Cheskitech

Lines Blur

2012-02-22T09:37:00.000-08:00

The lines between the what is on your smartphone and what is on your PC have begun to blur. I have been talking about this, especially the ability to run apps on either device, for about 3 years now.

Rosepoint

2012-02-21T10:41:00.003-08:00

In an article over at Wired, there is news of Intel adding WiFi a CPU...

Researchers at Intel have come up with a way to make WiFi faster and more energy efficient.

It’s a chip called Rosepoint, and although it’s just a research project today, it could show up in mobile phones and laptop computers by the middle of the decade.
Rosepoint represents a breakthrough that Intel engineers have been hammering away at for years.They’ve been able to digitize little blocks of radio components in the past — things like amplifiers and synthesizers — but now they’ve managed to put a digital 2.4 GHz WiFi radio on a chip, right next to one of their low-power Atom central processing units (CPUs).
Building analog WiFi chips is a bit of an art. Radio Frequency (RF) chip designers build complex, customized circuits that operate on a continuum of voltages. The problem is that it’s often tough to shrink these analog designs down to the tiny scale that’s possible with today’s cutting-edge chipmaking processes.
Not so with digital RF chips, such as the one Intel’s just built. Digital RF chips are simpler. They have just two voltage levels and can be shrunk down much more easily whenever Intel’s researchers come up with a way to make chip parts smaller.
That’s good news for WiFi users. When Intel’s chips start to hit the market they will have “state of the art power efficiency” and superior signal quality, says Intel Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner. And things will only get better as Intel shrinks things down. “With a digital approach to radio, you can bring the benefits of Moore’s law to RF and radio circuits,” he says.
Intel wants to build a digital cellular radio chip too, in the “not too distant future,” Rattner says.
That’s going to move Intel into closer competition with RF chip companies such as Texas Instruments and Broadcom, says Kevin Krewell an analyst with semiconductor consulting firm The Linley Group.
In the long run, that could also mean better phones for everyone. “Ultimately it would reduce the chip count on the cell phone, which would reduce the cost and the complexity of manufacturing of the phone and improve battery life,” Krewell says.
But it’s not easy to do one of these wireless system-on-a-chip designs. Wireless radios and CPUs aren’t exactly ideal roommates. Both parties emit radiation that can mess with the other, in the same way that a calculator near an AM radio can distort sound. “This radiation seeps into the RF module and corrupts the data,” says Hossein Alavi, director of Intel’s Radio Integration Lab. “The closer they are, the more interference is going to go to them.”
Radio wave emissions can also mess with the microprocessor, Alavi adds.
To fix this, Intel has had to come up with noise canceling and radiation-shielding techniques for the chips.
Intel has even worked out techniques for putting radio antennas on-chip, but it isn’t talking about them for another year or two.

100% off of GoDaddy - Finally

2012-02-07T12:05:00.000-08:00

Following the SOPA shenanigans I quickly moved all of the domains that I could away from GoDaddy. I had to wait 60 days from the registration of the final domain before it could move .

At last, I have moved them all, only to find out that I can't actually close my GoDaddy account! They cite "legal reasons", I can however remove all of my payment and contact information from their system.

GiveGoodWeb has a good overview of what to do.

I have moved all of my domains to DreamHost as they do not support legislation that would censor the internet.

An Amazing View into the Future

2012-01-27T19:37:00.000-08:00

Holding my Ice Cream Sandwich Android in my hand... I can see that the possibilities of this are getting very close.

Mount and Blade: Warband

2012-01-25T06:47:00.000-08:00

At first glance there isn’t too much to this game. If you think that you are SOOO wrong. I am astounded by how deep this rabbit hole goes.

Like so many reviews out there, I have countless screenshots and videos of me playing in order to review it. I don’t know where to start or what to write down.

Having the political dealings including wooing Noble Ladies, gaining the approval of your King, moving up in the nobility ladder, warring factions with independent standings with each Count and Lord. You can take and hold castles, plunder and raze villages…

Then you get to the combat which is shown in the screenshots on Steam. Awesome medieval weapons and physics based damage. A horse at full charge and you swinging a sword or mace is devastating. If has the feel of Total War battles except you control one guy and issue commands to your troops. Stabbing your way to victory.

