One of the onerous jobs one has when running a blog like this is "moderating" comments. I USED to have an "open door" policy about comments - anyone, including "anonymous", could post anything they wanted.
Unfortunately, some users abused this trust by planting "comment spam"on my site, so I had to take the unpleasant, (but necessary), step of forbidding any hyperlinks on my site(s). For a more detailed explanation of this, please see my earlier posting We Interrupt This Blog For An Important Announcement.
I don't know why, maybe people don't read the BIG disclaimer prior to creating a post, or maybe it's a part of their signature, but I still get comments with embedded hyperlinks. To make matters worse, Blogger will not let me edit comments. Period. Even if it's only to X-out a few %$#@!'s here or there.
This puts me in the unpleasant position of having to delete comments that might otherwise contain useful content, simply because they contain active hyperlinks.
So, please hearken to my plea:
If you want to get comments approved, don't include hyperlinks!
What say ye?
Jim (JR)
Tuesday, August 27, 2222
Sunday, February 19, 2017
HP OfficeJet Pro 6975
How to clear a Printer Failure 0x6100004a
Greetings!
Today I had an interesting experience with a (relatively) new Hewlett-Packard OfficeJet Pro 6975 Multi-Function Printer. I encountered a strange "Printer Failure 0x6100004a" error. Since extensive research online didn't disclose a fix, I decided it was time for another QA Tech-Tip!
Issue:
When I attempted to print something today, I received a "Paper Jam" message instructing me to remove the back panel and/or the AutoDuplexer attachment and clear a paper jam. After verifying that there was no paper jam, and that paper was loaded, (as sometimes if the paper pick-up rollers miss a sheet, it reads as a paper jam), I dismissed the error.
It is interesting to note at this point that the OfficeJet Pro 6975 doesn't have either a removable back panel or a removable "auto-duplexer". Maybe it's time for a firmware update to the on-screen error messages?
The printer then threw a "Printer Failure 0x6100004a" message, instructing me to turn off the printer and then turn it back on again. Of course, "If this error persists, please contact HP".
The characteristics of this issue are as follows:
What appears to be happening, (at least this is what the chat representative at HP told me), is that - for whatever reason - the printer gets "stuck" in a "paper-jam" mode and can't get out. This makes the printer think that it has encountered a hard failure. It stamps its feet, has a tantrum, and refuses to play.
Here's the fix:
At this point, you are just about to do what HP calls a "Semi-Full" reset. When you press the "OK" button, you will reset any customizations you have made to the printer - in essence nuking it back to the Stone Age - and once you press it, it takes effect immediately!
Go ahead and ask me how I know. I was repeating these steps for the sake of this article, I got to the final "OK", and pressed it to see what the confirmation prompt would be. Guess what? There wasn't one! All the printer's setup that I had laboriously restored prior to writing this article, gone!
When you perform the Semi-Full reset you:
(I sure hope you have your settings written down!)
Are you ready?
Go ahead and press "OK". . . . . .
The printer may make a noise, (or it might not), it will appear to "hang" for about thirty seconds or so, and then it will turn off.
When you turn it back on, you will be confronted with the HP logo for a moment or two, and then you will be brought to the language setup screen, where you will begin configuring the printer as if it were brand-new, right out of the box, all over again.
You might be tempted to "restore" a saved settings file you might have for this printer. I'd recommend against it - you're trying to clear out the cruft, remember? Who knows what odd-ball cruft might be hiding in that file?
Once this is done, the printer should be printing again, and you should be a Happy Camper!
Update: 01/15/2018
This error appears to be caused when the printer cannot pick up a sheet of paper, throws a paper-jam error, and the error is not resolved after several retries.
The USUAL culprit is a legitimate misfeed - the paper wasn't picked up by the paper pickup roller. And what usually happens is that you go thorough the whole "paper-jam" drill, open up everything, re-seat the paper, etc. etc. etc. - and you end up with a working printer.
You can try the following to convince your printer to play nice:
In many cases the paper misfeed is a temporary occurrence, and a reset usually clears up the problem.
If it still isn't behaving itself after a few resets, then maybe you need to call HP.
Observations? Comments? Post 'em below!
Thanks for watching.
Jim (JR)
Today I had an interesting experience with a (relatively) new Hewlett-Packard OfficeJet Pro 6975 Multi-Function Printer. I encountered a strange "Printer Failure 0x6100004a" error. Since extensive research online didn't disclose a fix, I decided it was time for another QA Tech-Tip!
Issue:
When I attempted to print something today, I received a "Paper Jam" message instructing me to remove the back panel and/or the AutoDuplexer attachment and clear a paper jam. After verifying that there was no paper jam, and that paper was loaded, (as sometimes if the paper pick-up rollers miss a sheet, it reads as a paper jam), I dismissed the error.
It is interesting to note at this point that the OfficeJet Pro 6975 doesn't have either a removable back panel or a removable "auto-duplexer". Maybe it's time for a firmware update to the on-screen error messages?
The printer then threw a "Printer Failure 0x6100004a" message, instructing me to turn off the printer and then turn it back on again. Of course, "If this error persists, please contact HP".
The characteristics of this issue are as follows:
- The printer throws a "paper jam" error even though there is no paper jam present.
- Clearing the error by pressing "OK" on the front panel display ultimately ends up with a "Printer Failure 0x6100004a" message, at which point the printer will not do anything else.
- Attempting to shut-down the printer may cause it to hang at the "shutting down" screen.
- "Resetting" the printer by the usual "user-mode" methods such as turning it off-and-on, disconnecting power, applying power with the "Power" button pressed, etc. does no good.
What appears to be happening, (at least this is what the chat representative at HP told me), is that - for whatever reason - the printer gets "stuck" in a "paper-jam" mode and can't get out. This makes the printer think that it has encountered a hard failure. It stamps its feet, has a tantrum, and refuses to play.
Here's the fix:
- With the printer on, and stuck in this error, return to the "Home" screen somehow. You will probably have to "OK", "Hide", or whatever your way back to the "Home" screen.
- Find the "Back" button. It's in the lower-left corner, just outside the visible area of the front panel's screen. If you can't find it, just touch something, (like "Copy Document"), on the home screen and it will light up. Once you find it, press it to go back to the home screen.
- Even though it is not lit, press it four times in succession. You should be rewarded with a blank screen with "Support Menu" at the top. Getting it to happen can be a bit tricky as the taps have to be right on the button, even though dark, and there's a certain technique to it. If you don't get the support menu right away, take a deep breath and keep trying.
- Once you get to the "Support Menu", tap on the words "Support Menu" at the top of the front panel display to enter the Support menu. Once you do this, you should see something like "Support MCP2C11234ABC" on two lines.
- At the bottom of the screen you will see a big "X" in the lower left, a left bracket "<" a right bracket ">", and the word "OK" on a blue background.
- Press the right bracket ">" twice until you see "Resets Menu". If you accidentally hit the left bracket, or hit the right bracket too many times, keep pressing it, it will eventually wrap-around and bring you to the "Resets Menu".
- Select "OK, and you will see "Country/Language reset". Press the right bracket and you will see "Partial Reset". Pressing it again will bring you to the "Semi-Full reset" prompt.
ATTENTION!
At this point, you are just about to do what HP calls a "Semi-Full" reset. When you press the "OK" button, you will reset any customizations you have made to the printer - in essence nuking it back to the Stone Age - and once you press it, it takes effect immediately!
Go ahead and ask me how I know. I was repeating these steps for the sake of this article, I got to the final "OK", and pressed it to see what the confirmation prompt would be. Guess what? There wasn't one! All the printer's setup that I had laboriously restored prior to writing this article, gone!
When you perform the Semi-Full reset you:
- Reset most, if not all, of the internal states and registers of the printer.
(This is the step you want, as it clears the paper-jam state.) - It will also reset the printer's
- Language
- Region
- Paper size/type
- Network settings (both wired and WiFi)
- Fax settings, including auto-answer, fax ID and number, possibly including the phone book, junk fax blocking, etc. I don't use the phone book or junk fax settings, so I don't know if they get nuked. I would expect them to be nuked though.
- HP Web Connect and any other on-line services like "instant ink"
- Internal printer settings like print-head alignment.
- And maybe a few others I don't remember.
(I sure hope you have your settings written down!)
Are you ready?
Go ahead and press "OK". . . . . .
The printer may make a noise, (or it might not), it will appear to "hang" for about thirty seconds or so, and then it will turn off.
When you turn it back on, you will be confronted with the HP logo for a moment or two, and then you will be brought to the language setup screen, where you will begin configuring the printer as if it were brand-new, right out of the box, all over again.
You might be tempted to "restore" a saved settings file you might have for this printer. I'd recommend against it - you're trying to clear out the cruft, remember? Who knows what odd-ball cruft might be hiding in that file?
Once this is done, the printer should be printing again, and you should be a Happy Camper!
Update: 01/15/2018
This error appears to be caused when the printer cannot pick up a sheet of paper, throws a paper-jam error, and the error is not resolved after several retries.
The USUAL culprit is a legitimate misfeed - the paper wasn't picked up by the paper pickup roller. And what usually happens is that you go thorough the whole "paper-jam" drill, open up everything, re-seat the paper, etc. etc. etc. - and you end up with a working printer.
You can try the following to convince your printer to play nice:
- Remove the paper and make sure it's not unusually slick or slippery.
- Look for anything that might cause sheets of paper to "hang" or stick to each other, like humidity, dampness, something sticky on it, a dented edge, etc.
- "Fan" the stack of paper by holding it up on it's edge and running your thumb through it causing all the pages to flippppppp like a fan.
- Try turning the stack over.
- Change the paper, or - if the printer's getting low - add more.
In many cases the paper misfeed is a temporary occurrence, and a reset usually clears up the problem.
If it still isn't behaving itself after a few resets, then maybe you need to call HP.
Observations? Comments? Post 'em below!
Thanks for watching.
Jim (JR)
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
How to remove "For Other Computer" from your rules
Surprisingly, it's easier than you think!
Outlook is a great little e-mail client with a rich feature-set, and I have been using it for many, many, many, years.
Like any piece of software, it does have its little quirks and the occasional speed-bump that you have to deal with. For example, migrating your user settings isn't as straightforward as you might expect.
Another little quirk comes when you migrate your rules: It's not uncommon to migrate rules from one machine to another and then discover that - at least some - rules have "For Other Computer" appended to the rule name.
What's even more annoying is that there appears to be no way to remove it.
Since this has been annoying me for a while now, I decided to search The Usual Fountains Of Wisdom on the internet. Surprisingly, no one seems to have addressed this specific issue. Since there are any number of postings on various fora asking this question, and since it is so easy to fix, I decided "It's Article Time!"
Part of the problem is that the vast majority of the Fountains Of Wisdom assume (!!) that if you're using Outlook, you are using it with an Exchange Server. And yes, Outlook is uniquely qualified to work with Microsoft's Exchange Server hosted e-mail. However that's not the only way it can be used, as it works equally well with Pop/SMTP or IMAP mail servers, and it appears that a great many people use it that way. Including your Fearless Article Author; as I have been using it as a Pop/SMTP mail client for years and years, and years.
Why does this happen?
