I'm using Vista for like 2 weeks now and I have to say I really like it. It feels fluent on my comp and everything I want it to do works well.
But, being a Microsoft OS, it still sometimes feels like it simply has a mind of its own. Namely, when I see massive harddrive-operation when the system shouldn't be doing anything. Of course, I went for the usual "suspects" and disabled background defragmentation and the Windows search and indexing. But that didn't stop the harddrive activities.
After using the built-in Resource Viewer of the task manager - which is quite amazing, informative and very useful! - and after consulting google with the results, I found the cause: Superfetch, some kind of prefetch or caching mechanism newly introduced by Vista to speed up the access or starting-time of frequently used files and programs. Problem is that if your frequently used files are very very largs - like certain games - then that process of creating the cache takes alot of time and resources aswell. Yes I know, the Superfetch runs on low priority in background, but we all know Windows: no matter how fast the machine, as long as it constantly accesses the harddisk like crazy, lags in responsiveness are to be expected. And those can be annoying when playing games or watching movies.
So, after disabling those services, my Vista doesn't torture the harddrive anymore - not unless I want it to. I don't need search indexes since I usually know where my files are at, and I don't see the use of having another caching-mechanism. I haven't seen any significant speed improvements when Superfetch was turned on compared to now, so as long as my system works as I want it to, I'm happy with that.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Thursday, January 8, 2009
ghosting on Samsung TV over HDMI
Just as I wrote the article about everything working so well with my new Bluray-capable laptop and my Samsung TV, I actually stumbled over a problem that I didn't notice much at first or didn't investigate:
When watching movie-material over HDMI, I sometimes have "ghosting" issues. It only seems to happen when I use HDMI, and is most noticable when playing video-files with alot of dark areas. I'm not sure what the reason for it is or what component is responsible, but I will keep investigating.
It could be a number of things: the TV itself, maybe the HDMI-cables, the A/V receiver, the laptop's graphics card, etc.
The same videofiles play fine on the internal laptop-display and on an external TFT monitor hooked up over HDMI->DVI. So I kinda doubt it's the player software itself, probably not the gfx driver either - unless it has special options / handling of HDMI-signals. That could be the case of course, considering HDCP and all.
Right now my guess is that it's the TV though. Probably not even a fault or error, but rather simple a setting-issue or a slight incompatibility with the HDMI-source. I'm still hoping that I can solve it by switching off all the "image-enhancement" options of the TV. I tried a few of those already, without any success though.
Another reason might be the HDMI-connection. I don't know if cable quality has an effect or not, but I will try using a different HDMI-cable and omitting my A/V receiver and connect the laptop with the TV directly. At least it will give me an idea where the problem might be.
Another cause could be frequency/synching issues. I was happy to see that I could set 1080p/24 as display mode and it even worked on my TV, but maybe that's a problem nevertheless. BUT: I already tried other 1080p outputs, both 60hz and 50hz, with no noticable difference.
Ohwell, what can I say... "nice new digital world!"? or perhaps my usual complain: "Why can't things simply work?"
When watching movie-material over HDMI, I sometimes have "ghosting" issues. It only seems to happen when I use HDMI, and is most noticable when playing video-files with alot of dark areas. I'm not sure what the reason for it is or what component is responsible, but I will keep investigating.
It could be a number of things: the TV itself, maybe the HDMI-cables, the A/V receiver, the laptop's graphics card, etc.
The same videofiles play fine on the internal laptop-display and on an external TFT monitor hooked up over HDMI->DVI. So I kinda doubt it's the player software itself, probably not the gfx driver either - unless it has special options / handling of HDMI-signals. That could be the case of course, considering HDCP and all.
Right now my guess is that it's the TV though. Probably not even a fault or error, but rather simple a setting-issue or a slight incompatibility with the HDMI-source. I'm still hoping that I can solve it by switching off all the "image-enhancement" options of the TV. I tried a few of those already, without any success though.
Another reason might be the HDMI-connection. I don't know if cable quality has an effect or not, but I will try using a different HDMI-cable and omitting my A/V receiver and connect the laptop with the TV directly. At least it will give me an idea where the problem might be.
Another cause could be frequency/synching issues. I was happy to see that I could set 1080p/24 as display mode and it even worked on my TV, but maybe that's a problem nevertheless. BUT: I already tried other 1080p outputs, both 60hz and 50hz, with no noticable difference.
Ohwell, what can I say... "nice new digital world!"? or perhaps my usual complain: "Why can't things simply work?"
