And they said it’d never happen!

After much speculation, rumour and conjecture, it all become a reality on Monday the 6th of December.  The first Tech Talk Radio Outside Broadcast took place at Sofia Family Restaurant in Burwood East.

We were all blown away by the massive turnout.  It was a lot of work, but heaps of fun.  For the first time we could put faces to names, and had a chance to meet “the regulars” who lurk in the chat, post on the forum and send email contributions on a weekly basis.

View from The Panel. OMG... who *are* all these people?!

Importantly, the O.B. was a successful proof-of-concept for us, from a technical standpoint.  We were using traditional audio equipment (a mixing desk, headset microphones, wireless microphones, effects microphones, speakers, amplifiers, compressors and limiters) as well as new linking equipment that we tested for the first time on the 22nd of November in Episode 47.  We used professional STL software called AudioTX Communicator.  This software provides bi-directional high quality audio over any IP-based network.  A laptop in Sofia was our “transmitter” and this connected to a computer in the radio studio at 3WBC via the Telstra NextG network.  The entire 2-hour programme used about 200 MB of data each way.

Graeme's mixing desk, microphone switch and CD players

Long-time friend of Tech Talk radio, and US correspondent Lidija Davis was hooked-up via Skype on Andrew’s laptop.

We even installed some impromptu lighting to brighten-up The Panel:

DIY studio lighting, the Tech Talk Radio way!

Thankyou

There are many people that need to be thanked, and without whose help the O.B. would not have been the success that it was:

• Stephanie Stewart, at NetComm Australia, for donating the magnificent MyZone Hot Spot door prize, as well as truck-loads of pens and jelly beans;
• Microsoft’s Michael Kordahi, from popular technology podcast Frankly Speaking, for donating a copy of Microsoft Office 2010; and
• 2K Games for the massive swag including copies of Mafia 2, as well as keyrings, pens, matching cufflinks;  Bioshock; copies of The Bigs 2 Baseball; copies of Carnival Games; Sid Meier’s Pirates; Super Game Day; Civilization V; NBA 2K11; and much, much more!

The Swag - thankyou to all our sponsors for their support and generosity

Thankyou also to Phil at the 3WBC studio, for pushing faders and pressing buttons, and making sure the programme went live-to-air.

And, of course, everyone that rolled-up to make the evening what it was.  Without you, there would be no programme.

We’ll be back in 2011.  In the meantime, enjoy the Summer Series, which showcases highlights from this year’s episodes.

OB · Outside Broadcast · Social Networking · Sofia · Sponsors · Tech Talk Radio · TTR

It’s horrible.

In Episode 47, which went to air on Monday this week, we were testing some new audio equipment and linking software.  We’ll be using this equipment for the Outside Broadcast at Sofia Family Restaurant on the 6th of December.

There were two main issues.

(1) To-air: the quality of Graeme’s microphone audio.  Graeme was trialling a new headset-microphone, using a portable pre-amplifier.  The Panelists will be using a very similar model of headset at the OB.  It sounded a bit hissy, but we’re confident we can fix this with some diligent EQ’ing on the night.

(2) Recording / podcast version:  we always record two independent outputs from the studio’s mixing desk.  One is a recording of the programme that goes to-air (the “A” bus), while the other is a clean recording of panelists’ microphones (the “B” bus).  We use M-Audio MicroTrack II recorders, which write to compact flash cards, to record the show each week. Graeme then edits these recordings to make the podcast and syndication versions of the shows.

Unfortunately, because I was pre-occupied with setting up the new linking equipment, I made the cardinal error of not checking input levels to the recorders.  As a result the input settings for the “A” bus recorder were just completely wrong, and the “B” bus recorders were horribly clipped and over-driven.

Graeme did an excellent job of recovering what he could, but the audio quality is not up to our usual high standard.  This is extremely frustrating for all of us, because we pride ourselves on Tech Talk’s production quality.

Ironically, the actual linking equipment worked very well indeed.  This was the main reason that Graeme started the show from Sofia on Monday night: to test the new link hardware and software.

Next week’s Tech Talk will be back to our usual high standard; and the OB on the 6th of December will be even better!

audio · awkward moments · podcast · production · Tech Talk Radio · TTR

Dear Microsoft,

Please don’t send ninjas to Adam Turner’s house, to abduct and torture him in some secret facility.

