New Logitech Squeezebox Platform – Only 15W !!! when running

Well as some of you may know I’ve not been happy with my current Logitech server install. Mainly the power consumption of approx. 35W when listening and my wish to shutdown with the resultant wait for rebooting. After much deliberation I’ve chosen to install Squeezebox under Ubuntu on a second hand Asus eee 900. I’m indebted to TimT’s article for the inspiration and hard work necessary to guide me through this: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=91747

I’ve chosen one of the Atom 1.6GHz examples. Not unlike a Psion 5MX as they have a solid state disk.  I’ve added an external 1 Terabyte hard drive for my music.  There are also 900MHz and 600Mhz variants in the wild. But I’ve measured one of the 600Mhz machines and it idles at 25W so no good at all for this purpose. When not playing the drive spins down, total mains consumption is approx. 10W.  I’ve turned off the display and the wifi to get the computer idle down to around 10/11W

I had a few problems wiping the machine and installing Ubuntu 10.10 (certified for use on the Asus 900A) .  (Thanks also  to NickP for pointers of various types.) I used the following program with an HP usb memory stick to boot and replace the original Asus distro. Also be

http://www.linuxliveusb.com/en/download

Be aware if you choose to use an NFTS disk that 10.10 has a bug and out of the box the NTFS config tool doesn’t work.

Fix here: http://www.ubunturoot.com/2010/11/fix-ntfs-configuration-tool-in-ubuntu.html

Good luck if you choose to go this route.

 

Logitech Touch new server Version 7.7.0/Vortexbox 2.0 experiences

Logitech have just released a new server version. Once again my Logitech Touch unit oscillates each time I power it on , downloading the new version then subsequently an earlier version.  This process goes on until one updates the music server to the same level. Evidently this auto update option can be disabled from the server settings menu. But there’s a risk that critical updates would be missed. Annoying at one level although the intention of course is to bring better operation to the users.

My thanks to the folks at Vortexbox for helping me with the upgrade process. Currently there are two routes to upgrading. A manual upgrade via a number of command line instructions. (This upgrade will probably be added to the update GUI by the time your read this) . Or a full Vortexbox V2.0 iso download and fresh install. The latter installs all the latest software in one go including the new Fedora release 16. Take care as the old bios on my Atom PC didn’t work with the new bootloader.  Flashing the bios fixed this issue. A  manual tweak to complete the networking function is also required. See the Vortexbox forum for more information. http://vortexbox.org/forum/ Of course a fresh install means you have to rewrite the music, for me a 6hour operation via my network PC’s.

 

Canon Lide500 Scanner – solution for scanning 110 fillm ?

Prompted by a conversation with a colleague , I set out to scan some old 110 film holiday photos. Simple I thought, just drop the strip into one of the 35 mm film positions. To my amazement it didn’t work. Something to the effect of ‘unrecognizable’ format. So I phoned Canon support and was told: ‘you can’t scan 110 film on the Lid500′. Somewhat frustrated I spent a few minutes thinking, what’s actually stopping this from working I wondered?   I got myself an old unexposed 35mm frame and cut a hole large enough to drop in a 110 frame. It works! So my conclusion the software is looking either for a full frame or maybe the 35mm sprocket holes. Does anybody know? Please refer to the image below:

Unfortunately for me my old negatives are ratter poor. I think a combination of age (25+years), the 110 system itself, the little Pentax 110 I used to take them. Sadly my pictures are too poor to use. But it might just work for you, good luck.

 

Fuji Finepix F70EXR – Budget pocket zoom

I’ve been researching a pocket zoom camera for some months. As part of the exercise I’ve checked out some of the latest compact zooms. A combination of reading reviews and trying the odd model in the local stores. So not perfect robust but you can get some idea.  In practice I wasn’t very impressed with my findings.  The best I tried would be the Canon SX220HS. But not sure today for my budget it makes the grade. It’s a bit large but passes  my ‘shirt pocket’ test i.e. it fits. So with further reading and some decent help from Fuji UK , I’ve acquired a refurbished Fuji F70EXR. A fantastic small camera with 10x zoom. It’s a bit old now (2009) but you’ll find brilliant reviews on the web. (e.g. http://www.steves-digicams.com/camera-reviews/fujifilm/finepix-f70exr/fuji-finepix-f70exr-review.html ) For best results I recommend you check out http://kimletkeman.blogspot.com/2009/10/fuji-f70exr-how-to-shoot-it-mkii.html .  Here you will find optimal settings for the F70EXR. On the downside the video is poor by modern standards. But if you on a tight budget (I am) and you want a compact zoom, you could do a lot worse.

The gist of Kim Letkeman’s recommended settings is to use the camera at half the sensor’s resolution. This can make substantial improvement to the quality of the images, specifically with Fuji EXR sensor construction. I’ve taken some nice shots at full image size but only by keeping the iso at 100. To go beyond that , set up as per the above link. You’ll find this camera secondhand on ebay or from suppliers on Amazon. Unfortunately it’s no longer manufactured and hence no longer  available as a refurbished model unless an odd example comes into the company.

