Things and Stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 08:35:00 +0000

Raspberry Pi

Home
www.raspberrypi.org

Installation
http://www.raspbmc.com/wiki/user/os-x-linux-installation/

Installing and using XBMC on RPi
http://noelarlante.com/rasberry-pi-with-raspbmc-and-airplay-rocks/

Lego case!
http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2366

Intelligence, Obsession and Social Ineptitude

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Sun, 20 May 2012 17:32:00 +0000

I have been looking for this for a long, long, time. I have always said I was a geek, not a nerd, but I couldn't explain why. This is it.

Upgrading The MacBookPro

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 18:03:00 +0000

It's getting to that time again, when I get itchy with old technology. This time rather than rushing to the Mac Store with $2000 I am (probably) going to upgrade the old one, with a SSD and some more, faster RAM.

Hard drive

I found some sound instructions on the how-to aspect of the HDD here: http://www.extremetech.com/computing/58220-upgrade-your-macbook-pros-hard-drive-2/10

Now I just have to choose a drive. I am going to look at a Solid State Drive, if I can convince myself it will work, and it is not going to cost close to the price of a brand new machine. First of all, will it work? OSX 10.6.8 included support for TRIM enabled drives which is a good thing, but it seems to be a bit of a black art to chosing a drive that will work with OSX TRIM support (if you buy a pre-installed drive from Apple, it'll work fine, but if you do it yourself, there's no telling). To help me remember what I found, here is a link.

TRIM support
http://osxdaily.com/2011/03/27/enable-trim-ssd-mac-os-x-10-6-7/

Next it was time to look at a SSD. I looked at various sources until I found this one, from a reputable supplier in the UK http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=90A9989AA5CA7304

A review of this drive was found here, and it seems to be pretty good, receiving both "Dam Good." and "Dam Good Value."
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/45718-crucial-m4-256gb-ssd-review-12.html

Having decided this was the right man for the jeorb I decided to check out the price of a bigger (at least 320GB) 7200 RPM drive, just to compare. Given that in the above review, even the worst performance in the most degraded, non-TRIM state resulted in speeds FASTER than the WD Velociraptor I know that this is not a cutting-edge technology, but would still represent an increase in speed and capacity from the stock drive. So a quick google search turned up that at major retailers the WD Black Scorpion 320 GB is going for about 60-90 GBP. Then I checked Amazon.co.uk and found a brand new one for 55 GPB plus shipping (about 5 pounds)!

So, for 20% of the price you get a 50% reduction in speed and 50% increase in capacity, without having to deal with TRIM issues... I think I might leave the SSD for the NEXT upgrade!

Currently the book has 2 GB DDR3 1067 MHz so I'll have to check out what speed the machine can support and how much. I will probably aim for 4GB (of the fastest possible of course). A quick search at crucial.com shows that an 8GB kit is going for 36 pounds. Wow. That is NOT going to break the bank. Infact that's so good I am going to see how much it would be to upgrade the iMac as well...

Link to Apple support page for iMac.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1423?viewlocale=en_US#2

www.crucial.com supplied the RAM for both upgrades and, with free shipping, came out at very good value for a total of 12GB of RAM (8+4). The website also has a very easy way of finding which RAM you need for your computer and their database is pretty extensive. For a laugh I put in the details of my OLD Compaq TC1100 tablet and it found the right module, at a reasonable price, and even warned me that the second slot is not accessible by the end user. Nice.

Installing the RAM is very easy in both the iMac and the MacBook Pro. Instructions can be found at various places around the the Mac support pages. When I first did the laptop I didn't press one of the DIMMs in far enough so all I got was beeping when I turned it back on. That was easily fixed and after that I had no issues. I wouldn't mind getting in there with an anti-static vacuum cleaner though, there is A LOT of dust in there.

Next up is the HDD in the MacBook Pro. I still have my eye on this one, from WD. It seems to only be available on Amazon.co.uk, which is fine. Seems I might have missed the boat on the price though. Now up to 70-80 pounds, although that's only 10-15 more than 2 weeks ago, it's still annoying!

Some more useful links:
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20080989-263/how-to-create-an-os-x-lion-installation-disc/
Disk Inventory X - It's like WinDirStat for Mac.

#12 The Real Book Club

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 17:33:00 +0000

This post has moved to its very own blog.

#11 Old tech and new

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 09:43:00 +0000

Yeah, so I've run out of old tech to talk about and since I don't have a huge fan base I'm not too disappointed about that to be honest. Instead, I am just going to write/rant about whatever tickles my fancy or grinds my gears....

