Blue Screen of Death, an Overview

*Shudder*

What is the blue screen of death?

The blue screen of death is one of many error messages displayed by an operating system when it has experienced a fatal error, or a kernel panic, which is a low level and unrecoverable error. The actual name for this is a fatal system error, otherwise known as a system crash, stop error, kernel error, or bug check. Users are the ones who created the name blue screen of death, and they have done this because when a blue screen appears it means that the problem is big enough that you will not be able to recover anything you were working on unless it saved itself recently. The colloquial "of death" part of the name developed because of the loss of all data (occurring in accordance with Murphy's Law) when you have a deadline. They are also a strong sign that there could be something seriously wrong with your computer, and are extremely cryptic.

A blue screen is Windows specific, but all operating systems can have kernel panics, and their own way of representing them. For example, Mac used to use their sad mac screen to signify a kernel panic. They also carried this touch of humour into their iPods, and although it is cute, I hope to never see it.





What are a few reasons I would get it?

I am most certainly not an expert in dealing with a blue screen. I always just google it, but in order to make this easier for you, dear reader, I've hunted down a very nice and fairly short list of the most common error codes. If you ever get a blue screen make sure to copy that bugger down onto some scrap paper and take a look in the following list or google the stop code to find a solution. Thank you to Gateway's support page for having such a wonderful guide.
Here is a list of common blue screen errors and STOP codes:

• PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA (STOP 0x00000050)
• INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE (STOP 0x0000007B)
• UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME (STOP 0x000000ED)
• MEMORY_MANAGEMENT or IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (STOP 0x0000001A)
• IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (STOP 0x0000000A)
• DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (STOP 0x000000D1)
• KERNEL_MODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED (STOP 0x0000008E)
• KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR (STOP 0x0000007A)
• SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED (STOP 0x0000007E)
• KERNEL_STACK_INPAGE_ERROR (STOP 0x00000077)

Why haven't I seen it recently?

When I started this blog I realized that I hadn't gotten a blue screen in a long, long time. This seemed unreasonable to me, since kernel panicking isn't gone. I looked into it and talked to some friends and learned that yes, blue screens are still around in new versions of Windows. Probably because of how negative and popular a complaint blue screening became in regards to Windows, it has been turned off in the default settings of newer Windows operating systems.

What do I mean by that? I mean that the operating system has a setting, turned on by default, telling it to automatically reboot in the case of a blue screen. This is pretty understandable, since most of the time I'm already reaching for a hard reboot before I even remember to write that code down. It also means that if a reboot isn't the solution and a google of the code is necessary in order to know what is wrong, you are going to have one hell of a time catching that code before you get stuck rebooting again. Just imagine that, or search for it happening to someone, being unable to find out what is wrong with your computer because instead of a blue screen, which is at least vaguely useful, you get this flash of blue followed by a looping reboot. Gah!

Gosh, that's awful! How can I fix that?

Don't worry, it's very easy to change your default settings.
You just need to follow these steps:

1. Go to your control panel.
2. Open System. (In classic view)
   
3. Go to the Advanced tab in the System Properties.
4. Click on Settings in the Advanced System Recovery section.
5. In the Startup and Recovery window uncheck the check bow labeled Automatically Restart, and say OK.
   

You can also hammer F8 while rebooting and get into the following menu if you didn't get around to changing your default settings before you got a blue screen error and got stuck in a loop rebooting.


















May your computer never blue screen,
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Wikipedia as a Valid Resource

Wikipedia is an absolutely brilliant resource. Every time I need to learn about a topic I wiki it. If I'm unsure of a fact I wiki it. If I need to write an essay I wiki it. We all do it, the first stop on the research train is Wikipedia, and there isn't anything wrong with that. Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and an encyclopedia is the right place to go when you want to learn about something. The problem is that an encyclopedia is not the be all and end all of research. If anyone tried to write a University level essay with the only source being the Encyclopedia Britannica they would certainly fail or be told to rewrite it. The founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, has said himself that he has no sympathy for students who get into trouble for citing Wikipedia. He gets about 10 emails a week from students who ask him for help when they get a failing grade due to citing Wikipedia and he just thinks to himself: “For God sake, you’re in college; don’t cite the encyclopedia.” But I disagree with Mr. Wales, I feel that if your only source is Wikipedia you are indeed an idiot, but I know how I research, and Wikipedia has been a part of my research habits for years. I go to Wikipedia and read up on my topic of choice, I follow related articles around Wikipedia and get vaguely distracted before pulling myself back on track, and I follow Wikipedia's citations to find good starting sources, and browse out from there along the network of papers about my topic. I also search through academic resources for potential papers but I end up on Wikipedia before this simply to familiarize myself with the language needed to actually find a good paper, especially if I need to write on a topic that I am not familiar with.

