Article

Using external drives to save space on your Mac? Format them first. | MacFixIt – CNET Reviews

My Comments

A typical external hard disk

This article highlighted the benefits of formatting external hard disks that are to be connected to an Apple Macintosh as HFS+ file-system disks. This advice hails well for formatting an external hard disk to an operating system’s native file-system such as NTFS for Windows or ext3 for Linux. This is because most of the external hard disks come preformatted to FAT32 more as an interchangeable file system that can be used on Windows, Macintosh and UNIX/Linux.

In the context of an external hard disk that you attach to a network-attached storage device for extra capacity, it may be worth looking through the instruction manual for your NAS or router to find the optimum file system. Some of the NAS units may work with ext3 or NTFS as the file system whereas most, including the routers with NAS functionality will stay with FAT32.

But this situation would apply to external hard disks that are primarily connected to the host computer all of the time rather than the “portable” hard disks that are likely to be moved between different computers and file systems. It wouldn’t hold well with thumb-drives and memory cards that you would expect to move between various computer devices including specific-purpose devices because most of these devices would only know the common FAT32 file-system.

This advice is best applied with an external hard disk that you have just purchased rather than one that contains all of your data because a format routine can wipe all of the data that exists on the hard disk.

Article

Los Angeles Contemplates A Plan For Free Citywide Wi-Fi | Co.Exist | ideas + impact

My Comments

There have been previous attempts at US local government establishing citywide Wi-Fi public Internet services but a lot of these efforts have been shut down or curtailed by, usually, state governments working at the behest of established local telephony and cable-TV companies.

The Los Angeles City Council are putting forward an idea to have a citywide public Wi-Fi network but are having to realise the practicalities like the tall buildings and were having to factor in the activity of the local telephony and cable-TV services. This is similar to Google establishing fibre Internet in Kansas City and a few other US cities in competition with the established telephony and cable-TV operators.

The issue that will have to be raised is that action at the federal level has to be taken by a strong government to allow right-of-way access for competitive Internet and telecommunications services. Here, I have seen the effect of the Carterfone hearing and the anti-trust investigation in to AT&T, which led to competitive telephony service, wearing off and the country falling back to uncompetitive Internet access with most areas having the choice between two operators working as a cartel.

What America needs to be educated about is infrastructure-level competition with concepts like local-loop or sub-loop unbundling, the operation of public Wi-Fi networks, implementing different media to provide competitive telecommunications access, virtual-network competition and other concepts. Here, they could observe what France has done to provide a lively telecommunications, cable-TV and Internet market that really is for the consumer.

Article – From the horse’s mouth

Sony

Sony launches new premium 3D Blu-ray Home Cinema System : Consumer Products Press Releases : Sony Australia

My Comments

I had some experience with two of Sony’s premium network-capable Blu-Ray-based home-theatre systems, especially the BDV-E990W (BDV-N990W) unit. This was in the form of setting up the prior model which was the BDV-E980W (BDV-N980W) for them and eventually troubleshooting it to find out they had ended up with a faulty unit which was replaced under warranty with the ‘E990W. Even when they received the replacement model, I was involved in setting it up and testing it to make sure it worked.

These home-theatre systems were very capable when it came to functionality such as being able to work with their setup which involved their first flatscreen TV which was a low-end entry-level model from a discount store along with a recent-issue cable-TV set-top box. This was because of the number of HDMI input ports along with the HDMI output port that these systems were equipped with.

The reality with this setup was that most older and low-end “bargain-basement” flatscreen TVs don’t have the HDMI-ARC functionality for returning sound from the TV’s tuner or video peripherals connected to the TV’s HDMI ports. Also, by connecting the cable box to the home theatre system, there is a guarantee of “best-case” video and audio quality for the premium pay-TV channels even if the TV had just one HDMI connection which is something that a lot of cheaper sets like the Kogan “Kevin 37”, which was on sale at the time of Kevin Rudd’s economic stimulus package, had. Here, you have the ability to have best-case sound and vision even if you start out cheap with your flatscreen TV and gradually upgrade to better equipment as you can afford it.

For that matter, I would like to see the HDMI Consumer Electronics Control and Audio Return Channel features effectively “pushed down” to lower-tier flatscreen TV sets. This is more so as we see manufacturers equip Blu-Ray home-theatre systems, soundbars and similar “compact” AV equipment with this functionality and use it as a way to cut costs by reducing the number of HDMI and other connections on these devices. Similarly, from my experience the HDMI Consumer Electronics Control functionality has helped with simplifying the operation requirements with consumer AV setups and this has been a boon with older friends of mine who aren’t confident with operating consumer-electronics equipment.

