So, after being set up by a friend, dishes installed, both STB’s connected, I discovered to my horror that one STB had gone dead. Being a bit of a electronic hobbyist (in a former life), I opened the box, yup, blown fuse. I didn’t have a spare, so I opened an old DVD player and ripped it from there. Blew that quickly. I ordered a selection of fuses (they’re little glass ones, not the kind most have lying about). I decided to pop in a larger fuse and take a look at the circuit as I connected the mains. Nothing like adding power to a failing circuit, bright lights and smoke pointed towards a bit black looking transistor. I removed it, checked it (online you mind, coz physically, this thing was fried, literally). Turned out to be some fancy power supply component. Found it online, and now, I’ve just soldered it back in. And voila! it works once again. Somehow I was amazed, after all, it has been a while since I attempted something like this (nowadays you simply replace the faulty part), but heck, I have a working receiver once again for a fraction of the cost.

The weird thing is, it brought back memories. The first being that of distrust, you sort of tend to watch the box for new signs of failure (smoke, smell etc…) It being never completely off doesn’t help . The second is that of wonder, you have this collection of dead black, silver copper things on a green board doing nothing. You poke around with some black box with a couple of silver legs and a soldering iron and suddenly, lights light up, tv shows a picture. It brings back the sense of magic I first felt when I had made my first crystal radio. I had carefully constructed the most simple radio, no batteries, and connected it all up and wow, I heard music. Literally pulling the sound out of the sky. Of course nowadays, it’s encrypted byte streams and you need quite a bit of power to make it work, but to see something like that come back to life by your own doing is still special. So, with my ego now fully praised I just had to show off…

Other Posts in August 2010

When you’re in the city, and at your point of reference, start the GPS, wait for it to lock (yeah, you might still need to have something to eat while it acquires a position) and save the current location. You can then walk, bus, metro off in any direction, and be assured you will find your way back as if you’ve been living there all your life. What’s more, feel tired, need a bite to eat, you can punch up shops, restaurants etc.. close by within a minute. And it really is fun, you get to go places you’d never see otherwise.

I still would like the Nokia to lock quicker, however, once it does lock, it holds position very well. The phone seems better in locking if you can muster the patience to stay put while it looks for the satellites, and of course, clear view of the skies helps. But it offers solid navigation, free maps for all time, of all places (that fact alone entices me to stay with Nokia, it’s better than the alternatives once you consider the map quality outside the US). I also found out that making the effort of lugging my DSLR around is worth it, the versatility of the camera is so much better than a compact, but this is not new. Perhaps I’ll write about that later..

Now I have a working E55 for local use, a 2710 for travel, I’m looking for a less bulky replacement for my HTC Touch Cruise (the original model). I require touch screen, GPS (with something as good as Ovi Maps) and an essential: Outlook mail and calendar synchronisation. There’s plenty of phones, but so far, the Nokia N8 seems to fit best on paper. But (why is there always a but), several reviews mention the user cannot replace the battery. I have mixed experiences with Nokia batteries, some are pretty bad. The idea I cannot replace a part that tends to wear quickly (my E55 currently runs best on a non nokia battery) bothers me. Or is just me resisting the way of the future? I know this is close to silly to ask, but if anyone has a good phone suggestion, please mail me. It has to be thin, nice screen, touch screen, GPS, 3G, last some time on a battery and sync with outlook. Bonus points for a wide selection of free applications, parts and funky low level software availability. I like Symbian, but Android is fine also, Windows Mobile less so. I really like the Samsung AMOLED display, but their GPS software worries me. European door to door is a must!

Other Posts in August 2010

Windows out of the box includes no real protection to speak of, virus scanners are something Microsoft have not managed to establish a name for themselves, and a firewall did appear in Windows XP, but it would be fair to say that the term firewall could be disputed. What is a firewall? Apart from a mechanical blockage intended to keep fire away, in IT it is used to describe software that controls who/what talks to who/what. Nowadays firewalls are quite valuable, seeing the largest threat to your PC is all sorts of nasty software that tries to gather information and convey this through secret channels to someone without your best interest at heart. In some way, shape or form, some software tries to connect to another computer and use that connection to do harm.

Trying to set up a connection can be done by forcing the lock as it where, your computer accepts connections from other machines. Another option is to bribe a trusted party to open the door from the inside and let the nasty in that way, your computer allows you to connect to another machine. A firewall tries to ensure this is safe by alerting you to unexpected activity. It is governed by rules, and if the rules say alert, it alerts, if the rules say allow, it is allowed and if the rules say refuse, the connection is refused. The trick of course is how to determine the right rules, and are there any tricks that allow you to bypass the firewall (instead of picking the lock of the locked door, easier to look for an unlocked door).

Commonly you can filter on tech stuff (ports, protocols), you can identify safe locations (all the pc’s on your own network) and of course who is connecting (some applications are given freedom, some are not). There are some ways in which things can be automated (for instance you trust the software and the software is then allowed to instruct the firewall as to what connections it needs). Whilst a lot of firewalls (and some of them are free!) exist, a lot are also easily fooled into letting someone pass. And you can be sure that the ones that try are really nasty. The problem all firewalls face is how to instruct a potentially IT illiterate person on how to decide if a request is safe or not.

So, knowing all this, where to we look? Here!, Matousec is the firewall test site that doesn’t go for the bonus points of the used colour scheme, but does tell you how it came to these results without some of the more crummy test criteria. What you will notice is that some firewall’s consistently score well. So, do they pay Matousec? Not as far as I know, but they do take notice of the tests and they do try so fix any leaks that are found. And the best performing products don’t have to cost you a lot of money, in fact, the two best are free. It also shows that vendors in this market are varied, just read their responses and you’ll quickly see who is actually selling you security and who is just into the selling.

Another observation is that this is Windows only territory, of course, given the numbers. Those using Linux can find ample DIY packages to quickly get a very powerful firewall (which is probably already installed) up and running. As Apple decided to use a free unix as the base for their OS-X, in principle, they can do the same as Linux users. To do nothing can be foolish. Although you can negate a lot of risk by implementing certain policies, the truth is that for a majority of the PC owners with a internet connection, this is beyond either their ability or worth their time. And without proper thought, you can expect a probing inbound connection within a day. The firewall that protects my own home network is probed on average 20+ times each single day. There is no response, but it is logged and checked. The last four probes where on ports 80, 135 and 445 and occurred in the 15 mins I spent writing this.

So the simple conclusion, if you have no clue, get a firewall and go here to find out what to get.

Stay safe.

Other Posts in May 2010

My verdict:

The good

• GPS works, maps all over the world
• Phone works well
• Good battery life
• The alarm powers up even when switched off

The bad

• GPS is sometimes very slow to acquire a lock, as if you need have internet to load up sat positions
• it won’t charge on USB alone
• Ignoring the alarm for one minute shuts it up, when doesn’t this thing auto-repeat?

