Ubuntu 9.04 on the Eee PC 901 - U, K or X?

So you'll no doubt be aware that a while back I wrestled with trying to get a fully-functional version of Ubuntu onto my Asus EeePC 901, and had to jump through some fairly complicated hoops to get it all working. Then Canonical went and released their beta version of Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope and all my problems were solved - all the Eee hardware working out of the box. Superb.

So, with the arrival of the official release of 9.04 Jaunty, I decided I'd try out the three main distros of Ubuntu - plain GNOME-based Ubuntu, KDE-based Kubuntu and the stripped down XFCE-based Xubuntu. In addition, I also thought I'd give the official Netbook Remix of Ubuntu a spin as well, just for the sake of completeness. For all four distros, I downloaded the ISO, and set up a 2GB USB flash drive using Unetbootin to run a live version, and then used this to install to an 8GB SD card in the Eee 901's card slot.

I have to say, I'm surprised by the performance differences between these four versions - because they are quite marked. Good old vanilla Ubuntu runs just fine and dandy. The only thing wrong as far as I can tell is that it's a bit sluggish running from SD, but I guess that's to be expected. The package is well-rounded and it includes most things that you'd need, apart from maybe Skype (but that's a doddle to install).

I tested the Netbook Remix (NBR) version next. Now undoubtedly this cosmetic tweak makes things a bit easier to navigate on the small 9-inch screen of the Eee, but I really noticed a performance hit. It showed a remarkable amount of slowdown over ordinary Ubuntu, and changing between the tabs was quite painful - about a second between clicking and it actually changing. The general sluggishness meant that I couldn't put up with it, so it had to go.

Then I tried Kubuntu, with it's all-singing-all-dancing KDE 4 interface that I've been hearing so many good things about. Now I'm sure if I was installing it on a fully-fledged desktop machine it'd fly along, but running off the SD card was - again - just too slow to be usable. In addition, the interface isn't at all suitable for the tiny Eee screen, as the top and bottom of each window were not visible. Also, no Firefox as standard is a black mark against it as far as I'm concerned.

So onto Xubuntu. The whole idea of the XCFE interface is that it's designed for lower-spec machines. As such, on the Eee it positively flies along! Admittedly it's not quite the slick, full package that ordinary Ubuntu is, but it still has everything I need, particularly on a netbook which really only uses Firefox in anger. I quick trip onto the interweb to install Skype and I'm as happy as Larry. I reckon this will be the distro that's staying on my Eee, at least until I feel the urge to start tinkering again.

Just to clarify - my comments above are my personal experiences of running these distros from an SD card on an Eee PC. This is NOT the ideal means of running these distributions, and if you're up for it you'd be far better installing to the primary SSD instead, and you'd be even better off installing to a proper desktop machine. However, for my purposes, Xubuntu is the one for me.

Offsite

I've recently got my hands on Leopard and I've started using Time Machine for backups - and I have to say it really takes the hard work out of backing stuff up. However, as good as it is I've also started being extra cautious and begun a strategy of off-site backups. I figure that all the backup in the world won't help if some scumbag burgles your house and nicks not only your computer but your backup drive as well. Believe me, in my line of work I see it all the time.

I've burnt all my photos (one year per disc) to DVD and also backed up all my iTunes music to DVD too, and shipped them off to a trusted source. I know that iTunes isn't strictly necessary bearing in mind I still have (most of) the original CDs, so I can always re-rip, but thats a bit of a long task really - and if the aforementioned scumbag steals your CD collection as well as your computer then you're really scuppered, particularly if you've got some classic discs that have now been deleted.

There's not a huge amount else of importance. I make very regular backups of all the websites I work on, but those are fairly small files, so not only do they go on to backup drive AND USB stick, they also get burnt to CD for good measure every so often and I've just started chucking the odd folder of documents and stuff onto DropBox (www.getdropbox.com). I figure you can't be too careful.

Think about it - you might not want to put all your eggs in one hard-drive-shaped basket, regardless of how good your backup strategy is. Just something to think about...

Pigeon post - getting to grips with the Unikon ETS

Now you're going to have to give me a bit of latitude here, as this isn't something that I'd normally be talking about on this blog. However, it is vaguely gadget-related, and there's also virtually no coverage of this topic on t'interweb so you'll have to indulge me.

My dad is well into his pigeon racing. Always has been, always will be. However, he does enjoy a good gadget and he's just bought something to try and bring his - and everyone else's - pigeon racing kicking and screaming into the 21st century (or at the very least, the late 1990s).

The gadget in question is an electronic timing system, or ETS. For those of you who know nowt about pigeon racing, the deal is that you put your birds, along with hundreds of others, onto a lorry which transports them to a predetermined release point. They all get simultaneously released, and the first one home is the winner. Obviously, every pigeon has a slightly different distance to fly to get home, so there's a lot of complex calculations to be done to work out exactly who the winner is, but you get the drift, yes?

