RIP
Jun 26th
One of the greatest entertainers, musicians and performers that we have had. I love listening to his music and watching his performances – in awe of the talent and showmanship he had – I grew up with a lot of his music and still love it to this day. To know that he has gone is really quite sad but I know he will be remembered by many as the true King of Pop and for everything he brought to the world of music and entertainment. RIP
The New VAT Rate
Dec 1st
As of today, the 1st December 2008, the government has officially rolled out for a set time, a new VAT rate of 15% as opposed to the old 17.5%.
Immediate thoughts are that on the surface it all seems to be a win-win situation for the consumer, a 2.5% drop in the VAT has to be a positive thing given the current economic climate…right? It should encourage people to spend more…right?
Why drop the VAT rate?
The VAT rate has been reduced, not just to encourage people to buy more, but with the ultimate aim of boosting the falling economy and rescue a lot of businesses which would otherwise be quite likely to go under in the next 12 months.
First thing to note though, is that it is not a 2.5% reduction in the ticket price. It actually equates to an overall reduction of 2.13% if you do the maths.
Secondly, it means that a lot of high street retailers and smaller stores are spending an obsene amount of money changing all the POS, till systems and advertising media to reflect the new prices so as to draw in more customers and show that they have the best deal.
This has therefore resulted in a spate of obscure prices. For example, rather than having a simple £29.99 item, it is now £29.35 meaning stores need to have a lot more easily accessiblechange and it also means if we as consumers pay using cash, will more than likely end up carrying a lot more loose change around.
I don’t know about you, but I’d rather pay the £29.99 and have 1p change, putting the difference back into the economy, than walk with a limp, dragging my leg because its 3kg heavier for all the change.
And before I get people claiming that all the small change adds up…consider that if you say, spend £300 a month on items that incur VAT at the 15% rate…you’ll save less than a whopping £7…
The only time you’d see a significant saving is if you spend tens of thousands…and if you’re spending tens of thousands on items which incur VAT, the difference is probably insignificant to you!
All in my opinion, and generally speaking, of course.
(Oh, and fuel duty has gone up by 2p)
Creative and the Daniel K Saga
May 25th
Creative Labs are one of the biggest players in the PC Sound Card market – great hardware, but their downfall has always been the drivers and software they develop and distribute for their products. And their attitude towards customers really does stink.
The failings of their software solutions were made even more prominent with the release of Windows Vista, which completely changed the way audio drivers work in comparison to XP. During Beta and RC stages of Vista testing, Creative had no proper drivers available (I had no sound functionality when using Vista x64 RC2), while other big name manufacturers at least made an effort to distribute some functional Beta samples ahead of Vista’s final release date.
Eventually, Creative got their act together and released some drivers which at least allowed you to get sound from your card on Vista – but that was about all they could do – many features were missing that were present in XP – features that a lot of people bought these cards for (EAX in gaming, for example). Creative blamed this on the way Vista worked saying that the software could not easily be adapted.
Fast forward to more recently (2007) when Creative released a software update called ALchemy which re-enabled OpenAL sound processing in Vista – effectively breathing life into X-Fi and Audigy series cards. Problem was, Creative released ALchemy free of charge to X-Fi users but charged for it to become useable for Audigy cards – even though the process was the same and the features were the same.
Enter Daniel Kawakami (Daniel K). Driver modder. Working on his own, he modified the free version of ALchemy to work on Audigy series cards and also modified the Creative drivers themselves for Vista users to enable functionality that Creative said was impossible to reinstate. He’d basically done their work for them and this allowed people to actually use their Creative sound cards again.
