Free Canonical Ubuntu 8.10 CD And Stickers!

About a month ago when I was messing around with Linux, I took advantage of a free service from Canonical, the company somewhat behind Ubuntu, which has skyrocketed in the past five years to become pretty much the closest thing to a mainstream Linux distro. That free service is having free copies of Ubuntu shipped to you on CDs. It's really 100% free; you do not pay shipping or anything.

The last time I tried to order Ubuntu CDs was in 2004, when Ubuntu was just starting. I couldn't believe that a Linux 'company' could give away free CDs and still exist in the following months. I also thought at the same time that while I would apply for the CDs. months would pass and I would soon forget about them, and would never receive them.

I was astonished back in 2004 when I received a small package one day, and inside was around 20 of the Ubuntu CDs and a notice to pass them out to friends.

Fast forward to 2008; the service is still around, but this time they didn't send me 20 CDs. Instead, I received one Ubuntu 8.10 CD in a nice little folder, along with four Ubuntu stickers. The CD was shipped from the Netherlands.

Honestly I was once again surprised that I received the CD (and so quickly too). If you want to get your own Ubuntu CD and stickers mailed to you for free, you can sign up here.

I can't believe the people behind Ubuntu can do this. They even go as far as have a tracking page for you to check on the status of your requested free CDs. For example;

1 CDs requested on 2008-11-26. 1 CDs were approved and sent to the shipping company on 2008-12-01. Please note requests usually take from 4 to 6 weeks to deliver, depending on the country of shipping.

Pictures Of The eeePC 701 4g Motherboard

Here are some photos of the eeePC 701 4G Surf model motherboard. You can click on the images to enlarge them. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me.

Rosewill RCX-Z300.. Very Pleased

I suppose it was time for a new heatsink / fan for my socket 775 systems. I have a couple of old socket 775 heatsinks / fans, but after using them the past several years the cheap plastic pins broke.

This past Thanksgiving I managed to find that NewEgg was selling the Rosewill RCX-Z300 92mm Ball CPU Cooler for only $14.99 with free shipping. I'm glad I ordered it then because a day later, the price went to $19.99 + shipping. It was pretty much the cheapest 775 heatsink / fan I could find that had a 4 pin connector so that my BIOS could automatically adjust the fan speed, while at the same time actually looked like a quality product.

I'm always hesitant when purchasing heatsinks / fans for computers because frankly they seem to be so overpriced. Ten years ago, I could get a cooler from my local Radio Shack for $8. Even two years ago I could order a variety of heatsink / fans from Newegg for under $10 shipped. I really don't even know why I bothered paying $15 for a heatsink, when I could have purchased a 2.0 ghz AMD Sempron CPU in retail packaging (comes with cooler) for a mere $5 more ($20 total) [yes I am aware that Socket AM2 heatsinks are incompatible with Socket 775 for the most part.]. Now I understand the fact that the Rosewill heatsink is much better than any OEM heatsink, but its not like I am using any CPUs that require aftermarket heatsinks.

Anyhow, back to the Rosewill RCX-z300. The unit was shipped to me very quickly via UPS, and upon arrival I noticed that the heatsink had some weight to it. I put it on a postal scale and found that the unit weighed 15 ounces. The heatsink / fan it was replacing only weighed 10 ounces. The additional weight compared to the original heatsink is due to the copper core in the Rosewill fan (which is also probably the reason why coolers have gone up in price).

The RCX-z300 is just a simple traditional looking heatsink / fan. It doesn't use any weird block designs, or weird mounting brackets. It's simple, and I like that. The most sophisticated thing about this heatsink is the fact that the fan blades are red and there is a "Z" sticker on top of the fan. I don't need a four pound block of copper with several fans that look like helicopter blades to cool my processor.

The heatsink is already applied with thermal grease. Lots of people like to use their own thermal grease, but I just left the grease on. Installing the heatsink was a little tricky because Rosewill chose to use that annoying plastic screwdown method that Intel invented. I had some problems getting all four of the plastic screws to clamp down, but I always have trouble with any fan that uses the plastic screws. It would have been much easier if Rosewill would have included a back plate and used metal pins for installation. If they would have choose the metal plate / pin method, I know that I would have a great heatsink that I could use on different systems for many years.

The fan can spin upto 2200 RPM, and because of its four pin connector, can be controlled by the BIOS. With the speed control off, the fan was relatively quiet as it spun at 2150 RPMs. When I adjusted my system bios and turned the fan control on, SpeedFan reported that the fan was running at 70%, and 1250 RPM. The fan was much softer than the constant 3,000 RPM fan it replaced. I can hardly hear the Rosewill fan spinning with case open, and with the case close, I can not hear it at all (My system is not completely silent, the power supply's fan makes a slight hum).

As mentioned in the beginning, I used to have a generic heatsink that was not properly attached to the motherboard, had a fan running at 3,000+ RPMs constantly, and the case was open. The temperature in the case was 32 C and would steadily increase as I used the computer. (The room temperature is a constant 21 c) The Rosewill heatsink / fan allows my overclocked E2180 running at 2.6ghz to remain around 30 c all day, and the fan never runs above 1250 RPM.

Overall, the Rosewill RCX-Z300 92mm Ball CPU Cooler is an excellent budget heatsink / fan for anybody that needs a new Socket 775 fan. It's a simple design that works, and will fit on all 775 motherboards, and in most computer cases. The only complaint I have is the whole plastic screw ordeal, but with the price paid I really can't complain.

Rosewill has yet to let me down on any of their products. You can purchase the osewill RCX-Z300 92mm Ball CPU Cooler here.

Pentium Dual Core E2180 Benchmarks And Overclocking

This past May I was able to get a used Pentium Dual Core E2180 for pretty cheap off of eBay. It's a dual core Conroe (Although I think everyone refers to them as "Allentown") chip running at 2.0 ghz (10x multiplier) with 1mb of L2 cache, and a thermal design of 65 watts. While the chip doesn't run as cool as the 35 watt Conroe based single core Celerons, the Pentium Dual Core E2180 still runs very cool, and can easily be overclocked to 2.6ghz on pretty much any Socket 775 motherboard that a) supports the chip & b) allows you to set the bus speed from 200 to 260.

