New Software Updates + VMware Tools Update fix

The Valca household has survived last week’s torrential rain event. Unfortunately both our vehicles took a hit.

No…no cars were flooded due to poor driving decisions…they stayed high-and-dry…but they did suffer some incidental damage.

My beloved Saturn Ion apparently had material in the catalytic converter come loose and cause a blockage in the exhaust system.  That led to a significant power-loss -- I was only able to nurse it up to 55-60 MPH on the freeway. That’s a life-threatening highway speed here in Texas. I found a new local repair shop that was able to diagnose it (and +1 point for my dad who also guessed that would be the issue). So it awaits a new cat-converter install…and for good measure I’m having the front struts replaced as well as they are OEM and the front suspension is all clunky over road bumps and RR tracks. With almost 200,000 miles on it, I guess it is time.

Meanwhile, I got in Lavie’s car yesterday to borrow it while mine is in the shop. She doesn’t drive it much. It is a 2001 Nissan Altima with barely 43,000 miles on it. All was well until I went to unplug and toss her cell-phone charger on the passenger side foot-well floorboard…and found it full with 1.5” of standing water. Gasp!  Luckily I hadn’t put the car in reverse yet to slosh it out. Bother.  After some extensive wet/dry vac work it was only damp and between a few sunny dry days and some well placed Damp Rid containers I think we will be good. The windshield has some cracks in it that might cause it to not pass this month’s due vehicle safety inspection so the decision was made to schedule a windscreen replacement…which will result in all new weather seals.  The rest of the car was bone-dry so I really don’t think it was a seal that failed. My guess is the torrential rains (appx 3.5 inches in 24 hours) cascading down the windshield may have poured into the fresh-air intake vent under the hood which ran down into the passenger side foot well.  Not sure why it was just that side and not the driver’s as well. Thoughts?

So with one car finishing the air-out process and the other in the shop, it has been a bit stressful. Fortunately family and friends and Boss have been supportive and encouraging…and our older but beloved (and paid for) vehicles will continue to drive on a while longer.

Anyway…enough boring personal stuff…here is small collection of updated software you might want to check out as well as a fix for an aggravating VMware Player problem I ran into this morning after updating the main VMware Player application.

VMware Player Plus - Now updated to version 6.0.1. Note that VMware Player Plus is the $ version for commercial license usage. The free for personal use VMware Player is still around, but you just have to confirm that option during the setup. I prefer to use this VM software platform for my Windows guest clients and VirtualBox for my Linux-based ones.

• Download VMware Player 6.0
• VMware Player 6.0.1 Release Notes

One curious thing about this most recent version that I hadn’t encountered until now.

I had just upgraded to this latest VMware Player (host) software on Windows 7 and then launched an XP client so I could update the VMware Tools as well.

Strangely the Windows XP guest I started up reported it was stuck downloading the tools. On boot up of the VM guest, it offered me the upgrade tools option at the bottom of the window, and when I selected that action button, it popped a dialog window that said "VMware Tools installation cannot be started until the current download finishes." If I go to the VMware host’s menu, it says "Downloading VMware Tools" where it should say Upgrade/Reinstall VMware Tools.

I took matters into my own hands and was able to map the virtual CD ROM in my virtual XP client to the VMWare Tools ISO file for Windows at "C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player\windows.iso" figuring that it was the latest version and came down for the ride when I updated the host client software.

Once "mounted" it auto-started the VMWare Tools setup wizard in the XP guest session which I ran though and installed with no issues. A reboot and it was current in the XP VM.

However....on reboot VMware Player host software still was reporting the upgrade tools option at the bottom of the window, and when I selected that again, it said "VMware Tools installation cannot be started until the current download finishes."

Here's how I cleared it in VMWare Player (based on this forum thread I found and solution offered by John Swanagon).

• Launch VMware Player.
• Click "Player"
• Click "File"
• Click “Player Preferences”.
• Under "Software updates” section.
• Click “Connection Settings”.
• In the “Connection Settings” window, change the proxy from “No proxy” to “Windows proxy settings”.
• Click OK.
• Click OK.
• Open Internet Explorer. (note these IE steps may vary based on your IE version)
• Click "Tools" then select “Internet Options”.
• Click the “Connections” tab.
• Click the “LAN settings” button.
• Confirm/Select the “Automatically detect settings” option.
• Click “OK”.
• Click “OK”.
• Close Internet Explorer.
• Exit VMware Player.
• Run VMware Player as an Administrator.
• Click "Player"
• Click "File"
• Click “Player Preferences”.
• Under "Software updates” section.
• Click “Edit” -> “Preferences”.
• Click “Download All Components Now”.

Additional components for other guest OS systems downloaded and when done, and VMware player re-launched, the message at the bottom of the screen finally was cleared!

Updates: PsExec v2.0, RAMMap v1.3, Sigcheck v2.0  - Sysinternals Site Discussion Blog

Updates: RAMMap v1.32, Sigcheck v2.01 - Sysinternals Site Discussion Blog

New Utility - QuickHash - Foolish IT LLC

OSFMount - updated 10-22-13 - version 1.5.1014.

• Fixed issue with detecting partitions for ImageUSB images
• Windows dynamic disks are now supported
• Fixed issue with mounting via OSFMount command line with "-o rw" option
• Fixed issue with mounting multiple partitions in an image file as writable due to file sharing permissions
• Fixed issue with mounting multiple partitions in an image file from command line
• Drive letters 'A' and 'B' can now be used
• Propagated changes from Imdisk v1.7.5 including some key fixes:
  • Disks with "lost" drive letters can now be removed
  • Notifications hanging on drive creation and removal

I personally prefer to use Olof Lagerkvist’s ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver, also recently updated on 10-25-13 to build version 1.7.6.

Why do I mention that? well the OSFMount utility is based on Olof’s ImDisk software. That’s all.

mozdev.org - newsfox: installation - My favorite Firefox RSS reader is updated to 1.0.8.4.4.  Release notes

Speaking of Mozilla, Firefox was updated to version 25.0 and Thunderbird was updated to 24.1.0

Also, I’ve gone to a 3-monitor setup at home with my laptop. My desk is quite full!

I’m running my primary display from the attached Dell Studio 15 HD laptop display. It is super-sharp and has great resolution.

My secondary display is one of a pair of older Samsung SyncMaster 930B-A displays I got a long time ago as a gift from my brother. Maximum resolution is just 1280x1024 so it looks a bit under-scaled with the other displays but it seems to work great for text which is fine when I am pounding out blog posts. No OEM Win7 x64 bit hardware drivers exist for it either so it’s running the standard Microsoft PnP display driver just fine. The 4:3 ratio (the others are wide-screen format) also makes composing text documents more comfortable.

Since (like most Dell laptops) the laptop can only drive a maximum of two display outputs natively, I’m running this display with a StarTech USB 3.0 to DVI Adapter. I didn’t have any issues getting the drivers installed and the system up and running. It’s a must-have hardware accessory if you are running multiple monitors with a laptop and can’t toss in another hardware card internally.

My third display is a HP Pavilion 22bw 21.5-inch Diagonal IPS LED Backlit Monitor(C4D29AA) that I picked up some time ago on sale at a big-box outlet. Not a lot to say. It is HD and I am running it off the HDMI port on my laptop. Overall it is decent, but I am disappointed in the text-clarity of the display. Watching a video on it is fine, but for extended text-composition on it, it just isn’t as clear as I would prefer.

In good news, under Windows 7 (at least) you can set the ClearType text on a per-monitor basis!

That has helped a bit but the text still doesn’t compare with my primary laptop display.

Cheers!

Claus Valca.

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Drives…

I’ve still not had the time to build a little home NAS server yet.

It’s on my “to do” list but time is a rare commodity around the Valca home of late.

I’d also like to find a solution that uses full-disk encryption on the data stores…but while I’ve done some limited research on that option, I’ve not yet found a solution in either a standalone hardware rig or a home-built system running a *Nix NAS solution that really gets me excited yet about spending the cash or doing the work converting my old SFF shoebox pc into a NAS unit.

However, I’m still keeping one eye open and collect and carefully read home NAS solutions and reviews.

The Hacker Factor Blog has a great recent article posted on the Synology DiskStation.

This is secondly important as my 500 GB laptop HDD is more full than I would like. The jump to a Canon EOS 5D Mark II DLSR coupled with my Canon PowerShot S95 means a lot more very, very large file-sized digital images are hanging around. Coupled with the great video quality on my iPhone5, I’m keeping more digital movies in my iTunes library as well.

