Archive for December, 2008
Just noticed that my laptop CPU fan is turning on way too often, and the CPU usage is never below 30% (which is a lot, especially if running on a mobile machine). The culprit is “audiodg.exe” – a Windows native process in charge for sound in Windows. Killing it is no option, since it will also kill any sound output/input as well.
The most common cause of this benign process becoming a CPU slurper is “Audio enhancements”. In the Sound module (inside Control Panel), there should be a checkbox to “Disable all audio enhancements” for Sound output devices (such as “bass boost” or
similar) and Sound input devices (such as microphone echo cancellation)… Check those boxes and confirm with OK, and the CPU usage should drop dramatically.
Although some enhancements do work properly, they are surely not designed with any humble thoughts on CPU cycle usage. It’s a shame, really. One thing though: “Microphone boost” is not officially an audio enhancement and does not cause these kinds of problems. (Which is very fortunate, since the default microphone amplifying level is pathetic)
December 28th, 2008
Tis' Christmas eve y'all! No snow around here, but the usual atmosphere is kicking in... The state wide TV stations aren't broadcasting anything interesting since they're clamped on the orthodox calendar, and according to it, Christmas is somewhere in January... The neighboring predominantly catholic country of Croatia *is* in the Christmas spirit, but for some reason, I just can't watch 40 oltar boys singing about "thy Lord" over and over again. So that settles the public entertainment factor for this season...
This year's official xmas eve dinner made me get sleepy at 8PM, which is pathetic, at least for the guy who usually goes to bed at 4-5AM, so I'll hold up at least for an hour or so until I crash like a drunk chipmunk...
To make this semi-sleepy post at least a little bit entertaining, here's a LightScribe DVD I made with my new laptop:
Ba da bum - tiss... Yes, it’s the man - himself. If you speak his name, you won’t be getting your Christmas presents tomorrow…
December 24th, 2008
While doing some research about the currently active root nameservers on the Internet, the obvious end-of-the-world question popped up - "What if they went offline?" - the answer is even more obvious - panic, loss of monetary funds, inability to lurk Facebook profiles, etc. would quickly arise, thus setting a short timed ultimatum for the people in charge... What to do?
The servers themselves can rarely die all at once, since they are distributed across the world while redundancy is maintained, also they are running only BIND (or NSD), so the only attack on these kinds of data centers would only be possible through a DDoS method. A tiny number of these kinds of attacks has been registered, but a few of them were powerful enough to knock a significant count of these servers...
What I knew: These servers are serious business. They are hosted on only the finest and in most protected environments available. A few of them are maintained by the US military and the US Defense Information Systems Agency, so an attack attempt on any of them would be a pretty good reason to declare insanity on the offending party. If any attack should take place, the country of origin will do anything in their power to apprehend the attacker and neutralize him.
What I found out: According to Mark Hall (some guy from the US Defense Department), not only will the US retaliate when any of these attacks are initiated, but is fully prepared to physically remove the threat if the attacking country refuses to cooperate, and if it is impossible to produce any other peaceful disconnection procedure. We're talking real high explosive here, and I quote:
The Department of Defense is prepared, based on the authority of the president, to launch a cyber counterattack or an actual bombing of an attack source.
Wow... Well, as much as I would like to see the face on a no-life basement geek while getting his botnet DoS attack interrupted by a low-charge air to surface missile, I do hope that nobody attempts to cripple the world wide web in any way, since (fortunately) people are willing to keep it free and active, no matter what. Say what you want about US attack policies, but I would pull the trigger myself on the bastard who can even think of distinguishing the most free network on the face of the planet, and beyond.
December 16th, 2008
I had an old Palm m515 lying around, and even though it's not that old, it is fairly obsolete. It can accept MMC/SD cards for expanded memory, but I just don't know what to do with it! The sluggy Motorola 33MHz Dragon Ball processor is just way too slow to do anything useful at all... JPG images (with 3rd party software, of course) packing a modest 640x480 resolution load in about 10 painful seconds, there is no sound (only an annoying piezo beeper), the screen is only 128x128px in size (thus - drawing on it is very limited), so it's only good for what it was meant to be used for in the first place - writing down quick notes, creating to-do lists and using it as a phone book. I'll pass.
Now, since this thing is still a gadget, I was thinking about bringing it back to life for the purpose of doing something actually useful. I came across some Winamp controller applications, but they required a COM port cable (and all I've got is an USB cable that is active only when performing HotSyncs), and besides, who the hell wants to lean towards a tiny Palm screen with a greasy finger/stylus just to play some tunes? Later on, I found PalmOrb - a fairly decent LCD+Controller emulator that actually works over USB!
I have changed the ugly default PalmOrb green background to plain white+black with the largest font available, so it's nice and visible from a bigger distance.
To rotate the screen, I used XMaster (or any other Palm-hack app will do) with FlipHack (since the ugly and bulky USB connector won't let you keep your Palm standing up without it disconnecting accidentally). This step is unnecessary if you have a dock.
And, finally, to control the whole thing, I am using LCDSmartie. Works fine, has loads of features and the support forums (although outdated) have some nice ideas for creating the perfect LCD status screen. It's free, too! If I were using Linux as my primary OS, LCD4Linux should do the trick, although I haven't tried it yet.
Note for the anonymous lurker who probably wants to try this: Be aware that LCDSmartie has not been updated since 2007, and PalmOrb is no longer maintained either, so don't expect any active support if you run into any kinds of problems. 
Oh, and enjoy the vid...
December 1st, 2008
similar) and Sound input devices (such as microphone echo cancellation)… Check those boxes and confirm with OK, and the CPU usage should drop dramatically.
