The Geek Stories

Australia ReMIX08 Keynote, Sydney

Nick Hodge — Tue, 27 May 2008 01:14:00 GMT

Keynote from Sydney ReMIX 2008, 20th May 2008

Australia ReMIX08 Keynote, Melbourne

Nick Hodge — Mon, 26 May 2008 04:22:00 GMT

Keynote from the Melbourne (22nd May 2008) ReMIX.

Mark Pesce, Only Connect

Nick Hodge — Mon, 26 May 2008 04:18:00 GMT

Mark Pesce, Futurist and Inventor, gave a thought-provoking keynote on a Twitter+Wikipedia Future.

The socially, hyper-connected revolution we are living through will have significant impact on the future. Not only of our social, after-hours work lives: but also within the cube-farm.

Watch the video. How will your live be changes where everyone in your world streams their consciousness online?

30 minutes of Good Barry

Nick Hodge — Mon, 26 May 2008 04:10:00 GMT

Managing a micro-business online, or offline, usually involves paperwork. Lots of it. From customer enquiries to invoicing, the tracking of your biggest concern: the customer, is a tough task.

Shouldn’t computers and the internet make business easier?

You could just create a blog. Then add an email follow up system. Then another customer birthday card system. Very soon you are moving your data across too many diverse systems.

GoodBarry, a winner of the Transaction 2.0 "Best Aussie Business Startup" at last week’s CeBIT conference in Sydney, is the perfect answer.

Recently highlighted for their innovative marketing, in this video interview we see an in depth demonstration of GoodBarry.

Geek Gadgets of Yesteryear

Nick Hodge — Wed, 21 May 2008 03:41:00 GMT

Did Geeks exist in the 19th Century? They sure did. Did they have Geek gadgets. Oh, yes they did!

Telephones, typewriters, calculators: all blossomed through the 19th Century.

The screen capture is of a unique device called a Curta Calculator. Invented by Curt Herzstark, a survivor of Buchenwald, it looks like a pepper-grinder but is in fact a small calculator.

In this episode of The Geek Stories, see Matthew Connell, Curator of Mathematics and Computing at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum, give a quick snoop through their secret storage area.

A 19th Century Geek

Nick Hodge — Mon, 19 May 2008 11:18:00 GMT

Did Geeks, as we know them today: polymaths, introverted, shy with the opposite sex exist in earlier times? They sure did.

Matthew Connell from The Powerhouse Museum introduced me to a William Stanley Jevons. A true geek of the 19th Century.

Who is Jevons?

He lived at the same time as Babbage, and invented the Logic Piano amongst many other geeky things. An early amateur photographer, he photographed an early Australia with an unique eye.

In this episode of The Geek Stories, hear and see a story of a true 19th Century Geek.

Email to the Future

Nick Hodge — Fri, 16 May 2008 09:47:00 GMT

Social networks are not new. Humans throughout our existence communicate, connect and correspond with like minded humans.

Written documents are the evidence trail that historians and museum curators, such as Matthew Connell from Sydney’s Powerhouse Musuem, use to decipher the lives of famous people.

To aid future historians, it is important that this digital generation store our correspondence. The Powerhouse Museum and Ninemsn Australia joined forces in a project called Email Australia.

In this episode of The Geek Stories, I trek into the archives of the Powerhouse Museum and see documents exchanged between Lady Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage and a Brunel.

Their correspondence illustrates why we must email the future. The social networks of now must not be fleeting, otherwise our history is lost.

Support Your Local Barcamp

Nick Hodge — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:43:00 GMT

Barcamp? What is a Barcamp? Does it involve sleeping in a cocktail bar?

From Wikipedia, a Barcamp is an international network of user-generated conferences. Taking a tongue-in-cheek name from an invitation Foocamp , Barcamp is purposely open, relatively unorganised and, well, funner.

Generally, a group of un-organisers initiates a date, time, location for a Barcamp, and opens registration for all. No formal sessions are planned prior to the unconference.

People turn up and nominate what they would like to talk about. Attendees either watch, or not watch. But these attendees are not idle watchers. Most presenters invite questions, and many offline conversations take place.

If you are a parent of a geek-age daughter or son: take them along too. Barcamp attendees and presenters do not have an upper or lower age limit. A Barcamp is an excellent community of supportive geeks.

Having attended and sponsored (as Microsoft) a variety of Australian Barcamps, the vibe of the conference is relaxed with a sense of free intellectual exchange. In Australia, the attendees span the Open source world, Ruby on Rails crowd, Venture capitalists, Information architects and general geeks.

Support your local Barcamp. Attend, and more importantly, participate.

See me next at BarcampCanberra1:

Marketing, LOL-style

Nick Hodge — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 02:25:00 GMT

GoodBarry, a Web 2.0 company and their application GoodBusiness fills that need to deal with the boring administration and sales stuff as you have fun making cool things online.

Rather than traditional marketing with boring brochures and long videos of CEOs extolling the virtues of GoodBarry: Brett Welch has followed in the lead of the Windows Home Server team: write a story book.

Not any story book: this one is filled with internet memes and mega epic lulz4all.

