Published by drmosh May 20th, 2009
in Audio Visual and Tech Shit.
So I just had AT&T U-verse installed today. First of all, the installer showed up really promptly and within the window of the appointment. He then went out to the junction box on the street to check the signal level from the fiber junction, it was all good. He was very good, ran new cables and didn’t touch any of my existing cables because I made it clear to him that I was not turning off any other service. He did a good job wiring up my two TV’s. The system consists of one Motorola IPTV DVR and another IPTV receiver and then their IP gateway device.
Let’s talk about the shortcomings first. The Motorola units do not do Dolby encoding out of HDMI, only PCM, but that’s easily solved with a TOSLINK from the Motorola. Make sure your receiver can set multi-input for a single source and you are good, my Onkyo can so I’m fine. Since it is IP based TV, fast motion is slightly “soft” at 1080i. The Dolby sound signal tends to drop out sometimes for just a split second, maybe 1/2 second sometimes.
The good stuff. The Motorola units are WAY faster than the Motorola cable boxes based on Java, menus come up almost immediately. Single DVR can stream to all other IPTV receivers in the house, this is a really cool feature. The number of channels… wow… I did not realize that their was this many HD channels in existence, like CMT and Nickelodeon… I have been missing out with HD as far as cable for sure.
So these are my impressions from just the first day, more to come.
Published by drmosh May 8th, 2009
in Tech Shit.
A lot of geeks would say that Google is open, that it even contributes to “open source” and that it’s mobile platform Android is “open source”. In reality that is a load of crap. The only parts of Android that are open are the parts that Google releases. The API is released in stages and most of the main functionality is still unreleased. This is not different from Microsoft’s proprietary software. Let’s take a look at the G1 phone which is supposed to be such a great thing, well in reality it’s a big disappointment. Android doesn’t do shit. It barely works any bluetooth. It’s “open” platform has a closed API “widget”, the clock, running on the desktop. There’s no tethering API. Overall, Windows Mobile is more functional and “open”.
Another example of this supposed openness is Google’s Big Table technology… it’s a one way bucket, put your data in, but you can’t get it out, that makes it no different from crappy proprietary hosting providers which host apps online such as Salesforce.com.
Google’s only saving grace is it’s search engine and Adsense, without it, it’s going to die, and as everything on the Internet, it won’t be the top search engine forever. Google has already started shutting down subsidiary branches such as it’s radio advertising venture which it acquired and has made no profit at all.
Google needs to step it up and really deliver on the promise of “openness” if it wants to survive.
BTW, did I mention Android is a big disappointment so far? That’s right fanbois…
Published by drmosh May 1st, 2009
in Tech Shit.
A few hints: if you are upgrading there’s no need to burn the ISO, just mount the ISO and copy the files to hard disk since you need to modify the ini for the upgrade anyways, then run the setup from disk.
- Atheros gigabit network drivers will bluescreen your Win 7 RC, but there’s already an update for that.
- You will have to re-install programs that use their own drivers such as VMWare and EVGA Precision, which does not work with the stock WMD drivers.
- There’s also a hint for making UltraVNC server work, it will not display anything with default options but follow this link: http://forum.ultravnc.info/viewtopic.php?t=14520
Hi there - I fought with the same issue. When you create a VNC connection to a Windows 7 based PC next to the controlling PC, you might see, that the Win7-PC still reacts - thus it means just your (remote) screen is not updated.
I assume in the (server) properties you activated “System Hookdll” and/or the “Video Hook Driver” on the Windows 7 VNC-server?
If you check during a connection the “Check Video Hook Driver”, you’ll see that it just sais “… inactive”. It is installed (if you managed it) but not active.
Uncheck both - “System Hookdll” and also “Video Hook Driver” - and it should work. YES… it IS slower than on a Vista or XP machine with activated Hooks… but I didn’t manage it to get it run.
By the way: hit (WITH activated hooks) the “refresh screen” button on the client - if you see then an approprately changed screen - you see that it’s just the refresh that doesn’t work… and above mentioned solution should let you at least be able to work with it…
Published by drmosh May 1st, 2009
in Tech Shit.
You can upgrade from any release to RC with this trick:
http://www.blogsdna.com/3083/how-to-upgrade-windows-7-beta-build-7000-to-windows-7-rc-build-7100.htm
Once upgraded the thing that breaks VMWare if you were running it on Windows 7 is the network drivers need to be reinstalled… just fire up VMWare setup and do a Repair.
Published by drmosh February 1st, 2009
in Tech Shit.
So after reading all of NVIDIA’s hoopla about their “personal supercomputer”, I decided, well instead of spending ten thousand bucks, I can do this right now! I’ve got the GPU power, it’s just a matter of trying to get this shit to work.
So I thought to myself… well… those C1060 cards that NVIDIA sells for $1600 each is just a GTX card basically WITHOUT video output… so let’s see… I have a GTX 260, why don’t we run some CUDA code on there and use the GPU as a processor…
I downloaded SETI@Home for CUDA and bam… no problem… works fine. Then I thought to myself… if I have 2 PCIe 16x ports… I could load another card on, well sure enough my ASUS P5K does have two of them, so I grabbed my 9800GT which isn’t being used because of RMA and stuck it in.
Well, strange things start happening, computer isn’t happy… I check my power supply… 550 watts… that’s not enough, we need nuclear power, maybe a Dyson Sphere… so I hack my other 430W PSU to power up without being connected to the motherboard and use that as an external power source for the 9800GT, jimmy rigging ensues:
Now I can run crazy crap with CUDA code and have my own parallel processing unit at home, big fun! Sometimes you have to wonder though… have I gone off the deep end?
Published by drmosh January 1st, 2009
in Tech Shit.
This included heavy usage in the first hour and numerous reboots. The battery was recharged at 5% which is a realistic usability level.
timed
oem versus chinese
Published by drmosh December 5th, 2008
in Tech Shit.
When is too big just too big? When the card takes up more than half the case in depth? When you have to have your own videocard power supply? Well this is the EVGA GeForce GTX 260.
How about when you need two +12v pins? That’s right… 500w PS recommended… good thing I have a 550, barely scratching by!
You also know the damn thing is really huge, when you have to RELOCATE your hard drives!!
So in order to get the final thing in, I had to disconnect all drives, disconnect all power to the motherboard, RELOCATE the hard drives and let’s not forget… it takes up TWO PCI slots!!
Well at least I can say I can run FarCry 2 without “crying” too much…
