The collected works of duck - Page 2

duck
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.
and authored 344 notes

Wrote on the subject of Inside a magsafe at April 22, 2012, 2:30 p.m...

Nice pictures, guardian. I especially like the one with the two unplugged ones.

_________________
:Octane:

halo , oct ane
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
Donor
From Jakobstad, Finland
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Repair horror stories? at July 10, 2012, 9:13 p.m...

Not sure if it qualifies as repair horror story but I once put a screwdriver through the CPU fan of my alpha (while it was running). It was the middle of the night, I had an early start (night shift) and the damn fan grille was rattling like a buzzsaw. Sleepily I went to tighten the screws and whoops...

That really sucked, it was one of those nice Panaflo hydrodynamic wave bearing fans. Stock, still running perfectly (if a bit loosely) since 1995ish. I had a heck of a time finding a replacement fan that ran at (at least) 4000 RPM (trial-and-error how fast it needed to run not to trigger a "dead fan" situation).

halo , oct ane

knightrider , d i g i t a l AlphaPC164, pond , soekris net6501, misc cool stuff in a rack
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.
and authored 363 notes

Wrote on the subject of Tezro 4x700, 4GB, V12 at July 11, 2012, 1:18 p.m...

I am quite purple with jealousy.

_________________
:Octane:

halo , oct ane
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
From Jakobstad, Finland
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Help: sgi cube logo gif at July 12, 2012, 1:42 a.m...

I whipped this one up in Maya. Seems like the RGBA tiff -> gif conversion didn't really get the alpha channel right...

: larger sgi cube; sgicube.gif (199.86 KiB) Viewed 547 times

36 frames, 144x144.

halo , oct ane

knightrider , d i g i t a l AlphaPC164, pond , soekris net6501, misc cool stuff in a rack
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
From Jakobstad, Finland
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Help: sgi cube logo gif at July 12, 2012, 2:37 a.m...

Alright, I could put some more work into it and give you insanely high resolution images if you really want to do something with it other than like a forum avatar or something :-P

halo , oct ane

knightrider , d i g i t a l AlphaPC164, pond , soekris net6501, misc cool stuff in a rack
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
From Jakobstad, Finland
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Help: sgi cube logo gif at July 12, 2012, 4:23 a.m...

geo wrote:

duck wrote: Alright, I could put some more work into it and give you insanely high resolution images if you really want to do something with it other than like a forum avatar or something

wow!! that would be great!! ok ill give you what display i will use so that you can consider these parameters

i use the SHARP TFT MemLCD, its just 1bit depth, its like e-paper but has a better resolution
i just use this to have low power consumption compared to colored TFT or OLED

really thanks duck! as soon as i can finish prototype, will upload a video

Hmm, that's a bit more tricky, if it's 1bit you'll need some dithering to make it look any good, or can you take care of that?

Here's a new one:

: Fatter, shinier, cube.; sgicube.gif (233.45 KiB) Viewed 525 times

Source tiffs:

sgicube.zip: Zip with tiffs; (556.02 KiB) Downloaded 23 times

They're 144x144 since I guess it would be pointless to have larger images... Just ask if you want me to render larger.

halo , oct ane

knightrider , d i g i t a l AlphaPC164, pond , soekris net6501, misc cool stuff in a rack
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
From Jakobstad, Finland
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Help: sgi cube logo gif at July 14, 2012, 6:20 a.m...

geo wrote: hi duck, already prepare the Flash ROM for all the images, almost done. But when I try to use the frames of your latest gif, when i use paint, it will automatically set the background to black, and when i convert the image to monochrome, the rendered cube is not so clear. so i guess i need to ask your help again with dithering? can you please help me make one with only 1bit deep color?

I can try, never really done something like that... Time to browse the ImageMagick manual :-)

Is a GIF really necessary by the way?

