Things were smooth during the first week after building the workstation then started getting random freezes on Startup of computer, the freeze however would resolve itself automatically after sometime and proceed normally.

My initial diagnosis was that i got sold a lemon of a SSD and promptly filed a RMA for the hard drive. Intel agreed to replace it no problems.

But me being my lazy self dint feel like reinstalling a  couple of hundred softwares and/or do backup images etc etc. So went digging thru google on dozens of forums and support sites on users who had posted the same issue all had the exact same behaviors .
Symptoms :

• “Random Freeze on startup”
• “Un-Freezes automatically after like 2 mins”
• Sometime first action after logon triggers freeze and unfreezes.

Ok anyways will cut to the chase, after setting up file and folder monitors on startup, checking logs on startup etc, my first hint of whats going on came when i tried to make a System image backup from windows tool , it would not create a backup throwing error below
” Threre is not enough disk space to create the volum shadow copy on storage location. Make sure that for all volume to be backup up, the minimum disk space required for shadow copy creation is available. this applies to both the backup storage destination and volume included in the backup. Minimum requirement for Volumes less than 500 megabytes, the minimum is 50 megabyte of free space. for voulimes more than 500 megabytes, the minimum is 320 megabytes of free space. Recommended at least 1 gigabytes free of disk space on each volumes if volumes size is more than 1 gigabytes (0×80780119)” 

basically it pointed out that the boot partition “System Reserved Partition” Dint have enough space (This is not the C Drive – but a boot primary partition which is usually hidden)

After knowing above solving was easy enough used a partition wizard tool called ” Mini tool partition Wizard” freed up some 100 MB from C drive and increased the space on the Boot parition aka “System Reserved partition”. then reboot.
Voila no more freezes !!!! Before you send your SSD for  RMA try above first if the symptoms are the same.

A little background for context :
As most of you are aware the software development world has been slowly moving in new directions for process lifecycle management – Agile Scrum, Xtreme Programming, KanBan, Scrumban etc.

Moving away from what is a bad word in the industry called “Waterfall method” of development.

As a day to day practicer of scrum, am big admirer on breaking the borders between what was perceived as traditional roles of Dev, QA, Business Analysts and so on.
All of the new lifecycle processes above have one objective in mind empower the “worker bee” to choose what he wants to do. And I think from that level works wonders to productivity. Off course all of this is within sandbox parameters of the project the “worker bee” is assigned to.

It is like the Government , the people in the country are given freedom under the charter of the constitution. People believe they can really choose but “only within” the scope of the charter. So it is with scrum you can choose what to do within the charter of the project which is perfectly what needs to be done to guide events to the reacheable goal.

Now here is the thing tho, with new processes traditional job descriptions seems quaint and antiquated, we are moving to a place where each person is expected to wear multiple hats at different points in time. The role of a pure Developer or a pure QA begin to blur, hence my definition of the new word “DesTer” in part formed by mixing Developer and Tester together to better service the needs of the Agile processes. The idea is that each person on the team is empowered to be a self contained productive unit tracking and executing from start to finish small quantities of work.

So do we need a Dev team , QA Team , CM Team or do we need “DesTer’s” ? Ping or Post thoughts.

Foreword : Being a Software Engr, am particular about laptops I buy.
Am not a sponsored blogger or any other crap and have no association with Toshiba or partners or blah blah blah.
Pros :
* 2.4 pounds and 0.6″ thick, you can almost use it a like an ipad.
* Backlit keyboard, you dont know what you are missing if you dont have it.
* Ultra fast boot time ~ 10seconds
* Resume from sleep ~ 2 seconds
* SSD Standard on all model – Sweeet !
* Core i3 works for me browsing, office, visio and little bit of VS studio, eclipse use
* Big pro – Dual boot with Ubuntu 11.10 – Everything Works on ubuntu ! Compositing, acceleration, short keys, power suspend, resume, wifi , Even the VPN stuff.
* Got it on a super deal on Bestbuy online.
* fullest selection of ports of any Ultrabook. 2 USB 2.0, RJ45 jack, 1 USB 3.0, VGA and HDMI

Cons :
* The Intel WIFI Link 1000 BGN – resume from sleep takes 1.5 mins Annoying but could live with it. Cold boot connects super fast but from sleep is the issue.
Issue being tracked here : Toshiba Support Forum
* The Toshiba face recognition login looks like a last minute add on and feels unfinished.
* Theres a Toshiba app called “Toshiba value add package” , i usually uninstall crappy junk on new installs but above is needed for screen dim bright to work .

Folks gonna hate me for posting this again A quote from the movie Crocodile Dundee “Well, you see, Aborigines don’t own the land.They belong to it. It’s like their mother. The land owns them. See those rocks? Been standing there for 600 million years. Still be there when you and I are gone. So arguing over who owns them is like two fleas arguing over who owns the dog they live on.”.

I think this is pretty much the same for religion give it a another 100 odd years we probably have a few hundred new religions and a few which die unsuited to the times, kind of a human parody over time.

Every now and then you need a few snippets of code to get something done in linux which drives you crazy ..
Following is my collection of life saving snippets :

##To convert MP3 to WAV :

##Do Recursive Dos2UnIX :

##Command to batch resize Photos from Digital camera

##Recursively change text in files :

First : Thanks to the folks at alsa-devel and Tobin Davis
If you would like to test / contribute pl contact Tobin on the Alsa Devel newsgroup.

The following instructions are for SuSE 10.1 running 2.6.16.21-0.25-smp #1 kernel , it should be similiar for other distros.

1. Download the latest alsa-driver as of this writing is alsa-driver-1.0.14rc1
you can get it here
ftp://ftp.alsa-project.org/pub/driver/alsa-driver-1.0.14rc1.tar.bz2

Check nothing blew up with dmesg -c

Remove all audio modules

Now Remove all modules

now load new module

Adjust sound volume thru alsa mixer

Test the sound with a plain .wav file, give a reboot if for any reason no sound comes thru , its not required but you never know.

Also some know issues : When headphones are plugged , laptop speakers dont mute.
============New Patch Released 01/30/2007 T.Davis Alsa-Users List ==========
!!Backup your current drivers with following command !!
tar -zcvf original-drivers.tgz /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/sound

Now, get the latest release, apply the patch, and build.

Stop all audio applications and remove all audio drivers (lsmod |fgrep
snd). Reload the new driver with “modprobe snd-hda-intel” , look at the dmesg output and test out
the sound. Use alsamixer to report any mixer issues (easier to debug than
kmix, gmix, whatever-gui-mixer). If nothing works, or one function
doesn’t work, try reloading the driver with “model=test” as a parameter.
This should enable everything.
If you have issues Email with the info below to alsa-devel and alsa-users.
Please include the system make/model, the
subsystem line from “lspci -s 0:1b -vn” (Ex: Subsystem: 103c:30b2), and
the output from “cat /proc/asound/card0/codec#0″.