One of Windows' many features is that it can be set up in such a way that users can log in from different machines and still see the same basic configuration. This is done by use of what is called a "Roaming" profile. These are settings that are linked to the user, instead of the machine, and are commonly used in a remote access / Terminal Server type environment. By using the Windows Roaming Profile, a particular user can use any number of different workstations connected to the same server and see the same configuration each time.
A great example of this is a doctor's office, where there are computer terminals in each treatment room, and another computer in the doctor's actual office itself. In this case, using roaming profiles, the doctor can go from treatment room to treatment room, always seeing the configuration that he's most comfortable with.
What about e-mail? In this case, there may be a difference. While the doctor may wish to view, and perhaps even answer e-mails from any terminal in any one of the treatment rooms, he may want to segregate certain - possibly confidential - e-mail messages so that they download and are stored only on his office computer, instead of any open terminal he may be at.
This is done by setting a special attribute - "On This Computer Only" - when creating a rule. With this attribute, a particular rule will only be run when the doctor is at the specially designated computer located behind locked doors in his office. A rule like this can take potentially sensitive e-mails and store them off-line on a local system instead of allowing them to be spread all over the network
One of Outlook's quirks is that if Outlook is not being used with an Exchange Server, it "automagically" assumes that any rule created should be valid only on the computer that created it. To accomplish this, Outlook automatically sets this attribute for any rule created on a computer that uses Outlook as a stand-alone e-mail client.
Sounds reasonable, right? Exactly right - until you decide to migrate Outlook, or your rules, to another computer! At this point, Outlook assumes that any imported rule is not valid on the machine it was moved to, causing rules to silently "break" because they're not being executed on the new machine. Not only do they not execute, they don't tell you they're not being executed - because Outlook "assumes" (!!) that they will be executed on the machine that originally created them. If you're migrating Outlook to a new/different system, you're probably taking Outlook off-line on the old one, so that assumption may not be valid.
Once you do this, you find rules labled "For Other Computer", indicating Outlook believes that they are not valid on the machine you're using them on!
So, how do we fix this?
There is, probably, a Registry Setting somewhere that turns off this "feature", though I have not found it yet.
The other way is to open the Rules Manager, go to each affected rule, and un-select "On This Computer Only".
Once you do this, and save the edited rule, you will notice that the "For Other Computer" designation has been removed.
You repeat this for every rule you have with "For Other Computer" next to it. If you have a lot of rules, I can't tell you how to do this in bulk, but - at the very least - it can be done.
And, since it is such a simple fix, I am surprised that no one else has mentioned it!
Well, it's been mentioned now - and I hope you find it useful.
What say ye?
Jim (JR)
Like any piece of software, it does have its little quirks and the occasional speed-bump that you have to deal with. For example, migrating your user settings isn't as straightforward as you might expect.
Another little quirk comes when you migrate your rules: It's not uncommon to migrate rules from one machine to another and then discover that - at least some - rules have "For Other Computer" appended to the rule name.
What's even more annoying is that there appears to be no way to remove it.
Since this has been annoying me for a while now, I decided to search The Usual Fountains Of Wisdom on the internet. Surprisingly, no one seems to have addressed this specific issue. Since there are any number of postings on various fora asking this question, and since it is so easy to fix, I decided "It's Article Time!"
Part of the problem is that the vast majority of the Fountains Of Wisdom assume (!!) that if you're using Outlook, you are using it with an Exchange Server. And yes, Outlook is uniquely qualified to work with Microsoft's Exchange Server hosted e-mail. However that's not the only way it can be used, as it works equally well with Pop/SMTP or IMAP mail servers, and it appears that a great many people use it that way. Including your Fearless Article Author; as I have been using it as a Pop/SMTP mail client for years and years, and years.
Why does this happen?
One of Windows' many features is that it can be set up in such a way that users can log in from different machines and still see the same basic configuration. This is done by use of what is called a "Roaming" profile. These are settings that are linked to the user, instead of the machine, and are commonly used in a remote access / Terminal Server type environment. By using the Windows Roaming Profile, a particular user can use any number of different workstations connected to the same server and see the same configuration each time.
A great example of this is a doctor's office, where there are computer terminals in each treatment room, and another computer in the doctor's actual office itself. In this case, using roaming profiles, the doctor can go from treatment room to treatment room, always seeing the configuration that he's most comfortable with.
What about e-mail? In this case, there may be a difference. While the doctor may wish to view, and perhaps even answer e-mails from any terminal in any one of the treatment rooms, he may want to segregate certain - possibly confidential - e-mail messages so that they download and are stored only on his office computer, instead of any open terminal he may be at.
This is done by setting a special attribute - "On This Computer Only" - when creating a rule. With this attribute, a particular rule will only be run when the doctor is at the specially designated computer located behind locked doors in his office. A rule like this can take potentially sensitive e-mails and store them off-line on a local system instead of allowing them to be spread all over the network
One of Outlook's quirks is that if Outlook is not being used with an Exchange Server, it "automagically" assumes that any rule created should be valid only on the computer that created it. To accomplish this, Outlook automatically sets this attribute for any rule created on a computer that uses Outlook as a stand-alone e-mail client.
Sounds reasonable, right? Exactly right - until you decide to migrate Outlook, or your rules, to another computer! At this point, Outlook assumes that any imported rule is not valid on the machine it was moved to, causing rules to silently "break" because they're not being executed on the new machine. Not only do they not execute, they don't tell you they're not being executed - because Outlook "assumes" (!!) that they will be executed on the machine that originally created them. If you're migrating Outlook to a new/different system, you're probably taking Outlook off-line on the old one, so that assumption may not be valid.
Once you do this, you find rules labled "For Other Computer", indicating Outlook believes that they are not valid on the machine you're using them on!
So, how do we fix this?
There is, probably, a Registry Setting somewhere that turns off this "feature", though I have not found it yet.
The other way is to open the Rules Manager, go to each affected rule, and un-select "On This Computer Only".
Once you do this, and save the edited rule, you will notice that the "For Other Computer" designation has been removed.
You repeat this for every rule you have with "For Other Computer" next to it. If you have a lot of rules, I can't tell you how to do this in bulk, but - at the very least - it can be done.
And, since it is such a simple fix, I am surprised that no one else has mentioned it!
Well, it's been mentioned now - and I hope you find it useful.
What say ye?
Jim (JR)
Thursday, September 17, 2015
OOPS! - When disaster strikes
Safely removing large USB Flash Drives (Part 5 of a Series)
Hello again!
Everyone has, and loves, the USB flash drives, (also known as "thumb-drives" or "keychain drives"), because they are both small in size, and (relatively), massive in capacity.
Right now, 128 gigabyte flash drives are common, and I wold not be surprised if 256 gig flash drives are available when I make my next visit to Micro Center.
And this is good. I can pick up an entire copy of either my, or my wife's e-mail store and move it from one machine to another - sans network. Likewise, I can go visit a client and carry what used to be a whole briefcase of CD's and DVD's in my pocket. I can even place entire operating systems on relatively small flash media - I have a 16 gig thumb-drive that can cold-boot any one of eight different Linux images, (four different versions, in both 32 and 64 bit), of Mint 17.1.
And so on. . . . .
We all know to "safely remove", (unmount / eject), the flash-drive before we just yank it out, to prevent the data from being scrambled. We do the "safety dance" routine, and remove our media, confident that by the time the little task-bar pop-up comes along, we're golden. Right?
Ahhh. . . Not really. . . .
You see, it's not that simple anymore. Especially with flash drives.
Long ago the computer's "silicon" - processing chips - became faster than the hard drives. To reduce hard drive latency and I/O bottlenecks, operating systems implemented a policy of "Lazy" writes, and cached data.
What this means is that the operating system would allocate a fairly large chunk of memory as a very fast buffer for frequently used data. Windows would read and write to the memory buffer and then - later on when things weren't so crazy - it would write any changes made back to the hard drive. So when the computer was "busy" - refreshing the screen, or doing something complicated - it would postpone refreshing the disk until it was finished and waiting for you to do something like typing or moving the mouse.
However. . . .
As I mentioned in a previous article - The 2000 Gigabyte Gorilla - hard drives themselves began implementing a "lazy write" technology to help ease the I/O burden. Fast cache memory on the drive makes the drive look faster than it really is. The result is that the hard drive would report success before the data was actually and truly written.
Oops!
So. . . . The operating system people and the hard drive people got together and implemented a new hard drive command - flush data - which is supposed to absolutely, positively, guarantee that any changed data was written before the "success" signal was received.
The whole idea behind "safely remove", (or "shutdown"), is that the user's command to remove the media, (or shutdown the computer), would force a data cache flush to the physical drive platters, updating everything before the drive was removed, guaranteeing consistent data on the drive.
However, as the author of the article, How important is the hard drive cache? mentions, the things that make this true for actual, physical, hard drives are no longer true for NAND / NOR flash memory drives.
Double oops!
The wherefore behind the "why" in all of this is due to the way flash memory works.
When the flash drives were small - measured in megabytes, or even small numbers of gigabytes - this time lag was not really a problem because the actual size of the memory array was small enough so that this overhead was not noticeable. Now that flash drives have become hundreds and hundreds of gigabytes in size, the overhead for writing - and the associated time lag - can become huge, even when measured by human time standards.
What this all adds up to is that the operating system - and this includes Windows, OS/X, and Linux - can no longer reliably predict when the flash media has been fully updated, and the "safe to remove" prompt may not be true anymore.
So far, (as far as I can tell), the ONLY way you can tell if the flash drive is really ready to be removed is to watch the activity LED and wait for it - eventually - to stop. And that might not even be long enough, as I have seen the LED on a flash drive flash and stop on a "remove" command, and then suddenly re-start just as I was about to remove it.
The result of all of this, is that unless you are very, very careful when removing flash media, you can inadvertently end up with a corrupted flash drive.
What say ye?
Jim (JR)
Everyone has, and loves, the USB flash drives, (also known as "thumb-drives" or "keychain drives"), because they are both small in size, and (relatively), massive in capacity.
Right now, 128 gigabyte flash drives are common, and I wold not be surprised if 256 gig flash drives are available when I make my next visit to Micro Center.
And this is good. I can pick up an entire copy of either my, or my wife's e-mail store and move it from one machine to another - sans network. Likewise, I can go visit a client and carry what used to be a whole briefcase of CD's and DVD's in my pocket. I can even place entire operating systems on relatively small flash media - I have a 16 gig thumb-drive that can cold-boot any one of eight different Linux images, (four different versions, in both 32 and 64 bit), of Mint 17.1.
And so on. . . . .
We all know to "safely remove", (unmount / eject), the flash-drive before we just yank it out, to prevent the data from being scrambled. We do the "safety dance" routine, and remove our media, confident that by the time the little task-bar pop-up comes along, we're golden. Right?
Ahhh. . . Not really. . . .
You see, it's not that simple anymore. Especially with flash drives.
Long ago the computer's "silicon" - processing chips - became faster than the hard drives. To reduce hard drive latency and I/O bottlenecks, operating systems implemented a policy of "Lazy" writes, and cached data.
What this means is that the operating system would allocate a fairly large chunk of memory as a very fast buffer for frequently used data. Windows would read and write to the memory buffer and then - later on when things weren't so crazy - it would write any changes made back to the hard drive. So when the computer was "busy" - refreshing the screen, or doing something complicated - it would postpone refreshing the disk until it was finished and waiting for you to do something like typing or moving the mouse.