Such as this classic gem

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7568881/

#10 What goes around...

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 09:31:00 +0000

Ok, so I may not be the best at celebrating the glories of old technology on this blog, as originally hoped, but I think you might like this one. I am writing this blog from my workplace, a secure cocoon of connectivity. There is no internet here. At least not that work lets me write blogs from... I am writing this post through a blutooth link to my cell phone (so it has to be quick, I have a 10MB limit).

What grinds my gears is that when I first started using this machine I had the Sony-Ericsson PC suite providing my internet connectivity. Today, it decided not to work. Now, I use the S-E PCS to connect the phone via bluetooth, then use the latest version of Vodafone mobile broadband to connect to the net. This is annoying. Why can the software that is made by the phone manufacturer not work and the software made by a giant multinational company works... well to be honest very well? Even through bluetooth (which if I am not mistaken, has been problematic for windows computers for a long, long time...)?

Ok, rant over. Now back to some good old tech success. I have recently resuscitated my iPaq rz series PDA. This has no connectivity other than USB (1.1!) and is essentially a music player with pocket office on it. So I now need to convert all my digital movies to windows media files and I will be able to watch them in 3.5" glory. Yeah right. Being made to hand back my blackberry at work though has prompted me to have a stab at it and to be honest, it's not too bad. I have to be careful about sync settings but the new Windows Mobile Center is actually good at managing the connection, making sure no duplicates are made and that the most recent version of each contact is synced to both devices etc. What it doesn't do, however, is sync media - indeed Windows Media Player cannot even recognise that there is a device connected. Oh dear.

So, next step is creating a master contacts list that can be reliably synced between PDA, PC, Gmail, and work. All using physical connections, not auto sync allowed! (I like to challenge myself...)

#9 Windows7 again (I'll stop going on about it soon I promise)

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 08:03:00 +0000

Ok, I know I don't update this very frequently, but let's face it, I don't have a massive readership anyway, so I don't think I'm disappointing anyone there really. But what I do find disappointing is the fact that I started attempting to install Windows 7 in April, and now, in June, it is working.

The installation process was identical to the RC. I followed my own instructions to install drivers etc, and I have to say that my original impressions based on the release candidate are ... identical to my initial impressions of the SP1 release. That has to be testament to the programmers at MS - they actually released a good product at sp1, but better than that, it was good before release, and they must have had to change very little.

After minimal frustration I was up an running with 7 on my HP TC1100. I even got access to my Apple Time Capsule disk from within windows, something I had previously been unable to do on any windows machine (contact the person who administers your network, fuck you I am the admin.). Greedily, I tried to combat the one remaining limitation that TC1100 users struggle with world-wide, the bios limitation that prevents Windows from using anything past 128gb of HD space.

This problem is old and as the TC1100 is also old, it suffers from this problem. What it means is that if your OS refers to a sector on the disk that is further than 137,000,000 kB from the boot sector, it reads the disk starting again from zero, and so fucks your shit up big time. Long story short, you MUST partition your HDD to a maximum size of 125GB before you install an OS or else the thing will shit the bed after you have been using it for a while. My problem was, I thought that having a 250gb HDD and only using 125GB of it was not acceptable (the officer of the watch shall not tolerate defects) and read somewhere that I could get around it by partitioning and formatting the other half of the drive using G-Parted, or Mac OSX or whatever.

Then the fun started. Yes, you can partition leaving the first part untouched. But it seems the TC100 won't boot if there is a partition affter the 137KKKB sector, so it shit the bed anyway and I couldn't boot into windows, not even safe mode. No worries, I thought. I'll just make an image of the partion and re-burn it after re-formatting.

Occaisionally in life you have these moments when you realise you have just done something really really dumb. Like COLOSOLLY dumb. Like, pick up an baking tray without an oven mit because the baking looks like it might burn if you leave it in there another second, dumb. Like, realising you should not have attempted that jump as you fall over the handle bars of your bike and land on your face, dumb.

As I clicked [Yes, I am sure I want to delete this partition] I realised that this was one of those moments.

Here are a few reasons why this was epically dumb:

I could have just deleted the new partition, leaving this old one untouched.
If you make an image in Mac OSX, you need to write it with the same,
Mac OSX cannot write to NTFS.
It was not broken, so why the fuck was I trying to fix it in the first place?

Anyway, having done this epically dumb thing, I went about trying different was of making Windows try to recognise the full size of the disk. and short of implanting a special kind of boot-kit from Western Digital, I realised it was useless. I gave in, reformatted, after nearly breaking the bus pins on the HDD because it had been taken out and re-installed so many times, and reinstalled windows.

