Internet TV: Zatoo and Joost (beta)

Can You Zattoo?

I got an email a couple of weeks ago from a friend in Switzerland who recommended that I try out a Zattoo.com. Zattoo offers live TV on your PC for Europeans. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to work in the U.S. (It must be restricted by IP address.)

The programming on Zattoo, frankly, looks like an ex-expatriate’s dream, with channels including BBC Prime, Eurosport, TF1, ZDF, France2, Sat 1, and Rai Uno. I will have to wait until this spring when I visit to see it myself. If anyone has given it a try, please let me know.

Juiced?Then the other day I was reading about a friend of a friend who has just published a book entitled, The Royal Nonesuch. In that I had not seen the fellow for a couple years I checked out his blog and read about Joost, which I’d heard rumblings about in the past. Joost is a venture by the guys who created Skype, Niklus Zennstrom and Janus Friis.

I’ve applied for the beta testing of Joost and am waiting to get access. The technology uses the same peer-to-peer connection that is used in Skype. It sounds interesting and I will let you know what it looks like.

If anyone has experience with Joost, please let us know.

 

Office Dream Machines

Ambient Devices, a company started by “former Massachussetts Institute of Technology students” (n.b., one might think graduates, but apparently CNET thinks they’re a too old for such nomenclature), has a series of devices that would look brilliant on any office worker’s desk.These have to be checked out. I want one.

The products range from a device that can show pollen count, emails, and market activity in analog, to a glow-worm like ball that sits on your desk that changes colors according to a range of things you might want to track (e.g., traffic congestion).The devices aren’t cheap, but they will make an impression.

 

Dear Steve Jobs … Got Digged!!

Thanks! This is new Web 2.0 stuff is fun!

Best thing is people, on aggregate, make their own news.  And they get to understand that they aren’t alone in their aggravation.

Now, if only Steve Jobs will listen. . ..

 

Tackling a Hard Disk Failure

My home computer lost its second drive the other day. Over the past few weeks, the drive had been disappearing intermittently. Occasionally, I could get to get, but more and more upon clicking on the drive, an error message appeared saying the drive was “inaccessible. The parameter is incorrect.” When, the drive stopped appearing as a listed drive under My Computer, I knew my procrastination had run out of rope.
I attached and reattached the cables to the drive, but to no avail. I took the drive out and put it in an enclosure. Nothing.

Next, I put the drive back in the computer and brought up the device manager. I scanned for changes in the Device Manager. The computer slowed down, but, after a while, the Western Digital Caviar 80GB showed up.

Now, when I clicked on the drive, the computer slowed greatly and then the drive appeared as unformatted, although with its partitions intact. (A look at Disk Management confirmed this.)

Essentially, anything I did to access the drive, either through the Windows GUI or the command line, brought the computer to such a slowdown that all the programs were “Not Responding.”

I tried  a program called Test Disk that claims it can restore access to the drive. With Test Disk, I could see some of the data, but I could not copy it.

I then tried the tools on Ultimate Boot CD. And I tried booting with Damn Small Linux in order to access the drive. Neither provided any access.

Then, I got a copy of SpinRite.  SpinRite is a data recovery and drive maintenance program written by Steve Gibson. It essentially goes to the bit level and reads and writes data to the drive in order to take care of errors at the physical level. It has a DOS interface and often times you can watch some of your data going by as the program scans your disk.

I’d like to say SpinRite worked wonders, but it didn’t. On my 80GB dirve, SpinRite ran for about a week. (Yes, a week.) When the program takes this long, or predicts it will take this long, typically, according to experienced users, you are out of luck.

When SpinRite was done, I rebooted my machine and the drive did not show up. Again, I scanned for changes in the Device Manager. When the drive showed up, it behaved similarly to before. I was frustrated and ready to throw in the towel.

But, when I tried to access the drive in the command line, I was able to see the data and copy it over to a fresh drive, using the xcopy command. SpinRite worked thankfully, but I would only recommend it for experienced users.

