I started having an issue with my computer maybe back in May, where anytime I powered my machine off I had to reconfigure my Bios settings, as my primary Bios had failed, after several months of this I guess I just got tired of dealing with it, so I sold my android tablet (yes I did! and no I didn’t own more than one…) and bought a new Gigabyte Ga-990FX`-UD3 motherboard, which right now I am not very happy with, but I’ll get to that later, a new MD PhenomII x6 1090T CPU, a new XFX AMD Radeon 6850 Video Card, and 3 new Seagate 1.5TB HDDs. I have to reimburse myself for the hard drives however, as they were not paid for by selling my tablet. Hopefully selling my old Video Card, Motherboard, and CPU will cover their costs.
I’ve had all kinds of interesting episodes while trying to get this new hardware to work over the last, almost, 3 weeks. the good = back on linux, bye bye Microsoft. The bad=bye bye Google cloud print (kind of), possibility of getting Nuance Dragon Naturally Speaking to work (outside of a VM), possibility of getting my digital camera to work by just plugging it in the computer (for now). Here are a list of some of the issues I’ve run into, if they have lengthy resolutions, or attempted resolutions, I’ll link to another post (after I write it!) describing my efforts to get things working.
First up: Microsoft Windows 7 x64 Ultimate edition
- The only thing on the motherboard that works immediately after installation are the CPU, Ram, Keyboard, and Mouse.
- NIC, eSATA, on-board RAID, USB 3.0, none of it worked until after installing the drivers from the MB CD.
- The motherboard has 2 or 3 different RAID chipsets, at least one Marvell 88SE9172 and a Realtek (I think), each can be enabled separately as IDE/AHCI/RAID, I’ll check and get back to you on this one.
- One for the internal SATA ports 0-3.
- One for the internal SATA ports 4 and 5.
- Can only be enabled as RAID when ports 0-3 are also enabled as RAID.
- This seems a little bit backwards to me, as the only way to mirror your boot drive is to enable RAID on all ports… or lose ports 2&3 and mirror on 0&1, then not set RAID on 4&5 giving you only a mirror plus 2 drive slots on the MB. Else you are forced to RAID 0/1 on ports 0-3 and to use 4/5 for your boot mirror.
- One for the eSATA port
- When enabled and nothing is connected, it reports 2 available ports; however when the cable is connected I have gotten 3 drives (out of 4) in my external drive caddy to show up.
- I ran into one issue where I had a device not identified in Windows 7, even after installing the drivers from the CD. I checked on the CD again and it actually has an installer to put Driver Agent on your computer to scan for out of date drivers. well I ran it.
- It found the missing driver and also told me about 6 others were either out of date or had the wrong drivers installed. of the ones it wanted me to update, only one was free, the others were available after paying a $29.99 annual fee.
- The first link took me to the Gigabyte home page for the MB but did not list any driver that was not also included on the CD.
- The second link took me to a driver website download page for an Nvidia driver package!
- Well I gave it a shot, and sure enough it recognized the device and installed the driver, from an Nvidia driver package on my AMD chipset MB.
- Then I started getting BSODs on the RAID driver MV91xx.dll.
- After moving all my data around so I could setup a RAID5 5 drive array of 1.5TB drives, I had to undo it all and move data around to use them as normal disks, so I could disable the Marvell RAID in the BIOS (internal SATA ports 0-5) to prevent windows from loading the driver (which was the newest version from their website).
- This did indeed stop the BSOD for that DLL.
- Then the system started shutting itself off randomly after 4-45 minutes from windows bootup.
- I have not yet figured this one out, Gigabyte support wants me to disconnect all USB devices to test… (no mention of how I am to connect my KB or mouse) fyi no issues with the USB devices when my old MB was in the case, and no issue with the USB devices when booted to a linux live CD, nor any issues with random power offs at all, now that I am booting to Ubuntu 11.10 x64.
- If you press a key (such as ctrl+f or del or F4 or F8 or Shift or anything else really) at anytime during bootup that the system is not expecting a keypress, the boot up process hangs and you have to press the reset button or manually power off the computer.
- What this means is if you are trying to get into the RAID BIOS controller setup, or the “change boot device” menu, or to get the GRUB menu to show up when hidden, or to start windows in safe mode, and you do not press the key/key combination one time at the exact time necessary, the system will hang and you cannot get in to that boot submenu
- It often takes me 10-30 boot attempts to get into what ever submenu I need to change the configuration.
