Does every CloudBook have a silver lining?

A few months back I was idly browsing the web looking for information on UMPC’s when I stumbled upon a cool looking little notebook made by Everex called the CloudBook. After a little research I found it was based on a Via reference design call the NanoBook it’s also been released under various other manufactures including Packard Bell and Sylvania. The price was a very reasonable $399.00 from Wal-Mart of all places. I was tempted to push the order now button then but for some unknown reason I didn’t. Completely unlike me I decided to shop around and look at other small ultra portables, like the ASUS EeePC, the EeePC is cool I like the fact that it is all solid state but you do give up a lot of space and I am not sure that would have worked for me. Everything else was just way out of budget for something that may end up just a cool plaything. Yesterday I checked Wal-Mart’s website again and found the CloudBook on sale for $299.00 this was too good of an offer to resist so it’s on its way to me. I read around a little and found that the CloudBook is pretty much doomed as a product not many people bought it and the operating system the put on there is apparently not very good (it’s a hacked up version of gOS). I would like to say this isn’t going to bother me so much as I plan on putting Windows on the little guy. There are a lot of reviews slamming this product and to be honest that one of the reasons I wanted it, I like to back the underdog, but I think that most of the reviews if have read miss the point. They complain about the speed and the sound and the display resolution and how hot it gets, but quite frankly I don’t think this unit was designed to be a speed demon it’s an ultra portable intended for on the fly, out and about computing, you know stilling in a coffee shop checking email type stuff, mobile blogging, and web browsing, I really don’t think it was meant to be used to render the next Pixar movie. As far as the sound and the display go I am buying an ultra portable not a stereo and the screen is only 7 inches, how high of a resolution do you want? I personally would still like to see the text I am reading without the aid of a microscope. The heat issue, yeah that could be a problem but I don’t understand why reviewers are slamming the product for this, it is good to know admittedly but I own a computer store, we see a lot of laptops and nearly all of them get HOT, some more than others but most of them get to the point where you sure as hell wouldn’t want it on your lap, I had just assumed that this was normal now with the faster energy hungry devices we have grown accustomed to.

All that said I don’t have the little bugger yet so I could be wrong about everything, stay tuned to find out, the good folks at Wal-Mart say I should have it early next week.

One last note, if you are into modding this thing looks perfect, have a look around on Google for what people are doing to them :)

Iphone, friend of foe

Yes I did it, I couldn’t resist the temptation any longer, I broke down and got myself an Iphone. I really don't want this to be a long in-depth review about this cool looking gizmo, there are plenty of those out there and I am sure there will be lots more to with the release of the 3G version. I do however (as usual) want to through my two cents in.

Visually, I think the world is in agreement, the device is beautiful, it's sleek, shiny black and silver exterior screams "touch me" and you simply cannot resist. But looks are not everything they can indeed be deceiving. On a whole the Iphone is wonderful it’s probably the first gadget that I have picked up that actually does everything it says it does. Let’s start with the phone part, well it’s a phone it makes calls and surprisingly enough it receives call also, call quality if perfectly fine and if you find you have to dial a number that’s not in your contact list the onscreen keypad is very useable. The contact list I have to say is not great, it works and it’s useable but it’s not great even with the new search feature that the 2.0 firmware added I still prefer the contact list on my windows mobile phone. The web browsing is awesome it works better than any mobile device I have used so far even without Java and Flash (I am sure it’s just a matter of time before we get both on the Iphone). I do really like the instant message style text messaging (This has been added to Windows Mobile 6.1) and the email functions work just fine also. Oh and I almost forgot it’s an iPod too, that’s right it plays music and video, is it better at it than my Windows Mobile device? Well to be honest I have to say no. All in all it’s a cool gadget but I do think there is a lot of room for improvement. I have to admit that the only reason I am continuing to use the Iphone is because of the web browser, and yes it looks cool. If my HTC S620 surfed as well as the Iphone I have to say I would go back to it (I have Windows Mobile 6.1 running on the S620).

I want to briefly talk about some of the problems I have with the Iphone (maybe apple will read this) first of ITunes, I know this is a personal gripe I have but a gripe it is, I hate ITunes, it monkeys with my music, my album art doesn’t work and it feels rather cumbersome. Second is the lack of productivity software no word processor no spreadsheet program this also leads nicely into the lack of a spell checker (I had planned on writing this whole blog entry on the Iphone but it was just too frustrating). Third is the lack of support for media formats, NO DIVX, you have to let ITunes monkey with your files again before you can watch them (Divx is available for windows mobile devices) Last (this could be the most important though) is the lack of software, there are thousands if not millions of developers out there itching to write software for this device and you can’t use any of it (unless you jailbreak your phone) come on Apple this device is a remarkable piece of engineering and I don’t think we have scratched the surface of what it is capable off yet but let people help.

