No Magic Here

Stepping into the (bluish) light

noreply@blogger.com (Marc Bernard) — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 20:53:00 +0000

The holiday season here is very quiet. Almost everybody takes the two weeks around Christmas and New Year's off. This year, I'm carrying over a few days to take in the spring, when we go south on a Disney pilgrimage.

So, this is a great time to update the old beast to Windows 7. I had moved this machine from XP to Vista just about a year ago, and that went reasonably well, so I thought this would be easy.

Well, the install was easy. Pop the DVD in, spark up Setup, agree to some lawyerly mumbo jumbo, and click the shiny Install Now button. Wait about an hour... then reboot.

Presto, it comes up great. Crtl-Alt-Del, type in the user name/password, and... blue screen of death.

Try again. Reboot, then... blue screen of death. Same problem indicated, and I quote, "The driver is mismanaging PTEs."

Which driver? Good question.

Spark up in Safe Mode, with networking. That seems ok. Fire up my handy Windows debugger windbg, and open the dump file.

3: kd> !analyze -v

****************************************************************
*                                                              *
*             Bugcheck Analysis                                *
*                                                              *
****************************************************************

SYSTEM_PTE_MISUSE (da)
The stack trace identifies the guilty driver.
Arguments:

Arg1: 00000504, Type of error.
Arg2: c04baa00
Arg3: 00000030

Arg4: 00017540

Debugging Details:

------------------
DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID: VISTA_DRIVER_FAULT
BUGCHECK_STR: 0xDA
PROCESS_NAME: System

CURRENT_IRQL: 2

LAST_CONTROL_TRANSFER: from 82c77df7 to 82caae1e

STACK_TEXT:
8efec964 82c77df7 82d4b820 00000030 00000000 nt!MiReplenishBitMap+0x238
8efec9a8 82ca9428 82d4b820 00000000 86b48fc8 nt!MiEmptyPteBins+0xd2

8efeca0c 8b1d29d9 88469be8 00000000 00000001 nt!MmMapLockedPagesSpecifyCache+0x198
8efeca2c 8b1d93b9 88469be8 00000000 86b48fc8 rdyboost!SmMapMdl+0x23

8efeca44 8b1c4bce 86b48fc8 00000002 86b8ad48 rdyboost!SmFpAllocate+0x1b

8efeca6c 8b1cfee2 86b6152c 0000114b 00000001 rdyboost!SMKM_STORE<SMD_TRAITS>::SmStMapRegion+0x68
8efecab8 8b1d07e7 0000114b 8efeccec 884d85e0 rdyboost!ST_STORE<SMD_TRAITS>::StDmpSinglePageRetrieve+0xde
8efecd10 8b1d1d0e 86b48478 884d85e0 884d85e0 rdyboost!ST_STORE<SMD_TRAITS>::StDmPageRetrieve+0x103
8efecd28 8b1d1f08 86b48430 884d85e0 00000000 rdyboost!ST_STORE<SMD_TRAITS>::StWorkItemProcess+0x4a
8efecd50 82e1366d 00000000 a6a90788 00000000 rdyboost!SMKM_STORE<SMD_TRAITS>::SmStWorker+0xfe
8efecd90 82cc50d9 8b1d1e0a 86b48430 00000000 nt!PspSystemThreadStartup+0x9e
00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 nt!KiThreadStartup+0x19

STACK_COMMAND: kb

FOLLOWUP_IP:

rdyboost!SmMapMdl+23
8b1d29d9 5d pop ebp

SYMBOL_STACK_INDEX: 3
SYMBOL_NAME: rdyboost!SmMapMdl+23

FOLLOWUP_NAME: MachineOwner

MODULE_NAME: rdyboost

IMAGE_NAME: rdyboost.sys

DEBUG_FLR_IMAGE_TIMESTAMP: 4a5bc19a

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: 0xDA_rdyboost!SmMapMdl+23

BUCKET_ID: 0xDA_rdyboost!SmMapMdl+23

ReadyBoost? WTF? Open the Control Panel... yada yada... Services. No ReadyBoost. The darn thing was removed from 7 and rolled into something called SuperFetch. Ok, disable that.