In contrast, the Windows Home Server team took a more motherhood and apple pie approach in "Mommy, Why is there a Server in the House?"

Have you seen other examples of Rickrolls, FAIL and LOLCATs being co-opted by marketing types?

New Weee Laptop Companions

Nick Hodge — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 06:01:00 GMT

A usable laptop for US$300? 512Mb of RAM, 4Gb of storage, wireless and ethernet networking. Able to run my Windows applications. No, never. Not in my lifetime.

Oh my how technology changes.

With flash-memory falling in price by 50% every year, flash engineered to survive more reads and writes, and processors such as the Intel Atom performing well at small sizes - the price/performance/size curve has dramatically changed.

Two weeks ago, the new little ASUS EEE PC 4G with Microsoft Windows XP pre-installed made an appearance on my local online retailer's price list. Instant purchase!

At home, connected to our wireless network, this little machine is a great twitter-machine. The trackpad and keyboard are large enough - even for my adult male hands. I would not like to write a novel, for hour after hour, on the keyboard. More than sufficient for emails and 140 character twitters.

The inbuilt video camera, microphone and speakers are also handy: if you are a micro-TV producer on Yahoo! Live or similar, this little machine has it all.

Our Windows Home Server has transcoded .wmv TV. The little EEE, which I have named PRINCEEDMUND to keep in my theme of Blackadder names, plays these videos in a watchable manner.

A first installation on the little device is the Windows Home Server backup software. The restoration of the supplied Windows XP and software from ASUS relies on an external USB CD/DVD drive. I strongly suggest obtaining one of these if you plan to install/reinstall your system.

ASUS kindly supply the EEE PC with an external USB mouse and an extra 4Gb Flash storage device.

Whilst I miss Vista, the short cuts for Windows XP are embedded into my brain after 7 years of continual use. Microsoft Works, Windows Live Writer and other tools: biggest constrain is the screen size. This screen size became a hindrance when attempting to install Ubuntu onto the EEE. Not seeing the OK/Cancel buttons on the Ubuntu install dialog box is a wee fail.

Obligatory Disk space and Memory Performance screen dumps

Why should you own one?

Designed for school use, if you are not a student the question is: why? Student-hardened devices are extremely useful if you are a little of a clutz: the plastic and no moving hardware make the EEE robust.

My idea is to have a small machine I can take to meetings. Not to take notes, but rather to read the internet so I don't get bored. The Treo 750 I have is just a little too small to distract me from the powerpoints and management speak.

This little device is going to ensure I am no longer unproductive in meetings; and fits that niche where a laptop is just too large.

For the future, with Intel, Microsoft and broad OEM support: the number of devices in this form factor is going to increase. How we work across multiple devices is a challenge for the future.

Further Watching:

Bohdan Raciborski, Mark Light. Channel 9, Windows XP on Flash-based Ultra-Cost PCs

New! Windows Vista Ultimate Extra Sound Scheme

Nick Hodge — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 04:59:00 GMT

As discovered by Long Zheng of istartedsomething.com, Microsoft is shipping a new set of sounds for WIndows Vista Ultimate.

Unusually for Microsoft, this has been kept ultra-secret. Developed by a black-ops team deep inside Redmond Campus Building 512 Sub-basement labs, even the most in-the-know Microsoft employees have been surprised by this release.

Please visit Long's blog, and sample the new feature.

A Weewar Weekend

Nick Hodge — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 07:55:00 GMT

Weewar.com owes me a weekend. Recently out of private beta, I am now totally enthralled in moving my board pieces in a somewhat strategic way to crush the opposition.

What is Weewar? It is a small-scale (hence the use of the cute Scottish word, wee) board game. Playing against other people, you move pieces to capture bases and make more soldiers, artillery and other means of war. There are a variety of pre-made maps; and each turn you get to move your pieces. Bases produce new pieces of various attack/defence stengths and movement distances.

Being turn based, you can leave a game alone whist in meetings and attending to other work related tasks. Weewar has a developer's kit, so there are a selection of plugins for Vista and Twitter to notify you as your turn is up.

The above image is the entire map of a game, including land, mountains, swamps and forests. This particular game has no access to the sea, which limits your strategic options but simplifies the game.

In the above screen capture, it is my opponent's round, and I can see live the movement of his pieces to attack my base.

The many hours of reading military histories has not armed me with sufficient knowledge to vanquish General Snoop. All my base belong to snoop, sadly.

If you are a fan of chess, or have a few minutes to entertain yourself each day: go and create a free weewar account and have some strategic fun.

More practice will make my weewar making perfect. Attack!

My Windows Home Server: Family Only Photos

Nick Hodge — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:13:00 GMT

I have just returned from a weekend in the Barossa Valley, South Australia. Being a family gathering over two days, many digital photographs were taken. And mostly not by me.

And I gave my camera to my 5 year old neice and sent her outside to take photos. Soon, the camera returned full of photos and no battery charge.

Returning to Sydney: how do I share the 220 photos? An avid Flickr.com user; I could upload them all there. By using Flickr family/privacy settings and ensuring the extended family could all see without sharing to the world. That would require some administration, and I just loath paperwork.

