April 27, 2008
Turn your iPod into anything!
November 3, 2007
Details on upgrades
To recap my recent upgrades here, I was transitioning my old web/mail server from a G4 box running OS 10.4 to a new Mac Mini running OS X 10.5. Funny that I wrote about using a Mini as a server back in 2005, and I'm only now finally getting around to putting one in here...
So, the basic process here was shutting down Postfix, then using Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my existing server to the Mac Mini (booted in Target Disk Mode), then rebooting the Mini into the Mac OS X 10.5 Installer. The Installer had absolutely no problems upgrading a PPC version of OS 10.5 to an Intel OS running 10.5, which was great. I really did not want to do a clean install, which would have been more of a hassle in converting mail files and other lower level items.
The next necessary step after installing 10.5 was to install Xcode 3.0, in order to compile all the apps I needed. Once that was done, I was finally able to start getting things up and running.
From prior dry runs, I had done a lot of testing of various packages to make sure that things would compile properly, and run without errors. There was a good bit of trial and error, and lots of googling. And thanks to someone else googling and finding an earlier entry of mine, a helpful tip out of the blue (Thanks to Paul S.) that helped massively. I had partitioned my drive so that I had a nice workspace partition to hold files between attempts at cloning and upgrading, and I had saved a few helpful notes there as well, which was very handy.
As I had mentioned a few days ago, the unix system accounts for postfix, mysql, www, and others, now for some reason all begin with an underscore character, so I had to edit a few config files where these accounts were specifically used to make sure that they reflected the current users. Also, 10.5 now runs Apache 2.2.x and not Apache 1.x, so I had to do some reading up on how this gets configured in order to migrate my config files, there were few surprises there, once I paid attention to the sample config files. Having saved copies of my working config files from earlier runs, it was a simple matter to copy these over before starting other work.
In retrospect, I should have worked on getting the mail server up and running before the web server, I didn't lose any mail, but I just hated it being offline as long as it was...
Starting with the web side, I installed MySQL 5.0.45 using a pre-build package, I used the one built for 10.4 Intel, and plan to upgrade that to a 10.5 specific build once one is available. After installing this, I simply copied my data folder over, ran the mysql_upgrade script, and all was well. Next, I compiled DBI-1.601 and DBD-mysql-4.005. For some reason I wasn't able to track down, DBD insisted on looking for mysql/lib files in /mysql/lib/mysql, even though my install never mentioned this path anywhere. Some googling finally revealed that the easiest fix was simply to fake it with some symlink trickery:
cd /usr/local/mysql/lib sudo mkdir mysql cd mysql sudo ln -s ../*
DBI compiled fine, DBD threw up an error about incompatible pointers, which I was stuck at for a day or two before finding out that this was just a warning and could be ignored. Sure enough, it ran just fine, and I found that MovableType was now working fine. During the final install of everything, I discovered that I had to reset access privs for my web folder in order for MT to be able to write files, but after doing that, it worked fine again. I'm saving my upgrade to MovableType 4.x for another day.
Compiling Postfix was fairly straightforward, as before, I built Postfix according to the standard install docs to include MySQL and PCRE support, but this time included SASL in the mix. It is very important to read the SASL docs, there was a bit of needing to create symlinks and make sure that header files were in the right locations, but once I followed all the steps outlined, it compiled fine.
The Courier-IMAP pieces drove me nuts for several days. Courier-IMAP 4.2.1, the latest build, just couldn't be made to work here, I eventually tried building an older version, 4.1.3, and that worked just fine. Courier-Authlib 0.60.2 compiled but had problems running, the trick mailed in my Paul S. was to enter the following before doing the compile:
export MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.5
This handy command has been around for a few OS releases now, and forces some settings that apparently don't get set otherwise, a quick google search found many packages needing this to compile properly. Once set, AuthLib compiled properly and more importantly, ran properly.
Despite doing the 'migrate' steps, though, my old Courier settings never made it over, and so I had to edit the authmysqlrc and some other Courier files by hand using my older versions as templates, but this work was done in short order.
One site that helped a lot in checking over some of my steps was this one:
http://switch.richard5.net/isp-in-a-box-v2/building-the-mail-server-components/building-the-courier-imap-server/
The versions used there weren't current, but helped to validate what I was trying to do here, and setting the proper CFLAGS and compile arguments. His setup there was very similar to mine, virtual domains, MySQL authentication, etc, which was a great help.
With this done, I was now actually able to check mail the last necessary step, which made a good stopping point for the night with a fairly functioning server.
The next day, I tested a few more functions of the system, and found that one of the web packages I had installed was having problems with MySQL. This turned out to be a PHP issue connecting to MySQL, it was looking for the mysql.sock file in /var instead of /tmp. The easiest fix here was to create a /etc/php.ini file, consisting of the following:
; Default socket name for local MySQL connects. If empty, uses the built-in MySQL defaults. mysql.default_socket = /tmp/mysql.sock ; Default socket name for local MySQL connects. If empty, uses the built-in MySQL defaults. mysqli.default_socket = /tmp/mysql.sock
The second section for mysqli was required for version of MySQL 4.1 and later, once this was in place and Apache stopped and started, this problem was now history.
The last hurdle I had was getting policyd running, this is the greylisting package I use with Postfix. I had been struggling for some time to get newer builds of this running. I had somehow hacked the 1.7.x version into running previously, and was never able to duplicate my success with later builds. Thanks to some outstanding work by the developers, the final fixes to this are now available in the latest SVN builds, and I was able to get the 1.9.x experimental build to compile successfully, and more importantly, to run successfully as well.
In closing, what I'd like to say here is that when you're rolling your own code, patience is your best friend. Take things one step at a time, make sure you have a backup, and when you hit a wall, do searches and ask questions on mailing lists until you find the answers you need. If all else fails, post about your failures, and someone else might stumble across your post and supply the answers you need, it's amazing how things like that work out sometimes.
June 25, 2007
APC Back-UPS ES USB 650
Late last week I picked up a APC Back-UPS ES USB 650 for the office desktop system, the power at work has been quite intermittent lately with the thunderstorms rolling through the area, and it seems that the city just can't seem to keep the power on... I should have a full review soon, but I definitely like the software that's bundled with it. If I could just find a way to silence the alarm when the power drops, I'd be very happy...
