Another Tidbit about the WebcamXP

Regardingly to streaming a video thru WebCamXP, I found that it cannot handle Divx, which will cause the application to crash EVERYTIME I started an divx file. VCD MPEG seems to be OK.

Sanyo - suck at online support

I spent quite some time to find the manual of my teacher digital camera Sony VPC-E6EX, and was shocked to find out that they were not available online! I went to the support site and all I found was some older model. The best I can found was the pdf brochure and the intro page. That was just bullshit and crappy!

Great fun with webcam and WebCamXP

I was having some great time broadcasting video in an intranet setting with WebCamXP. To do so, I simply:

- Setup my Webcam hardware
- Start up WebCamXP
- On [mintor] tab, right click on one of the ten block to select a source for the block.
- under [Web/Broadcast] setting up your machine IP address and Port. And then click [Start Server] button.

That should be it.

Microsoft Vista Pre-RC1 - Not so well on VMWare Server 1.0

I tried to Install Windows Vista Pre-RC1 Build 5536 on a VMWare, and had two different but equally undesire result. I first installed it on my Home Machine's VMWare Workstation (forgot if the version is 5.0 or 5.5) and I couldn't even get the installation complete. I then tried to install it on VMWare Server 1.0 in the office. This time the installation was completed, but the network driver was not working. Thus I cannot test it's network performance. And these days if a machine cannot connect to the Net, it's like nearly useless. Nevertheless the pre-RC1 looks pretty polished and have some good potential.

Window Shopping at Golden Shopping Center

After heavy research on Fujitsu ST4110, I concluded that I am not getting that TAblet PC because:
- It uses SD Ram instead of the common SDO memory for laptop.
- The heat generated at the bottom of the laptop is a bit too much for a device that I need to carry constantly.
- A store, when asked, said they were selling it (the 40Gb model) at $69xx, while the exact same model is selling at HK$4988 at CentralField. Hmmm ... guess I just don't feel comfy on getting that can have such flucuated price.
- The viewable angel, while not bad, is not good under sunlight. That limited the usage of this Tablet PC.
- It doesn't have 32 bit color (thanks to the tiny 48Mb shared video memory)
- The Wacom tablet pen is nice though.
- I was told that the WiFi was buildin, but then it's just 802.11b instead of 11g.
- 3 hr. battery life is fine, but I rather get the 7 hr. extended battery. Too bad that the Tablet PC is too old a model and thus pretty hard to find the extended battery.
- It has 2 USB 1.1 ports. Man, 1.1 !!!!


Seen Acer's Tablet PC, selling at HK$79xx. Reasonable, but I have to pass because:
- It's too heavy
- It's Acer, and based on my experience, it sucks big time.


Price of slow SD Card continue falling. Most store sold Toshiba 2Gb SD card at HK$295, but I found one store at ground floor selling it at HK$279. The slow Kingston SD card is about the same price. Most store sold it at HK$280, and I found several stores at the ground floor selling it at HK$275.

But then I brought either of them because ... I am cheap.


Microsoft® Wireless Optical Desktop 700 was selling at HK$238. It's pretty much the same thing as the model 1000 brought, only tiny smaller.


PassMe 3 mini has been released. But the even bigger news is actually the DSLink. It may worth it if the firmware update is frequent enough.

Other finding from Golden Shopping Center last Friday

Toshiba 2Gb SD Card is stilling selling at HK$295. Seems like the price is finally got stablized. I haven't seen the HC (High Capacity) 4Gb SD Card yet, and don't know if my PocketPC can accept that format.

DVD DL price is still the same old HK$20 and above.

Found an interesting Tablet PC ...

How much should a 256Mb (Expandable to 768Mb) RAM Fujitsu Stylistic ST4110 cost? A store at Golden Shopping Center was selling it at HK$4998. While it's an outdated technology, the OK battery life, reasonable lightweight makes me keep think about it. But then it really is a 2002 techology. While I can still upgrade it to Tablet PC 2005 for free from Microsoft, The speed could be simply too slow.

I also wonder if the tablet is pressure sensitive. It should be based on the information I read so far.

Well, keep thinking ....