However. . . .
As I mentioned in a previous article - The 2000 Gigabyte Gorilla - hard drives themselves began implementing a "lazy write" technology to help ease the I/O burden. Fast cache memory on the drive makes the drive look faster than it really is. The result is that the hard drive would report success before the data was actually and truly written.
Oops!
So. . . . The operating system people and the hard drive people got together and implemented a new hard drive command - flush data - which is supposed to absolutely, positively, guarantee that any changed data was written before the "success" signal was received.
The whole idea behind "safely remove", (or "shutdown"), is that the user's command to remove the media, (or shutdown the computer), would force a data cache flush to the physical drive platters, updating everything before the drive was removed, guaranteeing consistent data on the drive.
However, as the author of the article, How important is the hard drive cache? mentions, the things that make this true for actual, physical, hard drives are no longer true for NAND / NOR flash memory drives.
Double oops!
The wherefore behind the "why" in all of this is due to the way flash memory works.
- Flash memory is organized into "read blocks", larger "write blocks" which are groups of many read blocks, and huge "erase blocks" which contain a very large number of write blocks.
- "Read blocks" are tiny blocks of data that you can read whatever and whenever you want.
- "Write blocks" are large groups of "read blocks". To write even the smallest amount of data, you have to read and modify the entire write block, copy it to an unused space within its local erase block, and mark the old write block as "dirty" (unusable until erased). Once a write block has been written to, it cannot be reclaimed and re-written until the entire erase block is purged. The only thing you can do is mark it "dirty" and try to find another unused write block. If you have a lot of data to copy, you do this write block by write block, over and over again.
- "Erase blocks" are gigantic groups of write blocks. If there are no free write blocks within the existing erase block, you have to copy the entire erase block to a free area, (an entirely empty erase block), with the new data included - and then erase the entire old area, since you can't erase anything smaller than an entire "erase block".
When the flash drives were small - measured in megabytes, or even small numbers of gigabytes - this time lag was not really a problem because the actual size of the memory array was small enough so that this overhead was not noticeable. Now that flash drives have become hundreds and hundreds of gigabytes in size, the overhead for writing - and the associated time lag - can become huge, even when measured by human time standards.
What this all adds up to is that the operating system - and this includes Windows, OS/X, and Linux - can no longer reliably predict when the flash media has been fully updated, and the "safe to remove" prompt may not be true anymore.
So far, (as far as I can tell), the ONLY way you can tell if the flash drive is really ready to be removed is to watch the activity LED and wait for it - eventually - to stop. And that might not even be long enough, as I have seen the LED on a flash drive flash and stop on a "remove" command, and then suddenly re-start just as I was about to remove it.
The result of all of this, is that unless you are very, very careful when removing flash media, you can inadvertently end up with a corrupted flash drive.
What say ye?
Jim (JR)
Thursday, February 12, 2015
OOPS! - When disaster strikes
Do-It-Yourself Anti Static Spray (Part 4 of a series)
Hello again!
As I am sure you all know, this is the time of year for snowy evenings, hot-chocolate by the fireplace, warm cookies, soft music, and Static Electricity!
I am also sure that anyone who has been within 500 feet of anything electronic knows that Static Electricity is a Bad Thing, for more reasons than three.
Likewise, there are a number of companies who make special "Anti-Static Sprays", all neatly bottled in colorful packaging, ready for your use. No to mention that they use about five cents worth of materials and charge you Serious Bucks per bottle/can/whatever.
So, what's a poor sod supposed to do? Make your own!
It's almost as easy as falling out of bed, and costs just slightly more than that - not counting the hospital bills. . .
You will need:
There you are! You are now equipped to handle the Static Electric Demon, and do it on the cheap!
What say ye?
Jim (JR)
p.s. No animals were used during the testing of this Tech Tip, and it is safe for the Ozone Layer too.
As I am sure you all know, this is the time of year for snowy evenings, hot-chocolate by the fireplace, warm cookies, soft music, and Static Electricity!
I am also sure that anyone who has been within 500 feet of anything electronic knows that Static Electricity is a Bad Thing, for more reasons than three.
Likewise, there are a number of companies who make special "Anti-Static Sprays", all neatly bottled in colorful packaging, ready for your use. No to mention that they use about five cents worth of materials and charge you Serious Bucks per bottle/can/whatever.
So, what's a poor sod supposed to do? Make your own!
It's almost as easy as falling out of bed, and costs just slightly more than that - not counting the hospital bills. . .
You will need:
- A spray bottle of some kind. An old Window Cleaner bottle, a small trigger-pump bottle, or whatever you have laying around.
I bought a small, 12 oz plant spray bottle awhile back for a couple of bucks, and have been using it over and over and over again for years and years and years. If you notice your bottle begins to collapse inward on itself as you use it, adding a couple of small pin-holes at the top will help prevent that. - A jug of the absolutely cheapest fabric softener you can buy.
The no-name, lemon scented, bargain brand is more than sufficient, so don't waste your money on the stuff with the fancy packaging, fluffy towels, and baby-bottoms on it. You will probably end up with a gallon jug of the stuff, and depending on how much spray you make, it will likely last for a loooong long time. If your "better half" already uses fabric softener for the laundry, mooch some of that. - Some clean, (demineralized), water.
If you have nice soft water where you are, tap water is just fine. If your water has a lot of minerals in it, use cheap drinking water, or get distilled water. You just don't want a lot of minerals/lime/rust/etc. in the water.
- Fill the bottle that you're using about 1/4 full of fabric softener.
- Add clean water to fill the rest of the bottle. Don't forget to leave some "head space" at the top.
- Shake gently until well mixed.
- Set the bottle to a fine mist and spray to your heart's content!
- You will want to cover surfaces, (rugs, plastic chair mats, your chair cushions, etc.) with a fine mist until the surface is slightly damp. You may have to repeat every few days at the beginning until a sufficient amount of anti-static formula has built up.
- You will also want to be very careful if you use it on smooth surfaces, like chair mats, as this liquid can be slippery if you apply too much.
There you are! You are now equipped to handle the Static Electric Demon, and do it on the cheap!
What say ye?
Jim (JR)
p.s. No animals were used during the testing of this Tech Tip, and it is safe for the Ozone Layer too.
Monday, November 17, 2014
"Acceptable" Defects
The Fast Lane to Disaster
Many years ago, I was invited to an interview in Boston by a company who wanted to bring on additional QA staff. After the usual back-and-forth banter of the interview, the interviewer paused and asked me this question:
What is an acceptable defect?
I immediately replied "There's no such thing. It's an oxymoron, something that is inherently self-contradictory."
The interviewer persisted, wanting to know what an "acceptable defect" was. I replied that there is no such thing as an "acceptable defect" as once the defect becomes "acceptable", it ceases to be a defect. Or, as one of my favorite snarky QA quotes says: "It's not a bug, it's a feature!"
The interviewer continued to press the point; and yes, I understood that what he was asking was not about defects being "acceptable", but rather he wanted to know at what point does a QA effort say it's time to stop? When have you reached the level of "diminishing returns" and decide to release anyway, even though there may still be some bugs left to be resolved?
I mentioned this understanding to the interviewer, said that this was an entirely different question; whereupon I proceeded to answer it. However I persisted in my original position that there is not, and there should never be, such a thing as an "acceptable" defect.
Needless to say, I didn't get the job. And quite frankly, I wasn't too upset about it either. As far as I was, (and still am), concerned, the idea of an "acceptable" defect presents a warped and possibly disastrous mind-set on the part of any QA team.
Why is this a problem?
Now I can hear everyone saying that I'm being too picky and pedantic; that I'm splitting hairs. And maybe that's true, but I don't think so.
And why not?
It has always been my opinion, and my position within the greater QA community - not just "software" QA, but any kind of QA effort - that "defects" must never become "acceptable". Because once a defect is categorized as "acceptable", it ceases to be an annoyance or an irritation in the back of our minds. That nagging irritation goes away and we don't give it a second thought.
I have seen this time and time again, in hardware QA, software QA, process or manufacturing QA, or any other QA efforts I have been involved in. And it has always, invariably, been the fast lane to disaster.
I go into the consequences of this kind of complacent, devil-may-care attitude in another article I wrote called The Cost of Complacency. Go read it.
Again and again I return to the idea of defects never becoming "acceptable". It is the responsibility of the QA community to ensure that defects, even seemingly small defects, never get "lost in the sauce", so to speak.
Even if we need to push on toward an ultimate release date, these defects should always "get in our craw", or be that annoying little pebble in our shoe. They should always remind us that they are there, and we should continue be on the lookout for ways to mitigate them now, or if that's not possible, ways to avoid these issues in the future.
It's only by letting the seemingly "little things" get to us that we remain vigilant. It is only by this continuing attitude of eternal vigilance that we in the QA community earn the respect of those around us.
By doing this, by always letting the "little things" bother us, we ensure that the people we work with, and those that depend on us, never sink into that abyss of complacency that has been the graveyard of those who have not heeded this call.
What say ye?
Jim (JR)
What is an acceptable defect?
I immediately replied "There's no such thing. It's an oxymoron, something that is inherently self-contradictory."
The interviewer persisted, wanting to know what an "acceptable defect" was. I replied that there is no such thing as an "acceptable defect" as once the defect becomes "acceptable", it ceases to be a defect. Or, as one of my favorite snarky QA quotes says: "It's not a bug, it's a feature!"
The interviewer continued to press the point; and yes, I understood that what he was asking was not about defects being "acceptable", but rather he wanted to know at what point does a QA effort say it's time to stop? When have you reached the level of "diminishing returns" and decide to release anyway, even though there may still be some bugs left to be resolved?
I mentioned this understanding to the interviewer, said that this was an entirely different question; whereupon I proceeded to answer it. However I persisted in my original position that there is not, and there should never be, such a thing as an "acceptable" defect.
Needless to say, I didn't get the job. And quite frankly, I wasn't too upset about it either. As far as I was, (and still am), concerned, the idea of an "acceptable" defect presents a warped and possibly disastrous mind-set on the part of any QA team.
Why is this a problem?
Now I can hear everyone saying that I'm being too picky and pedantic; that I'm splitting hairs. And maybe that's true, but I don't think so.
And why not?
It has always been my opinion, and my position within the greater QA community - not just "software" QA, but any kind of QA effort - that "defects" must never become "acceptable". Because once a defect is categorized as "acceptable", it ceases to be an annoyance or an irritation in the back of our minds. That nagging irritation goes away and we don't give it a second thought.
I have seen this time and time again, in hardware QA, software QA, process or manufacturing QA, or any other QA efforts I have been involved in. And it has always, invariably, been the fast lane to disaster.
I go into the consequences of this kind of complacent, devil-may-care attitude in another article I wrote called The Cost of Complacency. Go read it.
Again and again I return to the idea of defects never becoming "acceptable". It is the responsibility of the QA community to ensure that defects, even seemingly small defects, never get "lost in the sauce", so to speak.
Even if we need to push on toward an ultimate release date, these defects should always "get in our craw", or be that annoying little pebble in our shoe. They should always remind us that they are there, and we should continue be on the lookout for ways to mitigate them now, or if that's not possible, ways to avoid these issues in the future.
It's only by letting the seemingly "little things" get to us that we remain vigilant. It is only by this continuing attitude of eternal vigilance that we in the QA community earn the respect of those around us.
