Recent Posts

426

Living Room / Re: Do we have any musical people on DC?

« Last post by superboyac on March 12, 2015, 03:20 PM »

I think the miscalculation by Williams and Thicke's Lawyers was catastrophic.  You can't tell which way a jury is going to rule on something that actually requires expertise.  I don't know what they would have had to do- but they should have done anything they had to in order to avoid that kind of factor.

That said, the "that songs reminds me of another song" threshold would be a new dangerous legal standard IMO.

-wraith808 (March 12, 2015, 03:06 PM)

Yea, I agree. the implications can be a little frightening.
What about all the blues artists/songs?  Either they can sue almost any pop songs, or pop songs can sue a bunch of blues songs.  I don't know, it's a little nuts.

427

Living Room / Re: Please help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by superboyac on March 09, 2015, 07:35 PM »

That was quick 

-4wd (March 09, 2015, 07:17 PM)

I've been quite stressed and impatient lately.

428

Living Room / Re: Please help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by superboyac on March 09, 2015, 07:09 PM »

I changed my mind.  Now I'm going to try FlexRaid.  If I like it, I'll buy it.  if not, I'm going back to storage spaces.

I tried freenas last night.  It was too much for me.  I just don't have the time these days to learn a new interface or command line anything.

429

Living Room / Re: Sorry, Ebooks. These 9 Studies Show Why Print Is Better

« Last post by superboyac on March 09, 2015, 02:51 PM »

For fiction and other pleasure reading, I'm all-in for ebooks. I use my Kindle almost exclusively for this. However, I do have a bunch of shelves of treasured books, mostly hardcovers, that I just feel good having near me.

On the other hand, I find the ebook experience for reference material - like programming manuals - completely awful. I find that I'm always wanting to flip back-and-forth between pages, and even have multiple books open simultaneously. Paper books laid out on a desktop, with bookmarks at important spots, accomplish this very well. It seems like this is an experience that ebooks *could* emulate, but I haven't found anything that does so well.

-CWuestefeld (March 09, 2015, 02:43 PM)

The reference book bit really hit home with me, so true.  It is a painful experience.  However, I do have to say that on the flip side, I have found it extremely handy to be able to take screenshots or clip text and such things like that.  Interesting.  I wonder how this will go in the future...how do we marry the two together?

430

Living Room / Re: Please help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by superboyac on March 09, 2015, 10:37 AM »

Just wondering, if your talking about a lot of files that rarely change, eg. a reasonably static file server or even some of the drives having static contents, would it be worth your while to use some form of "snapshot" RAID on them rather than a full blown RAID solution?

eg. SnapRAID, disParity - both free, or FlexRAID - not free.

Those are the ones that will work with existing filesystems, ie. you don't need to reformat to some other filesystem, (eg. ReiserFS, ZFS, etc).

That way you won't get the performance hit associated with a normal RAID system.

-4wd (March 09, 2015, 01:37 AM)

I remember looking at these options.  After doing my test now, the one that appears most attractive is snapraid.  I'll give that a shot.

431

Living Room / Re: Please help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by superboyac on March 08, 2015, 07:34 PM »

OK, so I've now been able to test some things.
I'm running the storage spaces on mirrored mode, which is like raid5.  the other modes are simple (raid0) and parity (not recommended yet because it is so slow).

I was expecting to get speeds close to 100MB/s.  I am not.  I am getting somewhere around 50MB/s avg, and for transfers of a bunch of tiny files (pictures, tiny db files), it's even slower, maybe like 10-20MB/s avg.
If I just use an esata port on a normal computer (not this server), I can get about 80 MB/s avg, but that's also not mirrored or anything, just moving stuff to an external hard drive.

My immediate thought was to ditch this and instead use a ZFS setup, since there is a lot of evidence that zfs is fast and efficient with this kind of thing.  But, setting up the disks and pools with storage spaces was so nice and easy, I'd still like to give it a shot.  I also don't know if there are other tweaks I can try, and I don't know how much faster ZFS will be.  If I only get 10 MB/s increase in speed, I don't know if I care so much.

So that's where I'm at currently.  I'm debating storage spaces vs. ZFS.

432

Living Room / Re: I'd like to get a Windows Tablet: help me decide.

« Last post by superboyac on March 07, 2015, 02:07 PM »

I remember now the term MS uses for this "feature": Connected Standby!
At the bottom here, I've posted a couple of images showing what MS is dealing with.  While I appreciate the effort, i also feel they are deliberately holding off on the better implementations of this for Windows 10 and beyond.  

Again, the whole thing here is this: on and Android/iphone, I turn the screen on, and i can immediately start browsing or using the internet.  It's because the OS handles the cellular/wifi/power management in a way suitable for mobiles.  Which is, they are running on battery power instead of being permanently plugged in, which is the WIndows way.  So now, windows needs to be able to do both...plugged in all the time, and mobile in a single OS.  No big deal, it really isn't.  Android can do permanently plugged in also...it's actually not an issue.  if everything works fluidly and instantly on mobile, then working while it's plugged in is a moot issue.

On a mobile windows device, it's not very smooth.  When you turn the screen on, well, the wifi has already been off.  So now it takes about a minute for the network wifi to get reconnected.  So you are probably waiting or pressing refresh-refresh until it's connected.  Very annoying.  But if they left the wifi on all the time, it would suck the battery.  The power management settings won't do anything.  It needs to be solved like android, in a dynamic way that the OS is managing.

So below are some images from MS presentations.

433

Living Room / Re: I'd like to get a Windows Tablet: help me decide.

« Last post by superboyac on March 06, 2015, 03:55 PM »

Windows OS has had issues with this.  Android may have an issue here and there, but the OS itself is built for this sort of thing.  So in your case, it may really be the problem of the hardware.

Windows' problem is not the hardware, it's the OS itself.  It's not built for efficient use of mobile tech...the management of screen on/off, wifi on/off or on while screen is off, etc.  They've made supposedly "significant" updates to it in the past year with the surface user complaining, but they are klunky and still not very significant at all.  I'm assuming it will be fixed in windows 10, but you never know.  if not, I'll be like wtf.

-superboyac (March 06, 2015, 03:38 PM)

And this is exactly what worries me about their one OS to rule them all approach they're doing with Windows 10.  They've shown that their power management frankly sucks.  And it's the largest thing I hope they fix.  But with one size fits all, I don't think they will.

-wraith808 (March 06, 2015, 03:40 PM)

I know.  Seriously.
From what I know about computers and stuff, it shouldn't be that difficult for a company like MS.  So they just don't want to do it, YET.  They know about it, they can probably fix it with a patch update in probably a week, maybe more for testing and confirmation, that's it.  They're not doing it because for some reason they don't want to.  Maybe it will be touted as the BIG feature for windows 10.

434

Living Room / Re: I'd like to get a Windows Tablet: help me decide.

« Last post by superboyac on March 06, 2015, 03:38 PM »

OK fine, but android has the same problem and they've figured it out.

-superboyac (March 06, 2015, 12:14 PM)

Not so sure about that. Got myself my first Android tablet recently (Hudl 2), and I was shocked to see that it depleted itself in a single day in standby without me ever touching it, while my ancient iPad 1 can still hold its charge for weeks in standby (even if it's useless now for browsing).

-dr_andus (March 06, 2015, 03:04 PM)

dr. andus, if you do research on it (I'll post my articles once I find them) you'll see that Windows OS has had issues with this.  Android may have an issue here and there, but the OS itself is built for this sort of thing.  So in your case, it may really be the problem of the hardware.

Windows' problem is not the hardware, it's the OS itself.  It's not built for efficient use of mobile tech...the management of screen on/off, wifi on/off or on while screen is off, etc.  They've made supposedly "significant" updates to it in the past year with the surface user complaining, but they are klunky and still not very significant at all.  I'm assuming it will be fixed in windows 10, but you never know.  if not, I'll be like wtf.

435

Living Room / Re: I'd like to get a Windows Tablet: help me decide.

« Last post by superboyac on March 06, 2015, 12:14 PM »

Microsoft has a special on the HP Stream 7 signature edition tablet (meaning no crapware and a bare install).  It was only $79, and came with a $25 app store gift card and a year's sub to office 365, so it seemed like a good deal.  What it really did was bring into life a few more issues- real deal breakers.

It's a nice tablet, with a nice build.  A lot thicker than my ipad mini, but it feels good in the hand.  A bit bigger than my nook, but I really like it.  For $79 I don't feel that I've wasted money exactly, since I can use it as a test bed for apps.  But I wouldn't replace my mini (iOS) nor nook (Android) with it.

On the multi-purpose front, there's nothing in the App Store.  So with a $25 credit, I can't even find anything to spend it on.  And it expires in 3 months, so that's not likely to change in that timeframe.

On the reader front (I'd thought to replace my nook with something that I'm more familiar with), it just doesn't have the battery life to compete.  With either device.

I performed a test.  I fully charged my mini (the battery's already older on it) and the new stream 7.  Then I unplugged them and left them going, doing absolutely nothing but sitting on my desk.  I powered them on that same night.  Or tried to.  The stream 7 wouldn't power on because of low battery.  The ipad mini was still at 100%.  I fully charged the stream 7 again.  Today, it's at 30%.  My iPad mini is still at 100%.  That's with zero use.  Just sitting there.  And on my nook, I read on it regularly, and charge it maybe once a week?  Until they get the battery problems sorted, they shouldn't be marketing it.  Because it's hurting them.

-wraith808 (March 06, 2015, 08:23 AM)

I hear you.  The battery problem I think is a Windows OS problem.  Windows wifi features were not intended for mobile devices like tablets and phones.  They're usually just on all the time.  Now that they are using the full Windows OS on mobile devices, they have really been having problems with the wifi stuff related to battery life.  It's really pretty annoying to the end user.  I have a surface pro, and when I turn the screen on, it may take a minute or more before the wifi network is ready.  And if I turn it off and on again, same thing.  On Android and iOS devices, the wifi is always on I think, battery life is preserved when the screen is off, and it doesn't take a long time to connect.  This also has to do with cellular/wifi interactions as well.  Anyway, a full Windows OS doesn't seem to have these features.  They've tried addressing it and fixing it in many ways, all of them have been little to no improvement.
Windows 10 better fix this problem.  I mean, what else are they doing?  It can't be this hard to figure this out...especially when apple and android already have had it figured out for a long time.  So MS is just screwing around and being coy about their attempts to fix this.

Now, some people will say windows is different in that it has to work on a variety of third party hardware, unlike apple.  OK fine, but android has the same problem and they've figured it out.  MS is just deliberately not addressing this.  And they have more things like this.  Like their pen technology on the surface tablets has issues that take forever to be addressed.  So MS is just being annoying...saving all these fixes and features for upcoming upgrades...Windows 10, 11, etc. surface pro 4, 5, etc.

436

General Software Discussion / Re: Mischief 2.0: very promising drawing software ($25 !!)

« Last post by superboyac on March 05, 2015, 09:28 AM »

Tried it a while ago but I already have Artrage and it seems to do pretty much the same:

http://www.artrage.com/

I think to many software companies are reinventing the wheel, it's a waste of time and resources IMO.

-zenzai (March 05, 2015, 04:30 AM)

I didn't realize they had a windows offering.  very cool.

437

General Software Discussion / Re: BitTorrent Sync 2.0 Sucks!

« Last post by superboyac on March 03, 2015, 10:21 PM »

Does anyone have the installer for version 1.x? I want to revert my installation. I hate the new "improved" 2.0.

It went from a great, flexible, powerful sync application to a simple, "idiot-proof" application by taking away all the features I liked (such as being able to choose where you sync your files to instead of everything having to be in a monolithic folder structure like Dropbox).

-Deozaan (March 03, 2015, 09:15 PM)

Oh man!!  I was afraid of this.  The last few updates seemed to remove features rather than make it better.  So annoying.  I hate what they've done to the interface.  I especially hate that the "more options" triple colon thing is allllllll the way to the right and practically invisible.

438

General Software Discussion / Re: How to connect external storage? (sas cables, HBA card, adapters, ??)

« Last post by superboyac on March 03, 2015, 10:24 AM »

I think these are what you need:
For the external case: http://www.addonics....roducts/ad4smsas.php
For the host: http://www.addonics..../products/ad2ems.php

-4wd (February 23, 2015, 05:46 PM)

Thanks 4wd, those are perfect.  I'll be getting just that.
I also found this graphic, which is also perfect for me.

439

Living Room / Re: 2014-2015: Best tablet specs for ebook reading

« Last post by superboyac on March 03, 2015, 09:10 AM »

I remember that thread, mouser.  I'm with you, for journals and magazines, the letter size is pretty ideal.  I've been reading on 4" androids, ipads, asus transformer, and the surface pro.  The one I like the best is the surface pro.  Now, for journals and magazines, it's still too small.  Most people will say I'm crazy, but it is.  It's a big screen, great resolution, great everything, but for that kind of stuff it is still too small.  You really need 8.5x11 viewable.
For comic books, it's a little better, since comic books are shorter and narrower...however, even comic books feel just a tad scrunched.

Sounds like the issue is that if you make the tablet any bigger, it's not going to be comfortable to carry and use for other things.  I don't know.  If the new surface was letter size, I would jump on that.

440

Living Room / Re: DonationCoder 10th Anniversary plans, ideas, changes, fundraiser?

« Last post by superboyac on March 02, 2015, 08:22 PM »

mobile app for dc.

441

Living Room / Re: Destroying your hard drive is the only way to stop this super-advanced malware

« Last post by superboyac on February 26, 2015, 05:01 PM »

A hardware jumper to enable any firmware flashing seems like a great idea for all devices.

-mouser (February 26, 2015, 12:57 PM)

hey!  I like that!

442

General Software Discussion / How to connect external storage? (sas cables, HBA card, adapters, ??)

« Last post by superboyac on February 23, 2015, 05:02 PM »

I'm still working through my storage issues.  I have the main box done, and I'm getting ready to add more storage in the form of additional enclosures for drives only (no MB).  I've been researching, but I'm having a little trouble figuring what I need.  So below are my thoughts so far:
My SATA ports on the server MB are maxed out, so I need new SATA ports.
Therefore, I'm going to get the popular M1015 board in "pass through"? mode, which is done by flashing it to IT mode or something like that.
Now, I have a card that can add more drives.  The connectors on the card are 2 SAS plugs.
I need to connect this card to the drives in the external enclosure.  I don't really want a cable going from inside the server box, out into the enclosure.  I'd like to have it cleaner and I think I need some kind of adapter or something to put on the PCI brackets for each box.  What is this adapter?  it would be like this:

M1015-SAS cable -->bracket SAS?-->outside cable-->bracket SAS-->SAS-to-SATA breakout for the drives.

Is that correct?  I know the cables I'd need, but I don't know what to get for those bracket parts.  And I don't know what it's called, so I don't know how to search for it.

thanks.

443

General Software Discussion / Re: Storage Spaces talk

« Last post by superboyac on February 20, 2015, 12:23 PM »

https://forums.serve...es-and-tiering.2470/

Tiering seemed very interesting. At first...then reality sets in. Doing their "promotion" scans via a once-daily batch job just doesn't do much for "real time" tiering. Basically, you are always accelerating yesterday's workload. I guess its fine if you are nice consistent and predictable promotion needs. But if they are nice and consistent and predictable then you don't really need tiering at all...just build and SSD array and store the important files there. Duh! Same story for "pinning". I already store my virtual disk files on an SSD array. Not much real benefit.

444

Developer's Corner / Re: Long essay on the business of starting (feminist) collaborative publications

« Last post by superboyac on February 19, 2015, 05:34 PM »

I'm halfway through, good read.  I enjoy how she goes about organizing a project/business.  especially the way she writes about it.  It's helpful to know the thought process behind decisions.

445

General Software Discussion / Re: stickies Notezilla memoboard as full-blown personal note system

« Last post by superboyac on February 19, 2015, 10:29 AM »

Steven, I'm loving this discussion, glad you're back!  
I was thinking about Onenote and why i don't use it.  There's nothing really wrong with it, but I really don't want to commit to it.  I'll tell you what it is...it's one of these popular softwares that impresses you the first week you get introduced to it, and you feel like this is going to do the trick for you.  Then a month later, you realize that you just don't want to use it anymore.

Then, something like Rightnote was the opposite.  At first, I'm like this is the same as every other freaking tree-hierarchy organizer.  But as you use it, it grows on you.  And I can't put my finger on a particular feature that even makes it stand out much.

Then there's wiznote.  It's like evernote, but I like it more.  I'll show a couple of screenshots of why I like it.  I don't use these features much, but it shows that this is my kind of software.

This is the "content extraction" screen. Pretty powerful, shows the user that getting the notes out of there into something else is very possible.


And the note "history" item, with very granular control.

446

Living Room / Re: Please help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by superboyac on February 18, 2015, 09:29 PM »

Or you could buy 7 of those 8TByte drives (I am not sure if you can use those to boot from) and a 3TByte boot disk. That would leave you with 59TByte of storage space. That should cover your needs...for a while at least.

If that is not an option, you might consider to differentiate between data you want to keep and data you need direct access to. Direct accessible data is the data you need to store on your server, the other data could be on a NAS, a cloud, a set of (portable) hard disks or DEV/NULL...the only storage facility that dwarfs all the clouds combined!

-Shades (February 18, 2015, 07:30 PM)

Yea, I think you are right.  One of the reasons for the server was to consolidate all the stuff I have lying around on spare drives, dvds, cds, external drives.  They're not terribly important, probably mostly disposable, but that was the plan.

I'm keeping an eye out on those huge hard drive sales.  Let me know if there's a good deal!

447

Living Room / Re: Please help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by superboyac on February 18, 2015, 04:30 PM »

OK, so far so good.  I built it, it starts up, no problem.  Now, I'm already being psychologically hit by the number of drives I need because of all the redundancies.  On one hand, i want to say screw the redundancies, but I learned my lesson on that 15 years ago when I lost some data I thought I'd never lose because of those damned deathstars from hitachi.  So I'm sticking to the plan!

So here's my experience with storage spaces so far.  With storage spaces (and probably other similar systems, this is my first time with them) there's a hierarchy to the storage organization.  it works like this:
bunch of physical disks --> storage pools --> virtual disks --> (volumes?)

I don't get the volumes, I don't know if I need them.  I guess I do, I'll find out.
My plan is to create two pools...one for the live, working files...and another pool strictly to backup the first one.  Within each pool, I'm going to use the mirroring option in storage spaces.  So this halves my drive capacity.  And since I'm backing the pool up, I'm essentially quartering my usable physical disk space.  Which is annoying since I'm now quadrupling my cost!!

So I initially thought I had plenty of space and drives, and I guess now I feel I'm quickly running out.  I think I mentally was prepared for one level of redundancy, not two.  Oh well.

i wasn't planning on getting an additional expansion card for more sata ports, but I may have to now.  The 8 ports on the motherboard are full.

448

Living Room / Re: Destroying your hard drive is the only way to stop this super-advanced malware

« Last post by superboyac on February 18, 2015, 03:11 PM »

Is this the sort of thing UEFI can protect against?

449

General Software Discussion / Re: I've not been happy with Macrium Reflect Free, and perhaps their paid versions..

« Last post by superboyac on February 16, 2015, 12:22 PM »

peter.s...you're comment on drive hubs caught my eye.  I think I have to agree with you.  I have found hubs to often cause problems with hard drives.  I've had several situations where I had an extenral hub working fine on one computer, and when I moved it to another, a lot of the data got corrupted.  In these situations, there were a variety of issues at play.  One problem was the reliability of different connectors, like esata vs. usb 3.0.  Also a problem are drives larger than 2 TB, depending on the machine you are connecting to.  I've had problems where the drive connects/disconnects while large transfers are taking place.

I just got one of those docking stations to try, you know the dual duplicator type.  I wonder how reliable it will be.  It had good reviews, but my trust in them is only so so.  This one I'm trying is from Inateck.

Anyway, I'm always a little timid when it comes to these external hubs.

The one I've been using that I like best is from Datoptic (recommended here).  It has also had issues, but I think it more had to do with the machine and large drive than the datoptic enclosure.

450

Living Room / Re: Do we have any musical people on DC?

« Last post by superboyac on February 14, 2015, 02:37 AM »

^Nice! Very nice. (Like that vocalist too!)

-40hz (February 13, 2015, 09:00 PM)

We think she's awesome, too.  Thanks!!  Check out this track from maybe 10 years ago.  That's Houston person playing sax on it, and one of my first times in the studio, and I was basically just mesmerized because he might be my favorite sax player of all time.  Pay attention to 1:50.