Techie Stuff » Planet Mediocrity

Burg Wächter Point Safe P2E Safe Review

Dec 152011

Burg Wächter P2E safe

I have recently purchased a free-standing home safe from Burg Wächter (sometimes spelt Burg Waechter). The Pointsafe range comes in four sizes P1, P2, P3 and P4 and is available with an electronic pad lock or a key. I bought the electronic P2E version. The electronic version comes with two ‘override’ keys in case you forget the combination. Remember to store these keys securely, but not in your safe!

The safe is rated for £1000 cash or £10000 jewellery, so is not a high security safe but sounds about right for the things I would store in a home safe (passport and other documents, a small amount of emergency cash and a backup of my photographs on disk). The P2E version has single skinned walls (3.5mm steel) and a double skinned door. There is an internal metal shelf, and the floor is felt-lined. The back and floor each have two holes for fixing the safe to a wall or floor with the supplied bolts, plastic blanking cover the holes at the back. The door seems solid, with two locking bolts which extend 16mm when locked. The door hinge is visible at the bottom of the door – this may be a weakness. The external dimensions of the safe are 255(h)x350(w)x300(d), internally they are 248(h)x343(w)x241(d). The volume is 20.5l and the safe weighs 16.5Kg. The safe is large enough for A4 paper with a little room to spare, but you will have to bend it to fit it through the door.

The keypad is responsive and makes a quiet beep when you press the buttons. The single line LCD display is not backlit so can be difficult to read, but you really don’t need to read it when opening or closing the safe. When not in use, the display shows the current time.

The bolts are driven by an internal motor rather than by turning a handle on the front – this should make the safe less susceptible to opening by ‘bumping’. After entering the correct code, the spring-loaded door swings open automatically.

The batteries (4xAA) are accessible from the outside of the safe, and the emergency keyhole is located behind them. The keys are four-sided cruciform keys which make the lock harder to pick and the keys harder to duplicate than a standard or tubular key.

The safe comes with the batteries, keys and two fixing bolts hidden in the packaging – be careful you don’t throw them out!

The electronic lock has two codes – the user code (1-6 digits) which you would use day to day for opening the safe and a master code (8 digits) which should be stored safely to allow the safe to be opened if the user code is forgotten (again, don’t store this in the safe!) The safe can also be set into ‘hotel mode’ which means a new user code needs to be entered in order to lock the safe if it is left open for more than 5 minutes.

The default user code is 168 and default master code is 12345678 – these should both be changed as soon as possible.

Overall, this seems to be a reasonable home safe which does not have many of the common security problems often seen in cheaper safes.

The user manual(pdf) is available on the Burg-Wächter website.

My new Workstation spec

Techie Stuff No Responses »

Oct 012011

My current workstation is a Dell Dimension 9200 and it has served me well for the past 6 years or so, but it is starting to show its age, so I decided to build myself a new one. The most intensive work I do on my workstation is editing large photos from my DSLR, and editing HD video from the same camera. A nice fast processor and lots of RAM will make a huge difference.

I found that amazon.co.uk had very competitive prices and this has the added advantage of only dealing with one supplier – you may be able to find some of the parts cheaper else where, the prices seem to change daily!

The prices below are correct as of 30/09/2011.

CPU: Intel Sandybridge i7-2600 Core i7 Quad-Core Processor (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache, Socket 1155) £230.04
Buy one for yourself at Amazon

Note: When I received this processor, it came with a small heatsink and fan. The heatsink has thermal compound pre-applied. You can probably save yourself some money by not buying the CPU coolerI have specified below.

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z68X-UD5-B3 (GA-Z68X-UD5-B3) £261.91
Buy one for yourself at Amazon

This motherboard allows overclocking the CPU, and I have read at least one report of the i7 2600 being overclocked to 4GHz, so I may give this a go. If I was more serious about overclocking, I would have gone for the unlocked 2600k which is only a few quid more expensive.

