HDBaseT: The HDMI replacement? Just wait a minute.

If you have not heard there is a new connection standard set to take the place of HDMI, component, coax and other standards currently used to connect electronics to TVs and monitors for audio and video. This new standard will be named HDBaseT. The electronics that will be used with this standard will be computers, game consoles, AV receivers, blu-ray players and other devices that output high-definition audio and video.


So what makes HDBaseT better than current connection standards?

HDBaseT will have the ability to not only carry high-definition video and audio, but also network devices over Ethernet, power devices over Ethernet and send control signals to devices.  Maybe the best part of all is that HDBaseT will use RJ-45 as connection ports and CAT5 and CAT6 as connection cables.

Features of HDBaseT:
HD Video and Audio
100BaseT Ethernet
Power devices over Ethernet
Send control signals
Use standard CAT5/6 cables

So whats the problem with HDBaseT?

Looking at all these great features, you might ask why I am not sold on HDBaseT. The answer is very simple. The reason behind my reluctance to buy into HDBaseT is because of the current TVs and devices we all currently own. Take a good look at your TV, PC monitor, PC and other devices you may have in your home. None are compatible with HDBaseT. Most TVs and monitors don't even have RJ-45 Ethernet ports. Even if your devices do have RJ-45 Ethernet ports, it still will not be compatible with HDBaseT because it does not have the new technology inside it.

In my mind HDBaset is no more than a plan to force people to buy new electronics, which will certainly be more expensive than the electronics will all currently own. How many people can really afford to replace every electronic in there home for the sake of HDBaseT. Keep in mind a lot of people still don't know what HDMI is. For the next couple of years I will be sticking with HDMI.

Affordable accessories for your HTPC

I've finally decided to open up my own online store and sell accessories for a HTPC. I bought a small inventory consisting of HDMI cables, Component cables, SATA cables, USB cables, CAT5 ethernet cables and MicroSD card readers. Nothing will cost more than $10. If I am successful at selling these accessories, I will increase the number of different products I sell.

If anyone is interested in purchasing any of these accessories, you can find them on this Blog to the right of this article or visit www.pcandmoney.com/htpc-store/

Clone a hard drive with FOSS and dd

Recently, a old co-worker contacted me asking me to fix his computer. Upon examining the computer, I quickly discovered it had a bad hard drive. The hard drive would make various clicking sounds, which signaled to me there was a catastrophic problem. On top of that, BIOS would not detect the hard drive most of the time I tried to boot. It was clear that a new hard drive would have to be purchased. This is were another problem appeared.

I suggested to my old co-worker that I could install Linux on the new hard drive, because the old hard drive could not be detected by the BIOS most of the time, which was the reason for him asking me to fix his computer. That was a major problem because he and his family were using Windows Vista with multiple user accounts and they probably would not be comfortable with Linux. So now my only option was to try to clone the entire old hard drive with bad sectors to a new hard drive, easier said then done.

So now I have two major problems.

Problem 1. Getting the old hard drive with bad sectors to be detected by BIOS.

Problem 2. Make an exact duplicate of the old hard drive that uses Windows Vista.

My solutions to these problems.

Solution 1.
By changing the power cable and unmounting the hard drive from the hard drive cage, I was able to get the hard drive to be detected by the BIOS and fdisk.

Solution 2.
Although I have never cloned a hard drive before, I new it could be a simple task by using free and open source software and command line tools. I  loaded Arch Linux from an external hard drive, ran fdisk -l to discover the device name of the old hard drive and new hard drive, and then used dd to clone the old hard drive. dd is a unix command that copies and converts files. After about 3 hours and 30 minutes the cloning was finished. I uninstalled the old hard drive, so that Vista would not get the two confused. Vista worked on the new hard drive the same as it did with the old. After a reboot and chkdsk there are no problems with the newly cloned hard drive.

Warning!
The new hard drive must be equal to or larger than the old hard drive. If the new hard drive is larger than the old hard drive, the new hard drive will have to be partitioned to equal the size of the old hard drive or dd will use the entire hard drive space when cloning.

Example:
sda =250GB      sdb = 500GB
dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb, now the computer will see sdb as having only 250 GB of space.


