For those still undecided on what tablet to get, if indeed you want to use one rather than a laptop, then the Google Nexus 7 announced last week ticks ALL the boxes at an impressive price and a small form factor. This eagerly awaited collaboration between Google ( the creators of the Android OS ) and ASUS, is richly featured and rumoured to be priced at a nil profit point.

There are a number or reviews appearing on the net for it; the following is just one typical .... ( http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2406552,00.asp )

Should start shipping in a week or shortly afterwards via Google's online store .. ( http://www.google.com/nexus/#/7 )

Cheers,

Russ

Percy, my pet platypus, delivered my dongles today, and the nerd in me had to find out about then, so after a bit of investigation, figured out the manufacturer of the chipset and the model. I can post a link to the chipset page if Peter gives the OK, but he may prefer it to be kept  .

Suffice to say that the dongle uses a very good chipset design and should perform well over a good distance.

Looking forward to putting them into action

Cheers,

Russ

The Galaxy Tab 7.7 has a CSR8811 Bluetooth chip onboard, and according to CSR's site it  "offers Bluetooth v3.0 and support for Bluetooth v4.0 with IEEE 802.11 coexistence along with Wideband Speech".

According to wikipedia:

Bluetooth Version 3.0 + HS of the Bluetooth Core Specification was adopted by the Bluetooth SIG on April 21, 2009. Bluetooth 3.0+HS provides theoretical data transfer speeds of up to 24 Mbit/s, though not over the Bluetooth link itself. Instead, the Bluetooth link is used for negotiation and establishment, and the high data rate traffic is carried over a collocated 802.11 link.

The Bluetooth SIG completed the Bluetooth Core Specification version 4.0, which includes Classic Bluetooth, Bluetooth high speed and Bluetooth low energy protocols. Bluetooth high speed is based on Wi-Fi, and Classic Bluetooth consists of legacy Bluetooth protocols. This version has been adopted as of June 30, 2010.

Bluetooth is intrinsically slower that WiFi, and I presume the majority of the data transmission between the dongles will be screen refresh information. As long as it can keep up with that requirement everything should be fine, as your testing is proving.

Replacing drivers on a Android device isn't quite as straight forward, as say, on a PC, I understand. Because the hardware is static, all drivers etc. get incorporated in either the Kernel or System ROM's, and customising those is something I can't imagine most users would want to delve into.

Cheers,

Russ (awaiting the arrival of his homing platypus)

hehe ... meaning that all along the discussions of this remote control, using a Bluetooth device, there was always an assumption ( on my part at least ) that the tablet/phone would be using bluetooth for it's communication. I don't have an issue if an intermediate device is needed (laptop/PC), which I guess in hindsight was the other piece in the puzzle that you thought everyone would have.

Now, when I say I am "slightly baffled", it simply means I don't have all the answers to form the right answer.

per one dictionary meaning:
"Adj.   1.   baffled - perplexed by many conflicting situations or statements"

Cheers,

Russ ( almost enlightened )

OK .. so from the above, can I assume we won't be using the Bluetooth function on our tablets?

If that is the case can I assume then that WiFi will be used from the tablet to communicate with another PC/Laptop using RDP, and that in turn has one of the dongles installed, and the latter then communicates to the music server (which has the second dongle installed)?

Cheers,

Russ ( slightly baffled )

haha .. or Bovril

I hope my homing platypus makes it back in time for 0.9-7's release. He packed some extra vegemite sandwiches in his pouch so he should have the stamina for the Indian Ocean crossing 

G'day Coen,

whenever the search function within any forum fails to produce the results I want, I turn to Google for help.

The following link will bring up a list of threads that discussed "engine #4 did not start within expected time".

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=site:www.phasure.com+ENGINE+%234+DID+NOT+START+WITHIN+EXPECTED+TIME&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3GGLL_enAU385AU385&ie=UTF-8&hl=#q=site:www.phasure.com+ENGINE+%234+DID+NOT+START+WITHIN+EXPECTED+TIME&hl=en&rlz=1B3GGLL_enAU385AU385&prmd=imvns&ei=z0bVT_CQHuuaiQfEufX6Ag&start=10&sa=N&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=e38676279d329045&biw=1036&bih=569

Hopefully that will help a little until Pete arises.

Cheers,

Russ

P.S. I derived the above via Google ToolBar. Worth installing if you haven't.

