review

I had a PS1 and have a PS2. I've put off buying a PS3 for a while because they were so dear, the graphics seemed to be at the expense of game play, and because I missed the boat on backwards compatibility on the first model. Today I phoned a friend to ask about backwards compatibility and he told me it was all just software now. Ok, that's not going to get any better, so I finally went out and bought a PS3. The big display box features prominent billing for the new dual shock controllers. You won't notice, unless you turn the box round after you get handed one, that it says it no longer has any backwards compatibility with the PS2, not even software but rather absurdly, there is PS1 support. I think Sony have finally lost their minds, they seem to be on a campaign to progressively punish customers who weren't early adopters. Whatever saving they made for this compromise probably wasn't worth it, and if I'd read this before I purchased that might well have been the clinching point. Yes, I have a PS2, but I just took it out of place to make room for this beast. Now I need to find a home for both.

Next I began trying to set up a media server on my main Debian box, imladris. I first tried gmediaserver, but found that I could see all the files but the PS3 said "unsupported data" for all of them, then I tried mediatomb, and had the same problem, even after tweaking the config.xml file to add PS3 compatibility, and using the command line tool to import files. I finally found that by surfing to http://localhost:49152/ and adding the directory from that interface that it worked. Phew. This was a big reason for buying the PS3.

So I sat down to play Ratchett & Clank and was immediately told I hadn't enough disk space. Absurd. I have 60+ Gb free and need 419 Mb. I find there's a known bug that means I need to download a big file to get this to work. Doing that now.

First experience is a lot less positive than I hoped after such a long wait.

Edit

Another odd little thing, it took a very long time for 1+ Mb to download last night. Google suggests all sorts of things that make the wireless connection slow, but here's the thing, I'm using a wired connection, since my wifi doesn't quite reach the corner the PS3 is in. Odd.

Just before we went on our family holiday, I went with Karen to look at new phones for me and for her. Karen liked the look of the phone, but wanted it in a specific colour and was prepared to wait to order that. I decided I liked the look of the Nokia N95. The iPhone is not an attractive prospect for me, apparently it's a poor phone, a poor camera and there even seem to be issues with its sound. So no amount of astounding user interface makes up for that. The Samsung Omnia, coming out soon, looks really interesting but it runs Windows CE, and that's a big minus for me. I'm very interested in the OpenMoko FreeRunner neo which can, among other things run my favourite operating system Debian, after the great work done at debconf. Apparently it's not however a useful and reliable phone, which is definitely a minus too. Maybe next generation, and I can't hack everything at once.

The Nokia N95 runs Symbian which is a plus. I was warned that the battery life was poor and given the choice between the conventional model with an 8 Gb card, and the N95 8Gb which has the memory totally internalised. The former also has a shutter cover for the lens, which was discarded in the latter to allow a larger battery. I wanted the cover. I got the handset from Phones4u and it's an O2 handset, who I have my contract with. It took a while to put the order though, so they gave me £50 for waiting. So, seriously, I got the free upgrade, the memory card, a screen protector and £50 in my hand. The bundled accessories are good, a USB cable (like the much criticised N800 it doesn't seem to do charging) a car charger, a tiny regular charger (same as the N800 actually) and the usual ear phones, with a small control panel on a cable for the sound.

Continue reading "Nokia N95" »

This week I got my hands on a Toshiba Portege R500 for work. It's brilliant to have a laptop with a decent battery once again. Here are some thoughts on the hardware, and installing Linux.

The first thing I did was cut through the label on the box that makes it clear that no refund is possible for bundled software you don't want, including the operating system. This beast came with Windows Vista Business edition, which I could happily live without. For now I didn't perform a full exorcism, but only shrunk the Vista partition right back. I have some consultancy jobs which might make it handy to leave Vista there for now.

The hardware is brilliant, light (under 1 kg) while still packing quite a punch, dual core CPU, 2 Gig RAM and 160 Gig hard disk. I didn't want the extra expenditure for a solid state disk, and I wanted the space too. Some reviews mentioned the heat and fan noise, but both are hugely reduced from my Sony Vaio so I'm more than happy.

