Virtualization, EUC, and Computing in General
My home lab environment (or home datacenter as it is starting to become…) started several years ago. First I had just a Server 2003 box that was a DC, file server, RAS server…then Server 2008 and Hyper-V beta came out. A few more disks were purchased to store virtual machines – but 2 spindles and limited RAM only goes so far. Then Server 2008R2 was released so the host received an upgrade – both the … Read more…
Here I’ll try to keep a running log of things I’ve found to be new or different on the official AT&T ICS update to the Galaxy S2. Let’s get started: Lock screen looks a bit different General font used is different, better looking >Pattern unlock – pattern can be hidden Hold power button: now offers going to airplane mode Hold power button: when changing to sound on or off, there is a warning window you … Read more…
After “testing” my phone for two days, I decided it was time to apply the upgrade to my Wife’s phone. She had downloaded the UCKK6 OTA update before I did and thus complained about the terrible battery life issue before I realized that it was the update. I’m hoping that this update will at least alleviate the issue. So first things first – go download Kies: http://www.samsung.com/us/kies/ It’s a fairly simple application that includes all … Read more…
Ice Cream Sandwich has been out for quite some time – and I’m sure that it’s already been running, in one form or another, on the Galaxy S2 (custom ROMs, etc). Not me – I never got around to rooting or installing custom ROMs, or jailbreaking, or any of that on any of my phones. So that said, I’ve been relying on AT&T for all software updates, and lets just say that both of our … Read more…
Same story, different capacitors. The symptoms were “a loud pop, followed by the smell of burning plastic”. This PC was made by a certain small company that went bankrupt in 2008…it’s a P4 Intel board, so it’s fairly old. Removing the side panel from the case exposed the vented electrolyte: This failed capacitor was a part of the processors VRM – only one showed to be failed, but where there is one, there are probably … Read more…
Recently, the second [Media only] hard drive in my HTPC started to fail – my Wife heard lots of good old clicking coming from it. So I checked the SMART status – which reported OK, but there was clearly something wrong with the drive. I also happened to be looking in the BIOS just to make sure everything was OK, and I noticed that all of the SATA ports were set for IDE emulation mode! … Read more…
When I upgraded to an ATI HD 5770 card, one of the biggest issues with the HDMI output was the odd ‘choppiness’ when scenes went from full color and light to very dark. After I had figured out how to correct it, all was well…then there was a newer version of the ATI Catalyst driver suite. Dynamic Contrast strikes again!!! What I did not realize is that the update reset the settings for Dynamic Contrast … Read more…
The iMon remote controller was always able to turn off our Media Center by itself – but then when a Logitech Harmony remote is introduced, things got ugly. 9 times out of 10, the PC would NOT shut down when the Harmony sent the command. This is likely due to the complexity of the iMon remote commands. This was alleviated when I switched the iMon manager software to recognize standard MCE remote commands instead of … Read more…
We have used an HTPC for nearly 4 years now – and yes this includes using Vista Media Center. There have been a few revisions – completely open setup to test, ClearQAM\Analog tuners, different video card, ATI DCTs…The biggest, and probably best feature is the ’10 foot’ interface – controlling everything with a remote control. I chose the Antec Veris Fusion silver for the case – it has an iMon VFD\remote eye built in to … Read more…
Who says you can’t teach an old laptop new tricks? About 7 years ago, my Dad and I purchased new HP laptops – I needed one for school. The two that we purchased were very similar- the one I had was an HP\Compaq NX5000 and his was an HP\Compaq NC6000. They look nearly identical, but the NX model is maybe 1\4 inch wider. About a year ago mine died (or so I thought…another post for … Read more…