Yearly Archives: 2014

XPS 15 9530

Posted by in Reviews > Hardware

While I bought an IdeaPad s405 back in June, it was never intended to replace my daily use laptop (Vostro 1400). So I was still looking for a new laptop. Even though the Dell XPS 14 ultrabook with a Haswell core would theoretically meet my requirements, such a laptop does not exist. However, the next closest thing, the Dell XPS 15 9530 (2013 edition of XPS 15) with a really sweet screen does exist.

The Hardware

The XPS 15 9530 is a high end laptop, though the model I have is not the top model. Those looking for the “professional” equivalent see the Precision M3800, it has nearly the same internals (swap the Geforce for the equivalent Quadro and it looks like the PCH in the M3800 has a heat spreader).

  • Intel Core i7-4702HQ (Quad Core 2.2GHz, 3.2GHz turbo) 37W
  • 16GiB DDR3L-1600 dual channel RAM
  • 240GB Intel 530 mSATA SSD (upgrade replaced the 32GB Micron RealSSD C400)
  • 802.11ac+bluetooth (Intel Wireless AC 7260 in M.2 form factor)
  • 500GB Samsung 840 EVO (upgrade replaced the 1TB Western Digital WD10SPCX)
  • 61Wh Li-ion battery (up to 6hrs according to Dell)
  • 15.6 display (3200 x 1800 IGZO IPS: IGZO is a substrate IPS is the pixel construction)
  • Intel HD Graphics 4600 + Nvidia Geforce GT750M

The build quality exceeds that of my other two laptops. This is to be expected given the materials (carbon fiber+aluminum+glass vs plastic), and the price. Unlike the IdeaPad s405, the XPS 15 9530 does not flex when opening the lid.

Just like the IdeaPad s405, the speakers face down, reflecting sound off the surface the laptop is resting on. Not much more to say on this one.

Performance wise, it is faster than both the Vostro 1400 and the IdeaPad s405. Again, that was expected.

Caveat Emptor

Just like the IdeaPad s405, the entire bottom of the laptop must be removed to access the internal components, including battery. Unlike the s405, opening up the laptop does not void your warranty. Additionally, Dell does provide instructions for replacing components. These are two of the biggest reasons I will continue to purchase Dell laptops.

Speaking of opening up the laptop, be warned you will need a TORX T5 driver to open up the chassis. Additionally, the XPS 15 9530 is a little tricky to get apart. While Dell does provide instructions, it isn’t very clear on how to get the carbon fiber bottom separated from the aluminum palm rest (which is where all the components are attached to). After fiddling around with it for a while, I finally figured it out. Start with one of the front corners, use a thin shim to gently separate the chassis. Then use your plastic pry tool to widen the gap, move around the rest of the front and down the two sides. Lastly, move to the back corners after you get one of them, grab onto the bottom part from the front of the laptop and pull up, the last snap should release.

While the WiFi card uses the new M.2/NGFF form factor, the SSD is connected via the old mSATA connector. This is not exactly a problem today. However, within a year M.2 will be much easier to find than mSATA (almost all new SSDs to be released in 2014 are available in M.2). If you have the 91WH battery version, that means replacing that 512GB Samsung “840 pro” class mSATA will get difficult quickly.

Other Thoughts

I still don’t like track pads. While they have grown larger, and the XPS 15 has a pretty decent trackpad. I haven’t had a chance to play with it in Linux yet, so time will tell how good it is.

The touchscreen is really awesome with Windows 8.1, with all of its gestures. Again, I haven’t had a chance to play with it in Linux yet, so time will tell how awesome it is.

The ‘BIOS’ is an UEFI interface. While it defaults to secure boot, it can be easily disabled. Unlike Intel’s NUC Kit DN2820FYKH (Bay Trail-M Celeron N2820, more on that later), the XPS 15 will happily boot non-UEFI USB thumb drives. There is an option for battery charge mode, something I haven’t seen before and will have to look into it. One option that I did not find yet was a way to disable the Nvidia Geforce GT750M from the BIOS. So, it looks like I will have to use software to disable it when Linux boots (did not want the GT750M, but I did want the better screen).

