Frazzled Tuesday

Having a frazzled Tuesday? Listen to the below...one of the nicer renditions of Johann Pachelbel's Cannon in D....

Linux Turns 17 Today

Happy Birthday to the would be "David" in the epic battle with Goliath. David's 17 years old today. Momentum is building slowly but surely.

Linux Turns 17

Refreshing Site of the Week

Came across this site whilst my daily stumbles across the net...very nice animation and the work thats gone into the piece is fantastic....


A SHORT LOVE STORY IN STOP MOTION from Carlos Lascano on Vimeo.

Tyre Hunt Part II

Just to close up on the Tyre Hunt posting earlier, its over and well its actually been over for the past 2 months but i kept quiet on it as I wanted to scrub in the tyre's first and didnt want to jump the gun on the tyre performance first. So I finally settled for a set of Falkens FK452's with following staggered setup;

1. Front - 245/40/18
2. Rear - 265/35/18

These are some pictures of why I had to change my existing car tyre's, they were quite badly worn out and it was quite a surprise that they didn't run me off the road any earlier.

Front sets

Rear sets

Pretty badly worn out especially for the rear sets, looking at the thread wear on the insides of the rear typre's, I could see that the car is setup for a negative camber on the rear. A few days before finally deciding to swap out the old rubbers, I did a couple of FOT runs and the rears just couldn't grip the tarmac, my DSC indicator kept on blinking on and off, it was really time for a tyre change.

And below are the pictures of the new brand spanking sets of Falken FK452's manufactured in the early part of 2008.

Yummy....my only advice when running new rubber's, dont try doing any fancy turns and stuffs at least for the first 500km's as it takes time for the first layer of rubbers to wear off and never ever judge the tyre performance until you've used them at least for 1000km.

My comments on the tyre's after running them for the past 2-3 months, they are a good set of medium performance tyre's good for both usage in the wet and dry. In terms of road noise, due to the wider tyre profiles, its louder than normal but the tyre's give back in terms of road holding comfort. Not sure exactly what it is but it gives me supreme confidence when I'm piling on the kmph's. In summary, they are highly recommended for those on a budget and want performance orientated tyre's.

Long time not a peep.....

Yeah its been a long time there's been no entry from me, last entry i reckon was sometime in June but that doesnt mean that alls been still and quiet. In fact this past couple of months has been one of the more busier months this year. Lets me try to summarise whats been going on.

1. Changed my job - Moved onto a larger pond and became a much smaller fish....

2. Contemplating on a new automobile

3. Contemplating new big shift in life

4. Grappling with petrol prices

5. Starting to build a Folding farm at home....folding for the good of man kind I hope

Updates will slowly trickle in......

PC in a Box??

Personal Computers are getting smaller and that is literally whats happening today. A couple of years ago, the smallest PC would be something based on a M-ATX motherbaord form factor, then after that things moved smaller to a ITX form factor. As of today, this latest product from Cherrypal is the smallest computer I've seen to date. Its about the size of a ADSL modem....below is the pictures and direct excerpt from the net.

It is easy to perceive the Cherrypal as a toy (some may even consider it the Internet device Leap Frog should have come up with), but we have no doubt that despite its very limited horsepower, this computer could lead the way how average computing will look like a few years down the road. Why? Read on to find out. Tech specs: Underwhelming What can you expect for $250 in a computer today? Admitted, the choices below $250 are limited, but there are some computers, if you spend some time looking. You are likely to end up with a new or refurbished system from discount PC companies such as Emachines, equipped with a single-core processor, 512 MB or 1 GB of memory and a hard drive with 160 to 250 GB capacity. $50 more will get you a new PC from Dell or HP similar equipped as the described refurbished machine. The Cherrypal goes into a completely different direction. The heart of the PC is a 400 MHz Freescale MPC5121e mobileGT triple-core processor. Don’t get too excited about those three cores – it is a chip that can’t be compared to any Intel or AMD CPU, as it was originally developed to run devices such high-end navigation systems in cars. Other specs include 256 MB DDR2 memory, 4 GB of NAND flash memory to hold the Debian Linux-based operating system and the Firefox web browser, 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, two USB ports, an Ethernet port, VGA out, and Audio out. There is no monitor included. According to Cherrypal, buyers of the device are most likely to connect old monitors (as well as keyboards and mice) to the device – monitors that are still working, but are collecting dust somewhere in the house.

Clearly, this is a very basic computer. But while we haven’t seen the Cherrypal in person yet, we believe company CEO Max Seybold that the device has all the power it needs to serve its purpose – to be an easy to use cloud computing device.


