Denon AK-DL1 Network Cable
Posted by Pavan Chander | Filed under Hardware, Review
I believe I’m a little behind the times when it comes to this particular product, but nevertheless I felt I had to post something about it.
The Denon AK-DL1 is a 1.5 metre network cable, designed for the “audio enthusiast”. Thus it is expected to have the “Monster Cable-esque” description:
“Made from high purity copper wire and high performance connection parts, the AK-DL1 will bring out all the nuances in digital audio reproduction from any of our Denon DVD players with the Denon Link feature. Attention to detail when building this cable was used by employing high quality insulation, tin-bearing alloy shielding and woven jacketing to reduce vibration and to add durability. Additionally, signal directional markings are provided for optimum signal transfer. Rounded plug levers help prevent breakage.”
But what really stands this particular cable out is the price, a whopping $499.00 for a 1.5 metre cable. There is something seriously wrong with the industry if they think they can get away with marketing these types of “premium” cables.
Opera 9.5
Posted by Pavan Chander | Filed under Review, Software
Damn right, and about time!
The stable version of 9.5 is alive and kicking.
Get it here.
Partial Changelog:
- Introduced Opera Link.
- Added Quick Find, an improved full text history search tool.
- Introduced the Speed Dial.
- Introduced a new default skin.
For more information about Opera, please spend 2 min and read their overview.
It’s definitely worth the time to check Opera out, it might just change your life…
…Or at least your online one ;)
HostMonster, the new host on my block
Posted by Pavan Chander | Filed under Review, Web
Well I’ve been pretty busy the last few weeks, and this blog has basically gone dead. Although I still get a fair share of googlers looking up Mojo, or comparing the Sequoia with the Navigator.
So onto current news of the…month now I guess; On browsing around the web I stumbled across HostMonster, a webhost that had some intersting features to offer.
Currently I am with 1&1 hosting, and I have been extremely happy with their service, the price was an unbelievable $5/month for two included domains, 120GB storage, 1.2TB monthly bandwidth (Not a typo), and the usual 2GB IMAP email inboxes, PHP, Perl etc.
For $6/month (Promotional price, now it’s $7), HostMonster gives me unlimited storage and bandwith (Which itself pays for the $1 premium), one included domain, SSH access, & Ruby on Rails. RoR is something I’ve been wanting to sit and play with for quite some time now so it was love at first site.
In addition one of my only caveats with 1and1 was that they forced your ftp account name to contain your Customer ID, a long random string of numbers. Small annoyance, but terribly irratating when you dont have it saved in the software. Needless to say, this was non-existant with HostMonster.
That’s enough for praise.
The first incident I had with HM was that immediatly after confirming my payment, HM sent my user/pass in clear text in a URL. Which meant that not only did my password get saved in my computers history, it also got sent over the network for anyone to sniff.
In addition it seems that one of the two ways that HM verifies your identification when you call in, is to ask you for your password, it seems that anyone on their tech support has access to your password. Which may not be the end of the world, as they also have full access to your account, but it is the priciple of the thing. In this day and age, it should be their policy to never ask for a customers password. 1&1 asks for the customer ID number, and/or phonenumber, name.
Also for some unknown reason, Editplus isnt able to edit any files on the ftp server, due to either permission issues, or cryptic error messages saying that the “File doesn’t exist”.
I plan on sticking it out a little while longer, till I can get shell access (a procedure that has to be verified with a Photo ID) and play around with RoR.
Tags: RoR, Security, Server, Technology
A review of Mojo, an iTunes library sharing software
Posted by Pavan Chander | Filed under Media, Review, Software
A little over a year ago, I bought a Linksys NSLU2 NAS, or the “Slug” as it was called, in order to hook up an external hard drive and share my MP3 collection off of it using Apple’s DAAP. It went well, but as I rarely needed my MP3 collection when I was out of the house it ended up being one of those “because I can” things and I returned the Slug.
