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Usually stuff I’ve written personally, stuff I think is pretty good.

HP TouchPad, Part One: Acquisition

Part one of a two or three-part series on the HP TouchPad and webOS

If only HP weren’t one of the biggest names in tech. If only the right hand knew what the left hand was up to at HP. If only one of the most notable tech companies had a bit more direction, if only the tech giant had a little more vision, if only their major decisions weren’t seemingly decided by a roll of a d20 die. Maybe if they weren’t under the leadership of someone who wasn’t the best fit for the job.

If only, if only, if only.

If only HP had any idea what they were doing, then I might not have been able to experience (the really quite stellar at times) webOS.

I, of course, refer to the HP TouchPad, the second of two HP products in as many months. Only the TouchPad is a little different: it’s not insanely discounted like the MicroServers were, it’s actually discontinued, and HP were getting rid of them altogether in a never-to-be-repeated fire sale. $98 for the 16GB Wi-Fi only version, and $148 for the $32GB.

My story starts on a bus, like so many do. I was reading on one particular website about how HP Australia were also going to get in on the TouchPad fire sale action – you see, by this time the sales in the US had been going swimmingly for at least a few days after HP pulled the plug, and HP Aust apparently thought it a good idea to get a slice of this pie, too.

Anyway, I was on a bus (after handing in an assignment, I believe) reading about how the sole retailer of HP TouchPads in Australia were Harvey Norman, the electronics and basically-everything-else franchise, and about how they had been told by HP Australia that they were to sell it off, starting at 2pm. I made two short phone calls to two Harvey Norman stores in my area, who, naturally, had no idea what I was going on about, nor had they received any communication from higher up about any fire sale.

I got off the bus in town, and hurriedly told a colleague that the TouchPad fire sale was about to go down. We both agree that it’s a pretty fantastic deal for the money, and after i tell him I’m heading to HN to take a look around, he urges me to buy one for him — at this time it was about 1:30, perhaps 1:40pm, and I was still vaguely skeptical that this fire sale would even happen in little old Hobart. I walk the few blocks to the nearest Harvey Norman… only to e greeted with a line about 6 or so deep (nerds, every single one of them, with a few suits for good measure). “Is this the line for the HP TouchPad?” was met with excited grins and nods, taps on noses. Bingo.

1:50pm, and a HN employee comes and confirms that they will indeed be selling the HP TouchPad at the advertised prices. Cue sigh of relief from all the nerds in the queue, yours truly included. I begin working out whether I’ve got enough cash in my bank account for two TouchPads.

1:55pm, and a HN employee comes to tell us that there’s only a few 16GB models but plenty of 32GB stock. He also confirms that there’s a limit of one per customer; good news for me as I can now probably afford the 32GB model, but not-so-great news for my colleague who might miss out. I quickly call him and deliver the news. By this time the line is easily tens of people deep; not bad for good old’ Slobart, hey?

Fifteen minutes later, and I’m out the door. $148 poorer but with a pretty big grin on my face. A small rendezvous with my colleague reveals he sprinted the few blocks to the HN store after getting my call and managed to score himself a 32GB model, just like me.

His grin is just as large, too.

Battlefield 3, Origin, and one screwed up release date

Wait, wait, wait.

Hold on just one second.

Haven’t we been here before?

Yeah, we have. Two years ago, about the same time as now, there was a little screwup with the Australian release of Borderlands on Steam (sorry, no ragetoon graphic this time around).

Today, history repeats itself with a similar kind of screwup on release dates — only now EA is the culprit here, and Battlefield 3 is the game with the muddled release date.

You see, originally Battlefield 3 was slated to be released on the 25th in Australia — today. Then, somewhere in the last two weeks, EA turned around and decided to stagger the release date around the world, meaning that Australia gets Battlefield 3 two days after the original release date. Instead of midnight launches on the 25th, we get midnight launches on the 27th.

Up until about a week or ago, the release date was today. Now, the release date is two days away.

I don’t even know what to think anymore. There has been so much controversy surrounding the release of one of the most anticipated games in recent history. One day they’re all live-action trailers, early-access open betas, and PC-first development, the next, they’re forcing their glorified download client on you, unlocking Battlefield 3 for all the hardcore gamers in countries like Myanmar before the US or Australia, or even sending reviewers console copies of their premier PC title. Perhaps they even have the guts to pull all their premier titles from the number one digital distribution platform on PC (this might be the reason I can’t buy Crysis 2 on Steam).

And after all this, gamers still lap up every second of it. We may not like it, but we assume the position, smile, and take whatever they want to give.

We’re pathetic.

This post part of Blogtober 2011, just a little thing of mine where I (attempt to) post something up on my blog every day in October 2011.

HP MicroServer

There’s been a few phonomena sweeping the wider Australian tech community of late, and I just wanted to tell you about one that I managed to get in on.

The HP MicroServer.

Officially part of the the HP ProLiant MicroServer series, the N36L is a small box with a whole lot of potential and even more potential. Officially, it’s designed to satisfy the storage requirements of small to medium businesses by providing them with easy, expandable storage in a convenient form factor. Officially, the base configuration comes with four non-hot-swappable drive bays for 3.5″ drives, a dual-core 1.3GHz AMD Athlon II Neo processor, 1GB of ECC RAM, and a stock 250GB drive to get you started.

Unofficially, the MicroServer is the best piece of tech I’ve bought in recent memory — and as my parents, friends, and even the local postie will tell you, I buy quite a bit of tech.

It all started when I was reading a thread about it on one of my favourite forums. Forum member Brains posted up a deal a HP reseller were running that offered one of these MicroServer machines in the base config for a bit more than $200. Long story short: I put an order through with that reseller, waited a while, eventually received an email saying stock was delayed, waited a little longer only to be rewarded with another “stock delayed” email a few weeks later. By that time HP themselves were offering the original deal for the second time ($199 delivered to my door), so I requested a refund with the reseller and placed an order with HP. A few more weeks later, and the MicroServer arrived. Now the only question that remained was what the hell I was going to do with it.

Up until now I’ve been storing all my media on individual drives. Buy a drive, stick it in my PC, share it over the network, and fill it up. Rinse, repeat. This scheme worked pretty well for a while, but I knew I couldn’t keep it up forever (I was fast running out of SATA ports), plus there were many aspects of this storage system I wasn’t quite happy with. For one, my PC uses about ~200W on idle; leaving it overnight is just asking for a lecture about power bills. Downloading stuff overnight can be done by my Mac, but even that isn’t optimal.

So, what I am doing with my MicroServer? First and foremost: it’s a storage box, my very own NAS. I’ve filled it with 4x 3TB drives, maxed out the memory with 2x 4GB sticks of ECC RAM, and added in my own 500GB drive in addition to the stock 250GB that comes with it for a total of six drives.

In terms of software, it’s currently running those drives in a software RAID 5 under Ubuntu 11.04 with the help of mdadm for RAID management, giving me roughly 8.5TB of usable space after file system formats and what ever else. I’m currently serving the array across the network using SMB, and I get decent enough transfer speeds across my Gigabit network, roughly 75Mb/s stable.

But wait, there’s more!

It’s also currently serving a Deluge daemon accessible though a web user interface, running a SABNZB+ instance also accessible through a web UI for Usenet downloads, leveraged by Sick Beard, and finally, because all my media is now in the one spot, on a machine that stays on 24/7, a Plex/Nine installation so I can access stuff from my iOS devices (the dual-core seems to transcode 6mbps 1080p streams on-the-fly just fine).

Oh, and it’s also hosting a temporary Minecraft server for myself and a few friends.

All this on a machine that uses about 40W idle, even when loaded up with 6 drives and 8 times the amount of original RAM? Like I said, the HP MicroServer is one of my best tech purchases yet; it perhaps wasn’t all that cheap after all the upgrades, but still cheaper than a Drobo or similar 4-bay NAS boxes, and quite a bit more capable. I’ve heard other people that have also had success with putting Solaris on it for ZFS, FreeNAS for something a little more lightweight (but still equally as capable), and some other, slightly crazier dudes running all sorts of ESXi virtualised environments, stuffing 4x 2.5″ drives in the optical drive bay, putting RAID cards in them, and even taking a dremel to their machines in order to stuff yet another 3.5″ drive below the optical bay.

Me? I’m not quite so serious, but my little MicroServer still does everything I want it to do.

Expect a few more posts on this in the coming days, and let me know if you have any other questions. Further reading to get you started: the insanely long thread on Overclockers Australia about it.

This post part of Blogtober 2011, just a little thing of mine where I (attempt to) post something up on my blog every day in October 2011.

SteelSeries 7H for iOS devices review — behind the scenes

My review for the SteelSeries 7H headset for iPod, iPhone, and iPad will be up a little later today over at MacTalk, where you can read the full review, but I figured I might as well publish something that didn’t quite make it into the final version (okay, was never going to be included in the final version, was never intended to be included in the final version). A behind-the-scenes look, if you will.

Little backstory: the SteelSeries 7H comes with a pretty unique micro-USB connector:

There’s one curious thing about the cable though, and that’s the fact it attaches to the headset on the left hand side, using none other than a micro-USB connector that our European friends seem to be so fond of. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, and certainly makes the 7H headset a little unique in that regard.

Unique, yes, but also interesting: I’ve been looking for a new gaming headset for a while, and while the 7H ticks all the right boxes in terms of comfort and sound quality, the version that I reviewed comes with a strange plug that only has one 3.5mm plug for both headphones and microphone.