RAM: M4A1600CCorsair CMZ16GX39B 16GB (4x4GB) 1600MHz CL9 DDR3 Vengeance Blu Memory Four Module Kit £90.18
Buy one for yourself at Amazon

Graphics Card: Gigabyte GV-R687OC-1GD; 1024 MB; GDDR5-SDRAM; 256 bit; 4200 MHz; ATI Radeon; Radeon HD 6870 (GV-R687OC-1GD) £219.10
Buy one for yourself at Amazon

Power Supply: ~~CiT 750W Power Supply Unit with PSU and Dual 12V Rails – Black Edition £27.99~~
~~Buy one for yourself at Amazon~~

~~This is a pretty cheap power supply – I’ll see how it holds up and maybe upgrade to something better if necessary.~~

As expected, this power supply wasn’t up to the job. The motherboard needs a 20+4-pin ATX power connecter and an extra 4+4-pin CPU power connector. Additionally, the Graphics card needs 2×6-pin PCI-E power connectors which were not all available on the cheap power supply. I bought an OCZ TECHNOLOGY OCZ-ZS750W-UK OCZ ZS Series 750W Power Supply from the ever helpful Silicon Edinburgh

Buy one for yourself at Amazon

Hard Drive: Seagate ST31000524AS 3.5 inch Barracuda 1TB GB 7200rpm SATA Drive with 32MB Buffer £44.29
Buy one for yourself at Amazon

DVD/CD: Sony AD-7261S-0B 24x Internal DVDRWRAM SATA Black Lightscribe £18.02
Buy one for yourself at Amazon

CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS9900-NT CPU Cooler (PC World £29.97)
Buy one for yourself at Amazon (£36.99)

I’ve heard really good things about this CPU cooler, and it should keep the chip a reasonable temperature if I do decide to overclock – besides, it’s got a green LED fan, so it must be good

Note: This cooler comes with a tube of thermal grease, so you don’t need to buy any extra unless you have a preferred brand.

Case: ~~Antec Three Hundred Midi Case £49.98~~
~~Buy one for yourself at Amazon~~

A nice plain-looking case with plenty of space for expansion, it comes with a 140mm top fan, a 120mm rear fan and has the option of adding two more 120mm fans on the front if I find it is running hot or noisy.

The courier who was delivering this screwed up and did not deliver at the scheduled time, so I have cancelled the order. I bought an Antec VSK-1000 Tower Case from Silicon Edinburgh – the case has plenty of room for the graphics card, is well made and looks great.
Buy one for yourself at Amazon

Monitor: Samsung 2443BW 24 Inch Monitor – Black (already owned)
Buy one for yourself at Amazon(£223.69)

This means I have spent a total of £971.48, and I suppose I’ll have about another £20 worth of parts to buy where I can’t cannibalize my old PC. So I come in right on my budget of £1000.

The build went really smoothly, nothing complicated when it comes to putting the hardware together – just ensure that you connect the 24-pin and 8-pin power connectors to the motherboard and the two 6-pin power connectors to the graphics card. The cables can all be routed neatly through the cable management system.

I’m happy with the performance too. My Dimension 9200 scored 4889 on a Geekbench test, the new workstation scores 11534 (these are the 32-bit tests done with the free version of Geekbench – I may purchase it and do some more accurate testing.

If you want to build the same system, here are all the parts you need:

Intermittent Virgin Media sync problems and solution

Techie Stuff No Responses »

Jun 052011

For the past few days, I have had intermittent sync problems with my Virgin Media router.

The router is a Netgear VMDG280 as supplied by Virgin Media. From time to time, the router falls out of sync: the sync light flashes quickly and the ready light flashes slowly. Web pages are obviously unavailable while the router is in this state.

Rebooting the router does not resolve the problem.

I also have a connection problem with the ‘on demand’ TV service where all interactive services shown as unavailable and there is a flashing heart light on the front of the set top box which apparently indicates there is no network connection available. When attempting to access any on-demand services (movies, catch-up TV etc.) I get a service currently unavailable message.

The router and TV problems do not always happen at the same time.

Since the router and set-top box are both having problems, it would suggest that the problem is not with either of those boxes as both pieces of hardware are unlikely to fail at the same time. Since they do not always exhibit the problem at the same time, the cable from my external wall to the splitter must be ok, the two cables from the splitter are unlikely to have both failed in the same intermittent manner at the same time.

