Purchased a Logitech Mini Boombox just before the weekend, so I could have better sound when listening to music and audiobooks, rather than using a headset.

I was rather skeptic about the sound from a plastic device that isn’t bigger than you can hold it in the palm of your hand. I was positively surprised.

The sound is good and the bass is decent, for a device this small. Certainly a purchase I’m satisfied with.

But the really interesting part I learned in the argument, was the existence of GRC’s Password Checking Tool. Basically the checker gives an estimate on how long it would take to brute force your password. Please read the disclaimer at the bottom of the GRC page though

Alene med sin processorkraft imponerede computeren den erfarne instruktor, da den renderer – eller bygger – en hel spillefilm på halvandet minut med live-rendering, hvilket ellers normalt tager over en uge.

Min første tanke da jeg læste det, var at enten brugte filmindustrien nogen helt sindsygt langsomme computere, eller også var der tale om en helt sindsyg cluster baseret computer fra Marius. Det var indtil jeg flyttede mit blik til spalten til højre for artiklen, som listede specifikationerne for computeren.

Baseret på første del af artiklen (der til dels indikerer at computeren er baseret på en Mac Pro), og billedet i toppen af specifikations-listen, kan jeg udlede at det er rimelig usandsynligt at der er tale om 12 CPUer, men nærmere 12 kerner. Der er ganske enkelt ikke plads til 12 CPUer inkl. (lydløs) køling i et standard tower kabinet, som det vist på billedet i artiklen. Det er endda også standard i Apples Mac Pro, at man kan få den leveret med 2 CPUer med hver 6 kerner. I modsætning til Apples standard Mac Pro, er det dog hurtigere CPUer som Marius har smidt i hans computere, og hurtigere RAM.

Så hvad har Marius gjort?

Han har sandsynligvis købt en standard Mac Pro. I den har han udskiftet standard CPU med en anden, som han så kan overclocke til en højere hastighed. Og så har han formået at sælge den til nogen populære mennesker.

Det er der altså ikke noget mirakuløst i. Det er der ikke noget imponerende i. Det er hvad millioner af computerentusiaster verden over gør hver dag, måske i lidt billigere regi (de fleste har ikke lige pengene til at lege med sådan en computer til deres private gøremål). Det tager ikke mange timer for en computerentusiast at research sig frem til hvilke CPUer der overclocker godt, eller hvilke RAM kan overclockes sammen med, hvilke GPUer/grafikkort som er gode og lydsvage m.v.

Er det nyhedsværdigt?

Jamen det er det da. Det er da nyhedsværdigt at en ganske almindelig dansker, som er autodidakt computerentusiast, har fået nogen kendte navne fra filmindustrien som kunder. Det er den tekniske gennemgang som får nakkehårene til at rejse sig. At det med stor sandsynlighed er måden journalisten har valgt at fordumme det hele, gør det kun marginalt bedre. Simple ting som at beskrive computeren som havende 12 CPUer, hvor der altså bare er tale om 2 CPUer med hver 6 kerner, gør det tekniske aspekt direkte misvisende.

Det kunne være man skulle tilbyde sine services, for et par hundrede tusinde kroner per computer, til filmindustrien? Og ja, det er jo også lidt misundelsen der taler. At Marius har fået noget som er en hobby for mange (sikkert også for ham selv) til at blive et indbringende arbejde. Det ændrer dog ikke på at artiklen er præsenteret som en gang sensationel pladder, som det (i mine øjne) ikke er.

Before starting, I want to note that I haven’t tested the add-ons much on XBMC codename Dharma, since I’m currently using the XBMC Beta codename Eden. With Eden the developers have put a lot of focus on the add-on framework of XBMC, giving add-on developers better flexibility and more options.

The way to install add-ons will be through XBMC’s official add-on repository, which is accessed simply by opening Settings within XBMC and selecting Add-ons. There you should be able to Get Add-ons. Some add-ons aren’t in the official add-on repository, and as such would require either adding an unofficial add-on repository that offers the add-on, or by downloading the add-on and installing it from zip file.

