Quick bitcoin guide: Bitcoin value charts

The best way in my opinion to follow the value of bitcoins is the following:
A) Bitcoincharts.com - Go to this page, and select median price as chart type. This will give you a good heads up on the value. There is a lot of options and you can base it on mtgox, amongst others, which is the largest bitcoin trading exchange.
B) Inside your wallet - if you are using multibit you can follow the value of your bitcoins instantly based on mtgox.

Quick bitcoin guide: Acquiring/buying bitcoins

Bitcoins have become very popular lately. I will release some quick guides from now on introducing bitcoin.

This first guide will show you how to acquire/buy bitcoins, and put them into your personal wallet, and how you wallet works.

Wallets
You can get as many wallets as you would like. Opening up a wallet can be done in literarily seconds. Your wallet can be stored either on your computer in a file, on a piece of paper or on a online wallet service. The access to you wallet can be held in multiple copies, so remember to make some kind of backup and don't only store it on your local harddrive if you chose to store it in a file.

Running linux, I prefer using a wallet tool called multibit. With multibit I can easily create new wallets, get the value in local currency based on mtgox retrieve and send bitcoins to others.

Acquiring/buying some bitcoins
The easyest way for me was using justcoin.com. There is also a lot of other online services which can help you buy some bitcoins. When you sign up for an account and buy the bitcoins, the bitcoins usually gets places on a online wallet on the service you are using. After that, you can easily transfer the bitcoins in just seconds to your local wallet. It will then take some more minutes before the money has been completely integrated into the blockchain. In multibit you can see this process happening live.

Securing your local wallet
After creating your wallet in multibit, make sure you add a password to your wallet. Easily done. After that, backup the wallet file somewhere secure. You can i.e. use a truecrypt container or keepassx. This is important, because if someone else gets their hand on your wallet file, they can steal the money in seconds, and it will be impossible for you to get them back.

Backup routine for safe photo storage

This is how I backup and store all my private photos. Me and my wife have a lot of photos from traveling and other family events which we truly wouldn't want to miss. That's why we, and others in the same situation, should set up a proper backup plan.

This is how we do it:




Photo locations:
A) Incoming photos gets downloaded to our HTPC. This is where we have access to the photos we want to watch. This way we can access the photos via NFS to our computers, ipad as well as watch the photos on the tv with XBMC. Having a fast 11n dual band network makes everything act really smooth.
B) All photos then regulary gets backuped to a Western Digital Mirror Edition disk which mirrors the photos to two disks in RAID mode. If one of the disks fails the disk will alarm us via it's LEDs.
C) If something happens at home. I.e. theft, fire etc, we also have a small 2,5" external USB drive which carries a mirror of the photos on the WD. This drive gets safely stored at an external location (Tips: family, work, friends). If you have crucial private information, I sugges that you somehow secure it. There's some encryption options out there.

Taking care of incoming photos:
Photos gets stored in directories by year. I name all the directories in the following format:
YYYY-MM-DD-DESCRiPTiON i.e. 2013-04-21-ITALY_VACATION
This way I can easily sort all the events by date.
Inside each directory the JPGs gets stored. RAW format gets stored in a seperate directory inside the dir, as well as movies files. I also prefer to seperate files between digital cameras and mobile cameras.

Backing it up:
I use rsync for backing up.

1) For backing up between location A and B I use the following command:
 rsync -vrab --suffix="."$(date +"%Y-%m-%d-%H:%M:%S") --size-only --progress --stats /home/user/source/ /media/USBDISK1/destination/
Explanation:
-v gives verbose information about the copy process
-r recursive copy mode
-a makes sure time and date (modified) gets copied correct
-b makes sure if there's already a file at the destination, but with a different file-size, a backup is made before replacing it. Backup files is prefixed with a "~"
--size-only because some of my local files have wrong modified dates
--progress shows some progress information
--stats shows som nice stats at the end

2) For backing up between location B and C I use the following command:
 rsync -vrab --progress --stats /media/USBDISK1/source/ /media/USBDISK2/destination/
Explanation:
This time size-only gets dropped. This way, rsync will make sure the files looks exactly the same between both the backup drives.