So I’m having to manage storage space on my laptop a lot more carefully.

Prices on 1TB internal SATA HDD’s on NewEgg are very decent so I will probably have to pull the trigger on one of them pretty soon. I could likely get by with a 750 GB sized drive but the price difference really doesn’t justify going with the lower capacity. The 5400 RPM speed models are a steal while the 7200 RPM modes are almost double the cost.  I’d love to drop in a full SSD drive but the cost is still prohibitive for the capacity I need. As super-awesome it would be to use a SSD for performance, I just can go with a lower-or-same capacity in my laptop.

But according to Ars, there is some hope on the horizon…

Waiting for a 1TB SSD below $1 per GB? Crucial says wait no more - Ars Technica

I also considered a hybrid SSD, but while they are tempting, I’m still not convinced it I a good solution.  Born’s IT and WIndows Blog has a (GTranslated) article about some of the trials and tribulations that come with hybrid HDD technology: Angetestet Seagate SSHD hybrid hard drive.

Finally, TinyApps blog must be reading the musings of my mind and had posted a caveat emptor regarding SSD drives and security. Securely wiping an SSD. Lots of great cross-links (as usual) in the tiny post and unless you get a really modern and correctly configured device, physical destruction of the SSD device may still be the only truly secure solution…and it will hurt badly if you consider the prices you pay for these things.

Cheers.

Claus Valca

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It just has to be bigger on the inside…

 

Last Christmas, Lavie gifted me with a cute little Jawbone JAMBOX unit.

I thought it was pretty cool. It uses a Bluetooth connection to join from your supported device and provides significantly better sound quality than most “on-board” device speakers do.

But then I use and enjoy the latest Apple ear Pods that came with my iPhone 5 so I was skeptical on just how much use I would get out of.

Turns out Lavie knows me better that I do as the answer to that turns out to be “a lot.”

My use of it started out simple.  I synced it with my iPhone 5 and left it on my bed stand. At night going to bed I would play it with my Naturespace app playing on a timer to fall asleep to relaxing sound loops. The sound quality was so full and rich it provided a great immersive experience. Some of my favorite rainstorm and wind-blowing-in-the-tree loops sounded like I was right there. Since I wasn’t wearing ear pods, I could fall asleep without care.  So with the Wave Alarm to get me up in the morning and Naturespace to lull me to sleep, the bedside digital clock I’ve had for years got removed and went into the garage-sale box.

About a month later, I was finally able to get Lavie interested in watching a DCI Banks series I had enjoyed on PBS. Only it has long-past run. Fortunately I found it still available on a PBS streaming channel and we watched it on the laptop…but the sound quality from the laptop speakers wasn’t quite as nice as desired. So I synced the little Jambox up to the laptop’s Bluetooth and the sound was totally super.

Lately I’ve been now hauling it to work with me each day. Sure, I could connect my iPhone to some spare pc speakers with the mini-plug but the sound from them just doesn’t compare to that coming from the little box. It really fills my cubicle space up with the Naturespace sound loops or tunes from the iPhone library, but because it is so rich, I don’t have to crank it up loud at all and worry about disturbing my fellow cubicle mates or even turning it down/off when incoming phone calls roll in.

The only drawback was the loud “syncing” speaking dialog and sounds when it would establish the Bluetooth device connection.  That was really annoying.

While poking around on the JAWBONE site looking for a new headset a few weeks ago, I took a chance look at the Jambox page and found their MyTALK page. Turns out, you can register for free and then download upgrade software packages to your device that really expand the feature sets. First I upgraded (over USB wire) the firmware for my Jambox. Then I was able to customize a bunch of settings, such as disable the paring vocalizations (this is called Silent Mode) that were irritating me. You can also load different voices if you like the vocalization but just not the voice itself. There are a variety of female and male voices with different accents to pick from. There are also some “apps” that expand features such as using it as a speakerphone to name just a few.

Maybe if I read the manual that came with it I would have figured this out sooner, but if not, and if you do have a Jambox unit, I really encourage you to check out the MyTALK features and easily expand the capabilities of the device.  That’s really the point of this post, to tip off other users of a Jambox who might not have uncovered this ability to update and customize the internals of their device.

It isn’t the only Bluetooth portable speaker device on the market, but it has awesome sound and is very high-quality and solid. And there is just so much high-quality sound pack into that little bitty box, you would swear it must be using Time Lord technology…

Cheers!

Claus V.

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God Made a SysAdmin…and a linkfest to feed them

One of the best 2013 ads I saw so far this year was this one during a small little scratch football game.

It worked for me on several levels.

However, soon a "parody” of sorts soon followed. First the words were developed by Chester Gifford and -- inspired - Matt Simmons of the great Standalone Sysadmin blog tossed together some images, and finally Drew Stemen contributed the voice-over.  The whole story is here; God Made a SysAdmin | Standalone Sysadmin

Full text at website God Made a Sysadmin

Brilliant!  I want to personally thank all those who appeared in the piece as well as the creative work and toil from Chester, Matt, and Drew. Who knows how much extra un-recorded time went into this project’s success? Well, a sysadmin would, naturally!

More Tips & Rumors

• Reset Your Forgotten Windows Login Password The Easy Way - Addictive Tips
• How to reset a Windows 8 password - 4sysops
• How to reset a Microsoft account password (connected account) - 4sysops
• Offline enable the Windows 8 built-in administrator account - 4sysops
• Triple Your Speed: How to Install an mSATA SSD Boot Drive in Your Laptop = LaptopMag blog
• Seagate is done making 7200rpm 2.5-inch pure hard disk drives - Ars Technica

Networking News

• Chrome's Developer Tools for HTML Analysis - LoveMyTool blog by Tony Fortunato
• Network Capture is Dead! - MessageAnalyzer - This post highlights how MessageAnalyzer (the next generation Microsoft capture tool evolving from Network Monitor) doesn’t just focus captures on network “traffic” but also can monitor and analyze Event Tracing for Windows data as well. Pretty cool.
• Sniffing Traffic on the Wire with a Hardware Tap - Open Security Research blog
• Wireshark Security Updates -ISC Diary post
• Wireshark · Download - Versions 1.8.6 stable, 1.6.14 (old stable), and 1.9.1 (Dev release)

Toys and Wonders

• Kali Linux - New Sec/PenTest distro built on the back of BackTrack Linux and developed specifically for enterprise environments supporting penetration testing and security auditing. According to the distro documentation, it has over 300 tools baked in, will be free, sports many wireless devices, and has ARMEL/ARMHF support for “non-standard” hardware platforms such as Raspberry Pi, a VMWare Image, and the Samsung Chromebook. Pretty snazzy!
• Kali Linux - Downloads
• Kali Linux - Documentation
• Kali Linux arrives as enterprise-ready version of BackTrack - The H Security: News and Features
• Kali Linux Cracks Passwords and Finds Security Exploits on the Enterprise Level - Life Hacker
• Piriform pushes out minor update for CCleaner, version 4 coming soon -  BetaNews
• CCleaner v3.28 - Piriform News
• Easily Download & Launch Sysinternals & Nirsoft Utilities With WSCC - Addictive Tips. Previously mentioned back in this Windows System Control Center (WSCC): Awesome Cool! GSD post.
• VirtualBox update fixes problems, makes the virtualization tool more stable - BetaNews - Yeah, go get your update… Downloads - Oracle VM Virtualbox
• Changelog – Version 4.2.10 - Oracle VM VirtualBox
• Upgrading Linux Guests - The Fat Bloke Sings blog
• Alternative Flash Player Auto-Updater - pXc-coding - now at version 1.1.0.2 - Works on XP,Vista. Win 7, Win 8, can work without user interaction (handy); of course Flash does have the option imbedded to auto-update. As I understand it, Flash auto-checks every seven days while this app can check for Flash updates at every reboot (or every two hours) if you are patch twitchy.
• Uninstall Flash Player - Windows - Adobe - Can’t get Flash out of your Windows system using Add/Remove/Programs & Features? Or want to roll back to and older version and Flash won’t let you? Use the official Flash Uninstall utility to remove all traces.
• JavaRa - SingularLabs - Fantastic all-in-one utility to update Java runtimes, remove Java runtimes, and clean up logs/temp-files used by Java runtimes.
• USB Image Tool 1.61 - alex's coding playground - Fast arriving update to fix a bug, use user-defined date/time formats for file name suggestions, and once an image restore is completed, automatically rescans for all devices to be detected.
• UEFI MULTI 72 - reboot.pro - Project to make a multi-boot USB-harddisk to boot systems with BIOS or UEFI firmware.
• IntegrateDrv - reboot.pro - Project for utility tool to integrate mass-storage or PNP drivers into Windows setup. This is a little bit different than the WinPE/DISM driver integration tools such as DISM GUI - Download: DISM GUI 3.1.1, and Je Jin's DISM Tool, and GUI Dism ELDI v3.0.2. I covered use of those in my GSD post Scratching at a SCSI Drive Itch - Part II - WinPE Redux .

