WongTek Blog

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  • Fastest SD Card Reader

    I just got the IOGEAR SuperSpeed USB 3.0 SD/Micro SD Card Reader / Writer yesterday and it’s the fastest SD card reader i have ever seen. This was very cheap too, you can get it for around $15 from amazon.

    I was able to get 20MB/s write and 30MB/s read speed using a Patriot LX 16GB SD card on a USB 2.0 port on my MacBook, I properly could get a lot faster read speeds on a USB 3.0 port.

    Good work IOGEAR!

    You can read more about this product at http://www.iogear.com/product/GFR304SD/

     

    Update:

    I have tested this card reader on a windows 7 machine with a USB 3.0 port.

    I got 63MB/s read and 38MB/s write speed which is really cool.

  • Running a Ubuntu server on VirtualBox

    I created a virtual Ubuntu server on my Windows HTPC box using VirtualBox and VBoxVmService. This is a great setup as I can have a HTPC that’s always on with a Ubuntu server running on top.

    The Zbox is very energy efficient, quiet and small. This uses the AMD APU chip which is a all-in-one CPU/GPU combo.

    My setup is:

    • Zotac Zbox AD02
    • 8GB DDR3
    • 500GB WD HDD 7200k rpm
    • Windows 7 ultimate

    Installation was easy, I just installed VirtualBox, create a VM using the ISO from Ubuntu (make sure you install/enable SSH or NoMachine for remote access to the headless server), and then setup the VM to run as a service with VBoxVmService.

     

    http://vboxvmservice.sourceforge.net/

    https://www.virtualbox.org/

  • Nagios

    I Nagios is a wonderful tool to monitor your network devices.

     

    Nagios is a powerful monitoring system that enables organizations to identify and resolve IT infrastructure problems before they affect critical business processes.

    Designed with scalability and flexibility in mind, Nagios gives you the peace of mind that comes from knowing your organization’s business processes won’t be affected by unknown outages.

    Nagios is a powerful tool that provides you with instant awareness of your organization’s mission-critical IT infrastructure. Nagios allows you to detect and repair problems and mitigate future issues before they affect end-users and customers.

  • Latest Toastman Tomato Firmware

    The latest version of Toastman Tomato Firmware is really nice (i’m using 1.28.7500.4).

    You can now monitor IP Traffic by IP, so you can find out if you have a rouge device on your network that’s sucking up all your bandwidth or data usage.

    Also support for IPv6 is great.

    Thank you Toastman for keeping the firmware updated!

    http://www.4shared.com/dir/v1BuINP3/Toastman_Builds.html

  • Being a teacher for the first time

    I was called to be a Primary teacher in December in my local LDS church, which was a surprise to me as I have never taught children before.

    So this January 2012 was I big change for me, the first week I observed my co-teacher leading the class which seem very easy but I still felt a bit odd as I am normally in the Elders meeting and Gospel principals.

    Today was my first time teaching the children, although I had prepared for the lesson on “I am a child of God” the previous day and it looked very easy.
    Teaching the children was a bit different because it was new to me but the great thing was I had some help from my co-teacher and the children were helpful, so this was a lot more fun than I had imagined it to be.

    Also this calling will be good for me as I will receive blessings from Heavenly Father and knowledge on raising my own Son.

    So I am very grateful for thing calling, to be a member of the LDS church and to know Christ and Heavenly Father.

    I am also grateful for technology as it makes life a bit easier.

  • kmod-Nvidia and Centos 6

    Centos 6 comes with the nouveau which doesn’t work very well for my needs and the Nvidia driver works better. So heres the step to install kmod-nvidia as root.

    1. run “rpm -Uvh http://elrepo.org/elrepo-release-6-4.el6.elrepo.noarch.rpm”
    2. run “yum install kmod-nvidia nvidia-x11-drv nvidia-x11-drv-32bit”
    3. reboot the system

    You may need to black list the nouveau driver if that does not work.
    Edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst and append the following to the end of the kernel line:
    rdblacklist=nouveau

  • AirPrint and Ubuntu 11.10

    In Ubuntu 11.10, setting up AirPrint is easy.

    1. Have a Standard install of Ubuntu Desktop 11.10.
    2. Go into the CUPS interface and make sure “Share published printers connected to this system” is enabled on the server settings.
    3. On the Printer Properties, make sure the Shared checkbox is check on the Policies tab.
    4. If you have a firewall running, make sure you allow the needed ports (one of the is port 631).
    5. Restart CUPS “/etc/init.d/cups restart” or reboot the computer
    6. Make sure you iPhone/iPad is on the same network
    7. On your iPhone/iPad, go into Safari, print, and search for printers. Your new printer should be in there.

  • Ceiling Fan

    Today I finished installing a ceiling fan in my son bedroom. This was a new experience and a first for me, it took a few hours and a lot of hard work.

    We got the ceiling fan from Lowes on Saturday and cut the holes and installed the ceiling fan bracket in the attic. It was cool that you could use a new construction bracket if you had access to the attic, it was half the price of a old construction bracket and is a lot more secure.

    We also setup the ceiling fan which was easy after we figured out we could install it as a low profile because the dropdown rod didn’t feel very secure.

    We finished the install on Sunday which included running the wires down the wall and wiring it up to the switch, this part was easy.

    After about 4 hours of work, the ceiling fan install it complete and my son is loving it. He just looks at it for a long time.

  • System Administrator Appreciation Day

    Today July 29, 2011 is System Administrator Appreciation Day.

    So Happy SysAdmin Day everyone.

    More information on SysAdmin Day can be found at http://www.sysadminday.com/

  • iPad 2 review

    iPad 2 is apple second generation tablet device, it’s faster, slimmer and has more RAM than the first generation iPad.

    Specs:
    1GHz dual-core A5 CPU
    512MB RAM
    16GB, 32GB, 64GB storage options
    Front & Rear Cameras, front is VGA, rear is 720p
    9.7″ LED display with 1024×768 screen resolution with IPS technology
    Video output supports up to 1080p via HDMI dock adapter
    Runs iOS 4.3
    10 hour battery life
    White & Black color options
    Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n)
    Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR technology
    Height: 9.50 inches
    Width: 7.31 inches
    Depth: 0.34 inch
    Weight: 1.33 pounds

    After using this device for a few weeks, it’s a great laptop replace while at work or at home where you have full access to a desktop you do some more complicated task.
    It’s light enough to carry around with you when your going to a meeting or going to the server to do some maintenance. With the right apps you can access/edit office documents, SSH into servers and almost everything.

    The iPad 2 is a great addition to having a iPhone 4 where you can use 3G in areas that does not have wifi because of the Personal Hotspot feature.

    If the iPad 2 had retina resolution it would be the best tablet.