What I'm expecting from Surface Pro 2

Since the release of Microsoft Surface (Pro), I've been waiting for the release of Surface 2 mainly because I felt that there were a number of a features and specifications that I felt that Surface Pro really should have had at the introduction. However, since the first Surface didn't include these features I had abstained from purchasing it - so here is the list of things that I'm hoping for in the Surface Pro 2 due to be announced on the 23rd of September. 

CPU

One of the fundamental reasons that I had abstained from purchasing the gen 1 Surface Pro was the CPU. With the announcement of the Haswell chips from Intel it made decisions around purchasing new hardware very difficult if it didn't have a Haswell chip - the only reason that I had recomended a new laptop to someone was if the laptop had been heavily discounted much like the Windows 7 laptops. 

With the improved performance and most importantly the battery life not having a Haswell chip meant that the Surface Pro would have been outdated within the year. With the close relationship and the market share between Microsoft and Intel I found it amazing that Surface Pro didn't have this included at launch, and instead in the same year Apple had announced the refresh of their Macbook Pros with the inclusion of the Haswell chips and then touted the performance and battery life. 

Storage

The original Surface Pro came in with a measly 64GB and 128GB models, this is the total capacity once you take away the windows 8 install space, recovery space, etc... you are left with something that is extremely measly. Lets be honest, this is soemthing that I would have expected with Surface RT and not with the Surface Pro. If you are going to put the word 'Pro' on your products name you should try and consider the needs of your target audience, and some of them are not fully sold on housing everything in the cloud. 

I'm expecting to have something greater than 256GB, this is a lot to ask but I feel that the Surface Pro should start with a minimum storage of 256GB otherwise you might as well stick a ARM Processor and call it a Surface RT. 

WiFi and 3G/4G

Surface Pro contained support for wireless 802.11 a/b/g/n. This fantastic for today and now, however, 802.11ac is around the corner and I although this is all still in the draft stage I would hope that 802.11ac support is included from the get go. 

I for one have been looking to 802.11ac as the saviour for my home network which is lagging constantly at the moment, and I'll uping most of the computers and devices to ac using a variety of dongles and PCI cards. This will mean, for me, support for 802.11ac in the Surface Pro 2 is paramount.

While we are discussing the wireless connectivity, a supplementary feature that is a must on the Surface Pro 2 is 3G or 4G connectivity. This will allow me put away my wireless modem for a while (I somehow don't think I'm going to get this feature).

Better Stylus Holder

There has been a number of people commenting on the location of the stylus, the main concern is that it is not secure enough to place the stylus in that position when you storing the surface away in a bag etc... I totally agree with this, while the location is great when you running in and out of a meeting it is not great for transportation. Furthermore the holder doubles as the connection port - great - where do I put the stylus while its charging ??? 

Keyboard Cover with an Extra Battery

When I first saw the Lenovo Helix I was completely blown away. The design was amazing, however, they were too late with bringing out that product to market. One of the key features was that with keyboard you increased the battery life. This did mean that the keyboard was heavier, but it also meant that your battery life increased with extra juice… 

A dock with Extra PORTS

While Surface Pro is great and comes with a number of ports, and with Microsoft's view that these devices will be the post-pc devices, you would expect people to purchase the Surface Pro to try and replace their desktop/laptops etc… so it would be inevitable for the surface to be docked at some stage. 

Most importantly, the dock should contain additional ports…and lots of them.

Release Date

Finally, Microsoft should take a page out of Apples book: When you announce a product to the market make sure you release the product quickly (i.e within the week, or month). I was initially interested in the Surface Pro and was at stage almost thinking of taking the hit to purchase the surface pro till the refresh came along - the only thing that stopped me was that Surface Pro was not available. Microsoft, you've probably lost the sale of millions of Surface Pros from people deciding to purchase an alternate product due to not getting your house in order.

So this above list of items/features are what I'm going to be expecting. Microsoft if you want my sale, please make sure the above is included. 

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Using old Smartphones as a Media Centres

Smartphones these days are getting more and more powerful. So what happens to your smartphone when you finish your contract and get a brand new smartphone ?

