Mitsui, Kodak Gold Respected Among Music Traders
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Worthwhile CD-R Media?
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· Score: 3, Informative
Among the etree membership (a group devoted to trading freely taped music like Radiohead, Phish, and the Dead - these people really know CD-R archiving), Mitsui and Kodak Gold are the most well respected CD-Rs. Taiyo Yuden, non-Ritek TDK Certified Plus, Sony, imation, and some others are also considered pretty good choices. The vast majority of CD-Rs are made by Ritek in Taiwan and its considered bad form to give someone one in a trade. For more information, try Andy McFadden's CD-R FAQ (very comprehensive) or the etree CD-R FAQ (mentions a few brands).
You typically can't find good quality CD-Rs at the major computer stores and you definitely won't get good prices on them. They don't have the lowest prices out there, but I've been pretty happy ordering 100 lots of 80 min Mitsui unbranded silvers from american digital and haven't burned a coaster or had a CD-R go bad yet. Hunt around and I'm sure you can find some better deals online.
A point of clarification, the 8260 can't do any graphical logos to my knowledge (other 82xx versions can have logos set by the operator or downloaded through an M2Bus cable or IR interface using LogoManager). These instructions are for changing the alphanumeric tag at the top of the cell phone screen ("AT&T" in my case) when attached to the home network (you should be able to make similar changes for roaming network modes, though I haven't tried that out myself).
I have BlackBox running quite nicely on a Pentium/200. BlackBox is *very* fast and nicely compact while still giving you a lot of configurability and fairly "pretty" interface. With a few rxvts and maybe an emacs, xload, xmms, or a few other utils you'll be just fine. fvwm is another good choice and I'm told sawfish, AfterStep, xfce, and WindowMaker are all compact, but I haven't been wanting for more features with BlackBox.
I would recommend against running KDE or GNOME as an environment with resources as limited as this. Though I have KDE and GNOME installed on the machine, neither environment is launched by default and generally I only use the libraries when called for by an application I need.
The tricky part will be to get web browsing working nicely in as small a system as this. Galeon, Konqeror, or the like are nice, but have a lot of memory overhead and will probably have you swapping out fast (obviously, spending a few bucks on memory would be a good idea first chance you get). Opera or netscape is probably the way to go, but I'm not terribly happy with either. At least lynx won't give you any issues!
Interestingly, I wrote up a little webpage on this and other Nokia 8260 hacks a few weeks ago that includes just these instructions ( http://www.rjsjr.org/hacks/nokia/ ). You can't change the operator tag on all networks, but contrary to a number of the previous posters, this is possible with the phone itself.
Nokia phones have two different alpha tags, the first is a user configurable alpha tag associated with a NAM that is displayed when the network is found on startup. This is easy to set from the system configuration screen (type *3001#12345# to enter the system configuration mode).
The second alpha tag is the designator for the network and can be changed on some, but not all phones/networks. AT&T Wireless San Francisco (my service provider, PSID 40231) configures their network such that you can't change the tag (they disable private network access as you can see from screen 2 DCCH mode in the field test display [see URL above for instructions on entering field test mode]). For providers which do allow you to change the alpha tag, here is the procedure:
Type in *3001#12345# to enter the system screen
Select NAM1 (phones that use multiple NAMs will have to repeat this process for each used NAM)
Scroll down to PSID/RSID lists and select
Select P/RSID 1 (it's possible your phone is set to work on another P/RSID code, check to see if the values are non-zero for system id and other fields)
Scroll down to PSID/RSID, if you're lucky this is set to the correct private system id, but in all likelihood you'll need to look this up. PSIDs are not generall published, you can find a few listed at the-mobile.net.
Scroll to Alpha tag and select
Type in your desired alpha tag and hit enter
Power off phone by holding down power key, then turn on again
Press the Menu button and scroll down to System and select
Scroll to Manual and select, phone will display a Searching message while it looks up network connections.
Scoll down to the new tag you programmed in above, you should see a message saying Available: YOUR_TAG, select this. If you see Not available: YOUR_TAG, that means some of your seetings for P/RSID are wrong or that your system doesn't allow private access (see field test mode screen 2 DCCH mode, check for the access bits in the lower left - 100 means your SOL), try to determine the correct system ID and other parameters and try again.
Generally speaking, the Nokia 8260 (US AMPS/TDMA/PCS TDMA) is a severely crippled version of the Nokia 82xx series. It lacks both the data cable (M2Bus, the grid of pin holes found under the battery once you take off the rear cover) and infrared interfaces that many of the GSM versions include and also has a number of fun features disabled.
For more info, see my page of Nokia 8260 Hacks ( http://www.rjsjr.org/hacks/nokia/ ) which includes some other fun hacks like monitoring the network in field test mode, mirroring email through AT&T SMS, downloading rings, automating voice mail passwords, and using calling groups. There are links for more resources from that page.
To address your concerns, I think its highly unlikely TiVo is going away anytime soon. Though they have a pretty high burn rate, they recently received $50 million in new funding and have major investments from a large number of networks, media companies, and partners. The entire stock market is in the sh*tter right now. Tivo needs to better define its role amid greater device integration (its likely all satellite and cable boxes will include PVR functionality over the next few years), but it has demonstrable benefits, the best user interface, and a lot of untapped revenue potential in more targeted advertising.
What's more, the service is emminently hackable so if they really did go down it wouldn't be hard to build a listings service that kept the unit functionality going in spite of a company closure. Several people have claimed to hack this already, though code is not readily available last I checked (for obvious reasons). Either way, I've got my daily calls going over my ethernet network, so it wouldn't be hard to sniff out the necessary bits or put some work into documenting the MFS partition formats and inserting it directly from a source like XMLTV.
So, for a fun project and damn useful toy, grab yourself a 20 hour Tivo cheap (see AVS TiVo Forums for pointers to cheap deals at Wal-Mart, Target, etc.), a big harddrive (most any 5400 rpm will do), and a hard drive bracket and ethernet adapter (here's a good tutorial). Then have fun with a device that's both well suited to the task (stable, nice tv based user interface, very sharp picture) and gives you a chance to sink your teeth into some fun hacks.
