Steve’s Ramblings

Recently I changed the software the imaging server at work uses from Clonezilla to FOG. There were many reasons for the change such as a better web interface, image deployment queue, etc however one of the main things I was looking forward to was storage nodes which allows for distribution of images across multiple servers to extend storage.

Deploying the FOG server was easy enough, however one of the first things I noticed was that image creation (uploading a new image to the server) was incredibly slow in comparison to image deployment. Image creation would take nearly 2 hours while image deployment would take about 25 minutes. This frustrated me to no end as we were doing this over gigabit and it wasn’t utilizing hardly any of the pipe on image creation. A quick glance at the screen told me why: FOG automatically assumes you want to GZIP the image. This means a smaller image, but a drastically increased image creation time since the system needs to compress the data it is sending.

I searched high and low through the config files for a way to disable GZIP compression, but found nothing. Eventually I figured out how to disable the compression, however doing so was not well documented at all. Enter this post which will hopefully help others solve the same problem I ran into.

Simply follow these steps (type these commands in your Linux terminal, you may need to be root or sudo to run some of these):

cp /tftpboot/fog/images/init.gz /tmp/init.gz
cd /tmp
gunzip init.gz
mkdir tmpMnt
mount -o loop /tmp/init /tmp/tmpMnt

Now using your favorite linux command line editor open the file /tmp/tmpMnt/bin/fog and find and replace all instances of -z1 with -z0. To do that with VIM do the following:

vim /tmp/tmpMnt/bin/fog
:%s/z1/z0/
:wq

Once you have replaced all -z1 with -z0 we need to recompress and replace your old init.gz file:

cd /tmp
umount /tmp/tmpMnt
gzip -9 init
cp /tftpboot/fog/images/init.gz /tftpboot/fog/images/init.gz.old
cp -f init.gz /tftpboot/fog/images/init.gz

Thats it. Now you have disabled compression upon image creation and you should notice a VERY large drop in image creation time! FOG does provide a script that assists in editing the init.gz file, HOWEVER the script requires you to have Nautilus installed (aka GNOME) and how many people really run a GUI on a server? Not many.

Ubuntu 9.10 is out, which means its time to download the ISO’s. Avoid overloading the servers by downloading the torrents instead. Be sure to seed when you are done! Here is the URL that contains the torrent files: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/downloadmirrors#bt

I believe in buying Apple refurbished systems at apple.com because of the hundreds of $ in savings, however my last 2 experiences (and only 2 experiences) have been less than wonderful.

I got a MacBook Air for work in May of 2009, refurbished, and out of box the display was ghosting terribly. I got that fixed after 3 days with a Apple Authorized Service Provider (AASP). Then bluetooth wasn’t working, so I once again needed to bring the Air to the AASP for repairs and was without my system for longer. It is likely that bluetooth didn’t work since day 1, but I hadn’t tried it until this point. Finally after two fixes, the out-of-box issues were resolved, issues that should have never happened in the first place.

Now fast forward to a week ago. I ordered and received a refurbished 17″ MacBook Pro from Apple with a sweet discount from my Apple rep. It seemed fine for 2 days until I installed SMCFanControl and iStat Pro and realized the left fan was stuck at 0 RPM. Crap. Temps were normal but a stuck fan is still no good. I ran Apple Hardware Diagnostics and sure enough it immediately reported an error.

Well wtf. Two refurbished systems, both have out-of-box problems, and I am stuck bringing the laptop in for repairs right after getting it. This is unacceptable and my faith in Apple to deliver on the refurbished front is dwindling. I need a laptop for school and the fact that I need to take it in for days worth of repairs immediately after purchase puts a real snag in my schooling. A little annoyed, I sent an email to Apple (sjobs) outlining the issue I was having and stating that I was only sending this email to “bring to your [Apple] attention the possible flaws in the refurbishment and recertification processes.”

Well 2 hours later I got a call from Ryan at Apple Executive Offices apologizing about the issue. I thought that was above and beyond as I wasn’t even expecting a reply. Then he told me Apple would replace my broken, refurbished system with a upgraded model (2.6GHz to 2.8GHz, 320GB HD to 500GB HD, refurbished to new) free of charge and ship it out next business day.

This was a very pleasant surprise as I wasn’t expecting a reply from Apple and ended up getting a new system because of my troubles. It is bad that Apple has a spotty refurbishment process but they made it right in the end. This is why I buy Apple. Customer Support is top notch.