Update
It was easier than I thought. Here are a couple of early samples:

: Floyd Steinberg dithering; sgicube-floydsteinberg.gif (53.89 KiB) Viewed 426 times

: Riemersma dithering; sgicube-riemersma.gif (55.15 KiB) Viewed 426 times

: No dithering; sgicube-none.gif (37.86 KiB) Viewed 426 times

Oh, and obviously the background would change to black or white in a 1-bit image, since there are only two colours. If there were an alpha channel you'd need at least one more bit.

halo , oct ane

knightrider , d i g i t a l AlphaPC164, pond , soekris net6501, misc cool stuff in a rack
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
From Jakobstad, Finland
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Help: sgi cube logo gif at July 14, 2012, 8:22 a.m...

geo wrote: ah actually if you can send me the frames in monochrome bitmap

I'll have a look at making a cleaner one, there's a little too much going on in reflections and things making the dithering
a little ugly... Simple works best with low res and few colors in my experience.

geo wrote: btw duck, as soon i get one done, will do my best to give you one

Swag! Awesome! \o/

halo , oct ane

knightrider , d i g i t a l AlphaPC164, pond , soekris net6501, misc cool stuff in a rack
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
From Jakobstad, Finland
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Help: sgi cube logo gif at July 22, 2012, 10:19 p.m...

Wow, that looks cool :-)

halo , oct ane

knightrider , d i g i t a l AlphaPC164, pond , soekris net6501, misc cool stuff in a rack
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
From Jakobstad, Finland
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Help: sgi cube logo gif at July 23, 2012, 12:44 a.m...

geo wrote: so i guess the best effect is the sgicube_none, what you think?

btw don't get discouraged on the not so smooth display panel, that is the touchpanel with plastic cover on it hehe coz this is my development board for one of my projects here

Hmm, possibly, I feel the Riemersma dithering gives more of a 3d-effect, but the jittering of the dithering might be distracting (hard to tell from the video)

halo , oct ane

knightrider , d i g i t a l AlphaPC164, pond , soekris net6501, misc cool stuff in a rack
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.
and authored 344 notes

Wrote on the subject of Onyx Product Guide at July 29, 2012, 4:11 a.m...

I want to listen to Black Hole Sun now.

_________________
:Octane:

halo , oct ane
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
From Jakobstad, Finland
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Help: sgi cube logo gif at Aug. 2, 2012, 11:11 a.m...

The median filter looks good, and if you have the software then temporal dithering could also be done.. My ImageMagick doesn't support ordered bayer dithering, but that could work too (the dots stay in a grid and just differ in "intensity")

As an aside, I made this for my g+ profile page just because I had the cube animation all set up... (See attachment, forum image scaling screws it up)

halo , oct ane

knightrider , d i g i t a l AlphaPC164, pond , soekris net6501, misc cool stuff in a rack
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
From Jakobstad, Finland
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Help: sgi cube logo gif at Aug. 4, 2012, 5:04 a.m...

hamei wrote:

duck wrote: ... my ImageMagick doesn't support ordered bayer dithering ...

Don't know if it supports layered dithering either but duck - try Graphics Magick. Much better operation over mutiple cpus, faster, more stable, better guys running it. Bob Friesenhan (sp ?) knows his stuff, is very responsive to questions or complaints. It compiles with MIPSPro no problem.

I'll have a look. Thanks for the tip.

halo , oct ane

knightrider , d i g i t a l AlphaPC164, pond , soekris net6501, misc cool stuff in a rack
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.
and authored 344 notes

Wrote on the subject of VMS ‘swoosh’ logo with Vernon at Aug. 17, 2012, 4:20 a.m...

Interesting console... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rsts_V10.1.png (this picture was at the top of the above mentioned wikipedia article at the time of my looking)

_________________
:Octane:

halo , oct ane
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.
and authored 344 notes

Wrote on the subject of VMS ‘swoosh’ logo with Vernon at Aug. 17, 2012, 8:55 p.m...

uridium wrote:

Hi Sir Duck!

Yeah.. what is the deal with that console? Guessing it's just a wallpaper in the background and some punter's project looking glass desktop? ..or am I completely wrong?

