Setup Daz Studio content ....

The time I previously spent on organizing my Daz Studio content directory starts to pay off after I reinstalled Windows 7. To get Daz Studio to recognize the Daz Studio content I have on my Q drive, all I need to do is go to preference and add the directory to BOTH the poser content directory and Daz Studio content directory. Once done, I can play with all the content I accumulated so far.

At least now Daz Studio 2.3 is showing up properly on my desktop

Windows 7 was showing up OK on my desktop so far .... except that Daz Studio 2.3 was not running as smooth as I want it to.

But then last night I went to ATI web site, and explictly download the Windows 7 beta friendly video driver with file name "9-4_vista32_win7_32_dd_ccc_wdm_enu.exe". The result was fantastic. Now Daz Studio shows up properly. Yeah!

Finally, a Windows 7 compatible Daemon Tools Lite

Since I used Windows 7 beta, I have to give up Daemon Tools because it was not compatible with Windows 7 when I tried it months ago. Well, today I found out that the Windows 7 friendly version has been released. It has the file name "daemon4304-lite.exe", and I can confirm that it really works. So go download it and enjoy.

Nice pen support for my Wacom Graphite 4

I continue experienced something nice about running Windows 7 on my desktop. After I installed the latest Wacom graphic driver (PenTablet_511-1.exe), I discovered several awesome stuff:

• The Tablet feature got instantly turned on after I installed the driver
• The wacom driver works great.

EeeUtil still troublesome

After adapting to use EeePC 900, I finally settle with it and make it part of my life. Just it's heat problem still troubles me once in the while (plus the totally awkward keyboard.) The EeeUtil does not help the heat problem. If I turn it too low, the system will crash. Turn it to low seems to work ... until I go to standby mode, and then the machine will never wake up.

So I pretty much give up on using that. Well, maybe I'll just get used to using the machine only 25 minutes a time.

你的存在，我的煩惱

在經濟不景氣的日子,閱讀高橋留美子的短編漫畫「你的存在，我的煩惱」（收錄在「專務之犬」短編集中），更覺應景。留美子功力深厚，對人物關係描寫，簡單幾個畫面，已盡在不言中。

Continue messing with EeePC 900

I was stuck with the audio video totally out of sync problem again. The worst part, though, is that installing other video editing program, like Ulead VideoStudio 11, does NOT solve the problem. I read some forums and was told that the problem is mostly because of some bad video codec. so right now I am trying to update the Windows Media Player from 9 to 11 and see if it helps.

Nope, does not work. You know what. I give it on this video capture thing.

After completely reinstalled the OS, I am able to runing Windows Live Messenger on my Eee PC. The crazy crashing problem caused by unplug the power cord still exist. But it seems like as long as I put the machine in standby mode before I plug/unplug the power cord, I can prevent the crashing from happening, so I guess I'll just live with it for now.

Crazy fan in Eee PC 900

Somehow I heard that the fan on my Eee PC flipped in the strange way. Oh well... keep observing....

Still being tortured by the EeePC

This round of torture is mostly related to plugging in the AC adapter.

• Plug, unplug power crashes the machine.
• Removing the eeeutil, eeetray and eee ACSI does NOT solve the power problem. Worst of all, even going to
• standby mode when I plug or unplug AC Power won't work as it will hold up the machine. So eventually I have to TURN OFF the machine.
• PLUGGING while in stand by ALWAYS cause trobule, but UNPLUGGING in AC while in standby seems OK.
• After crash, need to boot into save mode first, and then reboot so that there not left over crap at bootup.
• When in standby mode, plugging the power cable doesn't even trigger the battery indicator to turn on!! (Later on I realize that maybe it's because the battery level was perviously not low enough.)
• Maybe I found a better way to deal with the battery charger plug problem: only plug it the battery charge when the machine is in standby mode. Unplug it because using, and I GUESS it should be fine.
• EeeUtil (that util that allows you to tune screen brightness and stuff) still crash the system at the start up. So I have to deable it.
• EeeACSI also seems to crash at boot up. So I s
  
• Forget about added User level security on BIOS, even after I turned it to [ALWAYS], when waking up from StandBy, it still does not prompt me for password. I better set password on OS too. I also cleared my BIOS password cause they are useless.
  

By the way:

• Waking up from Hibernation still got the machine crashed. Use Standby instead.
• For using [ESC] during startup, don't hold it, but instead keep tapping it until the bootup screen shows.

Finally, my EeePC 900 is all good now

It was a struggling 2 days, but finally I got my EeePC 900 setup in a way that I can totally enjoy it, works predictably, and very speedy. Here's the some notes for myself:

• Go for Windows XP, and not Windows 7. Everything works on Windows XP, and video performance (when playing video files) is awesome. Can't say the same for Windows 7.
  
