More computer woes

Got a couple of used Gigabyte GA-M62P-S3 mainboards with AM2 CPUs for cheap this week. These are high end socket AM2 boards that can take AM2+ and even AM3 CPUs (with the beta BIOS). They were also made in Taiwan (unlike the recent new Gigabyte AM2+/AM3 boards I just bought which were made in China. I had preferred Gigabyte because 3 years ago when I was in Taiwan, they were still making boards in Taiwan, not China. Sad, they've fallen into the China fever of other Taiwanese companies.

I took out the Asus AM2+ mainboard I had running Vista Home Premium and swapped in the Gigabyte. Swapped the Athlon X2 5000+ Black Edition CPU from the Asus and put it into the Gigabyte and took the Athlon 3500+ from the Gigabyte and put it into the Asus. Then I put the Asus board into the compact mini tower that Tom Shabbits gave me a few years ago. Got the Asus board running Ubuntu Linux 10.04 relatively easily.

Next, tried to get the already installed Vista running on the Gigabyte board. Kept on crashing. So, I booted into safe mode and let the drivers install that way. It was installed and I even could run internet with Safe Mode (with networking). However, no matter what, it wouldn't boot into Vista regular mode. So, unplugged the 500 Gig drive that had Vista installed and put in a brand new WD 1000 Gig. Tried to install Vista. Hung. Checked the size of the drive in the BIOS and it showed up as only 33 Mbyte! Had to do a BIOS update. So, fired up the basement computer and downloaded the latest stable BIOS and put it on a flash drive. Then flashed the BIOS on the Gigabyte board and now it says the drive is 1000 Gbyte. Tried to install Vista again. Hung again. Unplugged the PS/2 mouse and plugged in a USB mouse. Tried to install Vista again. Got the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD - now that I think of it, what an appropriate acronym - an overdose of BS!). So, now I'm firing up Memtest 86+ to see if there is anything wrong with the 2 Gig stick of DDR2 667 MHz I have in the computer. I think I'll plug in a USB keyboard next time too.

Now I know why people don't like Windows. However, I won't buy Mac for various reaons ($$ being a big one). It's a lot easier to get Mac running because it's a know quantity (only one hardware vendor). It's quite amazing how Linux (Ubuntu say) can boot from a CD and run on a great variety of computers. Hopefully, I won't be wasting too much time tonight ....

Still have the problems with Windows 7 Pro being unstable on my "main computer" (Phenom 9850 with 6 gig memory). ARGH!

Here's a link I just found of others who had problems with the 2010 June 24 updates. Not much for solution though, but looks like it's a MS stupdity problem. Here's another post related to QuickBooks that identifies two updates that are causing the problem (I'm guessing)! The problem is from 2 MS updates released on 6/22,KB977354 andKB976576.

Windows 7 Blue Screen of Death

After the June 24th Windows 7 updates, I now have an unstable crashing computer. I am not amused. This morning, I got my first BSOD. I was copying from the Esata HD to the USB 2.0 DVD-RW at home when the BSOD came up. Rebooted and this time, my computer rebooted without warning. It even did this while I was doing an option Windows 7 update (to recognise SDHC cards bigger than 32 gig). This is CRAP. I didn't even get this kind of garbage with Windows Vista. I might have to go back to XP or Vista for my day-to-day computer. This does not happen with Ubuntu from my limited experience. I will not go to Mac because I like using the keyboard and Macs command a premium price.

More 'fun' with Windows 7

I don't believe those stupid Windows 7 commercials one bit. Today, I had trouble with HDMI audio on my ATI Radeon HD4350. The main display is an LCD monitor connected to the Gigabyte mainboard Radeon 4200 via DVI. My LCD TV is connected to the Radeon HD4350 PCI Express 2.0 video card. I wasn't getting any audio via HDMI on the TV and couldn't figure it out (it always was showing not plugged in). Finally, I shut down and did a cold boot. The HDMI was finally 'connected'. Sure is stupid that Windows 7 can't autodetect the connection - you have to reboot before it will see the HDMI audio connection! Of course, I still have to manually select the ATI Radeon HDMI as my default audio output. Kind of dumb I can't tell which one it is (the onboard 4200 or the PCI Express 4350).

Allergy season coming in Saskatoon!

Well, the great thing about the rain has been that I've not had watery, itchy eyes. I got my first allergic reactions today. It's going to rain tomorrow, so that'll be good.

DARN ALL THESE AUTO-IMMUNE PROBLEMS!

