I wanted to break out of the Distance Debugging discussion for a moment (to return later today) to highlight a new feature I just added up top, the Distance Debugging Help Desk. In brief, I want to help you fix your problems with computer hardware and software in order to get practice debugging. The only thing I ask in return is that I can post about it, and if you have a blog, that you link back to me if I fix your problem. Anyway, there are a few caveats that are listed in full in the page linked at the top (basically, I can't fix everything, I'm very busy, and please don't sue me), so check that out and then email me at helpdesk (at) distancedebugging.com if you are so inclined.

For one very brief example, I stumbled across Alex Hopmann's Blog a few days ago and he had noted a problem where hard drive accesses caused his computer to slow way down. It just so happened that recently I was investigating problems with DMA on Linux, and although it was a Windows computer, the symptoms were exactly the same. I emailed him and with that clue, as he explains in this post, he was able to resolve it with no trouble and got his laptop much more functional again.

Anyway, I can't guarantee a fix for you would be that simple, but it can't hurt, can it?