Reboot, then... blue screen of death. Same problem.

Back to Safe Mode. Google, don't fail me now...

Fast forward a couple of hours of fruitless Googling and rebooting, and I came to the realization that I've bricked the damn thing.

Ok, back in Safe Mode one more time, copy everything I want to keep over to the D: drive, and do a clean install of 7.

Reboot, then... holy shit - it worked!

Two days later, I've got almost everything reinstalled, and I didn't lose any data. The last thing on my checklist of programs to install is Lotus Notes, but I have to go get bent over by the IT team for that one.

And that's how I spent the holidays.

Is there anything The Google can’t do?

noreply@blogger.com (Marc Bernard) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 13:45:00 +0000

Is there anything The Google can’t do?

DESPERATE dad Leroy Smith resorted to Google with the request "how to deliver a baby" when his wife went into labour.

He was so clueless when wife Emma suddenly started to give birth at home he opted to use the internet.

Mr Smith called a midwife for advice but before she arrived Emma, 25, began having powerful contractions.

So the 29-year-old grabbed hold of his BlackBerry, accessed the internet and sought help from search engine Google for step-by-step instructions.

And after following the detailed guide on the internet's wikiHow Emma safely gave birth to daughter 6lb 11oz Mahalia Merita Angela Smith.

2009 Canadian Olympic Curling Trials - recap

noreply@blogger.com (Marc Bernard) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 13:25:00 +0000

Let’s see how my predictions held up.

For the women, I said I thought Jones would take it, with my preference going to Kleibrink, and watch out for Lawton.

Well, even with Kleibrink in the final, I was cheering for Cheryl Bernard. The best team all week should win these things, and they (just barely) managed to do it. I was certainly happy to see the implosion of the Jones and Scott teams. On the upside, the experience that Krista McCarville’s team picked up this week is going to help them out down the road.

On the men’s side, I had Martin winning, but I’d rather see Howard take it, and watch out for Koe. Fewer surprises here, and Martin had the final game wrapped up after the third end. Not quite as bad as the 2008 Brier final, but it’s disappointing that poor ice conditions played a part in this one.

The men get it going in Vancouver against a medal contender in Norway, on Tuesday February 16, and the women get their first action against another medal contender in Switzerland, later that afternoon.

OK, just a little pinprick

noreply@blogger.com (Marc Bernard) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:34:00 +0000

Finally got the flu shot last night. Actually, got them both – seasonal and H1N1.

The last time I had a flu shot was 2000. My daughter was days away from being born, and I figured that a flu shot was a good idea. I ended up working late that night, and I was in agony. I got the shot around 2:00pm, and by 8:00pm I had a high fever, was wrapped in my winter coat, with a toque on, and was trying to type while wearing my gloves. I couldn’t lift my arm at all.

Yesterday, I had none of that. My H1N1 arm is sore today, but working, and I didn’t have any fever at all.

Score one for the health system. :)

2009 Canadian Olympic Curling Trials coverage

noreply@blogger.com (Marc Bernard) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:44:00 +0000

Ok, curling fans. Hope you're stocked up on food and beverages.

Here's the draw sheet for the Roar of the Rings Canadian Olympic Curling Trials, which gets started Sunday afternoon.

The event website is here.

And you can follow live scoring here. I recommend the CurlCast application – the link to that should be live on Sunday.

Conversation of the day

noreply@blogger.com (Marc Bernard) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:32:00 +0000

John: Hey, do you run Unlocker?

Me: No, why?

John: Well, I'm trying to install it, and my virus checker complains.

Me: Oh, right. There's some adware in it.

John: That's too bad. I'm trying to replace a dll and I can't. Something has a hold on it.

Me [trying to rule out the brutally obvious]: Is the app running?

John: What, you think I'm some kind of idiot? Of course the app isn't running! [opens Task Manager] Oh, FUCK ME!

Me: Nailed it!

John [mumbling]: Thanks for your help.

Quote of the day

noreply@blogger.com (Marc Bernard) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 22:30:00 +0000

Tiger Woods is a gazillionaire. He is married to a Swedish swimsuit model. And yet, it's all crumbling around him. He's paying millions to contain the damage.