The Virgin Media status screen shows everything is ok in my area.

The non-demand cable TV has been fine for the duration so that would also suggest the cabling is fine.

I was supposed to arrange for an engineer to come out next week, but as the connection is working at the moment I don’t know if he will find any problem, and getting time off work will be a hassle.

Update: I fixed the problem without resorting to an engineer.

Solution: The signal does not seem to be strong enough to cope with the splitters which were installed – either the signal has got weaker since it was installed, or the splitters are dodgy.

The installation was:

Telewest box on the wall in my bedroom with a single cable running about 10m to the living room where it was connected to an (old!) 2-way splitter. A single wire from the splitter ran about 5m round the walls to a second (newer) 2-way splitter. Two cables came from this splitter, one to the modem/router and the other to the set top box.

I don’t know Virgin Media’s rules on repairing the cabling yourself, so you carry out any of the following at your own risk – if in doubt call your cable company for advice.

I tested the incoming signal by moving the router to the telewest box and connecting it with a short coax cable. The router sync’d fine – so everything looked fine to there. I then connected the router to the spare socket on the first splitter and that worked fine too. I then connected the router to the cable going to the input of the second splitter and that also worked fine. My suspicion at this point was the second splitter was dodgy, but I thought it could also be that the long cable and two splitters was too much. Each splitter causes a drop in signal so there is no point in having one in the line if only one output is used.

I bought a new 2-way F Splitter (£5.99) and an F Plug Coupler (£1.89) from Maplin. Replacing the second splitter did not resolve the problem, so I removed the first splitter and connected the two cables with the F Plug Coupler and the heart light stopped flashing. I suspect all I needed was the coupler.

I hope this saves you a day off work waiting for an engineer!

Sony PRS-505 Review

Techie Stuff No Responses »

May 082011

The Sony PRS-505 has been around for a while now. I bought mine from Waterstones on September 3rd, 2008 – the day it was released in the UK after listening to all the hype on various podcasts. I’d fallen out of the habit of reading books, and having a love of gadgetry of all kinds, I thought this might spur me on to read a bit more. There were no huge queues outside the bookshop on the morning of it’s release – I suppose the £195 price tag was keeping a lot of people away but I feel, after using it for the last 2 and a half years, it has easily paid for itself.

The device itself is extremely well made – it feels solid, and has a reassuring weight to it. The leather-like cover gives it a bit of an olde worlde feel like an antique book. The brushed metal of the device itself is smooth and classy, but neutral enough to not distract you while you are reading a book. The buttons for turning from page to page are positioned nicely and you soon find yourself pressing them instinctively. The display is sharp and, being reflective, is a lot like paper which means you can read lots of pages without straining your eyes.

The software feels a bit unfinished, but does the job of arranging your library so books are easy to find. And most of your time is spent actually reading books not navigating the operating system. The numbered buttons used to select from the menu system and to jump directly to a page by page number are small and fiddly and don’t give much feedback when pressed. This is more of a problem since the e-ink technology means that the screen does not refresh immediately. Sometimes you find yourself pressing buttons twice trying to get it to register only to find it registered the first time but the screen was taking a while to update.

The screen refresh time is not an issue when you are reading a book, you will soon find yourself pressing the button when you still have a line of text left to read in the same way that you might slip your finger under the page in preparation to turn it before you finish reading. The page inverts a couple of times as it changes to the next page of text, and I find that this is sometimes distracting when you are reading. Ideally, you want the technology to disappear into the background so you can immerse yourself in the story.

There are thousands of free books available online see Project Gutenberg which has over 33,000 books available or Feedbooks or Manybooks. These books tend to be classics, or old books where the copyright has lapsed and are now Public Domain. More and more new books are also becoming available in ePub format although, disappointingly, they tend to cost as much as a paperback.

The PRS-505 has space for an SD card and a Memory Stick. I have a 2Gb memory stick in mine and this gives me space for around 1500 books, so I can carry my whole library around with me in one hand.

The Sony Reader will also play mp3s while you read, but I do not use that functionality as it drains the battery very quickly. Without playing music, though, the battery lasts about three weeks on a single charge, longer if you turn it off fully when not in use.