May 26, 2007
FireExpress Triplet Enclosure review
At long last, I've finally managed to lay my hands on this beastie... Depending on where you find it, it might be known as FireXpress Triplet 3-in-1 FireWire USB to SATA Dual Drive Enclosure FX2U2S-EB2-35L (this is the one I picked up), or a CSS-35SSA2X (the one was originally wanting to review here). From looking at the online docs and the received product, these are in fact the same unit, but marketed under two separate brand names, the box itself gives no clue as to the actual manufacturer.
My ongoing quest for drive enclosures that support Spread Spectrum Clocking (SSC) on SATA drives continues with a review of this stylish enclosure.
Included with the enclosure is an external power supply, a FireWire 800 cable (9 pin to 9 pin), a FireWire 400 cable (6 pin to 6 pin), and a USB 2.0A to mini-B cable (for attaching to your standard USB 2.0 port. A FireWire 800 to 400 cable would have been a nice addition, but was not included, as a FireWire 400 port is included on the unit itself.
The controller uses the Oxford 924 chipset, which fully supports SATA I and SATA II standards, and supports RAID 0 (Striping or Spanning), or can allow each drive to been seen separately. RAID 0 Striping was set (via an internal jumper) by default, and as the drive I was installing were identical (500Gb each) I left this setting unchanged. The controller type is a very important choice when considering an enclosure, older version of the Oxford chipset (922, etc) did not fully support SATA II, and non-Oxford chipsets to my knowledge do not currently support this standard either, so be sure to check this when looking at other enclosures you are considering.
The unit includes an aluminum 'base', two separate brackets that attach on opposite sides of the drive in either a horizontal or vertical configuration. I use the term 'attach' loosely here, as the drive enclosure just sits on top of these brackets. There is a small rubbery pad at each end that at first I thought might have a removable film covering a sticky pad, but this was not the case. If the unit is going to be sitting flat and undisturbed, I'm sure that this will work fine. Four small rubber feet were also included, which might work better for some, I just left both of these off. The drive is currently sitting behind my LCD display, so the looks aren't all that important at this point. What I was expecting was that the aluminum brackets would use screws to attach, a bit of careful work with a drill and some self tapping screws would do the job nicely, if you were so inclined.
As I mentioned earlier, the enclosure will definitely handle drives using Spread Spectrum Clocking (SSC), an increasingly common feature that helps reduce electromagnetic interference, especially between drives in close proximity with each others, such as you might have in a RAID setup, so that is a definite plus here.
Most serious computer users will eventually run out of drive space, requiring internal drive upgrades and/or external storage. Having an enclosure available that will let you continue to use your original drive after an upgrade is a great thing to have, and with SATA drives becomming the standard on most systems, this enclosure would be a great one to consider. Or if you come across some bargain drives, setting up your own RAID is a snap, since there really is no such thing as having too much storage.
April 22, 2007
New Router
I've been documenting my efforts at getting my new router up and running over at WRTSL54GS Adventures, basically just a place for me to make notes to myself. ;) My Linksys WRTSL54GS is now up and running, and so the Firewall script that I had just put into production here is now a thing of the past, now that I can handle the tasks I need at the router level.
This is a fantastic router, and running OpenWRT on it instead of the default Linksys firmware opens up a lot of possibilities by being able to run Linux on the router, and add whatever functionality you might happen to need.
April 15, 2007
Firewall StartupItem part 2
One thing that's very important when setting up a new StartupItem like I did with my Firewall script is to make sure that the privledges are set correctly so that it actually runs at startup... The acticle I referenced didn't include this, but the reader comments at the end did. Specifically, the folder and enclosed items should be owned by root with group wheel with privs 755.
I had one question regarding the script and how I references the set of rules I wrote, the original article had these saved in /etc, which to me seemed a bit silly, having them in the same folder as the Startup script seemed much more logical. Here is my working script for this:
#!/bin/sh
##
# Firewall
##
. /etc/rc.common
StartService ()
{
if [ "${FIREWALL:=-NO-}" = "-YES-" ]
then
ConsoleMessage "Starting Firewall"
sh /Library/StartupItems/Firewall/fw.rules > /dev/null
fi
}
StopService ()
{
ConsoleMessage "Stopping Firewall"
/sbin/ipfw -f -q flush
}
RestartService ()
{
StopService
StartService
}
RunService "$1"
February 5, 2007
Why Symbian is failing...
I came across an excellent article today that goes into a lot of detail on the Symbian OS and the various phones that use it, and the various factors that have conspired to cripple it. Give it a read here, and find out why the iPhone is likely to leapfrog this formerly great OS in short order.
My own take on this is that the article hits the mark pretty well. I had been investigating new phones for some time to replace my old Nokia 3650, one of Nokia's original Series 60 units, and was fairly disappointed with the newer Series 60 OS. My old apps wouldn't work, and suitable replacements were not to be found. Looking in from the outside, the 'new' OS made little sense from a consumer standpoint, the Symbian OS was in my opinion by far the best OS on any smartphone, but management decisions were killing 3rd party development, and a bloated OS was being built on what now appears to be a fairly shakey foundation.
The Symbian phones were succeeding despite themselves, simply because of the fact that everything else sucked more. The new iPhone with a core OS of OS X is indeed years ahead of other phones. With its core OS being based on OS X Leopard, the latest and greatest features and code are going to be available to developers who already have experience building Mac applications. The iPhone will debut years ahead of where other phones are heading, once developers get on board and Apple itself expands the feature set, this thing is going to be unstoppable.
January 9, 2007
iPhone prediction from 2004
As most of the tech and business world is aware, Apple has at long last announced the iPhone, currently set to ship around June. Rumors have been flying for years on this juicy bit of technology, so I thought I'd dig up my own thoughts from 2004, 2 years and one month ago, and oddly enough from close to the same time that this current product was conceived...
In looking back, I think I hit the mark pretty well, the full screen, touch sensitive display, built in WiFi and Bluetooth. I have to admit that the thought of something this size running a version of OS X never occured to me, but a more robust OS was certainly what I was after at the time, capable of handling QuickTime and iTunes content, web, and email access. It's amazing how technology has advanced in two years.
One key point that I hit on was games, something currently lacking on this product, the screen shots and demos do not include any hint at a games area, but as these are things available for current iPods, I'm sure that by the time the iPhone ships, a nice selection of games will be available for purchase, as well as a select few bundled with the phone, or possibly available as a free download. As FCC certification is pending, the bundled software may be fixed at this time, but should be easily expandable later.
