Recently, my IBM Thinkpad T41p has been making a lot of noise with the fan. It sort of whirrs up and down throughout the day. Also, when booting up it was starting to creak when the fan turns on...making a bad churning sort of noise. I figure that's a bad sign. I'm thinking I need to replace the whole computer.

Finally, I slow down enough to wonder if maybe I can just replace the fan. Behold the power of the web. Others have had a similar issue. The fan is a part of the computer we can expect to replace. It was so wonderful to find links like these:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/99157755@N00/2645785841/in/photostream/

http://repair4laptop.org/disassembly_ibm.html which leads to
http://www.insidemylaptop.com/ibm-thinkpad-laptop-displays-fan-error-mes...

http://foolswisdom.com/fan-error/

Plus I found the Hardware Maintenance Manual (HMM) for the T41p:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-4646...

(sometimes the page is not showing up...go to Google to get the cached version of the page.)

I tried calling around Seattle to see if I could pick up a replacement fan today, but apparently that is a bad idea. The one shop that has parts will not sell them. They have to do the replacement for you. I don't have a problem with that, but they were going to take as long to do it as I would so I ordered it online at Thermal FX:

http://store.thermalfx.com

which I trust enough to try because I saw this:

http://zurich.ai.mit.edu/hypermail/thinkpad/2007-02/0182.html

And I just have to add a side note about the local store. The man on the phone had the impression that if they sold parts they would somehow be liable if I broke my own machine while replacing parts. He went on to compare replacing computer parts to brain surgery. I kid you not, he said "Selling parts would be like having a brain surgeon hand you a scalpel..." I did not ask for this from him. I wasn't even pushing on the subject, but he felt compelled to tell me all of this crap. I already know replacing the fan is not that difficult because I found so many descriptions online plus the manual! A fan is not a frontal lobe...let's all keep that in mind (get it..."keep that in mind").

I have to wait for the part now. Currently the machine can still boot, but it won't be long before it fails and shows the lovely "Fan Error" message and nothing else. Just hoping it can hold out till the part arrives.

One last thing, I took the time to open up the machine to make sure I had the correct FRU number. For my T41p it is FRU Fan GL 13N5347.

My module development talk was accepted at DrupalCamp Vancouver 2008. I am presenting later today. The attendees are great. Everyone is focused and having a good time. You can download my example module which I have updated for today's talk.

At Saturday House on April 6, 2008, Gregory Heller and I offered a Drupal introduction session and module development session. More details about the module development session are available at Seattle Drupal Users Group at g.d.o. The test1 module is available below.

MeNotMeth.org launched today. What a great web site project! The focus of the site is a part of a larger campaign discouraging meth use focusing on gay and minority men. As the Technical Lead for this project, I had the chance to direct a team of engineers for configuration, customization, and theming the site.

The team was great and you can learn more about all of the great folks working with CivicActions on the People page.

The project gave me a chance to contribute back to the Drupal community as well. Changes have been committed to several modules:

* Media Mover
* MM FLVTool2 which works with Media Mover to gather meta data from a flash file

Also worked intimately with views for the Community Resources and how to take a CCK type and manipulate it to work like a quiz: Self Assessment.

One of the cool features at The HUB, is the ability to share videos:

which is available on directly on The Hub too: The Hub for Human Rights Media and Action.

media_mover helps to generate video files so you can download them too.

After months of work through CivicActions, The HUB launched on November 7th, 2007. It is a big project, and I am glad I have had the opportunity to be a part of it. Built using Drupal, this site offers complex, social interaction revolving around human rights issues.

My work with CivicActions continues, and I plan on helping out with other great projects like this one.

Thanks to the support of CivicActions and in particular Arthur Foelsche, I contributed my first module to the Drupal community: EXIF Removal Media Mover Module. It's a real pleasure to develop code for the community. This small but useful module removes EXIF data from media files like jpg, jpeg, png formats. Many digital cameras automatically add this information to the image files they create. The data is useful for people who want to manipulate images, but unecessary for files uploaded to a web site. In addition, this module was built to protect the privacy of those who may upload their own images.

The upcoming project, The Hub, for the nonprofit WITNESS is already making making use of this module.

I'm not done yet. I'll be releasing another module that works with Organic Groups in just a little while.

Contributing to the community is a great experience, and I highly recommend it.

Drupalcon is coming to Barcelona, Spain this year from September 19 - 22. My work with CivicActions has given me the opportunity to attend Drupalcon, and I expect it will be exciting and inspiring.

Seattle's local Drupal User Group has been discussing helping the groups.drupal.org site (since we use it quite a bit). I'm hoping we can find others at Drupalcon who are interested in working on the SignUp module, so it could be used by groups.drupal.org. The SignUp ToDo list is our starting point. I'm hoping to create community and support groups.drupal.org at the same time. If you are interested in helping or in the outcome of our work, please keep an eye on the Seattle Drupal User Group.

Recently, two projects I have been working on are using Drupal. Drupal is a content management system which includes plenty of flexibility and extensibility. That means if you want a web site with all the bells and whistles and have it handle your special requirements, Drupal is a great choice. It is easier for web developers to customize than other content management systems. You can have a great web site at a lower cost than building a completely custom web site or application.

Although the Drupal community calls it a content management system, you can also view Drupal as a rich web framework. Learn more about working with Drupal.

With these advantages, it is hard to see why you would not use Drupal. Thoughts to consider when using any software include:

Take the day off on June 29th, 2007 and join us at the Annual DrupalCamp Seattle. Tracks for Developers and Users will be held all day. It's free and it will be relaxed environment encouraging creativity and learning. Learn More.