Then it all went sour. In March 2008, Creative issued a post on their community forums basically telling Daniel K to stop developing their drivers or they would take legal action:
We have read the strong feedback about Creative’s forum post regarding driver development by Daniel_k and other outside parties. Creative’s message posted on our behalf by our Company spokesperson tried to address our concern about the improper distribution of certain software which is the property of other companies. However, we did not make it as clear as we would have liked that we do support driver development by independent third parties. The huge task of developing driver updates to accommodate the many changes in the Vista operating system and the extensive testing required, including the lengthy Vista certification requirements for audio, makes it very difficult for Creative to develop updates for all past products. Outside developers have been very helpful to Creative and our customers by developing updates for many of our Sound Blaster products, and we do support and appreciate these efforts. This however does not extend to the unauthorized distribution of other companies’ property. We hope to work out a mutually agreeable method for working with Daniel_k in supporting his efforts in driver development. Going forward, we are committed to doing a better job of working more closely with third parties to support their development for our products and our customers.
And also following direct questioning, O’Shaughnessy, the company’s vice president of corporate communications said:
If we choose to develop and provide host-based processing features with certain sound cards and not others, then that is a business decision that only we have the right to make. The main issue is that Kawakami has been including support for features that Creative didn’t intend to enable on certain cards.
In response to the threat, Daniel K responded that he didn’t believe he was a hacker and that modifying drivers is common practise – take modified nVidia drivers that allow SLi in non-SLi chipsets boards, or the GeForce to Quadro mod. The full list of features which were disabled in Vista by Creative and succesfully re-enabled by Daniel K are as follows:
Dolby/DTS decoding
CMSS, CMSS2 and Stereo Surround
Advanced EQ and Special FX presets
DVD Audio
Hardware MIDI synthesizer
Equalizer
WaveRT
Overall, his general opinion of Creative is summed up in the following quote:
They publicly threatened me just to show their arrogance. If they had contacted me by email or private message, I would have done the same thing (remove everything) and no one would know about their dissatisfaction.
There was no need for Creative to remove everything that I’d posted on the forums even if it was unrelated to the modded drivers. If they can’t provide better drivers, then let people make their own choice.
And I must say, I feel exactly the same – as I’m sure other people do.
If you want to check these drivers out you can find them on various torrent sites and also links here
Asus EEE PC: Remote On/Off
Apr 19th
I originally bought my EEE PC intending to use it as an upgrade/replacement for my current Car PC as it is much smaller, consumes less power, and uses a solid state drive (SSD) for data storage (meaning no moving parts while booting the OS and frontend etc).
There were a couple of problems I needed to overcome though – it would not be a case of simply swapping units over.
The first thing I needed to do was figure out a way to connect the EEE PC to my existing M2-ATX PSU so that the ignition was still able to control the PC turning on and off. On the existing system, this is done using a simple connection to the header on the motherboard. When the PSU recieves the ignition signal, it shorts these two pins together and the system powers on.
On the EEE PC, there is no header that I could connect such a lead to, so I had to rip things open and add one myself…
How to Get at the Internals:
- Remove all screws from the underside of the unit
- On the top edge of the keyboard, there are a couple of springy clips holding it in. Use a flat screwdriver to hold these in and prise the top edge of the keyboard out. The whole thing should slide upwards now and will be attached to the main chassis by a thin ribbon cable.
- You can unclip the ribbon cable to get the keyboard out of the way (carefully!)
- With the keyboard out of the way, remove the black screws holding the top half of the chassis down. You don’t need to remove the two either side of the screen. There are also a couple of plastic clips on the rear – by the screen pivots. These need prising apart (again – either a flat screwdriver or case splitter will be fine). The cover should lift off, revealing the motherboard.
- There are a couple of retention clips on the bottom side of the motherboard which can be released by sliding the motherboard up slightly. It should pop out.
- The VGA port also needs to be levered slight to release the side of the main board. When this is done, it should come loose and if you remove the mini-plug for the fan connector, the board can be removed entirely.
For the purpose of this guide, I was interested in the power button, located near the right hand side screen pivot point. The images below show the switch with what appears to be 5 soldered connectors. With a bit of testing and a flat screwdriver, I determined that the pins which needed shorting together to initiate turn on / switch off were the top two.
