Windows 7 on EeePC 1000H

News on Windows 7 is going like a hot cake on the Internet now. Microsoft claims it’s build based on users suggestions and comments. I missed out the Beta released which they actually send out the installation disc. So I downloaded the current RC 32-bit version image file, size is around 2.3GB. It’s a Windows 7 Ultimate version. Product key will be issued from Microsoft website after the registration (Yea, you need to register yourself before the download). Burn the image file onto a DVD-R and you will have your own copy of installation disc.

As stated on the website, this is a RC release. So expect some troubleshooting. It’s for consumers to try out 1st hand before the final release, which should be available around end of this year.

Anyway, after some readings on reviews on the Internet of how people experience it with their old machines, as well as some notebook PC and netbook are actually come available with Windows 7 Beta pre-installed, I put it on my Asus EeePC 1000H, which I have had the memory ram upgraded to 2GB the 2nd day I bought it.

Since my EeePC comes with Windows XP Home, so upgrade installation is out of the question. Fresh installation is the only way, but it was a breeze anyway. Boot from the optical drive and just follow the on screen instruction. It takes about an hour to complete (didn’t actually time it). Once reboot into desktop, you get a fresh and clean look of Windows 7.

Picture shown above is my desktop in Windows 7. I have changed the wallpaper and have installed some programs to try out. I especially like how the taskbar look now, everything is icon-based. Items categorised more neatly than in Vista, menu looks excellent, date and time are shown together too, simply nice. Of course, to make it run more smoother under Atom, some visual effects such as animated controls and fade/slide menu will have to be compromised but have no worries it will affect your Windows 7 experience. Everything still looks good as it is.

Not sure if it’s because of the Ultimate version, compare to Vista Home Premium on my main PC, there are some extra settings to play with under Control Panel. Just in case something doesn’t work properly, the troubleshoot section is very easy to use too although it might not solve the problem (duh!!). It’s still a RC version…you’ve been warned. My Internet connection through office router was setup automatically and runs perfectly, but my Prolink wireless USB modem just doesn’t work although I’ve set it to XP SP2 compatible mode.

Just as most of the mobile users stated, battery/power management is one big improvement compare to the previous version. Users have stated that Vista has better power management than XP, and Windows 7 is more better than Vista. I’m not sure about Vista on EeePC but Windows 7 sure does it better than the Asus power management utility tool ran on XP before this. As of now after running for 3 hours, and countless times of PC restarting and programs launching/closing, I still have 45% of usage time. Previously, I’d be left with around 30-35% of usage time by now.

Overall, this is the best Windows ever. Just hope that it will be a “Woo~Waah” OS when it’s ready with no crash or BSOD...possible? Let’s keep our fingers crossed now.

TB Hard Drive

Just not too long ago IT enthusiasts were excited and talking about the 1TB hard drive.  It seems to be more than enough for our everyday digital storage usage, particularly at home for ripped DVD movies, digital photo and music storage.  Not only most of us can’t fill it up after we stored all of our digital files (except those hardcore users or torrent freak), we can even do a full PC backup on top of that.

Then, manufacturer announced and released the 1.5TB hard drive, and 1TB unit price dropped to a more wallet-friendly RM338, to be exact (available in Karamunsing, I myself just bough a couple of that weeks ago). 

Now, just recently, 2TB hard drive news pop up in all PC magazines.  Although priced at RM12xx at the moment, it will go down soon or later.   For those who don’t know, it’s around 2000GB (for easy calculation), or 2000000MB!  If an average mp3 file sized at 4MB, how many songs can we fit in a 2TB drive?  How about an average 700MB AVI files we ripped from a DVD movie?  How many of those files can we fit into this hard drive?  You do the maths.  My sister, an average PC user, got a shocked when I told her how far a hard drive capacity has gone to now.  She backup all her downloaded TV series on DVD-R then packed them nicely in shoes boxes (what a way..!).  So, I suggested her to get a 1TB or 1.5TB hard drive to store all her downloads then share them across the home network. 

For more advanced PC users, hobbyists, modders, or whatever name you like to call them, storage capacity can never be enough.  Especially when we are talking about ripping our media to the highest possible quality.  A MPEG2 DVD rip can go as large as 5GB, and 10 times or more for a BD movie.  So, with a 2TB drive to store DVD rips at average 5GB per file, that’s about 400 movies.  You say that’s a lot of movies?  Not to a movie freak.