Apple shipped the system next day air from China, meaning I got it 2 days later (1 day to the US, 1 day to me). Everything worked perfectly, and it came in a real box compared to the refurbished system I had that came in a generic box. It was brand new, and I got basically a $700+ upgrade free of charge. Yeah it was a hassle that the system didn’t work right out of the box, but Apple made good on the problem and in the end I am more than satisfied with how the issue was handled.

Thank you Apple.

I was emptying the Trash on my MacBook Pro this morning and saw something strange. The file count reached 0 when there was still 50% left on the progress bar. Then, the number started going negative. Snow Leopard was deleting negative files on my computer. Lets hope it didn’t add random stuff or delete random files! I’m sure it didn’t, but still. Negative file deletion? Thats new.

The Good

I purchased my 40GB Apple TV a about a year ago and thought it was a nice looking, functional device. It allowed me to play the movies and TV shows I ‘obtained’ online on my TV with what I considered at the time to be a mostly painless process. The device itself looks great. It is small, quiet, and actually looks like it belongs in your living room unlike those homebrew PC’s people usually hook up to their TV. It connects to your TV via HDMI or component cables, and has built in wireless and 10/100 ethernet for transferring/streaming content. The OS running on it is polished, intuitive, and does the job well.

The Apple TV has some great out-of-the-box features going for it. You can download podcasts directly from the Apple TV or stream the podcasts you have on your computer. You can also sync or stream your music and put your pictures on it for a screensaver or slide show. You can sync or stream any content in your iTunes library on this device provided it is in the correct format. Also, you can download TV shows and rent/download movies in standard quality or in HD for a fee. This allows you to either download and keep the content forever from the comfort of your couch for around $15, or just rent the content for about $2-4. The content you rent is automatically removed from your device after 24 hours. I rented and watched the movie “Sex Drive” in HD when some friends were over, the quality was great. We didn’t want to go out and get a movie, so this was a perfect, convenient solution (however I had to foot the bill as it charges your iTunes account). It is a joy to use if this stuff is what you want to do.

The Bad

However it isn’t all bunnies and rainbows. First of all this device only plays MPEG4 video, meaning if you want to play the XviD/DivX video you ‘obtained’ online, it needs to be converted first using a program like Roxio Toast, handbrake, or one of the other handful of solutions to convert the video to Apple TV format. This is fine, but it is very VERY time consuming depending on the speed of your system. Using my 2.4GHz Core2Duo MacBook Pro I still thought it took forever to convert content. I guess I understand why the device cannot play DivX/XviD movies, after all most legitimately obtained content does not use those codec’s, and Apple is also trying to get you to use their Store. But still, come on Apple.

The Solution

So what does any technical person do when Apple releases a product that limits a desired behavior they want? They hack it (I’m looking at you iPod Touch/iPhone), why should the Apple TV be any different? Apple was kind enough to place a USB port on the back of this thing which makes modifying the software VERY easy. I will not explain how to do this due to legality reasons, but feel free to google it (*cough*click here*cough*). But basically what you do is download the program on your computer then put in a USB thumb drive and it will create a bootable drive that you stick in the Apple TV which will automatically modify it and add a bunch of cool features.

What kind of features does this add you may ask? Well it allows you to install a web browser for example (which I found quite pointless really, but thats just me), video codecs to allow the playing of nearly all video formats, SFTP access, SSH access, the ability to mount network shares and play the content, and much more. When it works, it works well. I was able to bang through all 6 seasons of The Sopranos in no time flat thanks to my ability to stream them in their current DivX format directly from my Mac mini. This is what the Apple TV should be able to do out of the box, it is overly tied to iTunes and MPEG4 content. Ugh.

However like any 3rd party hack solution, this one is not without its faults. Apple TV software updates break functionality and require you to rehack the device each time. Thats understandable and the dev’s thought of this by implementing a block that prevents system updates (optional). Second, its buggy. Like really buggy. For example mounting network shares is a tedious hit-or-miss task. Sometimes it works, other times it falls flat on its face with errors. When it works, its great. When it fails, it fails hard. But again, that is to be expected by anything 3rd party.

To avoid dealing with mounting network shares you can transfer content directly to the Apple TV hard drive via SFTP but that is SLOOOOWWW. You need to wait for the entire movie to transfer before watching it, and who wants to do that?

The PlayStation 3

Enter the PlayStation 3. We all know its a gaming device, but it also makes a great media extender. The PS3 can natively do things that the Apple TV should be able to do out of the box. What, you ask? Play nearly all kinds of media files without the need to convert the content first. It’s that simple. The PS3 can play my DivX video without needing me to run it through handbrake, Roxio, etc. It just plays it. It just works. Wait, isn’t that the slogan Apple uses? The Apple TV doesn’t just work. It tries, but it falls short for anyone but strict iTunes customers.