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Quickcam STX with Skype on Ubuntu 8.10
And another thing that needed some fiddling around until it actually worked: My Logitech Quickcam STX refused to work proberly with Skype on my new Ubuntu 8.10 installation.
The solution ended up being rather trivial. Turned out the problem was that the new Ubuntu supports V4L2. Though the old V4L should still work, I guess there were compatibility-problems, especially with programs written purely for V4L. Thankfully, there's a compatibility-library that you just need to preload before starting Skype:
export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so
That was enough to get the webcam working. The driver "gspca_zc3xx" used by the system was correct after all. I could get a working, moving test-video within the skype-preferences. I will try it out with a real chat soon and see how it works.
The solution ended up being rather trivial. Turned out the problem was that the new Ubuntu supports V4L2. Though the old V4L should still work, I guess there were compatibility-problems, especially with programs written purely for V4L. Thankfully, there's a compatibility-library that you just need to preload before starting Skype:
export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so
That was enough to get the webcam working. The driver "gspca_zc3xx" used by the system was correct after all. I could get a working, moving test-video within the skype-preferences. I will try it out with a real chat soon and see how it works.
Firefox unsafe?
Some news I read make me angry, others make me laugh... and then there are those who would make me laugh if it weren't so very sad... or at least make me shake my head.
One of those I read today. It was not the article itself who make me feel that way but the content / information it referred to. There's one thing that disturbed me about the article itself too though: how generalising it's heading was, implying a result of a specific company's study as commonly known truth while the study itself is ANYTHING but fair and unbiased. But I'll come back to that in the end of my post.
The article referred to a study conducted by "Bit9", who found Mozilla Firefox the "most unsafe application of 2008". That itself sounds rediculous enough. The reason was that this year, 10 critical errors were detected in Firefox. They weighted programs more severely the more they are used. And since Firefox is pretty wide-spread, it's more understandable it ended up that high in the list. I could now put up reasons like why it is always stupid and nonsense to simply judge the security of programs just by the number of errors, without regarding how fast fixes for those errors are released, how severe the possible or actual consequences of those errors are and how easily those errors are abusable by others. The one thing that left me baffled and speechless at first was the line near the end of the article, that was clearly added later on as an "update", saying (translated from german): "The study of Bit9 refers only to products that aren't automatically kept up-to-date via Microsoft's automatic update-service. A comparism with the Internet Explorer is therefore not fisable"
WTF?? What kind of study is this? We are putting together a list of the most unsafe Windows-applications but applications by Microsoft are not taken into account? What value does such a study have? NONE, exactly! You can't use these results since they are unrealistic, biased and simply not true! With the recent Zero-day exploit for the IE in the wild right now, how can you even regard a statistic like that as useful in any way? Non-Microsoft applications often have their own update-services integrated, especially Firefox. And that one is surely patched way quicker than the IE if a critical error arises. It is like conducting a study about which cars are most unsafe, but omitting cars made by Mercedes from the statistics completely since their cars have regularely scheduled service intervals every year paid for by the company itself (that's not the case of course for Merc, but you catch my drift).
I wonder if Bit9 was paid off by Microsoft or if they are just that ignorant without seeing any money for it. Either way, I hope there are no "officials" somewhere actually giving a crap about that study and use it as a base for their decisions. Look at the facts and at reality around us in the networking-work, and you'll have your truth.
And to the author of the news-entry at Spiegel Online: Your heading was misleading, if not wrong. It said "Firefox most unsafe application of 2008". It should've said at least "Study finds Firefox most unsafe application of 2008". Or even more closer to the truth: "Study finds Firefox most unsafe non-Microsoft windows application of 2008".
One of those I read today. It was not the article itself who make me feel that way but the content / information it referred to. There's one thing that disturbed me about the article itself too though: how generalising it's heading was, implying a result of a specific company's study as commonly known truth while the study itself is ANYTHING but fair and unbiased. But I'll come back to that in the end of my post.
