w i c k e d    l u s h !

I’m currently part of the Joost beta program, but unfortunately, they do not yet have a version for PowerPC-based Macs (I use a 15″ Al powerbook plugged into my TV to watch DVDs and slideshows, and to listen to music via the stereo). So – I lugged a noisy old Sony Vaio into the living room, but the video card was perplexingly annoying.

It’s an ATI Radeon 9200 AGP card that I originally bought form CompUSA (I needed it quickly – I’d never go there otherwise. newegg.com rules!), and it has a VGA socket, an S-Video socket and a DVI socket. However, the real pain was that Windows won’t display if the card only has a TV plugged into the S-Video socket (with nothing connected to the VGA and DVI ports). When the machine first boots, the TV displays fine – shows the BIOS, and even shows the black Windows XP splash screen with the progress bar; however, as the welcome screen is due to appear (presumably when the video driver loads), the TV goes blank (blue), and stays that way.

I fixed it (eventually) by using Windows Remote Desktop to connect and install the Real VNC server, then disconnecting RDC and connecting via VNC (because when you’re connected via RDC, you can’t mess with the custom ATI video settings). When connected via VNC, I tried to set up a custom display configuration under Display properties->advanced->ATI displays; however, I got an error message because I didn’t have a primary VGA display connected.

At this stage, some Googling revealed it might be possible to edit the firmware (http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33718482&page=2), but hey – life’s too short for that kind of hassle. So – I went to Radio Shack (somewhere else I never go unless I’m desperate), and bought a 25-pin male VGA plug and 3 75-Ohm resistors. I then soldered the resistors across the red, green and blue pins & their respective grounds (search for “VGA pinout; see for example http://pinouts.ru/Video/VGA15_pinout.shtml). The resistors joined pins 1->6, 2->7 and 3->8. And actually, I lied – the resistors were 68 Ohm – Radio Shack didn’t have any 75’s.

So – plugged this into the vga socket, and the ATI control panel thought I had a primary display attached. I was therefore able to set up the TV to work (had to click the “advanced” button in the TV settings and check “force TV detection”), and – importantly – I was able to assign a hot-key to this display setup (I used F8). I also set the desktop resolution to 1024×768.

So – now when I boot the machine (with the dummy VGA load attached), the same thing happens – screen goes blank after XP splash screen – but if I then wait about 30 seconds, I can press F8 and the windows desktop magically appears on my TV screen.

Incidentally, I also tried to connect an IBM Thinkpad (with a built-in S-Video socket) to the TV, but that wouldn’t work either, even though it appeared that it should. Needless to say, the Mac s-video socket “just works”(TM).

I heard Lily Allen’s song “LDN” on Jo Whiley’s show this morning, and LOVED everything about it! Go to her myspace page NOW and listen to LDN and her other songs:

http://www.myspace.com/lilymusic

(Jo Whiley is on BBC Radio 1; programs available online for 1 week after broadcast)

I was using Visual Studio.NET 2005 on my Windows XP box last night (don’t flame me – I also program in Java and have several Macs), when suddenly the machine just restarted itself for no apparent reason; no blue screen, nothing – just a reboot.

When it started again, i got a pop-up dialog at the login screen. The title bar said “DfrgNtfs.exe – System Error”, and the message in the box was the unbelievably helpful “Unknown Hard Error”.

I tried looking in the system Event Log to see if I could find any clues there… – oops! I got the same “Unknown Hard Error” popup dialog – this time, with “mmc.exe – System Error” in the title bar. I tried opening a command prompt – nothing happened.

In order to try to read the crash dump file (C:WINDOWSMinidumpMini120105-01.dmp), I downloaded the microsoft free Windows debugger – WinDbg – as described in this good article:

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2005/041105-windows-crash.html?page=1

However – when I try to install it, I get another “Unknown Hard Error” popup, with “msiexec.exe” in the title bar (starting to see a pattern, here…??)

I googled, and found several people saying it could be a hardware problem – notably hard disk or ram – so I did a full disk check – no improvement. I then figured that maybe the crash was caused by some other problem, but that it must have left some system files in a corrupted state, which, in turn, caused the pop-ups.

I eventually found a discussion group where someone (unfortunately, I didn’t save the link) recommended the windows command-line command: sfc /scannow – that checks all the win system files for corruption (and possibly bribery), and repairs them from your Windows XP install disk if problems are found. I ran that from the “start menu -> run” dialog, and some of the popups stopped…, well…, popping up (notably the DfrgNtfs.exe ones), but i still got them when trying to view the event log or trying to install software.

Finally, I found the answer. The files that the System, Application and Security events are written to (the ones you view from the Event Viewer) had been corrupted – so I guess whenever I tried to do something that would create an entry in one of these logs, I got an error. The solution was found on this page:

“How to Delete Corrupt Event Viewer Log Files”
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=172156

…which basically says – disable the event logging service in the “Services” dialog; reboot; delete the following files from C:WINDOWSsystem32config: AppEvent.Evt, SecEvent.Evt and SysEvent.Evt (or rename them as a backup); set the event logging service back to “automatic” startup; reboot

That solved all my problems…

So here we go…. First, by way of explanation – wickedlush will grow (initially, at least) with the purpose of disseminating information, in addition to providing entertainment, social comment and mental stimulation.

I have spent many many hours, utilizing the services of my good friend Mr Google, in order to solve conundrums (conundra?) of the highest order, and each time, I think “hmmm… I really must write up my own experiences on the web, so that others following the same path will have more information at their fingertips…” Typically, this happens after I’ve spent several days trying to solve a seemingly-impossible computing task, and have found the hint of an answer buried deep in a discussion list thread from 1997. This moment of enlightenment invariably follows many false starts, where google searches turn up someone with my exact problem, but clicking on the link reveals a lonely email with the accompanying text: “This is the only message in the current thread”. A silent scream for help, echoing through time….

So, dear reader, my intent is to blog many and varied subjects, from computers to art, from ashtanga to gardening, from software development to photography, and from eastern philosophy to blatant consumerism. That way, next time someone searches for an answer to their question, the odds of them finding an answer will be marginally improved and, with any luck, we will also have some fun along the way

This is *NOT* the only message in the current thread…

A virgin page lies before you and I… an adventure ready to unfold… what will it bring? Wait and see!