Computer running slow? Diagnosis it here.

Posted on October 20, 2010 by Mark Egge

Diagnose 75% of common causes of computer slow-ness with one short article.

If your computer is running slow, it’s likely the result of either adware or a hardware failure. Of the two, it’s far more likely to be adware.

Before trying to diagnose and fix the problem, however, your first step should always be to ensure that all of your data is backed up. Slowness can be a warning sign of pending system failure.

Fortunately, keeping an up-to-date backup of your information and data is easier today than it used to be. There are a number of online backup solutions which are simple, effective, and incredibly cheap.

I personally recommend (and use) Backblaze (http://www.backblaze.com). For $5 / month, Backblaze maintains a complete and automated backup of all the files on your computer. In the event of a system failure, retrieving your data is as simple as logging in to their website and downloading it (or paying to have all your data overnighted to you on an external hard drive).

However, online backup software has its limitations. Depending on the amount of data you have and the speed of your internet connection, it may take as much as several weeks for the initial backup to complete (after which time your files will be backed up nightly).

Once your data is safe, we can try to figure out what’s causing the problem. But before we do, let’s dispel a few myths:

  • My computer is running slow because I have too many programs installed. Status: myth. With a few qualified exceptions, your computer’s performance will be unrelated to the quantity of applications you have installed. The number of applications running can be an entirely different matter. More of this later.
  • My computer is running slow because I have too much stuff / music / pictures. Status: myth. As long as you have at least 10% of your hard drive available as free space, your computer’s performance will not be noticeably affected by how much “stuff” you have on your hard drive. If you’re concerned that you may be running out of space, check by following these instructions.
  • My computer is running slow because I have a virus. Status: unlikely. It’s been years (literally) since I encountered a computer whose primary problem was a virus. However, there are other related classes of software (especially adware and spyware) that are common and will bring your computer to its knees.

Broadly, there are two possibilities: hardware failure, or a software problem.

Adware

If you get lots of pop-ups when browsing the internet, or if your browser exhibits odd behavior–such as clicking on a link and ending up somewhere other than you expected, or having your search results redirected to an unfamiliar search engine, then the odds are good that you’ve got adware (that is: software that is designed to expose you to advertisement).

Adware is software designed to expose you to advertisement. It differs from a virus in that whereas a virus is designed to harm your computer, adware is designed to turn you into a revenue stream. Most users expose themselves to the risk of adware by downloading and installing seemingly innocuous applications like free screensavers, smileys, or games. Visiting pornographic websites similarly exposes you to a high risk of adware infection.

If you think you have adware, remove any unwanted programs that start when your computer does. Then, do a system scan using Trend Micro’s free, online HouseCall application. If HouseCall identifies many “infected” files, you’ve identified your problem.

If you’re infected with adware, the only reasonable and reliable solution for you, as an end user, is to wipe everything out and restore your computer to its factory state. Alternatively, you can bring your computer to a repair shop, and expect to pay $100 – $300 for the shop to attempt to “clean” your PC. If the shop is unable to clean your PC (as is often the case), the shop will wipe and reload your computer for you.

I advise strongly against trying to use anti-adware utilities such as Ad-Aware, Spybot S&D, or Bazooka. Three reasons for this. First, even with a best-case scenario, it’s typically faster to wipe and reload than to spend hours running repeated scans–often simply to realize that you need to wipe and reload anyway. Second, the odds of you successfully resolving your problem with such utilities is quite low. Adware and anti-adware utilities are in a cat-and-mouse struggle. Adware is typically in the lead, meaning that even the best anti-adware utilities are typically unable to remove the newest varieties of adware. Third, there’s a chance you’ll just make things worse, owing to the proliferation of fake anti-adware utilities which are, themselves, adware. Differentiating real (Ad-Aware) from fake (Super PC Cleaner!) isn’t easy.

Hardware

If your computer is running slow but isn’t bogged down by adware, you may be experiencing a hardware failure. Most cases of hardware related performance lost owe to one of two culprits: a failing hard drive, or bad capacitors. Diagnosing either is relatively quick and painless.

A failing hard drive can be reliably diagnosed by running the CHKDSK utility (instructions here). If you run CHKDSK once and it finds and corrects errors, this is normal. If you run CHKDSK a second time and it finds and fixes additional errors, this would indicate a failing hard drive. If you run CHKDSK a third consecutive time and it finds more errors, your hard drive is failing. Turn your computer off immediately and bring it to a repair shop that can (attempt to) clone your disk to a new hard drive.

Bad capacitors (or, bad caps) are rare, but can slow a computer system to a grinding halt. The only way to diagnose bad capacitors is to open up your computer and look. If any of the capacitors are bulging or leaking catalytic fluid, you’ve found your culprit (if you’re unsure what you’re looking for, watch this YouTube video). Though possible to repair, in most cases you’ll be better off replacing your computer with a new one.

