Archive for the 'Technology' Category
Big Celebration
Today the thehua.com wallpaper section officially hit 1,000,000 views since April, 2005.
That’s a bit more than 3800 views for each one of the pictures. Amazing.
Thank you everyone. Thank you google images 
~~
Other notable statistics:
Total of 2,230,000+ impressions on Google Adsense since August 2004
114,000+ unique page impressions for thehua.com blog since Jan 2004
Alexa rating: <870,000 rank 3month, <400,000 rank 1 month
Posted on Thursday, 26th Oct, 2006
Automatix is a Godsend
If you’re a Ubuntu user – (any flavor of ?buntu), then you must install and use Automatix to install commonly used applications. Installing new media player for DivX movies was as easy as 1-2-3. No more reading through long documentations and scratching your head when dependencies don’t work out.
Get Automatix Here
And just when you thought apt-get, akin to emerge and yum, was the best thing to happen to OS updates…
Posted on Sunday, 2nd Jul, 2006
The Future of Computers
I hate to say “I told you so” – actually I’m more upset that I’m not old enough to jump on this venture or smart enough to have created the machine first – but the future of computers will be “Thin Clients.”
For years now, those of you that had to sit through my boring-ass remarks about future of computing and reverting back to terminal clients, I’m sorry you sat there and listened. Why not read BusinessWeek instead! I believe that magazine is just slightly more trustworthy than my opinion…just slightly.
Read: The Next Cheap Thing (pdf) ~ source BusinessWeek
Posted on Sunday, 25th Jun, 2006
Stop Suing!
Are you kidding me!? As a recent computer science graduate, I am outraged by the Flash Memory Settlement of 2006. People in this country need to stop suing over ridiculous things.
“Plaintiffs allege that a 256MB Flash Memory Device had only 244MB of accessible memory…Plaintiffs also allege that, undisclosed to consumers, a portion of the represented storage capacity of the Flash Memory Devices was used for formatting or operating the devices.”
This class action lawsuit is a joke right?! The terms GB (gigabyte), MB (megabyte) etc have totally been manipulated by marketing as to make it easier for consumers to understand. Since a byte = 8 bits, it adds up to an oddly formed giga/mega quantity. Consequently, business marketing rounded to the nearest 000 to make it easier for consumers. Apparently, someone in labeling or engineering must have mistakenly marked flash memory devices. Seriously, is this worth suing over?
Come on people, go sue over real problems.
Posted on Saturday, 3rd Jun, 2006
Vista Experiments
Through the gifts of MSDNAA program, I was able to obtain a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate Beta 2. I figured since I really don’t have anything better to do at the moment, why not install it on my machines and give it a whirl.
Machine 1: “The Black Beast” aka my desktop (specs here)
- Initial impressions: Aero, the new animation graphics of the os – including fancy task bar previews, 3D task switching, and transparencies – is really really neat. Feels optimized and doesn’t slow down too much. The system feels slicker and more atune to OSX.
- Installation: Took about 2x install time of Windows XP. Virtually flawless install. Automatic detection of Nforce3 chipset + Belkin wirless + ATI graphics card (only sound was missing but fixed using NForce vista drivers). Vista graphics worked out of box. I went ahead and still updated NForce and ATI to the manufacturer’s vista beta drivers.
- Woes: Lots of application compatibility issues. Antivirus issues – though viruses shouldn’t be a problem for awhile since Vista is based on a new structure, not being able to install certain favorite programs (aka Symantec AV Corp) is a pain. Other application incompatibilies include AIM (5.9) but Google Talk did work as long as you said yes to the installer.
- Overall: Thumbs up. Looks great, feels great. Windows+Tab is awesome. Numerous application backward compatibility issues. How come my fast system scored only a 2 in the system performance ratings? I guess 1.0gb of memory is the bare minimum (fresh startup uses 600+mb). Other than that – I’d like to save money not buying a Mac Duo-Core.
Machine 2: “Black Friday’s Lightweight Bargain” aka my parent’s laptop for the future
Acer Aspire 5002WLCI: 1.6ghz Turion, SIS M760GX, 512mb Ram, Broadcom Wireless
- Initial impressions: Slow. I can’t stress how a 4200rpm hard drive makes Vista a slow operating system. SiS integrated graphics card doesn’t provide WDDM required for nice Aero effects. This renders the OS a flat dull looking piece of crap. After trying it on the desktop, I don’t fancy using this beta on the laptop.
- Installation: Maybe it’s a bug with my laptop, but every Vista build I’ve tried to install – when use the installer to delete and format partitions, the installer can never write to the disk. I force the install by pre-formatting the drive using an XP installer (…gay). Other than that installation was relatively smooth. Automatic detection of broadcom wireless drivers. Audio drivers installed automatically after running WindowsUpdate. However graphics drivers were another problem. SiS M760GX was not automatically detected. However Beta 1, so I’ve read, had those drivers included. Solution? You can either install it in one of two ways. 1) Manually find the included SiS Mirage drivers (M760GX is a mirage 2 card) – ignore Vista’s warnings and force those drivers on. 2) Less stable but you can use Acer’s windows XP SiS graphics card drivers. You’ll receive a dll error upon first restart but thereafter you should be ok.
- Overall: Vista just doesn’t look as pretty without Aero effects. Not to mention Vista still isn’t completely optimized so running it on a 4200rpm hard drive is painfully slow. Though much better than Beta 1 build, there’s still much improvement necessary for Vista to adapt to the portable environment. Oh and did I mention the performance rating of the laptop (though only half a year old) is a measly 1. I’d rather switch back to XP for the laptop and/or use linux.
~published using Vista Beta 2. I wonder how many days I’ll use this before reverting back to XP.
Posted on Monday, 29th May, 2006