On Tech Talk Radio tonight I said something akin to, “Adam was in here a few weeks back, and had Windows Phone 7 and it was really cool.”

What I meant to say was, “My brain is switched off, and I’m talking on live radio, and what Adam actually had was a WinMo 6.5 device running HTC’s Sense UI.”

These are the show notes for the episode I was thinking of, which went to air on 2nd August 2010.

And this is a photo of Adam’s menagerie, taken by me on the night:

See… no Phone 7!!

Apologies to Microsoft, and to Adam. I’ve rechecked my medication, it’s all good.

As you were.  Carry on.

adam turner · awkward moments · conspiracy · Google Phone · HTC · Microsoft · Phone 7 · Tech Talk Radio · TTR · WinMo 6.5

Recently I was building a new Windows 7 Home Edition system, when I encountered a hurdle I hadn’t faced before.

I booted from the Windows 7 installation disc, and started ‘nexting’ through the install wizard. I only got a few screens in, when I hit a snag. A dialogue asked, Where do you want to install Windows? – but – no devices were listed in the table.

Strange, I thought.  This screen should list my brand-new SATA disc. I should have 1 terrabyte of disk space ready to partition, format and install Windows.

I rebooted, checked that the BIOS could see the disc (it could), and rebooted.

Needless to say, I hit the same snag. Repeatedly.

After hours of rebooting, refreshing, trying to install updated drivers, fiddling with BIOS settings and re-seating all the SATA connections inside the machine, I found this little pearler in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Symptoms: When you try to install Windows Vista, the hard disk on which you want to install Windows Vista does not appear in the Where do you want to install Windows? disk configuration window.

Yes! Yes! That’s me! Just substitute the number ‘7′ for the word ‘Vista’.

Cause: This issue occurs if the hard disk partition contains an invalid byte offset value. For example, this issue occurs if the partition has a byte offset of zero (0).

Okay. Suddenly I’m thinking that my brand-new SATA disk might not be so brand-new after all. Anyway…

Resolution:

1. Use the Windows Vista DVD to start the computer.
2. At the Windows Vista installation screen, click Next, and then click Install Now.
3. Press SHIFT+F10 to start a command prompt.
4. At the command prompt, type diskpart, and then press ENTER.
5. Type select disk number, and then press ENTER. In this command, replace numberwith the number of the hard disk that you want to modify. For example, if you want to install Windows Vista on the first available hard disk, type select disk 0, and then press ENTER.
6. Type clean, and then press ENTER. You receive the following message: “DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk.”
7. Type exit, and then press ENTER to exit the DiskPart tool.
8. Type exit, and then press ENTER to exit the command prompt.
9. Restart the computer, and then start the Windows Vista installation.

Problem solved! I got to the same screen, which this time listed the previously-missing storage device:

Of course, it’s easy when you know how.

diskpart · install windows · installation problem · windows 7

I’ve got a netbook.  So does Mrs Dr Ron:

Mine is the Asus EeePC, which runs like a charm (but could do with a re-load, when I’ve got five minutes to scratch myself).

Mrs Dr Ron’s is the Acer Aspire 1.

A few nights ago Mrs Dr Ron complained that her netbook wouldn’t start.  After some basic investigation (like checking power supply and battery) it appeared that the BIOS had become corrupt.  The computer’s power light came on, but that was about it.  Not good.

The BIOS is the “Basic Input / Output System” and contains a set of instructions which tells the computer, amongst other things, how to access the hard disk and find the operating system when it’s turned on.  It also starts simple devices like the keyboard and the video.  The BIOS is the first set of instructions that the computer loads in order to function.  BIOS instructions are contained on a chip on the motherboard, and the BIOS works independently of the operating system, peripheral devices, and all that sort of stuff.

If the BIOS disappears or becomes corrupted for whatever reason, it’s a big problem.  The computer won’t start.  Thankfully, this doesn’t happen very often, and thankfully, modern computers let you “re-flash” the BIOS, which means writing a new set of instructions to the computer’s BIOS chip.