Solution: Use the Windows Home Server! After reviewing add-ins, I decided on Andrew Grant's Whiist.

Here is the install process:

Step 1: download the .msi from Andrew's web site. Simply drag this into your Windows Home Server's Software\Add-Ins directory

Step 2: Go the Windows Home Server Console for Windows Home Server Settings, Add-ins. Whiist is listed as an add-in that can be Installed. Install it.

Step 4: Manage Websites now appears next to Server storage. Click on this, and then Add a web site

Step 5: Adding a simple photo album to share pictures, so the second option is the best choice.

Step 5: Setting the URL, and the shared folder on the server (path)

And here we have the photo gallery. Beauty is, I can now share the many private family photos to a limited audience.

Result: send email to a very happy Mum. Windows Home Server. Keeping Mum's happy since 2007.

Lego at 50 is saving my childhood.

Nick Hodge — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 21:54:00 GMT

LEGO saved my childhood. A childhood geek deprived of computers, D&D and other geekdom in country South Australia. However, my parents did over supply me with Lego.

Lego is more than a set of training tools for future 3D maths wizards and engineers. The blocks are unique units of imagination. Want a plane? Build one. Think the plane needs a hanger? Build one. Cannot find the bits to make your own go-cart? Do it in Lego.

Lego, apart from being 50, hasn't changed. All of my Lego that was not sucked into Mum's vacuum cleaner or eaten by the dog has been inherited by my son.

Being the geek parents we are, more Lego has been obtained and the Lego-gene was passed on. The lounge room's carpet multicoloured in Lego plastic colours and the sounds of scrunching for that one wiley piece that is at the bottom of the box to complete the jet fighter.

In recent years, Lego has reentered my life. As you get older, a part of the male brain switches to mid-life crisis. Thankfully, my crisis involves reliving childhood toys: computers, computer games and Lego. Lots of it. From buying my wife a model Ferarri in Lego (as I cannot afford a real one) to the Mindstorms kit.

Lego saved my childhood, and might just in fact keep me on the midlife straight and narrow.

Thanks, Lego. Happy birthday.

My Dream Machine: Tuning

Nick Hodge — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 04:26:00 GMT

This Part 3 of a 3 part series on My Dream Machine (Part 1, Part 2)

Tuning.

I finished Part 2 with a Windows Experience Index of 4.7

Stated goal: an all round 5.9 for all measurements.

Off to order more bits, and change some components in the beastie: General Melchett.

Tweaking time.

Video Card.

At the time of building this machine, the NVidia GeForce 8800GT cards were extremely popular, if not sold out. Many gamers and performance enthusiasts had to wait in a queue for their cards to arrive. DirectX 10. Those extra smooth graphics in Crysis. Nice. Shame I don't play Crysis, but if I did - it would look way excellent.

Once the card arrived, and I arrived home: a quick swap over and installation of the Vista x64 drivers, and another check of the Windows Experience Index: 5.6. We are getting closer.

Temperature

Like any new performance car owner, I want to take it out on the track and safely measure the top speed. How fast can this thing go?

Before heading down the motorway of speed, it's time to talk safety.

Too much heat in your PC, and your engine is going to be fried. Melted bits of copper, silicon and gold. Fire could erupt. Safety first. To ensure safe speed, keeping your performance PC cool is paramount.

Using a nifty little tool from Franck Delattre, CPU-Z: you can find out many things about your motherboard. The hotter a PC is, the less efficient the electrons. The cooler, the longer the components work and the more efficient your PC. Keeping air flowing through the PC and cooling all the hot bits is a key game all performance enthusiasts.

I decided to get a faster yet quieter rear case fan to pull air through the case, and replace the stock-supplied CPU fan. Intel provide a sufficient CPU fan with their processors, but knowing that colder is better, a little research was in order.

After looking at what other AUSPCMarket guys where buying for their Intel Q6600s. Result: Zalman CPU fans. Below is a photo of the fan installed.

Installation process (note, being the hardware n00b that I am: this took an hour. Chiefly gathering the courage to remove the underside heatsink)

Remove motherboard from case
Remove existing CPU fan with the badly designed plastic clips
A benefit of the Gigabyte motherboard: removable underside heatsink. Remove this
Screw new baseplate onto front/backside of motherboard
Clean off old thermal grease from top of CPU
Re-apply new thermal grease to top of CPU
Screw down new baseplate for fan
Clip on new fan
Wire in fan to CPU_FAN connector on motherboard
Replace motherboard, restart PC

What is my target temperature? Less than 50degC in my research is a good target temperature for my configuration. With the application of the Zalman fan, I managed to reduce the core temperatures by an average of 5-7 degrees C, and the ambient temperature in the case by the same measurement. This was a net change in temperature after installing the new RAM and Video card as described above. The NVidia Geforce is a mini-motherboard on its own: it has its own power connector, fan, processor and memory.

I found CPUID's Hardware Monitor an excellent, and more accurate tool, for measuring both the speed of the fans and the temperature on hard disks and video card.

Overclock

As this machine is my "go-to-work drive", stability is critical. Burning out a cylinder is not a good look.