I have also been pleased with the wireless surround-speaker link which pleased the house-proud owner who wouldn’t like the sight of cables coming from the front to the back of the viewing area. The microphone-assisted auto calibration routine made things easier for keeping the soundfield at an optimum level which has led to a “properly-placed” surround-sound experience when I watched the “Back To The Future” Blu-Ray with her and is to be used when you rearrange the lounge area in such a way as to relocate the speakers relative to each other.

These sets also offered what was expected for equipment that was to be part of the home network where they gave access to Internet-hosted radio and TV services as well as access to DLNA-hosted media collections on that network.

But the Sony BDV-N9100 Series adds some extra icing on the cake for Android users. It has integrated Bluetooth A2DP audio streaming so you can wirelessly play your smartphone or tablet through the system’s speakers. This is finished off with NFC “touch-and-go” setup for Android devices that implement NFC functionality. Like the rest of the current Sony Blu-Ray home-theatre range, this unit also has the “sports sound” mode labelled as “Football” but this should be used with all of the stadium sports like cricket, baseball or most Olympic Games events.

An improvement that I would like to see for these systems is for Sony to provide units with the same connectivity and functionality at a more reasonable price that can appeal to most purchasers. The best way to go about this would be to add some of the high-end functionality to mid-tier models and add extra functionality just to the high-end models. Similarly, these units could effectively answer Panasonic by integrating Skype capability with the optional camera. But, as high-end highly-capable home-theatre setups that are part of the home network, they have earnt their keep in this regard.

Article

Extended battery life with 802.11ac | Wi-Fi Alliance

My Comments

HTC have announced the next “refresh” of their One Android smartphone is to be equipped for 802.11ac 5GHz Wi-Fi segments. Plus there is some talk of other manufacturers fielding similarly-equipped smartphones for the up-and-coming Mobile World Congress that is to occur in Barcelona, Spain.

But, as with 802.11n, these phones will implement a single-stream variant of the technology. The reason why this is to be is because the digital signal processing required for handling a multi-stream signal required for these “MIMO-capable” systems is very taxing on the device’s battery runtime as has been explained in the article.

There will still be a significant data throughput and bandwidth bonus offered by these devices and, of course, smartphones that are equipped for 802.11ac will work with 802.11n networks on either the 2.4GHz or the 5GHz bands. This could really open up the 5GHz band for more of the handheld devices and legitimise its place in the creation of Wi-Fi segments.

A reality that is often missed with 5GHz is the fact that this band is like traditional FM radio on the 88-108MHz waveband compared to traditional AM radio on the 540-1600khz waveband. As I have observed even from childhood, it was feasible to pick up the AM stations over very long distances, even to the country areas while FM stations could be heard within the main urban areas. In some cases, a few AM stations with very low frequencies effectively covered the state of Victoria in Australia with a strong signal.

In this case, I would notice that access points operating on the 5GHz band used for 802.11n and 802.11ac will have shorter coverage areas compared to those on the 2.4GHz band for 802.11n. This will manifest in some situations where one router may cover a suburban block yet you may have to add a 5GHz range extender or access point with a wired backbone for the same coverage or the same router may have to use a stronger 5GHz antenna.

On the other hand, this band may allow for better handling of dense living areas like apartment blocks, but would require all Wi-Fi devices to support it in order to gain this benefit.

Who knows what this means for the evolution of the Wi-Fi wireless local area network especially as it is also considered as an offload companion to the 3G or 4G mobile broadband service?

Article

Mobile Data Sharing Plans Coming | Telstra | The Age (Australia)

My Comments

I have covered “shared” and “family” mobile data plans previously on HomeNetworking01.info, infact with a summary article of where things are at with these plans along with fixed-line broadband plans for occasionally-occupied premises. It can rectify situations where you have more allowance on one device but not on another which was something I came across with a friend of mine where I had to coax their iPhone to tether properly with their PC so they can use that device’s allowance.

These plans typically allow a user to have multiple devices such as a smartphone, tablet, “Mi-Fi” or USB wireless-broadband modem share the same data allowance pool. The “shared” plan is typically for devices owned by one customer while the “family” plan allows devices belonging to members of the same family or household  to share the same allowance.

Now Telstra is making a commitment to offer these kind of plans to their customers because of the activity that is taking place in US and Europe with the plans. Here, analysts were saying that people would buy increased data allowances for these plans rather than buying the standard allowances provided for the individual devices. Of course, customers would backpedal on their data usage as they get close to the end of their allowance.