Is the Iphone the gadget of all gadgets? I think not, I think it’s a nice insight of things to come and I think its pointed the industry in the right direction but unless Apple become a little more open minded about third party software Microsoft will end up winning this battle. The future is definitely in mobile devices but they have to be more than a novelty or a fashion accessory, the Iphone is almost there but not quite unfortunately I feel it’s just paved the way for a better device. (maybe one that I can actually type a letter on)

Ever miss the good old days of computing?

In this modern world that we live in technology can seem a little overwhelming, let’s face it, it’s everywhere, in our pockets, on our wrist, stuck behind our ear and soon no doubt implanted in our head. Sometimes it’s good to have little walk down memory lane and remember how things used to be. Take a look at this old school word processor I found at BigHugeLabs.com http://writer.bighugelabs.com/. Not only is it cool it’s so very functional. Applications are getting way to complicated and full of themselves, even the new trend of online applications are somewhat complex, requiring you to have an account with them and one thing and another. Writer by BigHugeLabs.com is the complete opposite, open up the website and start typing whilst basking in the glow of a good old green screen. Writer is defiantly bare bones computing but it is also not without features, when you are done typing you and print the document, save as a PDF file or send it to you email or a variety of online places i.e. blogger (I wrote this entire entry on Writer) the only thing that is missing in my opinion is a spell checker.

Defiantly cool, check it out http://writer.bighugelabs.com/

Air Conditioning Repair - A tail of lies, deceit and industrial espionage - Part 1

What follows is a true story about one man’s fight against the oppressive heat of summer and the generously proportioned, money grabbing and all together not very nice industry that is Heating and Air Conditioning Repair. Please be aware that the names in the story have been changed to protect the innocent as one of the biggest secrets in the A/C industry is about to be released. Any information you procure from reading this is yours do with as you please but don’t go blaming anyone if you decide to try this and blowup yourself, your house, or anything else for that matter.

Summer is here at last. Picnics, walks in the park, fishing and sailing, just a few of the common summer activities that I for one don’t partake in. Why? I here you ask, well to be perfectly honest I live in South Texas and it’s just too damn hot for any of those summer shenanigans, especially considering the first 20 years of my life was spent in Manchester England where it gets bloody cold. So I retreat, hide you might say shielding myself from whatever ridicules temperature it happens to be outside. My favorite retreat of course is my house. My house, a place of solitude, a place to unwind and let the stresses of the day wash away in the calming glow of the cathode ray, a safe place, a cool place. This leads me nicely into my story. My name is Smith I live an average life in an average house in an average neighborhood with my beautiful wife Mrs. Smith, our son Smith Jr and another on the way who for now is affectionately named JB (Just Baby). Our lives are what you might call normal, average and for the most part very happy until one day the unimaginable happened, our house was invaded, the safe place violated, solitude desecrated, HEAT it was everywhere the air conditioner had decided to go on strike. This was almost too much to bare it was six o’clock at night, nowhere is open, what to do. Frantically I ran down my mental list of ‘what to do in an emergency’ I called 911 but they lady who answered the telephone said that this didn’t constitute as an emergency, I asked if she wouldn’t mind telling that to Mrs. Smith who is six months pregnant and suddenly we were disconnected, a glitch in their phone system I am sure. So I moved on, hospital yes that’s it, number two on the emergency list, take the sick to the hospital, I sprang into action, ran outside, where to my surprise it was considerably cooler than it was inside, pulled the car around next to the A/C unit and tried loading it up. To my astonishment it was bolted down! Well that’s it out of options well almost there was one left. Looking back though I can see how you may think me foolish but I was desperate. I sat down next to the unit and tried to reason with it, I explained to the unit why it would be better If it worked, how I don’t like the heat, I promised we wouldn’t just ignore it and take it for granted anymore, I begged, I pleaded I cried but alas my words fell upon deaf ears. So I did what any man pushed to the edge of reason would do, yes I started cursing and kicking it, finally after hearing my profanities increasing in volume Mrs. Smith dragged me back into the oven that was previously our house.

I was done, thrown in the towel, defeated by an immovable force. We sat uncomfortably staring at the television, the room was silent except for the mindless rambling emanating from the moving picture box. Time was dragging, minutes seemed like hours as if the heat had formed some kind of time vortex within the house. Then out of the blue Mrs. Smith spoke her words graced my ears as if sung by angels ‘I am going to bed, could you please call the repair people in the morning’ Could it be that simple? Maybe it could, I went to bed and dreamed about cold places eagerly awaiting the morning.

Morning came and the temperature was bearable, everybody went about their morning routine, even the time vortex seemed to have gone. The whole morning was awash with normality, one could almost have forgotten about the events of the previous night. We all piled in the car, dropped Smith Jr of at his grandmothers (its summer, school is out) and Mrs. Smith dropped me of at my office. As I was getting out of the car the angels sang again, ‘don’t forget to all the AC people, love you’. Suddenly like a bad dream the whole night came flooding back, the begging, the pleading, the crying and yes the kicking, realizing now why my foot was in so much pain I shook of the nightmare and opened the office.

To be continued…………………

Synaptics T1004 based touchpad to PS2 port

I was having kind of a slow day here at the office so I thought I would start sorting through some old boxes of junk we had lying around and stumbled upon a few laptop touchpads cowering at the bottom of a box labeled ‘Misc Laptop Parts’ (fancy that). Remembering that some years ago I had read most touchpads use the PS2 protocol I rescued them from their cardboard prison and decided to see if I could make one work with my computer. I googled and googled but could not find any good pin out info for any of the touchpads I had, most people are recommending trying this with the Synaptics flavor of touchpad, I had one Synaptics and the rest were Apls. I figured I would follow the crowd and play with the Synaptics one and condemned the Apls pads back to their confining cardboard container. Synaptics does have some very informative information on their website by means of a PDF file containing more information than one could ever want to know about thouchpads but no pin outs at least not for the model I held in my eager little hands. This is not really a tutorial on how to do this mod I just wanted to share some of the info I had found, I figure if you are even thinking about attempting this mod you should have some knowledge of electronics, soldering and general tinkery about you, if not, buy a mouse. I gave up on finding the pin outs for my specific touchpad and decided to look into the controller chip on the damn thing. It would seem that Synaptics really only use 2 chips the T1002 and the T1004, the one I possessed was the T1004 and Synaptics are very tight lipped about the pin outs for this device. I broke out the old multi-meter and started to trace some of the tracks for this chip. After an hour or so, a few trial and error attempts, two cups of coffee and a cigarette I finally figured out the important bits, it is true that a picture speaks a thousand words so have a look at the picture (if you click on it it should enlarge) and it should give you a good start in doing this. Trace back tracks from the chip to a good point to attach your wires, remember though this doesn’t have to be the actual connector, mine had some nice gold test points on the PCB that I used. I stopped tracing tracks after I had the touchpad working so I don’t that the pin out info on the buttons, but to be honest you don’t really need the buttons, left click is just a tap on the pad and you can set right click to be a hot region somewhere on the touchpad (I used bottom right corner). So there you go, hope it helps someone and remember if you blow something up it isn’t my fault.

This is where I got the pin out info for the PS2 port

http://burtonsys.com/PS2_keyboard_and_mouse_mini-DIN-6_connector_pinouts.html

Iron Man – Review

Ok folks, here we go my fist movie review, I beg of thee please be kind. Being true to what seems to be an interesting schizophrenic character trait of mine, you may find this review to be a little hypocritical after my last post condemning big budget Sci-Fi movies but I simply could not resist the draw of this one. All it took was one sneak peek trailer and I was hooked, consumed in a whirlwind of red and gold enthusiasm. I have to say for the record that I have been building myself up for this movie for some time now, almost to the point of not wanting to see it, I was scared, scared that Hollywood in its infinite cinematic wisdom would let me down as it has done so many times in the past. (can we say the 2003 rendition of Hulk, hell we can kill two birds with one stone here, two reviews in one it was awful, Ang Lee, the director of this comic book abomination together with the rest of the players should be loaded into a space ship, sent to the planet of ass kicking robots to have their asses perpetually kicked until the end of time.) Anyways back to Iron Man, so I here you ask was I disappointed? Well read on my friend.

