Mischievous Ramblings II

Why didn't I do this sooner? Oh, yeah....

Transcend Travel CPAP/APAP.  Image borrowed for fair use from Intertubes.

 

Sara and I both use CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) devices.  These are small machines that sit by the head of our bed and force air through a hose, into a mask that covers our nose, and down our airway to our lungs in order to keep it open while we sleep.  It is a treatment for Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea (SOSA) which is a condition in which the airway closes periodically during sleep.  We actually use devices called APAPs (Automatic Positive Airway Pressure).  Each of us has two APAPs, one for home and one for travel that is smaller and runs easily off a battery.

As a geek, I want access to medical technology that I have to use, and I want data on my usage (my pulmonologist says that I am his poster boy for compliance, and seeing the data is part of that for me).  As a pilot, Sara requires data from the CPAP for her flight medical.  Both of us want to be able to program the devices to change their pressure parameters as our needs change.  To do this, you need special software, and in at least one case, a special piece of hardware and cable for the CPAP.  We have all of that.  We have everything we need to access data on and program each of the four machines (two types) that we use.  I have visited multiple pulmonologists in the 15+ years I've used CPAP, and never has one been able to read data off my machine.  But I can. :-)

You also need a Windows machine.  The CPAP market is not so large that the manufacturers build great software, and they only build it for Windows.  Some of them use outdated hardware specifications (like 9 pin serial ports and 8 pin DIN connectors).  Many will write to one or another kind of SD card (some only to original SD, not SDHC, some to micro SD, etc.), but all of them I've encountered require Windows software to extract data and get reports.

Have I mentioned how much I hate Windows?  I have an old media PC I bought from someone at Amazon that I run the software on.  It's old and crappy and never connects to a network, and only comes out to run this software, but to do so, I have to keep a monitor around and move my keyboard and mouse while I set the machine up somewhere, and it's just a pain.

So I thought, I'll buy myself a cheap old Windows laptop, maybe even with a serial port, running Windows 7 or 8, and it'll be cheap and easy to move around and I can reclaim the cubic yard of office that the current device and monitor and keyboard and mouse occupies.  And I did.  I went to the local neighborhood computer repair place and bought a used ASUS laptop for $150, and it's just what I needed even if it doesn't have a serial port and runs Windows 10.

I need to install two applications on it.  One for each brand of CPAP.  And it takes hours.  The first app is on CD, and it doesn't have a disk player, so I move one over from my Mac and it reads it but it won't install the software because the software uses a library that isn't included in Windows 10 and won't install off the CD in Windows 10 and I have to research it and find the newer 4.0 version that includes the older 3.5 and 2.0 versions and install it and see if the installer will recognize it and I try to install that software four times before it works.  The second piece of software isn't nearly so bad so I only need to install it twice before it works.  And then it takes 40 minutes for the Windows 10 system to recognize the USB to serial adapter and find a driver for it, and another 30 minutes to update the Windows 10 system files.

And finally it works. And I have a portable system that I can use to access my own medical data and program my own medical devices.

And this morning when I turn it on to suck data out of my CPAP, it takes 20 minutes to update Windows 10 again.  Two days after I last updated it.

Now I remember why I didn't do this sooner...

 

Cross Posted to Group News Blog

Hilarious: Microsoft keeps it old-school with a pricey text adventure game

Microsoft keeps it old-school with a pricey text adventure game, Visual Studio 2010

Microsoft has jumped onto the free-to-play bandwagon with its latest game, a text-driven adventure called Visual Studio 2010. The innovative new game marries the traditional interactive fiction text adventure with its arcane commands and exploration with the free-form, open-ended gaming pioneered by the likes of SimCity.

There are two major modes to the game, a textual spell-casting game, and a more complex interactive puzzle mode.

Play starts with the spell game. The game has three difficulty modes. In the two easiest modes Visual Studio questers must cast spells to appease a malevolent gatekeeper known only as "the compiler," combining the text adventuring of Zork with the wizardy and magic of Loom. If the player's spell contains even a single faulty incantation, the compiler will respond with a torrent of abuse and spells of its own; the player must piece together clues contained within compiler's response to determine how they went wrong.

BuzzMachine: Dell Archives

BuzzMachine: Dell Archives details a classic public relations and customer service catastrophe. I had an experience similarly bad that kept me from buying a Gateway machine a few years ago.

Now I use an iBook, and I'm happy. I have been assimilated :-).

Mad as Hell: I - Switching to Mac

Mad as Hell: I - Switching to Mac

There are currently 12 parts. The series will complete with episode 17 on 13 September.

This is Mac v. Windows on a security / availability basis.

Scott Rosenberg’s Quiet PC and my iBook

Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment

I seem to be out of the hardware woods, at last. After my old box died, I thought carefully about its replacement. My computer has, among other things, become my chief music library and source; it's also where I edit family videos. The old computer, an Athlon system I'd rebuilt twice and extended with far too many expansion boards and IDE devices.