FWIW, I've been spending a lot of time hacking up my own media-box project of late and I really think that it isn't yet a viable option. Dual booting Debian/WinME with a AIW Radeon and SB Live Platinum 5.1 gives you the ability to do everything a TiVo can and more, but the interface, stability, and interoperability leave a lot to be desired. On the up side, its great to be able to play DivX, MP3, Emulators, etc. in the living room A/V system. Wonderful as a system oriented towards archived playback, music, and games, but don't buy one thinking its going to be nearly as useful in place of a TiVo.
The fundamental problem that most java applets were solving in the early days of browser applets were user interface issues. Early HTML standards provided a very sparse set of interface behaviors, relatively little control over screen organization, almost no dynamism of interface elements, and made interaction with the server tedious for the user. JavaScript was still floundering as a confused little Netscape introduced scripting language (perhaps it still is). Additionally, most links and servers were considerably slower than they are now, so you had a greater need for accomplishing.
Java presented itself as a rich medium in which to be able to effect much more complex interfaces. Sure, there were much more grandiose plans, but this is what most people wrote applets for. Ultimately, this proved to be a problematic architecture for a number of reasons (not limited to flaky OSes, lousy java implementations, limited sandbox behavior, and the problems of native UI elements across platforms). I spent many long nights frustrated while trying to develop mission critical communications applications in an applet environment.
A combination of more advanced HTML behaviors (including DHTML, XHTML, etc.), better client side scripting, and robust server side environments has emerged as the dominant model and has a lot of strengths to speak for it. Compared to applets, we get more flexible, supportable, and scalable environments and can much more easily reuse behavior across into other areas.
With some apologies to Perl/Tk, wxPerl, and other projects, building a nice user interface has never been a strength of Perl. I love perl and think its a great tool, but its not what I reach for out of my toolbox when user interface problems present themselves. Python is arguably a little more relevant here, but I still don't see a compelling extension of behavior worth the costs of runtime footprint, learning new code, and inevitable incompatibilities. mod_perl is clearly a compelling use to me as I can do innumerable little tasks quickly and easily on my webservers, do I really need super nifty regexps and unix tool linking in my browser's client runtime?
Where you really do need more advanced behavior (which is far less often than people think), Flash and Shockwave are probably better solutions, particularly from the perspective of designers and content people. And beyond that, an ActiveX control (face it, windows is the dominant user platform, like it or not) lets you accomplish whatever you need more flexibly.
Lanugages can be a lot of fun to play around with (Ruby and Haskell come to mind right now), but generally speaking its better to minimize the number of tools used and requirements imposed (particularly as we start focusing more on embedded browsers).
If you owned as many rambus options as intel did you wouldn't be too quick to trash the company either;-) The real question is will the chipsets support alternative memory architectures? That will probably mean de facto that Rambus looses, but if they save face and intel does a little better on the stock, what do we care?
Malaysia isn't the latest state to want to claim the throne of tallest building. There is a very serious proposal to build a new skyscraper in Chicago that will unambigiously capture the crown for Chicago again. Last I heard the project was moving forward and in the process of securing financing.
I've spent the better part of the last six years building, designing, and consulting about web and java mission critical applications for financial markets professionals. With billions of dollars on the line, very impatient users, and fast moving markets, you get just about all the nasty problems possible. There are few hard and fast rules for these types of problems, but here are some tips from my experience:
Rely on the web for lightweight interface only. Browsers and client side java are notoriously flaky, try to make the web connection a lightweight view on your delegates or model/controllers in a reliable environment. This means no CGI, at a minimum put your environment in mod_perl or ASP (ugh!). Given the complexity you seem to be suggesting (order processing, etc.) it would seem that a java application server (e.g.: weblogic/websphere) or serverlet environment (tomcat/jakarta) is probably in order.
Recover quickly and gracefully. When the browser dies make it easy for the user to navigate back to their previous interface/state with a minimum of hassle. A bookmark back to their previous position(s) is often nice solution and should work across machines (i.e. don't rely on cookies). Don't let business logic and controllers die just because the view drops off (but you do need to have some cleaning logic to keep from bloating out from bad sessions).
Stay away from the browser's cutting edge. As tempting as it is to use the newest DHTML, plugin, and other tricks, you usually create far more problems with crashes and compatibility than you solve by more flexible or dynamic interface elements. Understand your users system capabilities and don't overrun their capabilities in HTML version, table sizes, interface speed, or additional features.
Organize your screens by users's tasks. Its all too easy when writing applications to fall into the trap of checking off functional elements and then throwing this set of screens at the user. Users work far more effeciently if you can analyze their business process and organize a set of screens around their work. This is especially important at an app as big as you mention (200 screens) since the users can end up having to spend all their time finding the right interface to complete the next task. You may end up duplicating many interface elements, but you should be building a modular enough interface to make that inexpensive development wise.
Build a strong, reliable server environment. Mission critical applications are not to be taken lightly, build a server environment that can recover gracefully from parts failing on the fly. This probably means that your web servers, application servers, and database servers all need to be clustered from the start.
Emphasize a careful rollout process. As easy as it is to make changes to web applications, developers are tempting to forgoe real versioning and testing and just roll out new changes. If this really is mission critical you have to put a real process around change management, it gets very easy to screw up critical elements without realizing it once you get a pretty large and powerful web application.
So what are some good examples that accomplish these tasks? Well, there aren't too many that I'm really fond of out on the public networks, but the online brokers (etrade, schwab, datek) are a reasonable start. They have lots of information, pretty good workflow, and fairly robust and clear problem handling. Webvan was pretty good when it was around (relatively simple though it was), but there were too many hierarchies to navigate.
Getting widespread computing resources and connectivity into remote regions of the world can be a tall order. You have very difficult economic, cultural, and technological hurdles to overcome - expect this to be a major project. Its not clear to me what kind of solution you need... some key questions to consider:
What kind of budget do you have?
Do you really need to connect 1200 sites with many out in the bush? Simultaneously? How many users/bandwidth per site?
Do you require high bandwidth?
What kind of link uptime requirements?
Do the bush sites even have reliable power and existing computing resources?
There are a wide variety of potential solutions, and a lot of the choices are going to depend on the answers to these questions. Its quite possible to get satellite links with high bandwidth and independent providers to the remote sites, but that costs very big bucks. Even satellite telephones are prohibitively expensive outside of mineral exploration and a few other uses. If all you need is basic email interoperability then a ham packet radio network would seem to make more sense.
