Archive for the 'Hardware' category

04
Jan

What’s in your laptop bag?

By Damien Guard Categories: Apple and Hardware Tags: , , , .

Since my new laptop arrived I've been fine tuning my accessories in search of the developer-on-the-move setup. Here is my current contents complete with shameless Amazon Affiliate product links where applicable ;-)

Brenthaven Pro BackPack

My parents bought me the Brenthaven Pro 15-17 Backpack for Christmas. It has a great number of sections and compartments yet can still be thinly packed with the padding contributing to a comfortable wear. The only negatives are that the finish seems a little rough in places and that the rigid laptop protection area seems to be designed to hold a laptop almost twice as thick as a MacBook Pro despite claims of being 'Designed for a 15.4" MacBook and 17" MacBook Pro'.

Of course the dream laptop bag would have an external USB port that would power and charge various devices within ;-)

RadTech sleeve & protector

I've owned RadTech sleeves for all three of my Apple laptop's to date and they've all been excellent. Snug fitting, soft but hard-wearing and well-made they keep the machines clean and scratch-free. Now available in a multitude of colours but call me a traditionalist I've stuck with aluminium-grey. I also recommend grabbing a screen protector that sits between the keyboard and screen that doubles up as a cleaning cloth.

OCZ Rally 2 4GB USB stick

Another gift I recieved is the ever-useful USB memory stick for those odd file transfer tasks. The OCZ 4GB Rally 2 USB 2.0 Flash Drive can double up as a Vista ReadyBoost cache (providing you are booted natively, neither Parallels or VMware Fusion emulate it fast enough) and is housed in a small black metal enclosure the size of my little finger. Minor downsides are the easily-lost cap and the green led that casts an eerie glow over the geek at the keyboard.

Microsoft Wireless Notebook Laser Mouse 600

I've been using mice with laptops less over the years as my comfort with trackpads has grown and i have found myself without desk space for a mouse. The Microsoft Wireless Notebook Laster Mouse 600 works quite well however and the battery seems to last for ages. It is quite light and possibly a bit too small to be comfortable and if I was to replace it I'd go with something Bluetooth to avoid the dongle (which clips into the mouse when not in use).

iPod Nano

I purchased a iPod Nano 8GB 3G late last year after my 60GB iPod died. The device is incredibly small with a good battery life and fantastic display. Not convinced that the screen or control is suited for video or games but it makes a great little music player - I'm just hoping the flash models have a longer lifespan.

Philips Earbuds

These Philips HN060/37 'Noise-Canceling' Earbuds are pretty good considering the price, size and battery life. Whilst they don't cancel noise out the combination of the in-ear mechanism, volume booster and the active circuity does help supress noise levels somewhat and I have found them particularly useful on flights. Some people find the high-pitched white noise the circuitry generates annoying and others find in-ear plugs irritating however. Personally the only problem I have with them is that the rubber pieces tend to come off and get lost quite easily but you can buy generic replacement packs from many airport/music stores.

My Book Pro 500GB External Drive

Leopard's Time Machine combined with a Western Digital My Book Studio 500GB External Hard Drive provides me with a simple backup strategy that is lightning fast via FireWire 800 (800 Mbps) and still speedy over USB 2 (480 Mbps).

The Studio drive I linked to also provides eSATA support (couldn't find mine on Amazon). It isn't always in my backpack but does make a regular appearance.

Cables etc.

The bane of every techie's life. Currently includes 1m USB extender, a USB to mini-USB cable that connects my TyTN, PSP, BlackBerry and Canon EOS 400D to my MacBook Pro and the Apple DVI to VGA adaptor for presentations. The Apple-supplied remote also sits in there for exactly that purpose.

Stationary

I like to keep a Moleskine pocket notepad tucked away, ruled by preference until they make a graph-paper version. This is normally coupled with a Pilot G2 at the moment which is comfy and smooth but takes too long to dry and is still too thick in the 0.38mm '05' version. Without sounding like a pen obsessive I'm going to try a Uni-Ball Signo Bit 0.18 next! There is also a nondescript mechanical pencil and large eraser.