Do you have any tips or suggestions? Please comment!

Also check out my post about free online backup providers. These are great for storing smaller types of backups and making it available on multiple locations.

Nike Pro Fitted Shirt versions (pictures)

I use these tees for training, and apparently Nike has been changing the design for these multiple times. I prefer the previous versions, and in order to recognize them on ebay, I ind it useful to have some pictures of the versions for comparision.

First version (L version pictured):
The logos has been washed out after years of use. Still a great quality shirt!

Version 2 (L version pictured).
Nike Fit logo has changed to Dri Fit Logo. Lower left corner.
I also have a feeling that it has become slightly firmer in the fit
Also changed name inside the collar from "Nike Pro" to "Nike Pro Combat"

Latest version (XL version pictured)
- Notice the new venting system on the sides, and on the back. It uses a different fabric then they used to.
- Also new design inside the collar
- Also known as "Nike Pro combat core 2.0"
- Also notice the seams going in on the stomach unlike the previous versions. This gives the shirt a different feeling whean wearing it. I don't like it, others might do.

Bulkpowders Discount Code

There's a great deal going on at bulkpowders which gives you 5£ off your first order. It's still working, and I will update and remove this post once it doesn't work anymore.

Simply register at the site and use the following referral code. You have to use this code in order to get the discount. The code is A&04716. I just had a friend to test it (6.Oct 2013), and it worked just fine!

The discount will show up before you check out your order to pay.

Enjoy!

Disable flashing wifi led

If your laptop has a wifi led that keeps flashing even when connected to the network, it's possible to disable it.

First you have to find out what wifi driver you are using. It's most likely iwlwifi, or the previous version called iwlagn. Just do a "lsmod | grep iwlwifi" or "lsmod | grep iwlagn" to identify what driver you are currently using.

Then edit /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi.conf or iwlagn.conf, whatever suits you. If it doesn't exist, it's ok, just create it. Then add the following line:
options iwlwifi led_mode=1

Now, restart your computer, or simply just gain root privileges and do a:

modprobe -r iwlagn && options iwlwifi led_mode=1 && modprobe iwlagn

Online Tailored Shirts

I work in the financial business. This type of work expects me to wear a certain dress code. Full suit and

shirt. Since I have the typical athletic body with broad shoulders, I've had a lot of problems finding good fitting shirts which I can feel comfortable in working long days. After some years I've come to the conclusion that when buying a shirt I have to get it tailored either way.

Why online tailoring?
After spending years buying shirts in stores, you will probably find them either getting to wide/tight around your waist and/or shoulders, to short/long or have certain types of cuts and styles you don't like. Many people also find that they have to send the shirts to a tailor to get them custom fitted before they can wear it to work. Getting clothes tailored online is a really easy, fun, practical and affordable way to get good fitting shirts. You get what you want, and it fits! You only have to spend a bit time the first and second time you order to get the perfect fit you want.

How do I do it?
The first time you have to take some measurements. Getting measurements from your current favourite shirts is without doubt the best way. Setting up an excel scheme is probably not a bad idea. This way you can compare your measurements between different shirts, and orders. For first timer you can also take measurements from different shirts. Ie. you can take measurements on the shoulder area from a shirt you find fitting around the shoulders, and measurements for the waist area from a shirt you find to be well fitting around your waist. This is all very well explained in the online tailoring stores.

Where?
You have a lot of options:
- Tailorstore
- Indochino
- Black Lapel
- Modern Tailor

I've tried several of these. My favourite is Modern Tailor. They give you great custom service with a lot of options as well as the ability to give special instructions. The price is also very good. Shirts starting as low as 30$, and full suits for 300$. The e-mail service is also great and they often send you photos of your finished product by e-mail in order for you to confirm if it looks as expected. I will post a review with some photos of my results soon. Stay tuned!

Best online storage solution

The last year I've tried multiple online storage and backup solutions. I've tried them on multiple platforms, and although many boast with lots of space they tend to fail on factors like:
* Portability
* Functionality
* Lack of OS support
* Speed
* Ease of use

My favourite after a year of trying is without doubt dropbox.

