5 posts from 2006

I use SD Cards in my HP iPAQ Pocket PC and in my Canon PowerShot A520 digital camera.  The other day (which was a Wednesday), one of my SD cards failed.  I tried all kinds of ways to get it working again.  Luckily, I had copies of all the data on it, or I could easily re-download the stuff.  So then I decided to just re-format it.  That failed, too!

 

The error I got indicated that the card had a Bad Track 0.  That’s bad. 

So essentially the part of the card that tells where all the other data on the card is was broken.  I couldn’t get at any of the data on it and I couldn’t repair the card.  The card was dead – garbage.  I put a piece of tape over the connections and labeled it so I wouldn't accidentally try to use it.

 

There is something very important to note… All flash-based memory (flash cards, thumb drives, etc.) wears out.  The technology can only handle a certain amount of writes to the storage medium.  The good brands of flash memory do a better job, but all will eventually wear out.  In fact, many will evenly distribute the writes over the entire physical writable “surface” of the memory rather than re-using the same location over an over (if you delete a file from a card and then write it back to the card) so that one part of it won’t wear out prematurely.

 

Since it was garbage anyway, I decided to take it apart and see what it looked like inside.  It was a 512 MB SD card from SanDisk.  I got it about a year or two ago from a Best Buy store for about $40 after rebate.  Now you can get 4GB cards from places like newegg.com for about that price.  I’ve got a couple other cards, so I’ll probably wait before buying any more.  I plan to get a 4 or 8 GB card or two to hold movies for my iPAQ.  (I’ll discuss that on a future posting).

 

Anyway…

First, I took off the sticker in case there was anything under it.  There wasn’t.

Next, I just started bending it and found that it was creasing just past the lock switch.  Then it started splitting open.  It turns out the actual guts of the thing is less than half the size of the case!  I’m not sure if all SD cards (with different capacities) have the same size chip, but it’s now easy to understand how mini SD can have the same capacity as standard SD cards.

So now you know what the inside of an SD card looks like, without having to wreck one of your own!

Wanting to keep my blog up to date and not wanting to get into anything too serious...

I just picked up a few new CD's:

• Trivium - The Crusade
• Burden Brothers - Mercy
• Tenacious D - The Pick of Destiny

My friend, Sparky, told me about Trivium.  This is the first I've heard them.  Some of the songs sound like old Metallica (and other metal of that era) to me.  Other songs sound a lot newer, but it's all quite good!  They're technically very good musicians and much of their stuff would probably be considered speed/thrash metal, but the vocals are understandable and they have good, often pretty hooky melodies.

I haven't listened to the Burden Brothers one yet, but I heard and liked some of their other stuff.   Plus I was a fan of the Toadies.

I saw the trailer for the Tenacious D movie (after which the new CD is named) and in it, I only heard their older songs.  But this CD contains all new material.  Not as good as the other, self-titled, CD, but still pretty good.  Plus it was on sale so I figured I'd buy it and not be a douche and/or pirate stealing Jack and Kyle's Rocket Sauce! :)
In case you don't know what I'm talking about, view Jack Black's anti-piracy psa here.

Whenever I listen to new music (or see live music), I always feel like I should be practicing playing guitar more than I do.  By the way, I just saw Black Label Society live last week -- killer show.  Maybe I'll play some tonight.

'Till next time, Rock On!

The SysInternals utilities are still free and now even packaged up into a single download complete with help files!
Yea!
Get it here.

If you use Windows and consider yourself a "higher-level" user or hacker or geek (or would like to be), this is something you should look into.  The guys at SysInternals have been producing some great utilities for Windows for years.  A lot of these a diagnostic applications for troubleshooting or little tools that many people think should have been included in the operating system originally.  One of the best parts about SysInternals is that these utilities were free for anyone to download and use.

A few months ago, Microsoft purchased SysInternals and the geek community was immediately afraid that these tools would no longer be available (or at least not free).  However, Microsoft has apparently just packaged up the tools into a single free download and even included Help files making using the SysInternals tools even easier to use and more accessible to more Windows users.

I don't mean this blog to be all about politics, but... 'tis the season -- election day is tomorrow.

This is my letter to the editor that I sent in to the Des Moines Register.  If you read my last post you'll know why I'm also posting it here.  The Register hasn't printed a single letter to the editor in favor of Bill Northey, even though the editor panel selected him to endorse!  Anyway, here it is.:

I generally think of the Democrats as having the high moral ground over the Republicans.  I see the Republicans as bullies trying to limit our freedoms and make the rich richer and the poor poorer.   In contrast, the Democrats try to do what's right for the majority of the people.  They're the compassionate ones.   That's why I was so upset when I learned about the animal cruelty that took place on Denise O'Brien's farm.  In this election, when the Democrats have a good chance at putting some ethics back into government, I hope none of them try to defend Denise O'Brien and thus get drug down by her sinking ship.   On Tuesday, I'll be voting all "D's", except for the Secretary of Agriculture.

