Antennagate
The story of “antennagate” has died down ever since Apple’s press conference where CEO Steve Jobs acknowledged the iPhone 4′s alleged weak spots in its antenna system.

The myth of “antennagate” states that when you touch the bottom left side of the phone, especially where the black strip is… your signal goes way down and may cause you to drop a call. The science behind it is that the human body is a natural conductor, and once you bridge the two pieces of the antennas (as separated by the black plastic strip) you effectively change the length of the antenna. That length is crucial when you are trying to receive a specific wavelength of energy. People also found by putting a layer of insulation over the antenna joint will ease the problem. Therefore, cases and the so-called “Antenna-aid” methods came to play, and eventually forced Apple into giving out free cases to all iPhone 4 users.

I got my iPhone 4 on August 13th, and went home and began testing these myths of “antennagate”. I found some very interesting results that I would like to share.

1. “antennagate” certainly exists in Canada as well, despite other reports.
2. One may lose 2-3 bars in an area with mediocre signal strength by bridging the antennas.
3. A simple tape or band-aid does not solve the problem. Only a case can effectively eliminate it.
4. Myths about Apple applying a non-conductive coating to the phone to solve the problem is bogus.
5. I have yet to drop a single call despite numerous attempts to “death-grip” my phone.
6. While calls did not drop… 3G data throughput did die.
7. I was getting 2-3 bars with my iPhone 3G in this area, but now with the iPhone 4 I get 3-4 bars. The new antenna really is better than the old generation… well when it works.

Before we get into the details one must understand that “antennagate” can only be produce under certain conditions where the signal strength is at around 3-4 bars. When you are in an area where you receive 5 bars (and possibly even more but the phone does not display) you do not experience any noticeable degradation in signal strength. Therefore, you cannot antennagate in all areas and it is true that when you “death-grip” any phone the signal will indeed drop by a certain amount. While it is true that you can ease the effect by sticking a piece of non-conductive tape on the antennas, the tapes are simply too thin to create a radio-penetrable space for the antenna to work efficiently. Therefore, only a case with measurable thickness will eliminate the effect of “antennagate”. The claims and wishes that a non-conductive coating on the phone will help with the issue is completely false. Unless Apple will spray on half inch thick of coating… it will not work.

However, even if you use the phone without a case the drop in bars will probably not cause a drop in calls. I have tried numerous way to bridge the antenna with my finger, my palm… my palms (both my hands)… I simply could not get the call to drop! The phone would work perfectly fine with one bar of signal. The same thing could not be said for the data connection. Once you “death-grip” the iPhone or simply touch the antenna joint, the data throughput goes way down and virtually dies. This drop in throughput was more noticeable with 3G than EDGE.

Lastly, the antenna on the iPhone 4 is noticeably better than the previous generations of iPhones. After updating to firmware 4.0.1, I could not get my iPhone 3G pass 3 bars, in fact most of the time it stays at 2 bars. On the same firmware, the iPhone 4 always get 3-4 bars very consistently in the same area. I don’t think Apple was lying that the phone’s antenna is in fact a better one… at least better when it’s insulated and not obstructed. In addition to signal strength, the data throughput on 3G has improved quite a bit as well. See the screen shot of my speed test: this was done with only 4 bars. However, I was a bit surprised about the awesome upstream speed, but other users in Canada and the US have confirmed to have seen the same thing.

Battery Life
There are many conflicting claims about the iPhone 4′s battery life. Aside from Apple’s official claims of up to 40% improvement over the 3GS, review sites like Engadget claim that the iPhone 4 can live for 38 hours without recharging and that’s under heavy use. However, numerous users claim to have much shorter battery lives than either Apple or Engadget.

From my personal experience, the battery on the iPhone 4 needs some burn-in to reach maximum capacity. When I first got the phone, its battery life was mediocre at best. After 4 cycles of complete discharge and recharge, it got significantly better. Right now it lasts about 30 hours before running down to 5% or lower.
I have:

• 3 Exchange accounts on push email and calendar.
• 1 account on hourly fetch.
• I usually play about 2-3 hours of games.
• Check the web regularly for stock updates.
• Send and receive about 50 text messages per day.
• 5 min or less of talk time per day.
• Network is on 3G and occasionally WiFi.

The battery life improvement over the 3G and 3GS here is definitely not as prominent as Apple had promised. However, it is definitely not bad. If you are experiencing significant lower battery life, I would suggest you do a couple of complete recharge cycles or take your phone back to Apple for a replacement.

Lastly, watch the signal strength on the phone. When you are in a low to no signal area, you might consider turning the phone off or into “Airplane Mode” to save it from constantly searching for network. You may also try to reset your network settings to resolve any conflicts by going into: Settings – general – reset – reset network settings (be sure not to hit any other command there).

Cases
Apple is offering every iPhone 4 user a free case through their Case Program at least through the end of September. For my phone I already ordered the InvisibleShield which is by far my favourite brand for iPhone cases. I also got a free Apple’s iPhone 4 Bumper, which goes super well with the InvisibleShield.

The Bumper is really the best case Apple’s free case program has to offer. In my opinion it perfectly preserves the iPhone 4′s essence of design by overlaying metal buttons for “ON/OFF” and volume controls. That way you still get the great responsiveness of the phone’s buttons and the buttons are not obstructed by the casing.

While the Bumper offers minimal protection of the phone’s front and back, the InvisibleShield effectively compensate for the shortcoming.  At last… it looks awesome!
InvisibleShield also gives out pretty decent discounts on a regular basis.
Visit http://www.zagg.com/community/contest.php to get not only a coupon up to 50%, but a chance to win an iPad.

Please feel free to share your experience with this phone in the comment area. I’ll will keep this posted updated as I discover more interesting facts about the new iPhone 4. =)

Around 11:30 am, we saw a few shipments arriving at the store… but was again told by store officials that the delivery did not contain any iPhone 4… so time continued to tick. Around 12:45 pm people started to get excited because a few large boxes showed up! But again… NO IPHONE 4s! The good thing was… time knows no limits… and either did any of our fellow fanboys/gals! Therefore, another 3 hours flew us by… but the only thing it left everyone with was the ultimate truth – THE STORE WILL NOT BE GETTING ANY IPHONES TODAY!