I suspect your best bet is to figure out the general class of solution you might be looking for (very likely ham radio based, as there is already some infrastructure in africa for that and expertise among the relief organizations) and try to work with vendors, other experts, and local contacts with that solution in mind.
I would think as a relief organization you could get uplink cooperation from governmental/military providers, but you don't mention the organization so perhaps local cooperation is not forthcoming. The ISP email problem is probably best solved by using them as an IP provider only and setting up your own email server (get a cheap donated box and use it for general management as well as your own smtp server).
Of course a google search brings up some interesting info, which I hope you've already worked through.
For a better article on factors driving the relative failure of bluetooth and sucess of 802.11b, read Bye-bye, Bluetooth by Bill Gurley (of Benchmark and Above The Crowd fame) courtesy news.com.
While I think Gurley makes some good points about the relative cost economies (Bluetooth doesn't seem to have an advantage) and the power of server connected applications versus localized networks, I wouldn't dismiss local device networking so fast. There's a lot of potential for cell phone to fixed point communication, cell/laptop transfer, vehicle networking, etc. that passive RF can't handle. For all of its good points, 802.11b is very difficult to get broad coverage with and GPRS/2.5G cellular technology is probably more economical if the cellular providers could ever come up with a good data pricing model.
802.11b freenets are great and I by all means encourage more people to open them up and run them (I have a little one running), but they are hardly a realistic threat to ISPs. The simple fact is that WiFi just doesn't have enough range and penetration to make significant coverage economically feasible ad-hoc. It takes a lot of placements to get decent coverage, particularly when leaves, many walls, and most other obstructions attenuate the signal a great deal. Hell, look at all the money Metricom had to pump into getting decent coverage (different tech, but similar range issues).
If you look at the major freenet networks (such as SFLan and BAWUG here in San Francisco or others), their actual coverage is really quite tiny. Sure, you can find a good number more by war driving around the city, but that hardly gets to the point that were making a dent in the ISP revenue stream. While I'm optimistic on their expanding and the radios improving, what percentage of SF residents realistically would have usuable signal strength in their homes in 1, 2, even 3 years out?
If you do decide to run a freenet, get an external antenna with some decent gain, though WAP antenna connectors have to be proprietary, most are just reversed DNC or the like. You get a pretty shocking increase in range and penetration even with a 3db omni and a lot less sensitivity to the wireless card's orientation (which is all to often flat and sub-optimal for pickup). A lot of the freenet spec out relatively expensive hardware (< $1K for SFLan), but a little antenna hacking can get most any WAP to reach out for semi-decent range.
Early on when they were setting up networking at Xerox's PARC, they used four telescopes and a pair of lasers and detectors to network between two bulidings separated by I-280. Apparently several people reported UFO or strange object sightings when the red laser beams would sporadically show up in the fog!
About the closest you can get to your criterion is to buy an old TiVo that still has a version 1.3.X system (or reinstate it with a backup). TiVo originally offered the option of purchasing the unit for use without guide data (they now cripple this severely), with pause/rewind functions and manual recording of time/channel allowed. The 2.0.1 upgrade was supposed to grandfather in old units, but now includes a vast array of reminders that make it pretty painful (see the recent slashdot story). A fix is promised with 2.5 sometime in the fall (or much later, judging by 2.0 delays).
Contrary to some other poster's comments, you don't have to call in to TiVo and download software if you aren't using guide data (the only thing you need is the date). You can make a test call only to sync up the date/time or set the date via bash prompt by hooking up a linux box to the serial port for a terminal session. A full call will upgrade you to 2.0.1 and introduce the subscription reminder advertising spam.
Any TiVo can be converted to PAL input/output and newer UK units come set up for PAL already (I'm told, I haven't tried either). Note that this conversion is also incompatible with 2.0.1. You can find more info about PAL, etc. at the AVS TiVo forums. Expect to pay about $150-200 for one on ebay or the TiVo community garage sale, but you'll need to look around carefully to find one that still has the 1.3 system (general upgrades went out to connected recievers in April or so).
Note that the Nvidia GeForce cards tend to have noticably softer 2D images (IMO, and others) than the ATI cards (or Matrox, for that matter), which is likey to be a big negative for designers. Their higher end cards also lack DVI-I connectors for flat panel use (these are available on the MX cards).
Also, the Nvidia cards only have significantly better 3D performance than the Radeons when used in 16 bit high resolution modes (its mostly comparable with a similar GeForce in 32 bit tests, until you get to high resolutions and compare against a GeForce 2 Ultra). Those tests were done on a PC comparing with a GeForce 2 GTS, which is faster than the GeForce 2 MX that Nvidia is releasing for Macs.
I think the best all around performance you'll find on the Mac right now is from the Radeon Mac Edition (which is 32MB DDR to compare in the above charts). It has better 2D performance (IMO, its a subjective thing but many other people have noticed and commented on the difference).
Assuming you are using hardware MPEG-2 decoding for DVD movie playback, you don't need a lot of power. I'm not sure quite how fast would be suitable, but I think any reasonably modern CPU would work just fine. If you are using a software based player, you will need some decent horsepower for good quality, but I'd strongly recommend using a decoder card (many graphics cards have this built in or you can buy a seperate decoder card - don't know about your ATI specifically).
The other thing to consider is whether you might want to be able to play DivX movies on this box. The DivX/MP4 codec is very CPU intensive and requires a good processor to get acceptable quality playback (I'd guess around 300-500MHz depending on bitrate). Though it isn't too widespread at the moment, DivX is quite cool and you can find a pretty good selection of material on Gnutella, IRC, etc. (not that I would ever advocate infringing upon copyrights).
I suspect output quality would suffer significantly, though I don't see any specs for the X10 unit quickly browsing their website. It also seems to only support 2 channel audio (not surround sound), but I'm guessing based on limited information. You can have fairly long runs of S-Video, RCA, or TosLink cables without significantly impacting quality, so I think that would be a better solution (but cable routing could be an issue).