All of which leads to today's quote of the day. I missed the guy's name, but he said:

"Did you ever think that you would wake up and say, 'Boy, am I ever glad I'm not Tiger Woods'" ?

Blacked-out vans, contingency plans

noreply@blogger.com (Marc Bernard) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:52:00 +0000

Looks like the black vans will be pulling up outside my door shortly…

Conversation of the day

noreply@blogger.com (Marc Bernard) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:26:00 +0000

Alan [watching Visual Studio crawl]: Damn it. I'm going to take that fricking Resharper off. It's dog slow. It adds literally minutes to my life.

J-Rod: Don't you want more minutes in your life?

What a way to lose

noreply@blogger.com (Marc Bernard) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:44:00 +0000

I’ve lost on the last shot before. Lost plenty of times in an extra end. But never in a second extra end, as Manitoba experienced at the Dominion Curling Championships on the weekend.

Ontario's last rock in the 1st extra picked, leaving Manitoba a free draw which was pulled for a hog line violation after the light blinked red. In the 2nd extra, Ontario drew mid-eight foot partially buried and Manitoba just ticked the rock on a down weight hit and left it in the rings.

Welcome to the machine

noreply@blogger.com (Marc Bernard) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 02:11:00 +0000

First post from the new BlackBerry. Watch for me wandering the halls like an Alzheimer's patient any time now...

Nine!

noreply@blogger.com (Marc Bernard) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:26:00 +0000

Nine years ago yesterday, I was not watching the 88th Grey Cup.

Nine years ago today, I was not voting in a Federal Election. In fact, we voted at an advance poll, just in case.

Nine years ago, I was not slogging through a tough week at RSNA. Morgan was nice enough to take my place in the barrel that year. If I'd gone, I might have forgotten what hotel I was staying in...

Nine years ago, I was definitely not wearing comfortable underwear.

Nine years ago today, I met a pretty young lady.

From Gymnastics

From Arrowhead

Happy birthday Veronica!

2009 Home Hardware Bonspiel - Day Three

noreply@blogger.com (Marc Bernard) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:39:00 +0000

Day three had us up late in the festival city of Stratford, for a 9:00pm game. I'm getting too old to be staggering into bed at 1:00am on a Wednesday night, er, Thursday morning.

The game didn't look good for us early. We spent the first few ends giving up two without and taking one with the hammer. Math is not one of my strong points, but even I can figure out that you can't win if you keep that up.

We got a break in the fifth when they flashed a hit and we stole two. Repeat of the same in the sixth, for another steal of two.

Controversy erupted in the seventh. They had three rocks near the outside of the sheet, one of them in the top 12. I threw a hit at the rock in the house, but it broke late and ticked the guard. On its way out of play, it ticked the third rock, and put it in the house. Nobody was watching closely, but from the angle the rock moved, the shooter must have been out of play when it made contact. Since nobody saw it happen, we decided to leave it where it was. They split a rock in to sit four on the next shot. Our skip made a nice double, and in the end they scored a deuce, although it should have been a single. Where’s instant replay when you need it?

In the eighth we had a nice end set up, sitting three in the four foot, with one at the back of the button. We put up a guard with our skip's first rock, and it didn't quite finish far enough. The opposing skip and vice were trying to decide which in-off to throw. I didn't mind either one, since neither was going to work. Their front end yelled down the ice to try a shot through a small hole near the centre line. Which they finally decided to go with, and made perfectly. Our skip tried to follow them down, but his rock didn't curl as much, and we wrecked on a guard.

All-in-all, a fun week as usual, and an early finish as usual.

Them (h) 2 0 2 0 0 0 2 1
Us 0 1 0 1 2 2 0 0

Deferred lunacy

noreply@blogger.com (Marc Bernard) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:07:00 +0000

At the risk of sounding like a crotchety old man (hold your comments on that, please), this is the stupidest idea I’ve heard in a long time.

In the UK, the Professional Association of Teachers is suggesting that nobody fails. Instead, students are told they met with “deferred success”.

At least someone has recognized how insane this idea is. Ruth Kelly, Education Secretary, says:

"It's really important for young people to grow up with the ability to get on and achieve, but also to find out what failure is.

