Goldberg Variation 30, J.S. Bach, BWV 988

I recorded this last year, without video. I was still in my old home then. Enjoy !

Dell E6420 laptop & Intel HD graphics 3000 vs HP L3065 dual-link DVI 2560x1600 monitor

A couple of years ago, I purchased a very nice HP LP3065 monitor. This is a 30" model, with 2560x1600 resolution. The only connections available are 3 dual-link DVI ports. This ensures that most laptops will not be able to work with it, since they usually have VGA, HDMI or DisplayPort outputs, none of which are compatible with dual-link DVI.

Today, I got a new Dell E6420 laptop at my office, along with a Dell PR02X docking station. The station provides a number of extra ports not found on the laptop, including two DVI ports which have the full number of pins required for dual-link.

I took them both home to try against the LP3065. Unfortunately, I got an enlarged 1280x800 picture. That is 1/4 of the resolution of the monitor. This indicates that the DVI ports is actually operating in single-link mode. I'm not sure if this limitation is due to the laptop or the docking station. I guess when I work at home I will have to use the laptop on the other monitor, a 24" Gateway FP2401, which supports 1920x1200 over single link DVI.

Update : research shows that this is a limitation of the Intel Graphics 3000 chip used in the Dell E6420 laptop. This graphics chip doesn't support dual-link DVI. It is capable of 2560x1600, but only when using DisplayPort, which is not available on the HP L3065.

Unfortunately, since we are talking about a laptop, there is no way to upgrade its graphics chip. The only way would be to switch to a different laptop to something based around a more full-featured nVidia or ATI graphics chip. There may be some USB video card solutions, but I'm not sure any supports dual-link DVI, and if it does, I fear what performance will be like at 2560x1600. Perhaps there will be a suitable USB 3.0 video card capable of dual-link DVI in the future ? But then I would also have to get the USB 3.0 optional module for the laptop in addition. This solution does not exist today, and so at this point it looks like I will not be able to use my 30" monitor at home for anything work related.

Update : I bought this expensive Accell UltraAV B087B-002B DisplayPort/DVI-D Dual-Link Adapter last year, and it worked great.

Goldberg Variation 2, J.S. Bach, BWV 988

I have been learning this variation this year. This is the first recording I have posted in a long time, as well as the first one in my new home, on august 9, 2011 . I only have the audio, no video.

Facebook privacy settings still have a long way to go

I'm probably not the only person on Facebook who has, perhaps naïvely, accurately filled the "employer" field in his Facebook profile. I happen to have all my privacy setting set to either "Friends only" or "Other" for contact information.

However, Facebook can be used to login to a variety of online sites that are public, for example some discussion forums. When you do that, you are generally prompted to let the site access some of your profile information. Apparently, there seem to be few limits to how the information gets used once one has logged in to a site.

Case in point : I am a fan of the San Jose Mercury News, online edition. Not the dead tree edition. I occasionally like to comment on articles.

About a year ago, the site changed from a completely anonymous user database, to using Facebook. This was not a welcome change for me, not the least because I didn't have a Facebook account until recently.

I eventually relented and created one earlier this year, and started using it to post comments.

Imagine my surprise when every comment on the site appeared thus prefaced :
Julien Pierre · Works at [Name of major tech company deleted]

Now, I'm pretty sure my (now former) employer wouldn't have wanted this. I certainly didn't speak for them, not then and not now.

As it turns out, there is only way to prevent the employer name from being posted in public comments : deleting it from your Facebook profile. But then you won't be able to share it with your friends, either. This is the option I'm choosing. I have not updated my Facebook profile with my new employer. And I may have to delete all my former employers from it, too, just so it is clear that my forum comments are only my own.

The other way, of course, is not to login to public websites with your Facebook account. Sadly, this is not possible with the San Jose Mercury News forums anymore.

This shows that the privacy controls on Facebook are broken. The settings for my profile are clearly not respected, since they are being shown on a public forum, whereas as I have the info set to "friends only".

The fact is that the Facebook social plug-in was able to get to that information anyway. Facebook does not make at all clear that this is possible in the privacy settings.

There should be another privacy setting option to allow or prevent Facebook applications from accessing certain information.

Morale of the story : don't do anything on facebook or write anything in your Facebook profile that you don't want published on the front page of the New York Times.

Or even the public comment section of the San Jose Mercury News.

Canon ZoomBrowser EX vs multiple monitors

I have been using the excellent Canon ZoomBrowser EX software for several years, as I have owned several Canon consumer products. I like the feature set and simplicity of this program.

One of my pet peeves with it however is the slide show feature. It always goes to the primary monitor, in my case the 2 megapixel monitor on the left. It never goes to the 4 megapixel monitor on the right. There is no option in the ZoomBrowser slideshow setup to choose the monitor. Even if all ZoomBrowser windows are moved to the desired monitor, the slideshow always ends up on the primary monitor.