Cheers and may you have a marvelous work-week!

Claus Valca

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…you’re getting warmer!

“Escape” on flickr. CC 2.0 attribution: Photo © 2010 J. Ronald Lee.

In a new development that warms my heart -- much like my last post of realizing the additional rental charge for the cable broadband modem -- we have now found Comcast/Xfinity is charging us $1.99 (+tax) for each of the previously “free” basic digital adapter boxes they gave us. We have 2 units in other rooms that supplement the primary HD/DVR unit in our living room which we rent.

We got these last year when Comcast switched from carrying analog signals for many of their channels to digital-only; their “Digital Migration” project. Want to get all those cable channels that aren’t “over-the-air” broadcasts?  Too bad. You need to use our digital adapter box.  But don’t be sad. We will give it to you for free! See? No pain!

Well that was a bait-and-switch.  Comcast is now charging for those previously-issued “free” digital adapter boxes.

And the frustration is sweeping users and communities across the Comcast service area.

comcast digital adapters - Google Search

From some articles I have read, Comcast “might” be rolling out better models of these first-generation digital adapters…some with HD signal support. Bet they come with an even higher price-tag. Not sure of the accuracy of the reports as you can already rent HD set-top receivers and HD/DVR units from Comcast.

I don’t know.  I brought up the topic of just ditching all our cable services except the broadband internet (which would go up more if we stopped bundling it with other services), but was immediately out-voted by the other family members who wouldn’t be able to get all their favorite TV/movies, even over the Internet.

What is so frustrating is not so much that we need to pay for equipment usage -- that’s fair and the American Way ™ -- what doesn’t feel right is getting something for nothing (which was fair because the service delivery method was a forced change on the customers) but then having to pay for it after the rollout. What would have been more fair and probably generated customer good-will (and enthusiasm) would have been to say:

• So sorry, we have to convert our analog signal delivery to digital to increase capacity for your benefit and to enhance signal security and delivery control for us.
• We are giving you up to two basic digital adapter boxes for free; bear with us though the transition process. We know you have some other choices and we want you to be proud to be our customer.
• Thanks for sticking with us through the transition to digital signal delivery! Hurray! We made it!
• Now that we are on the other side we have some exciting options for you.
• You can keep on using the free basic digital adapter boxes -- still no charge for our loyal existing customers! You are “grandfathered” in.
• Or, if you would like, you can swap them out for a new next-gen basic digital adapter box that will allow you to also get HD channels for your subscription tier -- at only $4.99/ea. a month!
• Want even more features? Check out our full lineup of HD set-top cable boxes.

That would have been brilliant!  Sign me up!  Here’s my checkbook!  More money for you and more happiness for me!

So I guess Comcast has me exactly where they want me.

Simmering in their pot paying for the privilege of keeping two “free” digital adapter boxes for with two unhappy house-mates who aren’t pleased with quality of the new digital-only signal and clamoring for HD receiver set-top boxes now. Seems like the one HD/DVR in the family room may not be enough any longer.

All hail the great Digital Revolution and the power it brings to the consumer.

Claus V.

PS:

About that image/frog; per the photographer, no frogs were harmed in the photo-shoot.

See also: Boiling frog - Wikipedia.

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Displaying digital media on an older HDTV - Dad Approved

CC attribution: by Daniel Oines (dn1967b) on flickr.

Being a child of the 70’s and 80’s, one common family event was family “slide show” time. Dad, being a hard-core amateur photographer (we had a dark room, chemicals, print paper, etc.) took lots of SLR photos. So naturally we had lots of slides.  That meant after trips or for family get-togethers, down would come the project screen, up would go the slide projector, and out would come the boxes upon boxes of slide carousels.

Hummm…and in the next slide…ca-chuka-chucka…we can see…first young Claus proudly showing his tiny perch caught on his bamboo fishing pole…and in the next…ca-chuka-chucka…Claus has fallen off the pier into the lake. See how the pole floats? Alas, Claus does not. Ha-ha, dad.

Ain’t technology grand?

Fast forward to 2012.  Dad is now well into the transition from 35mm SLR photography to DSLR photography. That is generating a lot of digital photos from his vacation trips and amateur anthro/paleo field-work. Not to mention digital photos from iPhones and point-n-shoot cameras he and his wife both have and use for the daily life and family events.

Up to now, he has been able view them quite successfully on his desktop PC at home. However when there is a large family gathering at his house, he has to fetch the correct camera, connect it to his Sony Bravia KDL52W4100 HDTV via a low-quality video-in (yellow RCA) plug. While serviceable, Dad’s got a sharp eye and the high quality of his digital shots isn’t done justice with the low-quality of the input method.  This older HDTV doesn’t have any slots for USB/memory cards like his PC does. Bummer.

So he asked me for advice.

I needed to find a dead-simple solution to bring him the ability to show his great digital photographs as close to HD as possible on his older HDTV.  Maybe move the desktop PC to the living room or use a super-long D-sub VGA output cable from the den to the back of the TV?  Well, yes…but…

Here’s what we did.

Part 1 - IncrediSonic Ultra Play IMP150

I advised him to pick up a IncrediSonic Ultra Play IMP150 (Amazon link) multi-media player. It has a USB port and supports HDMI output. (The same model is on Newegg.com).  There is the unit, a remote, an A/C adapter, and some low-def audio/video cables in the box.

I recommended this one to him for few reasons. First the Amazon product page has a mini-review video. I wanted him to be able to view the video to make sure the operation seemed logical and non-techy to use for him. The sub $40 price was great. It had an HDMI output that supported 1080p. Dad isn’t using all his HDMI ports on his Bravia TV so connecting it in HD output would be supported.  Not only would it support his digital image files, but it also could support many video file formats as well. It supported SD media sticks (from the point-n-shoot cameras). It has a USB port so media on a non-supported memory card format could be copied to a USB stick for display. Finally, the menu-interface and navigation seemed pretty intuitive.

More videos of that product in action:

IncrediSonic Ultra Play HD Media Player - MyKeyReviews - YouTube

Vorstellung des Incredi Sonic Ultra Play IMP150 - HD TV Digital Mini Media Player (HDMI,USB,1080 p) - YouTube

Note, there are quite a few other similar products that have pretty much the same features if you like this solution but want to explore other products, take your pick.

Part 2 - Patriot Xporter XT Rage 32 GB USB stick

Patriot Xporter XT Rage 32 GB USB 2.0 High Speed Flash Drive - Amazon product link

Patriot Xporter XT Rage 32GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive Model PEF32GRUSB - NewEgg product link

Dad does have a number of USB sticks that could have been used, but I recommended he use a new dedicated stick just for showing his digital photos/media on this unit.  There were probably even faster USB sticks than this one, but I have been pleased with my Patriot Xporter flash drive for many years. This 32 GB model has lots of storage room over his 4 GB models, and the smaller format would (hopefully) mean it wouldn’t stick out of the USB port on the IncrediSonic device like a standard USB stick would and risk over-torque/breaking of the USB port connection soldier points to the device system-board if dropped/banged/etc.

I could have found an even smaller USB micro-plug but then I was worried about possible loosing of it, or it being hard to manipulate on the desktop system.

The storage size and physical size of this unit seemed the best balance for his particular needs; adjust accordingly.

Part 3 - HDMI Cable(s)

So here is where my plan came together.

I pointed Dad to this AmazonBasics 2-Pack, High-Speed HDMI Cables 6.5 feet cable set. NewEgg also has more than a few HDMI cable picks as well.

This would so be easier and better quality than continuing to use that silly yellow video out/in RCA plug connection!

I went with the 6.5 ft length so he could leave it plugged in on the back input panel of the HDTV display and then tuck the cord away when not in use. Then there would be enough length to allow it to stretch to where he could put the IncrediSonic device close enough to a A/C source and high-enough for the remote signal to reach it.