And oh my the modding community is thriving. Including Star Wars mods…

Tools that I use: TightVNC

2012-01-22T21:00:00.000-08:00

This week: TightVNC

If you're anything like me, you have multiple computers doing various tasks for your household. A few run headless(without a monitor) or even without a keyboard or mouse hooked up.

I have found that Windows RDP isn't the answer for me as the OS variation is too great. FreeBSD, Mac OSX, Windows, and Linux are all running on my network. An easy way to get to these systems is to use TightVNC. I use this exclusively for LAN access. You can set up port forwarding as well as SSH tunneling to access devices via the internet, but I have found LogMeIn solutions work great for that.

Setting it up is easy and it is free! There are a many variations of VNC technology, but I have found TightVNC to be the most trouble-free for me thus far.

Windows 7 Volume issue or Teamspeak issue

2012-01-19T19:50:00.000-08:00

I was fighting an issue where, when using TeamSpeak and playing a game, when someone spoke, the game volume would plummet and stay low.

What the Fix was NOT: Right Click on Speaker in Task Bar, Choose Playback settings, then Choose the Communications Tab.. then picking the "Do Nothing" radial button.

What the Fix WAS: In TeamSpeak - go to the settings drop down, then plugins uncheck "Volume Control" plugin.
The plugin does this: "Reduce volume of other applications when someone is speaking in your channel. On systems other than Windows 7 or newer only Winamp's volume is affected."

I hope this helps you!

Tools that I use: Spanning Backup

2012-01-16T08:32:00.000-08:00

This week: Spanning Backup

Just in time for the unveiling on 3.0. Spanning Backup is an awesome company to work with and their product is damn cool. Recovering GApps data is amazingly easy. I couldn't recommend these guys more. A+ all the way.

From their most recent blog post:

After months of development, we’re proud to announce the launch of Spanning Backup for Google Apps v3.0.

The most readily apparent change is a revamped user interface. We’ve studied users’ interactions with Spanning Backup and used our findings to create a simplified, streamlined experience that effectively reduces the distance between you and your data.

We’ve also listened carefully to feedback from Google Apps admin power users, many of whom told us they need to be able to restore data on behalf of their users within seconds. So we’ve revamped the user impersonation function, making it more intelligent, easier to use, and even faster than it was before.

We’ve also integrated our Admin Dashboard into the application itself. Admins now have a single, consolidated view into their backup coverage, 30 days of Google Apps service health history, and their storage usage.

Finally, we’ve done a lot of work below the waterline. We back up terabytes of data for thousands of businesses, and are constantly improving our backend services to maintain our position as the highest-rated backup app on the Google Apps Marketplace.

We’ll be describing the new functionality in Spanning Backup v3.0 in a series of posts over the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned. 2012 is off to a beautiful start!

Tools that I use: ifttt

2012-01-12T07:39:00.000-08:00

This week: ifttt (If This Then That)

Ever wish that you could automate some of the actions that you find yourself doing from one web service to another over and over? You can! ifttt provides a large list of tasks that it can automate. They are called recipes.

A few examples that I use:

Post to Google+ and have it post to Twitter
Post to Google+ and have it post to Facebook
Star an article in GoogleReader and have it auto scrape and create a note in Evernote
Email if snow is in the forecast for tomorrow

The formula works as such:

IF Google+ pages has new update(THIS) THEN post update to Twitter(THAT) - Their how to page has a unique URL but will explain it quite well ifttt.com/wtf

There are so many possibilities with this I am excited to see where it goes!

Tools that I use: WinDirStat

2012-01-08T14:22:00.000-08:00

Example findings

This Week: WinDirStat
For Mac - Disk Inventory X

Finding hard drive hogging files isn't always easy once you've checked off the common offenders. While you might argue that with hard drive capacities being what they are today(friggin huge), why care if your 3TB hard drive has 1Tb of crap on it. Well the argument is this. Moving to a Solid State Drive, you will not be as spoiled as you once were. WinDirStat was awesome was mechanical drives were smaller and it still awesome with smaller SSDs.