People looked at each other in dismay… How could an Apple Store be out of iPhones and not know when the next shipment is coming in… but only to drop a definitive nuke after making people age while standing in front of the store? This just does not make sense! Why couldn’t the manager get this information sooner? Knowing that the information could be obtained… but only to tell customers that they have wasted their life waiting! I think the answer to this has something to do with the discussed “antennagate” problem. You see… the iPhone 4 does have a very prominent weak spot in its antenna structure. While the problem is not so evidential in all areas, it may cause your call to drop while in an area with less than optimal signal coverage. Steve Jobs then came out and introduced the Free Case Program for all iPhone owners. It wasn’t a solid solution, but it was better than nothing. After all, Apple rarely gives stuff away unless they mess up really bad. (Remember the whole free upgrade from MacOS 10.0 to 10.1 offer? MacOS 10.0 probably had more problems than Windows XP and Vista combined.) However, Steve admitted to the fact the new antenna system performed slightly worse than its previous generation design, but he insisted that the media had blown the facts out of proportion… because he think it really wasn’t that bad.

Maybe Steve was right, or maybe he was trying to cover things up… but everyone in the press room knew how much turbulence this pesky little problem had caused the mighty Apple. How can Apple fix this and defend its corporate image as “the best on the planet”? Here comes clever marketing!

If Apple only knows how to do two things… it’s marketing… and marketing! While the mighty Apple may have taken a few punches… those wounds can easily be healed by making a couple of customers stand  in line for the alleged “magical device”. While I was waiting in line, passer-bys kept asking us what we are waiting in line for… and we would prodly answer: “iPhone 4!”. There you go everyone, let Apple takes u back into the classroom with this one. I think this is why nobody knew when shipments will be in… but it needs help tell the story – that Apple fanboys/gals are crazy enough to wait for it even if they know the risks of wasting their lives!

You can call me a conspiracy nut or whatever… and I did see a lot of international college students waiting in line to grab a few phones as gifts when they return. So either all these phones have been grabbed by them and secretly exported to China… or Apple is taking advantage of the fact that certain people are looking to grab an iPhone for the bragging rights… or Apple is limiting supply to drive up the phones’ price in the grey/black-market.

Personally, I don’t buy that they can’t make enough phones after 2 weeks of launching the device. Judging by the number of people who lined up… the demand is strong and suggests that many people are without phones! Either way, there are lessons to be learned from all this. Never be too desperate for a phone, never be to evil to people who pay your salary because sooner or later they will catch on.

I came home to check people’s feedback on RedFladDeals, only to find many people selling their newly purchased iPhone 4s for twice as much as Apple is! Also, users confirmed that the “death grip” exist in Canada as well. Clearly, Apple did not make any hardware revisions to address the issue, at least not for this batch of phones. People were also concerned about the long wait to activate their phones on Rogers/Fido system. Their service kept crashing and people reported line-ups and wait times of 10 hours + at Apple Stores. Apple online store has a 3 week ETA for order and finally to make the situation worse, Fido and Rogers are directing people to local stores to buy the phone. They are not willing to take order over the phone anymore…

I have to say. This is all too much hype for a phone that is reportedly crippled by design. It is also obvious that the initial launch was affected by the limit stock the stores had. Could this mean Apple is pushing out the initial crippled batch and shipping in new ones? One can only guess…

Update: It appears that since launch date no stores in the country other than Apple themselves have been getting more shipments of iPhones. Rogers reported to receive a shipment that was ready to go on sale today (Saturday, Aug 7th). However, nobody has reported seeing any stock at Rogers stores… so the iPhone shortage continues…

Examples including http://www.bram.us/demo/projects/autofirelightbox/ uses javascript to trigger the lightbox. However, scripts like this one does not work with Drupal’s Lightbox 2 module.

Here is what I used to accomplish this in Drupal, by using  JQuery’s triggerHandler function to invoke the click. Hope this will help others who need an auto lightbox pop-up.

<a rel="lightframe" href="" id="link"></a>

<script type="text/javascript">
   $(document).ready(function () {
     $('#link').triggerHandler("click");
   });
</script>

Version 4 at first glance gives you a very refreshed feel to it. I think it’s mainly because the icons were made to be brighter, and the default screen brightness was a bit higher than my original… but none the less I liked it. The responsiveness of the OS also improved quite a bit over OS 3.x. This is especially evidential on older hardware like my iPhone 3G. The homescreen transitions are smoother, and icon animations are silkier. All of my apps from iOS 3.x worked flawlessly and games ran as they should.

To the more negative end of the spectrum. I wasn’t a big fan of the “you can never quit your app, unless you really try” scheme Apple used to manage background apps. It reminded me of the Windows Mobile 2003 days… you had to download a Task Manager app just to kill processes… On iOS 4, when you press the Home button once the app falls back to the background but still remains in RAM in an inactive state. If you want to kill the program, you have to double tap Home then tap and hold its icon… then tap on the little red “X” on the top. It’s just too many hoops the user has to jump through to quit an app. I’d much rather have something like the Backgrounder (jailbroken app) and let it default to “quit” and double press to background.

One other thing I want to mention, and this is to all iPhone 3G users like myself.  Our somewhat ancient toy can in fact multitask! Enabling it will require a jailbreak but the end result is worth while. My best experience with jailbreaking was achieved with the help of redsn0w. This little app runs on Windows and MacOS, it jailbreaks your iPhone 3G and 2G iPod touch directly. This means you can simply go to iTunes and update your iOS and then use redsn0w to jailbreak without wiping any data.

One tip to remember, older hardware like the iPhone 3G cannot run very well with the wallpaper enabled, the responsiveness of the screen greatly deteriorated when a wallpaper is set. Therefore, I highly recommend you to NOT enable wallpaper and just hack multitasking if you need it. Also remember to periodically quit your apps in the background because the iPhone 3G does not have a lot of RAM to work with.

iOS 4.0.1
This little update to the iOS is perhaps the most embarrassing update Apple ever had to release. It “fixes” the reception issue seen on the iPhone 4 and subsequent iPhones. Primarily, Apple realized they have been too generous when calculating the iPhones’ signal quality bars… so they made this fix to give you a better idea of your signal strength. Therefore, installing the update will give you less bars… but that is as it should be… at least that’s what Apple is telling users.

