News from Great Castle Wilson

Author: adminmcq

  • Happy Birthday, Uncle Randy.

    Make a wish…

  • NAS

    I have been using a Linksys NSLU-2 with a couple of USB drives attached to it as my home backup/file server, but…

    1. both of the drives are getting old — one 3 and one 4 years — something not good for a system where you are backing up important data (like this website 🙂 )
    2. The NSLU-2 (commonly known as a “slug”) has been very slow to access from XP with the latest service pack — Dennis and Deb were both hit by this.
    3. I wanted more storage space. No, I didn’t actually need it yet, but I was down to my last 150Gig or so.

    Given all this, it seemed like it was probably time to look for a new network attached storage (“NAS”) box. After a certain amount of wandering around on the web, I narrowed the choices down to three boxes, each of which provides two internal drive bays:

    Linksys NAS-200
    Somewhere around $150 locally in Ottawa; comes with 2 USB ports that would allow me to plug in my existing drives; but by all accounts the slowest of any of the available devices
    D-Link DNS-323
    Approximately the same prices as the NAS-200, but significantly faster; only 1 USB port which can be used to control a printer or UPS, but not a drive
    Synology Disk Station DS207+
    Faster and more powerful than either of the others; around $400 in Ottawa.

    Now, you know that I would normally go for the most powerful box, even though it was more expensive, but my normal dealer, PC Cyber [“Hey, man, you got da stuff?”], did not have any in stock, so I ended up getting the DNS-323 and one 1 terabyte drive. (I actually picked up the DNS-323 at Best Buy, because I had been given a gift certificate there for my birthday.)

    Installing the drive was trivial — no screwdrivers or wiring required. Just lift up on the front cover and pop it off, slide the drive into the bay, close the lid. Booting, formatting the drive, and configuring it with separate storage areas for Deb, Dennis and I all went without a hitch.

    I then started copying everything from the drives on the slug to the DNS-323, whereupon I learned two interesting lessons:

    1. Copying files between two fileservers by transferring them back-and-forth across a network with a wireless-N bridge in the middle of it, is somewhere between 4 and 5 times slower than doing it on the other side of the bridge. I learned this when I mounted both servers on my G5, dragged a massive backup directory from one to the other and had it say “estimated time to completion: 29 hours“!
    2. The slug is really slow. I didn’t do a lot of testing, but by my count, copying from an internal drive on a Mac to the DNS-323 was >10x faster than copying the same file off the slug.

    Everything is now copied across to its new home. Deb is happy because I removed three devices, each with a power brick, plus a power bar from her study, and replaced it all with one; I’m happy because we now have more than double the storage we had and can access it much more quickly; and Dennis is happy… Well, actually Dennis isn’t happy because next week is exam week, but that’s another story.

  • Slingbox Solo

    Yesterday was my birthday, and members of my extended family got together to buy me a Slingbox Solo. This was something that I had strongly hinted would be a good gift, not just because it’s the kind of tech toy I enjoy experimenting with, but also because I actually have a particular problem I wanted to solve…

    You probably remember that this summer I moved my home computer space from the basement to Dennis’ old bedroom upstairs. Unfortunately, Dennis’ room doesn’t have a cable hookup, so I couldn’t use the eyeTV that was hooked to my G5 any more.

    The Slingbox would solve this problem by taking the video and audio feed directly from the PVR in the livingroom, encoding it as a digital stream and transmitting it over an ethernet connection. Running the Slingplayer software on a Mac or PC allows you to capture that stream and display it; to use the vernacular, it placeshifts the content. The player software also provides a fully functional remote control that looks (and works) just like the one on the PVR.

    To cut to the chase, I hooked it all up yesterday, and it works exactly as described. I can now watch my TV, complete with digital cable connection and PVR functionality, from anywhere in the house (via wifi). The picture quality is perfectly acceptable and the sound is good — although I sometimes notice some slight synchronization issues.

    Now, when you first install the Slingbox, it makes you configure various things related to setting it up to transmit over the internet, so for grins today I thought I’d try to figure out how to set up the Slingplayer software so I could watch my TV at home, while not on my local LAN. I figured there would be firewall problems, and even if not, there would be various settings I’d have to enter to make the software connect home, etc. In any case, I started the software on my Mac and then began looking through the menus for a hint about what to do, when lo and behold, I got this:

    Yup, just starting the software was all it took. That’s video from my home TV, being displayed on my laptop at work. [And yes, I tested it during my lunch break.]

