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While resurrecting a slew of over-the-hill computers from my computer graveyard, I came across an interesting challenge that’s inspired me to catalog the repair. The heat sink to the North Bridge chip popped off because an anchor holding down the spring dislodged itself from the motherboard. I looked online for ways to replace the anchor with the least amount of effort, but couldn’t find anything that didn’t involve soldering. As much as I enjoy removing the entire motherboard from the chassis and soldering electronic components onto a board coated with anti-flux, I opted for an easier, albeit less scientific approach. I hope this post will be helpful to anyone who comes across a similar challenge.

I can say with a fair degree of certainty that the repair method depicted will not be sanctioned by anyone who’ve had the slightest training in basic electronics and logic design, and much less the manufacturers of the motherboard. I’ve tested the hardware after the repair and everything appears to be in working order (hardware and software). Personally, this ghetto repair method was justified for a computer ten-years past its prime.

From time to time, I like to fiddle with the Google Maps API to help me better visualize our world. While working on a project this morning, I learned that the GXml.parse() function used in combination with the markers[i].getAttribute javascript will throw an error if it encounters an ampersand in the xml list. Long story longer, the problem was identified when an entire xml table was not being displayed on the map, and the bug was traced back to the xml, and not the javascript. I’m sure there are ways to validate the input to ensure no special characters exist that will create issues with the program, but that will have to wait for the next revision. For now, just be weary of special characters in your xml data fields if your stuff doesn’t work.

I will be shifting my web-construction focus on a new development called www.RealTaiwan.com for the foreseeable future. From time to time I will continue to post the more personal reflection on this page. In order to get the seeds of progress to germinate on the new website, I will have to do more and reflect less. Regardless, I’m always open to suggestions in life on all projects, past or present. If you feel the urge to communicate with me either via comments or email, do not hesitate a bit. Nothing makes me happier than to hear that a couple of lines of code and pictures thrown together has helped to make the world a better place. Thanks for visiting, and hope to see you again real soon.