By doing this, by always letting the "little things" bother us, we ensure that the people we work with, and those that depend on us, never sink into that abyss of complacency that has been the graveyard of those who have not heeded this call.
What say ye?
Jim (JR)
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
We Interrupt This Blog
For An Important Announcement!
Well, hello again!
If you have been following this blog, you know that I have some pretty big plans for this blog's future!
Part of those plans have been for me to build a WordPress "sandbox" server here in The Dungeon, try to migrate my blog to it, and try to do it in some semblance of order. The idea being that if I'm going to make a complete balls-up of everything, (and I will, trust me!), I'd rather do it down in my basement where I can control the damage, instead of on a live production blog.
Of course, these things are much easier to say than do, and I am sure that the Wright Brothers had the same sense of angst: "Hey! If it's so easy for birds to fly, it should be a real snap for us too, right?"
Nope.
It's taken days, and days, and days, and days, and. . . . Oh futz! It didn't crash, again?!!
Needless to say, it's been a real learning experience, in more ways than one.
One of the resources I have been using is WordPress for Dummies (3rd edition) by Lisa Sabin-Wilson, and if you're even thinking about messing with WordPress, you can do far worse than to read her book.
One of the things I learned about was something called "comment spam".
Comment spam?! Of all the. . . . ! ! !
And yes, it had me scratching my head too.
Here's the deal:
We all know about e-mail spam. That endless stream of scams, frauds, and phishing attacks; not to mention the never-ending advertisements for "Penile Enhancement", Viagra, Cialis, and God Only Knows what else.
This is the "plain 'ole every-day" mail-type spam that we all know and love. It's designed to get us to do something that will compromise us, so that we give away important personal information about ourselves, send money to someone via Western Union or MoneyGram, or open up our systems to being attacked, root-kitted, and perhaps used as a zombie to hack the Pentagon.
Comment spam is a horse of an entirely different hue. And it's even nastier.
Comment spam is a way of getting MY BLOG to help the baddies clobber someone else. The way they do this is by hiding vicious hyperlinks inside innocuous messages, masked in such a way that you don't really know what you're clicking on until after you've done the dirty deed.
An even more vicious form of comment spam is a comment that has, (what appears to be), a perfectly innocent hyperlink that leads you to a seemingly innocent site that will re-direct you to somewhere evil.
Translation:
You like my blog.
You read my postings.
You read the comments.
You click on what appears to be an innocent hyperlink in a comment.
YOU get hammered, and MY BLOG set you up for the kill.
The real epiphany was when I did a trial-import of all this blog's content and comments into my sandbox server. Unlike Blogger, WordPress lets me see, (and do), anything I want with a message or its comments. Nothing is hidden. Nothing gets squirreled away.
Within WordPress, I could actually see the vicious bulldogs hiding behind the pretty flowers within some of the comments left on my site. And it was scary! Needless to say I was PISSED.
As a result I have had to do two things that I really did not want to have to do:
Translation:
If the comment has an embedded hyperlink, it get's trashed. Period.
Why?
Because I just spent the last half-day-or-so going through every single message on this blog, comparing every single comment here with the nasties I found when looking at the comments on WordPress there, and removing, one-at-an-effing-time, any suspicious comments that I found; sanitizing the comment stream so that no one who comes to my blog gets hammered.
And why is that necessary?
Because Blogger won't let me edit comments or view hidden content. And because I can't view hidden content, I can't see what might be hiding behind an embedded hyperlink without clicking on it, and I won't risk what loyalty my blog may have for the sake of a few hyperlinks.
One potential exception is the plain-text in-line hyperlink that is visible to everyone. I might be convinced to allow in-line hyperlinks that are plain-text, after I have personally tested them and verified that they are not harmful - if they are germane to the topic of the post.
It's a sad day when I have to spend more time babysitting the few baddies out there, then I spend actually creating useful content. However, I'd rather do that than see those of you who read my blog get hammered because I'm asleep at the wheel.
What say ye?
Jim (J.R.)
If you have been following this blog, you know that I have some pretty big plans for this blog's future!
Part of those plans have been for me to build a WordPress "sandbox" server here in The Dungeon, try to migrate my blog to it, and try to do it in some semblance of order. The idea being that if I'm going to make a complete balls-up of everything, (and I will, trust me!), I'd rather do it down in my basement where I can control the damage, instead of on a live production blog.
Of course, these things are much easier to say than do, and I am sure that the Wright Brothers had the same sense of angst: "Hey! If it's so easy for birds to fly, it should be a real snap for us too, right?"
Nope.
It's taken days, and days, and days, and days, and. . . . Oh futz! It didn't crash, again?!!
Needless to say, it's been a real learning experience, in more ways than one.
One of the resources I have been using is WordPress for Dummies (3rd edition) by Lisa Sabin-Wilson, and if you're even thinking about messing with WordPress, you can do far worse than to read her book.
One of the things I learned about was something called "comment spam".
Comment spam?! Of all the. . . . ! ! !
And yes, it had me scratching my head too.
Here's the deal:
We all know about e-mail spam. That endless stream of scams, frauds, and phishing attacks; not to mention the never-ending advertisements for "Penile Enhancement", Viagra, Cialis, and God Only Knows what else.
This is the "plain 'ole every-day" mail-type spam that we all know and love. It's designed to get us to do something that will compromise us, so that we give away important personal information about ourselves, send money to someone via Western Union or MoneyGram, or open up our systems to being attacked, root-kitted, and perhaps used as a zombie to hack the Pentagon.
Comment spam is a horse of an entirely different hue. And it's even nastier.
Comment spam is a way of getting MY BLOG to help the baddies clobber someone else. The way they do this is by hiding vicious hyperlinks inside innocuous messages, masked in such a way that you don't really know what you're clicking on until after you've done the dirty deed.
An even more vicious form of comment spam is a comment that has, (what appears to be), a perfectly innocent hyperlink that leads you to a seemingly innocent site that will re-direct you to somewhere evil.
Translation:
You like my blog.
You read my postings.
You read the comments.
You click on what appears to be an innocent hyperlink in a comment.
YOU get hammered, and MY BLOG set you up for the kill.
The real epiphany was when I did a trial-import of all this blog's content and comments into my sandbox server. Unlike Blogger, WordPress lets me see, (and do), anything I want with a message or its comments. Nothing is hidden. Nothing gets squirreled away.
Within WordPress, I could actually see the vicious bulldogs hiding behind the pretty flowers within some of the comments left on my site. And it was scary! Needless to say I was PISSED.
As a result I have had to do two things that I really did not want to have to do:
- I no longer allow "anonymous" comments on either of my blogs, since virtually all the nasties were hidden in anonymous comments.
- All comments, without exception, are now moderated.
As unpleasant a task as it may be, I have no choice but to require every stinkin' comment to be quarantined until personally vetted by me. And because I can't create a "white-list" of trusted posters, it's an all-or-nothing deal.
Translation:
If the comment has an embedded hyperlink, it get's trashed. Period.
Why?
Because I just spent the last half-day-or-so going through every single message on this blog, comparing every single comment here with the nasties I found when looking at the comments on WordPress there, and removing, one-at-an-effing-time, any suspicious comments that I found; sanitizing the comment stream so that no one who comes to my blog gets hammered.
And why is that necessary?
Because Blogger won't let me edit comments or view hidden content. And because I can't view hidden content, I can't see what might be hiding behind an embedded hyperlink without clicking on it, and I won't risk what loyalty my blog may have for the sake of a few hyperlinks.
One potential exception is the plain-text in-line hyperlink that is visible to everyone. I might be convinced to allow in-line hyperlinks that are plain-text, after I have personally tested them and verified that they are not harmful - if they are germane to the topic of the post.
It's a sad day when I have to spend more time babysitting the few baddies out there, then I spend actually creating useful content. However, I'd rather do that than see those of you who read my blog get hammered because I'm asleep at the wheel.
What say ye?
Jim (J.R.)
Friday, April 11, 2014
Refilling Ink-Jet Cartridges
Is It Really Worth It?
So. . . . You're thinking about refilling your ink-jet cartridges?
In concept, the idea has merit. Since you often have a perfectly good cartridge, all it's missing is the ink that used to be in it. And it makes sense to replace the ink instead of the cartridge. Or, as one refilling site put it, you wouldn't replace your car just because you ran out of gas. Right?
One of the points that the cartridge refill sites love to make is that most, (if not all!), ink-jet manufacturers sell cartridges that are woefully short of ink. To illustrate this point the folks at Printer Filling Station showed the result of a cartridge tear-down. What these folks did was to take an OEM cartridge that was brand new, right out of the box in its sealed foil packaging, and open it up. What they discovered was that it was actually less than half-full.
And that's exactly where the printer manufacturers want it, because when you think about it, the printer manufacturers aren't selling the printer, they're selling the supplies because that's where the huge profits are. And it's a virtual lead-pipe-cinch that if you have two printers manufactured by the same company, purchased at the same time in the same store. they will not use the same cartridge, unless they're the same model, or you're extremely lucky. So, you need to stockpile multiple cartridge types if you have multiple printers.
Another kicker is that ink-jet cartridges have a very limited shelf-life, (like six months or so), even if the sealed package is not opened. If you are smart enough to have spares on hand, and if you bought them more than six months ago, there's a good chance they won't work, or won't work properly. And that's that.
That being said, this leaves you with the following choices:
The last bullet-point brings us to the topic of this post: Is it really worth it to do manual refills yourself?
Like everything else in life, there are two sides to this question, and depending on what your priorities are, refilling cartridges yourself may, or may not, be your cup of tea. So, let's take a look at the pro's and con's of refilling.
The Good:
The Bad:
The Ugly:
So, you want to take a try at refilling? What's next?
Again, just like everything else, there are things you have to know before you just dive in.
What say ye?
Jim (J.R.)
[1] There are a number of web-sites out there that discuss the practice of printer manufacturers deliberately "killing" replacement cartridges to force you to buy only the higher priced OEM consumables.
Rumors Circulate That Lexmark Firmware Update Locks Out Non-OEM Supplies
http://inkandtonerexperts.com/support/troubleshooting.php where they say:
HP cracks down on cartridge refill industry
Firmware Updates Prevent You from Using Refilled Cartridges
In concept, the idea has merit. Since you often have a perfectly good cartridge, all it's missing is the ink that used to be in it. And it makes sense to replace the ink instead of the cartridge. Or, as one refilling site put it, you wouldn't replace your car just because you ran out of gas. Right?
One of the points that the cartridge refill sites love to make is that most, (if not all!), ink-jet manufacturers sell cartridges that are woefully short of ink. To illustrate this point the folks at Printer Filling Station showed the result of a cartridge tear-down. What these folks did was to take an OEM cartridge that was brand new, right out of the box in its sealed foil packaging, and open it up. What they discovered was that it was actually less than half-full.
 |
| Photos courtesy of http://www.printerfillingstation.com |
And that's exactly where the printer manufacturers want it, because when you think about it, the printer manufacturers aren't selling the printer, they're selling the supplies because that's where the huge profits are. And it's a virtual lead-pipe-cinch that if you have two printers manufactured by the same company, purchased at the same time in the same store. they will not use the same cartridge, unless they're the same model, or you're extremely lucky. So, you need to stockpile multiple cartridge types if you have multiple printers.