Posted in Technology, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Deer Tick

Posted on October 17, 2010 by Mark Egge

Deer Tick is a band from Texas. This isn’t true, but pretend it is. They’re as redneck as they come–at least in appearance: Wrangler jeans, plaid, well worn t-shirts. Lead singer John McCauley sings with a conspicuous (and new) silver tooth, tattoos, mustache, and a full head of hair.

Rock star move of the night: McCauley (on top of the kick drum, above) kneels, picks up an open bottle of Budweiser with his teeth, chugs bottle-up-head-back, and replaces--all the while playing with both hands on his electric guitar.

But imagine rednecks who played really good music. Really good. All the brimming, just beneath the surface emotional volatility we assign to a stereotypical redneck, channeled through drum kit, electric guitars, bass guitar. Given voice in a raspy, nasally, syncopated bursts.

This is Deer Tick. Their music resonates with simple and compelling emotion. Crude? Perhaps. But their music cuts to the core. It resonates, reverberates, humbles and inspires. And, god, they’re good live.


(see the full song here: http://elektrikfish.blogspot.com/2010/05/deer-tick-show.html)

They’re not an establishment band. They don’t play music particularly like any you’ve heard before–and no one else plays like Deer Tick.

Genre is no longer applicative–not to Deer Tick, and not to any other contemporaneous band that’s playing something new. Instead, let’s start describing a band with tags (or genres — plural). Deer Tick is indie–obviously–but then some mix of folk, country, and rock.

And, yes, they trashed the stage on their way out. Guitars were thrown. Drums were kicked. Glass was broken. And the crowd went wild.

Posted in Music, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Deer Tick

Emeralds + Caribou

Posted on October 11, 2010 by Mark Egge

Caught Emeralds and Caribou at The Clubhouse last night. Both blew my mind.

I’ve been searching for music that fits the my “Phoenix” season in life. I think I’ve found it, with electronic / ambient / noise.

Let me preface this by a humble admission that I’m new to these genres, myself.

Noise is the music that we imagine we’ll listen to in the future — but never will. We imagine it because we possess these odd utopian images of future humanity–constructed by Hollywood–and characterized by emotional restraint–precise emotional restraint–smart, well tailored dress, and a cool objectivity. Most of which is bullshit. I don’t doubt that our environments will continue to evolve–the iPad on the sofa definitely seems like a device straight out of the future, not to mention the microwave. But we won’t. We’ll be very much the same sloven, depraved, ambitious bunch then we are now. We’ll be ever bit as human. And we’ll be listening to country music and overproduced hip-hop, not noise. As much as we fancy the notion that everyone will listen to noise in 2020. I suspect our future to be much of the technologically infused back-woods nowhere of Firefly than the intellectually refined future of A.I.. (Who knows? In 2060, this blog will be here. I’ll check back then–let you know how my predictions panned out.)

But noise. Check out this gradient: white noise, traffic noise, noise. Or, extended: white noise, traffic noise, noise, ambient, electronic, electro-pop, hip-hop, pop, 97.1, KISS FM.

That’s what noise is. It’s the distillation of the melodies and harmonies of modern society. Of a thousand billboards, TV specials, magazines, advertisements, people–bumping, shoving, pushing, loving. It’s a hundred thousand honking horns and screeching tires, distilled into its essence: the rhythms and motions of humanity.

I imagine noise being created in an urban basement (the five C’s–cash, car, credit-card, condominium and country-club membership). The disaffected, seizing their environment–something mechanized, distant, cement, plastic–and producing something of dissident, revolutionary quality.

And, to listen to it, noise really is dissident. It’s an intellectual manifesto. An out-and-out condemnation or endorsement of our modern age. It’s something. It’s a natural response to blogs and Blackberrys. It embraces or it excoriates. I can’t say which.

But it’s eminently modern. It’s eminently now. It’s something you can connect to–if only for its embodiment of a lack of connect. Or, of the supplanting of digital connection for human connection.

Emeralds played for 45 minutes without pause, break, or respite.

It strikes me how much “electronic” is created with “real” instruments. Played on guitars, on drums. It’s not a cold, calculating compilation using Pro Tools. It’s a felt, hammered, slid, drummed expression. It’s immediate. The sound of the guitar–thrice distorted–may not be recognizable. But its human genesis absolutely is.

Posted in Music, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Emeralds + Caribou

LAMP Virtualhost Backup Script

Posted on October 11, 2010 by Mark Egge

I’ve cobbled together a couple scripts to create a handy LAMP (Ubuntu) environment backup script for web servers running multiple virtual hosts. The script dumps each of your MySQL databases to a gzipped file, then backs up each sub-directory in your web root directory (e.g. /var/www) to a separate gzipped tarball with a bash array loop.