  
• There is a simply way to combat the seemingly hanging problem, which the machine after power up has nothing on the screen, but the power button indicates that it's on. The solution: hold ESC button when you power up the machine. It will bring the machine into bootup choosing mode: Internal harddisk or SD card. Select internal harddisk, and everything works from there. This works for reboot and wake up hibernation.
  
  
• Previously I experience problem booting up the XP because somehow during the startup sequence I have a totally messed up video screen with all the digital noise, and the machine freezed by. Turns out it's something running on startup that mess things up, and I suspected that it's the eeePC performance tuning thing, so I turned it off. So far I haven't experienced freezing again. Notice that Eee Tray Util and the EeePC ACPI are FINE. I need them to turn on/off webcam and Wifi.
  
  
• Seems like Wifi and Webcam are NOT the cause of any bootup problem. I left them on (well, at least the Wifi on) and everything seems very a-OK after bootup from standby or hibernation.
  
  
• Previously I encountered problem when using Movie Maker to capture webcam video. When I use the default setting, the video will work fine but the speed was all screwed by. I resolved the problem by capturing the video in Pocket PC format. The speed now seems OK, and the result file size seems to be very small.
  
  
• I don't know if leaving the BIOS with both fast start up option OFF has anything to do with my problem(s) fixed, but since it works now, I'll probably just it as it is as of now.

Continue dealing with Eee PC 900 under Windows 7

Seems like the system hanging problem does not happen when my machine is NOT powered by AC. That's good.

OK, after some experiments, I found the following:

• Windows 7 is still too unstable and slow for the stuff that I want to use with my NetBook, like video playing and such.
• Sometimes after waking up form Hibernation, the system will suddenly turn very very sluggish.

I finally got feed up with the Windows 7, so I go back to the Windows XP partition I created back in months ago. This time, however, I found out something interesting.

• Waking up from hibrination in Windows XP is still not bullet prove, but at least I can tap F7 or F1 or F2 to get it out of the idle mode, eventually I will be able to reboot the machine and back form resume. However, I still got a messy screen.
• Funny how, though, waking up from Stand by seems very reliable (so far). In fact I don't have to specifically turn off WiFi, and everything still work fine so far after waking up form StandBy.
• So far I haven't tried turning on the webcam yet. Seriously, as long as video playback is fine.
• Startup by pressing the ESC button seems to be able to by pass the horrible idling screen.
• Starting up with both WiFi and Camera off seems to make bootup less messy, but then I think it's more to do with some of the items loaded during startup ... need to investigate more.
  

So now at least I have a useful fast XP machine, and the most important thing I need to remember is always use StandBy.

Great and sick about my Eee PC with the new fast harddisk

With my new fast hard disk (Super Talent FPM32GRSE 32Gb Mini PCI-E MLC), my Eee PC is finally usable. The bad thing, though, is that somehow the machine goes pretty unstable now. Ever since I got the device I keep trying and trying and trying to make it work. It still doesn't and that frustrated me hugely. So frustrating that almost want to just take a day off tomorrow and continue investigate this shit. But then


It has the following symptom once in a while:

• Bootup from Hibernation , and I got the system hang up with a totally messed up screen. The situation can be so random. Sometimes I can get rid of the situation by turning off WiFi and webcam. Sometimes I can't.
• Same problem with Stand By.
  
• Basically, the environment is just unstable and unpredictable. Every time I turn off the machine I don't even know if I could turn it on again. This is ridiculous.
  
• First I turned turn off webcam, then I turned turn off WiFi. Shutdown, reboot, and once again got into the stupid freezing mode.
  

Under Windows 7, I got another set of crazy problem:

• The video driver for Eee PC 900 for Windows 7 does not work very well. I followed this page, and found that the work around (turn off all Hardware Acceleration) seems to work OK, but that kind of default my purpose of having this netbook. But heck at least it runs. Otherwise the system will freeze every time I attempt to run anything that heavily use the video.
  
• I still got the problem for having the machine "frozen" after starting from hibernation or stand up mode. Some time I can get out of it by pressing F7 (without holding Fn). But I am going to experiment hitting F2 key and see if it will get me out of the freezing situation. Basically, when "freezing" happens, I will get a black screen, but the light (power, battery, and sometimes Wifi stay on.
• I made the following setting and at least it seems like the boot up problem is kind of in control:
• Change the power configuration for performance.
• totally avoid StandBy mode. I change all the power button to use only Hibernation and Power Off.
• On Display adapter Troubleeshooter screen, set to "Disable all DirectDraw and Direct3D". This is the third item on the slide from the left. This will allow you to play back video ok smoothly without hanging the system.
• On BIOS, turn off fast boot and fast load. Don't know how much does that help, but it seems to do the magic in some cases.
• Keep the WiFi turn OFF before getting Hibernation. Somehow if WiFi (and probably also webcam) got turned off, there are so much higher possibility that the machine will wake up properly. Don't ask me why. It's just the matter of try and try and error and try again.
  

So after all these, at least I got a reasonably running system, with hibernation ability. Let's see if the laptop can hold up for my work day tomorrow.