In this case I had to re-flash the BIOS on the Acer netbook.  This is the second time in 12 months I’ve had to do this.  I’m not sure if it’s a known issue with this model, or if Mrs Dr Ron just has an electric (electromagnetic?) personality which keeps causing this to happen.

How do you re-flash a BIOS? Every computer is different, but follows a similar procedure:

• First identify what type of computer you have. This netbook is an “Acer Aspire One A150″ model.  You’ll need the exact model number, because every type of motherboard will have a unique BIOS;
• Visit the manufacturer’s website to obtain the latest BIOS for your particular system (I went here); or undertake some intelligent Googling, it shouldn’t take long.  Download the latest version of the BIOS for your machine;
• Follow the manufacturer’s instructions for upgrading / flashing the BIOS.  This might involve copying files to a memory stick, and holding a particular combination of keys when you turn the device on.

For the Acer Aspire I followed these instructions from the Macles Blogspot, which worked perfectly:

First format a USB flash drive with FAT. It does not need to be bootable.

Download the latest BIOS, and extract all files from the zip file. Put both FLASHIT.EXE and the BIOS file with FD suffix in the root directory of the flash drive. The files must not be in a folder. Rename the BIOS file to ZG5IA32.FD before proceeding. It only works with this exact filename.

Turn the AA1 off, with the flash drive still connected, and make sure both battery and AC adapter are also connected.

Press Fn and Esc simultaneously, keep them pressed and press the power button. Release Fn+Esc after a few seconds. The power button starts blinking at this point. Press the power button once. The AA1 will now initiate flashing the BIOS. After a while the button stops blinking, and the AA1 reboots shortly after. Wait patiently.

If it doesn’t reboot by itself, but keeps blinking, wait at least a few minutes before turning it off, and try again.

Mrs Dr Ron’s netbook restarted, and before long was loading Windows XP.  Good as new!  No data was lost in this process, because re-flashing the BIOS doesn’t affect data on the hard disk or storage device.

The procedure is fairly straight-forward, but it’s critical that you don’t interrupt the upgrade in progress. Doing so could damage your computer or put the BIOS chips into a state where they can’t be re-flashed or upgraded. You run the risk of turning your computer into an expensive brick. Don’t turn off the power, don’t pull out the USB stick half-way through, and don’t unplug the power supply (just in case).

If you follow the manufacturer’s instructions, you should be okay.

Good luck.

Acer Aspire 1 · BIOS · flash · netbook · upgrade

amateur radio · ARDF · foxhunting · ham radio

Someone in the chat last night mentioned the Google Nexus One Android-powered smartphone.

It won’t be sold here, and it won’t work on Telstra’s Next G HSDPA network. See this article in The Australian for more details.

For our brethren abroad, here’s a nifty comparison chart courtesy of Tech Talk Radio’s US correspondent, Mark Diggins:

Apple's iPhone 3GS vs Google's Nexus 1

android · Apple iPhone 3GS · comparison · Google Android · Google Nexus 1 · Google Phone · HSDPA · Next G · smartphone · Tech Talk Radio · telstra

Fox News ran a story today on GPS jammers, saying that:

An electronic device small enough to fit in a shirt pocket and big enough to conceivably bring down an airplane can be easily purchased over the Internet. All a terrorist needs is a credit card and $49.

Unfortunately, News Limited’s website “news.com.au” regurgitated the story with this sensationalist headline:

Internet jammer can be bought for $55, can bring down plane, say experts.

Now, in the immortal words of the ABC’s Hungry Beast programme, this sounds “a little bit bullshit”.  Here’s why.

The GPS system was designed many years ago by the United States military. It is a network of up to 32 satellites in Medium Earth Orbit, and each of these satellites broadcasts a unique signal. When a terrestrial receiver can “see” or “hear” four or more satellites, the receiver can determine its latitude, longitude and altitude with some accuracy.

An early model Navman GPS receiver

The system was used exclusively by the military up until the early-1990s. The emergence of domestic GPS receivers saw civilian access being allowed to an “intentionally degraded” signal, accurate to within about 15 metres, while the “military” signal provided accuracy to within a few metres. Because it was, and still is, a military navigation system provided free of charge to the masses, the old adage “caveat emptor” applied to early adopters of the technology.