XBMC Subtitles

This should (in my opinion) be the first add-on installed. It’s an official add-on from XBMC.org and can be downloaded through the default (official) XBMC.org Add-ons repository. It’s found within the, rather obvious, Subtitles category.

After XBMC Subtitles add-on have been installed, you should configure it to fit your needs. The obvious things would be setting your primary, secondary and perhaps tertiary (third) languages. Even though my native tongue is Danish I still prefer having English as the primary language, and Danish as the secondary. That choice is purely personal. I just prefer not having to read badly translated subtitles (the pony named “Bill” in Lord of the Rings were translated to “Jens”, just to give a good example).

Then you should configure what Subtitle Services you would like to use for finding the subtitles. As I recall both OpenSubtitles.org and Podnapisi.net are selected by default, and is actually enough for almost all TV episodes and movies I’ve seen. However as you’ll notice, there’s several more localized services availabe, f.ex. Swesub.nu and Undertexter.se if you want a better selection of Swedish subtitles.

Under Advanced Options I recommend selecting both the “Manually Enter Search String” option as well as “Display file name in results page”. Sometimes you won’t be able to see which subtitle is the best match, but by being able to see the original filename (if you haven’t renamed it, that is), you can give a good guesstimate on which of the available subtitles are the better match. As for manually entering the search string, is only so you have the option, if the subtitles found isn’t even for the movie or episode you’re watching, then you can try to manually enter the search string.

The last thing you need to do, before you can actually use the add-on, is to enable it in your XBMC Skin. Go to the XBMC Settings page and select Skin. Now where you go from here depends on your active skin. For the default Confluence skin, you go to Add-on Shortcuts and there you select the Subtitle Add-on to be XBMC Subtitles.

When you’re watching a movie or TV episode you can press the OSD Controls button (M-key on a default keyboard) and you can press the Subtitle button, which is a small rectangular icon with a line at the bottom (a monitor with a subtitle at the bottom of the screen).

The Trailers

This is a rewrite the the old Apple Trailers add-on. This is found under the Video Add-ons category. There’s not much to tell about this add-on, only that sometimes it’s nice to watch a few great trailers

There’s not much configuration needed for this add-on either. Bear in mind when setting the resolution, that the higher the resolution, the more you’ll probably end up waiting for the add-on to buffer the trailer, before it starts playing. However you can select whether or not it should stream or download, again just bear in mind that downloads can be slow, and that the trailer won’t start playing until fully downloaded, if that option is set.

AudioPodcatcher

This is a simple add-on for listening to podcasts, not much to write about this add-on (simple and useful add-ons are good like that). It is found under the Music Add-ons category.

It keeps track of played and unplayed podcasts, as opposed to some of the others I’ve tried, which is why I really like this one. I actually use this, along with TuneIn add-on, instead of having a huge music library.

You configure it by pointing it to an OPML file, which you’ll have to create on your own (or you can use my techno/trance/dubstep podcasts OPML).

TuneIn Radio

TuneIn Radio is basically just a directory of net-radio stations and podcasts. What makes this service great, is that it’s just a webpage that you can access from any browser, and then save your favorite radio stations. They also have apps for Android, iOS and Windows Phone.

The TuneIn Radio Add-on for XBMC is a recent addition to my list of favorite add-ons, mostly because it’s not part of the official XBMC.org Add-on repository. To get this add-on you currently have to download it manually as a ZIP file, and then using the XBMC Add-ons “install from zip file” option.

No data was being written to or read from the Drobo at the time, why the hell would it, out of the blue, suddenly crap out and have all the data unprotected? No disks are faulty, so what reason could it possible have? And 12+ hours to re-sync the discs (I assume that is what it’s doing)?

What point is there to an “intelligent” data storage device that automatically protects my data, when it does crap like that?

So far, if I ever have to buy another NAS, it’ll be QNAP or Synology, not DROBO.