But, on the weekends.. well, it's time to see what General Melchett can do. As a side note, I own a MINI Cooper S John Cooper Works. My wife has taken this beauty of a car around a racing track at near 200km/hr. This also happens to be my work car. Really don't know why this is relevant, but I thought I'd post it anyway.

Overclocking is a little rocket science, a little play with the numbers and mostly fun. Essentially, you are tweaking values in the BIOS at boot time to increase voltages, bus speeds and clocking to get a faster PC. Thankfully, for overclocking newbies, the Gigabyte BIOS has a great mechanism for tweaking. If you set something wrong, it switches back to a known-good default. Almost fail-safe BIOS tweaking.

By tweaking the Bus Speed to 350Mhz, I managed to push the processor to 3.15Ghz. The fans where blaring as the core temperature raised to above 60degrees C due to the core voltage going to greater than 1.3v - the cries of "she cannae go any faster, captn" rang through my head.

Memory

The memory scored a 5.6 in the initial construction. Using two packs of Corsair Twin2X DDR2 XMS2-6400 Twin Pack was financially a good purchase, however not the fastest. The speed is not the absolute maximum; with a little research I found that the Corsair was OK. It was more a matter of latency.

Memory has speeds. There are these strange codes saying things like "2-2-2-12". These numbers refer to the latency timings at a very low level; and the smaller the numbers the faster the memory can be read to and written from. And it is no the direct speed, but rather the "queue waiting time". The smaller the number, the smaller the queue and the less waiting time.

A quick review of the Gigabyte motherboard list of supported RAM modules pops up an interesting choice: Geil DDR2-800 Quad Pack. Lower latency timings, and boom! above that 4Gb barrier on the beastie.

Lesson: when making performance PCs, check memory latency timing speeds. Lower the better.

Recheck the Windows Experience Index:

We get 5.9s all around! Success.

Added bits bill: AU$1,257.19

My Dream Machine: Construction

Nick Hodge — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 13:08:00 GMT

This Part 2 of a 3 part series on My Dream Machine (Part 1)

Tinkering with bits and pieces is a part of growing up on a farm. Attempting to repair a motorbike's fuel system, fixing implements with some wire and a rope, through to more traditional toys such as Lego, meccano and electronics. However, I was never good at what our school called 'tech studies'. In fact, I was streamed into tech-studies-remedial, and recommended to never touch any hardware tools ever again.

So, working on my own PCs results in injuries. Cuts and scratches on my fingers and hands, and blood on clothing. I am just clumsy, and fiddly things just seem to annoy my nerve endings. Building my own PC, apart from a mental challenge, is going to be a daunting physical challenge, too. Onward to my personal everest!

Just before I start, I have to confess way back in history, I was a trained Macintosh Level-1 Sevice Technician. I'd like to also throw out a big thanks to Peter Harris, who had enough patience and bandaids to teach me the basics of electronic stuff. Like soldering in new Adobe ROMs onto the logic board of one of those original Apple LaserWriter (circa 20 years ago!) to obtain more fonts. On a US$7,000 device, with one mis-solder away from job firing: I owe Pete a lot.

Initial build

The bit start arriving from AusPCMarket, within 24 hours of ordering. In Australia, this is a major achievement! Thanks to Hillary in the Microsoft Australia Mail Room for excellent service, too. You guys rock.
Open the case and install the power supply. Case being a black anodised Lian Li case. Power Supply, a Corsair 620W. Simple thumbscrews and snaking the power cable from the rear to the front of the case. Fan in the power supply points forward. Fan at the rear of the case to flow air from front to rear, at the base of the case.
Hard drives, DVD/CD installed with power. Just wired the the Western Digital 10000RPM boot drive to a SATA connector motherboard to simplify the install process.
The modular power supply has a range of cables to wire up power from itself to the rear of the SATA drive. SATA power connectors are unique, and simple to install. With the Corsair beastie, each power coupler for SATA has three 'power take-offs'
Fans on the logic board use either the four-pin Molex connectors, or smaller three-pin connectors. Looking at the fans, I noticed that each have three conductive cables: two for power, one to throttle/measure the speed of the fan. Connecting these to the correct places on the motherboard has benefits when tuning. That's for episode 3.
Download the 64-bit (x64) "floppy" driver and place onto USB drive. Windows Vista x64 install is provided with many off-the-CD drivers to permit the operating system to install and bootstrap itself. However, some motherboards require later drivers to install correctly. In my instance, I gathered the Gigabyte Pre-install driver for Vista x64 and placed this onto a USB key for later use during the operating system install.
Picture note: The clamp for the processor is to but shut, thermal grease to be applied and CPU fan to be installed. Beauty of making your own is that I can purchase another, faster CPU in the future and self-install the wee beastie.
Place Beating heart into chest. The CPU is the beating heart of the PC. In my instance, I have chose the Intel Q6600 processor being inserted into a Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 Motherboard.
Intel CPUs going into "775" slots are female, with male pins already on the motherboard. Using thermal paste, a gooey silver-gray substance that assists the CPU to fan thermal coupling so the CPU fan can remove heat, applied to the top of the CPU. Fans supplied with CPUs are usually noisy and not as heat-efficient as after-market devices. In the first installation, I used the supplied CPU fan. Connect fan to the correct pins on the motherboard.
Intel CPU fans for the "775" slots have this strange "push in" connection that sort of snaps into place. I must admit, I didn't like pushing that hard on the motherboard: it felt like I was going to break something.
There are a multitude of wires starting from the front of the case that demand insertion. These cables connect to the front: USB, Firewire; and also power, reset and lights. Being able the read the manual's schematic diagram and reading the notice on the connectors assists in correct insertion. If these don't seem to have a "gender" (in other words, which way around they should be plugged in), my rule becase "text on cable such that it's readable"
Fans connected to motherboard. Power to motherboard. SATA connectors to motherboard. DVD/CD drive inserted, SATA and power connected.
Memory: DDR2 memory inserted into the first two connectors: whilst I am installing x64 Windows Vista, I am starting with 2Gb of memory to keep the beastie cool.
Install video card in to one of the light blue PCI-E slots; and wire in the separate power line for the plan of installing an NVidia 8600 video card whilst waiting for the NVideo 8800GT to arrive. as it has its own fan and dedicated memory. The video card is like a mini motherboard and CPU all of its own.
Picture note: the NB_FAN sits underneath a white connector. This is a fan connector containing power plus feedback on the speed of the fan. NB stands for Northbridge; which is a bunch of chips on the motherboard responsible for Input/output and the PC cards. As these chips get hot, they have their own heat-sink: that's the copper coloured lines and bits that remove heat, and can also have their own fan.
Find an old PS/2 style (or USB) keyboard and mouse. Plug in. Screen connected. Ethernet (network) connected. Countdown to launch begins.
Time to construct: 1h30minutes. I think I also did some emails in the midst of construction, too!

