Deecay Wonderland

Fun with XBox 360

2012-01-29T10:08:00.001+08:00

I didn't really spend much time on games. Mostly because I lack the patient on playing difficult games these days. Recently I joined Blockbuster Video rental, and because of that I got to rental some games. A few days ago I received Fable III and Alan Wake for XBox 360 and then Fallout 3 for PS3. I really didn't enjoy the dark atmosphere of Fallout 3, plus I always hate giant insects. So I stopped playing it after a while. Alan Wake was OK, but sometimes the control seemed frustrating. Fable III, on the other hand, is just about the right level for me. It's easy enjoy for me to pick up and play, and interesting enough for me to keep playing it. In fact I am seriously thinking about buying it, but then I usually play the game I brought the least, so maybe it's better for me to keep it as rental, so that there's a much bigger chance that I will finish it.

Screw you Windows 8 for now

2012-01-22T09:34:00.001+08:00

I got so feed up with Window 8 running on my Asus Slate that I finally gave up and decide to install Windows 7 on it, or AT LEAST do a dual boot in case I need to switch to the usable mode of the machine. The reason is simple: Windows 8 Developer Preview running on EeeSlate was terrible. The bluebooth keyboard that comes with the machine doesn't work anymore. The touch screen FAILED to understand the orientation when it wakes up from sleep. The Windows 8 environment is simply painful to use as they KILLED the Windows button. The Windows 8 WinRT API is full of problem, and simply DOES NOT worth my R&D time putting on it. Plus using EeeSlate as a sole development platform is just painfully slow. At the end of the day, the EeeSlate just sit at the corner of my table gaining dust. Since I need a machine to replace my Lenovo S12 as the media center machine, I may as well just use the EeeSlate to do just that.

No Save State in nullDC

2012-01-09T10:55:00.002+08:00

Sad, turns out the Dreamcast emulator nullDC does NOT support saving states. Sad.... Sad .....

More about running Dreamcast games on MacMini

2012-01-09T09:14:00.000+08:00

I found out a few more items that I need to write down before I forget:

To use your XBox360 for Windows controller with nullDC, you need to [Option][Select Plug in], and in Maple, select port A, and select "Controller [XInput](Aug 21 2011)(XMaple_Win32.dll:0). That should give you full controller support, including the analog stick.

To get full screen, go to [Options][PowerVR][Max, but up to 1280x800]. That, at least on my MacMini, gives me the best graphical result.

There's still no solution for games that require Utopia boot disc. sigh.

Running Dreamcast on MacMini

2012-01-09T04:49:00.000+08:00

Now that I have Playstation (One) running on my MacMini (in Windows 7), my next question is: how about Dreamcast, and thus started my journey of trying to find a way to run Dreamcast emulator.

First I need to find an emulator. Judge by what I read, Makaron is the first one I found, so I grabbed that. The next challenge is to find the BIOS and Flash file. Eventually I found them, and then I read this tutorial, tired and tried, and couldn't get it work.

So I moved on and try another one. DCNull seems to be the only one that's still actively updating. At first I accidentally used to nullDC_NAOMI_104_r136, which is actually for NAOMI Sega Motherboard. Once again use the right version, which is nullDC_104_r136.7z , I was able to boot up. I then follow this tutorial, and found that things are still not very clear.

And then I came cross this, and finally got the big picture and resolved the problem. Turns out the trickiest part is to make sure that you properly rip the Dreamcast disc. And the way that make it work is by using DiscJuggler. The trial version should be good enough, since you don't use it to burn disc but rather simply use it to create .cdi disk image file. MAKE SURE when you asked "do you want to fix the disc .." you say NO, otherwise the generated.cdi disk won't work.

However, I still haven't figured out how to make those disc that use "Boot Disc" to work, but then I already wasted enough time today, so ... maybe later.

Playing Playstation on MacMini

2012-01-08T05:09:00.001+08:00

I always love retro console video games. Super Nintendo, Genesis and Playstation were the time when I dedicated the most of my time playing video games. Yet, I also suck at playing video games. I constantly have hardtime getting through tough levels. So game console emulator on PCs is my saving grace. Because not only I can play retro video games, but almost all of them support State Save, so that I can keep trying and trying on the same level until I can get through it.

So this morning I spent most of my time trying to make Playstation emulator working on my MacMini (Late 2009), and the result was pretty satisfying.

I use ePSXe v.1.7.0 and it worked great. Here's the configuration I used to get the best result:
- Video: Pete's OpenGL Driver 1.77, with "Fullscreen mode" selected, "1280 x 720 resolution", Color depth:32 bit, "Keep psx aspect ratio".
- Soft Video Plugin: "Fullscreen mode, 1280 x 720, 60Hz", 32 bit color, Scale to window size keep aspect ratio"
- Game pad: use my XBox 360 for Windows controller, remember to map all the keys.

I realized that ripped Playstation disc can be tricky. In fact, not all the disc that I have can be ripped. For instance, I can't rip Tekken 3, but have no problem ripping Parappa The Rapper. So I guess I just have to each give them a try. For ripping software, I use ImgBurn, and it created .BIN and .CUE files that ePSXe can read. Worst come to worst, I can still use Nero to rip and then use Deamon Tool to map the disc. But after using ImgBurn, I see no reason doing the other way,

Dell M6600: Not Windows 8 Preview ready

2011-12-29T22:34:00.001+08:00

I got a new Dell M6600 at work, and was excited at first, but later found that the performance is not particularly faster than my older M6500. But the worst part was that I couldn't get Windows 8 Preview installed on machine. Also I had hard finding all the proper hardware driver from DELL web site, so after struggling with it for a day, I pretty much give up, and will use it solely as a work machine, instead of a good R&D machine.