I should add at this point that my copy of Win 7 is upgrade only, so you must install a previous version on Windows first before it will work. For me this meant installing XP Tablet edition with its thousand extra little packs and add-ons and generally taking about 4 hours to instal. Install AVG, install the ethernet driver, and then install windows 7 including downloading updates. Then another 4 hours to install Windows 7, install updates, AV, Office, etc etc etc. Each time (I did this three times) I would have to spread the process out over several days as I was working such long hours I could not attend my poor wee tablet during the process.

After realising that it wasn't going to work I went back to the way it was originally, nearly a month later by this stage, and now I am back where I started, except it's not connected to the Time Capsule disk, and I have for some very strange reason, decided that I will use every piece of MS software I can, AV, ie8, if it doesn't actually cost me anything, I am using it. And to be honest, I don't mind it too much.

So I will say it again, though I still consider myself a Mac user, I do like Windows 7. It is fast, good looking, easy to use, and when you are connected to the net its features like driver updates work really, really well. I have not had to scrounge an old cd to install drivers, not even for my weather station's usb>serial converter.

Nothing.

It all just works.

Now if I can just get the BIOS to recognise the full size of the disk...

FLASH - Windows 7 Genuine

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Sun, 30 May 2010 02:51:00 +0000

1. I ACTUALLY PAID MONEY FOR WINDOWS.
2. IT WORKS.
3. MORE TO FOLLOW.

#8 I sold out.

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 09:19:00 +0000

Well well well, what do you know? Latest version of Ubuntu = win, latest version on Windows = fail.

Installing Ubuntu was exceptionally easy thanks to the ever-present Live CD. Start up from the CD first, confirm all systems are go, then click, 'install to disk'. Why, why, why, can windows not do that? I could have saved myself a shite load of bother in the first place!

Ubuntu is cool although I did have a little issue with the GRand Universal Boot loader, the little worm decided my HDD didn't exist, even though the GRUB is stored there. Oh well, that is par for the course with open source I suppose. The great thing is, even though it has only been out for 2 weeks or somethin ridiculous, there are already others out there who have even less of a life than me, and even more old rotting hardware to play around with, who have already encountered, 'forumed', received advice about, tested and found solutions for, the same problems I encountered. So really, there are no problems, just temporary annoyances...
So, long story short, Linux is cool, it has given my 7-year old hardware a new lease on life, it now runs a brand new OS, rather than one that is 7 years old! There's more to come here, as I get into Linux I will endeavour to push the boundaries to re-format inducing levels, and see what kind of trouble me and my new best friend 'sudo' can get into together! (sudo make me a coffee!)
That is not what I am most excited about however. What I am most excited about is my purty little Tabatha! Windows 7 continues to run very well on this ancient platform. So well that I have made it my official "best old tech"machine. I made it official with a quaint tea-drinking and RAM-upgrading ceremony, where I transplanted the symbol of 'best old tech" soverignty, my 1GB, 333MHz RAM stick from Maja the Laptop to Tabatha the Tablet. And then drank some tea.

As a quick aside, I now think both machines run better, possibly due to the fact that both now have same-speed RAM in both slots? If anyone knows if that's realistic I'd be interested to find out.

Anyway, back to Tabatha, I have tested pretty much every program I want to run from it (except Diablo II, watch this space) and have been satisfied entirely. The only gripe I really have is that my HDD isn't big enough.

But wait, I thought, I have a 250GB drive sitting in my Laptop, largely empty as it has a fresh install on Ubuntu on it, couldn't I stick that in the Tablet?

No, it is old, and BIOS will only address the first 137GB of the disk. A quick google search later confirmed that that's not a problem as long as you have 2 partitions, the first of which has to be less than 137GB. Sweeeeet. This has pretty much made my mind up for me. I am going to buy Windows 7, and install it on a very, very old computer... Again.

So the largely free & open Source project has completely about-turned. Perhaps, since lappy is now running Ubuntu I could try out that as an open-source platform. And, as I've now spent $75 on a DVD Drive for Tabatha, & the RAM I put in cost $100 not 3 months ago, you can't really say it's free any more, can you?

Next Step: Installing office 2OO7: Wish me luck.

#7 The grass is not greener, you're colour-blind.

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 07:50:00 +0000

So, I have a new pinch of salt to add to my praise of Windows 7.

To start from somewhere after the start, I recently tried to install W7 in a dual boot scenario on my HP Compaq nx7000 and got a winload.exe failure after reboot. A quick google showed many people have reported the same error trying to dual boot vista on my machine.

