HDD Makes Random Clicks When Windows is Booting

When I boot my computer up in the morning, my hard drive(Maxtor 500 GB) makes random clicks as it loads windows. I never seem to notice it making those sounds once windows is booted up or if I restart the computer after it has been running for a while. Only when it starts up cold. I have also noticed that occasionally the MSE icon won’t load into the tray, even though the program is running and is set to display in the tray. A restart fixes that issue.

Is there something wrong with my drive? Should I be looking into buying a new drive and having the old one copied over to it? Or is this nothing to really worry about? It has been doing this since at least June of 2011 with no changes.

At a minimum backup the data you do not want to lose. You might even want to clone your HDD to another HDD. It sounds like yours is dying.

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Linux Printing and Programming

Linux Printing

banner        Print a large banner on printer.
lpr        Print, submits a job to the printer.
Ex: lpr -Pdest filename. Dest is the destination printer. the name of the file to print is filename.
lpc        Lets you check the status of the printer and set its state.
lpq        Shows the contents of a spool directory for a given printer.
lprm         Removes a job from the printer queue.
gs        Ghostscript – A PostScript interpreter.
pr        Print a file. Ex: pr filename |pg.
tunelp        Set various parameters for the lp device.

Linux Programming

as86        Assembler
awk        C programming language – allows finding of lines with specific characters.
bc        A precision calculator language.
cproto        Reads in c source files and generates function prototypes for all the functions.
ctags        Generate tag (index) files for source code.
dialog        Display dialog boxes from shell scripts.
egcs        GNU project C and C++ compiler.
f2c        Converts fortran code to c code.
gawk        Pattern scanning and processing language. GNU’s implementation of awk.
gcc        GNU c and c++ compiler.
-g        Produce debugging information.
-pg        Generate profile info that will allow the gprof program to display timing info.
gdb        Debugging program.
gprof        In /usr/bin, allows you to tell where most of the execution time is spent in a program.
igawk        Gawk with include files.
indent        Reformats c source code for consistent indenting and opening and closing brackets consistent.
ld         The GNU linker.
ld86        Linker for as86.
make        GNU make utility to maintain a group of programs.
nm        Lists symbols from object files.
objcopy        Copy and translate object files.
objdump        Display information from object files.
p2c        Converts pascal code to c code.
prompt        set prompt = “waldo” (in C shell) ps1 = ‘waldo’ (in BOURNE shell)
PS1=”[\u@\h \w]\\$ ” makes prompt = [username@hostname current directory]
see the BASH or your shell’s man page for more information.
size        List section sizes and total size.
strip        Discard symbols from object files.
xxgdb        X windows based graphical user interface to gdb.

Scripting Languages

Perl        A command interpreter for the Practical Extraction and Report Language (perl).
Python        A report language.
Tcl        Tool command language shell. Enter by typing tclsh.
info        Return information about the state of the Tcl interpreter.
Tk        A graphical user extension to Tcl based on X windows. Commands are same as Tcl.

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SD Memory Cards

SD Memory CardThe SD memory cards known as the “Secure Digital” first began as miniature cards. Afterwards the new and advanced form of the SD memory card SDIO “Secure Digital Input/output” was introduced into the market. The SDA “Secure Digital Association” included new features and technology to the SD memory cards. The SDA included new varieties of card functions. These new card functions included wireless “Local Area Network LAN” devices, cell phones, GPS receiver, digital video camera etc. The memory card readers that were used in the Secure Digital devices connected to the Universal Serial Bus (USB). The Windows Operating System detects and manages the SD (Secure Digital) memory cards through the driver called the (USB) Universal Serial Bus mass storage. The (SD) Secure Digital host controllers are supported by the Operating System. The Operating System connects the host controller SD to the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus. When the SD-host controller is detected by the operating system, the “SD Secure Digital bus driver” is loaded by the operating system OS. When the SD card is inserted by the user, the windows Operating system loads two drivers the “Storage mini-port” and the “SD Secure Digital Storage Class”. These two drivers are loaded on top of “Bus driver” by the Windows Operating System. On the other hand if the SD memory card of a different function like the wireless Local Area Network (LAN) or the Global Positioning System is inserted by the user, then the Windows Operating System loads the driver that is supplied by the vendor. It is necessary that both the vendor supplied and the native drivers in the (SD) Secure Digital stack communicate with “Secure Digital Bus”. The device drivers call the routines to communication with the “Secure Digital Bus”. These routines are called in the static “Secure Digital Bus library”. When the SD Secure Digital drivers compile, it is necessary that they link to the “Secure Digital SD Bus library”. There are some limitations for the SD device drivers. The “Host Controller Register” is not directly accessible by the Secure Digital device drivers.

The SD device drivers call the routines of “Secure Digital Library”. Then the Secure Digital Library forwards the Secure Digital commands to “Host Controller”. Music can be stored in the Flash Memory card and it is most advantageous than storing it in the Hard drives.  The SD flash memory cards consume less power and are more portable. The SD flash cards also have resistance to shocks. The SD card facilities its users and they can easily record the data to their personal liking like music, pictures. The users can easily carry and move the data with ease and comfort. The SD memory card has the technology to fulfill the requirements of the future networked society. The tiny SD memory card provides many advantages to their users. These memory cards are highly compatible and they can link to different digital equipments. Because of the compatibility of the SD memory cards, their usage is more likely to expand even more in the future. The SD card has now become a standard of memory cards that are used for digital connectivity. In the near by future, the SD cards will be universally accessible to more wide array of Multimedia data. The size of the SD memory card is approximately 24mm x 32mm x 2.1mm. The design of the SD card is very compact and slim. Therefore, they are easy to handle and the user can easily transfer the data.

The devices that are compatible with SD card can play video clips & music with the help of “decoder software”. The DVD & CD players use “drive mechanism” while the SD memory cards do not require “drive mechanism” to play the video clips. So, this gives the product designers more freedom and they can be more creative and innovative. The other popular form of the SD memory card is the miniSD memory card. The size of the mini-SD card is approximately 20mm x 21.5mm x 1.4mm. The miniSD card is smaller in size than the SD card.

The SD memory cards have different recording capacitates, their capacity reaches up to 8GB. The large capacity helps to store the High quality videos. The demand for high capacity SD cards with fast data transfer speed has increased because of the increased digital content range. The SD cards also have the technology of “Copyright Protection”. This “Copyright Protection” technology enables new distribution system. This provides safety and security to the illegal copying of the data.The SD card has built in technology called the Key Revocation. The SD memory card has “Control Circuit”, which allows to read & write the after the detection of the external devices. The data is written and read within the “protection area” of the card. The authentication among the digital devices has to be enabled so that the SD card could be accessed.

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