hardware

action / hardware / interesting — 8 Comments
6
Nov 07

How Apple “Chinesed” My iPod

chinese ipod 

    I have never bought a single thing from Apple before, but, everything has its first "iTouch" :) , and I decided to get an iPod for my friend’s birthday.

    So here I am on the Apple website filling out all the right forms, giving my extra-sensitive information, and all nine yards.

    Since I know that my friend’s b-day is four days from now, I am very concerned this iPod to be delivered as fast as possible and I see my choice of shipping methods Apple offers me which are:

apple shipping method for ipod

     Great, I think, and choose "2Day shipping" – "I am willing to pay $10 for 2 days, time matters more, my friend will be so happy" – I am thinking. 2-3 minutes of clicking and typing go by and here it is "You order was successfully processed!" – splendid!

    Coming in to work next morning, opening my gmail, seeing "Apple Store Shipment Notification", having my "internal smiling" moment, and clicking a FedEx link to track this order. Wanna see what I saw? Be my guest:

apple ships ipod from shanhgai, china

    Did you notice anything interesting? Probably not, cause I did not tell you that I am ordering stuff from United States. Well now, as I told you, take a second look – see anything? My iPod is picked up at 6:16, which is nice – I paid my $10 for it, but wait.. The location does not seem to be familiar -> CN is definitely not US (well at least not yet :) ).

    I got so negatively puzzled to see that my iPod was shipped from China! Don’t get me wrong, China is a beautiful country, and I have been there less than a year ago, but common, Apple, can you keep your own warehouse with your own products in you own country!? What did I pay my $10 for?

    random thoughts:   Thought of trying "Mac OS X Leopard" some time this week, got so upset, will stick to my lovely Ubuntu

November 8th 2007 UPDATE: I received my iPod in exactly two business days – thank you Apple!
cool places / hardware / howto / linux / software / tutorials — 13 Comments
10
Sep 07

Avant Window Navigator – Dual Monitor Hack

avant window navigator  Ok, so you have successfully configured dual monitor for you (Gnome/KDE) desktop, and now you have decided to take it even further and install and configure Avant Window Navigator – way to go!

    Although most of your installation/configuration will succeed by following one of the tutorials, in case if you have dual monitors, and/or you use Option  "MergedFB"  in "xorg.conf" to merge two monitors into a one screen, standard tutorials will not work. This will require additional hacking to get AWN to work right, and here is where this article comes in :)

    PROBLEM:    One of the problems that AWN has with multiple screens/monitors is to identify the position of where it needs to put its task bar. In case of two monitors merged into one big screen, it does not adjust to this new slightly larger "coordinate system", and fails to place its task bar to the right place on a screen (usually at the bottom of the bottom screen). This can be solved, of course ;)

    SOLUTION:   AWN stores monitor resolution info in a file called "%gconf.xml" which is located here:

          user@host:~/.gconf/apps/avant-window-navigator$ ll
          total 32
          drwx------ 2 user user 4096 2007-07-18 11:41 app
          drwx------ 4 user user 4096 2007-06-26 23:47 applets
          drwx------ 2 user user 4096 2007-08-06 21:52 bar
          -rw------- 1 user user 776 2007-09-10 09:52 %gconf.xml
          -rw------- 1 user user 776 2007-06-27 22:57 %gconf.xml.dual
          -rw------- 1 user user 776 2007-06-27 10:41 %gconf.xml.single
          drwx------ 2 user user 4096 2007-06-27 17:59 title
          drwx------ 2 user user 4096 2007-06-30 14:16 window_manager
          user@host:~/.gconf/apps/avant-window-navigator$

    "%gconf.xml" is an XML file that has several elements called "entry". The ones we are interested in would be:

 
        <entry name="monitor_height" mtime="1179886419" type="int" value="1024">
        </entry>
        <entry name="monitor_width" mtime="1179886419" type="int" value="1280">
        </entry>

    These values would work fine if we had a single 1280×1024 monitor, but if we have our (e.g.) bottom monitor as 1280×800, in order for AWN to display its task bar in a correct spot (the bottom of the bottom monitor), values have to change to:

 
        <entry name="monitor_height" mtime="1179886419" type="int" value="1824">
        </entry>
        <entry name="monitor_width" mtime="1179886419" type="int" value="1280">
        </entry>

    So what we did, we summed up Y-Positions of both monitors together: 1024 + 800 = 1824. Now when AWN is calculating its task bar’s Y-Pos offset, it will take 1824, as the Y-Pos max range, and will do the right thing!

hardware / interesting / software — 7 Comments
30
Jun 07

iPhone: 20 Things It Does Not Have

 

 

Thinking on jumping on a new and "cool" iPhone? Think twice, it might be better to hold the thought for a month or too. And here is why…

  

  • Bluetooth is ONLY good for connecting a headset. That’s it.