You can jailbreak iOS 4.0.1 with the same redsn0w release. Simple update your iPhone 3G or 2G iPod Touch to 4.0.1 and then fire up redsn0w. Instead of pointing it to the 4.0.1 firmware, point it to the original iOS 4.0 firmware. This is possible because the 4.0.1 did not change the baseband code, so you are good to use the old firmware so it’ll pass redsn0w’s verification.

To sum up, I think iOS 4 is a winner for the most part. Apple has done a good job to make it friendly to older hardware like the iPhone 3G. Furthermore, it is also a free update to all iPod Touch users as well! We can see that Apple is really trying to push this release to everyone. I’m not going to get into iPhone 4′s antenna issue since it won’t be available in Canada until July 30th. Until then… I’m glad iOS 4 gave my good old iPhone some new blood. =p

Update: For those who are having issues with iPhone 3G overheating after updating to iOS 4, I sometimes have the same problem and pretty sure it has something to do with the 3G/EDGE radio. I find that if Data is turned off or if I use WiFi, the problem is less evidential. It might also have something to do with Exchange and multiple Exchange accounts. I heard some of these problems will be fixed in iOS 4.1. So let’s wait and see how Apple does it.
For all jailbreakers, remember to not turn on Wallpaper, and don’t get multitasking if you don’t really need it. The biggest reason why I have iOS 4 on my 3G is the ability to do multiple Exchange accounts. If you can do without all these features, then staying on iOS 3.x is probably a wiser choice.

Solution: Go to Settings and clear your iPhone 3G’s network settings. This has solved most of the heating issues and network problems for me. It appears that the network was dead even tho the phone still shows 3G signal. Then my 4 Exchange account probably overloaded by constantly trying to establish a connection back to the servers. Let me know if this works for you.

I’ve been working my rear off these days… apart from my day job I am working on two other sites. Both are e-commerce oriented sites based on Drupal.
While Drupal may not be particularly popular among e-commerce ventures, I am here to tell you that it has some serious e-com muscle and potential.

The particular module is called Ubercart. It is a full featured e-commerce Drupal module that handles the frontend store, as well as inventory and payment processing. What is even more important is that since this is a Drupal module, it can take advantage of the various existing Drupal modules to function. Thus, allowing the developers to make Ubercart great at what it does.

The folks over at TopNotchThemes developed an amazing sample theme that supports Ubercart out of the box. This is the Acquia Prosper. I use as a foundation for all of my Drupal e-commerce projects. It is built on the Fusion themeing framework and highly customizable.

All you need to do is download and install these on your box… hook it up with a PayPal account and you are good to go.

Coming from OScommerce, developing on Drupal is much more organized as long as you stay within the scope of the Drupal API. The API is comprehensive but it is quite the beast to master. It is nothing like writing your normal PHP app, and it makes you feel like you are developing in another language.

Having said that, Drupal + Ubercart is years ahead of OScommerce in every way. I love the modular design that makes Drupal what it is, and the enormous dev support i has behind it.

I’m going to try and write my magazine subscription app as a Ubercart add-on this summer.

The Goal
The story here is simple – we are building a DIY storage appliance that is not only FASTER but CHEAPER than the Drobo. I have owned a 2nd generation Drobo for about 8 months. For the most part, it did its job. However, all the weakness of the device surfaced when I dug into the world of Network Attached Storage or simply NAS. I have written about my attempts to put the Drobo on my LAN …   http://frankleng.me/2010/02/11/droboshare-alternatives-tonidoplug-gigabit-switch/ I did not want to spend another $200 for the Droboshare! That setup worked for the most part, but performance was not even close to production-worthy.
I mean try to live with a 4TB NAS that transferred at 3-5MB/s… which is actually on par with Droboshare’s throughput… need I say more?

What I needed was:

1. Energy efficient, lower powered machine. (It’s a NAS after all, not a media center)
2. Able to let me swap a drive when it fails, and not lose data.
3. Able to expand, swapped out the smallest drive and replace with a larger drive.
4. Costs a lot less than $350USD. (that’s the price of the Drobo, not including drives)
5. Easily manageable, settings can be tweaked and system status can be monitored.
6. Speed, Speed, Speed. Must be able to sustain Gigabit throughput, even for larger files.

The Facts
Most BYOD (Bring Your Own Drives) storage devices on the market today do NOT offer the features that the Drobo does. The Drobo was never designed as a NAS, but rather a DAS (Directly Attached Storage), and it did that job fairly well. So if you are an average user who favour ease-of-use than anything else… then read no more… you are better off with the Drobo. However, if you are like me and you want that blazing fast performance for the smallest price tag… you have found the right place. =)

NAS devices are computers too. The basic rules do apply – the faster the chipset the faster the throughput; the more RAM the better, etc.

Lastly, and most importantly NAS devices’ throughput depend largely on caching and the CPU’s ability to translate between different storage and communication protocols.

Intel D510MO

The Hardware

CPU
It is really quite difficult to find a blazing fast computer by today’s standard without killing your electricity bill. Most high end processors run 100W + and even lower end chips easily go over 40W (That’s almost the same as the Drobo’s power consumption with 4 drives inserted… so it’s quite a lot for a single chip!) Thankfully, Intel created the Atom series of processors. Originally made for netbooks and mobile devices, the Atom series chips are Intel’s smallest and greenest – consume only about 10W. You can buy Atom from most local computer stores, but note that they are bundled with a motherboard and not sold separately.

I picked the latest generation, and the fastest Dual-Core Atom chip -D510 @ 1.66GHZ. This chip gives the equivalent performance of a Single-Core Celeron running at 900-1000MHZ but uses 1/4 of the power, TDP rated at 13W. Because the chip is so new, very few motherboard manufacturers have them shipped to stores. I grabbed the Intel D510MO motherboard bundle for $80 CAD.(It was the cheapest option I found, and had the same features as the more expensive ASUS and Supermicro boards).