I've been using the chip on and off over the past several months and have decided to post some quick benchmarks for the chip in it's original 2.0 ghz glory, as well as in 2.6 ghz overclocked glory.

I've used the chip in two boards, both based off of Intel's 945 chipsets. Both boards are old (18+ months). If you are interested in buying a cheap setup, you will be happy to know that pretty much any Intel 945 board will allow you to get the E2180 upto 2.6 ghz without any problems. In fact for these tests I am using a Asrock Wolfdale1333 board that I purchased for $30 USD. Like the Core 2 based Celerons, these Pentium Dual Core ships easily allow you to get a 30% speed increase with a simple overclock.

Here is the CPUID screenshot of the E2180 at stock speed;



I used SuperPI to get a 1m time of 29 seconds at stock speed (2.0ghz);



I also used Geekbench 2 (my favorite benchmark tool), and the system scored 2199. The full results of the Geekbench test at stock speed can be seen here.



As you can see from the results, a year ago they may have looked fine, but now the numbers look a bit dated when compared to all the new chips that have come out. While the E2180 is a great chip at 2.0ghz, its a fantastic chip if you overclock it to 2.6ghz, which is easily done.

You don't have to worry about heat if you overclock the E2180 to 2.6ghz; the temperatures remain constant regardless if the chip is 2.0ghz or 2.6ghz. If you have SpeedStep activated, you even have less to worry about.

To instantly get a 30% speed increase of your Pentium Dual Core E2180, enter your BIOS, find your CPU settings, and change the bus from 200 to 260. Save and exit. Here are some pictures of my BIOS;






At 2.6ghz, you can see the difference. The score in Geekbench 2 goes from 2200 at 2.0ghz to 2870. You can see the full Geekbench results here.

SuperPi manages to calculate to 1m in 24 seconds.



Here's the CPUID screenshot of the chip at 2.6ghz;





Overall the E2180 is a fantastic chip. Intel has made new Wolfdale based Pentium Dual Core chips, which pose a problem to people who can't afford to spend a lot on computers. The problem is the new Wolfdale Dual Cores are $80+ USD and require a motherboard that supports the Wolfdale processors. Older Pentium Dual Cores such as this E2180 can be found pretty cheap, and Intel 945 based motherboards are also very cheap and allow you to easily achieve a 30% increase in speed.

And About The Whole Via Nano Thing...

Back in May of this year, I posted that I was excited about Via's new Isaiah processor. When I posted, I stated that I was mainly excited to see if the new processor would actually live up to the small hype that Via had presented, or if history would repeat itself and the new processor would be like its predecessors and fall into the shadows.

Well guess what. It seems as if history has repeated itself. Via officially announced the processor as the Via Nano in late May, stating that the processor would be ready for purchase within a couple of months.

It's now almost December, and I still can't find any netbooks powered by the new chip, or any small motherboards with the chip installed. What's even worse is that the few news articles I have read show the Nano displaying disappointing results. (Sure the Nano beats the Intel Atom in some benchmarks, but it was supposed to be so much better than that and didn't Via make a video of the Nano running that Crysis game?).

I thought that by now HP would be using the new chip in the HP 2133 successor, but it appears they switched to Intel's Atom chips. nVidia has also announced that they have stopped working with Via on a mobile chipset for the processor; really was this a big surprise?

Seriously, I find Via very entertaining. Every couple of years they promise a new CPU with 'surprising performance, only to have the chip delayed, and when it does get released it simply sucks. What's even more entertaining is the fact that Via actually gets other companies such as HP and nVidia to believe their hype and get the companies to give Via a chance.

I don't think its going to happen again. I would say that I wish AMD or Intel would just buy out Via and their Centaur CPU design team, but its really not worth it.

The eeePC 701 4g Revisited!

In a very weird twist of fate, I once again have in my possession a eeePC 4g 701, the original netbook. I purchased one originally almost a year ago for close to $400, and now there are a wide variety of netbooks out there that are not only cheaper, but vastly superior.

For a month or so I was a big fan of the eee PC. I thought to myself that I could get over the small seven inch display with the weird resolution, and could also get used to that evil keyboard. The fact that I spent $400 probably also had something to do with it.

Still within a few months, I found myself using the 7" laptop less and less, and within six months the little netbook was really of no use to me. But now, with a large armada of different netbooks available, the older 7" eeePCs can be found used for very cheap, and suddenly the thought of using one as a hobby toy has grown on me.

Now that I am looking at the 701 in a hobby way, (I have a couple desktops to play with, as well as a 17" inch laptop.. when I originally had an eeePC it was my only laptop, and for a time, it was my only computer) I am becoming a somewhat fan of it.

The resolution of the thing sucks. There really isn't anything else you can say about it. You can't view modern websites in it, and if you install Windows XP on it, you're going to have problems running software because of the low resolution.

The keyboard is awful. That's all you can say about it. While the keyboard is fine if you are just surfing the internet, it's truly awful in every other aspect. I have no idea why ASUS decided to put a Right Shift key right next to arrow keys, but the poor placement of this key leads me to screwing up during any typing. The fact that the keys on the keyboard are very small allow me to constantly make typing errors. I suppose I could one day grow accustomed to the smaller keys, but I really don't see myself putting forth the effort.

The 701 is a hobby machine for me now; I've spent the past couple of days trying various operating systems on the unit. A year ago, I had Windows XP on a 701, but after a month of usage, the boot time had increased to several minutes. Right now I am using something I found called eeebuntu (I found several Linux distributions based off of Ubuntu, so I am unaware if this is an 'official' fork of Ubuntu).