  • There is no file browser on the device at all. Data must be organized (if at all) in the appropriate application.

  • The camera is a simple application that has ONE button: the shutter. Pictures come out okay on the device, but nothing too fancy on a monitor, especially if it was an attempt at a macro shot.

  • SIM card is damn near impossible to open, if at all. I didn’t look into it extensively.

  • Web browser is slow, even over WLAN. Even the simple OneList web app that was created takes around 20 seconds to load over WLAN. You can not highlight, cut, copy, or paste and text from a website, and you can not save any images you find from a website either. The only nice thing about it is the tabbed browsing, which crashed on me when I went to Engadget and YouTube on two tabs. This is the only application that allows you to use the keyboard in landscape mode.

  • The keyboard sucks. It gets slightly better after the iPhone "learns" you, as the employees said, but even then, it’s not a device you can use with one hand comfortably, much less without looking.

  • You can only send one picture at a time in an email.

  • No custom ringtones (yet, as we were being told) and the alert tones can not be changed whatsoever.

  • The default ringtones are incredibly lame.

  • The only form of customization outside of a lame default ringtone is the wallpaper, which you’ll only see when you need to unlock the device or when you get a phone call.

  • "Picture pinching" or using two fingers to zoom on any content is certainly fun to play with, but not practical whatsoever. This operation depends solely on using the device with two hands.

  • No document editor or native viewer. You can not store documents on the device to be viewed, they can only be viewed as attachments when they’re sent to your in an email.

  • Visual voicemail is laggy and reacts about the same way as pushing the fast forward and rewind buttons on traditional voicemail systems. The only advantage is for those that get that many voicemail messages a day that they need to sort them according to priority.

  • NO games. None.

  • No voice dialing.

  • No speed dialing (which can be made up by the "quick list", but getting to that quick list isn’t as fast as holding a single key on a real keypad).

  • No video.

  • No MMS.

  • It’s still <4GB for $500 and <8GB for $600

  • It only takes around 2 hours to explore every menu without any options for expandability except to scrounge around for new web apps that will load slowly and nowhere near as smoothly as the native apps.

    This device looks like it was aimed at the general consumer who has the money to spend on such a flashy device, but it leaves so many basic features behind that it’s almost impossible to consider it a success as a mainstream device. It encourages the advanced user to move away from MMS and into email to send images, but leaves out any advanced features advanced users would be accustomed to, and still retains a huge price tag on top of it.

    It’s certainly pretty and Americans will buy it because of that simple UI, but anyone who’s familiar with other operating systems would be appalled. This phone needs to be unlocked and cracked WIDE open to make much better use of the multi-touch system. That, or it needs an immediate update in iTunes to rework every feature.

source
   

hardware / howto / linux / me / software / tutorials — 16 Comments
2
Jun 07

Switch Between Dual/Single Monitor on (Ubuntu) Linux

xorg logo ubuntuRecently I wrote a howto on dual monitor configuration, which works great for my setup. However one thing that is not that great is switching between two modes: dual and single monitor. At work I have an external monitor that I use (which means I use two monitors – my laptop’s and external one), but whenever I am not at work I only need to use my laptop’s. Since all the xorg configuration resides in xorg.conf file, and this file is a regular static text file that is used by X (window system – gdm, kdm, etc.) when it starts, it is nontrivial to change this configuration while running X without some X tools. Unfortunately, Ubuntu is not that fancy (yet) and does not provide these tools by default, so here is a way to do it (sort of) manually.

What we can do is to create two xorg.conf files – "xorg.conf.single" and "xorg.conf.dual". In "xorg.conf.single" just comment out the following line from ServerLayout section:

# /etc/X11/xorg.conf (xorg X Window System server configuration file)
#
.....
Section "ServerLayout"
        Identifier      "Default Layout"
        Screen          0 "0 Screen"
        #Screen         1 "1 Screen" Above "0 Screen"   <-- comment out this line
        Option          "Xinerama" "on"
        Option          "Clone" "off"
.....
EndSection

Here is the listing of "xorg" files that I have:

user@host:/etc/X11$ ll xorg.conf*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4457 2007-06-02 15:05 xorg.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4456 2007-05-22 22:03 xorg.conf.dual
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4457 2007-05-22 22:04 xorg.conf.single

Now the idea is simple - before X (I use Gnome Desktop, but it can be any desktop environment) starts, we need to copy xorg file that we need (dual or single) to "xorg.conf", which will be picked and loaded by X.