- Ubuntu runs fine on the system, except for two issues…
- The network adapter will not work. I’ve tried many suggestions from forums, even downloaded the Realtek 8111e driver direct from realtek. It will not connect to anything (you may need to blacklist the wrong drivers, there are some 8 different models included in the linux driver package download).
- Current resolution, I installed a GB NIC PCI card, works great.
- I cannot get my Radeon HD6850 working, multiple issues.
- Any changes to the AMDCCLE configuration disappears after closing the interface. even if I open it right back up, the settings are back the way they were. Help with manually configuring AMDCCCLE
- Any time I restart the computer it hangs after “checking battery state [ok]“.
- This is when it loads the graphical settings to launch X.
- As a note, I have a dual monitor setup, both on the two DVI ports; however because one DVI port is a DVI-d I have to have my right monitor connected as monitor0 and my left one connected as monitor1 (this makes things backwards, moving the mouse to the right puts it on the left screen and vice versa, unless you specify it in the configuration.
- Current resolution for this problem (short incomplete version):
- Reboot into Ubuntu recovery mode from GRUB (good luck!).
- Mount/remount all devices and read/write.
- Then press enter to exit that screen.
- Then select root command prompt.
- Because the onboard NIC does not work, there is no point in selecting root command prompt with networking, as it won’t enable the PCI NIC.
- Now enter the following to remove all AMD video drivers from the system:
- learn more about the xorg.conf settings
- Hopefully you have manually created the deb packages for your ati drivers, if not, you can reboot now and use the default drivers for xorg to download the drivers and put them in the /root/amd6xxx directory on your system (you will need to create the amd6xxx directory under /root) and follow these instructions after booting back in to the recovery mode root command prompt after remounting devices as read/write, instructions above.
- You either already had the files, or you just created them (only follow the creating .deb files section), so we can move on to install the AMD drivers for the Radeon 6xxx series card.
- This should run without much of an issue, might be a couple of mini errors (file not found, skipping), but nothing to prevent the installation from finishing.
- And to finish up:
- I am not 100% sure the “effective=startup” part is necessary or even works.
- You can now reboot and cross your fingers.
- I have to do this every time I restart my system, and sometimes it does not work and I have to do it 2-5 times before I can get back in.
- There are also times when I boot and get 1 flickering screen and one working screen (both tinted like my background image).
- There are also times when I get one flickering screen and the other not, but both are nearly all white. Pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL initiates a reboot, so I know Ubuntu booted at least.
- There are some times when I get cloned displays in 1024×768 resolution (not my default or preferred).
Next up: Ubuntu 11.10 x64
apt-get purge -qq --no-download fglrx* xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-radeon
rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf*
Xorg -configure
sudo /root/amd6xxx
./ati-driver-installer-11-9-x86.x86_64.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/oneiric
dpkg -i *.deb
aticonfig --initial=dual-head --screen-layout=right --xinerama=on --effective=startup --input=/etc/X11/xorg.conf
Any attempt at a total and complete resolution is still a work in progress…
So I downloaded Robotek HD much against my my first thoughts after reading the reviews, but I was curious. A very simple game that really does not deserve the HD in it’s title, yes the graphics are high enough rez to display well on a larger tablet sized screen; however those graphics are sub-par cartoon for 2 year old quality. The game itself is actually quite fun and I’ve put a good 20 hours or so into it already over the last 4 days (even though it has been on my Notion Ink Adam tablet for close to two and a half months already). The basic concept is that the world has been taken over by computers and you are the last human, you have to hack into all the worlds mainframes and defeat their defenses to take possession of them back.
To defeat the mainframes you have to spin a slot wheel (yes a slot wheel…) there are 3 different wheels to spin and choosing the right one at the right time will determine if you win or lose at any point in the game, sure you can do things differently, but there are key moments where a bad roll can cause you to have a very bad day. Each wheel has three icons, you get to choose the first, the second and third are random, their effects increase if you hit more than one of a kind, and they occur in the order that you received them (starting with the one you pick, it is easy to select it, you get about a 70%/30% shot at the one you want). The Developer relies on you spending money through the in app purchasing system (it uses google check out) to buy your self some VERY minimal advantages at a cost of what I consider to be more than the game is worth if I had to buy it. Without spending money, you find yourself constantly struggling, the farther you climb the greater the gap between your skills and your opponents. The good news is that the system is similar to an Emperor style card game (anyone who played Magic the Gathering will understand), the “droids” get trashed first, THEN your main system can be attacked; however there are certain abilities that will bypass this on the wheel, and when your droids go boom, you can take residual damage.
