A few weeks ago I closed the lid on my MBP to do some other work, but when I came back to it, I got the password authentication screen and the machine stalled. I left it be for a few minutes, but clearly something was wrong after 20 minutes. Forcing a shutdown, the machine booted to the grey loading screen and no further. That told me something was definitely wrong, so I went to the MacRumors forums and posted a message about the Blank Screen of Death that has afflicted many other MBP owners. During this time I also removed the HDD from the MBP and installed it into an enclosure for use with another MacBook. When it didn’t mount, I started to get more nervous, and the obvious beeping of the drive did not help. So I admitted defeat and prepared to purchase another drive the next day, which I did.

After taking the drive into a data recovery service just for an evaluation, it turns out the drive had seized, and a repair was likely to return all my data, but at the minimum charge of $500. Since I had already rebuilt the website data I had lost and most of my applications were on my 2 week old backup, I’m going to take a pass on the repair.

This entire event has taught me a number of things that I’ll outline here.

1. Hard drive failures are inevitable
   It really isn’t a case of if, but when. Especially in a laptop, where the fragile spinning components are tossed and turned and operated at weird angles. Be prepared.
2. Backup regularly
   Buy an external drive, and either use Time Machine or other cloning software to create regular backups. I lost all of 1 website, most of another and a few photos from a trip. The websites I’ve since rebuilt, but if the other data had been mission critical, I could have been in big trouble.
3. Check your backups
   I use Carbon Copy Cloner to build images of the drive and store those on my Ubuntu file server. In the process of retrieving some after replacing the drive, the image would not eject, then would not mount due to a corrupt file system. It worked out after rebooting, but was a cause for concern. Be sure to check your backups often to make sure they are updated as expected.
4. Double check drive reliability
   I probably have more than 8 hard drives in my possession right now, and most are Western Digital. Of the drives I’ve had fail, all are of the 2.5″ variety and only 1 is WD. I believe I will be purchasing WD drives for the near future (my replacement drive is a 320GB Caviar Black). Before buying a new hard drive, especially for laptops, research reliability data for various manufacturers to see if there is more satisfaction with particular vendors.
5. Data recovery is expensive
   My $500 is the starting price of recovery, which I received because the firm believed I was a student. Many recoveries reach far higher, due exclusively to the manner in which data is recovered. If the repair is straightforward, the cost is far lower than if it requires extensive reconstruction. If your hard drive ever dies and you need recovery, prepare the platinum card because regardless of data volume, you’ll be paying a lot.
6. Consider drive upgrades regularly
   You have no way of knowing which drive will stop after 3 years or 8, but after this latest drive death, I will be upgrading storage every 2 years or so. Once SSDs are more cost effective, I’ll move to those (which brings their own problems) but I think the key to reliable storage is fresh media.

Data loss is no fun for anyone, but with the right safety measures in place, you can come back from the loss with minimal downtime and lost material.

It was an interesting ceremony, to say the least, and is one that I will remember for a long time. It was a very nice way to both prepare for a future career and to commemorate the last 4 years of studying. Officially, in June I will receive my degree in Mechanical Engineering, and after registering with Professional Engineers of Ontario, I will be an EIT, or engineer in training. This means that I can begin to work under a fully licensed Professional Engineer and collect experience that is required to receive P.Eng certification.

Since jobs don’t come overnight, and I’d like to enjoy the summer a little bit, right now I’m not focusing that intently on my full-time job search. Instead, I’m using some of the skills I picked up during high school and university related to website development. Right now I’ve joined a site called oDesk.com that connects people looking for results with providers of services. So far I’ve been able to help a few people around the world by building some WordPress plugins to improve their site’s functionality. These include one to display popular tags in the last few posts and another that gives users the ability to vote on photos displayed on posts. Additionally, I’m also working on a number of other websites for friends and family. I currently have about 4 projects of various sizes and complexities ongoing, and most use WordPress as a backend so I’m getting pretty comfortable creating themes, plugins, administration panel pages and interacting with the WP database. Check out www.openticket.ca for the latest project to start up.