October 4, 2006
CoolDrives Dual SATA enclosure
Well, it looks like the drive I wrote about a few days ago has a big brother... CoolDrives now has a Dual SATA enclosure, the CSS-35SSA2X, also based on the Oxford 924 chipset. I should have one of these in my hands in about a week, and will post all the juicy details after I've taken it for a spin.
September 30, 2006
Router Time...
I'm once again thinking of replacing my aging Asante router here, and am leaning heavily towards the Linksys WRTSL54GS, it has a lot of great features, and best of all can run an alternate (and customizable) firmware, which sounds like a lot of fun. I've been exploring several options over the last week or so, and right now this guy is leading the pack. More info in a week or three on this front.
What is really bugging me though is that I've also been searching for info on turning my web/mail server box (running Mac OS X 10.4.x) into a router, I can easily throw another ethernet card or two in there, and I can find these little embedded Linux devices everywhere that function as routers, and I know that OS X has to have everything I need in there, but docs are pretty sparce from what I can tell. Of course, I'm also looking for a fancy front end so I don't have to figure out all this IPFW stuff on my own, but is that too much to ask?
September 25, 2006
CoolGear SATA PRO-35AXC Enclosure
As promised, what follows is my review of the CoolGear eSATA HDD Enclosure (3.5"), not a terribly snappy name, but relatively descriptive. The drive is available from SATAGear.com as well as CoolDrives.com, and possibly other resellers, SATAGear.com is apparently CoolGear's own retail site from what I can tell, and they do offer the drive at a slightly lower price, though CoolDrives' site has prettier pictures.
This enclosure uses the newer Oxford 924 chipset, most other SATA drive enclosures that I found were based on the older 922 chipset, or even older versions. The specifications indicated that it supported both SATA I and SATA II drives up to 750Gb capacity, most other enclosures I had checked out seemed to top out at about 500Gb, so this one definitely seems a bit more cutting edge than the others, so playing a hunch, I gave it a whirl.
And boy, does this enclosure have options for attaching. It includes a USB 2.0 port, dual FireWire 800 (1394b) ports, and an eSATA port for direct connection to a SATA controller card. Now, if your system only has the older FireWire 400 (1394a) ports, don't despair, as FireWire 800 can in fact attach directly to the slower FireWire 400 ports (with appropriate cable) and work without problems, though of course at the slower speed. The USB 2.0 port is actually a mini-B connector, like that found on most newer digital cameras, rather than the usual 'B' connector found on printers and such. However, don't let any of that bother you, because this drive comes with all the cables you could possibly need.
Included are the external power supply (of course), a full FireWire 800 cable (9 pin to 9 pin), a FireWire 800 to 400 cable (9 pin to 6 pin), a USB 2.0A to mini-B cable (for attaching to your standard USB 2.0 port, and of course, an eSATA to eSATA (Type 'I' connectors) cable for attaching directly to an SATA controller card (not included).
Three screws hold the back of the enclosure on, you'll need a very small phillips screwdriver (specifically a size 00 would be ideal), removing these allows the drive sled to slide out from the top housing. Shock mounts are on all four points where the drive attaches to the case to prevent vibration, a green LED on the front indicates power, this switches to red to indicate drive activity.
System Profiler gives some details on the enclosure, as well as the 400Gb drive I used for testing. Again, this model is using Oxford's 924 chipset, supports SATA I and II drives, including Spread Spectrum Clocking enabled drives, includes two FireWire 800 ports, a USB 2.0 port, and a eSATA port, and supports drive sizes up to 750Gb.
The bottom of the enclosure is vented to allow some airflow into the case, but are no other vents elsewhere to help heat escape. Despite that, even after running for several hours, the top of the case was warm, but not exceptionally so, and the sides (all part of the same aluminum piece) were still fairly cool. A small fan would have been a nice addition, but considering the small dimentions of the enclosure, even fitting a 20mm square fan would be a challenge.
Performance of the drive is excellent, attached to my desktop system (PowerMac G4 Quicksilver) at home via FireWire 400 (supporting speeds up to 40MB/s), and going through a Belkin FireWire hub at that, the drive was still able to copy a 300Gb disk image to an ATA drive on the internal 133Mhz bus faster than I could copy between ATA drives, one on the internal 133Mhz bus, and the other on the internal 100Mhz bus. USB 2.0 speeds are generally 48MB/s, and FireWire 800 speeds can reach 80Mb/s, so the faster your available ports, the better performance you'll see. Anyone with a SATA card in their machines can attach the drive directly via the eSATA port, and see performance up to 300MB/s for SATA II, or 150MB/s for SATA I.
All in all, this is definitely a great enclosure, it looks sharp, and is a fantastic addition for any system, be it as a permanent addition, or just temporary storage.
September 23, 2006
Serial ATA Enclosure Found!
It looks like my search for a functional Serial ATA enclosure that supports Spread Spectrum Clocking enabled drives has finally paid off. After contacting numerous manufacturers and distributors and even an email to Oxford Semiconductor themselves, I've stumbled across an enclosure which does in fact support SSC SATA drives.
Despite the fact that several of my emails went unanswered, and that no manufacturer would admit to making an enclosure that supported SSC, it turns out that CoolGear does in fact make such a beast.
I played a hunch, and ordered this puppy from CoolDrives.com, also available from SATAGear.com. I've only had a short time to test it out, but so far it's two thumbs up. Stay tuned for a full review.
August 30, 2006
The quest for a SATA enclosure...
What started out as a simple task has snowballed into a major endeavor. The job was simple, buy an external enclosure that I could put a spare Serial ATA drive into, and plug it into my Mac via Firewire or USB. Unfortunately, Serial ATA has a hidden gotcha called Spread Spectrum Clocking that a lot of SATA gear just doesn't support.
A number of SATA drives on the market don't even have this feature available, it's primary purpose is to reduce EMI emissions in multi-drive systems (RAIDs and such), so typically only higher end drives would feature this. Of the drives that do have this feature, a select few apparently have a jumper setting to enable/disable the function, but most drives don't have a way for the user to change this preset setting. And of course, as it happens, the drive I had intended to use had SSC enabled, as it was from an Xserve G5.
One of the main goals in purchasing the enclosure was so that I could perform data recovery, backup, etc, on a separate system that didn't have SATA built in, I could just move the drive to my enclosure, do my work, and get the drive back where it needed to go. So because I don't know what type of drives I'd be working with, and because it's likely I'll be needing to work with Xserve drives, I obviously NEED to have SSC support.