Scott tells the story of replacing his old Athlon based PC. There's also a link in there to the story of his "Black Screen of Death". Well-trodden roads -- I've seen several generations of PCs come and go (Atari 800, Commodore 64, Mac 512e, Compaq Deskpro 8086/V30, PC286, PC386, Mac IIfx, PC486, Pentium, Pentium laptop, Pentium II, Pentium III laptop x2, Powerbook Pismo,...). I currently have an old Athlon 1GHz system managing printers, iTunes, and backup storage for the house network. I just retired (from my personal use) a nice Fujitsu 2.8 GHz laptop.

I replaced it (and a 1GHz eMac G4) with a 1.33 GHz 12" iBook G4. The iBook does everything I need unless I'm going to be programming for Windows. There might be a utility or two that I haven't discovered I need yet, but I write with a variety of tools (Omni Outliner Pro, bbEdit, AppleWorks, Pages, NoteTaker, StickyBrain), I use two spreadsheets (Excel, AppleWorks), and I have a whole variety of creative tools available to me that simply aren't available on the PC (FCE, Soundtrack, GarageBand, DVD Studio Pro). And at less than 5 pounds, I can carry the iBook everywhere (and I do).

One of my "tipping points" on moving off Windows was Microsoft's announcement that they would now be scanning hard drives before running Windows Update. To the best of my knowledge I am running no illegitimate software, but I don't want Microsoft (or anyone else) rummaging through my hard drive, my registry, or any other part of my computer. Another was the constant fight against virii -- as household IT, I see malware every time I back up a kid's computer (never on mine, never on Sara's PowerBook, but always on the kid's computers if they are allowed on the network). Yet another was the tweaking necessary to get Windows to behave the way I wanted. I've spent a lot of time accommodating myself to Windows, and I'm tired of doing that.

The eMac will still sit on my desk, but it will be used almost exclusively for creative projects like video editing. Devi is hoping to get into another film class at school this year, and I'd like her to have access to an editing station at home. I like to be able to read email, browse, and write alongside video editing, and the eMac just doesn't have enough power to do that easily. Now the video / sound work happens on one computer and the writing on another. If I'd wanted to shell out $2K - $3K US for a dual G5 I probably could have been happy doing that on one machine, but it wouldn't have been easily portable.

BTW, the MarWare SportFolio neoprene laptop cases are incredibly wondrous. I got a 12" SportFolio II in black for the iBook and I'm incredibly happy with it. It's a minimalist case: you can't carry much more than your laptop, power supply, a couple of accessories (Mighty Mouse!), a thin notebook and a novel, but that's enough for me for almost any occasion. If I want to "dress to impress", I've always got the Zero Halliburton briefcase Sara bought me a couple of years ago (and the iBook will actually fit in it, unlike the Fujitsu!), but for daily use, the SportFolio is for me.

Windows Debugging

I've spent a few hours working on a somewhat intractable bug.

The guy who created the program I'm modifying created an owner-draw control that is a multi-column list (it does other things as well). We're having some trouble with redraw leaving bands of grey across the control. Intermittantly, of course.

I've learned how to generate the problem pretty reliably. I've established that the problem is not inside the WM_PAINT handler (by replacing almost the entire handler with a simple routine that gets the entire client rect and fills it with a colored rectangle). Problem still there.

It finally occurs to me to change that colored rectangle's color every time I draw it. That makes it plain that the entire control is not being redrawn every time (sensible -- no need to redraw portions that haven't changed). That should work, assuming that the invalid rectangle is correct and the redraw code correctly redraws everything necessary. Wait -- I know the problem still occurs even if I just draw a rectangle over the entire control, so IF this is the problem, it's happening because the invalid rectangle is..well, invalid -- that is, the invalid rectangle (aka the Update Rect) is not correct.

Turns out that I can modify the UpdateRect inside a WM_PAINT handler simply by calling InvalidateRect. To test, I simply InvalidateRect the whole client rect of the control. Slows drawing down, but it appears to make sure that the necessary parts of the control do, in fact, get updated.

I don't know for sure where the UpdateRect is coming from when there is a problem: Windows provides it (because the common error condition is when another window, not belonging to my application, is moved over the control). And it appears that under some conditions, Windows is not providing the correct information.

Gotta Love Microsoft Documentation!

I mentioned that I was learning C# and .NET. And that one of the things that confused me was the requirement to use break in switch statements because fall-through isn't allowed.

At least, according to the book I got from Microsoft. It says, and I quote:

You must repeat the case label syntax for every individual value if you want to run the same statements for more than one value. There is no shortcut for grouping a sequence of case label values. For example:

switch (trumps)

{

case Hearts:

case Diamonds:     // error

   color = "Red";

   break;

case Clubs:

case Spades:     // error

   color = "Black";

   break;

}

and in a sidebar it says:

In C#, fall-through is always a compile-time error. The last statement of a case section is not allowed to fall through to the next case.