The only workaround I have found for this is to disable the lower-res monitor in Windows 7. Then ZoomBrowser has no choice but to display the slideshow on the one and only remaining 4 megapixel monitor.

Adobe Reader internal error

Since upgrading to Adobe Reader X , I have been suffering a similar problem as described in an Adobe support forum post.

I get the annoying pop-up when I do pretty much anything in Reader, such as pressing the PgDn key, or Ctrl-P for print. After dismissing it, reader usually works OK, but not always. Sometimes it will hang, and needs to get killed from Task manager. This only happens on one of my machines. So it's something about my individual system configuration that Reader dislikes.

Unfortunately, no one responded to the report on their support forum. I understand the software is free and Adobe can't provide individual end user support, but I hope this post will give it this bug more visibility and that it eventually will get fixed.

Cisco AnyConnect VPN vs Kaspersky Anti-virus 2011

I started at a new employer last week, which uses the Cisco AnyConnect VPN client software. I installed it on my Windows 7 64-bit system. And the VPN miserably failed to connect, for no apparent reason.

Since I use a Cisco router at home, this was not likely to be the cause of the problem. I figured it might have something to do with the Kaspersky anti-virus that I use on it. So, I "paused" the Kaspersky protection, and tried the VPN connection again. And lo and behold, the VPN worked just fine.

A few google searches later, it appears that the workaround for this problem is to mark the Cisco vpnagent.exe executable as trusted in Kaspersky.

The procedure for KAV 2010 is described here.

The menus had slightly different names in KAV 2011 that I currently use, but were close enough. No reboot was needed to apply the settings. After this change, I was able to re-enable the KAV protection, and connect to the VPN.

Where to find Thermador X302X oven meat probe

About a year ago, I bought a home which included a nice Thermador X302X double oven in the kitchen. One of the features of the top oven is the ability to use a meat probe to cook meat at the specified internal temperature. Unfortunately, the probe was nowhere to be found in the foreclosed home, and the bank wouldn't have been able to help.

I contacted Thermador to get a new probe. They informed me that they had to parts information for this model, including the probe. They were able to provide a manual for the oven, which is apparently a 1999 model. It seems that the current owner of Thermador, BSH (Bosch Siemens) is less than helpful with support for older models.

I did a lot of online searches for Thermador parts. Finally, I located this part at Amazon : For BOSCH / BSH Range Oven Baker Grill Meat Temperature Cooking Probe NEW. It only cost $15.99 delivered, so I took a chance. The probe was delivered last week. And it worked !

I used it once to roast some prime beef at 145 degrees. It was just slightly overcooked, more medium than medium rare, but pretty close. Next time I will know to set it a little bit lower.

Fry's Electronics has an inventory problem

I tried to purchase a Kensington Expert Mouse Trackball today. I first looked at Frys.com and checked that the item was available at the closest store to my office, which is Sunnyvale. Then I drove there. But surprise, it wasn't there.

From my smart phone, I checked frys.com and it still said the item was in stock. I placed an order from my phone. Within 5 minutes, I got a phone call from fry's saying they couldn't locate one. No apology or rain check. But they did tell me there were 3 in stock at the Campbell store. I was half doubting the information at that point, but I did drive there, and was finally found the item at Campbell's. All 3 were open box.

The only satisfying part of this shopping experience was taking advantage of Fry's new heavily advertised price matching with an online store, which turned out to be a 32% discount.

OK, maybe I spoke too soon

It looks like 3rd party apps can publish blogs to Facebook after all . Only facebook itself is no longer providing this service. I just tried a few apps :

NetworkedBlogs  : worked, and the posts looked good. But it will only once post every 12 hours for new blogs (with no followers), unless you pay. Thanks, but no thanks.

RSS Graffiti : seemed to work, and the delay wasn't too bad. But the posts on Facebook looked very plain, without any pictures.

Social RSS : only a 14 day free trial. I opted out.

TwitterFeed : free for now. This is what I settled on. By the way, my twitter is madbrainDotCom .

Facebook's awesome support

Earlier this year, I finally surrendered and got a Facebook account.
I have enjoyed the experience somewhat. However, I find that I don't want to restrict my posts to my friends in the vast majority of cases. Hence, the revival of this blog.

I have attempted to link this blog to my Facebook account using this URL .

It simply doesn't work. It appears Facebook has been cut-off from the oustide Web. I don't know if this is intentional or not. I have filed a defect with them. There is apparently no human being looking at these issues, unfortunately. There is no e-mail tech support for Facebook, nor is there phone support. Sigh.

