When I was building "The Trump" I wanted to RAID-1 my internal data drive. I was hoping that the Asus motherboard supported RAID but that was not to be. As I Googled around looking for that answer though I came upon lots of discussions of "Fake RAID". This (archive.org) is one example:
Fake RAID is essentially software RAID provided by the BIOS on the motherboard, however, it has none of the benefits of Software RAID and none of the benefits of Hardware RAID...
And it went on:
[I]f your motherboard dies, your data is probably lost unless you can find another identical motherboard.
So I guess it was good that my motherboard didn't support RAID. But what to do?
What I found was Windows' Storage Spaces. Windows Central has a really good article (archive.org) on it.
I used 2 2TB drives and created a mirrored Storage Space as drive D:. To prepare the drives I used diskpart and cleaned the drives.
In this BetaNews article (archive.org), the author performed the ultimate test.
I shut my Dell 840 server down, pulled out the drive caddy, and connected one of the mirrored drives into my Thinkpad X230 laptop for some spot checks on my data.
What did I see when I plugged it in? Exactly what I wanted to see.
Nice. But keeping my fingers crossed.
By the way, to migrate the data from "Big Honker" to "The Trump" I used Drive Snapshot. I think that I have mentioned that you ought to TEST restoring your backups. I practice what I preach.
No, this isn't a political post. It's about the successor to "The Big Honker" purchased on Christmas Eve 2009. I'm calling the new tower PC "The Trump" because it's HUGE!
Newegg had an Asus M32BC-B01 for $400 (incidentally the same price as "The Big Honker"). It came with an 8-core AMD processor, 8GB of RAM and a 2TB HDD. I wanted something that would go up to 32GB, hold an SSD to boot from and a second 2TB HDD for mirroring.
I researched the Asus as much as I could but couldn't find the answers to the RAM and disk bays. I finally signed up for a free trial of Newegg's Premier to get no restocking fee returns and ordered it.
I wasn't disappointed. There were 4 DIMM slots with one populated with an 8GB DIMM so it would hold my desired 32GB. There was an internal 3 1/2" bay and one external facing 5 1/4" bay. I added 8GB of memory, found a 250GB SSD and had a spare 2TB HDD sitting around so I was ready.
The Asus came with Windows 8.1 Home. I upgraded it to Windows 10 Home but wanted to go on to Windows 10 Pro. I had a Windows 7 Pro key that had not been used.
This post explains how to do that but it starting with "All you need to do is swap your current Windows 10 Home product key for the default Windows 10 Pro one..." is a little misleading. Who has ever heard of "the default Windows 10 Pro key?" That's just the start of it. The upgrade process took about 15 minutes, most of that after the screen said "100% complete." But it worked and I was on the way. When it finished it complained that it wasn't activated and asked for a Windows 10 Pro key. I input the Windows 7 Pro key and it worked.
Working with the UEFI firmware was new to me. After I had upgraded to Windows 10 I used diskpart to "clean" all the drives (knowingly wiping all the data) and converted the SSD to GPT. (The "clean" drives will come up again in a later post.) Then I installed Windows 10 on the SSD from a USB drive created from Microsoft's Media Creation Tool. Windows 10 retained its activation and Pro upgrade.
Have you been wondering where all the Google Street View car goes? Normally you can only see whether they drove down the street you're interested in by dragging the little man over the street.
But I wanted to see its route through an entire neighborhood or shopping center.
Here's how.
In Google Maps, position the map to where you want to start. Drag the little man onto the map. Notice that the routes the Google Street View car has mapped are highlighted with blue lines. But these lines are not persistent. They're only presented while you are dragging the little man.
Now drop the little man anywhere you want. That takes you into Google Street View.
Here's the fun part.
Now click the "-" in the lower right corner. This takes you out of Google Street View but leaves the routes highlighted in blue.
Some of these routes are interesting. Look at the outlots of Wolfchase Mall.
The Google Street View car drove through ALL the aisles of the Bed Bath & Beyond parking lot. Was he looking for his girlfriend's car or what?
I continue coming up to speed on Windows 10. Overall it is still going well. There are just bumps in the road here and there.
I'm working toward upgrading my wife's ThinkPad T420s. I want it to go smoothly (which I fully expect) and quickly (the subject of this post).
To make it go quickly my idea was to have the latest Windows 10 bits downloaded. To do this I ran the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool.
I had used the Media Creation Tool before. But this time it was different.