Why?

A.) The fact that sharing with other users is so easy greatly favours choosing dropbox  It's also a fact that dropbox is the most commonly used online storage solution.

B.) Dropbox also supports a wide range of systems: Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android and BlackBerry.

C.) You get 2GB storage for free. By doing some tasks and referring some friends you can easily get above 18GB of free online storage. If you want more, you can easily upgrade to hundreds of more GBs of storage.

D.) The seamless synching works absolutely flawless. You get a directory on your computer which automatically syncs to your dropbox account, and so to the rest of your devices. You can work directly against this directory without a hitch.

Give it a try!

Linux script to mute and unmute both Master and PCM

Updated my debian distro recently, and trying to make amixer mute and unmute only the Master channel caused some problems. Why do I use this cmd for this job? Because I'm linking my multimedia buttons to amixer to mute and unmute my audio.

Created a bash script called mute, which I put in /usr/bin/mute and chmod 755. It looks like this:

if amixer get Master|grep off; then
amixer set Master,0 unmute
amixer set PCM,0 unmute
notify-send "[ ] Mute"
else
amixer set Master,0 mute
amixer set PCM,0 mute
notify-send "[X] Mute"
fi

You can of course decide to remove the "notify-send" cmd, if you don't want any notifications.

amixer and alsamixer wont run as regular user

Recently got this problem after upgrading my debian distro. Searched around for a solution and got the help I needed from debian forums.

The problem looks like this:
user@computer:~$ amixer
ALSA lib control_ext.c:664:(snd_ctl_ext_create) ctl_ext: Plugin version mismatch

amixer: Mixer attach default error: No such device or address
user@computer:~$ alsamixer
ALSA lib control_ext.c:664:(snd_ctl_ext_create) ctl_ext: Plugin version mismatch

cannot open mixer: No such device or address
user@computer:~$ 

user@computer:~$ ls -l /dev/snd/
total 0
drwxrwxrwx  2 root audio      60 Jun  1 17:52 by-path
crw-rw-rwT+ 1 root audio 116,  8 Jun  1 17:52 controlC0
crw-rw-rwT+ 1 root audio 116,  7 Jun  1 17:52 hwC0D0
crw-rw-rwT+ 1 root audio 116,  6 Jun  1 17:52 hwC0D1
crw-rw-rwT+ 1 root audio 116,  5 Jun  1 18:59 pcmC0D0c
crw-rw-rwT+ 1 root audio 116,  4 Jun  1 22:46 pcmC0D0p
crw-rw-rwT+ 1 root audio 116,  3 Jun  1 17:52 pcmC0D6c
crw-rw-rwT+ 1 root audio 116,  2 Jun  1 17:52 pcmC0D6p
crw-rw-rwT+ 1 root audio 116,  1 Jun  1 17:52 seq
crw-rw-rwT+ 1 root audio 116, 33 Jun  1 17:52 timer
user@computer:~$ 
user@computer:~$ which amixer
/usr/bin/amixer
user@computer:~$ ls -l /usr/bin/ | grep amixer
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root   root       59588 Jan 10 02:46 alsamixer
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root   root       51280 Jan 10 02:46 amixer
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root   root       56076 Nov 23  2011 gnome-alsamixer
user@computer:~$ 
user@computer:~$ groups 
user disk dialout cdrom floppy audio video plugdev netdev fuse

The solution? It was simply deleting the .pulse directory in my home directory.

Thanks goes out to debian forums and the user dmuc for this one.

Fix stuttering flash in chrome

There has been quite some problems with pepperflash 11.7.700.203 in chrome lately, specifically with youtube. It has been stuttering a lot and made it impossible to watch anything.

Managed to fix this with a workaround.

Here's the solution:
First, go to "chrome://plugins/" in your browser. Locate pepperflash and disable it. Next look for a folder where other plugins are located where you can put your new plugin. I'm using /home/user/.mozilla/plugins/.

Next go to Adobe Flash official webpage at http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ and download the latest .tar.gz package with the plugin. I'm using version 11.2.202.285. After downloading it, head to it's folder in the terminal, extract it:
tar -zxvf packagename.tar.gz
..and you will get a lot of files and folders you don't need, except libflashplayer.so. Copy this file to the directory you chose earlier.