Because this new 701 (well new to me, anyways) is used, I'm not really worried about the warranty and am now deciding on what to do first, either installing a touch screen (DealExtreme has a complete 7" touchscreen kit that fits this unit for $40 shipped) or purchasing a 10400 mAh replacement battery so I can actually use the thing without the AC adapter (the original batteries on these things suck; I can not believe that for a device this small the battery lasts for less than two hours). I purchased a $5 4gb SDHC card to help deal with the small 4gb SSD, but because this is a Surf model, the SSD is soldered directly to the board and can not be replaced.

We'll see what else I can do with this thing.

Windows 7 Boot Time Compared To Windows Vista

I managed to get a pre-beta copy of Windows 7 installed on my Acer Extensa laptop this past weekend. I became interested in Windows 7 after hearing all the news of how it is supposed to pretty much be just like Windows Vista, only with the speed of XP (or something like that). While this is only a prebeta, I was able to install it on the laptop with little problems. For the record, the laptop has a 1.86ghz Pentium Dual Core CPU running on a 533 mhz bus, 3gb of 533mhz DDR2 RAM, a 250gb 5200rpm hard drive (with four partitions), and integrated Intel x3100 graphics.

I have to say, that even though its a beta version of Windows 7, the thing installed quickly. When Microsoft says that you can install Windows 7 within 10 minutes, believe them. On this laptop, the complete install took less than 20 minutes on battery power. Using the AC adapter, Windows Vista takes the better part of an hour to get itself running on the laptop.

The big thing I am concerned about is boot time. It takes Windows Vista 58 seconds to reach the login screen, and once I log in it takes at least thirty seconds to load the gadget bar (or whatever its called), as well as my virus scanner, chat clients, etc before I can actually start working.

After reading so many articles about Windows 7 boost in performance, I was excited to see how long the same scenario would take with Windows 7 (compared to Vista). The result? It takes Windows 7 53 seconds to reach the login screen. So only a five second difference, right? Wrong. Once I enter my password, Windows 7 presents me with my desktop, ready to work within 10 seconds. This includes loading the Windows gadgets, and my startup programs. In this aspect, I am very excited because hopefully by the time Windows 7 ships the difference will be even greater.

Performance wise, I really can't call Windows 7 any faster than Vista; my laptop handles Vista extremely well (besides the long boot time). Vista is indeed bloated, but the computers being sold today are a lot better than those available when Vista was introduced, and thus can easily handle the bloat. This Extensa came with three gigabytes of memory; less than a year ago when I purchased an Inspiron 1525 and I found Vista to be very sluggish, but that was mainly due to the fact that the laptop only had one gigabyte of memory. This laptop (the Acer Extensa 7620) is by no means a 'fancy machine'; it was purchased for less than $600 (less than what I had spent for the Inspiron).

Other than the boot time, I can't really judge Windows 7 at this point (because it is not even in beta form at this point). The new Superbar sounds very exciting on paper, but its current form is pretty disappointing. I am not a fan at all of the new "ribbon" thing they have going in Paint and WordPad, but am very excited that they added a lot of nice conversion tools in the Calculator application.

Acer Extensa EX7620-4641?

I haven't updated this blog in quite a while! I have been pretty busy with life, however I am now in the market for a budget 17" laptop after using a 17" Toshiba laptop while on vacation (and because I am going to be moving across the country in the upcoming weeks). After a lot of browsing, I discovered that Newegg has a 17" laptop with 3gb of RAM for $599. Besides the fact that this budget laptop has a 17" LCD, 3gb of memory and a 250gb HD, what's really amazing is the specifications list a battery life of three hours. I don't know if that is a typo, but I am really excited.

I can't find any reviews on the 'net of theAcer Extensa EX7620-4641, but its really hard to find a 17" laptop for under $800, so I bought one from NewEgg. If you are interested in buying the laptop from NewEgg, be sure to goto Microsoft Live Cashback search (Google it), so you can save 3-5% off your purchase. I did this and was able to save some money from my purchase.

Hopefully I will be able to post a review of the Extensa when I get it next week.

Replacing The Athlon LE-1620

I have had an Athlon LE-1620 for about three or four months now, and it has been one of my favorite processors ever. The large 1mb L2 cache really seems to make the processor scream (for the budget sector) and after comparing benchmarks, the processor at stock speed (2.4ghz) comes out just about dead even with an overclocked Celeron 430 (1.8 ghz base speed, overclocked to 2.38ghz).

While AMD prices have started to go up (AMD is re-releasing older Athlon X2 models in new energy efficient models, and literally doubling the prices; the Athlon LE-1620 is still in production, but the price also has actually gone up a couple dollars since I purchased the chip in January), Intel prices have come down. For the same $45 I paid for the Athlon LE-1620, I can now purchase a new in box Celeron E1200, which is a dual core processor with 512K of L2 cache. This is really impressive, considering AMD has always been the cheaper of the two chipmakers.

I really enjoy the Athlon LE; the large 1mb L2 cache, very cool operating temperatures (I run the chip without a fan on, with Cool 'n Quiet enabled) and overclocking capabilities (If ever needed, the chip has no problem overclocking to 3ghz). At the same time, with the price of Intel dual core chips dropping it seems as if a move back to dual core country is imminent.

I'm in the process of building a computer for my future father in law for Father's Day. I bought several items off of eBay including a Celeron 420 (1.6ghz) for $15 and a Pentium Dual Core e2180 (2.0ghz) for $40. Right now, my plans are giving him the AMD LE-1620 and using the e2180 in my system (with the appropriate motherboards, of course).

I'm going to run various benchmarks between the two systems (the e2180 will be overclocked to either 2.4 ghz or 2.6 ghz) and see how they compare. For some reason, I really can't see how the Athlon LE-1620 is going to compare to a dual core Core based processor (since it was a very close match compared to a single core, Core based Celeron clocked @ 2.38 ghz with only 1/2 the L2 cache [On a side note, at stock speeds, the LE-1620 wipes the floor with a Celeron 430, and would probably destroy a 420 (1.6ghz)]).

AMD lost the performance sector, and it appears that it will be losing the budget sector very soon also.

