mostly personal, notes on the road
Launching a new category here: Do-It-Yourself. Starting from a simple woodworking project, this is how to make a baby’s changing table.
1. You create/obtain some beautiful drawings (here made at the back of an envelope in a cafeteria):
2.You get some wood (I used some planed sawn timber and hard MDF plate that I got from the local Bauhaus store). Continue reading “DIY: a changing table”
Stricken down by a persistent summer flu, I have got time to browse the Internet in bed and tweak my system. Particularly the VNC remote desktop has been open a lot (upgrade of my server into Ubuntu Feisty Fawn did give some nasty errors and sorting them out has taken days — and the mail system still does not work). On more positive side, we finally got the digital video camera that I have been thinking about a lot. Originally I considered an AVCHD camcorder for the hi resolution benefits, but after looking a bit into the downsides (and price) of that technology, I decided to go for SD instead. The corder we got is Sony DCR-SR52E, a 32 meg hard disk model, which we picked up mainly for the interface: a touch screen and good usability makes this a nice choice for those occasional family clips. I have now tested the image quality and bundled software a bit, and (after some Vista specific upgrades) everything seems to be ok now. Projected to the large screen of my media room from a processed and compressed archive DVD the screen is blurry, but directly plugged into the living room television, I get sharp and colourful image. Some more tweaking is still needed to see what is the optimal way to archive. (These HDD camcorders use MPEG2-PS standard for recording, which means compression taking place when compared to DV tapes.) There would already have been some MPEG-4 camcorders on the market, aimed squarely at Youtubes and other net videos, and I suppose much of delivery to our extended families will also take place trough such online services. (Much easier for everyone involved if I send an email link rather than organise an entire evening of home video watching 😉
The makkara summer
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.
Remaining true to the summer holiday spirit, I try to concentrate on the essentials, like taking photos of makkara.
Black-n-white summer: a black tulip
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.
As my holidays started this week, I was on high hopes. After all, this is my first proper holiday in … I guess pretty much ever. When you are in the status of a student, you spend all your summers on a summer work, and later, when I started working, I always was pushing some publication or other project until the summer, when I could actually start working (these days, academics’ working hours are all taken up by project meetings and admin work during the “working” season). This summer it will be different: I will have a proper, long summer holiday. And the first week looks already promising: it never stops raining. 🙂 Well, that is good time to do some housekeeping work, and particularly good time to go through your photo collections and do some editing stuff. I have intention to pick up some of the suitable shots, transfer them into monochrome and work with black-and-white photography for a while. There are already some samples (like this tulip) in my Flickr account.
Golf Plus TSI
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.
Yesterday we got the new car, VW Golf Plus TSI. It should have enough room for us for a while at least, and it is compact enough for city traffic and parking. TSI motor is small, yet quite powerful due to the double turbo/compressor solution. I particularly like the high seats and good views — also at nights: we ordered bi-xenon lights. This is also the first day of my (long overdue) holidays. Still some phone conferences and article writing stuff though, so “soft landing” into the unknown that way. Weather looks fine in Finland and tomorrow is the Midsummer festival: great!
My old (well, almost two years old at least) external hard disk stopped responding, and it looks like its the time to find another backup solution. Since I have a small, personal server running Ubuntu, regular full system mirrors on an external USB 2.0 hard disk should be enough, but I also need to learn more about the various backup procedures. Here are couple of links to pages that I should probably read with care: “Backing Up Ubuntu“, “Howto: Backup and restore your system“. Any further resources are also most welcome.
My new gaming PC arrived in Friday, and since then I have been trying out and configuring it, those minutes I had available. The most complex challenge is actually hardware related: the system is powerful enough for me, but it is too hot. Meaning that both the motherboard/system sensors and the CPU are constantly around 60 degrees C. For a moderately over-clocked CPU that might still do, but for the system board that is not good. I have tried tweaking the fan software options, made sure that the BIOS settings also support fan controls, but no. I installed an extra fan into the case but it does not appear to be powerful enough. The only trick so far that actually works is to open side of the case and direct powerful airflow from a 40 cm air-conditioning fan directly into this hornets’ nest. That makes sure that even when I tweak the game settings to the top, or play various video music files while driving several background applications the system temperature does not go over 30°C. Now I only need to weld this fan into a gigantic hole that I somehow drill into the case side. Hmm. Need some thought still.
Apart from the heat frustrations, the new system is a beauty – my old gaming/workstation PC had been so long out of date, that having a fast processor, plenty of memory and even some disk space to spare is a thrill. And I actually quite like how Vista works, with its slick Aero things and all. But there are several downsides to this system as well. Its DRM policies are notorious, and the system security messages start to drive me mad. Yes, I do know that I want to run those programs that I asked the operating system to run, thank you. Having four different dialogues popping up when you download and start up a new networking software is sort of overkill even these days, I’d say.