A typical TV indeed lacks the ability to scan high enough for reasonable computer use, though higher end units and/or good video processors can provide excellent results (expect to pay big bucks). I'd like to stick an LCD screen to the side with an RF keyboard/pointing device, but the price is still kind of high for that.
I'm working on similar hacks (living room audio/video/gaming [mostly mame/emus] PC), here's a few bits from my experience so far. You are going to have a serious problem reconciling two of your design limitations: the ability to use standard video cards/motherboards and a "slim-line" style case. Assuming you want to be able to use an ATX board and AGP graphics card, you are have a minimum box size of approximately 12x9x5 inches.
It would be very hard to stay with those dimensions since you'd also have to fit at least a power supply, hard drive, dvd drive, and a couple PCI cards in there as well (audio, network). For a reasonably fast processor (such as would be requisite for good DivX/MP4 encoding/decoding) and the AIW card, a 300W power supply will be necessary. Again, ATX format PS is the most flexible so you've got another big chunk (roughly 5 1/2 x 3 3/4 x 6 inches - see ATX Specs). Also realize that you'll need a good heatsink for your CPU (I'd recommend a Duron or Thunderbird whose included heatsinks are 2 inches high). Using an NLX/Micro-ATX/FlexATX form factor (specs) buys some size, but limits peripheral/mobo choices. Also check out this quick form factor guide and comparison chart.
I haven't settled on a choice yet, but you might look at the following (these cases are typically about 17 x 17 x 6 inches, which is smaller than the Qbex you mention above). Key components are Abit KT7A, Athlon ~1GHz, ATI Radeon AIW, Pioneer DV-105S, IBM 75GXP HD, NetGear FA312, and Soundblaster Platinum.
Lian-Li miniPC 31 - very spiffy aluminum case (black with silver)... very pricey as well.
SuperPower Landmark KS-699 - Small and decent looking, but will need to upgrade power supply and heat could be an issue.
Slashdot has run many past articles on cool cases and quiet PCs (search for them, too many to link).
Another tip: consider the Pioneer DV-105S or similar slot loading DVD drive, so you can orient horizontally.
Personally, I think the thing to concentrate on is the loudness of the unit, rather than its physical size (and, to a lesser extent its stylishness). I have a Tivo (Phillips HDR312 with 1 30G Quantum) and find it unacceptably loud when watching movies unless placed in an enclosed cabinet (its considerably more quiet than a PC). My focus on cases is just for something that can fit inside my audio cabinet and which can flow enough air (preferably out the back) to keep the system reasonably cool. If I get something really good together, I'll probably just build myself a custom case once its all settled out (but there is lots more important things to do for integration software, remote contol, DivX support, mp3 management, etc. first IMO). Remember you are also going to have a tangle of cables to deal with if you want good integration to an A/V receiver or multiple components.
Some other options to think about:
Mac Cube, which is already compact, stylish, and quiet. Unfortunately, it lacks S-Video, tuner, and S/PDIF (digital audio) connections, costs quite a bit of money, and has limited software choices
Laptop PC - compact and sometimes stylish, but may not have the horsepower for DivX and would probably require a lot more software to integrate functions, pricey (maybe buy used with dead LCD).
Sony VAIO Slimtop or similar - small with many multimedia features, but you have to pay for LCD and don't have component flexibility.
Good luck, and please email me if you find anything else good or build software around the AIW and/or remote controls.
You may also want to verify CD-RWs (audio format) as some players will do both while others will read CD-R, but not CR-RW (others will read both). I like CD-RW a lot for putting together current mixes without having to burn a new CD everytime (though at $0.20 for cheap disks, it isn't a big deal).
You can usually (but not always) tell which players will handle CD-R and CD-RW as they will be listed as having dual-discrete pickups. The DVD compatible lasers typically do not have the sensitivity to be able to read CD-R and CD-RW media's lower reflectivity, so the player has to have another laser read head that will handle CD tasks.
While this won't help with the phone part (without some patching), you should also consider the Etymotic ER-4S headphones, which provide 23db of sound isolation and really good quality music sound. These are passive noise reduction headphones, so they stick part way into your ear like an ear plug. Some people find the feeling unnerving, but they are very effective. You can buy them cheaper and find more information at http://www.headphone.com/ProductsHeadphones/Etymot icER4Sasp.asp">HeadRoom (also check out their headphone amps).
As for the active noise reduction models like the Sonys and Bose, I would recommend trying them out against a similar noise background. These systems (at least the consumer versions I've tried) are good at filtering out some frequecies/types of noise, but less effective on others. The Sonys were pretty good at upper frequency in the airplane, but not on the lower end in my experience (i.e. the "whoosh" of air running along the fuselage was somewhat taken out, but not the droning of the engines).
I'm looking around at both cards and access points with linux compatibility, here's what I've found. It seems 802.11b wireless networking is definitely getting cheaper and a number of decent products have been showing up at half previous typical prices. D-Link and SMC are leading the low end of the market with decent quality products and at least stated linux support and Orinico/Lucent and Aironet/Cisco are the leaders if you want a more robust feature set for your access point (in particular, support for external antennas).
PCMCIA Cards
For cards, the cheapest decent card I've been able to find is the D-Link DWL-650, which can be had for around $120 from a reputable web retailer. However, while D-Link claims linux support in their FAQ, I can't find a driver to download from their FTP and a google search didn't reveal anything elsewhere. Haven't really looked hard, but dubious with that in mind. I should also note that the D-Link claims shorter ranges (1,000 ft. v. 1,500) than most of the other cards/access points, but I suspect that has little real world relevance.
The next best option seems to be the SMC 2632W, which has linux drivers available for download (haven't tried them out, though). It tends to run about $20-30 more from similar sources, but looks like a good product and appears to have better support.
After that, its a tossup in the $200-300 range from the major networking manufacturers. I don't see a clear advantage of any of them over the cheaper products, but haven't looked at power consumption levels and comparison tests from major publications aren't new enough to include these products (that I've seen).
Access Points
For those who are also interested in what's going on with access points, including linux support on configuration:
Currently thinking about the D-Link DWL-1000AP which goes for a little under $300 if you look around for a good web retailer. Main downside is a lack of linux support in configuration software (needed to set static IPs by address), though this isn't a big deal for me as I run a mixed network. Too bad it doesn't have a nice mini-web server for management like my HP printer (LaserJet 2100NT). They list telnet support in the data sheet, but its not clear to me if you can telnet to the hub to make changes...