I tried it on a new PC. One where I had taken my own advice and made the default user NOT an administrator.
The tool downloaded successfully and ran through its first couple of screens asking for the administrator's password. I'm not sure why it needs administrator rights but anyway...
Then I gave it access to the USB drive I wanted to use for my fresh media.
There was a problem running this tool. We're not sure what happened, but we're unable to run this tool on your PC. If you continue experiencing problems, reference the error code when contacting customer support. Error code: 0x800704DD - 0x90016.
"We're not sure what happened?" C'mon Microsoft. Nobody but you can know what happened.
So I started searching Google for this and came across this.
The net of this is that to create a USB drive you have to run the Media Creation Tool while logged in as an administrator.
So Google Photos has free unlimited storage. Not. That's a whole another discussion. This post is to cover what to do when you discover that you are using too much of your free 15GB of Google storage for photos.
If you've been following my TiVomigration you probably noticed that I had a lot of equipment that I took out of service: 2 TiVo Premieres, a Western Digital 1TB My Book AV DVR Expander, and a Linksys WES610N.
When I called TiVo to ask them to discontinue service on the 2 Premieres they told me that they were eligible for lifetime service for a one-time fee of $99 each. So I suspended the service on the 2 Premieres and went to eBay to see what a Premiere was worth with lifetime service.
Let's just say I was inspired.
In the end I sold the 2 TiVo Premieres upgraded to lifetime service, the Western Digital 1TB My Book AV DVR Expander, and a Linksys WES610N (new in the box) and netted over $500 after all charges and fees.
This improves the business case on my Roamio upgrade to being in the black from the start with a long term savings of more than $37/month ($50/month for the the first year). And I doubled my recording capacity and added TiVo capability in the kitchen.
I didn't mean to start down this road but it just happened.
We had a 9 year old Astar MP-32HB TV in our bedroom. It was 32" but had the speakers on the sides so it was huge. Just before Black Friday Best Buy had a 40" Insignia NS-40D420NA16 on sale for $180. Why not?
Then the 8 year old 52" Sony KDL52W3000 in the den had a stripe near the left side. Sure it went away in 15 minutes or so but I knew it was going to get bigger and more persistent. Again Best Buy had a 55" Toshiba 55L310U on sale for $350. That was easy.
The TiVo Mini in the bedroom worked so well that I wanted to put one in the kitchen. I had been using a Comcast Digital Transport Adapter (SD only and no premium channels) and they were going up to $4 per month. I found Amazon had TiVo Minis on sale and bought a second one for the kitchen. By the way, the sale price was less than what I had paid for the first one so Amazon gave me a credit for the difference. Nice!
But wait, I don't have Ethernet in the kitchen. I thought about using a Linksys WES610N like I was using in the bedroom but that requires more wires.
Hmmm.
Then I noticed that the Minis supported MoCA. And the TiVo Roamio functions as a bridge between Ethernet and MoCA.
I configured the Roamio to support MoCA and put a MoCA Point of Entry Filter in front of the Comcast amplifier/splitter.
It worked so well in the kitchen that I converted the bedroom to MoCA and retired the Linksys WES610N.
I've had a 2012 Nexus 7 Wi-Fi since early 2013. It came with 4.1.2 JZO54K Jellybean. I've loved the size and the access to the latest version of Android. I dropped it late in 2013 and replaced the screen myself.
The Android journey has been long. Along he way I upgraded it from 4.1.2 to 4.2.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.4.2, 4.4.3, 4.4.4, 5.0 5.0.2, 5.1.0, and 5.1.1.
This was hard on the Nexus 7. The Internet is full of bad experiences of updating the 2012 Nexus 7 to Lollipop. My experience was pretty much aligned with these.
The Nexus 7 would just crawl. It especially seemed to be slow if you tried to do anything while you were letting the Google Play Store update apps. Once it got slow there was no fixing it. Rebooting didn't help.
But after my experience with adb on my Nexus 5 I got brave enough to reflash the Nexus 7 with 5.1.1 LMY47V.
That process was similarly complicated as the Nexus 5 process. At one point the screen displayed "REBOOT FAILURE." And when it finally came up it was sluggish for several hours.
But the result was well worth it. The Nexus 7 is working fine. Sure it's not as fast as a new Android tablet but its performance is consistently Ok. Not bad for an almost 4 year old tablet.
I left the bootloader unlocked so I'm watching for CyanogenMod to drop Marshmallow.