 

Antec NSK 3300 Review

I recently purchased the Antec NSK 3300 case for my computer. The case was not in my local computer store, so I ordered it, having only read the descriptions online. I was a little nervous, since I could not find a single review, but given what I knew of Antec, I decided it was a safe bet.

Originally, I had been looking at the Antec Sonata II. The Antec Sonata II is a quiet, sleek box that I thought would look perfect. But, once I realized I was on a budget and would be unable to salvage much of the Dell Dimension I had hoped to transfer from, I started looking at MicroAtx boards and cases that hold them.

[n.b. I am so frigging pissed at Dell for the choice of case design they held onto for years. Having to lay the computer on its side, press two buttons and swing up one side of the case, is a ridiculous design. Moreover, I've seen a fair share of these cases that simply won't completely shut if they are frequently opened and closed.]

I am not a gamer. I have played a game or two and will again soon, but playing a game is more of a treat than it is a nightly, weekly or even monthly event.

Thus, when I was looking at PC cases, I was not interested in a lot of expandability. In the end, my choices came down to Lian Li and Antec and I chose the Antec NSK 3300 because it came with its own power supply and thus fit my budget, which was tight. In the process of looking at cases, I learned two acronyms that, perhaps, home PC users are more likely to be familiar with than IT professionals. [Frankly, I don't generally spend a lot of time on my home computing system. When I am away from work, I like to be away from such things. . .. ]:
SFF -> Small Form Factor
HTPC -> Home Theater Personal Computer

After getting the case, I popped in a motherboard (MSI K8NGM2-FID) and set it up. I have been using it for a couple of weeks now. And the other day, I found this excellent review of it. I can't say much more about it or take many more pictures than what the SFFClub has.The Antec NSK 3300 is a great case, particularly if you are looking to build your first PC. The documentation that comes with the case is extensive and I never was in doubt as to what I needed to do to put it together. Unlike the reviewer, I don't have any problems with the lack of a motherboard tray. I am sure it would make it easier, but I wasn't particularly bothered. I can count the number of times I have removed my motherboards on one hand.

I installed my hard drive up top, which Antec recommends for heat considerations. Doing so, however, meant that I had to run an IDE cable up through the opening between the two chambers. Fitting cable through the opening wasn't too bad, but then getting the cable connected to the hard drive, which I had already screwed down, took a little patience. Those with SATA drives wouldn't have this trouble, caused by the angle of the cable to the drive, but would likely still have to deal with feeding the IDE cable up to an optical drive above.

I would like to swap out the stock AMD heat sink, for noise reasons, but I've not yet done so. The review mentions how big of a heat sink can be stuck in the case, which is frankly invaluable information for people looking to buy this case. Noise isn't a big factor in the case and neither is heat. With just the 120mm fan and using on board graphics, my CPU is regularly running around 33 degrees centigrade under normal use.

 

Watch World Cup 2006 Matches Online

At the beginning of this World Cup I was wishing like a college-age anglophile that I were British. The Beeb, you see, is offering inhabitants of the island the right to watch the beautiful game via the web. How cool is that, I thought.

Then around a week or so ago, I discovered, for myself, the Joga companion and, subsequently, FootieFox. These are fine and great tools, but not enough to satisfy a quadrennial exprience, particularly when the Brit's were enjoying real-time streaming video.

Being a curious and mischevious fellow, I tried using Tor and its onion-skin servers to get a british IP address  so that I might be able to link to the BBC servers. But, I couldn't reliably get a good IP address. Nor could I find a decent anonymous proxy server.

I was out of luck.

Until my sister mentioned that it's possible for we in the 50 states to watch the World Cup online. She sent a link that was basically a back door to some feed. I simply had to slightly alter the address, in a predictable manner, for each game.

Since I learned this between matches Tuesday, I googled "Watch World Cup online" and found PC Magazine's article that mentions ESPN360. I went to the ESPN360 site and noticed Verizon users have access to the games. I logged in and watched the Brazil game from my computer. Fan-tast-ic! 

Now, the PCMag article suggests that all visitors can watch on ESPN360. Unfortunately, I can't say that I've checked that out, since I've selfishly been watching every minute I can. . ..