This blog is coming back to life :

Last year, Google turned off ftp uploading for Blogger. After a long absence, I finally got around to adding a CNAME entry to my DNS to point to a google-hosted blogger page. So, this blog is back. Be warned.

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4 Realtek audio vs Gigabyte Dynamic Energy Saver

I have been using the aforementioned motherboard with an Intel Q6600 CPU for a year and a half in a home theater PC environment. I have been mostly happy until now.
That was before I tried to use the Dynamic Energy Saver (DES) utility program that came with it. This program is supposed to reduce energy consumption. While I haven't tried to measure the savings, I noticed clicks and pops in the losslessly compressed classical music I was playing from iTunes. The SPDIF optical output of the motherboard was connected to my Yamaha RX-V2500 receiver . The Realtek drivers in Windows 7 were configured to output at 24 bits / 192 kHz by default.
Fortunately, the audio problem went away after disabling the DES. But this makes the DES less than useful.

France Télécon Orange / mobicarte fraud

I spent about 19 years in France. Thus, I should have known better than to walk into an agence France Télécom, 189 avenue Daumesnil, 75012 Paris, on September 8, 2009 to purchase a SIM card with Internet service for my Android cell phone (T-Mobile G1).

The sales person sold me service called Mobicarte, for 15 euros, plus a 25 euro "refill" which was needed to activate the "Internet Imax illimitée" option, which cost 12 euros a month. At least that's the name and price of the option that the sales person wrote on the back of my invoice, and told me to activate over the phone.

When I tried to activate this option over the phone, however, I was told it no longer existed as of August 20th. The new rate was 6 euros for daytime, and 3 euros for night time. Or 9 euros per day ! Since I was going to be there for 14 days, that meant the Internet access would cost me 133 euros, instead of the 12 advertised. On top of that, there was the need to constantly reactivate the service. I was not interested in the service at all at this price. I asked for a refund. But I was denied, on the grounds that the Mobicarte had already refilled. This refill had been activated not by me, but by the salesperson, in order to allow the Internet option to be activated. It was "against France Télécom's policy" to provide any refunds for Mobicartes that were already refilled.

I spent half an hour arguing with the store manager, Mme "Rochai B", who kept arguing it was not in her power to refund - they can only take money, even though the sales person was clearly in error and not aware of the option change ! She agreed to take back the Mobicarte, and write a letter to corporate to request a refund.

The refund, of course, never came. I was also unable to obtain satisfaction by disputing the France Télécom charge on my credit card with American Express, even though the charge was clearly fraudulent, as to this day, France Télécom is still in possession of the Mobicarte, and still has my money.

If I didn't live all the way in California, I would have taken the store to court. As it is, my only recourse is to share my experience with this very shady company, which is unethical and uses deceptive sales tactics, and warn all its potential customers that France Télécom does not keep their promises, even when they are in writing.

Do not call 1-888-333-DISH if you are a Dish network customer

In my previous blog post, I mentioned a technical issue with my dish network 722 receiver. I accidentally dialed 1-888-333-DISH instead of 1-800-333-DISH, which is Dish Network's actual phone number. The number is actually for a different company. The person who answered the phone never identified which one. I kept asking to be transferred to tech support , but all they wanted to talk about was promotions and upgrading me to a "new HR22 receiver" that would not need to be connected to a phone line, and would have free locals. At no point was it mentioned that this was DirecTV service. I kept asking for the tech support phone number, and in the end they told me to call 1-800-333-DISH - Dish Network's actual phone number. They never mentioned that they were from a different company. Don't be fooled.

Dish Network VIP 722 receiver vs KQED ATSC signal

The Echostar VIP 722 receiver is a very nice DVR. It can play and record TV from both over-the-air DTV broadcasts, and from satellite. It has one OTA tuner and two satellite tuners.
One of my most frequently watched channels is PBS, specifically KQED out of San Francisco. The 9.1 subchannel is their HDTV channel.
I have found that on half the broadcasts, the Echostar 722 displays a picture on 9.1, but is unable to decode the sound.

In the process of setting up a software DVR on my HTPC, I found that it can decode the same broadcasts, with sound. This is a problem with the 722 DVR.

I filed a report to Dish network tech support and had the issue escalated to their engineering department. I will update this page if I get a response.

Logitech Webcam Software trouble under Windows 7

Earlier this year, I reported my good experience with the Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000 under Windows Vista x64. Unfortunately, after installing Windows 7 x64 (clean install), my experience is no longer good. The application that comes with the camera causes many problems.

1. Clicking on "microphone" in LWS causes the application to hang
   
2. Cannot bring up "manage audio devices" in Windows control panel . It never comes up
   
3. LWS 1.10 installation does not complete (window not responding, hung for hours)
   
4. Skype settings window hangs (clicking tools/options in the menu)
   
5. Skype won't make calls . An endless dialtone rings even after one tries to terminates the call.
   
6. Skype won't exit
   
7. LWS.EXE cannot be killed from task manager
   
8. uninstalling the LWS application 12.10.1113 solves all of the above problems.
   But of course one can no longer take snapshots without this application installed.
   