All you really need for cloud computing

Cloud computing is the buzzword of these days. Microsoft, Adobe, Google and others believe that some day we all will not run huge local applications anymore, but access web services instead. Google’s online office applications or Adobe’s Photoshop Express are good examples for this trend. I personally have doubts how cloud computing will pan out, since there are very few online applications out there I would pay money for and, in the end, we are all used to owning software and running it from a local hard drive in a powerful PC.

The Cherrypal is, in this view, a disruptive product from every angle. The local storage capacity is very limited (at least if you do not connect a USB hard drive to it) and the integrated flash memory is not really meant to store a lot of data. It primarily serves as home for the Linux operating system and Firefox. Seybold told us, that the boot process of the system is somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 seconds (if there are no updates, which are installed automatically) and users actually never see a Linux surface: What we typically understand as user interface is Firefox (as a single software layer) for the Cherrypal: It is the tool that allows users to access the “Cherrypal cloud” (in which you need to log in every time you use the device), surf the web, access online applications and store data: Every Cherrypal comes with 50 GB of free online storage, which is likely to be increased in the future, Seybold said. Cherrypal will finance this storage service through a “non-intrusive” advertising model, we learned.

Essentially, the Cherrypal box will be all you need to surf on the web, watch YouTube videos, watch Flash animations, write documents, create spreadsheets and edit your images. Think about a 1.3” high, 5.8” x 4.2” wide and 10.5 ounces light Internet in a box. What you can’t do with the Cherrypal is play games. In case you wonder, Seybold claims that the device is also very secure, as the system access the Internet through the Cherrypal Cloud and uses a hardware and software encrypted connection.

I have seen many thin clients come and go over the past 15 years. But current trends and technologies favor thin clients more than ever before and it is easy to see that, with some luck, the Cherrypal concept could be very successful.

The greenest PC on the planet?

Seybold believes that the Cherrypal is the greenest PC available. On one side, the PC is rated at a power consumption of only 2 watts and, according to Seybold, uses 80% fewer components than your average PC. However, on the other side, the case of the device is made from standard plastics, which aren’t bio-degradable and just as harmful to the environment as any other PC. But it is the vision behind the system, which may make it “greener”: Seybold said that the Cherrypal is good enough to serve as Internet device for about 10 years, but he noted that, realistically, no buyer will keep the device for more than two or three years. In this case, Cherrypal offers its customers to buy the system back and resell it to third-world countries, which hopefully will keep the devices away from landfills for a longer period of time.

But: The Cherrypal isn’t what we would consider a sustainable device.

Greener than an Apple?

Sometimes there are interesting stories behind brand names – such as Blackberry, which is based on RIM’s belief that a fruit represents and friendly product, while the Blackberry itself represents the “premium” product among fruits (this idea has cost RIM apparently more than $500,000) and there is certainly the question why the Cherrypal is named Cherrypal.

Seybold told us that one of the focus group members reacted to the “green” claims of the company by stating that the device is “as green as an Apple”, while another mentioned that the computer is much greener than an Apple and is more like a cherry. The company liked the idea so much that it decided to use it for the product, but Seybold was unable to claim the domain cherry.com and ended up with Cherrypal and cherrypal.com.

Lesson learned: A cherry is greener than an apple. Apparently.

The computer will be shipping in late July. Etailers such as Amazon.com will be carrying the device towards the end of the year.

Seybold thinks he has a product that can sell in the “hundreds of thousands” and we believe that he has an enticing product that may not appeal to every user. But it is certainly a device that could make mainstream cloud computing much more attractive.

We will try to get our hands on of these as soon as possible and let you know if the Cherrypal is the knockout PC we believe it can be.

Source : TG Daily

Tyre Hunt Part I

Its time to change some new rubbers for my car. The challenge as usual when making purchases is the ability to make a wise purchase that has ample servings of performance per money spent. The tyre sizes that I'm specifically looking for is;

- 245/40/18 for the fronts
- 265/35/18 for the rears

They are much larger than the previous rubbers I bought for my Satria GTI which were sized at 205/17/45 all round. The purchase this time around is going to be burning a pretty large hole in my wallet.

As with all smart and wise purchases (not sure how smart and wise i can be when it comes to buying stuff for my car) I started out with a short list of all possible tyre brands that I'm considering. Below is the short list, its short as there is not that many low profile, W or Y rated tyres.

