Hard Drives, Internet Tablets, More Ebay Debacles and White Spaces: Friday Follow-Ups

VMware is still chewing on the data I sent the company yesterday regarding Wednesday evening’s S.M.A.R.T. spin-up woes, but further experimentation on my part more definitively points the fundamental ‘blame’ finger at the company’s Fusion v2 virtualization software. I can’t get the HDD to throw a S.M.A.R.T. error on system wakeup if Fusion isn’t running when I’d previously put the MacBook to sleep. All’s also well if Fusion’s launched but the Windows XP virtual machine is suspended when the system goes to sleep.

Only when both Fusion and its WinXP VM are operational when I put the system to sleep does HDD spin-up on subsequent wakeup result in S.M.A.R.T. errors…and I now also seem to be able to circumvent this particular scenario. By default, whenever OS 10.4- and 10.5-based Macs (even, I believe, exclusively-AC-powered units) go to sleep, a snapshot of system DRAM is automatically written to the HDD (in the Windows world, this is known as Hibernation mode). This way, if the battery drains or is disconnected while the system’s asleep, thereby wiping the system memory clean, the HDD-housed backup still enables you to continue where you left off once sufficient power’s restored.

Writing all those bits to the HDD notably delays system entry into sleep mode, however, and practically speaking, the HDD mirror is overkill if your battery is robustly charged (or, as I note above, it doesn’t even exist). Therefore, Mac enthusiast Patrick Stein developed the SmartSleep Preference Pane, which (among other things) disables HDD hibernation with battery charge above a user-defined percent-full threshold. After installing Stein’s utility and enabling SmartSleep mode, I’m able to consistently exit system sleep with no S.M.A.R.T. grumbles, regardless of the state of Fusion and its Windows XP virtual machine. Granted, this could all be coincidence…the HDD might have been going through an extended spin-up phase during its early break-in period, which just happened to coincide with my upgrade from Fusion v1.1.3 to v2. However…

Here’s more hardware good news: although the single ‘Diablo’ Maemo v4.1 O/S patch that Nokia released for its N800 and N810 Internet Tablets between late July and now didn’t restore Bluetooth PAN functionality, in spite of company reps’ promises to fix the underlying bug as soon as possible, the maemo-pan developer community has taken it upon themselves to code a workaround. Recently released version 1.0.1 (developed in partnership with Nokia) restores N800 wireless connectivity to my T-Mobile Dash acting as an EDGE cellular modem. And speaking of Nokia’s Internet Tablets, Ars Technica did a nice job of covering the company’s plans for upcoming v5 of the Gecko-centric Maemo (along with corresponding new hardware) in a recent writeup series that I commend to your attention:

• Nokia unveils Maemo roadmap, plans for 3G Internet Tablet
• Technical overview: Maemo 5, the next-gen Nokia Tablet OS
• Nokia will bring bling and finger-friendliness to Maemo 5

Switching gears, Ars Technica also recently described the current situation at eBay quite well, I think, with David Chartier’s comment:

Somewhere along the way, eBay seems to have fallen under the impression that gasoline is a great flame retardant.

What Chartier is talking about is the latest affront to sellers at the site. As of late next month, checks and money orders will largely no longer be acceptable methods of payment in the U.S., only electronic schemes (along with payment-on-pickup)…which will not include PayPal competitors such as Google Checkout and Checkout by Amazon. For individual sellers who don’t have the facilities to accept credit cards, therefore, the only three feasible payment options are earlier-mentioned but rarely practical payment-on-pickup, little-known ProPay, and (cue drum roll) PayPal, which need I remind you, is conveniently owned by eBay. Hello…Federal Trade Commission…???

And speaking of Ars Technica, I’ll close this particular writeup with a recommendation to check out the site’s latest state-of-White-Spaces report, which acts as a timely follow-up to my recent print and online writeups. With the latest round of field tests complete, technology backers (more from Ars Technica) and detractors are intensively lobbying the FCC in the hopes of swaying this fall’s anticipated ruling their way. Do television broadcasters have valid grievances, or are they just greedy spectrum squatters? And do wireless microphone manufacturers’ and users’ concerns hold any weight in the face of their own unlawful past behavior?

Should the FCC allow mobile White Spaces technology to proceed towards implementation, and if so, in an unlicensed or regulated fashion? Sound off in the comments with your thoughts. And hey…have a great weekend!