Computers I Can Fix. Cars, Not So Much

My car has somewhere around 160,000 miles. I knew I was due for a major malfunction, I just didn't know where the other shoe would drop. I was out running some errands when the car started to lurch forward then coast then lurch forward. It actually wouldn't move at all at one point.

I talked to a mechanic and got the bad news that I likely needed a transmission rebuild and that would run me about $2,300.00... Ouch. I checked some other sources and learned that my problem could be as simple as, perhaps, low fluid.

I checked the level, added more fluid, and took her out. She ran pretty well until I'd been out for a while and was traversing some hills when she again ceased engagement of forward momentum. A few more checks with a few more people in the know and it was decided that the fluid was dirty as hell, the crud was being stirred up, clogging the filter and impeding the flow. Once she sat for a bit, the sediment would settle out and she'd move again so that seemed reasonable.

I called the local repair shop and asked about a flush and fill. After describing the symptoms they told me they wouldn't touch it because they'd had too many cases of the cars no longer moving after the procedure. Basically, the particles causing the problem were the only thing keeping the transmission together.

So now, I turned to the Internet. I found a YouTube video entitled, "10 Min Automatic Transmission Fluid Flush + Replacement." It looked so easy. I said it LOOKED easy. He was even working on the same kind of car I drive. I consulted my Hanes manual, which provided even less detail, and decided to take the chance. I figured I couldn't make it much worse and might even get some more mileage out of it.

I went out to my car and looked under the hood. I couldn't make heads or tails of it much less figure out where the feeder line was so I thought I would just drain and fill.

And so I proceeded. I drove my car around the neighborhood a few laps to warm everything up then brought her home to start the procedure. I jacked up the car and put it on stands (NEVER work under a car supported only by a jack). I looked at the picture in the book then at the front of the transmission casing. Why are there two bolts? Let's see, liquid flows to the lowest point so I'll take out the bottom one.

Funny, it looked like a regular bolt. The one in the video was larger and had a magnet on the end of it. And the fluid doesn't seem to be flowing, exactly. Maybe if I remove the other bolt, too, it will allow for some sort of air displacement... no, now I just have fluid dribbling out of two holes and slowly dripping off the bottom of the transmission.

I wonder what would happen if I started the car? Would that cause the flow to increase? I'll start it then turn it off immediately and see what the result is... The result is I gotta go find the kitty litter.

Okay, what if I stuck a tube in that hole then started the car? Let's see... the tube I have doesn't fit. I got it, I'll cut it at an extreme angle then jam it in there. Oh, hey, that kinda worked! ... but the drain pan wasn't quite under the spout... more kitty litter.

I did that a couple more times with my wife starting the car so I could observe and catch the flow and decided that was good enough for now. It had been WAY longer than 10 minutes and I was tired. I put the plugs back in and topped off the fluid. Good news, she was still moving. Bad news, I hadn't drawn out nearly enough fluid to have drained it completely.

The next night, round two. This one started pretty much the same but I let the car run much longer to be sure the fluid was nice and warm with a very low viscosity. Still, I got a miserable drip. This simply can't be right. Hmm, my tube doesn't seem to want to fit anymore. Ah, a box knife. Let me trim it a bit. There, that seems to be shoved in there pretty well. Let me go start the car... the tube didn't hold. More kitty litter, please.

As it continues to dribble, I go back inside to again consult the internet on flushing the transmission fluid but this time I tell it exactly what kind of car I have.

I came across, "2003-2007 Honda Accord Transmission drain and refill." I start watching... "take out the dipstick so you get better air displacement." Hadn't done that. Pause... out to garage, remove dipstick and set aside, no change in flow, return to video. "Now we're at the drain plug. It's right here next to the oil pan. It faces sideways so..." Excuse me? It faces which way? Did you say sideways? SIDEWAYS? Pause... out to garage, look under car... I had been approaching the job pretty much from the passenger side. Guess which side the drain plug is on... yep - the driver's side. I put the bolt I had removed back and broke free the correct drain plug and the fluid came gushing out as expected.