Géza Anda died on 1976 June 13

One of my favorite pianists, Géza Anda, died 34 years ago. I got to know his name from the complete 12 LP set of Mozart's Piano Concerti I bought at Fidelio Records in Calgary when I was in high school. That set is still somewhere in the basement in Oakville. It's available on CD now, but I've not bought it because I already have Barenboim's set with the BPO and Ashkenazy's set with the Philharmonia. It's interesting to note that Anda composed some tasteful candenza's for the Mozart piano concerti for which Mozart did not leave a written cadenza. The first recording I ever heard of KV 467 was Anda's later Eurodisc recording with the Wiener Symphoniker which was made shortly before his death. That recording was in my Great Men of Music Mozart box (Time-Life Records). I bought the 5 CD DG set Géza Anda, Troubadour of the Piano from DG Webshop as an MP3 download because I couldn't get it from Amazon.ca. It was from that set that I finally heard the glories of his Brahms B-flat concerto (earlier recording with his countryman, Ferenc Friscay) and the Schumann that I love. There's also his intriguing recording of Schubert's D960 and some beautiful Chopin.

Robert Schumann was born 200 years ago today

Schumann is one of my favorite composers. It's been 200 years since his birth in Zwickau, Germany. I was first attracted to Schumann by the Fantasy, Op 17. I remember when I lived in Oakville, on CJRT, Paul Robinson and Bruce Surtees mentioned how it ends with a question. The 3rd movement of the Fantasy is some of the most beautiful piano music ever composed. The recording I first discovered this masterpiece from was Murray Perahia's. Since then, I've grown to admire the recordings by Géza Anda and Maurizio Pollini. The Symphonic Etudes (Op 13) recording by Pollini made such an impression upon me I declared Schumann along with Mozart and Brahms as the music closest to my heart. I gave my sister the Pollini CD which I bought mail order from Templar Records in London (when I was in grade 10) and she just loves it too. I'm waiting for my DG Schumann anniversary box to arrive. I'm listening to Géza Anda's recordings of these two favorites in my car this past week. I LOVE SCHUMANN'S PIANO MUSIC :)

Next anniversary is 1833 - the 200 year celebration of Johannes Brahms' birth. I hope to be around for that one.

Google Docs for Educators

After the debacle in period 2, I tried looking for some how-to on Google Docs. This page is a great start. It focuses on collaboration and has links to some PDFs.

The main page of Google Education is also good.

First try with Google docs to group edit NOT GOOD

Well, here is the link to the Google doc KWL chart we tried in Science 9 (P2) today. As you can see, it has very little educational value. If you go under File (GoogleDocs menu), you can also see the revision history to see what was written when. They were anonymous, so that gave them more audacity to do useless things. Also had technical issues with 8 groups trying to access the same file at the same time. So, in period 3, I simply did the KWL chart on the overhead and it was filled out as a class.

Numbers, numbers, numbers!

This nice video from Globe and Mail talks about the dividend payout ratio. Now, I've been getting a 10%+ yield on STB for the last month or so. Too good to be true and unsustainable? Well, that's what I was suspecting, but my great aunt said it was a recommendation by a fellow on the radio in Edmonton too. I also looked into STB's balance sheet and found that if they didn't payout such a high dividend yield, they would have been in the black instead of losing $0.10/share (dividends per share was $0.14).

Well, the video notes that calculating

dividend payout ratio = (dividends per share/EPS)

and looking at the history of dividend increases, you can see that MBT (DPR=166%, no increases since 2004) is unsustainable whereas BCE (DPR=66%, 3 increases over the last 1.5 years) is sustainable. BMO DPR=64% and RY DPR=53%. Both are relatively healthy payout ratios.

What to do now? STB just raised $50 million with debt issue. Is this another bad sign? Should I move from STB to RY (which has plummeted recently) or MFC for possible capital gain? MFC is closer to a 52 week low, so I'm leaning more towards this one. I still like STB though - is it safe enough? Also have SU on the radar.

Why is the derivative of cosx = -sinx?

Had an opportunity to look at this today with a student. Notice that if f(x) = cosx, f'(x) = -sinx. Why?

Well, remember that the derivative is the slope. So when we take the derivative at x=0 of cosx, it is obviously 0 (since the tangent line is horizontal). Now, notice that as you take the slope of cosx from x=0 to x=pi, the slope is negative. So f'(x) starts at 0 and gets smaller until you reach x=pi. After that, the slope becomes positive. Thus, you are tracing out a sin curve, but it is flipped (-sinx). Easy thing to figure out if you happen to forget that the derivative of cosx is -sinx.