More related to engineering, I’m also spending time contributing to our university’s Formula SAE team. As a member of the drivetrain team, I did some work looking at the best differential, sprocket, half shaft and spindle combination to get the most power out of our Yamaha R6 engine. I even got to do some design work, using SolidWorks to create a 3D model of a specific part, test it with the simulation software and then have it sent out to be machined on a CNC mill. It’s very cool to see something built inside a computer become a real part.

In May, the team took the car to Michigan International Speedway where we participated in Formula SAE Michigan 2010, a competition between universities all over the world to see who can design, build and market the more cost effective and highest performing race car. Unfortunately the team ran into some scheduling issues during the school year, when students — rightly so — focused on school work rather than building. Since this is the first of 3 competitions during the summer (I’m hoping to get to California and England later), we took what was built on the car and learned as much as possible. It was very interesting to see what the other teams had done with their time and budgets.

With all that in mind, it’s easy to see why my last post here was a few months ago. I hope to write more in the coming weeks, as I will hopefully have some time to work on projects that can be shared. Engineering is a challenging field of study, but it is very rewarding in both education and contribution to society. Finishing my program and learning more outside of school has helped me realize that I’m in the right field and that the sky isn’t even the limit.

With the updates on Thursday, I decided to take the plunge and try my hand at building the OS on my own. If you decide to do the same, keep in mind it is a fairly advanced procedure, despite the attempts of Google to automate the processes. You’ll also need a Ubuntu computer with version 8.04 or later (I used my server running 9.04 Jaunty).

Building Chrome

All the instructions you need are on Google’s page about this very subject. It contains a very detailed procedure for downloading and compiling the system to be installed on a regular computer or run with VMWare. Since I don’t have any spare hardware lying around, I went the VMWare route.

You’ll have to start by downloading the 200 MB files. If you wish to use the tarball version, here are the commands you can use to move to the home directory, download and unzip.

From there you can start with the steps on the above Google link.

The process is relatively straightforward as compared to a standard compile/install procedure, thanks to Google’s use of bash scripts. I proceeded without incident until it came time to run the ./enter_chroot.sh script. This one failed multiple times and it took me some time to figure out that I needed to run ./make_chroot.sh a second time. After that, there were no more problems, and I soon had a VMWare disk to use.

Using Chrome OS

If you wish to bypass the whole build process, gdgt has graciously provided a direct link to a download for a VMWare image. Going that route can definitely save some time.
After installing a VMWare Fusion trial, I had Chrome OS running and was presented with a nice log in screen. If you enter your Google address and password, all the applications should be set up immediately with your data and you can begin to use the OS right away. Once logged in, you really are using a giant browser.
At this stage, the open-source Chromium downloads lag behind what Google presented earlier this week, so some of the features aren’t available yet. Right now there is a Chrome browser, and that’s about it. The button at the top left shows some of the applications available, like Calendar, YouTube, Documents, Hulu and more.
These are essentially just links to the respective Google pages. The top right corner has buttons for changing a few settings and checking battery and WiFI information. Other than that, it’s pretty spartan (there isn’t even a shutdown button).

It is an interesting take on the future of computing, a problem I noticed is that a weak internet connection really dampens the benefits. To truly make use of the features built in, you’ll need a solid pipe, because waiting to even check a calendar is a bit annoying. If/when this makes its way to netbooks with wireless internet solutions, that will make a very nice package.

Is this the future?

Using these early builds, I found myself wondering who will want to use an operating system that deals very little with local storage and functionality. Google’s intention is that it will be used almost exclusively on netbooks — the tiny 8-10″ computers that are mostly used for email and web browsing. They’ve even decided that to use their version of Chromium, you’ll have to buy a new device (it won’t be available as a software only product). For that purpose, I can see it being a success. For full scale computing, I don’t think it will be usurping Windows or Mac OS X any time soon.

OS X 10.0 was by most accounts, a good start, but far from perfect. Through 5 other iterations, the software has grown from novelty to mainstream, with advanced features added with each new release. Snow Leopard takes a slightly different approach in that it forgoes the usual list of blockbuster features and instead improves the existing codebase significantly. This new version will be faster, lighter (on hardware) and will offer new ways for developers to take advantage of the latest hardware.