For those interested to know what hard drive I used, it was Western Digital caviar blue WD5000AAKS 500GB for only $45.



Here is a review of steps and commands I used to clone a hard drive.

1. Load Linux from a live CD, USB drive or external hard drive.

2. Run fdisk -l from command line too determine the device name of each hard drive

3. Use dd to clone the hard drive. dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb
Where sda is the old hard drive and sdb is the new hard drive.
Using the command above will clone everything from sda to sdb
including the sda file size. sdb must be equal or larger than sda
for the cloning to be successful.

RocketFish 5.1 sound card working with linux

I managed to get a cheap sound card off of ebay for less than $7. This sound card has a name of Rocketfish 5.1 PCI, but lspci detects it as an Creative Labs CA0106 Soundblaster sound card. Before purchasing this sound card, I did some research to see if it worked properly with Linux. What I found is that many people had a problem getting this sound card to work with Linux. The problem seems to stem from the ALSA drivers. When I first installed the rocketfish sound card and tried to play sound, I got nothing but static. This rocketfish sound card does not seem to get along with the ALSA drivers.

So how do you get the Rocketfish sound card to work with Linux?
The simple answer is to install the OSS drivers and disable the ALSA drivers. This seems to be a easy fix, but not a long term one because I prefer ALSA drivers over OSS. With a little more research I found out that the rocketfish sound card does indeed work with ALSA drivers, but it was not consistent.

I will eventually try to get this sound card working with ALSA and give updates and procedures if I'm successful.

PS3 disc read error Fix!

I've spent the last few weeks trying to fix my PlayStation 3. Apparently I had a dead blu-ray drive.  After searching the internet for hours for symptoms that matched my problem and cleaning the lens of the blu-ray drive, I figured out that it was a bad lens in the blu-ray drive that caused me so much grief.

This really shocked me since I thought by buying one of the original PS3's(20GB model), I was getting better hardware than the newer models. Then I remembered that every PlayStation that I have ever owned have all had the same problem. DISC READ ERROR! It seems pretty amazing that a $500 or $600 machine could have the same problems as a $300 machine from 11 years before.

So how do you know if you really have a bad lens?
There are three dead give aways to a bad lens. The first would obviously be no disc appearing on screen after a game is inserted. The second is a small circle at top right of the screen that never stops spinning. The third and most serious is when the disc appears not to be spinning, this signifies that the lens is bad.

How can the PS3 be fixed when it is out of warranty?
The only way to fix the disc read error is to buy another lens for your blu-ray drive and take apart the blu-ray drive to install the better lens. This is not a simple task to complete and that's assuming you found an affordable replacement lens. There are many videos on youtube that can help people with assembly and disassembly. Finding an affordable replacement will require patience. I can tell you that they range from $45 to about $80. I managed to get one for about $49, but I will not put the seller's information on this page. I refuse to give anyone free advertising, but I will be more than happy to tell where I got it through an e-mail.

In all it took me about two hours to replace the bad lens and have everything aligned and back in the right place. My PS3 works again!

Diskless PC Part 1 - Budget PC built for $159

Recently I managed to build a diskless PC for a mere $159 and I could have did it for less if I was not so picky about components. This budget PC consist of a AMD sempron 140 cpu, Biostar A785GE motherboard, OCZ 2GB of ram, Rosewill tower with a 350 watt PSU and Rosewill card reader. What makes this deal so special is the sempron cpu. The sempron 140 cpu can be unlocked to a dual-core cpu with the right motherboard. In my case the right motherboard(Biostar A785GE) was bundled with the sempron cpu. This bundled deal can be frequently found at newegg.com for around $70.

Breakdown of components

1. Biostar A785GE Motherboard - Price: Bundled with cpu and case for $99.97 + $9.99 shipping
The biostar A785GE had the best specs I could get on a motherboard with a bundle cpu deal at newegg for under $100. The case was just a bonus. What sold me on this motherboard was it's ability to play HD video and DVI port. The downsides of this motherboard are it's lack of HDMI port and only 6 audio channels.