Citing Your Sources

Every time I write a paper I am lying. I leave Wikipedia out of my bibliography because no one seems to want to let me put it there, but isn't the purpose of a bibliography to provide a summary of the research you have done? Citations exist in order to allow for intellectual honesty, and I am giving the false impression that the structure of my search for information along with the general structure of most of my essays came completely from my own brilliance, and not the essential usefulness of Wikipedia. Telling students not to cite Wikipedia is telling them to lie about how they garnered the knowledge necessary to write their paper. In 2007 the History Department of Middlebury College notified it's students that Wikipedia could not be cited in papers or exams. The article about this goes on to mention the following:

"Although Middlebury’s history department has banned Wikipedia in citations, it has not banned its use. Don Wyatt, the chairman of the department, said a total ban on Wikipedia would have been impractical, not to mention close-minded, because Wikipedia is simply too handy to expect students never to consult it."

But if they know that the students will continue to use Wikipedia, and actually believe that it is simply too handy to expect students to never consult it, isn't a little hypocritical to disallow the proper citation of such a resource? Jimmy Wales commented on this issue as well, saying:

"Basically, they are recommending exactly what we suggested — students shouldn’t be citing encyclopedias. I would hope they wouldn’t be citing Encyclopedia Britannica, either."

But encyclopedias are in the same category as dictionaries in terms of citations. They are able to be cited and there are guidelines on practically every quality style guide on how to go about properly citing a reference book.This is confirmed by the following quote:

The Craft of Research, a classic guide to research, advises that researchers consult reference works such as encyclopedias to gain general knowledge about a topic and discover related works.

So, again, while I agree that citing only Wikipedia is a poor idea, I stand by the fact that as a supporting or background material it is worthwhile and even deserving of a place in your bibliography.

The Flexibility of Wikipedia as a Positive and a Negative

Wikipedia is, by nature, constantly changing. There are simple positives and negatives to this.

The positives are that the information you are receiving is as up to date as it can be, and is constantly being updated and improved, expanded on and reviewed, whereas published papers go through a few rounds of high quality review and inspection before being published, and from then on there are no changes without great difficulty.

Wikipedia is peer reviewed to the extreme, and although everyone who peer reviews a published paper is probably quite qualified to do so, there is an inherent negativity in having a small and static number of people reviewing a document. The more people who look over something and the more varied their backgrounds, the more likely you are to have a well rounded and accurate representation of that something.

The negatives are that with more people come more stupid people, and when just anyone can make changes to an article your likelihood of getting someone who doesn't know what they are doing or purposely wants to make incorrect statements increases. Wikipedia knows this though, and it is possible to watch in real time as stupidity is corrected in pages on Wikipedia, especially on high traffic articles.

Another negative is that it is inherently difficult to cite something that could be different when you actually visit the citation. Wikipedia has a solution to that as well though, with the implementation of the ability to link to a specific version of a page:

It is sometimes useful to link to a specific version of an article (a snapshot of it). For example, one might have done a review of a Wikipedia article and want to indicate which particular version was reviewed.

If the version is not the current version, one can use the page history to view the old version of the page. The URL of this old version is suitable for use to permanently reference this version, and can usually be obtained from the browser's location bar.

My Final Thoughts

While you may end up with false information on Wikipedia for whatever reason, if you spend enough time on your paper and learn about your topic then maybe the incorrect information should be noticeable to you. And if you find a mistake in Wikipedia maybe you should add to the community and correct the mistake instead of writing Wikipedia off as a valid resource. As more well-known scholars use and edit Wikipedia, it becomes a more valid resource. This has already started, and the more scholars support Wikipedia the better it will get. This is my final reason for being all for the use of Wikipedia as a supporting resource. If it becomes okay to use Wikipedia in academic papers, academics will be more active in the community of Wikipedia. These things will feed into each other, creating a better and more accurate online encyclopedia for all of us.

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Repetitive Strain Injury in Relation to Computers

What is Repetitive Strain Injury?

Repetitive strain injury can also be known as repetitive motion injury or occupational overuse syndrome. You can get repetitive stress injury from constant repetition of tasks, sustaining a singular position or holding yourself in an awkward position, to name a few methods. Most people have heard of repetitive strain injury, although it may go by the name of carpal tunnel syndrome, tennis elbow or tendinitis. One last fact for you now; I have repetitive strain injury, and I got it from constantly being on the computer.

You have what?