One useful tip is that a PSP charger will fit the PRS-505 and charge it much more quickly than the USB charger does.

Overall, I love the PRS-505, but there are some downsides too. Support for PDF files is not fantastic – they are slow to navigate and the formatting is not always correct. The round navigation button in the bottom-left corner can be frustrating to use as it requires a firm push and there is little tactile feedback to let you know it worked.

As I have had the Sony Reader for almost three years, I am considering buying a Kindle to replace it. The build quality of the Sony would be very hard to beat but the Kindle has the advantage of Wi-Fi/3G connectivity, a keyboard and a better screen.

Let me know what your thoughts are on moving to a Kindle.

Buy a Sony PRS-505 E Reader

Buy a Kindle 3G Wireless

Fixing the power button on Toshiba Regza Television (DIY)

Creative Stuff, Techie Stuff 19 Responses »

Apr 292011

When I tried to power on my TV this afternoon, pressing the power button did nothing, it felt like the switch inside was not being activated. I decided to void my warranty and take a look inside. My TV is a Toshiba Regza model number 32XV555D, but I imagine the same switch is used on many Toshiba models and the following instructions may be of use to you too.

Opening your TV is dangerous and will void your warranty – there are high voltages inside and the following steps should only be carried out if you are sure you know what you are doing. I’m not a professional TV engineer and I take no responsibility for any damage you do to yourself or your TV if you are foolhardy enough to follow my description!

The first step to repairing the switch is to remove the back of the TV. Unplug the TV from the wall, and remove any HDMI/SCART/Aerial cables. Put the TV screen side down on a soft non-scratch surface.

The back of the TV is held on by 17 screws – you will need a phillips head screwdriver to remove them. The screws are not all the same size, so ensure you remember which screw goes in which hole. The screws to remove are all marked with an arrow, the 17th one took me a while to find – it is located above 2nd SCART connector.

Once the screws are removed, carefully lift off the back panel – it should come off easily. If not, make sure you have removed all the screws.

IMG 8327 150x150 Fixing the power button on Toshiba Regza Television (DIY)

Switch as I found it

The power switch is at the right side of the TV , you will see that the button you push has a cylinder on the back which needs to somehow activate the switch which does not line up with it.

The button should push a square plastic plate which should be attached to the switch. In my case, the plate had broken and fallen off the switch. This meant that the button did nothing. You can see in the photograph that the plate has fallen off and is lying underneath the button. You have a couple of options at this point; you can either activate the switch manually, put the TV back together again and just use the wall switch to power your TV off an on, or you can repair the switch.

From a search of the Internet, it seems that this is a common problem with Toshiba TVs – if your TV is still in warranty, it is probably best to get an official spare fitted, but I decided to make a stronger repair so it does not happen again.

IMG 8328 150x150 Fixing the power button on Toshiba Regza Television (DIY)

The plastic piece with broken section

The plastic clip which holds the plate in place seems to be very fragile, and I could not find the small piece of plastic which had broken off. I mixed up some 5-minute epoxy and waited a couple of minutes for it to thicken up a bit. I put a small blob of epoxy onto the clip and put it in place on the switch. You will find this easier if you manually press the switch to put it in the ‘on’ position as this gives a little more space for maneuvering. The plate should be able to stay in position by itself while the epoxy cures (why not go and write a how to fix your TV blog post while you’re waiting!)

Once the epoxy has cured (mine says it is ready to handle in 15 minutes and achieves full strength in 1 hour) you can put the back on the TV by replacing all the screws. Power on your TV and, with a bit of luck, the power switch will work again. You have probably missed the programme you were wanting to watch though!

I hope this helps you if you have the same problem – the whole thing took me about 20 minutes to fix – much faster than waiting for the repair man! Leave a comment if it worked for you. Thanks.

