In a previous post, I noted that I had my SATA drive controller set as native IDE instead of AHCI. That's the reason why my E-SATA drive wasn't recognised (see yet another post) until I went into device manager and scanned for new hardware. Now that I've set my mainboard SATA controller to AHCI mode, the E-sata drive is seen automatically and it can be ejected (like a USB drive).
Perhaps, this mainboard BIOS setting was at the root of all my previously documented Windows 7 problems? So far, this reinstallation hasn't encountered any problems.
On another note, I forgot again that if a hard drive was formatted with Ubuntu Linux, you have to do an fdisk/mbr (pre XP) or fixmbr (XP) to make the drive usable for a fresh Windows installation.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Windows 7 Installing Network Printer
I have a couple of parallel laser printers connected to a 3 port HP Print Server. HP Network Printer Install version 8 didn't work for me. I had to go and get the version 7 file from my Vista Computer (luckily still had it) and installed that - it worked. Then I forgot that Win7 doesn't ship with a comprehensive set of printer drivers, so I had to install a local printer as HP Laserjet 6L (download required) and then the driver would be available for install as a network printer - again - hardly a seamless procedure for installing a network printer. This is yet another example of what makes Mac fans cheer so loudly.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
I give up, reinstall Windows 7
I give up on my Phenom 9850 / Gigabyte MA785GM-US2H Windows 7 Pro computer. It kept on crashing after I rearranged the RAM. So, now I have two matched pairs of 1 Gig DDR2 in there (1 set of Nanya and 1 set of Elpida Elixir) for 4 Gig total. It was crashing with some Platinum (GB Micro) 2 gig sticks (not of the same manufacturer).
As I was poking through the BIOS, I noticed my hard drives were not in AHCI (native SATA) mode and that hardware virtualisation wasn't turned on. So, before I reinstalled, I backed up my hard drives to a Fantom Esata 1 terabyte HD. This was much faster than using USB 2.0 (what would have taken hours on USB 2.0 took about 20 minutes with Esata). The Gigabyte MA785GM-US2H mainboard has Esata built in, so this was one reason I chose that board. These SATA and hardware virtualisation settings must be set BEFORE installing Windows (as I discovered when my Win XP Virtual Machine didn't work when I turned on hardware virtualisation in the BIOS with my previous crashing setup). So, with these BIOS settings changed, I'm hoping to finally have a stable Windows 7 Pro 64-bit system.
As I was poking through the BIOS, I noticed my hard drives were not in AHCI (native SATA) mode and that hardware virtualisation wasn't turned on. So, before I reinstalled, I backed up my hard drives to a Fantom Esata 1 terabyte HD. This was much faster than using USB 2.0 (what would have taken hours on USB 2.0 took about 20 minutes with Esata). The Gigabyte MA785GM-US2H mainboard has Esata built in, so this was one reason I chose that board. These SATA and hardware virtualisation settings must be set BEFORE installing Windows (as I discovered when my Win XP Virtual Machine didn't work when I turned on hardware virtualisation in the BIOS with my previous crashing setup). So, with these BIOS settings changed, I'm hoping to finally have a stable Windows 7 Pro 64-bit system.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Vista Ultimate 32-bit install with Vista Home Premium Upgrade Disk
Well, finally got around to installing the used OEM Vista Ultimate 32-bit I bought on Kijiji in June 2010. Problems galore! Using the DVD that came in the case didn't work. It always hung at the last step. I also had the problem of the system being way too hot in a mini-tower case. So, after 3 tries with that Vista Ultimate DVD, I transferred the mainboard and HD to a bigger case with 4 extra fans. Tried to get Ubuntu 10.04 to install and it failed. So, I remembered I had a 32-bit Vista Home Premium Ugrade disk. I installed Vista Ultimate from that disk (which has SP1) without issue! What you do is DON'T TYPE IN THE PRODUCT KEY and choose Vista Ultimate as the edition you bought. It worked! Then the activation problem - internet activation said the product key was already activated. So, I had to do phone activation. First time, I got cut off, so I phoned again and finally got to a live person and he activated Vista Ultimate over the phone for me. Now, I'm doing SP2 and getting it all updated. BTW, the computer is a Gigabyte AM2+ (AM3) mainboard with 4 gig and a Phenom II 940 processor.
Now, I didn't get this idea by myself, it's based on this article I recalled from a few months ago.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
The Talent Code and Mindset
I've been reading the Talent Code (a condensation of The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance). One thought that came instantly to mind is how do the Aden Bowman Senior Football coaches ignite the players of a small school to 3 straight city championships and two provincial championships in 3 years?