Super simple to use. Tell it to scan the drive and it will give you a file tree as well as a visual representation of the files on the drive. You can even right click and go to the file, or delete the file from within WinDirStat!

It is opensource, but if you find it useful or have used it for any years, I urge you to donate to their work!

Scientists take step toward cyborgs

2012-01-06T14:37:00.001-08:00

In an article from PhysOrg. I find this exciting to see where this tech could be used. Think further down the line... Insects that don't need oxygen and that can stand environmental extremes. Imagine dumping million of cybernetic enhanced insects on Mars to scour and learn what the rovers cannot!

An insect's internal chemicals can be converted to electricity, potentially providing power for sensors, recording devices or to control the bug, a group of researchers at Case Western Reserve University report.The finding is yet another in a growing list from universities across the country that could bring the creation of insect cyborgs – touted as possible first responders to super spies – out of science fiction and into reality. In this case, the power supply, while small, doesn't rely on movement, light or batteries, just normal feeding.
The work is published in the online Journal of the American Chemical Society.
"It is virtually impossible to start from scratch and make something that works like an insect," said Daniel Scherson, chemistry professor at Case Western Reserve and senior author of the paper.
"Using an insect is likely to prove far easier," Scherson said. "For that, you need electrical energy to power sensors or to excite the neurons to make the insect do as you want, by generating enough power out of the insect itself."
Scherson teamed with graduate student Michelle Rasmussen, Biology Professor Roy E. Ritzmann, Chemistry Professor Irene Lee and Biology Research Assistant Alan J. Pollack to develop an implantable biofuel cell to provide usable power.
The key to converting the chemical energy is using enzymes in series at the anode.
The first enzyme breaks the sugar, trehalose, which a cockroach constantly produces from its food, into two simpler sugars, called monosaccharides. The second enzyme oxidizes the monosaccharides, releasing electrons.
The current flows as electrons are drawn to the cathode, where oxygen from air takes up the electrons and is reduced to water.
After testing the system using trehalose solutions, prototype electrodes were inserted in a blood sinus in the abdomen of a female cockroach, away from critical internal organs.
"Insects have an open circulatory system so the blood is not under much pressure," Ritzmann explained. "So, unlike say a vertebrate, where if you pushed a probe into a vein or worse an artery (which is very high pressure) blood does not come out at any pressure. So, basically, this is really pretty benign. In fact, it is not unusual for the insect to right itself and walk or run away afterward."
The researchers found the cockroaches suffered no long-term damage, which bodes well for long-term use.
To determine the output of the fuel cell, the group used an instrument called a potentiostat. Maximum power density reached nearly 100 microwatts per square centimeter at 0.2 volts. Maximum current density was about 450 microamps per square centimeter.
The study was five years in the making. Progress stalled for nearly a year due to difficulties with trehalase – the first enzyme used in the series.
Lee suggested they have the trehalase gene chemically synthesized to generate an expression plasmid, which is a DNA molecule separate from chromosomal DNA, to allow the production of large quantities of purified enzyme from Escherichia coli. "Michelle then began collecting enzyme that proved to have much higher specific activities than those obtained from commercial sources," Lee said. "The new enzyme led to success."
The researchers are now taking several steps to move the technology forward: miniaturizing the fuel cell so that it can be fully implanted and allow an insect to run or fly normally; investigating materials that may last long inside of an insect, working with other researchers to build a signal transmitter that can run on little energy; adding a lightweight rechargeable battery.
"It's possible the system could be used intermittently," Scherson said. "An insect equipped with a sensor could measure the amount of noxious gas in a room, broadcast the finding, shut down and recharge for an hour, then take a new measurement and broadcast again."

Windows 7 Hibernation file - Hiberfil.sys - That's No Moon

2012-01-04T18:59:00.000-08:00

That's no moon... it's hiberfil.sys!

