• Google Redefines Disruption: The “Less Than Free” Business Model « abovethecrowd.com
  Google has long had an interest in maps. Early in its history, the company added “Maps” as one of the coveted tab alternatives offered at the top of the screen above its famed search box. At that time, Google did what many others did to enter the mapping business – they licensed data from the two duopolists that ruled the mapping business – Tele Atlas and NavTeq. Over the years, as these two companies gained more and more power, and larger and larger market capitalizations, Google’s ambitions were growing too. Google wanted to spread its maps across the web, and to allow others to build on top of its mapping API. The duopolists, recognizing a fox in the henhouse, were apprehensive to allow such activity.
  (tags: google Maps gps android)

• HP EliteBook 2730p Notebook PC -  Download drivers and software – HP Business Support Center
  Download drivers and software
  (tags: tabletpc windows drivers 2730p)

• Dirk’s Photo Blog » Tutorial: Create Your Own Planets
  In this article I will share my experiences with this technique, scribble together some things I found out and I will add a couple of links to help you get more out of it.

  Selecting a Panorama or Photo for Your Planet

  When selecting a photo to start with you should keep the following things in mind:

  * Select a panorama photo or a cropped landscape photo (aspect ratio at least 2:1, which means the width should be at least two times the height).
  * The bottom area (bottom 25% or so) of the photo in most cases should have only very little detail (e.g. sand, asphalt, water). This area will later be in the middle of the picture and will also be distorted the most.
  * The upper area (upper 25%) should also have only little detail, most preferably just one color (e.g. blue sky, night sky etc.).
  * The left and the right border of the photo should neatly fit into each other (which is always the case for a stitched 360° panorama).

  (tags: photography graphics gimp tutorials)

• Deluxe Loop ProStrap Camera Wrist Strap
  Deluxe Loop ProStrap Camera Wrist Strap
  A unique strap designed for cameras that have hard-to-fit strap eyelets.
  Slide buckle adjusts to fit snug against the wrist, preventing accidental drops.
  Now available in eight beautiful leather colors with your choice of polished nickel
  or brass hardware. This particular ProStrap is a great choice for small digitals,
  but strong enough for larger cameras like the Sony A100, Canon EOS 30D
  (tags: photography cameras hardware pen e-p1)
• http://aki-asahi.com/store/html/E-P1/leatherette/EP1.php
  This is Laser Cut product, extremely accurate covering kit.
  This is NOT original kit from Olympus, It is Aki-Asahi's Custom kit.

  Material is Vynil + Fiber,
  glued back and you do not need any glue to install, just peel off from base paper and stick on EP1 body.

  We do not recommend to install for White Version EP1, please use this kit for SILVER version E-P1.

  (tags: photography e-p1 pen hardware cameras)

• Tamron SP Adaptall-2 28-80mm F/3.5-4.2 Model 27A
  Tamron SP 28-80mm F/3.5-4.2 Model 27A: This lens definitely is an above average performer within its class even when compared to OEM lenses of the same era. Optimal optical performance is F/8 to F/11 at all zoom settings, and at these apertures this lens is very sharp. Macro performance is good between F/8 and F/22, but with a moderate drop of contrast in fine details towards the edges of the film plane. This is a very versatile lens which nicely covers the wide angle to slight telephoto zoom range, and which features decent built-in macro performance at the 80mm zoom position when using smaller apertures.
  (tags: photography hardware)

Recent events caused me to re-visit my ADSL connection, and my experiences with what I found may help others here. This article can be found online at http://hindesite.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/improving-adsl-performance/

Background

I’ve been an Orcon customer for many years, and have had a broadband connection through them since the old Jetstart days, probably around six years ago. Quite a few changes have happened to ADSL in NZ over that period, but apart from one change to the plan I was on,  and having to replace one broken router, I’ve always viewed broadband as something that happened in the background and never thought too much about it – it’s there, it’s always on and it works, so it doesn’t require any attention.

Recently, however, my speeds dropped back to what I was actually paying for (other Orcon customers have noticed this, too) and 256k downloads/128k uploads (while fine six years ago) really are painfully slow when using the internet today. Files are much larger, websites are more complex, more data is sent in both directions, and there is a more video and other streaming content – at higher resolutions – which places a lot of demand on bandwidth. There are also more network-connected PCs and other devices at home, all independently doing their own thing using ADSL.