Waiting For Via Isaiah

It's really weird, but I've personally been waiting for the Via Isaiah processor since it was originally mentioned back in 2004 under the "C4, C5, etc" titles. Via quietly released the C7 processors, which were basically C3s with added features, and have been working on the secret Isaiah platform since.

I've always had a interest in Via processors ever since they came out with the Via C3 socket 370 processors in 2001. The processors were clocked at 500 - 733 mhz, and were quite cheap for the time (under $50), and TigerDirect said they were excellent budget performance processors ( a major lie). At the time, I had a socket 370 533mhz Pentium III processor and because I wasn't the smartest when it came to upgrading PCs at the time, I was planning to purchase a 733mhz C3 processor to replace my PIII.

I ended up not doing it, and instead went on and purchased a 950mhz Duron processor several months later.

In the years following the C3 CPUs, Via continue to release several different C3 and C7 processors, the later being soldered directly on motherboards. As the benchmarks came, these processors were pretty much absolutely terrible, while before they were launched Via would release a couple benchmark graphs trying to state that the processors consumed little power, yet were stronger than Intel's processors in specific benchmarks.

So what am I awaiting the Isaiah processors?

Because of one simple reason; I want to see if Via and Centaur are lying again. Via previously on several times have stated in the past that the C7 processors would be able to reach 2.5ghz, and actually be able to outperform Pentium 4 CPUs. This of course never happend. In the past several months, Via has stated that its new Isaiah architecture is not only cheaper than Intel's offerings, but also stronger in benchmarks. At the same time, Via and Centuar haven't released many 'samples' of the processors, and have provided only a few benchmark results (which could easily be fabricated, as Via has done in the past).

With the Isaiah processors supposedly coming in the very near future, I am anxious to see if Via is simply just lying again, or if they really do have a revolutionary CPU design. Because of the lack of news around the new processors which are again supposed to be released in the next couple of months, I am betting that the Isaiah architecture will just be another low performance processor platform.

But I am still anxiously waiting in hopes that I am wrong. Still, I wouldn't be worried at all if I was Intel, but I would be very worried if I was nVidia after their announcement of the $45 Vista Premium board / cpu / gpu.

Athlon LE-1620... Review?

I've had my Athlon LE-1620 processor for over a month now, and I kept saying I was going to post a review of it with a bunch of benchmarks, etc. But I've been busy with school and work (I got a job after debating whether or not I should work this semester; boo)

The Athlon LE-1620 (I paid $46 for it, retail) is a fine single core processor. It comes with a whopping 1mb of L2 cache, which is quite impressive considering it's a) a single core chip, and b) it's an entry level chip.

I don't do a lot of hard core computing, but this chip really impressed me. It's a 90nm chip, and only uses 45 watts, and even though I'm using some generic heatsink compound (I mean, simple white silicon paste I bought a huge tube of for three dollars at Radio Shack) this thing runs at 32 degrees centigrade in a 22 degree room. In other words; it runs pretty darn cool (I'm sure if I used Artic Silver, and a better heatsink, this thing would run near room temperature).

With Cool 'n Quiet on, this thing seems to run constantly @ 1.0 ghz. Not really a problem, since 95% of the time I am just using FireFox, and Notepad. I easily overclocked this thing from 2.4ghz to 2.97 ghz by adjusting the voltage to 1.3v (I couldn't hit 3.0 ghz, mostly because of my use of an improper heatsink compound [although the temperature remained in the mid to high 30s]. I don't currently have the thing overclocked (2.4 ghz is fine for me, and besides I lose the Cool & Quiet function (although my motherboard doesn't turn the fan down at all, anyways).

At stock, it takes the processor 39 seconds to do SuperPI to 1 million digits. When overclocked, it takes the process down to 30 seconds. I haven't screwed around with GeekBench much, so the only score I have for you is one from Linux (scoring an impressive 2578).

You can now find dual core Athlons for $40. The big thing to consider the LE-1640 is the fact that it has 1mb of L2 cache for one core; the dual core chips do have two cores, but only 512k of L2 cache for each. Since I do not use a lot of applications simultaneously, I prefer having the larger L2 cache for the one core, than having dual cores.

If you are building a system and want the best bang for your buck, I would recommend skipping this single core Athlon, and purchasing a cheap Athlon X2. If you are still interested in purchasing an Athlon LE, make sure you purchase one with the 1mb L2 cache; apparently AMD is now selling single core Athlons under the LE title based on the 65nm design, and only having 512K of L2 cache.

Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 = Bad

I purchased a new mouse a week or so ago; a Kensington wireless mouse (the exact model eludes my mind right now). It is one of the best mice I have ever used. After purchasing the mouse, I decided maybe it was time to look into purchasing a new keyboard, after all I have been using the same Compaq keyboard since 2003.

I didn't want to spend much money (the mouse was $35), and after browsing buy.com, I found that I could get $50 off a $51 purchase by signing up for the new Revolution credit card (which to me, there is nothing really revolutionary about it, besides the free $50 credit).

I ended up purchasing (or rather getting for free) the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000. Buy.com wanted $47 for it, so I added a Sandisk MP3 player that was $13 to meet the minimum purchase requirement (to get the free $50 credit).

I was really surprised that the order shipped the same day, and I actually received it the very next day. It was the fastest order I had ever received from buy.com (typically I have to wait 10 days, but the keyboard was shipped from a warehouse about 100 miles away).

Installing the Microsoft software was a huge pain. I only had a Microsoft keyboard, not a Microsoft mouse, yet the software insisted on installing the Intellipoint software. At the same time, M$ decided to uninstall my other mouse software (from Logitech, for my older mouse).

After I finally had the software installed, the next task was reprogramming some of the keys, specifically the zoom wheel into a scroll wheel. A couple of searches on Google, and my keys were reprogrammed. I used the keyboard for a couple of hours, and was finally getting used to the ergonomic design, and all the extra buttons.