No matter, no matter — one support ticket and about 5 Euros later, a replacement audio cable for the standard 7H is in the post. The thing about the standard 7H is that’s it’s far more “normal” in that it has two 3.5mm plugs — one for audio, and one for microphone, just like PC manufacturers like it.

As it turns out, I guessed correctly — SteelSeries must make one version of the headset, then just vary the micro-USB cables that comes with it (and the packaging, obviously) to split it into separate products. The replacement cable plugs into the micro-USB port on the headphones just fine, and turns it into a standard 7H headset — which means the 7H works perfectly as the gaming headset I always wanted, but was never able to spend the money on (says the guy with AudioEngine 2 desktop speakers).

+1 ingenuity for me.

This post part of Blogtober 2011, just a little thing of mine where I (attempt to) post something up on my blog every day in October 2011.

Deja Vu

Blogtober 11 catch-up, part IX — at this stage I’m only a day behind, but this is for October 20th

Almost exactly five years ago, a few kids posed in front of some giant guitar in the middle of NSW.

Almost exactly five years ago, a few kids participated in something known as the Science and Engineering Challenge.

Almost exactly five years ago, a few kids from a tiny school in a small suburb in the equally-tiny state of Tasmania came fourth in the country,

Almost exactly five years ago to the day, a few kids had an absolute blast.

A few days ago, a different set of kids, to be sure, but with perhaps one or two of the same teachers, made their reprise in the Science and Engineering Challenge.

A few days ago, a few kids from the tiny school from a little suburb in the equally small state of Tasmania, managed to place fourth in the country.

A few days ago, a few kids may or may not have posed in front some giant guitar…

…but one thing’s for sure: they probably had just as much fun as we did.

This post part of Blogtober 2011, just a little thing of mine where I (attempt to) post something up on my blog every day in October 2011.

My iPhone 4 Home Screen

It’s been a while since I updated my homescreen.me profile, and with the official release of iOS 5 and needing something to post up on my blog, I figured now was as good a time as any… Here goes!

Like many Apple faithful my home screen is fairly similar to what Apple provide as the default – with a few important changes.

Three years of iOS ownership means quite a bit of customisation. My home screen is organised in a loose Ben Brooks configuration, with a few stock Apple apps, some fantastic replacements for a few of the stock Apple apps, and some other great apps that I’ve found over the years.

First row: Mail, Calvetica, Maps+, Photos
Calvetica is a very good Calendar replacement set in beautiful Helvetica. It’s changed quite a bit since the original release, but it’s still very fast, and very capable.
Maps+ is like the original Maps app with much more of a focus on the actual maps, and less UI chrome to boot, while still staying highly functional. Packing all the same features (and then some) as the stock Maps app while having a very minimalistic UI is a winner in my books.

Second row: Camera, Clock, Articles, Dropbox
Articles gains a spot on my homscreen because it’s a really nice app that reformats Wikipedia articles for the iPhone, and Dropbox, well, that’s so useful for PDF documents (bus timetables, mainly) that it also earns a spot on my homescreen.

Third row: Instapaper, Soulver, Elements, Reminders
Here’s where things get interesting; Instapaper is just, well, Instapaper. By far one of the best apps to ever grace the iOS platform — it makes reading on the go an absolute joy.
Soulver makes calculations easy, even fun. It’s available on every Apple platform, and even syncs with Dropbox if you use it on more than one platform. You can write stories in it, and then calculate things using numbers in those stories. It’s not so much a calculator than it is a scratchpad for numbers, and it’s fantastic.
Elements is my new favourite text editor. Plain text, Dropbox sync, and Markdown support means that it ticks all the boxes — word count and a nice interface means that it goes the extra mile. It’s the one app that started me off with Markdown, and now almost everything I write is written in Markdown. Elements is the best text editor on any platform I’ve come across, period.
Reminders, as included in iOS 5, has meant that I’ve given up every other reminders/notifications-type app. Geo-fences and repeating reminders tick all the boxes — if you know what I mean.

Fourth row: Phone, Verbs, App Store, Settings
Phone is here because I rarely use my iPhone as a phone – perhaps that’ll change when people actually decide to call me, but for now it stays here.
Verbs is a great IM client for the iPhone. Admittedly, I seldom use IM when I’m mobile, but when I need to, Verbs is incredibly simple and has a great UI.

Finally, the dock: Tweetbot, Messages, Safari, Music
I’ve tried every Twitter app worth trying on iPhone, and Tweetbot wins all the awards. It’s the one app that made me come back to iOS from Windows Phone 7 and Android, and it’s not hard to see why — all the features you need (and then some!), a beautiful UI, and it just works for everything I need it to do.
My only gripe with this row is that Apple separated the iPod app out into two separate apps — Music and Videos. I liked the idea of my iPhone having its own little iPod inside…

I’m not sure where I got the wooden background from, but if you want it, it’s available here.

This post part of Blogtober 2011, just a little thing of mine where I (attempt to) post something up on my blog every day in October 2011.