By way of illustration, I was working for a government agency in the early-1990s, installing GPS receivers in a fleet of vehicles. These receivers were accompanied by a data transmitter which sent the vehicles’ locations back to a central controller. One morning in 1994 (?), when the United States commenced military action in Kuwait, our GPS system suddenly went haywire, with blatantly incorrect locations being reported by our vehicles. It took us some time to establish that there was nothing wrong with our network, rather the United States military had made changes to the GPS system ahead of large-scale troop movements in the Middle East.

At the time we used a differential GPS system to give us more accuracy; that is, we had fixed GPS bases (known locations) and compared the GPS signals received at these bases with their precise, known locations. This allowed us to calculate the error which was being introduced into the civilian signal, and get a much more accurate fix on our vehicles. The degradation of the civilian signal has since been significantly improved, if not completely removed, by the US military.

While the manufacture of “civilian” GPS receivers has now become a multi-million dollar industry, the facts remain that the GPS network is still owned and operated by the US military; it has errors which are intentionally introduced by the US military; and it’s provided to civilian users free-of-charge with no service guarantee whatsoever.

For these reasons, the aviation industry has never relied upon GPS as a primary system for navigation.

This may come as a surprise to the editors of Fox News and News Limited, but pilots in domestic aircraft were navigating their way around the world for many, many years prior to the availability of GPS receivers.

Pilots use a very stringent set of rules, systems and equipment in order to navigate. Pilots use transponders, Automatic Direction Finders (which include ground-based radio beacons, VHF omni-range systems) and other equipment to establish their location. They also talk to Air Traffic Controllers, and receive and comply with instructions which assist with navigation and help regulate air traffic.

Pilots use an altimeter to establish their altitude, which compares air pressure with that on the ground – not a GPS receiver.  Pilots use (surprise, surprise) a compass to determine their heading – not a GPS receiver.

Sometimes, planes might be fitted with a GPS receiver, which can be used to corroborate information provided by these other systems. Now I’m not a pilot, but I’ll go out on a limb here and say that if ever there was a discrepancy between a GPS receiver and a traditional navigation system, the GPS would largely be ignored.

If some joker actually managed to get a working “internet jammer” aboard an aircraft in the first place, a navigational discrepancy would probably be looked upon by a pilot simply as an interesting anomaly. Visions of planes falling out of the sky, as painted by News Limited’s headline, are both unfounded and unnecessary.

To say that an “Internet jammer can … bring down [a] plane”, well … it’s a little bit bullshit.

gps · jammer · navigation · plane

Something exciting happened a few months back: my local telephone exchange (or ‘Central Office’ for my American brothers and sisters) was upgraded to support ADSL 2+.

Actually, it had supported ADSL 2+ for some time, but only by Telstra resellers. When the Internet Service Provider iiNet came along, which runs its own back-haul network independent of Telstra, I committed to doing a number of things:

1. Upgrading my home internet from ADSL (supplied by Internet Service Provider aaNet)  to ADSL 2+ (supplied by iiNet),
2. Converting to Naked DSL;
3. Porting my telephone service from traditional PSTN to VoIP, and
4. Freeing myself from the expensive Telstra service and equipment fees and call costs.

Would this be an expensive exercise? Would I ultimately save money? Or would I pay more for the privilege (as I saw it) of being Telstra-free?

Now the dust has settled, it’s time to find out.

The Existing (Old) Setup

I have a small analogue PABX, with extensions cabled to most rooms in the house. This should neither detract from my internet story or cause any undue alarm.

Now, Mr & Mrs Dr Ron have had a common, garden-variety 19th-century analogue telephone line for many years. We only used this for incoming calls. Why? Because Telstra call costs are generally more expensive than… well, anything, really. So when someone called our home telephone number, all the phones in the house would ring and we would speak to the caller. I was on Telstra’s “Homeline Budget” plan, which is the cheapest line rental vs most expensive call rates, at $71.64 per quarter including “recurring costs” (about $23.88 /month). I was on this plan deliberately, to minimise the service and equipment fees, given that we didn’t use the service for outgoing calls. So far so good.

For outgoing calls, we had an account with engin, the VoIP telephone company. Engin offered 10 cent untimed calls to any number in Australia, (a third the cost of Telstra on the “Homeline Budget” plan,) and timed calls to mobiles and international numbers. My engin plan was like a mobile telephone “cap” and I paid at least $14.95 /month for the privilege.