The 2-pack was recommended so he could leave one permanently attached to the back of the TV as mentioned but the “spare” could be kept in the box/bag with the IncrediSonic so he could take it on the go when he visited other family members who also had a HDTV with HDMI inputs. This way the show could conveniently go on the road!

Dad ordered the set the next day from my recommendations and a few days later had the whole thing running perfectly. He was beyond pleased with the quality of the display.

I reminded him that according to the reviews, it defaults to 720p HD format but if the HDTV supports 1080p, he can change a setting on the device to get even better display quality for his DSLR digital photos.

This or a similar “kit” might be really valuable for ForSec and/or other digital media users who need a standby for showing digital media presentations…just in case that laptop doesn’t work, or that TV/display provided isn’t what they said it would be, or if the one cable you need to use your standard setup goes bad. This particular combo came in a just under $100. Not bad.

Definitely Valca Sr. approved.

--Claus V.

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Wacom CTE-430 Drawing Tablet & Windows 7

I was cleaning out my home “tech closet” last week.

Tearing down old cell-phone boxes, old hard-drive product boxes, laptop boxes now that they have been “burned in” and I’m not returning them to the store…stuff like that. Sorting plastics/papers for recycling, etc.

While I was putting some of the small-bits I wanted to hold onto in my catch-all shoeboxes for such things tech, I found my old Wacom CTE-430 (Sapphire) drawing tablet and pen.  I had got this a long time ago when Lavie was doing drafting and design work on the computer.

As a young kid, Alvis had a copy of Disney’s Magic Artist and Sketch Board that she loved. But as she got older she outgrew it so it was passed on to relative’s family who had young children to use.

Now that Alvis is much older and quite the artist, I wondered if she would be interested again in trying the whole “digital artist” thing. Her preferred medium are watercolors, pastels, colored pencils, charcoals, and other medium that are -- by nature -- very messy and require lots of scattering of these items across the desks, the floors, the window ledges, etc.  Oh, and lots of my favorite mugs left next to the kitchen sink soaking brushes in soapy water.

Maybe Alvis would find it relaxing to do some digital sketch-work again when she was bored but didn’t feel like hauling out her normal art supplies.

So I decided to connect it to my Win7 x64 system.  It found some drivers and seemed to work OK but some of the pressure support for the pen didn’t seem to work.

Did some Google work and found the Wacom site but the US driver page wouldn’t work correctly to let me grab the drivers using the form selection boxes.

Eventually I found a direct link to the driver page I was looking for:

Driver 5.2.5-5a(RC) for Windows 7, Vista & XP (32 & 64 bit versions) - Wacom Graphire3

Downloaded and installed fine on our Windows 7 x64 systems.

Next I needed to find a few paint programs that supported tablet usage. This Gizmo’s Freeware page had more than I was looking for. Score!

Best Free Paint Program - Gizmo's Freeware

I downloaded and installed quit a few of them on Alvis’s system.

In the end we both thought the Art Rage 2 “Starter Edition” (free) was the best starting point. The sketching surface and tools were very easy to get started with.   Alvis thought this was hands-down the easiest of the bunch to use and play with. If she really gets into it, we will probably spring for the full Art Rage Studio Pro version. at $60 it seems a great value for new digital artists.

The others are also quite good, Project Dogwaffle & MyPaint were particularly well rounded applications.

We aren’t quite up to using the tablet in Photoshop yet, but I think with some practice, it could be useful there as well supplementing digital photo editing work.

Nice to know “old technology” can find new life…

Cheers.

--Claus V.

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Scratching at a SCSI Drive Itch - Part I - Hello Ubuntu

So one of the many assignments I have been working on lately is the decommissioning of a hoard of old Dell PowerEdge servers which will be sent to pasture. New technology has been deployed and these are obsolete.

Models range from 1300’s to a 2800; and each contains a pair of SCSI drives.

Accordingly, we need to be sure that all resident data has been purged from the internal drives. (Since apparently just yanking and tossing them into a super-shredder or piercing them with a ram-driven spike isn’t an option.)

The Great Wipe Hope

Instead, I turned to wiping them using DBAN / Darik's Boot And Nuke

I had to use a combo of builds as in some cases the CD ROM drive in the server didn’t work and I didn’t feel like tearing the chassis apart to swap them (or the drive bay carriages). For that I used the last DBAN version that came in a floppy drive format. Otherwise I used the latest CD-based version.

Either way they both seemed to do a good job with a DoD Short 3-pass wipe/zero session. (Yes, yes, I know..a 3-pass now days? The powers that be require a 3-pass minimum wipe if we are passing them on.)

So while DBAN seemed to handle the SCSI drives and daughter-board (?) adapter hardware just fine, every now and then on some of them I would get a “non-fatal errors were encountered” message when the wiping was done.

Obviously I wasn’t tending them full-time so I couldn’t find the error as the logging didn’t work too well; something about writing to a full floppy and/or the CD version obviously couldn’t write to itself.

Anyway…all’s wiped is good correct?

Nay! “Constant Vigilance!”

Reality Check-in

I  just remained uncomfortable releasing these wiped servers without doing an independent verification that the drives really showed all sectors as “zero-out”.  Didn’t want the mess of answering questions if one turned up on E-bay unverified with data still on it. That would be a Bad Thing™.

So my plan was simple.

I’d just pop in one of my custom WinPE CD’s and run a Windows-based "sector editor” against the drives and quickly confirm we found an all-zero pattern.

Simple right?

Not really.

See what I quickly found out is that while my custom WinPE CD is a really cool tool, (big surprise) it didn’t have the needed SCSI adapter board drivers. So while I could boot the iron, I couldn’t see the drives.

That sucks and the plan is now in jeopardy.

I did some reconnoitering via Google and while I found all kinds of things regarding adding drivers to WinPE (something I already knew), trying to find a source for the specific mass-storage SCSI drives that would run under WinPE 2.0 seemed fruitless.

In which Kirk learns that finding WinPE SCSI drivers for the Enterprise may be a problem

In Which “Plan U” is Formed…

So I regrouped.

I knew that Linux seemed to be handling the particular SCSI drives/adapters OK since DBAN was working without any issues.

Since I have been working in Linux quite comfortably, I went directly to Ubuntu for a LiveCD solution.

Sure enough, a check of the Installation Media page found that SCSI CD-ROMs were supported as was the following:

Generally, the Ubuntu installation system includes support for floppies, IDE (also known as PATA) drives, IDE floppies, parallel port IDE devices, SATA and SCSI controllers and drives, USB, and FireWire. The supported file systems include FAT, Win-32 FAT extensions (VFAT) and NTFS.

Disk interfaces that emulate the “AT” hard disk interface — often called MFM, RLL, IDE, or PATA — are supported. SATA and SCSI disk controllers from many different manufacturers are supported. See the Linux Hardware Compatibility HOWTO for more details.

Following that link I confirmed that the particular SCSI controllers I was encountering in these systems was also supported.

Great.

So what process should I use to verify a total zero-out of the drives under Ubuntu?

…and DD is summoned

I knew from my previous secure drive wiping studies that the terminal command tool “dd” could be invoked, not just to wipe a drive but also examine sector data and contents.

From Disk Wiping with dcfldd - Anti-Forensics blog, MAX shows us some techniques (using dcfldd though dd worked fine with the same commands seen below since dcfldd wasn’t on my Ubuntu build):

To view the first sector (with dd) of the first attached drive;

sudo dd if=/dev/sda count=1 bs=512 | hexdump -C

For additional sector spotting, just change the value for count= accordingly.

If the drive had been fully zero-ed out, then running the following command…

sudo dd if=/dev/sda | hexdump -C

…should result in the following output as seen on a blank virutal drive I have handy:

All zero’ed out!

I found some additional tips from Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov over on this super-detailed dd usage information page, including this gem:

I just want to make sure my drive is really zeroed out!!

dd if=/dev/sda | hexdump -C | grep [^00]

... will return output of every nonzero byte on the drive. Play around with it. Sometimes drives don't completely zero out on the first try.

And finally, Raymond McKendall has some super-useful “dd-fu” secure wiping verification tips at his Ray’s Notebook site post Erasing Disk Drives. (Note: no page-scrape offense is intended to Mr. McKendall. I want to record all this in case I need to print this post in entirety and take a single hard-copy output with me for quick reference. Full props to him as I doubt I wouldn’t have easily figured this out on my own!)

