NTFS Recovery Software

I lost an NTFS volume because Windows is a pathetic excuse for an OS. Most likely the MFT got some garbage written to it (because Windows is a pathe...). The IT folks at work managed to restore 500 MB of the 90 GB on the drive. I figured I may as well try to do better.

Hard Drive Mechanic

This looks shady. The whole Higher Grounds Software site screams "if you know anything about computers you'll know we're not what you're looking for". I did not actually try the Mechanic, as there is no free trial and the epinions reviews indicated the company isn't as accomodating with their money-back guarantee as they claim. Boo, you.

DiskInternals NTFS Recovery 1.2

Sees the drive, but reports its size incorrectly (it's a 250 Gb monster). Windows 2000 reports the size properly (just doesn't see the file system), so it's not a BIOS problem. Finds 755 files and 53 folders. There were more than 20,000 files on the drive, so this isn't exactly a staggering victory. At least it's free. And doesn't do scary things like attempt to write to the busted drive without my asking it to.

PC INSPECTOR File Recovery

The web site should have clued me in. It's made by CONVAR, which is a data restore service. Hmm. How hard will they try to have me fix my own drive for free?

Not very hard.

The UI is maddeningly idiotic and my NTFS volume is reported as FAT32. Attempting to scan the volume for recoverable files leads to a memory exception. Oops.

Active@ File Recovery for Windows

This is the most serious looking of the four utilities tried to date. It also actually seems to take its scanning task seriously. It does under-report the size of my drive by a factor of two, but I'm not as picky as I once was. Sadly, when done with the scan it merely says "yeah, I found a partition -- please pay up and we'll recover it". No mention of how many files were found, etc. Sigh.

Altoids Sour Chewing Gum

Purchased at Wal*Mart when we went looking for the mobiBLU, which they didn't have in their brick'n'mortar store in Mountain View. Instead I got a tiny skateboard (it's slightly over a foot long) for $4.88 and some Altoids Sour Chewing Gum. Concerning the latter:

Good:

• Cool box -- little metal boxes are neat
  
• Very, very sour...
  

Bad:

• ...for about three chews. No tootsie-pop jokes, please.
  

These things have huge amounts of sourness stored up, but they release it all in one go.

Nokia 3120: Second Impressions

After nearly two weeks of use.

• I have better reception in my apartment than I did before -- Cingular GSM seems to have caught up with, and here surpassed, TDMA.
  
• By default, the phone does not show the current time in the top right corner. Why not? Half the people I know use their cell phone as a watch. (Clock on the microwave...stupid. No clock on cell phone...stupid.) Some poking in the menus made it appear.
  
• The colour menus aren't as bad as I feared. You can select between grid view (messy colour icons) and list (slightly annoying colour highlighting).
  
• You can turn call volume up fairly high, but it does distort a little. I think the 8260 had better fidelity, but lower maximum volume. It's hard to compare this from memory.
  

I still want an N90.

Phone: Nokia 3120

First impressions, more or less in order:

• the buttons aren't easily found by touch -- a big step down from the 82x0.
  
• why, oh why does it have a colour screen? Stupid, stupid. The interface is messy, of course. Designers should not be allowed to use colour until they show they understand its uses.
  
• it's light!
  
• it's about the same size as my Nokia 8260 -- slightly thinner, but not as thin as the 8290 (the 8260's GSM cousin). The Samsung c207 was slightly smaller, and definitely cuter. (And free.) But I'm a staunch believer in Finnish technology. (And web reviews claimed the Nokia was louder.)
  
• it's way light!
  
• the buttons feel hella cheap.
  

Damn', it's light.

Absolutely Not Perfect Phone Company: Cingular

I got raped in the arse today.

That is, I went to the Cingular store to get a new phone & plan. My trusty Nokia 8260 (AT&T TDMA) bit the dust (mic died, most likely) and my parents were getting antsy about not being able to reach me ("What's wrong with e-mail?").

I shall vent:

1. you don't sell TDMA phones, you will only sell me a GSM phone -- fine. Progress, we'll say.
   
2. I agree to change my plan to a GSM one (thereby saving you headaches, I might add -- now there's one fewer TDMA customer to keep happy -- let the towers rot), but instead of falling to your knees, thanking me, and either kissing my feet or offering me a free phone which will make my coffee in the morning you charge me $39.99 for a DISCONTINUED Nokia 3120. No, I don't want the free Samsung. I want the Nokia one. Wait...why is it $40? Online I can get a refurbished one for $10 -- from your own website. Surely you can cut me a deal...for being such a loyal customer and all...even though you've screwed me twice before... No.
   
3. Fine. I'll pay for my new phone. I'll switch to your new plan. But you'll apply my company discount (thank you EMC and Stanford) to the new account, right? Just like the old one? Right? Wait...whaddaya mean it may take "one or two pay cycles to kick in"? I'm selling my soul to you for two years (oh, yeah, that's another thing -- I need to sign a new contract, even though I don't want to change to GSM but am more or less forced to?) and you can't even get the 15% to transfer from the old account immediately? YOU WANT MY BOSS'S PHONE NUMBER TO CHECK WHETHER I REALLY WORK WHERE I CLAIM?!!
   

Dicks.

Giant dicks.

And I've already described which part of my anatomy they were intruding upon. Or in.


It's fair to wonder why I did not walk out and get Verizon, T-Mobile, or Sprint. It turns out that they all have poor reception around Stanford campus. (Sidewalk lore has it that AT&T (now Cingular) has an exclusive deal with Stanford, allowing them to place towers on campus. In return, Stanford pimps out Cingular wireless plans to students.) So I'm stuck with Cingular.