The ugly

• not the most sturdy, the front panel is already cracked, but not the screen behind it
• parts aren’t available (yet)

I think if Nokia would give an app that will allow you to preload sat positions before flying off, this would be a big plus. And why it requires that silly thing Nokia charger connection is beyond me. It has USB, but won’t charge on a USB charger. It’s bad enough Nokia has so many different sockets, my E55 uses a micro USB (which differs from the mini USB found a most smartphones), the 2710 uses the thin connector and I still have one older one that uses the original fat connector. Don’t these people realise that airport security don’t like it when they see my handluggage with all these chargers, wires etc… I tend to register as a walking gadget shop going through security.

And I’m hoping that the parts bit clears up soon, the crack doesn’t look nice, even if it is purely cosmetic

Other Posts in June 2010

1. The motherboard. Some of them are simply not stable. My first was crap, my second was great.
2. The battery, especially the performance at 50% to 0% charge is important. I run a non Nokia battery and it keeps my E55 happy for at least 3 days, with bluetooth on, email polling on and UMTS.
3. Heat. Want you’re E55 to get unstable, just put it somewhere it gets warm (> 37 deg. Centigrade). It crashes quite reliably

The great thing about the E55 is the battery life, the feature set and the Ovi Maps. World wide, speech assisted and free forever. Might not worry Garmin or Tom Tom just right now, but at this price point, and a few upgrades, the shape of things to come.

Because I really like the map thing, I recently decided to add another phone to my arsenal. A Nokia 2710. It is no UMTS (so none of that expensive roaming shit to worry about), but it is a quad band, lasts well on a battery, isn’t big and, it has Ovi Maps It is destined to become my travel phone of choice and offer me a moment of nerdness, when I pass security with 3 phones.

I’ve not tried the 2710 yet, but I am sure to report on it’s use soon, once my travel plans are final that is.

Other Posts in June 2010

Partially, the big downside is they tend to take out others as well.

Leave out the bomb and just commit suicide, do us all a favour.

Other Posts in May 2010

You could say that those that died had more luck, not having to live with the pain. But then, dying is hardly something to describe as a lucky situation. Besides, luck has nothing to do with it, it’s a certainty. But imagine the biggest tragedy of all, those that were apart and not being too friendly, determined to make up once they got together. The idea of having to live with a ‘if I only had…..’ seems almost the biggest torture of all. It does mean that you should never delay in showing affection to those you love, if shit happens, at least it happens without the need to turn time back, which, the last time I checked, is still somewhat tricky.

So the next time you get hit by transport delays, some financial mishap, just think, it doesn’t really matter. Nobody who called home during the 9/11 attacks called their bank to make quick investment, all called the ones that matter, to make sure the last message was one that said, I like you. Don’t delay that message, ever.

Peace….

Other Posts in May 2010

This time, I thought I was prepared, I had a new hard disk, downloaded the new firewall software and had a printout of the settings of the current one. As I wanted to upgrade the internet side of things, seeing it was using a very old 10Mb NIC (Network Interface Card), which prevents me upgrading the internet bandwidth, I want to exchange that card for a new one.

Opened the Firewall, surprise one, it already had 2 hard disks (my reasoning was, I’ll slot in a new hard disk and then if disaster strikes, I’d have a working old firewall to return to). So, first thing, connect that hard disk and start the installation. Because of all the many improvements, I couldn’t do an in place upgrade, so this was basically setting up one from scratch. The second hard disk that was already in, seemed to come from some other computer, so I shut down, installed the new NIC and started with configuration. Within 10 mins the basic installation seemed ok and was moved onto the hard disk. After some configuration, everything worked, I added most of the customisation of the previous firewall and I thought, job well done and went to have dinner.

So before sleeping, I decided to clean up the open case, various computer bits scattered around my firewall, so I closed the case, cleaned up etc… AND disaster struck! Internet went off. I rebooted the firewall, and it basically told me that the ISP was not providing me with the configuration info. This happens at times, and usually it comes back up in an hour or so. I waited more than an hour or so, still no internet. The next morning I woke up early (I hate it when things don’t work) and still no internet. The local LAN was working perfectly, the configuration of the firewall checked out. So, I finally decided to use my trusty T600e, and try to see what was going wrong on the ISP side of things (for those that don’t know, my firewall sits between my computer and the Internet Service Provider, it is the ISP that connects my firewall to internet). And guess, no problem, it got the configuration info and reported an all clear.

So, the NIC that was trying to connect to the ISP was now a clear suspect (finding computer faults is a lot like detective work I think). So I tried to swap the cards in the configuration and voila, ISP connection came up easily. But there was no internet…. I discovered a new feature of the firewall, a small display that showed the traffic stats. Seemed all traffic going through my suspect was failing. So, ripped a NIC from a dormant computer and tried that. Bingo, it all worked. So with one NIC heading to the scrapheap, my firewall upgraded (still minor tweaking to be done), internet has been restored. And I can enjoy Satellite TV as well. Better still, I have found a practical use for my very old upgraded laptop, so that investment has saved me from embarrassing myself with the ISP helpdesk and I’m ready for a speed increase. That’s all good, but just goes to show you, I’ve seen many computer parts fail, but this is my first NIC to appear to work (lights, sound), but still not work (so lights, sounds but no music). Murphy was right, but why is it that what does fail is what is usually least likely to fail, seems a contradiction in terms…

Other Posts in April 2010

Unfortunately, most reviews you’ll find out there are somewhat, what’s the word…. crap. Some are paid advertorials, others use clever criteria such as user friendliness to favour the snazzy screen over the better working application. In fact, a good user interface for this kind of software is the one you never really see. Low number of false positives (Oops I see a virus that isn’t one) is great to keep the blood pressure low, quick to scan, low usage of resources and reliable updating should mean the software sits in your tray and only shows its interface once a bad guy is detected.

So where the info? My all time favourite is AV-Comparatives. It is independent (and supplies quite a few publications with the raw info) and explains clearly how it tests and scores. Policy means I can’t give you anything but their main URL, but look for comparatives and you should quickly hit on the latest tests. Another is Virus Bulletin. You have to register to see the results, but it is free. It awards a VB100 to the products that detect 100% ITW virusses. ITW? Yeah, it’s short for In The Wild viruses, the ones you actually might get hit by. Most scan software producers have larger sets of variations, and it is debatable if there is merit to finding more. In my experience, the chances of getting hit by a virus are low and then it’s only a subset of the ITW set anyway. But, it does depend on your PC habits. Macro viruses, all sorts of nasty malware can be damaging and if swap out files with others, it is simply just good etiquette to ensure you’re not the one spreading stuff. And for those in IT, there’s no excuse. You cannot claim to be a professional and send out a virus through email. If you’re that sloppy, why would a client give you information that some malware would love to have. Trust in these matters is very important.

