This week I am attending the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco. The activities started yesterday with a "Day 0" series of keynotes for media and bloggers. This was followed by an exclusive Asia Pacific dinner where our group had the opportunity to meet some Intel execs and talk about their respective areas. In our table (four Australian journalists and myself) we had the pleasure of having Steve Smith (Director intel Digital Enterprise) and John Skinner (Director, Eco Technology and one of the Intel guys at the Climate Savers initiative) in our table.
A valuable talk, mostly about computer power usage at home and enterprise. The main thing we took away is how small changes in computer manufacturing (a more efficient PSU for example) or just using appropriate Power Settings on your PC can make a big difference in your power bill - and the environment.
According to Skinner there is a reason for all those free power configuration applications going around - mostly because users are affraid of going into Control Panel and deal with cryptic configurations to get the best configuration for their needs. Those applications provide easy management and encourage people to act on that.
IDF Day 1 is in progress now. The official vision is "[IDF] brings together top Intel technical experts, Intel Fellows, industry thought leaders and leading technology companies. A strong slate of Intel keynotes is one source for insights and inspiration."
The first keynote was delivered by Craig Barrett, Intel chairman. “Technology is a tool to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges related to health care, education, economic development and the environment,” said Barrett, who also chairs a United Nations initiative on technology in the developing world. “No nations or individuals are untouched by these issues. Get involved. Be part of the solution.”
Barrett announced that Intel will award four $100,000 prizes to the most innovative ideas for applying technology to meet unmet needs related to education, health care, economic development and the environment. Ideas will be evaluated primarily for sustainability and innovativeness of the solution. More details on the INSPIRE•EMPOWER Challenge are available at http://www.intelchallenge.com/.
I am really interested on Day 2, which will be all about Mobile Internet devices (pictured below). Day 3 is about "crossing the chasm between Humans and Machines" and we will see Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak on stage.
There's also an exhibition with more than 180 companies from around the world where atendees will have hands-on demonstrations of their newest innovations and future technologies - no access for us until the end of Day 1, and other attendees will get to see this on Day 2.
For developers IDF is offering more than 170 hours of technical training. All technical sessions are led by Intel and industry experts. New this year is an Industry Insights Panel themed "Using Information Technology to Meet 21st Century Challenges and Opportunities." Two Technology Insights, both presented by Intel Fellows, will cover "Next Generation Intel Core Microarchitecture Family of Processors: Screaming Performance, Efficient Power" and "Splitting the Atom: A Peek into the Intel Atom Processor."
Succesful trial run of FreeviewHD in MythTV!
I have noted earlier in this blog that Mythtv does not work with FreeviewHD due to lack of audio support. Well thanks to work of Paul Kendall (see his site here) and others it is now possible to use Mythtv as a HTPC delivering FreeviewHD. There are a couple of caveats to that of course; a powerfull CPU is required as there is no hardware H.264 accelration, and you have to be prepared to do a little bit of extra work in setting the machine up (not much different with fiddling with codecs with MP or GBPVR though).
So to test it all out with my machine I downloaded the latest version of Mythbuntu (8.04.1) and installed it onto my external hard drive. There are then a few step I had to go through before I could run myth-backend setup:
1) After restarting from the CD to the hard drive, I added the following line to the bottom of /etc/sources.list (open terminal, type 'sudo nano /etc/sources.list'):
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/paul-kcbbs/ubuntu hardy main
Then run:
'sudo apt-get update'
'sudo apt-get upgrade'
That will require confirmation and run for a while, after which the machine will be up-to-date with Paul's patches installed.
2) I have a Nova T 500, and according to it's wiki page it requires a cold reboot to be detected. Before this is done though, add the folowing to /etc/modprobe.d/options:
#enable LNA
options dvb-usb-dib0700 force_lna_activation=1
#disable 2nd tuner suspend
options usbcore autosuspend=-1
Now you are ready to run mythbackend setup and configure the tuners, sources etc. Also a guide will need to be setup somehow, I havn't got around to that yet.
With the configuration basically as above, I scanned in the digital channels to test out performance. With my 2.4GHz single core I could watch just TV1 and TV2, it would start skipping on fast moving scenes. TV3 was a no go.
From here, I plan on swap the CPU and graphics card out and put in my 5200+ X2. With a little bit more tweaking to get dual core being helpful (thanks to the mythtvnz list) hopefully I can get all the channels working. If I can do that, and get a guide loaded for all channels on my test setup I will do a reinstal and move everything over to Mythbuntu :)
Uni holidays are next week so this will be on the backburner with a very busy last week, will post again when I test things further.
Clippy for VI: What we all have been waiting for
Here is what we command-line users have always wanted. Microsoft's assistant - Clippy - for VI. I found this animated GIF via reddit on a site called houghi.org. But I have no idea who originally produced this image.Good stuf... (more in the full post)
My iPod repair experience: The finale
The blog title is slightly wrong, but I'll get to that in a sec.
After a week waiting for my iPod touch to be repaired - it finally got back.