1. Continental Sport Contact 2 - Creame of the crop from the Continental line up which is superceded by the latest version of the Continental Sport Contact 3. This tyre comes with rave reviews, the only downside that I've come across thus far is related to its price. It wil definately blow a hole in your wallet. This is one high tech tyre with the thread pattern designed for balanced performance over both dry and wet roads.

2. Michelin Pilot Sport PS2 - This is again one of the top of the range tyre's from the Michelin stables. The thread pattern is quite similar to the CSC2. Have heard some negative feedback about this tyre's noise and thread life but then again its a performance tyre so should not be compared with the run of the mill tyre's.

3. Dunlop Direzza DZ101 - A mid-range tyre from Dunlop with a more aggressive thread pattern than both the CSC2 and PS2 but looks can be deceiving. Again its a mid range performance tyre so the prices are a little bit more swallowable and with that the road noise of this tyre is higher.

4. Yokohama Advan Sport - This is perhaps the 2nd highest performance tyre in the Yokohama stable with the Yokohama Advan Neova AD07 taking the top spot. This is type is rated to withstand speeds in excess of 280kmph (not that I can even reach that kind of speed in my car).
5. Falken FK 452 - This is one yummy looking tyre and the price to performance ratio is pretty darn good. Falken has been bought over by Dunlop so we should slowly see these 2 companies blending their product stables soon.


I've already gotten indicative pricing from my rounds in the City, so this weekend it will be a day trip down to Klang to bang some bargins so hopefully I should be shod with some new rubbers soon.

Free On-Line Strategy Games Part I

Among the genres of online games that play best on the internet especially for those using slower connections such as dial-up is Strategy games. They vary from being turn based or real-time with the former being very tolerant of slower connections with high lag. Here's a compilation of the better strategy games thats available online without costing any of your moolah's to enjoy them....Game Away...

1. OGame - Yes a very odd name for any game, but this is a colony building strategy game based in space, very similar to one of my favorite games with a similar theme (Overload aka Supremacy), the added bonus is of course you'll be playing against another human and thats alot more entertaining that playing against a computer. Check it out at OGame.

2. Quantum Legecy - Prefer something with an Real Time Strategy flavor? then check out Quantum Legecy. A very polished RTS with both a single and multiplayer option and its free. You can check out a demo of the game via your browser but its a pretty heavy download. Check it out at Quantum Legecy.

3. Unification Wars - A MMMO Strategy based game with a theme of space conquest which can be accomplished via diplomacy or brute force. Graphics are very polished and the most important thing is that there are alot of players online when i last check it out (250+). Give it a spin at Unification Wars

4. Tribal Wars - If you prefer something more down to earth and with a more medival feel to it, then you need to try this, there are a couple of online medival strategy games I've tried previously, most of them had pretty badly done graphics but this is not bad (dont expect Crysis level graphics). Tribal Wars.


More to come.....

Wireless...Here to replace Wires? 802.11n is here to stay

Today has been a fruitful day, even with the more than usual daily hub bub taking place, I managed to take some time out of the day to do some research on wireless technologies. Yeah father, mother, aunty, uncle and even the neighbors dog has a wireless network running. Most of them a secured now a days but there are still the odd few that still believe in charity and leave their wireless networks unsecured ala Starbucks. Kudo's to you charitable people.

Well everyone has heard about the present 802.11 standards, which includes the "b" , "a" and "g" standards. The latest and greatest that will soon hit our doorsteps will be the 802.11n standard which will provide a theoretical throughput of, get ready for this...300 to 400mbps. To put this figure into perspective, the normal desktop at the office is connected to the network at only 100mbps, and the present fastest wireless technology is based on the "g" and "a" standards which clock in at 54mbps, heck most enterprise switches are connected to the network core with 100mbps ethernet uplinks.

Well what does this bode for us mere mortals? Well....

1. You can probably drop by the shops to bag yourself one of these babies soon (3Com AirConnect's) and start running your own small Video Streaming Service to your neighbors and local community.

(The PCI NIC's for Desktop PC's and USB Adapters are ready for shipping)


(802.11n Access Points)

2. It will just be a matter of time before someone fabricates a directional antenna for these babies and there you go, long range wide area networks at ethernet speeds. It would probably not replace the expensive WAN solution offerings on the market now but heck for those low budget operations its worth the idea.

(DIY Directional Antenna made from a can of Pringles)

(One of the many Directional Antenna's from Cisco)

Wireless is here to stay and with the optimizations put into the 802.11n standard such as MIMO, Channel Bonding and MAC Optimization it pushing the bandwidth threshold ever higher. The only thing we need now is a better ISP....at least for us poor souls in Malaysia.

