The Digital PA System

We have a new project at our office, a Public Address (PA) system. A PA system seems a strange requirement for a small business like us. We already have redundant IM systems (A Jabber server as well as Empathy's distributed People Nearby service), but the argument for it is rather spiritual.

To implement the PA system, I voted to implement it the ultra-modern way, through the computer network. I've had my experiments with PulseAudio two years before, and from what I recalled, such a setup should be possible. We just have to weigh the pros and cons.

Pros:
1. Less capital expenditure. We already have a network. No need to put additional wiring to connect our disjoint offices which comprise three small offices, one of which a hundred feet away.
2. Flexible, programmable. Changes and expansions are as easy as connecting new speakers to a computer

3. It's a good experience

Cons:
1. Computers must be running on each area with the PA speaker. That's not much of a negative when there are already computers running in all areas
2. Network bandwidth. We have a combination of gigabit ethernet as well as wireless G.
3. It's pretty much experimental for us, without any professional consultants to rely on (or pay (which makes it a good thing...))

We're on the implementation stage now. We bought several two-way speakers and connected them to dual-core computers in each areas. These computers will act as sound servers. We had to use dual core computers after finding RTP multicast+gigabit network is a bit "demanding". (Most of our computers are Semprons or Atoms.)

Originally our plan was to use Pulseaudio's RTP multicasting for tremendously easy configuration. Unfortunately, we still haven't found a way to stop RTP from killing our wireless access points everywhere. We have some ideas to try like not putting any wireless access point/switch between any two sound server. Unfortunately, blocking multicasting on the wireless access points themselves are a no-go. We're just using inadequate consumer wireless routers that aren't configurable enough.

Today, I've gone to test fixed configuration instead using module-tunnel-sink and module-combine, with much success. I got my lowly laptop to act as master playing music to three other sound servers smoothly (and without stuttering when wired). I still have to solve the dynamic part, like reconfiguring the combined sink whenever a new sink comes up or one goes down. Maybe some bash scripts would help.

I'll update when I get this done and running.

eMachines D443 with the new AMD E-450 APU

We got the newest eMachines 14.1" notebook featuring AMD's E-450 Fusion APU. At 1.65Ghz, E-450 is a very minor upgrade to E-350's 1.6Ghz.

Specs include:
CPU: AMD-E450
Graphics: AMD 6320
RAM: 2GB DDR3
Hard Disk: 500GB
Optical Drive: DVD Writer
Wireless Network: b/g/n
Battery: 6 cells
OS: None

I don't know the mall price (if it can be found in retail), but at our buying price of less than 17k, this makes more value and performance sense for most business users rather than any netbooks in the market right now.

Unfortunately, since we're an Ubuntu/Linux shop, we can't make the laptop work with Ubuntu 10.04 or even 10.10 Beta yet. With frequent glitches and crashes, the E-450 is just too new. Same thing happened with E-350 and 10.10 and it looks like the problems of latest hardware not working with Ubuntu is still going to be a major issue. We might try some other distros. Hopefully, by the time 10.10 launches next month, we'll get a more stable experience in Ubuntu.

Drupal, CSS and Firebug

I've gotten our water heater website running without so much as any coding. Even the theme's pretty much standard plug in. Of course, I'd like it to be much better than that. But if nothing else, I'll go with functionality over aesthetics first.

Yesterday, I got into the theming part a little deeper though. I've just recently added Google +1 and Tweeter modules, and the alignment between Facebook, Google, and twitter, are just getting too messy.

I haven't touched CSS in almost 10 years, but with the help of Firebug and google, I got to a more acceptable design. Still there were the nitty gritty stuff -- I have so much to learn. How do I get the css into drupal? I tried CSS Injector but I couldn't get it to work. For now, I settled with modifying the module code and css. That's not a very good solution, because whenever there's a new module update, I'll have to do code merging.

I really need to get back to studying...

Yellow Pages for SME, but eYP for SME?

The Yellow Pages we get from PLDT (or Bayantel) comes from Directories Philippines Corporation (DPC). They're sort of like the paper version of Google as an advertising company, only worse. They have a very firm monopoly over phone directories. And because of their position, they can dictate very costly "royalties" for ads in their directory. They no longer need to be comprehensive -- if you don't get listed, there are more than enough choices. And they game their customers (the SMEs) into a system of unending rat race for the most colorful and biggest ads, and terrible categorizations that exist only to add to their wallet.

I hesitate to compare them to Google. Google has a sort of motto to "Do no evil". I do not hold DPC to the same standards. But we're still their customers. That's their power. I would be more than happy to see the thick sets of yearly phone books go the way of the dinosaurs sooner rather later, replaced by the interconnected network.