RAM
The D510MO takes DDR2 memory, and  I happened to have two 1GB sticks. Obviously the more the better, DDR2 RAM sticks are super cheap nowadays and you don’t need the fancy ones. 2GB RAM – $30

Modded PCI SATA Controller

Add-ons
I want to talk about add-on cards because you will need one for this build. Like most Mini-ITX boards, the D510MO only has 2 onboard SATA ports and it’s not enough to have a more robust ZFS setup. Therefore, I searched online and bought a PCI-X/PCI SATA II controller card and gave me two more internal SATA ports. Later, I modded one of the the eSATA ports to SATA by replacing the connector head. The card was the SYBA SD-SATA2-2E2I – $36. There is a 4 SATA port version of the card, but I wasn’t able to find one at the store. I also liked the idea of having an eSATA port.

CHENBRO ES34069

Case
I went through 2 cases for this build. I originally bought the Chenbro ES34069 because it had 4 swappable drive bays. However, the proprietary power supply, the lack of space in the case and noise from the case fans(fans were not user replaceable as far as I could tell) eventually made me return the purchase.

The case requirement here is simple, find a small case (mATX or mini-ITX) that has 4 drive bays. Do note that besides the Chenbro case, there really isn’t an alternative that has swappable bays. So go spend the $200 and buy it if you want ease of access. The case I ended up using was the Antec NSK-2480 – $100. It has plenty of space for the two 5.25′ and 3.25′ bays and a 380W standard power supply. It has the best cooling arrangement I have ever seen in a media center case. Head over to SilentPcReview for some professional opinions.

Antec NSK2480

I also considered the NSK 1380 case, but spacing arrangement inside the case was nowhere near what the NSK 2480 had. However, the first does have much smaller dimensions.

Antec NSK1380

Drives
First of all, you will need a set of drives to store data and one other drive to host the OS. I have purchased 4 WD Green 2TB 5400rpm drives because they are quiet, efficient and more than fast enough for a NAS. However, do know that you will need at least 3 drives to take full advantage of ZFS. Also, the current version of ZFS does not allow you to add physical drives to an existing ZFS pool. Although you will be able to REPLACE one of the four drives for a bigger one, adding a 5th drive without rebuilding is not possible at the moment. This means if you started out with 4 drives, you will always have 4 unless you recreate your logic pool and lose all the data in the process.

I guess this is the only spot where Drobo may have an edge over our ZFS build. You can add more drives into the Drobo at any time until the slots are full. I believe Drobo accomplishes this by pre-populating its storage pool with virtual devices, and a virtual total size. That way, any new drive can just slide into these pre-made virtual slots without affecting the storage pool as a whole. Lastly, the ZFS development team has plans to resolve this limitation in the near future. So let’s stay tuned.

For the OS drive I decided to use USB sticks. They are much cheaper and much more energy efficient than having another disk spinning at 5400rpm to keep the system running. I used a USB port expansion cable to make use the connector on the motherboard and keep the sticks inside the case. Check out the picture and you’ll know what I mean. =p

Adapter with dual USB sticks

Accessories
The D510MO board does not have an IDE port to hook up a CD-ROM drive. It does support booting from USB. However, most OSes do not offer a .usb image for install. Therefore, I purchased an IDE to USB adapter so I could boot from my DVD drive. My IDE to SATA adapter was not recognized by BIOS for some reason… so please be aware if you are thinking about getting one of these things. It’s safer to get a SATA optical drive instead. I see them on sale now for under $20. Anyway, since FreeNAS supports USB images, there was no need for any additional accessories. (Note: Other OSes mentioned above will require a optical drive to install.)

Total cost: $246 (shipping included, taxes not included)

Next up… the software.  Turn the page.  =p

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Apr 5th
iPad seems to be the hottest new gadget in town. Today Apple reported that 300, 000 units sold on US launch day, which is a lot better than the original iPhone. (but remember the original iPhone was a lot more expensive)

Personally, I never buy any first generation product, especially not from Apple. The company is known to introduce cool concept products into the market that need major polishing, especially on the software side. The iPad is essentially an iPod Touch with a 9.7 inch screen, and a slightly faster processor. It offers NO new features in the package other than the large screen real estate.

Apple is being smart in leveraging its position as a market leader to introduce a dirt cheap  tablet before anyone else and even before its own software team could finish iPhoneOS 4.0. It was a gamble but I think the odds are agreeing with Steve Jobs. Even if iPad doesn’t sell as well as iPhones and iPods, the launch is significant enough to position the company as one of the pioneers of modern tablet computers.

My guess is that Apple probably already has the next generation iPad sitting in its vault somewhere. It probably has a camera or two built-in for video conferencing. However, the first fight that the company wants to win is PRICE, and they have already won even before the product shipped out. Its $499 starter unit price is unbeatable so far. Now come to think about it… the removal of that camera on the iPod Touch 3rd Gen could be related to the decision to launch the camera-less iPad.

Therefore, the bottom line is that Apple scored a winner either way. Competitors can easily beat iPad in features, but will fail tremendously in pricing. For the rational person… will he/she spend $500 on an iPod Touch XL or $600+ on a HP tablet that runs Windows? The decision is tough… and my answer will be NEITHER… but I won’t denied the appeal that the iPad has over the tablet PC.

Apple will be giving everyone a sneak peek at the iPhoneOS 4.0 on Thursday, April 8th. Let’s see what this software update can bring to the table. Either way, personally I’ll be waiting for iPad 2nd Gen before telling Apple my credit card number.

March, 31st 2010
First of all, thank you to those who tweeted and replied to my original post about DIYing a NAS! I hope I’ve answered most of your questions and concerns.

My parts just arrived a couple of days ago… however the store did not include a PCI riser card for my SATA controller. Big FaIL to NCIX

In case NCIX cannot send me replacement soon, I’v ordered a PCI Riser on eBay (was only $1.5 shipped from Hong Kong) along with a 4GB SSD in which the OS will run on. These parts will take another week or so to ship.

In the meantime, my plan is to install FreeNAS on a USB stick and create a ZFS pool of two of my drives.

I will post some pictures soon, and please do come back to this post for more updates.