In a nutshell the procedure went like this:
- Local machine:
- Install DAAP server
- Install SSH server
- Setup SSH key files (as opposed to passwords)
- Setup port tunneling using SSH
- Remote Machine:
- Install iTunes (unfortunately the best DAAP client at the time)
- Install SSH client
- Setup port tunneling through the the SSH client
- Attach the SSH key file to make it auto login (or not, depending on security)
- SSH into the server, and Voila!
So, if you’re still with me you can tell that is requires a bit of work, and is definitely not easy and intuitive to setup.
Fast forward to the year 2008 and “Mojo is here“.
Mojo accomplishes everything outlined above with one small intuitive little client, it actually goes above and beyond as its list of features include; zero configuration, instant download capability, and playlist synchronization.
It still relies on iTunes though unfortunately.
As of release 2.5.1, Mojo is offered as free software, with its only limitation on the number of peers in your friends list. Alternatively, for the small price of $10.95, you can upgrade to Mojo Pro, which currently gives you three licenses, and lifetime upgrade membership.
The only thing really souring the deal for me is its mac only status and iTunes dependency, but I believe there is a windows version in the works. And as for the iTunes/DAAP dependency, well I’ll have to wait till Mojo starts supporting WMP/UPNP.
Tags: Apple, daap, iTunes, Media, Mojo, Network, p2p, Review, Software, SSH
Lincoln Navigator vs Toyota Sequoia
Posted by Pavan Chander | Filed under Review
Man what a bad time not to have my camera on me. I think I need to carry it around with me everywhere so I can always be able to snap lots of images, although I don’t know how much people who visit my Flickr would appreciate that.
Me and my dad went to the Toyota dealership to pay the lease on our Toyota Sienna today, and while we were there we noticed that they had the Sequoia in stock finally. So we took a good look at it, opened all the doors, sat in all the seats - the usual.
We’ve been thinking of a new SUV and as my dad is a Toyota fan I told him they have something big enough to compete with the huge Ford’s, like the Expedition or the recently discontinued Excursion. But I had been debating on whether to get the Sequioa or to get something like the Lincoln Navigator as that is more of a “name brand” in luxury SUV’s.
We couldn’t go for a test drive in the Sequioa but on the way home we decided to check out the Lincoln dealership to really understand the differences firsthand. Upon first glances the Navigator looked nice, well of course it did otherwise it wouldn’t be as famous as it is. What surprised us was the lack of a step/rail to help you get into the SUV, but much to our surprise and delight the moment you open a door, the rail actually comes sliding out from underneath in time for you to step on it. That seemed a little fishy to me, so I stepped on and jumped a little, needless to say it survived.
Tags: Car, lincoln, Navigator, Photos, Review, Sequioa, suv, toyota
Beta Software
Posted by Pavan Chander | Filed under Review, Software
As you may or may not know, I am a huge supporter of Opera, for a number of reasons.
And as that’s the case, I like to stay bleeding edge with the beta builds, but unfortunately the latest build (9815) tends to be temperamental. When it gets into one of its moods, it will crash a few times until it stops sulking and starts working. Now for normal people this would drive them insane, but that’s because they don’t use Opera.
Even if Opera crashes constantly on me 4 or 5 times in a row, I know that I can always open it up and it will resume exactly where I left off. And hey, that’s the price one pays for being current.
Now this is all well and good, but this is when the real problem starts, a couple of days ago I decided that I was going to see what the hype on Firefox 3 was all about. Yes I do keep Firefox installed on my machine even though I use Opera as my browser. The only reason I use Firefox is for web development, although I personally am against Firefox, I respect my viewers choice and opinion (as short sighted as it may be :P ).
Up till now the best tool for web development has been Firebug, which is the unfortunate reason I need Firefox installed.
But back to the crashing, Firefox 3 is also in beta, and while not as temperamental as Opera, it has its own little quirks.
And here it goes…on occasion I have had to resort to opening..IE (gasp, shock, panic, anger) and pasting a messaged URI in the address bar.
Not a good position to be in.
Oh Opera, please release another build!
Tags: Beta, Firebug, Firefox, Opera, Software
Consumer rights in the cell phone market
Posted by Pavan Chander | Filed under Hardware, Review
Video after the jump.
Tags: cell phones, Communication, Technology