Reading

Yes, there is still room in this TARDIS of a laptop bag for reading material. At the moment it is alternating between Designing Type, Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager and The Art of Intrusion all of which were Christmas gifts :)

That's it! would love to find out what other people keep in their laptop bags and hear suggestions on some of my weak spots. I wish I could fit a full-size tactile keyboard in it but I guess I'll live!

[)amien

5 Comments
19
Dec

One week with a MacBook Pro 17″

By Damien Guard Categories: Apple and Hardware Tags: , , .

It has been one week since I picked up my new MacBook Pro 17" to replace my aging first-generation 15" model.

My initial concern was that the size and weight would be unwieldy after 4 years of lugging around a 15" MacBook Pro and a prior to that a Titanium PowerBook G4. The actual problem was that my trusty Samsonite Trunk & Co. backpack could not accommodate it and that I'd have to hope Santa would deliver something a little bigger. Being properly kitted up might reveal if the dimensions and weight are uncomfortable so expect an update once I've travelled with the beast.

MacBook Pro 17The screen is fantastic, a little brighter, and provides me with a desktop-like experience in terms of real estate thanks to the combination of the increased size and the high-definition 1920x1200 option. I had examined the glossy finish in-store and found having my face and the rest of the store glaring back at me far too distracting for real work (it might be nice for watching DVD's in the dark I guess) and so went with the matte finish. Surprisingly it is a little more reflective than the older MBP but not overly so and it does make removing unwelcome fingerprints easier.

One problem I had with m 15" was that heavy use of Visual Studio within Parallels wasn't always cutting it on performance. Compilation was faster than the cheap HP/Compaq desktop I'd been using but still wasn't snappy enough to keep my attention tightly focused ;-)

I went with top options - a 2.6GHz processor coupled with 4GB of RAM and a 7200RPM 200GB drive - to ensure maximum performance. Mac OS X and native Vista did not disappoint and felt like a speedy desktop despite Vista being 32-bit and limited to 3GB of RAM until Apple ship a 64-bit ready Boot Camp drivers and tools.

My .NET development typically takes place inside a virtual machine - previously Parallels but now evaluating VMware Fusion with its enticing dual-core and 64-bit guest OS support. Both Parallels and Fusion had similar almost-native performance in the disk and processor department on my 15" according to Vista's performance index and I've yet to rerun those (stay tuned). Whichever gets Aero/DirectX 9Ex shader support first will be my home for a while.

Battery life was a big surprise offering over 3 hours and I certainly feel less conscious of where the next power feed is coming from although that is partly due to the poor battery on my old machine being rather tired and worn.

One big disappointment is the keyboard. Firstly it is the same size as the 15" model which leaves the extra space to the speaker grille. Whilst the speakers do sound far superior - good enough to actually listen to music on - I couldn't help but feel a wider enter key, a second ctrl and a little f-key spacing could have gone a long way. What is more concerning is that many keys do not register if hit off-centre even by a slight amount :(

There are still some things to try:

  • Games under native Vista taking advantage of the Nvidia 8600M GT chip
  • Time Machining my MyBook Pro external drive over FireWire 800 (800 Mb/s) instead of USB2 (400 Mb/s)
  • Burning DVD performance
  • Removing DVD drive (UJ-85J FBZ8) region protection (RPC) to play my DVD collection

[)amien

5 Comments
22
Nov

Goodbye BlogRush

By Damien Guard Categories: Hardware and Internet Tags: .

I've now given up on BlogRush and removed the widget.

My dashboard shows that in the last 30 days I have directly earned 66,691 credits (made that number of impressions) and have been awarded 11,502 bonus credits and 3,473 referrer credits.