Oh and whats with the remote? Its awful. The PS3 blu-ray remote blows the Apple remote and the Remote iPhone app out of the water. Apple, offer us a $20 remote that doesn’t completely suck. Please?

The XBox 360 is also capable of the things the PS3 can handle but since the 360 sounds like a jet (very loud fans), its not as well suited for the family living room.

The Potential

The Apple TV has potential. Its smaller than the 360 and PS3, its silent (no fans), it looks good so your significant other won’t complain that you have another technology item in the living room, and its decently priced. But even with all of these things going for it, devices like the PS3 and 360, which are gaming machines first and media extenders second manage to blow the Apple TV out of the water at its own game: playing media. Because the Apple TV is so picky about what it is willing to play all of the joy is sucked out of using the device. I would rather fire up my PS3 and watch a few episodes of The Sopranos, or Seinfeld instead of having to convert the media to a different format or fiddle with mounting network shares using the clunky Apple remote.

If the Apple TV could simply handle more video codec’s, I would be willing to recommend it to everyone I know. In its current state, I just cannot do that. The device is far to much of a hassle for anyone besides a strict iTunes only customer, and is simply too restrictive.

The Verdict

Enough said.

Some background info

Shortly after getting my iPhone 3GS, I was able to get my hands on a HTC G1 Android phone. I wasn’t about to pass this up for the price it was offered to me at. My original plan was to switch my SIM card between the two devices every few days so I can play around with both my iPhone 3GS and my G1, however AT&T put a major damper on that when I discovered placing the SIM in the G1 did not convert the data plan from the iPhone to the G1. What does this mean? I need to call AT&T each time I switch phones and have them switch the plans (since you can’t do it online either). This also makes the bill look strange. Due to this I decided one thing: I would keep using the G1 until I got tired of it, and man did that time come quickly.

What I was looking forward to before I got the phone
When I first started my foray into the world of Google Android I was very excited. There were quite a few things about Android that I looked forward to:

• Backgrounding of applications
• Notification bar for new text messages, email, and applications
• Dedicated home screen with widgets
• Physical keyboard

Because Android had all of these features that my current phone (the iPhone 3GS) didn’t offer, I was fully prepared to switch to the G1 full time. But in the end, I just couldn’t stick with the phone. Why couldn’t I stick with the G1 despite it offering all of these intriguing, desired features? I will touch on each feature as well as its downfall.

Backgrounding
The idea of being able to stay online while using other applications seemed perfect to me. The thought of being able to bring up the browser to look something up then return to a game I was playing, or an application I was using seemed perfect. Think about it, we all do this every single day on our desktop and laptop computers. There is almost a 100% chance you are using multiple applications right now, so why wouldn’t you want that on your phone?

Backgrounding on the G1 works as intended. You can seamlessly switch between applications. Want to send someone a text in the middle of a game? Go do it. Want to return to that game you were playing? Hold the home button down, toggle to the game, and boom – back in business.

Start by playing a game:

Then go send a text message:

Then go back to your game:

Easy as pie. When your game resumes, it will be exactly where you left it. Unlike the iPhone which takes you back to the applications main menu, Android backgrounds the app like a minimized program on your computer instead of closing it like the iPhone does. Slick.

But backgrounding comes with a price: system resources and battery life. As applications start to accumulate in the background, Android slows to an absolute crawl. How do you close these programs to free up resources? You need a 3rd party task manager. Ugh. I found myself rebooting the phone a few times a day just to speed things back up.

Then we have battery life. The battery on my G1, under moderate use lasted me about 13 hours before I needed to charge it. So when I leave for work at 7AM, by 8PM I would need to charge it again or it wouldn’t last me through the rest of the evening (8PM-1AM). Thats the absolute definition of poor battery life. And this is with location services (GPS), and wifi turned off. Also, since the G1 doesn’t work with AT&T 3G, I also had 3G turned off. There is absolutely no excuse for that horrible battery life.

Apple: thank you for not letting us background. The G1 is a backgrounding nightmare after you run a few apps.

Notification Bar
The notification bar is another strong part of Android. Pictured below is the desktop of my Android device, with some notification icons in the top left:

The notification bar alerts you when you get a new text message, email, when your apps have updates available, and more. Various applications can also take advantage of this notification area. For example a twitter app can alert you when you have new unread tweets. A chat program can alert you when you get a new message. It is very, very versatile and powerful. And to get more information about a notification, or to clear active notifications you just put a finger on the notification bar and drag it down.

