Well.. Webupdater showed that I had v3.00 and the latest is v3.70! So, it seems Colorado still gets updates and the only way to know is to try the WebUpdater software.. Let’s see if v3.70 is better than v3.00…

Viasat channels are available via cable or satellite TV. The cheapest TV option is the Viasat Sport package, which includes the Viasat Hockey channel, is 19,95 euros per month for Sonera cable TV customers, in 12 month subscription. So, you basically pay 19,95 euros also during the NHL summer vacations, unless you’re also interested in golf or other sports. The cheapest and most flexible option seems to be the ViaPlay internet service (in Finland at http://www.viaplay.fi). ViaPlay is available for 16,95 euros per month, including a selection of click-to-play movies, in a one month subscription. And as it is an internet service, I could also watch the games (and movies) anywhere on my laptop. All this sounded reasonable, so I decided to give it a try.

After registering and paying 16,95 euros with my credit card, I could login to ViaPlay web site and watch the games. They seem to require the Microsoft Silverlight plugin, but luckily that is available to Apple Safari and seems to work just fine. I have no idea if it is available for Linux. Definitely not for iPad or smartphones. So, the videos will play in the web browser for those with the right OS.

Viasat seems to ruin part of the NHL games with swedish commentary that makes you want to fall asleep, but LUCKILY the best part of the whole deal is that now you get access to NHL Gamecenter Live. Clicking a link under any of the live hockey games will take you to NHL Gamecenter Live, where all ongoing NHL games can be seen, even simultaneously! NHL Gamecenter is using Flash instead of Silverlight so Linux should be also fine. Bandwidth can be set up to 3000 Kbps, which results in almost HD quality video. Most games have two different voide/video streams, for home or visitor team supporters. So the actual Viasat TV broadcast is rather useless, and what you’re actually paying for, is the access to NHL Gamecenter Live.

I watched about 1,5 matches tonight, jumping back and forth couple of games which had started at different times. Changing between games is real quick, like changing a TV channel. It is also quick to check out highlights of the game, there will be a small dot on the timeline which you can click to jump to each goal scored etc.

I was positively surprised of the video quality. It is definitely better than average SD DVB-T/C channels (like UrhoTV). With fast moving scenes it falls below good 720p but it is still pretty decent, even when upscaled to my 46″ Full HD television. There seems to be some differences between different games.

I also tried to start a few movies from ViaPlay, and they seemed to work fine. Some (HD) movies are still for extra charge but many will play with just a click.

Four live games on the screen at the same time!

Live game in Safari window

Live game in full screen mode

Thomas makes a save

Watching a previously scored goal from the game timeline

1) Install packages

$ sudo apt-get install xen-hypervisor-4.1-amd64 xen-tools

2) Reboot with Xen

Note that there will be a two-stage grub menu. First choose Xen, then choose the kernel from the second menu.

Press ESC during boot to see the menu in the first place if it is hidden.

3) Check that Xen (Dom0) works

$ sudo xm list
Name                         ID   Mem VCPUs      State   Time(s)
Domain-0                      0 15289     8     r-----    126.5

4) Fix xen-tools

$ sudo cp -R /usr/lib/xen-tools/karmic.d \
             /usr/lib/xen-tools/oneiric.d
$ sudo rm /usr/lib/xen-tools/oneiric.d/70-install-ssh

This is needed because as of today, the next step will fail due to some strange umount problem related to ssh. There is no need to install ssh immediately, as it can be done later from the console (step 7).

5) Create a virtual machine (DomU) running Ubuntu 11.10 amd64

$ sudo xen-create-image \
    --memory=1G --size=10G --swap=1G \
    --dist=oneiric --install-method=debootstrap \
    --dir=/home/xen --hostname=xen1 --dhcp

Configuration will be stored in /etc/xen/xen1.cfg, virtual disks in /home/xen/domains/xen1.

Write down the random root password from the installation report.