(btw, Internet Explorer 7 beta doesn't seem to be able to handle the ESPN360 feed. The feed can run on Firefox and IE 6. in IE6, viewers can double the size of the screen.) 

 

Follow the World Cup with Firefox

Ok. I just gotta say that I'm a keen supporter of football, which is soccer to some of you. My fascination with the sport came to me rather late in life and on the field I suck as a result. But, I know, being an average-sized guy that it would have been a much better sport for me to play than basketball or american football. But, it was never an option.

Every four years comes the World Cup. This country in which I live isn't exactly the world's greatest superpower on the field, but kids enjoy the sport. And just yesterday, from my living-room window I watched a young teen, who lives across the street, dribbling a football. I was excited. I haven't ever seen this kid do anything physical outside before and here, after the USA struggled to get a tie with Italy, the kid was inspired to try his foot at the game.

Ahh. That's the real world. And this is information technology. So any geek needs to ask themselves what can IT bring to the table?

Yes, there are games. 2006 Fifa World Cup, Championship Manager 2006, Football Manager 2006, and Winning Eleven.

And there is the Emirates Airline & FIFA & Yahoo / BBC tickers that have live text. And folks in Britain can stream games to their desktops, thanks to the BBC.

But, for the rest of us, Firefox and Nike have recently (i.e., released on the 6th day of the 2006 World Cup) teamed up to bring something even more integrated and practical for those of us stuck in the office while the games are going on: the joga.com companion.

The joga.com companion integrates a ticker, news headlines, a small panel in Firefox's status bar and a football-themed skin for Firefox. Alerts arise in the bottom right of the screen when a card is handed out or a goal is scored. I'm not into skins, in general, but this one does offer some consolation for sitting in the workplace.

When the World Cup is over, or if you'd like a cuter, less commercial way to follow the scores, you will want to check out the low-profile FootieFox extension, by Boris Ruf of the Hasso-Plattner-Institut at the University of Potsdam.

FootieFox has the capability of following 18 leagues throughout the year. That is super cool!
Footiefox sports faster updates than the joga.com companion. I'm talking minutes difference in reporting goals. (Ein Sehr Gut, fuer Herr Ruf!)

Und darf ich mal sagen, dass FootieFox schon ein Jahre alt ist und hat viele Besprechungen bekommen. That's to say FootieFox is a year old and has already been reviewed several times .

Like, the joga companion, FootieFox will yell out "Goal!" when one is scored. In fact, users can set FootieFox to signal goals with other sounds as well.

As mentioned, however, FootieFox is less ambitious in its marketing and information. FootieFox simply stays in the status bar and doesn't provide information about who received a yellow or red card or who scored. (But, in some games, particularly US games 🙂 it doesn't matter. I mean come on, we've not got any big names!)

For now, I'm using both Joga and Footiefox. But, I may switch over to FootieFox and the FIFA matchcast for the fastest responses as the tournament heats up.

 

IE View in Firefox

Firefox is a great browser that has become quite popular in the face of almost no-contest competition with Internet Explorer 6. Enhanced security, tabbed browsing and a great print engine are just a few of the components in Firefox that help to make it a much more attractive browser with which to surf the web. (n.b. Internet Explorer 7 incorporates many of the features Firefox brought to users' attention, but a review of IE7 is for another posting and we applaud the Mozilla Foundation for forcing Microsoft to up its game.) In spite of Firefox's popularity, and because of the long-term ubiquity of Internet Explorer, there are a number of sites that simply work better in, or require, Microsoft's elder browser — not surprisingly, MSN and Microsoft.com are among these sites.

To solve this problem, some braniac, by the name of Paul Roub, created IE View, a plug-in for Firefox with which users can tell Firefox to open links in IE and can have Firefox always open certain sites in IE. This is pretty darn useful if you frequent such sites.

For example, say you are browsing in Firefox and google some entry that has a link to a MSN site. Using IE View, you right click on that link and you get a menu that at the bottom says Open Target Link in IE. Select this, and boom you're page will open in IE.

