Hard Disc Saturday !

Posted by www.yourforum.gr, 15 May 2010, 11:28 PM

i needed more HD space so today all of a sudden had to buy 2 new disc drives : 1 x WD 20EADS + 1 x WD 20VDS

i intended to use both in an enclosure as JBOD but did not find the enclosure i was looking for so instead i put them into Raidsonic IB-NAS5220, connected to the rest of the party with CAT5E cabling hoping to get 200mbits where they promise to deliver "gigabit ethernet" performance ...

So, i had to format both on ext2 because no NTFS is a real option in the amazing world of Linux that lives within the storage, and starting copying files

i also had to clean a PC at home from dust etc and removed all cabling prior to getting it to the blower.

Anyway, an enclosure i had been using for quite a long time ( simple 3,5" SATA ) had no fan on it and once i started moving 300GB for starters ( i would also move the rest of a 1.5TB Seagate 7200.11 1.5TB drive ) the drive disappeared....

lost 2 hours testing on laptops, different USB cabling, restarts etc only to realize the hard disc is not spinning up like it should

from experience this could happen if you have a hard disc crash ( 1.5TB is painful ) OR Power supply issues

so tested the drive on a SATA docking station only to find out it was ok

moving data - fast - from it right now, just in case

there goes another Saturday...

Broken Rss

Posted by www.yourforum.gr, 11 Mar 2010, 01:44 PM

i see that quite often RSS syndication is broken and i am still unsure of the issue ...

Sony Playstation 3 40gb > 160gb > 320gb

Posted by www.yourforum.gr, 26 Feb 2010, 12:36 AM

Today i received Guitar Hero - Van Halen from Amazzon.co.uk and Buzz from e-shop.gr

and also upgraded - again ! - the PS3 2,5" HD ...

when i first bought the PS3 back in May 2008 it was a 40GB model, so naturally i changed the HD during Christmas 2008 with a nice WD Scorpio 2,5" 160GB 7200RPM 16MB cache

and since then my needs for local storage have increased due to storing M2TS files from my HD camera locally along with the DLNA, so today i installed a similar Scorpio - 320GB this time.

The backup / restore process within XMB can take ages... 2 hours for each stage.

Upgrading Windows 7 Rc To Rmt - Final

Posted by www.yourforum.gr, 17 Feb 2010, 01:59 AM

I need to upgrade my RC build of Windows 7 on several workstations, including my business laptop, so i think i will follow this excellent tutorial found on howtogeek :

The Problem

Windows 7 checks whether or not the current version you are running is a pre-release copy, and prevents you from upgrading further. For reference purposes, this is the error you’ll see when you try and upgrade.



The Solution

The solution is to edit a file inside the Windows 7 DVD—which you’ll have to extract to the hard drive to proceed.

* If you are using an ISO image for the installation progress, you can use the awesome 7-Zip utility to extract the ISO to a folder on the drive.
* If you are using an actual DVD, you can simply copy all of the files from the DVD to a folder on your hard drive.

Once you’ve extract the files, browse down into the “sources” folder to find the cversion.ini file.



Once you’ve opened up the cversion.ini file, you’ll notice that the MinClient line has a value of 7233.0, and since the Windows 7 RC release is build 7100, you can understand why it’s not working.



All you need to do is change the MinClient value to something less than the current build you are using. For the RC release, you can change it to 7000.



Now you can simply launch the setup.exe file from within the folder, and do the upgrade directly from the hard drive. Once you’ve started the setup, click Install now.



Once you get to the type of installation screen, choose to Upgrade the existing install.



Once you reach the Compatibility Report screen (if it doesn’t show up at all, be happy about it), you’ll see the list of applications that probably won’t work once you upgrade. Realistically most of these apps will work just fine, but the important thing is that you’ll be able to upgrade.

Note: You could always smooth the upgrade process by removing any apps that have compatibility problems, before you do the upgrade.



At this point, the upgrade should start working, and will take a rather long time.



Important Notes

There are a few important things to keep in mind when you are upgrading to the final version:

* The Windows 7 beta or RC releases were Ultimate edition, so you’ll only be able to upgrade to the RTM (final) if you are installing Ultimate Edition.
* Whenever possible, you should really backup your files and do a clean install. There are less headaches this way, and you get the benefit of a nice clean profile.

Happy upgrading!

