DIY ultrasound.

I was with my wife today having a checkup and ultrasound and couldn't avoid thinking about how difficult can be to build a poor's man diy ultrasound machine. I wonder how specialized and hard to get may the sensor probe be. Well ... for all the other stuff and the DSP involved I think any decent computer today can handle that massive amount of data. I just can't stop thinking about the technology being overpriced or super proprietary just to keep the equipment being pricey ...or expensive. More on this later ...I'll check with papa google first.

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computer killers... this is one of many ..Beware

disable automatic restart after update

this made me loose some work last night so this morning I just googled for the solution, and bam! here it is, pretty much easy stuff, I think I'll be safe from "automatic" restart from now on: nice system modification. and a easy one.

http://www.coderetard.com/2008/12/10/how-to-disable-automatic-restart-after-windows-update/

google contacts info missing or out of sync

I use the contacts feature in gmail extensively and even in a abusing manner, (i.e taking notes) its a great tool for me to keep myself organized (sort of) and also to have all the info I need at the tip of my fingers, when this first happened I thought, well... it's just me, maybe I keep forgetting to click the "save" button , or maybe I just thought I wrote that note but I really didn't, (hello alzheimer:) now it is confirmed, I created a contact last night, and the gmail contacts feature has this "autosave" which I didn't used, I created the contact and filled the information (actually it was a couple of notes) and knowingly clicked "save" then I went to sleep, sending the laptop to sleep too, and now after a morning with no use I wake up my computer and find that the contact is there but all the notes are missing, and it's the second time in two days I lost something , fortunately , is not a big deal, I'm assuming here all my already saved contacts are in good shape, hopefully.

now, I wonder, possible causes (just let's not blame google here just as first culprit)

I have multiple machines desktop and laptops mac pc and linux windows with multiples instances of google gmail google contacts and google calendar opened at all times, all them are always in different states or the same, also I have filled my contacts with notes and random stuff to the point where my contact number surpasses 1300, also I have a nexus one phone and all the info is always in sync.

so all these computers are at a different distance from the server (in a network way) I mean they have different hops to the internet, different paths and different timing/sync settings, so what I think is happening here is that google is overwriting my contact info with outdated info from a previously blank (empty) contact, which I surely filled later.

any insights? google?

which laptop is the best?

I was asked by a neighbor today about "the best" laptop available, well, I know you know, that's a tricky question: here goes my answer (transcript almost literally from the email)

there is not a single laptop that can be qualified as the best of the best, usually what people focuses on while shopping for a laptop is a good performance/price ratio, (the best bang for your buck, if you know what I mean) there is one manufacturer which builds laptops for gaming people, and as games are usually a processor/memory eaters, you do need a great laptop to be able to run any game in a decent manner, so, even as being not a gamer, you may find some benefits from getting one from alienware, at www.alienware.com, personally, I just go for the best one I can afford at lenovo.com, which usually fits the bill, there is also a laptop for the field, if you travel a lot and have a need for a tough one, toshiba thoughbooks are for that.

you see? there is a million laptops for every need and user, what I recommend is to have it customized online at the buyer's site, like at dell.com, another seller, which some people disqualify as a good vendor but I heard some good stories too, well, being a laptop technician , I saw all of them fail and crash, so no laptop even the best in the world will ever replace a good backup policy and a disaster recovery plan, check the freebie at www.crashplan.com, where they provide offline and online backup for free and paid, depending on the kind of service and how you want your data to be secured. but don't forget, once online, forever online, no matter if they say it's encrypted, it is still there. so you may wanna do like I do, just have a offline backup policy , I backup right to my server, and I keep my stuff at a different physical place just for safety.

personally , I have an old and still reliable thinkpad T60 which I bought used and I upgraded to the maximum RAM possible (2Gb) and a 30Gb SSD hard drive which provides the muscle for speed and another 120Gb hard drive in the CD bay for storage. this one fits all my needs and I have it with windows XP service pack 3, which I got off eBay for near 40 dollars, any laptop today will come with a flavor of Windows 7, wich off the shelf is already asking you for a lot of memory, so I try to avoid going that route yet. I do have windows 7 in my desktop computer, but not in any of my laptops. I also have a mac desktop and a mac laptop, and a couple of HP laptops and a Gateway, but like I said, I it's a personal preference. being a geek I do have to have multiple computers :)

anyway, feel free to ask me any questions about the subject, I love IT consulting. oh, and my next laptop will be a lenovo w700, which runs (refurbished) close to 1200 dollars at eBay. but I will consider other options when decided.

best regards.

about best hard drive practices for a standard user.

I received a question from one of my friends about how to keep his data and hard drive properly. well.. this is my advice, which by no means is a full answered question, feel free to shoot suggestions or improvements for this post. thank you.

about best practices,...

I'm gonna tell you what I do and why: I don't keep a external hard drive connected at all times, only to move files back and forth, the reason is , what the manufacturer doesn't tell you is the hard drive becomes too hot internally and is designed to shorten the drive life that way, you having a eternal external drive is not a good business for them.

another one, some people call external cases "hard drive toasters" if you really work on the files in there and they are big enough and constantly accessed, again, the temperature plays a big role in their life span.

what I use is externals for temporary storage, depending how big is your daily data flow a flash drive 16 or 32gb may suit you better. also the spinning plates in a hard drive make them a victim of the gyroscopicforces involved when you move the drive and it is still spinning, not sure if you noticed that. they are not inherently designed for that job. I wait at least 30 seconds before moving a external after disconnection, proper disconnection, as in clicking "eject" you know the drill.

what would suit you better if you're a road warrior (not the cheapest option, though) is a external case with a SSD inside, then you have no moving parts and a lot less energy consumption ,ergo , less heat.

also if you always have internet access everywhere you go a couple of online tools can keep your data at hand, like dropbox or any other similar service.

for backups, you have paid an free options, dropbox again can be one and also crash plan, google for it. they have a free version, unlimited size, for what I read, if you base the backup in your own computer or a friend's computer. also I have a software called cobian backup running in my computer as a service backing up all my data to a slow but reliable NAS drive an Dlink dns321 two bay network drive modified for cooling purposes, connected to my router. which is mirroring the info in its two drives, so I can handle up to three drives failure and still be safe. i.e my computer my laptop and my external drive can all crash and I still have a *kinda of up to date* copy of my data set, anyway, it may be a little overkill but it works for me.

on the other side, some good external cases do have a nice fan, but in my experience, due to money spending constraints, I always feel like it is not enough, and also if I push the drive to full activity (something the design engineers seem to think the user never does) for a extended period of time, the cooling solution always fail. IMHO.