Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Soundbar

Polk Audio SurroundBAR
Philips Ambisound
Yamaha Digital Sound Projector with Intellibeam

Sunday, June 05, 2011

Small form factor PC

Apple Mac mini Mid 2010 85W 2.7B

Dell Inspiron Zino HD Home Theater PC HTPC AMD Athlon II X2 P360 with with Mobility Radeon HD 5450 MXM 90W 33db 47db (CD)
Noise 3.4B(Idle) 3.5B(HDD) 4.6B(90%CPU) 4.7B(ODD)
AnandTech Review
KitGuru Review Noise
Athlon II X2 P360 is slower than Intel Core 2 Duo P8600, Radeon 5450 is slower than Intel HD Graphics, about the same as Nvidia GeForce 320M

ASRock
Vision 3D Intel Core i7/i5/i3, Nvidia GeForce GT425M, USB 3.0, i3-370M is faster than i5-2415M, NVIDIA GeForce GT425M is faster than most Intel HD Graphics
Vision Core 100HT Intel Core i7/i5/i3, HD Graphics, USB 3.0

HP Pavilion Slimline 5000 Pentium Dual-Core 220W
Noise 3.71B(Idle) 3.91B(Operation)

Shuttle X350 ION fanless 40W Atom D510 Dual Core 1.66GHz Nvidia ION2 $500
浩鑫 XS35 XS35市售三種規格,SE1160, SE2250, XV-250D, 其中XV-250D為搭載NVIDIA ION機種

AOpen MP6X 2nd Generation Core i3/i5/i7 Processors Barebone Silentek 6.0 22db quiet

Lenovo IdeaCentre Q Q150 Atom D510 ION 65W
Lenovo IdeaCentre Q700 Pentium E5200 Dual Core 2.5GHz, GMA X4500, 120W

Acer X3910

Virtual Machines with Modern Linux Distributions

Oracle VM VirtualBox, VirtualBox Extension Pack, Pre-Built Developer VMs, Appliances, Community
VirtualBox Virtual Appliances

VMware Player, Operating Systems Appliances with VMware Tools VMPlayer

Comparison of platform virtual machines 3D acceleration, OpenGL, DirectX, Direct3D

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Video identifiers

DVDPatcher
DVD Patcher is a tool to change the video headers in mpg/mpeg2 video. Change aspect ratio, framerate, resolution/size and bitrate.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Tire Tread Rating and Tread Wear Indicators

safecar.gov Tire Tread
Tire Rating
treadwear, traction, temperature grade
Search Tires Traction AA, Temperature A, Treadwear 400
BF-Goodrich: g- Force T/A Super Sport A/S, g- Force T/A KDWS, TRACTION T/A
Bridgestone: TURANZA LS-V, TURANZA SERENITY "V", "Z" & "W" Spd Rtd, POTENZA RE960AS PP, TURANZA LS-H
Michelin: PRIMACY MXM4, PILOT SPORT A/S PLUS, PILOT SPORT CUP

Michelin Treadwear Indicator
Narrow bands, sometimes called wear bars, that appear across the tread of the tire when only 2/32 inch of tread remains.

Bridgestone Tire Warranty
The tire must not be worn to 2/32 inch (1.6 mm) or less remaining original tread depth (i.e. worn down to the top of the built-in indicators in the tread grooves).

Goodyear Tire Maintenance
Check the Tread Wear Indicator Bar: Located at the bottoms of the tread grooves in several locations around the tire. When a tire is so worn that these bars become visibly flush with the adjacent tread ribs, it’s time to replace the tire.
Or
Take the Penny Test: Simply insert a penny into your tire’s tread groove with Lincoln’s head upside down and facing you. If you can see all of Lincoln’s head, it’s time to replace your tires.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Notebook Computer Noise Emissions

1920x1200 WUXGA laptops,

Apple Products Noise Emissions
MacBook Pro 17-inch, idle 15db, Hard Drive accessing 15db, CD accessing 29db
Sound power 3.0B 3.0B ??

Dell Product Safety, EMC and Environmental Datasheet
Precision M6500, idle 19.7db, HD accessing 28.7db, CD accessing 43.3db
Sound power 2.8B, 3.8B, 4.9B

HP ECO Declarations
HP Product QuickSpecs
EliteBook 8740w Mobile Workstation, idle 32.2db, HD spinning 32.3db,
Sound power 3.5B 3.5B

Lenovo ECO Declarations (Environmental data sheets)
ThinkPad W700, idle 34db, HDD operating 37db
Sound power 4.3B, 4.0B

Monday, April 18, 2011

Tsunami

National Geographic 1896 Japan Tsunami
The Great Wave off Kanagawa - Hokusai 冨嶽三十六景 神奈川沖浪裏 葛飾北斎

三陸沖地震 Seismicity of the Sanriku coast

Historic tsunamis

Tsunami Events where Deaths >= 1
Tsunami Runups where Deaths >= 1
National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) -> National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) -> Marine Geology & Geophysics Division (MGGD) -> Natural Hazards Databases (Data, Images and Education)

Thursday, April 14, 2011

WUXGA 1920x1200 notebooks

HP EliteBook 17" 8730w 8740w 8760w Mobile Workstation with TrackPoint
Dell Precision M6400 M6500 with Track Stick
Lenovo ThinkPad 15.6" W510 T510p T410p Workstation with PointStick

Pointing Stick

Monday, April 04, 2011

USB Audio Interface

*Balanced input/output
*Phantom powered microphone XLR input
*Voice compressor / limiter
--Edirol Cakewalk UA-25EX
--Roland Cakewalk UA-4FX
--Yamaha Audiogram 6
*MIDI
*S/PDIF optical toslink
24bit 96khz

Friday, February 18, 2011

ARM development platforms

ARM Cortex A development platforms

TI OMAP development tools: PandaBoard OMAP 4 Dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore, Imagination Technologies POWERVR SGX540, 1080p $174

ST-Ericsson U8500 Calao Systems SKY-S9500-ULP-C01 A9500 ARM Cortex-A9 1GHz, Mali-400, 1080p $325

Nvidia Tegra 250 development kit Dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore $399

Qualcomm Snapdragon: Snapdragon Mobile Development Platform (MDP) MSM8655 1 GHz Central Processing Unit (CPU), Adreno 205 graphics processing unit (GPU) 720p, $995 with touch screen

Freescale i.MX51 Evaluation Kit ARM Cortex-A8, ARM NEON SIMD media accelerator 720p $699+...

BeagleBoard ARM Cortex-A8, C4: 3530 720GHz, -xM: DM 3730 1Ghz, ARM NEON codecs XGA 1024x768 $149

ARM Mali development platforms

ST-Ericsson MOP500 ST-U8500 with touch screen SMP dual core ARM cortex-A9, Mali-400 GPU (single core) 1080p $... with touch screen

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Sling Media Slingbox

Singbox Guide
Which Slingbox do I have?
SB100 Classic
SB220 Tuner
SB240 AV
SB200 PRO
SB260 SOLO
SB300 PRO-HD

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Screenfont

History of Western typography
Famous Names in Typography
Family Classifications of Type
Roman type
Roman square capitalsOptimaTrajan
Carolingian minuscule Pfeffer Mediæval
France Venice Jenson
Venetian BemboCentaur
French GaramondSabon
English Caslon
England Baskerville
Italy Modern Bodoni

IdentiFont Free Fonts Cardo, Sorts Mill GoudyHack, Cutive Mono (serif)Fira Mono (upper I, lower L, zero)Fira Sans (lower L g many weights), Droid Sans (upper I g no-italic),

Brick.IM fonts Cardo, EB Garamond, Sorts Mill Goudysimilar to Hoefler, switching from Times New Roman

Font Samples

identifont identify fonts, similar font finder
List of all available features, W shape, W serifs, J height, e slanted cross stroke (Aurelia[more modern], True GoldenCloister, ITC Golden TypeItalian Old StyleVeroneseParkinson)

Browser:
Serif: Sorts Mill Goudy
Sans: Fira Sans
Mono: Courier Code

Serif fonts choices:
Mac: Hoefler Text, Georgia (compatibility), Times New Roman (compatibility)
Windows & Linux: Sorts Mill Goudy (ligature, kerning, WfJfi1, no bold),
Cardo (display, ligature, kerning not in Office, WeJfi1, rbbii)
Office: Constantia (ligature, kerning, J, rbbii), Times New Roman (ligature 'Th', kerning), Garamond (WJ, no ligature), Californian FB (e, no ligature, rbi), Sylfaen (ligature, only r)Georgia (compatibility, ligature, no kerning), Source Serif Pro (x-height), Gabriola (kerning, ligature, script)

Sans-Serif fonts choices:
use Serif fonts, kerning, ligature, Candara (no J, for office online, outlook), Corbel (no J), Segoe UI (no J), Fira Sans (no fi), Noto Sans, Droid fonts, , Tahoma (compatibility, no ligature), Verdana (compatibility, no ligature)

Monospace fonts choices:
Mac: Menlo, Monaco, Courier New (compatibility)
Windows & Linux: Courier Code (serif), Source Code Pro, Andale Mono, Courier New (serif, compatibility), Consolas, Nimbus Mono L (serif), Cutive Mono (serif Google)
Office: Courier New (serif, compatibility)

Cardo is the best, large and contains ancient characters

Equivalent size: Hoefler Text 17pt (Crimson Text), Palatino 16pt (Tinos), Cardo 16pt, Times New Roman 16pt, Garamond 18pt (EB Garamond 16pt), Centaur 19pt

Times New Roman
Hoefler Text (Crimson Text)
Garamond (EB GaramondByington)
Goudy (Sorts Mill Goudy)
Bembo (Cardo)
Cloister (humanist Jenson) e slanted cross stroke
Centaur (1 is like I) (CoelacanthMontaga)

Pangram
Grumpy wizards make toxic brew for the evil Queen and Jack
Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs

The State of Web Type - Kerning, Ligature

Microsoft Core fonts for the WebFont rasterization: bitmap=raster pixel, anti-aliasing, hinting, subpixel rendering
sans-serif: Verdana, Arial, Trebuchet MS, Arial Black, Impact
serif: Georgia, Time New Roman
monospace: 1. Andale Mono, Courier New (serif), Webdings
cursive: Comic Sans MS

Google WebFonts

font-size
Understanding font sizing in css-em-px-pt-percent-rem
CSS Units
Units of length: px, em, cm, etc.
Font Size Conversion Chart
Specifying fonts in Web pages: The relationship between FONT SIZE and physical type size
0 6pt xx-small
1 8pt H6 x-small
2 10pt H5 small
3 12pt H4 default medium
4 14pt H3 large
5 18pt H2 x-large
6 24pt H1 xx-large
7 36pt
Toward a standard font size interval system

Web typography

CSS font sampler and survey

CCS font stacks by classification
CCS font stack example with compatibility percentage on Windows and Mac: Hoefler Text, Garamond, Palatino, Time New Roman
Revised Font Stack for various websites Times New Roman, Palatino, Book Antiqua (on Office), Georgia (use lining features), Constantia (use lining numerals), Garamond (on Office, no bold italic), Cambria (O is too narrow), Baskerville (on Office, no bold, italic), Verdana, Tahoma (no italic), Arial (use stylistic set 3 for 'I'), Segoe UI (Windows 8 'I' change), Courier New, ConsolasComic Sans MS
Consider capitalized I, small l, number 1, small o, number 0, capital O.  
JIl1o0Og Default
JIl1o0Og Arial
JIl1o0Og Courier
JIl1o0Og Georgia
JIl1o0Og Helvetica
JIl1o0Og Times
JIl1o0Og Trebuchet
JIl1o0Og Verdana

Microsoft: Tahoma (Segoe UI, Segoe)
Yahoo: Arial
Facebook: Lucida Grande, Lucida Sans Unicode, Verdana

Microsoft Typography Fonts: Office, Office, Games, Other Applications
List of Microsoft Windows fonts
List of typefaces included with Mac OS X

California Job Case: ligatures: fi, fl, ff, ffi, ffl, ae, oe, AE, OE, Teffi, Only Times New Roman has 'Th'
Letter frequency e t a o i n s h r, S A C M P R T B F

Microsoft Word OpenType Options in the Font Dialog Box
Home, Styles, Normal (right click), Modify, Formatting, Fonts, Advanced, (Times New Roman, Constantia; Verdana)
1. Ligatures: Standard, Contextual, Historical, Discretionary (will cause Palatino to use st, ct ligatures)
2. Number spacing: Proportional, Tabular
3. Number forms: Lining, Old-Style
4. Stylistic sets: Arial 3 has good 'I', Trebuchet 3 has capitalized lower alphabets
5. Use Contextual Alternates

Restore Word original template Normal.dotm delete it from C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates

LaTex fontsRecent TeX fonts, fbb Bembo, garamondx
The Beauty of LaTex: kerning, ligatures, Teffi
Pinyin fonts

Google Fonts
Google DocsHeadings
1. Select text, change font (Garamond, Gentium Book Basic, Times New Roman), size (12)
2. Normal text, Update 'Normal text' to match
3. Options, Save as my default styles

Windows 99%: 11
sans-serif: Tahoma, Microsoft Sans Serif, Arial, Verdana, Trebuchet MS, Impact
serif: Times New Roman, Georgia
monospace: Courier New (serif), Lucida Console
cursive: Comic Sans MS

Mac 95%: 11
sans-serif: Helvetica, Lucida Grande, Geneva, Monaco, Arial, Verdana, Helvetica Neue, Trebuchet MS
serif: Times, Georgia, Times New Roman
monospace (fixed width): Courier (serif)

Width:
Verdana, Tahoma, Arial, Microsoft Sans Serif, Georgia, Trebuchet MS, Times New Roman, Garamond, Calibri

Monospaced: check Illegal1=O0| '------======______'
Monospaced Fonts Graphic Samples
1. DejaVu Sans Mono
2. Andale Mono
VIM: the perfect programming fontGohu copy files to .font and use fc-cache -f -v for linux
1. Gohufont 11, 14 px, 2. DejaVu Sans Mono, 3. Andale Mono
Font Survey: 42 of the Best Monospaced Programming FontsDina 10 point too small, DejaVu Sans Mono, Andale Mono (lighter)
10 Alternative Monospace Fonts for Programmers
TOP 10 PROGRAMMING FONTS
Tiny Fonts - GoHu - ProFont

Presentations and slides:choosing fonts for presentations
Open-source Unicode typefacesDejaVu fontsLiberation fontsNimbusSIL (Gentium, Charis, Doulos)

Serif Old Style:
Humanist (Venetian, older): Montaga (Google fonts), High Tower Text (office, 1 is like I, not tabular), Centaur (Office, 1 is like I)
GaraldeGaramond (Office b i, OSX, Google Docs), Palatino (Windows b i bi, OSX), Goudy Old Style (Office b i, Google Docs), Hoefler Text (OSX), Gentium Book Basic (Google Docs), Junicode, Tinos (Google Docs), Bookman (Google Docs), Gilliard (Byington on Windows)
Google Docs: Garamond, Goudy, Gentium Book Basic
Mac OS X (Pages): Hoefler Text, Garamond, Palatino
iWork on iCloud: Hoefler Text, Garamond
Office: Garamond, Palatino
Office 365 online: Garamond
Only Garamond is compatible across platforms except office online

Transitional:
Georgia (free, text figure numerals), Times New Roman (free)

Sans-Serif:
Humanist: Calibri, Lucida Grande, Segoe UI, Myriad, Frutiger, Trebuchet MS, Tahoma, Verdana.
All Free, all available: Arial, Tahoma (I), Trebuchet MS (MQIg169ijl$), Verdana (QJIija)
Grotesque: Franklin Gothic

GMail: Use Serif (Times New Roman) or Garamond, Verdana or Tahoma, default (Sans Serif Arial)
Sans Serif, Serif (s), Wide, Narrow, Comis Sans MS, Courier New, Garamond (s), Georgia (s), Tahoma, Trebuchet MS, Verdana
small, normal, large, huge
Old: Arial/Helvetica, Times New Roman, Arial Black, Arial Narrow, Comic Sans MS, Courier New, Garamond, Georgia, Tahoma, Trebuchet MS, Verdana
base64 encode decode

Yahoo Mail: Use default Classic (Times New Roman) or Garamond, Modern (Sans-Serif) is not good
Modern, Modern Wide, Classic (s), Classic wide (s), Garamond (s), Courier New, Garamond, Lucida Console
small, medium, large, x-large
Old Yahoo eMail: Arial, Bookman Old Style, Courier New, Garamond, Lucida Console, Tahoma, Times New Roman, Verdana

Hotmail, live, outlook.com: Use Times New Roman or Garamond, Verdana or Tahoma, default Calibri
Arial, Calibri (default), Comic Sans MS, Courier New, Franklin Gothic Medium, Garamond (s), Tahoma, Times New Roman (s), Verdana
8, 10, 12 (default), 16, 20, 24, 30
Old: Default Tahoma 10pt. Arial, Garamond, Comic Sans MS, Franklin Gothic Medium, Tahoma, Times New Roman, Verdana
Blogger: Times, Verdana, default Arial, Il1o0O
Default, Arial, Courier, Georgia, Helvetica, Times, Trebuchet, Verdana

Google Docs: Times New Roman, Verdana
Default: Arial 11pt, Arial, Arial Black, Narrow, Calibri, Cambria, Comic Sans MS, Consola, Corsiva, Courier New, Droid Sans, Droid Serif, Georgia, Tahoma, Times New Roman, Trebuchet MS, Verdana

Chinese traditional font: MingLiU (細明體 fixed pitch), PMingLiU (新細明體 variable pitch)
Chinese simplified han: NSimSun (新宋體 fixed pitch), SimSun (中易宋體 variable pitch)
Bitstream Cyberbit Serif CJK unicode
Sans Microsoft JhengHei (微軟正黑體 variable pitch)
Sans Microsoft YaHei (微软雅黑 variable pitch), SimHei (中易黑体 fixed pitch)
Noto Sans CJKSource Han Sans (light, medium, ... 7 weights)
Regular script (楷書Arphic Technology AR PL UKai
  DFKai-SB (標楷體) BiaoKai (Mac)
  KaiTi (中易楷体)
Imitation Song (仿宋體FangSong (中易仿宋)
Clerical script (隸書) (中易隶书)

[Justfont] 那個讓人想到台灣的字體, 文史哲出版社 劉元祥 商用字彙 楷書 行書 行書 顏體 粗體字
【下載字型前先看】為什麼會缺字? character sets 


珍珠奶茶(タピオカミルクティー)約於一九八〇年代誕生於台灣,近年在全世界頗夯。配料還有「双 Q」、「芋圓」等許多變種,加一種配料加 10 元,你嚐過哪些ㄋ?珍珠奶茶(タピオカミルクティー)約於一九八〇年代誕生於台灣,近年在全世界頗夯。配料還有「双 Q」、「芋圓」等許多變種,加一種配料加 10 元,你嚐過哪些ㄋ?

Microsoft ClearType Fonts Collection
Constantia - serif - need to use OpenType, Number forms, "Lining" instead of "Old-styles", saved html does not have lining (constant-height) numbers to distinguish between small o and 0 (zero)
Corbel - sans-serif
Calibri - sans-serif
Cambria - serif
Candara - sans-serif
Consolas - monospace

Guide to X11/Fonts use fc-cache to create fonts.cache in ~/.fonts directory. linux fontconfig should find it through /dev/fonts/fonts.conf
Use MiscFixed 10pt (or gothic, or Lucida Typewriter) for VIM in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.x
linux fonts information
X11 Font Configuration
CJK Fonts Howto

Apple iPhone Helvetica Neue light, ultralight
Google Android Roboto Droid fonts
Windows Phone 7 Segoe WP

Antiqua-Fraktur dispute Blackletter vs Antiqua
Evolution of minuscule script

How Dyslexic Can Read Better ? Via Dyslexic Fonts?  Monospaced, Sans-Sarif, Roman
Typefaces for dyslexics
Dyslexie
OpenDyslexic DejaVu Sans
Lexia Readable Comic Sans

Tuesday, January 25, 2011