So after I unpack and plug everything in and install the Drobo Dashboard I sit looking at an annoying Drobo Dashboard that just states something like “No Device Detected”. I check the DHCP leases and find the IP of the Drobo, so that looks OK. Pinging the Drobo also turns out as one would expect, replies all around. Even opening the Public share in Windows Explorer works great. Everything except the administration tool seems to actually work. Checking the Drobo Knowledge Base they point to Firewalls being the main cause of these kind of problems. Well, everything is on a closed of LAN, no Firewalls there. Several restarts of the Drobo later I figure I’ll attempt doing a restart of Windows; lo and behold, that seems to have worked.

So time to play around a bit. Installing a few Drobo Apps and see how that works. Well, it kinda doesn’t, at least not as one would expect from a “Plug and Play” device. Downloaded the App, unzipped and copied the TGZ file to the Dobo Apps folder. Oh yea, and then you have to RESTART the Drobo for it to actually install the App? Why the hell that? The Drobo operating system is based on Linux. Why not just call a small script from the Drobo Dashboard, or even with a Cronjob, that does all that unpacking and installing except first doing it during reboot?

Anyway I install DropBear, a small SSH server and client. I reboot the Drobo to get it installed, then I try to SSH into it. Guess it didn’t work; connection refused. Well, I take a look at the log and it seems that generating the host keys didn’t work. Oh well, another reboot of the Drobo solved that. That was 2 reboots just to install one App? Plain stupid.

So finally, after a couple of hours, I have 2 Western Digital 2TB disks installed and are copying data at a whooping 22-27MB/s over a Gigabit network. Oh well, it’s acceptable speed just for data storage. So after a while I add third 2TB drive, the Drobo starts doing its thing. While the Drobo does its thing I copy some more data to it, or so I thought. Suddenly the Drobo apparently drops all connections and Drobo Dashboard can’t find it. I ping it and it responds just fine *sigh*.

So I turn of the Drobo again, and it apparently takes some time, but rather that than loose the data I already copied there, because the third drive I added was the drive that previously contained the data I already copied. After about 5 minutes I see the Drobo finally is turned off and I start it up again. The drobo starts working on protecting the data telling me not to remove any drives because the data currently isn’t protected, or some such. After another 15-30 minutes I notice that the Drobo is reporting the third drive faulty. Worked fine with no S.M.A.R.T. errors on my Windows 7 computer.

After those initial annoyances I might actually come to like the Drobo, even with the shortcomings it have. The fact that I don’t have to expand and rebuild arrays is nice and the Dashboard is only really needed for first-time setup, or so I think. More updates, maybe, when I have played around with it some more.

Hvordan er den så at læse bøger og magasiner på?
iPad er for tung og uhandig til at være behagelig at læse længere tid på. Også fordi det er en aktiv skærm (oplyst) bliver man hurtigere træt i øjnene ved at læse derpå.
Den ere ret god til at læse magasiner på da de som regel er meget billedtunge, og med pinch-to-zoom gør den det ret godt.

Hvad er fordelen egentlig ved en iPad?
Den er god til lige at læse et eller andet på internettet med, hvis man ikke har en ordentlig computer og browser ved hånden.
Den er god til at spille Cut the Rope og Angry Birds på.
Den er god til at blære sig med, uden egentlig at kunne noget.
Den er ganske glimrende til lige at at fjernstyre hjemmecomputeren via TeamViewer, hvis man ikke lige sidder ved en rigtig computer.
Med Dropbox er den super til lige at få adgang til dokumenterne i skyen.
Den er god som foto album. Jeg kan især godt lide Web Albums App som kan bruge Picasa og Facebook albums.
Den er okay til noter.

Denne ene post tog nok en time at skrive på en iPad. Mistænker dog WordPress App’en for at væ den langsomme del. Dog er iPad’ens ordbog samt måden man navigerer i et dokument også med til at det tager så lang tid.

