Some time back I bought a pair of new speakers to replace my old Altec Lansing ATP-3's which died. These were really good value spaekrs, their current replacements are the `VS4121. My new replacements are the Altec Lansing MX5021 2.1 speaker set after reading various reviews online and some simple listening tests. Originally I wanted to get a pair of the highly recommended FX6021's but these are discontinued and hard to find. You can still find a few at Carrefour Subang of all places! So for those looking for FX6021's, you know where to find em.

With past effort in making a quiet environment with my server in an Antec P182 case the speaker requirements are:

• To have full range of distortion free sound at low volume (~20%-40%) of the speaker's volume settings and around 70% on alsa)
• To fill my workspace area at this volume.

I read some reviews where people were saying that they're facing little distortion at 100% volume. I doubt they live in KL or they're living in some spacious bungalow houses. I'm unlikely to try it at higher volumes.

I set them up quickly before, but had very little time to enjoy them. One thing I did find out was that the bass was distorted . Turning down the bass controls didn't seem to work much, so I started searching online for speaker placement articles and found several that all recommended that single subwoofers are usually best placed in corners. Now the booming distorted sound is gone, and a bass setting of about 40% via the controls seems to be about right for the music I listen to.

The satellites were easy due to the corner setup of my workspace and large desk in the corner. They're in a crossfire setup, as recommended by the manufacturer and I'm sitting just right in the middle. The stereo setup is just about right this way. It would be best if it was at ear level, but I still can't find any shops selling simple speaker stands. I may just try an audio shop, but they all look like they're going to try sell me speaker stands that are solid gold, with platinum base which has been soaked in the blood of sacrificed virgins for truly spirtually pure sound for the bargain price of RM50K. Aluminium stands with rubber base like my camera tripod should be about right.

The other problem I have with the satellites is that the speaker cables are unshielded and as you can see from the mess of power wires underneath my desk, the wireless phone, mobile phone on my desk that it picks up quiet a few annoying signals, most notably mobile phone signals.. (dud dud buzz dud dud). Unshielded copper wires make great antennas. A good thing is that the satellite speakers use standard clip on speaker cables (open standards are good!) so I can find replacements. Again, I'm likely to face the same situation as the stands, I just need simple shielded copper cables.

If you guys know of a sane place to get these two things, recommendations will be much appreciated.

Finally, the onboard audio on my Thinkpad picks up a lot of noise also. Will probably invest in a better sound card for a my desktop in future such as the Asus Xonar DX or D2X to get even clearer sound.

Zope 3 is based on a component architecture that makes it easy to mix software components of various origins written in Python.

See you at FOSS.my!

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Here's how it goes.. in the lead up towards http://foss.my, start putting a blog entry titled "I Love <FOO>", a brief description of your favourite FOSS stuff and a see you at FOSS.my logo entry.

I'll get it started..

Better logos/buttons coming, but if you hotlink the images you'll get the latest designs.

HTML for 120x60 buttons

<a href="http://foss.my">
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    src="http://foss.org.my/projects/events/foss.my/images/fossmy-2008-120x60.png"
    alt="foss.my 2008 logo"
    />
</a>

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If you're artistically inclined, create more and let us know about it

Got "Getting Things Done" (GTD) by David Allen" over the holidays, because it was mentioned by Tom Limoncelli in "Time Management for System Administrators".

I've gone through most of it, and would still recommend that techies go for "Time Management for System Administrators". It's short, funny and in language you can understand and for situations that you can relate to. It covers most of the important things GTD does. It also provides a good practical system that's easy to understand and apply.

GTD often uses lots of jargon terminology and CEO like situations which doesn't make it enjoyable to read for me. If you do not already have a system it would be hard to get started. In trying to address as large an audience as possible, it provides too many options. I skipped most of the early parts as you would already have it in place if you have read Tom Limoncelli's book or if you're a tech user. For example, GTD tells you replicate your workspace at home or on the go. Time Management for Sysadmins, that's a given. What self respecting geek, goes somewhere without their notebook and mobile Internet access? Or doesn't have home server(s)"

In keeping with the CEO theme, it also touches upon managing and tracking multiple large scale projects. This is the part of the book that was valuable to me. It includes dealing with management at a group and organisational level and not just personal. I was not well prepared for this towards the tail end of IOSN. Reading through it, I guess I stumbled upon the solutions myself the hard way. I'm heading towards this situation again soon, and this time would like to be better prepared.

GTD is recommended reading if you've already got a system in place, and you may want to check out some other ideas which may be applicable to you. Also recommended if you need to manage multiple complicated projects, which involves multiple teams. Otherwise for techies, Time Management for System Administration may be all that you need.