Category Archives: Technology

Mac Mice & Keyboards

April 24, 2020 Marshall Leave a comment

In the past have always used Apple mice and keyboards with our Macs. Recently built a new home desktop hackintosh and a flakey old Mighty Mouse led me to look at other options. OMG I wish I had done this earlier. Replaced an old Apple wired keyboard with a Das Keyboard 4 Professional and it is very nice to type on. But I actually think I am going to take it to work, where lighting is brighter and more constant, and have ordered a Logitech MX Keys, which seems to be among the best of the backlit options, which is something I often wish I had when ducking in to the home office to look something up quickly without bothering to turn the lights on. I replaced my Apple Mighty Mouse with a Logitech MX Master 2S, and it is better in so many ways:

Ergonomics, it is comfortable
Good sensor that even works on glass, which is what my desk surface is, so no more mouse pads or pieces of paper
Better Bluetooth connection, my Mighty Mouse was at -57db, the Logitech is reading -46db, so it must have a MUCH better antenna

I have ordered a Logitech MX Master 3, which is supposed to be a little better for left to right scrolling with the thumb. The 2S will go to my office when the 3 comes in.

Audio, Computers, Software, Technology

Modern Home Audio & Video – Roon and Plex

February 15, 2016 Marshall Leave a comment

I am in the process of updating our home audio and video distribution and am of the opinion that Roon is the way to go with music, and Plex is the way to go with video. You could go with a whole-home system like Crestron or Control4, but Roon and Plex are more focused applications with deeper functionality, and they play nice with each other and with hardware most people already have.

Roon is a great way to explore and send music around the home, including sending high resolution music to high quality endpoints. Probably best from a large touchscreen computer, but also great using an iPad to control. I have the server running on a small hackintosh with files sitting on NAS. I am re-ripping a few CDs to replace lossy files with lossless ones now using dBpoweramp, which is the way to go, good for meta data and lets you check accuracy of rips. I maintain an iTunes library on an old Mac Pro, and sync the library out to the NAS every once in awhile. Roon also includes integration of our TIDAL account. I have written more on Roon in another post, for serious listening I am using a Meridian endpoint with Meridian DSP speakers.

Plex seems like a great way to browse and distribute video content, and I recently set up a hackintosh Plex server with 24TB (4x6TB WD Reds) of storage in RAID0, and another 24TB (3x8TB Seagate archiving HDs) of storage for a backup. I use RipIt to move DVDs to the hard drive, and then Handbrake to create m4v files for Plex. In the rare case where there is a problem with Handbrake I use MakeMKV to create mkv files, which Handbrake can then transcode to m4v. I also use MakeMKV to create mkv files from BluRay discs, and then Handbrake to create reasonably sized m4v files. I am tossing all of my DVDs and keeping the RipIt generated copies on the Plex server. BluRays for now I am keeping the discs, mkv files are just a little too big. For things I have purchased on iTunes, I use Tune4Mac iTunes Video Converter Platinum to strip off DRM and put copies in the Plex library. I use Plex Home Theater (running on my Roon server) to send video to the main screen in the house (75 inch Samsung) with audio going to the Meridian system (Plex Home Theater interface is not so great, I find it is easier to control it remotely using the Plex app on an iPad). The Plex server can also be accessed using tablets, and unlike Roon server can even be accessed outside the home, transcoding to deal with the more limited bandwidth for that. Very slick. I used to think it would be nice to have a Kaleidescape system, but now I think Plex is better and at a small fraction of the cost (PRIMA Cinema is still pretty cool for stuff in theaters, but crazy expensive, more for people who have to worry about Paparazzi). I went overboard with my Plex server, it is an i7 4790 with 32GB of memory, and as I described already, a lot of storage. Pic below.

Audio, Computers, Technology

Roon, Meridian, and High-End Distributed Audio

October 23, 2015 Marshall Leave a comment

Long time Meridian fanboy and owner here, I think their DSP speakers sound great and the preservation of the digital path until the last possible moment appeals to my inner nerd. Our gear is getting a bit old but still sounds great, a 568.2MM with DSP5500 mains, a DSP5000C, and DSP33 rears. For distributed audio we were early Sonos adopters and have five additional zones in our home, and use the Sonos to feed the Meridian system with lossless files on a NAS and also Tidal hi-res streaming. Works pretty well, though multiple remotes are involved, a MSR and an iPad. The Sonos zones are decent quality ceiling speakers, for non-critical/casual listening.

My wife and I are in the process of having a new home designed which we will then have built, so I have been doing some thinking about how we will handle audio in the new home. Which home will be a bit smaller so maybe fewer audio zones, so thinking to have higher quality speakers and more tightly integrated systems would be nice.

I think the reason we went Sonos instead of Sooloos was mainly that I don’t much care for expensive proprietary boxes that are little more than cheap computers, albeit with some good software. Sonos might have had the UI going a little bit earlier too.

Meridian ditching the proprietary Sooloos boxes, allowing the core to run on a QNAP, got me more excited about doing Meridian DSP in-walls for a few zones in the new home, so I got a MS200 to be able to play with that for a bit now. But Meridian has been slow to deliver on the QNAP core (though I saw it running in their NYC office a couple of months ago), and then I stumbled on Roon, developed by the Sooloos people, ready for prime time, not tied to any particular hardware, but plays nice with Meridian, I was sold. I didn’t even bother with the trial, I plonked down for a lifetime subscription.

I hooked the MS200 up to our 568 with a Reviver, loaded Roon server up on a quad-core i7 hackintosh we use as a HTPC, and it was pretty much off to the races, we have the server watching the music on the NAS and our Tidal account is linked up. The 568 does not power on/off with the Roon app, but volume control working fine. My wife and I are still getting used to the Roon app (actually we are still getting used to the Tidal app too), but my sense is that this is what we will be using in our new home, probably moving the server to a large touchscreen PC, seems like people are using Lenovos or HPs, 27″ might be a little big for living area, I am thinking a 24″.

Computers, Technology

SIP/VoIP For Home, Callcentric and Panasonic KX-TGP500

July 30, 2014 Marshall 1 Comment

I have put a couple of businesses on, and for work am currently using, SIP phones with OnSIP hosting services, which for the most part works great. Very reasonable, and the flexibility is nice, the ability to use multiple phones, smart phones, and soft phones. Recently I decided to go over to SIP phones at home too, pulling the plug on the “triple-play” line and a Vonage line, both also VoIP, via analog phones and thus handcuffed to the phone wiring in the house, amongst other things.

OnSIP does not really offer anything that makes sense for home use, you used to be able to have a totally a la carte account, but now I think you have to have a plan. So I poked around and settled on Callcentric, and ported the Vonage and triple play numbers over. Initially I went with snom m9r DECT phones, but my wife didn’t like them because they are pretty small, small buttons, hard to read, etc. We had Panasonic wireless phones before, so to get her with the program I then went with the Panasonic KX-TGP500 and an extra KX-TPA50 handset. Form factor of the phones is similar to their wireless phones that work with an analog phone line. Setup of these phones with Callcentric was not completely straight forward, so this note. By the way, the Callcentric support is pretty good. You support a ticket and in short order you have a reply, and you can go back and forth several times in an hour or two and they got me sorted out (they did not have experience with Panasonic phones, but told me there were users with the same phone, and were happy for me to send them screen shots of configuration screens to get things going).

The Panasonic documentation, on the other hand, is fairly lame. I think there was a Quick Guide, a User Manual, and an Administrator Manual, the latter two running into the hundreds of pages. I did manage to find how to access the web portal once the base unit is connected to the Internet. I used IP Scanner to find the base unit, but if you put the IP address into your browser nothing happens. Not like other SIP phones (Polycom, Cisco, snom, at least). You actually have to enable the web user interface, which you do from a handset by pressing the menu button, and then #534, and turning on “EmbeddedWeb.” That is intuitive (not). The default username and password for the base unit are admin and adminpass respectively (that is somewhere in the manuals too, maybe).

Here are the SIP settings to get the phone registered with Callcentric:

And here are the VoIP settings:

Restart the phone (Maintenance tab), and you will get this:

I should probably do another post on Callcentric, but like I said, their support is good, don’t be scared to ask them questions. The gotcha for me was trying to have multiple devices registered with an Extension, which was a carryover from the User based OnSIP administration. Callcentric is extension-based, one device per extension.

Computers, Software, Technology

Inexpensive Virtual Data Room Solution

June 23, 2013 Marshall 1 Comment

As a small business owner working in financial services it has always bugged me how expensive good virtual data room solutions were, with pretty much anything that is any good only being offered as SAS (software as a service) with what I always thought was overly high pricing (two if the biggies/oldies, Intralinks and FilesAnywhere, don’t even include pricing on their websites, which to me is a red flag). So we have muddled along using DropBox and ftp through a hosting service like Hostgator. Former creates copies of everything on everyone’s computers, and the less tech savvy often have problems with the latter. Neither project a particularly professional image.

I don’t know why I didn’t find it sooner, but I recently stumbled on an application called Rumpus, a “complete internet file transfer solution for the Macintosh.” Here is why I like this application:

Runs on a Mac
Users can access a simple to use interface through any browser
Easy to set up, but good functionality for user permissions, security, and creation of a branded/customized site
Can log user activity
Allows users to retrieve and/or change their passwords (with no administrator intervention)
Reasonable cost, a Mac, an internet connection, and the software is $269 for 32 users/simultaneous active sessions and $449 for unlimited users and 256 simultaneous active sessions

Here are the steps to set up:

Grab a domain, or create a sub-domain of an existing domain (e.g., files.yourdomain.com), and point it (setting the A record) at the fixed IP address of a Mac Mini (probably possible to set up on an existing server, but I opted for simplicity/stability of dedicating a computer to this service), I also set the reverse DNS with our ISP, but for this service I don’t think this matters (does matter for a mail server)
Acquire and set up a SSL certificate (you could do self-signed, but for the professional image I think better to get one from a certification authority, they are cheap anyway)
Install Rumpus and set up, customize the web settings (keeping simple, or go wild with html templates in the WFMTemplates folder) and make sure connections are forced to HTTPS and FTPS so all data transfers are encrypted
Set up a folder structure that works for your team, use aliases to control/restrict access for vendors/partners (I created a Partner folder and put a folder for each vendor/partner in there, those users get access to those folders only, then I drop an alias of whatever they need to see in their folder)
Hook up a big external drive and turn on Time Machine
Create a backup image of the Mac Mini with SuperDuper once or twice a week (on additional external hard drives), and store at least one of those off site
Set up users and send them a message with their login into (configure so they can retrieve and change their login info)

I would also add that John of Maxum was EXTREMELY responsive to questions I had, leading to me understanding that:

Demo version of Rumpus is for both Standard and Pro versions
You do not have to use Open Directory to set up more than 100 accounts, his view that performance would still be good at 500+ accounts and 20-30 concurrent users

Next up, looking at moving from Evernote to Samepage for team collaboration …

Technology

IP Telephony – Polycom SP335 w/ Netgear Router – OnSIP Rocks

May 21, 2013 Marshall Leave a comment

Would like to do a longer post on what I have learned about IP telephony, but in the meantime just fixed a problem setting a new phone (Polycom SP335) up at the office and have to say I continue to be impressed by our phone system provider, OnSIP. Never have to wait long to speak to a real person, no ridiculous prompts to navigate, and very capable and patient technical support. I was having a problem getting this phone registered with our provider, they were able to look at what was going on remotely, identified the router as the likely culprit, and steered me to a setting that needed to be changed, in WAN Setup, NAT Filtering, I had to check the Disable SIP ALG and the radio button for Open (instead of Secured). I might have figured that out eventually, but thanks to OnSIP I didn’t have to!

Technology, Triathlon

Heart Rate Monitors

February 6, 2013 Marshall Leave a comment

With a long standing interests in fitness and technology I have been around the block with a lot of the different heart rate monitors that have been and are available. Focus here will be on watches that just do heart rate and the ability to get data off the watch. I’ll leave devices that can also do GPS and various bike sensors for another day.

Used to be mainly a Polar guy, but the models after my old Polar S810 have just been hideous, and for a plain old heart rate monitor I like to be able to also use it as a daily-wear watch. I mean look at this thing. Gross!

So after my Polar S810 I think I had a few different Timex models (Ironman Speed & Distance, plain old Ironman, etc.) and at least one Nike (triax elite). Both those brands used a USB dongle to get data to a computer, which is a bit slicker than Polar’s old infrared thing. Polar software was probably better, though none of this stuff was Mac friendly. Timex models were disposable since the bands are not replaceable, for me they last a couple of years. The Nike actually had a replaceable band, which is a nice feature for a somewhat expensive watch.

Next I tried a Suunto t6d. Reasonable size, and seems like they make nice watches (and dive computers, where they really got their start), but pricey, at over $300. But just try getting data off the thing. First I used a clip with their discontinued Suunto Training Manager, and that worked OK. Then I updated a computer or two and I was stuck with their Movescount website and file transfer utility. Former only works sometimes, and latter only lets you export in xls format, which can be uploaded to TrainingPeaks, yay, but not to WKO+, boo. The Suunto chest strap is also lousy, the elastic scrunches up and there are electrical connections where you fasten the strap, which is a bad idea for something that gets soaked with sweat. I get all kinds of spurious heart rate readings with the Suunto. It does have a replaceable band, though (good thing for a $300+ watch).

So I have liked a number of the Garmin devices for GPS and other (I think I have had almost every Forerunner and Edge model), and their software seems to be getting better (they even put out Mac versions), and they now make a daily-wearable heart rate only monitor/watch. So the Garmin FR70 became my current experiment.

I have had it a few days, and I like it.

It is a good size, not too big. Here are pictures (left to right) of it with a Suunto t6d, a Garmin Forerunner 410, and a Garmin Forerunner 910XT. Smallest of the bunch.

Data recording is glitchless, I like the standard and especially their fancier chest strap, which handle sweat well and don’t shrivel up (Suunto, take a look and try to learn). Transferring data to a computer works well, and there is even a TrainingPeaks Device Agent you can use to upload to your TrainingPeaks account.

Nice job Garmin.