My new Asus Eee PC and Ubuntu One

The new Asus Eee PC.

Well I bought myself Asus Eee PC 1015B recently. Although a very handy little machine now, I still have some fine tuning to do, especially with the power side of things.
I am sill waiting on the new RAM to arrive. I ordered a 2Gbyte stick as the specs said that you cannot use anything higher. I then found out that the limitation was due to Windows 7 starter and not a hardware one. This made sense considering the CPU is an AMD C50 dual core 64 bit and should be capable of much much higher specs. So I then ordered a 4Gbyte stick. As at writing (on the train going to work) I am still waiting for the arrival of either. It would have been nice to pop in a 8Gbyte, but I could find no one selling a single 8Gbyte stick, they all came in kits with two for 16Gbyte total. Well I figure 4Gbyte should be enough anyway with what I want to use it for.
Of course, the first thing I did was start to load up Linux the instant I turned it on. I had created a start up USB stick with Kubuntu on it ready before it had arrived.
Well, it struggled to boot, I was using an ancient 2Gbyte Sandisk and read somewhere that the unit has trouble with a particular Sandisk stick (I later learnt that this is also was a problem with Windows 7 Starter and not the hardware). I tried a newer Lexar stick, and same thing.
Well, check some hardware specs, and the Asus (now called Muaddib, from Frank Herberts "Dune", after Paul Atreides Fremen name) has a USB 3.0 slot. So I race off and get a high speed USB stick to try and load Kubuntu.
The main problem I was having was that the installer appeared to be having trouble seeing the hard drive to allocate partitions. So I booted into the Kubuntu desktop and configured up the partitions. I was then able to seemingly progress from there, I actually got Kubuntu to "install" but it would not boot. When I booted back into a live session and looked at the hard drive,it looked all normal, but just would not boot.
I then tried the alternative version of Kubuntu, followed by the DVD version, all with no luck. I was getting quite a bit worried and the hard drive light was not working, and thought it might be a bit hard to claim warranty after I had erased the windows partition including the recovery partition (wanted all that 320Gbyte I could get and was not planning on recovering to Windows 7 ... ever). I then had a thought.
What if it was Kubuntu and not the Eee PC. This did not seem logical as I had tried three different images all with the same results, but I thought, why not. So I put in an Ubuntu start up stick while I downloaded the new version of Bodhi to try. Well, lo and behold, Ubuntu loaded and ran with out a hitch. When I got Bodhi, I loaded it up and it ran great.

So, not the hard drive but something with Kubuntu. I remember I had some trouble when I was loading Kubuntu on the main system, but I did get there eventually.
I ended up loading on Ubuntu and installing the KDE desktop from the main repositories. I have quickly gotten used to KDE work flow and Bodhi/Enlightenment was starting to be a bit of a struggle in small fringe area's I seemingly have gotten used to (Similar things that Gnome shell took away as well, but another story). But with a bit of learning, I may go back to my original Linux desktop from over ten years ago, Enlightenment.
So the system is running fine, and I am writing this on the train going to and from work, which is one of the main points of getting this device. There are still people on the train who take up two seats for them and their "lap top" PC, while I sit next to a young chap and his small DELL system with no major space issues for either of us (although mine started from off quicker than his starting Windows 7 from sleep ... hehe).
The next part of this project is to get the system tethered to my mobile phone, either by wifi or bluetooth. I don't care which, just so long as it is wireless. Also waiting to see if the 4Gbyte RAM will improve both performance and sleeping, currently it cannot recover from sleep which is a bit annoying.

Final bit.

I am now writing from my desktop PC, having synced across the earlier part of the draft blog via my Ubuntu One account. This is starting to turn into an awesome little tool and I am sure I will be leasing more space in the future as my music and videos get synced from this desktop machine and my phone and the Eee. I love that I can take pictures on the phone and have them synced over to my desktop. I know Google has a similar feature, but I like that I can have my pics on a hard drive sitting on my desk available to me with out a network, that is why I use it for the Eee that is currently not on a mobile network. I can edit on the Eee and when it is on a network, it synchronises my documents.
Question, are you an Ubuntu One user? and how do you find it compared to the other cloud options out there? And if you are not one, do you use a "cloud" service? and how do you find it?

Xcopter Quad Build - Weeks eight to ten and eleven - Lessons Learnt

Hi, welcome to Maxx's stuff, I'm Maxx and this is my stuff.