2. Sempron 140 CPU - Price: Bundled with motherboard and case for $99.97 + $9.99 shipping
Currently the cheapest CPU on the market at around $33 and it has a lot of power. With the right motherboard and bios update, this sempron 140 single core cpu can be unlocked to a dual-core cpu. It shows up as an X2 4400E in the bios.

3. OCZ 2GB RAM 5400 667MHz - Price: $38.99 + $1.99 shipping
Worked for around 8 days, then had serious problems. Ram stick caused problems with onboard video and segmentation faults with software. Will have to RMA.

4. Rosewill Case / 350 Watt PSU - Price: Bundled with motherboard and cpu for $99.97 + $9.99 shipping
Not very fond of the large tower cases, but it was part of a bundled cpu and motherboard deal, so I really can't argue about it's size. This large case gave me an opportunity to use a ATSC tuner card I had laying around that would not fit in my low profile HTPC case.

5. Rosewill 40 in 1 card reader - Price $7.99
Really didn't need this component, but got it just in case I came across a cheap memory card that I could use for storage.

What about the hard drive and optical drive?
Choosing not to buy a hard drive and optical drive saved me at least $70. Because there is no hard drive or optical drive I am left with only three options for booting a operating system. The three options include booting from flash memory, booting from my old external hard drive or net booting over the Ethernet port. Booting from the Ethernet port is the best and preferred method, but is also the hardest.

In Part 2, I will follow up on how this budget PC performed and what method I chose to boot the operating system.

Why everyone should have a external hard drive.

An external hard drive should be a necessity for everyone who has a computer with valuable information and files stored on it. A external hard drive can provide security and peace of mind to users who hold irreplaceable files on their computers, but don't want to back up gigabytes of files to individual DVDs. There is chance your external hard drive could fail so DVDs will always be needed for the most irreplaceable files. Below are a few of the reasons why I think everyone should have an external hard drive.

1. Back up Operating System
One of the best reasons to have a external hard drive would be the luxury of having a back up operating system just in case something happens to your primary hard drive and default operating system. GNU/Linux can be easily installed to a external hard drive the same way it is installed to a internal hard drive. A external hard drive is also a way to try Linux without it touching your primary hard drive.




2. Security
A external hard drive can provide a since of security for those who are worried about others viewing there private files and documents. Some external hard drives are small and compact so they can be carried around with ease. These small and compact drives allow security concerned people to take there sensitive information where ever they go. You can either create diskless computers and run the operating system from the external hard drive to stop others from using or accessing your computer.

3. Back up large amounts of data
This may be the most obvious reason to get a external hard drive, but not the most important. Getting a external hard drive just to back up a small to medium amount of data is a waste of money. You can simply back up data and files to a DVD. You should only get a external hard drive if there's a need to back up large amounts of data and important files. Some may wish to clone there primary hard drive or have large media collections they want to have copies of.

Cut cost on building a PC with FOSS

Building a PC can be a way of saving money and having the PC of your dreams. Some people may want to build a dream PC, but not have the cash to do so. By choosing to use free and open source software, PC builders can cut hundreds of dollars off of the price of their dream machine. Below are a few ideas that can cut the cost of a PC build by using free and open source software over proprietary software such as Microsoft Windows.

1. GNU/Linux as your operating system
There's no better way of save money when building your own PC, than using GNU/Linux instead of Windows. By choosing Linux you instantly save around $100 and up to a astonishing $285. This is money that would have went to purchasing a copy of Microsoft Windows for only one PC. And the savings don't stop there, in Linux virtually all the software is free. In Windows you'll have to purchase MS Office, a good disc authoring suite and photo shop for image manipulation. For Linux there is Open Office instead of MS Office, K3B and Brasero for disc authoring and GIMP and Blender for image manipulation. Even if you choose to use Windows, Open Office and GIMP can still be used, but K3B and Basero are only for Linux.