Then, today, out of nowhere my "C" key does not work. I used the diagnostics program that came with the keyboard, and the key does not register when pressed. I reinstalled the drivers, etc, but the darn "C" key just wouldn't work.

I contacted Microsoft's support, and was told that I should 'set the keyboard upside down to let the liquid come out'. I wasn't sure of what liquid they were talking about, but apparently they assumed I spilled something on the keyboard in the 48 hours I have owned it.

I have a question for Microsoft. Why do all of your new products suck? I mean Vista is horrible, and this new keyboard shouldn't break after being used (very briefly) for only two days. It's not like the (what are now) old days of Windows XP and those Microsoft Optical Mouse I could throw against the wall and have them still function perfectly. You guys really need to get your act together. I don't plan on buying any more Microsoft keyboard / mouse / operating systems in the near future.

I didn't want to spend much for a new keyboard (I'm perfectly content with the five year old Compaq keyboard), and I don't want to waste money shipping the keyboard to Microsoft / Buydotcom. The keyboard was free, but I'm still pretty angry. I guess I would really be mad if I actually paid $50 for it.

I don't know what to do with it. I remapped the Windows key to function as the "C" key, but that's a worthless fix. It was a really nice keyboard for the whole three hours I used it. Who knows, maybe it will work tomorrow. If it does regain "C" key function, I will probably unload the thing on eBay and use the money towards a new LCD monitor.

Running Haiku-OS Within Windows

Someone asked me about trying out the Haiku operating system a couple days ago. They were interested in trying it out, but didn't know how to go about doing it, so I decided I would make a video. This video shows you how you can run Haiku-OS (an open source version of the wonderful BeOS) on your Windows machine using the free software Vmware Player.

In case you are too lazy to watch the video, these are the steps to achieve success.

1. Obtain and install VMware Player for free from www.vmware.com/downloads (Installation requires reboot).

2. Obtain Haiku-OS vmware image (NOT RAW HDD IMAGE!) from www.haiku-os.org/downloads

3. Uncompress the Haiku-OS files, double click on the configuration file.

4. If prompted, select the virtual drive image.

5. Success! Haiku OS will boot in the virtual machine. Press Ctrl-Alt to change between controlling your computer and the virtual machine.

Haiku-OS is a really nice alternative operating system. I was a big fan of the original BeOS back in 1999-2001. It's really cool that there's still a community supporting BeOS (which by every account was a much better OS compared to Windows in its day).

Touchscreen For eeePC

I was originally planning on purchasing a 7" touch screen kit off of eBay to install in my eeePC, but after careful analysis I have decided against it. While a touchscreen would be a nifty feature to have on the small eeePC, it's a novelty idea at best. Because the eeePC has a trackpad and a keyboard I doubt I would even bother using the touchscreen.

Another reason why I didn't attempt the project was because I didn't want to risk bricking (breaking) my $350 device. While it's true, a lot of people have successfully completed this 'hack', a quick search on eeepcuser.com reveals that a lot of people have also rendered their eeePC's useless.

The eeePC is a fragile device. People need to remember this. If you aren't an experienced solderer, then frankly you should stay away from attempting this mod. Also, keep in mind a lot of people have successfully installed a touchscreen in their eeePC, but ended up shorting out their eeePCs because the touchscreen wires came out of their soldering points and shorted the motherboard.

I'm not attempting this project because, 1. I don't really need a touchscreen, and 2. I don't want to risk damaging my eeePC.

I Love My eeePC.

I am typing this from Windows XP.. on my new eeePC I received a couple days ago from Amazon. I really must say that this thing is the most innovative computer I have used in the past ten years. I love everything about it; the same size, the SSD, the trackpad (it's very small, yet it's very accurate compared to the ones I have used in the recent past).

The only problem I have is not the small 4gb of storage space (I installed Windows XP gutted with nLite, and have plenty of space for MS Office, Firefox, Python, Java, etc.), but the small keyboard. The keyboard itself feels excellent; I am just so used to using normal keyboards that I have been hitting the wrong keys. It's been driving me nuts, because instead of typing a's, I have been typing s's, and instead of pressing Shift, I press the up arrow. I guess it will just take some time for me to get used to the keyboard. But other than that small issue, I absolutely love my new eeePC.

NewEgg Lost Me As A Customer.

NewEgg officially stinks. After refusing to give me any restocking fee / return shipping credit on my order, I decided it wasn't worth it to send the board back, I mean let's look at it here;

-$35 <- What I paid for the board.
-$6 <- shipping I paid for board.
-$5.25 <- Restocking fee.
-$10.00 <- Return shipping fee

+$29.75 <- What they would refund me (after restocking fee).
-$10.00 <- Subtract the return shipping fee
--------
$19.75

In the end, I would get back $19.75 of what I paid. In the end, that $19.75 is a mere 38% of what I had to pay to get a defective board.

After buying all of my computer parts from them for the past several years, they can be damn sure never to get another dollar off of me. Why should I have to pay a return shipping fee, and have them deduct a restocking fee for a defective motherboard? I would totally understand it if I just didn't want the motherboard, but the board was defective.

The person I spoke to on the phone from NewEgg told me that next time I shouldn't buy open box products. I told him, even though he probably could care less, that next time I wouldn't buy any Newegg products.

I ordered my eeePC from Amazon.com. Never again will I piss around with NewEgg. I will go to their site to read reviews on products, but I will order from other companies.

eeePC Ordered.

Well, well well. I ordered my Dell Inspiron 1525 back in January, messed with it for a couple of days and now its just been sitting on the top of my laser printer for the past couple of weeks, barely being touched.

I never did a review on it, mostly because I haven't really used it much. It's a very nice laptop in general, but I'm not really a laptop kind of guy. The keyboard drives me up a wall too (in the short time I've used it). I usually eat snacks while computing (who doesn't?), and recently two small pieces of potato chips under the keyboard, and instantly my "P" and "L" keys became stuck. I've never had this kind of problem before with a laptop keyboard. I literally had to remove the keys from the keyboard and reinsert them in order to regain function of the keys.