Micro Quad fully loaded

Xcopter Quad Build - Weeks eight to ten and eleven and some Lessons Learnt

I have missed a few weeks, mainly because not a lot has been happening in the stuff area, just getting batteries and the balancer and other parts. The story begins with week eight and receiving the the green props and the BESC programming card and male to male servo leads, (there are ten in a pack, so enough for two multi's with some spare) nothing much spectacular and came to the door for $44.00, knocking the average over to $30.65.
I wanted the card because, well, one, it is easier to program the ESC's and two, I wanted to try out the music option on the ESC's. Programming is really easy with one of these, no trying to flick the throttle and counting etc. The music available is ... well ... interesting. It did not come with "Flight of the Valkeries" but a part of Beethovens "Fur Elise", which I selected. I also programmed the ESC to reduce power with low voltage and to have a normal start.

Week nine and I got the charger, nylon screws and nuts all for $31.84 making the average now $30.78. again nothing much here except I had to do some research on how to use the charger and have posted a good Youtube link below from Bruce of RC Model Reviews. I also mounted the controller board. I am planning on putting the receiver on top of the controller, but having it firmly mounted may be a bit tricky.

XT-60

Week ten brought in the battery and prop balancer, all for $42.12 with a final average of, $31.91. Except ... The battery (from the Australian warehouse) came with the XT-60 connector, not the JST which is on the Micro Quad. This was the first time I had seen the XT-60 and it is a really great connector. Good surface area connection and nice and firm with out having a lock (the 60 is for the 60Amps it can carry without melting). I also like that if it is hard to get apart, you can use a screwdriver without risking shorting the connectors like what can happen with the Deans connectors, which is what I use, until now.

So, for week eleven, I order a battery from the International warehouse with the JST connection and a packet of male and female XT-60, so I can convert all my other gear to XT-60. I also ordered some wire as well, along with the USB programmer for my Hobbyking radio. This cost an additional $20.89 now bringing the average down to $30.91, but adding a week to the build.

So total all up is $340.02 having spent $81.88 of that on postage. I will do a proper break down for the Quad in the next blog with the gear that was actually used on the Quad.

This does include a pretty good camera and other gear that will be used for other planes as well including a battery that will go over to the Cessna 180 as it has the XT-60, and I have already started a plan of attack on the next planes. Finish the cessna 180, start on the cessna 310, convert the 0.25 glow to electric, and get the Mini Stick done when it arrives.

Preparing up the gear for the test flights and lessons learnt.

Little IC broke it's bag of smoke

So the first thing I needed to do was charge the battery. I need to do this to check the balancing and vibration. I have balanced the props, but the motors need checking. I also have to check the motor directions and make sure they are correct. I have the battery in the garage and it is a bit dark, but I would like it charged for checking and flying first thing tomorow, being the Saturday. I plug the charger onto the car battery and plug in the battery ... in the darkish light. I set the unit to charge, and ... no battery connected!. What the???. So I turn the light on to see what I have done wrong, and that is when I see the smoke! I check the unit and battery. What I had done was two things.

1. Put the source connections on incorrect polarity. Yep, the positive gator was on the negative terminal on the car battery, and vice versa.

2. The other thing was the gator clips on the charge leads from the balanced charger where touching, causing a short circuit, hence no battery connected error.

Well, I corrected the source connections, and took care of the gator clips on the charge end and connected the LiPo ... and ... No battery connected :(. I killed the charger. As can be seen by the picture, one little IC is popped and now the device is not functional.

So, what are the lessons learnt.

1. Don't try and connect electronic equipment up in the dark!

2. Check that nothing is shorting out.

3. If a charger shows any signs of being damaged, don't use it. Throw it away as LiPo's can be volatile if not charged correctly, and a damaged charger will most likely not charge but actually damage your batteries.

How to charge your LiPo battery with the Hobbyking balanced chargers.

Well that is it for the last four weeks. Next week will be real flights, I hope. I have some test flights planned before the proper first recorded flight and a brand new and bigger charger on it's way. Along with that I bought a spare motor as well, as one of the motors do not appear to turn freely, and I am not sure if this will have an impact on performance as it does seem to run o.k.
Unfortunately I have not been well, so the work has slowed for the last two weeks (also why this is late as well), it has been a bit to cold and wet to hang out in the garage and I really need to get better for work, so I can pay for all this stuff!
So ... Ĝis Revido.