In return BlogRush have imprinted my last 12 blog posts (actually 11, one repeated, see below) and have sent a whole 15 visitors my way... that's 1 visitor per 4,400 impressions which is mediocre by any measure. I get more hits than that in a month from leaving a couple of off-the-cuff comments on blog posts I've read elsewhere.

Apart from the mediocre conversions, some of the other problems include:

Uncontrolled spending of credits

BlogRush highly favours publicising the most recent articles regardless of hotness.

In my case it keeps putting out the More Silk Icons post despite only having 3 visitors for the 12,832 impressions whilst the older article on object initializers hasn't got any new impressions despite getting 1 visitor for just 301 impressions.

If you have a glut of credits from a successful peak and you would rather hold on to your credits for the next post...well, tough, you can't.

This forces you to change your posting schedule to meet your BlogRush credit balance.

Random capitalisation of post titles

It seems that BlogRush randomly changes the case of titles. Some examples include:

  • Calculating CRC-64 in C# and .NET > Calculating Crc-64 In C# And .net
  • AnkhSVN (Visual Studio Subversion integration) on Vista > AnkhSVN (visual Studio Subversion Integration) On Vista
  • Droid font family courtesy of Google & Ascender > Droid Font Family Courtesy Of Google & Ascender
  • Show Package Contents in Mac OS X > Show Package Contents In Mac Os X
  • SQL Server replication blocking on clean-up job > Sql Server Replication Blocking On Cleanup Job
  • Dissecting a C# Application - Inside SharpDevelop > Dissecting A C# Application - Inside Sharpdevelop

There seems to be no pattern behind it at all.

Duplication and random ignorance of content

My incredibly popular Droid Sans Mono great coding font post (42,000 hits in a week) doesn't turn up on my BlogRush list at all.

Conversely my SQL Server replication article is treated as two different articles as I revised the title/URL.

Poor matching of content

Whilst they have introduced more specific categories my blog continued to show very unrelated posts - the whole simple categorisation system just doesn't work especially when half the people haven't revised from the more generic categories not have had any reminder or deadline to do so.

Something that worked off a posts tags would have been much better.

Filling the space

For now Google's AdSense is taking the place rendering text adverts although for the default landing page it has no content for me. This apparently occurs if you are:

  • Not indexed (definitely am, check out Google's searches)
  • Serving certain unspecified bad-words (every individual article gets adverts so not that)
  • Nothing in your geographical region (see above)

I can only imagine the combination of words across certain posts when presented on the same page is hitting some magical figure. I hope talking about AdSense doesn't mess it up further!

I doubt this widget will last very long - last time it was on for 3 months and earned me a whopping $9.

Ideally the site would move somewhere that can take being hit by the front page of DaringFireball again - that's twice the sudden influx of users has knocked the site off. The first time my home DSL couldn't take the strain, this time UHHosting kindly switched my site offoff for a couple of hours because I was "using too much CPU" - I have only WordPress, MySQL and a bunch of plug-in's installed of which I have temporarily sacrificed FireStats, StatsPress and Gravatar2 at the sysop alter in order to keep my home online.

I have been toying with either renting a dedicated 1U server or co-locating one I buy. The latter was more tempting until I discovered that you only get 0.5 amps which is 120W for a whole server which means mirrored disks and a Core 2 chip are out...

[)amien

5 Comments
11
Sep

In search of the perfect keyboard

By Damien Guard Categories: Apple and Hardware Tags: , , , , .

I started programming at 12 and have been fortunate to carve out a successful career in something I love to do. People find it strange when I talk with passion about IDEs, fonts, colour schemes, mice and keyboards.

To me it seems perfectly natural when you consider a writer has strong preference and passion for pens and notebooks and photographers spend a small fortune on specific lenses and cameras to get the shot they want.

For years I was happy with my Apple Pro keyboard and then one day found myself messing around with my Amiga A600 and realised my typing was faster and more accurate on the Amiga than on the PC.

Some prefer "ergonomic" split-keyboards, others are impressed by back lighting, LCD screens or even an OLED display in every key. Most reviews skip over the most important aspect - what it is like to type on.