Initial Startup and Operating System Installation:

The magic of BIOS! The gigabyte BIOS finds all the pieces of hardware, including RAM, and just boots. Back in the olden-days, you had to set jumper pins to tell the computer where and when it's memory existed.
Put in Windows Vista x64. Tell the BIOS to have the CD/DVD as the secondary boot device. Restart, and were in Vista install.
After typing in the key, and starting a Full Install; Vista asks you which disk to install onto. Plug in the USB key with drivers gathered above, do a re-format of the drive. Install.
An extremely rapid install. That hard drive it nuts. Reboot. Windows Vista x64 starts up.

Post-Initial Boot Steps:

Update BIOS. Using the Gigabyte @BIOS configuration, gather and install the latest revision.
Update disk drivers, sound drivers, ethernet (network) drivers - including the hardware RAID drivers
Gather and install Video card driver.
Install Windows Vista updates; including Vista Ultimate extras.
Shutdown, install 2 x 500Gb drives into what is known as the G-SATA connectors
Reboot, use GSATA BIOS to configure two matching drives as RAID (to allow for redundant data storage)
In Vista, reformat drive (two drives seen as one by the operating system).
Using Vista's Backup and Restore: Backup boot drive. Just in case.
Install anti-virus and firewall. Just in case.

4.7 is a long way from my stated goal of 5.9. Whilst the performance of the 8800GT video card should improve performance, the memory result of 5.6 is a little disappointing. Therefore, more research!

It's tuning time.

My Dream Machine: Planning

Nick Hodge — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 21:12:00 GMT

This Part 1 of a 3 part series on My Dream Machine (Part 2)

I am a software guy. Install software, tune the bits, configure the system. Find the limits. Show others how to use it. Software has been the central theme of my geek journey. A Hardware Guy? Well, not so much.

Traditionally, Dell and Apple have made my software-centric life a breeze. After finding some money resting in my account (or someone else's budget), I would wander to an online store and build a machine. After two weeks of impatience, the computer arrives and off I go into software installation heaven.

Challenging your limitations is a natural part of human existence. For me, I had conquer my own personal everest. Time to build something that will go fast, just like the car tweakers from The Fast and the Furious.

Building your own computer is at the core of PC freedom. Picking and choosing the components, plugging it all in. Installing the software. Ensuring that the devices all work. Knowing that your tool-of-trade is constructed by your own hands. Adding more bits later. Finding more money. Adding blinkenlights. All a part of the experience.

Time to build my own dream machine. So started the General Melchett project.

Goal.

Apart from building my own machine, I wanted to make a fast-yet-upgradeable computer. Defining fast as a 5.9 score for all components of the Windows Experience Index in Windows Vista's Performance and Tools

Why only 5.9? 5.9 is as fast as the present versions of Windows Vista display.

What do I want to do with my self-created frankenstein-ian machine?

Anything better than my Toshiba M400 for editing videos. In fact, anything is better than the old Toshiba.
Able to run multiple virtual machines under Virtual PC to test out software, special new things from Microsoft and others without breaking my main workstations
Dual screen to have TV/video/Podcasts running on one side, whilst working on the other. Or at least attempting to work

Making an informed purchasing decision using internet tools and research is easy. As an Aide-mémoire, I installed Live Labs Listas, to manage my collection of knowledge in snippets.

So the simple goal is a reliable performance machine that have fun driving to and from work everyday. Maybe pop out onto the racing track on weekends.

