Tag: technology

HPA, Host Protected Area

I’m a big fan of technology that helps users. HPA could be one of those “helpful” technologies. HPA is a “feature” of some motherboards whereby they steal hard disk space (typically the last few megs of your disk) and use it for backing up the system BIOS, a recovery partition, etc.

I just purchased a GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P motherboard, RAM, and CPU to drop into my file server. Today I assembled the trio, stripped my old mobo out and dropped this new one in.

The machine booted up but there was a little problem. Two of my disks (members of a ZFS mirror) were corrupted!?  That effectively destroyed one of my filesystems, which made me very unhappy.

A few Google searches later and I learned all about HPA. This nasty little surprise was tucked away in Advanced BIOS Features -> Dual BIOS Recover Source = HPA (page 49,51 in the manual). My version of BIOS doesn’t have this option, but I found accounts online of older versions that do. It seems that changing that setting didn’t actually work (ie, disable HPA), so Gigabyte removed the feature. They have left me no way of disabling this destructive feature.

After hours of fiddling, I have worked around it by:  a) moving the disks off the first two SATA connectors b) rebooting onto the HDD GURU Magic Boot ISO, c) removing the HPA partition from both disks, d) rebooting into FreeBSD. Finally, my ZFS mirror was back with one disk, because the motherboard had helpfully restored the HPA on the first disk.

If you’re using this mobo and migrating disks to it, I’d suggest installing a sacrificial disk on the first SATA controller. That will appease the HPA demon and let you successfully migrate your RAID volumes to it. I’m stuck moving the data off the disk I recovered. Then I’ll recreate the array on the disks with the HPA partition and all will be well.

Is it worth upgrading to the iPhone 3GS?

Short answer: yes.

Longer answer: Absolutely!

Hillbilly answer: You betcha!

Beancounter answer: I purchased my first iPhone 4GB (2G) in Oct 2007 for $300, direct from Apple. Today, I sold it on Craigslist for $225. I purchased my 16GB iPhone 3G for $300 in July 2008. That phone is about to get sold on Craigslist as well, for about $375. My cost to own for both iPhones is $0. I expect to sell my 32GB iPhone 3GS next year, for more than I paid. It’s an unbeatable deal.

Geek answer: The combination of a faster processor and more RAM makes a huge difference. I would bet the RAM is contributing more than the faster CPU. A good analogy would be using OS X with 1GB of RAM and then upgrading to 2GB (just enough). With the memory pressure relieved, nearly everything is more responsive.

The previous iPhones lagged when switching apps, [re]loading web pages, and especially when taking and saving photos. All those little pauses are gone. Switching back and forth between apps is nearly instantaneous. That alone is worth upgrading for. Seriously.

But I upgraded for the better camera. The previous iPhone camera was quite poor. The 3GS camera is not yet good, but certainly better.

TV in the 21st century

Projector technology finally became bright enough to use in daylit rooms (~2000 lumens) and dipped below $1k for HD models. I picked up a projector last year and then an AppleTV over the holidays. My entertainment center is now miniscule compared to times past.

  • Epson Powerlite 720P HD projector
  • 26″ LCD HDTV
  • HDMI 4 x 2 switch
  • Logitech Z-5500 5.1 speaker system
  • Apple TV
  • 4 HDMI cables (projector cable is 30′ long)
  • 1 Toslink cable

The only ‘analog’ cabling is from the Logitech amp to the speakers. The HDMI switch is a splitter with one cable going to the Projector and another to the TV. It drives both simultaneously with no hiccups. It has 4 inputs, with one from the AppleTV, another for my laptop, and 2 for future use. Audio is routed to the TV via HDMI and from the TV to the Logitech control center via Toslink.

The only fiddling with cables required is when using my laptop. I have to connect a HDMI<->DVI adapter to my MacBook Pro for video, and connect the Toslink cable from the Logitech to my laptop. Between the Apple TV and laptop, I can stream iTunes, NetFlix, and Amazon movies to both screens.

beat the heat, on the cheap

Our house sits high on a ridge, facing West towards Puget Sound, and the setting sun. From mid-day through sunset, our kitchen, dining room, and living room are bathed in sunshine, rising as much as 20°. All the windows have wooden blinds, but they are dark colored. Instead of reflecting the heat, they absorb it and radiate it into the room. They are effective at controlling light, but not heat.

