Over the last 2 months I have researched many netbooks and with my brother in-laws input, I decided on and MSI WIND u100.  Ultimately I went with the WIND over the HP mini because of disk size and price.  For $439, I purchased the MSI WIND u100 (black) with 1GB of memory, 160GB hard drive, Bluetooth, Windows XP, and an upgraded 6 cell battery.  The HP maxes out at 60GB hard drive and they only offer a 3 cell battery.

I plan on testing the usibilty, battery life, video playback, etc.  I will post a 2-3 part review in the coming weeks.  If you have someting specific you want me to review on the device, please let me know.

Atlanta Braves Sign: Rafael Furcal 3 Years – $30 million
Philadelphia Phillies Sign: Raul Ibanez 3 Years – $31.5 million
New York Yankees Sign: CC Sabathia’s 7 years – $161 million
Mark Teixeira looking for $200 million contract.

With every news channel explaining to us how terrible the economy is, that people are going hungry, giving less money to charity and losing their homes, the sports wire continues to proudly report on the avarice of Major League Baseball.  I grew up as a devoted baseball fan, sneaking a pocket sized radio to bed with me so I could listen to the Minnesota Twins play on WCCO radio, but now that blossom is well off the tree.  The last round of strikes MLB went through in the 90’s did me in.  I no longer am a fan.

Now, it occurs to me that the greed and gluttony displayed by players and owners has reached epic proportions.  Why are these people not taking pay cuts and dramatically lowering ticket prices?  Why do we continue to endorse this?

I think those of you who are still baseball fans should voice your opinion by not renewing season tickets and not watching baseball on TV.  Me?  I will stick to hockey.

I had Red Hat system that needed to be upgrade from running Ruby 1.8.5 to Ruby 1.8.6.  Unfortunately, Red Hat really lags in releasing RPM’s for many packages, and Ruby is one of the packages.

Now I have drunk the Red Hat RPM Kool-aid.  IMHO using RPM’s on your system is the only sane way to manage a Red Hat based system.  Compiling from source is ugly and hard to manage in the long run.

I called tech support (google.com) and found an RPM based solution to upgrade, but I ran into a few problems that I could find no solution for through “tech support”  I am going to walk you through installing ruby 1.8.6 on a Red Hat system using RPM’s and solving a little issue after you have installed it.

First, I decided the best approach for the upgrade was to find a source RPM for ruby 1.8.6.  In my investigations, I also found a couple of large bugs in ruby 1.8.6 below patch level 230, therefore I looked for a Red Hat source RPM for ruby 1.8.6 above patch 230.  Unfortunately, none exist, however Fedora Core 9 is close enough for this process.  Here are the steps I followed to upgrade to 1.8.6 patch level 287:

First, there were some prerequisites:

yum install tk-devel tcl-devel emacs ncurses-devel


Now get the srpm:

cd /tmp
wget ftp://ftp.pbone.net/mirror/download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/releases/9/Everything/source/SRPMS/ruby-1.8.6.287-2.fc9.src.rpm

Now that we have it, let’s install it:

rpm -ivh ruby-1.8.6.287-2.fc9.src.rpm

Okay, source RPMS is installed, now let’s build the actual binary RPM’s:

cd /usr/src/redhat/SPECS/
rpmbuild -bb ruby.spec

Now the RPM’s are built, we can install all of the RPM’s:

cd /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386
rpm -Uvh ruby-1.8.6.287-2.i386.rpm \
ruby-debuginfo-1.8.6.287-2.i386.rpm \
ruby-devel-1.8.6.287-2.i386.rpm \
ruby-docs-1.8.6.287-2.i386.rpm
ruby-irb-1.8.6.287-2.i386.rpm \
ruby-libs-1.8.6.287-2.i386.rpm \
ruby-mode-1.8.6.287-2.i386.rpm \
ruby-rdoc-1.8.6.287-2.i386.rpm \
ruby-ri-1.8.6.287-2.i386.rpm \
ruby-tcltk-1.8.6.287-2.i386.rpm

This should give you ruby 1.8.6 patch level 287:

ruby -v

“ruby 1.8.6 (2008-08-11 patchlevel 287) [i386-linux]”

Oh joyful day! I figured it out! However, later, I tried to access the console using:

script/console production

I received:

/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/irb/completion.rb:10:in `require': No such file to load -- readline (LoadError) from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/irb/completion.rb:10 from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/irb/init.rb:218:in `require' from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/irb/init.rb:218:in `load_modules' from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/irb/init.rb:216:in `each' from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/irb/init.rb:216:in `load_modules' from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/irb/init.rb:21:in `setup' from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/irb.rb:54:in `start' from /usr/bin/irb:13

I poked around quite a bit and found this solution:

find / -name readline -print
cd /usr/src/redhat/BUILD/ruby-1.8.6.287/ruby-1.8.6-p287/ext/readline
ruby extconf.rb
make
make install [do this as root/admin]

That should have worked, but it did not. I then turned to tech support (google.com) and found no good answer. This should work since I did have both readline and readline-devel installed:

rpm -qa | grep readline

readline-devel-5.1-1.1
readline-5.1-1.1

I did notice that when I ran “make” and “make install”, it did not do anything. I then decided to search for readline.h:

find / -name readline.h

No result?(!)

So, I simply did:

yum remove readline-devel
yum install readline-devel
find / -name readline.h

This the results were different:
“/usr/include/readline/readline.h”
w00t!

I ran this again:

cd /usr/src/redhat/BUILD/ruby-1.8.6.287/ruby-1.8.6-p287/ext/readline
ruby extconf.rb
make
make install

Now everything works!!

I hope you found this useful!

At first, I sent Cyberpower an email explaining the issue and asking for help.  I received no response.  Once I became convinced the issue was a bad card, called and left a message, again, no call back, however the next day I received and email (addressed to Dear Mr./Mrs.).  I played phone/email tag with them for almost a week(In fairness, I was out of town for two days).  Finally Zakary called me and it was a simple process.  They needed a credit card number for a cross-ship (They send me a new part and I return the old one in the box I received the new one in).  They ship the part ground, which would really suck if it was a part I needed to get my PC running!

After pulling the “bad” video card, I was still having issues with lockups.  After doing a lot or research, I felt I had a bad memory module.  I downloaded memtest86+ and tested both modules and found that I did indeed have a bad 2GB module.  I followed the same process with Cyberpower to cross-ship a new memory module, however, I find it strange that I have had two parts fail in the first month of ownership.  Fortunately, it only took me 1 business day to get a hold of Cyberpower to ship me my new memory stick.

On 11/4 I received me replacement video card, though the packaging was dubious, the card was in good shape and appeared to be new.  The card performed as well as the my “good” card had.  I have experienced temperature levels of a high of 70(c), which is within normal operating temperatures for this card.

As of this morning, my rig has been running for 48 hours without a lockup.  I have a laid heavy load on it with Folding@Home and Prime95 tests.

I give CyberpowerPC a 5 for technical support.  I am also not sure if the cost savings was worth the money for the rig.  I spent a lot of time diagnosing issues with the system.  While the Dell rig was a lot more expensive, their technical support is better and their rigs generally work out of the box.

I will update you on the memory chip this weekend.

UPDATE 11-10-08:

I received my replacement memory stick on Saturday.  I immediately replaced my “good” chip with the new one and ran memtest86+.  memtest86+ reported over 600 errors.  I call CyberpowerPC on Sunday and worked out a complete memory swap.  On the plus side, CyberpowerPC does call back and most RMA issues are resolved right away.  I discovered OCZ is not on the certified vendor list for the ASUS Striker II Extreme.  I decided to pay a $78 upgrade fee to buy top of the line Corsiar PC1333 DDR3 memory.  That is supposed to ship today, I will update you on the progress as well.  <sigh>

UPDATE 11/20/08

I recevied my replacement memory on Wednesday the 19th, I installed it and ran a full compliment of memtest86+ test, the tests passed with flying colors.  I have since then been running for 48 hours with no issues.  I will update you early next week, however it looks like the OCZ memory was the culprit.  I hold the OCZ memory choice against Cyberpowerpc, however, you would anticipate a name brand vendor like OCZ to sell memory that actually works.

UPDATE 12/01/07:

I cannot tell you how happy I am with the change in memory.  The new Corsair memory is rock’in the house!  No issues, lockups, blue screens, NOTHING since I swapped out the crappy OCZ memory.  This system now flys!  If only I would have spent the $78 in the first place for the Corsair, but it was slower and more expensive.  I have used OCZ memory in the past with good result, but I have never used OCZ’s high-end parts.

This is the end of my buying experience story.  Ultimately, CyberpowerPC failed in properly vetting their suppliers.  I think I would buy from CyberpowerPC again, only this time, I would by the name Corsair memory.