The article referred to a study conducted by "Bit9", who found Mozilla Firefox the "most unsafe application of 2008". That itself sounds rediculous enough. The reason was that this year, 10 critical errors were detected in Firefox. They weighted programs more severely the more they are used. And since Firefox is pretty wide-spread, it's more understandable it ended up that high in the list. I could now put up reasons like why it is always stupid and nonsense to simply judge the security of programs just by the number of errors, without regarding how fast fixes for those errors are released, how severe the possible or actual consequences of those errors are and how easily those errors are abusable by others. The one thing that left me baffled and speechless at first was the line near the end of the article, that was clearly added later on as an "update", saying (translated from german): "The study of Bit9 refers only to products that aren't automatically kept up-to-date via Microsoft's automatic update-service. A comparism with the Internet Explorer is therefore not fisable"
WTF?? What kind of study is this? We are putting together a list of the most unsafe Windows-applications but applications by Microsoft are not taken into account? What value does such a study have? NONE, exactly! You can't use these results since they are unrealistic, biased and simply not true! With the recent Zero-day exploit for the IE in the wild right now, how can you even regard a statistic like that as useful in any way? Non-Microsoft applications often have their own update-services integrated, especially Firefox. And that one is surely patched way quicker than the IE if a critical error arises. It is like conducting a study about which cars are most unsafe, but omitting cars made by Mercedes from the statistics completely since their cars have regularely scheduled service intervals every year paid for by the company itself (that's not the case of course for Merc, but you catch my drift).
I wonder if Bit9 was paid off by Microsoft or if they are just that ignorant without seeing any money for it. Either way, I hope there are no "officials" somewhere actually giving a crap about that study and use it as a base for their decisions. Look at the facts and at reality around us in the networking-work, and you'll have your truth.
And to the author of the news-entry at Spiegel Online: Your heading was misleading, if not wrong. It said "Firefox most unsafe application of 2008". It should've said at least "Study finds Firefox most unsafe application of 2008". Or even more closer to the truth: "Study finds Firefox most unsafe non-Microsoft windows application of 2008".
first you have to get angry
Today was a special day for me. Personally, it was a very good day and I actually wanted to write a nice blog-entry about it. But after coming home, I made the mistake to read the news. And what I did read did stirr me quite alot! So that's how I got the name for this post. I had to remember the movie "Network", where the news-anchor got mad and started ranting on live television. And he said those words (free from my mind, probably not word by word): "first, you got to get angry! You got to get up and say "Goddamit! My life has value!"Once more, there were bad news about the planned introduction of certain law in Germany, giving the executive autorities more and more power to conduct surveillance and undermine the freedom of the people. I could vomit when I read and hear about the arguments presented by the officials, seeing how ignorant and stupid those are! Do they really expect us to believe all this bullshit? I DON'T feel threatened by international terrorism! I'm not scared at all, especially not enough to let my personal rights and freedom be restricted! We didn't have a single fucking attempt of terrorism in our country! (and don't tell me about the one that was prevented! That's a complete scam and just comparing those guys to the "super-terrorists" you always want to protect us from is an insult to our intelligence). So what the hell are we supposed to be afraid of? So many many many more people die in this country every year from smoking, heart-attacks or car-accidents. Noone ever screams for more stricter laws then. So why terrorism? Because it's a fake brand you can put on everything you want to get passed?? Or how about this: Child pornography. Also used very frequently by politicians. It's convinient. If you are against laws to help prevent it, you are FOR it, right? Bullshit! The laws don't prevent it. They don't grab the problems by their sources, but only aim for the effects. All those activities would only help solve incidents AFTER those happened... if at all! Do you think those "criminals" are stupid enough to walk into your traps?? They are the ones with criminal energy, they will find a way around.
So solving the problem is not the goal, I suppose. How else you explain why politicians instead of helping remove the sources for international terrorism, they only want to take care of the possible results. More cameras will make it more likely you can identify terrorists after the bomb exploded but won't stop the bombs from exploding. Censoring websites will make it harder for interested people to get child porn, but won't stop the creation of it. The hypocratism makes me wanna puke!
No sirs, I do not feel unsafe! I am willing to take the 1:100000000 chance to be a victim of a terrorist attack, like I am willing to take the way higher risk to die whenever I enter a car or an airplane! I am NOT willing to have my personal rights and freedom restricted for a little bit more safety!
....
I live in a pretty save, secure country. Even in a save, secure region. And I am glad about that and happy. I have to admit I actually feel proud when I look at other countries in the world and I can really see the advantage of the institutions of our system. I understand we need those to live a comfortable life. But do we really need to temper with that system? Do the politicians honestly believe in the bullshit they are proposing to a level they actually wanna put them into laws? Or is their desire another, darker one. Those are the two options: Either they simply don't know about the usefulness and possible implications for the future of our democracy, or they do know very well and the results they tell us about are not the goals they are after. Those are the 2 reasons, and none of them is making me feel any better...
So, I am angry! Very much! And I wish more people in this country would be informed enough to get angry aswell... or to at least question the decisions of our elected leaders. NO, I don't feel represented by my leaders in this particular manner. I feel the opposite. I feel threatened, incriminated and my freedom endangered!