Most blokes that come from the land down under are unbelievable performers 

If you enjoyed Tommy's style of finger picking, try and find the few albums available from young protege Joe Robinson. Very talented young man and will become a huge international success like Tommy in a few years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Robinson_%28musician%29

Cheers,

Russ

I just checked my earlier Norton's and it is Norton's 2003. According to the entry on wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_%28software%29 ) , Norton's 9 apparently came afterwards and was bundled with a separate bootable CD that allowed access to images created with Norton's 2003, but it seems a backup outside of Windows was not in it's repertoire.

Seems like a retrograde function to me, and might explain why customers were disgruntled, being used to the earlier version and how they operated.

It would appear then you may well be "dead in the water" if you don't wish to install Nortons 9 on your music server.

I would still advocate checking out Acronis True Image. It is widely regarded as one of the best backup products available.

Cheers,

Russ
 

edit:
here's a pretty good summation of the difference between Ghost and True Image ...

http://www.techsupportalert.com/drive-imaging-reviews.htm

edit2:

seems like CloneZilla may be a non-cost viable alternative. Worth checking out ...

http://clonezilla.org/

Not required. On the PC upon which you have Ghost currently installed, there will be be an option to create a bootable recovery CD (or floppy if memory serves). It might even be a separate program identified in the start menu ... it's been a while since I've used it.

Once you have the disc created, assumming you have a CD burner mounted in that PC, you boot your music PC from it and a DOS based Ghost version fires up. Follow the menu prompts to choose what type of backup you want. I normally chose full partition backup. It will prompt for the destination location of your restore file. This is where it can get tricky if you don't have another partition in your system to point that file to. I will assume you have at least another partition defined, which may be your music files partition or even a spare partition.


Within that DOS based version there is an option to validate a restore file you have just created. I think the process just does a checksum on the file itself rather than a full compare against the data on the partition, as it doesn't take all that much time to complete.

If you have a rummage through the Norton forum ( http://community.norton.com/t5/Other-Norton-Products/bd-p/other ) you may pick up a few more tips.

Have fun!

Cheers,

Russ

G'day Charlie,

Norton's Ghost should work OK with Vista I would have thought, depending on how recent the version you are using. I used to use it all the time up till a few years back then changed to Acronis True Image ( http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/ )

It should be easy enough to test whether Ghost works for you with Vista (and I'm pretty sure I was using that at the time when Vista came out ). Create a bootable Ghost recovery disc and try it on your C drive, then run the validate process at completion.

I switched over to True Image as it did a better job of cloning drives. In some instances Ghost just didn't work for that function.

Cheers,

Russ

If this is your first foray into the world of tablets you will love the experience

Both items mentioned will be more than suitable to control XXHE; the only question you need to answer is if they might be a little larger than you need if it's main function is just to control XXHE.

My suggestion would be to spend an hour at your local PC stores and have a play with some different sizes

If you enjoy reading you will find the smaller sizes are better as ebook readers also.

Cheers,

Russ 

One thing I forgot to mention, and I guess it goes without saying, but make sure it has Bluetooth connectivity. I say this because some of the lower priced Chinese products do NOT have that function.

If you don't currently have a tablet and are undecided what to buy, consider whether you want it exclusively for XXHE remote control use only, or perhaps you might like the idea of a bit of web browsing action while reclining in your chair listening to music. Perhaps a session of Angry Birds sounds appealing also .. hehe.

Try and look for a tablet with the highest native screen res in your budget. Something around 1024x768 would be good, 1280x800 is very nice. Of course the screen attributes comes into account, so ideally you will want to read some reviews or look up YouTube for reports.

To gauge what physical size screen would suit your needs, temporarily set your music PC screen res to that of your intended purchase, then step back from the screen until the perceived size mimics the size that your tablet might look when held in your hands at a comfortable viewing distance. If you can comfortably read the text then I would suggest that you won't have issues with the impending new remote XXHE GUI.

I have attached a screen capture below to give an idea of how readable even the current GUI can look. The trick, or rather not a trick at all, is to ensure you have no scaling required between PC res and tablet res. In other words 1 to 1 pixel mapping. In the example below I set my spare test PC test environment to 1280x720 and using Remote RDP, set the options to 1X pixel mapping. The tablet I use is 1280x800 (Samsung Tab 7.7), so the 80 extra pixels in the vertical, when used in landscape mode, accomodated the status bar always visible at the bottom while using Remote RDP.

There are a myriad of tablets appearing on the market now and it can be a challenge sifting through the junk. Stick with a recognised brand and you generally can't go wrong. Oh, and if going Android, try and get one with Ice Cream Sandwich operating system already installed (v4.x) or where the manufacturer has stated a OS upgrade to ICS is in the pipeline.

Cheers,

Russ