Pivos released an XBMC build for Linux, and I tried it out. The Pivos XIOS DS is a very small (less than 5" x 5" x 1") HTPC supporting hardware accelerated 1080p video and HD audio playback. The XIOS DS supports XBMC for Android, and XBMC for Linux, with native hardware acceleration. I reviewed the Android port of XBMC in a previous post. The XIOS DS is available for $115 at Amazon, placing it, price wise, between the $98 Roku 2 XS and the $178 Boxee Box. ...

Last week several tech and gadget news outlets reported that the Koubachi Wi-Fi Plant Sensor has been released and is available for order (Amazon or SmartHome). I remembered reading about this device some time ago, and I decided to try it out. Our houseplants are under my care, and they are generally happy and healthy. A simple water moisture indicator would not get my attention, and certainly would not be worthy of a place in my collection of semi-useful/useless Wi-Fi enabled devices (of which the Nest Learning Thermostat is the most useful), but the Koubachi promises more than just moisture monitoring: ...

I encounter one problem after another running Windows 8 and Server 2012 on the dual Xeon E5 Intel C600 chipset based SuperMicro 7047A-T and 7047A-73 SuperWorkstation machines. I will say that this is really not representative of my Windows 8 experience in general, as all other machines I installed on worked fine with the in-box drivers. The C602 includes the Intel Storage Controller Unit (SCU) SATA / SAS controller. Windows 8 and Server 2012 do not include in-box drivers for the SCU. The SCU drivers are part of the Intel Rapid Storage Technology Enterprise (RSTe) driver set. Note that the RSTe and RST drivers are different and not compatible with one another. When you install the full RSTe package, it includes SCU drivers for the SCU RAID controller, AHCI drivers for the SATA controller, and the Windows RST management application. ...

I finally figured out why I kept on getting VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE BSOD’s when installing Windows 8 on my SuperMicro workstations. It turns out that the problem goes away when I use a PCIe slot associated with CPU #1, instead of a slot associated with CPU #2. Some history on my adventures with Windows 8 and SuperMicro SuperWorkstations: I got ACPI_BIOS_ERROR BSOD’s while installing Windows 8, SuperMicro provided a Beta BIOS that resolved the problem. The Windows 8 install hangs if installing to an SSD drive on an LSI 2308 SAS controller, that issue is still unresolved, but can be worked around by connecting the SSD to the Intel SATA controller. I got VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE BSOD’s while installing Windows 8 with an NVidia Quadro 5000 graphics card, same with an ATI FirePro V7900 or an NVidia GeForce GTX 680 or an ATI HD 7970. And this post is about resolving that problem. ...

Part of the research I did before migrating from Blogger to WordPress.com, was to make sure that current Blogger permalinks would resolve correctly once the old posts were imported into WordPress.com. At the time all seemed fine, but soon after migrating, I received alerts from Google Webmaster Tools that there is an increase in site errors, specifically 404 errors. Some background: Permalinks are the URL’s that point directly to specific posts on the blog. These URL’s are known by search engines, are shared on forums, and are basically the static address of posts. Blogger and WordPress.com use different styles of permalinks. WordPress.com allows some customization of permalinks, but unlike WordPress.org, there is no support for custom plugins to handle rewrites for permalinks, 302’s or 404’s. ...

I got Windows 8 RTM installed on my two SuperMicro SuperWorkstation machines, with a bit of trouble along the way, but nothing I could not work around. But, I ran into a problem with NVidia Quadro 5000 cards causing a VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE BSOD during the Windows 8 install process. I was running my two workstations with ATI FirePro V7900 graphics cards, but I decided I wanted a bit more rendering horsepower. I wanted a card that had a good balance between modern architecture, great 2D performance, good 3D performance, OpenCL or CUDA support, and reasonable power consumption. I found the Tom’s Hardware Workstation Graphics 2012 benchmark site to be very informative, and I decided that the NVidia Quadro 5000 was a very good choice. ...

I’ve previously posted about problems installing Windows 8 on SuperMicro machines, and that SuperMicro released a Beta BIOS that solved the install problems. I’ve since run into two more problems; the install hanging when booting off the LSI 2308 SAS controller, and a BSOD when using a Quadro 5000 video card (more on that in a later post). I have two SuperWorkstation machines, a 7047A-T using an X9DAi motherboard, and a 7047A-73 using an X9DA7 motherboard. ...

In a previous post I reported that my SuperMicro SuperWorkstation 7047A-T failed to install Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012 due to an ACPI_BIOS_ERROR. I contacted SuperMicro support, and I was informed that new BIOS releases are on their way that will support Windows 8 and Server 2012. This morning I received an email from SuperMicro, with a new Beta BIOS for the X9DAi motherboard used in the 7047A-T. The new BIOS allowed me to install Windows 8 and Server 2012. ...

In my ongoing quest to find the perfect Home Theater PC platform, I was excited to read that XBMC had been ported to Android. This opens possibilities for XBMC on low cost, low power, low noise, small form factor hardware, with hardware accelerated media playback. The XBMC Android development was done on a Pivos XIOS DS device, and I ordered one from Amazon. At $115 it is not exactly low cost, especially compared to mature platforms like the Roku 2 XS for $98 or Boxee Box for $180. ...

In my last post I described how to prevent Windows from automatically restarting when encountering a BSOD during the OS install process. This allowed me to see the ACPI_BIOS_ERROR fault code while installing Windows 8 on my new SuperMicro workstation. The new Windows 8 BSOD page looks friendly, but no longer displays any error parameters other than the main fault code. In order to get additional details of the crash, I had to hook up a kernel debugger to the machine. Windows 8 adds USB3 and TCPIP kernel debug support, and I will describe how I used the TCPIP network option to capture details of the crash. ...