Well one option that I thought was to turn it into a media centre client for my XBMC HTPC. I primarily wanted to have the ability to watch the movies, view youtube clips, catch up tv etc... via my bedroom tv. After looking at all my options, I was going to have to spend at least $100 to get something setup - and I wasn't sure that streaming of content was going to be upto my standards.

So with my recent switch from my trusty Samsung Galaxy Nexus to the HTC One, the Galaxy Nexus presented itself as piece of decent hardware that I would have had to get rid of. To get this working I had to do a couple of things :

1. Download and Install xbmc from xbmc.org. XBMC is not available via Google Play, instead it is available as an APK on their website - you will need to ensure that you allow the installation of applications from third party sources (See your settings to turn this on). 
2. Purchase a MHL cable to enable you output from your phones USB socket (the one that you charge from) to fit a standard HDMI cable to. You can pick up a MHL cable for as little as $10 from ebay. 
3. Purchase a HDMI cable to connect from the MHL cable to the TV. 

You will also need to have your charger handy to connect to the MHL cable, which will charge your phone and ensure it has enough juice. To finish off this setup, I was planning to use my mobile (HTC One) with the Yatse remote to control XBMC. 

The Actual Experience

Initially when I plugged MHL cable, with the HDMI cable connected to the TV and the MHL cable, I received nothing... absolutely nothing. I then had to reboot the Galaxy Nexus, and wallah the boot screen was displayed on the TV and off it went. 

The initial boot into XBMC was also problematic, it was slow very slow. Slow as in it took minutes to open up - and I thought that everything was frozen. 

Then connecting to the HTPC box with XBMC sharing the video collection was slow to find, but that was quickly resolved. I only make this as a statement since I tried it twice in that time and it was taking a long time to refresh the contents. This might have something to do with my home network, but I run a fairly standard network like most of you. 

Finally I managed to get access to the content and started to play the first couple of movies. I started with a 1080p video - the video took a while to load or buffer but it started to play soon after. Then I tried a 720p video - similar to the 1080p video it took a little while but soon started but this time I had audio coming through. The 720p video was choppy, but the audio was worse. Often there was crackles and distortion the kind that you get when there is digital audio coming through in incomplete packets. 

Not knowing where the problem was I decided to try getting XBMC running on my HTC One with the same MHL cable and HDMI cable. Unfortunately the outcomes were in complete contrast to the Galaxy Nexus - 1080p videos were fine with no lag, 720p videos were much like the 1080p videos, but most importantly the audio was clear. 

So with that experiment, I have to unfortunately conclude that although some of the smartphones that may be getting retired have fairly decent hardware that can be repurposed - it is probably not going to be enough to be a XBMC media client. 

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Merging AVI together

I sometimes find in my video collection of multiple AVI files, in windows I had to use complex software to try and get the videos into a single file. However, in linux there's a terminal friendly method.

1. Download and install transcode package using sudo apt-get install transcode
2. The transcode package contains a utility called avimerge, use this to merge the two files together: avimerge -o outputfilename.avi -i firstFile.avi secondFile.avi thirdFile.avi 

Make sure you check the output file to make sure that it has joined everything properly, one way to do this is to check the ends of the files to see the transition - this should be seamless if the two files are meant to flow from one to the other. 

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Reset MySQL root password Ubuntu/Debian / Linux mint

I wanted to get my portfolio up and running and saw this great plugin for Wordpress which I thought was kook to showcase tool. The only problem was that it needed Wordpress to operate, and I thought sure not a problem and used apt-get install to download install it on my Mint.

After installing the wrong version I struggled installing Wordpress, only to realize that I had to pull down the tar.gz and upgrade Wordpress manually. Well here is where all the trouble started, for some reason I had forgotten my MySQL root password and I had forgotten the the only user that I had created to create users and create databases.

