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It sucks but has an easy but time consuming fix that leaves you with the drive contents intact:
Boot a live Linux distro. And hook a USB HDD to the system and mount it. The USB hdd can even be formatted NTFS if the live distro has FUSE installed along with the ntfs-3g driver, most live distros already have it or will allow you to install them. Assuming your SSD is the primary or only disk in your system then:

(You need to be root or use sudo, on most live distros you simply type "su root" or "sudo -s")

#dd if=/dev/sda of=/path/to/backup/disk/ssd_backup.img conv=sync,noerror bs=1024k

/dev/sda is the first disk in the system. you may have to run ls /dev/sd* to get a list of disks and partitions. and note, sda is the entire disk block-for-block, sda1 is a partition just like sda2 , sda3 etc. If you have more than one disk and don't know which letter it is then simply type fdisk -lu /dev/sdX (X being the letter you want to check) and it will dump the drive info.

It may take about 5+ hours assuming you have a 512GB SSD and an optimal USB transfer rate of 25MBps to the backup disk (in my experience the average for USB 2.0 write speeds). Faster backup disks and smaller capacity SSD's will backup much faster.

Once complete, you now have a bit for bit block-level copy of the SSD. This ignores the boot sector, boot loaders, partitions and file systems. It does not matter what OS you had on it, how many partitions or what file system you used. if your very paranoid and want to wait hours more, the run diff against the disk and disk image file to be sure they are an exact copy (never did it and never will).

Now reboot and upgrade the firmware the way the manufacturer tells you. So now your data is wiped out, big stinkin deal. Fire up the live Linux distro and again attach your backup disk and then enter the following command:

#dd if=/path/to/backup/disk/ssd_backup.img of=/dev/sda conv=notrunk bs=1024k

This writes the image file back to the SSD and if all goes well (It has never failed me yet and I have done this dozens of times for various systems) you now have your upgraded firmware with its original contents fully intact.

You can even mount one or more of the partitions contained within the disk image (under Linux of course) if you do a bit of homework (search google for mounting dd images) or just go here:http://darkdust.net/writings/diskimagesminihowto That tutorial is how I started playing with dd images.

You can also movethe contents of a smaller cramped disk to larger drives. Works for windows/NTFS too! You simply dd the entire smaller drive to the new drive (works best when both drives are hooked up via sata.) Then you use gparted or some other parted disk GUI to grow the file system on the new drive. Shut down and remove the linux cd/thumb-drive and remove the old disk and move the sata cable from the old disk to the new disk. Boot your PC and if your using windows (2000, XP , Vista, 7) it will run the check disk to verify the volume (DONT SKIP IT!) and reboot. Once it reboots to windows, open up explorer and see that you now magically have all that shiny new space without formatting, reinstalling, adding new drive letters or mounting drives under folders etc. Its transparent!

Example command:

#dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb conv=sync,noerror bs=1024k

sda is the small disk and sdb is the new large disk. I have done that trick multiple times as well with a 100% success rate. My friends were amazed.

Actually I think the iPod looks pretty freaking ugly when stacked up against this beauty from iRiver.

Honestly, it looks like a mini refrigerator you might see in Kubrik's 2001 movie. And you can't do squat with it.

Whereas the iRiver looks more akin to handheld game consoles like the GameGear.

Disclaimer: I don't have shares in either company.

Especially its path tool is really, really useful.

I'm using the 2.0pre4 version for two weeks now. I wanted to have a unique background image and my image drew me a "grim reaper tux" which I'm now coloring with the GIMP. The path tool makes this a whole lot easier, especially when deciding that some details of the form are not as I'd like them to be: you can then just throw away the layer with the outline and with the filling, tweak the path a bit and redraw the two thrown away layers in a few seconds.

The path tool now allows you to specify which tool to use when "stroking" the path, so I used a fuzzy brush... you could even use an elliptical brush or pen here. And you can get a selection from the path, which you can even combine/intersect which other paths.

The picture I'm working on is not completed yet but I've made preview available.

Getting the GIMP to compile correctly is a really hard though... I'm not going to repeat that loooong list of dependencies here, but you have to watch out sometimes. I guess it was the GTK+ 2.3.5 where I had to explicitly enable XInput to get my Wacom tablet to get recognized by the GIMP, and somewhere else I had to explicitly enable Xft or something like that...

But the new GIMP is a heavy improvement to the 1.3.x series, mainly from a GUI point of view, as the GIMP's drawing qualities where already quite good, IMHO (but then, I'm a programmer, not an artist ;-).

What I've done is use Linux's excellent support for console joypads (see the documentation in the Linux source in Documentation/input/joystick-parport.txt). This allows you to use e.g. Atari/Amiga joysticks, or Sega MegaDrive/Genesis joysticks, even PlayStation joypads are supported !

But be warned: it's a lot of work !

A good start is obviously Linux From Scratch, but you might check Linux From Scratch Via RPM. Having some packaging manager like RPM helps a lot.