"When young people grow up and enter the adult world they have to deal with success and failure, and education is about creating well-rounded young people who can deal with these sorts of situations."

If you want well rounded kids, they have to fall off their bike once in a while. The last thing I want when I hire a new grad is for them to come in with the attitude that success is automatic. A little hard work goes a long way towards success.

My wife is a college professor, and the kids coming out of high school these days seem to already have this attitude, that they deserve good marks for just showing up. Wake up kids – the real world doesn’t work that way.

2009 Home Hardware Bonspiel - Day Two

noreply@blogger.com (Marc Bernard) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:48:00 +0000

Day two saw us at the Galt Country Club. Home to fast ice and fast women. Er, maybe I'm thinking of some other place...

Anyway, we played a much better game last night, though the ice was tricky. Very greasy underfoot - our lead nearly blew a groin sweeping in the first end.

There was good speed, as usual at Galt, but not too much curl. More than Fergus, but outside the four foot lines it fell back with any more than board weight. We figured that out before the other team, and used it to our advantage.

Them (h) 0 2 1 0 0 0 0 x

Us 2 0 0 1 1 1 1 x

Tonight we're in Stratford, and the pressure is on to win to stay alive.

2009 Home Hardware Bonspiel - Day One

noreply@blogger.com (Marc Bernard) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:53:00 +0000

Action got underway last night in the 2009 Home Hardware Bonspiel. This year's event is being hosted by the Fergus Curling Club, as part of the club's 175th anniversary. Where else can you curl on sheet 8 in a four sheet club?

Team JugOrNot took a pass this year, but half of the team is sparing in it.

Last night we got the party started in Fergus. Since it's the 175th year, they're piping the teams in for every draw. That was cool - my first time being piped in via live piper. My daughter has done it once too, and she's only eight and 51/52nds years old.

We had a decent game. The ice was reasonably quick, but dead straight. A number of times we tried to bury behind a guard but left it wide open. A nasty side effect from playing with six feet of curl in Elmira this year. Our opponents were able to hit and roll behind cover a number of times, putting us in trouble. I ended up throwing more runbacks than I ever have, sometimes trying runback doubles to bail out. Those actually turned out ok. In the end, we couldn't pull out the 3-spot coming home to tie it up.

Them 1 1 0 3 1 0 1 x

Us (h) 0 0 2 0 0 2 0 x

Tonight we're in Galt, at the Country Club.

Choking on the Kool-Aid

noreply@blogger.com (Marc Bernard) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:26:00 +0000

I’m trying to drink the Kool-Aid. I really am. But when I install something from Microsoft, it just works. Nothing fancy to do, no hacks.

I installed Eclipse, and to update one of the plug-ins, I had to use the Eclipse software update feature. All good, except it didn’t work.

I had to visit The Google, which pointed me to a site that described a fix for the problem.

I’m happy to start smoking clove cigarettes, wearing Birkenstocks and hemp clothes. Just give me some software that works out of the box.

2009 Canadian Olympic Curling Trials

noreply@blogger.com (Marc Bernard) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:16:00 +0000

The Canadian Olympic Curling Trials run December 6 to 13 in Edmonton. For the last trials, I correctly picked the women's winner, Shannon Kleibrink, but stumbled badly in my men's pick, choosing Randy Ferbey. Ferbey coughed up a furball, and made me (and a lot of other people) look bad.

Here's the list of qualified teams, and my picks.

Men:

Randy Ferbey, Edmonton
Jason Gunnlaugson, Beausejour, Man.
Glenn Howard, Coldwater, Ont.
Kevin Koe, Edmonton
Kevin Martin, Edmonton
Wayne Middaugh, Toronto
Pat Simmons, Moose Jaw
Jeff Stoughton, Winnipeg

Who I'd like to win: Glenn Howard. Class guy, class team. They would be instant favourites to win a medal in Vancouver, and likely a nice shiny one.

Who I think will win: Kevin Martin. Tough team to beat, but last year's world championships showed that it is possible. Kevin will be motivated to improve on his silver medal from Salt Lake.

Dark horse picks: Kevin Koe & Jeff Stoughton. Don't be shocked to see either of these guys in the final, or even winning it all. Koe is [over]due for win in a big event.

