Sticky Post

Learn

The only way I can leave where I do not want to be is to get better. As I stated before, I am learning Security+, HTML/CSS/JavaScript, Python and Git. But I need to put what I am learning into practice to solidify what I have learned. Else garbage in, garbage out. I will just forget.

In learning Git, I tried one of the commands the instructor provided, tree. Did not seem to work on my version of Git. I Google’d and seems that I have to create an alias for the “tree” command to work: Source git config –global alias.tree “log –oneline –decorate –all –graph”

Seems to work! But I do not have enough changes to actually show a real Git tree. For right now, I just see the Git adds that I have committed.

I am enjoying this! Nothing like learning. 📚📖🚀

I can see my tiny progress 😁. I am doing things so small, that failure is not possible. As much as I want to leap, I know I have limitations. When pushing to hard, there is possibility of failure. Just as someone building their muscles and going to the “gym”, just takes time. The important pieces, focus, discipline and consistency.

I have already used what I have learned in creating this page! 👏🎉🥳

Distraction

Beep! Ding! My phone wants my attention. Grumble, my stomach calling for my attention. You got mail! Outlook calling for my attention. Little blue dot on my tab for Messenger! Someone has messaged me. My attention is pulled in all directions. Unless I get a control and start to ignore these distractions, I will never, never, never, ever be what I want to be and accomplish. I will be the ninety-seven percent of humans that get buried that did not do anything with their lives, but just go through the motions and in the back of their minds thought, “I am doing enough.”

Time to change, or else: “If I keep doing what I have been doing, I will keep getting what I have been getting.” That is fine, if I am liking the results, but if I am not liking the results, I better change the equation of what I have been doing.

I am changing the equation.

What I learned today: I learned to download Team meeting videos that I do not own. I want to keep the videos for reference, like a tutorial, as we, at work, record our work sessions, but then the recording are stored under the person SharePoint’s account. I am just worried if the person ever decides to delete, that knowledge will be deleted as well. So I Google’d and found a solution that allows me to download the protected videos. 😁

Today I lost to distraction. 😭😡🤬 Changing my equation…

One thing I am proud of… I used to help people, even those that did not do the same. Coworkers would ask for my help, even if I no longer work with them, and provided them with assistance. I would go out of my way to assist. I noticed that I shared my knowledge without question. If I know the subject, I would assist. BUT! I noticed they, the people that I would assist, did not do the same. Today I stopped. I am going by the golden rule, “Do onto others as they do onto to you.”, as the other golden rule that I have been following, “Do onto other, as I want to be done onto me.”, was not working, at least in this working environment. As I think about this more, ever. There have been one or two people that shared their knowledge, but only if the sharing benefitted them. I recall this one time I asked a coworker if she could tell me how she was able to solve an issue that she and I was trying to solve. Her reply, “You wish I would.” At first I thought she was kidding, and then realized, she wasn’t. Seems people keep their knowledge, at least some version of the knowledge and do not completely share. I believe they do so as leverage of keeping their position at work. I once asked the programmers’ manager, separate from the department from which I work at, why people do not like to share their knowledge, or at least, that is what I noticed. He stated, “people believe that keeping certain knowledge makes them important and/or irreplaceable. But everyone is not important enough not to be replaced.” And with that, I close with, I am not keeping my knowledge to be important and/or irreplaceable, I do so because I want to be respected and treated as I treat others. After all, the most import commodity I have is time.

Excited

I was watching a YouTube video about Devarjaye (DJ) Dnaiel. DJ is thirteen years old cancer survivor. I was just amazed at DJ’s outlook on life. His father is an amazing man. My prayers go out to DJ, as his father explained DJ’s health condition.

What is my excuse? I do not have one. Life is so precious, and I have wasted so much in not taking advantages of all the opportunities that I have. That changed yesterday.

Am I better than I was yesterday? Yes I am. This is the only question I shall ask myself.

I am learning Security+, HTML/CSS/JavaScript, Python and Git.

As long as I am moving forward, I am doing well. Should I let distraction, entertainment keep me from moving forward, I will hold myself accountable. On that note, not much time left… Back to studying.

I almost forgot… My Nemesis.

