One wireless device to rule them all

Posted on 2012/10/26 by andy

Staying at the hotels too much, sometimes I am facing penny-pitching network policies like “pay for each device separately” or having just a cable network. With the advent of smartphones and tablets such policy is smart move as we think of sucking down clients’ wallets. If you are traveling in business, chances are you have a laptop with WiFi and Windows 7 or newer; with that equipment and without additional software you can turn your laptop into wireless router sharing network for other devices. Continue reading →

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Bratislava, mirazyme and chicken

Posted on 2012/10/03 by andy

Thinking of recent business travel to Slovak Republic, southern neighbors, I still have in my mind long hours spent in the night at the hotel trying to reduce backlog. During day time I had not time to enjoy amazingly beautiful downtown near the hotel I was staying in. With that introduction, how can I make another travel log entry if I neither got photos nor discoveries? I made up bizarre title which in fact makes a lot sense to urban skaters. Still curious? Continue reading →

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Nigeria

Posted on 2012/09/08 by andy
Nigeria

With gunfire, blasts and religion clash in the north, the locals claimed the south areas are quite safe. Not enough though for a white man to take a walk in the evening or take a taxi from the street; stories of kidnapping remain deeply in unconscious mind not to tempt fate. The challenging engagement in Nigeria started with series of vaccination shots, astonishing visit to embassy and ended with connections to positive and open folks. Here comes my observation taken mostly from behind the windows of taxis, the hotel and the office.
Continue reading →

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SGS2 after Desire? NonSENSE

Posted on 2012/08/24 by andy

Days of my old HTC Desire are counted. Despite optimized custom firmware it runs too slow in critical situations leading to missed shots due to laggy camera, waiting long seconds to open apps, constant jitter when company bloatware (read: lotus mobile) is synchronizing, just a few to mention. Swapping HTC Desire for Samsung Galaxy S2 would be optimal choice, the latter still has best hardware-to-price ratio. Is it a good choice for Sense lover, though? I had hope it would be, yet with dozen custom firmware images installed and reviewed, it turned into one week of disappointing experience that ended with handset resell. Continue reading →

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Mini-ITX home server – part two, software

Posted on 2012/08/07 by andy

In the late stage of hardware planning of new server I assumed software RAID1 support. Since this was my first time to play with disk array I reduced number of variables to minimum and have chosen Ubuntu Linux as server OS, distribution I know best. Overcoming installer defects I laid down the foundations, configured remote graphical access, migrated services, measured and estimated TCO of platform. Continue reading →

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Mini-ITX home server – part one, hardware

Posted on 2012/07/30 by andy

While modified router works well as a mini server with backoffice services, low I/O throughput and computing power is a bottleneck for storing large files and administering wordpress blog. Waiting long seconds for administrative console to response, it was bugging me for time long enough to start thinking about a new server setup. I targeted a compact size, fanless and energy saving platform with performance guarantying enough responsiveness for existing services. I balanced out many hardware and software constraints and in May 2012 I have finalized this project moving my blog to new home. The banner in top right corner of this blog saying “Laggy site? Please be patient, it runs on a tiny server” has disappeared. Continue reading →

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China for westerners

Posted on 2012/07/16 by andy
Hong Kong

Hong Kong, metropolis in special administrative area. It is neither completely Chinese nor British any more. For me it is well known gateway between China and the rest of the world, a place where you can get export goods for nearly half of its retail price, like my Rigol DSO or DDS wave generator. I took an opportunity to be assigned for a short work there in June, curious to see a tip of an iceberg of Chinese culture. Continue reading →

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Wooden skating frames?

Posted on 2012/07/08 by andy

Browsing a sport shop I found skates with fancy color and texture of the frame, looking like made of wood. I was almost sure that it was composite material used for low-end skates imitating wood. To my surprise it was a bamboo frame. I was not sure wooden block is good for a frame so I have visited K2 website to understand this unusual setup. Continue reading →

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Dashing across Pittsburgh, splashing through Niagara

Posted on 2012/06/15 by andy

Here comes my completely subjective view of Pittsburgh/PA, the city “between Chicago and New York”, best known to Americans from its steel industry history. A view taken from urban skater perspective, that is making wikipedia description more complete, as well as half-a-day-tourist visiting Niagara Falls (off skates for that purpose if you are curious). Continue reading →

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Andida 1800mAh smartphone battery

Posted on 2012/05/28 by andy

Some time ago I was facing spontaneous heavy battery drain, around 5% per hour, so that battery could not last one day doing anything. Far too much because it already could work 3 days on single charge, when idle most of the time. Pinning problem down I had installed fresh stable ROM, but it did not solve the problem. Suspecting battery damage I ordered cheap but widely discussed replacement – Andida battery. Dozen charge cycles and couple weeks later I had my own opinion to share. Continue reading →

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