Because high temps are rare in Seattle, houses here don’t have A/C. After the first day of last week’s heat wave, I took action. I did some research on cooling methods, including whole house fans, rigging up a cool air intake to my furnace’s intact duct, window films, etc. Because we rent, I can’t just start cutting holes in the house and moving ducts. So I settled on a less invasive (and costly) solution: box fans and window film.

I purchased two box fans ($15 ea) to place in windows. (Why do box fans not come in sizes larger than 20″?) The fans draw air in the shaded East side of the house, creating a cool breeze that pushes warmer air out the West side. Turning them on at 7PM is sufficient to cool the house down to 70° by bedtime. What a relief!

Window films have come a long ways since I last used them. Good film is now reasonably priced, uses water to ‘set’ the adhesive, and doesn’t require a ‘pro’ to get good results. Lowes had Gila Platinum Heat Control Window Film in stock so I picked up 4 rolls, enough to tint most of my 15,000 sq/in of West facing glass. I stripped the blinds off the windows and went to work. It took me about an hour per pane to apply the film, with half that spent cleaning the glass, scraping the crusties off, and cleaning it again.

The results are outstanding. Amazing. Phenomenal.

4:02 PM Jen: Wow the kitchen is much cooler!  Great idea and thanks.

We should not be surprised at how effective the film is, yet we are. The product fulfills the claims made by the manufacturer, and exceeded our expectations. And just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, window film qualifies for a 2009 Tax Credit.

Zune HD, as good as last years iPod

Microsoft’s Zune  sales for 2008 show a 54% year over year decline. In other words, after a dismal start, Zune sales fell off a cliff. The decline in revenue is partially explained by heavily discounted Zunes. I’m talking about the, “Hey buddy, here’s $20 if you take this Zune” kind of discounts. 

Today Microsoft officially announced the Zune HD, due out this fall. Microsoft is famous for entering markets with terrible products, and then improving on them until they end up with something good enough to compete in the marketplace. The Zune HD will be Microsoft’s third attempt in the MP3/portable music player market.

I hereby predict that the  Zune HD will not be “good enough.” I further predict it will achieve results in the market quite similar to Plays 4 Sure devices and the existing Zune: dismal.

When used in public, the Zune is a device that gets you sympathetic looks, “aw, you asked for an iPod and got that.” The Zune has one ‘advantage’ over the iPod, its subscription model. It’s too bad that the vast majority of consumers have pulled out their wallets and voted for the $0.99 per song model. The market share Microsoft “gained” with the Zune came at the expense of their Plays 4 Sure partners, who offered that same subscription model.

By the time the Zune HD arrives, Apple will have released updated models of the iPhone and iPod Touch. The killer feature of the iPhone/iPod Touch will have added another 10,000 apps to its portfolio. The Zune HD won’t be eating dust in November. The iPod Touch is so far ahead that the dust has settled before the Zune HD arrived on the track.

car cost per mile

cost per mileWhile car shopping, I  built a spreadsheet of vehicle costs. Here is a graphic presentation of that data. Costs are based on Consumer Reports data and 12,000 miles per year.

The cost per mile is nearly identical between the family sedans. That is largely because the largest cost (40%) of car ownership is depreciation. 

My 09 Fusion V6 with everything except AWD costs are lower because I paid cash (no interest) and paid $10k less than retail. I could have gotten the same low cost per mile on a Jetta TDI, but it would have been a 2006.

Nobody was offering deals on the Prius in December ’08/Jan ’09. In most cases, dealers were charging above retail. Now I’m hearing of people getting $5k discounts on them right now. A recent news article was titled, Hybrid sales go from 60 to 0 at breakneck speed. With the tax benefits, available discounts, and low cost of ownership, the Prius might be worth considering right now.

AT&T account secret

I have a mobile phone number based in Michigan. I live in Seattle. I have a Seattle mobile as well. I wanted to merge them both onto a single AT&T Family Plan account. Quite a few AT&T reps told me it couldn’t be done without changing my numbers to both be in the same “business area.” 

