Monthly Archives: March 2011

30 bit color

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Jim

In the early nineties, while I was attending SPIE, SIGGRAPH, and Society for Information Display conferences, I heard a psychologist give a presentation on display bit depth. He claimed that, under the right conditions, humans could distinguish about 400 shades … Continue reading →

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Epson 4900 OOBE

Posted on March 27, 2011 by Jim

As I reported earlier, I had decided to wait on upgrading my 3880 to a 4900, but someone wanted to buy the 3880, and that was enough to push me over the edge. The 4900 arrived on a pallet, with … Continue reading →

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Dell T7500 OOBE 5 – RAID controller

Posted on March 23, 2011 by Jim

Sloggus interuptus. The RAID controller arrived yesterday. I picked HighPoint as the vendor for no reason other than they’re the supplier of the HBA that Western Digital ships with their 3 TB disks.  I plugged it in – it’s a … Continue reading →

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Dell T7500 OOBE, part 4: now begins the slog

Posted on March 20, 2011 by Jim

The easy part of getting a new computer up and running is over. The major apps are loaded. The hardware is all working, save the 3 TB disks that await a RAID controller. Now is the time for all the … Continue reading →

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Dell T7500 OOBE part 3

Posted on March 19, 2011 by Jim

The Serial-Attached SCSI BIOS takes about a minute to run. In order to speed up the boot time. I disabled it in the BIOS. The computer wouldn’t boot. I re-enabled it. Still wouldn’t boot. I added it back into the … Continue reading →

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Dell T7500 OOBE, part 2

Posted on March 18, 2011 by Jim

I installed two 2 TB hard disks as placeholders and configured them as a single 4 TB spanned volume. I put the swap file on that volume. I ordered a Host Bus Adapter (HBA) that would support the 3 TB … Continue reading →

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Dell T7500 OOBE

Posted on March 16, 2011 by Jim

The new workstation arrived yesterday. Big box. Inside, nicely packed, under a cardboard tray with the keyboard, software, cables, and mouse, was the computer. Big computer. Honkin’ big computer. Normally, I open up a new machine before powering it on … Continue reading →

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Win 7 SP1 OONE

Posted on March 15, 2011 by Jim

What’s an OONE? I just made it up. Remember that OOBE was an “Out of Box Experience”, which encompasses the user’s initial contact with the product. Since Windows 7 Service Pack 1 doesn’t arrive in a box, but rather is … Continue reading →

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Tech Hall of Shame: JPEG 2000

Posted on March 14, 2011 by Jim

Brooks Jensen has this to say: …a clearly, demonstrably, indisputably better image compression format that failed miserably in the marketplace because of bureaucratic wrangling and delay after delay after delay. Shame on everyone involved in this one. It’s always tough … Continue reading →

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THoS: gratuitous daylight savings time changes

Posted on March 13, 2011 by Jim

Prefatory note number one: this post, unlike most of the Technology Hall of Shame series, is not about the infliction of pain and suffering by technologists, but rather about aggravation caused by the confluence of brittle technology and excessive lawmaking. … Continue reading →

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