• One large zucchini or two medium, shredded
• one medium onion or shallot, minced
• two tablespoons of fresh herbs, minced
• two eggs, beaten
• three to five tablespoons of flour
• 1/4 cup shredded cheese
• one clove of garlic, minced
• salt and pepper to taste

I shredded the zucchini on a box grater along with two shallots.  Added all the other ingredients and the flour until it was a not too wet consistency; I had thyme and flat leaf parsley for herbs, a buttery French ripened cheese we brought back from Paris.  Heated an inch of vegetable oil in a cast iron skillet and dropped a heaping tablespoon of the mixture into the hot oil, turning once crisp.

They turned out amazingly well; unfortunately I put too much of the mixture in the oil so my fritters didn’t crisp in the middle.  They were light, crunchy and not the least bit oily.  I’m anxious for more zucchini from our garden.

When you’re in Safe Mode you can’t install or more importantly uninstall an application because the Windows Installer Service isn’t running.  With SafeMSI.exe you enter Safe Mode on Windows NT, 2000, 2003, Vista, 2008 or Windows 7 and run the program.  You get this notification:

You then uninstall whatever ails you and reboot your system.  Wonderful!

It was 1989 and DC comics was celebrating the 50th anniversary of Batman.  They had started slowly publishing reprint material in softcover trade paperbacks but hardcover editions were left to Warner Books, Graphitti Designs and with these volumes Longmeadow Press.

The Complete Frank Miller Batman collects three stories: Batman Year One, Wanted: Santa Claus Dead Or Alive and The Dark Knight Returns.  The only new material for this volume is an introduction by Richard Bruning, then DC design director.  Batman Year One and The Dark Knight Returns are reprints of their trade paperbacks and not individual issues so they include the introductions to those volumes by Frank Miller and Alan Moore.  Wanted: Santa Claus Dead Or Alive comes from DC Super Star Holiday Special 21.  It appears that story was the only one touched up: it was recolored by Richmond Lewis for this volume.  Here’s one of Richmond’s color pages from eBabble Art.

Riding the success of their first volume Longmeadow Press followed up with Stacked Deck: The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told Expanded Edition in 1990.  This is a reprint of The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told trade paperback, including it’s cover and additional materials.  To this three more stories and creator biographies were added, thus the “Expanded Edition” in the title.  Dean Motter provided the cover illustration and was responsible for design on both books.

So the stories aren’t new and the material has been reprinted elsewhere: why are these collectible hardcovers?  First and foremost they are luxuriously packaged: leather covers, gilt edging, silk bookmarks.  Simply put they scream quality: these could look great on anyone’s bookshelf and are quality items.  I picked mine up when they were published and they still look brand new.  Affordability is the other key.  These are twenty year old books and they’re going online for about $70; they were $29.95 new.  Watch out for second printings of The Complete Frank Miller Batman, since you can get either printing for about the same price.

The Complete Frank Miller Batman
Longmeadow Press, 1989, ISBN 0-681-40869-X

Stacked Deck: The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told Expanded Edition
Longmeadow Press, 1990, ISBN0-681-41015-9

Not much left in the system so I moved the RAM from it’s current position to the other slot and the system booted without issue; the beeping was gone.  I moved the RAM back to it’s old slot and the system booted just fine.

Since then this has occurred three more times and reseating the RAM corrects the issue.  Hmm.

Guess who’s back!! That’s right, kids, MARK MILLAR (THE ULTIMATES, WOLVERINE: OLD MAN LOGAN) and superstar artist CARLOS PACHECO (AVENGERS FOREVER, X-MEN) blast into the Ultimate Universe for a mind-blowing, heart-pounding and gut-wrenching event of epic proportions! When a highly-classified secret threatens Captain America, only the newly-returned Nick Fury has the tools to bring ‘em in! PROJECT AVENGERS is a go! Collecting ULTIMATE AVENGERS #1-6.

Wow, that uses a lot of words to say nothing.  Let me give you the skinny: Red Skull and the Cosmic Cube are introduced the Ultimate universe.  The new spin is that Red Skull is Captain America’s son and Cap goes renegade to find out what happened.  While that’s happening Nick Fury is tasked to assemble a black ops team to retrieve the Cosmic Cube and kill Red Skull.

