Hello friends, this is what I ended up reading instead of the photo posted on my website (http://jenniferyoon.com).
I am studying for the Garp.org's FRM certification (financial risk management). Garp estimates that candidates spend an average of 200 hours per level, or a total of 400 hours, preparing for their exam, but that some people spend much, much more time.
I estimate that in order to actually read all of the materials in Garp's reading list (http://www.garpdigitallibrary.org/display/frm_course_pack.asp) and do a modest amount of practice exams, it will take me 1000 hours! I estimate 4500 pages of articles (1,620 pages or 36% for L1 and 2,880 pages for L2), plus 715 pages in the Jorian Handbook. If I were to read all of the suggested articles (50 for L1 and 70 for L2), then it will take me about 300 hours to read & understand L1 and 600 hours for L2 (my speed seems to be about 50 pages of journal articles in a 10 hour day). Add 100 hours (about 2 weeks) of practice exams, and the total comes out to 1000 hours!
I have spent about 350 hours this time for L1 and L2, and 100 hours last time for just L1, so I am in the 400 total hours ballpark, but I did not read most of the journal articles. I am hoping to read them someday, as they are quite good and will give me a very good education in the current state of knowledge on financial risk management. Maybe after my May 21st exam, I can come back and read the ones I didn't get to before the exam. My knowledge level is definitely improving, even though I cannot positively say that I will pass the upcoming exam. I am very comfortable now with parametric and non-parametric approaches and Monte Carlo simulations. I also feel I have a good grasp of Extreme Value distributions and their usage, which is a totally new field for me. So, at least some solid benefit I can count on from all this effort. :-) Jennifer
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Total sheets are a little over 9 inches high, printed on double sides. One ream of 500 sheet printer paper pack is about 2 inches high. So each ream of double-sided 500 sheets yield 1000 printed pages. I went through over 4 reams.
My Mom gave me a lovely peace lily about a week ago because she is moving back to S. Korea. It was big and beautiful when I got it, but ALL of the leaves wilted (think wet green kleenexes hanging from stalks). I had left it out on my balcony for a few days where the sun was hot. Belatedly realizing this was a shade plant, I moved it inside and watered it well, but the leaves died anyway.
Next I Googled "peace lily dead leaves" and decided to drain the excess water from the pot and placed it next to a window with the shade drawn to block direct sun. I was gratified to see new baby leaves shooting up from the roots, but I was really surprised to see that several of the stalks had transformed function to become large leaves. I had forgotten plants did this from my old biology videos (LOL). It's quite amazing to see. I wish animals can grow another arm when one is cut off. Nature is quite amazing...
In the photo, the LARGE leaves are ALL transformed leaves. I had cut off every one of the former mature leaves at similiar height. I counted 20 new leaves, including 7 transformed large leaves. =).
Hello! This is my long delayed blog on my experience of replacing my laptop's internal hard disk drive. Here is a shout out to Wener Heuser of http://repair4laptop.org/. Thank you very much for maintaining a site packed with useful DIY laptop repair info! The provided link to an article by Thai Tan on how to replace Sony SZ160P laptop HDD was detailed and thorough. I had no problem with the hardware at all. Took only 30 minutes to replace the hard drive. (Link to article, http://laptoplogic.com/resources/detail.php?id=43.)
However, I did run into some problems with the software. It took me 3-4 days to finally get everything working efficiently again. My new HDD is Hitachi Travelstar 7K200 which has 200GB and 7200 rpm access speed. I am very happy with this HDD. My main reason for replacing the drive was the faster 7200 vs. 5400 rpm. However, after this experience, I don't think the increased spin speed was worth the effort. It IS faster, but I learned that there are so many other issues that can make the computer run slowly, and fixing those other problems yielded more dramatic speed gains. (I list those speed fixes in Part IV.) I AM enjoying the extra 110 GB storage space and noticeably quieter spins.
Here's a quick photo of the internals opened.
You gently peel towards you the black-part of orange cable (see large circle). It feels like you are pulling on a Velcro tape. The bottom part has tiny pronged connectors. Once you unscrew the 3 Phillips screws holding the tiny hard drive cage, and take out the drive, the main orange socket is pulled off to your right-side (see arrow). You can wiggle the socket side-to-side to help get it off. Peeling back the black tape from underneath the socket helps too. The orange cable is a thin film but seems reasonably strong. I can't believe how miniaturized all components are. Once the HDD was removed, there was a lot of dust near the fan, and I used several q-tips to clean it out.
This is a photo of the tools you will need.
I used the needle nose pliers to help turn very stubborn screws without stripping their delicate grooves. The two tiny screw drivers are 2 mm slotted and 3 mm Phillips. I used a Seagate USB 500 GB portable, external hard drive as my temporary storage to transfer my data and program files.
Software you will need.
(1) Seagate's DiscWizard utility, a free, reduced version of Acronis TrueImage.
(Download link, http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=DiscWizard&vgnextoid=d9fd4a3cdde5c010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD )
(2) Two recovery DVDs made using Sony's original 5 GB recovery partition.