I went online and tried different methods without much success, and finally found one that worked with my Mint 14 setup:

1.  sudo dpkg-reconfigure mysql-server-5.5

2. Enter the password for root as part of the sudo command

3. Enter the new password for root for MySQL

And that's it, the password has been updated. Now to get into MySQL punch this in mysql -u root -p

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Samsung Galaxy SIV (S4)

It's not too long now before the Samsung Galaxy S4 is announced with all the new features and bells and whistles. I unfortunately didn't take up the opportunity of getting the S3, why? because was I was tossing and turning over whether to switch over the Windows Phone and to give that a go. Plus, I wasn't a fan of the Touchwiz interface from Samsung, I felt it was abit bloated and the stock android was pretty snappy and looked great. So to kill the time I had purchased the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, loaded with Android 4 - this has to be one of the best phones that I have had in a long time even to the point where I had forgotten about all the other phones.

With the LG Nexus, I decided to stay away - purely because I didn't like LG phones. period.

So with the new Galaxy SIV, the specs that I have been reading about look absolutely amazing :

• 2 x 4 cores (1 for heavy tasks and 1 low level tasks) - 8 cores!!! My latest upgraded computer has only 4!
• A massive 4.99inch display with full 1080p
• 2GB of graphics RAM
• 13 Megapixel at the back and 2.1 at the front

In other news that I had read today, there is potentially new mechanism for scrolling with your eyes. That is where the phone recognises where your eyes are and then scrolls the page based on where your eyes are looking. You may have seen a similar feature with the S3 where they touted that it knows when you have fallen a sleep, and also knows when you are looking at the screen to maintain the brightness (I think they called it smart stay). I think this might be a gimmick, or people may not have realised that smart stay was actually working - since I have never heard any one rave on about this feature. Regardless it is still a cool feature to have. 

What I would like to see from Samsung as part of the S4 are:

• Better battery life
• Usage of curved OLED, i hope this phone has this feature
• Key Lime PIE!!!!
• Faster turn around of Android updates, I know that the carriers play a part in it but really they blame samsung for not providing x, y, and z. Getting very tiresome. 
• Wireless Charging - Nokia has it, Samsung should do too

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XBMC: Remove Music from Library

I was playing around with my XBMC home theatre setup and decided to add in some music and pictures to the library. The wanted to first do a trial with a small amount and then see how it works before trying to load the full library.

The CD that I loaded failed miserably, when I had ripped the CD I forgot to include the ID3 tag information using the CD database. That was a huge fail, and I don't know to what extent this has affected my mp3s.

So after the first attempt, I tried to look for an option to remove the files from the library. My first thought was to remove the source and then update the library - my thinking here was that once the source is removed I assumed that XBMC would recognise that it is no longer available and remove the records from the library. I thought wrong.

I searched high and low, I even tried to use the clean library function. After reading some forum posts, I realised that this was not going to be as easy with a number of people facing similar challenges. Some suggestions stated to move the files to another location and then to use clean library - since the issue was that the files physically existed on the location.

After some digging I found a method that worked for me, without having to move the files etc... I did the following:

• launched nautilus
• went to ~/.xbmc/userdata/Databases
• deleted the file MyMusic32.db
• Exit XBMC
• Launch XBMC

MyMusic32.db is the database holding the contents of the library for your music. Once you delete this you essentially delete the library, you then need to exit XBMC and then re-launch it. Once you re-launch it XBMC will generate a new database without any content. 

Whilst this solved my issue, this may not solve your issue especially if you have individual music that you want to remove from the library - and I don't have a very good solution to share in this scenario. This is feature, I feel, that has been overlooked by the development team (even as great as they are). To the development team, thank you for all your hardwork on producing something as good as XBMC, I would like to see in future versions some of these functionality to manage the library a whole lot better. 

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Antiguan Government to offer Warez to the World

In a world of ridikulouse announcements, I came across the following article at a tech site. Essentially it states that due to failing Gambling economy in Antigua caused by the United States of America, the Antiguan government is looking to be reimbursed by offering copyright materials online - I'm assuming that this is similar to how warez sites operate.

This has all started when the multi-billion gambling industry was stopped by the United States of America, even after the WTO (World Trade Organisation) stated that the actions by the United States of America violated the free trade agreements.

This would mean that everyone that visits a warez site no longer need to look shady, after all it is being sponsored by a sovereign government. However, this may not be seen as piracy since WTO allowed Antigua to re-coupe $21Mil annually by suspending United State's copyright.


For more information on this, check out this link.

