Uber Media Center on a Budget

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So as is the case for many people at the moment I am on a tight budget. This I think, makes projects that little bit more interesting. Especially considering that normally uber = money * effort. Either money or effort has to be vast to achieve uber.

As you have probably noticed I am a regular to the HotUkDeals.co.uk website. Recently on the news for reporting a pricing error of tesco’s oranganic food.

But coming up on this site quotes bit was the HP ProLiant Micro Server for the bargain price of £189 plus £100 cash back from HP. This little server come with quite a fair amount of umph for buck :-

At A Glance

Processor:
AMD Turion™ II Neo N54L (2.2GHz)
AMD RS785E/SB820M chipset
Memory:
Two (2) DIMM slots
2GB (1x2GB) Standard or 4GB (1x4GB)/8GB Maximum, using PC3-10600E DDR3 Unbuffered (UDIMM) ECC memory, operating at max. 800MHz
Storage Controller:
Embedded AMD SATA controller with RAID 0, 1
Embedded AMD eSATA controller for connecting external storage devices via the eSATA connector in the rear of the server
Internal Drive Support:
4 Internal HDD Support
Maximum internal SATA storage capacity of up to 8.0TB (4 x 2TB 3.5″ SATA drives)
Network Controller:
Embedded NC107i PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Server Adapter
[Full specifications: on HP's site]

Pretty impressive considering a nexus 7 is a good 100 pounds more and a lot less powerful (although I agree it is not fair to compare).

Anyway, I had snatched one of these up as it was too much to not resist. But little did I know that my trusty shuttle server, that had sat uncomplaining for years had actually bust it’s only fan and was in the process of cooking it’s self. Not long after I had placed the order did it faithfully deliver it’s last TCP packet and then splutter away.

I had always wanted to use the shuttle as a media centre but I had been put off by the lack of HDMI and no digital out on the default hardware. Also it’s tiny processor often had issues with running the services on it alone, never mind streaming a HD movie as well.

So when this server first turned up I cracked open my freebsd USB key, partitioned the drive and got installing. It was lightening quick!

Then it dawned on me. There was expansion ports on the motherboard. I wonder if this thing could run something like XBMC. Well my first concern was that there is really a very limited amount of space inside this thing. Getting both a sound card and graphics card could he both costly and troublesome. Doing a little googleing I quickly found out that many people had already done this and fixed this problem already. On the XBMC wiki there was even a list of all the compatible hardware…. Bonus

The graphics card that I went for was the GT 210 GeForce Nvidia. This fixed the need for accelerated graphics and for sound as this is supported via the HDMI out by default. You can pick up a pretty decent one of these for about 20 pounds on Amazon. Remember that space is limited so get the one with no fan!

After this installation could not have been any easier. I copied the image to a USB stick by grabbing an ISO  from the XBMC website and using dd.

The only suggestion I would make is to get yourself more space and of course a external DVD/Blueray drive for ripping your movies. The standard space is quite small for a large collection. There is now a large amount of 3TB drives popping up on HotUkDeals so shouldn’t be too much more expensive.

Total Cost : £100 [Bargin!]

 

Own your time

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 So, it’s Monday morning and you are on your way to work. You are committed that this week is going to be different, that you will do all the stuff you have planned this week. No more not going to the gym or reading that book. Truth is you will be lucky to do 40% of these things.

I was frustrated with the fact that I had the best intentions each week and each week ‘things’ got in the way. I always did my best to get every task done but it felt like a battle rather than just getting the jobs done.

In work I have always had systems to making sure that I get everything done and I was thinking, why don’t I do something similar for home? This is when I came up with the idea of a social calendar.

So, let’s put it this way. You know on Monday that you have X amount of tasks to complete and in reality you have about Y amount of free time in the week. Do you really know how you use all of those Y hours, or how much time each of the X tasks takes you?

This is when I came up with the idea of keeping track of all these free hours. Basically you create a new calendar in google calendar by clicking the little arrow next to “My calendar” and “Create calendar”. I called my “Social” but you can name yours what ever you want.