Another reason why I never use the damn thing is probably because Windows Vista is impossible to work with. I can't deal with all the shit that operating system throws at me (COM Surrogate errors, and blue screen of death errors [IN THE PAST SIX YEARS OF USING XP, I ONLY SAW THREE BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH ERRORs. WITH VISTA I HAVE SEEN ABOUT TEN IN ONE MONTH].

Sigh.

I finally decided to order an eee PC. I have been interested in them for a long time, and originally was going to purchase one when they were originally released, but they drastically raised the price. When I saw all of the available hacks for the device, I decided I should get one and try it out.

I bit the bullet, and ended up purchasing a 4G Surf Galaxy Black model from Amazon.com for $350, and opted for overnight shipping ($4, because I signed up for the Amazon Prime trial). If all goes good, I should have it tomorrow. I'm also ordering a touch screen kit for it, and am going to replace the 512mb of RAM with a 2gb stick I have from the Inspiron. I opted for the Surf model because I need the empty webcam port on the motherboard so I can easily hookup the touchscreen. I'm not really worried about the extra hour of battery life on the other models, because the maximum battery life I really need is one hour.

I'm going to try and load XP on this bad boy, overclock it to 800 mhz, and
see if I can actually use the damn thing with the 7" LCD. The resolution to me, isn't really a big deal considering I was using 800 x 600 until 2004. We'll see... we'll see...

As for the Athlon LE 1620, I still have to write a review up of it, and stuff.

I Hate Vista.

I hate Vista. I hate it. I think Microsoft should have a program that allows people to trade their Vista keys in for XP keys. My Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop came with Windows Vista Home Premium. I can honestly say that after using Vista for a month on this thing, there is nothing premium about it.

My laptop's basic specs are a Intel Pentium Dual Core T2330, (1.6ghz Core 2 architecture, not one of those older Core based Pentium Dual Core things [I mean chips]) 2.5 gb of RAM, a 160gb HD, DVD burner, etc.

It shouldn't really have any problems running Vista, right?

Wrong.

When I first received the machine, I quickly loaded the included Windows installation disc, formatted the hard drive, and reinstalled Vista. I tried to use the machine before doing this, but Dell loaded so much shit on the thing that getting anything done on the machine was impossible.

After doing a clean install of Vista, I booted the machine up, and the performance increased greatly. Still, compared to my older XP machines, the performance still sucked.

I turned Aero off. Aero is the biggest pile of shit on the planet. It looks like shit, doesn't add any functionality to the UI, and takes up a buttload of system resources.

I also went into Window services and turned off a wide variety of services I didn't need. I got rid of that horrible Windows sidebar, disabled a bunch of other crap, and eventually got the system running at a decent pace.

Things started to get ugly soon after, when I decided to start installing very basic software (well, what I believe to be basic, necessary software). I installed an NES emulator, Microsoft Office, JDK, and Nero.

Now, Internet Explorer 7 "Stops Working, And Windows Is Searching For A Solution", and I keep getting this #@#!ing COM Surrogate error every time I try to do something media related with the damn laptop. Not only that, but copying files under Vista has given me about the same experience as working with a Commodore 64 floppy disk drive; I select the files, hit Copy, and go outside and play basketball for twenty minutes while I wait for the files to be copied.


I hate Vista. I hate it. I wish Microsoft would just say "Hey guys! We made a mistake! Everyone who has Vista, and wants a copy of XP for $19.95, Go to www.microsoft.com/we_are_sorry/ for more details!"

But it won't happen. And that's one of the many reasons the feared tech sector juggernaut of the 1990's will slowly fade into obscurity in the upcoming decades.

Newegg Sucks Again [Rant]

Okay, so the weekend is here and instead of playing around with my new AMD Athlon 64 LE-1620 and XFCE, I am just screwing around with my laptop. I sent NewEgg an email yesterday, but they didn't respond. I wanted to ask them about getting a shipping discount for a new motherboard, and also ask them about the restocking fee.

I decided to call NewEgg up and ask them about it because I really wanted to order another motherboard (specifically, the ASRock ALIVENF6G-VSTA AM2 because of its Micro-ATX form factor, four memory slots, and the fact that it doesn't require a 24-pin power supply [I have a very small micro-atx case with a 20-pin power supply I wanted to use]). Newegg responded by telling me that I would have to wait until they received the old motherboard back before and could test the board before they would consider giving me a shipping discount. I told him I kind of did not want to wait a week before getting a shipping discount, and then wait another couple of days for the board to arrive, but he didn't seem to care. I told him that he could look at my order history and see I spend a lot of money there, but again he didn't seem to care.

I was kinda pissed off.

I got off the phone, went to Newegg and ordered the above board (It's crazy; a week ago this board was $49.99, then it went up to $52.99, and now its $59.99 with free three day shipping). I ordered the board, and NewEgg shipped it today; the only problem was instead of shipping it UPS Three Day, they shipped it UPS Ground.

I fucking hate this. It's always a gamble when I buy shit from NewEgg and its "Free Three Day Shipping". When the packages come from California, it's always three day shipping, but when the packages come from New Jersey, 85% of the time, they ship it Ground. Now, it is only a 380 mile distance, but why the hell does NewEgg say free three day shipping, and then ship it UPS Ground?

Three Day Shipping is a lot faster than Ground, even if its only a mere 400 miles. Trust me. About a year ago, I made a couple of orders from NewEgg in the same day. One order was a CPU and some RAM, and another order was for a heatsink / fan. The CPU / RAM was shipped Ground, and the fan was shipped Three Day.

I got the fan 2 days later. I got the CPU and RAM, about 4 days later. There is a difference. When I order parts, and they ship from New Jersey and they are shipped Ground, they fucking sit in Parsippany New Jersey for an extra day or two. When I order parts and they are shipped Three Days, the parts are in Parsippany for like eight hours.