But you have to write the build scripts on your own. I have created and am managing our in-house Linux distribution, and I had to write the build system that compiles the packages from spec files, sources and patches, keeps the build system clean, recognizes when spec files changed in order to recompile them, write a tool to compare version number in order to automate checking when new packages are released (and to check whether a package need recompilation) and install the packages into disk images (which could be what you'd like to have). I also implemented some other stuff like controlling everything with a database and stuff, but you won't need that :-)

Getting all necessary packages to compile correctly can sometimes be a real pain. While the GNU packages are trivial, some packages need that you write patches in order to make them compile (most of the time you need to patch the Makefiles so that they compile with the paths that you like and install correctly; sometimes make install DESTDIR=%{buildroot} won't work since the Makefile doesn't support the DESTDIR variable so you have to add that, for example).

But having your own distribution is really cool: you learn a lot about Linux. And while everyone can install and use a normal distribution few have their own, so this is something one can be proud of, I think ;-)

and I bet this applies to rats as well (which are, biological, just very big mice). I have some pet rats and a big cage, but normally they just run around in my living room... and they really love to run around.

When I have them in their cage for more than, say, three days they grab their bars like some prisoners and stare at me with very sad eyes :-) After some days they can really get depressed.

So now normally mice and rat cages in laboratories are way smaller than mine is (I know since a friend of mine works in a laboratory with rats). And they are not allowed to run around. When my rats get depressed after a few days, then I have no doubt most mice/rats get crazy after some months.

Imagine having nothing more than your living room to walk around, your whole life... oh wait, we geeks know that very well ;-)

If you mean the homepage under your name then im viewing it just fine in IE. Ive installed Moz a number of times, used it for a week, then uninstalled it. Im not lazy, I just dont like it.

You can view it just fine since I took some care that you can :-) I have a batch of PHP scripts that generate my pages on-the-fly, depending on your browser.

E.g. those boxes like the citation boxes on the bottom of every page: if you're using Netscape4 or something Lynx they're done with tables, if you're using a browser like IE, Mozilla, Opera or Konquerer they're done in CSS.

But if you visit my start page you'll get a white background in IE (plus warning box) and a background image in all other newer browsers.

I've just hacked my index page so you can see the PNG dilemma with IE: without hack with hack

And with the "I don't like Mozilla" issue: well, of course you can't discuss about taste: if you like IE better then there's nothing wrong with it per se. I just can't live without tabs and popup blocking, so IE is useless for me, but that is just my taste ;-)

If you mean the homepage under your name then im viewing it just fine in IE. Ive installed Moz a number of times, used it for a week, then uninstalled it. Im not lazy, I just dont like it.

You can view it just fine since I took some care that you can :-) I have a batch of PHP scripts that generate my pages on-the-fly, depending on your browser.

E.g. those boxes like the citation boxes on the bottom of every page: if you're using Netscape4 or something Lynx they're done with tables, if you're using a browser like IE, Mozilla, Opera or Konquerer they're done in CSS.

But if you visit my start page you'll get a white background in IE (plus warning box) and a background image in all other newer browsers.

I've just hacked my index page so you can see the PNG dilemma with IE: without hack with hack

And with the "I don't like Mozilla" issue: well, of course you can't discuss about taste: if you like IE better then there's nothing wrong with it per se. I just can't live without tabs and popup blocking, so IE is useless for me, but that is just my taste ;-)

I know, this is totally off-topic but I can't resist :-)

While doing a little research on a little paper I'm currently working on I learned a bit about the history of MicroSoft. Windows XP is based on Windows 2000 which is based on Windows NT which in turn is based on... OS/2 ! MicroSoft worked together with IBM to create OS/2, the two had a dispute and parted and each one went a different way with their parts of OS/2.

But Windows ME is just a pretty big DOS application :-)

is one that I am currently experimenting with: Allwell Set-Top Boxes.

I bought one through my employer, and the cool things about these boxes are:

• small size, these are set-top boxes !
• remote control and keyboard, both are normal PS/2 mouse and keyboard to the machine ! No drivers needed, and you can even switch the set-top box on and off with it... woohoo ! :-)
• SCART output !! (if you want to connect a normal VGA monitor you have to get a slot plate with a VGA connector and connect it with the main-board)
• even has a SCART input, but I don't know how to use it
• my version even has a SIGMA MPEG2 decoder chip
• room for one normal PCI card, e.g. my old Bt878 card
• you have to glue your 2,5" HDD to the cover, actually... at least in my version. There are also versions of this set-top-box which have a socket for 2,5" HDDs
• I have seen versions with ~300 MHz Geode processors, mine has a 667 MHz VIA processor, IIRC

Can be seen here.

Only problem is the display driver, the video chip is a Tvia 5005 and so far I had no succes in finding drivers for Linux... VESA FB works well but it could be much faster/smoother/use real PAL resolutions if I had the correct drivers. If anyone knows where to get them, please tell me !

Sound works fine BTW, but I don't remember what chip that was... CX5530 ?