Restart chrome, check in "chrome://plugins/" again that the new plugin is loaded, and you should be fine!

Unbalanced audio when tuning with amixer in Linux

I've recently experienced that my audio balance gets uneven when tuning it up and down by using the amixer command (My dedicated vol+/vol- buttons triggers the amixer command). My solution to this problem is restarting pulseaudio running in the background. I just kill it (killall -9 pulseaudio), and restart whatever musicplayer I'm currently using, and it's working fine again.

To balanse the audio you can use alsamixer from the cmd, and press b to balance the audio.

How to get the cheapest airline tickets

Here's the most important advice to follow if you want to get the cheapest airline tickets available. This is advice that I've collected over time. In my very own empiric and highly unofficial "study" it seems to be golden!

1.) Only order tickets on the following two days:
A) Tuesdays, or next best...
B) Saturdays

It's all about supply and demand. Most people order tickets the rest of the week, causing the dynamic ticket pricing systems to increase the prices. Try sticking to Tuesday is my very own top advice!

2.) Cheapest days to ravel
Tuesday or Wednesday is absolutely the best in my experience. Fewer people travel these days. Business travelers seems to push the prices up since they are traveling a lot on Sundays, Mondays and Fridays.

3.) How early before departure should you order your ticket?
This has actually been scientifically studied. Eight weeks seems to be your best bet.

4.) Check one-way tickets.
It's often cheaper to order one-way tickets each way.

5.) Combine different airlines
Try building your own route with different airline companies.

Add / Remove / Replace dm crypt passwords (debian)

General information
You can have multiple passwords to your dm crypted drive. The passwords are stored in slots. If you haven't added any passwords since you set up your system, your password is (most likely) stored in slot 0.

If you want to replace your current password, you can add a new password, taking slot 1. After doing this, you can delete slot 0.

How to..
1.) First you have to find out which device is encrypted


system:/home/user# cat /etc/crypttab
 # sda3_crypt /dev/sda3 none luks
sda3_crypt UUID=aa781a6a-7477-44a2-97c2-6c55598f4c5c none luks
system:/home/user#

As you might understand your encrypted drive is /dev/sda3.

2.) Next it's plain forward. Just remember to make sure you are using the same keymap as your are using during the initrd (bootup) process. Otherwise you might end up with a password you don't know how to type with your current keymap in initrd. Check my post about keymaps if you want to know how to change keymaps before entering new passwords.

You can add passwords by typing:

system:/home/user# cryptsetup luksAddKey /dev/sda3
Enter any LUKS passphrase:
key slot 0 unlocked.
Enter new passphrase for key slot:

You can delete slots (passwords) by typing (example will delete slot 0):

system:/home/user# cryptsetup luksDelKey /dev/sda3 0

Change keymap/keyboard layout of linux terminal

To temporarily change keymap (keyboard language layout) in your console you can use a command called loadkeys.

Only con is that you can't load keymaps like this in xterm or other in-GUI terminals. (Not that I know of so far). If someone have a solution for this as well, please let us know :-)

How to:
load a terminal, i.e. ctrl+alt+f5 (terminal 5), log in, enter superuser mode "su", and simply

system:/home/user# loadkeys no
Loading /usr/share/keymaps/i386/qwerty/no.kmap.gz
system:/home/user#
..or
system:/home/user# loadkeys us
Loading /usr/share/keymaps/i386/qwerty/us.kmap.gz
system:/home/user#