I'm wondering if I should even ship the piece of shit Gigabyte board back to NewEgg. Chances are, I'm only going to get $27 after I return the board [After paying $46 (with shipping) and paying to have it shipped back to them, and have them charge me a fucking 15% restocking fee).

I think Newegg has lost me as a customer. I'm going to try someone else next time I need computer parts.

NewEgg Finally Lets Me Down

I've been shopping at NewEgg since they literally opened (back in 2001). I remember searching for NewEgg reviews, and finding out a lot of people did not trust this 'new company'. I was only 16 at the time, and I was working 20 hours a week making $5.15 an hour. In other words, I didn't have a lot of cash to spend, so I gave NewEgg a chance in 2001 when I ordered an OEM AMD Duron 950mhz processor for around $50, and a Open Box Socket A motherboard for a mere $25. Hell, for $75 I was getting a motherboard and a CPU (it was, and will forever be my favorite computer setup ever).

Over the past seven years, I have ordered a lot of shit from NewEgg. I've ordered more RAM and processors than you can shake a stick at. One of the biggest things I order from NewEgg are Open Box motherboards. I do this because, they usually close to 1/2 price of the new boards, and secondly I really don't need all the crap that comes with a motherboard. In case you didn't know, when you buy a open box board from NewEgg, you're basically getting the motherboard alone (if you're lucky they put it in a box, but lately they have just been shipping me the board wrapped in bubblewrap).

I haven't used a floppy drive in the past five years, so I don't need the FDD cable (truth be told, I have about twenty brand new ones from boards I have purchased just laying in a box in my basement). IDE cables are great, but I have a shitload of those too. Some motherboards come with SATA cables, and some even come with molex to SATA power adapters (which are the greatest thing in the universe, but they are all lacking).

And those manuals that come with motherboards? Forget about them. I swear, motherboard manufacturers don't even bother to update the manuals. They all consist of the same things;

1. How To Install CPU
2. How To Install RAM
3. Shitty Explanation Of Board Features
4. Shitty Explanation OF BIOS Features

Totally useless, unless you are clueless.

Anyhow, back to my original point. I have purchased many items from NewEgg over the past seven years. I've purchased new products (I ONLY EVER BUY NEW CPUS. I WILL NEVER EVER BUY A USED / OPEN BOX / REFURBISHED CPU), new OEM, refurbished, and open box products. I've only had mild problems with products I purchased in the past (PC SHIT.. or CHIPS motherboards failing after a couple of months), but now I can say I've finally had a problem with a NEwEgg product, and had to file for an RMA.


I bought a Open Box AM2 motherboard to go along with my new Athlon LE-1620 processor. I have pretty much always been either a Biostar or PC Chips guy when it comes to motherboards, but this time I decided to give Gigabyte a chance. So I ordered an open box GIGABYTE GA-M61SME-S2 motherboard. It retails new for $49, but I got it open box for $35 (keep in mind, this board is just for a hobby box, meaning I'm going to benchmark the CPU, screw around with Linux, and then sell it in a few weeks like I usually do).

I was really excited for the board and CPU to come, but when the board arrived I knew I was finally going to have a problem with a NewEgg order. Instead of coming in a box, they wrapped the board in bubblewrap! Usually when I order a board from NewEgg, they at least put it in a motherboard box. But not with this board.

I anxiously through the system together. And I booted it up, and was quickly let down.

It booted ok.

The VGA output was all messed up. After a careful analysis, the north bridge Geforce 6100 chip was having some serious issues. I had to keep constant pressure on the corner of the heatsink in order for the integrated display to function correctly. Not only that, but because I believe the South bridge was also in the same area, as the computer acted retarded (Couldn't recognize a SATA drive, gave hundreds of errors booting a Linux livecd, etc).

Sadly, I had to file a RMA request from NewEgg. I was really pissed off when I found out that NewEgg was going to charge be a $5 restocking fee (how can you restock a defective motherboard) and I had to pay $9 to ship the son of a bitch board back to them. That means, I spent a total of $41 for the board ($35 + $6 shipping) and will get a total of $27 back. I was really just planning on junking the board, but I have that beautiful AMD Athlon LE-1620 with a freakin' meg of L2 cache to use.

Pretty hard to buy a AM2 board for $27. I guess I can honestly say that after all of these years of being a Newegg customer, I am kind of pissed that I am losing 35% of my initial investment and a couple hours of my time because I received a defectvie board.

Why I Didn't Buy A Macbook

In early January I purchased a Dell Inspiron 1525 from Staples (mostly because I had some killer coupons, and got a pretty impressive laptop for next to peanuts). But before I purchased the Inspiron, I had been planning for several months (okay maybe since Apple announced the updated MacBooks at the end of October) on purchasing a new Macbook.

Why did I want a Macbook? I can answer that question by asking "Why not?". I was wrapped up in OS X and the iLife suite, that I started to get my mind set on purchasing a MacBook. My fiancee continually reminded me that during our relationship, I had purchased several Apple computers (Okay, let's get the list out; an iBook G4, eMac, PowerMac G5, Mac Mini G4, Mac Mini Core Solo) only to bitch and moan about their performance and sell them on eBay.

She also reminded me of the enormous price. $1100 for a very basic laptop. During November and December I tried to explain to her the additional cost of the system, but eventually I fell up short. I started to loose interest in OS X by January, and I quickly gave thanks to my fiancee for helping to prevent me from purchasing a MacBook, that would have found itself on eBay within a few weeks.

Why didn't I buy a Macbook?

Okay, the price of a Macbook is out of this world. I don't care if it comes with OS X and I can run iLife on it (Pretty much any modern x86 machine can run OS X if you set your heart to [meaning you spend a couple hours tinkering with it]) The $1100 base price is a joke. Apple wants to charge $1100 for a system that comes with one gigabyte of memory, and an 80 gb HD. Oh yeah, the base model can't even burn DVDs. 2005 called, and they want their budget laptop specifications back.

