grinthock.com – A World Of Opinionation

Where did the innovation go at RIM?

Posted on August 17th, 2008 by grinthock.
Categories: Department of WTF, Department of rant services., RIM.

Many of my friends got “RIM Jobs” back in the 90’s.  I even remember one of them showing up at my place with this little black box…  He said it was the “Blackberry” something that you couldn’t even get yet.  It was the internet in your pocket, email and basic web.

It was a cold winter when I first visited the RIM campus, and saw the “Blackberry 950″ pictured above, it was small, pager sized, but innovative.

Specifically when we talk about innovation

- Mobitex Radio built in

- Small Form Factor

- Innovative Power Management

- Almost impossible to destroy

- Back end technology that made push email ACTUALLY WORK.

This device ran for up to 3 weeks on a single AA battery.  Yes, that’s right – 1 single 2500MAH battery would run this device for an entire week.   Part of this magic came from the innovative charging system.  The AA actually charged an onboard lithium battery, and then the handheld ran off the lithium battery in order to provide the 3V required for the unit, and a stable power supply.

Power management was something RIM spent significant time developing, they wanted a device that was reliable and ran for a long time on a standard battery.  Significant feat when you consider the device contained an 800mhz Mobitex cellular modem inside, 386 CPU, screen and ram.

One of the first handhelds of it’s time, again looking at power management a magnetic read switch turns off the display a soon as it hits the holster, a feature found in all of the RIM handhelds even today.

Form factor was key, we have all heard about the RIM vs Handspring lawsuit related to “a hand-held electronic device with a keyboard optimised for use with the thumbs.” an innovative keyboard design that worked well, provided tactile feedback, was compact but still useable, even by someone with large hands.  The form factor was the best part, to this day I wish my handheld was that small again,  give me something 950 sized, full screen, and have it split it two with a slide out keyboard.

Eventually the 957 (above) was launched, and while everyone wanted the big screen, people like myself stayed with the 950, the size was simply better, many people said they wanted the smaller size .

The 7250 (and others in the same formfactor) became quite popular, with those who longed for a device that wouldn’t cut into your side when you sat down, but still significantly larger than the Blackberry 950.  Sure these are now telephones, but the 950 formfactor could have been saved.

I think if you go back and look at some of the innovative cool things the Blackberry 950 was, you will notice some of the new ones are simply not.

This photo (above) recently posted at engadget outlined someone who apparently dropped the new blackberry “BOLD” and as you can see cracked the device.    Yet another innovation from RIM down the toilet, this is far cry from the “flying” blackberry 950 that i’ve seen fall 6 ft onto concrete, bounce 3 times down a flight of stairs, and not even have a scratch.  They knew that they had to put a bezel on the device that stopped the screen from hitting the ground,weigh the device so it lands a certain way, when it falls it lands on a certain side.

New devices are horrible, I have the “Blackberry Curve” (pictured below)

While I like this handheld, I fear it will die the same death as many of my previous blackberries, one drop and it’s time for a new device.  So I have purchased an OtterBox Defender for the Curve..

With the case above, I think my curve is closer to as durable as my Blackberry 950, but  still not there.  The size of the 950 simply won’t allow that, especially with that massive huge screen that isn’t bezelled.  I like the Otterbox, and if you end up at this article during a google search, YES, the Otterbox is great, I have one for iPhone, and the Curve, and a dozen of my friends have OtterBox’s for their Curve – we all love it and have nothing bad to say.

So what’s wrong RIM?  Batteries that don’t last, devices that hardly last a day, no durability, where’s the innovation?  It’s time to get back to your roots and build us something NEW, INNOVATIVE and GREAT.  Give me the feeling I had when I saw the 950 again, oh and Bold and the upcoming Thunder, sorry, but that’s not good enough.

Rim brought us push email in the 90’s, and that same technology is STILL in use today, and still works.   ActiveSync does not even come close to as reliable, fast and clean as the Blackberry email push system, which integrates with each step of the network.

Until something cool comes along — I’ll be here waiting…

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Event ID 4226, Delayed Write Failures and uTorrent?

Posted on July 30th, 2008 by grinthock.
Categories: Department of WTF, Software.

If you are like me you probably use uTorrent or Azereus alot to download the latest creative commons works and linux distros.

Recently I have been experiencing an error on the machine I use for uTorrent.  I dedicate one of my machines for this, because I just don’t like it running on a production machine.  The storage in that machine is minimal, so all of  the actual data is stored off on our NAS box.

Occasionally i’ve had this problem, but in the last 2 days, it simply will not stop.   The uTorrent machine loses its connection with the NAS, as a result we get this error that i’m sure many people have seen before.