I've already spoken with several enclosure manufacturers, so far, none have had a model that supported SSC. The search continues...
March 10, 2006
New Camera
Well, I'm finally breaking down and getting a new digital camera to replace my old HP Photosmart 318, a 2.31 megapixel camera purchased purchased about 4 years ago. This camera was itself a replacement for my old Apple QuickTake 200 (and QuickTake 100 before that...). The thing that has driven me nuts these last few years was the lack of a zoom lens, and I'm tired of wide angle shots. Most digital cameras on the market have a wimpy 3x optical zoom if they have one at all, though a few have higher zooms. With the race for megapixels over the last few years, I still find it amazing that the camera's optics have barely been considered by most purchasers.
New new camera changes that, in fact, it doesn't even come with a lens. I'm going with the Nikon D50 a digital SLR camera. After reading reviews and talking with several folks, I've chosen Nikon's AF-S Nikkor 18 - 200 mm f/3.5-5.6G DX ED VR lens, a fairly new high performance lens that should handle most of my needs well.
A number of retailers will sell the D50 with various lower quality lenses or accessories, and these may work well for many folks, but I decided to spend a bit more and get a better lens right away, that way I won't waste time with lower quality items that I'll replace later. I'm also picking up a 2Gb memory card, which should serve my needs pretty well. I've never come close to filling the 512Mb card in my HP Photosmart camera, so 2Gb should do nicely.
I'll still keep the Photosmart around, maybe let the boys use it when they want to take some pics on trips and such, I've even got the QuickTake's around here somewhere, but the Nikon is all mine...
February 14, 2006
Apple & Palm = ?
Hot rumor floating around (again), several big Palm investors seem to want this to happen, but nothing brewing in the Apple camp that has been leaked yet...
I've said for a while now that Palm could use some help, an Apple takeover would certainly help them out, and could give their products a bit more flash than they have currently.
February 1, 2006
iPhone again
Way back in December '04, I wrote about the possibility of an Apple branded cell phone, and as we all know this turned out to be the Motorola ROKR. It did not include any iPhoto integration as the original rumor went, but still turned out to be a nice phone, though not branded by Apple.
Now, some months after this, Nokia announced that it would be bundling a new browser based on Sarari with their (excellent) Series 60 phones, thanks to help from Apple. I'm frankly surprised that this didn't spur another round of rumors at the time. But now, whispers are again being heard...
The press was not terribly kind with the ROKR, bloggers complained about various phone elements, and there were charges by many that Apple sabotaged the phone so that it wouldn't cripple iPod sales, and others considered the possibility that Apple was testing the waters for a phone of their own design to be released at a later time. The new SLVR model is a bit more stylish and hip, but carries the same iTunes limitations (100 songs), and slow transfer speeds for tunes.
What few folks are saying, though, is that this 100 song 'limit' is pretty much the max on the 512Mb TransFlash module in the phone, currently the largest capacity chip available of that type, and the slow data transfers appear to be a function of this memory, not a limitation of the phone's USB port.
On the Nokia front, their new browser is set to be available the first half of 2006, so of course we have no info on what the public will think of this yet. A browser isn't as sexy as iTunes, but still, it's another core Apple technology that will be in another phone.
So, the question now is, will Apple just be helping others to make their products better, or is this a preliminary move in the creation of a real Apple branded cell phone, something that incorporates Apple's sense of style and functionality with lifestyle apps like iTunes and iPhoto, and productivity apps like Safari, iCal, and Address Book (similar apps are already present in most phones)?
New iTunes Phone
Motorola is now shipping their second iTunes phone, as before only Cingular is picking up the new SLVR L7 model here in the US. Pretty sharp looking, thinner than their RAZR, looks very similar to the RAZR, but it isn't a flip phone, which is nice to see. I've never been a fan of flip phones, so it's nice to see some decent models in this form factor again.
I had been looking for a new phone for my wife, and she was leaning towards the ROKR, but this might be her next phone. Now, if only Amazon would get with the program and start selling it...
January 5, 2006
Microsoft Urge - Powered by Sun
Nice to know that Microsoft doesn't even trust their own OS for a major service. Now if only the rest of their customers would figure this out... Note the icon (soon to be changed, no doubt), when visiting their new music service...
November 20, 2005
Evolution TV Review
EvolutionTV is a PVR (Personal Video Recorder) for the Mac. It allowed the user to view and record TV, as well as pause/rewind live TV.
The unit features a USB 2.0 interface for bringing the audio/video into the Mac, which can leave some older systems out in the cold. A USB 2.0 PCI card can add this functionality to most systems that meet the speed requirements of the software (PowerMac G4/1Ghz or better), which would let most supported Macs but the iMac join the fun.
The software provides several encoding options for optimizing video quality, or minimizing file size, and the built in iMovie integration allows recorded video to be edited and burned to DVD from within iMovie. Integration with TitanTV or (tvtv for European users) allows convenient scheduling of recordings, and integration with iCal provides yet another option for keeping track of your viewing schedule. And don't worry if your Mac is asleep or powered off, the software can automatically wake or boot the Mac in plenty of time to catch the next recording.
The one problem I had with the software (but not something that was claimed to be possible), was that it did not provide a complete one-stop solution for viewing/recording/scheduling, so it's no TiVo replacement just yet, but as the name implies, the software is continuing to evolve, the most recent version having gained the ability to pause/rewind live TV. So it is certainly possible that a future version may include such increased functionality.
Miglia also provides great support. When the package was first opened, a slight rattle was heard from the power adapter, apparently from a small bit of metal that had sheared off during manufacture. Though still functional, the adapter was quickly replaced. Later in my testing I downloaded a new version of the EvolutionTV software when setting this up on another system, and was not able to properly view video, a support ticket went in and it was quickly revealed that this software update was problematic with NTSC video, and a revision was quickly posted.
All in all, the Evolution TV is a fine product, and one that should continue to improve over time. The evolutionTV is available from many online retailers or direct from Miglia's online store, and has a suggested retail price of $279.
August 10, 2005
Keyspan USB Print Server
About a week ago, my doorbell rings, and before I can get to the door I can hear a large truck driving off, and on the doorstep is a small box. It really irks me when delivery drivers just drop stuff on the porch, but when I found out it was a new goodie to review, I quickly forgot all about that and tore into the packaging.
