Category Archives: Technology

Syabas Popcorn Hour A-100 Pre-Ordered

Technology, , , ,

Yesterday, I pre-ordered the Syabas Popcorn Hour A-100 media center device, and I can’t wait until it gets here. This device is so popular right now, you have to register and be put on a waiting list to actually be able to order it. Basically, it’s a very popular embedded media player that plays H.264, XviD, DivX, VC-1 and MPEG2/4 codecs, not to mention MKV (Matroska) and M*V containers, up to 1080p playback. This unit is extremely powerful from the looks of it. Features include the ability to install an internal hard drive (IDE only, unfortunately), a 10/100 mbps Ethernet port (no WiFi, but not suitable for 1080p HD playback anyway) and two USB ports for external device hookups. Audio/Video inputs are the standard deal: components, digital Coaxial audio, HDMI 1.1, S-Video and basic three-color RCA. One thing I would’ve loved to see is DVI/VGA, but beggars can’t be choosers as the total cost for this unit is an astonishing 179.00 USD. Total cost for me with the shipping came up to 222.00$ CDN.

Some other cool features are the built-in Bittorrent client, NFS, SMB, Windows Media Connect support, YouTube videos playback, RSS feeds, direct ISO playback and FTP connectivity. I could go on and on about the features, but you’re better off reading the site for more information. When I get the unit in (approximately mid-April) I will post a detailed review up for you guys.

Popcorn Hour A-100

Stuff I Can’t Wait to See in 2008

Cars, Technology, , , , ,

Every year, I’ll compile a list of gadgets that I’d like to see (and of course, have) for fun. This year’s toys are as follows.

BMW M3 E90 Sedan

BMW M3 E90

I have always been a fan of BMWs, and even a bigger fan of the popular M series. After a year and a half of hiatus, BMW unveiled and released the new M3 last September. They threw out the V6 and replaced it with a lighter V8, giving 420 horses (just 80 shy from the M5s). The car has been fully revamped, with a nice new carbon-fiber hood to make the car lighter and more maneuverable. The hottest aspect of this year’s release is the fact that a four-door sedan will be available (the E90, as compared to the E92 coupe). I have always preferred sedans for the reason that I don’t have to get out of the car numerous times to let passengers in the backseat in and out. While the Europeans have had the new M3 available for quite some time, us North Americans have been left out in the cold, waiting for an American release to come by. Supposedly the car will be released this spring 2008. Even though I can’t afford this bad-boy yet, it’s on my list for kicks.

Sony Ericsson Xperia X1

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1

Goodbye iPhone, hello X1. This beauty was recently announced by Sony Ericsson (February 10th) and will hopefully arrive in the second quarter of 2008. The X1 is loaded with features: quad-band, touch-screen, 3G, QWERTY keyboard, WiFi 802.11b/g, Bluetooth, GPS receiver, 3.15MP camera and a 800 x 480 pixels 3 inch TFT screen. The kicker? It runs Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional instead of Symbian. I was on the verge of buying an iPhone until I saw this puppy get announced last month. I always wanted a PDA with a keyboard and mobile phone that was an all-in-one device. The HTC Touch was a candidate, but didn’t like its style that much (plus, the screen was too small…). The iPhone was a good choice, but I didn’t want to meddle with jailbreaks and other various hacks to get it running since my carrier (Rogers) is not distributing them yet. Regardless, I’m glad the XPERIA X1 will not be delayed as previously rumoured. I know the phone will be upwards 600$ when it first comes out, but I’m hellbent on getting one either way.

Duke Nukem Forever 2007 Trailer Shot

Duke Nukem Forever

I wish there was an easy answer as to why this game has been delayed for the past 11 years, as it has been the sad joke for many gamers out there. Duke Nukem Forever was announced in 1997 and has been under development since, or something like that. Supposedly the game has gone under several engine changes to keep up to date with technology, as noted in the three different trailers that were released over the years. The latest teaser trailer is pretty decent, and it gives its loyal fans some support in hanging in there for a bit longer. The original Duke Nukem 3D has always been a favourite of mine since I first played it back in the day. I’m worried that, by the time DNF comes out, I’ll be over computer games entirely and won’t have any desire to play it no more. Let’s hope, for 3D Realms sake, that the game actually gets released this year, or else I’ll finally put this game to rest and move on. One thing that always cracks me up is the Wired’s Vaporware Awards: the game has gotten a lifetime achievement award.

New Media Center (HTPC) Computer

Projects, Technology

I always wanted to build myself a media center (HTPC) computer for my Sony Bravia 32″ LCD television but never got around to it. Well, that’s not entirely true, as I was trying to cut costs down and build a computer out of existing parts (a Celeron 2.4GHZ, 256MB of RAM, 20GB hard drive and basic on-board stereo sound). This setup was fine for Xvid playback over the network and I never had any surround-sound speakers until I finally found the deal of the century and picked up a LG LH-T9654MB “HTIB” from Futureshop for 230$ CDN taxes in (it was supposedly below the cost price). Since I got myself a simple surround setup, I enjoyed the audio more and more… playing movies in stereo sound was boring. What more, I was finding myself diving in 720p and 1080p content and Xvid just wasn’t cutting it. After trying everything I could to make 720p playback on the Celeron computer work smoothly (tried over-clocking, bumping up the RAM, etc) it simply did not work. I decided to get a new computer but I didn’t want to spend more than 500$ on the whole setup. I basically needed a CPU that could do 1080p playback, a motherboard that had an onboard SPDIF audio output connector and enough RAM to satisfy anything I can throw at it.

