My techno time capsule for 2012 [good times]

Here we are, the end of the year, and the time to have a look back at the past 365 days. With the third edition of the “time capsule”, I still cannot say it is a established tradition, but we are on the way.

If you did not read the previous versions, the principle is to describe all geek related stuff of the past year, 2012 in this case. It has been a real pleasure to read the version of 2010 and 2011. I had pushed a better plan the last year and I gonna stick to it. That plan makes comparison easier.

Note: as usual, all links refer to non-commercial site (that may change one day).

IT RESOURCES

Something happens in the last week of 2012, my MacBook pro G4 crashed. After 4.5 year of loyal service, my all-time favorite laptop failed. This breakdown looks very serious, I have not been able to switch it on for several days. Too bad. Probably due to my extensive use as an HTPC, which has weaken the battery pack. I also use the laptop provided by my company, the Lenovo T420. I really appreciate this brand. The battery seems to be weak also, after one year, it is almost dead. I also use a Dell Latitude e6400 provided by my customer. My Compac Evo N600c is still there, and still used to run a Linux text based system (one ever need a small Linux at home).

The last year, I switched from an home-made server to a NAS from Synology, the DS1511+. I recommend this brand at 200 %. I switch off all services, except file sharing through Samba, SSH and of course the web interface. Even the web server is deactivated. The purpose is clear: store data. This NAS rocks five hard drives from Western Digital, the WD RE4. With 4 drives at 2 TB and 1 at 1 TB, they provide a total volume of almost 4 TB with a RAID 5. It may be times to change this 1 TB drive. One of the 2 TB drive send me regular SMART notification … I may have to try the guarantee. This professional grade material is covered for 5 years. I do regular backups on spare hard drives, two WD Elements of 1 TB each and one new WD MyBook of 3 TB.

I had bad times trying modems or routers this year. I was happy with the box provided my ISP, but have been tempted by the dual band, gigabit and high-speed WiFi. So I tried the Netgear DGND3700, and the Linksys WAG320N. The idea was to use a router with is a modem also. I found some bugs and went back to the modem of my ISP. That was before changing of ISP. I am recently equipped with a Technicolor TG788vn, with which I’m satisfied up to this point.

As usual, I played with a couple of OS this year. I daily used Windows 7 in the laptop provided by my company. I was quite convinced by it until it crashed … two days after my MacBook Pro (yes, the last week of 2012 was a very bad week for me). Windows Vista run the PC of my customer. I purchased the OS X update through the store, and I have been powered by Mountain Lion for a couple of months. Due to the failure of Windows 7, I had to install Linux Mint and I’m currently using it to type in this note.

Linux Mint 14 with the Mate desktop

I installed Windows 8 for a friend. Not that bad, very inspired by the mobile version, even if not revolutionary. I really do not see it in a professional context. To be checked in a couple of months.

Until now, I forgot to mention my mouse (probably to close that I even do not see it). My Logitech G5 is now with me for 3 years. This hardware is awesome: high resolution, very ergonomic, smooth. For Windows only, as no driver has ever been released for Linux or MacOS.

MOBILITY

Being convinced by Android, even if it was not easy at the beginning, I switch my Nexus S for a Galaxy Nexus. I’m just mad about this smartphone. The last versions of the OS, Jelly Bean, rock it hard. Ice Cream Sandwich was nice, and Jelly Bean added the fluidity to it.

Welcome page of my Galaxy Nexus (Android Jelly Bean 4.2)

I tried to purchase the Nexus 4 from LG, but it has been sold out after 1 hour and never came back. There are rumors that it may not be provided any more. I may keep the Galaxy Nexus longer than expected. I just had to apply a “return to sock” to enjoy the last release of Android.

There have been a new comer in the chapter of the mobility, an e-book reader. I’ve been gifted of the Amazon Kindle 4 for my birthday. This kind of the device is fun: black and white, hardly connected, low responsive, etc. But the display of the E Ink is comfortable, almost as comfortable as a real book. Moreover, the power sustainability is impressive, especially when you are acquainted to mobile phones, which can stand hardly a day. Last but not least, books can be easily found and sometimes for free, like for literature.

The home page of my Kindle 4 from Amazon

I still have an iPad for a tablet. I could not say if it has been updated, I did not noticed any difference. It is the first generation of iPad and it becomes very low responsive in some situation. I may change for an Android based tablet, if this device fails this year.

Like the previous year, I have not been a great app consumer. On my iPad, I purchased the games Star Wars Angry Birds and Contre Jour, based on their reputation. I had to play a couple of hours only during summer time. I have enjoyed the TED app, on Android and iPad:

A screenshot of the TED application on iPad

I subscribed to Wired iPad edition. This is awesome. On my Galaxy Nexus, I do not use mobile specific applications or games. I gave up applications for running.

ENTERTAINMENT

This year again, I used XBMC as a media center (HTPC). All media sources are stored on my NAS. The application is perfect and supported by an active community. This is really a marvelous Open Source project. The application was run on my MacBook pro … so I had to find another platform for the new year. I decided to order a Raspberry Pi to install OpenELEC on it.

I did not change my TV which is still the Philips LCD 42PFL8404H. If I look forward, my next TV set will be a 4K, hopefully in just a couple of years.

