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Archive for March, 2006
Google Pages
Google has made its web design tool and free hosting service available at Google Pages. Though the editing tools and customizing options are basic, there is more than enough flexibility to enable anyone to create a free home page and add content. Google is currently providing 100MB, which is more than sufficient.
Various page layout templates and colour schemes are provided to make the end result look professional. Links and images are supported, as well as different text styles. I’m not sure whether new registrations are currently available, but there’s always the option of letting them send you a mail when they’re ready for you!
Playstation 3
I’ve skipped two generations of console.
This is one I’m interested in, though!
The Sony Playstation 3 is to debut worldwide in late November 2006 after many reported delays. With the new Cell processor, 60GB hard disk and Blu-ray drive, this should be one mean machine! More specifications here.
Move over, XBox!
Mobile satellite TV
6 years ago
by manfred
in Life in South Africa
We’ve not exactly been spoilt for choice in South Africa. The SABC provides three channels of mediocre programming, eTV broadcasts on UHF making reception spotty and DSTV is pretty expensive. This year, it seems as though that may all change. A report in the Business Day indicates streaming over ADSL by Telkom and the possibility of a satellite television services offered by Vodacom. That means satellite television on mobile phones using the DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcast – Handheld) standard. There are few mobile phones that are currently able to provide this feature, but tests have commenced. One of the few to offer support for DVB-H, albeit not natively, is the Nokia 7710.
Obviously the form factor and screen size is an issue, so there’d have to be some way of transferring the picture to a real TV set. That’s no issue, provided the handset provides a dock or cable connector for AV output. Then, there’s always the price of the necessary and evil subscription to be considered…
For now at least, there’s always The PirateBay 
F1 – Sepang
There seems to be little anyone can do to stop the Renaults of Fisichella and Alonso. With the McLaren of Räikkönen out of the race in lap 1 due to an altercation, Renault was in front most of the race. A good result for Massa in the Ferrari. He finished in the points and lead Schumacher to the finish. All in all a race with little excitement and numerous retirements.
Current championship standings:
| Position | Driver | Country | Team | Points |
| 1 | Fernando Alonso | Spain | Renault | 18 |
| 2 | Michael Schumacher | Germany | Ferrari | 11 |
| 2 | Jenson Button | Great Britain | Honda | 11 |
| 4 | Giancarlo Fisichella | Italy | Renault | 10 |
| 5 | Juan Pablo Montoya | Colombia | McLaren-Mercedes | 9 |
| 6 | Kimi Räikkönen | Finland | McLaren-Mercedes | 6 |
| 7 | Felipe Massa | Brazil | Ferrari | 4 |
| 8 | Mark Webber | Australia | Williams-Cosworth | 3 |
Time for WordPress 2.0.2
Spam sucks. Spam sucks even more if it attacks your blog and dishes up bullshit comments. Case in point:
At least WordPress provides a one-click spam killer in release 2.0. WordPress 2.0.2 provides some additional security fixes. I’ll need to apply this sooner rather than later…
DRM causes battery drain
6 years ago
by manfred
in iPod/iPhone
All my iPod content comes from legitimatevarious sources. Little of it is protected by rights management schemes.
An interesting side-effect of DRM content is that is seems to drain an MP3 player’s battery quicker than non-DRM content. At least that’s the conclusion of a team from CNET. In their tests, certain DRM schemes caused battery charge to drain almost 25% faster. Apple’s Fairplay fares slightly better by draining the battery only 8% faster.
The long and short of it? If you rely on your music player to get you through a tedious meeting or flight, better bring a charger!
Grandma racer
6 years ago
by manfred
in Life in South Africa
Watch out when you visit your local nursery and think your car is safe. Some elderly citizengrandma trashed nine cars and landed up in hospital. Talk about driving like crazyMiss Daisy…
via News24
Installation of a toaster
To some, this solution is better known as NAS (network attached storage). Netgear have provided their toaster-like SC101 with the description SoIP (Storage over IP).
Utilizing technology licensed from Zetera, the Netgear SC101 provides two slots for standard IDE drives and an RJ-45 plug in a small form factor. The unit comes complete with a huge power adapter and plug, network cable and two disks containing software. The idea is simple: slap one or two IDE drives into the unit, connect power and ribbon cables, then attach to a DHCP server. Power up, and, once the driver software has been installed, the SC101 permits the creation of partitions and drives. Drives may be mirrored to provide data security or spanned to increase storage space. I added two 200GB Seagates to create a drive of just under 400GB.
The bundled software includes Smartsync Pro to handle data backups. It is vital that the driver software be loaded, as the SC101 makes use of a proprietary file system. It seems that NTFS can result in data corruptions. That implies that the SC101 is usable only with Windows XP or similar Microsoft operating systems. You’re out of luck if MacOS or Linux is your cup of tea. Similarly, the SC101 has to be connected to a DHCP server and the documentation expressly indicates that static IP addresses are not usable. That’s a pity and doesn’t make sense. As a part of my future networking infrastructure, I put in a Linksys WRT54G to act as the DHCP server. The SC101 grabs an IP address for each installed drive. By the way: the installed hard drives do not need to be of the same type, brand or capacity. It’s even possible to start with only one and add another later. That’s pretty flexible!
The installation of the drivers for the SC101 is straightforward. I recommend the immediate update of the firmware and driver software, as there was an issue with reconnecting the SC101 after a reboot. The setup of the drives is reasonably simple, but not always intuitive. It took me some time to determine how to span across the second drive. Entry fields appear in odd places and the order of button clicks is not always clear. It’s usable, but could be improved on. The drive(s) may be shared an appear in the Windows Explorer with a new drive letter. Each drive may be password protected .
Allround, this is a great backup and storage solution. It can’t be used with operating systems other than Microsoft’s, though some enterprising individual may release a hack to circumvent that restriction. It requires a DHCP server, though that doesn’t entirely make sense. And finally, the included Smartsync Pro software makes backups and synchronization simple. So far, I like it
Google goes to Mars
First, they took on the earth, then the moon and now: Mars!
Check out Google’s attempt to map out the red planet.
F1 – Bahrain
The first race of the season, for once not in Melbourne!
Ferrari seem to have regained some of their previous form. In qualifying, both cars performed well and Schumacher made the pole position for the start of the race. Renault again indicated their intent to continue their winning streak. A good result for Williams, with both cars finishing in the points.
I didn’t manage to watch qualifying, nor the race. Here are the current championship standings:
| Position | Driver | Country | Team | Points |
| 1 | Fernando Alonso | Spain | Renault | 10 |
| 2 | Michael Schumacher | Germany | Ferrari | 8 |
| 3 | Kimi Räikkönen | Finland | McLaren-Mercedes | 6 |
| 4 | Jenson Button | Great Britain | Honda | 5 |
| 5 | Juan Pablo Montoya | Colombia | McLaren-Mercedes | 4 |
| 6 | Mark Webber | Australia | Williams-Cosworth | 3 |
| 7 | Nico Rosberg | Germany | Williams-Cosworth | 2 |
| 8 | Christian Klien | Austria | RBR-Ferrari | 1 |
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