If you no longer have the recovery DVDs or the 5GB recovery partition, then your best bet is to buy the full version of TrueImage, which creates a bootable and mountable image on another hard drive, and negates the need for the recovery discs. (Continued in Parts II to IV.)
Close up of tab you push in to unlock the keyboard. Stick the tiny flat screw driver into the slot around F1 key, push down on the small hump, and gently roll the keyboard towards you. Do the same on the top-right around the INSERT key.
Keyboard removed.
Inside fully open
I will describe my successful software procedure, since the above article by Thai Tan did an excellent of job describing the hardware replacement.
(1) Preparation
Clean up your old hard drive to prepare for an efficient image. You don't want your brand new HDD to be clogged with all the junk from your old HDD. So clean it up before imaging the old HDD. First, move most of your data files except daily used files to the external drive. This will be your photos, videos, music, books, downloaded programs, etc. Then remove as much as possible programs you are not currently using. Second, run disc clean up and defrag your old HDD overnight. Delete temp files and software installation files. Empty trash.
Download Seagate's DiscWizard. Save the installation file to your portable, external drive (you will use this again later). Install the utility on your old HDD. Create a system recovery point of your cleaned up windows and programs state. Test the 2 recovery DVDs to make sure they are working by inserting them into the DVD drive.
(2) Create HDD Image
Run Seagate DiscWizard from you old HDD. Select Image Backup, Discs & Partition, check boxes next to C: drive and MBR (master boot record) zero drive. (Do Not check "sector-by-sector" box. This includes empty storage space in the image.) Select destination drive (external HDD). F: drive in my case. Filename, MyImage.tib. (Note, keep the name simple, 8 letters or numbers, no space or underscore.) Select "Create a new full image." Use default options, comments optional, click Proceed. I had 25 GB of programs and windows system files after my clean up. Image took about 1 hour to create on my USB portable drive.
(3) Physically replace HDD as per instructions.
First, printout instructions from Thai Tan's article. (http://laptoplogic.com/resources/detail.php?id=43.) If some of the screws are stuck, use the pliers to help you slowly turn the handle of your mini screwdriver. About 30 minutes.
(4) Use Sony Recovery DVDs to install Windows XP and original programs to your new HDD. About 3 hours.
Insert DVD 1. Select restore c: drive option.
To keep this to a few hours, you need to disable Sony's HDD shock protection utility as soon as possible. Something about the faster 7200 rpm HDD trips the HDD shock protection program every second. This stops the disc for about 2 seconds and the disc spin is slow when it starts up again. You can imagine how crippling this is to the new HDD.
The recovery DVD first creates the 5 GB recovery partition and the MBR (master boot record) zero partition. Then you need to remove the DVD and restart the computer. Then you reinsert DVD 1 to load windows system files. At some point, Sony's utilities get loaded, including the awful HDD shock protection. Forcibly stop the recovery process when you think windows files have loaded but not all of Sony's original applications have loaded. Most of applications are on DVD 2, so you can stop the recovery process before inserting DVD 2. If you can, right click on HDD shock protection icon (bottom-right task bar). Uncheck enable box. If this is not possible, use Start, All Programs, then find the HDD shock protection utility. Uncheck enable box. Once it has been disabled, you will hear blessed silence as the constant clicking sound from the HDD starting and stopping will go away.
Insert DVD 2 and continue to install Sony original applications. Reboot and test some of the applications when finished. Open the browser and test the internet connection.
(5) Install and run Seagate's DiscWizard on the new HDD. About 2 hours.
Click on the installation file saved on your portable, external drive. Reboot and run DiscWizard from the new HDD. Select Image Restore. Select your external file as your source, F: MyImage.tib. Select C: drive, Restore disc or partition, select C: drive. Select as target your new HDD C: drive. Restore active primary. Next you can select partition size. I used 50 GB as my C: drive partition. Later, I assigned the remaining 150 GB as a separate data partition. When finished test your system by running some of your own applications.
If all goes well, you will be able to have an efficient and large 200 GB of brand new HDD in about one day of work.
If the above does not work, you may try also restoring the MBR (master boot record) zero drive. I think my final successful trial did not restore the MBR 0 drive, but I could be forgetting this. I did restore both C and MBR 0 drive in my first attempt.
My computer was responding very sluggishly after my previous attempts (using DiscWizard and Windows Backup utility) and startup took 45 minutes. I spent 3-4 long days. I swapped the old HDD and new HDD back and forth about 4-5 times while trying the get a good version of old HDD files to transfer over correctly. I suspected a fragmented registry and bought Iolo Technologies System Mechanic Pro to try to fix this. However, repeating the entire imaging process, using procedures written above, solved the problem. Now startup is about the same as before, 1.5-5 minutes depending on what I have loading, and programs respond quickly.