So there isn't a Google Photos Public Gallery, you say? Well, there is, Kinda. But you have to access it via Picasaweb.
This continues my rant about apparently deprecated functions from Picasaweb to Google Photos.
When you first login to Picasaweb you have to create your Google Profile. You used to have to do this to use much of Google but that has generally been eliminated. However this seems to be the key to having a public gallery of photos.
Once you create your Google Profile you are able to go to Picasaweb. You probably want to click on "View All" to see all your albums (collections?).
Now you can see all of your Google Photos albums.
To put one of these in a public gallery click on the album thumbnail and then choose "Album properties" from the "Actions" dropdown.
Under "Visibility" choose "Public on the web" and click on "Save". Realize that you just put all your photos "Public on the web."
You're halfway there.
Go back to Picasaweb and click on "My Photos" and then click on "Public Gallery".
Now copy that URL.
That's the URL of your public gallery.
You're done.
Unfortunately that doesn't present in the Google Photos UI. Honestly that's a mixed blessing.
Update: If you're interested in this you'd better hurry.
There are so many good choices for automatically storing images from your smartphone. I've been using a couple of them and wanted to review the resulting images and metadata.
On my Nexus I have Dropbox and Google Photos both set to automatically upload images when I'm on Wi-Fi. When I want to "archive" a photo, I transfer it from my smartphone to my laptop using Bluetooth.
Here are the actual images:
Dropbox
Bluetooth
Google Photos
To my untrained eye, the images are visually indistinguishable.
But the files are different. Here're the details as I observed. (complete data at the end of the post)
File Names Dropbox: 2015-12-16 16.12.47.jpg
Bluetooth: IMG_20151216_161246.jpg
Google Photos: IMG_20151216_161246.jpg
Notice that not only does Dropbox rename the file but the implied date/time is different than the other methods.
File Size:
Dropbox: 2,623,643
Bluetooth: 2,623,643 Google Photos: 1,557,928
This is using Google Photos "Upload size" set to "High quality", not "Original". In this test Google further compressed the image by 40%.
The other characteristics and metadata are all the same as far as I can tell.
So what am I going to change?
Nothing, yet.
For me each of these tools have different use cases.
For Dropbox, I really like having my images automatically stored in a Windows file system. There's probably some method to accomplish this with Google Photos but it doesn't just jump out at me. I really don't like that Dropbox renames the files.
Bluetooth is clearly the geek's solution. I only use this method when I want to preserve a high quality image. The file system target for the Bluetooth upload varies by whether the file is an image or a video. I probably could change that.
Google Photos is the slickest tool. It's fast and easy to manage. Using "High quality" (which really isn't high quality) is free. I wish that Google wouldn't recompress the images when they fall below 16 megapixels. Since my camera is 8 megapixels I tried changing the "Upload size" to "Original" and sending the image again. I had the same result of additional compression. There are still some outstanding questions to me about this. How long does it take to Google Photos to recognize and act on this Settings change? Does this Settings change on the phone propagate to the web uploading? I'll keep playing with this.
Have fun!
Image properties
Image name : 2015-12-16 16.12.47 (Dropbox upload).jpg
Folder : C:\Users\Ben Moore\Desktop\Uploads\
Size : 3200 x 2368 pixels ==> 44.44 x 32.89 inches (72.00 dpi)
Color count : 518272
File size : 2.50 Mb
Date : 12/16/2015 4:12 PM
EXIF
Date Time=2015:12:16 16:12:47
GPSDate Stamp=2015:12:16
GPSLongitude Ref=W
GPSLongitude=89 Degrees 33 Minutes 49 Seconds
GPSImage Direction=297/1
GPSLatitude Ref=N
GPSTime Stamp=22:12:34
GPSImage Direction Ref=M