TEAMGROUP

My workstation (WS) is running out of space, so I bought, which seemed a good deal, a TEAMGROUP 256GB UBS drive and 512GB SSD. I plugged in the 256GB USB drive and started to move my files from my WS. The total for the transfer was 50GB. The transfer got to 35GB and failed. ARGH!!! 🤬 The USB drive would not eject, the computer still saw the drive as being “busy”. I left the WS with the USB for almost twelve hours, in crossing my fingers the transfer would complete. After twelve hours, I tried to eject the USB, I still got a message the device is busy. I shutdown the WS, removed the USB drive, restarted the WS and plugged the USB drive. The USB drive was not recognized. ARGH!!! 🤬 I tried to plug in on another WS. The result was the same, the devices was not recognized. ARGH!!! 🤬 I just lost all those files that were transferred. ARGH!!! 🤬 I tired to mount on a Linux system and the drive is not recognized. ARGH!!! 🤬

So I decided to test the 512GB SSD. The results:
Average writing speed: 78.36 MB/s
Data OK: 476.91 GB (1000161310 sectors)
Data LOST: 8.24 MB (16866 sectors)
Corrupted: 51.00 KB (102 sectors)
Slightly changed: 0.00 Byte (0 sectors)
Overwritten: 8.19 MB (16764 sectors)
Average reading speed: 237.13 MB/s

The drive is brand new and has bad sectors. 😱

I Google’d if bad sectors on an SSD drive can be repaired or marked bad:

No, bad sectors on an SSD generally cannot be repaired; once a sector becomes bad, the drive’s firmware automatically marks it as unusable and redirects data to a good sector, effectively “hiding” the bad sector rather than fixing it; if you notice a significant number of bad sectors, it’s usually a sign that your SSD is failing and needs to be replaced.

I tried running the same test on PNY64GB USB drive:
Average writing speed: 8.75 MB/s
Data OK: 57.76 GB (121133312 sectors)
Data LOST: 0.00 Byte (0 sectors)
Corrupted: 0.00 Byte (0 sectors)
Slightly changed: 0.00 Byte (0 sectors)
Overwritten: 0.00 Byte (0 sectors)
Average reading speed: 37.43 MB/s

Ran a test on a Kingston M.2 drive:
Data OK: 931.48 GB (1953455616 sectors)
Data LOST: 0.00 Byte (0 sectors)
Corrupted: 0.00 Byte (0 sectors)
Slightly changed: 0.00 Byte (0 sectors)
Overwritten: 0.00 Byte (0 sectors)
Average reading speed: 734.70 MB/s

Tested a Western Digital My Passport drive:
Average writing speed: 42.47 MB/s
Data OK: 1.82 TB (1953455616 sectors)
Data LOST: 0.00 Byte (0 sectors)
Corrupted: 0.00 Byte (0 sectors)
Slightly changed: 0.00 Byte (0 sectors)
Overwritten: 0.00 Byte (0 sectors)
Average reading speed: 81.64 MB/s

I exchanged the TEAMGROUP SSD 512GB drive, and ran a test on the replacement drive:
Average writing speed: 79.39 MB/s
Data OK: 476.92 GB (1000171258 sectors)
Data LOST: 2.88 MB (5894 sectors)
Corrupted: 6.00 KB (12 sectors)
Slightly changed: 0.00 Byte (0 sectors)
Overwritten: 2.87 MB (5882 sectors)
Average reading speed: 384.08 MB/s

The reading is much faster on the USB C port than on the USB 3.0 port. But again, brand new drive with bad sectors.

The warranty on the 512GB SSD drive is “3-YEAR” and the USB256 is “LIFETIME WARRANTY”. I do not care about the warranty, I care about my data! The hardware might get replaced, but my data is lost. I just want dependable drive, that when new, does not have bad sectors.

Four things I learned from this time wasting event. First, test the device prior to use. Second, never move data. Copy the data, and once verified, delete the original. Third, backup data. Forth, I get what I pay for, and stay with Western Digital, Kingston, PNY, Lexar and Crucial. Brands that have I have tested and proved to be reliable with no bad sectors.

I have a RAID5 and RAID10 and should have used those to copy the files over to. The hard lessons are always the one that teaches best.

RAIDs are not backups, as all drives will eventually fail. This lesson has thought me that I might have to do a cloud subscription for backup, or get rid of my data 😂.

I would just like to add. I do have two other drives (TEAMGROUP EX2 1TB 3D NAND), which TEAMGROUP no long sells, that are in use and I am unable to test.

🤞(Crossed Fingers)😂