IMG 8330 150x150 Fixing the power button on Toshiba Regza Television (DIY)

The plastic piece glued back in place

WordPress Visual Editor buttons missing and solution

Techie Stuff 2 Responses »

Feb 272011

When editing a post in WordPress 3.1 recently, I found that the visual editor was missing the formatting buttons which usually appear at the top of the editor and the text was invisible (white on white) like this:

After some investigation, it seems that the problem was caused by the Scissors Continued plugin which I had recently installed. When I disabled the plugin, the problem was solved:

I have not investigated to find out what the actual problem was, although I could see that the buttons initially loaded then the screen reformats and the buttons are hidden. I have not yet tried the functionality of the Scissors Continued plugin and, although the features sound very useful, I will not be reinstalling it if it means losing formatting options when editing posts.

I hope this helps you if you hit the same problem…

Protected: Links worth investigating

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Jan 212011

Damage to EX300 light kit

Creative Stuff, Techie Stuff No Responses »

Jan 112011

I purchased the Interfit EX300 twin studio flash kit which comes with a softbox and shoot-through umbrella through the Amazon Marketplace from Hawks Photo Video on December 28th 2010. Due to the new year period, delivery took a while as is expected at this time of year.

The delivery estimate was good, I received an SMS message from Hawks on the morning of 9th January 2011 to say that the delivery was expected between 2:30 and 5:30 that day. It arrived shortly after 2pm.

When I arrived home from work that evening, I unpacked the kit. The Outer brown cardboard packing box was in good condition, but appears to have been opened and resealed. The inner display box was also in good condition.

Inside the boxes, the flash kit was all packed inside the included carry bag which was unzipped – I found that a bit suspicious. On unpacking the kit, everything initially looked fine. I unpacked both lighting stands, put the heads on both, and attached one reflector.

When I built the softbox, I noticed some discolouration on the front screen at one corner – it looks like a burn or scorch mark, but I don’t expect it will affect the flash at all.

The second reflector has damage to one side and to the attachment slot, so it is not possible to attach it to the flash head. I tried to attach the umbrella to the second flash head, but could not unscrew the lock-nut far enough to put the umbrella shaft into the hole at the front. On checking the other flash head, it seems that the holding bracket has been bent about 45 degrees. Only one head is damaged in this way.

Connecting the first power cable was no problem, but I couldn’t plug in the second cable as the plug has one bent pin. This means that although both flash heads work, I can only use one at a time.

The damage to the plug would require a lot of force, so I can only assume that this happened before the items were packed in the carry case – possibly an ex-demonstrator model? As can be seen from the below screenshot, the item I ordered is described as ‘New’.

I contacted Hawks to report the damage the same evening at 10:30pm, and got a response from them today (12/01/11) at 12:00. They have offered to pick up the damaged kit and replace it and want to know when would suit me for collection – sounds like good service to me!

At 6:50pm the same day, I told them I’d be available on Monday or Tuesday for them to collect it. I suggested they could send out the replacement kit now and have the delivery man pick up the damaged kit. I have had no reply from them and have sent a chaser at 4:40pm 14/01/11 – not such good service after all!

The items which need to be replaced are:

1 x EX300 flash head
1 x Power cable
1 x EX300 reflector
1 x EX300 softbox outer diffuser

but it sounds like they are replacing the whole kit.

Screenshot of order on Amazon.co.uk

softbox 300x222 Damage to EX300 light kit

EX300 softbox with discolouration on front diffuser

reflector3 300x228 Damage to EX300 light kit

EX300 reflector with bent attachment slot

reflector2 300x215 Damage to EX300 light kit

EX300 reflector with bent attachment slot

reflector1 300x243 Damage to EX300 light kit

Ex300 reflector with dent and scratches on side

Power lead with bent pin on plug

Power lead with bent pin on plug

EX300 Light Head with bent Umbrella mount

EX300 Light Head with bent Umbrella mount

So, they arranged a collection of the damaged kit on Monday 17th, but they refused to send out the replacement kit before they had confirmation the damaged one had been picked up. I wasn’t able to take any more time off work to be in to receive the new one when it arrived, so I asked for it to be delivered on Saturday (22nd). On Saturday morning, I got a text saying my delivery would be between 10:36 and 13:36. it actually arrived at 15:14. The new kit is in perfect condition and seems to work well. It’s a shame it took 13 days to get the replacement, and I had to be available in the flat for 3 days.

Hawks replaced with no quibbles, but the service could have been much faster. Maybe they should have offered a partial refund too.