IBM Model M

I have fond memories of typing away on the IBM XT, AT and 5150 terminals and I found myself at eBay eyeing up an original unused IBM Model M keyboard similar to the ones those machines used.

Whilst the keyboard uses a membrane each key has its own spring that buckles as the key is pressed. This gives a satisfying tactile click that saw typing speed further accelerate than on the Amiga. Each key comprises of two plastic parts, the main body and the outer shell or key-cap. This means you can easily re-arrange the keys or put on specialist caps.

The Model M is a joy to type on but isn't without fault. I can live without the Windows keys but the keyboard sports a huge surround taking up masses of desk space, is incredibly heavy and sounds like a machine gun when you get going with it.

Matias Tactile Pro

Apple produced a legendary keyboard too, the Apple Extended Keyboard but this has some immediate drawbacks in that it uses the Apple Desktop Bus, so would need an adapter, and is also tricky to get hold of.

I settled on the Matias Tactile Pro which uses the same Alps switches for each key but comes in a more friendly USB version. Designed for the Mac it has some extra keys and helpfully each key shows the various extra symbols available with the Alt key.

The Tactile Pro is great to type on however it is even louder than the IBM Model M and only available in the US key-map which means it is a couple of keys short. The enclosure mimics that of the Apple Pro keyboard but uses an inferior plastic that feels cheap and does nothing to dampen the volume but does helpfully feature a two port passive USB hub.

Note: The Matias Tactile Pro is an OEM version of the Strong Man SMK-Power989X. Matias now have the Tactile Pro 2.

Das Keyboard II

I'd heard some good things about the Das Keyboard II which unlike it's predecessor is also mechanical but uses individual switches from one of the original keyboard manufacturers, Cherry.

The Das II is USB and is a little quieter than the other two keyboards but is still loud enough to annoy nearby co-workers and yet nicer to type on than the other two. One of the selling points of the Das II is that each key is totally blank resulting in one black keyboard but I could take or leave it.

Where the Das does fall down is the large echo-inducing enclosure and the cheap-feeling plastic used for both the keys and the surround.

Note: The Das Keyboard is effectively a custom OEM version of the Cherry G80 series.

Apple ultra-thin wired

I only picked up this keyboard a few days ago so my experience with it is not as extensive as the others which all got a fair work-in. Impressions so far are very good despite it being a scissor-switch like most laptops and not mechanical like the others.

The surround is an absolute minimum which is fantastic and it looks great. Noise levels are sufficiently quiet and the feeling very enjoyable despite the low-profile and gaps between the keys. The addition of a built-in USB hub is useful but MacBook Pro style light-sensitive back lighting would have been great.

Where next?

I'm sticking with the Apple at home for at least a couple of weeks and will continue to use the Das at work for now. The Model M and the Matias are currently gathering dust in the cupboard.

I have already modified my Das II by removing it from the enclosure and placing it on a soft sponge material. It is immediately much quieter with less echo and a soft wrist rest which solves some of the issues. Replacing the keys with a softer rubberised plastic would be great but injection moulding is rather expensive.

Check out the GeekHack keyboard forum for like minded chat.

[)amien

3 Comments
02
Aug

Windows Mobile 6 on the HTC TyTN with a Mac

By Damien Guard Categories: Apple, Hardware and Microsoft Tags: , , , , , .

Windows Mobile 6 on the HTC TyTNIt's been a while coming but HTC have announced Windows Mobile 6 for the TyTN (Hermes, Dopod 838Pro, iMate JASJAM , SoftBank X01HT).

Curiously the update isn't available on their site yet despite the announcement however the enterprising folks at XDA Developers Forums have made the official HTC versions available for download.

Upgrade process

The Windows-only (crack out Parallels) upgrade process didn't go too smoothly, perhaps because I'd been running an unofficial pre-release version.

The first two attempts failed despite following the instructions to the letter. On the third attempt I left it on the familiar red-green-blue boot-screen a previous attempt had left it on and just ignored all the on-screen instructions and it flashed just fine.