On Google’s blog an article titled “A new approach to China: an update” Google blamed the move on the alleged cyber attacks originated from China to various US companies including itself. It has also posted an accessibility report to indicate which of the Google services are currently being blocked. Bold move Google!

Now to a more serious note… Was Google absolute right to do what it did? Was the Chinese government absolutely wrong to censor content on the Internet? Lastly, how will this affect the Internet users and companies in China?

We all know that the Chinese Internet market is the largest piece of the pie. That is to say there are more users in China than any other country in the world… surprised? However, looking at the revenue report from Google… the Chinese market was only about 2% of the total revenue… not a big number for a company of Google’s size. While its operations in China was growing at a rapid rate, censorship from the government greatly prohibited its every move. Youtube was blocked… Picasa partially blocked… so was Gmail at some point. This sort of a hostile landscape probably made it quite difficult for an open company like Google to compete with native Chinese companies who are in total compliance with state censorship laws. Therefore, in order for Google to operate in China it will have to essentially become one of the censor dogs…

Google CEO Eric Emerson Schmidt repeated said on numerous occasions – Google is not about revenue, it is about expediting the flow of information and innovation. However… here is the catch… he did sign an agreement with the Chinese government to perform censorship on its search results… Is it legal and totally righteous of them to pull out from something they agreed to?

My hunch is that… everyone thought of the Chinese market as the biggest pile of cash to be made. However, Google really wasn’t doing well in China to start with! It watched as competitors like Baidu continue to gain marketshare… not by innovation… but by simply doing what the government tells them to do. Not wanting more revenue? Give me a break… everyone wants more money… enough said.

One must understand,  in such a sensitive country… politics and money are two of the dominating forces that drive its local economy. Political power = money, and the reverse is also true. This ill-designed system is being governed by a single political body that gains power by silencing the people who dare to speak up about its corruptions. Therefore, in order to keep this delicate platform, the Chinese like to keep its businesses local. They can’t possibly control a company like Google… at least not in the same way they do with Baidu!

So was it right for Google to pull out? As a strict legal matter, no it was not. You cannot change your mind about a legal agreement simply because you are not profiting from it to justify your costs. Was the Chinese government right to censor content to begin with? From a pure economic perspective, I have to say YES. By keeping the businesses local and discouraging foreign companies like Google, the Chinese economy is becoming self-sustainable and is growing at a rapid speed. There is corruption in the government, but they are not idiots. They designed the system, they know how to work it!

So who is this sudden game changer affecting? What are the end users saying? Well according to reports, there seems to be a divide… again…surprised? Some people have cursed Google to get out of China altogether. Others are saying they’ll just switch to Baidu. I think in the short-term Google’s exile will not likely affect the average Chinese user. When I was in China in 2008… people were already treating Baidu like their Google. Many people didn’t even know what Google was… others simply complained about its lack of localized Chinese results. However, in the long-term… the lack of competition is never a good sign for any industry.

Now the real beneficiary is definitely Baidu.com. It stock in China and US had gotten a much anticipated boost from all this. The same can be said for the Facebook clone – RenRen.com and video sharing site – TuDou.com. As Google said its long goodbyes to the Chinese market, I think there really wasn’t a real loser this time around. It looks to me that everyone went home with something in their pocket… Google has its publicity and seemed righteousness. The Chinese government successfully kept competition on the other side of the gate in order to grow its own economy. The users… well the users didn’t win anything but didn’t lose much either. We might even see a boom of local Chinese Internet start-ups because of this… especially when everyone knows that the government will help them kick their competitors out.

Update: GoDaddy.com has suspended registration of .cn domains in China due to the fact that the communist government is asking the company to submit personal information of its customers. I must say that I am quite disgusted by the Chinese government’s stance on these privacy issues.

HOWEVER… I’m getting 3-5mb/s Write, and 3-20mb/s Read. The speed fluctuation is related to the limited CPU and I/O resource on the TonidoPlug. For a $550 setup (2.3TB) the speed just doesn’t make any sense. Even a 300mb file takaes 10min to write… this is clearly not a viable option for any power user.

After speaking to a friend, I was quite inspired by his ZFS rig that actually cost less and is capable of delivering 3x the speed I get. The rig’s 75W power consumption wasn’t too great in my books, but I’m sure by using something less powerful I can crank the wattage down.

My checklist for this rig:

• - Cheaper than the Drobo and TonidoPlug, in other words less than $400USD.
• - Efficient, low power consumption.
• - The rig must have at least 4 swappable drive bays. As it turns out, consumer grade swappable bays are prone to drive vibration. Especially when used with high speed drives 7200RPM+. Be warned.
• - Must be fault-tolerant like the Drobo.
• - Space must be easily upgradeable, again like the Drobo.
• - Must be faster than the Drobo, and is able to sustain read/write speed even for large files.

At first glance this looked to be a tough find, but the worry eased up after some research. It was clear that my rig will need to be in the mITX form-factor, and it will need an energy efficient CPU.

The slower Celeron chips caught my eye for a second, but it was the new Intel Dual Core Atom that shined. With a TDP (Thermal Design Power) of around 13W, the dual-core Atom D510 offers faster performance at a cooler temperate than the previous generation N330 it replaces. (FYI, TDP only measures the amount of thermal energy that need to be dissipated to keep it at an optimal temperature, it does not measure total power consumption). The D510 offers a fast front-side bus, and dual-core architecture clocked at 1.6GHZ. According to previous performance comparisons, a single core Atom running at 1.6GHZ is equivalent to a 900MHZ Celeron.

Therefore, I’m assuming the dual-core will performance similar to 1.2GHZ Celeron M chips. For the purose it is going to serve, it got a gold star in my books. Lastly, since Intel does not sell the Atom chip as  a standalone product, I was looking for a bundle with a motherboard.

Due to the low cost of these parts, most motherboards offered will only carry 2 SATA ports. That is a big NO NO for a NAS box! The good thing is that most of these boards do have a PCI slot for expansion, so you can put a SATA controller card in there to expand its ports. (Note that in order to have Sata II  3Gbit/s , you will need a PCI-Express based controller).