Logitech Harmony One

Posted by www.yourforum.gr, 17 Nov 2009, 07:48 AM

Αν επιθυμείτε εσείς και η οικογένειά σας να έχετε τη δυνατότητα να χερίζεστε όλες τις συσκευές ψυχαγωγίας του σπιτιού σας, τότε η ιδανική λύση για εσάς είναι το Logitech Harmony One Colour LCD Screen Remote control. Σας δίνει πλήρη έλεγχο για μέχρι και 15 συσκευές. Η βάση δεδομένων της Logitech περιέχει πάνω απο 5,000 κατασκευαστές και περισσότερες απο 225,000 συσκευές υπερύθρων, αριθμός ο οποίος ανανεώνεται καθημερινά, έτσι ώστε να είναι εγγυημένη η συνεργασία όλων των συσκευών και κατασκευαστών που έχετε είδη η θα αγοράσετε στο μέλλον!

• Λειτουργία: Πλήρης έλεγχος υποστηριζόμενων συσκευών, εγχρώμη οθόνη αφής για εύκολη πρόσβαση σε όλες της συσκευές οικίακης διασκέδασης π.χ μία TV ή ένα DVD player ή και ένα Hi-fi σύστημα.
• Πρόσθετα χαρακτηριστικά: Εργονομικός σχεδιασμός, δυνατότητα επαναφόρτισης της μπαταρίας του, ανάγλυφα φωτιζόμενα πλήκτρα που σας επιτρέπουν να βρίσκετε το σωστό κανάλι ακόμα και στο σκοτάδι.
• Σύνδεση με PC: Μέσω USB θύρας, απαιτεί Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista ή Mac OS X 10.3 ή μεταγενέστερο, CD-ROM.
• Τροφοδοσία: Lithium-ion μπαταρία.
• Περιεχόμενα συσκευασίας: Το τηλεχειριστήριο Harmony One, Harmony Software Installation CD, USB cable, Lithium-ion battery, Βάση φόρτισης, Quick Start Guide.
• Χρώμα: Μάυρο με ασημί.

Ordered this and waiting to setup !

Drobopro

Posted by www.yourforum.gr, 18 Sep 2009, 10:50 PM

DroboPro is here, and it’s quite a compelling offering. It’s generating buzz (DroboPro was the number one trend on Twitter for a while on Tuesday) but is it deserving? In a word, yes.

The Drobo for Pros

Just as in Apple’s Mac and MacBook lineup, the “Pro” name denotes more of everything for the pro user or small business. The most obvious addition is four more drive slots, bringing maximum capacity up to eight 2 TB drives or a solid 16 TB of raw storage. Mix in data protection with Drobo’s unique BeyondRAID and subtract disk drive “liars inches”, and you’re left with 10.9 or 12.5 TB of usable capacity.

The difference in potential usable capacity is another Pro feature – optional protection from double drive failure. Nice! Users might be tempted to turn off this RAID-6-ish double parity protection in order to gain a little extra space, but I’d strongly suggest against that. With 8 drives spinning, the system is bound to eat a drive now and then, and good old Murphy’s Law (or the notorious bathtub curve of drive failures) is sure to spell doom for your data without extra protection. I suppose single-drive protection is acceptable for a 4-drive unit, but eight drives drives the risk of loss unacceptably high.

Around back is another major surprise: A gigabit Ethernet port. No, the Drobo Pro doesn’t incorporate the DroboShare’s NAS technology. Instead, the company added a simple and speedy iSCSI stack, bringing some serious performance potential to “the little drive array that could.” The company says that a gigabit iSCSI connection pushes nearly 80 MB/s, easily tripling the throughput of the system’s FireWire 800 or USB ports.

PC owners might be put off by the lack of an eSATA port, but they would be wise to use iSCSI instead. Warning: Watch out for the limited performance of low-end gigabit Ethernet switches! Just about any iSCSI initiator ought to be able to connect to the Drobo, and Windows users will happily use Microsoft’s solid and free software to connect. But iSCSI on the Mac is another matter, and Drobo dropped a bombshell here: They cooked up their own simple software iSCSI initiator for OS X and are offering it free to all! This is shout-out-loud news since functional OS X iSCSI software costs hundreds of dollars from other vendors and Apple’s built-in Leopard iSCSI support is AWOL even in the latest Snow Leopard builds.