Al

Sodomy Non Sapiens. VMS is NMF :-)

_________________
:Octane:

halo , oct ane
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.
and authored 344 notes

Wrote on the subject of VMS ‘swoosh’ logo with Vernon at Aug. 18, 2012, 1:36 a.m...

uridium wrote:

duck wrote:

Sodomy Non Sapiens. VMS is NMF :-)

What's all that about?

Sodomy Non Sapiens is a Pratchettism, "Buggered if I know" and NMF stands for Not My Field. See disclaimer below.

_________________
:Octane:

halo , oct ane
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
Donor
From Jakobstad, Finland
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of my first port: gXipmsg at Aug. 30, 2012, 1:40 a.m...

Is there a router inbetween? 255.255.255.255 is link-local and will not be passed through routers. You'll need to extract the network broadcast address if you want to broadcast to an amorphous network.

halo , oct ane

knightrider , d i g i t a l AlphaPC164, pond , soekris net6501, misc cool stuff in a rack
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
Donor
From Jakobstad, Finland
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of my first port: gXipmsg at Aug. 30, 2012, 2:33 a.m...

geo wrote:

duck wrote: Is there a router inbetween? 255.255.255.255 is link-local and will not be passed through routers. You'll need to extract the network broadcast address if you want to broadcast to an amorphous network.

hi duck! hmm i think so coz im testing this here in our office. but if so, how come if i run this same application under cygwin, solaris, ubuntu, and winxp on the same PC, they all are fine, so maybe there something about configuration needed on freebsd? yes i read about extracting broadcast address and i tried that option, but this will limit me compared of using 255.255.255.255

Some OSes only allow root to send broadcast messages, perhaps that's it?

Googled around for a bit and found this tidbit... still extant perhaps? http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/free ... 08626.html

halo , oct ane

knightrider , d i g i t a l AlphaPC164, pond , soekris net6501, misc cool stuff in a rack
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
Donor
From Jakobstad, Finland
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of my first port: gXipmsg at Aug. 30, 2012, 6:52 a.m...

geo wrote:

duck wrote: Googled around for a bit and found this tidbit... still extant perhaps? http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/free ... 08626.html

wow! i think this is perfect match on my case, thanks for this great find! but hmm as mentioned inside, he resolve it by using the networks broadcast address instead of 255.255.255.255, in which i already tried and will affect the area of my broadcasting. unlike using 255.255.255.255, this can still go to other subnets. i wonder how windows handled this...

oh! wait! i read you link again and now i realize i missed something on his resolution, its the MAC address! so i guess i need to hard code so that when i broadcast to 255.255.255.255, i will send it to MAC address ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff, right?

geeez if this works, i owe you much duck! btw, the rotating cube logo still on queue for you

I just had a friend ping 255.255.255.255 on his FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE, it seems to have the same flaw. My NetBSD system does not. (obviously, netbsd rocks ;-)

I guess sending to the right MAC will work, but you'll be assembling raw packets by then...

More on this, an official, ignored, bug report: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-bugs/2006-June/019201.html

See also message thread beginning at: http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/htdig/freebsd-net/2007-January/012874.html

halo , oct ane

knightrider , d i g i t a l AlphaPC164, pond , soekris net6501, misc cool stuff in a rack
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
Donor
From Jakobstad, Finland
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of my first port: gXipmsg at Aug. 30, 2012, 7:34 a.m...

geo wrote:

duck wrote: I just had a friend ping 255.255.255.255 on his FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE, it seems to have the same flaw. My NetBSD system does not. (obviously, netbsd rocks

oh! ok thanks for confirming, then not all BSD have this flaw then hehe time to download NetBSD and OpenBSD and give them a try tomorrow to see which is which for my BSD makefile

duck wrote: I guess sending to the right MAC will work, but you'll be assembling raw packets by then...