It is an ASUS motherboard and I had lots of little issues with my old ASUS.  I rebooted and jumped into the BIOS configuration, hmmmm RAID is turned off on the SATA controller.  Since I ordered the box with RAID-0, either CyberpowerPC never configured anything, or the BIOS got messed up.

I turned the RAID controller on and enabled RAID for the two SATA drives that were factory installed.  As I held my breath, I rebooted the system and waited.  Joy of joy, the system LEAPED into the Windows Vista 64 boot screen!  Amazing!

However, the issues continued to occur like a rainstorm.  Just a list of things that happened:

• The system failed to boot (Never finished the POST) 60% of the time
• The system hung frequently during patch installation
• The system Blue Screen of Death’d (BSOD) several times for no apparent reason
• The system locked up installing updates to NVidia graphics and chipset software
• Generally things sucked!

I turned to the best tech support group I know of:  Google!  I followed the trail of lock-ups, first and foremost, the 60% boot failure:  Google revealed that my OCZ 1600MHZ Gold memory had some serious stability issues with the ASUS Striker II Extreme. I updated the BIOS to reflect OCZ’s recommend memory timings (8-8-8-24), that seemed to work and allowed me to boot most of the time, but I still was having some crazy issues booting up.(even going into the BIOS)

My next step was to check the BIOS level on the mobo, it was at version 0804, which was  several major revisions back.  I downloaded BIOS version 1104 from ASUS and attempted to install, however, the front USB ports do not appear to be functional I played with the US issue or awhile, finally determining that only two of the four front USB ports were working.

After more work than it should have take, BIOS 1104 was installed. After a lot more testing, version 1104 appears to have really stabilized the system, eliminating a large percentage of the lockups.

Together the memory timing fix and the updated BIOS resolved about 95% of my issues.  However, I still experienced occasional lockups (Playing Team Fortress 2), but it was hard to diagnose when and why.  Finally, I decided the system was stable enough to try downloading Crysis from Steam see how that looked.  Crysis locked up EVERY TIME I tried to run it (It made it past all of the cut scenes, then locked hard before the “airplane” scene).  This was a good thing, as I went back to technical support (Google) for this issue and I found several recommendations for different versions of NVidia’s Geforce drivers.  I downloaded an older version of the Geforce drivers and installed it (version 178.13).  This appears to have solved the problem.  As of this witting, I have had not lockups in 24 hours and the system has been VERY stable in Crysis and TF2 (and anything else).

Here is a picture of the rig up and running:

Finally up and running

Here is my (nearly) final review.

Most of the issues I had were not actually related to CyberpowerPC, and I did customize my rig from their recommended build.  With that said, there clearly was no configuration or burn-in testing done of the rig or it would have failed. The price was great, the build was very good.  I never dreamed of calling technical support, but in fairness, if this would have been a Dell, I would not have called either.

On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being best:

• Price:              10  (This things was a lot cheaper than I could have built it)
• Build:                8  (It was nice, but it was not Dell build)
• Stability:           1 (Clearly it did not work well out of the box)
• Performance:    8 (After all of the fixes were done)
• Sales Support:  9 (Actually, my two calls were answer quickly and to my satisfaction)
• Tech Support: NA (Most tech support sucks though)
• Over All Ted Scale: Errmmm, I am going to say 7.5

It would have been in the high 8’s, but man the system did not even boot on my first power on!

Notes: If you are good with computers and understand how they work, this might be a good way to go for you.  If you want to buy a computer the “just runs”, this is so not the purchase for you.  I looked at this product as a cheap way to build a high-end rig, without the bloody knuckles!  I did a lot of work, sure, but I saved $1,700 over a similarly equipped Dell, I can afford 15-20 hours of my time to save that kind of money.

Other miscellaneous observations:

1. Windows Vista 64 is pretty darn good if you have a rig big enough to run it.
2. Quad SLI kicks butt!
3. The Cosmos S case is absolutely beautiful!
4. I continue to dislike ASUS motherboards.

Read additional info on my experience HERE

I received the PC on the revised date that Cyberpower had promised (10/15/08).  I arrived home to find a single HUGE white box, which looked quite beat-up. In case anyone was unsure of the contents of the box, the big “PERSONAL COMPUTER” stamped on the side was sure to clear up any confusion!