Vista is still missing some crucial drivers, so no hurry if you do not need to upgrade right now. For example, plugging in two Canon digital cameras, the PowerShot S3 IS was recognised and all worked automatically, but Canon EOS 350D required separate driver installations, and it still appears that the OS tool is not capable of downloading pictures from the camera. You need to use a separate tool from Canon to do that.
Apple iTunes and QuickTime do not work yet with Vista either. I have now opted for QuickTime Alternative and Real Alternative to use open, community supported alternatives. The online, streaming videos do not run completely smoothly with these, though. Hopefully the media player and codec situation gets better, soon. But the Vista Media Center was a real delight; you could spend just hours leaning back, clicking through your photo collections while listening to mp3’s playing in the background. The home theatre setup with its wireless keyboard really gets into its proper use now. DVD movies and digital sound work also fine.
And now back into Neverwinter Nights 2, and the world of Forgotten Realms…
Summer is already here, but before galloping off to the freedom, there is still much to do. And my schedule for next autumn is already full. Here is a quick rundown of upcoming seminar and conference engagements:
These are subject to change, of course, but not much, or so I hope at this point. Working in this field certainly keeps you busy, but it is also exiting to be constantly faced with new and surprising challenges, create new connections and innovations, so you end up being tired in the evening, but also feeling to have achieved something meaningful. Only in a truly rewarding field it would make sense to keep on traveling around and working in this way.
I have now the full specs for my suggested new gaming PC. Here is a quick rundown (skip this if not interested in current gaming PC gear; this is written mostly just as my own review notes):
The memory: two 1GT DDR2 800MHz, Vitesta, 240-pin DIMM from A-Data. It appears to have a lifetime warranty, which is encouraging. The full product specs from Taiwanese manufacturer are here: http://www.adata.com.tw/adata_en/product_show.php?ProductNo=AD2800U
The graphics card is another key element. That is coming from a company called EVGA, and the full title of the model is e-GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB/320Bit DDR3, PCI-E. Also this manufacturer claims to offer “lifetime warranty” for registered customers. The manufacturer specs are here: http://www.evga.com/products/moreinfo.asp?pn=640-P2-N821-AR&family=23 and the PDF spec sheet here: http://www.evga.com/products/pdf/640-P2-N821.pdf
The essential facts are: DirectX 10 (for Windows Vista Premium), SLI capable (good if you want to plug in another one and really go for the overkill), 240 Hz Max Refresh Rate, 2048 x 1536 x 32bit x85Hz Max Analog, 2560 x 1600 Max Digital; PCI-E 16X, two DVI-I outputs, and one HDTV (through a DVI-I, also a S-Video output in DIN-style, but not a HDMI). They also link to one online review: nV News’ EVGA GeForce 8800 GTS SLI Review (done in February, they were running two of these in SLI parallel mode): http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/evga_geforce_8800gts_sli/index.shtml
They conclude: “I won’t lie: when I first saw the (seemingly) “crippled” specs of the 8800 GTS, I scoffed at the thought of using one or two of those cards when the GTX has SO much more power. But after using these for the past few weeks, I can say without a doubt that these cards are amazing. The almost-free antialiasing in a number of games, the overall amazing picture quality and DirectX 10 support are just three of MANY reasons you should own an 8800-based card.” Well, ok, I think I can live with that for a while. Btw, if you want to see the tester being killed by a troll in The Dark Messiah, here is a video clip: http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/evga_geforce_8800gts_sli/video/dark_messiah.mpg
This is clearly mainly built to be a gamer’s card; the HDTV side is crippled since HDCP protected content can only be output in single-link DVI mode and only 1280×800 resolution is supported, which is a bit disappointing.
The disk will be a Samsung: 500GB Spinpoint T166, 3.5″, SATAII/300, 16MB, 7200RPM. The manufacturer specs are here: http://www.samsung.com/Products/HardDiskDrive/SpinPointTSeries/HardDiskDrive_SpinPointTSeries_HD501LJ.asp
It is a rather cheap drive, hope it will last (no lifetime warranty here…) There seem to be no real reviews, but see e.g. http://www.pricegrabber.com/rating_getprodrev.php/product_id=29867541/id_type=masterid/
The optical reader / writer would be a LG: DVD+-RW DL LS, GSA-H12/22/42LRBB, 18x8x8x. They claim that this would burn a regular DVD in 5 minutes and support also burning dual-layer (8,5 GB) DVD burning (which is nice, because my stand-alone dual-layer burner is now broken). It is really difficult to find anything from LG’s own pages, but previous models have fared well in reviews. Here are some specs from a British store: http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/539205/art/lg/gsa-h42lrbb-internal-writ.html#
The CPU will an Intel: Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz, 4MB, FSB1066 Boxed (Conroe). Tom’s Hardware Guide is a good resource of information when you want to know more about processors; here is an Intel platform overview (dated, 2004): http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/07/19/looking_ahead_to_intel/
In 2006 they announced Core 2 Duo as the new king of the hill: http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/07/14/core2_duo_knocks_out_athlon_64/
In a more recent article they compare Core 2 Duo to the Core Duo Extreme: http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/11/core-2-duo-overtakes-core-2-extreme/
This one is mostly interesting for those who will go into the overclocking game, but it appears that these “older” CPUs can actually outperform Intel’s top processors (in 1000-dollars range) by some proper overclocking. Hmm.