Step back a little way, before I attempted this, indeed before Windows 7 even came out, I ran the compatibility checker. The only significant thing it told me was my WLAN driver would need to be downloaded separately, and that Aero etc wouldn't work. The thing came out in 2004, no surprises there!

So I booted back into xp and copied off my files, then used GParted to format the drive. Fingers crossed at this stage cos I just wiped my HDD hoping that the reason I couldn't continue with set up was the dual boot thing.

Turns out I was right, and set up continues with only W7 installed… But, and this is a big 'but', it turns out, W7 is not compatible with my Machine's graphics or WLAN card. Sweet as, I don't need better res than 700x560, and who needs wireless these days, the internet is overrated…

So I spent about a day looking on the net for different drivers, I even emailed HP, who kindly sent me an email back, stating my machine is not compatible with W7. Oarsome. Thanks a bunch Windows Compatibility Checker, you wouldn't know if Windows was compatible with yo' momma's left titty.

After trying everything I could think of, I decided the best course of action was to install GNU/Linux. So I chose Ubuntu Karmic Koala (and yes, before you ask, when I the time comes, I will probably install Lesbian Llama).

I'll update you on how the ubuntu install goes soon. In the meantime, here's a list of things I've learned up to today:

Sometimes, even when you are confident you know what you are doing, you don't.
Emo kids with bright orange hair who mutter 'Death' under their breath as you walk past them are infinitely less preferable to the ones who busk outside the supermarket singing, 'I don't know what I'm doing wrong' songs (am I a bad person because the first thing I thought to do was tell him to cut down the wrist, and not across it?)
Commander Sulu has a really, really cool voice: "Actually it's my first attempt."
In order to re-crystalise the lithium in my laptop battery I just need to steal some photons from a nuclear reactor, preferably from the US(N)S Enterprise.

#6 Obsess much? Undervolting... Rivalling Jedi for my new religion.

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 02:36:00 +0000

My poor old Tabatha, that is, TC1100, has a 50kmWh battery, which can now only charge to 27kmWh, which means that the battery is 5 years old, was free, and is now 50% poked. To combat this, I am faced with several options:

Do nothing. Free, but not very satisfying.
Buy a new battery. Very expensive and very satisfying. But remember this platform was supposed to be a cheap-or-free, so not the best option.
Reduce the voltage load use of the processor, so it uses less power per cycle: Undervolting.

First of all, webetiquette requires I thank the Mobile PC Wiki crew for this article, which pointed me towards the Flipfire article, which is awesome. Running Windows7, the only program which had a slight problem was the RMClock, which doesn't install unless in compatibility mode, but thanks to Windows7 you just click 'Give it a try' and it works... ANYWAY, I digress.

If you follow the instructions in this article you really can't go wrong. The only thing is, you can't really guarantee great results. Nevertheless, I managed a 0.15v reduction at the highest multiplier, and a 0.25v reduction at idle. Not massive gains, but I may get another 20min or so from the battery now, which is 20min for free, no matter what.

What I really think is impressive is that you can use RMClock to underclock your cpu on purpose so you can essentially turn your 2.2ghz beast into a PIII 1000 if you want, which will definitely have benefits for laptop and netbook users who do not need all their processing power all the time - for example when browsing the web. Nice.

This blog was brought to you by MacBook Pro, cos you can't blog when you are purposefully BSODing your PC...

#5 Spinning the Black Circle

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:28:00 +0000

So, I'm not really sure if it qualifies or not, but it's my blog right? But recently I have been getting really stuck in to my old records. There's something really great about records, apart from the fact that I have some awesome albums.

My favourite trick, unplug the amp after lowering the needle, stick your head right up close to the needle: YOU CAN HEAR THE MUSIC! THERE'S NO AMP BUT YOU CAN HEAR THE MUSIC!

Ok, so apart from that, what about the negatives: lower fidelity reproduction, scratches, crackley dusty noises, having to turn it over half way through, having to buy new needles all the time. I could go on...

Well, I have given this question some thought, in various states of mind, and come up with the following definitive answer: the reason vinyl is still great even considering all the negatives is, It's big, and black, and round, and cool. That's it. End of argument.

#4 Windows 7

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 20:42:00 +0000

Well, it works! Windows 7 on a 5 year old Tablet PC and it actually works well - much better than XP tablet edition seemed to, which is odd, given that this machine was pretty much built to run that OS, and an OS that was built to work on much better machines works better. Wow, that sentence had bad grammar! But you get my drift. Windows 7 actually works well on a 5 year old, Pentium M 1.1GHz, with 1GB memory.