I've been AWOL.....

Its been at least a month, to be honest I've almost forgot about this blog, I guess thats human...or at least its me. Start with gusto then trickle off into the sunset. Its a good thing that my secondary school friend Nasri or better know as Nash suddenly MSN'ed me and asked me about something i posted on my blog a couple of weeks back. A couple of days back another friend (whom incidently has a bun in the oven) also asked me when I was going to update my blog. So......

in these kind of difficult situations, there is only one mature and responsible thing to do....blame it on the work....but truth be told, the pace at work has been manageable the past couple of weeks, I wont say there all i do is sit down and watch grass grown (which coincidently is a pretty interesting pass time) but issues that crop up are usually dispatched quickly and with ruthless efficiency. Lol'ed.

Well I guess life in the IT industry especially in the vendor world has its quiet and busy periods, and now i would reckon its a moderate period. Which is a good thing, gives me some thing to think about other things. So back to blogging then....

Free On-Line RPG Gaming Part III

Another day and another compilation of a couple of free MMORPG games thats available on the internet. I reckon I'll quickly run out of MMORPG games after a while, will then start to look at other gaming genres thats available online. So keep this blog bookmarked and drop by often to get updates. This is the latest installment of games;

11. Dark Swords - This is one unique online game, slightly similar to Second Life. Its unique and multi-sided atmosphere in the immense and original world: there are approximately 4,000 locations on the territory of two kingdoms and Boundary Realm. There's a possibility to start the game in any of those, check it out at Dark Swords.

12. Anarchy Online - Set 30,000 years in the future, this MMORPG brings back MechWarrior memories. Character classes, weapons and armor all take a huge step into the future, definately worth a look at Anarchy Online.

13. ArchLord - This is a game from the well known CodeMasters stable of games, the graphics blow my mind and the gameplay is fantastic. Should definately give it a go at Arch Lord.

14. Eternal Lands - A huge MMORPG thats been around since 2003, the graphics are somewhat dated slightly when you compare with the newer generations of MMORPG, but then again, the main reason why an RPG is so interesting is the actual Game Engine and not just graphics alone. Check it out at Eternal Lands.
15. Fate - Based in medival settings and boast rave reviews from game review sites since it was launched, has a slightly interesting twist when compared to the other MMORPG's, it has PETS. Yes you can own pets and grow them into more powerful creatures (Black and White anyone?). Check out Fate.

More to come....stay tuned

Free On-Line RPG Gaming Part II

Another list of FREE online RPG games to whet your appetites, the first list of 5 games is now to be grown with another list...check them out..

6. Guild Wars - This online MMORPG has been around since 2005 and so is quite matured already boast a big user pool. Check it out at Guild Wars.

7. Hero's Online - Set in Medieval China with fantastically detailed graphics, animation and weapons, you need to definitely check this game out. Hero's Online.

8. MU Online - Wanna get handy with weapons and armor? Wanna spend time gearing up your hero and have it clearly represented on screen? Wanna partake in huge online battle? MU Online is your game.

9. Plane Shift - Although not consider to be fully GA yet, its still considered a tech demo but it doesn't have any restrictions between paid and free accounts. This levels the playing field greatly. Check it out at Plane Shift.

10. Second Life - Very hyped MMORPG, not really a regular RPG, more like a SIM's based game, give it a go at Second Life.

Free On-Line RPG Gaming Part I

Free? Online Games? Great graphics and gameplay? normally 3 words (yes more than 3 but whose counting) that are not usually used in the same sentence to describe online games, but amazingly there are a few gems out there that are worth the time and effort. Although this is not an exhaustive list, below are some of the ones thats available out there. So quit DOTA and WOW and check out some of these free MMORPG's below.

1. Conquer Online - A MMORPG with an oriental touch, fantastic graphics and low lag servers. Check it out at Conquer Online to download and install the client.
2. 2 Moons - A very polished and graphically pleasing to view game, it looks like it could be the next big thing. Its available at 2Moons.
3. Minions of Mirth - A huge range of character classes available with a twist of being able to create a party of adventurers, but of course you can only control one at a time. Check it out at Minions of Mirth.
4. Lineage II - This would be the mother of all MMORPG's but although its not strictly classified as free, but there is a trial period available just to get unsuspecting players hooked. Check it out at Lineage II.
5. Last Chaos - Good graphics engine and very nice stats engine. Worth a try...its free after all. Its available at Last Chaos.
   

