Tech Tangent

No more virtual memory!

2008-11-15T19:51:00.000-08:00

Virtual memory is exactly what it sounds like, fake memory. A simple example is, say you have 4 MB of memory and you want to run 5 programs each needing 1 MB of memory. When you run the 5th program the operating system takes 1 MB of memory that hasn't been used in a while and writes it to the hard drive. This frees up the memory allowing the 5th program to run. Now if another program requests the memory that is on disk, the operating system has to swap something with it. This is slow. For most users, the operating system manages it and you never have to think about it. Virtual memory is great and it's allowed people to multitask easier without having to worry about memory. But....

Memory is so incredibly cheap these days, I recently upgraded to 8GB of memory and turned off virtual memory my pagefile. My thinking is before I had 4GB of memory and a 4GB pagefile and my system ran great. Now that I have 8GB I shouldn't need virtual memory a pagefile. Why not have both? Windows is notorious of being a memory hog, the more there is, the more it uses. Disabling virtual memory the pagefile is the only way to force windows and other programs to use only physical memory. Have you ever heard your hard drive spin up when switching programs? Not me anymore!

UPDATE: I used a very layman use of the term virtual memory because my point was the hard drive swapping. In reality virtual memory does a lot more than just swap data from the RAM to the hard drive. It allows applications to use contigous memory when it actually may be fragmented or across various media. This is very important and cannot be turned off. Turning off the pagefile will prevent any harddrive swaps but if I ever do use my entire 8GB of ram, I might have some performance issues. Does disabling the pagefile help? I would assume that windows trys to leave some free memory for applications so it doesn't always need to swap and disabling the pagefile may increase the amount of physical memory left unallocated. With a lot of RAM it probably doesn't make much of a difference either way. In practice my system is running great but I haven't done any strenuous testing.

For more information, read this article on pagefile optimization.

Birthday Skydiving!

2008-06-30T09:47:00.000-07:00

I went skydiving for my 26th birthday this past weekend! It was pretty intense but not too scary. I kept thinking I'd get nervous the closer I came to jumping but I was so excited and on such an adrenaline rush it never happened. I was also surprised that I didn't feel the stomach lurching feeling you get from roller coasters and such. I felt it for only a split second when I jumped out but then it's just a weightless, floating sensation. I definitely encourage everyone to try it!

(hi-def YouTube link)

New Weezer Album

2008-05-23T08:39:00.000-07:00

As many of you may know, Weezer is my favorite band. In eleven days (June 3 2008) they are releasing their next album, "Weezer". It will their third self titled album, this time nicknamed "The Red Album".

The video for their single, "Pork and Beans", came out on YouTube today! If you keep up on the internet's viral videos, you'll find it pretty funny.

Below is a list of videos I compiled that are included (in order of first appearance):

One Man Band
Rogaine?
Dramatic Chipmunk
Nunchucks Pro
Eepybird
Cartoon Muscle Man?
Guiness World Record for most T-Shirts worn at one time
Chris Crocker - LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!
All Your Base Are Belong To Us
Miss Teen USA 2007 - South Carolina answers a question
Numa Numa
Three guys dancing?
Evolution of Dance
"Chocolate Rain" Original Song by Tay Zonday
Federline's PopoZão
Daft Hands
Daft Bodies (They also have a Weezer promotion)
Best Sex Ever!!!
Shoes the Full Version (They also have a Weezer promotion)
It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time!!!
Will it blend? (shown in montage at the end)
Charlie The Unicorn (shown in montage at the end)
Some UFO? (shown in montage at the end)

Is it sad or impressive I recognized 80% of them? Please tell me if you know any that I've missed. :-)

Finicky Configuration.RegexStringValidator

2008-05-15T17:38:00.000-07:00

I was working on a custom ConfigurationElement for an HttpModule and I needed two properties. They both needed to be in the form of a URL (but only the host) and one was required. Regular expressions are a great tool for easily verifying a string is in a certain format and Microsoft was nice enough to include the RegexStringValidatorAttribute. So I tried this:


[ConfigurationProperty("Url", IsRequired = true)]
[RegexStringValidator(@"^https?://[A-Za-z\d\-_\.]+$")]

[ConfigurationProperty("Url2", IsRequired = false)]
[RegexStringValidator(@"^https?://[A-Za-z\d\-_\.]+$")]

If you know regular expressions you can see a simple URL like "http://www.jessemandel.com" should validate. Neither one worked, plus it gave me the misleading error that "http://www.jessemandel.com" wasn't validating.

After a bit of fiddling around, I figured out that at some point the RegexStringValidator is validating the default value. In this case it's an empty string which is not valid. This makes sense for Url2 if it's not provided but it told me "http://www.jessemandel.com" was invalid.

The second one was an easy fix. Since it's not required, I changed the regular expression to allow "" and now it works.


[ConfigurationProperty("Url2", IsRequired = false)]
[RegexStringValidator(@"^(https?://[A-Za-z\d\-_\.]+)?$")]

I can't do the same for the first one because I don't want an empty string to be valid. It's required so it's never empty but I guess when it initializes it loads the default value. Adding a DefaultValue that is valid does the trick.


[ConfigurationProperty("Url", IsRequired = true, DefaultValue = "http://localhost")]
[RegexStringValidator(@"^https?://[A-Za-z\d\-_\.]+$")]

You don't have to worry about the DefaultValue much because if you do not include the property at all you'll get the error, "Required attribute 'Url' not found." and if you include an invalid Url, you'll get the error, "The value does not conform to the validation regex string '^https?://[A-Za-z\d\-_\.]+$'."

PlascoEnergy Group

2008-02-14T17:17:00.000-08:00

This company is amazing! They take trash and convert it into energy using a process called plasma gasification. Plasma gasification uses plasma (super heated gas) to break down (not burn) trash into its basic elements. This allows all kinds of trash to be disposed of. Things like biomedical waste, toxic chemicals, concrete, metal, plastics.

Plasco Energy Group has the only full scale working prototype of its kind. What makes Plasco unique is how it organizes the material afterwards. Plasco uses a series of tubes (like the internet!) to sort the material so it is more useful and sends it through turbines to create energy. The most amazing part is once their power plant gets running, it produces enough electricity to sustain itself and put some power back into the grid. Plus after the process is complete, there is only about 0.2% waste product.

Check out the video by the Discovery Channel

Internet News Readers

2008-02-05T17:37:00.000-08:00

I read a lot of news on the internet. I also follow a few comics and read programming articles. I keep up with the TED.com videos. I have a few friends with blogs that I read. All in all there are 50 sites I want to keep track of and I am always adding more.

How do I do it? Sure I could bookmark them all and check them on a regular basis but 50+ sites would take forever! Luckily there is an easier way, feeds.

There are two standards for feeds, Atom and RSS. There are a few differences but for the most part, they function the same. They are an XML file that lists the (articles, comics, videos, blog posts) on a given web site. Now using a reader, you can subscribe to as many of these feeds as you want and have one place to check all you favorite websites for updates.

There are many free news readers available. Personally I use Google Reader. It has a slick, intuitive interface and stores my subscriptions online so I can log in from anywhere and check them. You can also use Outlook, Thunderbird, My Yahoo!, or any other news reader. You can even make live bookmarks in Firefox or add feeds directly to IE7.

Once you've chosen your reader, look for the universal feed icon or subscribe links to add them to your reader. Try it by subscribing to mine! :-)

-Jesse

PS- If you run your own feed, there a a tool called Feed Burner that allows you to count the number of subscribers you have.

Burning Man 2008 Tickets On Sale!

2008-01-16T09:23:00.000-08:00

Tickets to this years Burning Man go on sale today at 10:00 AM PST. Tickets get more expensive throughout the year so get em while they're hot.

