Comments for Chris Swan's Weblog

Comment on Review – HP Microserver by Chris Swan

Chris Swan — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 14:56:07 +0000

I’ve never had any problem with DVD boot (SATA and USB). I’d be very surprised if it’s a firmware/mainboard problem, so all I can suggest is double checking the SATA and power connectors.

Comment on Review – HP Microserver by DBS

DBS — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:33:40 +0000

Hi Chris,

Just bought a Microserver. I’ve upgraded it to 8GB and added an HP SATA DVD drive. I have a problem which is driving me nuts – it only seems to want to boot off the NW (PXE stuff) and no matter what I do to the boot order in the BIOS (and even disabling the NIC) it still keeps reverting to the PXE loader. It attempts to get DHCP from my router and fails if the NW cable is in and if I take it out, it just says ‘no cable, check cable’ or some such. Seems to be impossible to get it to boot off the optical disk and I did actually successfully achieve this with my Knoppix CD and now even this won’t work…any ideas?

Comment on Kindle 3G Review – first impressions by Chris Swan

Chris Swan — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 22:16:32 +0000

PDF reading is OK, but not great. The trouble is that most PDF docs are formatted for paper, and the Kindle screen is much smaller (unless you have a DX).
It’s possible to turn the 3G (and WiFi) off, but that kind of defeats the point. Amazon hasn’t (yet) been caught out dipping into people’s private content. The wireless connection is for downloading books (and web browsing etc.). It’s also used for syncing stuff like which page you’re on.

Comment on Kindle 3G Review – first impressions by hernan

hernan — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 17:59:34 +0000

Thanks for sharing your experience, I have

Two questions

1-Have you tried PDF reading? (I want to put my stuff in the device)
2-Is it possible to disable 3G? (I don’t want Amazon reading my stuff)

Comment on Nanode thermometer by Chris Swan

Chris Swan — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 10:58:25 +0000

Good catch. WordPress seemed to have treated both of the Twitter links I put in as relative rather than absolute.

Comment on Nanode thermometer by Andy Piper

Andy Piper — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 18:46:56 +0000

Nice work – I must port my current Arduino-based thermometer to one of my (several!) Nanodes. Small note – the link URL on my name is wrong…

Comment on Review – HP Microserver by DBS

DBS — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:24:32 +0000

Thanks Chris, I can’t believe what good value that little server is.

Comment on Review – HP Microserver by Chris Swan

Chris Swan — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:39:55 +0000

Yes, Windows 2008R2 runs just fine on a Microserver. I’d suggest that you need 2GB RAM if you just want the OS, 4GB would be a minimal config for Hyper-V, but for a decent number of VMs 8GB(the max) is probably best.

Comment on Review – HP Microserver by DBS

DBS — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:47:57 +0000

Excellent site Chris. I am right in reading that you can, with Windows 2008R2, run Hyper-V on these machines? If so I would obviously need to fill it with RAM – can you confirm this?

Comment on Kindle 3G Review – first impressions by Chris Swan

Chris Swan — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:40:44 +0000

I have a UK Kindle Keyboard 3G, which gives me free (if somewhat slow and clunky) browsing wherever I travel. My understanding is that the US models are the same (e.g. I got a US Kindle DX for my son, which seems to work fine on 3G in the UK). Amazon changed the Ts&Cs for 3G browsing on the newer Kindle 4, so all you can get to when roaming is the Amazon store and Wikipedia - nowhere near as useful. That's why I've been encouraging those that want free 3G browsing to get the Kindle Keyboard 3G whilst it's still available.