The idea works under the theory that in life things happen that will prevent you doing a tasks on a given day. This is why one evening of your week needs to be your buffer day. The rest of the week you need to map out everything that you doing with the hours you are not either working or sleeping.

This system makes you think about how your are using up those Y hours and how many hours you are spending on each task. Plus when I say everything, then everything goes in here. If you are going to watch T.V. one night, then that goes in there, if you are making breakfast then commuting then this goes in there.

After a while you will start to get a picture for how you are spending your time. Plus which of the tasks that you are doing are eating up most of your spare time. It comes very apparent if you are spending too much time just watching T.V. or traveling to go out.

You will also start to know exactly what day and time you will do that chore that is playing on your mind. Or if you have to go see a friend and need to remember to take something with you then just put that in the calendar object. This comes particularly useful for such tasks as doing the weekly shopping. As soon as you remember something that you want to pick up then just add it to the list.

This system will also let you know when your friends ask, can you come out in town on Friday and you had plans, you now know where you can fit that meeting with your friend in.

What is the purpose of the buffer day you ask? Well no one thinks you are a robot and can do everything exactly on the day and time that you said you would do it. This is where the buffer day comes in. If you find a task that you need to miss and can’t fit in then move it to your buffer day. This way you have that fundamental spare time and freedom to move tasks.

What is the disadvantage? Well this means you are going to have to get used to actually doing what you said your would do when you said you would do it. Plus you are going to have to keep your new calendar updated. Not a lot of work really if you think about it. This is a very small trade off for becoming super productive.

The key to anything like this is that excellence come from habit. If you keep doing something then very quickly it becomes habit and you forget that you are doing it. That is the key, you soon forget this and start to reap the rewards.

Key Points :

  • Try your best to be as accurate as possible about how long a task will take you
  •  Be honest with yourself, don’t play to run, weights and then write a winning novel in one night. It just isn’t going to happen and you will fail
  • If a task does slip then it moves to next week. Before you assign any other spare time then assign this task. If you didn’t read that book and you want to read another bit of that book then you stick those two tasks together and you read that book darn it
  • Motivate yourself, this won’t work unless you stick to it
  • Be patient, it might take you a work or two of getting the right amount of time for each task and knowing what you can fit in.

So, give it a go. Get organised and stop depending on yourself to just remember everything.

The problem with Androids

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“An enemy’s greatest strength is their biggest weakness”
[Paraphrased and no idea of the owner]

image

Android has, without any doubt, opened up the mobile computing world to everyone. What markets Apple initially started have now been flooded by devices sporting this free operating system and colourful applications market. It is free, open source and easy to adapt.

This brings me though quite abruptly to my starting quote. The open source nature of Android means that anyone can come along and make their own version of Android. Just as long as that person submits any fixes or improvements made to the core. Which in essence sounds great. Meaning that any phone maker can with ease create a unique user experience for each phone without the risk/expense of making and maintaining the O/s.

The problem is though that there is absolutely no quality standards on those customisations and the hardware they may run on. Any device, no matter how poorly made can sport the Android logo. This I think is Android’s biggest down fall. This is a far cry from the Apple legacy of Steve Jobs and his imagine of a complete and one version only final consumer product.

The cheap Android sporting devices are one issue though but for me the main issue is the lack of interest by larger phone manufacturers to maintain their devices as soon as a new one is available. At the present rate I would predict that after 8 months of getting a customised device it will already be at least two O/s update behind. If you think about it though it is their interest to make the devices so they do not last and you feel you need/deserve a new one soon.

When Google do release a new version of the O/s then these manufacturers would need to put resources into making that O/s work with their customisation but there just really is much need for them to do so. Also the apps they have made often start to have issues when the user’s data increase. Then apps hardly ever seem to be made to be used longer than a year. This leaves customers with an out of date and slowly degrading Android experience.

