Slow Scrolling in Firefox 3, Ubuntu, intel graphics

FireFox and a even Epiphany were scrolling super slow on certain sites on my EEE PC 1000h.

This was with both Ubuntu 8.04, and the 8.10 beta.

One in particular was ign.com. It was almost unusable.

After a lot of digging, I found the key, at least for my situation.


In your xorg.conf file (/etc/X11/xorg.conf) add the follwing in the Device section.

Option "AccelMethod" "exa"
Option "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"


From what I gather, "exa" is the new way for X to handle accerlation for intel chips.

What I know for sure, is that my firefox scrolls nice and fast again, and alot of other wiered graphical anomalies with compiz have stopped happening alltogether.

I am happy!

Stuff and things.

In my never ending search for electronic whats-its and doo-hickys that make me smile, I have developed an interest in electric powered vehicles, of all sizes and types.

As much as I would like to convert a full sized car, or motorcycle, realistically that is a ways out of reach for me, and most people. However with the recent boom in electric powered scooters, and the relatively high availability of cheap scooter parts online, I figure a highly modified electric scooter could be a lot of fun to build and ride.

So I splurged and picked up a Schwinn s500 electric scooter at Walmart for $199, and immediately began modifying it.

So far I have only done the simple step of over-volting it to 36v instead of the stock 24v.

So far it seems to be able to cope with the additional 12v just fine, and has made it an entirely different ride all together, top speed is higher, torque is higher, its just a lot more enjoyable.

The addition of 12 more volts, for a total of 36, makes for roughly 750 watts at the motor, and it sure makes a difference!

The next mod I will do, will be to eliminate the "soft start" feature, which basically delays the throttle input, to ramp it up ultra slowly. Probably a safety feature for kids, but is annoying more then anything else.

Pictures soon!

Full Tank Shot

Stomatella

Unknown Hitchhiker Sponge

I got the final pieces of live rock in place a few days ago, some Tonga Branch that has some nice character, and lots of Coraline algae. Unfortunately it has some other algae forms on it as well.

I decided also to push my luck and get 2 hermit crabs all ready. The sheer amount of life and food sources on my live rock, and the stability of my water thus far, made me feel pretty comfortable in the choice.

Well I can say without a doubt, Hermit crabs not only can climb live rock, but can pull out sources of food that I cant even see in the rocks, till its dug out and swirling in a cloud around him, amazing!

I cant believe how agile they are, they look so clumsy!

8 Gallon Oceanic BioCube Log

I have always had an interest in marine aquariums, but never decided to take the plunge. I recently decided to get my feet wet.

I, like many, am coming from the the freshwater world. Most recently I have gotten away from the tropical freshwater world, and more toward the native North American aquarium setup. My FW tank is a 55 gallon, that currently houses a Green Spotted Sunfish, as seen here;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgueqqSQwpc


Anyway, I have always been interested in the marine aquarium, have done a lot of reading, and recently decided to set up a nano reef in my office at work, where I spend most of my waking hours. I figure I will be able to keep up on the tank much more efficiently while bored at work, then tired at home.

On to the setup;

8 Gallon "Oceanic BioCube"

• BioBalls removed
• All 3 chambers flooded, for future refuge
• Small heater in third chamber
• Temporarily using stock filter cartridge
• Filter floss in top strainer of second chamber

Stock BioCube Lighting

• 18 Watt True Actinic 03 Blue
• 18 Watt 10,000K Daylight
• Dual .75 Lunar Blue Moon Glow LED

Additional Equipment

• Rio 90 80 gph Powerhead/Pump (for additional flow)

Sand and rock

• AragAlive Packaged Live sand.
• 6.5 pounds of Fiji Live Rock (very lively)

Tank start date June 20th, 2008.

I am not sure if I am lucky, or if it is more common place then it seems, but my favorite LFS has a large assortment of Live Rock that has been in their tanks for many months, many pieces are very purple, and have TONS of life. I picked up roughly 6.5 pounds of some very purple pieces, with the intention of getting a bit more at one of the other LFS, for some diversity.