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

How to Implement RDFa Breadcrumbs with Breadcrumb NavXT

Posted by in Guides

Update 2015-10-04: Beginning with Breadcrumb NavXT 5.3.0, RDFa Breadcrumbs are deprecated in favor of Schema.org BreadcrumbsList, which Google now prefers. Please see the new article on implementing BreadcrumbsList with Breadcrumb NavXT.

While the Google microformats for Breadcrumbs are verbose, ugly, and deprecated, to date, Google still doesn’t support Schema.org breadcrumbs. Thus, we’re going to have to live with the ugly RDFa format for the time being. While there is no ‘one click’ configuration for RDFa breadcrumbs within Breadcrumb NavXT, support for them is not too difficult to configure.

Calling Code Modifications

To begin, the wrapping div for the calling code needs to have xmlns:v="http://rdf.data-vocabulary.org/#" added to it. Below is an example calling code block for users of the regular bcn_display(); function.




<div class="breadcrumbs" xmlns:v="http://rdf.data-vocabulary.org/#">
    <?php if(function_exists('bcn_display')) { bcn_display(); }?>
</div>

Settings Modifications

In general, you need a

<span typeof="v:Breadcrumb">

wrapping around every breadcrumb, and an inner element containing property="v.title" and rel="v:url" if the breadcrumb contains a link. For the most part this will result in two replacements need to be made to all of the breadcrumb templates. For the linked breadcrumb templates, replace:

<a title="Go to %title%." href="%link%">%htitle%</a>

with:

<span typeof="v:Breadcrumb"><a rel="v:url" property="v:title" title="Go to %title%." href="%link%" class="%type%">%htitle%</a></span>

Note the extra span containing the typeof declaration. This is necessary for Google to pick up on the breadcrumb objects (even though the tag is redundant as the property should work on the anchor).

For the unlinked breadcrumb templates, replace:

%htitle%

with:

<span typeof="v:Breadcrumb"><span property="v:title">%htitle%</span></span>

To jumpstart this replacement process, you can import the following Breadcrumb NavXT settings XML file. Breadcrumb NavXT RDFa Breadcrumbs settings file (Right click and select “Save As”).

One Last Thing

Depending on the version of Breadcrumb NavXT, the typeof attribute may not be accepted in the settings (it will get automatically stripped out). To fix this follow the process outlined in How to Add li and Other Tags to Breadcrumb Templates to add the typeof attribute to the span HTML tag. Otherwise, wait for Breadcrumb NavXT 5.1 (or 5.0.2) to be released.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

Help! I Can’t Save My Settings After Upgrading Breadcrumb NavXT

Posted by in Guides

After upgrading from a version of Breadcrumb NavXT older than 4.2, you may see the following message when attempting to save your Breadcrumb NavXT settings:

Value must be greater than or equal to 1.

This message is caused by the value of “Max Title Length” being less than 1. Some modern web browsers, such as Chrome will display this warning (and in some cases it may appear to come from the admin bar as in the leading screenshot). While, others, such as Firefox, will not (and will not prevent you from saving your settings).

To fix this issue, change the value of “Max Title Length” to be greater than 0. If you do not want your breadcrumb titles to be restricted in length, make sure “Limit the length of the breadcrumb title.” remains unchecked. You should now be able to save your settings.

Some Background

Back in Breadcrumb NavXT 4.2, the breadcrumb “Max Title Length” setting was split into an enable switch for restricting the length of breadcrumb title and a second option for specifying the maximum length. Previously, setting the max breadcrumb title length to 0 was interpreted as disabling the title length trim feature. This was not entire intuitive hence the switch.

When this switch was made, the new “Max Title Length” was changed to the HTML5 number form input element, with a minimum value set to 1. Additionally, Breadcrumb NavXT started shipping with 20 being the default “Max Title Length” value, with the title trim feature turned off by default. Thus, new users of the plugin will never see this issue. Additionally, the next release of Breadcrumb NavXT will have a modification which will not allow Max Title Length to be 0 when a user upgrades versions (will automatically correct it to the new default of 20).

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]