Beat-up big white box

Not to be deterred, I opened the box. I was shocked to see a 900 Watt Power Supply Box inside, since I ordered a 1000 watt power supply. Happily, I found that they had simply re-used an old 900 Watt power supply box to pack all of the component manuals and CD’s. Here are the contents, after removing the foam packing material from the top of the box:

What came in the box

Continuing to unpack the box, I found my rig underneath, in the original case box:

CPU packed in original Cosmos S case box

Along with the case, all of the other promised items came in the power supply case box (including the “freebies”):

Extras in the box, including power supply wiring

Then came the moment of truth: the unpacking. I thought the high-quality bag the case was stuffed in was quite well thought-out. It really protected the case from scratches, etc. As you can see in the picture, the cat decided to come over and “help”:

Computer In A Bag

Now, with the “help” of the cat, we are half in the bag. (Sorry, I could not resist!):

Half in the bag

After carefully unpacking the case, everything looked to be in fine order. The case was well-protected and I LOVE the handles on the Cosmos S. They make it very easy to move the case around:

The case, completely unwrapped

A side view of the case

Now, the next moment of truth: Let’s look at the innards and see about the “professional” wiring and the quality of the parts build. First, I spent time puzzling what the heck was this for:

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

It turns out the “LCD Poster” is attached to the Asus Striker II Extreme. It displays POST messages and then a custom banner or the time of day (while the computer is running). (Quite lame actually: time displays only a 24 hour clock, and the “custom banner” is 8 characters, w/ no spaces or special characters allowed!)

Finally, the big case opening!

Cable management and the innards

Actually, I was quite impressed: The professional wiring was, well, professional. All of the parts were shiny and seemed to be brand-spanking new. The overall effect was quite pleasing. I’d had a great deal of concern related to purchasing this system from CyberpowerPC. This view helped dispel some of those concerns.

Thus ends part 1 of my review. Check back later in the week for the second (and probably final part). I will tell you, things may have looked good, but looks can be (and generally are) DECEIVING!

Continue on to part 3 HERE

With that said, I want to go on the record early on my “superball effect” theory. The SE theory really is the inverse of the FAS 157 death spiral.  Since my hypothesis on the economy is FAS 157 and “Mark to Market” is the principal cause of the current banking crisis, it stands to reason that once the financial market start to improve, the same dynamics that caused the downturn will fuel an upturn.

Downturn:  Economy Slows -> Bank Assets Devalued -> Banks Write Down -> Financial Markets Slow -> Bank Assets Devalued -> Banks Write Down -> ad naseum

Upturn: Bailout -> Markets Recover Somewhat -> Bank Assets Raise in Value -> Banks Suddenly have more available funds to invest -> Market Improves -> Bank Assets Raise in Value -> Banks Suddenly have MORE available funds to invest.

Unless the incoming President really screws up the economy, I predict a complete recovery to pre-crash 2008 levels by October of 2010.  Regardless of who wins, this will happen.  When the encumbant President is taking credit for the dramatic turn around on the economy, remember, you heard the real reason here first!

1) The largest issue with the banking crisis is FAS 157 (FASB is the Financial Accounting Standards Board and FAS is Financial Accounting Standard).  FASB is the organization that recommends and implements financial accounting  standards for all businesses is the US and is generally driving many international accounting principles.  They start with a recommendation and the allow for discussion on the recommendation, then in most cases the recommendation becomes a regulation.  Once the recommendation becomes a regulation, the regulation becomes part of GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) and most companies implement immediately.    More on FAS157 below.

2) The bailout is needed.  The reason the bailout is needed at this point is FAS 157 creates a “death spiral” for the broader financial markets.  Again, look below for explanation.  Everyone at the table agreed that the bailouts were a bad thing, and certainly a bad direction for the country, however, it was just about the only thing we can do to prevent a wider collapse of the financial industry.

FAS 157 and the economy

In its simplest form, FAS 157 talks about valuation.  In the past, companies (Savings and Loans, Japanese Banks, Enron, etc.) artificially inflated  or stated valuation of assets.  This placed the shareholders in a situation where they were unable to understand the true financial situation of the company.  FAS 157 basically says a companies valuation on assets must reflect what those assets could sell for on the open market TODAY.  Not yesterday, not last year, nor next year.  This sounds like a great idea right?