So I went about soldering some fly leads and threading them through the chassis, making them secure so they couldnt be pulled off easily.
Putting the EEE PC back together again and plugging it in / connecting the battery, allowed me to test that it all worked properly. Touching the two fly leads together (same as ignition ON) starts the PC up. Once booted, touching the leads together again initiates shutdown (same as ignition OFF).
Next problem is to sort out is the difference in voltage supplied by the regulated PSU (12V) and the input required by the EEE PC (9.5V). Stay tuned…
A Year Older, But Definately Not Wiser
Apr 14th
I woke up this morning and realised that I was 22. It’s a bit strange how an entire year elapses overnight. It was only yesterday that technically, I was 21. And I got no “Happy 21st” wishes yesterday thankyouverymuch.
I then realised that 22 is just an awesome number because it contains two of the same number – one after the other – no spaces in between or anything! First and foremost, it makes remembering how old you are that little bit easier. When you get to my old age, your memory starts to fade and having one less number to remember makes all the difference in the world.
Another reason which leads me to elevate it to its ‘awesome’ status is that consisting of two number 2’s, and there are two digits, and 2+2 = 4, and 4 / 2 = 2, and 1+1 = 2. Also, thanks to my old friend Pythagoras, a^2 + b^2 = c^2. That actually bears no relavence whatsoever, I just have a thing for Pythagoras. And his theorem is pretty funky too.
You also know when you are a bit geeky when you get lots of emails from forums you are registered on wishing you Happy Birthday. It’s also slightly disturbing to come to the realisation that you regularly post on a lot of these forums. It’s also a bit disconcerting to have to stop yourself from going immediately to said forums and post “Its my bday lol”.
Not that any of this happened to me – its just a passing comment.
Spur of the Moment
Nov 2nd
A disturbing thing happened the other day. I made a decision. For those who don’t know me, I suck at making decisions thus, me making a decision was actually quite disturbing…
The decision I made wasn’t about something trivial like what to eat for Breakfast – oh no! I decided to drive a 200 mile round trip for some sugar coated rings of heaven.
Yes, Krispy Kreme. For those who have never heard of Krispy Kreme, it is an American and Canadian doughnut chain which has been going for over 70 years. I personally got hooked on the doughnuts when I went to Canada and visited one of the outlets.
Since then, I have been trying to figure out the logistics of sending doughnuts via the postal service with them remaining edible at the end of it.
That was until I discovered that Krispy Kreme had branched out into the UK. TOTAL WIN! Well, actually not quite. Upon checking the UK website, I discovered that though they were in the UK and growing, the majority of outlets were in London and the nearest one to me was Birmingham…
A nice 2 hour drive and several litres of V-Power later, I arrived at the Bull Ring shopping centre in Birmingham city centre (which incidentally is actually quite a funky place to visit). I entered the lower floor of Selfridges where the Krispy Kreme was located and could smell the doughnuts already. Now, this particular outlet was nowhere near as big as the ones I’d been to over in Canada, but still… *drools*
You can actually see the doughnuts being made and when the machine is on, all customers waiting in the queue get a free freshly baked, hot glazed doughnut. Mmmm…
Moving along the conveyor belt being cooked
Coated by a river of thick gooey sugar
And the final product!
Yes, yes I did buy two dozen.
Say No to 0870!
Sep 5th
Yes, I’m writing something useful for a change.
A lot of companies now use what are known as “Non-Geographic” telephone numbers for call centres, support lines etc. The reasons for this are usually because it allows them to use a number which, for the most part, is a lot easier for people to remember and it standardizes the call costs (usually 4p-ish a min to 0870 numbers). All well and good, right?
Well not exactly. If you, like many people use contract mobile phone instead of a land line, or indeed just because it is easier, you will know that non-geographic numbers such as 0870, 0845 etc are very rarely included in your inclusive minutes. In fact, O2 one of the last providers to include these numbers in their inclusive packages recently announced that this was stopping.
