Monthly Archives: June 2009

HTML5 video and audio tag

Hi, what do you think about HTML5′s video and audio tag?

[b]Present:[/b] Every video site (eg. YouTube) is using Flash player to play video. Almost every podcast site is using Flash player to play audio. Because of that (using Flash in ways in which it was never attended to use) your CPU is under too much load and because of that fans needs to spin faster and battery life is shorter.

[b]Future:[/b] Every video/audio web site will be using video/audio tag and videos are going to be played with built-in player. CPU is under normal load and you can watch 1 more hour (approximately) of watching movie/vlog/…

For playing videos through [b]Flash Player[/b], it was necessary to convert it to .flv (Flash Video) file. Latest Flash Player version support .mp4 format (for HD videos). Sites like YouTube must pay companies who owns these formats certain amount of money for using it.

Video tag supports ogg, which is open source and free to use.

[b]Pros and cons[/b] of using video tag over Flash Player:

+ less load on CPU (+ longer battery life, + less heat – fans are spinning slower)

+ native support by all operating systems/web browsers (Flash is not fully supported on Linux)

+ easier to create web page which contain video/audio

– no ads and menus (like you see on YouTube and other channels)

– player’s design depends on used operating system – owner of site cannot create it’s own design and cannot add special functions (you couldn’t add links on video like you can now on YouTube)

[b]My point of view:[/b] I hope that more and more web browsers will support HTML5 and that designers/programmers will prefer this over Flash Player

Windows 7

Hi all,

Yesterday I tried Windows 7 Release Candidate and I have no problems with it. It’s good operating system, but I still prefer Mac OS. Microsoft did a good job with this Windows version and hopefully they will sell more copies of it than of Vista.

It would be great if all Windows XP users move to 7, because XP’s are 8 years old and don’t have support anymore. But this won’t gonna happen. I really do not understand people who insist on using that old OS. Even Linux is better (not that I have anything against it).

AFAIK a lot of people moved to Mac/Linux because Vista is a little bit crappy. Windows 7 must make for all lost users because of Vista. Linux can’t do much with it’s less than 1% of all users. But there is a posibility of Google making OS. Google give away free services, people trust Google. I think it’s only company which can overtake Microsoft’s Windows market share.

But that is higly unlikely. I watched video on YouTube where they ask some people if they heart of Google Chrome … 95% didn’t even know what that is. So just because Google makes something doesn’t mean, that everyone will use it. (They have some sucessfull projects like Google and Gmail).

So Microsoft has nothing to worry about … at least for now.

RFID Reader

Code
Latest source code is available at http://www.dejanlevec.com/code/Microcontrollers/RFID-Reader/14-Jun-2009/.

Hex file is available only for ATmega8 at 16MHz. Host executable is available only for Intel Macs with latest software update.

Currently you need to request ID from a device.
Example: ./set-led status

Receiving ID when tag is scanned is still in progress. (I have some problems with USB interrupt-in)

Circuit
Components for USB are connected as usual. (D+ on PB2, D- on PB4). Green LED is connected to PC5 (28), yellow LED to PC3 (26). TX from RFID module is connected to RX on AVR (PB0 on ATMega8/168).

Parts
RFID module (seeedstudio – $12.50)
RFID tags (seeedstudio – $2.50)
ATmega8 microcontroller (or similar)
16Mhz quartz (or 12Mhz)
2x 3.6V or 3.3V zener diode
1x green LED
1x yellow LED
2x 68 R (or other 12 – 100 ohm resistors)
1k5 resistor
10 uF capacitor
2x 330 ohm
28 pin socket

Windows XP versus Windows Vista

A few days ago I did a Super PI test on my old laptop with Windows XP and Windows Vista.

[b]System:[/b]
– 1.5 GHz Intel Celeron M

– 512 MB RAM

Both systems were fresh installed with all needed drivers.

[b]Results:[/b]

[code]Windows Vista Windows XP
+ 000h 00m 02s [ 64K] + 000h 00m 01s [ 64K]
+ 000h 00m 04s [ 128K] + 000h 00m 04s [ 128K]
+ 000h 00m 09s [ 256K] + 000h 00m 09s [ 256K]
+ 000h 00m 24s [ 512K] + 000h 00m 23s [ 512K]
+ 000h 00m 58s [ 1M] + 000h 00m 57s [ 1M]
+ 000h 02m 24s [ 2M] + 000h 02m 21s [ 2M]
+ 000h 05m 23s [ 4M] + 000h 05m 17s [ 4M]
+ 000h 12m 18s [ 8M] + 000h 11m 54s [ 8M]
+ 000h 25m 42s [ 16M] + 000h 25m 52s [ 16M]
+ 000h 53m 33s [ 32M] + 000h 56m 07s [ 32M][/code]
[b]Conclusion: [/b]Windows XP did better with small calculations, but Vista beats it at larger calculations (16M and 32M).

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