Get a Roku for the best HD media experience on your TV without all the clutter!

The Roku is a great way to catch all your favorite web-based programming, including Category5 Technology TV, Netflix, and so much more!

Buy your device from here to support Category5 Technology TV:

Model Description Buy Now
Roku Streaming Stick  

The Roku Streaming Stick brings you a solution that is entirely hidden away, plugged directly into your TV’s HDMI port. It will only work with HDTV’s for this reason, and is well suited for situations where the TV is mounted on a wall, where you don’t want to see any wires. The Roku Streaming Stick supports the same great channel lineup as the other models. This model is only recommended if you need that discreetness. The other units are more powerful. Buy
Roku 1  

The Roku 1 is the entry level unit, giving you full access to all the channels available in the Roku Channel Store. It will work with old-style televisions (composite—not component) as well as your HDTV over HDMI. It has the standard Roku remote which does not include a headphone jack. Buy
Roku 2  

The Roku 2 is very similar to the Roku 1, but it has dual-band WiFi (better/faster WiFi) and a high-quality headphone jack built into the wireless remote. You can listen to your shows or music with the privacy—and quality—of a set of headphones. Works with the included earbuds, or your favorite set of headphones with a 1/8″ plug (standard). The Roku 2 will also work on old TVs as well as HDTVs, as it offers both HDMI and composite outputs. Buy
Roku 3  

The Roku 3 is the fastest, most feature rich version of the Roku. It will only work on HDTVs (720p or 1080p). Like the Roku 2, this model has dual-band WiFi, a headphone jack in the remote, but also adds gaming functionality, an ethernet port (hard wire your Internet connection rather than using WiFi). There is also a USB port and MicroSD port, allowing you to load your own videos or pictures onto flash media and load them on your TV. This Roku is the all-round HD entertainment device: television shows, movies, games, and even home movies. Because it is so much faster than the other models, the Roku 3 also has a more robust featureset for channels such as Netflix. While Netflix will work on all the devices, the Roku 3 is the only one which supports the “new Netflix”, with more advanced features such as viewer profiles. My Roku 2 for example, loads the default profile for Netflix and works great, but has no option to switch to the kids’ profile. The Roku 3 has that capability. Roku 3 will not work on old TVs as it only features an HDMI output. Buy

Calculate the size of a VARBINARY field required for AES_ENCRYPT

Here’s a simple Open Document Format spreadsheet tool to help you calculate 16 × (trunc(string_length / 16) + 1) without having to be a mathematical genius.

Download: AES_ENCRYPT Size Calculator

You can use an ODS compatible spreadsheet program such as LibreOffice or OpenOffice.

Why you may desire to use VARBINARY() instead of VARCHAR(), see this great post from Mahmud Ahsan: http://thinkdiff.net/mysql/encrypt-mysql-data-using-aes-techniques/

Memory leak in Zimbra 8.0.6 webmail

I’ve had a suspicion that since the Zimbra 8.0.6 update, something’s been wonky with Zimbra’s webmail client, so I decided to perform a very simple test: open Zimbra Webmail and leave it running.

Here is the outcome of that test.

Normal Operation for one business day.
This is how I operate day after day in my normal office environment.

Running:

  • Zimbra 8.0.6_GA_5922
  • Chromium Version 32.0.1700.123 Debian 7.4 (248368)

Memory Usage at Application Launch:

  • Browser window with Zimbra webmail client
    Thursday 8:47am – 139.5MB
  • Browser window with Google
    Thursday 8:55am – 45.92MB

Memory Usage ~ 24 Hours Later:
I left both browser windows running overnight. Here is where the memory usage stands…

  • Browser window with Zimbra webmail client
    Friday 8:28am – 564.3MB – 304% Increase in 24 Hours
  • Browser window with Google
    Friday 8:29am – 60.78MB – 32% Increase in 24 Hours

Memory Usage ~4 Days Later:
I left both browser windows running over the weekend.  Here is where the memory usage stands…

  • Browser window with Zimbra webmail client
    Monday 10:32am – 1.6 GB – 1,046% Increase in ~96 Hours
  • Browser window with Google
    Monday 10:33am – 60.53MB – 31% Increase in ~96 Hours

Since Zimbra cut the Evolution Connector from its product line, and the Zimbra Desktop software is still only available for a 32-bit platform, this leaves Zimbra operation on Linux sorely lacking. What has VMWare done?!  Hopefully Telligent can fix it.

-Robbie

*** UPDATE March 24, 2014 ***
We’ve ruled out Chrome by itself as the issue since it is only the window containing the Zimbra webmail client that shows any increase in memory usage.

To rule out browser extensions, I will run my next test with all Chrome extensions disabled.
Test 2 – Disable all Chrome Extensions and re-test.

Memory Usage After Weekend:

  • Browser window with Zimbra webmail client
    Friday 5:06pm – 106.3 MB

Memory Usage After Weekend:

  • Browser window with Zimbra webmail client
    Monday 8:37am – 1.7 GB

*** UPDATE April 15, 2014 ***
This has been added as a bug report for 88031 – https://bugzilla.zimbra.com/show_bug.cgi?id=88031