The Outspoken Wookie

Testing an Android ICS Tablet

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 10:54:00 +0000

As Android's latest incarnation - Ice Cream Sandwich - had just hit the market, there wasn't a lot of choice in tablets in early December, 2011 when I was looking for an Android tablet to play with. The Asus Transformer Prime hadn't hit the market, most existing devices were promising updates by around mid-2012, and, well, I wanted something to have a look at in December 2011, not in June 2012 - that's why I decided to buy the Ainol NOVO7 Basic ICS tablet and see how it held up.

Initial Thoughts

First, let me say that this is a $99 ICS tablet so I didn't expect much - not in the way of physical build quality nor in the implementation of ICS. I bought mine directly from http://www.ainovo.com and paid their overpriced $60 shipping cost (which, due to a number of issues on their end, didn't result in the tablet arriving at my doorstep until 5th January, 2012 - definitely the worst $60 on freight I have ever spent in my life and the communications from Ainovo, well, let's just say they left a lot to be desired). Right now, Ainovo have no stock available of any of their tablets. What I *would* recommend people seriously looking at getting one of these tablets do is to head on over to McBub and buy it from there - not only is it a mere US$110, but that also includes freight to Australia!

The Ainovo tablets, being cheap, have cut a few corners. One major one is their choice of CPU. The average Android tablet runs on one of the many ARM implementations, however the Ainovo NOVO7 Basic (and Paladin) tablets run on a MIPS implementation - an Ingenic JZ4770 CPU clocked at 1GHz with a GC860 graphocs co-processor. The existing NOVO7 Advanced and the upcoming NOVO7 Elf and NOVO7 Aurora tablets run an Allwinner A10 CPU that is ARM based, so these more expensive tablets will have a slightly different (read: better) ICS experience than the cheaper Paladin and Basic tablets.

Having said that, the Ingenic CPU is no slouch - I wouldn't like to compare it with an i5, but then I wouldn't like to compare the power consumption with an i5 either! :) As far as usability for a cheap tablet goes, this Ingenic MIPS-based CPU definitely handles well. The biggest issue it has is that most Android developers are expecting their applications to run on ARM-based CPUs and their code seems to have been written with ARM-based extensions, meaning that certain applications such as Skype, Facebook, Flash and World Of Goo are not available for the NOVO7 Basic tablet. This is a bit annoying, but there's often workarounds or alternates - unfortunately this isn't the case with neither Flash nor Skype. :(

There's 512MB of RAM installed and 8GB of Flash storage. There's a MicroSD card slot, inbuilt microsphone and speaker and standard 3.5mm headphone socket as well as B/G/N Wi-Fi, however there's no provision for a 3G/HSPA SIM nor BlueTooth. A 3G USB device can be connected, and there's an adapter provided that you can plug your USB 3G dongle into. The screen resolution is 800*480 and there's also a mini-HDMI connector that can deliver up to 1080P60 output - I've not yet tested this output.

Android ICS 4.0.1 (as shipped)

The version of Android that's supplied with the NOVO7 Basic is the 4.0.1 release, which means that there's already a newer release of ICS available - however there's no official NOVO7 Basic ICS 4.0.3 ROM upgrade available yet (as at the date of this post, 28 Jan, 2012). I found this unofficial NOVO7 Basic ROM at Pandawill Forum, however the download is glacial and you'll need to rename the .zip file to "update.zip" and follow the upgrade instructions on the Ainovo support site to upgrade your NOVO7 Basic tablet.

On the stock ROM, I found issues with both Dolphin Browser HD and Pulse new reader - when trying to browse anything, they both displayed heavily corrupted text and images, to the point that they were both utterly useless. The vast majority of applications, however, that would install on the NOVO7 Basic ran without a hitch. They weren't mindblowingly fast, but they ran decently enough.

The touch screen was a little insensitive at times and a little too sensitive at other times - the experience with it was far from slick. I've used a number of touch screen devices and this was the least enjoyable to deal with.

The single speaker is placed on the back of the unit and isn't all that loud - you can definitely hear it, but you'd struggle to hear anything it was outputting in anything other than a moderately quiet environment.

Video performance is quite good - there's a couple of included video files in both .wmv and .rmvb format and it plays all of the Quicktime sample files with only "Sorenson" showing any artifacting as well as the DIVX and MP4 encoded Shark Tale trailers (the .ogv file will not play).

The "Spiderman" game is shipped with the NOVO7 Basic, and being a non-game player, I couldn't care less, however for the review, I rane the game, had it download around 300MB of updates/data, and ran it. It played well - no issues with speed, however the sensitivity of the touch screen was the only issue I had with the playability of the game.

Android ICS 4.0.3 (unofficial)

When I upgraded to the unofficial 4.0.3 ROM, I found the touch screen immediately more responsive and predictable - it now works like I would have expected it to - a big improvement.

I also noticed a whole pile of apps installed that are Chinese-only, including the AnZhi "GoMarket" app that can be used to update the apps that are pre-installed with the 4.0.3 ROM. I've not found much use for any of the other pre-installed Chinese apps as they are, well, basically in Chinese and I have as much comprehension of Chinese language as the modern US Republican Party has of social responsibility - so I'll likely uninstall them to gain some space back.

Apps that worked poorly on the default 4.0.1 ROM - in particular Dolphin Browser HD and Pulse news reader - work well under 4.0.3. This is excellent news for me as I'm a huge fan of the Pulse news reader app and running it on the NOVO7 Basic is a much better experience than on my iPhone 3GS. Apps that don't suport MIPS CPUs obviously still will not install (I'll out Skype, Facebook, Flash and World Of Goo here again).

I can't be sure, but the performance of the tablet under the unofficial 4.0.3 ROM seems a little snappier - nothing major, but it does feel a little more responsive overall.

Spiderman needed to re-download its updates/data/whatever and when finished, was as playable as before with the addeed bonus that the more responsive touch screen made the game better.

Angry Birds is included with this 4.0.3 update as well and it, too, plays rather fluidly.

Android's Biggest Letdown

The default mail client in Android, whilst it does actually connect to Exchange servers and allow connections to multiple Exchange servers, is a dog. It is a very, very basic mail client and needs a lot of improvement. One of my biggest gripes is that when moving an Inbox item to another folder, the folders are listed in alphanumeric order, not in the order that I have under my Inbox - which makes the subfolder structure you have in Outlook totally invisible to Android's mail client. That's right, if you have multiple folders called "Newsletter", say from multiple vendors, then you will see a number of "Newsletter" folders when attempting to move an email with no sane way to work out which one actually is. That's utterly and mindnumbingly useless!

TouchDown, for US$20 resolves many of the issues with the native Android ICS email client and will most be definitely be an application I'll be purchasing in the very near future.

Overall

The NOVO7 Basic is quite usable - the Labtech, Mobile Noter, Documents To Go, Foxit Reader, DropBox, SpiderOak, SugarSync, Box.net and Trillian apps work, various Wi-Fi and network scanning apps such as Wifi Analyzer and Fing work, Mobile Noter and SharePlus apps work, Kindle runs well... All up, even though there's no Skype nor Flash support for the MIPS CPU this tablet is built around, the tablet is a decent tablet with a few small quibbles - especially at the price.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Australian Open's Sexual Vilification and Baseless Hatred Arena

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 03:44:00 +0000

I posted this on Facebook:

I keep seeing "Margaret Court Arena" at the Australian Open and reading it as "Sexual Vilification and Baseless Hatred Arena"

and then the following in reply to a comment suggesting she (Margaret Court) has a valid opinion:

MC: "Our Constitution is based on biblical principles and our nation is great because of it."
HT: Actually, no, our Constitution is expressly *not* biblical based. Chapter V, s116 of the Australian Constitution:

116. The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.

MC: "Let me be clear. I believe that a person's sexuality is a choice. In the Bible it said that homosexuality is among sins that are works of the flesh. It is not something you are born with."
HT: I'd like to see where her proof is of homosexuality not being a choice. All medical and scientific evidence to date shows that this is simply not the case.

MC: "Lies just don't seem to matter much any more."
HT: She's completely correct there and backs her arguments up with a lot of them. Oh, and deception.

MC: "I can't understand, if we are a blessed nation under a biblical Constitution, why there is such a push to change it?"
HT: We're not a nation under a biblical Constitution - is she trying to spread a lie here, or just be deceitful?

MC: "That is why I believe we need to protect marriage because it has been God-ordained from the beginning."
HT: Nope, marriage was invented by mankind. Just like all gods are a human invention.

MC: "A nun at my primary school once gave me the cane and it was one of the best lessons of my life."
HT: So, being physically beaten by a religious figure is a life affirming and character building experience and one of the best lessons of her life? She really didn't learn much, did she?

-=-=

And the above rubbish is just from her latest article in the Herald Sun tabloid. The whole feeling of this and her previous comments about homosexuals exudes hatred.

On top of that, she'd doing expressly what her god forbids her to do according to I Timothy 2: 11 - she's not learning in silence and is attempting to have authority over men - and worse, calling herself a reverend. (Now, I don't believe any of this "women should STFU" rubbish, but her god believes it.) So, by her own standards, she's being disobedient by choice (unlike homosexuals, who are almost all born that way).

I've never, ever met a homosexual person who has chosen to be homosexual, they have all eventually accepted who they are after a lot of grief and then had this followed by even more grief. I'm sure some people choose to have homosexual liaisons as they are working out exactly who they are and some of those may well like the experience, however this would be a serious minority of people identifying as homosexual. Those who can't even entertain the thought of forming a deep, personal, sexual relationship with someone of the other sex are like the vast, vast majority of we heterosexuals who can't imagine the thought of forming a deep, personal, sexual relationship with someone of the same sex - we're all born the way we're born.

And yes, working in the entertainment industry for as long as I have, I've met more than my fair share of non-hetero people. They, like we heteros, are mostly good people, a few bad apples, mostly highly moral people, mostly loving and caring people and definitely people I've been happy to be associated with over the years. There's very, very few people that, throughout the course of my life thus far, I've been displeased to have had anything to do with - and without fail, these people have all been heterosexual!

Margaret Court needs to pull her head in and start looking at the world around her without her bigotry spectacles. Maybe she'd see people for who they truly are instead of through a tainted film of myth-based hypocrisy and be a better - and definitely nicer - person because of it. :)

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Facebook Comments, Likes and Hackers

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:03:00 +0000

I've seen a number of people posting Facebook Fallacies such as the following:

With the new 'FB timeline' on its way this week for EVERYONE...please do both of us a favor: Hover over my name or photo above. In a few seconds you'll see a box that says "Subscribed." Hover over that, then go to "Comments and Likes" and unclick it. That will stop my posts and yours to me from showing up on the side bar for everyone to see, but MOST IMPORTANTLY it LIMITS HACKERS from invading our profiles. If you re-post this I will do the same for you. You'll know I've acknowledged you because if you tell me that you've done it I'll 'like' it. Thanks
What they suggest doing has some mix of reality and mythology. Reality: Unsubscribing from friends' comments and likes will definitely stop them showing up in your ticker, however it will also stop them showing up in your feeds, so you'll never see your friends' comments again unless you go and visit each of their pages. Mythology: it won't limit hackers in any way.

What WILL protect you from hackers is to check your Privacy settings and ensure they are configured as you need them and to - and I'm disappointed I need to keep reiterating this point everywhere I go - use a secure passphrase and change it from time to time.

If you want to read a little more on this current Facebook Fallacy, please go here and read Carole's writeup.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Indian Religious Insanity

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 07:08:00 +0000

I had a read of http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2081078/Facebook-Google-ordered-remove-anti-religious-content.html and really wonder about the sanity of anyone who, in 2012, still believes in gods, goddesses, fairies, astrology and other mythology and - more to the point - believes that censoring some Internet sites in one particular country, whilst claiming they are not trying to smother free speech, so that inappropriate references to these mythological creatures will be removed is not only possible, but even logical and/or sensible.

The Indian IT Minister, Kapil Sibal, states "There were some demeaning, degrading, clearly pornographic depictions of gods and goddesses which no reasonable, sensible person anywhere in the world would accept, on any site." Now, I'm sure that on Reddit and various comedy and pornography sites, many reasonable, sensible people would see this and accept it as a matter of more than acceptable free expression by some people.

Personally, although I wonder how any reasonable, sensible person can believe in myths such as gods in 2012, I don't find depictions of gods banging each other (or other things) particularly amusing, however I cannot see why such images should be censored. They are, after all, images depicting mythological, non-existent beings - somewhat like the explicit cartoons of Meg and Quagmire or Barney and Wilma getting busy.

**UPDATE**
The United Nations, back in July 2011, issued a new statement on the extent of freedom of speech under international law. It says that laws restricting blasphemy as such are incompatible with universal human rights standards. So, this whole issue in India is going against the UN's Human Rights Statements. Go India! (Read more on this Statement here.)

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Firefox Updated

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 20:28:00 +0000

Are you sick and tired of the bugs in your old web browser? Well, do we have a treat for you!

Here at the Mozilla Foundation we've heard your complaints and taken action - the only action possible. With Mozilla Firefox, every time you open a new browser session, you'll get a Fresh new version of Firefox. That's right - if you found issues with the old version, just close it and re-open it and a new version will be automatically downloaded and installed. We've re-worked our development teams so that they generate new versions every 1.76 seconds, so you'll never again have to be stuck using an old browser.

Firefox Fresh - the new way to browse every single time you open it!

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Christopher Hitchens

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 23:36:00 +0000

I was saddened to hear of the death of Christopher Hitchens even though it was not unexpected. He was a man true to his convictions, who didn't tolerate nonsense nor woo woo, who loved life for what it actually was, not tainted by some belief in a mythical sky fairy, who was both intelligent and an intellectual, who was an excellent author, debater and personality and who was and will continue to be an inspiration to myself and many others.

Hitchens died on Thursday 15 December, 2011 of pneumonia, a complication of his oesophageal cancer that was no doubt caused by his love of cigarettes. It still amazes me that intelligent people can be suckered into smoking and find the addiction too hard to overcome, despite knowing the damage smoking can do to oneself.

I fondly recall the Intelligence Squared debate where Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry opposed the motion that "The Catholic Church Is A Force For Good In The World" sitting opposite Archbishop Onaiyekan and Ann Widdecombe. The audience vote before the debate was roughly 32% For, 52% Against and 16% Undecided, yet following thoughtful, fact based and persuasive arguments by both Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchens, the end result was 12% For, 86% Against and 2% Undecided. If you have not seen this debate, then I'd strongly suggest that investing a mere 2 hours to watch all parts of this debate will be well worth it.

I have read some of Christopher Hitchens' works and feel that I know some of his thoughts and beliefs. I don't necessarily agree with everything he believed in, but I sure do feel that he had a pretty decent grasp on reality - the reality that we all live in, without it being tainted by belief in any of the great number of myths that a great many people still believe in. I will definitely be reading more of his work.

We have all lost a great man and a great leader in the fight against nonsense. My condolences to his family and friends - you have lost a great man that you loved.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Sharing A Little FSMas Cheer

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 00:29:00 +0000

I have just reinvested this month's Kiva repayments into loans to more people. So far, this is how my portfolio looks:

Total Amount Lent	$4200.00
Total Amount Repaid	$3309.89
Total Amount Lost	$ 16.06
Total Refund/Expired	$ 29.01
Outstanding Portfolio	$ 845.04

Out of a total of 168 loans and $4200 loaned, I have had 4 loans end with a loss and that total loss was just $16.06 - That's a total of 2.4% of my loans have not been paid back fully, with a total of 0.4% default rate (in cash terms). I'm pretty happy with that and would consider this to be quite a bit better than your average bank would see in their books! :)

I'm also pleased to say that I'm a member of the AASFSHNR lending team which currently has a total lent amount of US$5,678,275 and climbing and also the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster lending team which is sitting at $875,175 and looking at reaching their first US$1m in loans in the near future - it will be good to help the FSM team reach this significant milestone.

In this holiday season, aside from giving praise to His Sauciness, our Pasta Master, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, would you also consider spreading a little cheer to those in needs of a loan to help them build their businesses or improve their education or housing? If you'd like to accept a Kiva Invitation from me, just click this link.

Thanks to Kiva, we can make a change for good in many people's lives.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Vibrams FiveFingers

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 09:10:00 +0000

OK, so I've known about the Vibrams FiveFingers range (well, some of it) for some time and know a few people who have some and quite like them, but it wasn't until I recently posted in Facebook that my physio recommended that I buy some supportive, anti-pronation shoes to help my recently (2011-10-23) badly sprained ankle that I actually considered buying some. And if it wasn't for a friend suggesting that I look at them, I'd have totally forgotten about them!

So, as Joanne suggested I take a look at these instead of buying "normal" shoes, I did just that. And I'm glad I did. The exclusive Australian distributor for Vibrams products is Barefootinc, and right now they are at the end of a sale on some of their line, so now was a perfect time to make the leap.

I decided to buy a pair of Mocs for around the house, mainly in winter when it *does* get just a little chilly here in Brisbane. They'll also be great when I'm staying in a hotel somewhere. I also bought a pair of Sprints to walk in as I need to get back into walking a few afternoons a week to help get rid of a few(1) extra kilos and also to start strengthening my ankle now I can walk on it sans crutches and heavy strapping.

I've been wearing the Mocs for most of the past week since they arrived and find them to be quite nice. They have a soft, kangaroo leather upper which appeals to me - I eat a lot of roo anyway, so walking around in the carcasses of my conquests seems only fair. (Please note, I buy my roo pre-packaged in plastic.) As they are designed exclusively for indoor use - they don't have the same soles as the majority of the Vibrams range - I've been wearing them mainly indoors and also out to the car/bin, but not out on the footpath or road. I can see these being well used as time goes by...

I only received my Sprints on Thursday and wore them last night when a mate and I went to Nandos for some excellent Portugese chicken (much better than that sub-par Oporto stuff). I wandered around a bit in them and was pretty happy with the way they seemed to alter my standing/walking posture and also they felt good to walk in.

This evening I took the Sprints for a walk around some fairly flat streets (until my ankle's strong enough, I'm keeping clear of the hills I normally encounter on my walks). I was quite comfortable walking in them and was impressed with how "natural" they felt when walking. OK, let me just say that unless I'm on a client site I'm generally always barefooted around home and the office and have been for many, many years. I don't hate shoes, I just prefer to be barefooted. So wearing the Sprints when walking felt like I wasn't wearing shoes (which I wasn't in the traditional sense) and really did feel good.

I walked for about 50 minutes and probably about 30 - 35 minutes into the walk I decided to walk on the grass beside the footpath and see how my ankle handled the uneven surface, which has been a HUGE issue over the past few weeks. Well, I can report that in the Vibrams Sprints, my ankle felt fine - both on the footpath and on the grass/uneven surface. I even considered walking a bit further but the rain was just starting to fall and I decided that I'd prefer to keep my phone dry and head out again tomorrow.

So, with the way I feel my standing/walking posture improve when wearing these VFF Sprints and the fact that they are extremely comfortable to walk in, I'm now considering a pair of black KSOs a size or so larger so I can wear them with Injinji socks (also from Barefootinc) to replace my normal shoes (Adidas runners that actually feel pretty good for regular shoes) most of the time.

(1) Well, OK, a few more than a few(2)
(2) And maybe a few more than that

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

LuminAID - Real Light From The Real Sun

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 21:44:00 +0000

If you were looking for a way to spread the true light this FSMas/holiday season by helping a small business owner trade for a few extra hours a day or to allow a school child to study at night or a family to see without needing to burn fuel that produces toxic gases, then LuminAID may well be the project for you.

Instead of spreading religious mumbo jumbo about some mythically-endowed son, spread something truly useful for people - real, electromagnetic light in a waterproof, inflatable form, powered by the real sun.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

How To Work From Home Without Going Insane

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 22:38:00 +0000

I read this post from Lifehacker Australia this morning and being a veteran of "work from home" myself (since 1989) I thought it only fair to make mention of it - there's some good points in there for anyone starting out or even starting to lose their way...

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

What Goes Up Mars Come Down

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 21:39:00 +0000

On 9th November, 2011 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the Russians launched their Phobos-Grunt probe using a Zenit-2 booster rocket. 11 minutes later, just as planned, the probe separated from the booster however neither of the two engine burns which would have set the probe on its way towards Mars' moon "Phobos" were successful.

Plans for the Phobos-Grunt mission started around the mid-1990s and after receiving an initial substantian funding of 40 million rubles in 2007, the project moved from paper to production. Initially slated to launch in 2009, there were a myriad of setbacks mainly due to insufficient testing and unfinished components and this launch attempt was eventually scrubbed when it became clear that there was no way the mission would be ready for launch in the 2009 window that allowed the probe to reach Mars and Phobos.

Normally when new, as yet untested technology is being used to launch an expensive payload such as this, there will be a series of launch and control tests run (as NASA performed on 9th November, 2011 with its 500 sec test burn of the J-2X rocket engine) before the actual payload is sent off. A number of these tests were not run and apparently some team members were even questioning the reliability of the control systems just before launch. So it seems that this mission, even after being delayed for just over 2 years, was still seriously under-planned and under-prepared.

What's now the result of this half-arsed attempt at launching a probe to Phobos is that as NASA launches their "Curiosity" Mars probe/lander on 25 November, 2011 (planned to reach Mars in August, 2012), the Russian Federal Space Agency will be attempting to narrow down the estimated point of its uncontrolled re-entry and touchdown of the parts of Phobos-Grunt that will survive re-entry. Now, with around 7.5 tonnes of highly toxic nitrogen teroxide and hydrazine propellant and some (mildly) radioactive Cobalt-57 on board, this probe will be one of the largest and most dangerous re-entries of launched material to date.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Now It's Steam's Turn

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 01:59:00 +0000

Valve Software's "Steam" service was hacked recently. The database that the hackers gained access to contained sensitive information such as usernames, billing addresses, salted password hashes and encrypted credit card details, but it is unknown if this information was taken and/or the encryption compromised.

The next in a long line of breached online/cloud services, I'd strongly recommend Steam users check their credit card statements and make sure they change any passwords they have - preferably using passphrases, which if chosen well are significantly harder to crack. I'd also strongly suggest regular passphrase changes for any sites that contain sensitive information and using different passphrases on every such site.

I've just checked and I currently have 684 passphrases that I have stored here, the vast (vast) majority of which are unique. There's no way I could ever remember these, so I use Roboform to store these. There's also LastPass, KeePass and other password storing applications out there, but I've found RoboForm to be by far the best. Just make sure you use an appropriately secure passphrase to protect the application you store your passwords in! :)

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Brisbane IT Training

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 00:29:00 +0000

It is a busy time for IT-based training here in Brisbane!

SMBiT Professionals (Brisbane Chapter) ran an open training session on Group Policy and Remote Desktop Services at The Chalk Hotel on 23rd October.

Robert Crane from CIAOPS is holding an informal "Office 365 for SMB. The tricks, traps and best practices" afternoon on 9th November at The Chalk Hotel from 2:00pm - 5:30pm.

The regular SMBiT Professionals Brisbane Chapter meeting will be held at The Chalk Hotel from 6:30pm - 9:00pm following Robert's Office 365 session on the 9th November. This meeting we'll have Sophos presenting on their products and their MSP offering and we'll also have Shane Hoey (PowerShell Guru) presenting Part 2 of a PowerShell for SMB session. The first part of this PowerShell for SMB presentation will be held with the SMBiT Professionals Sydney Chapter at North Ryde on the evening of the 8th November. SMBiT Professionals members should check the mailing lists for details of these events and the streaming/recording availability.

On Thursday 10th November, again at The Chalk Hotel, Robert Crane will be holding a SharePoint Bootcamp from 8:30am - 5:30pm. The aim of this hands-on course is to provide you with the technical and business skills to confidently install, support and maintain just about any SharePoint installation

And then we have Infrastructure Saturday on 3rd December from 8:00am until around 5:00pm which will be at the Microsoft Brisbane offices. Last year's InfraSat was a resounding success and this year's event should follow in those footsteps.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Has RIM Finally Fallen In?

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 21:10:00 +0000

If you're a Blackberry user in many parts of the world (including Europe, Middle East, Africa, India and South America) you'll likely find that you can't use Blackberry messaging and browsing and this has been the case for a day or so and will be remedied at some point in the future!

This was all caused by the failure of a single server in the UK which in a domino-like free-fall, resulted in a number of other servers going offline in sympathy. It does, however, show the insanity in relying on a single company to deliver all of this information world-wide.

Yes, another Cloud service takes down thousands/millions of users in one fell swoop. Cloud? Stability? Data Access? Choose the first, or the others! ;)

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Storms On Their Way

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 21:34:00 +0000

I just clipped this from the BOM site - we's a got some rain a'comin'! :)

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Steve Jobs - RIP

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 02:47:00 +0000

I'm not an Apple fan, but I have a lot of respect for what Steve Jobs achieved. So, the news of his death today, whilst not unexpected, is still sad.

RIP Steve - you will definite be missed.

So Zune And Yet So Long

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 04:23:00 +0000

Microsoft has discontinued their Zune hardware platform as of today: http://www.zune.net/en-US/support/zuneplayers/supportzuneplayers.htm

Disturbing News From The Religious Nutter Front

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 06:24:00 +0000

It appears that the Australian National Anthem isn't good enough for some people - a number of "christian" schools are now using an unauthorised 2nd verse that has never been part of our National Anthem nor does it have anything to do with anything other than pretending that Jesus Christ is head of our country (when he was nothing other than a regular human being - like the rest of us).

Have a read of this News.com.au article for some more information on this disgraceful episode.

Now, I have to say that as a proud Australian, I know as many of the words to our National Anthem as the next person does (ie, some of them), but trying to use our National Anthem to push one particular religious fairy tale as being what we all believe in really makes me feel dirty. If you want the real words to the first two verses, then have a read of them over here.

And while I'm going on about abusing our National Anthem (and I've said this before), I'd really like all Australiand to have a good read of the proper/authorised second verse and especially these particular lines:

For those who’ve come across the seas
We’ve boundless plains to share;
With courage let us all combine
To Advance Australia Fair.

Yes, that shows, in our National Anthem, that we're not a country who will let people suffer the fates that many have suffered in trying to reach our shores when escaping from horrific situations overseas. No, I don't think we should accept "just anyone", but I most definitely do think that we need to have a think about these words and our own humanity when handling illegal immigrants and processing their requests for asylum.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

LOB Vendors - The Bane...

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 06:03:00 +0000

Why is it that Line Of Business Vendor support (sic) technicians (sic) who barely know even a little bit about how computer networks (especially Windows AD-based networks) operate and should know a lot about how their product functions always insist they know more than the system admin about the network (until they eventually have to agree that they don't understand much at all) and even more annoyingly keep showing that they don't know a great deal about their own product?

Not to mention that if these guys actually administered a network, all firewalls, anti-virus and anti-malware would be disabled permanently and more than likely, all users would have the same password: "password".

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Office 365 - The Sep 8th Outage Explained

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 22:16:00 +0000

According to information released recently, a configuration update on the tool that Microsoft uses to load balance network traffic failed, causing the load balancing to fail, taking out services such as Windows Live, Hotmail, SkyDrive and Office 365.

This was the latest in a long line of service disruptions for Microsoft's online services - especially of BPOS and Office 365 - which leads to the question: Just how stable are Microsoft's hosted solutions, really?

With all the emphasis Microsoft is placing on their online services, wouldn't you think that they'd be testing things like configuration updates to critical infrastructure before deploying it to soon find that it takes out their "we're all in" cloud services moments later?

Now, whilst I agree that online solutions are appropriate in some situations, they are most definitely not a panacea. Issues like this that result in thousands (or orders of magnitude more) of their clients being taken offline with no access to their data only goes to show that this is a technology in its infancy and running on technology that's still being stress tested.

If you have moved your data to "the cloud", what happens when your cloud hosting provider breaks or closes down? How do you get access to your critical business data? Backups are at least as crucial for cloud-based data as they are for on-site based data - and a proper backup/restore/alternate access regime needs to be worked out with any potential hosting partners well before your data is moved from on-site to the cloud.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Windows 8 Tablet PC Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 21:39:00 +0000

So, after spending a little while using Windows 8 x86 on this Tablet PC (Slate) I have started to restore the Windows 7 image backup I took before installing Windows 8.

The *main* issue I have is the seriously reduced functionality of the "Desktop" in Windows 8 - there's no Start Menu any more and clicking on what appears in place of the Windows 7 Pearl just takes you back to the (currently - this is pre-beta) almost totally non functional Metro UI. If this is what Microsoft relegates the desktop to, then I can't see anyone except personal (home) users and tablet users looking at Windows 8 - Enterprise and SMB clients will not be able to function in a barely usable desktop environment as I can *guarantee* you that very, very few of the LOB vendors out there will release their apps through the Microsoft Win 8 App Store as full-screen (Metro-style) apps. And the "just use search, not the Start Menu" response Microsoft gives is a crock - especially on a Slate!

Obviously, as all of the tiles in the Metro UI are place holders except "Explorer", "Desktop" and "Control Panel", it is next to useless right now - however that aside, it *does* seem to be an interesting way to handle a Touch UI and I'm sure when devs start releasing apps that will work, it will become quite nice. Right now, however, there's nothing useful in it at all.

So, back to Windows 7 I come. This is disappointing as this is the fastest I have ever returned to a previous OS when starting to beta test the next one. :(

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Windows 8 Tablet PC

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 07:16:00 +0000

Well, I just (as in just) booted my no-name Chinese Slate PC into Windows 8 (Developer Preview) x64 and it seems to be basically working - most of the hardware was detected and seems to function. Of course, the 3DSP BT/WLAN card didn't function and the Windows 7 drivers supplied with the tablet are only x86 drivers, however I found x64 drivers at Syntek Semiconductor site - but they also didn't do the trick. So... back to x86 I go! :(

The Slate PC (Tablet) I have can be found here at DinoDirect - however don't bet on it being shipped with a functional 3G device - mine's totally non-functional. That aside, I'm pretty happy with the rest of it. Obviously the 3DSP Bluetooth/Wi-Fi card is a bit of a pain and I may well look around and see if I can find a card with functional x64 drivers - though it works fine in x86 (as supplied with the Tablet).

As to Windows 8, well since most of the Metro style buttons are only there for show and as the older Windows 7 interface is pretty much only partially functional, I don't know how long I'll be able to run with this on my Tablet for now, but soon, no doubt, things will be picking up speed with Windows 8! :)

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Windows 8, Hyper-V And Power Saving

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 23:48:00 +0000

Well, it seems that the updated version of Hyper-V that will be included in x64 builds of Windows 8 will allow the PC to sleep and hibernate, unlike that in the current Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 version of Hyper-V.

That's great news as it means that people who want and/or need to run Hyper-V guests on their desktop can now do so and retain the power-saving functionality built into the operating system - something I've been a little concerned about since I started running WS2K8R2E on my desktop to gain access to Hyper-V functionality.

Hyper-V in Windows 8 will also support Wi-Fi NICs - as this blog post details.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Hyper-V - Failed To Compact VHD - File System Limitation

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 23:06:00 +0000

If you find yourself wanting to compact a Hyper-V VHD file and see the error message "The system failed to compact disk.vhd. Error Code: The requested operation could not be completed due to a file system limitation" you may find the information below handy.

First, check to see that there are no VSS backups on the VHD by running a "vssadmin list shadows" command in an elevated command prompt.

Second, delete any VSS backups that are present by running "vssadmin delete shadows /all". If this fails to delete the VSS backups, you may need to resort to the "DiskShadow" utility in WS2K8 and WS2K8R2. (There's some more information on DiskShadow here (free registration required) and also here.)

Finally, defragment the drive to enable greater compaction. I'm using MyDefrag in this example, but I also use Defraggler at times.

After this you should be able to compact the VHD without any issues.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

ABC and its News, News and News Policy

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 02:30:00 +0000

Are you concerned with the direction ABC is taking by dropping sport, arts and pretty much anything not news or current affairs? Well, speak to your State and Federal members of parliament to have them take this up for you.

Bowls Australia has an online petition available at http://www.bowlsaustralia.com.au/index.php?id=30&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=4602&tx_ttnews[backPid]=1&cHash=4abf12dc0e