once again, "USB 2.0 To IDE Cable" To the rescure

I was frustrated by the failed Windows Server 2003 installation, while at the same time trying to get myself back to productive mode as soon as possible. So I was thinking of copying the old partition to my new hard disk.

So I started the Acronis Disk Director 9.0 bootup disk. Unfortunately, Acronis cannot recognize disk on Firewire chain. So I removed my old harddisk from the Firewire enclosure and hooked it up with USB 2.0 to IDE Cable , and reboot. Well, it worked! The Acronis sees all the USB drives! So I copied the partition from the external USB harddisk into the desktop machine. Reboot, and woo! The machine is back in business.

Glad that I got that USB to IDE cable!

Gave up on listening music on my E398

I was a bit thrilled yesterday when I found several kinds of cables in a electronic store at the ground floor of Golden that converts a tri-channel 2.5mm plug into a 3.5mm stereo headphone plug. And I thought, awesome, now I could now use my headphone with my Motorola E398, which is a mobile phone with tr-channel on the audio jack. But then I used my mobile, and found that NONE Of them really work on my phone.... how sad.. why... why ...

Never install that OSX Skin thing on Windows Server 2003

I spent sometime to reinstall Windows Server 2003 on my desktop machine. It seemed to go pretty well. But then I went stupid and wonder if I could installed the Flxxxxx OSX Theme thing on the Windows Server 2003. Big mistake. It seemed to work for a while, but eventually after I reboot the machine, I got some stupid kernel missing error messge, and then the whole OS just went south. In fact, I am still messing with this stuff right this moment. So definitely shouldn't do this shit again in my entire life!

Reason why the harddisk not working in enclosure

Stupid me for making such a stupid mistake: I was a bit fustrated for an hour wondering why a 60Gb harddisk that I taken from my desktop was not working in my Firewire/USB1.1 harddisk enclosure. Finally I figured out a very simple reason: the harddisk was in Slave mode due to the jumper setting. Once I reseted the jumper to the proper master mode, the harddisk worked like a charm. How stupid I was.

Microsoft Expression Web seems nice but ...

Microsoft Expression Web 1.0 is definitely not a portable app, for I tried :-< .

On the other hand it seems a nice tool for cranking out CSS based web pages, especially if you target to ASP.Net 2.0 .

E398 couldn't take my Harry Potter AudioBook file ... Urrrggg

Darn, oh so many files are not ready to play on the E398 phone.

Stupid Microsoft Expression Web trial version

I used Firefox 2.0 Portable to access the Microsoft Expression Web site in order to download the trial version, but the 200Mb downloaded file was not working! I tried it again with FlashGet and it was then OK. Just wondering why this shit can happen.

More complain about E398

Using direction connection to transfer mp3 files from PC to my Motorola E398 Mobile phone is just terrible. It takes about 15 minutes to transfer 44Mb of files to the phone. By contrast, it takes whooping 2 minutes to transfer the exact same files to my phone.

Also, never buy a phone that have the memory card hiding inside, as my E398 phone does. The metal plate that hold the microSD card was pretty loose, and I also need to double check the phone to make sure that the phone recognize the card after turning it on again. That seems very inconvenient to me.

Barebone $40 USB-to-EIDE adapter seems to work for me

I spent about $40 to buy a USB 2.0 to EIDE adapter about a year ago, and I was not too happy about it back then because it didn't work well with my EIDE based DVD+R Recorder. And I put it aside since then. Recently, though, I had a need to connect some EIDE harddisk to my desktop for backup purpose, and I was pretty trill to find out that the adapter works pretty well with all the EIDE harddisk I attached to it. The performance was not spectacular, but not too shave neither. From now on I will sure include this gear in my computer repair toolbox.

Install Office 2003 on desktop failed

I am still very frustrated about the problem which I cannot have Microsoft Office (2003) installed on my desktop computer. Something is stopped the installation from starting.

A reason NOT to buy Toshiba laptop

I spent a night and a morning trying to recover a Toshiba Tecra S1 laptop from not able to boot up the Windows XP OS. And throughout the process I recognized a few things:


* There is NO option to bootup Flash drive on Toshiba Tecra S1 laptop. Great, one big reason not to buy Toshiba laptop.

* I found out a big shortcoming of BartPE bootup disc: it doesn't support Traditional Chinese file name. There are BartPE plugin that might potentially fix the problem, but I haven't tried it yet.

* When asked whether to replace the newer files with the older file during the Windows XP recovery process, I made the decision of replacing the old because I was worrying that keeping the new files will keep the machine continue not bootup-able. When eventually the machine was booted up, all the application program settings were gone. If it's my machine, I won't go for that route, and instead simply reformat the whole machine.