The script automatically rotates daily, weekly, and monthly backups automatically.

It’s messy as hell, but gets the job done.

If you have an Ubuntu slice from Slicehost or any other Ubuntu web server, this should cover your bases in terms of local, daily backups.
Continue reading →

Posted in Technology, Uncategorized | Comments Off on LAMP Virtualhost Backup Script

Sunrise on the Supes

Posted on October 3, 2010 by Mark Egge

5:41 am. Sunday, October 3rd, 2010. Awaiting sunrise atop the Superstition Mounatins. Four million people, spread out in the valley below me. Yet not a soul for miles. Ed Abbey writes, Exultemus! Gloria in excelsis nihilo!

In the east, the first green light of dawn. Mountains. Few lights. The jutting poles of agave in their eternal migration up mountains like these.

To the north, nothing also. Mountains. Haze. Particle dust. Streaming clouds, retreating away from sunrise.

To the west, far off in the distance, South Mountain, it’s blinking red lights.

And in all the space between here and there, a million twinkling lights. Street lights, porch lights, illuminated parking lots.

It shimmers and twinkles. It’s some expression of humanity. The pattern of the lights, it’s a human form. It’s organic, alive. A damn shame, but a delightful triumph.

A coyote howls in the distance. Hiking up, I was accompanied by the hooting of an owl. The gaze of my headlamp happened to catch a rattlesnake who, despite shrinking from my light, did not deign to rattle.

In the darkness, I walked through a spider’s web across the trail. I was startled to discover I’d picked up the spider on my leg. Hairy, the size of a quarter, and with palpable mass. I shrieked like a little girl but escaped unscathed.

All for the delight of watching the sun rise, mountains appear, lights extinguished, the airport, and then city, come to life.

Posted in Outdoor, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Sunrise on the Supes

Barefoot

Posted on September 27, 2010 by Mark Egge

I once read a parable given by The Buddha, which went something like this:

To carpet the entire forest floor and make it soft for the foot is a great task. How much better to rendered the forest soft by the simple making and fastening of sandals to your feet! So too with the world: to change the world to your liking is a mighty task. How much better to simply change one’s perspective! **

This parable has been called to mind of late, realizing that I don’t need to wear shoes in Scottsdale. There’s simply no need: everything is either paved, or soft green grass (mostly just paved, though). I’d have to go quite out of my way to find something sharp enough to be a hazard to my feet.

Scottsdale, of course, is smack-dab in the middle of the Sonoran Desert–a place where Edward Abbey’s once remarked that “everything in it bites, stabs, sticks, stings or stinks”?

Whatever has come of this desert, it’s long gone. Past the point of being de-fanged and de-thorned. Spayed. Neutered. Declawed. Subdued and domesticated. It’s all be simply and duly crushed, removed, and paved over. Replaced with non-native grasses, palm trees and the perennially broken drip systems that make Scottsdale a veritable oasis.

Only, oasis implies a place where life has sprung up in the presence of water. Phoenix is quite the opposite: a place where life has sprung up in the absence of water. Pity the Colorado River’s abandoned journey to the Gulf of Mexico–all its life sucked out!

Phoenix has succeeded in carpeting the forest floor–or the desert, rather. What a task! What great effort!

And what great irony that we, in Phoenix, still wear shoes.

** – I paraphrase, and don’t recall the exact origins of this parable. Siddhartha? If anyone could help me place this, I’d be appreciative. My books are all in boxes scattered across three states.

Posted in Rants, Thoughts, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Thoughts while brushing my teeth

Posted on September 19, 2010 by Mark Egge

A roommate in college (Bovard) would often complete his entire morning routine with toothbrush in mouth, wearing just his bath towel. Sometimes the internet (or other shiny distractions) would intervene–and I don’t doubt if some mornings Bovard brushed his teeth (or, at least had a toothbrush in his mouth) for better than an hour.

Of course, we all try to multitask while brushing our teeth (right?). I’ve never aspired to be so adept as Bovard in this (or to have such excellent oral hygiene), but no one could accuse me of, uh, narcissism based on my morning rituals.

Only, some things go better with acts of oral hygiene than others. So, here I begin taxonomy of activities–those that go well with brushing teeth, and those that go poorly:

Activities that go well with brushing teeth

  • Tweeting
  • Searching for pants
  • Staring into the refrigerator
  • (In general: short tasks that require one or fewer hands)

Activities that go poorly with brushing teeth

  • Grinding coffee
  • Putting away dishes
  • (In general: tasks that require two hands, concentration, or more than sixty seconds to complete)
Posted in Thoughts, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Thoughts while brushing my teeth

Thoughts on Phoenix

Posted on September 16, 2010 by Mark Egge

Phoenix. I’ll be honest: I moved here for a job. Though there are some big cities I’d love to live in (New York, London, Portland), Phoenix isn’t one of them.