It's not a bad idea to verify that the drive has been completely overwritten. When the fill pattern is a constant, like 0x00 or 0xFF, then hexdump provides an easy means to check shredding:

-> time hexdump -C /dev/sdb
00000000 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
*
df8f90000

real 40m21.654s
user 9m16.822s
sys 1m47.435s

Here, hexdump reports that the file contains 0xdf8f90000 bytes and that each byte has the value 0x00. To verify this byte count, let bc convert from hexadecimal to decimal: -> echo $bytes; echo "ibase=16; DF8F90000" | bc 60011642880 60011642880

As it turns out, hexdump offers formatting options that can be used to condense the previous report:

-> time (hexdump -e ' "%d " "%_Ad bytes\n" ' /dev/sdb; echo $bytes)
0 *
60011642880 bytes
60011642880

real 40m34.971s
user 30m37.536s
sys 1m56.239s

The first output line indicates that all of the bytes are zero, the second line reports the total number of bytes examined, and the third line echos the value of $bytes for easy comparison.

Alternatively couple dd with hexdump to get a record count and timer all in one. This next example also specifies an ouput format to hexdump, just to be fancy:

-> dd if=/dev/sdb | hexdump -e '"hexdump: " "%d"'
hexdump: 0*
117210240+0 records in
117210240+0 records out
60011642880 bytes (60 GB) copied, 2685.18 s, 22.3 MB/s

The "0*" verifies that all bytes are zero, and the record and byte counts show how many bytes were examined. It's easy to verify that these counts meet expectations:

-> echo $sectors sectors $(( $sectors*512)) bytes
117210240 sectors 60011642880 bytes

And to see the elapsed time in minutes:

-> echo "scale=1; 2685/60" | bc -l
44.7

Or, use grep

-> grep -v -P '\0' -c -m1 junk 0

Which was all well and good, but…

This whole process was very time-consuming. To say it nicely.

Running any of even the basic dd verification methods, though quite definitive, would require many hours…per disk. And since the hard-drives I had were in the 16-80 GB range, and I had a gazillon of them to check…this technique while thorough, was a time-killer.

…pssst, Buddy. Got a good Linux sector editor GUI?

Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t find a GUI-based sector editor pre-loaded in the Ubuntu  12.04 base distro.

So I went looking wider.

Experimenting with GNU/Linux: Five gui hex editors for ubuntu - UnixLab blog

This was a great starting point, and I spent last weekend trialing them and others on my virtual Ubuntu system.

Bless Hex Editor - Ubuntu Apps Directory. Bless worked great, was able to be downloaded directly from the Ubuntu Software Center app and was easy to use. When launched via the terminal with “sudo” (a process I had to follow with all the apps listed below), I was able to access the local hard drives sda/sdb and quickly perform a visual inspection of the sector contents.

Tweak: an efficient hex editor - Ubuntu Apps Directory. This is a terminal-based sector-editor, but does provide a GUI-like interface view. See this Ubuntu Manpage: tweak for the terminal command syntax as well as this developer’s Man page for tweak. It worked well and was also installable via the Ubuntu Software Center.

Ncurses-hexedit: Edit files/disks in hex, ASCII and EBCDIC - Ubuntu Apps Directory. This is another terminal-based sector editor in a GUI-like interface view. See this [N]Curses Hexedit manual. It worked well and was again installable via the Ubuntu Software Center.

hexedit - Ubuntu Apps Directory, likewise again could be installed via the Ubuntu Software Center. Invoke from terminal via : sudo hexedit /dev/sda

KDE Utilities - Okteta - This is very nice, but to fetch it you must run: sudo apt-get install okteta  I also had issues accessing and viewing /dev/sda with it that I couldn’t overcome. So despite the nice look, it didn’t fit my bill easily.

There were a few others, but these seemed to be the biggest and easiest to use “out of the box”.

Then there was wxHexEditor…

wxHexEditor  - a Free Hex Editor / Disk Editor for Huge Files or Devices on Linux, Windows and MacOSX

I really, really liked this tool. It is seriously good. Really!

Not only was it rocket-fast and easy to see/navigate around it, as an added bonus it has a helpful “infoPanel” docked in the bottom left corner to verify the drive/size you are looking at. So if I had a 16 GB drive but was only seeing 8.0 GB reporting, I’d be worried.

Getting it on Ubuntu was a particular challenge to me since it was not listed in the Ubuntu Software Center and I am a Linux noobie.

The “easiest” way I could come up with it was to go over to GetDeb.net V2 - Software for Ubuntu Linux’s wxHexEditor page.

Using that source required me to first install the “get-deb” package to then fetch wxHexEditor.

That wasn’t a problem, but for some reason it didn’t work via downloading from Firefox.

So I re-read the instructions and found that bug 476853 applied to me. Which basically says Firefox hoses the downloads. So I then had to download Chrome into my Ubuntu build to fetch things. That worked and I was eventually able to successfully get wxHexEditor running nicely in Ubuntu.

Did I mention it was compiled in Linux, Mac OS X and Windows binaries? Sweet!

Success? Let’s call it a Pyrrhic victory…

OK. So here’s the rub.

To accomplish my GUI-sector-viewing quick-verification goal on each of these servers, since I was using a LiveCD of Ubuntu I had to…

1. Wipe the system with DBAN, wait to finish.
2. Reboot the system with Ubuntu
   1. Did CD-ROM drive work? Yes? Continue to step 3.
   2. No? pull SCSI drive carriage out of system and place into sever that had working CD-ROM drive. Continue to step 3.
3. Carefully select option to try LiveCD rather than install Ubuntu onto (hopefully) wiped drive.
4. Wait for Ubuntu to load into limited server system RAM bank.
5. Wait some more.
6. Connect network cable to server.
7. Wait for network detection.
8. Download “Bless” via the Ubuntu Software Center.
9. Install “Bless”
10. Run Bless to then inspect /dev/sda & /dev/sdb
11. OK?
12. Shut down Ubuntu/eject disk.
13. Open server chassis to visually verify no additional non-detected SCSI drives were present. Two were expected, confirm that only two physical drives are inside the box.
14. If step 2.2 was invoked, replace drives back into original server chassis.
15. Repeat

This took a frigging long time.

Successful? yes.

Efficient? hardly.

So whatcha gonna do? Build a custom Ubuntu LiveCD?

Well, I suppose I could re-master a Linux LiveCD of Ubuntu that has Bless (or wxHexEditor) installed in it. Way, way before I built Windows PE disks, I cut my teeth making custom Knoppix Live CD’s to use to off-line boot and recover files from DOA Windows NTFS partitions. That was how I first got acquainted with LiveCD formats. That was when having a DOS boot floppy disk for system servicing was still required carry.

I checked out that possibility and found a number of techniques and methods to do so:

• LiveCDCustomization - Community Ubuntu Documentation
• MakeALiveCD/DVD/BootableFlashFromHarddiskInstall - Community Ubuntu Documentation
• How to Create Your Own Customized Ubuntu Live CD - How-To Geek
• How to Create a Custom Ubuntu Live CD or USB the Easy Way - How-To Geek
• Make Your Own Live CD With Ubuntu Builder - Digital blog
• Remastering an “Ubuntu alternate” ISO with Ubuntu Customization Kit – the complete guide - Fabrizio Balliano

Here is the deal. While I was pretty confident I could successfully do it, my project timeline to wipe and get the severs returned for surplusing didn’t give me enough time to do so.

Then again, maybe I could find another Linux LiveCD distro that had a GUI-based sector-editor pre-installed and that would support the particular SCSI drive/controller hardware I had.

Not really, I tried but burning lots of CD’s to trial-n-error them didn’t appeal to me and I didn’t want to attempt using my iODD hard drive to emulate ISO’s for this task.

I might have been able to save a “persistent user profile” to a USB/floppy drive…but the USB support on these servers was spotty at best and I didn’t always have the luxury of both a working floppy drive AND a working CD ROM drive in any given server (seriously) so that really wasn’t worth messing with if I could even get the required planets to align.

Concurrently, another enterprise-wide deployment storm was brewing and the squall-line looked serious. Time was of the essence and I had to complete this project. It was bad enough that I was adding in the self-imposed secondary-verification level for this job.

I’d learned a lot and improved my Linux/Ubuntu user skill set, but I was still not satisfied this was the path to continue my investment in.

Stay tuned for Scratching at a SCSI Drive Itch - Part II

…in which the problem is elegantly solved and I learn and find even more awesomeness!

Cheers,

--Claus V.

Now for the “GUI-Gotcha’s” Postscript

Note, one “gotcha” of this GUI-editor method over the “DD” methods noted earlier is that just dragging the scroll bar down the drive doesn’t really allow you a sector-by-sector inspection of the contents. You are more likely “skimming” them and potentially missing data in your speed reading. That said, it should (possibly) be pretty obvious for a heavily used drive that large blocks of data would be present if the drive wasn’t successfully zero-ed out.

YMMV with this technique so use according to your comfort level.

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I’m probably the only Sysadmin bothered by this TV ad

A certain American automaker is running a summer advertising series you may have seen in some edited form or other where the host mills around and “interviews” various folks.

In the main advertisement opening there is a very brief shot of the well-known and respected host quipping about grillin’.

And it bugs me every time!

My what a nice rack you have there Mike!

Luckily, both Brian Adkins (who kindly provided the video above to YouTube) and Gizmodo writer Sam Biddle also seem to be eagle-eyed on this particular grilling technique likely learned from a hungry sysadmin trapped in a network room with a lot of food but no pit.

• Discovery Channel Superstar Is Grilling on a Shelf, Not a Grill - Gizmodo

While Mike’s technique and equipment probably won’t earn him a guest spot on Barbecue University with host Steven Raichlen anytime soon, I have to confess, it appears that use of a “baker’s” wire rack (also seen in network rooms holding server and system equipment) apparently is not completely a made-for-TV gimmick after-all.

…though I have to confess, Warren Schwartz’s rack and technique looks more sexy!

That one actually looked quite professional and culinary-grade. Never one to shirk from a mystery, it took me just a bit of detective work, but between shots of the grill seen above used by chef Warren Schwartz and images in the Gizmodo comment section I was able to trace down what is probably the actual grill used by Warren.

Turns out it seems to be a Big John 5 foot Charcoal Grill from Big John Grills & Rotisseries.

Who knew?!

So the next time you sysadmins want to impress the other techies at your backyard barbeque, see if you can pull one of these Big John babies out!  Who knows, maybe Mike will show up and help you flip.

However, judging from his grill work in the ad versus his handiwork as seen in his role as a host in another show, his dirty-job handling skills might be better put to use opening up your PC and server cases and blowing out all the dust and guck from inside them while he’s there!

CC attribution: by "eurleif" (Leif K-Brooks) on flickr.

Now that’s a dirty job!

Though in my mind, Mike’s grill will still be associated with use as a server rack.

--Claus V.

Bonus Link: What’s on the grill in France? via Justinsomnia

Now that’s my kind of grill and delectables! -Yummers

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Resolving a Logitech SetPoint Installation Headache

Earlier this week I built a fresh virtual machine of Windows XP Home for use in long-term XP fiddling.

I wanted to use my Logitech Cordless Desktop LX 710 laser keyboard/mouse set with it; specifically the LX7 mouse which has handy left-wheel & right-wheel click support. I think these are called the “Tilt-wheel plus” feature. I set these to copy & paste functions and can really scream through work. It takes Logitech SetPoint software drivers to enable these extra click-button features fully.

So I hopped over to the page above and then to the downloads link,stepped through the options, and came up to the XP SetPoint 6.32 download page for this particular model (which I suspect it is for most all SetPoint hardware…).

Downloaded the file (setpoint632_smart.exe) and proceeded with the install.

The first time I ran it, I got an error “SetPoint failed to install.  Please restart your computer and try again.  (223,224,225,221,222)”

M’kay.

Rinse/repeat. This time it went on “successfully.” However when I went to configure the click buttons, the options weren’t there.

Curiously, I now had the Logitech folder in my Program list, but the “Mouse and Keyboard” launch icon pointed to nowhere.

Tried a few more times and each time resulted in either the same error as before, or a “successful” install with no actual installation of the core SetPoint application into my Program Files folder.

Getting a bit frustrated, I checked out a few things.

First I chased the SetPoint software location via the application shortcut being created. It kept pointing to a non-existent “C:\Program Files\Logitech” folder. Hmm. For some reason it appears the folder wasn’t being made.

So I next ran Process Monitor and was able to trace the unpacking of the (setpoint632_smart.exe) location as it worked.  On 32-bit XP systems, it appears to unpack a primary temporary installation folder to “C:\Documents and Settings\userprofile\Local Settings\Temp\Logitech”

At first a folder “SetPointSI_1” is created, followed by a secondary “SetPointSI32_1” folder, then contents of which are pulled down from the web. Once the installation process is completed, the contents of these folders are removed.  I also found that during the installation process you can copy these folders/contents to another location to preserve them after the installation completes and the originals are removed.

Unfortunately, manually running these “recovered” installers didn’t result in getting SetPoint correctly installed on my XP system, nor did trying to manually install the drivers. I really needed the SetPoint application itself to install.

A long survey on Google found quite a lot of users on the web (not just XP users) who just could not get SetPoint to install on their systems using the intelligent/web-based SetPoint installer download; along with many very clever…but usually ineffective tips on getting it going.

Eventually I found this post in a Logitech forum: Unable to install Setpoint 6.32 on Windows 7 x64 - Logitech Forums.

“Meltech” recommended installing in a Clean Boot mode. I didn’t feel like trying that, however the poster also offered 32/64 bit download links.

Interestingly, these were not the setpoint632_smart.exe file, but links to the standard SetPoint installation packages.  I downloaded and used the 32-bit (setpoint632.exe) file.

It went on with no drama and voilà, this SetPoint installer created the missing C:\Program Files\Logitech” folder with all the contents. I was able to then set my mouse-wheel-tilt-clicky buttons just fine!

Repeating the process and carefully keeping an eye on it, this installer unpacks itself to “C:\Documents and Settings\userprofile\Local Settings\Temp\Logitech” and creates a “SetPoint_1” folder.

Comparing this folder against the “SetPointSI32_1” folder from the other installer finds a lot of similarities and differences. Bottom line is that the “full” installer brings a lot more files to the party than the web-based intelligent installer.

(Actually, there are LOT more folders and stuff (hopefully) created in both installation events. Use of Mirekusoft Install Monitor or another similar tool like Directory Monitor or Track Folder Changes will ferret them all out for you.)

One file to look for with great information is the installation log file found on XP at

C:\Documents and Settings\userprofile\Application Data\Logishrd\sp6_log\sp6_setup.log

Anyway…to sum up a short-blog post getting longer than intended…

If you are having issues with the Logitech intelligent/web-based “Smart installer package”, try the “full” version instead. Yes it is a larger download, but doesn’t seem to present any installation issues.

You can either look in the Logitech FTP site for the latest SetPoint installer file(s): Index of ftp://ftp.logitech.com/pub/techsupport/mouse/ 

(note: the files with a “j” in the name are Japanese versions.)

Or…you can carefully read the Logitech download page for your specific product (doh!) and get it directly from that page (example below).

Hopefully this post will help someone else who is struggling to get a “clean” install of Logitech SetPoint running on their Windows system; just give the “Full” version a try.

Cheers!

--Claus V.

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Zalman ZM-VE series Enclosures: Next-Gen Virtual ODD

Last week I received an anonymous comment on my iodd : Multi-boot madness! post. -- Thanks Tipster!

You may recall the IODD device is an external drive enclosure that supports multi-mode operation:

You can use it in an external hard-drive mode to just copy files back and forth and access them as needed.

You can use it in an ODD (optical disk drive) virtualization mode. In this mode you load a bunch of ISO image files onto it. Then while operating in this mode, you can select the ISO file and PC will see it as a virtual optical disk. If the ISO represents a bootable disk image, you can likewise boot the system with it. This massively cuts down on the number of “burned” boot disks as well as installation media disks you need to carry. Just carry this device and you are limited only by the size of your external drive capacity.

Then there is a multi-mode where it operated in both an external drive/ODD mode.

I love the device I have and it has made my life so much cooler easier when I roll out on an troubleshooting/incident response call.

The model I have and cherish is an older iODD 2501 model. It has both an eSATA connection (requires independent power connection via dual USB plugs), and a USB 2.0 connector.

It’s rock solid, and firmware updates were available to allow it to operate all partitions including any that include your _ISO store to be NTFS. iodd.com download page. My primary (_ISO holding) partition remains FAT32 because I’ve yet to create a 4 GB+ ISO file I need to boot with or access and that’s all I presently use it for on that partition.

Anyway… as my tipster points out, it appears there is a new model out from the IODD manufacturer. Based on the main i-odd.com page, it looks like “worldwide sales” is seeing it marketed/distributed under the “Zalman Tech” name now.

The features of the newest model appear pretty much the same except for the addition now of a USB 3.0 port rather than the older USB 2.0 connection and eSATA combo. The USB 3.0 can net you up to 5 Gbps transfer rate if you have the hardware to support it. Compare that to the 480 Mbps USB 2.0 rate. Wowzers. It also appears to provide some SMART drive stats on the display now as well.

Here are some useful links based on some quick research I did over the last week.

Still Super Cool. Still Valca Recommended.

• Zalman ZM-VE300 Product Page - Zalman
• Zalman ZM-VE300 External 2.5IN HDD Case & Virtual Drive Unboxing & First Look - Linus Tech Tips Blog
• Product Review: Zalman ZM-VE300 USB 3 2.5” Drive Enclosure with ISO Mount Capability A+ - MPECS Inc. Blog
• Review: Zalman ZM-VE200-SE V1.1 Virtual CD/DVD/BR USB Drive - Run Away Brainz blog
• Zalman ZM-VE300-B Black 2.5inch SATA USB3.0 External HDD Enclosure: Electronics - Amazon.com Product page.
• Zalman ZM-VE300-B Aluminum Alloy, Acryl, Poly Carbonate 2.5" Black USB 3.0 ZM-VE300 HDD External Enclosure with Virtualization and One Touch Back-up - NewEgg product page

Related Concept:

• isostick - the optical drive in a usb stick by Elegant Invention - Kickstarter

As I said, my iODD 2501 model is running strong and I don’t have any systems that support the USB 3.0 hardware (personally or in the trenches) so I’m not rushing out to pick a Zalman model up just yet. However I can’t help but be a bit envious of the transfer rates in this new model.

Cheers.

--Claus V.

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Getting the Tardis Working for the Geeklet

cc photo credit Tardis by AntToeKnee Lacey on flickr

I guess I’m doing something right as a dad.

Alvis has been hard-at-work babysitting and pinching her pennies.

So the other day when we are at the local GoodPurchase box store collecting some electronica-accessories, she disappeared momentarily, reappearing with DVD and Blu-Ray season six box sets of BBC Dr. Who. “Which one?”  (Alvis is an unabashed Dr. Who (Matt Smith incarnation only thank you very much) Super Fan™).

We settled on the Blu-ray, but only after I gave my acknowledgment that when Alvis strikes out on her own in life, they are going with her. This was going to be super-awesome considering we had been watching the series on regular-def BBC America. Oh the details we would now see!

When we got home she first emptied the DVR of all the still-saved local versions from the BBC run quite a while ago. Then she popped a disk in.

The intros ran splendidly, then we got to the first episode. The Blu-ray quality was extraordinary; super-crisp and detailed. Only when the camera angle would pan, the play-back stuttered horribly.

Retried the disk…same thing. Different episode…same result.

Oh bother.

Feeling a bit of panic as I had advised her of the superior Blu-Ray benefit and running in my head the success/failure possibilities for a Blu-ray return at GoodPurchase box store, I tried to digest the best plan of attack.

We tried another disk from the set. Nope. Same problem.

I next tried waving my Alvis-provided Sonic Screwdriver at the Blu-ray player. That always seems to work for the Doctor.

Alas. Didn’t help this time.

Probably needs to be recharged.

First things second.

Based on previous experiences with our BDP-S360 Blu-ray™ Disc Player from Sony, it seemed the best place to start out was a check on the firmware level for the player.  I strung out our 50’ Cat-6 patch cord down the hall from the router and connected it to the player and checked on-line for firmware updates using the embedded system feature. Sure enough, there was Blu-ray Disc™ Player Firmware Upgrade (version 011).

The update applied successfully. Rebooted the player and re-launched the Blu-ray.

Nope. Same issues. Drat.

I hit the Googles and checked out the customer reviews on the Amazon.com product page for the set. Indeed there were a number of complaints that some users were experiencing playback stuttering with their disks. Maybe it was indeed a bad-press.

Alvis was getting quite dejected now. Not only was her hard-earned investment looking less enjoyable, so was the planned Dr. Who marathon session planned.

Poking around the Amazon page some more led me to a discussion thread. Amazon.com: Customer Discussions: HELP! Framerate problems!

Hmm. That sounded like exactly what we were experiencing. The choppy playback quality is like when you were trying to watch an on-line video and you have streaming/buffering problems. I couldn’t imagine the player didn’t have the hardware capability to process the BBC Blu-ray disk…we haven’t had any quality playback issues with other disks in our collection.

The tips offered mentioned things like deinterlace and motion interpolation issues with British programing transfers for US playback; both apparently related to frame rate processing. Apparently different Blu-ray systems have different feature names for this.

I pulled down the Sony BDP-S360 user’s manual from the website and checked the PDF closely. Nothing seemed to fit exactly what I was looking for.

In the end we decided to try changing the following setting:

• “HDMI Resolution/Component Resolution” got changed from “Auto” to 1080i.

Retried again.

Voilla!

Perfectly smooth and natural video playback from the BBC Blu-ray disk set.

So if you run into this problem as well, you may want to check some of your player settings first. That whole deinterlace/motion-interpolation/framerate thing with BBC disks has some truth in it.

Normally our player is set to “Auto” and runs at the 1080p mode-rate. Dropping it down to the 1080i was all we needed to get the playback running normally again.

Your player settings may vary so dig out your manual and start experimenting.

You may be glad you did!

Cheers!

--Claus V.

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Solving the DSL<-->WiFi<-->Nook<-->In-Laws Equation

The Valca home is and has been an Amazon Kindle only zone for some time now; thank you very much.

So last year Lavie decided that the E Ink keyboard one (of two) that we had was a bit uncomfortable for her (and not back-lit). She decided to move over to a B&N NOOK Color model. This was in the pre Kindle Fire days so I guess we could tolerate its presence.

The Nook Color served her well enough but when the Kindle Fire came out she had to swing back. It finally arrived last week as a back-ordered Christmas present.

Fortunately, she hadn’t purchased very many books for the Nook so we didn’t deal with trying to see if there were any options for porting her books over to the Kindle. It was an opportunity for a fresh start.

So, she passed her Nook on to her parents a few weeks ago and they loved lot. A lot.

They are on a DSL broadband service, and have a wired XP desktop system. One cable to rule all Internet service. No WiFi except when we stop in for an extended visit and I bring my D-Link DAP-1350 Wireless N pocket router and take over their single network connection for the weekend. Nice but not a permanent WiFi solution.

I suppose we could have just taught them to connect the Nook Color to their desktop via USB and manage it directly but it seemed time to add a WiFi router to their humble network and just do it right.

So that was this Saturday’s “honey-do” and this post is the process we had to go through to upgrade their DSL network and get the hand-me-down Nook color fully transferred over and set up for them.

First Part of the Equation: DSL<-->WiFi

First I picked up a WiFi router. I went with what has become my perennial favorite: DIR-655 Xtreme N Gigabit Router from D-Link 

I’ve had this unit personally for a number of years and is rock solid, has both the “N” and older wireless standards, has a rockin-long range, and is super-easy for configuration. The power was important in this case as the location of their DSL modem is on a second floor above-garage room pretty far away from their usual living areas. The signal will carry all the way downstairs and up. Check. And since it is the model I also own and maintain, I know and am comfortable mucking around in the settings. Makes providing extended support much simpler when a problem arises.

Typically I’ve been able to get away with just unbox, connect, run-wizard from CD config, then go and make some manual setting tweaks afterwards. However, this 2-wire DSL modem was a real headache. I could set up the internal network and WiFi perfectly. Just couldn’t get to the Internet through the DSL modem. Plugged the DSL modem Ethernet back to the PC and it was working, reconnect to the DIR-655 and it wouldn’t'.

Long story short, I eventually figured out that for their particular hardware and provider, I had to do a few more custom tricks.

I had to set the Internet Connection Type to PPPoE and enter their DSL username/password. (I got that from their email client settings.)  D-Link has a nice Emulator for this router to play around with: D-Link DIR-655 RevB Emulator

Then I had to go into the Network Settings and change the router IP Address to use 192.168.1.1 from the default IP address of 192.168.0.1   Turns out that the default IP address was conflicting with the internal Ethernet-facing IP address provided by the DSL router. This was the real trick.

Once I got the network stabilized, I tested the configuration survivability by powering off both the DSL modem and the D-Link (to simulate a power-failure), then powered them back and and made sure the PC could get to the Internet. Check.

This one was actually a DIR-655 RevB model so I then saved my configuration file, downloaded the latest firmware and ran an upgrade. Success. Naturally it lost all of my settings, so I had to upload my saved config file and it was back to normal. Yea me!

More helpful notes I had to find to work out that issue:

• DIR-655 & ATT DSL - D-Link Forum
• [Solved] Dir 655 problems - Setup-Configuration-Security - Wireless-Networking
• 3.15 D-Link Info AT&T Southeast Forum FAQ - DSLReports.com, ISP Information

So now I had taken care of the DSL<-->WiFi router part of the equation. Next the Nook.

Second Part of the Equation: Nook<-->In-Laws

This actually was almost harder than getting the router added.

Because the Nook was a hand-me-down, Lavie had it configured with our WiFi settings, her name, and the account information. She said she didn’t mind if her parents just kept it that way and we just change the billing information on the account. However, she had followed bad password security and used the same information she has used on several other of her on-line accounts. I needed to break that clean.

The rub was that Lavie had already purchased some books for her dad under her Nook account and I didn’t want to loose them. What I wanted to do was to figure out if/how I could transfer the B&N account she had set up over to them and remove Lavie’s information and add-in theirs.

Here’s what I had to figure out doing to keep the original Nook account (and purchased items) but swing it fully over to the in-laws “clean”. Note this was a serious trial-n-error process that took almost two-hours longer than it should have (by my reasoning). This is the “clean” version and from what I later read on the web, seems to be the only way currently I know of to “transfer” a nook from one email/owner to another one while preserving the purchased items.

Note: Lavie didn’t have any files or items on her Nook that were not already associated in her Nook account (like manually installed music/videos/pictures/stuff) so I didn’t have to deal with the loss of those in this process. If you have those on your nook and want to preserve them, you probably want to off-load/copy them to your PC first before beginning this process. Again, this assumes everything you want to keep is safe and and associated in the B&N account you will be restoring from. YMMV. So you were cautioned, so you were warned.

1. Take your Nook (the one you want to change the owner name/email account info on) and go into the settings and find the option to Unregister/Erase your Nook. Do this first. Really. BEFORE you do ANYTHING ELSE. It sounds serious and I guess it is, but that’s how the Nook rolls.
2. Once your Nook is reset, log into your B&N account from the BN.com page. If you can find the login link on the page. Seriously. I was using Chrome and it took me ten minutes to realize that tiny gray bar (which perfectly matches the address bar gradient and bookmark text in Chrome at the very top of the page) with the tiny text is the login location. Sheesh. Hey B&N. Can you make it a bit more obvious please?
   
3. Now change your name in the account. I changed it over from Lavie’s name to the in-law’s.
4. Change to your new email address in the account. Changed from Lavie’s to the in-law’s.
5. Change the password if you desire…I did so desire and changed to a complex full 15-character (most allowed by B&N) password.
6. Change the Shipping/Billing addresses as needed. Now set to the in-law’s.
7. Change your secret challenge question if needed. Selected and changed as picked by the in-law.
8. Update the associated credit card information. Definitely the in-law’s here!
9. Etc.
10. Once all the account information is updated to the way you want it and saved, make sure you can successfully log-in/out of the account. Good? Great.
11. Next fire up the now reset Nook and go through the setup process from scratch.
12. Accept the Terms of Service.
13. Set the Time Zone.
14. Connect to a WiFi network. It found the WiFi network I had earlier got working, I fed it the secure passphrase and it connected perfectly and strongly.
15. Register the Nook. (I passed it the updated email address from above and the new password.)
16. It Registered and identified perfectly as the in-law’s nook now.
17. Yea me!
18. We went to the Library and told it to refresh and all the books previously associated with the account flowed back down and “installed” without any issue.
19. I then went to the applications and downloaded the waiting previously purchased/associated apps. Perfect!
20. The Nook was now fully theirs.

Equation Solved: DSL<-->WiFi<-->Nook<-->In-Laws

We spent another hour or so going though the list of free NOOK Books at Barnes & Noble. We found a good selection of mystery and history classics to keep them both occupied for the next couple of months. Pop also found a good old-west history book to purchase as well. It was good training process and confirmed the purchase/credit-card association with the account worked.

Mission accomplished, five hours (and one super-awesome BBQ baked-potato for lunch) later, the equation was solutioned.

Additional Notes:

• Daughter hovering over your shoulder on the back of the couch while you have your laptop and the Nook balanced on your lap troubleshooting. Like a vulture lurking. Not helpful.
• Daughter making organic microwave popcorn and snuggling up munching away while you have your laptop and the Nook balanced on your lap troubleshooting. Also not helpful.
• Daughter not asking once to borrow your laptop to check out the WiFi and Facebook while you are troubleshooting. Very helpful and appreciated.
• Sense of patience and humor from all participants; self, daughter, in-laws. Very helpful.
• Extended road-trip to in-laws up and back with daughter on beautifully clear and cool day through the east-Texas pines lined country roads. Priceless.

Final thoughts.

Lavie had successfully set up her Kindle Fire just fine by herself (thank-you-very-much) so I didn’t get to participate in that except for applying a smokin-hot DecalGirl skin she had picked out for her Kindle (my hands are super-steady for such things). She had also picked up screen protector but turns out that it is a full edge-to-edge cover which would cause issues with the DecalGirl skin on the front (which frames the blacked-out display edge portion). I suggested trimming it down so it fits inside the DecalGirl border but she passed on that for now…so it remains uninstalled at the moment.

Alvis and I both have the WiFi-only version of the E Ink Kindle model and we love them. Light, super-durable, and the charge lasts a long time.

Last night Lavie did ask me to copy some songs from her iTunes playlist to the Kindle Color. You can do it a few ways, apparently most popular is to upload music from your PC/Laptop to the Amazon Cloud Player service. What I ended up doing was to connect Lavie’s Kindle Fire directly to my PC (which holds our iTunes library) via USB, then opened iTunes, opened her play-list, sorted it by album, then I selected a song, hit the three key-combo “Ctrl-Shift-R” which opened up the location of the file itself on the library, selected any additional songs in her playlist from that album, copied, then pasted them in the Music folder on her Fire. Repeat as needed.  It was a bit slower but got the job done. All of them appeared to be in the compatible .m4a format and I didn’t find any .m4p that would not have been supported.

She was jammin…though I left her to work out creating a new playlist from those songs directly from within the Kindle itself.

Adding photos/videos would be the same process, locate on your PC, drag/drop into the correct folder on the Kindle when it is attached via USB and shows as an external storage device. Piece-o-cake.

Based on the (admittedly still limited) time I spent on both the Nook Color and the Kindle Fire, I found the Kindle Fire was more to my liking. I could navigate around the Nook Color and it was pretty intuitive (never did get around to reading any manuals on either one) but I did like the “hand-feel” of the Kindle Fire better. And the navigation just subjectively felt better to me on the Kindle Fire than the Nook.

Since I am (for now) a hard-core Kindle E Ink format lover, the extra bells-n-whistles of the Kindle Fire haven’t captured my eye yet, so I cannot comment on app-support and performance of videos/games/applications between the Nook Color and Kindle Fire.

The other think I noticed while helping set up the in-law’s Nook was the apparent lack of easily found free E Books directly within the B&N Nook store. Searching for E-books at B&N was a super-pain as well. In the end I had to do a Google Search to find this “all-in-one-place” location for Free NOOK Books.

When I first got my Kindle, right on the Amazon Kindle pages I found this Amazon.com: Free Book Collections: Kindle Store link. In no time flat I had downloaded almost twenty amazingly awesome classics from literature, philosophy, religion, and reference. All free. I’ve since moved on and expanded my collection to include many additional eBooks I’ve found scattered on the net including some great ones in PDF formats and I have made a number of eBook purchases for the Kindle as well. That smooth and awesome experience jumping into the Kindle right-out-of-the-box probably helped solidify my personal leanings towards the Kindle platform. I’m sure there are lots of additional Nook-compatible ebook formats and ways you can get them to your Nook, but for the in-laws, having in-store access to locate and select-to-download-direct to their Nook has a lot of appeal.

I’ve got a lot of great Kindle resource links saved and building for a GSD Kindle post…along with some cool technical and for/sec bits related to the device I have found as well. Hopefully that will come soon.

Anyway, hope this helps someone else trying to get their DSL <-->WiFi<-->Nook<-->In-Laws equation to balance out and solution properly.  Now I remember why I found Calculus so challenging. It was a real love/hate relationship and this turned out to be very much the same.

Cheers!

--Claus V.

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