Another kicker is that ink-jet cartridges have a very limited shelf-life, (like six months or so), even if the sealed package is not opened. If you are smart enough to have spares on hand, and if you bought them more than six months ago, there's a good chance they won't work, or won't work properly. And that's that.
That being said, this leaves you with the following choices:
- Punt and Go Retro:
Pen-and-ink, as well as pencil and paper still work, and it's a lot less expensive than any of the other choices. Not to mention that typewriters can be had for a song at garage sales and flea-markets. - Abandon ink-jet technology:
Laser printers are often more cost-effective on a per-page basis, and the supplies don't usually have the shelf-life problems of ink-jet cartridges. Unfortunately a good laser printer is not cheap, and a cheap laser printer is often not very good. - Cave in and take your lumps:
You buy the "Genuine" manufacturers cartridges, (that might be significantly under-filled), at hugely inflated prices. - Aftermarket Supplies:
You can buy a "refurbished" cartridge for about half the price of buying one brand-new. This is an attractive option for those who don't want to mess with refilling cartridges themselves, but don't like the idea of being taken to the cleaners by the ink-jet manufacturers. - Refill the cartridge yourself:
You can refill the cartridges on your own and save huge amounts of money.
The last bullet-point brings us to the topic of this post: Is it really worth it to do manual refills yourself?
Like everything else in life, there are two sides to this question, and depending on what your priorities are, refilling cartridges yourself may, or may not, be your cup of tea. So, let's take a look at the pro's and con's of refilling.
The Good:
- Cost:
Refilling a cartridge can be significantly less expensive than buying a new one. - The folks at Printer Filling Station, sell a refill kit with a full set of inks, (three colors and black), for my HP OfficeJet 6500, right at $40 if you use the pigmented black ink, (which, IMHO, is the best choice), or $35 if you get the "regular" black ink. Having bought the kit, you can get four, five, or maybe even six refills depending on the cartridge, and the size of the ink bottles you bought.
- Here's a comparison of "Club" prices for "OEM" 920XL ink for my HP6500 printer:
- Sam's Club:
920XL Black two-pack: $61.98
920XL Color three-pack, (one each of C, Y and M) $51.48
Total: $113.46
($82.47 based on 1/2 the double cartridge price for the black ink)
See Search Results Here - BJ's:
920XL Black two-pack: $57.99
920XL Color three-pack, (one each of C, Y and M) $42.99
Total: $100.98
($71.99 based on 1/2 the double cartridge price for the black ink)
See Search Results Here - Costco:
920XL Black two-pack: $61.89
920XL Color three-pack, (one each of C, Y and M) $41.89
Total: $103.87
($72.84 based on 1/2 the double cartridge price for the black ink)
See Search Results Here - A comparison of non-club retailers for the same supplies:
- Wall-Mart:
920XL Black single cartridge pack: $34.48
920XL Color cartridge single-packs, one each of Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow at $15.98 each: $47.94
Total: $82.42
See Search Results Here - Best Buy:
920XL Black single cartridge pack: $34.99
920XL Color cartridge single-packs, one each of Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow at $15.99 each: $47.97
Total: $82.95
See Search Results Here - Staples:
(They also have a combo pack, one 920XL black, and three standard 920 cartridges for the three colors for $58.89)
920XL Black single cartridge pack: $34.99
920XL Color cartridge single-packs, one each of Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow at $15.99 each: $47.97
Total: $82.96
See Search Results Here - Newegg, Tiger Direct, and OfficeMax had identical pricing to Staples when I checked.
- Micro Center did not stock the "genuine" HP 920xl inks when I checked them. They did sell refilled cartridges for about half everyone else's OEM cartridge price.
- Some suppliers also sell aftermarket cartridges, but I did not include that information here since I wanted to show the pricing for OEM cartridges.
- Good sites also give you everything you need to refill your cartridges, as well as four bottles of ink - the three colored inks and a bottle of black. They also give you the support you need to get you "over the hump" of refilling.
- Ecological:
I like the idea of replacing the ink, not the cartridge, since the cartridges themselves can often be re-used over and over and over again. By simply replacing the ink, you keep a whole lot of cartridges out of the landfill.
The Bad:
- It's time consuming. Refilling a cartridge is not something you do in five minutes, or even fifteen minutes. Especially if you're not experienced or, like me, you don't have the world's steadiest hands.
- It's messy. Some refill sites will tell you how clean, and easy, refilling is. Don't you believe it! When I refill cartridges, I have a big, thick towel to put on the desk, I wear a smock to protect my clothing, and I wear the crappiest, grungiest shirt and pair of pants I own. And I don't wear good shoes.
- It requires a bit of skill and patience. Like I said before, this isn't a quick job. If you want just "plug-and-play" you should go with refilled cartridges, or brand new.
- Your printer might not want to use refilled cartridges. Most printer manufacturers do NOT want to give up their ink-sale profits, so they program the printer's firmware to be really pissy and anal about cartridges and their replacements.
- It is not uncommon for your printer to receive an "update" and afterward you discover that the refilled cartridges you have been using for years, stop working.
- If the printer is totally anal about this, (there are some Epson and Canon models that do this), you can purchase a small electronic tool that resets the cartridges chip to read "full" again.
- Other cartridges cannot be reset by reasonable means, but you can buy replacement "chips" that you use to replace the existing chip, allowing you to use the cartridge again.
The Ugly:
- Printer manufacturers do not want you to refill your cartridges! Why? Consumables are a HUGE source of profits for the printer manufacturers.[1]
- John Shane, a director at InfoTrends/CAP Ventures and an industry expert on the ink and toner market, had this to say about it on news.cnet.com
The estimated retail value for cartridges used in HP inkjet machines in the United States in 2004 was about $6.3 billion, according to Shane. That's just more than half the $12 billion Shane estimates as the amount for all cartridges for all machines used for desktops last year.
-
This same blog posting has a number of user comments, most of which go something like this:
I am convinced that HP is deliberately doing something to prevent the use of replacement cartridges. My HP Photosmart C4680 rejects replacement cartridges, even ones that go under their specs. I don't know if they're somehow installing something on my machine (especially during any updates) or software installations.
So, you want to take a try at refilling? What's next?
Again, just like everything else, there are things you have to know before you just dive in.
- Get GOOD supplies:
There are a lot of refill sites, and there are a lot of refill kits available in stores, and most of them are pure junk. The inks are total crap, the tools stink, and it's just a bad deal all around. - The solution is to do your homework, and find a refill site that sells good supplies, and gives you the information you need to make an informed choice. One of the best I've seen, (and the one I use), is Printer Filling Station. They're located within the US, (Georgia to be exact), so you don't have to wait for your stuff to come by Hong Kong Post.
- These guys have the best ink I've seen - and I've seen a bunch. (And I have the totally ruined shirts and pants to prove it!)
- Their support is nothing less than amazing. I had some troubles with some HP 920XL cartridges and Gordon, the "haid-man-boss" down there, was with me the whole way. Making suggestions, shipping out replacement components; it was like I was dealing with a member of the family, not a merchant in a state hundreds of miles away.
- Make sure you have a clear and uncluttered work area that can get messy.
- Despite your best efforts, you will have to deal with some ink going where it does not belong.
- As a side note, Windex is an excellent solvent/cleaner for ink that goes awry.
- Wear old clothes, or a smock/apron of some kind and - if you can deal with them - latex/nitrile gloves.
- Keep rags or paper towels around for general cleanup.
- It is extremely important that you avoid cross-contamination of colors at all costs, since contaminated colors, even slightly contaminated colors, are essentially useless.
- This is usually accomplished by the use of separate, clearly labeled syringes and needles for each color as well as black, and making sure that the syringes are thoroughly cleaned after use.
- It is important to make sure that you do not press the syringe plunger all the way down into the barrel of the syringe after cleaning. Since the plunger will stick, pulling it back about a half inch or so while it is still slightly damp gives you room to push back in the next time you want to use it, freeing the plunger up. If it is pressed all the way in, it is often impossible to remove the plunger without the rubber tip coming completely off.
- If you are going to be refilling your own cartridges - or buying "reconditioned" cartridges - it is absolutely essential that you do not allow any firmware or software update downloads to your printer. Despite what the manufacturers say, these updates often have little to do with the "performance" or "quality" of your printer. Rather they are periodic updates to the firmware so that it will recognize, and reject, refilled cartridges.[1] HP's own web site says it succinctly:
The HP Cartridge Authentication feature for HP printers helps protect you ["You"? They mean their 6.3 billion dollar annual profits!!] by checking and verifying the authenticity of each cartridge installed in your printer. HP Cartridge Authentication comes standard with all HP inkjet printers and All-in-Ones.
- It is also important to carefully read, and follow, the instructions provided by whomever supplies the refilling supplies.
What say ye?
Jim (J.R.)
[1] There are a number of web-sites out there that discuss the practice of printer manufacturers deliberately "killing" replacement cartridges to force you to buy only the higher priced OEM consumables.
Rumors Circulate That Lexmark Firmware Update Locks Out Non-OEM Supplies
http://inkandtonerexperts.com/support/troubleshooting.php where they say:
Turn off auto updates - If you have your printer set up to do automatic updates from the printer manufacturer, you need to turn that function "off" or to "manual" instead of automatic. The reason this is important is because some manufacturers have been known to use this software upgrade as a tool to identify refilled cartridges in your printer and "kill" the cartridge(s).HP says I can't use refilled ink
HP cracks down on cartridge refill industry
Firmware Updates Prevent You from Using Refilled Cartridges
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
QA Tech-Tips
Where Do We Go From Here?
Well Hello Again, Everybody!
This blog has come a long, long way since I initially started it here at Blogger.com back in December of 2009, The 28th of December, 2009, if my dates are correct. And even further back if you consider the original e-mail based version of QA Tech-Tips that was circulating well before that time.
Since then this blog has begun to attract attention, though the folks at Google have nothing to fear from me. At least not yet.
QA Tech-Tips is even beginning to get quoted as a source. Though I am tickled pink when Microsoft TechNet quotes my blog, (or links to one of my articles!); what really makes me happy is when I hear from someone in the QA or technical community telling me that they referenced one of my articles in a bug report! Booyah!!
While this is gratifying, it is also tremendously humbling to know that readers actually listen, and are interested in what I have to say. As Voltaire once said, "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility".
Though there may have been changes, (not the least of which is the improvement in my own writing skills!), I have tried to keep true to my original idea for the QA Tech-Tips blog; that is, present useful information about computers and software, as well as the Wild and Wooly things that can happen when you toss a computer and some code into the mix. Not only present it, but present it in a way that is pertinent and useful down where "The Rubber Meets The Road", instead of some strange hair-ball theories masquerading as facts.
All that being said; both I, and this blog, have begun to outgrow Blogger.
First, there is the BIG issue of editorial control; especially over posted comments since Blogger won't let me edit a comment.
I am often torn between the Devil of throwing out a perfectly good comment because of something I consider inappropriate, or the Deep Blue Sea of allowing inappropriate content in blog replies. I would greatly prefer to allow replies to stand, (though I might want to snip out the occasional self-serving hyperlink advertising something), instead of having to chuck the whole thing because I cannot edit out a #&%$#*&@!! or two.
Second, is my own desire to grow and improve the QA Tech-Tips experience.