For me, the $1100 base model would have quickly jumped to over $1300. I would have purchased 4 gb of RAM ($100), and a 160gb HD ($150) from NewEgg and installed it myself. Not only that, but I would have two sticks of 512mb RAM and a useless 80gb HD that I would end up trying to sell on eBay. Oh yeah, and I still wouldn't be able to burn a #$@@#R'in DVD! What the hell Apple? At least give people the ability to burn DVDs with a $1100 laptop.

Looking at the competition, the Sunday newspaper has a vast variety of laptop specials for under $500, and these $500 laptops all have at least a gig of memory, a spacious (120+ gb HD) and a DVD burner. Sure, they don't have the shitty 13.3 inch widescreen (they have a bigger 15.4 or a 14.1 widescreen) or the cool white Macbook scheme, but at least they have two trackpad buttons. (Another 'What the hell Apple?', who really wants laptop with only one mouse button?)

I tried to think of things I could defend the Macbook with (besides running OS X) but I ultimately came up short. It is true that the Core 2 Duo processors that the Macbooks use have a 4mb L2 cache, but who really cares? What's that L2 cache going to do for somebody that purchases the $1100 Macbook and wants to burn a DVD? "Wow, my Macbook really compressed that DVD video quickly! Too bad I don't have a $#$@# DVD burner to burn the DVD with"

I also thought of that new Magsafe AC adapter, but after researching it, I found out that tons of people have reported problems with the adapter. I guess while in theory its a really good idea, but in practice its a flaw filled design.

Then finally, for a brief second I thought about 'build quality' and laughed for about fifteen minutes before I continued to write this post. Tons of people say that Apple builds damn good products. Unfortunately, after owning several new Apple products, I can say by my account, Apple has the worst product build quality.

For example, I bought a G4 iBook in 2004. During my brief one year ownership, I had it serviced four times for the same LCD / logic board problem (the LCD backlight would fail to turn on). I kept the laptop on a desk the whole time, so under no circumstance was it my fault. After having it serviced the fourth time, Apple gave me a new iBook, which I quickly sold on eBay. I purchased a Compaq laptop, and after three years never had one issue with it.

I also had severe problems with a Intel Core Solo Mac Mini I purchased. Something was wrong with the Combo Drive; one startup the system would recognize the drive, the next startup the system wouldn't recongize the drive at all. The SATA hard drive controller also displayed problems when I was copying / transferring data. Unfortunately, when I contacted Apple for this problem, the service technicians actually tried to convince me that these problems were 'features' and would not do anything to help my Intel Mac Mini. So it went off to eBay, problems and all.

So why did I want to stick with Apple? It's not because of their hardware (it sucks), its because I really enjoy the software. Then again, it could just be that I'm stupid and wanted to give Apple yet another chance. Yeah, that's probably it.

But would I ever buy a Mac product again?

Most likely not. I go through enough computer hardware as it is. Sure OS X is cool for ten minutes, but that ten minutes of coolness is expensive. For the price of the base Macbook ($1100) I purchased a 1.6ghz Pentium Dual Core, 4gb RAM, 200gb HD, DVD burning, 15.4 widescreen Dell Inspiron that gets 4-5 hours of battery life for about 1/2 the price of the Mac Book.

"But it's not a Mac!"

Who cares?

Besides, OS X Leopard can run perfect (with all devices working) on this Inspiron 1525, in case I ever decide to screw around with OS X again.

Celeron 430 Revisited.

Wow. It's been four or so months since I last updated this blog! I haven't had a lot of cash to waste on computer products (I quit working full time to go back to school full time.. bummer) but I still managed to save enough moolah up to purchase a laptop (a Dell Inspiron 1525 for school) and am getting ready to go back to AMD for my desktop solution.

I just sold the Celeron 430 processor I bought several months ago for $20 to some guy on eBay for $35. I also plan to sell a Geforce 7300gs graphics card, and the Biostar socket 775 intel motherboard, and use the money to build a cheap AMD machine.

Why?

Well besides having an Intel Pentium Dual Core cpu in my laptop, I'm done with Mac OS X and the 430. The only reason I purchased the 430 was to be able to run OS X, but alas I grew tired of OS X and have moved on to bigger and better things (Okay, so now I am into Linux.. don't blame me, blame college professors that think you should have a firm grasp of Linux if you're trying to get your Master's degree in computer science).

But now, it's time for another look at the Celeron 430 processor. I made a big stink about it a couple months ago (because, well, I only paid $20 for it), but now that stink is really not a big deal, especially when the damn thing is still going for $50+ on the retail market.

Now it's time for another review of the processor.. and I hate to say it, but I don't really like the Conroe based processor any more. Why? Well, because of a few things.

The price, $50 is just not worth it. I guess I was rather lucky to obtain one for $20 several months ago, but if you are actually planning on purchasing one of these bad boys for $50, then you really have to think about this. Pentium Dual Core chips can be had for $20 more (which okay, is a 40% markup), but AMD actually has a wide range of CPUs for the same amount of money. You can get yourself a dual core Athlon for the same price as the Celeron 430 on NewEgg (Even if you overclock the Celeron, two cores are better than one for $50).

Okay, I admit I bashed AMD after I got the Celeron chip, but remember I overclocked the chip 33%. I didn't do a followup post, but the cheap motherboard wasn't fully able to handle the overclocked processor after several hours of operation. That's why I ended up having to set the Celeron 430 back to 1.8ghz, in which it had its ass handed to it several times by the Athlon X2. If you are going to use a cheap motherboard with the Celeron chip (which you most likely are, if you are only buying a Celeron), then chances are you too will run into crashes.

Today, AMD has a slew of processors under the Celeron 430's price. As I mentioned before, it's even possible to get a dual core Athlon for the same price. AMD also has a variety of new LE (I'm guessing it stands for Low Energy or something similar) processors including $30 Semprons and $45 Athlons that come with fans / heatsinks. The freaking LE-1160 (which is $45 at the time of this writing from NewEgg) runs at 45w, 2.4ghz and has a megabyte of L2 cache.


We'll see how my next experiment goes (with the LE-1160, naturlich!)...