On the software side, Drobo remains amazingly simple to configure. You won’t find even a dozen buttons in the management interface, and no tuning or configuration is required. The software continues Drobo’s tradition of presenting all attached storage as a 16 TB drive, regardless of how much is really installed. This means that capacity can grow and shrink as drives are hot-swapped in and out without the connected server even noticing. The Pro does add one new trick: You can tell it to present up to 16 of these fibbing drives to the attached server if you’d like to segment your data a bit. Pro owners can also disable drive spin-down for server use.

Drobo is positioning the Pro model as the perfect small business storage system, and I certainly wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it as bulletproof small-office storage. By far, DroboPro is the simplest storage device to manage, expand, maintain, and install. It’s cheap compared to other 8-drive RAID systems at $1200 empty and can grow to meet the needs of a dozen folks, or one especially productive one, with ease. Connect a Drobo Pro to your Mac Pro and you’ll grin like a little girl who just got her very own pony!

Logmein Central

Posted by www.yourforum.gr, 1 Aug 2009, 12:07 AM

i was invited earlier today to LogMeIn Central Beta and i havee a positive feeling about this :

"Just a quick follow-up to let you know LogMeIn Central expands the ways you can deliver remote access and computer management as a service. If you haven't had a chance to check out LogMeIn's newest product, log in now.

In addition to providing a single unified place for you to manage your LogMeIn computers, Central offers new features that make delivering essential remote services easier than ever, including:

* Automatic login: Automatically log in to your remote computers without having to remember passwords, by saving them in a local, encrypted file.
* Dynamic reporting and charting: Quickly and easily view the status of your computers, session activity and other statistics that help you understand how remote access is being used.
* User management: Manage all of your users from one location, with the ability to control specific access permissions and account privileges.

...and much more!"

Dell Xps M1330 Review

Posted by www.yourforum.gr, 10 Jul 2009, 07:07 AM

by Andrew Baxter and Jerry Jackson

Overview and Introduction

The Dell XPS M1330 is designed for those that want power on the go. If you're also fashion conscious and like to standout in a crowd, the looks of the XPS M1330 will help you in that area too. Sleek design coupled with a portable form factor and powerful components come together to make for a compelling notebook.


Build and Design

Our pre-production XPS M1330 as equipped:

* 13.3-inch WXGA screen with LED backlight
* "Crimson" red paint (also available in "Tuxedo" black or "Pearl" white)
* 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo T7300 processor, Santa Rosa chipset (up to 2.4GHz available)
* 2GB DDR2-667 SDRAM (up to 4GB DDR2 SDRAM available)
* 160GB 5400 RPM SATA HDD (32GB SSD drive available)
* Slot-loading dual-layer DVD±RW drive
* 128MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 8400M GS
* WWAN option for Verizon
* Ethernet, 802.11a/g/n (Intel 4965), Bluetooth option
* Integrated VGA webcam
* HDMI, VGA, 1394, two USB 2.0 ports, integrated media reader (MS, SD, ), fingerprint reader
* Media Center remote located in ExpressCard slot
* Windows Vista Home Premium
* Dimensions 12.5" x 9.4" x 0.87" - 1.33"
* Weight starts at 4 pounds with 6-cell battery



The design of the XPS M1330 really sets it apart. The design is, in a word, striking. The sloping look and stunning lid, available in three different colors, are immediately attention grabbing. The slope is akin to a fast car tear drop look. And while the XPS M1330 isn't designed to go fast in the physical sense, it looks like it could if you just put wheels on it.

Once opened the M1330 provides more eye candy in terms of design. The buttons along the top edge are touch sensitive and light up with a soft glow when pressed. They look very stylish. The LED buttons are a bright blue and also eye-catching in their appearance. The silver colored keyboard and brushed aluminum casing on the inside give a slightly industrial look that would tell you there's some muscle to this machine.



The hinge on the M1330 is quite unique, it's very rounded in its look and rotates to bring the screen about even with the keyboard for a slightly lower overall profile. The LED backlit screen is super thin, which keeps weight down and again contributes to the looks. An integrated web camera sits at the top of the screen, it's well hidden but noticeable.

Overall we have to say that the M1330 is one of the best looking notebooks on the market today.

Screen

When configuring the XPS M1330 you have two options for the screen -- a backlit 13.3" LED display that's thin and light or regular cathode backlit display that's slightly thicker and not as bright and evenly lit as the LED backlit display. We were lucky enough to have the LED backlit display, and while it costs $150 more than the standard display, it's a worthwhile upgrade. The picture and brightness you get is just amazing! It offers 330 nits of brightness and is simply gorgeous to look at. It's glossy in nature so you'll get some reflection, but the rich and bold colors that come with having this type of screen finish is worth it.



