Screenshot of running GoogleEarth:

Click to see it in full size (Note: Had to cut some of the bottom to get it all onto one shot)

As you can imagine – that was way too large, uncomfortable and the worst thing: it has to be on the side next to the window because of the enormous size. I wanted to place the 2x 22″ below the 24″ displays, but thanks to the bad TN panels Samsung had build in, this was a no-go.

A bit confused, I started to move the desks around without a plan. As result – it looked like this:

My view last night

Today, I started the day (it was public holiday here in Germany) with cleaning up the mess I’ve created yesterday. I also brought my Mac Pro back into the game and removed my MacBook from my desk.

If you wonder what happened to the “5 display project” – well, it’s postponed I decided to give my wife one of my 24″ HP displays which are all 3 connected to one Expedit and hanging above our two Galant desks. I’m quiet happy with my desk now. Enough power and a good compromise.

So I started setting up Endian on this sweet little box I’ve presented earlier. This thing is DAMN loud Having it sitting on my wifes desk yesterday I thought I need some ear protection – like standing in front of a running jet engine. Here you can see why I have some stuff in the basement I don’t care if it’s loud downstairs.

The box with the name Tortuga (I found it fitting and yes it’s lend from “Pirates of the caribbean” where all sorts of people are staying shortly – evil and good – like in front of a firewall). Well, it starts bad, the 80GB WD drive decided to not work very well, could install it but on the first boot it told me that there is no drive to boot from. Uh? Ok – I had a 160GB WD Caviar Blue IDE drive from my OpenSolaris project laying around unused which fits in perfectly. The next trap was the dual port Intel PCI-X card. Seems like Endian does not like it. Tried to install drivers, but it couldn’t be detected. So I gave up after an annoying hour of trying and replaced it with a DLink GBit/s card I had laying around. No DMZ for me, but that’s ok – I can open the ports I need also by hand

Endian now works fine on this machine and today I will put it into the basement and start configuring it for our network. I will also start switching to a 255.255.0.0 subnet (/16 instead of /24) to better track the IP using devices in our house & the neighbors house.

I guess I will delay the basement overhauling itself by 2 weeks as I’ve already plans for the next WE. My goal for today is: Put “Tortuga” into the rack, use the 2 FritzBoxes as modems as long as I don’t have all the needed cables and put “Blackpearl” (that’s the name of my 2nd Mac Mini) into the rack again, now that it’s equipped with a 32GB SSD and runs pretty fast). I need to get into working with Subversions and I want to start digging into this on Tuesday. That’s a fixed appointment – so the Mini HAS TO RUN that day.

Additionally, I will pick up my (in my mind) broken 1.5TB HD from the store today. Of course, the guys there are telling me that it’s ok.. hmm need to find another job for it. Could it be that only ONE drive (not the series as an identical HD from Samsung works fine in the DataTale) is incompatible? I can’t really believe that and to be honest, I’m a bit annoyed. The store is about 20mins to drive away, so I’ve spend 80mins+ on bringing it there, letting them check it for 1 1/2 weeks and today picking it up and taking it home again. Yes – for nothing.. damn! :/

Oh – and I switched my blog to automatically switch to the “natural” theme. In case you haven’t selected another theme by adding a cookie to your browser, you will notice that. I just think it’s the best designed theme for my blog.

Ciao
Dennis

The last two days we switched from our previous provider Simyo to BASE (both companys of e-plus+). We switched, because we get 30mins + 30 SMS internally + 50mins into every mobile & regular network p/month + an internet flat (250MB 3G, then it will be limited to EDGE/GPRS, but at NO additional costs) for “just” 15€ per month. That’s a MUCH MUCH better deal!

Searching for new mobile phones, a friend of mine told me that he has a Samsung Galaxy S and he’s quiet happy (not to mention that he meanwhile send the Samsung back to Amazon and ordered an iPhone 4 from UK (unlocked ). So it sounds very well and the videos on YouTube! about it were looking very promising, so I’d just ordered it and got it today.

The Samsung Galaxy S is based on Android, but comes with a lot additional software by Samsung. The display is a 4″ SuperAMOLED display which is indeed really stunning, you can remove the battery and add up to 32GB MicroSD cards. Something you can’t to with an iPhone. Also, it allows you to tether 3G to your notebook – and it’s fully compatible to Mac OS X (the tethering). It seems like there’s currently no way to sync you data between your Mac and the Samsung Galaxy S – the software “KIES” by Samsung is only available for Windows, but hey – it’s Android, so it would work the way using the Cloud – in this case GoogleApps.

You can see all these photos in high quality on flickr: sgsreview

The unboxing itself was not very spectacular. It was the same process like unboxing an iPhone, except that you have the chance to put the battery in on your own.

MicroSD slot on the left, SIM on the right (and yes, you need to remove the battery to insert the SIM).

