Friday, January 29, 2010

First look at the sub-10k Cherry Mobile Eclipse Windows Mobile smartphone | News | Techie.com.ph

First look at the sub-10k Cherry Mobile Eclipse Windows Mobile smartphone | News | Techie.com.ph



Interesting. Dual sim, wifi, no 3g, touch screen (dont know the size), windows mobile 6.5, 2mp camera. And it costs 9,999 pesos!!!

Basic features and specs, but cheap!

AMD Vision




This is an interesting move by AMD. In general it simplifies the task of choosing a laptop for the noob consumer. In essence it categorizes a laptop into 3 (with a 4th coming up) category. In essence AMD is saying this set of specs = a slow laptop, good only for basic tasks, this is a medium laptop and this is a fast laptop.

The hardware is irrrelevant. If it performs to this level its slow, if it performs to this level its fast, etc etc.

Some critiques
1. the 4th category, Vision black should be the very fast model. Capable of playing games like crysis, GTA4, prototype, shattered horizon, etc. at max settings.

2. maybe a 5th category. Probably named vision ultraviolet or something for the bleeding edge fastest hardware available at the time

3. If you'll notice some websites are using a database trick to properly name movies. Movie makers are coming out with remakes of old movies and sometimes they use exactly the same name. This creates confusion since you use the same primary key or name for two different things. A database workaround is called a compound key, composed of 2 parts. For movies its the name + the year of release.

In this case, I propose that with the exception of vanilla vision, each category or level would also be a compound key like say 'vison premium 2010' or something like that. Why? Because a high end gaming PC now is vastly different from one a few years ago.

This will make some retailers unhappy because it makes it easy for customers to spot old stock.

4. A category should be reserved for the really common practice of pairing an excellent cpu with a slow gpu. For business use or video editing. Maybe a new category or replacing ultimate.

5. make something similar for desktops

6. maybe something similar for Intel based pc's??

in reference to: AMD Vision (view on Google Sidewiki)

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Mark twain vs quacks

This is positively Brilliant! I expect no less from such a distinguished writer.

As a surgeon I have seen too many of my patients delay medical treatment due to herbal remedies before so I agree with you sir!




in reference to:
"Nov. 20. 1905 J. H. Todd  1212 Webster St. San Francisco, Cal. Dear Sir, Your letter is an insoluble puzzle to me. The handwriting is good and exhibits considerable character, and there are even traces of intelligence in what you say, yet the letter and the accompanying advertisements profess to be the work of the same hand. The person who wrote the advertisements is without doubt the most ignorant person now alive on the planet; also without doubt he is an idiot, an idiot of the 33rd degree, and scion of an ancestral procession of idiots stretching back to the Missing Link. It puzzles me to make out how the same hand could have constructed your letter and your advertisements. Puzzles fret me, puzzles annoy me, puzzles exasperate me; and always, for a moment, they arouse in me an unkind state of mind toward the person who has puzzled me. A few moments from now my resentment will have faded and passed and I shall probably even be praying for you; but while there is yet time I hasten to wish that you may take a dose of your own poison by mistake, and enter swiftly into the damnation which you and all other patent medicine assassins have so remorselessly earned and do so richly deserve. Adieu, adieu, adieu! Mark Twain"


- Letters of Note: You're an idiot of the 33rd degree (view on Google Sidewiki)

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

related posts widget 2

I had a little problem with the previous widget but now I replaced it with this one

Now i have a working related posts section. It even arranges them by keywords.

in reference to: Put a Related Post widget in Blogger Blogspot // Current (view on Google Sidewiki)

macgyver film scanner

Board games will never be the same again




Holy crap!

Each tile is a small OLED display!

in reference to: Video Games Go Back to the Board(game) With Projection Tech (view on Google Sidewiki)

nvidia based laptops are prone to problems?