hmm im not sure what you mean here but what i thought at first is i just need to fill some items on the struct sockaddr_in that will contain the MAC address? but when checking the structure it doesn't have, my wrong assumption about

encapsulates the packet using the MAC address

so how does the encapsulation done? btw, no problem with assembling raw packets here, i guess already done this inside

duck wrote: More on this, an official, ignored, bug report: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/free ... 19201.html

hmm so this indeed a flaw.. why did they ignore this? tsk3.. anyway thanks for this infos duck really help, so i guess will try the encapsulation of MAC just for FreeBSD then, will see tomorrow

Seems like I was a little hasty, there was some discussion about it (actual PR here: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=99558&cat= ), however I'm not really sure how they can call it fixed if it isn't :-)

As for sockaddr_in, no you can't just set the target MAC there, you will have to assemble IP packets and use a raw socket to work around it that way. It might however be possible with some freebsd specific option, that IP_ONESCAST Thing they talk about to make undirected broadcasts work properly.

halo , oct ane

knightrider , d i g i t a l AlphaPC164, pond , soekris net6501, misc cool stuff in a rack
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
Donor
From Jakobstad, Finland
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of my first port: gXipmsg at Aug. 30, 2012, 10:14 a.m...

FreeBSD's ip(4) man page has the gist of how to use it:

Code: Select all


If the IP_ONESBCAST option is enabled on a SOCK_DGRAM or a SOCK_RAW


socket, the destination address of outgoing broadcast datagrams on that


socket will be forced to the undirected broadcast address,


INADDR_BROADCAST, before transmission.  This is in contrast to the


default behavior of the system, which is to transmit undirected broad-


casts via the first network interface with the IFF_BROADCAST flag set.




This option allows applications to choose which interface is used to


transmit an undirected broadcast datagram.  For example, the following


code would force an undirected broadcast to be transmitted via the inter-


face configured with the broadcast address 192.168.2.255:




char msg[512];


struct sockaddr_in sin;


u_char onesbcast = 1;   /* 0 = disable (default), 1 = enable */




setsockopt(s, IPPROTO_IP, IP_ONESBCAST, &onesbcast, sizeof(onesbcast));


sin.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr("192.168.2.255");


sin.sin_port = htons(1234);


sendto(s, msg, sizeof(msg), 0, &sin, sizeof(sin));




It is the application's responsibility to set the IP_TTL option to an


appropriate value in order to prevent broadcast storms.  The application


must have sufficient credentials to set the SO_BROADCAST socket level


option, otherwise the IP_ONESBCAST option has no effect.

It lives here

halo , oct ane

knightrider , d i g i t a l AlphaPC164, pond , soekris net6501, misc cool stuff in a rack
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
Donor
From Jakobstad, Finland
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of my first port: gXipmsg at Sept. 3, 2012, 10:20 p.m...

dirname(realpath(argv[0])) should be a handy enough trick to get the path, at least on unix.

halo , oct ane

knightrider , d i g i t a l AlphaPC164, pond , soekris net6501, misc cool stuff in a rack
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.
and authored 384 notes

Wrote on the subject of 3D Studio at Sept. 5, 2012, 2:12 a.m...

vishnu wrote:

I've got Maya 6.5 on my Octane2 (dual 600 V12 w/ 8 gig RAM) and so far it's still covering all the bases for me. The Intel/Nvidia stuff is light years ahead of it in terms of speed and Maya development maxed out at 6.5 on Irix, but really, 6.5 is pretty nearly feature complete. Maya 2012 is full of brand new widgets that do the exact same thing in a completely different way... :lol:

Well, Maya in many ways operates like a script interpreter with an UI on top, sometimes the feature implementation that calls the script engine (as in shell script, not movie script) are either rough or nonexistent. I presume this is what's being worked on in the more recent Maya releases. Sometimes it would be nice to have a bit more refined UI to work with. And less crashy when undoing. And with a mental ray compatible with one I can find for windows... Oh well. :-)

_________________
:Octane:

halo , oct ane
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.
and authored 363 notes

Wrote on the subject of [Windows] Make virtualbox image out of installed system? at Sept. 5, 2012, 1:13 p.m...