2. No Hard Drive
Believe it or not a hard drive is totally optional when building a PC. Omitting the hard drive can reduce the cost of a PC by at least $40 and up to hundreds of dollars. This will work best for people who have servers with large hard drives and years of experience with PC building and installing operating systems. For experienced Linux users this can be accomplished in three ways(from hardest to easiest):

A. Diskless Boot, Diskless Nodes and Network Booting:
I won't go into major detail here, but basically you are booting a complete operating system from the hard drive of another computer or server over the Ethernet port. I would not recommend this procedure for beginners, as it can be a very tedious task to complete. Instructions about diskless boot can be found at these sites:

Diskless Network Boot
Diskless Workstation
Diskless Ubuntu

B. Boot from USB flash drive:
With a large enough flash drive, a complete Linux operating system can be installed and ran over the usb. I've manage to run Debian from a 1GB flash drive with openbox, XFCE, thunar and VLC. Installing Linux to a flash drive is not a very difficult task for anyone who has ever installed his/her own operating system. Linux can be installed to a flash drive the same way it would be installed to a hard drive. For more about Linux on a flash drive visit here.

C. Boot from CD/DVD:
Now to the easiest method. Simply obtain a Linux live CD/DVD that fits your needs for a desktop and use sftp or fish protocol with nautilus or konqueror to access your files from another computer acting as a server. This method would require knowledge of ssh and setting up a network.

3. Less RAM
I've seen computers advertised with 8 or more gigabytes of RAM. Now this might be necessary in Windows, but that much RAM would be overkill in Linux. A computer running Linux will work fine with 1 gigabyte of RAM. The amount of RAM for A PC depends on the applications and desktop environment being used. 512 megabytes of RAM is still possible with window managers like openbox and the XFCE desktop environment. I recommend 2 gigabytes of RAM since it is not very expensive.

4. No Optical Drive
Building a PC without a Optical drive may seem odd to some, but it is another PC part that is totally optional. The first thing that might come to mind is how do I run the operating system without a optical drive and hard drive. That question has already been answered above with diskless booting and Linux on a flash drive. This option works best for those who share content over a network.

Conclusion
So how much money can be saved by building a PC with Linux as the operating system, no hard drive, less RAM and no optical drive? Lets take a look at some prices of the excluded PC parts.

A OEM version of Windows 7 Home Premium is about $100.
A cheap hard drive can be found for around $40.
Most DVD drives are around $30.
Opting for 2GB of RAM instead of 4GB will save about $40.

That's at least $210 saved.

Please keep in mind that these saving are mostly possible do to the use of free and open source software and the use of a server.

Clamz and Pymazon - Download Amazon MP3's with FOSS

Recently while trying to download a digital album from Amazon's Music store, I discovered that Amazon's mp3 software no longer functioned in Arch Linux. The reason behind this malfunction is a piece of software named openssl that was recently updated after 5 years. This update of openssl has rendered AmazonMP3 downloader useless. Just to make sure that this was not a problem specific to Arch Linux, I switched over to my Ubuntu distribution and the problem was present there also. I quickly thought of three ways I could solve this problem.

1. Downgrade openssl back to 0.9.8 from 1.0.0 in Arch Linux.
I quickly found out that this would not be possible because I had cleared my package cache to save disk space and I did not want to search the internet for mirrors with the old openssl package.

2. Switch over to Ubuntu and use getlibs to download all the necessary libraries for AmazonMP3.
The instructions can be found here and here. While these procedures did work to get AmazonMP3 functioning again, it downloaded music very slowly.

3. Use Clamz as a alternative to AmazonMP3.
I remembered there was a command line program named Clamz that could download music from the Amazon music store. In order to use clamz you simply need to obtain the amz file for the album you wish to purchase. From there open a terminal emulator and type clamz and the full name of the amz file.



Example: clamz AmazonMP3-1264313761.amz

yaourt -S clamz pymazon

To obtain Clamz in Arch Linux, you must have yaourt installed. If you don't have yaourt installed or you are using another distribution of Linux than you can compile clamz from source code.

There is also a python based GUI named pymazon for those who don't enjoy using command line interface. Clamz and pymazon gives Linux users the freedom to use free and open source software to download DRM-free music.

Cheap PC Media Remote for HTPC

If you ever thought of getting a remote for your media PC or HTPC, but didn't want to break the budget, than this cheap PC remote maybe for you. This remote can be had for less than $15 and has plenty of functionality for such a cheap price. The best thing about this cheap PC remote is that it works out-of-the-box with open source software.