Not only are the numbers no longer included, you are often charges a nice premium for dialling non geographic numbers from your mobile – often to the tune of 20p+ per minute.
Now, I was recently pointed towards a website which I found so useful I almost fell over. Almost.
Some of you may have already come across this site as it has been advertised on various radio stations and certain tv shows and may be using it at the moment, good on you. Help spread the word.
For those who don’t know: What this site allows you to do, is search either by company name or by the non geographic number you have, to find a direct equivalent geographic number. How freaking cool is that. Then you can dial that number, get the same service you would have got from dialling the 0870 number and it’s much cheaper (free if you are on a mobile contract!)
As well as using the service to search, you can also submit any equivalent numbers you know of to help expand the database.
Awesome.
Darth Vader gets so much Abuse
Aug 9th
I mean, he always seems to be the centre of ridicule. Granted he doesn’t help himself by wearing that ghetto costume – if you looked like this…
…you’d think people would take you seriously right? All dark and brooding and mysterious. Well actually, no. That picture makes me laugh.
You then get things like Darth and the infamous Chicken…
He tries to be all serious and then fails majestically. Speaking of ‘FAIL’ …
…And if you don’t get that picture, you just aren’t cool enough.
Even Family Guy has taken to abusing good ol’ Vader…
What has he done to deserve this!
Car PC: Part 4 – The Installation
Jul 16th
With the hardware set up and all the software systems configured, it was now time to install the whole thing into the car itself. The whole process took a while to do and was split into three main chunks:
Wiring
The first job was to lay down all the wiring. This included power cable, speaker wire and extension leads for the screen.
In the above diagram, what is not shown, is that both the PC and Amp take their power from a thick power lead, fused, put through a distribution block, and run directly from the battery. Additionally, a switched positive connection is required for the M2-ATX to initiate remote startup and shutdown procedures. The easiest place to run this from, I found, was the existing headunit ISO loom.
The black, red and green connectors running to the screen in the diagram are the power supply and USB/VGA connectors. The power was spliced into a connection from the M2-ATX as the screen is designed to run from regulated 12V DC. These cables were run down the centre of the car.
Finally, as shown on the diagram, the audio connections run from the PC to the AMP via a 3.5mm audio jack adapter –> RCA/Phono connectors (blue), and then from the amp, I wired the speaker outputs to the old headunit ISO loom (purple wire pairs). All the speaker cable in the car was replaced with decent quality, shielded stuff. The picture below shows the cables being laid with the centre of the car bare as a work in progress.
Another note: When running the cables down the car, it is important to physically separate the power and data/speaker lines to prevent inteference which commonly manifests itself as alternator whine coming through the speakers. The easiest way to do this is to run the two sets of cables down either side of the centre console, or run them down either side of the car itself.
The above pic shows the cables running from the car interior, through the ski hatch and into the boot.
The Screen
With all the wiring in place, access to the wiring loom behind the dash was no longer required and so the screen was the next thing to fit. Obviously, prior to the final installation it had been tested for fitment so it was simply a case of refitting the centre console with the screen installed into the dash. The pic below shows what things look like behind the scenes on the dash:
The PC
And finally the PC was secured in the boot using metal mounting brackets beside the subwoofer and the wiring tidied up. All the USB data leads, VGA connection and the power and switched ignition leads were connected to the PC and Amplifier via the M2-ATX. Just to note that at this point, the amplifier being used is quite a basic one which is why it has not been installed ‘cleanly’. When I get a proper amp, the boot installation will look a lot tidier and I will gain a bit more boot-space.
You can see the PC beside the subwoofer and it fits snugly in the gap.
The ultimate plan is to create a ’stealth’ panel infront of where the PC is currenty fixed and fit the amplifier behind that as well. That should make things look a lot cleaner and give some more room (not that I use the boot a lot anyway).
