Gabe_Log - Tech

Daylight but not much saving going on

Your DisplayName here! — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 08:32:45 GMT

New Zealand has just recently transitioned into a new Daylight Savings scheme where the start and end rules of the daylight savings period in New Zealand have been extended. The details of this change are here . While this should save us lots daylight so we can now BBQ in the evenings without burning our sausages in the dark like we do in winter. Instead it seems to have cost New Zealand companies by having this change relatively rushed through with little thought or planning to the true implications it has had.

Looking back it seems Mauricio had some really good insight into the potential impacts this change would have in NZ.

I have found the New Zealand DST changes have been particularly well managed and supported by Microsoft with comprehensive notification, information and guidance for customers and partners.

I have found that Java world has faired rather poorly as most people have either assumed that the OS will deal with the change or have not understood that Java manages its own time zone and daylight savings information internally to the JVM. This is made all the harder with soo many different vintages of Java JVMs being used out there. I am sure these items have no doubt caused some surprises this last Sunday and Monday for companies.

Apple Macs seem to have forgotten about this change.

My Tivo managed the DST change well with an updated New Zealand Time Zone file loaded into it.

My new (and otherwise great) Nokia E65 Phone did not manage this change well. My phone still thinks the New Zealand time zone is GMT+12:00 which caused my phone calendar synchronisation with Exchange to push my meetings to be one hour earlier!! Both Nokia and Vodafone New Zealand seem pretty clueless on understanding or correcting this issue. From my point of view either Vodafone need to implement Network Operator time synchronisation or Nokia need to release a time zone patch for the E65. The only work around I have found is to put the phone in the Tonga time zone which is GMT+13:00 during this transition week. Nokia seem to have tried to address this issue for other phones and other country time zone changes but not little NZ. So Vodafone NZ or Nokia if you are reading this - DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!

After all this time zone change fun here are my recommendations:

To the New Zealand government, more time and publicity should have given to this change. This has definitely had a large impact on New Zealand businesses and some have been unfortunately caught surprised by this.
Make time zone rule information human editable in all systems to avoid the extreme hassle it causes when it changes in the future. Hey why not even use a standard xml file that has an agreed and standardised schema.
To the big international companies that have not understood and acted on this New Zealand DST change like Apple and Nokia shame on you I really expected more oh and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

- Gabe

My home NAS solution

Your DisplayName here! — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 21:10:57 GMT

I recently had two sub three year old 120GB hard drives fail at home. This was a real pain for me so I researched some solutions that give me large network attached storage (NAS) with some redundancy and management features like backup etc. My solution was the Infrant Technologies ReadyNAS NV. This unit features:

4 lockable hot-swappable SATA disk trays
RAID 0/1/5
Programmable backup button
One USB 2.0 port in front, two in back
Server-rated power supply
Low power consumption and silent operation
Gigabit Ethernet with Jumbo frame support
print server

So far I have found this unit great. I am currently running it with 2x SAMSUNG 300GB drives which are currently good value for money. I will eventually, as I can afford it and need the storage, increase the number of drives to 4. I am running the NAS using a system called X-RAID which dynamically expands the volume and data onto new disks and migrates from RAID 0 to 1 to 5. You can even sequentially replace each disk with larger ones and the NAS will migrate over to the larger disks.

I looked into some DIY options but these all involved having old pc's lying around and no doubt a fair amount of my time I now don't have. A DIY NAS solution is cheaper in terms of hardware cost, but this appliance solution is really small (think toaster size) and requires little setup time and gives you the confidence that comes with a well designed and tested product like this.

As broadband, home media servers, video editing/storage and hard drive failures become more common, I see the home NAS market picking up in the next year.

- Gabe

Ubuntu 6.06 - Dapper Drake LTS installed at home

Your DisplayName here! — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 00:22:55 GMT

Over the last weekend, I installed the Ubuntu 6.06 distribution of Linux on one of my old PIII laptops.

In short I must say I am really impressed with how polished Ubuntu has become for a free OS. I am treating this as a linux learning challenge for me to get to know linux a bit better. I thought what better than to install it on machine that I use for mainly web browsing and email while watching TV (how sad :-)).

The base install went fine but getting my DLink DWL-G650 Wifi card working turned out to be an interesting eye opener for how google-support (searching forums and web sites) works when you have linux. The shear range of solutions from people with similar hardware, OS, versions and problems ranged from re-compiling kernels right through to installing different wifi network stacks and everything else in between. Ubuntu was recognising my card but was unable to configure it to work on my network properly. It turned out all I needed to do was run this script:

sudo ifconfig ath0 up
sudo iwlist ath0 scan
sudo iwconfig ath0 key [key goes here]
sudo iwpriv ath0 authmode 2
sudo iwconfig ath0 essid "[SSID here]"
sudo dhclient ath0

I am impressed with how committed the linux community is to getting things to work and helping each other but I think the challenge for them is making this easy for your average joe who just wants his computer and hardware to work without much hassle. It seems to be a bit of minefield of solutions and you constantly have to check the solutions are for the same hardware, chip set, linux distribution, version, CPU etc. That said, I must admit the enjoyment of getting it working is increased when you have to hack around a bit!!

Anyway Ubuntu is definitely worth a look if you are Linux curious and running the LiveCD (same as the installer) is well worth a look.

-Gabe

Intergen are hiring

Your DisplayName here! — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 23:15:29 GMT

Intergen are hiring. If you want to talk to me about this, please feel free to contact me on gabriel.smith@inNOterSPAMgen.co.nz if you are interested.