...the keymaps that I have available is:
system:/home/user# ls /usr/share/keymaps/i386/qwerty/
ar.kmap.gz              it2.kmap.gz                ru2.kmap.gz
bg-cp1251.kmap.gz       it-ibm.kmap.gz             ru3.kmap.gz
bg.kmap.gz              it.kmap.gz                 ru4.kmap.gz
br-abnt2.kmap.gz        jp106.kmap.gz              ru-cp1251.kmap.gz
br-latin1.kmap.gz       kg.kmap.gz                 ru.kmap.gz
by.kmap.gz              kk.kmap.gz                 ru-ms.kmap.gz
ca-multi.kmap.gz        la-latin1.kmap.gz          ru_win.kmap.gz
cf.kmap.gz              lisp-us.kmap.gz            ru-yawerty.kmap.gz
cz-lat2.kmap.gz         lk201-us.kmap.gz           se-fi-ir209.kmap.gz
cz-lat2-prog.kmap.gz    lt.kmap.gz                 se-fi-lat6.kmap.gz
cz-us-qwerty.kmap.gz    lt.l4.kmap.gz              se-ir209.kmap.gz
defkeymap.kmap.gz       lv-latin4.kmap.gz          se-lat6.kmap.gz
defkeymap_V1.0.kmap.gz  lv-latin7.kmap.gz          se-latin1.kmap.gz
dk.kmap.gz              mac-usb-dk-latin1.kmap.gz  sk-prog.kmap.gz
dk-latin1.kmap.gz       mac-usb-es.kmap.gz         sk-prog-qwerty.kmap.gz
emacs2.kmap.gz          mac-usb-euro.kmap.gz       sk-qwerty.kmap.gz
emacs.kmap.gz           mac-usb-fi-latin1.kmap.gz  sr-cy.kmap.gz
es-cp850.kmap.gz        mac-usb-se.kmap.gz         th-tis.kmap.gz
es.kmap.gz              mac-usb-uk.kmap.gz         tralt.kmap.gz
et.kmap.gz              mac-usb-us.kmap.gz         trq.kmap.gz
et-nodeadkeys.kmap.gz   mk.kmap.gz                 tr_q-latin5.kmap.gz
fa.kmap.gz              nl.kmap.gz                 trqu.kmap.gz
fi.kmap.gz              no.kmap.gz                 ua.kmap.gz
fi-latin1.kmap.gz       no-latin1.kmap.gz          ua-utf.kmap.gz
gr.kmap.gz              no-standard.kmap.gz        ua-utf-ws.kmap.gz
gr-pc.kmap.gz           pc110.kmap.gz              uaw.kmap.gz
gr-utf8.kmap.gz         pl1.kmap.gz                ua-ws.kmap.gz
hebrew.kmap.gz          pl.kmap.gz                 uaw_uni.kmap.gz
hu101.kmap.gz           pt-latin1.kmap.gz          uk.kmap.gz
il-heb.kmap.gz          pt-old.kmap.gz             us-intl.iso01.kmap.gz
il.kmap.gz              ro-academic.kmap.gz        us-intl.iso15.kmap.gz
il-phonetic.kmap.gz     ro-comma.kmap.gz           us.kmap.gz
is-latin1.kmap.gz       ro.kmap.gz                 us-latin1.kmap.gz
is-latin1-us.kmap.gz    ru1.kmap.gz
system:/home/user#

Vacuum Robot Reviews

Looking to buy your first vacuum robot? Recently I did as well, and I spent a lot of time researching for which vacuum robot to get. If you want to read my advice, take a look around my site, and you will get a lot information about my decision and how it's handling up after some use. I will keep updating the site.

But I'm not gonna tell you which one to get. The best advice is to read around on some of the following sites, which gives a lot of useful information about a lot of automatic robot vacuum cleaners, and make up your own opinion.

I've made a collection of my favorite sites with a lot of vacuum robot reviews which come in handy when taking the final step to buy one of these precious helpers.

How to vacuum cleaners operate (good way to make up an opinion about how smart they are):
First you should take a look at this site. It's in german, but their illustrations tell you the most. On this page they have tested a lot of different robot vacuum cleaners with reviews, and have videos showing each robots path in the same environment with obstacles. Take a look.
24 robots: http://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Saubermaenner-24-Saugroboter-von-200-bis-1150-Euro-im-Test-1321903.html
The Vorwerk Kobold vr100: http://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Saugroboter-Vorwerk-Kobold-VR100-1394515.html
Just click around on the site and you will find a lot more information.

Forum with a lot of information:
On this forum you will find a lot of information from experiences useres, as well as you can ask questions and get feedback. Click around and you will learn a lot.