....
I can already feel how times start to change. When writing texts like this now, I already have to ask myself: Will I end up on a list because I wrote this? Will I be put under surveillance? Will my appartment be searched and my computer infected by a trojan to collect "evidence"?
I am not a terrorist or an opportunist. I love this country. I have nothing but the purest respect for other people's lives, privacy, dreams and desires. And I have nothing but disgust and disrespect for those amongst us who lust for power and control over others, and for that purpose don't mind using false propaganda to undermine the very foundations of our democracy (as much of it as is left) just to increase their influence and distract us from their own incompetence while at the same time preparing our infrastructure for the abuse by future totalitary regimes - something that might very likely happen.
At times like that, I do wish certain people could experience the pain while they bring onto others! Especially our elected leaders, I sometimes wish they would be target of their own flawed laws, or directly experience the results of the decisions they made by themselves... I believe then and only then will they actually be able to step over their own arrogance and realise the mistakes they made. The problem is, that will hardly happen. And if ever, then the results will hit others - most likely the poorest and weakest first, as always...
To finish this, I wanna end with 2 quotes by Benjamin Franklin. Though both of them have been said so long ago, they did not loose any of their truth, wisdom or relevance until today. If anything, those are even more true and important now than they have ever been:
"The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either."
"The strictest law sometimes becomes the severest injustice."
Image taken from Wikipedia and © its respective owner(s)
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Skype and Pulseaudio under Ubuntu 8.10
It's the thing with upgrades: Things are newer, often better, but sometimes not always compatible and working the way you were used to in the previous release. I stumbled over the same thing when I upgraded my Ubuntu 8.04 to 8.10. I installed the latest Skype-package too and chatting seemed to work like a charm...
Until I tried to actually voicechat. Skype showed problems with the sounddevices and even trying to set them manually wasn't really successful, especially when you had other applications (or even skype itself) access the sounddevice at the same time.
It turned out the problem is a new package included with Ubuntu 8.10 called Pulseaudio. I haven't heard of it so far - but to be honest I'm not keeping myself too up-to-date with all the latest additions and changes done in current Linux-systems. But it's not surprising that another new subsystem/daemon/framework emerged by now. Strangely, when setting the audio-device in Skype to "pulse", it actually did work - but used up all my CPU-power, leading to strange delays.
Looking at infos like here http://www.pulseaudio.org/wiki/PerfectSetup#Skype, I see there are alot of things to fiddle with, but I ended up simply doing this:
killall -KILL pulseaudio
/etc/init.d/pulseaudio stop
Though the init-skript didn't seem to be doing anything. I haven't investigated any further to be honest, but killing the pulse-daemon made the option "pulse" not appear in skype anymore. And just leaving Skype's settings at "default" after that ended up working perfectly. I haven't experienced any drawbacks of disabling pulseaudio so far, but I'll inform myself alittle more about the whole thing and update this thread then. For now I'm simply glad I have a solution to this strange behavior.
[update]
Ok, after checking some more I decided to get rid of Pulseaudio. I found a very nice, comprehensive guide for 8.10 here:
http://idyllictux.wordpress.com/2008/10/29/alsa-instead-of-pulseaudio-for-ubuntu-810-intrepid-a-non-destructive-way/
Until I tried to actually voicechat. Skype showed problems with the sounddevices and even trying to set them manually wasn't really successful, especially when you had other applications (or even skype itself) access the sounddevice at the same time.
It turned out the problem is a new package included with Ubuntu 8.10 called Pulseaudio. I haven't heard of it so far - but to be honest I'm not keeping myself too up-to-date with all the latest additions and changes done in current Linux-systems. But it's not surprising that another new subsystem/daemon/framework emerged by now. Strangely, when setting the audio-device in Skype to "pulse", it actually did work - but used up all my CPU-power, leading to strange delays.
Looking at infos like here http://www.pulseaudio.org/wiki/PerfectSetup#Skype, I see there are alot of things to fiddle with, but I ended up simply doing this:
killall -KILL pulseaudio
/etc/init.d/pulseaudio stop
Though the init-skript didn't seem to be doing anything. I haven't investigated any further to be honest, but killing the pulse-daemon made the option "pulse" not appear in skype anymore. And just leaving Skype's settings at "default" after that ended up working perfectly. I haven't experienced any drawbacks of disabling pulseaudio so far, but I'll inform myself alittle more about the whole thing and update this thread then. For now I'm simply glad I have a solution to this strange behavior.