Game PC took a closer look at E6600 in last October:
http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=e6600&page=1
Their verdict? “The Core 2 Duo E6600 mixes together excellent performance at stock clock speeds, low power consumption, a robust feature set and lots of overclocking potential all at a very tolerable price point.” Nice.
Then into the motherboard: this will be an Asus P5B I965P S775 Core 2 Duo SATA2, FSB1066. A motherboard is a crucial component since it pretty much sets the limits for the peripherals, extendibility and overall reliability you can expect from your PC. The integrated audio chip and connectors might be setting limits to your audio experience. Tom’s Hardware gives you the quick overall idea: http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/07/26/beginners_guide_to_motherboard_selection/index.html
As to this specific MoBo, you have the ASUSTeK manufacturer specs here: http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=307&model=1178&modelmenu=1
They also advertise the silence and power-saving features of P5B in a flash show from a “lifestyle” (home theatre) perspective: http://event.asus.com/2006/mb/P5B/index.html
The board also supports something called AI NOS (Non-delay Overclocking System) to boost performance: http://event.asus.com/2006/mb/P5B/ainos.html
The noise filtering system claims to rely on a bundled “Superbeam Array Microphone”: http://event.asus.com/2006/mb/P5B/crystalsound.html (wonder whether that will come bundled with my system?)
The audio part is important for my media room setup (as are of course the system bus, integrated chipset, processor and memory supports, heat control solutions etc.), and even if any serious audiophile would probably upgrade for a separate hi-fi audio card, I will be happy to test the integrated “8 channel HD audio” — at least it has the digital sound output through an optical/coaxial connector so that is a plus.
The motherboard is nothing spectacular, but again another pretty reliable-looking mainstream solution. More on different P5B versions: http://event.asus.com/2006/mb/P5B/models.html
Antec makes good power sources that I have been using also earlier, so I am happy this one also comes with one; Antec 430W, NeoHE 430, ATX2. This one won the MikroBitti 2/2006 power source comparison, so it should be ok (Antec has more efficient models these days, though). Powerful processors and particularly the graphics cards demand loads of electricity very fast, so this is another crucial, backbone part. The manufacturer page: http://www.antec.com/ec/productDetails.php?ProdID=05430# and see also Hardware in Review which writes about its energy efficiency in positive terms: http://www.hardwareinreview.com/cms/content/view/37/1/
The chassis is that part of PC that you will actually be looking and handling, so it would be good to have solid, well-equipped and well-designed one for my new system. In Jimm’s PC Store’s updated offer I have a newcomer specified: CoolMaster Elite 330 ATX. This is a rather basic case, but it has some nice details like the “tool-free” internal design and washable air filter: http://www.coolermaster.com/index.php?LT=english&Language_s=2&url_place=product&p_serial=RC-330&other_title=+RC-330+Elite%20330 and here’s the product sheet: http://www.coolermaster.com/installation_manual/Product_Sheet_(Elite330)_0328.pdf
I was long contemplating about getting a slick HTPC case with some proper AV style controls and connectors, but the price was in most cases ugly and there would have been some compromises in other areas (like expandability of the system) that made me finally go for a basic mini-tower.
Ok, that is pretty much it. The OS will be a MS Vista Home Premium Edition, but as I wrote earlier, there will probably be some multi-boot tweaking for this one. Or then I will just give up for all kind of tweaking altogether, and spend all my hard-earned summer vacation days (apart from the family business) just gaming, gaming, gaming! 🙂
Ilari’s graduation dinner
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.
Also Ilari, Laura’s brother has now finished his studies and it was again time to celebrate, with some fine dinner and wine in Restaurant Näsinneula. The servings and the views were excellent, as usual. In the slowly rotating tower-restaurant you can follow the sun going down beyond Näsijärvi Lake, while enjoying your meal. Now we have also met Anniina’s parents which was nice.
frans goes blog 
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