Is hiberfil.sys eating up valuable Solid State hard drive space? It was for me!15.9GB taken up and I don't even use it. Run a command prompt as Administrator and type 'powercfg -hibernation off' to fully turn off hibernation and purge this file. Simply turning off the hibernation feature in the menu under Power Options will not get rid of the deathstar sized file.

"powercfg -H off" and "powercfg -hibernate off" should both work. I am running Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit.

Last Day Dream: Life of a Man in 45 seconds

2012-01-03T04:00:00.000-08:00

LINK

Powerful video. Very emotional.

UPDATE: After realizing the thumbnail for this video was a upskirt shot..... I posted a link instead...

Goosh.org - The Unofficial Google Shell

2011-12-31T10:00:00.000-08:00

If you need a slightly less obvious was to search Google for answers, e.g. while in front of a client should you be a consultant. Try Goosh.org. It also searched news, blogs, and Wikipedia. Type help at the prompt

Goosh

Apple Wireless Keyboard Helper Project

2011-12-30T19:01:00.001-08:00

Project Description
Helper that Allows people use the Apple Wireless Keyboard under Windows 7 without loosing the mac functionality

Key Combinations

F3: PrintScreen
F4: Task Manager
F7-F9: iTunes control
F10-F12: System volume Control
Eject button toggles Fkeys/Functions.
Fn + F key triggers function (useful when in F keys mode)
Fn + Backspace = Delete
Fn+ Eject: Eject CD

LINK

I officially feel boring

2011-12-30T18:07:00.001-08:00

After watching this, I feel very boring! Great song and great visuals! Taken with the HD HERO2 is the most advanced GoPro camera.

Song: The Glitch Mob - "We Can Make The World Stop"

Tools that I use - Wunderlist

2011-12-30T10:20:00.000-08:00

This week: Wunderlist

Berlin based creator, 6Wunderkinder, has created a light weight, visually appealing, and accessible task list utility. Finally, all of my to do lists no matter where I am. Windows PC at home, MacBook Pro at work, Android device at the store, iPad on my back patio, or even my web browser.
You have the ability to set dates and priority flags, but not times. This is not a calender app. The only thing truly missing is nested groups, but that should be coming out as a feature to Wunderkit.
Highly recommended list tracker. It has radically changed how my wife and I keep track of our grocery shopping list, our house maintenance to do list, and my task list of things to do at work(always growing).
Best of all... it's free.

Currently Playing: Skyrim

2011-12-29T06:00:00.000-08:00

I am currently lost in the world of Skyrim. Having playing through Morrowind and Oblivion... Skyrim feels like home. The lore is extensive and the imagery is nothing short or stellar. I do highly recommend heading over to Skyrimnexus and loading up on just about every HD Texture pack you can find. OK, you decide as there are so many, but the game's visuals go from stellar to "eyegasmic" pretty quick. PICS

My hour count:

Morrowind: 325+

Oblivion: 500+

Skyrim: 19 Hours and counting(barely made a dent)

Do yourself a favor and pull the trigger. Buy this game.

Painting Solar Cells with Nanoparticle Paste

2011-12-28T18:35:00.000-08:00

A team of researchers at the University of Notre Dame have made a major advance toward this vision by creating an inexpensive "solar paint" that uses semiconducting nanoparticles to produce energy.

"We want to do something transformative, to move beyond current silicon-based solar technology," says Prashant Kamat, John A. Zahm Professor of Science in Chemistry and Biochemistry and an investigator in Notre Dame's Center for Nano Science and Technology (NDnano), who leads the research.

"By incorporating power-producing nanoparticles, called quantum dots, into a spreadable compound, we've made a one-coat solar paint that can be applied to any conductive surface without special equipment."

The team's search for the new material, described in the journal ACS Nano, centered on nano-sized particles of titanium dioxide, which were coated with either cadmium sulfide or cadmium selenide. The particles were then suspended in a water-alcohol mixture to create a paste.

When the paste was brushed onto a transparent conducting material and exposed to light, it created electricity.