Now, say you're busy going to Microsoft.com frequently and you just want Firefox to always open everything within that domain in Internet Explorer. The IE View plugin installs an option under the Tools menu.

Pretty slick. This functionality reminds me a little of the different tools, such as MacLink, that Macintosh users had to emply to be more compatible with Microsoft Windows.

 

Home Backup Solutions: External Hard Drives & NAS

Having given up on my attempts to fix my bad drive at home, I've decided to reassess my personal backup solution. Although my backups are quite thorough at work, my computers at home receive far less attention.

Previously, I'd used RAID occasionally. However, although RAID 1 creates a level of redundancy, it doesn't solve any archiving or offline backup. In fact, if I do something foolish on my main drive, with RAID 1, I will have done it instantaneously on my second drive.

Network Attached Storage is an appealing option if one has multiple points that require backing up fairly regularly. Attaching a device to your ethernet or wireless network to serve as a central storage repository, without the cost of buying a server, is a great concept.

When looking at one of less expensive NAS devices meant for home use be careful as may bring you to fits of frustration. About a year ago, I bought a Buffalo Linkstation Storage Center 250 (Model HD-H250LAN) that I decided to try out at work first. I was so disappointed that the device just started gathering dust in the corner of my office.

If you're looking at a backup solution, such as a NAS or external hard drive, consider carefully the types of backups you require, taking operating systems and frequency of backup. PC World ran an article on big hard drives and NAS solutions recently with prices running in the $800+ range.
Next, look at bandwidth, particularly for a NAS. If you are routinely performing large, full backups, you might want a NAS device that has Gigabit ethernet. In an external hard drive USB 2.0 and Firewire will speed up your transfer time.

If your looking at wireless solution, you can get a device that serves as a print server as well, but be sure to examine the level of security provided. If you're concerned about the security of your various computers on a wireless network, a wide-open NAS device that aggregates all of your files will cause you sleepless nights.

Software
When comparing the backup methods, look for a device that uses a easy-to-use backup program, or none at all, depending on your level of expertise. Buffalo's HD250LAN used a proprietary backup program that appeared initially to have a small footprint. However, when I ran a backup it started to slow down the workstation. (Moreover, 9 times out of 10 the device would disappear from the network before my backup had completed — leaving me with nothing to show for my backup efforts!) More user-friendly solutions are Retrospect, formerly of Dantz, but now owned by EMC, and, according to several reviewers, Maxtor's One-Touch application bundle.

Average Requirements
Like many, I have a wireless network at home. However, I don't want to have a NAS sitting out in the open on it. Basically, I need:

• Maximum throughput (because I don't like to wait);
• Variety of connectors (e.g. USB 2.0, Firewire);
• Archival capabilities;
• Upgradability, or the capability of using the drive elsewhere at some point,
• and, perhaps, thus, large capacity.

Additionally, I would like to be capable of taking snapshots, or images, of the drive for full restores as well as backing up the files individually, perhaps incrementally.

Expandability
Because I want to have the option of using the hard drive in a desktop in the future, either for replacement of one of my current drives or using the hard drive in a new computer, I elected to buy a hard drive enclosure for a 3.5" drive. Hard drive enclosures are incredibly easy to use and are often times very inexpensive.

My favorite enclosure at the moment is the Coolgear HD35-KSDFT, which features external SATA, Firewire and USB 2.0 external connectors. The COOLMAX 15436 is an identical product sold through NewEgg. The enclosure costs about $70 , which is about $30 more than a Firewire or USB only drive. The external SATA interface is an added bonus. Moreover, you can put either a SATA or an IDE drive into the HD35-KSDFT, which is great because it allows for added flexibility and expands the upgrade options I have for my various computers.

For a hard drive, drives around 250GB capacity are currently a sweet deal. They're less than half the price of most 500GB drives and only a few dollars more than smaller drives. They come in around $.30/GB. The drives I have currently in the computers around the house amount to roughly 160GB. As I only wish to image one of these, a 250-300GB drive should be sufficient, for now.