In /home/user/ directory we have a .bashrc file that is loaded whenever the user logs in (if we use bash shell, which is a most popular shell anyway). Therefore we can leverage this file to define aliases that we would like to use once we login. Since alias can be anything we'd like, why not make a dual/single commands as aliases? Here is an example:

user@host:/etc/X11$ tail -5 /home/user/.bashrc
# restart gdm with dual monitor support
alias xdual='sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf.dual /etc/X11/xorg.conf; sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart'

# restart gdm with single monitor support
alias xsingle='sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf.single /etc/X11/xorg.conf; sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart'

Now when we need to switch between dual/single monitor, we can fire up shell (by pressing Ctrl+Alt+1, or gnome-terminal, or kterm, etc.) and type xsingle or xdual whichever we need.

action / hardware / linux / software — 2 Comments
28
May 07

Ubuntu Dell – Three Real Models

Welcome to DELL Open Source

You asked, we listened. For advanced users and tech enthusiasts, we’re happy to offer a new open-source operating system, so you can dive in and truly enjoy a PC experience just the way you want it. In addition to the FreeDOS systems we already offer, we are proud to announce PCs with Ubuntu.

dell pcs featuring ubuntu

 
    So far only these three models are for sale with Ubuntu on them:

Dimension E520 N
Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E4300 (1.8GHz, 800 FSB)
Ubuntu Desktop Edition version 7.04
1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz- 2DIMMs
250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™
Inspiron E1505 N
Intel® Pentium® dual-core proc T2080(1MB Cache/1.73GHz/533MHz FSB
Ubuntu Edition version 7.04
512MB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz, 2 DIMM
80GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive
XPS 410 N
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor E4300 (2MB L2 Cache,1.8GHz,800FSB)
Ubuntu Desktop Edition version 7.04
1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz – 2 DIMMs
250GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™

 

 

hardware — 60 Comments
24
May 07

Word’s Thinnest Laptop from Intel

source: businessweek

When Intel asked designers to build a better laptop, its instructions were simple, really. The machine has to be fashionable, able to connect to all manner of wireless networks, and full of the latest, fastest computing capabilities. Oh yes, and make it as thin as Motorola’s Razr. Its own engineers in conjunction with Ziba Design in Portland, Ore., rose to the challenge.

The result, code-named Intel mobile Metro notebook, is less than 0.7 inches thick—about one-quarter of an inch thicker than Motorola’s (MOT) iconic cell phone, making it the world’s thinnest notebook. And at 2.25 pounds, it’s also one of the lightest small-sized portable computers. Other features include always-on Internet connectivity via various wireless technologies:

intel metro - ultra thin laptop/notebook

This looks nice and cool. The only thing that I noticed is that a display model of this machine has Windows Vista installed. I think this makes it looks 4 times less as cool, as it could have looked with Ubuntu logo..

Common Intel, clean your “interior” design. :)

cool places / hardware / howto / linux / software / tutorials — 48 Comments
18
May 07

Dual Monitor on Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) – nc2400 with Intel 945GM

xorg logoOne of the good things about being in a big consulting company is that you get these "once every one/two years" laptop upgrades. So my lucky upgrade day was yesterday, and my friend Dell D400 was upgraded to HP nc2400. So I decided to change my course a little, and use Ubuntu on a company laptop (instead of XP). I talked to the company people, they did not mind, which was great! The only problem is, when you get a new Windows XP laptop (upgrade), there are certain people that set it up for you, and you just pick it up and go to the client. Well, in my case I had to get up to speed very quickly myself. And of course one of majors problems with Ubuntu Feisty (as with most Linux distros) it does not have any tooling to deal with dual (laptop/LCD) monitors. So it was a fun time experimenting with "xorg.config". It took me quite some time, but I DID GET IT WORKING! And just want to share with everybody what I came with, since none of the Ubuntu forums, and none of what Google (with their new Web 2.0) told me did NOT work.