    Oh, and did I mention they will have an iPhone version of Slingplayer sometime this quarter. 🙂

  • Palm Pre and the iPhone

    The CES reveal of the new Palm Pre certainly was compelling. Apparently, the markets thought so too, as Palm’s stock went up a something like 35% over the course of the day (oh those damn insider trading laws).

    In watching the Pre being demo’ed, it was clear that Palm’s designers had learned from Apple how to build a compelling UI for a phone, and if anything, they had taken the concepts even further than Apple had. All I can say is, if they can just avoid the brain-dead ways that they have failed in the past, Palm will have provided Apple with it’s first real competitor.

    The thing is, delivering on the promise will be hard; early on in the CES presentation, Ed Colligan made a point of saying “We only do mobile” like this was some kind of evidence that they knew what they were doing. Bah! The only reason they needed to even be thinking about the Pre was because Apple, who absolutely did not start out as a mobile company, showed them what people actually want in a modern phone.

    Time will tell. With a hardware keyboard, a fast processor, a removable battery, a better camera and A2DP bluetooth audio, the Pre’s hardware is up to snuff. If they can match that with a flawless rollout and buy-in from the developer community then it looks like they may actually have a chance.

  • Ideas

    I am an avid listener to CBC Radio 1. It wakes me every morning, and is on almost exclusively when I’m driving — the only exception being when Dennis wants to listen to the U.S. driven, R&B, pap[*] that Hot 89.9 puts out. It is also the only station that I have ever made the requisite effort to be listening to at a specific time in order to catch a particular program of interest.

    Now there are many good shows on CBC1 (and a few duds), but of all of them, one of their greatest jewels is the show Ideas. The basic premise of the show is effectively captured by it’s title: to expose you to ideas. According to their website…

    Ideas is a program about contemporary thought. It explores social issues, culture and the arts, geopolitics, history, biography, science and technology, and the humanities.

    … but this typically Canadian understatement hardly does it justice. By turns Ideas can be enlightening, frustrating, shocking, heart warming, awe inspiring, disgusting — the gamut of human potential. I have learned more in a week of listening to Ideas than I have in some university courses.

    Of course, the show is not easy listening. It requires real engagement on your part, and depending on the subject matter, may be a dry slog. It’s worth sticking with it, though. In this world of focused specialization and heads-down scrambling through the immediacies of life, it is wonderful to be reminded that there is a bigger picture, and we’re all part of it.

    If you’re looking for Ideas, their site has broadcast times and show notes. CBC1 can also be streamed over the net if you can’t find some other way to get there.

    If you want just a taste of Ideas, you can subscribe to their “best of” podcast on iTunes. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a podcast of all episodes. It’s too bad, really; that’s one that would definitely be on my iPhone.

    Addendum 1: One of my favorite past episodes was Tick Tock Bang: Noise in Modern Art — warning: not a CBC link — a show about Industrial Music from 1999. For the longest time, a RealAudio version of this episode was available on their site, but the content seems to be gone now. 🙁

    Addendum 2: I had forgotten that I had posted a HOWTO on capturing Ideas over the web in a previous post. The technical content in that post is probably outdated now, but in any case, I’m glad to see that I said similarly nice things about the show that time too. 🙂

    [*] According to The Free Dictionary:

    pap
    worthless or oversimplified entertainment or information

  • MacWorld

    So another MacWorld keynote has come and gone. There was plenty of coverage in the Mac community, so I’m not going to go into a lot of detail, but here’s a capsule summary of the announcements:

    • New versions of iLife and iWork, both of which have enough features that I’ll have to buy the upgrades. From my p.o.v., the most interesting enhancements are:
      • facial recognition and geotagging support in iPhoto
      • (what looks to be) a much improved version of iMovie
      • in GarageBand the ability to learn to play songs by particular artists as taught by the actual artist using video, on screen keyboard/fretboards and control over playback speed, etc.
      • Support for remote control of Keynote presentations via iPhone/iPod Touch
      • MathType and EndNote built into Pages — Dennis will love that
      • Online support for viewing and commenting on iWork documents via a new “iWork.com” site, which is currently free in beta, but eventually will be a pay service. (I’m actually not sure how interesting this is in practice — Now, if you could edit them online…)
    • A new 17″ MacBook Pro, with a non-removable, 8 hour battery life. (Of course, they used to claim 5 hours, but I never got more than 3.5, so this effectively means a real-world battery life of 5 hours — definitely not too shabby.)
    • A new pricing model for iTunes: songs can be $0.69, $0.99, or $1.29. That’s in the U.S., of course, so it remains to be seen what happens in Canada.
    • All iTunes music moving (by the end of Q1) to be DRM free. This is great for people buying new music, but it should be noted that they did not wave the fee for upgrading your existing tunes to the new format. When I checked today, they already wanted >$60 to upgrade my existing purchases, and that can only climb as more tunes get converted. Oh well.

