Myrtle Beach 2008 - Day 1 Departure

When I was young Myrtle Beach, South Carolina was often our family's choice of vacationing for our 2 weeks in August. It was typical of our family and related family members to do the same.

It was typically a 2-day trek from Toronto, Ontario to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina with a stop in between to close the first day of non-stop driving. It can be done in slightly less than 24 hours but we were always reservation-less and found vacant hotels when we arrived ... and this was easier when we arrived mid day as opposed to midnight.

My last trip was probably in 1988 so it was with a bit of excitement when I organized my family's trip almost 20 years later. With a sixteen-month old I was not about to make the trek by car so it was the choice of air for us. As most Canadians know the trip out of Canada is full of extra taxes ... often flights with less than 1hr travel times by flight can cost $20, the taxes the Canadian government can slap on are as high as $300 per person. Quite the deal killer.

Our choice was to fly out of Buffalo, more specifically the Niagara Falls International Airport (IAG). The trip to Buffalo was about 1.5 hours, but with the wait at the Queenston-Lewiston border it was probably close to 3 hours. The Niagara Falls airport is just around the corner from the former Prime Outlets - now called Fashion Outlets so that gives many Canadian travellers as to its proximity to the actual border.

The airport is quite shocking to look at after you've seen the monstrosity referred to as Pearson International Airport. A very simple building with free parking and friendly staff to serve you. This isn't your regular overpriced parking, overpriced shopping, and overpriced dining experience. Great for arrivals and departures, but not for stopovers. No big deal.

Our flight was with an airline called Myrtle Beach Direct Air ... one of the few airlines that flies directly into Myrtle Beach non stop (most other airlines require a change of planes in Charlotte, North Carolina and I believe Spirit Airlines flying out of Detroit, Michigan is the only other direct flight). I would have to say that the direct option accounted for 50% of my decision to fly ... the fact that the flight was $99 each way for an adult was the other driving factor. Factor in about $35 of extra fees ($5 seat pre-selection, $15 baggage fee, $10 convenience fee, the rest in misc. taxes each way) and And I'm sure many other Canadian travellers can agree as it seems to be a common occurrence for families of more than 2. The cost of a family of 5 is significantly reduced. I'm sure the Canadian government won't take any action in reducing their fees. And this doesn't rest solely in the hands of the GTAA - the operation that is responsible for Pearson being one of the most expensive airports to land at in North America.

Myrtle Beach Direct Air has been flying this route for about a year and a half and is probably best known to Canadian golfers flying out to the abundance of golf courses in and around Myrtle Beach. The airline is supposedly affiliated with JetBlue in some way ... probably sharing revenue or chartering their flights. We happened to fly a JetBlue Airbus A320 jet on the trip there. Free refreshments and snacks. leather seats, full satellite tv per seat (although I was disappointed our first row of seats 1D, 1E, and 1F were not working) ... all the amenities of a JetBlue flight. Super friendly steward staff and a very enjoyable flight overall.
If anybody has the opportunity to reserve their seats, the first row is a nice-to-have because you have extra legroom and nobody to deal with in front of you.

Windows 2000 and a hard drive limited to 137gb

I recently had the task of installing Windows 2000 Server on a Dell Poweredge SC420 as my RAID server. I have two identical Western Digital 250gb hard drives, one of which I had installed Windows 2000 on. The full capacity was recognized and the install went fine.

Now was the time to install the 2nd identical hard drive and initiate the RAID (software RAID within Windows 2000) sequence of converting the drives to dynamic disks, and setting up the raid. Then Windows was supposed to go about re-syncing the date from the populated drive 0 over to the newly added drive 1.

Here comes the problem. Upon adding drive 1 the capacity only registers as 137gb. But they both drive 0 and drive 1 are identical makes, models, and size? Simple fix :

1. Run regedit.exe
2. Search for My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\atapi\Parameters
3. Click "New" then "DWORD Value"
4. Call the new entry EnableBigLba
5. Give it a value of 1
6. Reboot the system

Strange that 1 of the drives was recognized for it's full capacity but not the second. Oh well, I guess Windows has its reason.

As for why I decided to create a Windows software RAID solution? I had a similar situation set up with a hardware controller card when one of the drives failed. I was out of luck accessing anything from it or even booting, so I decided to put it in an external USB enclosure to recover the data. No go. The Windows software RAID solution allowed me to do that without a question.

It's a file server, who cares about the extra 5% overhead involved? I'm more concerned with data redundancy.

Software RAID in Windows Server 2000, 2003

A strange thing has been happening to me over the last couple of days. I was reformatting my Dell Poweredge SC420 from a being a workstation back to being a server. Wiping out Windows XP and installing Windows Server 2008. I wanted to have a reliable file and print server - yes, I know a 3.4ghz P4 enterprise edition is overkill ... but my only PC with enough hard drive slots and space for cooling.

Well, Windows Server 2008 is useless to me since there are no drivers yet for the SC420. That was a pointless install.