There are things I would like to be able to do that Blogger does not support. One of the most important improvements that I would like to make is the ability to break up longer posts into multiple pages. Unfortunately, Blogger does not support multi-page articles in the way that other blogging environments do.
Not to mention a whole host of things that, though not fatal, are intensely annoying. For example, I have to manually edit the article's underlying HTML code to force an underline on each and every hyperlink. Doh!
I could go on and on with the things I'd like to see QA Tech-Tips do, that just can't be done here.
Now I want to make perfectly clear that I am eternally indebted to the folks here at Blogger.com, (and Google their parent), for allowing me to have a wonderful - and free! - blog here for years and years. Were it not for them, it is very likely that the QA Tech-Tips blog would not be here at all today, let alone where it is after all this time.
Likewise, I have absolutely no hesitation whatsoever recommending them to anyone who might want to "get their feet wet" in the Blogosphere without dropping a lot of coin, (or time for that matter), into getting a blog up and running. They implement a lot of nice features as pre-built widgets - things like user registration, RSS feeds, or Captcha checking - for everyone to use without the pain and grief of having to code it all.
They also take care of the noisy and messy "System Administration" kind of things - like security-hardening my blog - so that I can spend time on my blog's content instead of laying awake nights worrying about getting hacked.
Nonetheless, I am beginning to think that it's high-time to loose the training-wheels and move QA Tech-Tips to the next level.
And to do that I have begun thinking about things like getting my own web host, deciding on what blogging software / platform I should use, along with all the hairy "SysAdmin" kind of things that go Bump In The Night when you strike out on your own.
'Guess I'm gonna be eatin' some Prime Filet of Fingernail while I figure this all out!
What say ye?
Jim (J.R.)
This blog has come a long, long way since I initially started it here at Blogger.com back in December of 2009, The 28th of December, 2009, if my dates are correct. And even further back if you consider the original e-mail based version of QA Tech-Tips that was circulating well before that time.
Since then this blog has begun to attract attention, though the folks at Google have nothing to fear from me. At least not yet.
QA Tech-Tips is even beginning to get quoted as a source. Though I am tickled pink when Microsoft TechNet quotes my blog, (or links to one of my articles!); what really makes me happy is when I hear from someone in the QA or technical community telling me that they referenced one of my articles in a bug report! Booyah!!
While this is gratifying, it is also tremendously humbling to know that readers actually listen, and are interested in what I have to say. As Voltaire once said, "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility".
Though there may have been changes, (not the least of which is the improvement in my own writing skills!), I have tried to keep true to my original idea for the QA Tech-Tips blog; that is, present useful information about computers and software, as well as the Wild and Wooly things that can happen when you toss a computer and some code into the mix. Not only present it, but present it in a way that is pertinent and useful down where "The Rubber Meets The Road", instead of some strange hair-ball theories masquerading as facts.
All that being said; both I, and this blog, have begun to outgrow Blogger.
First, there is the BIG issue of editorial control; especially over posted comments since Blogger won't let me edit a comment.
I am often torn between the Devil of throwing out a perfectly good comment because of something I consider inappropriate, or the Deep Blue Sea of allowing inappropriate content in blog replies. I would greatly prefer to allow replies to stand, (though I might want to snip out the occasional self-serving hyperlink advertising something), instead of having to chuck the whole thing because I cannot edit out a #&%$#*&@!! or two.
Second, is my own desire to grow and improve the QA Tech-Tips experience.
There are things I would like to be able to do that Blogger does not support. One of the most important improvements that I would like to make is the ability to break up longer posts into multiple pages. Unfortunately, Blogger does not support multi-page articles in the way that other blogging environments do.
Not to mention a whole host of things that, though not fatal, are intensely annoying. For example, I have to manually edit the article's underlying HTML code to force an underline on each and every hyperlink. Doh!
I could go on and on with the things I'd like to see QA Tech-Tips do, that just can't be done here.
Now I want to make perfectly clear that I am eternally indebted to the folks here at Blogger.com, (and Google their parent), for allowing me to have a wonderful - and free! - blog here for years and years. Were it not for them, it is very likely that the QA Tech-Tips blog would not be here at all today, let alone where it is after all this time.
Likewise, I have absolutely no hesitation whatsoever recommending them to anyone who might want to "get their feet wet" in the Blogosphere without dropping a lot of coin, (or time for that matter), into getting a blog up and running. They implement a lot of nice features as pre-built widgets - things like user registration, RSS feeds, or Captcha checking - for everyone to use without the pain and grief of having to code it all.
They also take care of the noisy and messy "System Administration" kind of things - like security-hardening my blog - so that I can spend time on my blog's content instead of laying awake nights worrying about getting hacked.
Nonetheless, I am beginning to think that it's high-time to loose the training-wheels and move QA Tech-Tips to the next level.
And to do that I have begun thinking about things like getting my own web host, deciding on what blogging software / platform I should use, along with all the hairy "SysAdmin" kind of things that go Bump In The Night when you strike out on your own.
'Guess I'm gonna be eatin' some Prime Filet of Fingernail while I figure this all out!
What say ye?
Jim (J.R.)
Monday, February 3, 2014
OOPS! - When disaster strikes
Recovering Lost Files (Part 3 of a series)
This article discusses a particularly painful issue: You've deleted something you really didn't want to, and you need to recover it, come hell or high-water. So what's a poor fool to do?
Hopefully, if you paid any attention at all to the second article of this series, you'll have a good backup of what you wanted. If that's the case, you're golden. All you need to do is go to your backup, grab the missing file(s), and you're back in business - no muss, no fuss, as the laundry detergent commercials used to say.
If the missing file is something you retrieved or downloaded from somewhere - perhaps from the Internet - you're still golden as you can simply go back and grab it again. Again the famous jingle of those old laundry commercials wafts its golden strains through the air. (And perhaps you will save that file off-line somewhere in case the site goes down or they loose the file.)
However, if you find yourself in the incredibly unlucky position of having just deleted an absolutely irreplaceable file, have no backups, and "failure is not an option". . . .
Though you may feel thoroughly screwed to the wall, it is possible that all is not lost.
The descriptions and comments in this article are aimed primarily at the Windows user, because files lost in a Windows-type filesystem are fairly easy to retrieve. If you're not a Windows user, read on anyway. Though it may be much more difficult for you to recover a lost file, the hints and tips in this article apply to you as much as they do anyone else.
There are a number of file recovery methods. Here's a list starting from the easiest to the most difficult:
The Recycle Bin
A feature that has become popular in most every modern operating system is the "Recycle Bin", "Trash", or whatever your particular flavor of operating system calls it. This is a special, hidden, area within the filesystem where deleted files are stored, just in case you decide you want them back. So long as you didn't do a "permanent delete" or a delete that "bypasses the Recycle Bin", you can restore the lost file by simply going to the Recycle Bin / Trash, and restoring the file.
Auto-Save files
Assuming that you are working within some kind of formal environment - a word processor, a spreadsheet, a programming development environment, a database, etc. - these programs can, and often do, create timed automatic backups while you work.
The advantage of this feature is that the program itself periodically takes a snapshot of what you are doing, and saves it in a special file, located somewhere on your hard drive.
In other cases, some programs keep a "one revision back" backup. When you finally save your work, the original file is renamed with a ".BAK" extension and the modified file is written out as a new file with the original file name.
Automatic file backup software
Many backup utilities, Acronis True Image among them, have a feature where earlier versions of files can be automatically preserved. In the case of Acronis, you can allow the software to maintain a special hidden partition at the end of the drive where various important things - like file versions - can be stored away.
Shadow Copies
Windows Vista, Windows 7, (and maybe Windows 8?), have a feature called "Shadow Copies" where the operating system itself maintains a series of older versions of certain files. Mac users will recognize the same idea in their "Time Machine" feature.
It is important to note that the "shadow copy" feature of Windows is usually NOT enabled by default, and depending on your system's configuration, you may have to modify your computer's partition structure to enable it. (Ouch!)
Scattered "temp" files
Occasionally programs like Word, or Word Perfect, don't clean up behind themselves very well and, (sometimes), they leave scattered "temporary" snapshot files laying around; usually beginning with a tilde. (~) It's a bit dicey, but if you're lucky you can recover enough of a file to recreate what was lost.
Undelete Utilities
If all else fails, there are special software utilities that can scan your drive for deleted files and attempt to recover them.
Undeleting a file
All "undelete" utilities depend on one simple fact: Files that have been really and truly deleted are - in fact - not really and truly deleted. The directory entry for that file is marked as "deleted" and all the logical blocks allocated to the file are reset to the "available for use" status in the file system's volume bitmap. However, the actual data that has been written to the disk is NOT deleted - a fact that has lead to many a criminal's downfall. Not to mention things like divorces, getting fired, or even identity theft.
So, what REALLY happens when Windows deletes a file?
When Windows deletes a file, what happens is something like this:
If you can get back to the file quickly enough - before someone else moves in! - you can take down the big "FOR RENT" sign, set all the volume bitmap bits for that file back ON again, and Voilà ! Your file is back.
The problem is this: Windows is constantly doing things with the hard drive; moving things around, updating important information, figuring out what goes where, and deciding where it wants to put the next piece of whatever it's doing. Because of this, "empty apartments" don't stay empty for long, and some of the individual locations and pieces that belonged to your file can get recycled and re-used by other files. If that happens before you get back to the "apartment" you just left, you're out of luck. It's already taken and it just stinks being you.
If that's true, how do undelete utilities work?
Undelete utilities can use different methods to do their job, and one possible way is like this:
Even if the file is classified as "excellent", there is still a very real possibility that the file will be borked when you try to recover it. Why? Because Windows is still working with the disk even while YOU are trying to undelete something. Not only is this possible, it's not all that uncommon either. Like I said before, "undeleting" a file is a dicey proposition at best.
But what if all that effort doesn't work, and my file is still missing?
Many undelete utilities also include a special "advanced", "deep", "full", or "exhaustive" scan mode for finding files that the easier methods miss. This is based, (at least in part), on the fact that files of a particular type have distinctive characteristics unique to that type of file. For example, JPEG picture files begin and end with sequences of bytes that are specific and unique to JPEGs.
The advanced scan mode, (using the JPEG file type we mentioned above as an example), scans the entire drive, one tiny piece at a time, looking for the distinctive characteristics of a JPEG file. If it finds the specific characteristic that indicates what might be the beginning of a JPEG file, it tries to follow the trail all the way to the end of that file. Likewise, if it finds the other unique characteristic first, (indicating the possible end of a JPEG file), it tries to follow that trail back to its beginning. And it's very likely to be a false scent. If it is, you start all over again, continuing your search, one tiny piece at a time. Again, and again, and again.
When you're doing this kind of microscopically detailed search, you've entered the wild, woolly, and wonderful world of "forensic analysis", and it is not unusual for some random sector to contain what appears to be the "magic bytes" for a particular file type. Or, maybe you have found a JPEG file, but it's one that hasn't been deleted! Because of all the random factors that can be encountered, searches of this kind can be very time consuming. As in days, (or even longer!), depending on how much experience you have doing this kind of stuff, and the size of the hard drive you're searching.
If we assume that you're lucky enough to find what you believe are all the pieces of a particular file, the undelete utility assumes that you've found a complete file of that type and classifies the file as potentially recoverable.