Det er muligt at mange af irritationerne kan overkommes ved at jailbreak dem, men det er ikke hvad der er tiltænkt fra Apples side, og det er heller ikke noget almindelige brugere skal være nødsaget til at gøre, især ikke når man tænker iDevices der skal bruges i en virksomhed.

• NotifikationerDe er forstyrrende og nogen gange umulige at slå fra. Eks. sidder man midt i at læse et dokument, en e-mail, ser video osv. og pludselig springer der en kæmpe fed og grim besked op midt på skærmen og afbryder hvad man er midt i.Alle andre mobile operativ systemer kan finde ud af at levere uforstyrrende notifikationer. Jeg ved Apple kan det samme, hvis man jailbreaker, så hvorfor fanden har Apple ikke nosset sig sammen og gjort det?
• Kun tilknytning til 1 iTunes (1 computer)Jeg har 2 computere (okay, jeg har sådan set 4-5 computere). Når jeg er hjemme foretrækker jeg selvklart at synkronisere med min Desktop computer da det er den jeg bruger når jeg er hjemme. Når jeg så er ude og rejse o.l. vil jeg jo gerne synkronisere med min bærbare computer (MacBook Pro 15″).Det gælder især Apps, Podcasts og i et enkelt tilfælde Lydbøger. Det kan man bare ikke. Nej, iTunes vil lige slette alt indholdet på din iDevice først. NEJ TAK. Så nu er jeg nødsaget til at starte MacBook Pro’en op hver gang jeg bare lige vil lave en Sync  med iTunes. Det er til grin Apple.
• Browserens “automatiske” opdatering/refresh.En ting jeg bruger iPad’en meget til er at læse nyheder på internettet. Til det bruger jeg Google Reader med forskellige RSS feeds tilknyttet.Google Reader har en rigtig lækker mobil Web grænseflade som jeg har til at vise 100 indlæg af gangen. Når jeg så vil læse hele nyheden kan jeg så klikke mig videre til selve nyhedssiden, og det åbner den jo selvfølgelig som en ny side/fane. Det er alt fint og frydeligt.

  Når jeg så er færdig med at læse selve nyheden går jeg tilbage til den side/fane som jeg har Google Reader åbnet på… PIS så opdaterede browseren lige uden nogen grund. Tak. Så kan jeg starte fra toppen igen og skimme nyheder igennem igen, fordi browseren for helvede ikke bare kunne lade mig selv bestemme om jeg ville foretage en opdatering/refresh.

  En anden ting jeg også gør når jeg læser nyheder, er at åbne selve nyheden, så uden at læse den går jeg tilbage til Google Reader, eller en anden nyhed jeg har åbnet. Årsagen er at nogen gange indlæses siderne langsom, og så kan de lige få lov at indlæse i baggrunden mens jeg læser en anden nyhed. Nej, det kan de ikke og hvis de kan så opdatere browseren jo bare siden når jeg går over til den, så kan jeg sidde og spilde tid på at vente på at den bliver indlæst igen.

• Programmer lukkes uden grundEn anden ting som jeg dog ikke oplever hele tiden, er at nogen gange så lukker programmerne bare på iPad. Eks. sidder jeg og er ved at vise nogen billeder frem fra det ganske glimrende Web Albums app og pludselig lukker programmet.Det er jo super fedt hvis nu man står som chef og er ved at fremlægge noget fra et dokument man har åbent og midt i at man lige bladrer lukker programmet. Tak, så kan jeg lige finde dokumentet frem igen og finde ud af hvor jeg var nået til.
• FilhåndteringOg det en iPad skal bruges til er så det som er noget af det mest besværlige, hvis man skal tænke bare lidt sikkerhed ift. virksomhed. Perhaps there’s an App for that

Taken from: http://xkcd.com/627/

I found that the data it fetched also showed the nick-/username which I think is kinda redundant so I modified the plugin a bit to let me manage it from the admin interface. While at it I also modified so URL’s are made clickable and cleaned up the code a bit.

Here’s the modified status-press-widget.php file: