Showing posts with label Small form factor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Small form factor. Show all posts

Saturday, September 13, 2014

Dell's USB OTG dual charging dongle for the Dell Venue 8 Pro



I've finally put my Dell Venue 8 to good use. It has been in the drawer since I got it months ago. After a week of usage, it really didn't fit my use-case. Even with a portable bluetooth keyboard, I found the whole touch experience with Windows 8.1 on an 8" screen painful. I never even use Modern UI, just the traditional Dekstop and using your fingers is hopeless. Desktop operating systems simply do not work with touch on a small screen.

Then out of nowhere, Dell releases a USB-OTG cable that simultaneously supports charging. It is roughly 20ドル on Dell's website. For those who don't understand the significance, it now means you can charge the Venue 8 at the same time you are using a USB device. Before, you couldn't do that.Thus, the single micro USB port limited it's use as a full time desktop computer.



There has been some D-Y-I type affairs but I wasn't keen on taking that route. This official dongle works pretty good. This should have been provided from the get-go or made available at release of the Venue 8. I paired it up with my Microsoft's All-in-One Multimedia keyboard. The keyboard has a built in trackpad, so now I treat the Venue like a little mini laptop.

I also have a hoot USB 3.0 3-port hub with built in Gigabit. Once you plug it in, you can make up for the lack of networking and multiple USB. It looks like this:




Now, it is a good VPN terminal. I run Cygwin and I use it as SSH client. When I don't use the Dell Venue, it simply stows away nicely.

Saturday, October 12, 2013

INTEL NUC and OpenELEC (XBMC) HTPC

After getting my INTEL NUC, I decided to install openelec (a Linux distro that just runs XBMC).

I chose openelec because I was building this for a 70 year old in-law with no experience with computers whatsoever. I built an E-350 AMD Foxconn build almost six months ago for my computer illiterate 80 year old dad. He has been using it ever since with no problems. He is 80 and has zero, absolutely zero experiences with any computers whatsoever. Hence, openelec with a remote control is a no brainer. Moreover, there are a few video add-ons that make openelec into an IPTV (IP based TV) that gets foreign tv programming. I am currently paying a few dollars a month to comcast for these channels and a separate satellite for free terrestrial foreign TV will cost me around 500ドル. This build pretty much make sense for my use case.

It was basically a 10 minute install. I downloaded the INTEL x64 build, popped in 4GB of RAM I had lying around, plugged in HDMI, plugged in keyboard and booted into the installer. Voila, 10 minutes later, I had a build. Once installed, I no longer need a keyboard to function as I will only be using a remote control with it.

Here is a picture to give you an idea of how small this thing is compared to a third generation AppleTV. The wire below is the USB infrared sensor for the remote. As for USB storage, you only need 1GB for the entire OS. Hence, any old USB stick lying around would work.


The key ingredient to a successful openelec appliance is the remote. If you use a wireless keyboard, a 60-80 year old won't figure it out. However with a decent remote control, you can teach them to navigate. For my dad and his old friends, it works.
I got a few of these Windows Media Center MCE usb remotes from amazon.com. They go for around 8ドル-13.

With a remote, you no longer have a "computer" for those lay folks. Rather, it now becomes an "appliance."



Installation is rather straightforward. Plug in ethernet, HDMI, micro USB, USB for remote and power.

One thing that I forgot to mention earlier, INTEL does not supply the AC mickey mouse three head cable. They provide the power supply but no 3ドル cable which is strangely odd. I happen to have a few spare ones lying around.




Once you boot into openelec, the installation is pretty straightforward and the whole install took less than 3 minutes even with an old slow USB stick. I didn't want to add any cost to this (e.g. install an MSATA SSD) and booting into USB is still very quick. The whole OS boots in less than 30 seconds. I spent more time plugging in the cables and looking for a spare keyboard for the install.





In my TV stand, the NUC is now in the middle of an AppleTV and a 4 year old Western Digital WDTV media player. Again, these pictures are for reference in regards to how small this device is.





I installed a few add-ons and activated a few things. For example, the Plex-XBMC plugin works like a charm. This device now pulls from my Plex media server and all the video is served from the remote. I still have a free USB port in the front if I want to plug in a USB drive or stick for movies. XBMC also have UPnP, SAMBA sharing and even Apple AirPlay receiver support.

The openelec build is strictly network based. With a 1GB usb stick, I don't need to store anything locally. This HTPC is going into the guest room so my guests (the inlaws) can easily pull up programming and video on-demand.



I have to say, it has been working very good even for a "Celeron" 847 1.1 GHZ build. I haven't encountered any heating issues. So far, it is doing it's job very well. I can play 1080p HD content through the network and locally. I've even thrown a few 10GB MKVs and it was able to play with no sweat. My earlier Foxconn AMD E-350 build often struggled with larger MKV files whereas this one didn't. I'm sure the higher clocked i3 models would do better but for my needs, this processor set-up works admirably. There has been a few times where a few of the 3rd party "add-ons" I've been using have locked up the machine but a hard reset usually solved the problem.

The great thing about this is power consumption:

1.2W when the machine is off.
IDLE is roughly 14W and playing video (720P and 1080P) is any where from 14 to 18 Watts.





So there you have it. The INTEL NUC is a pretty good XBMC box. I'm sure you can probably do a few cool things with this box. It is basically just a computer and everyone I know have been incredibly surprised. They ask, "is that another media player, streamer or Android set-top box?" I reply, "nope, just another computer." And when I tell them these are easily hackintoshable, their eyes light up. I probably won't go there with this but I think I'm going to get another one just to mess around with for myself.


Link: openelec INTEL build.


Friday, October 11, 2013

INTEL NUC. Real quick impressions.

Here we have an INTEL NUC (Next Unit of Computing). This is a super duper small micro pc or SFF (Small Form Factor) gadget. This doesn't even use a standard at all like pico or micro-itx. Rather, it is INTEL's jab at making the smallest footprint PC in a barebone package.

This is what you get. A 4X4 motherboard with a mini-PCIe slot (for Wifi), mSATA for storage, Ethernet, two HDMI, and three USB. Some models come with Thunderbolt that replaces the Ethernet.

I got the cheap Celeron 847 which is good enough for my use: HTPC 1080p IPTV video playback. Here are my quick impressions. I'm going to install OpenELEC or something like that on this device in the next few days.




Here is how small it is. It is in the middle of a 2.5" portable hard drive, a Rolex wristwatch and mouse. That is how small it is! Tiny!


The back.


The sole USB port in the front.


The guts. I have some spare parts in my workshed I will be using on this. Hence, I will be working on this in the next few days.



One word. Amazing little piece of machinery. A Full computer this small.


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