If the file is not complete, but at least some of it is present, it classifies the found file as either "good" or "poor" depending on what, and how much, of the file has been found.
And, in some cases, the file is just gone; never to be seen again. And that's that.
Once all that is done, if you decide to recover the file(s) that were found, the utility recovers, (or creates if necessary), the file's directory entry and marks all the file's pieces as "occupied" in the system's volume bitmap.
How to improve your chances for recovering a file or files
If you've gotten this far, and are seriously contemplating going the "undelete" path, there are things you can do that will dramatically improve your chances of getting your data back.
Linux/Mac Users:
If you're dealing with a Linux/Unix/Mac type operating system, there's a really good possibility that you may just be plain-ole' hozed if you don't have something like "Time Machine" turned on.
Unix type systems have unique kinds of file systems, file deletion methods, and aggressive i-node recovery paradigms that they often use. (i-nodes contain the file descriptors, and all the pointers and metadata for a particular file or files.) Because of their design, it may be almost completely impossible to recover files deleted on a 'nix system without resorting to extremely advanced techniques that are, (usually), beyond the ability and experience of even the most advanced system administrators.
Conclusion:
With any luck I have, (hopefully), scared you s**tless about the prospect of loosing important files or data. And if I have done so, please, please, pretty-please consider using backups as a recovery strategy instead of "a wing and a prayer". OK?
What say ye?
Jim (JR)
Hopefully, if you paid any attention at all to the second article of this series, you'll have a good backup of what you wanted. If that's the case, you're golden. All you need to do is go to your backup, grab the missing file(s), and you're back in business - no muss, no fuss, as the laundry detergent commercials used to say.
If the missing file is something you retrieved or downloaded from somewhere - perhaps from the Internet - you're still golden as you can simply go back and grab it again. Again the famous jingle of those old laundry commercials wafts its golden strains through the air. (And perhaps you will save that file off-line somewhere in case the site goes down or they loose the file.)
However, if you find yourself in the incredibly unlucky position of having just deleted an absolutely irreplaceable file, have no backups, and "failure is not an option". . . .
Though you may feel thoroughly screwed to the wall, it is possible that all is not lost.
The descriptions and comments in this article are aimed primarily at the Windows user, because files lost in a Windows-type filesystem are fairly easy to retrieve. If you're not a Windows user, read on anyway. Though it may be much more difficult for you to recover a lost file, the hints and tips in this article apply to you as much as they do anyone else.
There are a number of file recovery methods. Here's a list starting from the easiest to the most difficult:
The Recycle Bin
A feature that has become popular in most every modern operating system is the "Recycle Bin", "Trash", or whatever your particular flavor of operating system calls it. This is a special, hidden, area within the filesystem where deleted files are stored, just in case you decide you want them back. So long as you didn't do a "permanent delete" or a delete that "bypasses the Recycle Bin", you can restore the lost file by simply going to the Recycle Bin / Trash, and restoring the file.
Auto-Save files
Assuming that you are working within some kind of formal environment - a word processor, a spreadsheet, a programming development environment, a database, etc. - these programs can, and often do, create timed automatic backups while you work.
The advantage of this feature is that the program itself periodically takes a snapshot of what you are doing, and saves it in a special file, located somewhere on your hard drive.
In other cases, some programs keep a "one revision back" backup. When you finally save your work, the original file is renamed with a ".BAK" extension and the modified file is written out as a new file with the original file name.
Automatic file backup software
Many backup utilities, Acronis True Image among them, have a feature where earlier versions of files can be automatically preserved. In the case of Acronis, you can allow the software to maintain a special hidden partition at the end of the drive where various important things - like file versions - can be stored away.
Shadow Copies
Windows Vista, Windows 7, (and maybe Windows 8?), have a feature called "Shadow Copies" where the operating system itself maintains a series of older versions of certain files. Mac users will recognize the same idea in their "Time Machine" feature.
It is important to note that the "shadow copy" feature of Windows is usually NOT enabled by default, and depending on your system's configuration, you may have to modify your computer's partition structure to enable it. (Ouch!)
Scattered "temp" files
Occasionally programs like Word, or Word Perfect, don't clean up behind themselves very well and, (sometimes), they leave scattered "temporary" snapshot files laying around; usually beginning with a tilde. (~) It's a bit dicey, but if you're lucky you can recover enough of a file to recreate what was lost.
Undelete Utilities
If all else fails, there are special software utilities that can scan your drive for deleted files and attempt to recover them.
Undeleting a file
All "undelete" utilities depend on one simple fact: Files that have been really and truly deleted are - in fact - not really and truly deleted. The directory entry for that file is marked as "deleted" and all the logical blocks allocated to the file are reset to the "available for use" status in the file system's volume bitmap. However, the actual data that has been written to the disk is NOT deleted - a fact that has lead to many a criminal's downfall. Not to mention things like divorces, getting fired, or even identity theft.
So, what REALLY happens when Windows deletes a file?
When Windows deletes a file, what happens is something like this:
- First, Windows finds all the pieces of the file. That includes the file's directory entry, along with each and every part of the file itself.
- Then Windows places a special "mark" on the directory entry that says this file has been deleted. Because of this, the "deleted" file disappears from the folder it was in.
- Finally, Windows goes to the system's volume bitmap and - for each and every part of the file - turns the corresponding bits OFF, indicating that these parts are "empty", and are available to be re-used.
If you can get back to the file quickly enough - before someone else moves in! - you can take down the big "FOR RENT" sign, set all the volume bitmap bits for that file back ON again, and Voilà ! Your file is back.
The problem is this: Windows is constantly doing things with the hard drive; moving things around, updating important information, figuring out what goes where, and deciding where it wants to put the next piece of whatever it's doing. Because of this, "empty apartments" don't stay empty for long, and some of the individual locations and pieces that belonged to your file can get recycled and re-used by other files. If that happens before you get back to the "apartment" you just left, you're out of luck. It's already taken and it just stinks being you.
If that's true, how do undelete utilities work?
Undelete utilities can use different methods to do their job, and one possible way is like this:
- The undelete utility scans the disk until it finds a directory entry that has been marked as "deleted".
- If the directory entry itself isn't corrupted, it attempts to traverse the entire file, end-to-end, using the file's metadata within the directory entry, as well as the "next" and "previous" links in each of the file's individual parts, to verify the integrity of the prospective file.
- If the program can traverse the entire file end-to-end, and the resulting file data matches all the file metadata in the deleted directory entry, (size, etc.), then classify this file as "excellent". At this point you have a pretty good chance of getting the entire file back.
- If the program can apparently traverse the entire file end-to-end and it appears to be complete, but there are discrepancies between the resulting file and the file's metadata, then classify the file as "good". At this point you have a pretty good chance of getting, (at least), part of the file back. Maybe it's OK, maybe not, but it's at least an even-money bet.
- If the program can only traverse part of the file because the file appears to have been overwritten at some point, (i.e. segment "x" points to segment "y", but segment "y" does not point back to "x"), then classify the file as "poor". At this point you know for certain that the file has been damaged, but depending on what kind of file it is, and how much of the file the undelete utility can find, it might still be usable - at least in part.
- If the program cannot traverse any portion of the file because the very first segment of the file has been overwritten, then classify the file as "unrecoverable". At this point you can pretty much throw in the towel unless you want to use the more advanced, (and chancy), features of the program. Your ability to recover even part of the file is now in the hands of God, and the cleverness of the utility's programmer.
- Then, go to the next directory entry marked as "deleted" and repeat all of the above; continuing until all "deleted" directory entries have been examined and classified.
- Once everything it can find has been found and classified, you get the opportunity to select what you want to try and recover.
Even if the file is classified as "excellent", there is still a very real possibility that the file will be borked when you try to recover it. Why? Because Windows is still working with the disk even while YOU are trying to undelete something. Not only is this possible, it's not all that uncommon either. Like I said before, "undeleting" a file is a dicey proposition at best.
But what if all that effort doesn't work, and my file is still missing?
Many undelete utilities also include a special "advanced", "deep", "full", or "exhaustive" scan mode for finding files that the easier methods miss. This is based, (at least in part), on the fact that files of a particular type have distinctive characteristics unique to that type of file. For example, JPEG picture files begin and end with sequences of bytes that are specific and unique to JPEGs.
The advanced scan mode, (using the JPEG file type we mentioned above as an example), scans the entire drive, one tiny piece at a time, looking for the distinctive characteristics of a JPEG file. If it finds the specific characteristic that indicates what might be the beginning of a JPEG file, it tries to follow the trail all the way to the end of that file. Likewise, if it finds the other unique characteristic first, (indicating the possible end of a JPEG file), it tries to follow that trail back to its beginning. And it's very likely to be a false scent. If it is, you start all over again, continuing your search, one tiny piece at a time. Again, and again, and again.
When you're doing this kind of microscopically detailed search, you've entered the wild, woolly, and wonderful world of "forensic analysis", and it is not unusual for some random sector to contain what appears to be the "magic bytes" for a particular file type. Or, maybe you have found a JPEG file, but it's one that hasn't been deleted! Because of all the random factors that can be encountered, searches of this kind can be very time consuming. As in days, (or even longer!), depending on how much experience you have doing this kind of stuff, and the size of the hard drive you're searching.
If we assume that you're lucky enough to find what you believe are all the pieces of a particular file, the undelete utility assumes that you've found a complete file of that type and classifies the file as potentially recoverable.
If the file is not complete, but at least some of it is present, it classifies the found file as either "good" or "poor" depending on what, and how much, of the file has been found.
And, in some cases, the file is just gone; never to be seen again. And that's that.
Once all that is done, if you decide to recover the file(s) that were found, the utility recovers, (or creates if necessary), the file's directory entry and marks all the file's pieces as "occupied" in the system's volume bitmap.
How to improve your chances for recovering a file or files
If you've gotten this far, and are seriously contemplating going the "undelete" path, there are things you can do that will dramatically improve your chances of getting your data back.
- Preparation:
Prior to needing them, get one or more undelete utilities that do not require installation, (this is important!), and save them somewhere you can get your greasy mitts on them in a hurry. (A thumb-drive, an external hard drive, a CD or whatever are all good choices.) - If you have the skill, time, and want to really cover your butt, you might want to consider creating a Bart PE rescue disk, (or something similar), with the undelete software included. If you don't have the requisite skill, you might want to beg a more technical friend or colleague, pretty, pretty, pretty-please, to make one for you. It's a really great idea.
- Have more than one "gun" and plenty of ammo:
Different undelete programs work in different ways, so just because program "A" doesn't find your file, does not mean that program "B" can't. - When you collect your undelete utility(s), get more than one. Professional forensic analysts often use many different programs to examine a disk to increase their chances of getting what they want.
- Consider investing in a combination of freeware, shareware, and possibly even payware programs.
- If you're smart/lucky enough to have something like a Bart PE disk, put all the utilities you've collected on it so that they are all available when you need them.
- Protection:
If you accidentally delete something important, it is absolutely crucial that the disk be taken off-line quickly! You'll want to do this as rapidly as possible to prevent the sectors used by your deleted file from being overwritten. - If possible, shut-down the system, (if it's the system drive), or un-mount it quickly, (if it's a external or data-drive), to reduce the possibility of it being corrupted.