Sync on the Mac

There is no official Windows Mobile sync software available on the Mac however Missing Sync for Windows Mobile is a capable, if somewhat temperamental, solution.

Version 4 is required for Windows Mobile 6 compatibility and is capable of syncing files, music, notes, bookmarks and photos as well as the expected contacts and calendars.

The initial problem is getting the Bluetooth to start syncing is a bit of a nightmare. The best advice is if it fails to do anything when you try to sync then delete both ends of the Bluetooth pair, reboot the Mac and follow the help instructions again.

Calendar sync problems

Everything was now syncing nicely with the exception of the iCal entries. The log gives the cryptic error:

Mark/Space Calendar Events: NSInvalidArgumentException [ISyncConjunctionFilter shouldApplyRecord:withRecordIdentifier:]: the record com.apple.syncservices:0845AD5F-A4C7-48D3-B1D3-B5809C9D000E should have an entity name, but instead it is {}

Over in iCal I couldn't find anything looking corrupt but a quick Back up Database... followed by a Restore Database Backup... took care of it.

[)amien

1 Comment
02
May

Hiding secrets behind the law - DRM, AACS and the 16-byte key

By Damien Guard Categories: Entertainment, Hardware and Internet Tags: , , , .

It surprises and annoys me when I hear of individuals or companies trying to use the law to hide secrets. Surprise at the sheer stupidity and annoyance that tax payers money is used in the process.

The latest secret under suppression is a short 16-byte key which locks away the content on HD-DVD discs that only licensed software and hardware can play it back and prevent you from making copies.

This type of protection used to be called copy-protection but these days it goes under the equally unpopular name of "Digital Rights Management (DRM)". It enforce the copyright holders rights whilst denying you yours and does it in such a way that in some countries re-asserting your legal rights means you end up breaking others.

The AACS Licencing Authority believe they can now protect by law what they failed to protect using technology. This is particularly amusing because their predecessor, the DVD-CCA, failed on both counts when the encryption on DVD was broken in 1999 by an enterprising trio. Apple gets it and is going down the DRM-free route and not treating their customers like criminals.

Basing an entire business model on keeping a sequence of characters secret defies belief and thinking you can wipe the secret off the face of the internet once it's out is laughable especially when you consider the infinite number of ways you could represent it. The AACS are at it anyway with take down notices to the likes of Digg and others. Amusingly the take down notice itself includes the 'magic key'.

Alternative 16-byte sequence where each byte is an offset on the previous one is "09 F0 18 F1 9B D7 6F 78 7D 69 15 6F 9E F3 32 38" which if run through the following program yields a certain magic key.

class Program {
    static void Main(string[] argv) {
        byte b = 0;
        string key = string.Empty;
        foreach(string a in argv) {
            b += byte.Parse(a, System.Globalization.NumberStyles.HexNumber);
            key += string.Format("{0:x2} ", b);
        }
        System.Console.WriteLine(key);
    }
}

[)amien

1 Comment
05
Apr

So you believe Apple is more expensive than Dell…

By Damien Guard Categories: Apple and Hardware Tags: , .

Apple are often accused of being more expensive and that Dell are much cheaper.

The reality is that Dell offers a wider range that includes real low-end products that are often constrained or using older technology. Apple, quite rightly in my opinion, doesn't compete there.

Okay Apple have some other gaps in their line-up most notably the typical home power-user who doesn't want a twin processor Mac Pro, needs more configuration options than the Mac Mini and already owns a display so doesn't want an iMac. A box half the size of the Pro with a single dual/quad core CPU and no supplied peripherals would be perfect.

That aside I was checking out the prices for their new twin 3GHz quad Xeon boxes after some individuals baulked at the price. They obviously haven't seen similar specifications from Dell...