Behold, the Keyspan PS-4A USB Print Server! Not to be confused with the older US-4A model, which looks identical, the new PS-4A model is bi-directional (printers that can report back ink/paper status can now do so), and includes full USB 2.0 connectivity.
So, just what is a USB print server, exactly? Basically, this will turn your USB based printer into a networkable TCP/IP based printer, sharable to every computer on your network. I know, some of you are probably thinking, hey, I've got a Mac, I can share my printer already. And of course, I was thinking the same thing, until I decided to take this little box for a spin.
The first thing I thought that would be handy is that you wouldn't need to leave a system running to keep your printer shared. The second thing I thought of was that you could print to your printer from an entirely different network over IP, either from a separate subnet in a corporate environment, or to your home system from elsewhere through your home router, something that Rendezvous, er, Bonjour, doesn't do. So, I set about to set things up and see how it all worked.
The box included a CD with software that installed easily on my Mac, and basically this will let you configure your Print Server, set it up with a static IP or use DHCP addressing, etc, etc, and will essentially make it appear to be a separate USB port on your Mac. A connected printer will immediately pop up in your Printer Setup Utility as an available printer with no configuration necessary, assuming you have the necessary drivers already installed for that model, very nice.
The PS-4A directly supports attaching 4 USB devices, but according to the documentation devices that happen to supply extra USB ports for pass-through (internal hubs) will let it chain up to 8 devices total off the one server. Personally, I don't see folks having that many USB printers all in the same spot, but still, nice to be expandable.
First thing I tested was a HP Deskjet 5550 at the office, plugged everything in per the directions, installed the software, and after launching their config utility, sure enough, the printer popped right up. One thing that I didn't care for was that the default setup must have the user 'connect' to their printer in this utility to make it available for use (basically make it unavailable to other users), they can then print, and finally free it up for others to use. Didn't seem very Mac-like, must be a Windows thing. Fortunately, they also include an auto-connect option, which just as it sounds, lets the Mac connect on the fly without checking out the printer first, and releases it once finished.
The big advantage of the new model printer server is that it is bi-directional, meaning that the printer can communicate back to the Mac, for things like paper and ink status. I was able to use HP's utility to get the status of my ink levels and other info, worked just like it was there on the USB bus.
I tested with a few other model printers at the office, several HP models, both Inkjet and a Laser, all worked as expected. So, I packed up my trusty HP 5550 and the PS-4A and brought them home, hooked it all up here, installed the software, and again things worked as expected. I then set up my router's firewall to port forward the particular port I had assigned the print server to the print server's IP address. I connected back to my work system, entered the IP address of where the print server was now located, and in a few moments had again established a connection to the server, but this time across the internet from my office to my home, through my router, and finally to the print server. As before, the HP 5550 popped right up, and another print job came through just fine.
This last test wasm for me, the most impressive. My particular router doesn't like my IP printer at home, or probably any standard IP printer. The router included an option on some models to hook a parallel printer up and print to it via IP, my model didn't include this port, but the router still hogged that port assignment just the same, making printing to a standard IP printer impossible through the router, so I could never print to my home printer from the office before. At last, I was able to send jobs through to a printer here, basically because the Keyspan server uses a non-standard port (reassignable by the user) for printing.
All in all, I was very pleased with this product. In addition to supporting printers, it also supports scanners, multi-function printers, storage devices, PDAs, digital cameras, etc., but no audio/video type devices. I hope to get my hands on one of the newer HP multifunction printers soon and give that a try with this server, HP sells ethernet adapters for several of their printers, but the price on those is much higher than the cost of this little box, and if it works just as well, why spend the money?
Keyspan is well known for their great products, and this looks like another winner for them.
August 8, 2005
Spring Forward, Fall Down
Thanks to an act of Congress, the United States will gain an extra month of of daylight starting in 2007, when Daylight Savings Time begins three weeks earlier, and ends a week later. There are a number of positive askects to this, but for tech types, there may be cause for concern.
Daylight Savings Time was last changed in 1987, since that time, a number of devices have incorporated built in clocks that automatically reset for DST automatically (VCRs, etc), not to mention computers with built in clocks. So, in less than two years, these devices will no longer function properly (during those 4 weeks), which for some might be problematic. It is a given that software updates for the latest operating systems will be updated within that time to include fixes for this, and that most likely previous OS versions may also have minor patches released. But older systems may not receive updates, and devices such as VCRs won't be updatable.
Schools in particular tend to keep older computer equipment running as long as possible, and they are likely to be hit hard by this, but at the same time, the clock being off by an hour in a school lab is likely to be much less critical than a mission critical server in, say, a nuclear power plant.
August 4, 2005
Windows Vista Viruses
Just days after Windows Vista was made available to developers, the first Windows Vista viruses were already on the loose. Apparently this next-generation platform really delivers on the breakthrough basics and end-to-end experiences promoted on the Microsoft Windows Vista web site. If virus development continues at this pace for Vista, buyers may well find the shrink wrapped CDs already fully loaded with them by the time the product ships, saving customers the time of having their systems infected over the internet...
May 26, 2005
Intel chief (almost) recommends Macs
Intel's CEO Paul Otellini has stopped just short of recommending the Mac, but admits that security concerns on Intel hardware won't be fixed anytime soon.
Let the Apple/Intel rumor mongers chew on that one for a while...
May 24, 2005
Apple/Intel rumors - Bah!
Well, the media is just going nuts thanks to a rumor started by 'analysts' at the Wall Street journal about Apple possibly using Intel chips in upcoming products, and everyone's just falling all over themselves buzzing about the possibility. Personally I think that anyone in the media that starts talking about such things should be fired for their incompetence, but here's my take on all of this.
First of all, nowhere in the original article was the word PROCESSOR mentioned. You know, that really big chip that runs the whole show? Last time I checked, Intel made more than just Pentiums, and Apple has used Intel chips in the past in its products. In fact, at this very moment I'm staring at an Apple multi-port Ethernet card removed from a G4 server, and it has Intel chips all over it.
Next, even if there was the thought of moving to Intel processors, as I mentioned Posted by Jim at 7:28 PM | TrackBack
April 17, 2005
Asterisk GUIs
Asterisk is making the news again, this time with a story about various folks coming up with GUI interfaces for Asterisk to help manage various tasks.
April 8, 2005
Mac based PBX
Lately I've been reading up on a facinating piece of software called Asterisk™ , an Open Source PBX (Private Branch Exchange), basically a system for running multiple phones/lines just like most decent sized companies have. And the thing that caught my attention is that it can run on the Mac without too much fuss.