Putting the Samsung Galaxy S and the iPhone 2G side by side, they indeed look pretty similar. The Samsung has a 4″ display while the iPhone has an 3.5″ one. Also, the Samsung has a Home-Button like the iPhone, but comes with 2 additional touch-buttons for the menu (left) and back (right). As long-term iPhone user, it’s very uncommon to use them

The first look: Indeed, the display is very good, but compared to the iPhone 4 (as far as I remember) it’s not sooo much better (in my personal opinion).

You can see all these photos in high quality on flickr: sgsreview

My first SMS, sure, it was the very first time using the BASE card, since the number is not yet ported from Simyo to BASE.

Software

Of course, it’s not only hardware that matters, maybe even more important than the hardware is the software nowadays. Far away a these days with monochrome LCD displays of Nokia 6110 and so. They were great – these days, but nowadays you EXPECT a better OS on your cellphone. Especially when you’ve used an iPhone for the last few years.

The software, namely Android, looks a but undone for me. The optic is mostly ok, but far far away from the “stunning” of iOS appz. Maybe I’m not that open-minded as I wanted, when trying this cellphone. Of course you can’t really compare an Android to an iPhone. Why? Because you can’t compare things which a different. You can’t compare OS X to Windows or one of them to Linux, UNIX or OpenSolaris. No way!

In my mind, it’s a great phone, if you were not using iPhones in the past or simply don’t like them. But for me: I’m a bit disappointed. The menus are complicated, you’ve a billion options, which is great, and that’s one thing that I would love to have on my iMac (yeah, I switched my Macs, but that’s another story ), but on a cellphone, it’s honestly a bit overwhelming.

Video

Videos are looking fine on the SuperAMOLED screen, no question, but you can’t zoom it when watching YouTube! like you do on an iPhone (you know, removing the black bars from top/bottom or left/right).

Audio

The speaker is a mono one, a little tiny spot on the back of the phone. Yes! Right! It’s on the back, which means, if you want to watch a YouTube! video and put the phone on the desk, the audio volume and quality drops tremendously.

Flash

Internet is fine and yes, it has Flash. The first I visited was the Speedtest.net website, because for an unknown reason their app didn’t installed right for the first 1/2 an hour from the Android app store. What it tells me was: “This flash version is outdated.” Tapping on the link to Adobe told me: “Newest Flash will be available in Froyo/2.2″. Great! So that’s why you want Flash on a mobile?

3G Network

Anyway, after 30mins I was able to install the Speedtest.net App and I got a good transfer rate inside my office and in the garden (1700KBit/s down, 333KBit/s up using BASE 3G service). That’s not much and far away from 7.2MBps, but it’s ok.

USB / Access to the data

It took a few moments to access the files directly which are stored on the internal storage. I had to go through 3 menu options to enable USB sharing, then I could access the storage using the USB cable like a regular SD Card.

Camera / Video

Here is a photo and a short video I’ve done with the Samsung Galaxy S. I have to mention, that I’ve forgot to set the camera to 720p (1280×720), but it’s in 720×480 and the quality is very nice in my mind. The camera is really a highlight!

Click here to download:

video-2010-07-22-20-01-38.3gp (14326 KB)

Camera / Photo

Personal Resumé

The Samsung Galaxy S is not a bad phone, it’s maybe for some Android-liking people the best mobile available. But for me and our Apple-centric household, I think we should better get 2 iPhone 4′s from UK and use them for our (already bought) applications. There are 3 I can’t live without:

- Things Touch
- DeliveryStatus
- WebEx
+ ChocChocShop which is a fantastic game

I think I will return it tomorrow to Amazon. My wife should have the chance to play with the Samsung when she comes home later, but I guess she also wants to have an iPhone after this experience.

Ciao
Dennis

PS. Follow me on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/klein2 and NEW http://www.twitter.com/klein2podcast // You can see all these photos in high quality on flickr: sgsreview

So I’ve unboxed the large package – surprise – it’s only 1 arm inside? Uh? Need to call Amazon and paid 6€ for Express delivery and the deliver just 1/2 of the order?

The installation was VERY easy, just attach the base to the desk, put arm 1 into the base, put the 2nd arm with the already mounted 100mm (or 75mm VESA) into this one and you’re done. Yes – there’s a good way to move the cables through the arms, haven’t done that yet because I wanted the see the results. I’m using the Samsung 226BW in pivot mode, means 90° (or 270°) rotated. I had my concerns because of the viewing angle, but it’s ok. Not good for design, but for that, I’ve my 30″ Apple Cinema Display

First resumé: Worth the money! Thanks for showing me great Ergotrons @stefandidak

Ciao
Dennis 

Update on this: With moving to a glass desk, I returned the Ergotron arms to Amazon. They were very good, but I was just too scared that I could break the glass.