So far I have watched DVD, listened to music, taught it to recognise my handwriting, which is a feat some people struggle with, surfed the net over Ethernet (haven't tested the wifi yet) connected to my phone with bluetooth (but only for the remote control application), and customized the hardware buttons (something that wasn't possible the XP Tablet Edition). When the RC expires in March next year, I will actually consider paying money to keep this OS operating on my antiquated computer system. Lets just say that again slowly. I will consider paying money for windows. I have never had to do this before. But Windows7 may change all that... Probably not, but maybe.

Which brings me to my next point. Compared to XP, I'm all about 7. But compared to Mac OSX, there's no contest. Actually, that's like beating up little kids:

I'm running a machine which was built in 2004, at which time XP was the peak of windows history. These days, you need a veritable super computer just to run the aero-glass interface (which poor old Tabatha the tablet can't run, btw).
Mac OSX only runs on new macs. New macs are all nice, well-spec'd, rather attractive computers. The whole experience is infinitely more pleasing than any windows computer out there.

So, it's kind of like taking a VW beetle, pimping the interior, and then racing it against a Porsche. It'll look better, be more comfortable to drive, and the little things like the orange soda dispenser will all work, but you're still going to get pwned.

Still, there is something deeply satisfying to the used-pc clepto in me: Tabatha cost me nothing. They were throwing them away at work, no HDD, no power supply, and no stylus. I took it home, plugged in a PS, threw in an old hdd and it went first time. Now I have a useful, albeit old, tablet PC that functions very well. And now it is running the latest version of windows, which was also free, as it is the RC.

Tabatha was originally going to be an 'open-source' play thing. I would use anything I can on it, as long as I wasn't supposed to pay for it. No pirated software, no legal versions of anything that cost money, it was supposed to be all free, all the time. Now, I am considering paying money for windows. That speaks volumes for 7, but it makes me think twice about actually writing that down. I mean, really, paying retail for a Microsoft product? Really? REALLY?!

#3 Installing Windows 7 on a TC1100

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 08:24:00 +0000

So I decided to take the plunge. Here's a little research.

Google Search

Under volting

Ram Upgrade Photos

Drives & Tweaks

Not that you're interested but I'll keep you updated with my progress.

Oh yes. & I did this on the TC1100 as proof it actually runs!

#1 Obsess much?

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:15:00 +0000

Something The Beautiful Belle, often, no, always struggles to comprehend is my never-ending fascination with ever-so-slightly out-dated technology. Today I realised, and let her (TBB) know, it's never, ever, going to change.

Don't get me wrong, I like new technology too, I just can't afford to buy all the new technology I would like to afford. For example, I recently bought an Apple MacBook Pro. I am desperately in love with this particular piece of hardware, in fact, I think that the MacBook Pro is the laptop computer equivalent of soft-core pornography (I'll probably regret writing that... ). I particularly like how the new Mac OSX Snow Leopard solves the age old Windows vs Mac dilemna: If you were ever wondering if you should buy a Mac or stick with Windows, you can now just buy a Mac, install Windows on a partition and you have the best of both worlds, whenever you like, and all on a very, very good looking piece of hardware.

However, I am typing this blog, not on my new MBP, not on my less-than-two-years-old iMac (26", 2.4GHz C2D, the one before this one), but on my second-hand-in-2005, HP Compaq nx7000. Which, if you were too lazy to click the link, is a Pentium M, 1.4GHz, with 64mb shared graphics, and (recently upgraded to) 1.5GB of 333MHz (old, slow) RAM. On this machine I have had three installs of Windows, a new hard drive, and several Linux installs on Live CDs, small partitions, and most recently, Live USB (with persistant storage!).

I also own a 1.1GHz Compaq TC1100 Tablet PC, and an iPAQ rz1710, and these, along with the nx7000, are maintained in Windows update, virus-free, firewalled, connected, networked, etc etc. So, what does that make me? An advertisement for Hewlett Packard from 2004? A freak? Or just unwilling to let go? Or maybe, I just want to experience all these technological gadgets, and am willing to accept the fact that I will always be about 2 years behind the times.

The worst part is, as I realised to TBB's horror today, that it is never going to change. That sooner or later, I am going to own a room full of old computers, all networked together, controlling the motorised blinds in the living room, and dangerously close to becoming self-aware. It is inevitable. Like the Borg, resistance is futile. It is going to happen.

I just have to wait until next year's inorganic collection to get a Core 2 Duo PC off the street and I'm all set...