I eventually nailed my choice down to the Intel Atom D510MO bundle. It has 2 SATA, 7 USB, 1 PCI and 1 PCI-E mini slot. The board isn’t the most full-featured product, but it was cheap and made by the mighty Intel itself. Other alternatives from ASUS and Supermicro offer similar specifications for a higher price, and to be quite frank I don’t trust those vendors as much as I do with Intel. (Supermicro does offer a board for the D510 chip with 6 onboard SATA ports, but costs more than twice the Intel board). Price $80 CAD

The D510 uses DDR2 memory, but I already have 1GB sticks laying around. so no need to buy more. but they go for $30 nowadays.

Along with my Intel D510MO I ordered a PCI SATA II controller. The model number is Syba SD-SATA2-2E2I, and it was the only SATA II controller I could find with a PCI interface. I know I won’t be able to get full SATA II speeds, but I’d rather not play around with the jumpers on my older SATA II drives to get it to work. Price $36 CAD.

Lastly, I needed a small yet stylish case to house everything. I know my budget allowed me to have a case with at least 2 hot-swappable bays, but I really need 4 of them. The obvious choice was the CHENBRO ES34069. It comes with 4 hot-swappable SATA drive bays and either 120W or 180W power supply. The package I ordered from NCIX also included a riser card and a camera card reader. For more than $200 it wasn’t the cheapest option, but it certainly looked worthy and it had exactly what I needed. Price $ 207 CAD.

CHENBRO ES34069

Antec NSK2400

After testing the Chenbro case for a week, I must say that the swappable bays are not exactly what I expected them to be. They share the same flaws as many consumer grade screw-less systems… DRIVE VIBRATION and NOISE! Since each swappable slot was not held tightly enough, drive vibration can be heard quite clearly. (Same problem we have with the Drobo actually…) The two fans in the back of the chassis were also inaccessible by the user, and there was no speed controller connector to allow the user to adjust their speed. Therefore, you end up with a system that spins 100% RPM at all times – something the Drobo solved by adding thermal sensitive cooling fans. Lastly, the external power supply is proprietary! The cable that plugs into the chassis looks more like a PS/2 port… rather than a standard PSU connector. You know what this means… if your PSU on the Chenbro ever give out on you… you are going to have fun finding a replacement… then burn a hole in your wallet to pay for it.

So without anymore ranting… I introduce to you the final piece of the puzzle – Antec NSK2400. It costs half as much as the Chenbro, it has 4 drive bays – two 3.5 inch and two 5.25 inch. Click here for a thorough review from slientpcreview.com
I bought two 3.5 – 5.25 drive bay adapters to fit all four of my 3.5 inch SATA drives. Obviously the bays are swappable, but I don’t plan on having multiple drive failures everyday that I need to be swapping drives. =p

This case can accommodate up to mATX form factor, so it will make a good media center chassis as well. – Price $101.91CAD

Finally, the total came to $230 after shipping and taxes - That’s almost half the price of the Drobo, even after you add the cost of RAM.

As you can see, the case I decided to get was a bit more expensive than most. There are a lot of cheaper options out there, especially if you don’t need hot-swappable bays. Secondly, if you are adventurous DIY is another way to go. Check out the DIY project here: http://paulstamatiou.com/diy-200-dollar-pc-part-3 to build an awesome looking acrylic case for your NAS!

Please check back for Part 2 of this NAS adventure. My parts should be in next week, but since the case was re-ordered it might take some time before I can post updates. Please stay tuned! and big thank yous go out to all the people who tweeted and commented on this thread. Thank you for the interest. I won’t let you down!  =p

However, that really did change once I got Tweetdeck installed on my iPhone… and since I’m super bored at work… there was little reason not to tweet.

Today I realized I check Twitter more often than I do with email… and I just tweeted @frankleng to send myself a reminder about things to do when I get home tonight.

Interesting epiphany…

Think again,

Google Sync has been having a lot of technical problems lately. Just today, the service was complete offline for hours. The only thing Google said was they were having issues with a datacenter and no ETA on fixing the problem. see this support post here: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Mobile/thread?tid=35f2df27a467e56c&hl=en

Now here is the double edged sword… Microsoft Exchange… or more accurately its implementation on these “smart” phones. When the service was down today… users (including myself) noticed that our contacts, calendar events, and emails were wiped out! Completely gone! I didn’t even know who was texting me anymore… because my iPhone could only show the caller ID.

Shouldn’t the iPhone be smart enough to say… “ok, the Google server is down…” or “what I’m about to do will wipe out 100% of the phone’s contacts… maybe I should ask the user before I do this…”

The server went dark… doesn’t mean the data on the phone needs to as well. Even if data on one end is wiped out… the user should be consulted in order to make an intelligent decision.

So guys… Google isn’t perfect… free services like Sync are even less perfect… However, if Google is serious about making Sync into a business oriented service they could at least be more transparent and responsible about technical issues. For example, adding Sync to the App status dashboard. http://www.google.com/appsstatus#hl=en

Lastly, since Android and Blackberries have their own layer of protocol for sync, they were not affected by the Google Sync downtime today.

Update: as of Thursday, March 04. 10: 27 EST   Google Sync is still not pushing emails through in a timely manner. It is working for some users as mentioned in the support forum, but most users are still experiencing delays.

Update x2: Thursday, March 04 11:30 EST   Sync appears to be working, emails are being pushed with little to no delay. We’ll see how long it’ll last.

Upate x3: According to this post on Google Support. http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Mobile/thread?tid=00d6bd3123867436&hl=en Another maintenance was performed for Sync and all issues have been resolved as of March 4th.

I was a bit puzzled at first because I have never seen that before, and the upgrade process is dramatically slower this way.

After googling, I realized that all the WP files are now owned by my webroot account and apache no longer has exclusive access to them.

the simple fix was to give apache ownership of the WordPress directory.

#: chown -R   apache-user: wordpressRoot

This does pose a potential security risk. However, this already exists on every WP site that has auto upgrade working. Most shared hosts will run the apache instance under your username so you don’t see this problem.