So, a good scanner should achieve a VB100 award, simply do not consider any scanner that doesn’t. Then check it out to see if the other bits of scanner match what you want, i.e. is it fast, does it detect a lot of false positives. After that, go and check the vendor’s site. Paying makes life easy, you get more features and the software is more likely to remain silent and not pop up some ad of sorts telling how bloody brilliant their free software is, but pay ‘m and it gets better. For me, I like to include a good email scanner, seeing the number of spam that loves to include nasty attachments. But as they say YMMV.

One word on AVG, which is usually praised to Kingdom come on the various discussion groups. I have used it, it tends to good, then bad as if on a sinus rhythm. But it is not the best. And realise that all free scanners will require you register, sometimes require you to update the software yourself, pop up an ad or two and redo the whole install process every year. AVG and Awill offer the more well known ones, but there are others. By nature, the ones you buy are more fire-and-forget, except when you’re license is about to expire. In any case, there’s no excuse, money or no money to not kit out your pc with a good virus scanner, just don’t trust everyone giving you good info. Really, if you read something like “I installed scanner A and have had any alarm for months, so it is good” you know, good intentions aside, it would mean exactly the same had this person not said anything.

Other Posts in April 2010

Note that first McAfee are saying that consumers are not affected, apart from not being able to agree or disagree on this, realise that in order to fix this, you need a second PC. The affected machine won’t boot, as a core component has been effectively removed from the PC. And how does the supplier respond, by using the internet. If consumers are affected, how many would have more than one pc, and if so, and using McAfee, would they not protect all their pc’s with the same software?

If you’re a PC support person, I am glad I’m not, first you need to find a pc that doesn’t have the update (which, given how some companies deploy these updates, might not be as easy), download the fix (assuming the pc’s hooking you up to internet didn’t get affected) and then run around (because you need physical access) fixing every single pc. Not as easy, just read this. Not only does it admit a programming error, just look at what you have to do, and that’s if the pc hasn’t already been hit, in which case you probably need to break out this XP images, which then might require re-patching that particular file later on.

Given the cost of this for any company affected, why isn’t McAfee rushing repair disks by courier to it’s corporate clients? Of course, licenses will say that McAfee isn’t liable, but I’ve known of the ability of a new DAT file to disrupt a stable situation for years. The virus software is, in its structure, vulnerable to bad updates, which have a greater fall-out effect than most others I know of (they stop working, but don’t chop down the OS). This means that in my opinion, they should have procedures in place that test for these things. Of course, this kind of software isn’t easy to write, but McAfee have been writing this stuff for years and seeing the numbers affected, it’s something easy detected in a test scenario.

See, even if your ass doesn’t get dragged into court, people who buy stuff from you have one weapon to wield, always, they can stop buying. Personally I’m not overly impressed by Symantec’s offer, but their corporate scanner is actually pretty good, not the same level of bloat as their consumer version and high detection rates. And in my years of experience, it has never taken the operating system down. So I’m guessing that Symantec’s sales department is currently quite excited, now what if they could write a letter to all the McAfee users and include disk to repair and replace? Methinks there would quite a few takers.

So all in all, even if this wasn’t intended as a virus, the cost of repair and disruption to customers is of similar proportion, so exactly the opposite of why people have virus scanners in the first place. And from the reaction, even a high-tech company like McAfee have become lulled into a state of making the users to all the hard work and not showing some appreciation for the gravity of this. Sometimes it helps to treat your customers as humans, and not just an IP address.

Other Posts in April 2010

I needed a laptop to test a new WiFi I put up. It’s a Fonera network and I didn’t want to set it up on my laptops that use my private WiFi. So, remembering I had a 600E lying around doing nothing, I wanted to use that. So I downloaded Ubuntu, installed, popped in a WiFi card (PCMCIA style) and voila, a working laptop capable of testing the network. It has a whopping amount of memory (266MB!), a enormous hard disk (10.1GB!), but it does work. It runs the latest version of a proper operating system. I love this about Linux, it doesn’t just require you to use the latest and greatest hardware, it allows the use of modern software on the older stuff as well.

The trouble is that the harddisk conked out, rattles, bad sectors, it all spells diaster ahead. So I got me a 16GB SSD, figuring it fits the robustness of the 600E best (and allowing me to up the disk size a little). So today I re-installed Ubuntu on it, found out that TDK CD-R’s are still not the best, but after burning the image on a cheapo CD-R, it did install.

The only thing Ubuntu doesn’t get right is the sound card, which frankly I find amazing. Overall IBM/Lenovo laptops are the best choice for running Linux, thanks to IBM’s support I guess. So, right out of the box it works almost 100%, both the wired and wireless network cards are recognised and used.

Sound is somewhat trickier, but I followed the instructions you can find here and it worked perfectly. My old 600E is up and running, and it works better than ever. Is it fast? No, not exactly, it feels a little slower than my EEE 901 running Vista, but not by that much. Running apps takes a little patience, but the SSD helps in this respect, being a bit quicker than the original hard disk. Equipped with the SSD the 600E makes for an excellent though computer to take with you. If it breaks, no big deal, it can access the internet, Linux is probably the best operating system for this, internet is the fabric of it’s existence. I can install WiFi sniffers, check network performance, the thing even runs some useful software, games etc… It feels like a perfect match for the task. Just like I’m doing now, typing this entry from my 600E and enjoying the keyboard, which beats my Compaq NX9420 or EEE 901 by a very wide margin. The screen is more usable than the EEE 901′s odd resolution, so it’s a keeper. Perhaps I need to explore this a little more, get a more recent compact IBM laptop, add a SSD, up the memory and run Ubuntu and use it instead of the EEE? Hmmm, the EEE is however the perfect traveller, SSD, runs for a long time and doesn’t require me to take along anything extra for using gigabit, Wifi N, a webcam. The EEE also plays video’s, my 600E struggles to play internet radio and do something else.

But the raw commandline power of Linux is hard to beat, especially in troubleshooting situations. Considering the age of the box and youth of the sofware, I think it’s amazing, and just one way why you should consider Linux, not being a memory hog, but fully able to use that excess horsepower if your box happens to have it.

Other Posts in April 2010

Oops 2
A boy is skinny dipping in a local lake. As he swims to shore to dry off, he notices a girl sitting close to his pile of clothes. He spots an old bucket, holding the old bucket in front of him he approaches the girl. She’s reading a book, “What are you reading” he says, trying to be as casual as possible. “A book on mind reading” she answers a little flushed. “For instance, I can tell what you’re thinking right now. You think that that old bucket still has a bottom”.

Other Posts in March 2010

Well, my PC has 2 new, fully operational DVD burners, my Wifi has not deserted me (well actually….), my Fonera has started to work, all the other pc’s have been maintained. Life is good.