This PC remote has many features and functions such as:

• built in mouse functionality with scroll, left and right click
  
• volume control and mute key
  
• e-mail, web browser tab and close window keys
  
• four hot keys(A B C D) for CLI console (Ctrl Alt + F1, F2, F3, F4)
  
• backspace and tab key
  
• four arrow keys and enter key
  
• start, stop and search keys

I am still not familiar with all the functions and shortcuts of this PC remote, but from what I have experienced so far, this cheap PC remote does have some major drawbacks that need to be addressed. The first drawback is the mouse function. The mouse function of this PC remote takes some getting used to. It can be a very arduous task moving the mouse point around with accuracy. The second drawback has to do with IR receiver. The PC remote has to be pointed directly at receiver for the remote to work. This drawback can be a deal breaker for many. Even with these two drawbacks, this PC remote is still a very good deal for the money.



Currently I am using this remote with my Arch Linux HTPC. It works great with Totem, Banshee and XBMC. Below is a video that shows how this PC remote performs:


 

Account suspended by Yahoo Answers for promoting the use of FOSS

Recently I received a few e-mails from Yahoo Answers claiming I violated there community guidelines and terms of service and that my account would be suspended for these reasons. The main reason for this suspension seems to be from what Yahoo considers spam. It seems there idea of spam is when people promote or suggest the use of free and open source software(FOSS) to people who would otherwise pay hundreds of dollars to Microsoft for software that does the same exact thing.

I will emit that I intended on using Yahoo Answers as a way to get backlinks to my website www.pcandmoney.com and this blog, but promoting my own website and blog were not among the reasons that my account was suspended. Out of three e-mails sent from Yahoo Answers, two clearly stated that I was using spam and directing commercial activity to non-Yahoo sites. Now my question is if Linux is free how can I be directing commercial activity to other sites. The website  in question is www.distrowatch.com, which gives potential GNU/Linux users information about different Linux distributions. The last e-mail from Yahoo Answers was not clear about how I violated their terms of service, but in the question asked by the poster, I made a statement that there is never any reason to pirate software when Linux is absolutely free.

Below are excerpts from each e-mail from Yahoo Answers and their reasons for suspending my account. I will allow the viewers of this blog to be the judge and tell me if my account was unfairly suspended or if I am in the wrong. Please keep in mind that Microsoft and Yahoo recently made a deal with each other and are now working together to try and topple the search engine giant Google.

Save Money with Linux, FOSS and the HTPC

My first post and what better way of doing my first post than explaining the purpose of this blog. I am here to promote the use of free and open source software(FOSS) and the home theater personal computer(HTPC) and inform consumers how each can save a lot of money.

For those who do not know, FOSS is software that anyone can obtain and modify and it is completely free. You may be familiar with FOSS if you have ever used FireFox, Mplayer, Open Office or VLC. The most famous and most important use of FOSS maybe GNU/Linux. GNU/Linux is a free Operating System that is comparable to Microsoft Windows, but without the security vulnerabilities (viruses).

Below is a list of important FOSS:

GNU/Linux - Free OS
Xorg
Gnash - Alternative to adobe flash
FireFox - Popular web browser
VLC - Good all-purpose media player
Mplayer - Good all-purpose media player
Open Office - Great alternative to Microsoft Office
FFMPEG - The back bone of a lot of multimedia software
MythTV - Great PVR suite for the Linux HTPC


Now to the HTPC. A HTPC is a custom PC that incorporates home theater equipment with the uses of traditional PC. A HTPC basically takes the place of various components of a home theater setup and places them all into one box. This may include a tivo or dvr, DVD/BluRay player and A/V receiver. With the use online streaming video, digital TV tuner and satellite DVB tuner, a HTPC could potentially replace the need to have cable or satellite TV service. Utilized in the right way, a HTPC combined with FOSS will undoubtedly save a consumer money.

Below are some features of a HTPC:

Convenient Video and Music Jukebox
DVD and BLuRay Player
Watch Free Streaming Video on Demand
PVR/DVR for ATSC and DVB-S


FOSS and the HTPC combine to form a Linux HTPC. Here is a video:


Visit here for more Linux HTPC Videos

If you are interested in some components and hardware for a Linux HTPC than please visit The Open Source HTPC Store