I wanted to keep both existing numbers. So I persisted. The magic incantation is “NBI account.”  Tell the first AT&T rep you speak with you want to transfer a line to an account. Or activate a new line, or whatever you need to do for your 2nd line. When you get to someone that is supposed to be able to help, ask if they are authorized to do NBI accounts. If not, ask for someone who is. If they don’t know what that is, hang up and try again. 

I didn’t get anyone helpful through AT&T phone support. But at my local AT&T store, the manager exclusively has NBI account access. He set me up with a NBI account, dropped both lines into it, and put them on the family plan. I have an AT&T Family Plan with two lines, one in Michigan and one in Washington.

Microsoft SYNC phone integration

Surprise surprise. Microsoft SYNC doesn’t suck. It is far from perfect, but it is one of my favorite Fusion features.

It did not start out that way. I became acquainted with SYNC when the car salesman tried to show me how easy it is to sync with my Bluetooth equipped phone. When he resorted to the manual, I politely steered the conversation elsewhere. When he got busy filling out paperwork, I skimmed the 78 page manual and paired my iPhone and uploaded all my contacts.

Then I tried to use the voice activated calling feature. “Call Jennifer Simerson,” I would say. And it would pick some other person from my 548 contacts and start calling them. Grrrrrrr. Finally I figured out that the sync process was a bit retarded. Microsoft’s NIH syndrome keeps them using reference implementations of  standards like OBEX and SyncML. They write their own, get it badly wrong, make some fixes, and eventually arrive at something usable. They weren’t there yet when my car left the factory.

After calling the wrong party a couple dozen times, I finally deduced that when it imported my contacts, it mapped them all last name first. And it also included middle names. If a contact had a middle name, I could not call them without saying their middle name in the voice command. After a few days, I figured out how to call home, “Call Simerson R**** Jennifer.” 

Then I discovered the version 1.2 update. Duh, it’s from Microsoft. Of course. It needs an update! I downloaded the update and installed it but it didn’t help. Days later, insight struck. It’s from Microsoft. You can’t just install it the update. You also have to reboot! So I performed a “Master Reset” of the SYNC system. Then I re-paired my phone to it and had it sync all my contacts. Voila! All my contacts synced properly. I can call home by saying, “Call Jennifer Simerson.” 

The handsfree functionality works superbly. Talking while driving is now fun and much safer. I predict that in another decade, every car will have this functionality. My kids will be hard pressed to remember a car that didn’t have phone integration built-in.

SYNC also supports text messaging via Bluetooth, but it doesn’t work with the iPhone. Yet.

Apple TV, it doesn’t suck

I have wanted an Apple TV since shortly after they came out. I read the articles about how to hack them and was interested in poking around under the hood. During Apple’s black friday promotion, the Apple TV was discounted enough to pay my sales tax. I bought one.

 

Since then I’ve come to really appreciate the addition to my living room. There were several things about the Apple TV that I didn’t realize. In addition to storing and playing my iTunes library from its local disk, it also streams iTunes music to my stereo system. Voila, I no longer need the Airport Express in the living room. 

I had also forgotten that the Apple TV would sync with my iPhoto library. While playing with it the first night, the screen saver kicked on and photos from my computer were gracefully sliding across my screen. As I watched, I recalled researching LCD picture frames. For any of them under $100, I’d have to specially format my photos and then transfer them to the frame. The AppleTV syncs them wirelessly from my computer and scales them automatically.

The value of the photo feature was manifested over the Christmas holidays. We had a Christmas party for family, and then a birthday party for Ricardo. During both we had the photos playing. Having them play in the background evoked many memories and sparked many conversations. It also sparked several, “how are you getting your photos on the TV” conversations. They couldn’t believe it could be that easy or fun. Oops, I just boosted my Apple stock a bit. 😉

Finally, the Apple TV motivated me to do something I hadn’t yet. I have quite a few DVD movies stored on my file server. I started ripping them all to mp4 and dropping them into my iTunes library. After adding them into iTunes, they automatically sync to the AppleTV. Now I have a library of movies available in the living room and the DVDs are safely away from harm (Kayla) and mayhem (Lucas).

And can barely remember the urge to crack it open and start tinkering. I like it just the way it is.