This article is about the HP tx2000 but the root cause appears to be an overheating NVIDIA graphics card and chipset . This seems to be a common cause of recalls among other brands like sony and dell
in reference to:
"overheating NVIDIA graphics card and chipset"
- HP tx2000 suffering from dead screens and wireless, NVIDIA to blame? -- Engadget (view on Google Sidewiki)

Why locally sold cars are still better than grey-market options

This is an excellent article showing the dangers of buying grey market cars versus locally available cars.

But still, the allure of driving a very uncommon model is still there
in reference to:
"Why locally sold cars are still better than grey-market options"
- Business - Why locally sold cars are still better than grey-market options - INQUIRER.net (view on Google Sidewiki)

redecorating

I've changed the layout and colors of my blog. I like blue.

Hope you like the new colors.

For hard to remove viruses - safe mode

In general, for hard to remove viruses, scan in safe mode/first boot

I've seen only one AV that was intelligent enough to say "hey boss, I cant remove this virus, do you want to reboot and scan in first boot mode?"

IMHO this should be standard for all antivirus programs, even antispyware programs

I'm not sure if "first boot" is the correct term. It means the AV loads and runs its virus scanner to scan the entire drive as the first program that runs after the OS core loads, before any virus has a chance to load, even before the desktop loads. Anyway, AFAIK its very hard to go to first boot manually so safe mode is used.

If you boot in safe mode, only the OS core, desktop and little else is loaded. There is little chance of the virus loading when you boot in safe mode unless you manually run it.

In first boot mode and in safe mode, the virus is not in ram, only on disk. It is then vulnerable. If it was in ram, it could easily save another copy after the AV deletes the copy on disk.

ACER Aspire 4740 - 432G32Mn

If you remember my old post here, I'm planning on replacing my 2006 vintage laptop sometime this year.






CPU:Intel Core i5-430M 2x2.26GHz(1066 MHz / 3MB L2 Cache)
MEMORY: 2048MB DDR3 /PC 8500 - Bus 1066Mhz

HDD: 320GB HDD /SATA 150 - 5400 r.p.m./ Chống sốc HDD
OPTICAL: DVD±RW Double Layer ( Đọc và ghi đĩa DVD 2 lớp 8GB )
DISPLAY:
14" W/XGA LED Blacklight 16:9 CinerCrystal/ Màn hình Gương
VGA:
Intel X4500MHD upto 796MB
WIFI: Intel PRO Wireless Lan 802.11b/g/ Bluetooth /Finger Print
Weight: 2.2Kg / Card Reader, Writer 5 In 1/

OS: Linux/ Crystal Eye Camera 1.3Mp


source


unfortunately, this is so new that there are no reviews out so I need to wait for someone to check the battery life

This model is so new it isnt on the acer website.
37590 for 2 gig ddr3 ram, another 2250 for 4 gig.
AFAIK it is the first i series laptop available for sale in pampanga (SM pampanga octagon)

Since I'm not in a hurry, I might as well wait for new tech like ddr3, led backlighting, i series cpu with new mobo and idealy wifi direct, the new centrino standard and usb 3. Plus Li-ion batteries degrade even if not used so always get a freshly manufactured battery.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

powerbase c-421 - a broken example

The powerbase c-421 is probably the cheapest smart charger available in the philippines. 600 pesos, 2 AA, with trickle charge and individual charging channels.

The symptoms are the failure of the lights to consistently turn on when you plug the empty charger into 220v. If they do turn on, we tried  charging a few different known working batteries. The lights turned to red as it started charging but after < 1 min, it died.

Here are pics of the circuit board. There is nothing wrong  to the naked eye.




 

This one for some reason died 1-2 years after normal use by one of my relatives. Right now they are looking for a replacement. I suggested a Unomat UNO1900 because thats what I'm using now. Click here for the unomat PDF manual + specs.




So right now this broken charger is a paperweight. I'll make a few inquiries from electronics people but i dont think this can be repaired.

projectwonderful adszz

Nuffnag Adzz

Slashdot It

Followers