Spotify has been my main music provider during the past year. I quit the service two month ago, due to my recent interest for online courses. I rather like spending my time in watching courses or reading study material. The service was nice, but the player really limited. The behavior that disturbed me the most was that the last song was lost when the player was switched off and that it does not keep the play counts. So I switched back to my music files on my NAS (kept clean thanks to MusicBrainz). I tried Google Music but the upload of my entire collection is definitely too long (approximation 14.000 tracks and about 100 GB).

I had almost never used YouTube before this year. With the TED conferences and my online courses with Stanford I am now a daily user. This is obviously my main video provider.

SERVICES

So I became a sustainable consumer of YouTube. I noticed that sometimes YouTube was slow, with a lot of lag and buffering. After a short investigation, I found many testimonies of users complaining about that. Major ISPs were suspected of bottle-necking YouTube, including mine. So I switched for an ISP advertising on the net neutrality, OVH. As soon as I was connected to their network, YouTube was back. As far as I know, nothing has been proved, but that makes sense. When a provider provides more than Internet, it may have to promote its services against other, especially if they are monetized (like VOD).

OVH was already my hosting provider. I have almost nothing online except a web base genealogy software. It also provides me with a domain name, pointing to my NAS. I purchased a SSL certificate from Thawte to sign the https connection to my NAS. I will probably not renew it, since it is quiet expensive and not really interesting considering that the installation is not obvious.

SFR is still my broadband provider after many years. It was my ISP also, before this YouTube story. I now have a no-limit voice package and 6 GB a month, including the tethering. I was pretty happy with it until they refused to explain me why I do not have access to the HSPA+ network with my Galaxy Nexus, which is supposed to be compatible. I’m engaged for 10 months and will evaluate competitors after that.

I’m adding a new kind of service this year: the real cloud services. I have evaluated Amazon Web Services and I’m absolutely convinced that the revolution is going on. For a few bucks, you can have an online Linux server. This is the end of the harassment of the hardware. The data storage is unfortunately still expensive compared to local hard drives.

CODING AND DEVELOPMENT

I spend a lot of time on learning how to code on the second half the year. I will describe on this chapter the tools and application I used.

First of all, I learnt a couple of Python. This language seems to be widely used for scripting (not only basic scripts). It was just an introduction and I will come back to it later on. Then I learnt a lot of Java, thanks to CS106A online course of Stanford. Beyond the Java itself, this course is a perfect course on Object Oriented Programming.

My most used IDE has been eclipse. It is one to the main IDE for Java. This development environment also support other languages, like C/C++ or Python. As my PC has crashed, I cannot insert a screenshot. It is missing regarding the time I spent in the front of this application.

For the next year, I plan to learn C/C++. I hesitated to do it on MacOS or Windows. Since my Mac is currently down, I will probably choose to do it on Windows, with Visual Studio as an IDE.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Like the previous one, no purchase this year. This is a main trend of the last years, I spend less and less time on photography. And I regret it.

That my be a reason, shooting with my cell phone has became so common that I do not bother taking my cameras with me. I only take my DSLR with me for tough conditions, like parties or anything inside, mounted with a f1.4 / 50 mm lens from Sigma. I use my point-and-shot Panasonic DMC-LX2 for travelling.

I enjoyed sharing vintage filtered square pictures and used Instagram when it came to Android. This is a really fun service. This has came at the expense of Flickr. After thinking about it, I should come back to Flickr, there are so fantastic shots on it (Instagram is a kind of the fast-food of photography compared to it).

OTHER SOFTWARE AND APPS

My browser is definitively Chrome, even on Android (released this year). Everything is synchronized, whatever the device. and the display is clean as I like it. I use it so much, that I’m really tempted to purchase a Chromebook.

This year again, Google counted me as an intensive Google services user. My mail and contacts are managed in Gmail. All my schedules are on Calendar. Google Reader helps me spending my time reading my favorite subscriptions. I really need a good reason to use something else than Docs to write an office doc. All my moves are tracked on Latitude. Translate is very useful.  Moreover, I switch my blog from wordpress.com to Blogger. Compared to the last year, I no longer use Bookmarks (I sometimes use Delicious). As driving less, I did not use Navigation.

I seldom use social networks now (so I kept my resolution). My Facebook page is still there. I connect to Facebook only when I receive a solicitation. I post a couple of links on Google+ and follow some institutional pages. I connect to twitter from time to time, and I’m surprised to spend time reading tweets. This service has something special. I still scrobble my music to last.fm. I have opened a Pinterest, Github and Stackoverflow accounts. Finally, LinkedIn is probably the social network I used the most.

I’m still an hardcore user of Evernote, the online note-taking software. This is really nice trans-platform and cloud based service, really convenient when you have 3 ideas a minute. I have already mentioned Spotify and Instagram.

I used the PHP project Webtrees to online store my genealogical data.

My last word will be for Wikipedia, the site I browse 10 times a day.

This is it! This yearly post is getting longer and longer each time and requires more and more time, even without mentioning everything, like Toodledo (GTD service). That worth it, it is a real pleasure to read it several years after. As for the last 3 years, many things have changed,we are living in a ever changing world.

I should not be the only blogger to list all interesting facts about my technological gadgets. Are you doing the same? What the most important tech thing of 2012 for you?

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