Another potentially good and cheap model is the SMC 2652W, but supply seems to be limited on this right now. Again, no linux configuration utilities, but you can console connect via RS-232, which the D-Link doesn't have. SMC has linux drivers available for its PCMCIA card now.
Unfortunately, neither of these have the antenna adapter that some of the Lucent Orinoco (formerly WaveLAN) access points feature, but they also don't cost $700+ (its more for the 2 radio model). Not really much of an issue for household use (unless you have a multilevel apartment with concrete flooring), but if you want to cover multiple houses, roam around farther outdoors, or set up a free wireless LAN (slashdot discussion) for people in the area [SF for me] (I could run a really popular access point, living across the street from Moscone). There are a number of other good access points from Cisco/Aironet, HP, Intel, etc., but these are the standouts for price/performance in my research.
Thanks, you're quite right that the proper URL is www.gphoto.org, not www.gphoto.com. Unfortunately, your post had a malformed link so you you can't see it there either. Third time's a charm...;-)
I can sympathize with what you are trying to do, as I've tried both uses with my Nikon Coolpix 950. The short answer is both are possible, but it isn't likely to be easy to get what you want out of the setup. Once drivers are available, you should be able to use your digital camera as a webcam fairly effectively, though you may have issues with autofocus, flash, and other camera-only adjustments. For astrophotography, it isn't likely you'll be able to get worthwhile images with the Elph, but I've included a few links on how to get started.
Digial Camera Webcams
Digital cameras defintely produce a much more compelling image than a typical webcam. I have a 3Com HomeConnect (a pretty good quality webcam) and it looks just awful compared to my Nikon N950 (not just resolution, but also trueness of color, CCD noise, and sensitivity). The main limitations are that you can't usually take mini-movies or fast sequences, some key functions are often only controllable on camera (for instance auto-focus and flash), and you'll need a power cord for the camera if you don't want to drain the batteries very quickly.
The easiest way to control the camera from a linux box is with Scott Fritzinger's GPL'd gphoto program. gphoto allows basic control of a variety of cameras through serial or USB connection (and supports both interactive and commmand line modes - add a bit of perl and cron and you can do all sorts of fun things). Its still under development, however, and unfortunately doesn't currently support the Digital Elph (PowerShot S100) to my knowledge. I'm not sure how involved it would be to write a USB Elph driver for it, but you can check out the site if you feel up to it.
Digital Cameras and CCD Astrophotography
With astrophotography, you are getting into a rather specialized and involved use of CCD devices and generally speaking, it takes a good bit of expertise and dollars to get good results. You don't mention what you are looking to capture or what existing equipment you have, so I'll point out some of the basics and you can research further from these. FWIW, I'm not by any means an expert here, but I've been looking to jump in, so I'm seeing the same issues.
While there are limited exceptions, CCD astrophotography generally requires the use of specialized equipment. Your Canon Digital Elph doesn't have the required sensitivity (its equivalent to ISO 100 film), ability to take long exposures, long and fast enough lenses, or adapters for telescope mounting. While its possible to use a barn door tracker or equitorial tracking camera mount with the Elph, the results aren't likely to be worth the effort.
If you really get interested in astrophotography, you'll probably want to pony up for a specialized system like those built by Celestron and SBIG. These are highly sensitive, small array CCD cameras with specialized cooling and software for high gain operation. Add a high quality telescope, equitorial tracking mount, and related accessories, and you are talking about no small dollar commitment. Also, you'll need a lot of time and patience to find and capture accurately really good photos. I'd like to try CCD astrophotography out, but will be playing with 35mm (add a T mount and a Meade ETX and you can get started for under $1000) until I decide I'm really committed and move to a less light polluted neighborhood.
Slashdot Mirror
You typically can't find good quality CD-Rs at the major computer stores and you definitely won't get good prices on them. They don't have the lowest prices out there, but I've been pretty happy ordering 100 lots of 80 min Mitsui unbranded silvers from american digital and haven't burned a coaster or had a CD-R go bad yet. Hunt around and I'm sure you can find some better deals online.
... rjs
A point of clarification, the 8260 can't do any graphical logos to my knowledge (other 82xx versions can have logos set by the operator or downloaded through an M2Bus cable or IR interface using LogoManager). These instructions are for changing the alphanumeric tag at the top of the cell phone screen ("AT&T" in my case) when attached to the home network (you should be able to make similar changes for roaming network modes, though I haven't tried that out myself).
... rjs
I have BlackBox running quite nicely on a Pentium/200. BlackBox is *very* fast and nicely compact while still giving you a lot of configurability and fairly "pretty" interface. With a few rxvts and maybe an emacs, xload, xmms, or a few other utils you'll be just fine. fvwm is another good choice and I'm told sawfish, AfterStep, xfce, and WindowMaker are all compact, but I haven't been wanting for more features with BlackBox.
I would recommend against running KDE or GNOME as an environment with resources as limited as this. Though I have KDE and GNOME installed on the machine, neither environment is launched by default and generally I only use the libraries when called for by an application I need.
The tricky part will be to get web browsing working nicely in as small a system as this. Galeon, Konqeror, or the like are nice, but have a lot of memory overhead and will probably have you swapping out fast (obviously, spending a few bucks on memory would be a good idea first chance you get). Opera or netscape is probably the way to go, but I'm not terribly happy with either. At least lynx won't give you any issues!
... rjs
Nokia phones have two different alpha tags, the first is a user configurable alpha tag associated with a NAM that is displayed when the network is found on startup. This is easy to set from the system configuration screen (type *3001#12345# to enter the system configuration mode).
The second alpha tag is the designator for the network and can be changed on some, but not all phones/networks. AT&T Wireless San Francisco (my service provider, PSID 40231) configures their network such that you can't change the tag (they disable private network access as you can see from screen 2 DCCH mode in the field test display [see URL above for instructions on entering field test mode]). For providers which do allow you to change the alpha tag, here is the procedure:
Generally speaking, the Nokia 8260 (US AMPS/TDMA/PCS TDMA) is a severely crippled version of the Nokia 82xx series. It lacks both the data cable (M2Bus, the grid of pin holes found under the battery once you take off the rear cover) and infrared interfaces that many of the GSM versions include and also has a number of fun features disabled.