If you are concerned about security, I would suggest you leave the permissions as they are… or use Drupal. =p

The droboshare adds NAS capability to the drobo for $199 USD, which is an insane price tag for what it is. I looked around the web and found two worthy alternatives – pogoplug and tonidoplug. Both are based on the same architecture – the Sheevaplug from Marvell.  (1GZ ARM cpu with 512MB RAM and 512MB Flash).

The Pogoplug is a widely popular product with their own backend service that will allows user to share data on the Internet directly from the NAS. However, I’m not a big fan of pogoplug’s closed platform, and the fact that all my data are routed by the pogoplug server. Eventually I ordered the tonidoplug which is cheaper and did exactly what I needed it to do.

The guys over at Tonido really tried to simply the setup process for the average user. There are still flaws and bugs, but the community is growing quickly and your questions do get answered.

The only problem with the Tonidoplug is that it cannot detect multiple LUNs on a single device. This means if you have multiple partition on your drive, the 2nd partition will not be recognized. Secondly, the maximum supported volume size is only 2TB.  These problems eventually killed the dream of using it as a droboshare…

However, these should be easy things to fix as long as the Linux kernel on the plug are recompiled to support these features… I have already made contact with one of the users on the forum who is looking into writing a system module to address these limitation temporarily.  I hope tonidoplug will come up with an official update soon.

They have huge potential to capture the droboshare’s marketshare.

Update: With help from the guys over the Tonido support forum we found  a temp solution. It’s not pretty but It sure does work! Read on…

Basically the idea is to load a more updated kernel with a USB stick.

You will need:

• TonidoPlug
• USB flash drive 512MB or larger
• Powered USB hub to connect drives

Install TonidoPlug firmware to a USB drive

1. Connect the USB drive to TonidoPlug. The USB drive will be automounted on /media/usb0. Stop samba server and unmount the USB drive before proceeding. To do this SSH to the TonidoPlug and run the following commands.

# /etc/init.d/samba stop
# umount  /media/usb0

2. Make sure the external USB drive is not mounted anywhere else. Check the output of the following command.

# mount
rootfs  on / type rootfs (rw)
tmpfs on /lib/init/rw type tmpfs  (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
/proc on /proc type proc  (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs  (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
varrun on /var/run type tmpfs  (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
varlock on /var/lock type tmpfs  (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=1777)
udev on /dev type tmpfs  (rw,mode=0755)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
devpts  on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=620)
tmpfs on  /var/cache/apt type tmpfs (rw,noatime)

As you can see the USB harddrive (usually /dev/sdaX) is not mounted anywhere else

3. Format the USB drive partition. You are about to create EXT3 filesystem on the USB drive partition. Warning: This command will wipe all the data on the partition.

# mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda1

Note: If you have multiple partitions in your USB drive, you have to always use the first partition, because the TonidoPlug will boot only from the first partition of the external drive.

4. Once the formatting is completed, mount the partition on a temporary directory

# mount  /dev/sda1 /media/usb0

5. Download the root and modules tar ball from TonidoPlug site and place in the newly created ext3 partition.

# cd /media/usb0
# wget  http://www.tonido.com/downloads/plug/rootfs.tar.gz
# wget  http://www.tonido.com/downloads/plug/modules.tar.gz

Please make sure the checksum of the files match the following values

# md5sum   rootfs.tar.gz
958a32161e1daf1c79d88b1c6f6e85bf  rootfs.tar.gz
#  md5sum modules.tar.gz
c2b89c8dd681656427b27a2fc1db725f   modules.tar.gz

6. Untar the downloaded tar file onto the ext3 partition.

# tar zxvf rootfs.tar.gz
# tar zxvf  modules.tar.gz

7. Now stop tonido and copy the tonido directory from your existing internal flash disk.

# initctl  emit tstop
# cp -dpr /root/app/ /media/usb0/root/

Install a New Kernel

cd /media/usb0/
wget http://sheeva.with-linux.com/sheeva/2.6.32.8/sheeva-2.6.32.8-Modules.tar.gz
tar xzvf sheeva-2.6.32.8-Modules.tar.gz
rm sheeva-2.6.32.8-Modules.tar.gz
cd boot
rm uImage
wget http://sheeva.with-linux.com/sheeva/2.6.32.8/sheeva-2.6.32.8-uImage
mv sheeva-2.6.32.8-uImage uImage

Now reboot the plug and SSH into it. You should see the new kernel version in the SSH greeting.

Note that this method requires you to have a POWERED USB hub. Simply plug in the Drobo after the plug boots up with the new kernel and it will be auto-mounted to /media/usb0

A Big Thank You goes to mikestaszel for the help to accomplish this.

So today I decided to take a crack at it and see if I can figure out the problem. The drive is out of warranty anyway… and it still burns fast and solid.

After some testing, I realized the cause of the problem was the little rubber belt connecting two spin wheels that controlled the ejection and retraction of the tray.

I guess the elasticity of the rubber must have worn out over the years, and the wheels were left to spin freely.

The simple solution was to replaced the worn out belt with an elastic band.

I found an elastic band with slightly shorter circumference than the original, so it was a bit tricky to put on. I hooked up the small wheel first, then used two tweezers and pull the band around the bigger wheel.

Problem solved! and gave the old drive a few more years to live.

However, lately I realized my iPhone tethering is no longer working. The Macbook cannot see the phone in Network Preferences, and iTunes spits out an unknown error (0xE800006B). I did everything from resetting my settings on the phone, and deleting iTunes’ plist file. Nothing worked! Every time I plug my phone in, the same error message pops out… didn’t know what to do.

I eventually realized the problem was caused by the 64bit kernel and the lack of proper driver support for it… and apparently iTunes (as of 9.0.2) was not rewritten like most other apps for Snow Leopard.

That made me wonder… Apple has a Windows 64bit version of iTunes but not a Mac version?  What is going on here?

Anyway, I thought I’d let the world know since this problem isn’t documented by Apple.

I think the guys from gdgt just compiled the source from the Chromium OS project… and using this as bait to increase traffic to their site. Anyway, they did an ok job and you do have to register on gdgt to download it.

Here are some screenshots of Chrome OS.