Which brings us to eYP, their electronic yellow pages. They're a rather late entrant to the easy world of internet directories. They're all too easy to make, but not all gain critical mass to last a lifetime. I was disappointed that Google made them a Philippine partner for maps or directory, because eYP is even worse as a directory than the Yellow Pages is.

Perhaps DPC foresee eYP as replacing the Yellow Pages as their primary cash cow or herd. In their struggle to make it an important revenue source as fast as they can, eYP has evolved from a clunky directory search engine to a Premium List realty company.

Before, when you search for "restaurants", you go directly to the Restaurants category. If you type "restaurant" instead, it looks for records with the word "restaurant". While that does not really make good sense, I think it's worse now.

Now, when you search for "restaurants", at least a 3rd of the page is now devoted to a rather long Premium List, the internet's version of real estate taxes. Afterwards follow not restaurants but categories that may or may not always be related to what you're looking for. Categories. When I type "water heaters", I want at once a list of where I can buy water heaters. Not a premium list, plus a slew of categories that are unrelated.

If eYP hopes to improve, perhaps they should focus first on user experience and premium services second. The value of eYP is how well its users like their services. They are no longer able to distribute yellow pages to everyone with a DSL line. It's all in the web, where they no longer have monopoly position. They compete with Google, Microsoft, sulit.com.ph, Facebook for the people's source for "direction".

We don't want another race until everyone's in a premium list. By then, in their hopes of continued growth, eYP might just introduce another indirection like Super Premium List, ad nauseam. Right now, as an SME, we still have a say in this regard.

For the SME, should we try eYP as a marketing medium? We've tried their website link "ala carte" last year. It was useless for us in the construction industry, barely registering 5 clicks per month. Perhaps companies in the retail, food, or consumer industry do better. Their email blast might be more effective, although I still think it's overpriced. But that's their business.

Linux, VB, Foxpro in Education and Business

Over the past week, I've gone through several interviews for applicants for sales, programming, and system administration. An unexpectedly good discovery was that Linux wasn't as obscure as I imagined.

For students who've graduated from 2008 and up, it's more common that they have experience using Ubuntu Linux. People even request for CDs or download them and try them at home. Of course, for a lot of them, it's just a one-shot try at 2007 or 2008. Well, it's 2011 and I think they might want to give it another try.

For businesses, while it is rare to find a company like us which uses Linux primarily, our favorite open source OS is still making inroads in the server and desktop.

Another unexpected but bad discovery was that VB6 and Foxpro are still being taught in schools. That means even now, they're being taught in computer schools and universities in the province. Granted, they're still much used in legacy apps. But doesn't mean they're destined for legacy work?

emachines D644 Now Working with Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal

We got a couple of new emachines D644 in our office. As I previously blogged before, it uses AMD E-350 Zacate. Installing Ubuntu 10.10 is a hit or miss with this one. I've also tried Alpha versions of Natty Narwhal before but I get installation crashes all too often. There was also no out-of-the-box support for the ethernet and wireless access.

Fortunately, with the Beta 1 just released a couple of days ago, installation of Natty now runs perfectly. Also, it's the first time I actually got to see Unity in action. While it's a little bit on the slow side, (I only used the open source AMD graphics driver...) it's workable.

I just have a couple of minor gripes. I haven't managed to find a way to put a wine program shortcut in the dash. And the keyboard shortcut Super-S which used to launch the shutdown/switch-user menu on the upper right now activates Expo. Expo previously used Super-E as a shortcut, so I don't know why they would change these two default shortcut keys since 10.04. Now I don't know how to activate the shutdown/switch-user menu any more. It seems an inconsistent change without any advantage.

Impromptu Wireless Network Using Mobile Broadband

Today, we held an in-house training seminar at the PESA bldg.in Ramon Magsaysay Ave. It's not our normal venue, and the conference room was not equipped with Wifi, projector and screen, and even an adequate number of working electric wall sockets.

Our battle plan was for people to bring their own mobile wireless broadband. We wouldn't have a local network, but a few would at least have access to important emails. Along the way, I realized there must be a way to share the broadband internet, by building an ad hoc network.

All I need is to set up the computer with broadband to work as a wireless router. I tried this before in Windows XP back when I was in Shanghai, but I didn't get it to work. But I was more hopeful this time, with a more modern Ubuntu Linux 10.10 installation.

It turns out too dead simple. Once I get connected to the mobile broadband, it's just a few steps more:

1. Click on the Network Manager icon and choose to create a new network.
2. Give it a name (SSID). I typed "were".
3. Next, for some weak security, I chose 128-bit WEP encryption, and typed "wolf".
4. Click OK, and connect and you now have a wireless router!

Other laptops that want to connect to the ad hoc router just needs to connect to the "were" network, and provide the necessary encryption type and password.

This would be tremendously helpful trick for our next ad hoc offsite meetings and events.