For more info, see my page of Nokia 8260 Hacks ( http://www.rjsjr.org/hacks/nokia/ ) which includes some other fun hacks like monitoring the network in field test mode, mirroring email through AT&T SMS, downloading rings, automating voice mail passwords, and using calling groups. There are links for more resources from that page.
... rjs
What's more, the service is emminently hackable so if they really did go down it wouldn't be hard to build a listings service that kept the unit functionality going in spite of a company closure. Several people have claimed to hack this already, though code is not readily available last I checked (for obvious reasons). Either way, I've got my daily calls going over my ethernet network, so it wouldn't be hard to sniff out the necessary bits or put some work into documenting the MFS partition formats and inserting it directly from a source like XMLTV.
So, for a fun project and damn useful toy, grab yourself a 20 hour Tivo cheap (see AVS TiVo Forums for pointers to cheap deals at Wal-Mart, Target, etc.), a big harddrive (most any 5400 rpm will do), and a hard drive bracket and ethernet adapter (here's a good tutorial). Then have fun with a device that's both well suited to the task (stable, nice tv based user interface, very sharp picture) and gives you a chance to sink your teeth into some fun hacks.
FWIW, I've been spending a lot of time hacking up my own media-box project of late and I really think that it isn't yet a viable option. Dual booting Debian/WinME with a AIW Radeon and SB Live Platinum 5.1 gives you the ability to do everything a TiVo can and more, but the interface, stability, and interoperability leave a lot to be desired. On the up side, its great to be able to play DivX, MP3, Emulators, etc. in the living room A/V system. Wonderful as a system oriented towards archived playback, music, and games, but don't buy one thinking its going to be nearly as useful in place of a TiVo.
... rjs
Java presented itself as a rich medium in which to be able to effect much more complex interfaces. Sure, there were much more grandiose plans, but this is what most people wrote applets for. Ultimately, this proved to be a problematic architecture for a number of reasons (not limited to flaky OSes, lousy java implementations, limited sandbox behavior, and the problems of native UI elements across platforms). I spent many long nights frustrated while trying to develop mission critical communications applications in an applet environment.
A combination of more advanced HTML behaviors (including DHTML, XHTML, etc.), better client side scripting, and robust server side environments has emerged as the dominant model and has a lot of strengths to speak for it. Compared to applets, we get more flexible, supportable, and scalable environments and can much more easily reuse behavior across into other areas.
With some apologies to Perl/Tk, wxPerl, and other projects, building a nice user interface has never been a strength of Perl. I love perl and think its a great tool, but its not what I reach for out of my toolbox when user interface problems present themselves. Python is arguably a little more relevant here, but I still don't see a compelling extension of behavior worth the costs of runtime footprint, learning new code, and inevitable incompatibilities. mod_perl is clearly a compelling use to me as I can do innumerable little tasks quickly and easily on my webservers, do I really need super nifty regexps and unix tool linking in my browser's client runtime?
Where you really do need more advanced behavior (which is far less often than people think), Flash and Shockwave are probably better solutions, particularly from the perspective of designers and content people. And beyond that, an ActiveX control (face it, windows is the dominant user platform, like it or not) lets you accomplish whatever you need more flexibly.
Lanugages can be a lot of fun to play around with (Ruby and Haskell come to mind right now), but generally speaking its better to minimize the number of tools used and requirements imposed (particularly as we start focusing more on embedded browsers).
... rjs
If you owned as many rambus options as intel did you wouldn't be too quick to trash the company either ;-) The real question is will the chipsets support alternative memory architectures? That will probably mean de facto that Rambus looses, but if they save face and intel does a little better on the stock, what do we care?
Regards, RJS
So what are some good examples that accomplish these tasks? Well, there aren't too many that I'm really fond of out on the public networks, but the online brokers (etrade, schwab, datek) are a reasonable start. They have lots of information, pretty good workflow, and fairly robust and clear problem handling. Webvan was pretty good when it was around (relatively simple though it was), but there were too many hierarchies to navigate.
Good Luck, Robert Seymour
Getting widespread computing resources and connectivity into remote regions of the world can be a tall order. You have very difficult economic, cultural, and technological hurdles to overcome - expect this to be a major project. Its not clear to me what kind of solution you need ... some key questions to consider:
There are a wide variety of potential solutions, and a lot of the choices are going to depend on the answers to these questions. Its quite possible to get satellite links with high bandwidth and independent providers to the remote sites, but that costs very big bucks. Even satellite telephones are prohibitively expensive outside of mineral exploration and a few other uses. If all you need is basic email interoperability then a ham packet radio network would seem to make more sense.
I suspect your best bet is to figure out the general class of solution you might be looking for (very likely ham radio based, as there is already some infrastructure in africa for that and expertise among the relief organizations) and try to work with vendors, other experts, and local contacts with that solution in mind.
I would think as a relief organization you could get uplink cooperation from governmental/military providers, but you don't mention the organization so perhaps local cooperation is not forthcoming. The ISP email problem is probably best solved by using them as an IP provider only and setting up your own email server (get a cheap donated box and use it for general management as well as your own smtp server).
Of course a google search brings up some interesting info, which I hope you've already worked through.
Regards, RJS
For a better article on factors driving the relative failure of bluetooth and sucess of 802.11b, read Bye-bye, Bluetooth by Bill Gurley (of Benchmark and Above The Crowd fame) courtesy news.com.
While I think Gurley makes some good points about the relative cost economies (Bluetooth doesn't seem to have an advantage) and the power of server connected applications versus localized networks, I wouldn't dismiss local device networking so fast. There's a lot of potential for cell phone to fixed point communication, cell/laptop transfer, vehicle networking, etc. that passive RF can't handle. For all of its good points, 802.11b is very difficult to get broad coverage with and GPRS/2.5G cellular technology is probably more economical if the cellular providers could ever come up with a good data pricing model.
