PC or PoC: Original Gigastrand PADD

The Gigastrand P. A. D. D. (Personal android display device) was a 7 inch android tablet and the first android tablet Gigastrand sold. I personally own the first and last original Gigastrand P.A.D.D. in Gigastrand's possession.

When it first came out it was a rival for the Kindle fire. Now, it seems that Google has left it behind. Many of the programs that once worked are no longer compatible with this unit. It still runs Android 4.0 but only as an Arm A8 cortex processor while most modern tablets are running at least an A10.

Despite these shortcomings, I did use this tablet for some light work. There really are no options for upgrades – it is a tablet after all. 

I have since upgraded to a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7" from Verizon. It has replaced one of my smartphones and -except for the size - trumps carrying an Android smartphone. The battery life is exceptional, it is $30 a month cheaper, and it does everything a smartphone does - except make calls.

MR GB 

PC or PoC: Asus Laptop

When people see this laptop they are amazed at the size and capability of this tablet sized PC. It has an Intel atom processor a touchscreen and 2 GB of memory. Its main hard drive is 16 GB with an expansion slot for an additional 16 GB. I've tried using 32 GB in the expansion slot however it does not recognize anything above 16.

This originally came with windows XP home and of course the touchscreen and all of the special features worked. With the Windows video driver this tiny 10.1 inch screen could do 1024x768. However, in Linux, the best the screen will do is 800x600 resolution. This required me to get creative with the configuration in the Gigastrand OS. The first thing I had to do was reduce the font size for the operating system. Then I had to install QT style for GTK. This allowed font resizing for most of my installed programs.

One of the really neat things about this laptop is that it is powered off of 12V rather than the usual 19 V of most laptops. This allowed me to go down to my local RadioShack and pick up a simple car charger for it. So rather than having to run the inverter I can simply plug it into a cigarette lighter outlet in my car.

The laptop's hard drive is solid-state which gives us laptop a slight performance boost. Despite its diminutive size I find that it works well for most things.

This laptop has been perfect for field work because of its size and voltage requirements. Once I ditched Windows in favor of the Gigastrand OS, despite one or two shortcomings, this laptop works nearly as well or better than when it was running Windows.

There isn't much in the way of upgrades that can be done to this computer. At 2 GB the memory is maxed out, I am not entirely sure if the hard drive can be upgraded all, and I have purchased a Samsung external DVD burner with light scribe so that I have a way to load software and burn discs. The DVD player could not be USB powered as it would've required using both USB ports in order to fully power an external player. So the DVD burner comes with its own transformer and plugs into the wall. Additionally, if the DVD burner develops a fault, the drive itself can be replaced without replacing the entire unit.

However, when I recently tried to upgrade the laptop to a 64Gb SSD, there was a problem. The laptop just decided to not power up any more. Now, it is being repurposed as a non-working concept machine.

MR GB

Gigastrand Security: Now a Licensed Alarm installer.

Gigastrand Security engineers and develops its own line of PC-based video security systems. They are designed to be scalable and upgradeable potentially making them the last security system you will ever have to buy. This has made them rather popular with nearly a dozen systems installed in the last year. 

These video systems integrate well with alarm systems therefore it was only natural to integrate alarm system sales and installation to Gigastrand Security offerings. Over the next few weeks, we will be adding and updating the Gigastrand Security site with alarm products and services.

Most alarm systems require a hard wired phone line or cellular line to connect the alarm panel. Gigastrand panels can accept a phone line but we specialize in Internet-connected alarm systems and monitoring.

For more information go to gigastrandsecurity.com

MR GB 

PC or PoC: MR GB Home DVR

When you design and build DVRs for a living one is bound to come home with you. Such is the case with my personal home DVR.

This system was built several years ago specifically to connect several cameras up at my home. It has 3 GB of memory a 1 TB hard drive and an Intel dual core processor. It uses a Hikvision 8 channel capture card running Unisight professional DVR software.

There is no option to run Linux on this particular system as the DVR software is only compatible with Windows. While I can run Windows 7, I choose to run Windows XP. Gigastrand will be developing a DVR software that will run in Linux and be very similar to the software that runs on my home DVR and current Gigastrand Security systems.

At one point this system was connected to a projector. With our cable box connected to the 2nd channel we could display the TV show we were watching plus 5 cameras around it. We can still do this however on a smaller screen it provides some reduction in enjoyment of our show. Additionally the signal is down converted from HD when watching an HD channel. So watching HD television through the DVR is sort of an academic exercise.

One benefit of running the TV through the DVR is that whatever is on the screen is recorded so we can monitor who is watching what on the television and even stream our live TV in low-quality over the Internet.

The DVR also has a couple of video outs so we can connect additional monitors as well as a Blu-ray burner so we can watch Blu-ray movies and burn Blu-ray discs. Also, being Windows we can watch Netflix or Hulu or whatever else we can watch on a PC.

I have loaded XBMC on this DVR however running the DVR software and running XBMC is quite a bit more than this particular system can handle at once. I am not certain if the systems will need to be separate systems or if a few upgrades will solve the issue. For now, the system is unlikely to change very much in the near future.

MR GB

Gigastrand OS: Preliminary development begins this week on 2.0

Gigastrand OS 2.0
This week begins preliminary development of Gigastrand OS 2.0. We will determine the base OS, and have something presentable by the end of the week.

Silent Blog
This blog has been fairly quiet over the last month for a number of reasons. We have been prepping for development, finishing up on several customer projects, and MR GB himself has been going through issues related to an unexpected death in the family.

Fear not, however, things are starting to get back to normal.

Gigastrand Jobs
Gigastrand is hiring for several contract positions. Visit http://www.gigastrand.com/jobs.htm for more information.

April fools?

Just in case you didn't pick up on the queues in the April 1st announcement that Ubuntu was buying the Gigastrand OS, we would like to officially retract that announcement as it is completely made up and patently false. We know because we made it up.

We are, however, looking at possibly basing Gigastrand 2.0 on Kubuntu. This is by no means an official announcement, but just one of the possibilities. We are currently making inroads in development using Debian 7 and KDE.

MR GB

Ubuntu to purchase Gigastrand OS

In a surprising announcement, Ubuntu plans to acquire the Linux distribution Gigastrand OS for an undisclosed amount of money. 

Plans announced today to acquire the fledgling distro were - to say the least - shocking. Founder and CEO of Gigastrand International, Josh Tordsen was happy with the announcement.

"We like what Ubuntu does and are truly pleased with their decision. We see great things for the OS in the future."

Head of new acquisitions for Ubuntu , Mattie Upneme, expressed similar sentiment.

"Gigastrand OS is the leap forward we needed here at Ubuntu. It fits in with Mr. Shuttleworth's vision of a Lino-centric world."

The acquisition is to take place today and expected to have approval by the FTC around this time next year.

AR FL