I went for my first time last year and it was awesome.

I'm going x64

2008-01-14T17:37:00.000-08:00

I just bought a new computer! I put it together last night and it's fast. I get a 5.9 (the current max) rating in Vista in every section except video performance where I get a 5.6.

The specs are:

Intel Core 2 Quad with each core @ 2.4 Ghz (aftermarket Arctic Cooling fan)
4GB of Corsair XMS RAM
eVGA nVidia 8600 GTS video card
Abit IP35 Pro Motherboard
Western Digital 150GB Raptor X (sata)
Western Digital 320GB (sata)
Samsung DVD Burner (sata)
Lite-On DVD Reader (sata)
Cooler Master Case (black)
Thermaltake 700W power supply

I kept my Logitech keyboard/mouse, Altec Lansing 5.1 speakers and dual Sceptre 20" LCDs.

As I mentioned in the title, I am running the 64-bit version of Windows. If you are buying all new hardware anyway, you should run a 64-bit operating system. There is definitely a bit of a performance increase and, in my case, is required since have 4 GB of RAM. Coding Horror has a detailed post on why you can't utilize 4 GB of RAM on a 32-bit system but it's a little confusing still.

Basically a 32-bit system means you have 32 bits to address data. A bit is the smallest amount of data in a computer, either a one or a zero. So the biggest number possible is 2³² or 4,294,967,296. Memory is addressed in bytes (8 bits) so the maximum memory is 4,294,967,296 bytes or 4 gigabytes (huh?).

So why can't you use 4 gigbytes of memory? This maximum is the amount of memory you can address total, not just system memory. Of your 4 GBs, the first MB is for legacy DOS, BIOS and old add-in cards. Then there is a section for your motherboard, flash memory, video memory and all other devices. If you have a newer video card with 512 MB of memory, that is 1/8th of your address space right there! Your system memory is the last thing to get addressed so whatever is left is the amount of RAM your OS and programs get to use; usually around 3 - 3.5 gigabytes.

There are some older hacks to get around this but the best way is to use 64-bit hardware and OS.

RIP Gemina the 'crooked-necked giraffe'

2008-01-10T16:07:00.000-08:00

Gemina the 'crooked-necked giraffe' was put down yesterday at the age of 21. Over the last two weeks she stopped eating. The zoo keepers noticed it was affecting her quality of life so they euthanized her. I was lucky enough to see her in person as she was what the Santa Barbara Zoo was known for.

Google News Articles

Google Talk and AIM "integration"

2007-12-23T15:40:00.000-08:00

Google announced earlier this month that you can now use AIM within Gmail along with your Google Talk account. While this is quite handy, it isn't any different then using Trillian or Meebo. You still need an AIM account AND a Google account. Google isn't integrating the two services, they are running them side by side.

This isn't Google's fault though. Google's chat service is based on the open source Jabber protocol allowing it work with any other Jabber chat service. Now if the rest of the major instant messaging providers adopted the Jabber protocol users could pick their favorite instant message client [program] instead of running four or five different ones to stay connected.

Standards are a huge part of technology. Sometimes there are multiple standards to meet various applications like batteries or memory cards, but usually having multiple standards only hurts the consumer. Look at havoc HD-DVD and BluRay are causing. Standards are especially important with communication tools. Imagine how awful it would be if Hotmail and Gmail users couldn't send email to each other because they were on different email providers. If AT&T customers couldn't call Verizon since they are on different networks. Why should instant messaging be any different?

-Jesse

Free Money!

2007-12-22T14:40:00.000-08:00

Check this out, you buy an American Express Gift Card from Vons (almost as good as cash ) then you get $5 off your next grocery shopping. Basically free money!
PayPal, not known for being the cheapest credit card processor, only charges 2.9% plus 30 cents so American Express is only making about $1.75 on the gift card. Vons is probably taking the $5 hit since they are hoping you'll use your $5 off on a bigger purchase with a greater than $5 profit. Maybe American Express is doing it to promote their cards since American Express isn't taking as often and Visa and Mastercard. I am not sure who is getting ripped off here, but it sure isn't the consumer.