Pain & Fear

Which two words in the english dictionary turns normally stout legs to jelly? make high libido'ed men abstain? George Bush to run and seek shelter in the same cave as Bin Laden? gossiping women to be more silent than a dead roach? Well I think you get the idea.....lets allow that idea to simmer for a couple of days.

Blew My Mind

Remember how people have been forever saying that technology will change the world, well I reckon it will change more than that, be it for better or worse there is no going back now. In the past 20 years, i reckon technology has moved at a break neck pace especially in the realms of information technology. Information is has always been the maker and breaker of deals and now with the multiple avenues of accessing this information, there is a real threat to have the very life drowned out by a case of information overload, whereby more time is spent access and processing the information versus time spent using and exploiting the information.

On a lighter side though, information has also enabled us all to blend together in a much tighter knit community and overnight can shrink the physical great divides that split some of us. But I reckon, there is no better way to build this bond that via sharing of information, more specifically sharing of pictures, which directly and indirectly also means sharing memories and experiences which in its own way is the most powerful way of sharing. Take a look at the clip below....a snippit of things to come...

Back to the Drawing Board

Had a fantastic weekend plus Monday as it was a public holiday here, am not really sure the significance of the day but its a public holiday so I'm not complaining. It was a pretty hectic one with the usual running around during the morning and afternoons, with the usual bouts of spending money on stuffs such as food and water to keep the body moving. There were major and minor accomplishments and the major accomplishments normally resolves around spending a big sum of moolahs.

This time around, the moolah was spent on something which i reckon would be worth while, after all, where do we spend 50% of our lives? Yes, correct...on the bed. Some use it for sleep, some for reading and others for horizontal exercise. So how much did I spend? more than i think i should have. I will snap a picture of it and post it up once it arrives.

One thing which i didnt manage to do was to get some......

Yes...Grass...I need some nice green grass to make my black driveway less sombre and to show more sign of it being inhabited by not only lizards. I'm stilling living with that darn lizard....another story for another day. So here I am, sitting squarely in Tuesday and looking back on Monday, Sunday and Saturday, bidding them farewell, I had a great time with you.

Crazy Graphics Card Prices

Came across a couple of mad bargins at lowyat..not the real life mall but the alternate version on the WWW. A couple of great deals to be had;

1. Nvidia 8600 GT - Average card but great price at RM 190 (USD60), this will surely drive down the prices of the 7 series cards for the other sellers on the forum. It's a lelong of graphics cards...



2. ASUS 8800 GTS 640mb (G80 core) - This one is not lelong style, but via a bidding approach. Starting bids are RM400 (USD125)...go go go....from the pic, looks like it was ran in an open rig, should be good for temps.


3. Asus Commando Motherboard (Yes, its not a graphics card) - This is a premium P965 chipset motherboard and part of the Asus Republic of Gamers series, this motherboard old but its all the rage now with overclocking the new series of Intel Wolfdale processors. The guys at XtremeSystems have had good experience OC'ing on this motherboard.

Abit IP35-E Open Rig Testing - Day 1

Just bagged a Abit IP35-E motherboard for some testing and toasting, will be pairing this motherboard with a C2D E2160. Here's some pictures of the motherboard itself.
Brand spanking new motherboard, with the northbridge, PWM & southbridge heatsinks intact, time to take those off to have a proper look at what kind of thermal junks being applied. As expected, all three heatsink contact with the chips are via thermal pads. Shots of the motherboard sans heatsinks..

Whilst we're still without the heatsinks, also took some shots of the 4 phase power delivery to the CPU, how this would stand up with there is heavy overclocking will be seen once I start turning up the heat. In the mean time, here what it looks like under the PWM heatsink, pretty darn clean...


After cleaning up the PWM and the Northbridge chips, applied drops of Artic Silver 5 to each respective chip, this would help transfer the heat away from the chips alot better than the factory thermal pads, but caution needs to be excercised, AS5 is a electrically conductive material, hence it shorts out any electrical contact.....kabooi....bye bye motherboard...hello RMA....

Here's a shot of the AS5 on the PWN chips...


So after all that preparation work, slapped back the heatsinks, stuck in the E2160 processor and paired that with a Scythe Ninja monster heatsink. I'm not going to be testing out the graphics on this rig so put in an aging MSI 7900GTO which incidently is able to clock up to GPU 698Mhz with the Memory hitting 1710Mhz, pretty darn niffty from the stock clocks. The whole rig will be powered up by a Cooler Master 550W Real Power Unit.

Final shot of the rig before the powers cranked on...


More to come up...but need to take a break, juggling things between life work and hobby takes a toll on you.