 

HTC Desire – Thoughts and Comment

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve been using this nearly six months now. So time to gather some of my thoughts. In practice this is still used mostly as a phone with occasional use of other features. These comments relate to my personal experience with the phone. In practice I’ve found using the keyboard rather tricky , a combination of ‘fat’ fingers and getting use to the interface. At a level I miss the real keyboard on my E71. Internet browsing is fantastic , the large screen and fast rendering. But very much dependent on having a strong signal. Not always available in and around London as far as my experience goes. (T-Mobile). I’ve used the Google satellite navigation a couple of times , but found the audio quality from the built in speaker terrible! I’ve checked with another sample in a shop, this appeared to be as poor! Again come back Nokia  Battery life as most readers will know by now requires careful management. A perfect phone ? Well at a level disappointing for me. There are some great features, the ability to download Android apps , is pretty amazing and of course the large screen.  But in some ways  the hardware in my eyes lags behind the Nokia experience.  Would I go back to Nokia ? Well I guess the N8/E7 would have been my choice had the O/S matched the Android offering.

Another small frustration is the lack of a decent , ideally free contact sync program for Outlook. Google have a free calender sync application (http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=89955) but no support for contact syncing other than a rather crude import/export mechanism.

In conclusion, I’d give it 8/10 it’s not a bad phone but just doesn’t tick all the boxes for me.

 

Free audio test tracks

http://www.nuforce.com/hp/media/Nuforce%20Demo1/index.php

Choice of .wav, .flac….

downloading mine now

 

Logitech Touch – Internet Radio Listening

Well this seems almost too stupid to admit. But here goes… you don’t need an external squeezebox server running in order to listen to Internet Radio! The Touch has a built in server that’s used should you wish to connect your music collection via say an external hard disk. I’ve got so conditioned to running my Linux/Squeezebox server I hadn’t realised you could use the built in version for radio listening alone. So in my case no need to wake my Atom system up. Great news as far as I’m concerned , but not obvious ? What do you think?  You can directly connect to mysqueezebox.com through your Touch from Settings>Advanced>Networking>Switch to mysqueezebox.com

 

Logitech Touch / Squeezebox – Part 1

I never thought I’d go this route , but with Terabyte disk drives below the £40 mark it’s now possible to host a reasonable CD collection on a single computer. It’s then possible to access this from multiple locations within the home. The Logitech Touch units are provide only line level outputs, both analogue and digital. It’s possible to connect a local USB drive, but that doesn’t enable shared networking.  There are alternate versions with built in amplifiers and speakers. As regards backup I’ve installed a second external Terabyte drive on PC used for ripping , so need for fancy RAID solutions at this point.

This has been a fairly big project. I’ve ripped 800+ CD’s to FLAC. Built a dedicated Atom CPU based server, installed two Logitech Duets…. all in the space of a month! Still it’s been worth it. A big thanks first to my cousin Jon for lots of advice and guidance. For those not familiar , I’ve now archived all of my CD’s using the Free Lossless Audio Codec. Used EAC software for the ripping. Assisted by Foobar and it’s download album artwork add on. I’m not 100% complete hence the ‘Part 1′. Great help from Logitech, using Vortexbox software for running the Squeezebox Server. I’ve got some issues though. Not yet able to put the server to sleep and save a bit of power. The Atom motherboard / system idles at about 35W. A bit higher than I might wish to leave running when not listening. So currently looking into this.

More to follow…

 

Indexing my CD collection – Barcodes to the rescue – well almost!

Two tasks are currently in hand, one is ripping my CD collection to FLAC. The other is creating a list/database of my physical collection.   In practice I’ve cataloged more than I’ve managed to rip. I thought I’d be clever and use the bar codes present on the sleeve notes. I started playing with the built in bar code reader on my Nokia E71 but with little success. I then moved to http://www.i-nigma.com/i-nigmahp.html, much better but then how to get the CD info quickly on to my PC? I consequently gave up and bought a budget barcode reader with USB  interface. About £20 on ebay. Then the flaw in the plan. In recent years I’ve bout approx. 50%  used CD’s from the likes of Amazon. A large number seem to have a hole punched in the bar code, thus defeating the benefit of having a scanner. Still it’s helped on the new ones, and many of the second hand. I’ve found the quickest way to look up the data is simply to ‘Google’ the returned code. I’ve added  a ‘copy link as text’ add on to Firefox to enable fast copy and paste of the title details often listed as a hyperlink. Now back to the task in hand.

 

Samsung ML-1910 – Chips with everything!

Recently bought this fine small mono laser printer.  Its just started to warn me that the toner is low. Be aware that this type of product comes only with a starter cartridge i.e. not full of toner. Hence the apparently attractive prices on the likes of Ebuyer and Amazon. Still it does a nice job. Mindful of the cost of a  genuine replacement cartridge I’ve gone to my trusted toner refill supplier ‘U Refill Toner Ltd’ http://www.refilltoner.com/ . One of the most helpful companies I’ve dealt with. What I’ve now realised is that these new models ‘chip’ the cartridge just like they tend to do on the ink jet machines. Still the refill kits supply a new chip , but obviously this whole process is more expensive as a result. Haven’t changed mine yet, simply added some more toner. U Refill…. conveniently supply a small electric hot melt device to cut a small hole. Great fun , but take care not to get too dirty.