Talent Code starts with deep practice which creates the broadband networks that result in expertise. Myelin (page 44-45) is the stuff which wraps around nerve fibres (page 31, 38) and Coyle compares it to creating a broadband neural network. What is deep practice? Rule 1 (page 79) is to chunk up the task. Chunking is about taking it one step at a time and slowing down practice so that you can attend to errors and correct them. Rule 2 is repeat it - attentive repetition is a must. As Horowitz said (page 88) skip 1 day practice, he notices, skip 2 days practice, his wife notices, skip 3 days practice the world knows it. Rule 3 is learn to feel it. He sums it up as (page 92): 1. Pick a target, 2. Reach for it, 3. Evaluate the gap between step 1 and step 2, 4. Return to step 1. In other words, when one is deep practicing, you are operating at the edges of your current ability and this helps to build expertise (and myelin).
The second part of the book is about ignition (motivation). On page 104 there is an interesting graph showing that a student who is committed can practice less and achieve more that an uncommitted student who practices more. On page 107 he quotes an interesting piece from Tom Sawyer (Tom 'conning' his friend to paint the fence). On page 135-137 he refers to Carol Dweck's Mindset work. Students who were praised for effort rather than achievement eventually achieved more because they adopted a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindest.
Now, this stuff all makes very good sense. There are really very few natural born talents. The 'talented' are not born that way. Instead, they have unconsciously developed a way to attain expertise. The physiological manifestation of this expertise is building myelin (much like athletes building muscle through exercise). The unconscious mind can process 11 million pieces of info/sec whereas the conscious mind can only process 40 pieces of info/sec (page 112).
The next part is about KIPP, a college prep school programme. One common thread seems to be a built-in desire to achieve as the students are largely from have-not families (sort of like the rundown Russian tennis school). The standard motto is "Work hard and be nice". The primal cues KIPP students follow (page 149) mirrors the sporting examples he's already used. Page 150, self-discipline is twice as accurate as IQ in predictng a student's GPA - more evidence that one is not born with talent. Page 150 (Mindset stuff) - the only way to reach them is to change the way they see themselves.
The last chapter - Epilogue is a must read. He refers to Dweck's work again and summarises most of what he's talked about. He also ends with a personal experience coaching his previously hapless Little League team. Although they did not win the tournament, they did improve vastly over their previous outings. He also noted that Toyota's culture of continuous self-improvement was key to their rise. This is what I thought was needed in our CDMs last year - however, there is not a true learning community where people feel comfortable having a real discussion rather than the typical show and tell.
Wooden's quick and precise comments is similar to what Dylan Wiliam indicated about feedback in a video Garry Davis referred EHCI staff to - feedback should be given every 30 seconds. Now, that would seem hard to do in a class of 35 like I had last year. I think the only way to get this kind of 'just in time' feedback is to develop a true learning community where students use peer and self assessment to make progress.
More to come ...
Talent Code starts with deep practice which creates the broadband networks that result in expertise. Myelin (page 44-45) is the stuff which wraps around nerve fibres (page 31, 38) and Coyle compares it to creating a broadband neural network. What is deep practice? Rule 1 (page 79) is to chunk up the task. Chunking is about taking it one step at a time and slowing down practice so that you can attend to errors and correct them. Rule 2 is repeat it - attentive repetition is a must. As Horowitz said (page 88) skip 1 day practice, he notices, skip 2 days practice, his wife notices, skip 3 days practice the world knows it. Rule 3 is learn to feel it. He sums it up as (page 92): 1. Pick a target, 2. Reach for it, 3. Evaluate the gap between step 1 and step 2, 4. Return to step 1. In other words, when one is deep practicing, you are operating at the edges of your current ability and this helps to build expertise (and myelin).
The second part of the book is about ignition (motivation). On page 104 there is an interesting graph showing that a student who is committed can practice less and achieve more that an uncommitted student who practices more. On page 107 he quotes an interesting piece from Tom Sawyer (Tom 'conning' his friend to paint the fence). On page 135-137 he refers to Carol Dweck's Mindset work. Students who were praised for effort rather than achievement eventually achieved more because they adopted a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindest.
Now, this stuff all makes very good sense. There are really very few natural born talents. The 'talented' are not born that way. Instead, they have unconsciously developed a way to attain expertise. The physiological manifestation of this expertise is building myelin (much like athletes building muscle through exercise). The unconscious mind can process 11 million pieces of info/sec whereas the conscious mind can only process 40 pieces of info/sec (page 112).
