By stefan on June 7, 2011
The Zotax Zbox ND22-U has an issue going to Sleep and/or staying in Sleep mode under Windows 7. To fix this, follow this forum post instructions, or simply go into the Network Controller’s properties and under the Power Management tab and uncheck “Allow this device to wake the computer”.
The ND22 makes for a great HTPC with it’s Nvidia ION chipset that allows for smooth 1080p decoding. The dual core Intel SU2300 Culv processor also provides just enough power to smoothly navigate XBMC without any shudder, unlike some Atom chipsets, while still using less power than a regular desktop processor. Watch out for a great deal on the ND22 at Microcenter (can be had sub $200 with rebates at times).
Posted in Miscellaneous, XBMC |
By stefan on February 10, 2011
Since Google announced the new market.android.com website, there have been minor issues resonating amongst users. One of these issues is that not all of a user’s apps are showing in the list of appplications (My Market Account or My Orders). After searching around and trying a few fixes, I found this solution on XDA Developers (for a related issue) and modified it slightly:
- Go to settings > applications > manage applications > all > google services framework > clear data
- Go to settings > applications > manage applications > all > market > clear cache and force close
- Go to settings > applications > manage applications > all > market > clear data
- Reboot your phone.
- Open and sign out of GTalk, then re-open and sign in.
- Open Market and accept the agreement. Let it load your apps. Close Market.
- Go to market.android.com and sign in. Go to My Market Account > Settings tab > Edit > Nickname your phone and click Update.
- Install an app from market.android.com.
After these steps, it took a few hours but all of the applications installed on my phone appeared in this list.
Posted in Android |
By stefan on December 30, 2010
I stumbled across RSA Animate on YouTube and was immediately intrigued by their videos. They take inspiring talks or speeches and animate them with white-board style illustrations. Check out two of their best videos below:
For more, visit their YouTube page or the RSA website.
Posted in Videos |
By stefan on December 19, 2010
It’s been a long time coming but XBMC has finally release version 10.0 codenamed Dharma. Notable improvements and additions include:
- Centralized add-on and skin repository. Install add-ons and skins from inside XBMC.
- GPU accelerated video decoding via DXVA2
My XBMC setup runs on a dual core 2.7 Ghz AMD processor with an Nvidia 9400 GT video card. I had the box over-clocked to 3.0 Ghz in order to handle all and every 1080p video. After enabling hardware acceleration I was able to bring back down the clock speed to 2.7 Ghz and still enjoy all the high bit-rate videos. I did notice some weird green artifacts, usually when fast-forwarding, but overall it seems to work just as smooth as before.
The official XBMC blog post for the release can be found here, along with the changelog. Visit their download page to grab a copy.
Posted in XBMC |
By stefan on October 29, 2010
I’ve been using Gmail for roughly 6 years and I’ve always had the mentality of archiving all messages rather than deleting them. I figured there was so much space that I’d never run out. Over the years I have done some cleaning, but nothing significant. Recently, Gmail has been loading slow and feeling a bit sluggish. This could be attributed to a temporary slowdown in their service, but either way I figured it was time to cut some of the fat from my Gmail account.
A quick survey shows roughly 1900 MB (25%) used and 16,000 messages. In about 30 minutes I was able to bring that down to 1780 MB and 12,000 messages.
My main objective was to delete emails that have no value and only slow down searches and load times. I was not focused on clearing up space, just cutting down that 16,000 email count. At the same time, I did not want to delete any important emails, so carefully filtering and searching was key.
Continue reading “Tips to cut back on Gmail bloat”
Posted in Gmail | Tagged clean gmail, email, gmail, gmail bloat |
By stefan on September 30, 2010
Recently I have been creating a demo video for my company, Datanotic. Not only have I brushed up on my video editing skills, I also got an education in web video formats and performance. After reading countless news and blog posts about Steve Jobs not supporting Flash on his iDevices, I was curious to see how easy it is to implement HTML5 video and if there are performance benefits.
The video I created used the h.264 codec in an mp4 container, which is supported by html5 capable browsers such as Chrome and Safari. Firefox and Opera do not support h.264, but do support the Ogg Theora format. I used the Firefogg plugin to convert my video into an ogv file, but the quality was not acceptable (sluggish, artifacts). I also tried converting it to the WebM format which was nearly flawless, but support for that format is very limited. I exported two versions in 720p (2-2.5 Mbps bitrate) and 360p (500 Kbps bitrate) qualities. I then implemented the JW Player for HTML5, which falls back nicely to JW Player for Flash on unsupported browsers.
Continue reading “Flash video is better than HTML5 right now”
Posted in Flash, html |
The Zotax Zbox ND22-U has an issue going to Sleep and/or staying in Sleep mode under Windows 7. To fix this, follow this forum post instructions, or simply go into the Network Controller’s properties and under the Power Management tab and uncheck “Allow this device to wake the computer”.