9. Reinstalling the software does not help. All the problems come back. This is with the latest LWS110_x64.exe package.
   

I'm hoping that Logitech will provide a solution, and I will update this blog if they do, but so far, I have been out of luck. In the meantime, if you have similar problems, and can live without the Logitech Webcam application, uninstalling it may solve your issues.

Beware of Raidmax Power Supply rebates

I purchased two power supplies from Raidmax at Fry's Electronics, one in 2008, and another in 2009 . In both cases, there was a large ($40) rebate.

While the power supplies have worked fine, I was disappointed not to receive the rebates as expected. Both times, I had to call the company to complain 6 months after the purchase, and twice they claimed to have sent me the check many months before, but I never received it. After they remailed the payment, I received the checks I was owed.

I track my rebates in a special rebate account in Quicken, which is how I noticed those weren't missing. I have bought items with several thousand dollars worth of rebates in the last few years, mostly from Fry's. Raidmax has been the main offender on unpaid rebates, so I thought it was worth sharing my experience with them.

Comcast Internet raises rates on second month of contract without notice

I was one of the early adopters of DSL, during the Pacbell trial in November 1997 . But SBC, and now AT&T, didn't invest enough into their network. I was running the top ADSL speed available through AT&T, which was only 6 Mbits/s down / 768 kbps up. The upstream speed was particularly painful.

In September, I placed an order with Comcast, because they offered 12 Mbits/s down and 2 Mbps up, and there was a 12 months promotion at $24.99, plus $3 for a modem rental, or $27.99.

The Comcast service took longer than expected, because I hadn't had any kind of cable service in my home since I purchased it in 1997. There was a 10 day delay due to construction to run a new cable line from the street into the junction box.
Finally, the service was installed successfully on October 2, and so far, it has worked relatively well. My first October bill was for $27.99 plus tax.
Then came my second November bill. It was for $29.99 plus tax ! Imagine my surprise at this rate hike, having just started a new 12 months promotion.

I called Comcast about this problem. They claimed that only the Internet service was on a contract, but not the cost of the modem rental. It went up from $3 to $5, so I was told. I hadn't received any notice about this whatsoever. I was told that notices were mailed. I am very meticulous about my postal mail, and I know for certain I never received it. It is probably because I was such a new customer and the notices must have been mailed before I was a customer. In other words, I fell through the cracks.

The only thing I was able to get Comcast to accomplish was to refund me $2 for the modem overcharge for November, since I had no notice. But I'm supposed to pay $5/month for the modem rental from December on.

I already have a used identical Motorola SB5100 cable modem on order on ebay for $26.99 including shipping, which is $2.69/month for the next 10 months, vs $3/month for the Comcast rental. I will return Comcast's rented modem before the December bill is due.

When the 12 months contract with Comcast is up, Comcast will want to charge me for basic cable TV service, for which I have no use for, since I use a combination of satellite and OTA antenna for my TV. I don't even have a cable outlet in my living room. I had the Comcast installer run the cable line from directly to my home office upstairs. I have a feeling that I will be getting rid of the Motorola cable modem on October 2, 2010, and hopefully switching to ADSL2/2+, if a local telco operator has upgraded their network by then.

Migrating Yahoo messenger chat archives manually

One thing that the Yahoo messenger program is missing is the ability to import or export chat archives. This can become fairly important if you have a lot of people in your buddy list, as I do over 700. The problem manifests itself when you do a full reinstallation of your Windows operating system, as may sometimes be required. Or if you are migrating from, say, Windows Vista to Windows 7, you may not want to do the in-place upgrade, but instead to a "fresh" install of the OS.

In this example, the system was previously running Windows Vista 32 bits. The archive files were located in :

C:\Windows.old\Users\atoy\Local Settings\VirtualStore\Program Files\Yahoo!\Messenger\Profiles\atoyccb\Archive\Messages

A new OS, Vista 64 bits, was installed. The new archived messages are now in

C:\Users\Charito\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\Yahoo!\Messenger\Profiles\atoyccb\Archive\Messages

You can copy the old archives over by following the following steps :

• Open a command-prompt window as administrator
  
• Copy over the old archives to the new location :
  
  
  

  XCOPY "C:\Windows.old\Users\atoy\Local Settings\VirtualStore\Program Files\Yahoo!\Messenger\Profiles\atoyccb\Archive\Messages\*.*" ">C:\Users\Charito\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\Yahoo!\Messenger\Profiles\atoyccb\Archive\Messages" /S