I would expect you to run into issues where the emulated hardware isn't close enough to the actual metal, and drivers aren't installed. What you might have some luck with is producing a sysprep image from the installed OS. This should roll in everything that's there, but do some first-time setup like drivers when you boot it for the first time.

I made one of these for WinXP to quickly refresh clients' virus-riddled installations to something usable at one time. Never really used it though.

_________________
:Octane:

halo , oct ane
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.
and authored 363 notes

Wrote on the subject of [Windows] Make virtualbox image out of installed system? at Sept. 7, 2012, 2:31 a.m...

bluecode wrote:

duck wrote:

What you might have some luck with is producing a sysprep image from the installed OS. This should roll in everything that's there, but do some first-time setup like drivers when you boot it for the first time.

Sounds interesting. What is sysprep and is it free? I'll go a'lookin' and a'searchin'.

Thanks

Wikipedia delivers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sysprep

I have to say I was (mis-)remembering that it was built in, apparently not. Still google should provide :-)

_________________
:Octane:

halo , oct ane
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.
and authored 384 notes

Wrote on the subject of 3D Studio at Sept. 8, 2012, 5:21 a.m...

vishnu wrote:

Yes you can do everything Maya does from it's scripting language, Maya Embedded Language aka MEL, without ever using the UI. Are you saying Mental Ray doesn't come with the Windows version? I've never used a non-IRIX version...

No the problem is compatiblity. Maya 6.5 is old , and MR 3.4 is not compatible [for remote rendering] with 3.5 and so forth. No rendering on the fast, new, PC (Maya for windows of course lacking a dispatcher); which is a bummer because I really much prefer to model on IRIX.

_________________
:Octane:

halo , oct ane
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.
and authored 384 notes

Wrote on the subject of 3D Studio at Sept. 11, 2012, 5:12 a.m...

vishnu wrote:

Uh, I'm pretty sure the current version of Mental Ray is 3.1... :shock:

Which, considering that version 3.0 came out 10 years ago seems to indicate that Mental Images considers it to be a finished product...

Hmm, I must have been thinking of MRfM versions, in any event they've been incompatible to any version I've found (Perhaps the standalone had to be 3.0? I don't remember anymore)

_________________
:Octane:

halo , oct ane
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.
and authored 344 notes

Wrote on the subject of sgiquake at Nov. 8, 2012, 6:42 a.m...

Does anyone remember if sgiquake ran well on mardigras octanes? I seem to have a problem where the fullscreen flashes cause massive slowdowns on odyssey, and the variable to disable it (gl_polyblend) makes it kill Xsgi when set to a value (0 or 1, same difference).

Nostalgic gameplay urge got me a sad face instead :-(

Q2 runs, but just not in fullscreen (tries to set the video mode which my LG flat panel doesn't like)

_________________
:Octane:

halo , oct ane
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.
and authored 344 notes

Wrote on the subject of sgiquake at Nov. 8, 2012, 8:16 a.m...

Thanks, I'll have a look :-)

Edit: nice, but the input latency is terrible, even with the fancy effects turned off, also the sky bugs.

_________________
:Octane:

halo , oct ane
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.
and authored 344 notes

Wrote on the subject of sgiquake at Nov. 11, 2012, 11:25 a.m...

canavan wrote:

What kind of hardware are you using (it worked pretty well in stereo, fullscreen at 1024x768 on a 400MHz V6 Octane)? Do you have consistent bugs with the sky, or only in specific places if you look exactly straight ahead?

The two main problems with darkplaces I currently know of are that the screen stays black on O2s, and that the stereo 3d projection is vomit inducing, since I can't fuse the weapon models.

It runs fine in 1920x1200 on my dual-300MHz R12k/V12 frankenoctane, the graphics are fast, it's just the input that seems to be falling behind. Having to anticipate where monsters will move is a bit of a chore.

The sky in the difficulty-choosing level was glitching pretty bad, torn textures and framerates dropped tremendously when it was in view. I just turned the sky off from there on.