Pricing this out:

$70 Coolgear\COOLMAX Enclosure
$75 250GB Hard Drive
———
$145

That $145 is roughly the same cost as buying a complete external hard drive off the shelf, perhaps a little cheaper. However, the expandability, capacity and flexibility of the internal/external SATA support, coupled with the USB 2.0/Firewire combo puts this solution over the top.

This package doesn't include any backup software, but I'm fairly confident I can take care of that myself. (I'll look at personal backup software next week.)

Data Transfer Rates
As a wrap up, let's look at the throughput of the three interfaces:

SATA* 1200 Mbps
USB 2.0 480 Mbps
Firewire 400 400 Mbps

SATA is a step up from PATA, or Ultra ATA drives, which run between 264Mbps to 1064Mbps.

Megabits per second (Mbps) and Megabytes per second (MB/s) are two different measurements that are not to be confused. The abbreviations are just as important as the difference between "tsp" and "T". 8 Mbps = 1MB/s. According to Roadkil's Disk Speed, the internal SATA drive I'm working currently on has a read speed of 55MB/s, which equates to 440Mbps.

Since we know that the advertised data transfer rates are theoretical [think of the MPG rating on the sticker of a new car], it's rather clear that some bottlenecking will occur on Firewire and USB 2.0 transfers. (Here's a good illustration.)

* SATA II, or SATA 300, is delivers 2400Mbps.

 

Good Hosts — A Good, Cheap Web Hosting Company

Back in November I wrote a quick review of 1&1 hosting. 1&1 does not pass muster. But, ICDSoft is an example of a hosting company that does. I'll look at ICDSoft in comparison to the 1&1 review ("Bad Hosts").

This is my second experience with ICDSoft. Last time, I didn't do much with the site I created. I only put together a few pages and basically let them sit there. Currently, I'm in the process of building a more complex and compelling site for a client.

Unlike some other companies, ICDSoft does not advertise much in major publications. I have no idea how I initially found them, other than when I was looking for a host a couple of years ago, I'd just been to Hong Kong. So I might have Googled them.

ICDSoft has two hosting facilities — one in Hong Kong, which I used on my first site and the second in Waltham, MA (USA), where the current site is hosted.

For the personal package ICDSoft is very cheap. They sell hosting in 1 or 2 year contracts. If you wish to buy a domain from them it's $5/yr extra. For this, ICDSoft provides:
500MB storage
7GB traffic
2 MySQL databases
PHP
WebMail
FrontPage
SSL
Unlimited Email Accounts
Webmail

Username
Upon signing up for an account, you get an email that includes confirmation of your order, links to the "Control Panel" for your website, a user name and a password. The user name can be changed, as can the password. Moreover, you can setup various accounts that can access the control panel and the website management quickly and easily.

Easy FTP
Uploading and downloading files to your website is a breeze. Moreover, the File Manger in the control panel is really easy to work with.

Site Statistics
They're great. Totally useful in finding out how many people are visiting your site and when. Not as good as Google Analytics, but very good.

Design Tools
Some hosting companies provide design tools. These tools are really just hooks to make you interested. You aren't going to get Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash or FrontPage in these freebies. You'll get the same freeware and shareware tools that you get on the internet, except for slightly older versions, since they've been burned on a cd. ICDSoft doesn't bother with this.

Responsive Customer Service
ICDSoft seems to offer only two different options for hosting. Customers have their choice of where their site hosting will be located, either in Hong Kong or outside of Boston. Customer service is likely in Hong Kong. No one is a big fish, based on only having single domain. As a result, when you email them, they email you back quickly. Actually, amazingly fast. They have a one-hour response guarantee. (With other companies, I've waited on hold nearly that long.) 24-7. (I've got great responses while working in Europe and in the U.S.)

Quick Uptime
Buy a website from ICDSoft and the holding page will be up within a few hours. It's as good as Yahoo Business, if not better. And far cheaper. Pricing at ICDSoft has gone up recently, but it's still worth it.

This website is now an affiliate of ICDSoft in order to attempt to generate some revenue so that we can afford our own hosting, someday, and at any point we receive any thing whatsoever, we'll also donate to oxfam. If you wish to support us, please click on the logo to the left, before you buy.