First: Vista x64. what is 64-bit?

The first consideration was a desire to run Vista x64. I needed to the full value of the 64bits that Microsoft have engineered into the operating system. As x64 is a long topic, I've a separate post on the matter.

Second: The Processor

Windows Vista has support for multiple processors. Multiple cores are really handy with heavy number crunching tasks, such as video encode/decode/transcode.

Research lead me to Quad-core processors - and specifically, the Intel Q6600 processor. As AMD had yet to release the Phenom in retail, and Intel their 45nm range of processors - this particular beastie fit the bill. And the budget.

Another core reason for choosing the Q6600 was the freedom to overclock. (For the balance record: my Windows Media Center PC runs on AMD Athlon 6400+)

Third: memory

A big question: DDR2 or DDR3 memory? DDR3 memory, whilst faster to read/write - is way expensive at the present time. The speed of the FSB. I have decided to wait for DDR3 to reduce in price, or the smart scientists do wonderous things with DDR2.

As you will see, my initial choice of brand of DDR2 memory set me up with 4Gb but didn't perform to my 5.9 expectations.

Fourth: motherboard

One of the beauties of choosing a motherboard and processor combination is the upgradability of either, and the "chipset" on the motherboard.

A chipset defines the range of processors that can be supported, memory speeds, 'system bus speeds', audio and other hardware enhancements.

As the next processor I will upgrade to on this particular PC will be a reasonably priced 45nm processor with a greater cache and more performance, thinking of the future is extremely important.

In this configration, I have chosen a Gigabyte motherboard due to their x64 drivers, choice and the value of the features; many SATA connections (eight!), ability to RAID up on the motherboard and overclockability.

Another feature, which came in handy when later tuning, is the removable motherboard cooling heatsink on rear of motherboard.

Fifth:Case

The case I chose had two additional physical constraints: width and height. As this workstation was destined for my GeekSpace at home, the desk my wife kindly let me purchase had certain constrains.

Sixth: The bits that are needed to make it work

The power supply is an important choice. I chose a 620W power supply which has enough head-room for additional pieces to be added. A key feature of the Corsair powersupply chosen was its use of modular power cables. Many power supplies provide rats-nest of cables to wire into hard disks, motherboards, fans and the like. There is invariably cables left over, or you run out of SATA power for instance. Modular installations provide a connector on the powersupply and a collection of cables to suit your installation. Highly recommended.

Disk drives: 10,000 RPM 'boot' drive and 2 x 500Gb (mirrored) 7200 PRM data drives. RPM is a measure of the revolutions-per-minute of the hard disk. The higher the RPM, the quicker the data is found, and the quicker the hard drive. As I was going for 5.9s, I chose a Western Digital 10000 RPM drive.

Second choice of memory: Geil 8Gb of RAM (note: originally purchased older RAM that wasn't fast or big enough. this now sits in my self-built Media Center)

Video card: NVidia 8800GT. The first card I purchased was permanently borrowed by my son to play Crysis. Had to purchase a second 8800GT. All the rage at the time of purchase, there was a waiting list for these beasties.

Monitors: In a similar vein as the case, the hutch in the GeekSpace had limited height; and I wanted two monitors exactly the same. Time to go to Dell and check the specifications of their LCD displays. I chose two Dell E228WFP displays.

Keyboard: Microsoft Wireless Entertainment 8000. Highly recommended. As I also use the PC as a Windows Media Center, the keyboard is just brilliant at 4 metres.

Seventh: Sundries

Like all geek houses, there are bits of hardware of unknown vintage lazing around the house. Included in this list is an old DVICO USB digital TV receiver. Also on the new shopping list included an internal USB module for SD/CF media read/write, DVD/CD R/W drive, desk speakers.

Chosen an Australian online vendor that ships within Sydney on the same day. Clear the credit card! Off we go purchasing the bits and pieces.

Total bill: AU$4,351.79

Next episode: the building

Further References

My Windows Home Server: Updates

Nick Hodge — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 22:51:00 GMT

Windows Home Server has been in our home for over 2 months.

Sitting quietly underneath a bunch of other PCs, it just works. From an earlier posting, I decided to purchase a TranquilPC from the UK. Plugging the server in and turning it on just appealed to my sense of simplicity.

Since my last update, a spare 750Gb hard disk drive fell into my hands. Plugging it in to the Windows Home Server, using the administration interface to enable for server use: 1.59Tb of disk space ready to go!

The Windows Home Server team is working on a 64-bit connector for backups, and a bunch of other nice additions in their Power Pack 1.

Further Reading:

http://www.andrewgrant.org/2007/06/09/how-to-create-a-windows-home-server-photo-album-in-minutes.html
Paul Thurrott http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/whs.asp
We Got Served addins http://www.wegotserved.co.uk/windows-home-server-add-ins/
TranquilPC http://mswhs.com/2007/11/01/new-tranquil-harmony-home-server-series-pc-announced-t2-whs-a2/
http://mswhs.com/
LobsterTunes http://www.lobstertunes.com/

Shakespearian Popfly

Nick Hodge — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 00:51:13 GMT

mega lulz

64bits. More than 2 times 32

Nick Hodge — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 04:57:00 GMT

Dentists don't bother me. Due to an absence of nerves, they can repair my mouth and teeth without anaesthetics. The prospect of installing the 64 bit version of Windows Vista Ultimate scared me more.