Of course, to get the most use out of it you'd need an IP enabled phone, or a softphone application for your desktop, but regular phones and phone lines can be made to work too with some extra hardware to interface them. I'm seriously thinking about setting up such a system here at home. I'll post more about this when I've had a chance to play with it a bit more...
March 4, 2005
Shuffle Raid wrapup
This looks to be my final wrapup on the iPod Shuffle RAID article I wrote a few weeks back that drew so much attention. Included are some final notes on installing OS X to a Shuffle, USB hub observations, and some USB 2.0 PCI card notes.
First, some comments on USB hubs. I received several questions from readers on why certain USB hubs were rejected, As several reviews of the iPod Shuffle have noted, the total width of the Shuffle is a tad larger than the average USB cable connector, consequently it has a tendency to block adjacent ports which are mounted side by side horizontally. Ports mounted vertically present less of an issue as the height of the Shuffle isn't significantly greater than a standard USB connector plug.
So, the main choice in hub selection was one where the ports were separated far enough to allow multiple Shuffles to be plugged in without interfering with each other, the cool look of what I ended up with was pure coincidence.
Next on the USB front, USB 2.0 PCI cards. I investigated several cards from a range of vendors, from the well known Mac vendors (Belkin, Keyspan, D-Link) and other no-name PC type companies, in all cases, what I found was that while I could find PCI cards with as many as 5 ports on a card, in each case these ports were all part of a single common bus. To put it another way, the cards featured a single USB 2.0 port connected to a USB 2.0 hub. So despite the fact that the cards featured multiple ports, each connected device would still be sharing a common bus.
In the case of a Shuffle RAID, I do not believe that any significant speed boost would be seen by using a card with multiple ports versus simply using a hub as I did originally. Some benefit 'might' be seen by putting some Shuffles on the Mac's internal USB bus, and others on a PCI USB card's bus, but I'm not convinced that even 4 Shuffles would saturate the bus sufficiently to slow data transfer by a noticeable amount.
Finally, installing OS X to a Shuffle. The Installer prevents this, it's apparently smart enough to know that the Shuffle can't be a boot device, so this choice isn't even offered. Reformatting the Shuffle (done automatically when it becomes part of a RAID set) doesn't help, and though there are some tricks that will apparently force the Installer to install onto 'other' drives, I don't believe that this would have made any difference.
Several folks suggested using Carbon Copy Cloner, an excellent utility for duplicating drives (among other things), to mirror a working boot drive to the Shuffle. This method would have involved creating a drive that was sufficiently slimmed down to fit onto a 4 Shuffle array.
Unfortunately, getting my original group of 4 Shuffles back together in one spot proved exceedingly difficult, so instead I used a utility called BootCD, a very clever bit of software that will strip out the essential bits of the OS in order to create a bootable CD containing OS X, the Finder, etc. So, I created an image weighing in at about 650Mb containing Mac OS X 10.3.5, and copied this back to a single Shuffle, reformatted as a Mac OS Extended partition.
Startup Disk now saw this drive as an available choice to boot from, but oddly prevented me from selecting it as my boot drive. The icon for the drive would highlight, but the system would beep at me each time I did this, selecting any other valid boot drive did not result in this same beep. Also, quitting from Startup Disk and rechecking settings revealed that this setting was not being preserved, and rebooting the Mac showed that this was in fact the case.
The final trick of holding down the Option key at Startup to select the boot drive resulted in the system hanging, apparently the OS just didn't know how to deal with a Shuffle that had an OS installed onto it. After a few minutes of waiting for the system to finish scanning for boot drives, I finally shut it down.
So ended the search for a bootable iPod Shuffle. However, several folks wrote about the possibility of using such a RAID as a way to secure data so that it could not be recovered without all Shuffles being present. Perhaps some secret documents could be stored on such a RAID, and several people given a Shuffle so that only this group could meet at some other location to recover the data (think James Bond or some form of corporate intrigue). This would obviously not need to be done with Shuffles, any similar Flash media would suffice.
One other reader pointed out that this may actually be the record for the world's smallest (physically) RAID array (cool!), but again since this could be done with any USB Flash device, it wouldn't take much for someone to throw one together about half again this size.
Finally, I'd like to thank all the thousands of folks around the world that visited my site, some to marvel at what I had done, others to simply marvel at the photos of 4 iPod Shuffles all in the same place at the same time. To all of them I'd simply like to say, stay creative, and keep Thinking Different.
February 14, 2005
USB card search
Well, I'm not having a whole lot of luck so far, I've researched several USB 2.0 cards, most 4-5 port models, and what I've found is that these cards basically offer a single USB 2.0 bus, shared among each of the ports on the card. Essentially, a 1 USB port card with a built in hub. Not really what I'm looking for. On the plus side, these same cards reportedly offer TWO USB 1.1 busses at the same time, so if you're mixing device types, it isn't quite so bad, but I already have two USB 1.1 ports (each on their own bus), so that functionality is useless.
Certainly there must be someone that offers a USB 2.0 card with multiple USB 2.0 busses, my search continues...
February 10, 2005
Shuffle RAID Redux
You've asked for it, you've got it! In the next few weeks I'll be revisiting my iPod Shuffle RAID project, and I've got a few new things to try out. First I'll be adding a USB 2.0 card and quality USB 2.0 extension cables to the mix (Manufacturers, please feel free to contact me regarding donating produt to review), and eliminating the USB 2.0 hub. Second, I've got a few ideas in mind that might just get a bootable OS onto the array, so stay tuned for that. The big delay, of course, will be getting my hands back on those four iPod shuffles... ;)
And to answer the big question that's been floating around the net since I posted that article 'Why', it's as simple as 'Why not?'. For those that complained that this was not a cost effective solution, they've obviously missed the point or are humor impaired. This was just one of those cool projects to see how far you can stretch a given technology, and hopefully give others some ideas on what things are capable of. But it might just be a record for the highest capacity RAID drive of it's size...
February 3, 2005
iPod Shuffle RAID
So, what do you do when you and some friends are all getting iPod Shuffles? You make a RAID array out of them, of course! Follow along as we explore new depths of geekery...
Special thanks to Justin, Melissa, and Shanea for the use of their iPod Shuffles. ;)
So, here we have our iPod Shuffles, all the top of the line 1Gb models. I'm sure that normal folks would probably take these home, install iTunes 4.7.1 from the CD in the box, and happily start putting music on the little things, but I had other plans for them...