The movie opens with our reluctant hero Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) giving a demonstration of his companies’ latest and greatest instrument of death, the Jericho. Stark is kidnapped post demonstration by a militia group hell bent on Stark recreating the Jericho for their own mischievous uses. Stark defiantly ignores his captor’s threats and constructs himself a suite of iron in an elaborate escape attempt. Upon returning to the so called civilized world Stark, rebels against his own company, secludes himself from society and improves upon his iron suite.

The movies ends (nobody get mad, I don’t consider this a spoiler because we all know how it’s going to end) with an all out battle involving Stark and his nemesis. Iron Man (Stark in his now fancy red and gold suite) is out gunned but still manages to come up trumps and save the day.

Well that’s the movie in a nut shell, so what did I think? The truth is its awesome, brilliant, stunning, standing on your seat shouting for more good. As I may have subtlety touched on earlier I was unsure of Hollywood’s ability to tell this tail well, well my fears were unfounded. This movie has everything I normally don’t like so much in Sci-Fi movies, big budget and an all star cast (Robert Downey Jr., Jeff Bridges and Gwyneth Paltrow to name but a few) and yet they pulled it off in a stunning feat of visual entertainment. Robert Downey Jr. was perfect for the role, full of alcohol fueled cynicism and witty one liners. His supporting cast was equally as good, very well cast and very well acted. Unfortunately my favorite characters don’t get a mention in the credits, they are a couple of comical robots that assist Stark in his own private laboratory, as far as robots go they are not the smartest artificial intelligent machines in science fiction, in fact I think they share the same robotic gene pool as Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot from Mystery Science Theater 3000 but thankfully they inherited all the same endearing qualities as their afore mentioned mechanical compadres. As far as the story goes its exactly what you would expect, it’s not going to win any best script awards but come on people it’s a comic book movie, the age old battle of good versus evil, we know the story, we have seen it a thousand times with a thousand super heroes in a thousand cheesy super hero costumes but it doesn’t matter, it’s a good story damn it. Visually the movie is great, good CGI, believable (well almost believable) technology and some nice cars thrown in the mix all go a long way in making this one of the best comic book to big screen transitions I have seen. Bottom line is this is a good movie it gets my vote.

For all of you that skip straight to the bottom of a review to cut out all the waffle all the get the author’s yay or nay here you go. If you have not seen this movie yet stop reading about it, turn of your computer, put some clothes on, run as if you life depended on it to the nearest movie house, pay whatever extraordinary amount of money they ask for and sit on the edge of you seat for the next 126 minutes basking in the glory of this wonderful movie adaptation of a timeless comic book classic.

Check out Iron Man on IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0371746/

Movie Reviews

I am going to try and start reviewing some of the movies I watch, please be nice as I have never written a movie review before. I will be the first to admit that I am a Sci-Fi fan as you could have probably guessed by reading any of my other posts (I guess I am saying that it is probably pretty obvious that I am a geek or a nerd or whatever you want to call me, not that I am saying that all nerds like nothing but Sci-Fi movies, well actually I am, come on admit it, yes you, you would much prefer to kick back, remote in one hand, a back issue of 2600 clutched tightly in the other, whilst watching a scantily clad female robot kick a little ass on a alien world not too far away from our very own sector). I am not ashamed of liking Sci-Fi movies and to be honest I prefer the low budget, straight to video kind. Why I hear you scream, well to be honest I am not sure but I think it’s because most of the big budget Sci-Fi movies tend to be a little full of themselves, lost in big name celebs and fancy CGI. I am by no means saying that the blockbuster Sci-Fi movies suck some of them are very good, I am just saying that I like a good, middle of the night airing, of some good old b movie Sci-Fi, after all the whole Sci-Fi genre was started with b movies (ever seen Plan 9 From Outer Space?). Sorry I digress, back to reviewing movies, I know there are many people reviewing movies out here in the vastness that is the metaverse but quite frankly I don’t really like most of them, they tend to be stuck up pompous pricks that miss the point of a good Sci-Fi flick. I will try and keep it a little more down to earth so to speak. I am not sure what movie will first fall victim to my delusions of grandeur as a want to be movie critic but I can assure you it will probably never will have known the glory of an opening night, nor heard the screams from the hordes of avid fans camped out for days outside the movie theater, but good or bad that poor little unknown 90 minutes of cinematic failure deserves a review from someone. I will probably throw in a few blockbusters too, just to keep everything nice and fair, we wouldn’t want them to feel left out now would we. So now I am off to free the clicker from the evil clutches of the sofa and pursue my first victim.