-Jesse

Flying Express Jet

2007-12-17T18:03:00.000-08:00

This past weekend I went up North to visit some good friends that were in town and I flew. That's right, Express Jet is now offering direct flights between Santa Barbara and Sacramento. It isn't even that expensive. If traveling alone, you would have to pay about $100 in gas, then add in stopping for two or three meals and you're paying $120. I would happily pay $40 more to not have to drive six and a half hours each way, by myself.

The flight itself was great too. It's only an hour long and has great service. ExpressJet's two big selling points are, no layovers and no middle seats. In addition they have leather seats, XM radio on every seat, complimentary headphones, a drink, snack and mint. Maybe it isn't a big deal for some but I love orange juice and they serve Minute Maid 100% real orange juice, not that generic "orange drink" crap full of sugar.

Sorry for sounding like an ExpressJet ad, but that Santa Barbara/Sacramento drive sucks. I am excited :-)

-Jesse

CompUSuck

2007-12-11T18:00:00.001-08:00

All of CompUSA is shutting down! I used to work at PC Club in Goleta and CompUSA was our rival (hence the title). Unfortunately PC Club didn't make it in Santa Barbara/Goleta and CompUSA is our only computer store around. We have Circuit City still but they have even less computer stuff. Hopefully some other computer store will move in but in the meantime there is a Fry's Electronics in Oxnard and PC Club in Thousand Oaks.

-Jesse

Hats Tournament

2007-12-10T17:33:00.000-08:00

I played in the annual UCSB Ultimate Hats Tournament this last Saturday. It's put on by the UCSB ultimate teams as a fundraiser to support their season. A hats tournament is when the players all put their names in a hat to draw random teams from. In our case, there wasn't a hat but we handed them back to organizers who sorted them by skill level and made pseudo random teams. Pseudo random because there were definitely a few stacked teams, but overall they were fair. I was on the orange team which we called Caltrans. We placed sixth out of six but it was still a lot of fun. As you can see from the picture, I had some good layout bids (dives) :-)

Luckily it didn't rain and the fields weren't too muddy. It was very cold and the wind caused some long hell points and lots of turnovers. The wind in Santa Barbara is a blessing and a curse. It's not an easy way to learn to throw but it forces your throws to be very strong and accurate. With the addition of being able to play year round, this is what makes Santa Barbara Ultimate so great. All of our club and college teams have been national champions multiple years.

I hurt my shoulder a little playing but once it heals I am going to start playing pick up again. I need new cleats...

-Jesse

Happy /c?han{1,2}uk{1,2}ah?/i

2007-12-04T18:00:00.000-08:00

If you understand the title, you are a nerd! The title is a regular expression representing all common spellings of the Jewish holiday "Chanukah". The reason there are so many spellings of the holiday is because it's a Hebrew word. There is no standard way of transliterating Hebrew to English so the only true spelling of the word is: חנוכה

Some other חנוכה trivia about the candle lighting. A menorah isn't actually used. A menorah is a seven branched candle holder while a hanukiah is the nine candle version used for חנוכה

So have a happy winter holiday, if you celebrate one, and a happy new year!

-Jesse

My new blog

2007-12-01T10:28:00.000-08:00

I've been using Google Reader to keep up with news sites, my friend's blogs and a bunch of tech blogs (like my favorite Coding Horror). So I've decided to start a blog. This may surprise some people (like my parents) since I never really enjoyed writing, but sometimes I do want to write about things I discover. Often these things are about programming, the internet or some other tech subject but once in a while they aren't; hence the title "Tech Tangent".

I hope to come up with a logo and a custom template eventually but this will do for now.

-Jesse