Regards, RJS
802.11b freenets are great and I by all means encourage more people to open them up and run them (I have a little one running), but they are hardly a realistic threat to ISPs. The simple fact is that WiFi just doesn't have enough range and penetration to make significant coverage economically feasible ad-hoc. It takes a lot of placements to get decent coverage, particularly when leaves, many walls, and most other obstructions attenuate the signal a great deal. Hell, look at all the money Metricom had to pump into getting decent coverage (different tech, but similar range issues).
If you look at the major freenet networks (such as SFLan and BAWUG here in San Francisco or others), their actual coverage is really quite tiny. Sure, you can find a good number more by war driving around the city, but that hardly gets to the point that were making a dent in the ISP revenue stream. While I'm optimistic on their expanding and the radios improving, what percentage of SF residents realistically would have usuable signal strength in their homes in 1, 2, even 3 years out?
If you do decide to run a freenet, get an external antenna with some decent gain, though WAP antenna connectors have to be proprietary, most are just reversed DNC or the like. You get a pretty shocking increase in range and penetration even with a 3db omni and a lot less sensitivity to the wireless card's orientation (which is all to often flat and sub-optimal for pickup). A lot of the freenet spec out relatively expensive hardware (< $1K for SFLan), but a little antenna hacking can get most any WAP to reach out for semi-decent range.
Regards, RJS
Early on when they were setting up networking at Xerox's PARC, they used four telescopes and a pair of lasers and detectors to network between two bulidings separated by I-280. Apparently several people reported UFO or strange object sightings when the red laser beams would sporadically show up in the fog!
I think this story is mentioned in Michael Hiltzik's Dealers of Lightning (fatbrain link) history of PARC, which is a worthwhile read.
Regards, Robert
About the closest you can get to your criterion is to buy an old TiVo that still has a version 1.3.X system (or reinstate it with a backup). TiVo originally offered the option of purchasing the unit for use without guide data (they now cripple this severely), with pause/rewind functions and manual recording of time/channel allowed. The 2.0.1 upgrade was supposed to grandfather in old units, but now includes a vast array of reminders that make it pretty painful (see the recent slashdot story). A fix is promised with 2.5 sometime in the fall (or much later, judging by 2.0 delays).
Contrary to some other poster's comments, you don't have to call in to TiVo and download software if you aren't using guide data (the only thing you need is the date). You can make a test call only to sync up the date/time or set the date via bash prompt by hooking up a linux box to the serial port for a terminal session. A full call will upgrade you to 2.0.1 and introduce the subscription reminder advertising spam.
Any TiVo can be converted to PAL input/output and newer UK units come set up for PAL already (I'm told, I haven't tried either). Note that this conversion is also incompatible with 2.0.1. You can find more info about PAL, etc. at the AVS TiVo forums. Expect to pay about $150-200 for one on ebay or the TiVo community garage sale, but you'll need to look around carefully to find one that still has the 1.3 system (general upgrades went out to connected recievers in April or so).
Regards, RJS
Note that the Nvidia GeForce cards tend to have noticably softer 2D images (IMO, and others) than the ATI cards (or Matrox, for that matter), which is likey to be a big negative for designers. Their higher end cards also lack DVI-I connectors for flat panel use (these are available on the MX cards).
Also, the Nvidia cards only have significantly better 3D performance than the Radeons when used in 16 bit high resolution modes (its mostly comparable with a similar GeForce in 32 bit tests, until you get to high resolutions and compare against a GeForce 2 Ultra). Those tests were done on a PC comparing with a GeForce 2 GTS, which is faster than the GeForce 2 MX that Nvidia is releasing for Macs.
I think the best all around performance you'll find on the Mac right now is from the Radeon Mac Edition (which is 32MB DDR to compare in the above charts). It has better 2D performance (IMO, its a subjective thing but many other people have noticed and commented on the difference).
Regards, RJS
Assuming you are using hardware MPEG-2 decoding for DVD movie playback, you don't need a lot of power. I'm not sure quite how fast would be suitable, but I think any reasonably modern CPU would work just fine. If you are using a software based player, you will need some decent horsepower for good quality, but I'd strongly recommend using a decoder card (many graphics cards have this built in or you can buy a seperate decoder card - don't know about your ATI specifically).
The other thing to consider is whether you might want to be able to play DivX movies on this box. The DivX/MP4 codec is very CPU intensive and requires a good processor to get acceptable quality playback (I'd guess around 300-500MHz depending on bitrate). Though it isn't too widespread at the moment, DivX is quite cool and you can find a pretty good selection of material on Gnutella, IRC, etc. (not that I would ever advocate infringing upon copyrights).
Regards, RJS
I suspect output quality would suffer significantly, though I don't see any specs for the X10 unit quickly browsing their website. It also seems to only support 2 channel audio (not surround sound), but I'm guessing based on limited information. You can have fairly long runs of S-Video, RCA, or TosLink cables without significantly impacting quality, so I think that would be a better solution (but cable routing could be an issue).
A typical TV indeed lacks the ability to scan high enough for reasonable computer use, though higher end units and/or good video processors can provide excellent results (expect to pay big bucks). I'd like to stick an LCD screen to the side with an RF keyboard/pointing device, but the price is still kind of high for that.
Regards, RJS
It would be very hard to stay with those dimensions since you'd also have to fit at least a power supply, hard drive, dvd drive, and a couple PCI cards in there as well (audio, network). For a reasonably fast processor (such as would be requisite for good DivX/MP4 encoding/decoding) and the AIW card, a 300W power supply will be necessary. Again, ATX format PS is the most flexible so you've got another big chunk (roughly 5 1/2 x 3 3/4 x 6 inches - see ATX Specs). Also realize that you'll need a good heatsink for your CPU (I'd recommend a Duron or Thunderbird whose included heatsinks are 2 inches high). Using an NLX/Micro-ATX/FlexATX form factor (specs) buys some size, but limits peripheral/mobo choices. Also check out this quick form factor guide and comparison chart.
I haven't settled on a choice yet, but you might look at the following (these cases are typically about 17 x 17 x 6 inches, which is smaller than the Qbex you mention above). Key components are Abit KT7A, Athlon ~1GHz, ATI Radeon AIW, Pioneer DV-105S, IBM 75GXP HD, NetGear FA312, and Soundblaster Platinum.