Webpage with reviews dedicated to vacuum robot reviews:
This page is dedicated for you.. Doesn't need any more of a presentation.

Some youtube videos:
Neato vs irobot roomba speed test:

Neato vs Roomba suction/dirt collection ability:

Vorwerk VR100 (remember this vacuum cleaner has improved a lot with newers firmwares):

Neato XV 11/15:

Vorwerk Kobold VR100 or Neato XV 11/XV 15/XV 21?

What's the difference?

The Vorwerk Kobold VR100 is a german version of the american Neato. What the germans have done with this device is really "tasty" for anyone wanting a quality automatic vacuum cleaner. They added a better battery, with the Vorwerk Kobold VR100 the device now has a lithium battery. This makes it last a lot longer without having to replace the battery. They also added a new brush which compared to the XV11 which is supposed to be better at picking up dust from rugs and other fiber materials. Next they added a better filter which makes a better airflow and a less noisy device. In the end, this is the best part in my opinion; they added a spinning sidebrush.

The only problem is getting the Vorwerk. In germany and the uk it is readily available to order. If you live in the rest of europe or the US, it's quite a bit harder to get, plus handling any guarantee claims can be quite a pain.

My point and advise?
If you are on a budget or located outside Germany/UK, pick the Neato Robotics XV11 or XV15. It does a great job compared to all other robots on the market. But, if you are willing to spend some extra bucks, go for the Vorwerk Kobold VR100. It's a MUCH better choice then the Neato XV21 or XV25.

FAQ:

Does the sidebrush really make a difference?

Yes it does. It makes the device a lot better at picking up dust and dirt along walls and other edges. Take a look around the room you are (hopefully) sitting in right now. Where does all the dirt and dust end up? It's mainly alongside the walls, and that's also where most automatic vacuum cleaners end up missing the spots.

Here's a video to prove my point:

What about updates?

The Kobold Vorwerk VR100 also seems to be more aggressive on pushing out updates. I.e. lately they came with version 3.1 of the firmware. This makes a hughe improvement on the vacuum cleaners ability to clean edges. Take a look at the following video which shows the difference between the firmware revisions:

What's the pricetag?

The VR100 is about 650EUR on germany, or 600GBP in the uk from retailers. But if you buy it from ebay you can get it under 600EUR, and this way international buyers can also get a hold of this device. But be handling guarantee claims can be a problem. Ordering from germany is no problem via ebay.

Where can I get it if I'm not in the uk or germany?

Read the previous answer please.

Where should I buy a Neato?
You can buy it most places, but ordering online is probably the easiest way. If you want to give me a "tip" as well, please consider using my link to order the Neato XV-11 from Amazon. It won't make it any more expensive for you, but it will help me out a bit.

Avoid Kobold Vorwerk VR100/Neato getting stuck underneath furniture

If you have a Neato Robotics XV 21, XV 15, XV 11 or a Kobold Vorwerk VR100 you might know the following problem. While the automatic robot vacuumer tries to go underneath some piece of furniture, either it be a sofa, tv bench or a bed, it slips underneath and end up getting stuck because it's laser don't spot it due to the laser being positioned some mm lower then the actual heighth of the device

If you got wooden floors without rugs or other tidy places to hide the magnetic strips it can be somewhat hard to either lower or heighten the furniture. But I found a solution, and I am very happy with it.

I went to the hardware store and bought something named "multipurpose adhesive gasket", made by GEKO. It's somewhat a multipurpose list with with adhesive on it, so it's ready to mount just about anywhere. With this you can add the missing mm's missing underneath your furniture to make the Neato or Kobold Vorwerk understand that it should try to go underneath. The one I bought adds additional 17mm to the furniture.

What also is nice is that the material is really soft and a swamp-like dark-grey material. This way it's hard to spot underneath your furniture and if you try to go underneath it's so soft it wont hurt the robot. Having completely black material isn't good as it's harder to spot for the laser.

Currently it's working great. But on certain material's it wont stick that good. Make sure to not stretch it while sticking it to textile-materials (some sofas). A tip can be to add just a tad of a strong glue with like 15cm spacing on hard to stick materials.