic transmission, cruise control, and air conditioning they were closer to $18,000.  And then we’d talk with a salesman and discover that the price on the manufacturer’s website was not what they were being sold for.

Very confusing.

Eventually we settled on the Kia Soul.  It’s got decent gas mileage, good safety rating, a couple consumer awards…  It comes with cruise control and power windows and all that good stuff…  It looks nice…  And it’s right around $16,000.

So then we started trying to make a purchase, and things got a little weird.  I didn’t realize just how quickly a dealer would sell you something that costs that much.  It seems to me that there should be more deliberation or something…

But they just took my information over the phone, ran some numbers, gave me a price, and they’re driving it over to me as I type this.  I should be signing papers and taking possession of our new car in just a couple hours.

So weird…

It seems to me that there are certain things every IT department ought to have on hand…

A few spare HDDs, an assortment of boot discs for various operating systems, a couple power supplies, a power supply tester, a multimeter…  Stuff like that seems pretty basic to me.

I’d also recommend that pretty much any IT department keep some duck tape and super glue on hand…  Maybe a soldering iron…  Some superglue…  A Dremel is always useful…

One of the major frustrations I’ve had with my current employer is that we never have the tools I need to get my job done.  I’m constantly improvising, or waiting for somebody to go buy something, or making-do without something.

Our backup server is a cruddy old system that’s been cobbled together from spare parts.  It’s got a cheap little SiI SATA controller in it…  An old Pentium processor…  512 MB RAM…  An old PSU with a bunch of molex-to-SATA converters…  And a pile of 1.5 TB SATA HDDs.

Over the weekend the RAID array died and didn’t want to come back up.

Initially I thought it was a couple failed disks, and I told my boss that.  Generally speaking, you’re supposed to keep a couple spare disks on-hand for just such an occasion…  But, of course, we didn’t have any spare disks.  Nor was my boss willing to go out and buy a couple 1.5 TB HDDs at our local Best Buy or Staples.  So, instead, I had to wait while they got in touch with Seagate and got an RMA issued.

In the mean time, I’ve changed my mind.  I’m now thinking that the problem may simply be how all these cables and adapters are crammed into the case.

I’ve noticed that the molex-to-SATA power adapters are a little touchy…  If I just bump the case it’s possible for one of them to come loose and take its pair of disks offline.  And, to be honest, the SATA cables themselves aren’t holding on very tightly either.

So I thought I might superglue the molex-to-SATA adapters in place, so that they couldn’t go anywhere…  And I thought that I might secure the SATA plugs with hot glue, which would be more secure, but ultimately removable…  Except that we have neither superglue nor hot glue here at the shop.

So I am once again waiting for parts to show up.

Which really isn’t as frustrating as it could be since I’m still waiting for the array to sync and the partition to fsck, so I couldn’t really shut everything down and glue it all together right now anyway.

But it’s still kind of galling.

My job has been to fix things that are broken, and I’m constantly stymied in that because I don’t have the tools I need.  Can you imagine calling a plumber to fix your broken sink…  Only to have him stand around, twiddling his thumbs while his buddy runs out to buy a wrench?

Obviously, that does happen from time to time…  You might have some weird fitting that isn’t very common, or they may have broken their wrench, or whatever…  But around here it is a weekly occurrence.  And not because we’re constantly running into strange fittings – but because we simply do not have very basic and common tools that we should have.

Laptops used to be a nightmare to work on.  Half the time the RAM was hardwired onto the motherboard…  And if it was possible to upgrade the RAM you’d have to virtually dismantle the laptop to get at it.

Things have gotten better over the last few years…  These days the RAM is generally accessable from a panel on the back of the laptop.  Just screw or two and you can swap out the RAM.

Usually the HDD and the wireless card are similarly easy to get at.  And the keyboard isn’t usually too hard to remove either.

We just got in an HP ProBook 4710s and I am absolutely amazed at how unfriendly this thing is.  It seems like they intentionally made it as difficult to work on as possible.

I needed to slave up the HDD to run some scans on it.  Normally this is very easy – just remove a screw or two and slide the drive out.

On this laptop, however, the HDD is hidden underneath the palm rest.

Firs you have to remove the switch panel…  Normally these things just kind of snap in place, but not this one.  This one is secured by seven screws.

Then you have to remove the keyboard, which is secured by two more screws.