So here we go… Checking what graphic (video) my new nc2400 has:

user@host:~$ lspci
...
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)<br />
...

Ok, so I’ve got "Intel 945GM" – cool. Notice that there are two VGA/Display controllers, one is on 0:2:0, and another one is on 0:2:1 (those numbers are BusIDs by the way). Nevertheless, I used only one BusID, which is the first one 0:2:0 to get it working.

I also have 1280×800 laptop screen resolution, which means I need to get 915resolution

apt-get install 915resolution

Now, my External Monitor has 1280×1024 @ 60 Hz by specs. Let’s see it is supported by 915resolution:

user@host:~$ sudo 915resolution -l
Password:
Intel 800/900 Series VBIOS Hack : version 0.5.2
 
Chipset: 945GM
BIOS: TYPE 1
Mode Table Offset: $C0000 + $269
Mode Table Entries: 36
 
Mode 30 : 640x480, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 32 : 800x600, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 34 : 1024x768, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 38 : 1280x800, 24 bits/pixel
Mode 3c : 1920x1440, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 41 : 640x480, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 43 : 800x600, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 45 : 1024x768, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 49 : 1280x800, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 4d : 1920x1440, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 50 : 640x480, 32 bits/pixel
Mode 52 : 800x600, 32 bits/pixel
Mode 54 : 1024x768, 32 bits/pixel
Mode 58 : 1280x800, 32 bits/pixel
Mode 5c : 1920x1440, 32 bits/pixel

Seems like I do not have 1280×1024 as one of the supported modes. Hmmm. Ok, then I need to explicitly ask for it by modifying this file, to look like this:

user@host:~$ cat /etc/default/915resolution
#
# 915resolution default
#
# find free modes by  /usr/sbin/915resolution -l
# and set it to MODE or set to 'MODE=auto'
#
# With 'auto' detection, the panel-size will be fetched from the VBE
# BIOS if possible and the highest-numbered mode in each bit-depth
# will be overwritten with the detected panel-size.
MODE=3a
#
# and set resolutions for the mode.
# e.g. use XRESO=1024 and YRESO=768
 
XRESO=1280
YRESO=1024
 
# We can also set the pixel mode.
# e.g. use BIT=32
# Please note that this is optional,
# you can also leave this value blank.
BIT=24

Ok. No I still need to patch laptop LCD to 1280×800, therefore im going to write  a one liner script that is going to do that on startup (how-to). Here is that one line:

# Set the laptop monitor resolution
# Add it to 915Resolution supported modes
915resolution 38 1280 800 24

Did, resolution, did the patching, is it now time for an "xorg.conf"? Ok, then, here it is (working too) :) 

# /etc/X11/xorg.conf (xorg X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf(5) manual page.
# (Type "man xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
#   sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg
 
Section "Files"
        FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc"
        FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic"
        FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/:unscaled"
        FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/:unscaled"
        FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1"
        FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi"
        FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi"
        # path to defoma fonts
        FontPath        "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
EndSection
 
Section "Module"
        Load    "i2c"
        Load    "bitmap"
        Load    "ddc"
        Load    "dri"
        Load    "extmod"
        Load    "freetype"
        Load    "glx"
        Load    "int10"
        Load    "vbe"
EndSection
 
Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "Generic Keyboard"
        Driver          "kbd"
        Option          "CoreKeyboard"
        Option          "XkbRules"      "xorg"
        Option          "XkbModel"      "pc105"
        Option          "XkbLayout"     "us"
EndSection
 
Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "Configured Mouse"
        Driver          "mouse"
        Option          "CorePointer"
        Option          "Device"                "/dev/input/mice"
        Option          "Protocol"              "ImPS/2"
        Option          "ZAxisMapping"          "4 5"
        Option          "Emulate3Buttons"       "true"
EndSection
 
Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "Synaptics Touchpad"
        Driver          "synaptics"
        Option          "SendCoreEvents"        "true"
        Option          "Device"                "/dev/psaux"
        Option          "Protocol"              "auto-dev"
        Option          "HorizScrollDelta"      "0"
EndSection
 
Section "InputDevice"
        Driver          "wacom"
        Identifier      "stylus"
        Option          "Device"        "/dev/input/wacom"
        Option          "Type"          "stylus"
        Option          "ForceDevice"   "ISDV4"         # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection
 
Section "InputDevice"
        Driver          "wacom"
        Identifier      "eraser"
        Option          "Device"        "/dev/input/wacom"
        Option          "Type"          "eraser"
        Option          "ForceDevice"   "ISDV4"         # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection
 
Section "InputDevice"
        Driver          "wacom"
        Identifier      "cursor"
        Option          "Device"        "/dev/input/wacom"
        Option          "Type"          "cursor"
        Option          "ForceDevice"   "ISDV4"         # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection
 
Section "Device"
        Identifier      "0 Intel 945GM"
        Driver          "i810"
        BusID           "PCI:0:2:0"
        Screen      0
        Option          "MonitorLayout" "CRT,LFP"
        Option          "DRI" "false"
    # I don't think these next lines are actually required.
    #Option          "BackingStore" "true"
    #Option          "DevicePresence" "on"
    #Option          "DisplayInfo" "FALSE"
    #Option          "DRI" "true"
    #Option                       "CacheLines" "1024"
EndSection
 
Section "Device"
        Identifier      "1 Intel 945GM"
        Driver          "i810"
        BusID           "PCI:0:2:0"
        Screen      1
        Option          "MonitorLayout" "CRT,LFP"
        Option          "DRI" "true"
    # I don't think these next lines are actually required.
    #Option          "BackingStore" "true"
    #Option          "DevicePresence" "on"
    #Option          "DisplayInfo" "FALSE"
    #Option          "DRI" "true"
    #Option                       "CacheLines" "1024"
EndSection
 
Section "Monitor"
        Identifier      "0 nc2400 Monitor"
        Option          "DPMS"
        Option          "DPMS"
#       HorizSync       28-75
#       VertRefresh     43-100
EndSection
 
Section "Monitor"
        Identifier         "1 nc2400 Monitor"
    HorizSync      30 - 83
    VertRefresh    56 - 76
    Option         "DPMS"
        Modeline       "1280x1024@60" 108.0 1280 1328 1440 1688 1024 1025 1028 1066 +hsync +vsync
EndSection
 
Section "Screen"
        Identifier          "0 Screen"
        Device              "0 Intel 945GM"
        Monitor             "0 nc2400 Monitor"
        DefaultDepth    24
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth           24
                Modes           "1280x800"
        EndSubSection
EndSection
 
Section "Screen"
        Identifier          "1 Screen"
        Device              "1 Intel 945GM"
        Monitor             "1 nc2400 Monitor"
        DefaultDepth    24
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth           24
                Modes           "1280x1024@60"
        EndSubSection
EndSection
 
Section "ServerLayout"
        Identifier      "Default Layout"
    Screen      0 "0 Screen"
    Screen      1 "1 Screen" RightOf "0 Screen"
        Option          "Xinerama" "on"
        Option          "Clone" "off"
        InputDevice     "Generic Keyboard"
        InputDevice     "Configured Mouse"
        InputDevice     "stylus"        "SendCoreEvents"
        InputDevice     "cursor"        "SendCoreEvents"
        InputDevice     "eraser"        "SendCoreEvents"
        InputDevice     "Synaptics Touchpad"
EndSection
 
Section "DRI"
        Mode    0666
EndSection

You may notice "Modeline "1280×1024@60" 108.0 1280 1328 1440 1688 1024 1025 1028 1066 +hsync +vsync", well I just got it from the same place you would get it, yea..that’s right, I got it from Google.

Remember, no matter what a general opinion is (linux follows "install without restart" philosophy), you have to restart. And not just /etc/init.d/gdm restart, but a FULL system restart,

Ok, so now you should see two beautiful screens – one is your laptop, and the other one is your external monitor which is now a separate screen. Congrats!

If you have any questions – shoot, I killed so much time figuring out all these details, why should you?

cool places / hardware / howto / linux / software / tutorials — 9 Comments
16
May 07

Hacking Aproach: NVIDIA Driver on Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn

nvidia driver ubuntuNeeded to install Nvidia driver for my Feisty Fawn (Ubuntu 7.04) box. Googled for a "how to". Noticed that all "how to"s in www follow one of three scenarios:

"Here is a tutorial on how to install Nvidia Driver…":

  • Make sure you know whether you card belongs to "1.0-71xx series" or "1.0-96xx series"
  • Get the driver’s installer  from nvidia site
  • Run the installer
  • Change the device driver from ‘nv’ to ‘nvidia’ in xorg.conf
  • You’re good to go"

                      OR

  • # sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx nvidia-kernel-common
  • # sudo nvidia-glx-config enable
  • You’re good to go

                      OR

  • Download this envy script
  • Run it
  • You’re good to go

    As you can see, there are multiple ways in Linux to solve a single problem, and it is wonderful, besides when none of them work. Yea, none of the above worked for me. I either had "GPU version mismatch – The 1.0-9755 NVIDIA driver will ignore (WW) NVIDIA(0): this GPU." or "Failed to load nvidia kernel module" or that "envy" stuff that said "my OS is not supported", etc..