I burnt a new Debian AMD64 net install disk with the current testing (Lenny) and the second beta version of the installer. I booted off the CD and began the install, having previously so configured the BIOS from within Windows, there was no obvious key to press to change the boot, although I think F12 will do it in retrospect. First thing to note, a really long delay after the kernel declares itself ready and the installer resumes made me think it had crashed. Be patient. The main Debian install went very well, smoothly and quickly. I used the partition editor to shrink the Vista partition to 40 Gig for now. One minor quibble, Debian offers a quick solution for an entire encrypted disk, but not such an option with the remaining space. I don't yet understand that process well enough so I have left it unencrypted for now, and will do it manually later. Most of my working content is actually in SVN repositories so it's easy to rebuild from scratch should I choose to.

Continue reading "Debian GNU/Linux on Toshiba Portege R500" »

I've tried lots of programming editors and ides over the years, obviously in Unix and Linux this is a Holy War, particularly between the advocates of vi and emacs. It is common for both groups to suggest that the other editor is hopelessly over-complex or clumsy. I think there's some truth in that, because essentially, they both stink.

I tend to be an emacsen user myself, but I just think emacs is slightly less awful than vi. My first action on a new install is usually to use vi to edit my sources.list in Debian, to help me install emacs. Perhaps thats strange, because I really like sed. So what's the problem with them? They both share this kind of puritanically awkward interface that works well on a console, but sucks in a GUI. They both use ridiculously arcane sequences of key presses to do anything, and I mean even basic stuff like saving and quitting. Yes, yes, you don't have to lecture me about old terminals and their limitations, been there done that, got the t-shirt. I tend to do all my systems maintenance in emacs, but when I'm programming, I've started to love the softness of a decent editor that actually makes it plain and simple to edit multiple buffers of source code, even though its a pain to use different editors for console and gui work.

Continue reading "Geany and other Development Tools" »

Ok, I spoke to soon. I thought video was my only problem.

On Tuesday I planned to work at home, to get a lot of code written for OPUS and found my computer locked. I kept restarting it, kept getting kernel panics. The temperature was fine, there was no abnormal load, I tried a new kernel or four, and apparently got a bit more stability. The graphics problems were worse than ever, and I get fed up and bought an ATI HD2600 Pro, which solved all those problems.

Still the machine kept locking. I eventually began to suspect the memory.

Continue reading "ASUS P5KC Memory / PSU Problems" »

My sword arrived from the USA and got caught in customs for a while, I went to collect it and pay the import tax on the 2nd January. Since then I've been looking at it quite carefully. I was relieved customs had not opened it (not because of any legal concerns, it is all perfectly legal, but because in the past I have witnessed people all to keen to play with these items, to potentially distastrous consequences).

First of all SwordStore itself handled everything excellently, with perfect courtesy throughout, and seemed genuinely eager for feedback on the new arrival. These swords are constructed in Japan with, I think, parts from both Japan and China. The sword was carefully packaged.

I carefully checked all the fittings before removing the sword from its saya (scabbard); they were all of a good standard and fitted well, there was no damage apparent from shipping. The tsuka (handle) is longer than my current sword, which is good, since my hands are quite large, the same (shark skin) is nice, and the ito (wrap) is extremely tight and well finished. It is blue silk and so the handle feels a little less bulky than my current sword that is wrapped in cotton (incidentally that sword, from Tozando in Japan, still has exceptionally tight wrap after 7 years). I am very pleased with the cherry blossom tsuba.

So, on to the blade. I drew the blade carefully (not Iaido style) to ensure everything was in good order. The blade is beautiful, with a nice pattern in the steel, the hamon is pretty, and could be polished up even more beautifully at some later stage. This sword is 2.5 shaku, a little longer than my old 2.45 shaku sword, and is heavy. Obviously it's a little longer and made of steel, but the blade has a lot of meat, the sword is fairly thick and the thickness doesn't diminish much (or maybe at all) until it reaches the boshi, just before the kissaki (tip). The balance feels further along the blade than a regular iaito, and perhaps it will be too much to wield. Having said that, every time I pick the sword up it feels lighter to me now. The blade is very sharp, and when I tried to place it back in its saya, again carefully for now sliding the mune (back) carefully into the saya, and found that the blade bound up in the saya very slightly when about 10 cm of blade was still out. After a few more insertions this problem has gone, the blade has literally cut a little of the material in the way free. The sword locks tightly in its saya when pushed fully home (importantly), and I next carefully cleaned the blade, applied fresh clove oil, and fitted the scabbard protector that had been awaiting its arrival.

Continue reading "Sharp Steel Sword (SwordStore.com) redux" »