The OS looks extremely similar to the Chrome browser, and it is basically a complete standalone version of Google Chrome. This early developer build has very little configurable options… actually apart from those security and web related options you get from the Chrome browser there are only options to enable Tap to Click, and some mouse/touchpad sensitivity settings.

From the screenshots you will notice that ChromeOS detected that it is running on a laptop computer and it has a space to display battery levels. You can also config timezone settings. The only problem was that the screen resolution was locked to 1024 x 768 and could not be changed.

Page rendering performance was also quite poor, possibly due to the lack of 3D acceleration from the VM. This is very noticeable as you scroll up and down, and when you have a Flash movie loaded.

That’s right, Flash is supported! Youtube works… but the performance is horrible, and again probably due to the lack of graphic acceleration.

From what I can tell from this early development version of Chrome OS, I’d say that Google has done a great job of moving from desktop computing to cloud computing, and bringing desktop applications to web applications. From the start, you login with your Google ID and everything you see is generated and supported by the cloud… and of course the courtesy of an active connection to the Internet.

Aside from the buzz it has generated, Chrome OS is not going to be too useful to the average user right now. Especially when you have Windows or MacOS preinstalled on your machine already. Maybe it will make more sense for low-power netbooks, but even then it will be useless without access to the Internet.

Short answer… Fresh Install > Upgrading

Long answer… it depends on how the upgrade went and what you are looking for. I recently did an upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard and noticed very little problems. the most noticeable problem was the long bootup time… and I know that Snow Leopard had specific optimizations to decrease boot time. Furthermore, I had some apps that were incompatible with Snow Leopard… so I finally decided to give the system a good wipe and install from scratch. and since then… all the problems have been solved… especially after installing the 10.6.2 update. Just always remember to backup your data and apps before wiping things out. Time Machine is very useful in this respect.

On the Windows side, I successfully upgrade from Windows Vista to Windows 7 without a glitch. The two systems are extremely similar under the hood, and I did not notice any problem after upgrading. I even did a clean install of Windows 7 and noticed no improvements. To be fair, I didn’t have anything installed in Vista anyway… just Office and Adobe CS.

Since now I own both systems… I think I can bring some new perspectives and observations to the table.

First of all… I’ve been a loyal Windows user since the 3.0 days. and I guess that’s how long this endless debate has been going on for… However, we are looking at a completely different landscape than those old days.

The common myth that Apple made “better” hardware than your average PC is dead now that everyone is on the Intel train… and we have normal PCs running hacked versions of MacOS… and Intel Macs booting Windows XP and Vista. (official Win 7 support is also coming.) So if you really look at what Apple is offering and charging for… is basically your average hardware stuffed in a fancy chassis. Surprisingly enough… according to official stats there are now more people who are willing to pay the premium for Apple’s fancy design.

But here is my story… I’ve been a Windows user for quite a while… and the ONLY reason why I now own a Macbook Pro is because I needed to run the iPhone SDK. It may not have been the wisest 2 grands spent… but the new Macbook Pros are amazing looking machines! I have to say… cosmetically I have nothing to complain about the machine! The fact that I can get a Dell with similar specs doesn’t bother me at all.

What bugged and is still bugging the hell out of me… is when Mac users… Apple officials and loyalists portray their OS as the best in the world for anything you do!

This is simply UNTRUE! MacOS looks fancy but it is not the ultimate saviour when it comes computing! It is not! Even with the latest Snow Leopard release… it is not even close!!!
Like Mircosoft Windows… it has flaws! If you install too much stuff… it will get slow… if you don’t do regular maintenance… something will go wrong… The number one thing about OS… not one system out there right now will “just work”. If you don’t take care of it… it will not take care of you. Get used to it!

I’ll give you an example… ever since Leopard MacOS had this weird problem where it cannot open files if they were downloaded from the Internet. The only thing that will fix it… REBOOT! That is until Apple released an update a few days ago to address the problem. This is a problem that existed in Leopard and Snow Leopard. As you can imagine I was extremely annoyed by this problem… because even my Windows machine didn’t have to be rebooted this many times to fix a stupid problem like this.

Second annoyance – Video playback. The codec support for MacOS is extremely poor. Codec packs like Perian are still incomplete when you ever come across one of those rare codecs. Needless to mention WMV support… trying to play a HD WMV file on a Mac is simply PAINFUL. You can either use VLC or Flip4Mac… VLC doesn’t have great performance and Flip4Mac will not let you seek the file unless the file is completely buffered. Bottom line… video playback is years behind the performance you get on Windows.

Third annoyance – Lack of software. especially quality free apps. Trying looking for a decent MySQL client for your Mac… paid or free… I bet you cannot find a single one worth competing with SQLyog! Also… when Apple wants you to think that their iWork bundle is any competition to MS Office… DON’T BELIEVE THEM! I’m a university student, and I have to say Numbers is years behind what MS Excel is capable of… same thing with Pages. The only thing I like is probably Keynote… it makes your presentation looks a bit prettier. =p

If you are a Windows user. Be ready to tolerate these annoyances because they are likely to stay for a long time. You might miss that good old Windows UI… I’ll bet you on that one!

On the “dark side” of things… Microsoft just released Windows 7 not too long ago. and big thanks to the University of Waterloo I was able to get an early copy of the OS. I have to say… Windows 7 is everything that I hoped it will be. It is a smart and stable system that is light years away from what Windows Vista had become… and performance-wise Win 7 even leaves XP in the dust! I love it. and I am really considering switching back to Windows for my general computing needs… especially when more Windows Live apps are being released Windows-only.

The bottom line is… Mac was never meant to be a mainstream machine! Its design is amazing… but there are so many things that aren’t perfect on the software end. I honestly think you might find it useful to run Windows on a Mac to get the most out of it.
While Apple keeps bashing Microsoft for the lack of innovation… Microsoft has made a very strong point with Windows 7 and their Windows Live series of services and software. It will be interesting to see how the game plays on from now on…
However, as a consumer I think people should always remember that nothing is ever exactly as advertised. nothing is ever perfect. just because you have spent a lot of money on something… doesn’t mean it’s worth it.
To be happy with your purchase… you need to think about what compromises are you willing to accept… it doesn’t matter how much money you have… you can’t have everything. =)