Then you have to remove the palm rest, which is secured by three more screws.

Finally you can remove three more screws to get the HDD out.

Seriously, who designed this thing?

I had to stop using my Logitech MX 5000 cordless mouse…  Great mouse.  It’s been terrific for years.  But the response time just isn’t there for an FPS like the new AvP.

So I hooked up my old MX 510…  Which also served me very well back in its day.  But there was a reason I stopped using it and bought the 5000 in the first place.

The middle mouse button is very unreliable.  I have to click it two or three times before it registers a single click.  And the left mouse button is just plain flaky.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

So, it looks like I’m going to have to find myself a new mouse…  Something wired, with lots of buttons.  I wonder if they even sell wired mice anymore?

Looks like there’s been an update to the nook’s firmware.  I’m not entirely sure when it was released…  I’ve been too busy and too exhausted lately to do much more than crash in bed at the end of the day.  But there’s an update out, and it’s been downloaded and installed on my nook.

The first thing I noticed was a new GUI.  The buttons look more like buttons now…  Everything has a slightly rounded and contoured look to it.  Frankly, I liked the old style better.  The interface was much simpler.

There’s also the ability now to sort your “My Documents” section by author’s name or book’s title.  This is very handy because previously that section was sorted by file name, which wasn’t always helpful.

What I’d really like to see is the ability to organize my ebooks in some way – to be able to tag them, or sort them into folders, or something.

I’ve got roughly 150 books on my nook.  Some of those I’ve read, some of them I haven’t.  And I’d really like to get the read ones out of the way without removing them entirely.

With books purchased on the B&N website you can “archive” them…  This removes the book from your nook, but leaves it in your on-line library, so you can download it again.  And the book’s title on the nook gets grayed-out, so it is obvious that the book has been archived.

With the books that you add from other sources, however, there is no such functionality.  The ebooks all wind up in your “My Documents” section, and there’s no way to categorize them beyond simply sorting by title or author.

My nook has arrived.

It was a rather late delivery by UPS…  Despite the tracking information indicating that it was “out for delivery” I really didn’t think I’d be seeing it today.  But, here it is.

Showed up in a large, plain, brown cardboard box…  Which contained the nook retail packaging within.

The retail packaging has a nice, minimalist, Apple-ish feel to it.  Lots of clear plastic and textured white paper.  Very understated.

I registered it, plugged it into my computer…  It shows up as a generic USB device, no funky software to sync it or anything weird like that.  It immediately started downloading an update.

The 3G out here is about as bad as I figured it would be…  It shows a strong signal, but the speed is horrible.  Good think the nook has wi-fi.  I was quickly able to connect it to my WLAN and the update downloaded much faster.

The update, once it was downloaded, immediately applied itself – which I did not appreciate.  I was in the middle of poking through the menus and it just rebooted and started applying the update.  I would have liked to be asked permission first…  Or at the very least been warned about what was going to happen.

Another minor complaint is with the USB connector.  The nook itself does not have a  miniUSB plug…  It looks more like microUSB, but I’m not certain.  Which means I have to use the cable that shipped with the nook, and not one of the many miniUSB cables I already have.  This won’t be terribly inconvenient here at home…  But if I want to charge or sync my nook anywhere else I’ll need to remember the cable.

My final complaint is that the microSD cardslot isn’t nearly as accessible as I would like.  You have to remove the entire back panel…  Which seems vaguely flimsy and entirely too likely to break if removed too often.  And then the microSD cardslot itself is less of a slot than a flap…  The flap has to be flipped up, the card inserted, and then the flap flipped back down.  Again it seems to fragile for frequent use.  Obviously the intent is to put in an SD card and leave it there to increase storage capacity, and not to use card swapping as a way to sync the device.

We attempted to get some more Christmas shopping done over the weekend…  Went across the lake to see what they had to offer over there.

We stopped at a number of stores, but didn’t really come up with anything new.

We wound up at Barnes & Noble…  I got to try out their nook demo unit.  I was a little bit surprised.

The nook is smaller than I expected it to be.  All the videos and pictures I’ve seen on-line make it look larger than it really is.  It isn’t a whole lot bigger than a paperback novel…  The e-ink screen is probably about the same size as a normal novel’s page.

The LCD touchscreen at the bottom is very small – which really isn’t a bad thing.  After a few moments, when the LCD turns off, it basically ceases to exist.  It isn’t terribly noticeable at all.