There is no easy fix for this but I think manufactures should be forced to give customers the option to revert to vanilla Android. I know you can do this already but average Joe is not going to start copying Update.zip or using fastboot on their device.

Lastly, devices should come with a recommended version sticker. This would require Google setting minimum requirements for each release but would help consumers know what version their phone is designed for and of it is tailored for future releases.

[EDIT]

This is an interesting point of view of the tatics at Samsung. It is odd as I would have thought that the market and it’s apps was key to the Andriod O/s and

Samsung is Hurting Android

 

Game and movie sound tracks… The often missed gem of modern music

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When most people are asked these days to name a song or piece of music that has come out recently they will nearly always mention something from the top 40`s or an advert jingle.

What is missed though is the brilliance going into the soundtracks for a lot of modern movies or games. It was said and I probably badly paraphrase that ‘a good movie backing track should track should emphasize the action but never be noticed it’s self’. So a lot of these movie or game sound tracks will pass us by when we are immersed in the action on screen.

However a lot of these sound tracks are reused for advertising or even action on television programs where you might actually get a chance to hear them but never realise where it came from. A program I am familiar with and show quite a bit here in the u.k. is top gear. They often use extracts from the new bat man movies making for a dramatic backing and good for content with action.

I have put together a Spotify play list containing some of the tracks that I think are worth a listen. My criteria was that I could only have one track from each album (a very difficult task), that it could not be a pop song and that it had to be a movie made recently. So I am not saying these are the best but I think show a fare summary of the rest of the album. With this in mind I highly recommend then that you check out some of the other tracks on the albums.

The other limitation of course was that the album had to be on Spotify so sorry if I have missed any good movies in the process. Although to it’s credit there was not much missing that I wanted.

I would love to hear if you have any other recommendations so feel free to let me know in the comments.

My Movie and Game List

[Link for track listing: Track Listing]

Another worth checking out :-

Top Movie Soundtracks Playlist

Informix Database Sizes

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I have been searching over the internet for this information and nowhere could I find this information. So in case you need it here is the method :-

Informix : List all databases by size

database sysmaster;
select
t.dbsname,
t.owner,
sum((pe_size*2)/1048576) as size
from
sysmaster:systabnames t,
sysmaster:sysptnext   e
where
t.partnum = e.pe_partnum
group by 1, 2
order by 3 asc;

Informix : Size of a databases by name

database sysmaster;
select
sum((pe_size*2)/1048576) as size
from
sysmaster:systabnames t,
sysmaster:sysptnext   e
where
   t.dbsname='<database_name>'
and t.partnum=e.pe_partnum ;

First few days with the tablet

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As a kid I grew up being a star trek fan and of course any fan of the next generation onwards is aware of their padds’.

image

I was so excited about this concept but the closest thing could get my hands at the time was my Dad’s pSion organiser. It lacked the finess, power and connectivity of the T.V series devices. Roll on 2012 and we now have very similar devices at our disposal (probably by no means the first person to make this comparison).

You might have seen my previous post where I was unsure about if I really needed a tablet but I still took the plunge and got the Google nexus 7. Turns out I need not have worried. There is many uses for it and it has started to replace both my phone and laptop for many tasks.

The tablet has replaced my phone for both music/ebooks whilst commuting. I can even play games now and the best bit about all this is that I can do this with out worrying about my battery!

About the flat the tablet replaces my laptop for those quick sofa surfs. This is also a bit more sociable than having to sit properly in with the laptop in situ.

Now that I am able to move about with all my text books in hand I am finally able to read when and what I want. Brilliant for that sneaky hour of learning.

Havng seen though the apps available on the market for the iPad I am a little put out by the android offerings. The apps that are available look lush though and realise that your phone screen real estate does little justice to them. There is a lot of good apps but not as many as that of the iPad.

The main feature missing is Apple’s quick sharing. There is no easy way at the moment to sharing content with my TV. Something that would be great for showing off a quick you tube movie or song.