I thoroughly enjoyed the story.  This was a nice reinvention of the classic storyline of Red Skull and the Cosmic Cube with lots of great action.  To be fair the hunt for Captain America takes a good amount of this story and is straight out comic book action.  The dialog moved nicely and there was a good flow overall.  I’m not sure I see the point of bringing this story into the Ultimate universe: aren’t there new ideas available instead of rehashing?  I understand and feel the draw of seeing Red Skull and getting a new character at the same time, and perhaps the majority of readers aren’t familiar with a Captain America story from fourty years ago, but I do.

Let’s talk about the art.  Carlos Pacheco is listed as penciler on this book but I didn’t see much Pacheco art.  Have a perusal at the two pages above: I can’t actually say it looks anything like any Pacheco art I’ve seen.  The credits list five inkers and you can see their work throughout the book: based on what’s on the page I’d say Pacheco provided breakdowns at best and should not be credited as penciler.  His name steered me to buy the book and Marvel got me on this one but not again.  The inkers did most of the work so the quality dips in places such as the page on the right: details in the face are basic.  The colours are bright and punchy but that’s what we get now with digital colouring.

Packaging and collection as a whole are good.  The credits from the individual issues were removed so it flows like a complete work and not a collection of six issues.  While I enjoyed the full bleed edge to edge art pages I found it difficult to really enjoy the art close to the center.  Extras are thin: two variant covers and two pages of character designs from Pacheco.

Overall Ultimate Comics Avengers: Next Generation is a good read with some weak areas including penciling and original story.

I was also popping into Staples once a week to see what they had on liquidation: they frequently have slightly older or discontinued PCs for great savings.  About two weeks before my trip I went in and found an Acer Aspire Timeline 1810T for $247 with these specs: Intel 1.4 GHz SU3500 Core Solo CPU, 3 GB DDR2 RAM, 250GB 2.5″ 5400 RPM SATA HDD, 11.6″ screen 1366×768 resolution, 802.11N wireless, Intel GMA4500HMD graphics, HDMI, DSUB outputs, three USB 2.0, 1.3 MP webcam, six cell battery, headphone and mic ports, card reader, Gigabit Ethernet, Windows Vista Home Premium.  I could not beat this price for a portable and Staples offered a 15 day return policy so I took the plunge.

I decided to clean out the pre-installed crud but leave the OS in place and get a full workout within my 15 day return period.  My biggest concerns were three fold: single core CPU, 11.6″ screen, reduced Canadian keyboard.

It’s been a while since I worked on a single core CPU but it has to be viewed in relation to the device: on a portable machine with a smaller screen I found single tasking to be my main focus.  Multitasking, tabbing and juggling multiple apps didn’t work on a PC with an 11.6″ screen, and that was a good thing.  I occasionally found myself waiting for an app but I was getting done what I wanted: web surfing, emailing, picture management and light editing, light gaming, movie watching.

Which leads me to my second concern: the 11.6″ screen.  After a few hours using it with the 1366×768 resolution my worries about screen size were gone: everything I wanted to do could be accomplished.  The same “portable device not a desktop” mentality that applied to the CPU came into play here: this isn’t a PC you sit in front of all day.  It’s task oriented: do what you want and move on.

Last concern was the keyboard.  I hated the “Canadian” layout but that was easily changed after I decided to keep it which I’ve posted about.  The keys have very little travel and I found them to feel close together, even though I believe it’s a full sized key.  As well the keyboard feels mushy and gives in the middle slightly, but not enough to affect typing.  I have large hands and my one dislike of the layout is that when I’m typing my hand can brush the touchpad: this had had disastrous effects like wiping out whole articles in WordPress.

Since I’m harping about the touchpad let me say it’s a good size and gets the job done.  The keys seem a little stiff but the two and three finger gestures plus the right side scroll work well and reduce your mousing workload.  I found myself double tapping the touchpad instead of left clicking most of the time; it was very comfortable and felt natural.

The Acer 1810T is light at 3.2 pounds and 11.2 x 8.0 x 1.2″; in fact it’s hard to believe you can have this much PC in so small and light a form factor.  I didn’t notice the weight in my messenger bag and moving around with it while working is a joy.

Being so portable I was concerned about watching movies and playing games: integrated graphics are not what I’m used to.  For our trip this PC was to keep my children occupied and mostly quiet before bed in our hotel room so I loaded up a bunch of Disney movies: the played beautifully full screen using Windows Media Play and Media Player Classic.  I didn’t see any stuttering or lagging.  I knew recently released games wouldn’t go so I picked up a few classics from Steam: Max Payne, Counter Strike, Titan Quest.  I kept the settings at medium and everything played well: these are at least a few years old but a fun distraction.  I did use an external mouse for gaming; can’t imagine trying to use the touchpad.