- Investigation:
If at all possible, you'll want to take the drive and mount it externally on another system, or load an external operating system. (like a Bart PE disk for Windows.) - Mount the drive read only if possible to prevent data corruption.
- Use the external system or CD's software, (if you prepared a Bart PE disk), to search for the files.
- If you are using an advanced recovery method, and you know what kind of file you're looking for, (a JPEG for example), have the recovery utility search for only that type of file, (assuming that this type of file is defined in the utility's dictionary). This will speed up the search process considerably, and will result in a much better chance of getting complete files.
- Execution:
If you find your missing files, try to restore them to another disk drive, (like a thumb-drive), if your undelete utility supports that option. - Prayer:
I'm not including this just to be funny or sarcastic. As you can see, undeleting something is a very iffy proposition at it's best, and a successful undelete depends just as much on luck as it does on skill. - Appreciation:
Everyone likes appreciation, and the poor sod of a software writer likes it even more. Especially since the only communication he's likely to get from his users are complaints! - In all seriousness, if the utility is shareware and it just saved your butt bigtime, dig out the Benjamins and buy the license. It's the least you can do.
- If it's freeware - and there's a "donate" option, cough up the dough. At the very least buy him a six-pack of his favorite brew. Or, absent that feature, send him an e-mail telling him how much you appreciate his skill and thoughtfulness.
Linux/Mac Users:
If you're dealing with a Linux/Unix/Mac type operating system, there's a really good possibility that you may just be plain-ole' hozed if you don't have something like "Time Machine" turned on.
Unix type systems have unique kinds of file systems, file deletion methods, and aggressive i-node recovery paradigms that they often use. (i-nodes contain the file descriptors, and all the pointers and metadata for a particular file or files.) Because of their design, it may be almost completely impossible to recover files deleted on a 'nix system without resorting to extremely advanced techniques that are, (usually), beyond the ability and experience of even the most advanced system administrators.
Conclusion:
With any luck I have, (hopefully), scared you s**tless about the prospect of loosing important files or data. And if I have done so, please, please, pretty-please consider using backups as a recovery strategy instead of "a wing and a prayer". OK?
What say ye?
Jim (JR)
Monday, October 7, 2013
Hot Smokin' Weapon! Award for October 2013
The Raspberry Pi
Recently I was able to get my hot little hands on a Raspberry Pi board. Built and designed in the land of British pubs
Here's what a Raspberry Pi, Model B, looks like in real-life. Notice its size relative to the full-size SD card next to it. The Raspberry Pi people refer to it as a "credit card" sized computer. The red board on the right is the PI's GPIO breakout board that you can use to control external circuitry.
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The layout illustration was taken from the Raspberry Pi web-site located at http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs
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And here's the layout, (minus the two flex connectors). The difference between the Model A, and B, is that the A version does not have the LAN port, has only half the onboard memory, and has only one USB slot instead of the two on the model B. Since, IMHO, the extra USB port and the LAN capabilities are important to me, I purchased the model B, and I am basing my review on that particular version.
This is the Ethernet / USB end of the board. You can see the full-sized HDMI connector on the left just above the Ethernet jack, (with the brown tape on it), as well as the yellow RCA composite video connector and a blue "headphone" jack for analog audio if you are not using the HDMI connector. Or, if you have connected it like me using a HDMI - DVI adapter plug, you need the aux audio connector for audio.
Here's a view from the other end. In this view you can see the two flex-cable connectors, (marked with red arrows), and the GPIO header on the left, marked with the green arrow. The bottom flex connector is for use with the Pi's camera module and the flex connector on the upper right is rumored to be for an LCD display module. The GPIO connector attaches to the GPIO breakout board using a standard 26 conductor ribbon cable and connectors.
The big square chip just above the lower red arrow is the brains of the beast. It is a Broadcom "System on a chip" that contains everything on the board, except the connectors, voltage regulator, decoupling capacitors, isolation resistors, and the status LEDs. The rest is in the chip - the ARM processor, the GPU, the Ethernet and USB controllers, and God only knows what else.
Here's a full-size SD card, the Raspberry Pi, and the GPIO breakout board shown next to a 12" ruler to give you a sense of scale.
This picture has the Raspberry Pi next to a plastic case you can buy for it. It has cutouts for all the connectors, the GPIO breakout board's ribbon cable, and a slot to put a SD card, (face down) at the back. Since, (obviously!), the Pi is a live circuit board, putting it in some kind of a case is a smart move to prevent accidental short-circuits from ruining it.
Now, let's insert a pre-loaded SD card, and fire the beastie up!
Note that the Raspberry Pi has no onboard BIOS of any kind, so there must be a SD card, with software loaded, before the thing will do anything at all. Especially since the SD card is the system's "hard drive" so to speak.
You can load software on the Pi in one of several ways:
- If you are a total masochist, (or need special capabilities not available any other way), you can dig up the specs, an ARM assembler/compiler, and write "bare metal" code for the thing. There's a whole forum at the Raspberry Pi site devoted to just that kind of insanity. Since I've done that kind of thing before, (and no, I've never claimed to be sane), it sounds rather interesting. I'm planning to go wander around there, just as soon as I work up the nerve and get a couple of minutes to spare.
- You can spool a byte-for-byte image of various distro's directly onto the SD card. Note that these images are bit-images, just like an ISO file for a CD, so they have to be written as a bit-image using special raw byte transfer software like "dd" in Linux. There are several software image writers for Windows, and you can use them as well.
- Even though spooling a bit-image onto your SD card isn't really that difficult, it is a bit tricky, so the developers of the Raspberry Pi created a special boot-loader called NOOBS. (New Out Of Box Software) And yes, the pun is deliberate, since it is primarily intended for those of us who are not Certified Raspberry Engineers; to help us get up, running and productive with a minimum of grief.
Here's an image of the initial screen you see when NOOBS version 1.3.0 boots for the first time.
The first thing you notice is the list of distributions you can load, ranging from the very capable Raspbian re-spin of Debian Linux, all the way to the more esoteric RISC OS, while not for beginners, it's a full-blown re-spin of IBM's RISC operating system. It's funky, but fast. Unlike a Linux distribution, this thing boots all the way to it's GUI in less time than it takes your hand to move away from the power connector you just plugged in. Like I said, it's a bit wonky if you're not familiar with RISC systems, but its scary fast!
If you're looking carefully, you will notice a number of selection icons across the top of the dialog window. And yes, Virginia, that round thing that looks like a globe is the icon that launches the loaders built-in web browser.
Yep, you heard me right, the OS loader selection screen has a built-in web browser that can be used to surf the web in case you need any supporting information to get you started. And to make things better, the browser's home page is set to link directly to the Raspberry Pi help forum. And it's not just a crufty text-based browser either. It's the Real Deal. So far, the only things it doesn't do is allow you to download something, (though I might be wrong here), and play Flash video. Oh, in case you wondered, it does fully support PDF files, and they can be viewed directly within the browser itself.
In case you really need to get down-and-dirty, ALT-F2 brings you to a text based login screen - the user is "root" and the password is "raspberry" - where you can do pretty much everything you could do in a "normal" text based startup - or a terminal window - in Linux.
Here's a closer look at the distro selection screen showing the various distributions you can install. Oh, and by the way, the check-boxes are there for a reason. A new feature in NOOBS 1.3.0 is the ability to install more than one distribution at a time - limited only by the space on your SD card. And just to make sure you don't goof up, the area down at the bottom, labeled "Disk space" shows you both how much space you have to play with, and the total space needed for the selections you've made. If you select more than can fit - the total space number becomes a bold-faced red to warn you. I don't know if it prevents you from trying - I did not try it - but it is a thoughtful touch.
If you install Raspian, you see this configuration screen at first-boot where you can set a whole bunch of useful and important parameters - like your localization settings since everything defaults to settings appropriate for Great Britain. Unless you live there, you will have to set the system locale to one appropriate for you, your time zone, and your region's particular keyboard-map. Note that the locale settings also set the default language for the system, as run. And yes, they have support for just about every weird character set and language out there. I didn't try Arabic or Hindi, but they do a darn good job with Russian.
Once you're done, the system reboots and - if you have selected the option to boot directly to the GUI - you are presented with the Raspian desktop.
Of course, the background image is the Raspberry Pi logo, in living color, larger than life. Once you get tired of looking at that - which doesn't take long - you can substitute any image your little heart desires.
The desktop manager is LXDE, one of the "lightweight" desktop managers. Though it might be "lightweight" desktop in size, it's a fooler since it's most definitely not lightweight in capabilities. If you can do it in Gnome or KDE, chances are you can do it here too. Though you won't see all the "eye candy" that's in the larger desktops, (Face it, do you REALLY need bouncing desktop icons that spin and change colors?), it does a very competent job of doing what it does, being a desktop that lets you get work done.
Since the original design philosophy of the Pi was to use it as a teaching tool, it comes pre-loaded with a couple of programming environments: Scratch for the rank beginner who has never even thought of programming in his life, as well as Python, the "official" programming language of the Raspberry Pi in Raspian.
In case you're curious, Scratch is a very elementary programming language - not unlike the "turtle graphic" languages that were in vogue during the '90's, and it works a lot like a Lego building set. Each kind of statement, conditional, expression, or whatever has a particular shape. Syntax is taken care of by how the shapes fit. If they fit, it will work.
Another part of the language is a large catalog of "sprites" - graphical images that can be placed in the primary display area known as the "stage". Depending on the steps you put together, you can make the sprite do any number of things on the stage. You can put more than one sprite on the stage, change their position or direction of travel, and detect if they touch each other, or touch one of the stage's side walls.
I played with it for about 30 minutes or so, and I was able to get the main sprite - a cat - to walk around the stage, changing color as he walked.
Oh! I almost forgot to mention; what happens if you get heartily tired of the distro(s) you originally picked and want to do something different?
Every time the system boots, you get about five seconds of this - a way to abort the boot and return to the original NOOBS loader screen.
The good news: If you've gotten so tired of Raspian that you are about to scream, you can swap it out for any of the other distributions.
The bad news: Making new distribution selection(s) on the NOOBS loader screen is a destructive process. Any settings, files, and God Knows What Else you may have created are lost and gone forever, oh my darling Clementine. That is, unless you had the foresight to plug in a thumb-drive and copy your settings and files off the system before selecting a new distribution set.
The bottom line:
Though originally conceived as a teaching tool, the Raspberry Pi is a competent system in it's own right.
You can use it as a self-contained media center connected to your huge screen HDMI TV / Display - a job that it totally KICKS ASS at, making my larger computers with wicked nasty video cards look like pikers by comparison.
You can use it as a miniature, (in size only, not in capabilities), RISC "mainframe" system with multiple users logged in at the same time.
With a suitable distro installed - like Raspian - you can use it as a full-fledged workstation. So much so that there are a multitude of forum threads devoted to people who have decided to toss their big, noisy, power-hungry beasts and just use the Raspberry as their main computer system. And if you're like me, and won't miss the dancing bears, roving eyeballs, and bouncing icons, you will feel right at home sitting in front of your cigarette-case sized computer, kicking ass and taking names, right up there with the Big Dogs.
Don't take my word for it. Go out and get one - they're dirt-cheap by comparison - and give the beast a spin. Just be careful. It might be love at first sight!
Read all about it at http://www.raspberrypi.org
What say ye?
Jim (JR)
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