My ADSL connection is always on (“nailed up” is the term sometimes used) and I treat it just as I would any other utility. I’ve never been able to understand the reasoning behind switching off ADSL when nobody is using it – it’s like unplugging your house from the mains or turning off the water until its time to do the dishes or have a shower.

I upgraded from the plan I was on to full speed in both directions – both down and up. Although it costs more, full speed up has a number of advantages – and not just reducing the time it takes to send large emails, upload photos and videos. For example, Bittorrent clients can be run with decent share ratios – in fact it is necessary to manage upstream traffic carefully to avoid exceeding the data allocated to your plan.

I live quite close to a reasonably modern exchange, and after upgrading my plan I was still not getting the speeds that ADSL is currently capable of. A further increase in speed was achieved by upgrading the firmware in my router (now five years old) to make it ADSL2+ capable. Even more speed was achieved by upgrading to newer hardware, with still further increase in speed achieved by upgrading the firmware on that hardware.

In my experience

256/128:

Gets you about 256kb/s (32kB/s) downloads and 128kb/s (16kB/s) uploads. This is slow even when just web browsing, and pretty much precludes listening to internet radio or downloading files while trying to do other things with the network connection.

FS/128:

This is what many of Orcon’s 256/128/40GB customers have been actually getting for the past few years, at no extra cost.

Gets you a boost on download speed to 3.5Mb/s to 4.0Mb/s which is significantly faster than 256/128. Uploading content is still painfully slow (and the internet after all, is supposed to be a two way medium). It is possible to do multiple bandwidth intensive tasks without problems – except for Bittorrent.

Bittorrent is a two-way protocol, and your download speeds are restricted by the client if you have poor share ratios. It is also worth noting that if you don’t restrict your upload speeds to around 8kB/s (say half of your upstream bandwidth) you will notice that your Bittorrent download speeds will drop off quite markedly. This will also affect other uses of the network, with website timeouts and slow page load times.

However, ADSL2+ is supposed to be capable of 24Mb/s download speeds (if you live inside the exchange itself). ADSL2+ Annex A (used in NZ) is capable of about 900kb/s upstream (Annex M, used overseas is capable of up to 3.5Mb/s)

It could be suggested that ISPs are deliberately restricting users to 128kb/s upstream connections (rather than 256kb/s) because the lower upload speed happens to restrict download speeds to around 4Mb/s – and thus reduces data usage by customers and bandwidth demand. There is a article explaining why upstream speed affects downstream speed at http://www.clari.net.au/Customers/Speed/.

FS/FS:

An immediate improvement to ~6Mb/s download, 0.75Mb/s upload.

Everything runs much more smoothly – it is possible to do just about anything on the network without affecting anything else – listen to multiple radio streams and watch NASATV concurrently, for example. Uploading video takes minutes instead of hours (bear in mind, upload speed is now 3 times what the 256/128 download speed was).

ADSL2+:

A further improvement to 8.2Mb/s downloads, 0.75Mb/s up.

Upgrading the router firmware to a more recent version made it ADSL2+ capable – but be careful, it is possible for firmware upgrades to go wrong and render the router useless. Don’t bother upgrading unless you can afford to replace your router, and that you feel you might get some benefit from the extra speed. For some marginal connections this is probably a worthwhile upgrade.

In use, there isn’t a significant improvement in experience but I assume for multiple concurrent users of the connection there will be some benefit.

Overseas sites are considerably slower than Australasia, around 2-3Mb/s.

This and all previous tests were using a 5 year old TRENDnet TW100-BRM504 router.

New(er) ADSL2+ hardware:

Installing a used ZyXEL  P-660H-61 produced an improvement in speeds to about 11.5Mb/s down, 0.80Mb/s up.

Latest firmware for ZyXEL:

This firmware was in fact only released a few months after the original firmware installed in the ZyXEL. Speeds now up to 14.5Mb/s down, 0.80Mb/s up. Interesting to note that speeds are now consistently higher than 11-12Mb/s but vary, possibly depending on network use.

Overseas speeds also improve to 4-5Mb/s in general, again with some variation due to network use.

There is some variation in speeds measured, the above images are all typical but here is my current best result.

Does it matter?

It is worth noting that the higher speed results are all for local servers but they are consistent within Australasia. However, when testing speeds against servers in Asia, US, and Europe, significantly lower speeds are reported – around 2-4Mb/s in fact.

There are very few servers that will send data to you at the full rate of your ADSL connection, so you’ll see most benefit from the higher speeds if you have multiple concurrent users or consistently run multiple bandwidth intensive tasks. However, I have noticed that for a few tasks, I do get the benefit of the extra speed – when downloading videos that appear in my Miro subscriptions, for example I often see download speeds of 800kB/s, and even as high as 1.4MB/s. Miro uses Bittorent to distribute files, so the aggregate download speed may be being shared by several servers.

Ubuntu updates are served locally from Citynet servers, and I see very high speeds when using them – for example:

ISPs manage their own network traffic; for example, there seems to be little doubt that Orcon deliberately throttle YouTube traffic which makes videos load very slowly. It may be possible to work around this by using network proxies – much as is used to access regionally restricted websites like Hulu.

In my opinion, it probably doesn’t matter – if you are getting around 6Mb/s you are probably getting what you pay for and are also likely experiencing the level of responsiveness and speed achievable on ADSL as provided by Telecom in NZ at the current time.

However, apart from bragging rights, achieving a higher ADSL speed means you will automatically benefit as NZ’s ADSL network improves in future. It has improved a lot in the past 6 years, it seems likely it will further improve over the next 6 years.

Remember that there are factors other than speed to consider – for some uses (like streaming, Skype/SIP/VOIP, gaming) network latency, packet loss and jitter are also very important. You can test your connection for these factors at http://pingtest.net.

Conclusion

To summarise – get FS/FS, use modern hardware running the latest firmware. Maintain your house phone wiring and make sure you live close to the exchange. Preferably an ADSL2+ capable exchange (though Telecom are installing upgraded street cabinets, too).

The early gains were easy – I just signed up online for a current plan, and for an extra $5.00/month had effectively increased my broadband speed 24 times (256kb/s to 6Mb/s).  Subsequent increases in speed (a mere doubling to around 12Mb/s) cost nothing as I already had the hardware and firmware updates were readily available but required more effort on my part.

If you already have a FS/128 plan I would consider upgrading to FS/FS – depending on your use of course.

It seemed clear that hardware also played a part, so if you are upgrading your router it is worth considering returning hardware that doesn’t perform.

Feel welcome to leave questions, feedback or your own results in the comments.

Notes:

All tests were run from the same PC and web browser.

All tests were run against http://speedtest.net using the same servers where possible; I highly recommend speedtest.net as it keeps track of your test history and presents the results in useful formats – including as a downloadable .csv file.

Test results can vary wildly, it is important to run multiple tests immediately before and after each change if you want to gain an idea of what sort of improvements you are seeing. The time of day, day of week and even the weather can affect results.

Addendum:

Since we have two ADSL connections at home (one Xtra, one Orcon) I ran a quick comparison with an Xtra account. Hardware is ADSL2+ capable D-Link DSL-502T. The connection appears to be 256kb/s up – so the download speed seems quite slow; ping times of 216ms for such a local connection are terrible.  The results are quite surprising and indicates that your choice of ISP may also be important, but bear in mind that the only known common factor is the distance to the exchange.

• Exclusive: Apple dictated Light Peak creation to Intel, could begin migration from other standards as early as 2010
  Remember how Intel showed off its new, advanced optical standard — Light Peak — this past week on a Hackintosh? Well it turns out there's more to that story than you probably know, and it all leads back to some revealing facts about the connection… literally and figuratively. Engadget has learned — thanks to an extremely reliable source — that not only is Apple complicit in the development of Light Peak, but the company actually brought the concept to Intel and asked them to create it. More to the point, the new standard will play a hugely important role in upcoming products from Cupertino.
  (tags: hardware apple technology networking)
• Light Peak Technology
  Light Peak is the code-name for a new high-speed optical cable technology designed to connect your electronic devices to each other. Light Peak delivers high bandwidth starting at 10Gb/s with the potential ability to scale to 100Gb/s over the next decade. At 10Gb/s, you could transfer a full-length Blu-Ray movie in less than 30 seconds. Optical technology also allows for smaller connectors and longer, thinner, and more flexible cables than currently possible. Light Peak also has the ability to run multiple protocols simultaneously over a single cable, enabling the technology to connect devices such as peripherals, workstations, displays, disk drives, docking stations, and more.
  (tags: technology network apple)