_________________
:Octane:

halo , oct ane
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.
and authored 344 notes

Wrote on the subject of sgiquake at Nov. 13, 2012, 10:28 a.m...

Axatax wrote:

Does the original sgiquake actually use OpenGL or it software only?

There's a bunch of binaries in the original; quake.{sw,gl}{,.r10k,.o32}. In these, the sky works fine on odyssey. It's actually faster than the neko one, apart from the gl_polyblend thing.

_________________
:Octane:

halo , oct ane
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.
and authored 344 notes

Wrote on the subject of Android Phones at Nov. 14, 2012, 9:47 a.m...

fu wrote:

what's considered a decent android phone rockers & gators?

other than fiddling for a few seconds w/ demo units in store, ive never really used any of them. i read online that each manufacturer bloats/tweeks the core android os for their product line and only the nexus series come w/ a lean+mean version of the OS.

what would you suggest to an older person w/ minimal needs (email, family video-calls). do android phones boogie with iPhones nicely?

(mod team: if you think that this should better be under "Misc OS/Hardware", please teleport accordingly )

These days, pretty much any Android phone is nice and usable (v7 CPU over 1GHz). Long gone are the days of the A32 chugging along with a 528MHz ARMv6 and OpenGL ES 1.1.

What to look for is hardware capabilities, some have really nice screens, NFC and whatnot, while others do not.

The big hurdle these days is (in the US) operator bloatware and (in the US and everywhere else) OS updates which on non-nexus devices, the manufacturer incentive is to sell a new phone instead of producing updates on their proprietary driver blobs. Yes, they are required to release the kernel source, but this is far from the whole
package required, often custom ROMs[1] do not have complete camera support due to missing drivers.

Right now however, the Nexus 4 is out, which apparently is a brilliant device, cheap and capable (but without MicroSD card reader and LTE radio). And also out of stock. Apart from the Nexus series, I would look for a popular high-end device, perhaps last generation if the price is too much. This means that they will have good custom ROM support, and you can get something like CyanogenMod[2] for it which is a great ROM that I've been running
on my HTC phones since CM6.

But, I hear you cry, is it suitable for non-geeks?

Well, I don't know, being somewhat of one myself, but do I know of one decidedly non-geeky girl who suffered some odd, cheap Samsung, and my mom picked Android right up when she took my battered old HTC Hero (CM7.2) for a replacement phone, phoning, texting and facebooking after helping her remember her passwords. (I'll be trying to get her a Nexus 4 for Christmas. Don't tell)

As for boogying with iPhones, all the standard protocols should work, whatever else you might mean i do not know :-)

But what about all this rooting and stuff, I don't want to have to do that!

Well, don't then. These days, as of the generation of phones launched this year, the Android skinning has been stepped down a fair bit (apart from HTC who persist with their bloody Sense). Reports from the one news source I can be arsed to read[3] say that both motorola not-blur-anymore and samsung touchwiz have been significantly reduced. OS update support is still a problem of course, but beware of making this a bigger horse than it is. The key here is again, select a popular device. Sony have previously been very good at providing updates for older hardware, but lately seem to have been losing interest.

Anyway, Android still is a bit of a minefield if you want the edge devices and absolutely crave the bleeding edge software, as my brother who chose a HTC Desire HD knows well. He does have a Jellybean ROM though, courtesy of some weirdo at XDA[4].

Who knows, maybe the immense desire for the Nexus 4 will kick the other manufacturers in the butt (I hear the N4 sold out in 30 minutes in the UK) and we'll get the option of not using their skin.

END ramble.

[1] custom ROM meaning any firmware for a given phone made by a third party, either by hacking together binary bits or building from source (like CyanogenMod[2])
[2] http://www.cyanogenmod.org/
[3] http://theverge.com/
[4] http://forum.xda-developers.com/

_________________
:Octane:

halo , oct ane
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.
and authored 344 notes

Wrote on the subject of Android Phones at Nov. 18, 2012, 4:39 a.m...