Last key item was battery life.  The six cell battery gave me a little more than eight hours of light use, while movie watching brought me down to four hours.  I call that excellent.  There are switches at the front left to disable and enable wireless ethernet and bluetooth, which came in handy to extend movie watching.  I kept the screen brightness down slightly from the top after lots of playing around to see how dim a screen I could live with; turns out I light it bright.

My two weeks came to an end and I decided to keep the 1810T.  At that point I connected a USB optical drive and burned the backups just in case.  Wiped the drive and installed Windows 7 Professional x64.  Upgraded to 4 GB DDR2 RAM, replaced the keyboard and added a bluetooth module.  The keyboard and bluetooth module were from eBay and required removing a lot of screws from the unit and taking the entire top off but I took it slow and it went without a hitch.  I also removed all the stickers: I like a clean look and since I already bought the unit I don’t need to be sold on it’s specs.

The Acer Aspire Timeline 1810T is a great laptop: portable, powerful, long lasting.  Unfortunately my model is discontinued but I continue to see similar Acer and Gateway models around $350.

My troubles began about four years after their manufacture date: yes that’s a long time but most PCs can keep going and going.  Started to see hard drive issues: loss of data, problems booting, the normal kind of thing from a failing hard drive.  Except there were no SMART errors, no bad sectors, no write failures.  Re-imaging the PC is standard practice since we’re a large company and don’t have time to nitpick every error, but this only helped for a few days.

These dx2200 PCs all shipped with Windows XP Professional and there is no reason to move beyond that.  Thinking I/O problems I checked to driver updates and noticed an ATI Radeon Xpress 200 chipset was used: this was a standard two chip north bridge south bridge solution with integrated graphics.  The last chipset driver from HP was February 2007 and was the version I was using.  Dead end on the driver front so I turned back to physical testing.

The Western Digital WD800JD was installed in most dx2200s so I ran the BIOS SMART and extended hard drive tests but they came back clean.  I downloaded the Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic CD and ran the short and extended tests.  On first run I received error code 0132 which according to WD means:

Command Aborted. Please ensure that you are using the version of diagnostic utility corresponding to either newer or older Western Digital drives.

I had the right version based on the information WD provides on the WD800JD page so that left me scratching my head.  On a whim I replaced the SATA cable: the error disappeared and the drive tested without issue.  I put the PC back into production and everything was working.  This was my first failed SATA cable and I was a bit skeptical.  Luckily I had more dx2200 PCs hanging around in the back room that had the same drive errors.

On the next PC I repeated the testing steps and again saw error code 0132 from the Western Digital diagnostics: this time I moved the SATA cable from slot 1 to slot 2 on the motherboard and the error went away and the drive tested with no errors.  For the third PC I simply shut the PC down after receiving the 0132 error and reseated the SATA cable in slot 1.  On power up and testing no errors.  Subsequent problems on other dx2200s were fixed by reseating the SATA cable.

I’m not sure why after prolonged use this motherboard has issues with it’s SATA connectors and needs the connection re-established; at least I know what to do when it happens.  As an aside removing the WD800JD and testing it in another PC showed no errors.

Before I dive into this fascinating and edge-of-your-seat topic a little background information may be in order.  Welcome to the first column of Bound Together, a look at comic book trade paperbacks and graphic novels in all their shapes and sizes.  I have been a longtime collector of limited and hard to find comic book hardcovers.  I don’t really know why, other than it was a small and mostly affordable area of interest that, as all hobbies go, eventually reached the lofty heights of pricing few mortals can afford.  I started a bunch of years back, twenty or so, by combing comic stores for their dusty and forgotten hardcover books and then moved on to eBay like everyone else.

V For Vendetta was a big book for DC in 1988 when it was launched: Watchmen had turned out to be a huge hit and people wanted more from Alan Moore.  V For Vendetta was a black and white work first published in Warrior magazine in the U.K. that was never completed.  DC snapped up the rights, coloured the work and completed it in a ten issue mini series by 1989.

Trade paperbacks were a fledgling product from DC at this time but a few titles were trickling out.  V For Vendetta was collected in 1990 as a standard size softcover trade paperback.  In those days Marvel and DC weren’t producing hardcover collections: they outsourced those to Graphitti Designs, but that’s a topic for another day.