I’ll build a media server once my house is ready, to serve the living rooms and home theater room.  Server storage capacity?  Well, currently targeting at a 10-bay PC case…and hard drive manufacturers are planning to roll out 3TB drive soon.

Welcome to the Terabyte Era!

My Home Network

Go to any IT or AV forum, you will find topics that are related to home network, for simply file sharing or multimedia streaming to every corner in the house, or even a more complicated ones. For my objectives, a simple one will do.

Anyway, the objectives of the setup are:

1. Have a central data storage or home server;
2. Media streaming to ground floor and 1st floor living room;
3. Media streaming to home theatre;
4. Media streaming to master bedroom;
5. And, Internet access from all the location mentioned above.

I never really look into a central storage before and thus all my data files are spread across my PC, laptop, and several external hard drives. All without a central network. It can become frustrated and tedious sometimes when you need to access a file and only realized that it’s stored somewhere else. Besides, it won’t be more troublesome when my fiancée wants to browse through some stock pictures from business supplier while I’m in the middle kicking some monster ass.

So, to make things simple and for me to have an uninterrupted-entertainment session in the future, I bought a network attached storage (NAS) at a local IT shop couple of weeks ago. It’s a D-Link DNS-323, not the top end product but able to server me my requirement. This little thing can do more than just storing files. Product review is available here, or you might want to check out the official site. I asked for a NAS product few years back in CPS, and it cost around RM1K that time. I will see how this thing goes 1st, and later I will try out the Windows Home Server.

Anyway, since I’m the one who will do the download and movie/music ripping, this device will be sitting in my home office connecting to the home network via my Belkin N+ modem router. So in order to play the media stored in this device from other location in the house, I guess the best way is to stream to the HTPC in every location mentioned above. That way, not only I can enjoy movie/music, I can even go online with the HTPC. Why make myself only able to surf the web in the office, right?

Ok, time to copy all my media files to the device now. Not really a lot at the moment, but for sure it’s not going to be a few minutes job.

Until then…..

All These While…

Life has been busy, in everything, and I just realized that my last post was over a year ago…aaah, I’ve been lazy! 

Time flies, and so does technology.  Especially in IT industry, only the rich can lay hands on all the latest gadgets.  So what did I get myself in the past 14 months?  Not much I’d say…

After I got myself a new casing, as seen in the previous post, I spent quite some times on PC gaming, and was into home theater stuffs later in the year.  Which also burn a big hole in my pocket! 

After I had my home theater setup, I went back for some PC games again.  Followed by a new Razer Tarantula gaming keyboard, review here, and a Microsoft Razer Habu gaming mouse.  These toys weren’t cheap, but they will bring your PC gaming experience to a new level, if you know how to configure and utilize it.  Why settle you gaming peripherals with a cheap one?  20 bucks keyboard and a RM10 chicken-brand mouse sure can do the job you might say, then might as well we just stick to the granny black and white TV set.  Oh well, personal preference and hobby I’d say.  Even if our gaming skill doesn’t get improve, at least those toys will shine up our table.

Can’t recall when it actually started, PC performance items have found their place in some IT shops in Karamunsing Complex.  Although can’t compare with Lowyat in KL, at least local enthusiasts don’t have to order every single item from KL now.   

My Gigabyte Chassis

A new PC system definitely needs a new casing. Detailed info is available at the official site. I bought it at Karamunsing ACI Technology Sdn Bhd for RM600. Below are some pictures (sorry for the poor picture quality):

Big box! Almost as tall as the office table but fortunately doesn't weight as heavy!

Out from the box, you get a nicely printed installation guide and a piece of transparent acrylic side panel (just in-case you don't like the metal mesh piece).

The metal mesh side panel. Nice!

Two Gigabyte chassis blue led fans at the exhaust side. Silent fans, which also means low performance fans, in my opinion. Can barely feel the flow (replacement is coming soon, I guess).

Another silent fan at the lower front as intake. Enough to give your HDDs some cool breeze, and it comes with a filter too!

Time to serve (side panel is removed for picture session only)! Things that holded inside are: CPU: Core 2 Quad Q6600 (OC @ 3.3Ghz), Cooler: AC Freezer 7 Pro, Mobo: Asus P5K Deluxe, RAM: Kingston PC2-6400 1G x2, GPU: Asus 8800GTS 320MB, HDD: 250GB+320GB, PSU: SilverStone ST56F.

That's my current workstation and gaming machine (Only the CPU, Mobo, RAM, HDD, GPU, and Casing are new).

* UPDATE * 16th Mar 2008

Rear blue led exhaust fans are now replaced by CM red led units. Still a silent fan, but with just a little bit higher air flow.

CPU idle temperature now max at 38c during day time in my non air-cond room (Q6600 OC @ 3.3GHz with 1.42V). So, pretty good I'd say.

Nokia 6500 Slide

Sometimes, a simple device can look extremely good if the designers know how. Here comes an example, my Nokia 6288 replacement - Nokia 6500 Slide.

What I especially like is the appearance and the solid feel when you hold it. Trust your eyes and hear me right, the silver part you see in the picture above is brushed metal finishing (how I wish it's totally covered in metal...)! Anyway, how many phones you see in the market come with metal body especially a mid-range product? This is one of the rare ones. Its weight might not be everyone's favourite but some people prefer a compact but solid-feel device. Yes, it does feel heavy, even as heavy as my Atom Life.

One of the strong points is the camera which feature: 3.2 megapixel with Carl Zeiss lens, dual flash, autofocus, and VGA-resolution video capture (640x480). Still picture resolution is max at 2048x1536. These type of capabilities have only been seen in high-end N-Series devices before, and consider this 6500 Slide is only Nokia's mid-range product, and it's not even a smartphone! How pity my Atom Life doesn't have such features when it's strong at connectivity - it would be excellent if it's able to capture high-res picture and upload it to blog site through a public Wi-Fi network (let's just wish and dream for a 100% perfect device...).

Anyway, a 256MB microSD is included in the standard sales package but in case you want to carry few hundred MP3s and video clips with you, you can always go for a higher capacity card. A Kingston 1GB microSD is available for around RM60 in town. Standard package in KK area is around RM1200+, which I reckon is a good alternative to other more expensive 3G phones on the market.

Nokia N95 8GB

Not long after I bought my O2 Atom Life, my wife saw her friend carrying a N95 8GB. So she wanted one as well...(aaah, in girls' thinking, giving her what she wants is a way to show her how much you love her...). Since Valentine's Day was coming, so I gave her a surprise with that phone (although she was expecting it...DUH!).

Anyway, the N95 8GB, known as one of the Nokia's best phones ever built. No need me to do another detail introduction on its build-in features and functions as there are already lots of it in the Internet. Here is one of the officials - http://www.nseries.com/index.html#l=products,n95_8gb

Compare with the previous model, the 8GB version is significantly better in everyway. Even to my Atom Life in certain ways. Price is range from RM2799 to RM2999 for a Zitron set, while around RM2200 for an AP set. Consider affordable for a pocket-size "Multimedia Computer".

Atom Life

Just realize that my last post was in July 2007...! Oh well, life's been quite busy. Anyway, thought that I will post something regarding my new gadget - Atom Life.

Ok, it may be not the latest high-tech gadget in the market but it's one of the heavyweight ones in the PDA phone family. Its 624MHz processor power and the 1GB Flash ROM are what attracted me and kept me thinking of it all the time. However, with only 64MB RAM to cope with the ROM, it's quite a disappointment. Imagine how many programs or software you can install with its 1GB ROM but you don't have much memory to run it. Thus, the performance will get sluggish after some usages and reboot (soft reset) will be the only solutuion.

Even though, I finally still bought it when I was in KL just before CNY. Standard box package plus a 2GB miniSD memory card and a screen protector, all for RM2199. I reckon it's a good deal since I saw it goes for around RM2899 in Karamunsing KK couple of months back. Some of the shops might still retain the WM5 which comes pre-installed from the factory but majority have upgraded to WM6 Pro. So don't forget to check that out with the sales person.

Anyway, first thing I realized after powered up the device was the weak signal strength. It showed only 1-2 bars while my ordinary Nokia was in full signal. Besides, ringtone volumn is ridiculously soft even though it's set to the max.

After searching through some Internet forums and the official O2 site, flashing the unit with the latest WM6 ROM was the solution. It's working good now although signal strength still can't compare with my Nokia. Other than that, it drains out the battery quite fast. Might be due to its fast processor. My own solution - I keep it connected to my PC everytime when I'm at my table.

If you like to customize your device, software/plug-in to go with it will be SPB and/or SBSH. They are one of the best, and best of all, they won't burn your pocket.

Overall, minus 1 for the weak signal strength, 1 for the pity 64MB RAM, and 1 for the camera (still 2MP while mid-range Nokia is already in 3.2MP with a Carl Zeiss lens) together with the poorly built stylus (my old Eten stylus is 10x more solid), I'll give it a 7/10 (GPS is not counted because I don't use it).

Until then.