"The best light-to-energy conversion efficiency we've reached so far is 1 percent, which is well behind the usual 10 to 15 percent efficiency of commercial silicon solar cells," explains Kamat.

"But this paint can be made cheaply and in large quantities. If we can improve the efficiency somewhat, we may be able to make a real difference in meeting energy needs in the future."

"That's why we've christened the new paint, Sun-Believable," he adds.

Kamat and his team also plan to study ways to improve the stability of the new material.

NDnano is one of the leading nanotechnology centers in the world. Its mission is to study and manipulate the properties of materials and devices, as well as their interfaces with living systems, at the nano-scale.

Source

How Differential Steering works

2011-12-16T08:22:00.001-08:00

This is a damn good explanation!

Amazing

2011-12-09T17:43:00.001-08:00

Amazing!

The Journey Back

2011-12-03T17:53:00.001-08:00

Having left Blogger 2 years ago due to a lack of features, I have returned. Returned to a very much renovated and revamps Blogger. The new functionality and features a relight years ahead of the old Blogger.

This is my 5th home for Cheskitech. A long journey, but it feels like I am home again.

There may be changes and new additions coming over the next few weeks so bear with me if the lay out changes and shifts.

Tools that I Use: GoogleAuthenticator

2011-11-19T08:04:00.000-08:00

This week: Google Authenticator is available for both android and iphone. It turns your smartphone into a key fob, allowing for you to use 2 factor authentication to get into a variety of applications.

Applications that support it will provide a QR code, which you then scan with Google Authenticator just as you would any barcode, and the application's QR code that you scanned is now linked to Google Authenticator. A new 6 digit PIN every 30 seconds for each account linked.

Be sure to read up on each individual application's method to disable 2 factor authentication or how to use a functional failsafe just in case you lose your phone or it is destroyed by a toddler.

I currently use it for my multiple Gmail accounts and LastPass.

Google Authenticator has made securing my Gmail accounts easy.

Tools that I use: TweetDeck

2011-11-14T11:20:00.000-08:00

This week: TweetDeck

My social media app of choice is, TweetDeck. It allows me to read and post to both my Facebook stream and my twitter feeds. For twitter it allows for direct messages, retweets, and replies. For Facebook, it allows me to 'like' and reply messages.

I can add custom columns, as many as I please, in order to follow specific feeds separately.

I currently use the android app, the web app(using chrome), and a stand alone iOS app on my MacBook Pro

It is currently lacking Google+ integration, but I think that is a limitation of the Google+ API not TweetDeck.

Tools that I use: Evernote

2011-11-14T09:18:00.000-08:00

I will start to spotlight tools that I use that I feel make my life easier.

This week: Evernote

Wow, where do I start with this? Evernote is capable of so much. Between the ability to clip directly from a site and the ability to search test found within an image... so much to cover. Perhaps a bullet point list of the items I have found that Evernote is great for:

Scanning everything in my home filing cabinet so much that I barely need the cabinet itself anymore

Collecting PDF version of any manual I come across, such as garage door opener, refrigerator, etc

Wishlists of items for gift ideas(i collect them through the year since when I am asked what I want for Christmas or my birthday I always seem to be at a loss)

Sending articles from my RSS reader(GoogleReader) into notes that I can read later, or wish to keep

Recipes - a cookbook of sorts

Digital copies of business cards - no longer do they accumulate on my desk!

Links to Mods I want to try for specific video games

Quick pictures of receipts form purchases - again no more clutter

Web clips from online orders, thus all numbers and links are saved for returns or review

Picture of the contents of my wallet(sans Credit Cards) - insurance card(front and back) for example

Photo inventory of items that you own for insurance purposes(focusing on serial numbers)

Keeping a log of paper work and details for work done to my vehicle

Keeping a log of paper work and details for work done to my home

Single place for idea collaboration with my wife on projects, such as building the new office - Photo and link rich

This list is always growing and evolving. Evernote is well worth the small cost. Try the free account here, and consider paying for premium.