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Unlocked Phones with a Plan - A transparent business model

As you may already be aware, the 26th of January 2012 is the day that ends the "free carrier unlocks" in the USA. So from here on, you could serve time if you attempt to unlock your phone yourself. This marks the end of the 90 day period provided by the Library of Congress, who oversees matters related Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Personally, whenever I purchase a phone I ensure that the phone is unlocked from the carrier, and if it is locked to a carrier I request that for the phone to be unlocked. In my case, I generally purchase the phone and the plan separately.

Firstly, one of the main reasons for this is to ensure that I have the freedom of choosing my carrier when I want and not be tied down by contract. Its all too often you hear about the carriers being slow to re-act in some shape or form, or you find a carrier offering cheaper prices than your plan.

Secondly, having the ability to choose the carrier allows your phone to be used in other countries, without having to use roaming features. Everyone knows that the charges for roaming, calls and data, is daylight robbery. Every time I land in another country, where I plan to spend close to a week, the first thing I do is to get a local sim and notify a bunch of people of new number. When you get a local sim, the operator generally asks you if your phone is unlocked - if it is then you're out of luck and you will need to live with the roaming charges, buy a new phone, or stay off the grid for a while. Most people, first time tourists, do not know the difference between a locked phone and an unlocked phone they normally don't have a need to switch carriers and these are the same people who are disappointed once the realise the limitation in another country.

I personally don't get the point of a carrier locks, essentially it allows a carrier to restrict you to their network only while you are still under contract from them. Some carriers actually unlock your phone if you are on a certain plan (i.e they are able to profit off you), however, the plans which will prevent you from getting an authorised unlock are the ones where you are under the impression that you have a great deal however, there is a risk factor that the carriers are betting on - cheaper outlay price with the thought that you will spend it big with them. This essentially would mean that if they offer an unlock and you start to use another carrier (even if you are under contract) they end up of loosing due to the cheaper outlay price.

This almost feels as though it is shady business, and it may be depending on how you look at it. Although the carriers are not being upfront it really is the responsibility of the consumer to be aware of a deal too good to be true. Next time that you are purchasing a phone on via a plan, ask the sales person if after commencing the plan whether they will unlock the phone for free ? If they agree, you know that they have forecasted the amount of the plan are profiting purely on the monthly charges. If they dis-agree then they are most likely betting that you will consume a lot, and hence will profit from your consumption. You can work this to your advantage if you plan on consuming little, and stick to it.

Hope this helps.

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Keen to build my new computer

Now that I have my monitors sorted out, I'm really keen to get my new computer built. The last time I had upgraded my computer was in 2006, and I've pretty much used the same specs (apart from adding 16 gigs of additional ram and the usual harddrive upgrade), and the PSU upgrade.

However, it just shows that unless there's a dying need to a dual core CPU with adequate amount of ram can still hold it's own after 6 years. In the early 2000, computers were slow a day after you bought the latest one. There was fierce competition between AMD and Intel and in each release they would edge a little ahead from one another.

I think the specs that I have can still carry me through for a another couple of years. I haven't felt that the system is running slow - I even run Virtual Machines with Photoshop etc... and I still feel that this configuration can hold its own. But my dillema, like my previous posts is that I'm upgrading due to the need to build a HTPC.

I can quite easily build a HTPC by itself, but essentially my current computers specs would be quite nice for a HTPC. So, instead of purchasing similar components I thought why not upgrade my current computer and move the current components to the HTPC.

So, as I said above now that the monitors have been purchased I can start acquiring the parts for the computer.

Case
I'm thinking of keeping my current case, which is a thermaltake for the time being. Although it is a thermaltake case, it is one of the heaviest and the most annoying cases. The first annoying thing about the case is that it has a door to access the power button, optical drives etc... often when I need to either start the computer, reset the computer, to turn off the computer, or just to access the optical drives I need to first check if there is anything in front of the door and if there is I need to move it - I often have to move things out of the way.

The second thing that is very annoying with the case is that outside or front usb ports are on top of the case, smack bang in the middle. This essentially renders the case being used as a shelf.

The third annoying thing about the case is that where the front usb is, i.e at the top, also has a case. It was quite flimsy and had broken off the hinge within the first year. Essentially all the inputs pointing up have been slowly collecting dust.

