techMonday, November 28, 2005
A problem with Hibernation
I like the Hibernate feature on my laptop (they all have it). It loads the contents of memory onto the hard drive before shutting down so that the next time you power up, the data is copied back into memory and you resume exactly where you left off - no need for all the OS and all the other programs to reload. It's much faster than doing a full boot.
It's similar to the Suspend feature, except that suspend doesn't fully power down, just shuts down most of the hardware and keeps power supplied to the memory so that it doesn't need to be copied to the hard drive (RAM is volatile memory which means that when it looses power, the contents are lost - so stuff has to be written to the hard drive if you don't want to loose it when powering down). The problem with suspend is that it is still running the battery down, if at a much slower rate. A laptop can be left in hibernate mode for weeks without running the battery down at all.
I set my power button to initiate hibernation mode instead of shutting down. I like this setup because it's easy for the power button to get hit accidentally - especially with little kids running around. If it goes into hibernation, nothing will be lost (like if I'm working in a spreadsheet or image editor or something).
And my laptop automatically powers up when the lid is opened if it's in hibernation.
The only problem with this is that [most popular operating system] sucks and needs a fresh reboot every now and then. This isn't much of a problem as far as hibernation is concerned though, since it's a simple matter to do a full reboot from the shutdown menu at any time.
Though a problem does arise, I found out, if you add some RAM while in hibernation. This is no problem from a hardware perspective because the laptop is fully powered down. You could even pull the battery if necessary. Increasing the RAM size, however, is an action not anticipated by the folks who designed the hibernation feature of [the popular operating system]. When I rebooted the system and it began the restore from hibernation procedure (copying the contents from the hard drive back to the memory), it reached the end of the progress meter and promptly locked up. I had to reboot and it gave me a menu to choose whether to try to resume from hibernation or to do a full boot. I tried the hibernation restore again, and it locked up again. At this point, I felt a small spark of panic ("Oh no, maybe I really messed it up"), but then I did a full reboot and everything was fine - it was correctly reporting the memory size, and I haven't had any memory related problems since.
A change in RAM size is simply not a possibility that is anticipated by the OS.
It's similar to the Suspend feature, except that suspend doesn't fully power down, just shuts down most of the hardware and keeps power supplied to the memory so that it doesn't need to be copied to the hard drive (RAM is volatile memory which means that when it looses power, the contents are lost - so stuff has to be written to the hard drive if you don't want to loose it when powering down). The problem with suspend is that it is still running the battery down, if at a much slower rate. A laptop can be left in hibernate mode for weeks without running the battery down at all.
I set my power button to initiate hibernation mode instead of shutting down. I like this setup because it's easy for the power button to get hit accidentally - especially with little kids running around. If it goes into hibernation, nothing will be lost (like if I'm working in a spreadsheet or image editor or something).
And my laptop automatically powers up when the lid is opened if it's in hibernation.
The only problem with this is that [most popular operating system] sucks and needs a fresh reboot every now and then. This isn't much of a problem as far as hibernation is concerned though, since it's a simple matter to do a full reboot from the shutdown menu at any time.
Though a problem does arise, I found out, if you add some RAM while in hibernation. This is no problem from a hardware perspective because the laptop is fully powered down. You could even pull the battery if necessary. Increasing the RAM size, however, is an action not anticipated by the folks who designed the hibernation feature of [the popular operating system]. When I rebooted the system and it began the restore from hibernation procedure (copying the contents from the hard drive back to the memory), it reached the end of the progress meter and promptly locked up. I had to reboot and it gave me a menu to choose whether to try to resume from hibernation or to do a full boot. I tried the hibernation restore again, and it locked up again. At this point, I felt a small spark of panic ("Oh no, maybe I really messed it up"), but then I did a full reboot and everything was fine - it was correctly reporting the memory size, and I haven't had any memory related problems since.
A change in RAM size is simply not a possibility that is anticipated by the OS.
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Here's a good article for everyone who likes the internet the way it is - a free and open environment for business and culture.
Don't let it be taken over by money/power hungry corporations
Don't let it be taken over by money/power hungry corporations
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Without a doubt, the best screen saver
Forget about Flying toasters and the matrix green screen saver.
As you know, I've been using Linux for quite some time now. Xscreensaver is the standard screen saver application for many Linux systems. Xscreensaver includes a lot of cool screen savers, but none compares to IFS.
IFS is a screen saver based on IFS fractals - a method of generating the fractals fern, Koch curve, Sierpinski triangle, and others. (here's a nice page showing the correlation between the Sierpinski triangle and Pascal's triangle).
The IFS screen saver displays a colorful ifs image which then explodes in brilliance, the pixel components spinning and drawing back together into a completely different ifs image which then explodes and forms into a new one. It looks very cool, especially if you have ever played with (or written) any ifs fractal generating programs and know the math and algorithms behind it. Even if you haven't, it's very spectacular.
There may be similar screen savers out there, but the Xscreensaver IFS is the most impressive screen saver I have ever seen. It's like a mathematical fireworks display.
Xscreensaver is not available for Windows. Don't even think about it. It's only for Unix operating systems. (ah, Mac OS X is Unix based. I believe that it is available for Mac - with a few limitations) See the disclaimer on the Xscreensaver webpage.
Xscreensaver also has the best Matrix (like the movie) screen saver that I've ever seen.
So if you want to see it, get rid of that Microsoft crap and get a real operating system.
As you know, I've been using Linux for quite some time now. Xscreensaver is the standard screen saver application for many Linux systems. Xscreensaver includes a lot of cool screen savers, but none compares to IFS.
IFS is a screen saver based on IFS fractals - a method of generating the fractals fern, Koch curve, Sierpinski triangle, and others. (here's a nice page showing the correlation between the Sierpinski triangle and Pascal's triangle).
The IFS screen saver displays a colorful ifs image which then explodes in brilliance, the pixel components spinning and drawing back together into a completely different ifs image which then explodes and forms into a new one. It looks very cool, especially if you have ever played with (or written) any ifs fractal generating programs and know the math and algorithms behind it. Even if you haven't, it's very spectacular.
There may be similar screen savers out there, but the Xscreensaver IFS is the most impressive screen saver I have ever seen. It's like a mathematical fireworks display.
Xscreensaver is not available for Windows. Don't even think about it. It's only for Unix operating systems. (ah, Mac OS X is Unix based. I believe that it is available for Mac - with a few limitations) See the disclaimer on the Xscreensaver webpage.
Xscreensaver also has the best Matrix (like the movie) screen saver that I've ever seen.
So if you want to see it, get rid of that Microsoft crap and get a real operating system.