Okay then. Not wanting to go into too much detail (that's not exactly my point here) but the old-fashioned method involved lots of writing by hand, little rubber rings, wind-up clocks and old blokes with calculators. Not exactly high tech. So this new system - called the Unikon, and made by German company Deister - aims to streamline the whole process. It's quite clever but not without its foibles, so I'm going to document how it works, and hopefully provide some instructions to help others.

Firstly - the equipment. It consists of a club system, used for marking pigeons, and a home system for the pigeon fancier (daft name) to use at his or her loft. Here's a pic of the club system:



So what's that on the right hand side? Is that a... wait... no it can't be. Is that a PARALLEL PRINTER?! Indeed it is. See, I told you this was a bit 1990s. The box with the number keys in the middle is the master club clock and the thing on the left is the unit for scanning the pigeons.

So how do you "scan" a pigeon exactly? Well this isn't Mission Impossible-style retina scanning or anything - it's a bit simpler. You put a plastic ring containing an RFID chip onto the leg of each pigeon. This chip has a unique alphanumeric code embedded in it which can't be altered. Here are the rings:



So the RFID ring goes on one leg, and on the other leg the pigeon has its association ring - which has a number on it which is registered to a particular fancier (in the photo below, the association ring is on the right). This ring is put on the bird when it's a baby, and subsequently can never be removed without destroying the ring.



In order to link these two rings together (figuratively speaking), you use a piece of software whereby you list all the association ring numbers belonging to that person and then upload them to the fancier's personal clock. This is done using a PC and a USB cable. Once it's done, there's no more need for the computer, the rest is done through the standalone unit. Here's the fancier's personal loft clock:



You can see that there's a little box which detaches from the main unit - this is the bit that contains the data. You give that bit to the pigeon club and they use the master system to upload all your association ring numbers, as well as the race dates and locations for that particular season. Once that's done, the linking can begin. You scroll through to the particular pigeon in question, and once you've found the right one, you pass the pigeon's RFID ring over the scanner.



The software then links the RFID ring to the association ring, so you know which pigeon is wearing which RFID ring. Once all this is done (and this has to be well before the racing season starts) then you're all set up to go. To enter your pigeons for a particular race, you take your chosen birds along to the club along with the cartridge from your loft clock and it's a simple matter of choosing the correct race from the list on the screen of the club system, scanning your pigeon over the sensor and that's about it. Once it's all done, the printer will churn out a sheet containing the information of all the pigeons you're sending to that particular race. Not only that but the club system will set the time on all the clocks using the MSF radio time signal broadcast by the National Physical Laboratory so that everyone's clocks are synchronised (which is much more reliable than the old way of attempting to switch everyone's clocks on simultaneously... no, I'm not joking).

Then, on race day, the magic happens. When the pigeons arrive home, they enter the pigeon loft and as they do so they pass over an RFID reader, installed just under the entrance hatch:



This reader scans the RFID chip in the ring and sends a signal to the fancier's loft clock, and this records exactly which pigeon arrived (it knows this because you linked the RFID ring and association ring together remember?) and what time it arrived at. All the data is stored in the little cartridge, and then the fancier detaches this and takes it along to the club later that day. They plug it into their master clock and the printer spits out a sheet with all the timings on. Genius! The main advantage is that the system will be quite happy to do all this without anyone being present, so you can go out and do something else and your birds will still get timed in. Also, it's a lot quicker than the old method, saving valuable seconds (which, in reality, can mean the difference between first place and second).

So there you go - a very happy Easter weekend spent pigeon-wrangling. Reports are that the system worked just fine and dandy for the first race of the season, so let's hope that continues. It's not exactly bleeding-edge technology, but in the world of pigeon racing it might as well be warp-drive.

If anyone's interested in exactly how I got it all working (including the lessons learnt from making mistakes), then drop me a line. The next post will be business as usual, I promise.

Wi-fi to go

As you may recall (if you've been here before) I recently got myself an Airport Express for the purpose of streaming music from my iMac to my hifi, in conjunction with my iPod Touch and the Remote app. This, as I've already reported, works wonderfully.

I was off to my folks' for the Easter weekend, and I was wondering how I would manage for four days with no wi-fi. Although they have broadband, it only goes directly to their desktop machine and nowhere else. I figured I could take my Airport Express with me, and somehow get it to broadcast a wi-fi signal - thereby allowing me to use my iPod Touch and netbook.

I wasn't entirely sure about the best way of doing this (and I'm not even sure this is the correct way now), but allow me to share how I got it all to work.

The AE has a feature built in to the setup software which allows you to set up profiles. Basically a profile is a batch of settings instructing the AE to function in a certain manner. My default profile was to connect as a client device to my home wifi network and stream music from my iMac. However, I knew when I got to my parents' that this wouldn't work. I needed it to accept the broadband signal via its ethernet port and then act as a wifi base station to broadcast the signal. So I set up a second profile telling the AE to work in the fashion, then packed it in my bag and set off.