Women:

Cheryl Bernard, Calgary
Amber Holland, Kronau
Jennifer Jones, Winnipeg
Shannon Kleibrink, Calgary
Stefanie Lawton, Saskatoon
Krista McCarville, Thunder Bay, Ont.
Kelly Scott, Kelowna, B.C.
Crystal Webster, Calgary

Who I'd like to win: Shannon Kleibrink. I think they can get it done.

Who I think will win: Jennifer Jones. Nobody else is as cool under pressure, even when her team is starting to shake uncontrollably around her.

Dark horse picks: Stefanie Lawton. Also [over]due for a win in a big event. The sisters have won big at the junior level, and all they need now is to come up with a good week at the Trials.

I may feel a bout of swine flu coming on, just in time for TSN's coverage to get underway...

Technorati Tags: Curling,Olympics

Punch the monkey

noreply@blogger.com (Marc Bernard) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:25:00 +0000

There comes a time in every software project's life when it must be set free. You know you've reached this point by the volume and quality of the defects being reported by your testers. Crash reports go way down, and the trivial bugs go way up.

For example, if you get a defect report that says the window frame is blue and the tooltips are yellow, and that doesn't match your application's colour scheme, it's time to ship (or stop running on XP). If you get a defect report that says your application is doing nothing, but it's not actually running at the moment, it's time to ship.

Our application has a user interface feature where certain elements appear in tabs. These tabs can be activated, deactivated, or closed. To make it intuitive for the user to close, we added an 'x' button, similar to those found in IE, Firefox, Chrome, etc. It's a standard, well accepted way of closing content. Except for the defect report that tells me it's too easy to use.

I think I'll add a "punch the monkey" feature to close the tabs.

Headline: man uses saw, keeps fingers

noreply@blogger.com (Marc Bernard) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:30:00 +0000

I can still count to 10 without taking off any clothes. Yes, after using a mitre saw for 7 hours on Saturday, I still have all my fingers.

Not much of an achievement for those skilled in manual labour, but I type for a living, so the fingers are a must-have. I’ve seen voice recognition software in action – it doesn’t cut the mustard. The cheese, maybe…

Anyway, the basement work is almost done, and looking good.

TV Commercial of the day

noreply@blogger.com (Marc Bernard) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 17:21:00 +0000

Digging in the dirt

noreply@blogger.com (Marc Bernard) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:33:00 +0000

One thing they don’t tell you in software development school is that not every fix will be a thing of beauty.

You don’t frame every code change and hang it on the wall. Sometimes, you feel so dirty after making a change that you need to hit the shower.

Although, once you get your hands dirty, sometimes it’s fun to put on the headphones, crank up the tunes, and get in touch with your inner cowboy. Playing in the mud is fun. Just remember to commit the code under someone else’s name…

Technorati Tags: Software development

Conversation of the day

noreply@blogger.com (Marc Bernard) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:28:00 +0000

I was sitting with a colleague yesterday, watching him fix a tricky bug. One of his monitors started flickering.

Me: That doesn’t look good.

John: That’s not too bad, actually. In a few minutes it will get worse. Then it will get a lot worse. Then I have to reboot.

Me: You’d better save that file.

John: It’s not the losing work that bothers me, it’s the seizure I’m going to have from all that flickering.

Me: That’s not good either.

John: I don’t know. Sometimes I wake up, the bug is fixed, and there’s a full tank of gas in my car.

Tailpipe emissions

noreply@blogger.com (Marc Bernard) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:01:00 +0000

Here’s a study that says dogs leave a larger footprint than SUVs.

They argue that a medium-size dog consumes 90 grams of meat and 156 grams of cereals daily, resulting in a footprint of 0.84 hectares, while a Toyota Land Cruiser uses 55.1 gigajoules yearly, equating to a footprint of about 0.41 hectares.

It’s a bit controversial, of course. They made some assumptions about mileage driven, and dog food. Perhaps the biggest error in the study was not taking into account tailpipe emissions. Although, I think my dog’s tailpipe emissions can beat any SUV on the planet…

That’s why they call it “beta”

noreply@blogger.com (Marc Bernard) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:13:00 +0000