To all Iowans eligible to vote on Nov. 7, 2006:

Please vote for Bill Northey for Secretary of Agriculture on Tuesday.

For all other positions, vote as you must (personally I’ll be voting for mostly Democrats), but definitely vote for Bill Northey (who happens to be the Republican) for Secretary of Agriculture.

If you’re considering voting for Denise O’Brien (the Democrat) for the Secretary of Agriculture position, please re-consider voting for Bill Northey instead.  Here’s why:

Education:

Denise O’Brien has a high school diploma.  Bill Northey has a bachelor’s degree in Agribusiness from ISU and an MBA.

Farm Experience:

Bill is a 4^th generation family farmer from   He’s raised corn, soybeans, alfalfa, hogs, and cattle.  Denise has 15 acres on which she grows berries.  She also used to have some cattle.  She claims to be an organic farmer, but she’s technically not certified organic.

Leadership Experience:

Bill Northey was the president of the National Corn Growers Association.  “He served as Vice President, as Chairman of the Government Relations Committee, the Market Development Committee and the Ethanol Sub-Committee” (from his website).

Bill is also a Soil and Water Conservation Commissioner.  Denise has been a leader in the WFAN, which has fewer than 50 members nationwide.

Ethics:

In 1987 Denise’s husband, who she’s been farming with for 30 years according to her, was charged with animal cruelty for how they treated their cattle.  They starved several of their cows to death.  They had to pay a fine including a donation to an animal shelter.  Denise claims she was away and didn’t know that it was happening.  I know some cattle farmers and there’s no way they wouldn’t notice their cows starving to death for months before finally dying.  The organization she said she was working for while away, the WFAN, wasn’t even founded for seven years after the incident.  She also said there was a bridge out and they couldn’t get to the cows.  First, she only has 15 acres, plus the people that owned the land that the cows were on claim that there never was any such bridge.  Another excuse was that there was a draught that year.  However any farmer could tell you that the draught was in 1988, not 1987.

Priorities:

Bill’s top priority is renewable fuels, including ethanol, bio-diesel, and wind.  Bill wants to develop the renewable fuels industry to create more markets for farmers and more jobs for Iowans.  Denise’s top priority is diversifying the crops grown in .  She’s a self described radical whose vision for agriculture is to return to a pre-1920’s era where everyone had 5-10 acres of fruits and vegetables and raised free-range chickens. 

Common Sense:

Denise says she wants to push for “local control”.  However, the Secretary of Agriculture has no power to change this.  It’s up to the legislature.  Feel free to investigate the whole “Local control” issue yourself, since I’m no expert, but it does seem that it would complicate ’s agriculture, which is very important to our economy.  It also seems like it would make things difficult for farmers, especially those that have farmland that crosses county boundaries, since all the rules could change when a new county commissioner takes office (not to mention that the rules all across the state could end up varying drastically and would end up increasing the cost of farming).

Denise says we should diversify our crops in .  But the reason we grow corn and soybeans in such great quantities in is because this is a great place to grow them.  Because we can grow so much of it we can export it and feed people all around the world.  We then import the foods we don’t grow as well here.  This is the whole point of civilization and why cities originally formed.  The people that are the best at a specific thing focus on that thing and get even better at it and then trade with others.  Eventually we get bakers, blacksmiths, doctors, farmers, etc.  If everyone had to do everything for themselves we would throw away tens of thousands of years of advancement in human civilization.

It turns out that if we didn’t grow the quantities of the crops as we do in , millions of people around the world could starve.

The media:

The editors of the Des Moines Register appear to have a very anti-Republican agenda.  Since I’m a Democrat, you would think this wouldn’t offend me so much.  The Register has published many letters to the editor (10 so far) in favor of Denise and not a single one in favor of Bill.  I personally know of several people that have written letters in favor of Bill, including myself.  Several of the editors have also written columns in favor of Denise, even though they admit their ignorance about agriculture, which most any Iowan would instantly notice upon reading one of the articles.

Even with all of this bias, the Register as a whole has endorsed Bill Northey since he is simply undeniably the better candidate and will help us grow our renewable fuels infrastructure in this critical time.

If you would like to discuss any of these points, and you know me, please call me.
Thanks.