Motorola E398 Mod

Very once in a while, I will have an incentive to mod my E398 so that it can do something more than what it is doing now, especially after I saw so many mod sites online:

- http://www.e2mod.com/ : Awesome with a lot of new Java application for E398.
- http://www.e398mod.com/ : Another awesome E398 Mod site like this Motorola Midlets Manager 0.666 a6
- Convert E398 to iTune Phone : The basic mod, but sweet one.
- E398 with Mac OSX, Basic setup : I will definitely look into this after I get a MacBook
- Browse E398 content on Mac OSX : From the same author who brought you the link above, which is an equally good blog article.

Failed to install Windows 2000 (Advnaced Server)

I tried installing Windows 2000 (Advnaced Server) on a 1Gb thumb drive. It failed, and throw me a blue screen of death. Weak.

P.S. Later I found out that it's because the USB driver was being loading during bootup, and crashed with the USB-Hard-Disk emulation provided by the motherboard.

There's, though, another ways to create bootable USB thumb drive effective. I will document them in my future blogs.

Crappy card reader destoryed by 512Mb Memory Stick

Remember a while ago I was complain about a cardreader? Well that freaking card reader destroyed my 512Mb Memory Stick Pro Duo card! Now no card reader in this world can read this card, and since no once can read it, it cannot be fixed. I tried using Spinrite, but since the 512Mb card was not even mounted, Spinrite cannot do anything to it. Oh man, so crappy.

Well it was partly myself to blame though, for the card was working great yesterday. I should persistently trying to make that card working with the crappy card reader. Ahhh... so pissed.... There goes my .... errr... $100 I guess.

USB Card Reader Hell

I always hate buying USB Card Reader simply because it rarely work consistently on all machine, and it was no exception last night as I brought a card reader for my teacher as part of a birthday gift set.

The Card Reader cost HK$25, so I don't even expect specular performance. Since my teacher only use SD card, so I tested intensely, and found that the SD card reading part works pretty OK. I tried old school 128Mb memory stick and it also worked pretty well. But the Memory Stick Pro Duo had such a huge problem. For instance, it has problem reading my 512Mb SanDisk Memorystick Pro Duo. It happened on all the machine that I tested with. It also happened when even when I put the Pro Duo card in the Memory Closure. In addition, after the system confused by the Pro Duo card, the card reader was rendered into useless.


Also, the card reader confused my other connected removable harddisk on the system. Sigh.

So, I will not buy stuff from that brand ever.


On the plus side, I found a HK$29 card reader that is:
- Bootable
- Can support Memory Stick and Memory Stick Pro Duo
- Works with SD.

This is such an awesome device, since it turned my left over memory stick into a useful bootable thumb drive.


Tidbit:
- Flash drive takes more time to WRITE than read.

WanChi Computer Shopping Center - Rip off if buying computer accessories

Comparing with the price of computer accessories (like USB Flashcard reader), the prices at WanChi Computer Shopping Center are simply horrible. A lot of items got 20 - 25% markup. A cheap USB card reader that cost me $18 at Golden was selling at $35 or even $45 at WanChi Computer Shopping Center.

Fun with Bluetooth 4: Stupid Motorola?

I was a bit overjoyed after I installed the Motorola phone tool (a software that comes with my mobile) and saw the word "Bluetooth connection" during the startup wizard of the application. But then I found out that the stupid application require a special Motorola Bluetooth adapter in order to sync with the PC. It was at that moment that I was ultra pissed.

Fun with Bluetooth 3: Sending file

I found out that I can send file form my PC to my Pocket PC WITHOUT establish any PAN (Personal Area Network) at all. All you need to do is this:
- Right click on the Bluetooth icon at Windows Tray , and select "Send file". I choose a JPEG file.
- Select the device you want to send your file to. If you previous had a successful sending, your device should be already in the list. Otherwise click [Browse...] to select your device.
- Select the file you want to send.
- That's it on the PC sending side.
- On your PPC (assume that it's on and Bluetooth enabled), a message will pop up and allows you to choose between Accept and Reject.
- If you accept on your PPC, the file will be saved under the \\My Device\My Document\ directory.


In fact, I could do the same with my Bluetooth enabled Motorola E398 phone. After the PC started sending a file, a message will pop up on my phone (assume that bluetooth has been turned on). And I just following the instruction on the screen. One thing funny is that the phone automatically brought up a JPEG view screen. I wonder what happen if I tried to transfer other kinds of files, like MP3. (... will try it later)

I should don't know how to send File from my E398 phone back to my PC though. In fact, I even doubt if my phone provides that feature. (Turning on Receiving File on PC side surely DID NOT work, and the PC simply waiting and waiting.)