That's amazing. It hadn't even occurred to me that iOS might not even let you do bluetooth file transfers, but I guess it makes sense if you can't see files. Way back when I still had my Hero there used to be all kinds of software where you could pass files (or image objects or whatever) via the (mobile) network, I think one was even so that you had to wave your phone (accelerometer) and then it would fly off to the nearest (location) device... :-)

I'm fairly sure these existed for iOS as well, fuzzy memories seem to indicate that I tried it with my brothers ipod touch.

_________________
:Octane:

halo , oct ane
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.
and authored 384 notes

Wrote on the subject of SATA in O2 with ARS-2160H at Nov. 23, 2012, 10:29 p.m...

Now these converters look really nice. What would be a good european/nordic source for them I wonder.

_________________
:Octane:

halo , oct ane
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.
and authored 344 notes

Wrote on the subject of Thinking about cars (wankel cars)... at Nov. 24, 2012, 11:36 a.m...

I don't know shit about cars, but surely pre-DSG automatic transmissions is something to avoid like the plague. That is unless you happen to be a car fanatic or masochist, but I repeat myself.

Edit: DSG not DGS idiot.

_________________
:Octane:

halo , oct ane
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.
and authored 384 notes

Wrote on the subject of SATA in O2 with ARS-2160H at Nov. 28, 2012, 3:26 a.m...

rooprob wrote:

Quote:

Now these converters look really nice. What would be a good european/nordic source for them I wonder.

Nice guys at this outfit Active Network Systems Ltd | Tel: +44 (0)1480 437997 | Fax: +44 (0)1480 436031 | [email protected] | http://www.ans-ltd.co.uk

Pricey at £150 inc VAT and delivery for one but they did say they can get a price on a bulk order. If we can get the price down to £100 with others here I'll pitch in for one more.

Waargh! That's way out of my toy budget I'm afraid.

_________________
:Octane:

halo , oct ane
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
From Jakobstad, Finland
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of My new computer room at Dec. 5, 2012, 8:30 a.m...

Fly me over and I'll take you a 360x180 degree panorama you can stick in a VR player (Yes, I got a new toy, a Nodal Ninja 3 MK II. I like to do this sort of thing (tmp url, may go away) :-)

halo , oct ane
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
From Jakobstad, Finland
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of My new computer room at Dec. 6, 2012, 6:47 a.m...

vishnu wrote:

duck wrote: Yes, I got a new toy, a Nodal Ninja 3 MK II. I like to do this sort of thing (tmp url, may go away)

Wow, that's an amazing pic!

Thanks! I will be taking more as work/cat allows... Have made some before, but before the ninja they all had a
lot of misalignments due to parallax shifts. In case it's not totally obvious, it's a stereographic projection of a 37 image stitched panorama (I use a 14mm lens so quite few pictures). Original resolution is just over 12000x12000 pixels.

Pontus wrote: Looking good jan-jaap. It's coming together.

Me, I'm at this stage: <snip>

Ooh, raised flooring... Expensive, no doubt?

halo , oct ane
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
From Jakobstad, Finland
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of My new computer room at Dec. 6, 2012, 9:19 a.m...

sgtprobe wrote:

duck wrote: Fly me over and I'll take you a 360x180 degree panorama you can stick in a VR player (Yes, I got a new toy, a Nodal Ninja 3 MK II. I like to do this sort of thing (tmp url, may go away)

That's just awesome.

Show us more, please

/Jonas

I'll fork off a thread when I have more (The old ones are crap, you don't want to see them *waves hand*)

halo , oct ane
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.

duck
Who joined Oct. 27, 2003, 5:22 p.m.
and authored 363 notes

Wrote on the subject of Stereographic panoramas at Dec. 6, 2012, 12:59 p.m...

Since there was a request, here's a preview of the latest one (getting late and I can't twiddle more. The alignment is still slightly off and it's not quite centered to my liking). I didn't check the camera mount before going downstairs and it seems I didn't get it straight.

_________________
:Octane:

halo , oct ane
N.B.: I tend to talk out of my ass. Do not take it too seriously.