I solved the problem and just wanted to share with everybody out there who might struggle, so you don’t.

I took a very "dirty approach" and did the following:

I knew my card falls into "1.0-96xx series" list by nvidia, so I went there and downloaded that installer.

Then I did:   sudo rm -rf `locate nvidia`   to make sure I have NO traces of any kind of nvidia stuff that came (?) with a clean Feisty install. (if locatedb is not populated, you can do   sudo find / -name "*nvidia*" -exec rm -rf {} \;   this will definitely clean your system from all nvidia guests)

Make sure if you have copied your driver to the directory with (or part of a) name "nvidia" rename it before deleting all the "nvidia" pieces:   mv nvidia/ myvidia/)

And only then, after I ran the installer from "nvidia", my GeForce MX 400 smiled broadly :)

Happy hacking!

cool places / hardware / linux / me / software / tutorials — 8 Comments
14
May 07

KISS that Technology by Learning

So you need to learn (about) this technology… So you go to google… So you spent X minutes (hours? days?) to find a good candidate-article (tutorial, how to, step-by-step guide, etc.)… So you finish reading it… and most of the time you doing what? – exactly!  – going back to google and keep searching.

More often than not there are two main things that we are looking for when we need to learn something new:

  1. We want to learn it fast
  2. We want to learn it fast

See the difference? :) Here it is – the "first fast" goes for the quality of content that a source has to offer. The better the quantity, the more we learn, the faster we learn. And the "second fast" goes to the amount of time we search for that source of knowledge.

The "first fast" is going to be solved by only dealing with SIMPLE tutorials/guides/ideas about many simple and comlex topics. Simplicity is the key to solve "the quality of content" problem. Think about an IBM Redbook on something you do not know about, let’s say web services. Although it is a great book – lot’s of content – it is a very poor example of an efficient tutorial (not for all, but for most), it just has too much and will take hours to go through. Most of the time a redbook will make you quite sleepy on the page number 24 (my own observation).

And for comparison take this picture from soaspecs.com:

webservices through uddi, wsdl and soap

and spice it up with "SOAP::Lite for Perl" quick guide.

A combination of the two (pic and guide) will take you 5-10 minutes to go over and will make you understand what/how/why/etc.. about webservices. Although the guide is Perl based, it will by no means distract you from understanding the material even if you are not familiar with Perl, why? Because it is SIMPLE, that’s why.

In order to solve the "second fast", I would like to speak to everybody who is going to read this post. If you have a very cool and SIMPLE tutorial, how-to, guide, etc.., please share it with everybody by going to the comments section of this post and putting one or more links to it, or ideas where to get these very simple tutorials.

Later on I will compile this list, and either post it on a different website (if you like, I can put your name as a contributor, with a link to the tutorial/idea and your website, if you have it) or I will create a different post. This will be solving the "second fast" – decreasing the time of searching for the right source.

Apply yourself – KISS that technology! :)

 

action / hardware — 3 Comments
11
May 07

India to build a $10 laptop

cheap $10 laptopThe Indian Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) invested in designing a $10 laptop computer.

Until now, one laptop including labour charges is costing $47 but the ministry forecasts that the price will radically come down when the demand will rise to manufacture one million laptops. An official from HRD ministry said:

    The cost is encouraging and we are hopeful it would come down to $10. We would also look into the possibility of some Indian company manufacturing the parts

The final year engineering student of Vellore Institute of Technology in conjunction with researcher from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore has proposed two designs to the ministry.

In both of the submitted designs, according to Times of India, all components would be located on a single circuitboard. This would keep prices down and make it easier to find and repair problems.

The true estimate to launch a $10 laptop is another two years:

    We do not want to rush into it. Many issues remain to be resolved like royalty to the designer after the design is patented. Prototyping would also take time. We would even conduct destructive testing and create a proper maintenance network

HRD received several proposals from some big multi national companies, but none of them was willing to develop laptop for $10 bucks – greedy closed mind/source corpo-s.

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