Is there nothing to bitch about? Well of course, my company’s laptop decided to disconnect from my WiFi again. Despite being told that it works fine, and it was Vista to blame by me IT support people. Quelle surprise, it doesn’t work fine, and it was not Vista. I’ve solved that by using a USB WiFi n adaptor, not a crappy 150Mpbs one, no, a 300Mpbs one as well. Suddenly the channels are reported correctly and it connects properly every time. I could also bitch that a very old laptop I have (IBM T 600e), has a clunky hard disk, but I don’t use it a lot anyway and I’ve ordered a SSD to replace the hard drive. And one of my PC’s case fan’s broke, but all of this is quite minor. It certainly doesn’t disrupt my day to day usage, and I think at times it is good to take note of the good times. After all, once I put a new case fan in, being a easy and simple task, we all know what’s going to happen.

Other Posts in March 2010

So I wondered, is the battery to blame? I’ve ordered a couple of spares. The first one lasted longer than ever before a full 3+ days. And during which, not a single crash. I also heard the low battery alarm the E55 has, another first. When I got home, I popped in the old battery (which was charged), and the phone crashed three times within the hour. Now this is nothing conclusive, but where there’s smoke, you could imagine there being fire. Nokia’s track record on batteries isn’t the best there is, and I think my battery is simply a dud, having trouble with the way the E55 places demands on the battery. The replacement (which is an original Nokia), was very different.

So I’ve dumped the old battery, banned it from my E55 and I will see if this makes a difference. But for those with an E52 or E55 that seems less than reliable, perhaps you should try another BP-4L, this is a very common Nokia battery and you can pick up on Ebay for very little money. Meanwhile, I’ll report here on what my next experience/hunch is with the E55. And if you wonder, why doesn’t he junk this one, the answer is simple, it has all the specs I want in a phone, has everything bar a touch screen, small form factor, and good stamina for a smartphone at a reasonable price point. When it works, I adore this phone. And other than that, I can’t stand not being able to find the reasons for its sometime erratic behaviour. So, until next time…

Other Posts in February 2010

Astute readers might remark, why is PATA old? It sounds faster…. Yeah, in principle you might be right, but in fact, once you get to certain speeds (transporting all these signals), it doesn’t quite hold true, transporting 40 signals at once, without error is a lot harder than 1, once you get to a certain speed. Think of it controlling 3 noisy children in a car, stopped it is easy, crawling it quickly becomes a risk of running into to something, on a motorway there’s no choice, if they resort to physical violence, you will just have to hope they’re roughly matched, any attention given would cause death of all in the car.

And there’s money, easier connector, simpler cables means less cost, more margin. Chips get cheaper/quicker/better, connectors and cables remain costly in comparison, so savings here add up.

Anyway, I have a old computer, it supports both. I wanted to replace one of my DVD burners with a new one, but PATA is costly and SATA dead cheap on every shop corner. Overjoyed I had SATA, even a cable I went and bought a SATA DVD burner. Easy to put in, but as always with computers, when switched off you can’t tell brilliance from a fire hazard waiting for power. I switched on, made the adjustments and waited. Vista booted, and even informed me that device drivers were being installed. It could tell me what the drive could do, I could even open the drive by telling Vista to open it. Wow, if everything was this simple. Well, all breathe a sigh of relief, it wasn’t that simple. See the drive worked, at least did everything it should do, bar 2, it would not read a single disc and burning, well it could tell me there was an empty disc in, but bash, clank and wallop. PATA never gave me this aggravation, never had this weirdness, it worked, or not. Computers are all about only on/off, so what’s with this works a bit?

So, thinking my cheap purchase was a dud, I got a new drive, got a different cable, but nothing helped. About to wish for the PC to indeed become a fully automated match stick, I turned to our friend Google. Turned out that my old computer might be the problem, or rather, the choice for a chip from a certain manufacturer. I was stumped, see way back, say 10 years ago, USB was a little more unpredictable than now. Currently I can hook a large number of USB devices without much problems, but 10 years ago you needed USB ports with different chips vendors because device one would only work properly with one chip, another device would only function with another chip. This is exactly the sort stuff USB was designed to solve. It did, but not after selling gazillions of units that made it worse.

Turns out SATA is the same, once I got my SATA interface card with a DIFFERENT chip vendor, installed it, both drives work well. Vista didn’t even need a driver disc, it identified the chip and downloaded the right driver, just as for the other chip. One works with my DVD drives, one doesn’t. What amazes me is that all these IT vendors have no trouble selling us stuff that essentially, doesn’t do what it should, and somehow get away with it. Imagine buying a car, driving off and coming back telling the dealer that after changing tires, the tires keep coming off. The dealer will kindly inform you that this is to expected, it’s a new model car and only one brand of tires will stay one. If you want a car with wheels that accept all brands, please buy the latest model. I know it sounds completely deranged, but this is what computer vendors do, and have been doing for years.

Seeing I earn a living using these things, I don’t know if I should be happy that understanding this black magic stuff is one of the reasons there’s a living to made, or that I should bow my head in shame. But, wait, I do software, so unless it’s proven to be a driver problem, I can blame the hardware and hold my head up high as I use hardware problems as a reason to ask more money. But, it seems an oddly flawed way out, where did I go wrong, hmm, to much trouble to work it out, I’ll just wait for the next version, the next version is always better

Other Posts in March 2010

Canada, after losing to the US in the first round matches had to progress the hard way. It seems a lot of champion teams have to have one rough match before winning, but to me, that was Canada’s uninspired performance in their match against Switzerland. But they scraped through, only to loose to the US in a thrilling game. From there on in, something changed in the team, they fought every match without reserve, only to win. Against the Russians it was simply amazing, I’ve never seen such a powerful display of hockey superiority. But the final, wow, it had it all, and I loved the match, the level of play, and of course the result. But it has to be said, the Americans played well, and the match would not have been such an awesome display of the beauty of hockey if they had not given as much as they did. It is so easy sometimes, especially when your favourite wins, to forget that a match is only a match when both teams play with a deep desire to win. Too often a good game is squandered because of tactics, or other interests. Hockey is not a game that lends itself to these things, and both teams showed what happens when you go all out, with 18.000 fans supporting loudly playing the most spectacular game there is.

And something else I noticed, 18.000 fans, US and Canadian fans, showing their support, all mixed together, the referees were part Canadian, and despite the heavy checking, nothing, just enjoying a good game. I like soccer, I really do, but this would not happen in soccer, pity.

Other Posts in March 2010

I have migrated email clients a couple of times, having tried agent, but finding it slow to add real email handling, then one I really liked, Calypso, which turned into Courier (you can find mention of both easily on a search engine, but the official last post of the product is here). I loved it, but it was Win95′ish product, large mailbox’s (all mail and attachments where kept in one big file) tended to confuse the software, and because of lack of support by the license holder, it faded into obscurity. There’s still a sizeable number of die hard fans out there, but when I moved the mail again, I noticed it’s format was not well supported. So it required an additional converter (commercial stuff, so $$$) to move all my mails. So, I considered several options, but in the end, the level of activity and it’s unparalleled ability to be customised (which is a combination of allowing plug-ins and the availability of plug-ins) swayed me towards Thunderbird. It also uses a very widely supported mail box format, which makes it easy to get hold of the data.