Well, yes and no.  The issue we are having today is: Let’s say I am a bank and I have 1000 mortgages in my portfolio.  All 1000 loans are current and in good standing.  Each loan is $100 in value and I am receiving a 6% year over year return.   I would be receiving $6,000 of revenue and my portfolio would have a valuation of just about $100,000.  This is a great situation for a bank!  However, apply FAS 157 to the valuation of the loan portfolio in today’s economy.  No one is buying mortgage paper (by this I mean no banks will buy the mortgage, this issue has no effect on the homeowner), which means even though I have a well performing portfolio of loans, the market value is as little as 5% of the true value of my portfolio, which means I now have to adjust my valuation from $100,000 to $5,000!  Nothing has happened, I am not losing money, my bank is in great shape, however I just took a write off of 95% of my portfolios net worth!  Multiple my number by millions and that is in large part the issue we are seeing with the banks and investment companies.

We have been lead to believe these banks are losing billions of dollars, and in most cases they are not losing money, they are losing valuation due to FAS 157.  Add an additional ingredient: most banks have a  requirement to maintain a certain amount of capital (money) in reserve. These banks now have to raise up to 95% of their old valuation to make FAS 157 work with the existing capital.  It is a crazy situation and the worse the market gets, the more value all of the portfolios lose, causing more write downs.  FAS 157 is the principle cause of the spiral we are in.

I am not smart enough to understand the global implications of rolling FAS 157 back, and many banks adopted FAS 157 1/1/07, which is 11 months earlier than they had to.  They did this for two reasons: 1) It is easier to account for a whole year using the same account practice for the entire year. 2) In many cases the bank received greater valuation for current assets.

The bailouts will grant capital to banks and other institutions caught in the FAS 157 death spiral, and prevent the economy from sinking deeper and deeper into the abyss.  Again, understand, the core issue here is an accounting issue, not a true fundamental economic issue.

I remain opposed to the government socializing our insurance and banking industries, but I think I better understand WHY we are here and HOW we can get out of the death spiral we are in.

Again, everything above might be wrong.  I will endeavor to investigate this futher and post my finding here.

Today I am scratching my head wondering how the fiscally and socially conservative Republican Party has seemingly overnight turned into a socialistic society.  Those on the Democratic side of the street claim the bailouts being proposed and executed (a good word for it) is simply cronyism, which is completely absurd.  I believe the real issue is the current Republican Government (good old GWB) is attempting to stabilize the economy in a fairly transparent effort to bolster support for John McCain.  First and foremost, I do not believe McCain needs that sort of help, secondly, IT IS STUPID, DESTRUCTIVE, AND EXACTLY WHAT WE DO NOT NEED!

The idiots running these large companies need to be punished!  Not for making a bunch of money, but for running a business recklessly.  Market corrections are a part of the free market model, if Uncle Georgy wants to save all of the big companies, it only encourages this type of misbehavior!  What about all of the banks and financial institutions that did not recklessly invest or loan money to people they had not business loaning money to?  Is that fair?

There is only one logical outcome from this course is governmental ownership of most banking, financial, and insurance companies, socialism. We are on the path towards socialism and arguable we are on the path to communism!  It did not work for the Soviet Union, why would it work for us?

This “crisis” has been brewing for many years.  Dave Ramsey (radio host and financial guru) has been talking about this for AT LEAST 6 years!  Why are we acting surprised by this?  We are we allowing our lawmakers to pass nearly a TRILLION DOLLARS in bailouts?!?!

The solution?  Clearly we have had the last 20+ years to get into this mess, it will take some time to get out of it.  Here are my thoughts:

1. TODAY: write your US Congressman and Senator and tell them to STOP socializing our economy.  Let them know that you will vote against them in any and all elections they run in if they vote yes on the bailouts.
2. The US Government should immediately privatize Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.  Load the new private companies with debt via an interest free loan.
3. Do not bailout any other companies.  Help companies in trouble sell themselves to stronger companies.  By helping, I mean establish a process to guarantee much quicker FTC and SEC approvals for sales of large companies.
4. Ride out the down market!  Yesterday I listened to a podcast, where the financial guy compared a huge downturn in the financial market to a forest fire.  While it may not be pleasant, the long term product is a stronger more sustainable forest!  Economic downturns should be allowed to happen!

If you are reading this thinking “Boy, this guy is sure dumb, why not let the government bail us out?  It will make things less painful for the citizens.”  My answer is: a) WE ARE THE GOVERNMENT, WE WILL BE PAYING FOR THIS BAILOUT FOR YEARS!!!  b) Once we pay for this “bailout”, our free market, capitalism based economy will be put in serious jeopardy. This means we will have less innovation and entrepreneurship.  Our economy is fundamentally strong, because it is based on capitalism.  Once we lose the capitalism driver, we will sink into the morass of other great countries AFTER their golden age.