So to make an outgoing call to a local or national number, we would “dial 0″ on an extension, and the PABX would pre-select the line connected to engin’s SIP voice box. We would get a “second dial tone” and make the call.

Now to keep down costs, I successfully trained Mrs Dr Ron to use her mobile telephone to make mobile-to-mobile calls. I did the same. I think calls to mobiles are always expensive on landlines and VoIP accounts, compared with mobile-to-mobile rates, especially when you can take advantage of “free 3 to 3″ and similar promotions run by other carriers.

My wife has a lot of family overseas, and we ring friends overseas too. Weekly calls to England, Scotland and Denmark are not uncommon. International rates on engin weren’t too bad and international rates on the mobiles weren’t too bad either.

The New Setup

We have kept the PABX: no change.

We’re still using mobile phones for mobile-to-mobile: no change.

We churned from the old ISP (aaNet) to the new ISP (iiNet).

We ported our telephone number, from Telstra PSTN to iiNet VoIP. This went surprisingly smoothly. We experienced a service outage for a few days, which was expected and clearly explained in the T’s & C’s provided by iiNet.

We cancelled the engin account, as it was no longer needed, and I got sick of their poor customer service (but that’s another story).

Incoming calls still arrive by dialling the same phone number, but these are now carried by iiNet VoIP into the PABX. (The iiNet router has anFXS port which drives an analogue trunk circuit on the PABX.) Similarly, outgoing calls are carried via iiNet VoIP instead of engin VoIP.

For richer or poorer?

Previously I was paying:

• Monthly Telstra bill: $23.88 + call costs, if any
• Monthly aaNet bill: $94.25 for 40 GB bandwidth
• Monthly engin bill: $14.95 + call costs not included in this cap, e.g. international calls

So previously I had a minimum monthly investment of $133.08 for home internet and telephone calls.

Remember I haven’t changed my call usage patterns, or the way I use my mobile telephone.

Now I’m paying:

• Monthly iiNet bill: $69.95 for 30GB peak/30GB off-peak + call costs not included in this cap

In addition to a financial windfall of $63.13 per month, I’m also ahead because:

• There’s no separate Telstra account;
• There’s no separate engin account;
• I’m using ADSL 2+ technology, better (albeit marginally, at my house) than first-generation ADSL;
• I’ve got half as much bandwidth again, compared with the previous internet plan;
• Unlimited, free, local and national telephone calls, as opposed to engin’s 10 cent calls which chipped-away at a “cap”; and
• VoIP quality is much better, for two reasons: (1) I’m on a faster network connection; and (2) my new router, provided by iiNet, has a Quality of Service feature which was missing in the old SIP box.

So Dr Ron wins. Faster, cheaper internet, and more cash towards that Mediterranean retirement villa.

Seriously though … that’s $756 /year in my pocket.

What have we learnt from this exercise?

Review your internet contract, and personal internet requirements, regularly.

Internet “plans” come and go, just as fast as mobile phone plans these days. If you stay on a plan for longer than 12 months, chances are that a faster, cheaper plan offering more bandwidth has become available, that might better suit your needs.

Shop around, and monitor consumer advocacy websites – like Broadband Choice in Australia – to compare “apples with apples”.

Happy hunting, good luck.  See you in the Med.

aaNet · ADSL · ADSL 2+ · engin · iiNet · naked DSL · SIP · telstra · voip

About 200 – 300 people attended the rally in front of the State Library in Melbourne this afternoon.

Speakers included:

Sarah Jenkins, Australian Sex Party;
Trent Hawkins, Socialist Alliance;
Colin Jacobs, Electronic Frontiers Australia;
Muriel Ardnt, Exit International; and
David Crafti, Pirate Party.

Here are a few pics.

Got some good vox pops too, which I’ll mix-up for a future Tech Talk segment.

Click here for more information about the Open Internet movement in Australia.

Electronic Frontiers Australia is one group which opposes Senator Conroy’s proposed Net Filter legislation, the wording of which will be released later this month.

#nocleanfeed · melbourne · no clean feed · Open Internet · openinternet · rally · state library