Author Archives: Kyriakos Anastasakis

About Kyriakos Anastasakis

I was born on the beautiful island of Chios, Greece, where I received my primary school and high school education. At the age of 18 (in 1997), I moved to Athens to attend the Department of Informatics at the T.E.I. of Athens. In 2001 as part of a six month industrial placement, I joined Ulysses Systems, Piraeus as a junior Software Developer. In 2002 I received the degree of Informatics Engineer (Mihanikos Pliroforikis) from the T.E.I. of Athens. I continued to work for Ulysses Systems until the end of July of 2003. In 2003 I moved to Birmingham to study for the MSc in Advanced Computer Science at the School of Computer Science, at the University of Birmingham. In 2004, after I finished the MSc studies, I decided to stay in Birmingham and pursue a PhD degree in Computer Science. Since then I have been working towards the PhD in Birmingham under the supervision of Dr. Behzad Bordbar. Since 2005 I have been a part time self-employed software consultant. An interesting project I was involved in, was the development of a small scale CRM software for the Birmingham branch of MLP Private Finance. Since 2004 I have also been responsible for development and maintainance of the website of the Hellenic Society of the University of Birmingham.

Headers not Found in Fresh Ubuntu Installation on Virtual

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I installed a fresh Ubuntu desktop guest on VirtualBox 4.3.14. Trying to install VBox additions I was getting an error message:

The headers for the current running kernel were not found. If the following
module compilation fails then this could be the reason.

 

Apparently all I had to do is reinstall the headers using the following two commands:

 

sudo apt-get remove dkms build-essential linux-headers-*
sudo apt-get install dkms build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r)

Trying to reinstall Linux Additions for VirtualBox works like a charm!

Yet Another Review on Edifier S730 Speakers

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I wanted to replace my old Logitech laptop speakers. I have recently started listening to Spotify a lot and I got a Netflix subscription, which I use on my Apple TV. So I needed some good 2.1 Speakers. Searching the Internet it looked like Edifier S730 where the best choice. It was a bit expensive around 300 euros.

It arrived in a heavy, solid box. I opened the box and the first items I removed was the controller with the cables and the remote. First thing I noticed: Many scratches on the screen of the device. It’s outrageous that they had a cover on the buttons of the thing, but not the screen! It seems that the cables and the plastic stand for the controller, which were in the same compartment in the box were scratching the screen all the way from China (or wherever they are made in) to Greece.  Apart from the scratches there was also a visible mark .

 

photo

 

I contacted the shop where I bought them from and they were very very helpful. I am expecting a new controller in 10 days, hopefully without any scratches. If you pay 300 Euros for speakers, you expect some quality, at least when they arrive brand new. If they are susceptible to scratches it’s your job to look after them once you start using them, but they first have to arrive in a good condition!

For the sound quality part/review, there are loads of reviews and youtube videos. Speakers come with a 3.5mm to RCA, RCA to RCA and coaxial cables. They do not come with optical audio cable though. What I can say is that I connected my Macbook pro headphones exit to the speakers using the 3.5 mm to RCA. The sound was not what I expected. Certainly better than my old speakers, but still it seemed to be missing something.

Then I thought that maybe the headphones exit of my soundcard is not a good choice. So, I used airplay to send only sound to my Apple TV, which I connected to the speakers using an optical cable. Not sure if it’s just my idea, but I have a feeling the sound is a bit better with this setup.

 

Update: As it turns out, the screen has a plastic protector and the scratches were against this plastic. The plastic cover is attached to the screen and doesn’t protrude. You need to use your fingernails on the edge of the screen to remove it.

NBA Premium Pass in Greece. Some Experience Notes

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I recently received an Apple TV as a gift. I saw that it had inherent support for watching NBA games. I had to buy an international NBA League Pass subscription, login and that should be it.

1. NBA League Pass Apple TV Only Available in Certain Countries

I bought a monthly League Pass Premium subscription. However, it turned out that even if you buy a subcription Apple TV is not available in certain countries! This was not evident on the fist subscription screen where it showed that if I bought a subscription I would have access from “multiple platforms”. The logo of Apple TV, Xbox, Kindle appeared amongst other logos.

2. Cancelling my Subscription

I assume the lack of any clear indication that some platforms are not available in certain countries constitutes false advertising. But still, I just decided to cancel my subscription. I logged into my account on the league pass website. I navigated to all available screens. There is no visible way to cancel the subscription. What’s worse is that under the “My Packages Section” it is mentioned:

Below is a list of your current packages and upgrades if available

Excellent! I can upgrade my subscription (i.e. pay more) but there is no direct way to cancel it! I sent an email to their support and I am waiting for their response.

I still have good faith in the League and I hope that my horrible experience was due to incompetent software engineers who can’t provide vital information available at first glance and can’t support some standard functionality like unsubscribing.

 

Update:  The situation is a joke. I sent them two emails without any reply. I tried to login to my account on the web and it says the account has been locked. Ok, I wanted to cancel my subscription, but I have already paid for 30 days! If you forbid me to login at least return the amount of money already paid. I am not going to spend any more time on this.

Cannot Shutdown OSX Mavericks with VirtualBox

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I am using VirtualBox 4.3.2. I have recently upgraded to OSX Mavericks and after I close VirtualBox it doesn’t seem to close properly and it’s still running. Doing force quit doesn’t seem to close VirtualBox.

The worse part is that I can’t seem to be able to shutdown my laptop! When try to shutdown after having run VirtualBox the shutdown process gets stuck and the only way to shutdown properly is by pressing the “Power On/Off” button on the laptop for some time.

The solution that works for me, is to go to the “Login Window” screen (by clicking on my account name on the top right corner, next to the clock -> Login Window…”. Then I click on “Shutdown” from that screen and it works.