Doing a quick check on Google, I came across Tom’s Hardware Guide 2007 CPU charts for 1080p playback. Being an Intel fanboy, I found the right CPU for the right price: a Core 2 Duo E4600 CPU (2.4GHZ dual core with 2MB of cache, 800MHZ FSB). While not listed on the chart, it should be sufficient as the E4300 processes 1080p at 58.1% processor usage. Logically, this processor should do full HD processing at a lower usage rate. Since I sell computers, finding the CPU at cost price wasn’t that big of a deal, but the main problem was finding the motherboard and RAM at a low price. I mostly sell business computers, so finding those “enthusiast” hardware components at a cost is a challenge (not really difficult, but I was impatient to wait for everything to arrive). I decided to hit up NCIX and see what they could offer. I found the Asus P5K-VM motherboard that had everything I needed, except a TOSLINK connector (they had Coaxial audio only). For the RAM, I found the OCZ Platinum PC2-6400 2GB (4-4-4-15) dual channel memory kit. The memory was overkill but since it was on special and dirt cheap, I picked it up without thinking twice. Finally, while I was about to check out, I came across the Western Digital 500GB 16MB cache 7200 RPM SATA2 NCQ hard drive for 97$ (special of the week, couldn’t pass it up!). I added two of those babies for the media center computer as I knew I would be needed them for all the 720p/1080p content. Total of this order with taxes and shipping came up to 469.00$ CDN. Oh, there was a 35$ mail-in-rebate for the RAM, so this brings down the total to 434.00$.

After some billing issues (damn CIBC/VISA froze my account temporarily, more on that in another post) the parts came in and I quickly assembled the computer. I installed Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 and setup Combined Community Codec Pack (CCCP) for the X264 playback. The results were superb: 720p and 1080p played back really, really well. No stuttering and the audio was perfectly in sync unlike the Celeron setup. Watching these high quality videos on the television was a treat and a half! The components I chose were definitely the right ones for the job; I was quite worried that the CPU wouldn’t be powerful enough to decode the streams, but thankfully, they surpassed my expectations. Only drawback/con of this setup: the Asus P5K-VM does not have an SPDIF optical output jack (but can be purchased separately, I hope). I’m using an Aureal Vortex 2 for the job right now, but there are no proper Windows XP drivers for it so the surround doesn’t really work. I’ll be fixing this very soon to get the proper audio setup.

Closing off, I’m happy with my purchase and look forward to filling up the hard drives with content. I hope this guide serves someone who’s looking into building a low-cost 1080p media center machine. All the components I have purchased in this guide were bought from NCIX, minus the case, power supply and CDROM drive (I had those laying around). Good luck!

DirectAdmin 1.31.0, PHP 5.2.3 and CakePHP

Technology, Websites, , , , , ,

Here’s an interesting problem I came across just now. I was setting up a new domain with CakePHP and noticed that the stock copy did not run, neither did identical files I copied from another working domain. Before this, each time I uploaded CakePHP to my server, everything ran out of the box, so why not now? It’s been a while since I’ve added a new domain to the system, so right away I thought it must be PHP or DirectAdmin causing the problem (they were the latest updates done to the server). The error message I was getting from CakePHP was the following:

Warning: session_start() [function.session-start]: open_basedir restriction in effect. File(/var/tmp/) is not within the allowed path(s): (/home/user/:/tmp:/usr/local/lib/php/) in /home/user/domains/domain.com/public_html/cake/libs/session.php on line 154

Fatal error: session_start() [<a href=’function.session-start’>function.session-start</a>]: Failed to initialize storage module: files (path: ) in /home/user/domains/domain.com/public_html/cake/libs/session.php on line 154

Doing a quick check on Google brought some insight to the matter, but nothing concrete. I decided to check phpinfo() and see what the open_basedir restriction was set to. Since I had a copy of phpinfo() on another domain of mine, the result of open_basedir came up to “no value”. I mumbled “WTF” to myself and was totally puzzled. Now, quick note on my mistake here: always run phpinfo() on the same user and domain that you are trying to troubleshoot. Fortunately, I didn’t give up just yet: I ran phpinfo() on the troubleshooting domain and right away notice that open_basedir had values, none of which would work with CakePHP. Finally, something! So where were these values coming from?

The next step was to check Apache’s httpd.conf. Since DirectAdmin organizes the httpd.conf files of every user account seperate (it Includes user-httpd.conf at the end of the main httpd.conf file) I went to the troubling user’s configuration and scrolled all the way to the bottom to the latest added domain. Bingo! It had the following line added:

php_admin_value open_basedir /home/user/:/tmp:/usr/local/lib/php/

And it was the only domain that had that line too. A quick sigh of relief after, I silently commented that line out and crossed my fingers, restarted Apache, refreshed the homepage and… yep, everything worked as usual. It seems that the latest version of DirectAdmin (1.31.0 at the time of this writing) has some extra security features enabled (which is a good thing) but a bit unnecessary for people who run their sites on their own servers. So, this is a heads up for everyone out there that might come across this error one day and not know what to do. I hope it works for you.

Update: DirectAdmin actually has a built-in control panel feature that allows you to turn on/off open_basedir restrictions and PHP safemodes per domain name. Just go to the control panel main page and click on PHP Safemode Configuration (available as of 1.31.4, maybe earlier).