Paul Shadwell RTFM

At the BlogCamp in Zurich - Deutsch bitte

Sitting at the coffee bar at the BlogCamp in Zurich wishing my German was better so that I could sit in on the mostly German language sessions here. It's a pity that for the almost 13 years that I've spent in Switzerland my German has improved very little. Still not enough vocabulary to hold a useful conversation, ordering beers and reading menus is the best I can manage and sometimes it's frustrating as hell.

I notice most when I'm out with my fellow Harley riders which is not so often so I have lived with it but when it effects my job as well it's a pain. It can also be quite lonely, normally I like to be quite outspoken about my work and the industry I work in but when all around are conversing in a language I don't 100% understand I feel left out. Sure this is mostly self inflicted I should make an effort but most of my working time is involved with international companies that insist on well spoken English and I am of course happy to oblige.

I am still looking for a niche where my IT skills and my language (or lack of) skills are useful. Mostly it's in the background supporting systems or offering help where English grammar needs checking. Maybe it's true that teaching old dogs new tricks doesn't work, because learning German has been a trick I am struggling to master. Of course I haven't even mentioned the fact that most of the people round here speak Swiss-German, even more of a nightmare.

The iBook Repair

On Sunday Martina and I visited one of her friends who was having a problem with her Apple iBook G4. She asked if I could take a look at it as the local Apple repair store had quoted her over 1000 Swiss francs to repair it saying that it was the Logic Board that was at fault.

Now, I know most Windows machines very well and had taken apart many PC based laptops in the past but the last time I had opened up a Mac laptop was at least 20 years ago. I did some research and found plenty of companies selling parts for the G4 so I was confident we could do something for her at a reasonable price.

Once we had arrived and coffees delivered I sat down and took a look at the iBook. Pressing the power button did nothing, at first I thought it was a dead battery so plugging in the PSU I tried again, still nothing. When I checked the battery I found a button and lights that shows the charge, all the lights came on, it was fully charged.

After chatting some more we came home and I brought the iBook with me. I had read on the Internet that Logic Board issues were common on these machines so I was under the impression it was either a dead Logic Board or, as was stated many times, a loose graphics chip. I went to iFixit.com and went to the pages where they show how to dis-assemble the iBook. There were some minor differences between the pictures they had and the model I was taking apart but most of it was relevant.

After removing the keyboard and then the top cover, I disconnected the audio, light sensor and power button connectors. Lifted the metal shield and then though about testing the machine at this stage. Remembering that the power switch had done nothing. So I placed the battery in the unit and then took the top cover to plug the power button back in and that is where I found an issue.

The connector on the Logic Board was missing. I looked at the plug on the wires coming from the button and sure enough the socked was on the connector. At first I thought that I had pulled too hard and ripped the connector off of the board but on closer inspection it looked like I wasn't the first person to look at this issue. The metal tabs that were supposed to secure the connector to the board were bent flat onto the Logic Board looking like it had been pulled off and then hurriedly pushed back on.

With the battery connected I used a jewellers screwdriver to short out the power button tabs on the board and sure enough the iBook powered up. After powering off I knew what was needed. I had to get the logic board out so I could solder the connector back onto the Logic Board and try and securely mount it so the problem doesn't happen again.

Pictures of the re-assembly can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulshadwell/sets/72157606956207093/

Reassembly was straight forward however, pressing the power button still failed to power the machine up. After some intricate work under a magnifying glass and precision screwdriver I was able to get the connector to work properly and the the iBook now powers up with the button. Success.

My eyes aren't great for this sort of work so I also used my Canon G9 to take macro shots of the small items which I could then zoom into to see the detail.

New firewire Drobo is so much quieter

I took delivery of one of the new firewire Drobo storage units last week for a colleague and set it up. It now has 2 firewire 800 ports on the back so you can daisy chain more Drobos together.

For those that don't know, Drobo drive is an innovation in robust data storage, it can hold up to 4 SATA drives similar to a NAS unit in a RAID configuration but it's not really RAID, it's a proprietory solution developed by Data Robotics that allows you to mix and match drives of any size and speed. For more details go to Data Robotcs web site.

The version 1 Drobo unit, which I currently own myself is extremely useful and robust however, the USB 2.0 support has been know to be slow and the fan is somewhat noisy. When I got the new version and set it up with 4 1TB drives I was amazed at just how quiet it was compared to mine. After turnng my Drobo off, the new one is virtually silent. Data tarnsfer speeds are much better over the firewire 800 connection. They have also stated that the USB 2.0 support has been improved in performance also although I didn't have time to test this.

I may well get one of these new ones myself and use the old one as a backup unit.

Most useful Feature on my iPhone

Since getting the iPhone 3G the most useful app has been the push email feature and Exchange support.

With everything going on at the moment being able to stay in touch minute by minute has helped a lot to keep me on my toes.

Now, if you have more than one Exchange server you want to sync with there is a problem, you can only create one Exchange connection at a time with the iPhone. This is of course the same as with MS Outlook. I have two and the way I get around this is to use the iPod Touch to sync with my other, less critical account. Less critical means that I don't want to sync so often which is just as well because the iPod Touch will nly sync when it's near a WiFi hot spot that you have authority to use or is free. Still a nice feature though.

Another thing, I love the unobtrusive low level notes that are emitted from the iPhone and the Touch when an email arrives, I like that.

New Startup

Getting close to launching my business, new ideas new services and podcasts:

Watch this space.

Have you tried Flexiscale

While in my research for hosted virtual server solutions a fellow Twitter user pointed me towards Flexiscale is a hosted virtual server provider that offers self service server provisioning and is priced by the hour.
Flexiscale Logo

Costs over a long term could be restrictive for individuals but for companies wanting to evaluate services at a minimal cost without needing to purchase new hardware this would definitely be an option worth looking into.

I purchased the minimum of £10 worth of service. I then created a Windows 2003 server with 20GB of hard disk and 512MB of RAM- Within a few minutes the server was up and running and I was able to login to it using Remote Desktop.

I then installed IIS and created a shared directory.

So far I'm impressed at just how easy this is to get going. I have been billed for my first hour at just £0.08. At this price the server will stay running for 125 hours before I need to top up the account.

I will post more on this when I have installed some more applications.