GPSLatitude=34 Degrees 49 Minutes 55 Seconds
GPSInfo=692
Model=Nexus 5
Image Width=3200
Resolution Unit=Inch
YCb Cr Positioning=Centered
Image Length=2368
YResolution=72.00
Orientation=Normal
Software=HDR+ 1.0.106412213y
Color Space=sRGB
FNumber=F2.4
Date Time Digitized=2015:12:16 16:12:47
Subject Distance Range=Unknown
Focal Length=3.97 mm
Aperture Value=F2.5
Exposure Mode=Auto
Exif Image Length=2368
Custom Rendered=Custom process
Max Aperture Value=F2.5
Scene Capture Type=Standard
Scene Type=Directly Photographed
Digital Zoom Ratio=1/1
Saturation=Normal
Exposure Program=Normal
Sharpness=Normal
Exif Image Width=3200
Shutter Speed Value=0.0487 sec (1/21)
Metering Mode=Center
Date Time Original=2015:12:16 16:12:47
Components Configuration=YCbCr
Subject Distance=0/1
Flash=Off, surpressed
Exif Version=0210
Contrast=Normal
ISOSpeed Ratings=587
Sensing Method=OneChipColorArea
Flash Pix Version=0100
Exposure Time=48861/1000000 sec
Exif Offset=234
XResolution=72.00
Make=LGE
Comment
Dropbox
Image properties
Image name : IMG_20151216_161246 (Bluetooth transfer).jpg
Folder : C:\Users\Ben Moore\Desktop\Uploads\
Size : 3200 x 2368 pixels ==> 44.44 x 32.89 inches (72.00 dpi)
Color count : 518272
File size : 2.50 Mb
Date : 12/16/2015 10:03 PM
EXIF
Date Time=2015:12:16 16:12:47
GPSDate Stamp=2015:12:16
GPSLongitude Ref=W
GPSLongitude=89 Degrees 33 Minutes 49 Seconds
GPSImage Direction=297/1
GPSLatitude Ref=N
GPSTime Stamp=22:12:34
GPSImage Direction Ref=M
GPSLatitude=34 Degrees 49 Minutes 55 Seconds
GPSInfo=692
Model=Nexus 5
Image Width=3200
Resolution Unit=Inch
YCb Cr Positioning=Centered
Image Length=2368
YResolution=72.00
Orientation=Normal
Software=HDR+ 1.0.106412213y
Color Space=sRGB
FNumber=F2.4
Date Time Digitized=2015:12:16 16:12:47
Subject Distance Range=Unknown
Focal Length=3.97 mm
Aperture Value=F2.5
Exposure Mode=Auto
Exif Image Length=2368
Custom Rendered=Custom process
Max Aperture Value=F2.5
Scene Capture Type=Standard
Scene Type=Directly Photographed
Digital Zoom Ratio=1/1
Saturation=Normal
Exposure Program=Normal
Sharpness=Normal
Exif Image Width=3200
Shutter Speed Value=0.0487 sec (1/21)
Metering Mode=Center
Date Time Original=2015:12:16 16:12:47
Components Configuration=YCbCr
Subject Distance=0/1
Flash=Off, surpressed
Exif Version=0210
Contrast=Normal
ISOSpeed Ratings=587
Sensing Method=OneChipColorArea
Flash Pix Version=0100
Exposure Time=48861/1000000 sec
Exif Offset=234
XResolution=72.00
Make=LGE
Comment
Bluetooth
Image properties
Image name : IMG_20151216_161246 (Google Photos download).jpg
Folder : C:\Users\Ben Moore\Desktop\Uploads\
Size : 3200 x 2368 pixels ==> 44.44 x 32.89 inches (72.00 dpi)
Color count : 515986
File size : 1.49 Mb
Date : 12/16/2015 10:19 PM
EXIF
Image Width=3200
Image Length=2368
Make=LGE
Model=Nexus 5
Orientation=Normal
XResolution=72.00
YResolution=72.00
Resolution Unit=Inch
Software=HDR+ 1.0.106412213y
Date Time=2015:12:16 16:12:47
YCb Cr Positioning=Centered
Exposure Time=48861/1000000 sec
FNumber=F2.4
Exposure Program=Normal
ISOSpeed Ratings=587
Exif Version=0210
Date Time Original=2015:12:16 16:12:47
Date Time Digitized=2015:12:16 16:12:47
Components Configuration=YCbCr
Shutter Speed Value=0.0487 sec (1/21)
Aperture Value=F2.5
Max Aperture Value=F2.5
Subject Distance=0/1
Metering Mode=Center
Flash=Off, surpressed
Focal Length=3.97 mm
Flash Pix Version=0100
Color Space=sRGB
Exif Image Width=3200
Exif Image Length=2368
Sensing Method=OneChipColorArea
Scene Type=Directly Photographed
Custom Rendered=Custom process
Exposure Mode=Auto
Digital Zoom Ratio=1/1
Scene Capture Type=Standard
Contrast=Normal
Saturation=Normal
Sharpness=Normal
Subject Distance Range=Unknown
Image Unique ID=07daf91361effb820000000000000000
Exif Offset=234
GPSLatitude Ref=N
GPSLatitude=34 Degrees 49 Minutes 55 Seconds
GPSLongitude Ref=W
GPSLongitude=89 Degrees 33 Minutes 49 Seconds
GPSAltitude Ref=Sealevel
GPSTime Stamp=22:12:34
GPSImage Direction Ref=M
GPSImage Direction=297/1
GPSDate Stamp=2015:12:16
GPSInfo=738
The 16GB Nexus 5 was too nice to just send back so I gave it away.