Joining the tablet age

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I had been resisting for awhile to jump on the tablet band wag on. To me it seemed like they might go the way of the tablet PC. But with the advances made by the smart phone industry these little devices have held up on their own.

The main reason for resisting is that really I could not think of what I would use this for. I have a perfectly good laptop that sits on the coffee table. Any quick internet searches and it is there at arms reach. That and my smart phone. When out and about I have my smart phone, a galaxy nexus that already has a large screen area.

Recently I have been envious of my iPad wielding friends. Watching at what ease they could, read, watch media or even play games. That and my increasing demand to read on the go meant it was time to look at the tablet market again.

With reading and movie watching being my primary purpose there was essentially two options for me. The new kindle x fire or the android nexus 7. Already there is conflict in what I want to do. Tablets don’t tend to be great for reading but if the internet god of electronic media, Amazon are releasing a non eink model it must be OK.

When deciding between these two there was three main aspects; cost, apps available and size. To clarify on the last I have had a eBook reader in the past. My issue with it was that for technical books it was useless. Panning around to read content or view images was simply painful. In the end I gave it away. It was though, just the right book size and weight enough for bed based reading without feeling a work out.

In the end I decided to go for the android nexus 7. It was a tough call. The Amazon offering seems better but the deal breaker for me was that the nexus 7 is pure Google. There is more flexibility potential in case I want to use the device for anything else. The Amazon device is at heart android but a heavily customised version. Plus I already own a android device so by getting another device I can use my existing purchases.

Next up, how is it working out. :)

Teaching an old dog new tricks

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I am the happy owner of a Mac Book Pro Mid 2009 model which has served me well for three years now. But as computers tend to do rather quickly it has started to show it’s age.

Had this been a few years ago I would have ran out, cash in hand to the apple store to get the latest and greatest. In fact, a few of my colleagues have done exactly that, showing off their gleaming new toys around the office. It made my poor Macbook look a little like wall-e against Eva. So I decided to try and do exactly what I used to do with my gaming rigs and rebuild him.

Part I – Hard Drive

I noticed recently that SSD drives have taken a drastic crash in price. I don’t really get time to follow hardware these days and I was under the impression they were still very costly, so was a pleasant surprise.

To keep track of good offers on computer hardware I keep an eye on hotukdeals. Although this site is mostly reduced nappies or cash back on HP servers  there is some times some great offers.

At the moment it seems that OCZ is having some difficulties and so there has been a flood of SSD drives by them for cheap on there. Have a look at this pre filled search which as of today has a good 10 drives to choose from.

My drive of choice was the 120GB OCZ Technology Vertex Plus [2.5" SSD, SATA II - 3Gb/s, Read 250M] which I got from Scan computers eBay page. The drive cost a grand total of £40, quite a bargain.

The only complication to this was that I also needed a torx 5 screw driver to install this which I documented again below in Part III.

Part II – RAM

The hardest part about ordering the RAM was deciding what RAM the Mac Book needs. I suspected that finding this information would be quite difficult as Apple will want you to go via their store to do it.

Turns out though that this information is easily available by clicking the Apple Symbol in the top left and then ‘About This Mac’ and then press the ‘Memory’ tab. I then had a google about for reviews of people buying matching RAM and seeing if they mentioned their Mac Book. Makes sense if it meets the spec require that they would.

The RAM that I went for in the end was the Corsair CMSO8GX3M2A1333C9 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3. This came to the grand cost of just £30 from amazon.

Part III- Battery

Finding what battery I needed turned out the be the hardest part of this revive. It seems that my Mac Book was the start of Apple’s new non consumer upgrade path. Apparently the first MacBook airs were a trial for this. To see if consumers would be happy buying units which there was no self serviceable parts on. This trend has slowly fed back into normal MacBook and now the new Air’s have all components soldered to the mother board.

To get access to my battery, a component that is even consider by Apple as a consumable, I first had to remove the bottom of the laptop.  In all fairness I tried finding the version of the battery I needed on the internet but there was so many options that truly knowing which one felt more of a guess. I wanted to see the version number for myself. A task that should have been easy.