The only downside to the LED backlit display is the fact that you can only get a VGA webcam. If you get the regular WXGA display you can configure a 2MP web camera. We think VGA resolution is enough for things such as video chat applications, but if you really feel the need for a higher resolution web camera and want to save a bit of money too, then go with the regular WXGA screen option.



The speakers for the M1330 are located at the top of the keyboard area. There's not much to write home about the speakers, they get loud enough that's for sure, but the sound is slightly tinny as is the case with nearly all laptop speakers. The volume audio controls are touch sensitive buttons along the top right side of the keyboard. It's a little hard to use these buttons if you have big fingers, and there's no on screen feedback to tell you you've actually pressed the button. Overall the volume control buttons are tough to use, though they look nice, an old fashioned volume dial control is easier to use.



If you prefer to use headphones to the built-in, you're set. There are two headphone ports to capture audio from, both are located on the front of the notebook. If you're trying to attach external speakers this isn't as handy, but since this is an on the go notebook it's probably not an issue.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard on the XPS M1330 is fairly similar to the older XPS M1210, though it does feel more spread out with larger keys so overall the keyboard is better. One thing that's definitely better with M1330 is that the keyboard is more firm. On the M1210 there was some sink on the right side of the keyboard, but with the M1330 it's firm and solid all over. The XPS M1330 is really quite a pleasure to type on. The only complaint I have for the keyboard is that if your fingernails are slightly long they might get caught under the keys, this shouldn't be a problem for most males though.



One thing to mention is that with the 9-cell battery in you get an overall greater slope to the keyboard, we actually like this for ergonomics, it feels more comfortable for typing.



The touchpad works well enough, though it's on the small side. The Apple MacBook is a 13.3" screen notebook and the touchpad is probably twice the size of what you get on the M1330. The mouse buttons are fine, though Andrew would prefer they had a little more travel to them. The good news with the touchpad is that it's responsive, has dedicated scroll areas and the textured feel is good.

Performance and Benchmarks

The M1330 is a remarkably capable performer in its price range thanks to the Intel Santa Rosa processor platform and the Nvidia GeForce Go 8400M GS video card with 128MB of dedicated graphics memory. While there are better performing gaming systems on the market in the $1,500 to $2,000 price range with 256MB of dedicated memory, the M1330 provides more than enough power for casual gaming ... even with some of the newest games.

That said, we experienced some problems getting 3DMark05 and 3DMark06 to run smoothly on the pre-production M1330 straight out of the box thanks to some Vista driver issues. After spending a few hours running Windows Update and hunting for drivers online Jerry was able to get both 3DMark05 and 3DMark06 to run consistently and managed to improve some of the benchmark numbers from our first look review.

Hopefully any driver issues will be sorted out when Dell ships actual production units of the M1330 to customers. However, the driver issue we experienced shouldn't deter anyone from this genuinely impressive system.

Aurora Feint: Arena Daemons

Posted by www.yourforum.gr, 21 Apr 2009, 06:57 AM

"Long ago, mankind confided in prayer their sacred charge to the supreme spirits of Nature. The spirits were moved by their plight and answered their call for help. Over the many years since then, the spirits have contributed in many ways to their cause by leading them to a groove inhabited by deer, offering them up to serve in their campaign. A Druid educated in the language of the Natural spirits can appeal to them, and they will provide him with valuable companions. These companions were among several spirit animals such as the snake, monkey, bear, lion, rabbit, turtle and toad. "

Drobopro Announced

Posted by www.yourforum.gr, 7 Apr 2009, 03:40 PM

It's official! Data Robotics introduces DroboPro, the first business class storage device that manages itself! DroboPro delivers both enterprise-level data safety and unprecedented expandability, featuring single and dual disk redundancy combined with instant capacity expansion!

Leveraging the revolutionary BeyondRAID™ virtualized storage platform, and the peace of mind that comes with every Drobo product, DroboPro offers unparalleled features including:

* Instant capacity expansion across up to eight (8) hard drives
* Protection from one or two hard drive failures
* Create up to 16x16TB Smart Volumes™ with a click of a button
* iSCSI (Gigabit Ethernet), FireWire 800 and USB 2.0
* Rack mount ready, desktop quiet

WOW !