Of course, for my plans to work, I next had to take a quick trip over to Fry's to pick up a suitable USB 2.0 hub, and by suitable I mean one that would allow two or more Shuffles to be plugged in. Not an easy task, but I finally found a nice little one from PPA Inc. that would do the job (Model 1820, not listed on their web site). After getting them all plugged in, it looked like this:
Next we have the process of preparing them to be used as a RAID array. So we fire up Disk Utility, and put them into a RAID set, Striping them for a grand total of 3.9Gb of storage.
Once that process has completed, we how have the new RAID volume available on the desktop and can copy files over to it. As far as the Mac is concerned, it's just another drive on the system. Of course, iTunes no longer recognizes it, but it's no longer really portable in this configuration anyway...
Total time to copy a total of 1.86Gb was just under 11 minutes. Obviously if each Shuffle had been on their own independent USB 2.0 BUS, this speed would have been improved.
My original intent was to actually install OS X on the RAID and boot from that, but the OS X (Panther, 10.3.5) Installer wouldn't allow installation onto the RAID array, either as a Strip or Mirror set. After restoring the Shuffles to their original configuation, I tried the OS X Installer again and even the Shuffle itself would not allow OS X to be installed on it, possibly due to how the volume itself is made available to the OS.
3/3/05 - Note: Be sure to read the followup article, Shuffle Raid wrapup.
December 2, 2004
New cell phone blues
My wife has finally decided it was time to upgrade her phone, so I went shopping online looking for options. Her only comment was that she wanted one that could play solitaire. Of course, my requirement was that it could sync via iSync to our Mac at home.
I wanted to stick with a Nokia phone, as I still love my Nokia 3650. But the only compatible phones I could find were both high end Nokias, the 3620, and the 6620, both Symbian Series 60 phones. None of the other Nokias were listed as being compatible with iSync, including all of Nokia's Series 40 phones. Quite a shame, considering that there's so many of these models now, with more on the way, and no amount of searching has revealed a hack for iSync to work with these models.
My search continues...
November 13, 2004
MS vs Palm OS
Interesting new today reporting thatMicrosoft takes the lead over Palm OS in the PDA market. Not entirely surprising considering some of Palm's problems and strategic decisions over the last few years...
I'm still standing behind my thought that what would really do well in this market is a 6" PowerBook, a full fledged computer running a standard OS. Maybe someday...
October 30, 2004
iBook built in Bluetooth
Tonight I came across a cool hack where a guy actually installed a USB Bluetooth module in an iBook. Yes, an external USB module inside the iBook. Not terribly involved, but will certainly void your warranty.
The author complains at the end that this will of course keep that USB port from being used for anything else. It occured to me from looking at the pics that there might actually be enough room to install a small unpowered USB hub in there too, giving him his port back. I've picked these up on sale at Fry's for under $5. You'd need to remove the shell, but I think it might work...
September 7, 2004
News flash, floppies obsolete!
I'm passing this on in case there's a few of you out there who aren't up on all this latest tech stuff like the folks at CNN, who are reporting that Floppy disk near obsolescence. Some of you might not have realized that Dell apparently started this trend way back in 2003 when they stopped including floppy drives with new computers.
Never mind the fact that Apple went this route 5 years before and never looked back, which you'll learn if you keep reading all the way down to the bottom of the article. Hmmm, wonder if I should tip off CNN that 8-Track tapes might be on their way out too?
August 29, 2004
Longhorn Lite?
CNET is reporting on some developments, or lack thereof?, with Microsoft's new Longhorn operating system, the next generation of Windows software due out sometime in 2006. Apparently, Microsoft is busy slaughtering features to meat, er, meet, their deadline.
What this means is that by the time Mac folks have been running Mac OS 10.4 (Tiger) for over a year, and are getting ready to buy the next upgrade to Mac OS, Microsoft may finally be getting close to shipping their OS, and by all accounts, it may well end up being a bum steer...
July 28, 2004
Office Series 750VA Review
A few weeks back, the folks at Belkin were nice enough to send over one of their new Office Series 750VA Uninterruptible Power Supplies for me to review. After having had a chance to spend some time with the unit, I'm finally ready to publish my notes.
I should add here that both Tripp-Lite and APC were contacted regarding doing a comparison of their equivalent units (despite Tripp-Lite not having a Mac version of their UPS software), but neither company chose to participate.
As most of you are probably aware, power failures can be a major headache to computer users, resulting in anything from losing unsaved documents, to corrupted files, to damaged hardware. Case in point, while I was out on vacation in July, a power glitch at the office fried the hard drive in my main desktop system, not only damaging my drive, but causing an automated backup I have scheduled to copy over the corrupted data, essentially losing everything permanently. Obviously not what I wanted to come back from vacation to.
Back at home, the same storm that tore through the area apparently dropped power while I was gone, I was greeted with flashing alarm clocks and my VCRs blinking 12:00 at me. But my web/mail server didn't miss a beat, and more importantly, my cable modem was still up and running, thanks to the Belkin UPS.
My cable modem seems to be especially picky when power drops for brief moments then comes back, my CPU will restart all by itself, but the cable modem, even though it has power, will stubbornly sit there with all lights off until unplugged for a full 10 seconds before power is restored. To say the least, a major pain.
To the rescue comes the Belkin Office Series 750VA, rated at a battery capacity of 750 volt/amps, and able to power a 400watt load, this little unit now protects my web server, cable modem, and router from power failures. In fact, as I write this, the system is on battery power with the AC cord dangling off the edge of my desk.
My G4 for the site is an older model (rated at 200 watts), and does draw less power than the later G4 models, and certainly less than the G5 systems. With the router and cable modem I figure I'm pulling no more than 250 watts max, this puts about a 16% load on the UPS while in operation. Obviously if a user were to run their display through the UPS, this would cause a much larger drain on the available power, depending on the display type, but for my use, this isn't really needed.
Belkin offers several different models in the Office Series, with varying battery capacities, and some additional features like broadband protection (to keep spikes from your cable connection away from your router). For some folks, just having a few extra moments to do a proper shut down can be a lifesaver, for others, being able to keep a system up for an hour or more without power may be critical.
For my particular setup, I was able to run without power for 30 minutes, and had only run the battery down to about 50%, so I should be able to get close to an hours use out of this particular model during a power failure.