So after settling for Thunderbird some time ago, I’m now at a point there’s so much email, it is taking some time to index, compact etc…. What I really wanted to do, was to move the older mails off-line with very little effort on my side. Of course, moving stuff back was also a must. I looked at loads of products, and most sort of did a full backup, sometimes with a restore, sometimes not. But all seemed like a lot work to set-up in a way that suited me. Thunderbird’s own archive function seemed also not quite what I wanted, because archiving is bound to an account, and I want it to be bound on the location where I’ve stored it.

After some searching I came across MailStore Home. For private use, free, and there’s a corporate version for big boys. It suits me perfectly, my only gripe is that it doesn’t allow storing your mail store on a network disk (for logical reasons, I’d like it to be on my NAS). But moving older mails was just too easy, you start mail store, tell it import mails older than say, 1–1−2007, watch it work, then search all mails in the Thunderbird older than 1–1−2007, and Ctrl-A, delete, all moved. It took me very very little effort, I can restore the mail to Thunderbird, or search, view it from the store. Well recommended! It simply offloads older stuff without me having to go through hoops to access it on those rare occasions I need to.

So after this excursion into IT housekeeping, I suppose my next post should be on the E55 again, after, don’t won’t to break a habit, do we?

Other Posts in February 2010

But this has to be the weirdest phone I’ve ever had, it hibernates like I’ve not seen any electronic device. So last update, it’s not the battery, perhaps it’s my particular phone, but the latest saga goes as follows: I could upgrade (over the air) the firmware, and even though the last attempt fried the phone, I tried it, and it worked. (so perhaps the new battery did do some good?) A couple of days later, the update still thought it needed to apply the firmware it had applied, but ok. I tried looking at some pictures I had on the memory card (yeah, I know, it gets a little draining at work and my girl friend’s picture really puts some energy back into me), and poof….. dead. I switched it back on, all well, tried again, and poof….. This time nothing. I went through my usual routine of removing the battery, inserting it, trying to power on more times than I care to admit. Nothing. I actually went back to my Motorola Z8 (which, if it would last more than a day on a charge, is a little bulky, but an excellent phone). At some point I managed to dig out the Nokia service manuals, I took mine apart, re-assembled it, and still nothing. It would not react, once, only once, it buzzed briefly.

Now taking all the parts apart isn’t usually a good way to fix things, so after learning how it is put together, and it still being dead as a doornail, I bought a second hand E55. Why, because the E72, the only alternative really, is bigger, more expensive, and uses pretty much the same software and hardware, and does not suffer from the same stuff as the E55. So I figured, mine’s a dud, another might not be and is the cheapest option anyway, seeing I need the phone.

So I found a good second hand one (figuring, now I know how it is put together, I can easily fit a new exterior, I need the motherboard!!). No points for guessing that within an hour of charging the new E55, the old one suddenly came back to life. It reports everything’s fine, no new updates, it shows all the pictures, I simply can’t fault it. It has switched off once, at night, but since then, nothing. Not even an embarrassing moment during calls. Nothing. So, bold as I am, I’ve upgraded the second one to the latest firmware (using the PC, I’m not chancing it a third time), so now I have two working E55′s. But it remains a mystery, why does it die for days, only to spring back to life like nothing happened. The Nokia documentation does mention using cold sprays to check for heat issues (and to junk the motherboard if it checks out, supporting my idea that there’s something not always working out in the hardware department). But really, after 24hours, it’s cooled down, trust me. It’s not mechanical (I measured the on/off switch, it works fine), the power’s there. But still, dead one moment, fully functional the next. I have to wonder, has Nokia added some organic component? And I just happen to have one that tires easily?

So latest status, all’s well, latest firmware, still no final conclusion on why my E55 does the things it does, and a lot of kudos to Nokia for Maps 3.0, it’s so cool to have lifelong updates of map from around the world. Now just one request (apart from the phone not crashing on me ), Nokia, please add a toggle all auto-internet traffic on/off? My normal provider fools the phone (not only this one, all phones) into thinking it is already roaming. With the latest map updates, this thing would make such an excellent travelling phone, but I don’t want to trawl through several options when I do. I was thinking of getting a 2710 for travelling, it’s cheap, does have sat nav, but, it is only dual band. Again, Nokia, you come so close, make it a quad band, give the same 3.0 Map treatment and call it a 2720, I’m buying!!!

One thing I have noticed with my E55, I’ve learnt how to dismantle and re-assemble the phone, I have a source for some interesting documentation, software and firmware, and far too many things to blog about. Never a dull moment, I guess.

Other Posts in February 2010

I think it is funny, true, and somewhat sobering.

Other Posts in February 2010

Reading through a list of some of the species that are a Lazarus taxon, I noticed we also have a Elvis taxon. A what? well, it appears that sometimes species go extinct, but re-appear. The biggie is that the living thing looks like the thing you found as a fossil, but it’s a different species. Why Elvis? Well, since the poor man died, so many have claimed he lives, and so many have tried to show they are him. But nothing beats the original, then, does it?

Elvis appreciation aside, there’s more, a Zombie taxon. This is a fossil on the move, and thereby fooling all these ground digging/sniffing scientists, thinking it’s much younger than it actually is.

I thought that was pretty interesting stuff, in particular I liked the Elvis taxon, because it shows that evolution is simply an amazing mechanism, it’s so flexible that it will come up with a similar answer to similar circumstances (mind you, I’m speculating a little here). It also shows that life itself is much resilient to changes to our world. So while man might go extinct, and the earth will get eaten up by the sun, until then, chances are life will continue. If it can survive moving all our continents around, surely it can handle a little rise in temperature or CO₂.

And finally, who would have guessed, there’s humour in a fossil

Other Posts in February 2010

But this week, suddenly, it decided to not even maintain a connection with my access point. I’ve had that before, a SMC access point would not hold connection, but that time it was with both laptops, so I replaced the the access point (it is really a majority vote this troubleshooting thing). This time, my EEE 901 was having no trouble in keep a solid connection, but with my HP, 10 secs on, 2 mins off. So I decided to try a SMC USB WiFi dongle, and that worked well. After that I decided to report a wonky WiFi card. This being a corporate laptop, we have a support guy who checked it out by putting a XP image on (yeah, officially it’s XP on this laptop, but as I’m an IT guy myself, I tend to install what I want ).

Of course no problems, which was hardly surprising. But he said, try Win 7, solved my problems. As chance would have it (well, actually, hardly chance, more prediction really) I had acquired a Win 7 key to be used on my laptop from my unit a month or so before. Anyway, this weekend I found the reason to actually migrate.