Fun with Bluetooth 2: Joining Personal Area Network

I found out how to create a Personal Area Network with my Pocket PC:

- On Windows Tray, right click on the Bluetooth button, and select "Joining a Personal Area Network" menu item.
- Select the device by clicking the icon of your PPC.
- A messagebox will indicate that the connection is established, and the messagbox will disapper.
- On the PocketPC, you can check the connection by going to the Active Connections tab of the Bluetooth Manager screen. You can see the icon of your computer showing up on the screen. In fact, you can tap on it and see the connection, and check the connection strength. NOTICE that the PC machine icon will be showing up on the "Incoming Connections" side (lower of the screen)
- After the connection established:
* I can browse the web sites hosting on your PC from your Pocket PC.
* I CANNOT you my PocketPC to remote desktop to my desktop PC. Maybe the bandwidth is to huge for Bluetooth to handle. (At first I couldn't even get to the "Connecting to:" screen since my PPC was using my office proxy setting. So I click a link, fixed the proxy, and then I could see the "Connecting to" screen. But eventually the connection failed.)


Tidbits:
- You will see a Bluetooth Ethernet adapter being established. You can ping the IP of your pocket PC and the IP of desktop machine.
- If I turned off the PocketPC, the pinging will be failed for both pinging the pocket PC and the PC (since the virtual adapter was cancelled). Even if you turn on your PPC after a successfuly linkup, you need to re-establish the connection again. Notice that the whole process of getting an IP will take like 20 seocnds. So be patient.


When you are already in a PAN established by the PC (and connected to the PPC), the "Join a personal network" on your PPC doesn't make sense since it's ALREADY JOINED to a network.
On the otherwise, when the connection was NOT connected, you can use your PPC as the host and establish a PAN by go to the BlueTooth Manager screen on your PPC, select [New], select "Join a personal network", then select radio button "Host a personal network". Then you will have a screen of device(s) you want to with. You can have mutiple devices connected to your PPC. When done simple close the screen.
You can verify the setting by Checking [Active Connections] tab, and this time you will see the PC machine icon. NOTICE that the PC machine icon will be showing up on the "Outgoing Connections" side (upper of the screen).
- After the connection established:
* I can browse the web sites hosting on your PC from your Pocket PC.
* I CANNOT use my PocketPC to remote desktop to my desktop PC. Maybe the bandwidth needed for sustain a Remote Desktop connection is too much for Bluetooth to handle.

Finally proved that my USB Bluetooth dongle is not junk

Finally I got the Bluetooth dongle doing something more than just sitting in my computer sucking power: I got the wireless Pocket PC Active Sync working.

Some preparation tidbit.
- First, DEFINITELY DO NOT install the BlueSoleil software that comes with my lowend Bluetooth USB dongle. I installed it and next thing I knew it hanged up my machine because it conflicted with the Bluetooth support that comes with Windows XP Service Pack 2. I think that software should solely be used by any OS previous WinXP SP2
- For this pairing to work (and then the ActiveSync) You DO NOT NEED to turn on the Bluetooth Explorable feature on your PC. Just leave the box unchecked.
- You can save yourself some troubles by turning off "Allow USB Connections" support on ActiveSync connection by going to ActiveSync screen, select [File][Connection Setting...], and check off the "Allow USB connection". Not only that the machine does not bug me when my connect to USB cable to the PPC just for the sake of charing my PPC, it also make sure that the ActiveSync is done through means other than USB conenction.
- You need to first pair up your PC with your Pocket PC.


Here's what I did:
- In the Bluetooth device control panel of your PC, select the tab "COM Port". Find the INCOMING PORT of your machine. In my case, it was COM4.
- Go to ActiveSync screen, select [File][Connection Setting...]. Check the "Allow Connections to one of the following" check box, and select the COM port you wrote down in the previous step. In my case, it was COM4.
- Now go to your Pocket PC, turn on Bluetooth, and select Bluetooth Connection Wizard. Select [ActiveSunc via Bluetooth].
- The Wizard will guide you thru, but basically you also done step 1 and 2, so proceed by clicking [Next]. Now select the machine showing up on the screen (which should be there since you already paired up with your PC), and then the machine you want to sync with.
- The connection profile should be created, and showing up on the screen as an icon.
- Tab that icon to start ActiveSync.

That's all.

Finally it's time to play with the BlueTooth dongle.

I tried the dongle in several Windows XP machines (some laptop and some desktop top). In all case the system recognize the device and installed all the necessary drives. However, they all required me to reboot the machine.