I went inside to finish watching the video. I wrapped up in another 15 minutes. I cleaned up ... well, I poured the old oil out of the drain pan into an old milk jug and shoved everything else aside ... and the wife and I went for a drive. Everything seems to have gone well. No hard shifting, no lurching, no... not... moving. I'll drive it around a few days, letting the remaining crud recirculate through the fluid, then do it all over again... minus the kitty litter, I hope.

Nuke The Site From Orbit - It's The Only Way To Be Sure

This is another Windows 7 entry but this time, I'm not happy.

If you are considering doing an in-place upgrade (where you overwrite the old version and keep all your programs and data intact) from Windows Vista to Windows 7 DON'T DO IT. I'll repeat that. Do not bother trying to do an in-place upgrade from Windows Vista to Windows 7. It will only cause you stress and test your patience. Back up all your data, gather your program discs and do a clean or custom install as appropriate for your license.

I am testing Windows 7 at work before we start rolling it out to the general public. Normally, I never ever ever do an in-place upgrade. The last time I did was from Windows 95 to 98 and I've learned a lot since then. Basically, I just like to start with a clean slate. Just to see what an end-user may run into, I started an in-place upgrade on my desktop computer at work just before 11:00am.

Normally, an in-place upgrade is a much simpler upgrade. You run the installer, it replaces all of the operating system files, updates drivers as necessary, and leaves your data and programs alone. It generally takes only slightly less time than a basic clean install (just the OS, no programs or updates). Not so with Windows 7.

Microsoft has apparently changed the method they use for an upgrade. Based on the limited feedback I got from the installer and information I learned at the tech briefing, here is what I think happens. The installer copies and encapsulates your files and settings, including the registry. It then clears out the folders where it is going to install itself. Once that's done, it installs very similar to a clean install and, once done, puts your files and settings back where they belong. Easy, right? Apparently, not so much.

First of all, I had to uninstall several programs, including the ATI Catalyst Control Center and Windows Mobile Device Center before the installer would even start the actual installation process. You will want to uninstall your antivirus so it does not interfere with the installation. I managed to do that after fighting the agent for McAfee Enterprise that wanted to put it back every time I took it out.

Once I was underway, things seemed to go pretty smoothly but the installer did seem to be taking its own sweet time. When it got to the point of actually installing, it hung at 21% for quite a long time. The percentage finally started increasing just after noon but there are stories on the web of it sticking at that point for 8 to 12 hours.

When I got back from lunch it was putting my programs and settings back and finished up at about the 3 hour mark. The system rebooted, went through the startup procedures, then exclaimed that it was preparing Windows for the first use. After a bit of waiting, it presented me with the options for automatic updates (i.e. automatic, manual or none). My primary monitor was offline. My secondary monitor had the image. The mouse cursor was in the upper-left corner. The mouse wouldn't move. The keyboard wouldn't respond.

As any good technician will, I rebooted. It went through its dance again and tripped over its own feet at the exact same place. So, I tried safe mode. After much thinking, it rebooted.

When I came up into unsafe mode, it again locked up but the hard drive was still chugging away. Maybe it was doing something? Maybe it had to get to a point where it could respond to the mouse and keyboard. I decided to wait. It is now 4:00pm and I just shut it off. It's been sitting there doing basically nothing for over an hour. The monitor went into standby 15 minutes ago.

My co-worker was upgrading her work laptop. She started at about 2:00pm. She finished about 3:30pm without a hitch. Me? I'm going to have to boot to the install CD and start fresh on Monday morning. Good thing I backed up all my data first.

[Note for those of you who care: The system is a Dell Optiplex GX620 full tower with a dual core processor and was running Vista Business fairly well (though not great)]

Missfire

Something has gone wrong. I thought the 404 error was due to the DNS server update not completing. It's getting to the right place but it says it can't find files that are, in fact, there.

I would still like your input. Until I get this subdomain nonsense worked out, please use this URL: http://www.unclebubby.com/wavs

Small Victories

When I got home from work this evening, there was an envelope sitting on my side of the bed. I asked my wife, who was sitting on her side of the bed working on her laptop, "What's this?"

In a thoroughly confused voice she replied, "It's a check."

Oddly enough, getting a check in the mail lately has not been good news. A particular group managed to screw up some insurance coverage I had and sent our premiums back. (long story that's not worth telling) So I carefully peered into the envelope thinking to myself, "what now?" As I slid the paper out, I read the word "Google" on the top and, for a brief instant, became extremely confused as to why Google would be sending me a check. When I actually looked at the amount of the check it hit me as to what it was and I just had to laugh.