I actually tried to give Apple money here by going to the Apple store to get my battery. However they wanted me to book an appointment. I explained that I can do this myself and I am happy to pay full price and just do it myself. However they refused and told me to just book. This is a shame Apple.

The model number I needed in the end was “A1331″ and having a quick eBay / Amazon scan I found out there is lots of places that I can get it from. I also discovered that you will need a Pentalobe Screwdriver (size TS1) but these are pretty cheap and probably a good thing to keep about as Apple products seem to use this for quite a few things.

A1331 Battery £34.00

Part IV- More Space

The problem with the new SSD drives is that they are not yet anywhere near the size of the old mechanical ancestors. The drive that came in my MacBook was a good 320 gig and the replacement SSD is just 120 gig. Don’t worry though as there is one more trick to get that little bit of extra space. That is to replace the CDROM drive with a drive caddy and put your old hard drive in.

This to me is perfect. I hardly ever need to use a CD any more and I am quite happy to loose that feature in favour of a large capacity increase.

CDROM to Drive Caddy £6.00

Summary

Component Price URL
OCZ 120gig SSD £39.96 Ebay
Corsair 8gig Ram £26.80 Amazon
Battery £34.00 Ebay
CDROM Drive Bay Converter £6.00 Ebay
7Pc Precision Torx £1.99 Amazon

 

Total Cost : £108.75

- Quite a bargain for what now feel like a new laptop. :)

Changing the Primary Monitor in Gnome 3.X

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Having had an issue for a while now with docking my laptop and my monitor configuration I finally stumbled on this from RailTrails  (http://rainhilltrials.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/changing-primary-display-in-gnome-3.html) . Although detailed it doesn’t really show you what to do so here is a work through example :-
  • Run xrandr to list available displays
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 4480 x 1440, maximum 8192 x 8192
LVDS1 connected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
 1280x800 60.0 + 50.0 
 1024x768 60.0 
 800x600 60.3 56.2 
 640x480 59.9 
VGA1 connected 1920x1200+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 519mm x 324mm
 1920x1200 60.0*+
 1600x1200 60.0 
 1680x1050 60.0 
 1280x1024 75.0 60.0 
 1440x900 59.9 
 1280x800 59.8 
 1152x864 75.0 
 1152x720 60.0 
 1024x768 75.1 60.0 
 832x624 74.6 
 800x600 75.0 60.3 
 640x480 75.0 60.0 
 720x400 70.1 
HDMI1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP1 connected 2560x1440+1920+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 597mm x 336mm
 2560x1440 60.0*+
  • Run xrandr –output <display> –primary to set the primary display.
In my case I wanted the smaller “VGA” monitor to be my primary and here we go :-
xrandr --output VGA1 --primary

 

Reading List

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I think I took this of a Reddit post a long time ago but sadly I lost the original link. However now I have moved into a flat on my own and having a very limited budget it is time to start book worming again.

The list thus far, direct from the post is :-


Not wanting to return to school, I want to explore the field of Computer Science. This is my planned reading list:
The Softer Side
Anathem
Cryptonomicon (Yeah I'm a Stephenson fanboy ... )
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness
The Emperor's New Mind
The Design of Everyday Things
How the Mind Works
Introduction
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software
Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming
Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools (The Dragon Book)
Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction
The C Programming Language
Mid-Range
Computational Complexity - A Modern Approach
Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation
Introduction to Algorithms
OMG my Brain!
Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (3rd Edition)
Concrete Mathematics: A Foundation for Computer Science
The Art of Computer Programming (Vol 1-3 (& 4))
META Posts
I'm looking for a good book on algorithms. Suggestions?
What is the single most influential book every programmer should read? Stack Overflow
Online Courses
MIT Opencourseware
USNW - Elearning

REF: http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/ch0wt/a_reading_list_for_the_selftaught_computer/