The Quiet Picture

I have mentioned the Dell laptop I have at work. It hasn’t been feeling very well lately. It has many different problems - or should I say symptoms:

All of this, apart where mentioned, can happen in and out of the docking station and at random. The problems can occur directly after booting up when the computer has been shut down overnight. Or sometimes it can run fine for a day. It can happen during high activity, or no activity at all. With and without a network cable being connected. With a lot of software running, or no software at all (including Windows!).

This is what has been done so far to fix this:

All of this misery started when the cover for the docking station connection got broken. Otherwise the laptop was just fine, but since the cover didn’t close up anymore, it was not possible to use the computer outside the docking station. Dell swapped the bottom cover and motherboard and the original problem was fixed, it’s just that at the same time the Pandora’s box was opened and everything else started going wrong. My theory, and my colleagues’ theory, is that when the laptop originally was broken, it also affected the docking station. So now when the motherboards are replaced, the faulty docking station just breaks them again. Thus, the laptop doesn’t work properly outside the docking station either. And because the motherboard is broken, it doesn’t matter which part they replace after it. The funny thing is that Dell is not really interested in this theory. The engineers have only a passing interest in the docking station when we mention this. Of course, we may be wrong, but we are also running out of parts to exchange…

Can you believe that Dell is still dragging on this case? How much has it cost them to send out an engineer on site 6 times (!) and replace all these parts? How much has it cost my company in lost working hours while I’ve just struggled to make the laptop work? Consolation prize is that it really is a company laptop so I haven’t needed to waste any of my own time or money on this.

It’s such a shame. I have loved the laptop, it has been reliability itself. I had a private Dell laptop once and never had any problems with it. But now, I’m disgusted. There comes a point when it just isn’t funny anymore. Although, I keep laughing. The joke is on Dell…

It was bound to come - a formula for calculating the perfect website. I did the test and it turns out that my website minnak.net is, in fact, perfect. No surprises there, eh? I reckon the survey would be somewhat more useful if done by other people evaluating the sites… not by the site owner trying to look good. Even if I was being perfectly honest, of course. LOL!

Flashback to last winter… Snow and cold weather followed by a period of rain, repeat cycle. Now we had the beginnings of an excellent winter, but after a few days of raining it’s all but gone. Still some dirty snow in the forest and ice on the roads (covered by a layer of water) so it’s not exactly ideal for any outdoors activities. Instead, it’s the kind of weather where you only take out the photo equipment to do some maintenance. My tripod is now well cleaned and re-greased (if you have a Gitzo, here’s an excellent maintenance guide). The camera sensor is clean but for one persistent dirt spot and there’s no amount of blowing that will dislodge it and Pecpads actually only made it worse by smearing it. Eclipse fluid has been ordered!

It’s also the kind of weather which is suitable for making plans for better weather. I’ve been poring over maps and dreaming about the mountains, trying to decide which skiing trips to make and when. Wondering if any of the trails will be prepared already for Christmas…

And even if the winter season hasn’t properly started yet, I’m also planning for summer. I’m currently reading Nordisk Fjällflora (Nordic mountain flora) and I’m determined to make closer acquitance with the mountain flowers next summer. A day in the Hamrafjället mountain (known for its rich flora) during peak flower season sounds like a plan!

That’s a photo I took on Sunday. It was a great day, it was. A lot of snow. I just haven’t bothered to fire up the computer to check the pictures I took until last night… when I installed the new 1 GB memory that I had managed to swap for 2×512 MB. That should fix it, right? Two memory banks, which support up to 1 GB memory each. Wrong. The computer was kind enough to instantly recognise the new memory, but then it crashed. So I restarted, and it crashed straight away again. So I removed the old 512 MB and tried with only the new 1 GB. Startup, and crash. Restart, and crash. I tested the memory at work and it was fine.

Today I managed to swap back the memory so now my computer is happily running with 2×512 MB RAM, back to where I started. Plus that I have a brand new 512 MB module to sell. Any upgrades I want to do on this computer, I will have to start with the motherboard.

Coincidentally, a Dell technician should come around tomorrow to replace the faulty motherboard on my work laptop. Imagine, until a few weeks ago, I had never had any motherboard related problems with any of my computers. The floodgates are open…

There are no problems, just issues.