In October of 2004, I signed up for Google AdWords. You know those relatively unobtrusive and easily ignorable "ads by Google" ad banners you see spread around on quite a few web pages? Those are Google AdWords. The site creator chooses to put those on his/her page and each time you or someone else clicks on one of those ads, he/she gets a credit. If enough clicks happen in a specified period of time during which there have been a particular number of impressions (displays of ads), those credits translate into real money. The month after your account credit reaches $100.00 or more, Google cuts you a check. Unless you have an imensely popular page, the credits don't rack up very quickly but they do add up. I got my first Google AdWords check today! To understand why I started laughing when I realized what the check was, I refer you back to the first sentence of this paragraph that mentions that I signed up for AdWords four years and three months ago!

Now, I told you that story to tell you this one.

If you've been following along, you know I am migrating my sound archive to a different management system. The sound archive has been the only one of my sites that has contained the AdWords banners. I have been debating whether or not to place them on the new site and receipt of the check closed the deal.

Not knowing enough about CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) or the CMS (Content Management System) I'm using and how it is structured, I knew that placing those banners where I wanted them to be on a page would be a challenge. Think of it this way. If you've been to the site, there is a menu that appears on the left side of pretty much everything but the home page and a few select others. I have had no idea what piece of the puzzle told it to be on the left and allow the page content to be just to the right of it.

You see, the only web technology I really ever learned was HTML. Programming and scripting languages are much like spoken languages in that, once you learn one, you can use it to relate to the others. In other words, if you know what the 'print' command does in language A, you know it's very similar to the 'write' command in language B which is similar to the 'echo' command in language C, etc. HTML is pretty specific about page layout. You [can] basically tell an element (text, picture, whatever) exactly where it is going to be on the page and how it should relate to the elements around it. When you're using CSS, you tell your HTML code to go ask the style sheet how things should look, where they should be placed, and how they should relate to the elements around it.

With that in mind, I went trudging through the CSS looking for the part that said 'the menu goes on the left, give a little bit of space, then put the page content to the right of it.' I couldn't find it. In HTML, you might use a table to accomplish this so I was looking for something similar. Finding the section that specified how the menu should look/act was easy enough but it didn't contain any code I could recognize for positioning.

After a couple hours of pulling my hair out (and those of you who know me are aware that I ain't got all that much left), it finally clicked. When it did, I began to understand how the CSS and the HTML related to each other. I built a little piece of code to to tell the provided AdWords script how it should display then told the core page types to utilize it. After a bit of fiddling with positioning in the layout and positioning of the command within the page, I had it right where I wanted it! Since I understood how it worked now, I made a coule of other minor changes to the layout while I was at it.

I'm not ashamed to say I'm proud of myself. I've been able to build this CMS from the ground up (you have to) and have managed to get it acting the way I want it to. And, given historical data, I should be receiving another $100 check in April of 2013.

Calling Any PHP Programmers

If you know PHP, I could use your help. I've got some code that's not functioning as expected. I am attempting to break some data extracted from MySQL into three sections. The relevant segment of code is below:

function Row1() {
$Part = ceil(($this->Articles()->Count()) / 3);
return DataObject::get("ArticlePage", "", "", "", "0, $Part");
}
function Row2() {
$Part = ceil(($this->Articles()->Count()) / 3);
$Part2 = floor(($Part * 2));
return DataObject::get("ArticlePage", "", "", "", "$Part, $Part2");
}
function Row3() {
$Total = ($this->Articles()->Count()) ;
$Part = ceil(($Total / 3)); $Break = ceil(($Part * 2));
return DataObject::get("ArticlePage", "", "", "", "$Break, $Total");
}
}

Row 1 displays the first third of the results. Row 3 displays the last third of the results. Row 2, however, is displaying the second third all the way to the end.

Example: Let's say there are 6 items.

Row 1
Item 1
Item 2
Row 2
Item 3
Item 4
Item 5
Item 6
Row3
Item 5
Item 6

Click Here to see the actual output.