So far the 6.5 lbs I bought initially have been in the tank for almost 5 days. A huge amount of life has been noted. I have seen at least 2 of those type of slug/snails with the half shell on them (stomatella or something?), a couple very small translucent shrimp, a small snail of some kind, TONS of small worms of many types, lots of small feather dusters with red stripes, and what appears to be a rapidly expanding bright yellow sponge of some kind.

There seems to be some sections of the purple coraline algae turning white, indicating die off, but as more white appears, some of the deepest reds and purples are now starting to show up in small areas. The sand bed is beginning to get some color and debris, indicating the beginnings of growth in the sand bed.


So far water quality has been pretty good, and seems to be indicating that the live rock is certainly doing its job already.

24 hours after addition of live rock Ammonia test read somewhere between 0 and .25, Nitrites - 0, and Nitrates 5-10 ppm.

Two days later and the Ammonia dropped to 0, Nitrites still 0, and Nitrates went up to 10 - 20 ppm.

I am assuming the initial bit of ammonia was from some immediate die off, and the raise in nitrates shortly after, is the remaining life cleaning up.


Pictures on the way!

Sirius Stiletto mods, tips, and experiments, Part 1.

My first annoyance with the device, was that you could not have the included antenna headphones plugged in at the same time as the charging cable. The plastic piece that plugs in for the headphones, hangs over the edge of the plug much further then it needs to, and because of this it makes it impossible to have both plugs in.

This design is probably on purpose, so that you basically have to by a dock to get around it.

Well, I decided to get around it with a Dremmel.

Basically the headphone plug has a lot of extra plastic around it on each side. All I had to do was remove about a centimetre from the side closest to the power plug. I used a large rigid wafer type cutting disk, I used it to cut initially, but did most of the work using it as a grinder, slowly grinding away the plastic.

The one thing you will want to watch out for is the little metal hook that comes out the side to hold the whole assembly in the Stiletto. Do not grind or cut this.

Also do this process slowly, and check it often to see if it will fit it yet. You DO NOT want to go any further cutting/grinding then you have to in order to get it to fit. Otherwise you will find that the clip no longer has anything to push against to stay in place.

So it worked beautifully, and I now can simultaneously have the DC power adapter, the included antenna headphones, and some additional headphones, or line out, all directly on the Stiletto, no dock. This works on the both the Stiletto 2 and Stiletto 100.

This is handy for me, because I have a few places I use the Stiletto throughout the day, but I do not want to buy 3 docks, at 50 bucks a piece, I would end up spending more on docks then I did for the Stiletto 100!

Sirius Stiletto tweaks, mods, and experiments intro.

When my room mate got a Stiletto 2, the first thing I thought was, "I wonder how many mods are out there for it".

I was pretty surprised to find virtually no information on even basic mods, which in reality, was all I was looking for.

So the next few posts will be just some of my tips, experiments, and a basic modification or two, of the Stiletto 2 and also the Stiletto 100.

PAiA Fatman Analog Synthesizer

The Fatman is a DIY, midi controlled, analog synthesizer kit from PAiA.

Essentially you get a bag full of resistors, capacitors, potentiometers, IC's, a PCB and some other odds and ends, and put it all together following the instructions. This project requires some patience, a still hand, and lots of beer.

I have read of people stretching out the build over the course of a month or longer, but not I. I had this thing together after about 3 days/nights of nothing but soldiering.

There is a certain sense of pride when you build it yourself, and it works correctly. I highly recommend PAiA products if you are interested in electronics, as well as music.

One problem I ran into initially, was with the power supply. The "wallwart" style transformer it comes with is an AC to AC adapter, not AC to DC like most you have around the home. My original power supply was not providing any voltage, I noticed it was 12V 2A, and just assumed it was DC. I found a 12V 2A "wallwart" transformer I had laying around, and plugged it in, of course it was DC, not AC. The unit did power up, sort of. The LED's were doing some strange things, and there was a weird constant drone sound coming from it, that was not affected by any of the potentiometers.

Anyhow, after emailing PAiA's tech support, I got a prompt reply, that nailed it right on the head, of course, the DC vs AC PSU.