When I looked at the description of the repair from the report:
On 11/8/2008 From 3:00 To 3:30 At the None Rate, for a total of $0.00 Worked On by ipod.
Confirmed fault found.
Ipod not working.
Replace under warranty.
So a brand new iPod touch now lands at my place - 1.1.4 preinstalled (2.0 Software Update will not be provided on new iPod touches, so for people buying new ones now, you are going to be on the same level as everybody else)
Good thing as I hadn't had a case for it for 3 months and the back was heavily scratched during that period (damn the soft chrome backing)
I do notice that the screen is now significantly brighter - really really bright - to the point I thought that the picture would wash out.
But it has been really worth the wait - now that I got a factory fresh, OEM-like packaged iPod touch (gotta love the packaging)
Here are some photos of the unpacking:
Pretty neat packing there by Renaissance.
Even comes with a factory barcode!
Mmm... fresh packaging smell.
Right now, I'm upgrading my iPod to 2.0.1 and probably restore my old backup, and get things back to normal again (no iPod = no wireless life - why did my laptop have to fail?)
Vodafone NZ releases new iPhone plans
Well, here we are again. Staring once more into the abyss that is the iPhone section of Vodafone's website. Only this time, rather than bang our heads against something sturdy, we give a low grunt and move on to something far more important.
Why the sudden change? Why am I writing it this way? The answer to the latter may never be known but the answer to the former is quite simple: The new iPhone plans are out!
Yes, Vodafone has released the new iPhone plans for New Zealand customers. However, is there any improvement?
From what I’ve seen so far, the answer is yes. But have they fixed it enough?
Well, the $250 1GB plan has been scrapped as an iPhone exclusive plan for one thing (now avaliable for any handset), replaced with the lowly 500mb $130 plan. Obviously there are now four plans, as opposed to three (two after a few weeks).
However, the greatest improvement overall is the addition of a $40 plan. However, at that price you'll have to settle for only 20 included minutes, 100 included texts and a super small 250mb data cap. But for someone who isn't likely to be wanting to catch the latest 'will it blend' video on the move, this plan will be a godsend.
Of course, a few additional minutes would've been nice.
Well, at least the $40 plan phone is subsidized a fair bit.
Anyway, enough from me. Here are the plans:
New Zealand's national broadcaster (TVNZ) discriminating against non-Windows users?
Update: It seems that using the gxine plugin, it is possible to view those video streams on Ubuntu anyway. Some people at least got it to work using Epiphany. I can confirm that this does work, but for some reason, it won't work for me with Firefox. ... (more in the full post)
Kiwibank innovations this week: Secure Mail and Mobile Banking
This week looks good for us Kiwibank customers - a few new things have been introduced.
Secure Mail
Too afraid to talk over the web to banks about your problems using conventional email?
Kiwibank has introduced Secure Mail:
Here's the contents of that introduction message:
At Kiwibank we take internet banking security seriously - that's why we've introduced a new secure way for you to contact us using Secure Mail.
What is Secure Mail?
It's a totally secure, free service that lets you email us through internet banking.
You can ask us in private about your accounts or anything else you want to know - without having to pick up a phone or visit your local Kiwibank.
How it works:
- As you may have noticed, when you log in to internet banking, Secure Mail shows on your Welcome Page.
- To ask a question, click "create your message", type in your question, then send
- You'll receive a reply within two business days in your Secure Mail inbox on your Internet Banking Welcome Page.
Secure Mail is protected by the internet banking security firewalls, so the information you send and receive is completely secure.
Mobile Banking on the Web
Their mobile site has been improved to include Windows Mobile and mobile browser users as well as more improvements to the exisiting iPhone presentation like enhanced landscape views.
http://www.kiwibank.co.nz/mobile/index.asp
Telecom NZ releasing an All You Can Eat mobile plan
Though for north of $400 a month you will want to be pigging out. Tomorrow, Telecom NZ is set to announce a new all you can eat call plan. I am told it is north of the $400 a month mark by the time Aunty Helen and her taxation warlords add thei... (more in the full post)
Microsoft Tech Ed New Zealand more social on Twitter
As previously pointed out you can follow Tech Ed Live on Twitter, but if you want others to participate you can follow the tenz8 bot and tag your tweets with #tenz8 to share your thoughts.... (more in the full post)
Job Please!
Hiya folks,
I'm going to be back from my OE in Canada in a coupla weeks and am on the job hunt! Ideally would like to get into some project management type stuff, with a long term goal to get into more strategic IT management. Will also consider sysadmin and software dev positions to get experience in the shorter term.
Have previous experience in IT and have just completed a Bch of IT (Hons) majoring in Info Systems at Victoria Uni in Wellington which included software dev (OOD, Java, VB.net, VBA, SQL, little C++/JS/HTML) and info managment/strategy incl project management.
Here is my CV
Give me an email, comment or PM if you have anything or know of anything on the go :D
Cheers!
'Spam King' Dead in Murder / Suicide
I am not a fan of spam. I try to keep things in perspective though. It is just email. I have filters that move it to my Junkmail folder without...
No comments:
Post a Comment