Any ideas why it's breaking down like that? The calculation for $Part2 should be correct since it's the same as $Break and Row 3 is starting in the correct place. I'm not a PHP programmer so I can only assume the last parameter in the Get statement indicates "start, end"

I would also like to alphebetize the list but I haven't even started on that yet.

UPDATE: I figured out what my problem was. I was assuming that the last parameter meant starting record number, ending record number when in actuality it means starting record number, number of records to display. It works now!

I, Mac

It's 9:50pm and it's time for the news.

Uncle Bubby decided late last night to abandon efforts to move his blog onto his own domain. Several weeks ago, he had installed Wordpress at blog.unclebubby.com and began test driving it.

Early reports stated that he was pleased with the software and its ease of use. He experimented with templates, color schemes, widgets and even logos. Trouble began when he attempted to transfer data from his existing blog into Wordpress.

Although Wordpress includes functionality that allows for direct import from Blogger, the filter requires a secure connection to the Blogger account that he was not able to establish. Some investigation into the matter revealed that the issue was most likely with the hosting account but discussion board postings were vague as to what, exactly, he needed to have enabled so he tried other means. With each attempt, however, he became increasingly frustrated. Some methods were limited in the number of posts they could process and failed to capture and transfer several early posts. Some methods seemed to truncate posts. Still other methods would have required editing nearly every post to remove code that affected the display of individual posts.

All the while he was working to transfer the posts, he was also considering how to handle the comments. He wanted to preserve them but realized it would have required a lot of effort. Comments were originally added to the blog via Haloscan before commenting was added as a function of the blogger system. As such, they are stored seperately from the posts but tied to them in some manner. The method of connection could probably have been discovered but in light of other data transfer issues, it was not given much attention.

In the end, Bubby opted to uninstall Wordpress, deactivate the subdomain, and delete the files from his hosting account.

In other news, it appears that a surplus iMac computer obtained at a local auction is functional. What appeared to be compatible RAM and a hard drive were located and installed. The computer powers on but gives the question mark folder indicating it is unable to locate an operating system.

Should anyone know how he might obtain a compatible version of the Mac OS, you are asked to contact Bubby using the Email Me link on the blog sidebar.

And that's the way it is, America. Good night and good luck.

I'm Over Here...

Yeah, over here... behind the dismantled computer with the bad power supply and dead hard drive. I'll be back with you as soon as I can.

I Have The Power, Or Maybe I Don't

I'm beginning to think my hard drive woes might be a power issue. I zeroed out the drive last night by hooking it up as a solo act inside the PC and running the WD tools. When I reconnected the primary and fired up the system, it came right up but, for some reason, locked up in the middle of the format.

When I tried connecting my IDE drive as well, it started making odd click-beep noises and wasn't responding. I currently have it hooked up externally on separate power and all is well. Not a click or a beep out of the thing.

I have two optical drives, a floppy (yes, I still have one), three fans, a sound card, a video card and all the built-ins on the motherboard plus a 500GB SATA hard drive. Do you think it's too much to ask of a 400W power supply to add a 120GB IDE drive and/or a 250GB SATA drive?

CALLING ALL ÜBERGEEKS!

I have a WD 250GB SATA hard drive (if I've lost you already, just skip this entry) that is starting to show signs of failing. To stave off the headaches associated with a hard drive crash, I purchased a Seagate 500GB SATA hard drive to use as my boot drive and expand my storage.

I had some challenges in getting the system to recognize the drive and get Windows to install but the short version is this: If I connect either of the drives individually, the system boots fine. If I connect both of them, setting the boot order to boot off the 500GB drive, the system bogs down and startup is very slow. When and if I get to the windows boot menu (I'm dual booting XP and Vista) I select which OS I want to load but it doesn't work. Usually it hangs at a black screen. Sometimes the mouse cursor is visible but won't move. I once left it to boot into Vista and got to the login screen but couldn't move the mouse or use the keyboard to select any options.

I bought a USB connector for the drive (think hard drive enclosure without the actual enclosure) and managed to pull all the data off the 250 with no problems. I have deleted all of the partitions and am back to a raw drive but that doesn't help. I thought there was some sort of software conflict but it appears to be a hardware conflict.

Any suggestions? My next step is to format or possibly zero out the drive. Do you think that will help?