At the same time uTorrent decides, well, I cannot write, puts all the torrents into an “ERROR” state and just sits there forever.   If you simply re-start the torrent file, it will run again, for awhile, until we get another delayed write failure.

Having seen this error occasionally, but now more frequently, I decided it was time to look into this BS.    Having visited the event log I found a bunch of errors…

I did find the delayed write error like this….

Event Type:    Warning
Event Source:    MRxSmb
Event Category:    None
Event ID:    50
Date:        7/29/2008
Time:        6:10:07 PM
User:        N/A
Computer:    torrentbox
Description:
{Delayed Write Failed} Windows was unable to save all the data for the file \Device\LanmanRedirector. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 04 00 04 00 02 00 56 00   ……V.
0008: 00 00 00 00 32 00 04 80   ….2..?
0010: 00 00 00 00 0c 02 00 c0   …….À
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ……..
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ……..
0028: 0c 02 00 c0               …À

But I also found this error IMMEDIATELY before the delayed write failure messages.

Event Type:    Warning
Event Source:    Tcpip
Event Category:    None
Event ID:    4226
Date:        7/29/2008
Time:        6:01:48 PM
User:        N/A
Computer:    torrentbox

Description:
TCP/IP has reached the security limit imposed on the number of concurrent TCP connect attempts.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 00 00 00 00 01 00 54 00   ……T.
0008: 00 00 00 00 82 10 00 80   ….?..?
0010: 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ……..
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ……..
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ……..

I’m sorry, did I read this right?  Microsoft is imposing a connection limit?   So upon doing some research here’s what I found.  Microsoft limits the number of concurrent TCP Connection attempts to 10 as of Windows XP SP2, this is a “security” feature to stop worms from spreading like wildfire.  Personally, I think it’s a good idea, we need software to help all the stupid helpeless users out there who don’t know better, but we need to KNOW These things!

Luckily as I searched I was also able to find this website LVLLord’s Event 4226 Patcher  this guy wrote a tool that can patch the TCPIP.SYS file to change the limit.  The old limit was 65535, but I changed mine to 250.  This had immediate performance effects, my Torrent’s started up faster, connections were quicker, it allowed the entire machine to work cleaner.

While I understand the requirement to limit, 10 limits power users who run applications that open A LOT of TCP/IP connections, like network scan tools, network administration tools, all sorts of software would be limited by this.  Just a warning for you, once you patch it, keep your eye on it, Microsoft likes to update the TCPIP.SYS file fairly often, so obviously when there’s an update, your change will go away.

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MacBook AIR – WTF is the point?

Posted on February 11th, 2008 by grinthock.
Categories: Apple, Department of WTF.

Well, Apple released the “MacBook Air” not that long ago, and while usually I post my opinion on such a new product early in the game, I wanted to get my greasy hands on one first.

Ok so there it is, in all it’s glory, first, it’s thin. No question, light? Damn right.

I have never seen another laptop so thin, however, please explain to me why “Thin” matters.

So I want you, while you are reading this article to answer these simple questions..

1) Your mission is to go downtown and visit 4 clients today, perform 3 presentations and when you are completed do some paperwork on your machine – pretty typical day for a road warrior.

2) Now you can take your Macbook AIR, or Lenovo/IBM Thinkpad T61

3) Regardless of the laptop you choose, ask yourself, how will you transport your laptop downtown.

I can tell you how — IN A BAG, a Laptop bag, or other bag, but the bottom line is. Regardless, it’s probably going in the SAME BAG! So why the compromise.

So for all this light/thin action, carried in the same bag, what do I lose? WAY too much.

1) No Ethernet Port

2) A slow 1.8″ Hard drive (Or I can get the SSD for $1000 more!)

3) ONE SINGLE SOLITARY USB PORT. So if I want to print a document on a USB Stick – i’m screwed.

4) No expansion ports, no PCMCIA, No ExpressPort, nothing…

5) No mobile broadband, no CDMA/GSM or otherwise – and no port (other than USB) to add it. For someone who is “Really mobile” and needs such a “Thin and Light” laptop, you would think mobile broadband would be high on the list of items, at very least, as an option.

6) No upgrads to ram, no upgrades to battery, no user replaceable battery. What if I want to bring along an EXTRA battery as i’m on a long air flight or train or something

What a complete waste of our time. Make it 3 times as thick, with 1/2 the screen, create a REAL subnote, with FULL features. That’s what I was hoping for, all I got was this crap. Apple, go back to the drawing board and pull your head out of your ass.

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