6) Start up the new virtual machine with console

$ sudo xm create xen1.cfg -c

You can exit the console by pressing CTRL + ALTGr + ‘}’

You can enter the console later with ‘xm console xen1′.

7) Update (and install) packages in the virtual machine

root@xen1:~# apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade
root@xen1:~# apt-get install openssh-server

8) You’re done.

To shut down the virtual machine from its (ssh) console:

root@xen1:~# halt -p

To later start the virtual machine:

$ sudo xm create xen1

Why?

The competition: Facebook and Google both make things too complicated. First of all, they don’t give a proper list of your own stuff where you could delete anything you have written earlier and don’t want to have available any more. Twitter has a single stream which has *everything*. You can delete anything and everything at any time.

Sometimes openness is best privacy.

We’ll see…

Don’t get me wrong, I like Ken Rockwell’s blog, and I will continue reading it – mostly great stuff. However, it is sometimes irritating to read his analogies, like in the writing titled “If sharp lenses don’t matter, why do I talk about it?” on 3 October 2011. He claims “our choice of keyboard has nothing to do with what we have to say or the quality of the final result”, him meaning that it doesn’t matter what kind of lens we have regarding the final result. I am happy I can pick good information from among his sometimes provoking (and entertaining) writings, but I felt it is time to correct one recurring mistake he continues to feed to his readers. This misunderstood theme is also causing most flame threads in other photography sites when people have failed to find the good intentions of Ken behind his way of communication. Ken says “crappy camera can take good photos”, when he means “a pro with a crappy camera gets better results than a newborn with a D1s Mk4″. Most people don’t get this point at all.

Back to this specific case. First of all, the output of a keyboard is DIGITAL. The output of a lens is ANALOG. Digital means 1 is 1 and 0 is 0. There are no such things as a “good” 1 or a “bad” 0, when they are atomic parts of a digital file and not characters painted on a wall by an artist. Therefore, it truly doesn’t matter what kind of keyboard I used to write this this blog post. I decided to use a laptop for productivity and convenience, over using an Android phone with its touch screen — as Ken tries to point out. The characters you see on your screen depend on the rendering algorithm, your video card and the monitor. The message is the same. BUT, when I take a photo, a lens always makes a difference. It has analogue output to the CMOS of my DSLR, and the sharpness, colours, contrast, bokeh, all depend on the lens quality.

I agree with Ken that it doesn’t matter if I have a $10K lens yet I shoot bad compositions of no content and idea (this is what Ken tries to really say), but a lens can never ever be compared to a digital keyboard — the output is different between different lenses. A much better analogue would e.g. be to compare a great violin player using a crappy no-name violin and a crappy violin player using a Stratovarius. Which one would you rather listen? And only then you could truly claim and make other people understand that “a violin does not matter”.

“It just works.”

“The application infinite view (process com.sonyericsson.infiniteview) has stopped unexpectedly. Please try again.”

As I failed to find a solution with Google, I called Sony Ericsson. They answered quickly and were able to assist me to fix the problem. I was very positively surprised! Now my payback is to make this solution Googlable.

To fix the problem:

1. Go to Contacts.
2. Choose “Back up contacts” from menu.
3. Backup to SD card.
4. Go to Settings/Applications/Manage applications, select “All” tab.
5. Clear all data from “Contacts” and “Contacts Storage” applications.
6. Go back to Contacts.
7. Click “Done”, don’t import anything, you’ll have an empty phonebook now.
8. Choose “Import contacts” from menu.
9. Choose “One vCard” or something like that.
10. Choose the file you backed up the contacts to.
11. Choose “Filter” from menu.
12. Choose “Phone contact”.
13. Tick “All contacts”.
14. It should work again.

That was actually the second method we tried. The first one was to remove and re-create Facebook accounts to the phone. So, if the above doesn’t work for you, try clearing the Facebook accounts. Maybe also other similar accounts as well.