    Some cool stuff there, but I was disappointed that there was still no word on new Mac Minis. My G5 PowerMac is getting pretty long in the tooth now, and since I basically just use it as a server (for this site, among other things) I’d love to replace it with a new Mini with a current C2D and a Gig of storage. Particularly since it now looks like Apple is phasing out support for the G5 processor.

  • Korg DS-10

    This was one of the things on my Christmas list this year that I didn’t get[*], so, during boxing week, I wandered down to my local EBGames and picked one up. It’s a cart for the Nintendo DS that provides software emulations of a pair of Korg MS-10, semi-modular analog monosynths and an analog drum machine. It also provides a simple step-sequencer, and has both a traditional keyboard and a “kaos pad” input device. Here’s a couple of screen shots:

    (Or not… that’s what you get for deep linking images off of sites that disappear. Oh well.)
    I haven’t had it long enough to do anything interesting with it, but if you want to see what it’s capable of, just search for “DS-10” on YouTube — last I looked there >1000 videos of people making music on them. Among other cool features is the ability to sync up to four DS’s running over wifi, so if anybody else picks up a copy, let me know.

    Anyway, here’s my first attempt at making some sounds on it; it’s dreck, but it gives you some idea of what it sounds like:

    (wait for it, it starts slow.)

    * Note: I did get a kick-ass, ice crushing blender, a GPS, a bottle of the 2000 Dun Bheagan Islay and numerous other cool gifts, so I’m not complaining at all.

  • New Years, Resolutions, and Weighing In

    I’d like to wish everyone a Happy New Year. But more than that, I’d like to remind us all that, for that wish to be fulfilled, we need to support and care for our friends and family; we are living in interesting times, and our love for each other is our best defense.

    Those of you who see me regularly know that I have been putting on weight lately. I’m currently over 250 pounds and, even for me, that much weight is a problem — the obvious indicator being that it is now difficult for me to get “crunched” enough to put on my snowboard boots. Ugh!

    As such, I’ve decided to join the ranks of the New Year’s resolution makers:

    I will lose 50 pounds this year.

    Now, in general, I’m pretty good at sticking to a resolution (particularly, one that I’ve told the world about 🙂 ), but losing that much weight will be a challenge, so I am asking for your support. Please feel free to remind me if you see me acting in a way that would run counter to the goal. I won’t let it happen deliberately, but it’s certainly possible that I just might not notice.

    Wish me luck.

    Peace.

  • A new theme…

    … in honour of the upgrade to WP 2.7. Thanks, Michael. GJ!

    And, yes, I know I haven’t posted lately — something else to add to my list.

  • iPhones and the need for responsiveness

    There’s a pattern I fall for, about once a day, while browsing the web on the iPhone. It goes something like this:

    1. follow a link to a new page
    2. as the page starts filling in, read the first screenful
    3. do the “scroll up” gesture to make more content visible
    4. watch as the iPhone randomly does one of three things:
      • ignores the gesture completely.
      • waits about a second and then scrolls a few pixels
      • starts loading the page pointed at by the link you happened to be over when you started the scroll up gesture

    Ok, so it’s not like I don’t understand what’s going on here: The poor thing is busy painting the page, and it just can’t deal with the added processor requirements of recognizing all of the events that make up the gesture. It either misses them all, or gets just a few of them, which leaves it either scrolling “a bit” or treating the gesture as a click on the link.

    The thing is, it really doesn’t matter to me whether this is processor limited, or a bug in the OS (i.e. events get lost), or it’s just a bad design (i.e. input handled in the same thread that does the drawing), but the end result is that because I can’t trust what the phone will do in response to my touch, I have to wait until the page fully “settles” before I start scrolling. On pages that have lots of content and go off to ad services to fill in side bars, etc., this means I wait for a long time.

    I mean, c’mon Apple; do I really have to tell you about the need for responsiveness?

    Anyway, as frustrating as this is, the only real reason I started ranting about it is because it got me thinking about Eclipse, the UI thread, and the multi-core CPU trend. We’re pushing more and more work into multiple threads, drastically increasing the contention at the glass. The Jobs framework and UIJobs are interesting, but don’t address issues like recognizing when multiple jobs are attempting to paint conflicting (or even exactly the same) information in the UI… Anyway, there are aspects of the e4 “modeled UI” that are related to this, but it’s not clear that we’ve thought enough about it yet. Hm…