The next part is about KIPP, a college prep school programme. One common thread seems to be a built-in desire to achieve as the students are largely from have-not families (sort of like the rundown Russian tennis school). The standard motto is "Work hard and be nice". The primal cues KIPP students follow (page 149) mirrors the sporting examples he's already used. Page 150, self-discipline is twice as accurate as IQ in predictng a student's GPA - more evidence that one is not born with talent. Page 150 (Mindset stuff) - the only way to reach them is to change the way they see themselves.
The last chapter - Epilogue is a must read. He refers to Dweck's work again and summarises most of what he's talked about. He also ends with a personal experience coaching his previously hapless Little League team. Although they did not win the tournament, they did improve vastly over their previous outings. He also noted that Toyota's culture of continuous self-improvement was key to their rise. This is what I thought was needed in our CDMs last year - however, there is not a true learning community where people feel comfortable having a real discussion rather than the typical show and tell.
Wooden's quick and precise comments is similar to what Dylan Wiliam indicated about feedback in a video Garry Davis referred EHCI staff to - feedback should be given every 30 seconds. Now, that would seem hard to do in a class of 35 like I had last year. I think the only way to get this kind of 'just in time' feedback is to develop a true learning community where students use peer and self assessment to make progress.
More to come ...
Piano lid finally installed
The piano lid that was lying around the living since April was finally installed by John's Furniture Repair today. He was recommended by both Bruce Gibson and Yamaha Piano Centre. Still not happy with the whole process as Willem van Suijdam doesn't give his customers any service. NEVER BUY A PIANO FROM THE MUSIC GROUP in Burlington, Ontario. Mason and Hamlin, on the other hand is an honorable company that manufactures quality instruments. Do not confuse the head office with Mason and Hamlin Canada which is largely the same thing as Willem's good for nothing outfit.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Suzuki Summer String Experience was Great
Our kids attended the Saskatoon Suzuki Strings Summer Experience and it was great. We found out about this summer camp from a flyer sent home from Lakeridge School and signed up our kids. They had a pretty good time and will be signing up for the program this coming fall. It's pretty amazing when they can arrange something for a 3 year old (it was 'taxing' for our guy, but it worked for the most part). I highly recommend this summer camp even if you don't plan on taking violin lessons. They even played tennis with Philip Kashap for one of their electives. We have asked him to give our kids private lessons this coming year.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Windows 7 BSOD strikes again
Surfing with Firefox (3 tabs) and while reading about the VBRun site on VisualBasic.about.com, the computer rebooted (blackscreen). On reboot, it started up, but as my desktop was showing up, it blue screened and showed an error IRQ not less than. Rebooted and it hung at the BIOS startup screen. There were some strange pixels showing up. Had to press the reset button to reboot. It hangs as the OpenOffice.org registration popup came up (I couldn't click on anything on the screen - it was hung up). Pressed reboot again and now I'm doing this blog post.
THIS IS CRAP.
As I was searching for info on my problem (in Firefox), the computer rebooted (black screen) again. Upon successful reboot, I did a system restore back to June 18 (before the June 24 issues). Noticed that there were more updates on July 1 and 2nd as well. When the system restore rebooted the computer, I got a black screen, but it wasn't hung up as I could move the mouse around. I turned on my TV to check if it was also a black screen and it was. So, I control-Alt-DEL into task manager and finally my desktop magically appears after a while and the system restore says it was successful (to June 18). The OpenOffice.org registration popup came up again, but I could click on it.
So far, with the restore back to June 18, there have been no problems and I could even burn a DVD with PowerProducer 3 (USB 2.0 to IDE DVD burner). I've turned off automatic updates. Definitely a stupid MS Update issue that's plagued my computer for the past 10 days.
Here are some links that may be associated with this problem
THIS IS CRAP.
As I was searching for info on my problem (in Firefox), the computer rebooted (black screen) again. Upon successful reboot, I did a system restore back to June 18 (before the June 24 issues). Noticed that there were more updates on July 1 and 2nd as well. When the system restore rebooted the computer, I got a black screen, but it wasn't hung up as I could move the mouse around. I turned on my TV to check if it was also a black screen and it was. So, I control-Alt-DEL into task manager and finally my desktop magically appears after a while and the system restore says it was successful (to June 18). The OpenOffice.org registration popup came up again, but I could click on it.
So far, with the restore back to June 18, there have been no problems and I could even burn a DVD with PowerProducer 3 (USB 2.0 to IDE DVD burner). I've turned off automatic updates. Definitely a stupid MS Update issue that's plagued my computer for the past 10 days.
Here are some links that may be associated with this problem
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