And there's nothing in the online errata for this page.

But my other reference says that having multiple case statements all falling together into one block of code is legal, although fall-through from one block of code past a case statement into another block of code is not.

Obviously a test program is required. And it turns out that the Microsoft book is wrong in every particular where it differs from the other volume.

Multiple case statements into one code block are legal. Fall-through from one block of code into another (past a case statement) is a compile-time error.

break is therefore useful, because the front end of the compiler cannot simply assume that a case's block of code is terminated by another case. Without break or something equivalent to indicate the end of a code block, there would be no way to distinguish between:

switch(testValue)

{

case 'A':     // not yet implemented

   break;

case 'a':     // implemented

    ---some code goes here---

   break;

}

and

switch(testValue)

{

case 'A':     // handle both upper and lower-case 'A'

case 'a': 

    ---some code goes here---

   break;

}

And that's all I have to say about that.

Starting with C# and .NET

I've recently taken my first step into C# and .NET. Yes, it's been available for four years. No, I don't have any particularly good reason to start now, just a lot of free time.

I picked up a couple of books and some software at Half-Price Computer Books on Seymour in Vancouver. Yes, that's a plug -- they're a great place to get things that they have.

I'm not yet prepared to offer opinions on the books I got, but I have a couple of initial thoughts about C# and .NET together.

• C# is C++ with a shorter rope (as is Java, BTW), but there are some weirdnesses in it. Why do they still use break; in switch statements, for instance (there is no fallthrough)? And why make the class-struct distinction be heap vs. stack? I must say that I've never appreciated the fascination some people have with being able to distinguish between objects on the stack and objects on the heap -- I prefer to write code that doesn't care, and if I get to the point where I do care, it's time to re-think what I'm doing.
• Visual Studio .NET is a nice development environment (based, I must admit, on a couple of very small projects). It ranks up there with Borland's C++ Builder. Of course, C++ Builder has been available for considerably longer, but it's still nice to see Microsoft producing a world-class development environment again (or finally, depending upon your point of view).
• .NET imposes an enormous overhead on very small programs. I wrote a small stopwatch application (I needed to time some lines), and it occupies 8 MB of memory space (and that's according to the .NET perfmon -- TaskManager says it occupies 23 MB!), which seems like a lot. OTOH, I wrote it in about 25 minutes, and I don't need it to be smaller than it is, I needed it right now. I guess optimization for size really is a lost art, eh?

As I said a long time ago, this is the kind of tool that can actually make programming Windows fun, which is no small feat.

Maintenance

With the advent of the new hard drive, I've had the opportunity to move a few things around.

I have to say how much I hate Windows, though. The new hard drive (250 GB) had to go into the new external Firewire box (previous Firewire box had a 128 GB size limit for some reason). Old 250 GB drive went into the Windows 2000 server box. BIOS has a 128 GB limit. Get the BIOS upgrade from the MoBo manufacturer. v 3.5 won't install. v3.6 does, though. Now I see a 137 GB drive. Hmmm. Windows 2000 has a 137 GB limit (even under SP4) unless you hack the registry, so I do. Now I have my 250 GB (ok, it's really 233 REAL GBs) drive.

All I needed to do on the Mac to see the full size was get a new external Firewire box.

Getting the drive in and working at the right size means the next task is transferring files from several other machines on the network. 100bT is fast, but gigabytes are still big, and 10s of gigabytes are really big, so in the end it takes hours. But it gets done, and now there are other drives that can be erased and/or moved from machine to machine.

Then there's blogging. I've moved everything from MT to WordPress and I want to go through and fix up categories and check things. It seems that a few postings have been truncated in the DB, probably during editing or possibly when being imported (more likely a failure due to connectivity issues with the database, in my opinion), so I have to get them back from the MT db or archives and make sure they are OK on the page.

Links have to be imported and categorized, which means figuring out what email and password I used on blogrolling and letting them know that I'm not using my account anymore and would they please remove it? Check over the links and figure out what categories there are (or should be). Eliminate some links I'm not visiting anymore, add some in.

With more space available on the server machine, I can combine the various places I've got MP3s ripped of our CD collection, which also means telling iTunes to re-import approximately 30 GB of music files and move them around.

Maintenance is a bitch, sometimes. But sometimes it's just like puttering around the house.

Deleting AVI files under XP

I've been making some extra space on my Windows laptop. Ran into an interesting problem while deleting some now-backed-up video files. An error window saying (approximately) "Can not delete file.avi. It's being used by another person or program."

The problem is shmedia.dll, which is apparently used by the system to read properties of AVI files. You can unload shmedia.dll by using the command

regsvr32 /u shmedia.dll

in a Command Prompt window, and reload it by using

regsvr32 shmedia.dll

In between, you can delete AVI files.