-Gabe

Freeview New Zealand update and Gabes predictions

Your DisplayName here! — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 00:13:32 GMT

After a bit of time to think and research after the initial excitement of the Freeview announcement last week, I have the following predictions on Freeview and HDTV in New Zealand:

Freeview set top boxes will be standard definition (MPEG 2, DVD like quality) only initially due the pure cost of the units. HDTV capable receivers are still pretty expensive right now. I will try and get this confirmed from Freeview New Zealand (currently I am questioning TVNZ on Freeviews behalf).
HDTV content and HDTV capable set top boxes will arrive after (probably at least a year after) the initial release of Freeview in New Zealand.
The introduction of HDTV Freeview in New Zealand will most likely follow the standards being trialled in the UK right now by the BBC which use MPEG4 with H.264.
Sky New Zealand will no doubt introduce HDTV Sky before Freeview HDTV in a defensive move to keep subscribers.

Some interesting links:
Freeview set top boxes in the UK http://www.radioandtelly.co.uk/freeviewreceivers.html
HDTV UK FAQ http://www.burnyourbonus.co.uk/hdtv-faq/faq1.html
New Zealand and Aussie Satellite TV info http://www.apsattv.com/

Things to think about:

What sort of PVR will eventually replace my Tivo? Vista Media Centre with HDTV support maybe? A proprietary HDTV PVR set top box? Should I still use my Tivo with SD Freeview?
Will Sky open up there HDTV service to third party PVR solutions? Probably not I would say but it sounds like this might be possible in the UK with SD Sky see http://www.radioandtelly.co.uk/onyourpc.html.

I am keen to get a PC DVB-S card and start having a play with receiving the current TVNZ/Freeview trial service on the B1 satellite. If the budget can stretch far enough, I might try and get a MPEG4 H.264 capable card in preparation for HDTV in the future.

I will let you all know how this goes...

- Gabe

Does Freeview support HDTV content?

Your DisplayName here! — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 04:23:56 GMT

>Great news regarding digital TV but what is the status and timeframe of HDTV content?

Thank you for your e-mail regarding FreeView free-to-air digital television.

Content on FreeView channels will be up to the participating Broadcasters to decide and I expect that the introduction of HDTV by some will be a "point of difference" or giving one a competitive edge over another. Given that this platform offers the perfect opportunity for HD TV I expect some Broadcasters will certainly introduce it sooner or later.

I am sorry I cannot yet be more specific with timeframe for the inclusion of HDTV programmes on FreeView.

Regards,

Ric

Well this is sounding positive. With Sky's HDTV plans as well, hopefully this is going to create a good bit of market competition for viewers and maybe some HDTV content.

The key good thing I get from this message is that it appears that Freeview will technically support HDTV from day one as a platform.

Bring it on.

Update:

There is some really good information on Freeview here http://www.apsattv.com/ thanks Skippy for the link.

I want my HDTV, broadcast in New Zealand

Your DisplayName here! — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 21:31:04 GMT

Well today the New Zealand government will be announcing its digital TV strategy. This week has had plenty of media speculation about what this will mean for consumers in New Zealand. I personally hope the New Zealand government makes a firm commitment to adopting HDTV broadcast via whatever medium makes sense (IPTV, satellite, cable, terrestrial). We now have plenty of consumers with HDTV capable TVs, we have xbox's that output HDTV, folk are downloading HDTV over the internet, gee you can even buy HDTV video cameras in NZ now, not to forget all of NZ's major TV studios are fully kitted out with HDTV cameras and vision mixing gear. Come on government, adopt HDTV before it becomes a legacy technology.

Updates:

Not much detail if this is going to be HDTV but a positive sign anayway

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3701440a10,00.html

Some good info here http://digital.tvnz.co.nz/

iTunes corrupt file problems with my iPod

Your DisplayName here! — Sun, 11 Jun 2006 10:56:57 GMT

I love my iPod but... I have had two occasions when iTunes or my iPod ends up corrupting some files in the hidden
directory \iPod_Control\iTunes\ on my iPod. It seems this problem is wide spread over a number of iPod models. This forum entry sums up the problem and some solutions really well. The most annoying thing about this problem for me is that it leaves my iPod in state of having music files on it but the index file is corrupted. The rest of the iPod is otherwise fine. This means my iPod thinks it has no music on it when it actually does. Because I sync my iPod from a couple of different locations and carry a good few data files on it as well, I find restoring my iPod to be a really annoying task because I have to copy all my files off it and then back onto the iPod post an iPod updater restore. Even with USB 2.0 this still takes a long time with a nearly full 60GB iPod.

To try and avoid this type of problem in the future I have implemented a simple "last known good" database backup script using a good old .bat file. This backs up the important iPod database files to a backup dir but excludes the Music dir so the actual mp3 files are not backed up as well.

So in practice I run the backup after I have finished syncing with iTunes but before ejecting the iPod safely. I have tested this working by manually corrupting some files in the \iPod_Control\iTunes\ and testing a restore and this seems to work.

Hopefully those familiar with batch files can follow whats going on here. Please note I offer no guarantees on the success of this method and please use this at your own risk. Also keep in mind that really important files should be backed up on multiple physical media and kept in different locations to be safe.

rmdir iPod_Control_Backup /s /q
xcopy iPod_Control iPod_Control_Backup\ /s /e /h /y /exclude:excludebackup.txt
pause

It would have been great if Apple could have thought about providing a better solution to this problem with what I will call "logical disk failures". I guess Apple are considering the possibility that there could actually be some real "physical disk failures" starting and it might be hard for software like iTunes to able to tell the difference between logical and physical failures?

Anyway, good luck with your iPods and don't forget to back up really important data.