I tried pairing with my Motorola E398 Mobile phone which placed 1.5 meters away, and it can pair with a 6 digital pair code with no problem. I even tried to put the mobile phone more further away and it still worked. Pretty cool. However, when I looked into the Service list of my phone I don't see much in it. In fact I only found one item:

- Dialup network DUN (COM4)

Honestly I was pretty disappointed :-< . I thought I can use the bluetooth to sync with my mobile phone wirelessly. So I installed the Motorola mobile PhoneTools that comes with my E398 mobile phone, and tried pairing up again. Still no go.

In fact, I also tried pairing with my DELL Axim x50v Pocket PC and all I got was that Bluetooth Serial Port (COM5) thing. Very ... disappointed :<. On the other hand, the pairing worked even with 2 meter apart, so ... that's good.

I need to figure out why there's only limit service for my Bluetooth dongle.

All the USB fun!

Yesterday I brought several gadgets that are low cost and yet pretty fun to play with. Here's my shopping list:
- A Bluetooth USB dongle. Price: HK$25
- A SD card reader. Price: HK$18
- A Toshiba 2Gb SD Card. Price: HK$190
- A Kingston 2Gb SD Card. Price: HK$180


My first test is to test the speed of the two new SD card I brought and the KingMax SD card that I have. The goal? To figure out which low end card I should buy next time :-D. I tested the file copy speed using the $18 SD Card reader that I brought:

+---- Toshiba 2Gb SD Card
Copy 1.43Gb of mix files (a huge one and a bunch of small files) from PC to SD card
10 minutes 19 seconds

Copy 1.43Gb of mix files (a huge one and a bunch of small files) from SD card to PC
5 minutes 12 seconds


+---- KIngston 2Gb SD Card
Copy 1.43Gb of mix files (a huge one and a bunch of small files) from PC to SD card
9 minutes 32 seconds

Copy 1.43Gb of mix files (a huge one and a bunch of small files) from SD card to PC
5 minutes 45 seconds

+---- KingMax 2Gb SD Card
Copy 1.43Gb of mix files (a huge one and a bunch of small files) from PC to SD card
Trial one: 7 mintes
Trial two: 6 minutes 40 seconds.

Copy 1.43Gb of mix files (a huge one and a bunch of small files) from SD card to PC
Trial one: 6 minutes 29 seconds
Trial two: 5 minutes 33 seconds

Conclusion? So it seems like there's not much differnce between the so called highspeed KingMax. That also means that my next SD card will be a Kingston card.

Reference Price (as of 2 Jan 2007):
Toshiba 2Gb SD Card (Blue color) - HK$190
KIngston 2Gb SD Card (Normal Speed) - HK$180
KingMax 2Gb SD Card (High speed) - HK$26x



Next I tried the $18 SD Card reader, and was shocked to find out that the card reader, with SD card insert, become a flash drive harddisk, and I can use it to boot up machines! This is totally awesome.

However, I found that my home machine (Asus P4 2.8GHz motherboard) behaves differnetly comparing with the DELL Optiplex GX620 in my office and HP laptop WHEN 128Mb SD card (Toshiba brand) was being used.


On Asus P4 2.8Hz Motherboard:
*When using 128Mb Toshiba SD Card
- Treat the cardreader as a removable drive.
- NO BOOTABLE

*When using 1Gb Toshiba SD Card
- Treat the cardreader as USB Media.
- Bootable

*When using 2Gb Toshiba SD Card
- Treat the cardreader as USB Media.
- Bootable


On DELL Optiplex GX620:
*When using 128Mb Toshiba SD Card
- Treat the cardreader as USB media - Bootable

*When using 1Gb Toshiba SD Card
- Treat the cardreader as USB Media.
- Bootable


On Compaq NX9010 laptop:

*When using 128Mb Toshiba SD Card
- Treat the cardreader as harddisk, put in hard in category and show [SD/MMC Card Reader-(USB)]
- Bootable

*When using 1Gb Toshiba SD Card
- Treat the cardreader as harddisk, put in hard in category and show [SD/MMC Card Reader-(USB)]
- Bootable

This is no big deal, as I will only buy cards that are 1Gb or larger in the future anyway.

The drive also has some minor problems:
- Very once in a while it performed in a flicky way. Like, it may failed copying files, but if I tried it again, the copy will work again. I sort of figured out that it's the connection problem.

It seems like that as long as I push it slight everytime before I use I should be OK. After all, I probably won't leave it in the USB enclosure all the time anyway. As HK$18. It's a great backup device anyway.

Next I tried various test of creating a bootable drive out of the SD card. I successfully use the HP tool and a Windows 98 disk to create a bootable SD card. However, I cannot use the same tool to create bootable drive using Acronis Disk Director Suite 9.0 boot up disc, nor Acronis TrueImage Server for Windows self boot disc. Sigh. Need more time too study about the self boot thing I guess.

I also cannot create a bootup disc using partition magic 8 boot floppy. That's OK, since the tool sucked anyway :-I .