The Finished Article
With everything done, here are a few pics of how it looks completed and installed:
Loading/resuming Windows XP at bootup:
The main frontend view (this is Centrafuse, but I usually use RoadRunner)
Sat Nav view
Media player currently playing Linkin Park
GPS and WiFi adapters installed out of the boot for better reception. They are hidden behind the seatbelt and secured to the plastic coving.
View from the rear seats.
Overall, the installation looks very OEM (to me at least! and boot excluded obviously lol). There is no evidence of the masses of cabling in the car and having the PC gives me a lot of functionality that I wouldn’t get with a regular headunit or even an all in one headunit costing a lot more.
There is also a lot of room for potential upgrades and further features which I can implement at a later date – and I have hinted at a few plans throughout the course of these posts… so this is basically a never ending project!
I hope it has been a good read and things do make sense. If you have any comments or questions, either post away on any of the posts (parts 1- 4) or just get over to the forums for anything a bit more in-depth.
Cheers.
Car PC: Part 3 – Software
Jul 15th
Part three of the Car PC saga 
Now that the PC itself was up and running and the screen and mount were completed, it was time to work on the insides of the beast, so to speak: the software – the thing that makes everything work!
The Backend
The PC itself was based on an extremely cut down version of Windows XP SP2. I removed unecessary features, slipstreamed hotfixes and drivers, and pre-installed some tweaks making a totally unattended installation that automatically installed everything I needed. This created a small install footprint and made the OS very quick to boot from cold / resume from hibernation.
I did experiment with using a 4GB compact flash card and CF -> IDE adapter as a boot drive mainly for the speed advantage (and solid state advantage), but due to the limited write cycles on CF cards, installing a standard version of XP (dynamically) would severely reduce the lifetime of the card. There are solutions to this (eg, using XP Embedded from Microsoft), but that involves a lot of hassle, so I opted to go for the old fashioned mechanical hard drive.
The entire system was tested indoors using a regular ATX power supply for ease of troubleshooting any problems – especially with the multitude of USB devices being used. Bluetooth partnerships were created with headsets and phones and COM ports configured for the GPS reciever and FM radio. When the system was found to be stable and with everything fully functional in it’s barebones OS state, it was time to install and configure the frontend.
The Frontend
The frontend is essentially what you see when you look at the screen. It is the software that is running and gives the user the functionality required from the PC in the car environment. There are several front ends available for use – some free to use, some not. Which frontend you choose is down to personal preference and before making a decision I tested two of the biggest ones on the system:
RoadRunner
This front end is free to use and is customisable both in terms of plug-ins and skins. It links to other external applications to handle various functions. Eg. Audio playback is controlled by winamp, GPS navigation can be controlled by Freedrive/Mapmonkey (maps are required from “Destinator” but need to be purchased) and DVD playback could be handled by PowerDVD, for example. It has a large userbase, because it is free and does the job very well.
Centrafuse
The other frontend I tested out was Centrafuse. This one is not free to use (there is a trial available), and comes in several different versions – the price of each is determined by it’s feature set. Again, very easy to work with – perhaps more so than RoadRunner, and there are a lot of plug ins and a few skins available. Centrafuse handles the majority of functions independently (as far as I can tell) as it doesn’t seem to call on other external programs as much as RoadRunner. One point to note is that Centrafuse does seem a little more resource hungry compared to RR.
Each frontend is very easy to set up and get working for basic functionality but things like phone control and GPS are a little more involved.
Now that system is fully operational, all that remained was to transfer some multimedia (audio and video) onto the hard drive so that there would actually be something to play! When doing this, make sure all files have correct ID3 tags otherwise when the frontend reads them, if you try searching for something by listing albums or artists, it will be a mess…
Transferring material to the PC in my case was simply a case of connecting to the wireless network and accessing network shares containing the albums etc that I wanted. This method will also be used when the PC is installed as the wireless link works from the driveway without any issues.
With everything as I wanted it, the final stage was to install the whole lot in the car. See Part 4!