Crappy Protective Screen

I brought a chessy HK$8 protective screen from Golden Shopping Center half year ago, and when I pulled it out this morning, the screen became unusable before of the purple mark ccause but the paper card board enclosed for pressing the protector fimr on the screen.

Cheap stuff, cheap result.

Strange Login Problem on my laptop

I encounted a strange problem on my laptop which ran Windows XP: A login screen flashed and then the screen "The System Is Starting up" stays for ever and ever. I eventually resovled the problem by changing the registry setting based on this article, but the problem can also be solved by simply pressing CTRL-ALT to sweet to the login window.

- Related Issue:
* Similar problem when using SmartCard.

More wireless fun

More and more wireless fun:

- Got WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK working great. The security option should set to "Automatic" and Encryption also set to "automatic". I got my 63 characters PSK Passphrase from Security Now web site and simply take 63 out of the 64 generated key. I take default value of Group Key Update Period. And the result? The office notebook saw it and connected properly (under Wireless Zero Configuration screen).

I will eventually use use 152bit WEP at home though since I need to make the WiFi working wiht my NDS. And besides, if someone really need to spoof me at home... oh well, screw that.

- Also got 152bit WEP running. However, the setting seems a bit tracky. In the WiFi settting, I need to choose Security Option as "Automatic" and WEP Key format as "Hexidicimal". And then I can put it the 32 character hex key. If I view the saved setting, I will only see the first 10 characters, althought all 32 character were being saved and working fine.


- Got Nintendo DS connected the access point with the 32 character shared key. But it has problem connecting to the Nintendo game server. I guess it's the proxy's problem. Entering that 32 character key on the NDS keypad was kind of a pain, and I wish I don't have to do it again.

Fun with WiFi

I brought TP-Link TL-WR541G Wireless Router at the 2nd floor of Wan Chi Computer Center for about HK$250. I also brought a TP-Link TL-WN510G WiFi network PC Card at the same store for HK$145. Both worked pretty well with all the gears I used.

The HP Compaq NX9010 at work has, though, a minor problem. It DID not have Wireless Zero Configuration turned on by default, and thus cannot allow me to easily see a list of available WiFi hotspots. I have to explictly turn it on my going to the Service control panel, select the Wirelless Zero Configuration item and start it. After then it works pretty well.

I simply use a regular network cable to connect to the WAN (Uplink) plug, and I instantly got WiFi working in the office. Windows firewall are on. And everything just work.

However, I later experienced problem with WPA. WEP is totally painless, but WPA isn't seen to be the case. Guess I need to spend some time to figure that out.

Security is ultra important for a WiFi network, because if someone can tap into my network, he will have one of those 192.168.1.x IP addres, and he can use 192.168.1.1 to access the configuration screen. Thus the security setting is the critical step to keep being hacked.

Kororaa XGL Demo Live CD

I tried Kororaa XGL Demo Live CD on my home machine (with NVidia video card) and it worked pretty darn well. But when I tried it on my office machine, it was not that smoothly played. DELL GX-280 couldn't boot up the OS, and GX-620, while able to bootup, left some strange block trace on the screen. STrange.

Windows Live Messenger isn't green friendly

Tried. Failed. Enough said.

Windows Live Messenger isn't green friendly

Tried. Failed. Enough said.

Standby mode in the office machine

I accidentally turned my office machine into stand-by mode. When I turned it back on, everything was back to normal. That's good, for I cannot say the same thing for my home, which has problem spinning up two of the 3 harddisk in my computer.

Juice is now working on my office machine

I was not able to get Podcast Subscription client Juice 2.2 working on my office machine until today. And the only thing I changed was UNCHECK proxy. That's right. Tell Juice that I don't need proxy even though I have proxy running and configured at IE setting. And instantly Lemon started to work and downloading. .... strange.

Some software to download

Download :
- Maxthon Access 2.0.39.0- http://www.maxthon.com/access

https://share.avvenu.com

- GoodSync 4.6.5
http://www.goodsync.com

- Auslogics Disk Defrag 1.0.0
http://www.boost-speed.com

- openedfilesView 1.02
http://www.nirsoft.net

- Meminfo 1.76.1
http://www.carthagosoft.net

- JetStart Free 4.1
http://www.codesector.com

- NetStumber
http://www.netstumbler.com

-
http://www.musiclens.de/contest