Personally, I think the thing to concentrate on is the loudness of the unit, rather than its physical size (and, to a lesser extent its stylishness). I have a Tivo (Phillips HDR312 with 1 30G Quantum) and find it unacceptably loud when watching movies unless placed in an enclosed cabinet (its considerably more quiet than a PC). My focus on cases is just for something that can fit inside my audio cabinet and which can flow enough air (preferably out the back) to keep the system reasonably cool. If I get something really good together, I'll probably just build myself a custom case once its all settled out (but there is lots more important things to do for integration software, remote contol, DivX support, mp3 management, etc. first IMO). Remember you are also going to have a tangle of cables to deal with if you want good integration to an A/V receiver or multiple components.
Some other options to think about:
Good luck, and please email me if you find anything else good or build software around the AIW and/or remote controls.
Regards, RJS
You may also want to verify CD-RWs (audio format) as some players will do both while others will read CD-R, but not CR-RW (others will read both). I like CD-RW a lot for putting together current mixes without having to burn a new CD everytime (though at $0.20 for cheap disks, it isn't a big deal).
You can usually (but not always) tell which players will handle CD-R and CD-RW as they will be listed as having dual-discrete pickups. The DVD compatible lasers typically do not have the sensitivity to be able to read CD-R and CD-RW media's lower reflectivity, so the player has to have another laser read head that will handle CD tasks.
Regards, RJS
While this won't help with the phone part (without some patching), you should also consider the Etymotic ER-4S headphones, which provide 23db of sound isolation and really good quality music sound. These are passive noise reduction headphones, so they stick part way into your ear like an ear plug. Some people find the feeling unnerving, but they are very effective. You can buy them cheaper and find more information at http://www.headphone.com/ProductsHeadphones/Etymot icER4Sasp.asp">HeadRoom (also check out their headphone amps).
As for the active noise reduction models like the Sonys and Bose, I would recommend trying them out against a similar noise background. These systems (at least the consumer versions I've tried) are good at filtering out some frequecies/types of noise, but less effective on others. The Sonys were pretty good at upper frequency in the airplane, but not on the lower end in my experience (i.e. the "whoosh" of air running along the fuselage was somewhat taken out, but not the droning of the engines).
Regards, RJS
I'm looking around at both cards and access points with linux compatibility, here's what I've found. It seems 802.11b wireless networking is definitely getting cheaper and a number of decent products have been showing up at half previous typical prices. D-Link and SMC are leading the low end of the market with decent quality products and at least stated linux support and Orinico/Lucent and Aironet/Cisco are the leaders if you want a more robust feature set for your access point (in particular, support for external antennas).
PCMCIA Cards
Access Points
For those who are also interested in what's going on with access points, including linux support on configuration:
Unfortunately, neither of these have the antenna adapter that some of the Lucent Orinoco (formerly WaveLAN) access points feature, but they also don't cost $700+ (its more for the 2 radio model). Not really much of an issue for household use (unless you have a multilevel apartment with concrete flooring), but if you want to cover multiple houses, roam around farther outdoors, or set up a free wireless LAN (slashdot discussion) for people in the area [SF for me] (I could run a really popular access point, living across the street from Moscone). There are a number of other good access points from Cisco/Aironet, HP, Intel, etc., but these are the standouts for price/performance in my research.
Regards, RJS
Thanks, you're quite right that the proper URL is www.gphoto.org, not www.gphoto.com. Unfortunately, your post had a malformed link so you you can't see it there either. Third time's a charm ... ;-)
Thanks, RJS
I can sympathize with what you are trying to do, as I've tried both uses with my Nikon Coolpix 950. The short answer is both are possible, but it isn't likely to be easy to get what you want out of the setup. Once drivers are available, you should be able to use your digital camera as a webcam fairly effectively, though you may have issues with autofocus, flash, and other camera-only adjustments. For astrophotography, it isn't likely you'll be able to get worthwhile images with the Elph, but I've included a few links on how to get started.
Digial Camera Webcams
Digital cameras defintely produce a much more compelling image than a typical webcam. I have a 3Com HomeConnect (a pretty good quality webcam) and it looks just awful compared to my Nikon N950 (not just resolution, but also trueness of color, CCD noise, and sensitivity). The main limitations are that you can't usually take mini-movies or fast sequences, some key functions are often only controllable on camera (for instance auto-focus and flash), and you'll need a power cord for the camera if you don't want to drain the batteries very quickly.
The easiest way to control the camera from a linux box is with Scott Fritzinger's GPL'd gphoto program. gphoto allows basic control of a variety of cameras through serial or USB connection (and supports both interactive and commmand line modes - add a bit of perl and cron and you can do all sorts of fun things). Its still under development, however, and unfortunately doesn't currently support the Digital Elph (PowerShot S100) to my knowledge. I'm not sure how involved it would be to write a USB Elph driver for it, but you can check out the site if you feel up to it.
Digital Cameras and CCD Astrophotography
With astrophotography, you are getting into a rather specialized and involved use of CCD devices and generally speaking, it takes a good bit of expertise and dollars to get good results. You don't mention what you are looking to capture or what existing equipment you have, so I'll point out some of the basics and you can research further from these. FWIW, I'm not by any means an expert here, but I've been looking to jump in, so I'm seeing the same issues.
While there are limited exceptions, CCD astrophotography generally requires the use of specialized equipment. Your Canon Digital Elph doesn't have the required sensitivity (its equivalent to ISO 100 film), ability to take long exposures, long and fast enough lenses, or adapters for telescope mounting. While its possible to use a barn door tracker or equitorial tracking camera mount with the Elph, the results aren't likely to be worth the effort.
If you really get interested in astrophotography, you'll probably want to pony up for a specialized system like those built by Celestron and SBIG. These are highly sensitive, small array CCD cameras with specialized cooling and software for high gain operation. Add a high quality telescope, equitorial tracking mount, and related accessories, and you are talking about no small dollar commitment. Also, you'll need a lot of time and patience to find and capture accurately really good photos. I'd like to try CCD astrophotography out, but will be playing with 35mm (add a T mount and a Meade ETX and you can get started for under $1000) until I decide I'm really committed and move to a less light polluted neighborhood.
Sky & Telescope has a pretty good guide on where to start. Some good introductions to astrophotgraphy are:
Have fun, RJS