As with most Microsoft Operating System installs, it never really is quite next→next→finish. And this was no different. It first checked the pc, reported that some programs would not be migrated. But, instead of disabling them for me, it wanted me to remove them, reboot and try again. So I did, but I only remember a couple, so after rebooting and trying again, it said, still some left. But this time apparently it did not mean I actually had to do anything, because the same buttons now made the Windows 7 install proceed.

After quite some time it did reboot, and Windows 7 was here. Some bits didn’t work yet, windows update quickly fixed that. So now I have Windows 7. Is it faster than Vista?, not really. Does it look better than Vista?, slightly. Most notable improvement is the task bar, not prone to as much clutter. There are most likely loads of things I still have to discover, but it all seems to working, the migration of the software worked, and most importantly, WiFi works again. But the option of having seperate task bars is gone, and my WiFi card still does not report the right channel, but if Vista managed to hang in there for 2 years before it breaking, I should be good until the next laptop

What I find a quite amusing how Microsoft sells us evolution as revolution. Time and time again….. Remember Win 3.0? It was hailed as the best innovation of it’s day, and to some extent it was, it made much better use of hardware. It was followed by Win 3.1, which silently actually added significant 32-bit code (3.0 was a 16-bit thingie) additions. When Win 95 hit the market, it was said to be totally new, but in fact it was more a good looking Win 3.1 with the 386 additions. It was an amazingly complex system running 16-bit in real and protected mode and 32 bits bits, all tied together. Not a big surprise it was quite easy to blow up. Bad DOS could take down the 32bit engine, and vice versa. It was like one error had triple the chances of corrupting things. Nonetheless, Microsoft kept slightly improving it (well, improving), Win98, Win98SE, WinME, until even Microsoft seemed to realise that this was heading in a wrong way.

Meanwhile, the real revolution was the NT. Unlike the consumer stuff, this was a pure 32-bit system, 16-bit was run using an virtual machine running inside the 32bit environment, and not being a native part of the operating system. Gradual improvements saw it go from 3.5, 3.5.1 and finally to NT 4. The latter saw a little attempt to improve screen performance, which was done by moving the graphical engine into the kernel. This gave it more power, but unfortunately, also increased the chance of a blow up. Blue Screen of Death became a common phrase thanks to NT 4, just like the Win95 line, whilst successful, also introduced the term ‘three finger salute’ (FYI, this is Ctrl-Alt-Delete, to reset the computer). NT 4 was followed by 2000, again, not a revolution, just another gradual improvement. After Win95 and NT 4.0, nothing really exciting happened. Sure, new features, better looking, but nothing really shocking.

Then XP!!!!! But again, whilst it looked a lot better like previous versions, was it a lot more stable?…. Yes if you managed to live with Win ME before, no if you worked with Win2000. XP → Vista, again Microsoft made it look better, and managed to move most settings to new locations, but the only real new thing was Aero. For the first time the OS require serious power (using 3D graphics) to look good. Now Win 7, really a repeat of moves I’ve seen before from Microsoft. But silently, something special is happening, Windows 7 is the first to have a good working 64-bit version. Of course, the revolution is quite hidden, the evolution is being pawned off as the revolution. I sort of wonder, most IT people know this pattern well, Microsoft people, being more intelligent than a lot give ‘m credit for, also know this. It is only time before people in marketing and those buying catch up. So one hint to those from Microsoft, Windows 8, call it Windows 7.1 and get rid of the monolithic kernel, make it a micro kernel, un-crashable, capable of reloading rogue drivers, unloading when not needed. Don’t tell anyone, mature with Windows 7.2 and when you give a fresh look, call it Windows 8 and shout revolution!!!!! Of course no one believes you any more, but we will have had our revolution and admit it, seeing marketing trying to call a new native skin a revolution is fun!

But for now, Windows 7 looks good, it using exactly the same amount of memory, I have the exact same experience index, but as with Windows, any full reinstall usually clears up problems. That’s the real problem with windows, it soils itself. And for something that is almost 20, you’d expect better. Humans keep clean usually within 5 years, computers seem to need more time, so, those fearing the machines taking over, relax, they’re still in diapers.

Other Posts in January 2010

But, now all my subscriptions are 3G (well, both of them), I find myself wondering. If you check out google or ebay, you’ll find very affordable fancy phones, most dual sim, from mainland China. Exactly because they don’t do the 3G thing, one of those might be the ideal vehicle to use whilst travelling, Quad band is good, and lack of 3G means the phone will roam more cheaply. Saves me from switching off all the auto-connect things I need to working here, just switch the phone. Some of them look pretty good (and no, the many iPhone clones are not in that category as far as I’m concerned. But the one thing you can’t really find is a good review, which seems very worrying. So how good are these things anyway, will it sound even half decent (let’s say my tonal range and that of an average Chinese differ somewhat, so I wonder how much will get lost in the speech filters).

If I reach a conclusion, which most likely will be to buy it anyway and see how much I like it , I’ll let you know.

On a side note, my old favourites (Sony Ericsson, I loved the P900, after that, they went off), have a model that seems quite good, Satio. The reasons; I can’t get along with the handwriting of the WM’s, and I got along very well with the P800′s and P900′s handwriting recognition. Another reason is Satio runs Symbian as an operating system, and I prefer Symbian on a phone. But I do like the WM’s way of tapping into Outlook using my boss’s webmail facility and it’s ease of getting an attached laptop on the internet when you have time to spare at airports. It’s about time someone comes up with a phone without a negative.

Let’s see:

• Quad band that really works, UMTS for all regions, high speed internet is a must
• AMOLED display (I’ve seen one, lovely), with at least 640*480
• 16G on board, of course expandable
• P900′s handwriting recognition
• Windows mobile ease of use getting a pc onto internet, or syncing with MS Outlook
• lasts a long time on a charge
• proper camera and video options
• thin and sleek (think E55 with just a screen on the front)
• a travel option, meaning all auto connect to’s are easy to switch on/off. We have flight mode, why not travel mode. And no, the auto roaming detection isn’t reliable, my own provider hitch-hikes on someone else’s network, so my phone believes it is permanently roaming.
• dual sim, allowing to use both numbers at the same time
• proper noise cancellation (again think E55 but minus the E52/E55 bugs)
• light (100 grams?)
• of course the various standard smartphone trimmings, but a serious email client, ability to work with office and open office files, good calendar syncing etc…

I could go for such phone, would you?

Other Posts in January 2010

Downloading the firmware went fine, the phone then switched to some funky load firmware thing, and that also went fine. Slowly it worked itself up to 100% and then informed it had to reboot. After that, the phone was dead. It would buzz its little body, but that’s it, no boot, not screen activity, nothing.