But the case is large, it can accomodate any or most beastly motherboard component configuration. So for this reason, and because I don't really want to chuck out this case on the street reason I'm going to hold on to this case... for the time being.

Motherboard
I've searched long and hard for motherboards between AsRock, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI they all seem to be carrying similar specs to each other. Sometimes each one will bring out some proprietry software to control xyz component on their board - but I run linux and their bundled software is windows only.

So right now, with the thought that this computer is going to essentially carry me through for at least 6 years (considering the last one carried me for 6 years), I need to make sure that whatever motherboard that I choose contains the latest specs of everything - for example USB 3 is now out and over time USB 2 will become a legacy protocol. So over the next 6 years or so, it would be beneficial for me to have as many USB 3 ports as possible.

In the end, I chose the AsRock's Z77 - Extreme 9 for the Intel Chipset. The motherboard looks impressive with:

• 12 USB 3.0 ports (4 at the front, and 8 at the back)
• 6 SATA 3 ports
• Onboard WIFI 802.11 a/b/g/n 
• Onboard Blutooth v4.0
• WI-SB Box (it's essentially two usb front ports and a rack for the SSD, I've also heard that this is where the WIFI/blutooth antenna's are located)

CPU

I was looking to get something that might be a monster of a CPU like a 6 core or an 8 core CPU, but the problem that I ran into was that Intel had only 6 cores and it was trumping AMD with their 8 Cores. 

Regardless, the six core CPU from intel was quite pricey but the overall issue was that the number of motherboards that supported the CPU was very limited in their specs. So I thought I'd stick with an Intel i7 3770 3.4GHz. 

This is a real step up from my dual core, however, I don't think the additional cores will really give me that much advantage since my dual core still feels quite snappy. 

More to Come...

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LG IPS277L : Fantastic Display with limited Inclusions

I was recently working on a number of images and noticed that the color reproduction on my existing 21" Dell monitor, that was purchased over 6 years ago, had started to deteriorate.

After looking through a number of monitors I decided to go for a set of 27" monitors, to keep in line with my dual 21" monitor setup. From the wide array of the available monitors, the non-korean based monitors, I started paying a close attention to the LG IPS277L monitor. The LG IPS227L was on the cheaper side in comparison to some of the competitors - and the main reason apart from the panel looks as though its the better resolution. The LG IPS277L maxes out its resolution at 1920 x 1080.





One of the main things that attracted me to the display was the claim of the "almost" invisible bezel. This may seem like a trivial aspect when you're trying to decide on a monitor, but when you do dual monitor configuration that space in the middle will start to annoy you. On the left is a very attractive image on the LG's website showcasing what seems to be the LG IPS227L - as you can see the monitor is displayed with an extremely thin bezel. This is perfect for a dual monitor setup! But alas this is not the case, while the LG does sport a super thin bezel, there is still a small black strip from where the screen image ends and to the end. If you are thinking of purchasing this monitor, and the size of the edges or the bezel is important to you then you should still consider this mointor since this monitor has one of the smallest edges on the current market for the prize.

There are a couple of things that you should know before purchasing this monitor, and these were some of the complications that I went through.

• The monitor does not support DVI, if you have DVI you need either a DVI to D-SUB converter or a DVI to HDMI converter. LG does not provide these converters, I had decided to go with DVI to HDMI converter since my graphics card had only a DVI output. Plus, it doesn't make sense to go from digital to analog.  
• The monitor contains 2 HDMI (1 MHL) inputs, and also a D-SUB input. LG provides the cabling to connect the computer to the D-SUB port. LG does not provide the HDMI cabling, you will need to purchase this yourself. 
• The monitor supports Headphone output, but it requires sound to travel via the HDMI cabling. However, connecting the HDMI cabling using a converter renders this feature useless. 

After purchasing the additional components I had spent an additional $40 in order to get the monitor  to actually work. Although I do hate it when I purchase something and get bombarded by all sorts of connectors and cabling etc... in this case I was a little annoyed at having to make another trip to the store and purchase more hardware in order to get the monitor to work.

Beyond the technicalities, which you can find at any website - overall I'm extremely happy with the actual monitor. I hope you found this helpful.

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