I have tendinitis in my forearms, and hypermobility in the joints of my wrists, and it has grown steadily worse over the past few years. This results in pain through my wrist joints and up my forearms whenever I do anything even vaguely arduous with my hands, like opening a push door, typing for long periods, lifting something heavy improperly, practicing the violin and opening jars.

I'm a computer science student. That means I spend hours a day, pretty much every day, typing away on my computer. To do this I sustain a singular, often awkward, position for the entirety of the time that I'm on my computer. I don't have a particularily ergonomic desk, I spend a lot of time coding on my laptop, and I have a netbook, which my physiotherapist says is one of the worst things in the world for my wrists. And speaking of physiotherapists, I devote 100$ and 40 minutes of time attending two physiotherapy appointments a week.

Why are you going on about this?

This isn't a bitch fest. This is me trying to draw attention to the importance of ergonomics for anyone who spends a large portion of their life on the computer. I hope to do this by describing specifically what is wrong with my wrists and what to do to avoid the same thing happening to you.

So, what is hypermobility?

Hypermobility is when the joints, muscles, tendons or ligaments are more fragile and lax than the norm. This results in the ability to move the affected joint in more extreme ways, and can also result in a greater vulnerability to injury and and a proneness to muscle fatigue.
My physiotherapist diagnosed me with hypermobility because of the flexibility of my wrists as well as the clunky movements and clicking noises that my wrist joints can make. I'm sure there is more that helped her come to this conclusion, but I'm no physiotherapist and can only relay to you what I understand about this.

The treatment for this, care of my physiotherapist, is taping. As you can see, my physiotherapist tapes my wrists in order to limit the level of movement that I can make with my wrists. Forcing my movements to conform with a more normal range of movement allows my wrists to heal and promote a more normal range of movement, which will in turn lower the likelihood of continued strain.

Having hypermobile wrists is probably an excellent reason for me to have developed repetitive strain injury in my wrists at such an early age. Already weakened joints are going to fail earlier than normal healthy ones. But anyone who causes themselves repetitive strain can develop complications that make the lifestyle they have chosen a painful and difficult one.

What is tendinitis and what does it have to do with typing so much?

Tendinitis is an inflammation or irritation of any tendon in your body. It causes pain just outside of a joint, and most commonly occurs somewhere between your shoulders to your wrists. A dull aching pain and tenderness where the tendon in question connects to a bone as the symptoms of tendinitis. Tendinitis is most often caused by the repetition of a motion, probably related to a person's job or a hobby they have.

In my case, my habit of holding my netbook in my hands in front of me to read causes me to constantly strain my forearms and wrists. Combining this with tensing of my forearms as I type and use the computer in a rather un-ergonomic arrangement and you have a recipe for tense tendons.

What are you doing about it?

To counteract this I have low impact exercises to perform every day to gently stretch and strengthen the tendons in my arms. But most importantly I have needed to completely overhaul the way I use my netbook, laptop and computers. Since I wouldn't stop using my computer as often as I do I need to take frequent breaks whenever I feel strained and I have needed to develop an ergonomic workplace. I cannot carry my netbook around to read, and if I need to use it while walking I rest it on my forearms. I need to be constantly aware of the possibility of straining my wrists, whether it be through carrying a bag or texting at a weird angle.

If I get pain I need to stop whatever task I am doing and rest. Working through the pain isn't a viable option, since the tissues cannot heal without resting. Ice for a short period of time and compression (through the use of an elastic wrap) can help relieve the pain.

In general, through a regimen of low impact exercise and easing into a regular but optimized day to day activity schedule will eventually ease the pain I feel and allow me to function normally, but it will take quite a while to undo all of the damage I've done to myself so far.

How can I be more ergonomic?

First of all, forget about that perfect posture thing. Sit comfortably, use the back of your chair for support, and recline slightly if that is comfortable for you. Sitting ram-rod straight for hours on end won't do you any good.

Don't hold your arms in a position they don't normally rest in. Use an arm rest if you want, and keep your forearms, wrists and hands level with one another and the keyboard.

Take this workspace assessment quiz to evaluate your current workspace. The site is a little stilted but the information is sound.

Consider getting an ergonomic keyboard. I haven't forked over the cash for one yet, but I'm just a poor student saving up for one. You can find all sorts of websites that offer examples of ergonomic supplies.

Use common sense, you'll know what doesn't feel right if you just take the time to think about it.

Lastly, please remember that I'm no doctor, and no physiotherapist. If I misrepresented anything my physiotherapist told me (although I don't think I have), that is my fault; If you blindly follow anything I've said, well, that is your fault. I'm passing on my understanding of knowledge told to me, and compiling it with information on the internet. Use your own mind and do your own research if you feel that this is an issue that could impact you.

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