The menu system on the LCD works much better than the e-ink menu system I saw on the Sony Readers.  And the LCD touchscreen is plenty responsive.  There is a definite pause after you select something…  But it really isn’t bad.

The nook felt very comfortable in my hand.  It had just enough weight to feel solid…  The back cover is curved slightly, to fit your hand.  And it’s got a vaguely rubberized texture on the back, which felt nice and grippy.

The e-ink display was very readable.  Just as readable as any printed page I’ve seen.  It isn’t quite black and white…  More of a charcoal on vaguely off-white…  But still very readable.

When opening a new book, the nook takes an awfully long time to “format” the book.  I’m not quite sure what it is doing…  Re-flowing the whole thing?  There was a good 30 seconds or more while the nook just sat there displaying a “formatting…” message.  I suppose this probably won’t be a big problem as I wouldn’t expect to be switching between books all that often…  But it was annoying.

I had a coupon for 10% off a single item, so I bought a cover/case for my nook.  It’s a simple leather cover, with a pocket inside to secure the nook, and an elastic band to hold the whole thing shut.  It vaguely resembles a moleskine notebook…  Kind of.

After actually getting to handle a nook I’m even more anxious for mine to arrive.  And more certain that I chose the correct device.  After handling the nook, I can’t imagine how the Kindle manages to keep that keyboard at the bottom from being obtrusive.  Either the Kindle has to be larger than the nook…  Or that keyboard has to be absolutely tiny.  Either way, I’m glad my nook won’t have that keyboard on the bottom.

Slashdot | B&N Nook Successfully Opened

A team has managed to open the Barnes and Noble Nook e-reader, gaining full access to the operating system. From the article: ‘The Nook is now a computer running a full Android operating system, with a built-in, free cellular connection to the internet. It also has a battery that lasts days, not hours.’ They are documenting their progress on the Nook Devs wiki.

I’m not exactly sure whether this is a good thing or not…

I mean, in the abstract, it’s pretty cool.  It’s always fun to see what a bunch of bored geeks can do with random hardware.

But I’m not sure there’s going to be a whole heck of a lot they can do with a nook.  From what I understand, the Android core had to be heavily modified to make use of the e-ink display.  And it doesn’t sound like standard Android apps are going to be able to work without a lot of coercion.  So I’m not sure exactly what opening up the device is going to do for people.

And, as a soon-to-be nook owner, I’m a little concerned about folks abusing the free 3G.  If these opened nooks wind up being used to pull down multiple gigs of data, it may very well wind up hurting owners of non-opened nooks.

Still, it is very cool and I’m anxious to see what comes of this.

Yesterday I was sent out on a call…  Which was probably the least-appropriate job I’ve ever been sent to.

I’ve been sent to fix printers, with absolutely no training in those printers, dozens of times.  I’ve drilled holes and strung wires all over the place, with no electrical or construction training.  I’ve gone out on all sorts of factory floors with no idea what kind of dangers might be lurking there, and no protective clothing.

But yesterday’s call takes the cake.

We got a call from a local company that we’ve done work for before.  One of their machines in the office had email problems or something, and we went and fixed it.  That’s the kind of work we’re actually trained to do.  That’s how we make our money.

But yesterday they had a “computer” that wouldn’t run.  I was told that the computer was located in a warehouse nearby…  But they couldn’t give me directions to the warehouse…  So I was going to meet some guy at a gas station and follow him over.

Alright, so I met the guy at the gas station and followed him…  We went up the road about a mile, took a couple turns, and came to a locked gate in a big fence – complete with barbed wire on top and lots of warning signs.  He got out of his truck, unlocked the gate, and locked it behind us.

Then we drove a little further…  And I realized where we were.  We were driving along-side the local airport’s runway.  About 30 feet or so from where planes were landing and taking off.

A little further up the road, we took a turn, and wound up at a metal building of some sort.  What I had been told was a warehouse was in fact a water treatment plant.  A metal building, roughly 50′ square, full of machinery.  Big pumps, pipes, fans, giant tanks…  All sorts of industrial equipment.

Needless to say, I was feeling a bit out of my depth.

He led me to the back of the building, where a large metal cabinet was located.  Attached to the front of the cabinet was a touchscreen computer.  I felt a momentary surge of relief when I saw that computer.

It’s a Windows system – I know this!