The only problem with this bar is that too many apps feel like they deserve a place in this bar. It becomes overly crowded very quickly. Besides that, it is slick and very well implemented. Kudos Google.

Home Screen
As you can see a few pictures above, the Android desktop is not a home for all of your application icons like the iPhone is. With Android, you slide up the application menu, and can put select applications on the desktop. Also, you can put widgets on the desktop like the analog clock, google search box, battery status, SMS preview, weather, sports scores, news updates, and more.

In this respect, the Android home screen is very, very flexible. This is something I would love the iPhone to have. I really don’t like how when you unlock the iPhone icons are thrown at you. Android offers a nice change of pace, you can have select icons readily available, as well as widgets to quickly show you information.

The home screen implementation is great. The only problem is the email and SMS applications don’t have badges. So you need to rely on the notification bar to see if you have new emails or messages, and you won’t have a quick glance count of unread messages and texts.

Apple: I want this on the iPhone!

Physical Keyboard
The G1 has a great physical keyboard. Really, its great. While I like the iPhone on screen keyboard, the G1 physical keyboard is very easy to type on, and offers that physical feedback the on screen keyboards cannot offer. Android 1.5 also offers an on screen keyboard but its horrible (read: absolutely horrible). I do like the physicalness of it all, but having to slide the keyboard out to hammer out a quick text is a bit of a pain. Oh well, what device has a good on screen AND physical keyboard?

Conclusion?
None. This was a review of some of my favorite features (being an iPhone user) but it was not supposed to be an iPhone vs. G1 post. Worry not, I will eventually do a VS post and pit the iPhone against the G1 in the ultimate showdown of the jesus phones.

For now, take away this: the G1 is a capable device with Android, but the device and the OS both need some fixing before it becomes a permanent part of my daily supplies.

This script, as well as similar scripts can be found on the interwebs but I tend to keep losing the pages that have it. So for my own archival reasons, as well as making it a little easier for others to find, here it is.

This script uses winrar to recursively extract rar archives. This is very useful if you download seasons of shows and don’t want to extract each episode one by one.

Step 1: Open up the Windows Command Prompt (Start -> Run -> cmd) or (Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Command Prompt)

Step 2: Change to the directory containing the folders for the episodes you want to extract. For example:
cd "\Users\Steve\Downloads\My Favorite Show - Seasons 1-6\My Show - Season 1"

Step 3: Type in the following command to extract all of the episodes:
for /R %i IN (.) do "c:\Program Files\WinRAR\Rar.exe" x "%i/*.rar"

It’s that simple.

I recorded a two nearly identical videos using my 3G S and my jailbroken 3G. I did this to provide a sample of video quality across the two devices.

Here is the cycorder video (link to my me.com gallery)

Here is the 3G S video (link to my me.com gallery)

Some immediate differences are video size. The 3G Cycorder videos are 384 x 288 pixels while the 3G S videos are 640 x 480. The file sizes are roughly identical, with only a 2MB difference between the two. The bit rate is slightly higher on the 3G S video as well.

3G S still from video:

3G still from video:

Overall the quality on both videos is pretty good. I wasn’t really wowed by ether one but cycorder has improved quite a bit and holds its own for those not wanting to buy the 3G S.

Thank god I am a Mac user. Why? Read.

So I was given a computer to fix by a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a zoo keeper’s personal bee keeper’s gardener, or something like that. Anyway, the reasons cited for needing repair included running slow, and possibly a virus had worked its way into the users well-secured system.

So I got the system, fired it up, and instantly noticed there was no AV software running. Secure? Ha. Heck, there was no anti-spyware software either, a defrag had never been done and updates hadn’t been installed since Service Pack 3. It was still using IE6, and when I fired IE 6 up, I was in for a surprise.

Feel free to take a peek at the larger image. Their IE was a toolbar heaven. It almost seems like the user just googled the word Toolbar and click every hit that came up. I mean come on, how am I supposed to work with someone like this? To top it off, they said they LIKED the toolbars. What did I do? I gave them the system back and said “I usually just fix Mac’s, try the Geek Squad.” Seriously, I cannot bother trying to ‘fix’ a system that has never had AV software on it, doesn’t have updates installed, and has more tools than the Digg offices… er… toolbars.

It is situations like this that make me thank myself more and more for switching to Mac. So many PC users are just dumb like this. Mac has ‘them’ too, but far less.

Funny video of my favorite actor doing standup comedy in 1996.
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