I am delighted with the flash kit – It seems to have plenty of power for portrait and small group shots and I am really happy with the photos I have taken using it.

VMWare vSphere evaluation downgrade

Techie Stuff 8 Responses »

Sep 252010

VMWare make their vSphere Hypervisor free to download and use which is an amazing deal, they also offer a free evaluation of VMWare vSphere which adds extra bells and whistles for enterprise level virtualisation. If you take the evaluation version, you have 60 days until the vSphere client locks down and stops you powering on your virtual machines. At that point, you will either have to pay for a full vSphere licence, or downgrade to the free version again. Of course, they haven’t made it very easy to find out how to do the downgrade!

If your evaluation has expired, your vSphere client should look something like this.

vclient expired 300x266 VMWare vSphere evaluation downgrade

vSphere Client showing expired license

To downgrade to the free version and regain control of your virtual machines, you need to get a new licence number – its free. I have heard reports that the licence key would have been sent to you in the initial email which you received from VMWare when you registered for the evaluation, but I couldn’t find it in any of the emails I had received. The best bet is probably to go ahead and reregister at the download page for ESXi – From the VMWare home page, open the ‘Products’ menu and choose VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi) then click the download button on the left side. Login, or hit the continue button and fill out your information. Once you have completed the registration process you should receive an email with an ‘Activate your VMware ESXi 4.1 License’ link. Click that and you should be presented with your new license number.

new licence number 2 300x95 VMWare vSphere evaluation downgrade

New VmWare license number

Copy the license number and go into your vSphere client. At the top of the list of virtual machines, highlight your host machine. Go to the configuration tab and choose ‘Licensed Features’ under the software section. Click the small ‘edit’ link at the top right corner.

You should now see your current evaluation license with no license key. Click the ‘Assign a new license to this host’ radio button, click the ‘Enter Key’ button and paste in your new license number. Click ‘OK’

enter license 300x289 VMWare vSphere evaluation downgrade

New License entered

Check that the new licence key is valid and shows ‘Expires: Never’

You’re done. You should now be able to administer your virtual servers as before. I’m yet to find out what features are missing from the free version compared to the full vSphere version.

Let me know if this works for you!

iTunes 10 – Installation problem and solution

Techie Stuff 21 Responses »

Sep 112010

When attempting an automatic upgrade of iTunes from version 9 to 10, I got a pop-up saying “Service ‘iPod Service’ (iPod Service) could not be installed. Verify that you have sufficient privileges to install system services.”

The solution I found was to download the installer only and run it manually. Here’s a step by step guide of the problem you are likely to see. Before carrying this out, please back up your catalogue – I’m not responsible if you lose your music!

1. When installing iTunes, you get an error pop-up “Service ‘iPod Service’ (iPod Service) could not be installed. Verify that you have sufficient privileges to install system services.”

Itunes error 1 300x148 iTunes 10 Installation problem and solution

iTunes Installation Error

2. Without pressing any of the buttons, open the services manager by clicking the start menu, right click ‘computer’ and choose ‘manage’. Navigate through “Services and Applications” then “Services”. Find the iPod Service.

Itunes error 2 300x90 iTunes 10 Installation problem and solution

Services control panel

3. You should find that the iPod Service is stopped and disabled. Double click the service to see its properties.

Itunes error 3 266x300 iTunes 10 Installation problem and solution

iPod Service Properties

4. If you make any changes to the service (try changing it from ‘Disabled’ to ‘Automatic’ and press apply), you will see that “The specified service has been marked for deletion”.

5. It seems that the service needs to be deleted to allow the new version to be installed, but for some reason it hasn’t. The service will be deleted if you restart your computer though. Did I mention you should back up your catalogue before doing this?

6. Without cancelling the current iTunes installation, restart your computer. If you do cancel the install, iTunes will roll back to where you were before you started the install and the service will not be marked for deletion.

7. After your computer reboots, run the installer again and follow the prompts, it should install fine. In my case, all my music was still there. But if not, you can restore from the backup you took earlier – you did take a back up, didn’t you?!?

I hope this helps you get iTunes 10 installed – let me know how you get on!