Upon my arrival, I plugged in the Airport Express, but the setup software on my netbook simply would *not* find the device at all. I began to wonder how I'd ever manage to switch to my other profile if I couldn't connect to the AE in the first place. After some Googling (on the desktop machine of course!) I discovered that I needed to reset the AE. I held down the reset button for a few seconds, and when the light flashed I knew it had reset itself.

Sure enough, straight away the AE appeared in the Airport software, and it asked me which of my saved profiles I'd like to enable. I chose the new one that I'd set up before I left, and then the unit rebooted. When it restarted, it began broadcasting the wi-fi, which I was able to connect to with both my Eee and my Touch. Result!

Upon my return home, I reversed the process - reset the unit, selected the original profile in the Airport software and it was back in client mode. Simple when you know how...

iMac G5 open-heart surgery

So, after months of blogging about upgrading my G5 iMac, I finally got round to doing it at the weekend. Ably assisted by Olitee, I swapped out the existing hard drive for a much larger, faster model. I went for a 640GB Western Digital Blue in the end, mainly because it's a good combination of price, features and (hopefully) reliability. Having read through Apple's instructions for replacing the hard drive, it seemed a reasonably easy process. And, I'm pleased to report, it was.


Firstly, I made sure everything was backed up before we started. Then it was a matter of opening up the case on the iMac, which is a simple job of loosening three captive screws on the bottom and lifting the whole back plate off. Once inside, the hard drive was easy to find, being located at the top right corner. To get to the screws holding it in place, you have to remove the rubber fan cover. Then the hard drive is held in with three small screws. Loosen these, and the drive comes out attached to a metal chassis.


There are three cables attached - one for data, one for power and a small one on the rear of the chassis which we decided was a temperature sensor. Detach these, and the drive lifts out. Take the chassis off the existing drive and attach it to the new one, and then reverse the procedure to get the drive back in.


To get your OS back on to the drive - which in my case was an upgrade from Tiger to Leopard - you need to boot up the machine with the DVD in the drive whilst holding down the 'c' key. (Good job Olitee was present, because I didn't know about that bit). Once the machine boots, you use Disk Utility to partition the drive and then crack on with the install.


The whole thing was a very simple, painless process and I'm pleased to report that my faithful iMac is now running beautifully. Hurrah!

Free software roundup

There's no such thing as a free lunch - but clearly that old adage doesn't apply to software, because "free" is most definitely the way forward.

I've been downloading/using/evaluating a number of free apps for both Mac and PC recently, so here's my two pence worth.

1) If you're a Firefox user (and why the hell would you not be?!) then I've discovered a rather fine plugin for handling FTP called FireFTP. It basically turns Firefox into a fairly nifty FTP client. Type your remote FTP details into the interface, and you'll be uploading in no time at all. Beats having a separate app in my opinion, and great for the occasional time you need to access your webspace when you're out and about away from your desktop machine.

2) When I'm away from home and forced to use someone else's PC, I like to know I've got my tried-and-tested applications with me rather than having to use "standard" (i.e. sh!te) software. This is where PortableApps comes in. Install this to your USB stick and you'll have a fairly comprehensive selection of free, open-source, decent software at your disposal.

The standard install gives you Firefox, Thunderbird, the full OpenOffice suite and Pidgin, amongst other things. You can then select additional software to install - I've opted for the VLC player, GIMP and 7Zip. The install is persistent, so, for example, you can install Firefox add-ons (Xmarks and FireFTP naturally!) and have all your bookmarks at your fingertips, as well as email settings etc.

For times when you can't use a Linux LiveUSB, this is the next best thing as it'll run on any XP machine and won't leave any trace once the stick is unplugged. I've got this installed on an 8GB stick, and there's still loads of space for documents, photos and even a few music tracks. Works very well indeed.

3) I really like the OpenOffice suite and recommend it at every opportunity - it almost always gets a favourable reaction, particularly because it's free. Family, friends and colleagues are consistently amazed that it's every bit as good as Microshite Office, but has a price tag of precisely nothing. And now there's a great option for those Mac users who want to get in on the OpenOffice action, and it's called NeoOffice. It's essentially a spruced-up rebuild of OpenOffice, with some extra little Mac-specific tweaks and a welcome speed boost over the PC version.

I see no reason for the VAST majority of people to use Microsoft Office at all when there's free software that's this good - and in case you're concerned, it even saves your documents as .doc or .xls files if you need cross-compatibility with Microsoft's overpriced bloatware.

4) Lastly - and I doff my hat in Olitee's direction for this one - Spotify is quite marvellous. Did someone say "FREE MUSIC"?! I'll have some of that. Ta.

Incoming

Nothing particularly earth-shattering, but (as part of the ongoing upgrade saga) I have just ordered a new hard drive for my iMac, which should be arriving before the weekend. Went for a 640GB Western Digital Blue. Should hopefully be a marked improvement over the HDD that's currently installed.

Good friend and fellow blogger Olitee is coming over on Saturday and we're going to see if we can't get the trusty old G5 up and running with Leopard at the same time as installing the new disk - it would seem sensible to do both at once. Standby for progress report... and maybe even photos if you're lucky.