The big new features of Snow Leopard involve the graphics card and CPU. With the advances in technology of these two components, programmers can take advantage of the new power by using Grand Central Dispatch and OpenCL. Grand Central Dispatch is a suite of tools available to developers to use every core in the multi core systems Apple sells today. OpenCL does something similar with the graphics cards. When these tools are included in new software, they will be much more powerful than today’s applications.

Buying opinions

The most important new feature of Snow Leopard is the cost. At just $29USD, it is priced like an upgrade, and even in Canadian funds it works out to much less than other software ($35). Based on this price point, and the new features that will be available, I will be purchasing a copy soon after it is released on Friday. I may even spring for the family pack, which comes with 5 licenses for only $59 CAN.

For the benefits to users, and the price point of $30, this will be a very popular upgrade, and is highly recommended for users of Leopard, and especially those with older machines. If you’ve been holding out for a solid version of OS X that you can build on and use for many years to come, this may be it.

Look for more information about Snow Leopard here next week.

In case you’re interested in what courses are involved in becoming schooled in the art of Mechanical Engineering, here are the courses I’ve had to take over 3 years of school.

Semester 1

Calculus 1
Linear Algebra
Physics 1
Computer Programming
Chemistry

Semester 2

Calculus 2
Physics 2
Physics 3
Engineering Design
Materials Science 1

Semester 3

Communications
Dynamics
Manufacturing 1
Statics and Mechanics of Materials
Materials Science 2

Semester 4

Engineering Economics
Thermodynamics 1
Mechanics of Machines
Stress Analysis
Manufacturing 2
Numerical Analysis

Semester 5

Thermodynamics 2
Fluid Mechanics 1
Mechanics of Machines
Electric Circuits
Mechanics of Deformable Bodies
Statistics

Semester 6

Fluid Mechanics 2
Heat Transfer
Electric Circuits 2
Controls
Finite Element Analysis

These classes mostly deal with math, physics, material selection, and fluid behaviour. In the three years, not much time was spent designing actual products, so I hope we do more of that in fourth year.

In my case, it happened earlier this week while I was continuing work on my WordPress plugin. After adding a single page when testing, I wanted to delete it. Rather than delete the single post, I accidentally clicked the “select all” button on the first page of posts, then clicked through the Yes/No prompt. Immediately after pressing it, I realized what I had done and madly tried canceling the operation. Thanks to MySQL’s lightning fast response time, my last 12 posts were long gone by the time I could do anything about it. After being unable to access my webhost’s backup files, I set about the task of recreating my posts out of the Google cache. They are now fully repaired, which is why you won’t notice a real difference.

What did I learn from this?

Make sure your posts are in the Google index
If your site is indexed often, and correctly, by Google’s robots, you’ve already got a last-ditch backup system in place. While recreating posts from this information is rather time consuming, it is certainly better than losing everything.

Use automated backups
Thankfully, WordPress’ dependence on MySQL databases means there are plenty of plugins available to make backup painless. After some reading, I found a plugin called WP-DB-Backup that can backup your entire database and either download it to your computer, save to your server, or automatically email to an account of your choice. I’ve set up a 7GB Gmail account that will now contain daily backups of my WP database.

Check your webhost backups
Every webhost backs up their client’s data. A good website administrator checks the backups to make sure they work properly. When something goes wrong, a good backup can get your site back online immediately, but if you can’t use it, you’re stuck.

So after somewhat of an anxious few hours, I’ve seen the error of my ways, and now have a safety net in place. Here’s hoping you’ve done the same.

But the current problem I’m having with Keynote is completely unacceptable and I have absolutely no idea why it’s occurring.

Let me set the scene. You’re working on a large multimedia presentation that uses video backgrounds, transitions, pictures and transitions. In a burst of creative genius, you furiously hammer out a dozen slides and sit back to admire your handiwork. In your eagerness, you press the Play button before saving to see the result of your work, and suddenly the screen goes black and you hear the tell-tale sound of the optical drive and the sickening startup chime (it’s sickening because you realize all your hard work could possibly be toast).