This was a new situation, and felt a lot more threatening than the previous situations. I was almost ready to buy me a new E72 or E55 when I found a shop that not only sold E55′s, but also could repair them. O, I forgot to mention, the locate your Nokia service point through the Nokia web pages is a little stale, I’ve tried FF and IE8, it doesn’t work. IE6 however does. OK, so I called this dude, and explained what had happened, and he said, no problem, I can fix it in a couple of minutes. The charge wasn’t too bad, so off I went.

He did fix it, but to my surprise, it failed first time. the guy asked if my battery was fully charged, I said, close to, but even so, he swapped for a different one. It worked then, no hitch. But when my battery was put back in, it showed a full charge. So my latest suspect is now the E55′s battery. Wouldn’t be the first time Nokia had a run in with their batteries. The new firmware is great, it also managed to removed the branding, which is even better. It still crashes once in a while, so I’ve ordered a new battery and will see if that makes any difference. Until then…..

Other Posts in January 2010

I was getting very happy with my E55, it looks great, the keyboard is a weird but surprisingly usable thing, it lasts aeons (in smartphone metrics) on one battery charge. Mine came with some weird Italian firmware, so I reflashed it. This seemed to help the stability, it stopped crashing frequently the more I used it. Then it happened, it went off line. Those with an E55 might know this. You take out the battery, pop it back in, nothing, you try with sim, without sim, with memory card, without memory card. You connect it to your PC, and pressing the on/off switch does do something, but it will not power on. You check internet, basically it says, go to Nokia and get it replaced.

Well, I might have a solution that prevents you having to take it in for service that might come back to you with the ‘water logged’ excuse of not having to fix a problem they don’t understand either. In my case, it was the fact that both Firefox and IE 8 failed to allow me to actually locate a service point that made me try this; I first got me a separate charger on Ebay, because mine stopped working as the charge went down. It was clearly not charging through the phone, so having a second would allow me to eliminate the battery as a source of the problem. I charged, tried, all combo’s, still quite dead. I tried the supposedly multi finger salute to reset the bugger, still nothing. I was so so close to giving up when I pressed the camera button and the power on at the same time. And….. a very familiar buzz (I have mine to buzz and ring, so on power on, it buzzes) and the phone sprang back to life. All settings there, nothing lost, like it was not 2 weeks ago since it last worked. It did want me to enter the date and time, which considering all the things that could have gone wrong is a minor thing.

So, if you own an E55 and find yourself wondering why it won’t power on suddenly, please, get the battery charged, put it back in the phone and try camera + power and see if it works for you. It did for me, only minutes ago, which is why I’m posting this.

Other Posts in January 2010

So today it snapped. Let me explain; I tend to shop on-line a lot, and as you might guess, around this time of year the frequency goes up. Now I do actually have a job, so I tend to not be home during office hours, so when all these things arrive, usually a couple of things can happen.

1. They leave a note telling me, they’ll be back tomorrow
2. They leave a note telling me I can collect the package from the post office
3. They leave a note telling me to call them for a new delivery attempt
4. They leave a note telling me it was delivered to one of my neighbours. (Yeah, sorry for that )

Lately a new option arrived, they leave a note telling you to call a number which turns out to utterly useless. Yes, that’s right, useless. Here’s how this works, sender wants to send cheap (more profit), courier says fine, I’ll develop a completely crap product that will piss off the intended recipient. We’ll deliver twice, only twice, then ask him to call, only to tell him only the sender can ask for a re-delivery. Better still, if you use a handling firm, we won’t even tell him who sent it in the first place, because we’ll just supply the name of the handling company, not the actual sender. That will confuse the recipient totally, but there’s more, if the recipient wants to complain, we’ll tell him to visit a web site that offers no way of complaining. In fact, on top of your savings, we’ll make him pay more and let him solve our problem by telling him to come and pick it up. Sound good? Sure, says the sender. To make matter worse, this company has a depot about 5 minutes drive from where I live, so picking up would actually be convenient. No fear, they have the answer, their consumer improvement program has made it so that the depot actually used for this ‘service’ is now located a stiff 40 minutes drive (and that’s only when traffic isn’t bad, which rarely happens on this stretch). I’m so mad, I think they deserve the nominee for the wanker of the year award.

As an recipient I can tell you this ‘service’ (and trust me, I’m using this term very very loosely) stinks from here to kingdom come. The courier in this case has sweetened the deal by instructing their call centre to behave as much as an arse as possible. I’m even wondering if this is legal, see I’ve paid for this stuff, and they are doing their best to not hand it over. And what is the term for someone holding on to goods that are actually yours, and not theirs????? Hmmm, let me think, thief, fence? Sounds about right.

I’m not going to name and shame this shitty company, but if you know how 2001 A Space Odyssey came up with the term HAL, then this one’s CGK (Actually it’s a urban myth, but the hint should work nonetheless)

PS. As you might have noticed, this time, my language is a little stronger, in my opinion entirely called for, if you manage to work out my amazingly cunning and complex riddle, you know what firm you should avoid. Because even though treating your customers like dirt is all the fashion nowadays, these firms should realise that as a consumer you have the power to choose a competitor. And there’s this little thing called a recession going on, so this kind of arrogance might be coming to an end any time soon, if we’re lucky.

PPS. If you belong to this firm, or legally represent them, tough, you could try to sue me, you could, but be prepared, I won’t back down on this, because I’m confident I can convince any person with a sound mind that you are indeed offering a crappy service, and you are playing around with goods neither you or the sender own. I tend to think judges are of reasonably sound mind, so please, please, bring it on and give me the pleasure of kicking your arse in court and as we leave the court room

Other Posts in December 2009

My 1.5TB was filling up alarmingly quickly with the DVD’s I am copying on to the network. I have now two media players, which I like, but I want all my audio and video on the network. The old 43cm Teac audio system has been upgraded with a new amplifier, this one features remote control, so I can bring in my audio system into play. I have a traditional stereo, but my speakers are closed systems, with bas-reflex being all the fashion, I can’t seem to replace them with anything that sounds better. Amazingly, the current setup puts out quite a reasonable 3D sound, without resorting to wiring up so many little and mainly inferior speakers. You particularly notice this when the music swells, there’s no hint of stress, just a lot of distortion free sound pouring into the room.

Anyway, the final step is to transfer all the video’s to the 3TB NAS, and reserve the 1.5TB for audio and photo’s. So, how do I transfer 1.2GB from one NAS to another. I tried using SMB reading in combination with FTP writing. But you will be amazed on how brittle the Vista network stack is, it was slow (<1MB/sec) and blew up after a couple of hours. Now I have a little old laptop, an IBM T600E, which I recently loaded up with all the memory it could take (a whopping 256MB), and loaded Ubuntu onto it. And what Vista with all the power and service packs could not, Ubtuntu, running on an old PII does with ease, from FTP A to FTP B using nothing more than drag and drop, and at a fair pace (>= 3MB/sec). The first 100GB went without much problems. So once a again, Ubuntu shows why everyone should at least try Linux, it works, it doesn’t blow up and it is amazingly versatile.