Personally, I would like to see the shared plans offer things like data allowances in the order of 3Gb to 5Gb to allow people to buy “buffer space” on their plans, application-specific billing options like “all-you-can-eat” multimedia streaming from partnered services like TuneIn Radio, Foxtel Go, ABC iView or Spotify or “all-you-can-eat” mobile telephony services. Similarly, it could be easier for a person who is currently on a device-linked post-paid plan to participate in one of these plans without having to pay an early-termination fee for that device.

These plans could allow a smartphone user who is putting off buying a tablet or other mobile-broadband device because of data allowance and billing complexities to buy these devices yet manage one allowance and one account. Similarly, they could allow a mobile-data user to right-size their data allowance to represent what they really use across the board.

Article

Lepai’s tiny powerhouse amplifier won’t break the bank | The Audiophiliac – CNET News

My Comments

Previously, I commented on the Lepai LP-2020A+ midget stereo amplifier which was a utility stereo amplifier that could be connected between a computer or other stereo equipment and a pair of low-powered small bookshelf speakers.

Now Lepai have also released another of these cost-effective midget amps, this time offering a lot more power in its small enclosure as well as being able to work as part of a Bluetooth A2DP audio-playback link. Here, you could have your smartphone, tablet or laptop play through those speakers but move around more freely due to the wireless link. The article mentioned that the Bluetooth implementation wasn’t all that good with the sound but if both the amplifier and the mobile device used the aptX high-quality audio codec, you may have some improvement.

In some ways, the Lepai amplifiers do  pick up from where the low-tier cost-effective small amplifiers that Radio Shack (Tandy) sold through the 1980s – the Realistic SA-102, SA-150 or STA-7. This is where these amplifiers filled in the gap as “utility” or “general-purpose” amplifiers that stood between a turntable, tuner or tape deck in their day or, nowadays, a computer with a sound card, and a pair of small low-cost speakers but those of us who used these amplifiers didn’t expect them to yield high-performance sound.

But the Lepai amplifiers would implement techniques like Class-D power amplification or highly-powerful high-quality “power-amplifier-on-a-chip” technology that improves on what was available through the early 80s to drive the Tandy “midgets”. I also suspect that most of this technology is based on the way the amplifiers used in the “four-wheeled ghetto-blasters” that young men see themselves driving and “ruling the streets in” are designed.

Who knows what Lepai may offer us with utility amplifiers that suit the secondary space like a college dorm room, a den or a small office space.

Article

X10 From Cocktail Audio | Australian Hi-Fi

From the horse’s mouth

Cocktail Audio

Home Page

My Comments

A newcomer to the consumer audio stage has fronted up with a music centre that is not just like the micro music systems on the market. Cocktail Audio have presented the X10 which can connect to a pair of speakers or an existing hi-fi amplifier to work as a CD player, network media adaptor, “hard-disk deck” or music server.

Here, I could play regular CDs or data CDs full of audio files through the system or simply “rip” the CDs to the integrated user-replaceable hard disk in order to create a music library. This music library is served over a home network through a Web server or available also to regular computers as an SMB/CIFS share. It is also part of the DLNA Home Media Network as a server, media player or “renderer” that is managed by a UPnP AV / DLNA control-point program.

The internal amplifier is rated to work at 30 watts per channel for an 8-ohm speaker load with 0.1% THD but the line-out connection can also be worked as a preamplifier output for active speakers or a better power amplifier. Thus it can work with most small speakers.

It also can pull in Internet radio streams but I have wondered whether you have access to Spotify, last.fm or a well-known Internet-radio directory like vTuner or TuneIn Radio through this system. As well, it can effectively be a “hard-disk deck” where it can record from and play through an amplifier’s tape loop in the same vein as the classic cassette deck or MiniDisc deck. This means that you could go on “dumping” many records or tapes to this unit’s hard disk or using the hard disk along with a tuner to record a long radio broadcast whether it be your favourite talk programme or a favourite DJ’s “shift”. Then you could move the recordings to your regular computer and use the audio software on it to “polish up” the recordings.

As for connectivity to the home network, the Cocktail X10 could be described as being “Wi-Fi-ready”. This is where it has an Ethernet socket for Ethernet or HomePlug segments but can be connected to a Wi-Fi wireless segment using an optional adaptor dongle that you buy from Cocktail Audio. Rather, I would connect this to Ethernet wiring if your house is “wired for Ethernet” or buy a HomePlug-AV kit to connect it to the home network.

Cocktail Audio could improve on this design by offering either a variant that has integrated broadcast-radio functionality or a matching tuner that can pick up broadcast radio. This could preferably be working with FM and DAB+ for markets that use DAB-based digital radio or IBOC-based HD Radio for the American market.

This music system certainly shows up what can be done for a system that can be a music player and a DLNA-capable music server.