Ewan's Corner

Archive for the ‘sci-tech’ Category

Population will mightily increase, and the earth will be a garden.
Governments will be conducted with the quietude and regularity of
club committees. The interest which is now felt in politics will
be transferred to science; the latest news from the laboratory of
the chemist, or the observatory of the astronomer, or the
experimenting room of the biologist will be eagerly discussed.
…
Men will look upon this star as their fatherland; its progress
will be their ambition; the gratitude of others their reward.
…
Disease will be extirpated; the causes of decay will be removed;
immortality will be invented. And then, the earth being small,
mankind will migrate into space, and will cross the airless Saharas
which separate planet from planet, and sun from sun. The earth will
become a Holy Land which will be visited by pilgrims from all
the quarters of the universe. Finally, men will master the
forces of Nature; they will become themselves architects of
systems, manufacturers of worlds.

–The Martyrdom of Man, Winwood Reade, 1872

I have a single Amazon EC2 instance, which is my happy playground and home for a variety of experiments. I also pay nothing for the privilege of using it.

Today I got the following email from Amazon EC2 Notifications:

Hello,

We have noticed that one or more of your instances are running on a host degraded due to hardware failure.

   [instance-id]

The risk of your instances failing is increased at this point. We cannot determine the health of any applications running on the instances. We recommend that you launch replacement instances and start migrating to them.

Feel free to terminate the instances with the ec2-terminate-instance API when you are done with them.

Sincerely,

The Amazon EC2 Team
Reference: [reference#]

Now *that’s* great customer service.

I (or rather my wonderful wife) ordered my Kindle on November the 30th 2010, only to sadly discover that due to stock shortages the delivery ETA was between January 21st and February 7th 2011. Understandable (Amazon is said to have sold over 8 million Kindle units in 2010), so I settled in for the wait and enjoyed Christmas.

Happily on January 8th they emailed me with a new ETA of January 17th.

On January 10th my kindle shipped, and I tracked it as it travelled the 16 thousand kilometre journey from Kentucky US to Durban, South Africa:

To my delight it arrived this morning, January 14th – so in total 4 days with only a few hours to clear customs in Johannesburg. Others had reported delays of several days in the past, but Amazon’s new expedited customs tactic (you pay up-front for customs duties, which are refunded if not used) seems to have made all the difference.

I bought the 3G version, for those interested the price breakdown is:

• Item Subtotal:    $189.00
• Shipping  and handling:     $20.98
• Import Fees Deposit:     $29.11
• Total:    $239.09 (ZAR 1,780.92)

Recommended resources:

• Simon Dingle’s post “how to buy a Kindle” is well worth the read for existing and prospective Kindle owners
• if you own a Kindle, you *need* Calibre.
• Instapaper is also a fantastic free tool

Finally – an official version of BlackBerry OS v6 has been released for the BlackBerry Bold 9700 (v6 has so far only been available for / shipped with the new Torch, Bold 9780 and Style 9670). Several cracked/leaked versions of v6 have been circulating for awhile, but they’re dodgy and unreliable by all accounts. Official is the way to go – and you don’t need to wait for your local provider to offer the update, you can easily upgrade using the upgrade from *any* BlackBerry provider as long as you get the right version for your device.

Thanks to Indian cellular provider Vodafone Essar (others will follow), you can now download OS 6 and upgrade your Bold. OS 6 is a huge leap forward, even for non-touchscreen devices – the WebKit default browser alone is worth the upgrade.

Package Version: 6.0.0.1478
Applications: 6.0.0.380

Software Platform: 6.6.0.86

File name: 9700jAsia_PBr6.0.0_rel1478_PL6.6.0.86_A6.0.0.380_Vodafone_Essar_Limited.exe

File size: 150.12MB

Download URL: https://www.blackberry.com/Downloads/entry.do?code=15CF76466B97264765356FCC56D801D1

The procedure remains the same as for any OS update:

1. If you’re a corporate / BES user, I recommend doing this from your work desktop if possible. Makes re-activation automatic and painless.
2. Make sure you have the latest version of BlackBerry Desktop Manager installed
3. Do a *full* backup of your device using Desktop Manager
4. I recommend you then delete all 3rd party applications to simplify the upgrade (you can re-install them afterwards), especially those which automatically start at boot. Desktop Manager makes this quick and easy, with only one device restart required.
5. Download and install the OS 6 install (on your PC/Mac) – be sure to get the correct installer for your device model (e.g. the Essar URL above is https://www.blackberry.com/Downloads/entry.do?code=15CF76466B97264765356FCC56D801D1)
6. If you are installing an update from a different cellular provider (e.g. you downloaded from Essar above, but they’re not your local provider) then delete the “vendor.xml” file (on Win7, located in “Program Files –> Common Files –> Research in Motion –> AppLoader”)
7. Run “loader.exe” in the same AppLoader directory and follow the prompts
8. Voila!

If you get stuck with BES / Enterprise activation, this may help.

General comments on OS 6 on my Bold 9700 so far:

• Snappy performance – no noticeable lag
• The new WebKit based browser rocks. Finally, a decent default fast browser with tabbing, proper rendering, decent zooming etc. I’ll still likely use Opera Mini in parallel though.
• Reboots down from 7 minutes (!) to under 2
• Taking photos is faster – and browsing images is *much* faster, especially for large collections
• I’m not sure how I survived without universal search / search from the home screen rocks
• Setup / config menus are far more intuitive and usable
• Social feeds – we’ll see.
• “Application Management” has been hugely improved – finally you can see what apps are running, which are chewing up CPU cycles (now and by day) and memory usage. Excellent.

Following on from my previous rant informative post on the subject, numerous people (including my lovely wife) let me know about some great Power Balance related news:

• Power wristbands a dud, says ACCC (news.smh.com.au)
• Sports band slammed in Australia (www.news24.com)

as well as much happiness in the skeptic world (scepticsbook.com, Vic Skeptics, Skeptic Money).

In summery Power Balance Australia, when approached by the OZ Competition and Consumer Commission, couldn’t provide *any* credible evidence of their claims that the hologram-powered rubber bands helped the wearer in any way. What a shocker.

The best part is that they are now forced to refund anyone who asks, as well as modify their advertising / packaging to remove false claims – and their website now includes the following statement:

We admit that there is no credible scientific evidence that supports our claims and therefore we engaged in misleading conduct in breach of s52 of the Trade Practices Act 1974.

If you feel you have been misled by our promotions, we wish to unreservedly apologise and offer a full refund.

That should hopefully hammer their Christmas sales.

Feeling a little silly now are we Mick Fanning, Benji Marshall, Brendan Fevola, Damien Oliver, David Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo, Leonardo diCaprio, Shaquille O’Neal, Kevin Pietersen, Rubens Barrichello, Kate Middleton, P Diddy etc?

For all you South Africans (thanks James) a link to a petition (update: OK Caroline, it’s not a petition, it’s a formal complaint by the FSI) preparing for a formal complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASASA). Go sign up.