Then he opened up the cabinet and pointed at the “computer” that wouldn’t run…

Two racks worth of GE Fanuc 90-30 PLCs.

Which, incidentally, I know absolutely nothing about.

I have never programmed a PLC in my entire life.  I have no idea how these things work.  And they’re connected to millions of dollars worth of industrial equipment.  Equipment that is used to pump thousands of gallons of water around at terrifying pressures.  Equipment that, I’ve just been warned, can kill you.

These PLCs have a program in them, that is supposed to run, and a happy little light is supposed to come on when they’re running.  That program allows them to talk to the Windows machine, which is in turn running a touchscreen program to control the entire plant.  That little run light will not come on – which is why they’ve called me.

I poked around a bit in the cabinet…  Found all sorts of documentation and software…  But none of it meant anything at all to me.

I poked around a bit in the computer…  It was connected to the first rack of PLCs with an ethernet cable…  Seemed to be able to talk to them…  But I had no idea what any of the software did and I wasn’t about to start pushing random buttons.

Then my guide suggested that I could call the folks who did the original installation, maybe they’d be able to offer some helpful advice.

I was able to get in touch with the original installer – the very guy who programmed and installed all of this.  He was able to walk me through the process of connecting to the PLCs and reading the fault tables.  We were able to troubleshoot the issue and eventually get things running again.

It was a truly interesting process, and I learned an awful lot about how PLCs and industrial automation work.  But it was also very nerve wracking.  Especially when we were writing the new configuration to the PLCs…  And when they first threw the switch to turn it all back on…  I sincerely expected something to go horribly wrong.

I’m a geek, which means that I’ve been following the whole Google Android thing.  I really have no personal stake in it at the moment…  My phone is just some basic thing that makes calls and little else.  But I’m interested in technology and software and open source and whatnot…  So it’s been a subject of interest for me.

The first few Android phones looked a little rough.  But recently I’ve been seeing a new phone called the DROID advertised.  It looks like a fairly decent piece of hardware.  Maybe it could even give the iPhone a run for its money.  And Verizon is carrying it, which theoretically means that I could get one.  So I’ve been very interested in the DROID.

…until now, that is.

Slashdot | Verizon Droid Tethering Comes at a Hefty Price

Tom Bradley reports in PC World that the new Motorola Droid smartphone will cost users $199.99 with a 2-year contract, with an additional $30 per month for the mandatory ‘unlimited’ data plan that has a monthly cap of 5Gb. Verizon will charge $50 for each additional gigabyte over the 5Gb limit on the unlimited data plan. Verizon has confirmed that tethering will cost another $30 per month for an additional unlimited data plan that is also limited to 5Gb. If you want tethering you will pay $60 above and beyond the monthly contract for service for an ‘unlimited’ 10Gb of data per month, and if you plan on connecting with an Microsoft Exchange email account you have to pay another $15 a month. ‘Verizon seems to be doing everything it can to make the Droid as unappealing as possible by nickel and diming customers so that actually using it is not cost-effective,’ writes Bradley. ‘After all of the hype around Verizon’s marketing efforts, and generally favorable reviews of the Motorola Droid, users that rush out to get the new device may be in for a shock.’ Droid users will have to wait until sometime in 2010 for tethering. ‘That service is on our schedule for next year,’ says Verizon spokeswoman Brenda Raney. The delay is because ‘the service has to be tested on the phone so until we know it works, we don’t offer the service. It is not uncommon for us to introduce the phone and continue to test the service and offer it later.’

So…  I’d have to shell out $200 for the phone itself.  And then pay another $30/month for only 5 GB of data?  I’m not sure how much data one consumes on a phone…  But 5 GB doesn’t seem like much.  And if I want to tether it, that’s another $30/month?  And since that would be used on a computer I’m pretty sure I’d blow through that 5 GB cap pretty quickly.

That all seems a little draconian to me.  The whole point of a platform like Android is to blur the lines between the local device and the Internet.  To give it the same kind of always-on, unlimited mobile connectivity that the iPhone has.  The make the device more of a communication platform than a simple phone.

And what is with the extra $15/month for an Exchange account?  That’s just plain weird.  Does Exchange eat up extra bandwidth or something?  Does it require a special software package they don’t normally install?  Is it really that much more expensive to connect to an Exchange server than to a POP or IMAP server?

Well, needless to say, I am not impressed.