• Why Public Libraries are just a Form of Theft @ Brian Edwards Media
  Why Public Libraries are just a Form of Theft Posted by BE on September 23rd, 2009 bte04711So you’ve just been reading in the paper about the zillions of dollars Dan Brown will make from The Lost Symbol to add to the zillions of dollars he made from The Da Vinci Code and the zillions more he made from the re-release of all his earlier books. And you’re thinking, ‘I should write a book. Even with a fraction of Dan Brown’s royalties, I’d be sitting pretty.’ You would, but you won’t – unless, like Lloyd Jones, you’re shortlisted for the Booker Prize and that’s unlikely. For the rest of us Kiwi hacks, there’s very little money in writing books.
  (tags: copyright)
• Family Holloway » Blog Archive » “Public Libraries are just a Form of Theft” – Brian Edwards
  “Public Libraries are just a Form of Theft” – Brian Edwards Returning to his old hobby horse Brian Edwards writes a scathing article against public libraries categorising it as a “crime” that the public “steal”, that they’re “stingy” and the tirade goes on. Like many copyright extremists, Brian interchangably talks about (1) the theft of a physical work, (2) making a copy perhaps by taking a photo, and (3) looking at a physical work. Only some of these have anything to do with copyright and licensing, and muddling these up is disingenuous. CFF’s Matthew Holloway responded in the comments. It raises the question: If Public Libraries Didn’t Exist, Could You Start One Today? With these kind of views around I sadly doubt it.
  (tags: copyright)
• Fire, Work With Me | The Brunching Shuttlecocks
  As most of you are aware, congress has recently passed as law to allow copyright to be applied to individual works of fire, both in terms of actual fires and in terms of manufactured oxidation potential like matches and lighters. I, for one, am glad to see justice finally served. I mean, think about it. You go through all the work to create a fire, and someone comes up to your fire and pokes a stick in it. They can then walk away, having stolen your fire, and use it for anything. Say they use it to light the ore smelter at a metals processing plant. They'd be making millions off of your fire without having to give you a DIME! Unauthorized fire transfer is exactly like walking into the original firestarter's home, stealing their VCR, TV, and all their tapes of "Earth 2," then sexually violating their household pets on the way out. It's exactly the same, and should be prosecuted as such.
  (tags: copyright)

• John’s Background Switcher « John’s Adventures
  John’s Background Switcher (or JBS for short) periodically changes the background image on your computer (like every hour or every day) to something interesting. You can specify which pictures to choose from: * Individual pictures on your computer. * Folders containing pictures on your computer such as ‘My Pictures’. * Flickr photo sharing – selecting pictures by person, tags, sets or just plain random. You never know what you’re going to get next! * Facebook – your friends photos on your desktop! * Any Media RSS feed – choose pictures from sites like DeviantArt, Photobucket, LOLCats and Zooomr amongst many others! * Phanfare web albums – keep up to date with your friends and family. * smugmug photo galleries – yours, your friends, anybody’s! * Picasa Web Albums – choose from specific albums or any search text. * Webshots – if you’re a Webshots user, you can choose from your photos. * Google Image Search – get pictures from anywhere across the internet
  (tags: windows freeware utilities graphics images)

• Make Compiz Run Smoothly and Without Tearing | Tombuntu
  For a long time it bothered me that Compiz does not seem to run as smoothly as Metacity on my desktop system. With desktop effects switched off, moving windows around the screen would seem smoother. With desktop effects switched on, I’d also notice tearing in areas of the screen with fast motion including in videos. I was fiddling with Compiz settings recently and managed to fix the problem entirely. Now, if your graphics card struggles to run Compiz this will probably not help you. But if you have a decent graphics card (mine is a nVidia GeForce 8600 GT) give this a try if you have noticed this problem.Start CCSM from System->Preferences->CompizConfig Settings Manager. Under the category General, select General Options. Select the Display Settings tab. De-select the Detect Refresh Rate option. Set the Refresh Rate option to match the vertical refresh rate of your display. (I checked my monitor’s on-screen display to verify that it was running 60 Hz.) select the Sync To VBlank option.
  (tags: linux howto graphics ubuntu compiz tweaks)