To quickly give a strategy to use to win, I recommend first putting 1 point (you gain 1 point for skills per level up) in each of the following (preferably in this order):
- Firewall Deflector
- Energy Superboost
- Critical Hit
- Messy Hack
- Repulsor Armor
- Lucky Strike
- Firewall Deflector
- Energy Superboost
- Firewall Deflector
I say this for several reasons, first off, the firewall is the only way to survive once you start fighting systems above your level, without the firewall all your droids will be destroyed before your next turn basically wasting those droids. Next is the Energy Superboost, this decreased the damage your enemies do on their next attack (immediately after the wheel spins) and increases the damage your droids will do for the next attack also. The other options I selected will benefit you in various ways, some more than others and you can pick however you want after level 9. This is not how I did it, as I really had no plan going into the game, since I really had no idea how to play (there is a tutorial and it is short, and only shows you the basics). If I had put less time into the game at this point, I would restart to follow this guide.
The next thing you need to know to survive are these simple tips:
- Round one, summon the Tankbot, he has the most HP and does the most damage (hope for an advanced one)
- Get your firewall up, firewall=life, and you may get a quick hack that steals one of your opponents droids to your side of the battle
- If you hit three of a kind you get another spin, I have seen the computer get 4 spins in a turn an decimate me
- If you have no droids and no firewall, go for a hack, you may get lucky and get a buffer AND a firewall, summoning droids at this point is not helpful, the enemies will just kill them and rank up.
| Developer’s page | http://www.hexage.net |
| AppBrain link – Free | http://www.appbrain.com/app/robotek/net.hexage.robotek.hd |
| AppBrain link – Paid | free game with in game purchases, no ads |
Marketplace direct DL links
| Free Version | https://market.android.com/details?id=net.hexage.robotek.hd | Paid Version |
I guess my might have figured out by the title of this post, that my wife I are expecting. So I have been looking into getting a baby monitor (and 258 other things!) and I’m not sure how I came across it to begin with, but I found a bunch of Baby Monitor applications in the Android Market. This got me to thinking, hey! I have a spare android phone, my wife’s old Samsung Moment and I thought it would be pretty sweet if I can use the Moment as a Baby Monitor that I can view from my HTC Evo 4G or my Wife’s HTC Evo Shift (while she is at work she could check in any time she wanted). I thought this would be fantastic!
So the next issue was to find an app that would let me do this, I only had to go through three (each one monitored, but did not provide video or sound to you, they just sent you text messages or called you) before I found one I liked, BabyCam Monitor by Dooblou, it runs a light weight web server on your phone, that any device with a web browser and Java installed can access. The limitation (and a good security measure in my opinion) is that it hosts it only over wifi and only to the network the wifi is connected to (local IP of the phone… 192.168.1.###), so to access this from the outside world, I would have to setup port redirection on my router enabling my wife to access the BabyCam while she is at work.
I downloaded the demo version and installed it on my Evo to give a spin. I liked the way the demo worked and it’s limitations are that you cannot use higher resolution camera settings (not an issue with the Moment! as the camera on it is a low 3.2mp), you are also limited to black and white only in the demo, the last limitation is/was 20 minutes in the application would stop monitoring. There have been 3 updates to the Demo since I first downloaded it, and now the limitation is 10 minutes (I had considered using the 20 minute demo instead of purchasing it, as I might still end up getting a retail baby monitor). Also in one of the updates is an “experimental” feature “audio!” pretty darn important if you ask me! Previously I believe you could see the sound wave of noises, but not hear them. Well this “experimental” feature worked flawlessly when I finally tested it (getting to that part). The last features of the app I feel a need to mention here, is that you can capture video and still images from the web page (the makers of this app have a prior history with web based camera monitoring software and have available a really good looking video surveillance app, although I have not tried it or looked really hard at it. They learned a few tricks before making the BabyCam Monitor). I do agree with some of the commentors that both of the video monitor apps this company makes are lacking in additional security features (ie password based login for the camera feeds! I have emailed the Developer in regards to this, so I hope it will be added in the future).
The next issue was to get the BabyCam on the Samsung Moment, which currently is not attached to a service plan. So, I spent 2.5 weeks researching rooting and custom Roms for the Samsung Moment, I found a few I liked, including a minimalist Rom that actually cut the size down from the original 160MB (compressed) Samsung Official android 2.0 update (or maybe it was the 1.6 version…) down to a teenie tiny 50MB +/- 2 or 3MB (I’ll check and update this part later). A smaller OS base usually means better performance, and I only need the camera and wifi working anyway!