So this memory issue for my home computer then. From hoping to upgrade from 1 to 1.5 GB RAM, I went to having 512 MB instead. I managed to restore the original 2×512 MB and then tried again to figure out how to get the additional 512 MB to show up. I did some digging and found a detailed spec sheet for the motherboard and read that it supports 2 memory banks for 333/400 MHz DDR, and 3 memory banks for 266 MHz. Guess what? Yes. I’m an expert in trying to fix the unfixable and would you believe, I never succeed. It’s so tragic it’s… no it’s not even funny.

Or maybe just a little.

Last winter I discovered a great place for shooting sunsets. There was a trinity of pines left after the forest was cut last year. I’ve calculated that the spot is suitable for shooting sunsets from late November to early January, so now I’ve just been waiting for the days to get shorter. Today when I was walking around, I came by this spot. And discovered to my horror that the three pines had become two - the third one was uprooted and lying dead on the ground. I guess the winds had been a bit harder than I gave them credit for.

I have a message for the forestry companies. It’s all fine and well to leave seed trees. But remember one thing - trees have discovered that there’s strength in numbers, so they prefer to grow in large groups. Also known as forests, actually.

I got my ND8 filter this week so of course I just had to try it, despite the snow-slash-sleet-slash-rain that was falling from the sky. The Stormjacket works fine for the camera, and shooting water means that the camera is pointed down so the front of the lens is protected from the drops.

All I can say is that long exposures are not a problem anymore. It was a relatively dark day so I think I could’ve gotten 15-20 sec exposures without the ND8, but the point was to test it so I used it stacked with the polarizer anyway. The longest exposure I tried with was 25 sec but sharpness becomes a serious issue; I’ve no idea how people get sharp shots with slower shutter speeds. I think I will stick to those 15-20 secs, that’s enough to give me the kind of effect I am looking for without sacrificing all too much with the sharpness.

Something else that is slow is my computer. I got an extra 512 MB RAM and stuffed it in… and it didn’t show up. So I thought maybe it’s broken, and tested by removing the older modules (2×512 MB). No problems with the new module. So I put in the old RAM again and booted up - only to discover that my computer still thinks that it only has 512 MB. I tried with swapping the modules, tried with each one individually, tried different memory slots (only the first slot seems to work alone - or the other two are broken. Which there weren’t before, because it still showed 1 GB after I inserted the new module the first time). But no matter what, my computer is now operating with half a gig instead of the 1.5 GB I was hoping to have. Not much fun when editing large pictures!

Gonna have to start surfing the tech forums… Maybe there’s some magic way to tell the PC that is has extra memory. Yeah and pigs fly.

I think we can declare the skiing season open now! Yesterday I discovered that the track has already been prepared, so I had been looking forward to skiing all day today. When I got there, I found some places though where the wind had blown the snow off, but mostly it was just fine. It will get worse soon - above freezing temperatures from tomorrow on and no frosty weather in sight.

We were supposed to get a storm here last weekend, but it never happened. There was a stiff breeze at most, but otherwise just sunshine. The rest of the Sweden apparently suffered a lot worse weather… and now they get their vengeance, as we are hit by a snow storm. When I drove home, the snow ploughs had not yet cleared the roads and driving was difficult (but at least I had winter tyres now). By the time I got to my street, I got stuck - and I mean stuck. There had been no traffic at all and the snow was so deep that I literally had to plough my own way, and my little car couldn’t take it as the uphill got steeper. Nothing else to do than to park at my neighbour’s and then wade up home. It was so miserable it was funny… almost knee deep, I had snow going up my trouser sleeves and my legs didn’t exactly enjoy the experience. A few minutes after I had gotten home, the snow plough arrived. LOL!

Once I had changed into warm clothing I ventured out with the camera. Just can’t miss this weather! I had wanted to take bad weather pictures of the monument since last winter, so no time like present. You can’t really see it in this small picture, but in the original you can clearly make out the snowflake trails in the light as the wind is swirling them around.

Now, it’s just a matter of enjoying it while it lasts. It will get warmer on Friday.

I’ve been enjoying watching the birds on my feeder and most of the time, I can even identify them. Well, not that hard… I don’t get many different species, but this little fella is a mystery to me. First it paid a visit at the peanut stand, just sat there for a while and then flew away. A bit later I saw it foraging on the ground and by then I had the camera, so if anyone recognises this, please share! At first I thought it was a nuthatch with fluffed up feathers (yes, I’m that bad with bird IDs), but then a real nuthatch came over for lunch and I realised that they’re nothing alike. And how often do you see a nuthatch on the ground, anyway… It’s about the size of a great tit, maybe just a touch bigger.