Then the 32GB Nexus 5 arrived. I started down the road to updating it.
But...
The OTA updates came to a screeching halt after 5.1.1 LMY48B. None of my normal activities (e.g. power cycle, factory data reset, cache wipe, etc.) would get it to update further.
I posted my dilemma on reddit and began a very helpful dialog with raxiel.
raxiel walked me through sideloading the OTA updates with adb. I had trouble getting Windows to recognize the driver from the SDK folder usb_driver and had to create a new android_winusb.inf file using the information in this post. Even then I had to force Windows Device Manager to use that driver.
I sideloaded a couple of OTA versions but the Nexus 5 still wouldn't automatically apply the subsequent OTAs.
I began a non-productive dialog with the retailer about returning it as defective. This encouraged me to look for an alternative.
raxiel was hanging in there with me. He suggested that I just flash the factory image for 6.0.1 MMB29K. While that would have gotten the Nexus 5 current I wouldn't have known whether subsequent OTAs would apply.
So I flashed the factory image for 6.0.0 MRA58K.
The complete list of available factory images and flashing instructions is here.
That page makes it sound simple to flash factory images. The reality is that it's tricky. For example, if you haven't already unlocked the device's bootloader, when you do that it does a factory data reset on the phone and you have to go back and re-enable Developer Mode and then USB Debugging. Then you have to confirm the RSA signatures again.
In the end I found this YouTube video that walked though the process.
One slight twist that I made is that when I extracted the factory image from the download I copied the extracted folder to my desktop. Then since fastboot needs to be available for the flash-all script I copied (didn't move) the contents of the platform-tools subfolder installed with the SDK install into the new folder on my desktop. Read that twice before you do it.
Understandably this video edits out the elapsed time. And the adb output on the video shows a time of 122 seconds. I don't know what that time represents. Mine was 144 seconds. More importantly the total elapsed time was almost 10 minutes with long periods that appeared to have no activity.
When I completed the flash I re-enabled Developer Mode and then USB Debugging so I could relock the bootloader. And then a factory data reset to disable Developer Mode.
The good news is that as soon as I connected to Wi-Fi the Nexus 5 began an OTA of 6.0.0 MRA58N.
TiVo had a big Black Friday sale. I got to looking at replacing my aging TiVo Premiere (with a 1TB external drive) in the den and the smaller TiVo Premiere in the master bedroom with current devices.
I bought a TiVo Roamio Plus for the den and a TiVo Mini for the master bedroom.
This tremendously simplified the number and age of the moving parts.
I replaced the 1TB hard drive in the Roamio with a 3TB even before I powered it up.
The Mini is pretty much a regular TiVo with no tuners and no hard drive. It "borrows" a tuner from the Roamio as needed and streams recordings from the Roamio.
The Roamio supports streaming to mobile devices so I can watch recorded programs on my smartphone or tablet.
The November 2015 software update added QuickMode.
QuickMode allows you to play recordings faster - at 1.3 x normal speed - with pitch-corrected audio, so you don't have to put up with high-pitched squeaky audio while you watch your favorite programs in less time.
The Roamio came with 12 months of TiVo service included and going forward service will be less than half of what the Premieres cost. The Mini doesn't require TiVo service. Nor does the Mini require a CableCARD so there's less money to Comcast which is always a good thing.
The break even is just over a year and the savings are $20+ per month after that.
A while back my Comcast Internet connection and television service started going down every day around 9:00AM and coming back up just before noon. Needless to say this was frustrating.
And Comcast customer service was no help at all. I started asking them for credit for the outages. They would give me a day of service credit for each instance. I would call them up and ask them to put a note in my account. Then once a week I'd call them and ask for a credit.
This got to be a record keeping problem. And I wanted to know whether the problem was outside of my neighborhood, on my Comcast "LAN", just my modem or just my router.
Don't the specifications of the Nexus 5 look familiar? They're almost exactly the same as the iPhone 6. Look at this. And the iPhone 6 is a 10 months newer design.