While I did download 4 or 5 Roms to give a chance to, I only ever got one working, the SDX Froyo EF09 2.2.2 Rom v2.0.1 was the only Rom that would bootup (looks a lot like Android 2.3.3 and runs really fast on this older hardware), the others would all hang in a boot loop after flashing. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that not all Android devices work the same even within the same model. I know people with the HTC Evo 4G that have 2 or 3 or even 4 of them in their homes and they try to flash the same Roms to them and get different results, so I am not too concerned that some of the Roms didn’t work the first 4 attempts to flash them, I just went with the one that did (first try, both times I installed it, it is a prerequisite for one of the ones that did not work).
I then added a couple of useful apps, including Titanium Backup Pro so I could remove parts of the system Rom I don’t need. Basically anything non-internet/wifi and non-camera related, as the phone is not going anywhere or doing anything else, so I fully intend on only keeping the necessary apps loaded, so the OS doesn’t have too much running in the background. I of course also installed BabyCam Monitor Demo to make sure it worked on the Moment and the wifi streaming worked. All went well. I also added iBaby, an app for recording various occurrences with your baby (feeding/diaper changes/growth chart and more).
I’ll be adding reviews/summaries of these three apps to my app list sooner or later. The more I use the Moment BabyCam the more I’ll have to say about the Apps on it! Until then, you’ll have to deal with this and my recommendation that they are worth it. I have contacted the Developer of BabyCam as mentioned above, and received a reply at this time. There are plans to implement password based security soon, and a client/server model for multiple android phones to be used as monitors without having to load a webpage (which I have not tested from my phone yet, but am doubtful it will work as it relies on javascript). I will hold off a bit longer before making the app purchase, as the baby is not due for 3 months and I’d like to make sure non of the improvements break what I want to do with the app.
I’ve been doing a bit of work lately,
- I have a new Rom installed on my HTC Evo, the MikG 2.3 Rom with Sense 2.1+3.0
- I’ve added the poorly placed in the top left corner Google +1 button to the site
- I am going to flash a new Rom on my Notion Ink Adam here in about three hours
- Finally got my Xbox 360 setup so I can get audio and video on my PC monitor (HD TV) and my TV
- Reimaged my laptop, three times… still having issues with it, going to have to spend most of tomorrow on it I fear
- Finally ordered a replacement fan for the top of my Thermaltake PC case, it has been acting up for about 12 months now!
- Not to mention a bunch of housework
All my apps are reinstalled, but not yet configured, Thank you Titanium Backup for helping with that, just bought the Pro License, a bit pricey, but’ll just eat at home this week!
It was either that or the bottom left… haven’t figured out where else to put it with this theme, but I’m looking.
I have to go mow the lawn first, it looks so bad I’ve started singing “Welcome to the Jungle” every time I go outside!
Video has been working for a couple of months, but I couldn’t find the adapter I needed to do the audio, so I bought another yesterday, paid too much for that too..
I hope it fits, the manufacturer claims they are 230mm fans in there now, but when I measured it with my tape measure it was only 203mm (fan size) and about 214mm from end to end of the case opening and I’m afraid I’ll have to remove the Motherboard to replace it…
So, deal with the Google +1 button where it is, I’ll probably not get around to moving it for 3 -12 months (I say that as I have a baby due in less than 4 months), I’ll try and get another 5 or so Android apps posted up this week, a write-up on my Evo and Adam Roms, and maybe I’ll even finally get pictures put up for the apps pages! I did take 383 screen shots on my Adam using the ShootMe app, but they all came out as blank black screens… so I’ll try again later. I’ve also added and updated my Notion Ink Adam Roms page, a LOT the last week or so, now make sure you head over and take a look! Doubt I’ll do the same for my Evo though, as they seem to have things well in hand on their own.
- New blog post... Diablo III closed Beta http://t.co/dKC2ChWm
- New blog post... resolving video problems with K-L-Ubuntu and XFX Radeon 6850 http://t.co/H6bXuMqi
- New blog post... Computer upgrades http://t.co/6PWVNy4m
- $7 for $15 Worth of Hand-Tossed Pizza, Calzones, and Drinks at Andolini's Pizza Charleston, SC http://t.co/QnKwPwB
- New blog post... is zdnet.com/news down http://t.co/DThuI4r
- New blog post... Netflix Down? http://bit.ly/q74Svu