The word-of-mouth on the use of 64-bit Vista has been "leave it for servers" and "be very careful with drivers" to "don't do it"

Rather than succumbing to the hearsay, I decided to install Vista Ultimate x64. Yeah, techies have shortened "64-bit" to x64.

Pleasantly and surprisingly, things just, well, worked. Strike one against hearsay.

Choice with Windows Vista

Inside my box of Vista Ultimate, there are two CDs: one for Vista 32-bit and the other for 64-bit.

These two CDs belie the great differences. Computing without bounds.

How RAM and device drivers are related

Hardware manufacturers must produce something called a device driver. This is a special thing that sits symbiotically within Windows operating system. Many drivers live near the kernel. The kernel is the beating heart of the operating system.

Operating systems are complex things. They sit between you, the software on your PC and the hardware you have installed. Hardware tends do strange things.

Hard disks have small failures, keyboards and mice are plugged in and out; the wireless network changes as you move around. Not to mention the choice of hardware devices: from USB finger print scanners to paper scanners and strange keyboards - the operating system, with the help of device drivers, must manage these oddities.

For the operating system to interact with the device driver, and subsequently the hardware; a part of memory must be left aside or mapped. This piece of memory is used as the post box through which In 32-bit versions of operating systems, this cannot be greater than the totally addressable memory: 2^32 (2 to the power of 32 = 4Gb). As this memory is locked away for the device driver: the memory available to applications is reduced.

My first Microsoft supplied laptop had 4Gb of RAM. With the installation of Vista Ultimate 32-bit, the amount of memory left was 3Gb. Major limitation.

So how to work with more than 4Gb? This is where 64-bit solves the problem. 2^64 is a big number, and more than 2 times 2^32. Lots more.

Memory

Operating systems all have bounds. 128K on the original Mac; the famous 640K barrier on DOS. Various kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte and terabyte limitations have fallen and are forgotten.

Windows for Workgroups and Windows 95 started the 32-bit revolution along with the 80386 processors of the time. Since the mid 1990s, the prospect of gigabytes of memory seemed remote. With high definition video and 3D worlds, memory, processor speed and network performance, different styles inputs: such as shown in Microsoft Surface; the requirement for more memory and processing power is stark.

3D math and environments not only are there an extra set of figures ("the magical Z-dimension"), but also the interaction of elements: light, shade, physics. This takes memory and processor performance. 3D is a large part of the future of how we will communicate with computers to each other.

This extra math and data comes down to memory. Having lots of it. And more than 3Gb of it.

Windows Vista, in its 64-bit versions support 128Gb and more of RAM. This is way more than 4Gb x 2.

Signed Drivers

As device drivers are generally mapped to a particular high place in memory, it is written with certain upper bounds in mind. With 32-bit operating systems, this is 4Gb. 64-bit Windows upper bounds.

As kernel device drivers sit inside with the operating system, quality is important. Microsoft, and you, don't want strange pieces of code doing evil things.

In the digital world, there is a way of determining the source of bits: digital signatures. Windows Vista 64-bit drivers need to be signed for kernel mode use (KMCS)

So, with different bounds and signed drivers: the ability to source drivers for your hardware is paramount when installing 64-bit Vista.

Since the release of Vista in early 2007, hardware manufacturers have been releasing drivers for 32bit and 64-bit Vista. Before installing on your workstation or laptop: I strongly suggest doing an audit of your hardware and check with hardware vendor's web sites.

My Results

So, what of my 64-bit experiments?

I've installed Vista Ultimate x64 on an Intel Quad-core (GeneralMelchett, my home workstation) and an AMD64 Athlon (my Media Center PC) with success. Both are running perfectly.

Installing Media Center, NVidia cards, hard drives in RAID configuration, various mice and cards; my only minor disappointment has been iTunes/iPod. Whilst iTunes installs, there are low-level device drivers to burn from iTunes, and the iPod is not recognised as a valid piece of device.

No more painful, theoretical 'speed of sound' barriers. Doing many things in one computer is no longer like pulling teeth. Even without the needle. Maybe I'll be old enough to hear the young-uns complain about 64-bit limitations. Heh.

Further Reading

Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows: Windows Vista Feature Focus:P 64-Bit (x64) Support
How to determine whether your computer is running 32-bit or 64-bit versions of Windows
Installation choices for 64-bit consumer versions of Windows Vista
Windows Hardware Development Central
Tony Northrup, 32-bit Vista Memory Limits
Tim Sneath: Choosing Between Vista 32-bit and 64-bit Editions
Windows Vista Benchmark: 64-bit faster than 32-bit, 64-bit-computers
National Instruments: A Closer Look at Vista Part III: 32-bit vs 64-bit Windows

My Windows Home Server: Backup and Restore

Nick Hodge — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 01:01:00 GMT

When computers fail, they really fail. They fail hard. Many hours of weekend time is taken up rebuilding, reformatting and redata-ing (?) the broken computer. Time is valuable!