[update]
Ok, after checking some more I decided to get rid of Pulseaudio. I found a very nice, comprehensive guide for 8.10 here:
http://idyllictux.wordpress.com/2008/10/29/alsa-instead-of-pulseaudio-for-ubuntu-810-intrepid-a-non-destructive-way/
Thursday, December 11, 2008
The Prince is back
I got the game now - well, finished it already actually - and all I can say is: Wonderful! It's a beautiful piece of software!
You can just tell that the game was made with alot of dedication and attention to detail. The graphics are amazing, state of the art and the style is new and refreshing, looking sharp and still manages to look mature despite the slightly cartoonish looks.
The controls are very easy. And even though I consider myself as more of a hardcore-gamer, I don't think that's a bad thing. Having played the latest Tomb Raider recently, it kinda feels like two different worlds. Lara simply jumps anywhere you tell her to (sometimes even somewhere you never wanted her to) - even if it means she's jumping to her death. The prince feels "smarter" when you control him. He usually lands where you wanted him to. Missing a ledge or a cliff or platform is nearly impossible. Where you have to tell Lara every move exactly, it feels enough to tell the Prince "I'd like you to jump that way / on that ledge", something that reminds me alot of how it felt to control Altair in Assassin's Creed - and back then it was one of the things that made playing the game feel nice and smooth. Running through the huge levels is very enjoyable and way easier than it looks - another similarity to Assassin's Creed. So, it feels easy to control, even though it less direct than controlling Lara.
And one thing definitely deserves mentioning here: the camera. Usually that can be biggest enemy of such games, often making things harder than they should be - unintentionally. This game features a quite good camera - it doesn't need alot of adjustment and you usually see quite well what you wanna see, where you wanna go and where to better not go. That might be a bit because of the intelligent, if not guiding character of the controls themselves, but it's a combination that plays well indeed.
And yes, you can't die in the game. Alika will save the Prince whenever he falls too far or before he gets slain or whatever. While you might complain that this is lame, I don't see it that way. The thing is: when playing a game like Tomb Raider or Ninja Gaiden, you'll eventually end up dead. But when you do, you either automatically respawn at a checkpoint somewhere or you have to load an older savegame. The result is the same, except that you spend alot of time watching loading screens... ok, I agree that the "checkpoints" in Prince of Persia are very close together and you hardly ever end up far from where you were when you get saved, but even if it would put you back more, it would still feel great because it doesn't slow down the pace of the game. It was alot of fun and some challenge too to fight the boss mobs and spend many many minutes in the fight while trying to figure out their weaknesses, master the quicktime events and find the best combo to do damage to them. I rather have that than having to reload a couple of times until I actually figured out the tactic to beat the boss mob. It all works well and gives the game a nice, smooth flow. It's simply fun to play, and the fantastic environment is always enjoyable while you run through the world - a feeling I can best remember from playing "Shadow of the Collossus": It's not just beating the enemy, it's also getting there, and getting lost in the world and it's atmosphere. Maybe it's just me and my lack of interest in human relations or huge crowds but I simply love being left alone with the level itself from time to time... that's why I liked the new Tomb Raider and that's one of the main things why I like this game.
The prince itself is designed to be kind of a thug. But you catch the drift very quickly that he's got a big mouth but also a big heart. His funny, silly and cool remarks are always good for a chuckle or smile when you play the game, since he often says what you as a player might think yourself. There's alot of possible dialog and conversation between him and the princess that you can manually start. I was amazed about how many dialog sequences they added. It takes a while til you hear a generic soundbite twice. And being able to also let the prince talk while you are fighting a boss mob and hear him say "You sold your soul to look like THIS?" is just so amusing! I can't remember a game where I had people watch me play and seeing us laugh quite alot just because of the small remarks the prince made. When I initially read a review before I got the game and they mentioned the new type of character of the prince, I was alittle worried that they might've tried to make him extra cool and relaxed and laid back to be "up-to-date" with teenagers and to have him be completely different from all the former protagonists.
---- SPOLER WARNING ----
the ending itself is interesting - and wasn't even too surprising for me either. But it did leave a slightly melancholic aftertaste. Not bad, but not exactly happy either. I could see where they wanted to head with this ending, but they could've spent alittle more time actually preparing the characters' development for that moment, since the prince's final decision does not seem to be fitting his previous actions and beliefs up to that point. The ending did remind me alittle of the one from Assassin's Creed (not too surprising) with some touches of "Shadow of the Collossus". And it left me with the same kind of unsatisfied feeling, paired with the need to have a sequel as soon as possible. I guess that was Ubisoft's goal in the end - and they got that one right.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)