And to remind you, this operating system runs one of the best, if not the best, package manager. Currently I’m upgrading the operating system, using a remote desktop. I’m writing this using a remote desktop to Vista, so having several machines working hard for me, I’m sort of feeling like the puppet master, but then pc style. I can telnet to both my NAS systems. The only thing is that it should be easier to set up side to side transfer, but all I managed to find is a couple of commandline FTP utilities, which in my case, isn’t good, because the amout of work involved to set it up doesn’t seem worth it, as this is essentially an one time activity. Once all of the files are transferred, my next plan is to upgrade the LAN to a Gigabit lan, so I have a little more room to handle a couple of video streams Even so, right, it feels like technology is really working for me, and that is a nice feeling.

Other Posts in December 2009

Other Posts in December 2009

One of the things I would really like for a box like this is the ability to run virtual PC’s, after all, 64 bits promises loads of RAM, quad core means stuff can run in parallel better. Well, with Intel (I’ve not checked AMD, as I’m planning to use Intel this time), there’s a little something that isn’t widely advertised, not all 64 bit setups will actually support you running virtual pc’s. With Intel you need both support from the processor, support from the chipset (meaning not all motherboards will work) and even in some cases, you need support from the BIOS. Which all means that sorting this stuff out is a pain, check CPU, check mobo’s chipset, then download the manual to check if it mentions support for virtualisation (either switchable, or just available). What a pain, and of course, I don’t want to pay too much, so even more options. I’m trying to settle on an Asus mobo, seeing it’s sort of a safe bet. I’ll let you guys know I’m getting on.

Also, I have got me a E55 (it’s a phone). Very much a first release, it has a tendency to crash alarmingly often, which is a pity, as the phone itself is bloody brilliant. It has pretty every feature except a touchscreen, but unlike other smartphones, it also lasts some time on it’s battery. It is slim, and I really like the half qwerty keyboard. Much better than a normal multi tap and not that wide form factor (or thick if you prefer to slide) of a full qwerty keyboard. Great. But I have managed, I think, to discover one factor that makes this phone reboot way too often, the battery, or more precisely, the battery contacts. See, I noticed the phone reboots quite randomly, but usually when it starts to do something (and starts to draw some power). I also noticed that sometimes even re-inserting the battery wouldn’t help, the phone wouldn’t switch on. So I looked at the design, and the battery has three contacts, with a spring loaded setup in the battery, in the phone three flat contacts turned on their side. Just seemed to me that this might not always give a low resistance contact, so I gently bent the phone’s contacts, and even more gently, bent the spring loaded ones in the battery. Result: much less rebooting, up to a point I’m really starting to like this phone a lot. Of course, YMMV and don’t come crying if you mess up a working E55. For those looking for a product code list, here’s one. I started with a TIM branded one, and I’m still looking on how to remove some of the folders they managed to put in, and reflashing (change to the product code, and re-install the firmware with the normal Nokia tools), it removed the fancy icons on the folders (some might like, some not), and still left the TIM shit in there. But other than that, worked fine. For north western West Europe, try code 0568630.

One final note, I’m a fan of Ultra VNC, as I access most of my pc’s from other pc’s from time to time. When I upgraded to the 1.0.6.x series, I found it quite buggy (VNC server would hang frequently thinking it was hosting clients when it wasn’t). Recently they upgraded to 1.0.8.x and I’m happy to report that on my PC it works much much better (this is a XP host, the one that doesn’t boot / login well ). For those that went back to the older version, try the latest, it’s good.

And I still need to update other bits of this site, and not finding a lot of time, so I guess that will be next.

Other Posts in November 2009

So, what do you see, the prehistoric monster that reputedly survives in a lake hardly capable of sustaining life, but yet it has survived (apparently on its own, I don’t hear much about a group of monsters) for millions of years when all others went extinct. Of course there are amazing discoveries, the Coelacanths being a often cited example.

But with Nessie? Sorry, I see a little boat with a wake, so, do you see a long lost dinosaur?

Other Posts in August 2009

Still, true to the nerd in me, I still apply them. Just like many others, so what’s the big deal here. Well, this time I have proper reasons…. Let the story begin….

I have one of these, loaded with a Raid-0 of 1.5TB. I have a second one planned at 3TB. So it is fair to say I like it. Moved all my digital pics onto it, my music and now in the process of putting all my DVD’s there also. With ethernet and 802.11n available, a media player or 2, 3 and I’m set.

My 1.5TB one runs firmware 1.3, there’s 1.5 out, so the nerd in me decided it was time to join the club. This presented problem one, the reason for getting a NAS, is storage capacity. So what is the first instruction given before updating? Exactly, backup the data. Am I the only one to see the flaw in this logic? I managed, because I had one unused 250GB USB disk, together with room left on my other pc’s I just managed. Firmware update went well, had to re-apply factory defaults, because some of the shares looked very weird. Restoring the previous settings didn’t seem to do much, so I ended up setting the the groups/users/shares/ftp a second time.

So now it is running the latest firmware, I notice it is running a little warm (45 degrees C). It used to be 39/40/41′ish. Now if anything, after losing plenty of Maxtor disks to their ability to fry themselves (now I use Samsung disks exclusively, they run much much cooler), more heat in a NAS sort of spells a San Andreas fault line, but one on a data disaster scale.

So what to do? It turns out to be quite simple, tweak the thing. First, go here. Just do as it says and you’ll end up with with an SSH terminal on the NAS. Pretty cool. O, when it says it takes a little time to first start the SSH server, it isn’t kidding, downloading the 120Mb of plug-ins was way faster. I actually rebooted the NAS halfway through, I thought it had frozen. Taught me two things:

1. it wasn’t frozen, but the NAS doesn’t exactly run a fast CPU
2. even rebooting is fine, just redo the step and it still works.

Now, running the NAS with the ‘fun-plug’ installed, get the software repositories, as described here. Get the Fonz and Uli packages. I installed two from the Uli set, /ffp/additional/app-misc/mc*.tgz and /ffp/additional/ffp-misc/fanctl*.tgz. MC is midnight commander, making it easier to navigate and explore the NAS software a little. I prefer it to a naked commandline. The second is actually the reason for all this, a better fan control script. It’s use and installation are to be found here.

And let me tell you, it works. From a 46 (which it was just after I’d installed all this) it dropped down to 36 within a short time. I double checked, but I couldn’t hear the fan going full speed at any time, but obviously it is doing something right. So far I’ve resisted temptation to try other stuff, although loads of reports that it could do with a better media server might make me sometime in the future. But a NAS is really firmly in the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” category.

D-Link, see here sells pretty much the same unit. D-Link calls it a DNS-323, and you usually end up paying more. But you’ve just got to love Linux, the driving force that makes this all work so well, and those guys that work out how to improve things and share their labour. With the new firmware and the additional packages, this thing has never run better.

Other Posts in April 2009