Alternate method using Windows Backup Utility
I also tried to transfer my files using Windows XP's built-in backup utility. Start, All Programs, System Tools, Backup. From the Backup and Restore Wizard, select backup files and settings, all information on this computer, destination F:/, filename MyBackup.bkf. It's very important to use a simple name here, 8 letters or number, no space or underscore. This backs up the system state and all program files as well as your data files. It does not transfer your browser settings or bookmarks. If you choose the custom backup option, make sure you check the box for "system state" at the bottom of the scroll box to transfer your windows settings.
I had used this successfully to transfer all programs & windows state from one HDD to another a few years ago. At that time, everything worked flawlessly. I like this utility because I can restore just some of the programs initially and restore the rest when I need it. To use this utility, your new HDD needs to be the same or larger size as the original HDD. This time; however, I ran into problems because I used a long name with an underscore. Three of my programs did not install correctly on the new HDD and caused a slow startup with error messages. The majority of programs and windows systems did install correctly. So, I think this method will work as long as you use a simple name for your backup file. Takes many hours to make a backup file even after reducing GB size, so run it overnight. Also, the new HDD size was set to 88 GB and not 200 GB. Will need a different software to allocate the rest of the storage space to a 2nd partition.
Summary
My opinion on the whole HDD replacement experience is that it's too much work just to get a slight increase in speed. However, it may be worth it if you are looking to increase storage by 110 GBs. As a byproduct, I ended up getting a much cleaner and efficient HDD as result of cleaning up old junk and partitioning the drive into a small part for programs and daily used files and a large part for media and long-term storage. (See Part IV for tips on speeding up your computer.)
Here are a few ways that dramatically improved the speed of my laptop, in the order of their speed improvement.
(1) Reduce the amount of data stored on the HDD. While getting ready to replace the original HDD, I moved most of my data files to a portable, external HDD. The original 90 GB internal HDD then had only 25 GB of data. Without any other change, this greatly speeded up my computer! Program files loaded quickly and data files opened as fast as I can click. Even internet browser pages seemed to open faster, for no reason that I can think of. So when I transferred my files to the new HDD, I created 2 partitions, one small partition for my program files and daily used documents, and second large partition for my library, music, photo, and video files. It makes sense that most programs will run faster when there is less disc space to search. I defrag and run disc clean-up regularly, but having less GBs lead to more dramatic speed improvement.
(2) Increase RAM from 1 GB to 2 GB. I didn't realize it, but I was routinely using 1.25 GB just for surfing the web with 5-6 tabs open and having Outlook running. The 1 GB RAM was insufficient and my computer was writing to hard disc virtual RAM all the time! I noticed a BIG speed improvement with the 2nd GB RAM.
(3) Remove as much as possible unused programs. This mostly improves startup and shutdown time, but it also improved operating speed. Some of the programs have background processes that start automatically and run in the background. Most programs are too small to impact speed, but I discovered that Microsoft SQL and web development programs were hogging CPU cycles without my knowledge. Virus and Spy detection software are notorious for hogging RAM and CPU. They also write to disc once in a while. Get rid of all versions except for the one you are currently using. Norton antivirus frequently does not uninstall completely. Some old versions of Acrobat Reader also have this problem. Hunt them down and make sure all old versions are uninstalled. Then get rid of the installation files from temp directory. Do a Google search on the company's support site to find out how to completely uninstall.
These three fixes are the big ones that I have found to speed up my computer. Of course, if you get an error message while starting up Windows, or a frequent program freeze, then it is worthwhile to find the source and fix these errors. Generally reinstalling Windows and latest security patch will fix system errors. Program installation errors can be fixed also with reinstall. I use Windows' System Recovery all the time to keep a good copy of my system state. When a problem starts with a newly installed program, I can just roll back to the good version. On the rare occasion when I get infected with an ad program, I can also just roll back to my previous state.
(4) Fix Wi-Fi connection/shutdown problem on Sony SZ160P
As an aside, I had an internet connection problem for a while where the wi-fi antenna will shut itself down during use. Then I need to restart my computer to get the connection back, until the antenna shuts down again. I checked all of my power setting but could not fix the problem for a while. Then I discovered that I could go into hardware properties and change additional power settings for the wi-fi. The default settings reduced antenna power to save battery, even when my computer was plugged in. After maxing all power setting, I get great wi-fi connection now. Also speeded up my browser load time at video sites. I don't know how, but I now get noticeably improved speed and less skipping during video playback. Maybe the "throughput enhancement" setting is helping out.
Photo of wi-fi power settings page. From Start Menu, My Computer, right click then select Properties. From System Properties window, select Hardware Tab, click Device Manager button. Scroll down to Network Adapters, expand list, right click on Intel Pro/Wireless 3945 ABG, select Properties, Advanced Tab. Maximize settings for Power Management, Roaming Aggressiveness, Throughput Enhancement, and Transmit Power.
Hello, I have not been making any cards since August! I've been studying for an exam in financial risk management. My Stampin' Up! card making group in California is doing another swap and I decided to use my new snowflakes die for my design. I hope you like it. All supplies Stampin' Up!
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