In my case, I was working on a presentation with more than 250 slides, with videos, photos and transitions — the works. Even though I had saved a few minutes earlier, I still lost work. The strange part is that there seems to be no real connection to when the button works and when it restarts. My theory is that somehow it determines the longest time between saves, then breaks — just to spite you. The other unusual thing is that the MacBook starts up without any of the information requests like when it shuts down improperly. I can’t figure it out.

Have you ever seen anything like this before?

While my CES coverage has consisted mainly of reading Engadget, I’ve been following Macworld a little closer. You may remember that earlier I mentioned that this is Apple’s last participation in the Expo and that Phil Schiller gave the Keynote presentation instead of Steve Jobs (check out this article for more on his health).

Keynote results

I’ve gotta say: I wasn’t too blown away by Apple’s keynote announcements. Sure there was a new iLife and iWork, but there was nothing quite like the iPhone, Mac mini and PowerBooks (going back a few years). I was hoping for something that I would really consider saving up for.

Instead, this is what we got.

The 17″ MacBook Pro now joins the rest of the MacBook and MacBook Pro line with a unibody aluminum enclosure, glass trackpad and LED backlit screen. It separates itself from the other models by including a new 8 hour battery, which I can only hope will make its way to the other models soon. Interestingly, this model has an optional $50 anti-glare cover, which should satisfy the many users who complained about the glossy screen on the other models. I don’t think I would ever consider purchasing a machine like this. Not just for the price tag (starting at $2,999 CAN) but also because I could get an even large screen, using a smaller MacBook for less money. Maybe a 15″ MacBook Pro, but even that would require careful consideration.

The previously mentioned iLife and iWork updates include some interesting new features that I would like to see in person. As soon as I saw iMovie ’08 I refused to upgrade, so this package needs to have more benefits for me to even consider it.

Perhaps the biggest news from the keynote is that the iTunes store will be transitioning to completely DRM free tracks. Music will now be offered in a 3 tier system: $0.69, $0.99 and $1.29 per track. That should make a lot of people happy.

Overall, I think both trade shows could be considered successes, and even with Apple’s decision to pull out of next year’s expo, I still want to go.

Fast forward to November and Macworld published an article about avoiding these phishing scams by using OpenDNS to double check websites you visit. I liked what the article had to say, and wanted to get my name in the magazine, so I wrote a letter suggesting that users check that emails use your actual name rather than a public screen name. In the February 2009 issue, which I just opened today, I read through the letters and there I was!

The letter is shown at the right, and reprinted below.

Using OpenDNS to avoid phishing scams is a great start, and the commonsense practices you listed certainly help. Here’s another trick: all email correspondence with sites like eBay and Paypal includes your real name in the body of the message. If you see a message purporting to be from one of these sites that instead uses your user name on the site, chances are the sender just wants your personal information.

Wow, I compared that with what I had written originally and either I didn’t say exactly what they wanted or me don’t speak good Engrish.

What was the reason for this?

The prevailing theory is that Stevie J’s health has degraded to the point where making the keynotes he is famous for is now simply too draining. That is acceptable, because health should always be your primary concern.

The other opinion — and one that I tend to agree with — is that Apple has decided to release products on their own terms. With the prevalence of rumor sites like Macrumors, AppleInsider and even AppleTell, Apple has lost much of the surprise that comes along with releasing new products. If you trace Apple’s stock price back to the time before and after keynote presentations, often it falls as a result of people seeing products they were completely expecting. No surprises means no blown-away investors. Instead, Apple appears to be going to more toned-down events on their own campus, at a time of their choosing. Rather than have a huge affair in San Francisco, they instead invite select media people to view their latest product. This way they can retain some element of surprise and release the product when they feel the time is exactly right.

What does this mean for Macworld Expo? It means that exhibitors that once suffered by competing with whatever Apple released at the conference can now show their products with the full attention of the present media. I’m slightly disappointed, because I was always hoping that someday I could make it out to San Francisco to see one of the legendary presentations.

I guess instead I’ll be saving my money for whatever gets released instead.