As you can see from the picture of the unit here and on Belkin's web site, it's a very stylish design, not the ugly brick of UPSs from years past. It would look just fine sitting on top of your desk, or alongside your computer. There are six outlets on top, four are battery backed, the other two are surge protected only.
The USB cable includes with the unit plugs directly into one of your Mac or PCs available USB ports (or through a hub, but if it's powered, be sure to put that on the UPS too!), and communicates to a software package called Bulldog.
Bulldog is pretty slick, there's a bar meter showing the current battery and loading level, and two other analog meters showing a number of other indicators selected via a pull-down menu, including battery, input, and output voltage, input or output frequency, and battery and output loading.
The software allows the scheduling of short and long UPS tests, as well as scheduled shutdowns and restarts. The software can automatically shut down your system after a power failure, or can even wait until the battery has run down and given a battery low warning, giving you every last bit of power remaining and still shutting your system down properly. The software will even let you set the UPS itself to power off after your CPU has shut down, to keep the battery from draining further..
For anyone that's ever lost a piece of electronic equipment to an electrical storm, you'll be happy to hear that a $75,000 connected equipment warranty is included.
The battery in the unit is replaceable, and the Bulldog software can even be set to give a battery replacement notification for some date in the future. Unfortunately, no information on the battery or with the unit indicates when the battery should be replaced, and Belkin's web site does not currently give any information on how a replacement battery for the Office Series of UPSs can be ordered.
The UPS itself retails for $109.99, but a quick search around the net found prices all the way down to $66.14.
As I was beginning this review, some questions arose that I submitted to Belkin's Tech Support staff, specifically the battery life/replacement date, availability of replacement batteries, and an updated version of the Bulldog software that might be more compatible with MacOS 10.3.4. After receiving their automated reply, nothing further was heard. More than two weeks later, a followup email was sent, which also went unanswered. My recommendation here is to call and reach a live person, as their email support is definitely lacking.
A 10.3 compatible version of Bulldog was found online, but it was problematic, with intermittent connectivity to the UPS, failure to show available gauges, and other problems I believe caused by their low level routines that monitor UPS activity. As the monitoring software is definitely not a requirement, I didn't weigh this terribly heavily.
All in all, I would highly recommend this unit, and Belkin's other models in the Office Series, for any user needing reliable short term power and peace of mind.
June 28, 2004
Call to action, INDUCE Act
Ok, when I first heard about this, I thought it was just another internet hoax making the rounds, but it looks like there's meat to this one, and folks need to speak up and make their voices heard.
I'm speaking about the INDUCE Act, check that link for more info and what you can do about it. Also do a Google seach on 'INDUCE Act' and you'll come up with more info.
I'm a Wright leaning sort, but this bill needs to be stopped...
June 24, 2004
Plantronics M3000 headset review
I've been using the Plantronics M3000 bluetooth headset for a while, and though slightly late to the party, I've finally had a chance to write up my review on it.
I was originally looking at their M1000, apparently no longer made, it was a boom style affair with the microphone right up by your mouth, and was very light, but unfortunately supported an older Bluetooth profile not used on my newer phone, and so back it went.
The M3000 seemed to be what I needed, with a weight of only 30 grams, and a very long (advertised 8 hours) talk time, and a reasonably attactive look. After having had some real world experience with it, I'd like to share my thoughts.
First, the headset looks like something out of Star Trek, my wife always calls me Uhura when I forget to take it off after getting home. I've had a number of folks ask me about it both at work and while out in public, reactions are almost always very positive. Wireless headsets are a new concept to most folks, and I think that folks really can appreciate not having all those wires running down from your ear to wherever you keep your phone.
The range on the headset is also pretty good. Normally, my phone is worn on a belt clip, but I've also answered my phone from across the room, or sometimes left the phone at my desk accidentally while walking to another part of my office, and don't notice the phone's not with me till I'm at least 30 feet away or more (30 feet is the advertised limit, and is also the limit definied in the Bluetooth specs, and this may vary depending on your phone).
Battery life is impressive, the advertised specs are 8 hours of talk time, and 200 hours (about 8 days) of standby time. I've never once had the battery go dead, but I normally turn the unit off when not in use (evenings/nights), and only charge it about once every 3-4 weeks, or whenever it occurs to me that I haven't charged it in a while. Seriously, why would you leave the headset turned on when you're sleeping?
The controls on the headset are conveniently placed, answering and disconnecting is accomplished by pressing the large button in the center of the headset, volume up/down are along the top edge, and the power on/off/mute button is right next to the volume buttons.
The one feature I'm not crazy about is that while on mute, the headset will produce a tone about every 30 seconds to remind you that you're on mute. This wouldn't be so bad if the tone were a bit softer, and it also interrupts the call you're listening to, rather than just beeping in the background, so you may miss bits of conversation, which can be quite annoying.
The noise cancelling microphone is very good, the audio quality is equal to that of my Nokia 3650, people I've asked can't tell if I'm using a headset versus the cell phone itself, which is good. Wind is probably the worst problem, but my cell phone has the same problem. I've found that while in the car, I'll need to turn down the blower and roll up the windows to cut down on wind noise, but again this is no different than what I'd do with my cell phone anyway.
My one major complain is with the plastic ear loop included with the headset. The earloops included are reversible for left/right ear, and come in two sizes, a large and a small, to better fit your ear. I've found the plastic loops to be rather stiff and uncomfortable when worn for long periods, but the fact that I also wear glasses may also be a large factor here. Plantronics does however offer what they describe as 'extra comfort ear loops' for an additional charge, but my feeling is that these should have been included with the headset from the beginning. I've always found Plantronics headsets to be very comfortable to wear (I used to have one on my desk phone at work), and would have thought that the more comfortable ear loops should have been standard. This extra set though does include a third, medium size earloop, so you're almost guaranteed to have an excellent fit between those available choices.
The M3000 has a suggested retail price of $139.95, but a quick web search has found prices as low as $61.77 currently.
Recently Plantronics has begun shipping the new M3500 headset, an identical form factor, but with improved noice cancellation and audio fidelity thanks to digital signal processing circuitry. Battery time has been reduced greatly (3.5 hours talk, 76 hours standby), but this model does include the extra comfort ear loops, a car lighter charging cable, and a form fitting pouch for when you're not wearing the headset. This unit retails for $169.95, and can be found online for as low as $85. For my money, I'd go with the M3500 over the M3000, the improved ear loops alone make it money well spent.