Then came Windows Server 2003. It was my basic server setup - 2 identical drives to be configured with Windows and then setup as a RAID mirror set. Windows software RAID. All was dandy and working fine but i felt using a Server 2003 license for a simple file server was overkill. So I began to dismantle the setup. First thing was to remove one of the RAID drives and put it aside - my hope was to reattach it to my new Windows setup, add it as a 2nd drive and copy all the files over to the main drive. Then reformat this drive and set it up as the RAID mirror.

So Windows Server 2000 installed with adequate success - network drivers for the Broadcom gigabit NIC were not present, nor were capable video drivers for the E7221 integrated video card. After some fiddling with another system and a USB drive I managed to get the Broadcom drivers loaded. Then with some chance of fluke, my previous post on Windows XP video card drivers and the SC420 worked without a problem under Windows 2000 too!

Upon adding the second drive in the previous RAID array, everything started to look normal. I began copying files from the drive to the Windows 2000 C:\ drive. Mid-way through the operation some funky things happened. BSOD. Trying to reboot was pointless - could not find OS.

Second try this time with the old RAID mirror drive as an external USB drive. Mid-way though the C:\ drive became corrupt. What the?

Then it dawned upon me. What if Windows thinks that a RAID rebuild is necessary and that the new C:\ drive is trying to be sync'ed with the old RAID mirror? It sure seemed plausible.

Although I could find no documentation of this (how would you go about searching for it?), I managed to copy the files through an interim Windows XP installation.

Stranger things have happened to me before.

For those under a similar situation, chances are you've found this post after it has happened.

Live and learn.

Must have Windows applications

Here is my ever-growing list of must-have software applications for Windows (XP, 2000, 2003). It will continuously be updated over time :

1. 7zip - the free equivalent to Winzip.
2. Videolan - small footprint media player for all your movies, music and sound files.
3. Foxit Reader - a free, quicker loading equivalent to Adobe Acrobat Reader. Acrobat reader has grown to a overgrown pot-belly fat application. It makes me nauseous to wait for it to load all those libraries when all I need is to quick view a PDF file.
4. Cute PDF Writer - a free printer driver to create PDF files. No need for a printer, and no need for Adobe Acrobat. If you pay bills online always create a PDF printout for record keeping.
5. Mozilla Firefox - Do NOT install any new versions of Internet Explorer if you don't have to. Firefox is quicker and less of a headache down the road.

Unknown device error in Device Manager

I have a Dell Poweredge SC420 server and was installing a copy of Windows Server 2000 on it. Dell had labelled the machine a server and as such did not provide any drivers for Windows XP. Now I don't quite remember fully, but I think they provided Windows Server 2000 drivers at one point. Unfortunately they are no longer on the support site.

Like a similar post of mine with regards to installing Windows XP on this machine and getting the onboard Intel E7221 graphics to work, there are always ways around getting things to work. If you experience some "Unknown device" entries in device manager, they are almost always the lack of drivers with the Intel chipset. Specifically, I was getting some PCI and USB entries in the device manager. Grab this file from Intel and let it do it's thing :

INF Update Utility - Primarily for Intel 4, 3, 900 Series Chipsets

I have a similar suggestion for a similar problem involving USB drivers in the device manager for my Dell Dimension 2400.

Are hybrid cars really the answer?

With all the commotion currently going on about the high price of gasoline many consumers and advocates are pushing the move to hybrid cars. Sure it may be cleaner, but with the North American economy heading in the same direction as it is now, how can such an economy support such a massive surge on the nation's electrical grid?
click here
Many major metropolitan centres have experienced blackouts on several occasions. Even more are on the brink of being pushed beyond their production capabilities. Many of the nation's electricity distributors are pushing incentives to cut back on electrical demand. Rates during peak consumption hours are rising, and discounts are given to those who use the grid's power during off-peak hours. There are even programs that allow the electricity companies to cycle down your air conditioner remotely to conserve energy.

Electric cars are not the answer. They are simply a segment of the auto industry just as 4-cylinders, 6-cylinders, and 8-cylinders are. Just as a small percentage of North Americans choose to drive diesel powered cars, so will be the one for electric vehicles.

And neither are cars powered by water. With the municipalities surrounding the Great Lakes (Manitoba, Michigan, New York, Ontario and Pennsylvania) fighting over the world's largest source of fresh water for drinking, let alone for an alternative auto fuel.

Alternative fuels are not the consumer's answer to today's problems. The answer to the domestic problem of energy use is simply efficiency. Yes, that's right. Today's automobile engine is roughly 35% efficient.

The electricity industry has taken a step in the right direction by actively supporting the fluorescent light bulb. Regular incandescent light bulbs gave 10% of their energy in the form of visible light ... the rest in heat. That's practically reversed with the compact fluorescent bulbs.

Why Canada is the best haven from climate change

The Independent has an article about why Canada is the best haven for a climate change. An interesting read and opens your eyes to how easy it is to take a good thing for granted.