Apple MacPro Dell Precision 690
Processor 2xQuad Core Xeon 3GHz 2xQuad Core Xeon 2.66GHz
Memory 4x1GB DDR 667 4x1GB DDR 667
Storage 500GB 7200RPM SATA 500GB 7200RPM SATA
Optical 16x DVD-RW 16x DVD-RW
Input Wired keyboard/mouse Wired keyboard/mouse
OS Mac OS X 10.4 Vista Ultimate 64-bit
Graphics NVIDIA Quadro FX4500 512MB NVIDIA Quadro FX4500 512MB
Price ex.VAT £3,605.95 £5,890.00
Price inc.VAT £4,436.99 £6,920.75
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 7300GT 256MB NVIDIA Quadro FX550 128MB
Price ex.VAT £2,712.34 £4,595.00
Price inc.VAT £3,187.00 £5,399.13

In this scenario the Dell is over 60% more expensive and comes with slower CPU's.

So much for the "Apple Premium Tax".

[)amien

8 Comments
03
Apr

My windows 64-bit experiences

By Damien Guard Categories: Hardware and Microsoft Tags: .

Windows XP 64-bit has been on the market for some time and both Intel and AMD's current processors are 64-bit. Even cheap office Dell boxes are coming equipped with the 64-bit Core 2 Duo. (This is the x64/x86-64/EM64T/AMD64 architecture which comprises of 64-bit extensions on top of the existing x86 32-bit architecture and not to be confused with Intel's IA64 Itanium stuff or DEC's Alpha 64)

You can run 32-bit Windows XP on these processors but if you want to use more than 2-3GB of RAM then you'll need to switch to Windows XP 64-bit edition (or Vista 64-bit if you're really brave).

With all this in mind I was a little surprised at the state of 64-bit Windows software when I finally got my hands on my first x64 machine. Here's what I found.

Microsoft SQL Server 2005

Installing Microsoft SQL Server 64-bit (any edition) complained about a missing or corrupt sqlclin_x64.msi file which could leave you running in circles.

This problem occurs if you have the 32-bit native client already installed. Unhelpfully Add or Remove Programs describes both versions as Microsoft SQL Server Native Client regardless of whether you have the 32-bit or 64-bit version installed. The SQL Installer fails to check for the 64-bit version and throws this cryptic error message at you instead.

Solution: Remove Microsoft SQL Server Native Client.

Internet Explorer only sites that use Flash

There are a number of IE only web-sites that use Flash - Microsoft's Online Learning is one such example. The problem is that Adobe have not made a 64-bit version of the Flash player available.

Solution: Create a shortcut to C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer\IExplore.exe to run 32-bit Internet Explorer for now.

Mozilla Firefox

There is no official 64-bit Windows version of Firefox although the 32-bit version runs just fine.

Solution: Try one of the unofficial builds although they are a little dated and there is no patching policy.

TortoiseCVS

There is no 64-bit version of TortoiseCVS and the 32-bit version will not run from the 64-bit Windows Explorer.

Solution: Install the 32-bit version and run from the 32-bit version of Windows Explorer (a pain).

A 64-bit version of TortoiseSVN is now available.

Note: If you like to be able to access TortoiseSVN from the File dialogs in Visual Studio 2005 you will also need to install the 32-bit version as VS 2005's devenv.exe is a 32-bit application.

Microsoft Visual Studio 2005

Whilst the Profession and Team editions will let you write 64-bit applications Visual Studio 2005 itself is 32-bit only and has some additional performance and compatibility problems beyond those experienced on x86 32-bit Windows.

Service Pack 1 resolves some issues relating to debugging on 64-bit but leaves a whole host of other x64 issues unresolved including debugging SQL code.

Solution: None.

.NET Reflector

Fails to draw properly the debugging or lower left info pane. Curious considering it is a .NET application that shouldn't care whether it is running on 32-bit or 64-bit architectures. So much for VM abstraction.

Solution: None.

This bug has been subsequently fixed.

Resources

Overall a very disappointing state of affairs.

[)amien

8 Comments
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