That said, I’m discovering that Phoenix deserves more credit than what a first glance might suggest. For example: is Phoenix a mecca for outdoor living? Hardly. But it’s not so bad, either. Example: if I stopped blogging and hopped in my car, I could be in Joshua Tree National Park in four and a half hours. I could be hiking into the Grand Canyon in five and a half. Could be wandering the now-grassy slopes of Snow Bowl ski resort in two-and-a-half.  Could be lost in the Cabeza Prieta in two. Does this make Phoenix an outdoor mecca? No. But there’s no shortage of spectacular country a short car ride away.

And, Phoenix does have some big city amenities. Like concerts. I’ll be “stuck” in town next weekend on account of having tickets to see The Pixies (yes, I know, they broke up), Fuck Buttons, and Ratatat. That’s as many good shows as I could hope to see in Bozeman in a year. (No disrespect to The Clintons.)

And the job is good. It’s everything a job should be: interesting, challenging, frustrating, engaging, and bursting at the seams with opportunities for personal and professional growth.

Oh, and it pays the bills. Much better than being a bum, in that regard. For example, for the tidy sum of $900, my car now as air conditioning (again). The sort of bill I’m happy to pay, happy to be able to pay.

I’m moving from Mesa to Scottsdale this weekend. Not that I have a particular affection for Scottsdale. But I always took bike lanes–green spaces–for granted. Mesa has been good, to the extent that it’s provided me with some perspective on what Phoenix is like for its ~4 million residents who don’t live in Scottsdale. But I’ll tell you one thing: I’m not going to miss the commute. In fact, I’ll be close enough to bike to work.

Or, would be close enough–if I had a bike. I’m stoked to get one. A road bike. Light. Fast. Chic. (Expensive….)

In any case. The last two weekends have been great. Hiked Humphrey’s Peak two weekends ago, Buckskin Gultch (longest slot canyon in North America!) last weekend.

Pictures here:

2010.09.04 Humphrey's
2010.09.12 Buckskin Gultch and the North Rim
Posted in Thoughts, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

enter title here

Posted on September 16, 2010 by Mark Egge

I got tired of not having a blog. This isn’t at all ready for prime time, but here it is. If you find yourself reading something you don’t feel you should be reading–please, do us both a favor: stop.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on enter title here

illegitimi carborundum me

Posted on August 14, 2010 by Mark Egge

Bah!

This blog inexorably trends toward idleness. This lamentable result owes to two factors. First, my gradual capitulation to the numb stuffed-couch comforts of passive entertainment (not a sentence and I’m passive entertainment over it).

My life has become increasingly bimodal, divided into periods of intense activity and profound inactivity. I don’t know why. When I’m not working, I’m increasingly consuming highly passive entertainment. I mean, really passive. Blogging is entirely too much effort after a long day of work.

The second force is more pernicious: self-censorship.

When I started this blog (seven years ago… sheesh!) posting (personal thoughts) on the internet was like swearing in the woods: it didn’t matter, because no one could hear you. That’s no longer the case. Obviously. I prize my position as the first Google result for “Mark Egge”. But it’s also a liability as we all increasingly turn to the internet to learn about strangers (and ourselves).

A blog post, [simili omitted], once required effort to seek out and to find. Now, I click [Submit] and whatever ill-advised introspection I happen to be typing is instantly pushed into the pockets of acquaintances across the globe.

I have not kept up with the times. I’ve continued to treat my blog as a private enclave for sharing thoughts with close friends. There’s a bit of a circle to it, actually. I post thoughts wildly inappropriate for a wide audience. Inevitably–and with worrisome speed–that something gets back to me. Which discourages me from posting. Then I do it again, and the cycle repeats.

Of course, I could simply stop posting inappropriate things. I could start a nice outdoor adventure blog. Review movies, music (or books, but those have largely succumbed to my passive entertainment addiction). A COOKING blog, for crying out loud! God SAVE us!!

This might even sound reasonable to some! But it’s not! I’ve only ever blogged for two reasons: 1) to chronicle my thoughts and experiences (for myself) and 2) to occasionally enrage, bemuse or offend my friends. Just the pretense of writing to a broader audience should be sufficient to drive away any lingering readers!

Blogging is fun when posting the profane, snarky, offensive and obtuse thoughts that most have the good sense to keep to themselves.

So. It’s time for me to modernize. Not by perfecting my self-censorship–but by refining my audience.

Thus, I’m updating eateggs.com to a modern blogging platform (the current version of eateggs.com runs on a platform I coded myself in high school…). All “personal” posts (such as this one) will be accessible via authenticated log-in only. It’ll be a pain in the ass for all involved.

But holds a certain promise: once we’re back in the woods, I’ll start swearing again.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments