Project: Unclutter, clean and set up the evil lab

For a long time allready I have a (very small) room in the house designated for my use. Computers and diy gear hanging around and I never get any work done because it looks like a trainwreck. The plan is to rearrange (something I love to do, maybe to much!) and finally clean up for real and trow away everything I will not be needing again. Making a (pretty) fresh start!

My last post about the spare room unclutter action spurred me into action and I think the evil lab needs more planning then the spare room. There will be more categories of boxes there to allready categorize items which come from there and will need to stay but don't have a designated space yet.

• tools (woodworking, screwdrivers, pliers, etc)
• computergear (usb, pci, etc)
• resources (power, network, etc)
• officegear (stapler, pen/pencils, paper, etc)

The tools have to be organised in a way I can easily grab them and easily put back so I can keep the room organised for a long time and not for 10 minutes like I am used to from other times this has been done. 

My desk, this is the collection area for everything I use and don't put back immediatly which at the moment is everything since I don't have a designated space for most items. It also holds my computer(s) and monitors, which take up a significant amount of space since I use two 17 inch CRT monitors. And last but not least, projectitems related to the project(s) I am working on at the moment and related paperwork.

This room will need to be redone from the ground up and this time I will make a plan and sketch a design beforehand where I will take into account the years of experiance I have now with this little room and the clutter which it holds. You will hear more about this room soon!

//Z

Uncluttering the house

Over the years I have collected an enormous amount of 'stuff' both in psysical and digital formats. I want to make an effort to remedy this situation and begin anew with a 'clean slate' but don't want to just trow everything out since some of the stuff might be usefull afterall.

The last months I have been collecting information about how to go about this in the most efficiently way possible and to have a system in place to not let this happen to me again. From what I read on the topic I have tried to make a list of what needs to be done for every room in the house. The one thing which will give me the most trouble but will be most effective for me will be to trow everything I have not used in a certain timeframe. Most resources put this timeframe at about half a year...I will most likely have enough to trow away when I put this at 2 years at first and make a second pass later while lowering this time.

Start one room at a time, take boxes per room with you labelled: Trash, Sell/Give away and one designated box per room where you can put everything which does not belong the room you are busy. Every item has to be considered and has to have a designated room and spot in that room. 

The first room I want to tackle is the spare/guest room we have. This should be the easiest room since most of the stuff which at the moment is in this room should not be there. We also use this room for doing laundry and I have the annoying habit of not emptying the dryer or emptying it on the bed without folding and storing the clothes. This I have to change anyway but it would also be nice to have a space to fold everything on since atm the bed or the floor is the only space to fold on.

So, the plan is to get every item from this room which does not belong there, put all leftover in boxes with a designation where it is supposed to be and to leave the room as bare as possible. Then I will build/find a table or desk where I can do folding and other clothesmanagement activities.

I will post my progress here and let you know when I will start on the next room, this will be much more of a challenge since this will be the evil lab which is completely cramped with stuff collected over the years.

//Z

And let's see if Flock works better!

A test post from Flock, at least I can enter a title...

//Z

Another test post, online this time (Google Docs)

This time made from an offline program but with google docs, very easy and support for titles..:)

some links:

PinstipedZebra 

(Edit 1) Hmm, well it seems like the title does not come through yet, time for a little googling. 

(Edit 2) +3 minutes: I have the feeling that this function does not work yet. This is a major bummer in my book. I would like to be able to use one central repository for my blogpostings where I can also hold my post-archive and I have to admit, having this online has an appeal since I will be able to reach it from everywhere. And when I have my new Iphone this will be easy done from every location.

//Z

Testpost from w.bloggar v4.02

This is a test post coming from a piece of blogsoftware I found lately. I do not really want to use the web to make posts to this blog so I am trying to find a desktop solution which suits my needs. For first

Clutter Title


hmm not yet totally working, I can't find a way to add a title....

//Z

Continuation of this blog

As you can see, I have not been posting at all lately. I have not had the motivation to post at all lately. I have been collecting a lot of subjects to write about lately and have a couple of projects in my pipeline which I want to write about so do expect more updates here soon!

//Z

The first day of the rest of my life!

Yesterday I had a really bad day; I was already feeling miserable because of lack of sleep and lack of motivation to do anything. Then I made a mistake and indulged in a vice, and most importantly, I lied about this vice for a long time already to my girlfriend, she found out yesterday. She was rightfully furious that I lied to her and told me I finally needed to DO something about my problems or face up to the consequences! I have to be a man and take my responsibilities! This is the drop which floods the bucket for me, so I have decided to finally get my life on the rails again, be more organized and start to focus on the important things in life.

On advise of my girlfriend I have started seeing a psychologist to help me. We have started to work on my problems and have made some progress already. I have things to do in the near future, I have to tell my mother everything for example I have to tell her I have been lying to her for a very long time already and fess up that I did not finish my study when I have been telling her for years already that all is well and it is progressing very well. I have to learn to talk about my feelings, which is immensely hard for me since I don't really share my feelings with anyone. Only my girlfriend knows more about me then anyone in the world.   

One of the things battling in my mind is my financial situation, I have a job, I make money but halfway through the month, my money runs out and I always have to think before I buy anything (even something cheap) whether I can afford it! Pension ? I do not have one, I am 30 years old now and I am worried about it!

There are numerous things I need to do now to solve this situation. I have to make an appointment with my mother together with my psychologist so I can tell her everything. This is on the planning for within a week! This scares the shit out of me, but I know I have to tell her everything so I can be healthy again. I should not have to mull this around in my head every moment of the day, this interferes with my life!

I have to do some research into who can help me with my financial situation, for example with my tax returns (which I have not filled in for more then 5 years). In addition, I have to make a budget showing where my money goes because now I do not know where it goes.  

All of the things I have been putting away in a little compartment in my head where I keep everything I don't want to think about. This compartment is full at the moment and i keep having to lean against the door to keep it closed because it is overflowing! This takes a lot of energy and this energy is just the energy I need to solve my problems and come through this. Therefore, the plan is to unload the contents of this cabinet and get it out there. This way I will not be bothered every day with the contents and am hopefully able to close the door on this compartment when it is empty and forget that it even exists so I will not fall for this trap again!

This post is a bit of an experiment, I want to try to document my progress on this path. Not only for me, later, when I look back and can read up on how I felt in this time. Also for the people that are close to me, so they can get the insight into my mind I have a hard time giving them in person, face to face. To motivate myself to follow this process through and not give up when I have not even started like I mostly do with a project. I enthusiastically start on a project, get bored or energy less and put it down again without making much (any at all actually) progress.

Therefore, by posting my feelings, plans and resolutions here I want to force myself to follow through!

//Z

Sunrisephoto by Steve Locke

I could not help myself!

I could not help myself today....

//Z

Post from Picasa2

Let's see if it works...fingers crossed!

//Z

Other jewellery

An instructable to make a belt from an old bike tire, looks cool too!

I want to make a belt from an old belt with a CPU as a buckle, how about that?

//Z

Learn to build with electronics

Make magazine has always a lot of ideas for the DIY-crowd. I want to learn how to build my own projects with electronic components and have a lot of ideas. I can see myself buying an Arduino soon to be able to facilitate this urge. Here a link with a tutorial for the Arduino enviroment, for your and my information.

//Z

Jewellery from computerparts

On multiple websites I have seen 'geeky jewellery' on offer, made from old computerparts. This interests me a lot, I have a lot of old parts available and a girl who is always looking for new and funky jewellery to wear so I want to do something with this.

Examples:
Earrings
Mac power earrings
Circuitboard earrings
fractalspin.com

I have more ideas for this myself and will be making some examples.

//Z

Back from vacation!

Well I'm back from my welldeserved vacation, with a notebook full of ideas, research and plans for the next months. I am planning to keep a little more up to date with this blog. I will be posting a lot of ideas and projects here I want to accomplish the in the near future. In this post I want to list some of these ideas and goals for myself.

For first I would like to keep my ideas, todo's and other musings in one place and I have been looking for an efficient way to do this. I have been looking in a way to be more productive and do more with the time I have available so a system would be the way to go. One of the picfalls of this line of thinking I have noticed in myself is that the looking and trying out all the ways available is an intersting exercise in itself and takes a lot of time. So at first I will go for a simple pen and paper system which will hold everything. One time a day I will have to do a review of all the items I jot down during the day and put them into this system. I mostly have multiple places I keep notes (work, home, car and other locations) and will have to consolidate this into 1 masterlist of things to do, ideas to work out and research to do.

One of the projects I have been doing in the last years has been the binding of books. I like to process of binding and there is a lot of creativity in this. In those years I have bound a surprising number of books and have learned a lot of tricks of the trade. This information is gleaned from online research and needs to be written down and published. I want to make a custom book for all the planning and goal information which is easily updated and all information will be at hand when I need it.

Online solutions would actually be a better idea to hold this information and to have access to everything on the fly, wherever I am, but this will be the next step and will be at least half a year before I implement this.

Another project idea I had is to help me in my research. It would be a way to keep all the links/bookmarks and notes for a certain subject automatically and make it searchable and indexed. This is something I am exploring requirements at the moment and you will hear more about this later.

Also I will probably make some posts about my vacation and post some of the pictures I have taken. For sure there will be a post about a phenomenon I have seen in greek licenseplates which form words in another language.

//Z

Summer vacation in Greece offcourse!

As most of my readers (my friends) will allready know, the next few weeks I will be in Greece for my summer vacation. I will be visiting my girls parents for a week first in Thessaloniki then go for a weekend to Pilion, an area in Greece where we have been multiple times before and fell in love with the first time I saw it.

After that we will be flying to Zakynthos, an island on the west coast of Greece where neither of us has been before. We have head great things about this island and we are anxious to see if it can live up to expectations.

Over the next weeks I will probably post some pictures of Thessaloniki and of the places we go.

//Z

To Aleksej: I hope you had a good flight! Give your mom my greetings (ofcourse also of D.) and i hope everything works out businesswise!

Building your own linux server on Bit-tech

A site I follow for years allready, bit-tech.net has a nice article up about building your own linux server. After the first installment they also have the second article up.

Interesting read about how to approach this fear as a newbie. I will be installing a new server soon too, my old desktop will fulfil this function. Webmin seems like a way to go, interesting...

//Z

I have succumed

Since seeing iTunes working a couple of times I succumed to the idea of installing it. Before I have been able to say NO, but today I will install it..

Update: Well I have to admit, iTunes works well under windows, it is a keeper i think.

Although after finding out it is not possible to run iTunes under linux and playing a bit with different clones I have not found the linux substitue for me yet. The quest is not over yet.

//Z

Streaming MP3's with Gnump3d

For a friend of mine I am looking into software for streaming MP3's across the internet. He will be abroad the next weeks and wants to be able to listen to his own MP3's when he is away. He runs a Mac so I don't think it will be so hard to find something.

I did some research and a couple of likely candidates show up: A linux.com article and a Newsforge.com article seem to point in the right direction.

Especially GNUMP3d looks to be interesting, I will let him know about it and we will see if he likes it and gets it to run..

**Update: We have installed it yesterday and got it working. Streaming works like it should, we just have to look into the security settings before hooking it to the internet.

//Z

Choosing the right hardware IV, Conclusion

As you can read in the last installments of this series (I II & III) I was looking for some new hardware for my desktop. Since the last installment I have chosen and bought the hardware but I had not updated the blog to reflect this yet.

Choosing the right chipset for the job at hand

For first, I have very good experience with Asus as a manufacturor. At work we prefer Asus and at home I have a lot of Asus boards so the choice for a boardmanufacturor is easy. For the chipset it goed between Nvidia and Amd/Ati at the moment since they deliver the best bang for the buck featurewise. Nvidea as well as Ati would give me the features I need but the AMD boards are a little cheaper. The AMD 690G will be it, a very modern chipset, fully featured and the ability to hook it up to my tv in the future (when I buy a new tv with DVI-in). For memory I chose a pair of 1Gb Dimms which were on sale from a respectable manufacturor, Kingston. So the partlist for now comes to:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2.0GHz HT 1MB AM2 65W Boxed
Asus M2A-VM
2x 1Gb Kingston Valueram

Other hardware

This would give me everything required to build my new desktop but I decided to also order a harddisk and a videocard since they were cheap and I had the money for it after my mum also kindly donated cash to the cause! So after looking into harddisks I chose the cheapest 250 Gb harddisk available in the shop, a Maxtor DiamondMax 21 250Gb Sata300 8Mb cache (STM3250820AS) was added along with a Asus PCI-e Radeon X550 TC 512MB to be able to use 2 screens (and if surroundview works: 3, in combination with the buildin VGA). And when the gear got delivered I noticed that the PSU I wanted to use from my old desktop did not have enough power to power the motherboard so I got a new PSU too, an Enermax 350 Watt which they had locally on sale for 30 euro.

Putting it all together

Building it all into my old case went like a dream, no problems whatsoever so now I have a new desktop to play with. Installing an operating system is the next task and will be described in a next post. All in all I am very happy with my new pc!

//Z

Designing and making a modular alarmclock I

I have some cool ideas to wake me up in the morning. There should be a way to be able to wake up alone and not wake up my girl in the morning when she does not have to wake up as early as I. My idea for accomplishing this is a vibrating wristband wirelessly connected to the alarmclock. This would give me the option of waking up with music, with my vibrating wristband or a combination.

The wireless communication between the alarmclock and the wristband can be implimented a multitude of different ways. For example a RF link, Wifi or a bluetooth connection come to mind. The bluetooth seems like a very interesting option since all (new) phones come with bluetooth so the device would also be able to communicate with a phone.

The idea is to take a normal alarmclock to begin with and replace the switch of the (music)alarm with a wireless module so the alarm would trigger a little motor with a non-symmetrical contra-weight attached to the wristband. This will give you a vibrating wristband usable with a generic alarmclock. When I get this working I can expand the idea to include working from a mobile phone so you can just use your alarmclock on your phone to wake you up.

Sparkfun sells a bluetooth serial modem which is kinda pricey. They also sell a 2,4 Ghz tranceiver which costs a lot less but does not offer the easy integration with other services of the bluetooth solution.

I see in my head allready an Arduino with bluetooth connectivity which you use as an alarmclock, then a wristband with bluetoothreceiver and a phone to do the updating.

Interesting I think, let's see if I can come up with a design.

//Z

Virtual Dimension

The Core Dump Blog I recently discovered had a article about virtual desktops on windows. I have always seen this as a area in windows which is missing!

At the moment I am using virtual desktop from free-soft which has limited possibilities so I will be sure to try out Virtual Dimension!

//Z

Update: This rules, Virtual dimension replaces virtual desktop!

Building with Balls :)

Wow, cool idea! Maybe I can use this idea somewhere..

//Z

Very cool idea, nice future project

This seems like something for me, easy to switch off but effective to wake me up.

It does not look like it would be hard to do it the DIY way...maybe later...

//Z

Dishwashing you keyboard!

I saw this through digg I think, someone did an experiment with putting you dirty keyboard in the dishwasher. That reminded me of some pictures I took when I did that with a keyboard..

This is one of my keyboards after a couple of years of use, openened up...

I took out the guts and put it all in the dishwasher minus the electronics and the plastic shields.

It came out perfect, every key was usable. It did fail in the end though although I doubt the dishwashing had a lot to do with it, as you can see from the first picture..

//Z

Learning Python: Books I am reading

Learning python is possible from the web I think, easier imho is buying a book about it and that is not exactly what I did. I got Learning Python, second edition by David Asher and Mark Lutz. I can highly recommend this book, I am about halfway through now and I still understand what I am reading. It is written in a nice writingstyle which appeals to me. Also I got, just for fun, Python & XML by Christopher Jones and Fred Drake.

Expect whole reviews of these books when I finish reading and digesting them. For now I can say both books are interesting and appear well written.

//Z

Installing a secondary domain controller in a win2k3 domain.

I have started a series of posts about my journey installing a secondary domain controller into a existing windows 2003 Active Directory Domain.

I keep this stuff on my other blog "The Striped Giraffe". This post documents all the problems I ran into and solutions I found for those problems, maybe it is interesting for anyone?

It will be an ongoing series which will only finish when the DC is functioning satisfactory.

//Z

Nintendo Wii controller

I have my eye on a Nintendo Wii for some time now. I never wanted to buy it at lauchtime but want to wait for it to come with a pack with a game or other gear. It allready comes with wii sports offcourse and the tennis game is the coolest ever on a console but i want more for my buck. There will be pricecuts and other swag later in this year i guess so for the moment I can wait. Also my girl is not very interested, she is normally an enourmous fan of everything Nintendo but the new controller is a little strange for her, she just has to try one!

I want to buy a controller loose anyway to experiment with it by hooking it up to my pc and seeing if you can control my os with it. I have seen some implimentations but they did not seem to be so fast or so user friendly, I will see. And whenever I buy a Wii I can just use the controller with it too,

Interesting Wii links:
Wii dismantle @ Spark Fun
Homebrew Wii

//Z

Electronics tutorials galore@Spark Fun !

Spark Fun Electronics, a company that sells electronics. I have been coming to their website for years allready, and it seems like it must be a fun company to work, the way the tutorials they have on their site are written screams that the one writing them was having fun and wants to communicate what they have learned over the years. Definitly worth a read, make sure you have a couple of hours to spend because you get drawn into the pit here.

At the moment I am reading the Beginning Embedded Electronics Tutorials, and loving it. Some more gear to buy, another hobby, ah well fun is fun!

//Z

Programming in Python: Bluetooth

How to control bluetooth through python, a little advanced for me at the moment but I came by this while surfing so I will post it here so I can find it again. Stéphane Graber made a bluetooth headset manager in python, interesting code when i start to work with bluetooth.

And while on the subject, some more interesting links when working with bluetooth:

LightBlue: a cross-platform Python Bluetooth API
Bluetooth tutorial at Spark Fun Electronics

//Z
 

Choosing the right hardware III, Chipsets

Previous entries: I & II

Since I have already decided where to buy, the list of motherboards I can choose from is constrained to the motherboards the shop offers. Still plenty of choice as you can see here, this is the list of possibilities within my budget (and a little more for good measure). For every possible board I have linked the specification page at the manufacturer:

ASRock	AM2NF3-VSTA	nForce3 250, SATA RAID, 8CH	€ 50.00	ATX
ASRock	ALiveSATA2-GLAN	K8T890 CF, SATA2 RAID	€ 57.50	ATX
ASRock	ALiveXFire-eSATA2	ATI Xpress 1600, SATA2 RAID	€ 62.00	ATX
ASRock	ALiveNF5-eSATA2+	nForce 520, SATA2 RAID	€ 67.00	ATX
ASRock	ALIVENF6G-VSTA	GeForce 6100, SATA2 RAID	€ 55.00	mATX
ASRock	ALIVENF6G-DVI	NF6100-430, SATA2 RAID	€ 61.00	mATX
Asus	M2V-TVM VIA	K8M890, SATA RAID, VGA, 6CH	€ 58.00	mATX
Asus	M2V	K8T890, SATA2, SATA RAID, GLAN, 6CH	€ 62.50	ATX
Asus	M2N	nForce 430 MCP, SATA2 RAID, GLAN	€ 63.50	ATX
Asus	M2A-VM	HDMI 690G, SATA2 RAID, VGA, DVI	€ 64.50	mATX
Asus	M2N4-SLI	nForce 4 SLI, SATA, GLAN, 8CH	€ 66.50	ATX
Asus	M2N 1394	nForce 430 MCP, SATA2, Firewire	€ 69.00	ATX
Asus	M2NBP-VM	CSM Quadro NVS 210S, SATA2	€ 71.50	mATX
Asus	M2N-E SLI	nForce 500 SLI MCP, SATA2 RAID	€ 76.00	ATX
Asus	M2A-MVP	480X CrossFire, SATA2 RAID	€ 76.00	ATX
Asus	M2NPV-VM	GeForce 6150, SATA2 RAID, VGA	€ 77.00	mATX
Asus	M2N DH	nForce 430 MCP, SATA2 RAID, GLAN	€ 77.00	ATX
Asus	M2N-VM DH	GeForce 6100, SATA2 RAID, VGA	€ 83.00	mATX
Asus	M2R32-MVP	CrossFire Xpress 3200, SATA2	€ 90.00	ATX
Asus	M2N-Plus SLI Vista Ed	nForce 500 SLI MCP	€ 95.50	ATX
Asus	M2N-SLI Deluxe	nForce 570 SLI, SATA2	€ 101.50	ATX
Foxconn	K8M890M2MA-RS2H	K8M890 VGA	€ 49.00	mATX
MSI	K9MM-V	K8M800, SATA RAID, 6CH	€ 43.50	mATX
MSI	K9VGM-V VIA	K8M890, SATA, LAN	€ 51.00	mATX
MSI	K9N6SGM-V	GeForce 6100, SATA2 RAID	€ 53.00	mATX
MSI	K9AGM2-L	690V, SATA2 RAID, 8CH	€ 55.00	mATX
MSI	K9N4 ULTRA-F	nForce 500 Ultra, SATA2 RAID	€ 58.50	ATX
MSI	K9AG NEO-F	690V, SATA2 RAID, GLAN, 8CH	€ 61.00	ATX
MSI	K9N NEO-F	nForce 550, SATA2, GLAN	€ 67.00	ATX
MSI	K9AGM2-FIH	690G, SATA2 RAID, 8CH	€ 68.50	mATX
MSI	K9N SLI-2F	nForce 570, SATA2, GLAN	€ 76.00	ATX
MSI	K9NBPM2-FID	Quadro NVS210S, SATA2 RAID	€ 78.00	mATX
MSI	K9N Platinum	nForce 570 MCP, SATA2, GLAN	€ 95.50	ATX
MSI	K9N SLI Platinum	nForce 570 SLI MCP, GLAN	€ 102.00	ATX
MSI	K9N Diamond	nForce 590 SLI MCP, GLAN	€ 103.00	ATX
MSI	K9A Platinum	CrossFire Xpress 3200, SATA2	€ 116.50	ATX

This list has to be brought down to only a couple of possibilities. There are a couple of requirements of a motherboard I have:

• Chipset has to be chosen
• SATA (Raid is not necessary but is nice to have)
• LAN (100Mbit will do fine but 1000Mbit would be a plus)
• Audio (everything will do, 6 channels or 8 is of no matter)
• Video (I want to attach multiple screens so multiple RAMDACS would be nice if not possible I will also need a new video card since I only own AGP cards)
• SLI/Crossfire support is not needed
• USB (the more ports the merrier)
• Legacy ports (serial, parallel would be pluses, ps/2 is a nice to have)
• Firewire would be nice to have
• mATX would be preferable to ATX
• The CPU support has to include the chosen CPU
• Bundle (SATA cables are needed, other things would be a plus)

What chipset to choose from is the next question, this will give me a good indication of the possibilities with the board. I did the research into the different chipsets on offer for a AM2 board. The choice seems to be between a Nvidia, an AMD/ATI or a VIA chipset for the AM2 platform. The requirements will have to be met, preferably with a lot of pluses and for the lowest price off course!

VIA

The choice at VIA is between the K8M890 or the KT8T890 which according to VIA differs only in the K8T offering 4 PCI Express x1 lanes and no integrated graphics where the K8M has an integrated VIA Chrome9™ HC IGP (with HDTV output Duo View + HDTV output support) and only 1 PCI Express x1 lane. Most of the boards only offer 2 DIMM slots and that would also not be the smart choice with the future in mind. I might want to just add memory later.

Nvidia:

Nvidia has a lot more to offer and choose from. The nForce3, nForce4, nForce 500 and the nForce 600 chipsets are all available for the AM2 platform. Nforce3 is an older platform which also explicitly not supports Vista (not that I will ever run Vista but it says something about the chipset) so this chipset will not be considered. The Nforce 600 chipset which atm is only made in the 680a variant is a fantastic chipset just too expensive to fit in the budget.

This leaves the different options within the nForce 430(B) and the 500 series (500 Ultra, 520, 550, 570 Ultra MCP) as options. Both seem valid as options, they fall in the budget and offer plenty of options on board. Both chipsets are single chip designs, there is no separate north or south bridge.

Ati & AMD:

Since Ati was bought by AMD the AMD website is the place to be for these chipsets. AMD also has multiple chipsets for their own AM2 platform. The 480X CrossFire and 580X CrossFire as well as the 690V/G as north bridge, all combined with the SB600 from ATI as south bridge.

The AMD 480X CrossFire™ or AMD 580X CrossFire™ Chipsets looks to be great candidates, crossfire is an extra in my opinion. This makes it possible to add multiple Ati video cards so you can easily output to multiple monitors.

The AMD 690V/G is a very modern chipset, he G variant offers integrated graphics dual with dual display support which would be great to have. I have found out that this does not allow you to output to two CRT monitors, only to one CRT and one LCD since it offers only RGB/TV and a DVI-D port which is not convertible to a RGB port.

Next post I will look into making the choice of chipset and the consequences this has for the above list, remember I can choose only one.

//Z

Choosing the right hardware II, Processors

Previous entries: I

The first choice which will dictate the rest of the hardware is the choice of processor. Will it be an Intel or AMD chip? One of my wants is a dual core processor since I do a lot of multitasking this is the one thing most useful to me. If you don't play games you don't have to get a very expensive processor so the bottom of the market is the place to be. If you look around when you arrive there the dual core processors available under € 100 there are some candidates:

Name	specs	socket	speed	cache, bus	price
Intel® Core 2 Duo	E2140	S775	2x1.6GHz	1MB, 800MHz	€74
Intel® Core 2 Duo	E2160	S775	2x1.8GHz	1MB, 800MHz	€83
Intel® Pentium	D 805	S775	2x2.66GHz	1MB, 533MHz	€89
Intel® Core 2 Duo	E4300	S775	2x1.86GHz	2MB, 800MHz	€95

Name	socket	speed	cache	bus		T/B	price
AMD® Athlon 64 X2 3800+	AM2	2x2.0GHz	12KB	400MHz	89W	Boxed	€70
AMD® Athlon 64 X2 4400+ EE	AM2	2x2.3GHz	512KB	400MHz	65W	Tray	€79
AMD® Athlon 64 X2 4000+	AM2	2x2.0GHz	1Mb	400MHz	89W	Boxed	€84
AMD® Athlon 64 X2 4000+	AM2	2x2.1GHz	1MB	400MHz	65W	Boxed	€84
AMD® Athlon 64 X2 4200+	AM2	2x2.0GHz	1MB	400MHz	65W	Tray	€85
AMD® Athlon 64 X2 44 00+	AM2	2x2.3GHz	512Kb	400MHz	65W	Boxed	€85
AMD® Athlon 64 X2 44 00+	AM2	2x2.3GHz	512Kb	400MHz	65W	Boxed	€85

Keep in mind these prices are just indications and from a certain date, they are the lowest prices in my country per item, all from different shops so they would probably end up 10% higher anyway. I have always been an AMB fan and since from the reviews I have read the conclusion seems to be that it does not really matter that much for my use. The choice between Intel and AMD is easy to make then. If you are going to play a lot of games you might follow a different path here. I do see a lot more reviews and reports on the high end part of hardware so getting information on how to choose the best gamer hardware (and pay for it!) is easy.

The plan is to order it all from one supplier since this saves me paying postage multiple times and with a budget of about € 250 this can come in at 10%! So how to choose a supplier. This was easy actually since I have some experience with 4Launch, great company, good service and nice prices. So I want to order it all from them.

From their list the conclusion is that it will be an AMD Athlon 64 X2 processor, not the lowest stepping (3600+) but one above that, an AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+. This leaves me with the choice of TDP, socket and whether i want a tray or boxed version. At AMD's desktop compare site you can easily compare features. The socket is easy, since I will need a new motherboard anyway (my old one is a Socket A). I will go for a AM2 socket since that will give me the possibility to upgrade my processor the longest (since this is the newest socket in AMD's product gamma). Since I don't yet own a heat sink for this platform and I hear good things about the AMD boxed coolers the best choice would be a boxed version. 4Launch does not carry the 35W TDP, the choice is between the 65W or 89W TDP. Well, the lower the TDP the lower the energy bill therefore the 65W it will be since the price difference is only € 8. This all still leaves me with 2 possibilities, the difference being the stepping of the processor (F2 or F3). 4Launch does not carry the F3 setting (yet) so the F2 it will be. And I can say for €77 is quite a good price.

So all things considered the choice for processor is made, an AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2.0GHz HT 1MB AM2 65W Boxed for €77 it will be.

In the next installment of this series I will take on the motherboard.

//Z

Update: The next installment is up!

Choosing the right hardware I, Requirements

My birthday is coming up and since everybody is asking me what I would like to receive as a present I decided I will finally get myself the new pc I want for some time now.
At the moment I am not really satisfied with the system I run, it is getting underpowered and the biggest problem with it is the lack of memory. Software coming out now and future software will want a lot more then the 384 Megabytes in SDRAM available to it in my current Athlon 1500+. Lately I have not really followed the new stuff coming out of the pc market so I will have to do some research into the technology available. Since I am doing the research anyway I thought it would be interesting to document this process and give an insight into the way I choose my new hardware. It might even be interesting for other people who have to make a similar decision.

The first thing to do, as always when buying technology, is to make a list of requirements you have. This includes a list of tasks you want to use the hardware for. This is actually where the outcome of this project will be decided since according to the specs you come up with here you will choose your hardware. Most people use their pc's for a set of different tasks, this list will differ per person off course! My list would include activities most people use their pc for like browsing the Internet, writing documents, programming, downloading content, watching the odd movie, working with large databases, serving content to a select group over the Internet, etc. Since I am not into gaming at all, and if I do play the odd game sometimes I don't mind a lower detail level or a little stuttering in a game, I am pretty patient. To do everything (and more) which I want to do I will not need a very powerful machine so looking in the lower end of the spectrum will be the focus of this journey.
Requirements:

• browsing the Internet
• writing documents
• programming
• downloading content
• watching movies
• working with large databases
• server tasks
• etc.

Let's talk budget, as I said above this is based on my estimate of the income from my birthday. My girlfriend (she is SOOO cool) has already said she would participate:) I would guesstimate I will need about € 250 to buy what I need so that will be what I will aim for. Of course the lower the better but I will not trade requirements for price. If your budget is a little more flexible, consider the amount of money you want to spend, and the components you already have which you can reuse in the new pc. I already have multiple monitors, hard disks, dvd-burners, etc so I will not take this into account in my budget. I have nothing else to buy anything other then a processor, a motherboard and some memory. If the budget allows it would be cool to have a big hard drive since this is one of the things you will never have enough of.

I can see this will be a long post, for readability I will divide it over multiple posts which all will take a step in the decision process. This was number post number one of this series, await new posts as soon as I clean up my notes on the process, which is ongoing at this time.

//Z

Update: The next installment is up!

Programming for fun, how to choose a language II

 My quest is to find a programming language to continue my programming endeavors in, as you can read here I don’t have much experience programming up till now, but always had some interest! This search has already lasted a long time so I have already have some idea of what to look for in a programming language, a lot of ideas of what to code and ways of accomplishing these tasks in code.  
 
A list of some of my criteria: 

• modern language
  
• marketable
  
• good books/documentation
  
• good community
  
• future proof
  
• OO

I want to write web services as well as desktop programs. So GUI programming tools are a must. Also a IDE would be nice. Furthermore I want to be able to use API's in my programming, for example I would like to be able to do some desktop publishing to my blog, this will be one of my first projects to perform in the chosen language.

I have always said that programming is not a hard thing to learn, if you understand computers and how computers work and process data it looks to be easy to learn how to work a programming language. It seems to me that there are certain key programming processes which you can use in every language, just the syntax differs per language. So I am actually planning to learn more languages in one go and make a comparison between those while learning how to work with them. Lets see how far I get...

//Z

Mammut stickers

Early this morning, when I got on my bike to go to work, I found some Mammut stickers on my doorstep. It must have been lost by someone who came by since it was just on the sidewalk. Immediatly I knew where I would be using them, on my new wiki/intranet server I had called Media last week and which will be renamed to Mammut soon.

Pics to follow (forgot my camera at home).

Update: Camera emptied:


//Z

Very interesting, Nasa unveils Hubble's successor.

The US space agency Nasa has unveiled a model of a space telescope that scientists say will be able to see to the farthest reaches of the Universe.



It will be placed on the Lagrange Point number 2.
This look like very interesting news, I am wondering if they will make the named targetdeadline of june 2013. 
My guess is they will not make it by then, but not by more then a 
year later.

//Z

Update: Found more information

Nuclear spill in Tenessee, 14 months ago...

"Nobody got hurt. There was no danger to the general public," NRC spokesman David McIntyre said Tuesday. "(But) they were lucky, and we don't like them to be lucky, we like them to be careful."

See Knox News for the whole story, unbelievable that we don't know about this until 14 months after.

//Z

Oh My God! I have readers?

Just for fun I have a Google Analytics account which I use to check this blog, it was just meant to check it out so I knew if it was something for my girlfriend to use on her blog. I deemed it useful after checking it out and never really looked at it again after that. I just noticed that supposedly it got upgraded lately so I decided to check it out for myself just now. Imagine my surprise, I have more readers then just me and the people I have told about it (only friends actually). It seems I have readers from:

• Italy, Casalecchio Di Reno
  
• Spain, La Degolada
  
• United states, Spring Hill
  
• United states, Dallas
  
• United states, New York
  
• Canada, Montreal
  

According to this map on Google Analytics:



I have to admit, I did not expect anyone to find me without me advertising my site, comment on other peoples blogs and maybe even beg for link exchanges. I just write this blog for myself actually, but I have to admit, I like being noticed, a funny thing.

Hi to everyone who happens to come by, never expected you would show up but you are welcome to have a look around, and if you are in the mood or have a question leave a comment and I promise to get back to you soon!

//Z

I have to admit, I can't wait to see the first comment which is not mine on this site...

Project Programming I

I want to expand my programming knowledge and experience. I do have some experience with programming, i started learning how to program in BASIC on my C64. Then in university i had to write in BASIC again for our first year exercises, including a takeoff simulator, then for the rest in Turbo Pascal. I didn't enjoy that very much, didn't like the language and in general was put off with programming for some time because of that. Then later on I got interested in programming again when i started building websites and getting into programming for the MUD i play. Quickly I had a rudimentary knowledge of PHP, and was proficient in html and css, and could work magic with VBScript. Good enough to start building some websites. After some projects, just to learn actually, I got some ideas and would like to start programming some applications, tools and off course websites which mostly involve services where I would greatly profit from knowledge of a more modern, used and user-friendly programming language. Visual Basic was getting too limited for my purposes and I decided I would have to decide on one language, for now, but make sure I not just learn how to program stuff I know already in a new language but also learn new applications and the new wonders of the modern programming languages. After mastering one I will apply my newfound knowledge to learn more languages, lets just focus on the first for now though.

I will consider several languages, I think it would be good to list these and note my reasons for liking and disliking a language. This will be my master list of languages, I think I will have to write a new post for some of these languages where I will list my research and findings per language. I will link these posts from here so I can easily find them again. My criteria at the moment are quite fluent, as I go along and find out more about them I will add to it. At the moment I will consider how easy to learn, how currently used in production environments, how relevant to my work atm, etc.

• Delphi


• BASIC


• PHP


• C


• C++


• Java


• Python


• LISP


• VBScript


• Perl


• C#


• JavaScript


• Ruby


• Smalltalk


• Lisp


• bash

This is atm just a list of links to Wikipedia articles, but will be annotated and linked to articles of my own on these languages when I have read the documentation and reviews of languages.

I can also see a article on my criteria coming up...

//Z 

Project Bag I

Another day, another project. I always wanted to have a bag specifically arranged and made so it would fit my stuff. There are a couple of features I am looking for in a bag, there are bags on the market which do have some of the features but I have not been able to find a bag which combines them all.

The features I am looking for are:

1. I have to be able to carry it on my shoulder comfortably but the bag also has to have straps to be able to carry it on my bag whem I am biking to work.
   
2. It has to hold multiple papersizes (A4 and A5) comfortably.
3. It has to be able to store a laptop, and since i use multiple laptops it has to be adjustable.
4. Store pens, cards, etc.
5. Another idea of mine is to build a usb hub internally and be able to just hook it up to my computer and have a usb harddrive, a usb bluetooth stick, usb webcam,  etc available at every location i have my bag with me.

These are a couple features I have allready thought up, offcourse more will be added when i think of them.

//Z

BBC Timeline

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/interactive/timelines/british/index.shtml

Interesting display of information! I have got to check how this is made, it seems like a very interesting system to disply time-related information.

Maybe it would be nice to have a view like this from a to-do administration system, so you can see in time how you have handled your to-do load.

//Z

Dinosaur Workshop

How cool is that! This a a diy project on epic proportions..:)

//Z

Blogging for money

I was reading digg today and among the numerous posts about 'the magic number' there was a link to a writers guide to freelance blogging, a very interesting read if you want to get into blogging for money. 

The article also has a couple of nice links to other sites where you can a load  of information on the subject matter. 

Problogger
BlogHerald
Daily Blog Tips
CopyBlogger

Another site I found on the subject:

ChrisG

//Z

CSS resources

This is a nice listing of CSS tools, have to check these out sometimes...

//Z

Electric bikes

I have been interested in (motor)bike petrol to electrical conversion projects allready for a long time. This one is a very nice implementation of a from scratch trike build.

http://zeept.wordpress.com/

Also this is a very interesting motorbike conversion to electric build.

Further information will follow..:)

//Z

Visiting USA

Let's just say I will not be visiting the US anytime soon, this article in the NZHerald makes it very clear that I am not the only one thinking this way. I cannot believe Americans are not making a big rucus about this, it must affect a big part of the american touristindustry!

//Z

Supersize me follow-up

Remember Supersize me? In Sweden they have done 
this experiment under clinical conditions and have found 
very different results. 

In the Swedisch experiment they found that the body 
might adapt to the amount of calories eaten... interesting.

//Z

Dining in the sky

Anyone up for a dinner in high heaven? I just saw this today, Dinner in the sky! I would love to do this, who wants to come? Let's bring a bag of money though...

//Z

 

DFP - DVI Adapter

Found it for a better price, and they even ship internationally!

Adapter@monoprice

Let's see what a DVI cable costs me there

DVIcable@monoprice

Ordering is on the todo list.

Update:

Just looked at the pictures a little closer, this is the wrong one! I need a male DFP side and the one at monoprice is female, so the hunt continues.

//Z

Asterisk I

Another one of those pet projects of mine is an asterisk box. It would be cool to be able to have my own phone router and be able to interface my phone calls with a pc. I have found a couple of nice implementations of this principle and need to do some more research in the material.

http://www.rowetel.com/blog/ seems very interesting and also his free telephony project seems very interesting http://rowetel.com/ucasterisk/.

off course the obvious links come into play here too:

http://www.asterisk.org/
http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Asterisk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterisk_PBX
http://www.trixbox.org/

Update:

More links:


//Z

Reprap

Reprap is a rapid prototyping CAD machine. Totally open source! Here is their blog, witha fantastic timelapse video of building one of these open tools!

http://blog.reprap.org/

I so want one! Again as with many of my projects, I don't see immediatly how this can be usefull for me but that doesnt deter me one bit. Let's keep an eye out for parts for the reprap.

//Z

Webcam Based DIY Laser Rangefinder

Webcam Based DIY Laser Rangefinder

Saw this today, I think via hack-a-day:

http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~twd25/webcam_laser_ranger.html

Looks like an interesting project too! I cannot think of the use for one of these immediately but it looks interesting.

Another one of those projects I thought of lately is a monitoring system for my car. A couple of USB cams provide a 360 degrees view from the car outward. Record every movement around the car when it is parked and continually tapes to hard disk when driving. It would be cool to have the rangefinder record distances from objects.

As I drive around I see people who shouldn't be driving all the time. It would be cool to be able to record all their practices. And be able to show a best-off as a youtube video might also be interesting.

More ideas involve a licence plate resolver to a public database with names and other information about the licensee. This would of course warrant a search whether that kind of information is just publicly available and if it can be published without problems. We will see…

//Z

Math Homework

I help my girl out with her statistics math work for her studies. Sometimes I do get the feeling I don't have a deep enough understanding of statistics to be able to answer any question which bothers her when she is reading a part of the book I haven't yet read.

I have an easy enough understanding of the underlying principle in a glance but then to explain something which comes rather naturally to me is very hard. Most of the times someone else sees this material in a totally different way then I see it. I skim it first to get a general overview of the subject. Then I see if I can fit it in the framework of math already in my head. If it 'fits' I will read on in the book, if not I will dive in a little deeper and read some synopsis part. If this does not clear things up more reading is required.

Then I read Steve Yegge's post about learning math for programmers and saw a kindred spirit. I also do this in a lot of other fields, not just math. Physics, programming, electronics and a lot of other interests will not give you enough time to do more then glance at the newest 'principle of design' and try to get the most out of the experience in the least amount of time.

This does make me wonder about methods of learning. But that is for a future post I think.

//Z

Blogger hacking I

Off course the first thing I want to do here is get some content up. But you know how it goes, new platform, new code, we have to pick it apart and see how it works...

A Google query later I have more information on where to keep up with in regards to blogger templates and hacks:
http://blogfresh.blogspot.com/
http://hackosphere.blogspot.com

Interesting looking code:
http://ghill.customer.netspace.net.au/re-mark/
http://phy3blog.googlepages.com/Beta-Blogger-Label-Cloud.html

I am specifically looking for a way to display my to-do in a sidebar, best would be if you could nest it and open it to show the category's contents.

Let's see what else I can find!

//Z

Bubble Chair!

http://www.sixdifferentways.com/gallery/

I want this chair, I am in love with it! I sat in it lately in a shop in Amsterdam and again it hit my fancy!

I am at the moment looking for a way to make a chair like this myself. I don't really
want to pay 5k euros for an original or something in the neighborhood of 2.5k to buy a remake of the original. This will also be a project to learn how to handle big molds, in the past the molds I have used have been a lot smaller, a challenge!

I see a couple of strategies to make this myself. It all involves fiberglass matting and epoxy so it will all be done outside. The first strategy is to make a positive mold of Styrofoam and cover the outside with fiberglass and resin.

Carve the mold away from the inside and you have a chair. Another way i see of how to make this is a big balloon (maybe a beach ball?), pump it up and cover with fiberglass. This seems to be an easier way to go then the Styrofoam mold. I just see a couple of problems on the way...

Looks like this will be another one of those multiple year projects, but i have plenty of those just waiting for a piece of the puzzle.

//Z

Touchscreen adventures II

I got a mail from a guy from www.aurora-kontakt.nl, they are in stock! There is only one problem:

This one costs 32.95 euro's

And this one is even pricier: 89,95 euro!

For both of them goes that i also will have to buy a DVI-DVI cable, let's check the pricewatch to see. So about 9 to 10 euros, hmm, next month maybe..:)

So the status of this project is changed to 'waiting for funds to free up' and 'let's see if we can arrange this an other way' for now.

ToDoList for the project:

- Source DVI <-> DFP-20
- Serial connector (got it)
- Figure out how configfile for X is made
- Make a configfile for X for touchscreen and LCD
-etc.

Resource list for the project:

Linux Drivers for elo touchscreen:
http://www.elotouch.com/Support/TechnicalSupport/Drivers/Linux/default.asp

source for kerneldriver:
http://www.gelato.unsw.edu.au/lxr/source/drivers/input/touchscreen/elo.c

Elo touchscreen configuration for Xfree:

http://www.icewalkers.com/Linux/Howto/XFree86-Touch-Screen-HOWTO-4.html
http://www.linuxjunkies.org/html/XFree86-Touch-Screen-HOWTO.html

I am already looking forward to the third installment of Touchscreen adventures. But don't expect it soon..

//Z

Touchscreen adventures I

Trading in a couple of old Pentium III computers I noticed in the second hand computershop an interesting project item, a touchscreen. Since the owner of the shop was reluctant to offer me any monetary compensation for me dumping 5 old computers on his doorstep, it seemed like a good idea to accept in trade the old industrial touchscreen. If only for the amount of space occupied.

For some time now I have been interested to take up a project which involves a webinterface to my todolist. Wouldn't it be great to be able to update my todolist from the couch without having to boot up my computer to add something to the list. Or even to do this without having to use a keyboard or mouse, just drag and drop from a predefined list of items..

While researching the information to determine exactely what I found myself with I drew a blank. Industrial items made to order for some sort of machine is not available through most databases since the only identifiers on the back are a customernumber and internal codes.

Well the only option left over, the makers answer: opening it up! Not a hard task, 8 philips head screws and the cover is off. 

On the left the convertor for the backlight. The board in the middle comes off with a couple screws and reveales...not much, a little CHIP to connect the DVI-connector to the screen and the serial connector. Does not look like a lot to me. Well 8 screws later and im holding the screen. A Mitsubishi AA12SB6C-ADFD LCD screen with a ELO Touchsystems 362740 attached.



I have tried to find a datasheet for either of the two but have been unsuccesfull up till now. Although I did find some more information about which points need to be addressed to be able to use the screen and the touchscreen.

For first it has to be attached to a computer. The touchscreen is no problem here as it uses a serial interface, just use a serial cable and hook it up to your serial port.

The screen is a laptopscreen according to my information, it can be used as a replacement part for a couple of different laptops:

It uses a DFP-20 connector which is hard to source. Some research has shown that suppliers selling to europeans do not stock the cable and whoever stocks it does not sell outside of the USA...you bastards!

Tonight I have found it on a Dutch site though so I fired off an email to find out if they are really in stock: http://www.aurora-kontakt.nl/snoer_computer.html.. Let's wait and see.

Then when it is attached, I will need a driver for linux for it, I have to find out how to configure X to accept the touchscreen as input, how to get the screen to work, some sort of driver for it, etc. Plenty to do still, projects with me tend to take some time...

Till next time,
//Z

First Post

PinstripedZebra is live, this will be a place where I will document my projects, rant about all kind of subjects and assorted musings.

This blog is targeted first towards myself, it will be used to keep a project journal and as a place to keep snippets of information for myself.

If you want to read it too, be my guest, you are allowed to comment and I will try to answer questions arising from comments. If you happen to want to mail me about anything on this site don't hesitate but do so at dezebra AT gmail DOTCOM.

//Z