Now I've had a personal experience of the sanity saving Windows Home Server automated backup. In the most recent week, I have been self-building my own Windows Media Center. After a recent misplaced de-install, otherwise known as "user error", it was just easier to roll back to a previous version of the system.

A key selling point of the Windows Home Server in our house: automated backups.

The connector software is pre-packaged, ready for install from the server. Windows XP seemed to not be happy with running the installer from the server, so I copied the install folder to the desktop of the target PC and installed from there. Windows Home Server backs up works one PC at a time, so I installed the Connector Software one by one on our PCs

After typing in the server password, the PC 'joins' the server, and is ready to go
In each instance, I started a manual backup from the client PCs

The restore process is a little more complex, involving the following steps:

Make a Restore CD from the supplied .ISO file
Reboot the target PC with the new Restore CD
Log into the Home Server using the Administrator password
Select the image from the server to restore (by date of backup)
Choose the hard disk volume to restore the image to
18 minutes later, reboot the target PC
Now have returned to the previous state of the PC

A key test in any backup environment is the quality of the restore. In fact, before trusting any backup, it is best to test a restore. This is a confidence test which I highly recommend.

It will save your sanity.

Talk to me, chat to me. I'm Lonely.

Nick Hodge — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 03:58:09 GMT

You can add this to your blog too: Add Windows Live Messenger to your Blog

It is a simple matter of going to the above live.com (obviously, log in with your Live ID) and using the simple online form to configure your Messenger web widget.

The really, really cool thing is that you can have either a chat window, or your presence live on your blog.

For more indepth how-tos, visit Aussie Angus Logan's blog.

My Windows Home Server: The Unboxing

Nick Hodge — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 02:27:00 GMT

In a house with 3 Windows laptops, 2 Mac laptops, 1 Windows Desktop and a lone Debian file server; time absorbed in home administration was getting out of hand.

The lone Debian file server runs on an old PC desktop. Last year in a weak moment in between jobs I decided to reconnect with my Unix side and re-commission the old Dell clunker into a file server. Load up internal hard drives and install. A week later, in the process of installing a new, yet massive 300Gb data drive I broke the file server and spent two days self-administering Unix just hoping the family's data was not in bit heaven.

Self-administration at home is OK when you have time and like fixing things. If time poor, don't do it.

And backups. In our house, I am the only person who backs up on anything like a regular basis.

Windows Home Server to the rescue!

Someone kindly sent me an email link to this little beastie, lovingly made in the cold land of of warm beer and Beatrix Potter: TranquilPC low power Windows Home Server appliances. The email arrived at a time where I had access to a credit card, and extracted me from the funk of indecision, otherwise known as procrastination, of 'build vs. buy' my Windows Home Server. Buy.

One HTML form later: and a 1Gb RAM + 1Tb Hard Disk is flying the reverse kangaroo route to Australia.

A rather heavy FedEx white box arrived at my desk at work. Hilirie Chan from our mail room delivers it, asks for my autograph.
The wall plate sits over the top of the TranquilPC itself. All the cardboard goes into recycling.
From left to right: 12v power out splitter cable (plug in to rear of TranquilPC into 4 external USB hard drives), Windows Home Server software, TranquilPC how-to in a neat early 1980s typeface and screws for the wall-mount. Windows Home Server is pre-installed, so there is no waiting to turn this little beast on.
Size comparison with my Treo 750. The TranquilPC is weighty; or more descriptively: dense. Thankfully very small and quiet.
LAN and power in connections are easy: the 4 extra USB ports will be used for plugging in external drives. The power out port, just next to the Power in make it easy to chain the external drives without buying a whole new powerstrip.
You said this was going to be 'quiet as a mouse'. There are no mice in here!

Within 5 minutes, the Windows Home Server is on and working on our network.

Next post: Backups and Firewalls

If you cannot wait for the next episode, read Paul Thurrott's comprehensive review: http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/whs.asp

Note: I've been an Unix/Solaris/Linux sys-admin since 1988. I now use MacOS X to get my vi/cron fix.

Gary Barber: Celtic druid of AWIA

Nick Hodge — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 06:36:00 GMT

Gary Barber, the Man with no blog, is the celtic druid of the Australian Web Industry Association, previously known as Port 80.

Perth, being so remote from the rest of the known world, has a unique culture of involvement and inclusiveness; much to the chagrin of other Australian cities.

In this conversation with Gary in a previous excursion to Perth, we discuss this phenomenon and other web things.

Cameron Reilly on Napoleone di Buonaparte

Nick Hodge — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 02:31:00 GMT

Cameron Reilly, replete with his own wikipedia entry, is Australia's premiere podcaster and Founder/CEO of The Podcast Network.

What you may not realise is that Cameron is a Napoleon Geek. So much so, that his podcast has tens of thousands of listeners and Cam has been named a Fellow of the International Nepoleonic Society.

After westling the intellectual tornado on the previous evening, I decided to go easy on Cameron and ask him about his Nepoleonic Podcast he co-hosts with J. David Markham. Now, what would Nepoleone di Buonaparte Do?