The same year a hardcover edition was released from Book Of The Month Club (BOMC): it was the trade paperback version with a hard cover added and white interior end pages.  The dust jacket was the wraparound cover of the trade paperback.  Book Of The Month Club has a long history of taking softcover works and putting them in a hardcover format: it started as a logistical necessity since their sales model was to mail out the books and this offered great protection.

On the inside flap we get our first mention of something different: “The acclaimed series – now collected in an exclusive hardcover Book Club edition!”.  As well it states “Printed in the U.S.A.”.  Let’s move on to the interior.

Everything is as it should be until we get to the bottom and that white sticker.  It says:

Quality printing by
Ronalds Printing
8000, Blaise – Pascal
Montreal Quebec H1E 2S7 Canada

Let’s take a look at the text under the sticker, by way of shining a flashlight from the back through the page:

BOMC offerings recordings and compact discs, cassettes
and records.  For information and catalog write to
BOMR Camp Hill PA 17012

That looks like it wasn’t supposed to be printed since this is a book and not a recording, but perhaps it was cross marketing at work.  That doesn’t explain why the printers but their sticker over top of it though.  As well there is no ISBN number anywhere and no printed price: hallmarks of a Book Of The Month product.  Unfortunately I can’t locate any confirmation that this volume was offered for sale by BOMC; would be nice to know along with a print run total.

As well we can clearly see “Printed In Canada. First Printing” in the material that most likely was part of the original trade paperback.  Perhaps Ronalds Printing (now Quebecor) was merely clarifying printing location of the hardcover book since the dust jacket was printed in the U.S.A. and not Canada.

K.C. Carlson is listed as Collected Books editor.  He shares some insight into the design and publication of the trade paperback at Comics Worth Reading but this rings out:

Me, I still have my prized (and rare?) hardcover edition of the original printing given to me by my friend Phyllis Hume, longtime coordinator of DC’s international editions. I’m still not sure where this particular version of the book comes from, as the guts were from the original Printed in Canada First Printing, but the dust jacket was printed in the USA. Oddly, it doesn’t have a cover price either, so perhaps it’s a book club version.

DC did get around to publishing a hardcover edition in 2005 to coincide with the movie, fifteen years after our BOMC edition.  It was released under their adult Vertigo line that didn’t exist when the mini series was first published.  If you’d like to get yourself a copy of the 1990 hardcover you’ll need to turn to the internet; pricing varies wildly on eBay and Abe Books.  Check out three available from Abe Books that list between $65 and $550; my mint copy cost me $85 from eBay in 2004.

V For Vendetta BOMC hardcover edition remains a solid collectible and a nice introduction to bound comic collections.

Since this was for lunch I removed the skin and put the two thighs in my trusty steamer.  Fourty five minutes later I removed one and sliced it thinly on toast with Gouda and hot mustard.  The taste was there and the meat was mostly tender but there was still too much chew.  I topped up the water in the steamer and let it go another hour.

Now the meat was very tender and sliced beautifully; I could tell right away the texture was what I wanted from pastrami.    Until now I hadn’t seen results from the steaming step in making pastrami but this really opened my eyes.  For brisket or eye of round pastrami I’d need at least four hours steaming to get optimal results.

It’s all very straightforward: click to scan, click to download, click to install.  If you’re very trusting you can select “install all” but I went for the at a time installation.  The process is mostly automated and for the most part gets the drivers correct.  For my ATI graphics card it all went without a hitch, the final install step launching the ATI executable.

I have a Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer on my PC but DriverEasy insists I install a Logicool and a Logitech driver, which I decline.  I’ve had two Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet driver updates: the first was from Dell that extracted to my hard drive where I stopped the installation, the second just the actual driver that DriverEasy opened a folder to.  I was surprised to see a Dell installation start on my non Dell PC but if that was where DriverEasy could get newer drivers I was fine with that.  For the second generic driver update I had to go to Device Manager and update the NIC driver myself, but couldn’t locate the folder DriverEasy used since it was nested nine folders deep.  I copied the final driver folder to my desktop and installed from there.

Download speed on the free version was quite fast and I didn’t feel the need to back up my drivers so I could easily pass on the paid version.

I would have to sum up DriverEasy as a hit and a miss: perhaps Driversometimeseasy would be most appropriate.  For the tech savvy it’s nice having the latest drivers for my hardware located all in one place, but suggesting the wrong drivers and making users route around in Device Manger isn’t for most.