Disappointment by Microsoft Store again

2011-12-05T04:30:00.000+08:00

After reading about the recycle for US$150 or more deal, I went to the Houston Galleria Microsoft Store, only to find out that they didn't recycle for netbook anymore. Seems like there are people who abused the system and now they learned not to accept cheap Netbooks. But seriously, why do they care since they probably throw those old devices away anyway.

I also found out that not all the items available in Microsoft Online store available in local store. That gave me even less incentive to go to the Microsoft Store.

Sony store was like just opposite to the Microsoft Store. They rearranged the store and made it looked like an Apple store. But then the experience is just not the same. At the end, I just don't give a damn about going to local store anymore. Shopping everything online is the way to go.

I was managed to find a parking space when I get there at 11:45 am. But by the time I leave, which was around 12:30 pm, I already found people competing for parking space. That was brutal, and something I totally don't get.

After making the mistaking of buy Nintendo 3DS too soon, I decided that I should no longer buy gaming device and games during the first year of release unless there's some super good deal. And that's why even though I would love to play Super Mario 3D on 3DS, I am not going to get it until next thanksgiving. Since popular item always available at much lower price later, I have a feeling that I can snack up that game for $25 next year, instead of $39.99 .

TV Tuner worked again, but for how long

2011-12-03T00:46:00.002+08:00

The once "broken" WinTV tuner is working on my S12 again after I messing with it last night. The question is, though, for how long. This up-and-down gizmo just drives me nuts.

Still finding the best file copying workflow for my home network

2011-10-27T22:13:00.000+08:00

File copying in a reliable fashion is such a dark art. You thought you can rely on Windows to let me know whether files are successfully copied from one drive to another drive, but when removable medias like thumb drive, USB or eSATA harddisk comes into picture, the answer becomes not as certain as you would like it to be.

So this morning I was trying to copying stuff from my laptop (DELL M6500 running Windows 7 Ultimate) to another machine on my home network (DELL Dimension 9500 running Windows 7 Ultimate). KNowing that for some odd reason that after large amount of file copying, the MacMini running OSX would stopped recognizing my home server 9500, I tried to think of a way to copy files without using network copy. So instead I first copied files to my external eSATA harddisk using the eSATA port, and then connect the harddisk to my home server 9500 with USB 2.0, and did the copying.

At least I thought everything went well. But when I tried to play the video I copied, I realized that the file wasn't played right. Specifically, the end couldn't be played. That's when I realized that the file has been corrupted.

I then have to recopy everything using the old way (network file copy), test the result, and everything seemed normal.

Once again it shows that something is odd when copying stuff to and from USB media. I probably need to spend time to figure out why later, but for now I'll try to stick with network file copy.

Ripping DVD to Harddisk

2011-08-07T14:21:00.000+08:00

Playing DVD is something that always anonys me, most probably because I am so used to having everything I need to use/watch/play on the home network. The idea of yanking out a disc from the binder in the bookshelf, put it in the DVD slot of my computer, wait for the disc to spin up, for an application to play the disc, navigate the DVD menu, and finally got to see the content .... that process was so brizzare to me since the playback experience of most of video files on my network is something like this: search the file, and the play.

So today I finally decided that it's time to rip all my DVDs and put them all on the hard disk on my network. For non-protected DVD disc, I simply use the free ISO Recorder 3.1 x64 bit edition to rip DVD disc to ISO file. For copy protected disc, I use DVDFab. For playback, I use XBMC on my Netbook or my MacMini (running Windows 7). Everything work great so far.

Notice a few things though:

You cannot use Remote Desktop Connection to conduct ripping on a remote computer. I found out that I have to explictly go to that physical machine to rip the file, or those ripping program will not recognize the physical DVD drive.
It takes about 30 to 35 minutes to rip a copy protected D9 DVD Video disc.

Now I understand why I sholuldn't have brought the miniHDMI adapter

2011-08-06T11:43:00.000+08:00

Today I experience flicky connection problem when using the mini HDMI to HDMI adapter with my EeeSlate. That's when I realized that the adapter doesn't work for one important reason: it makes the connection too heavy. It might work if I kept the connection stay plugged forever, but for my case I have to plug and unplug it all the time. And that's why I should use the super long HDMI to mini HDMI cable in the office instead. Glad that I got both so that I have this plan B wih me.

Lenovo X60T Tablet battery dead

2011-08-05T21:58:00.000+08:00

Just found out that the battery of my Lenovo X60T is dead. So now this laptop will be left in my car as "emergency computer" (allow me to have a computer to use in those just-in-case situation). First EeePC, and now this. This is why I am not too crazy about laptop. Maybe eventually I need one of those universal battery.

Problem of Office Communicator 2007 R2 integrate with Outlook 2010, and solution

2011-08-05T05:26:00.000+08:00

After I freshly installed Office 2011 Plus 64 bit on my office machine, I found that there's an exclamation mark on the Communicator icon. Turns out it was reporting that there's an integrate problem with Outlook 2010, so that the converstation history of the IM didn't save conversation to the conversation history of Outlook 2010. I found the solution here (Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2 Hotfix KB 2549042) and after I applied it, everything went normal.

Terrible gaming device

2011-08-04T10:37:00.000+08:00

So I tried to play Space Channel 5 Part 2 on the EeeSlate (Windows 7 Tablet), and the result was terrible. Music was frequently dropped, and the game is basically unplayable. Similar problem happened to the game Limbo. It was kind of playable but definitely not enjoyable. I should totally forget about using EeeSlate as a gaming device. My late 2009 MacMini, on the other hand, is pretty awesome for playing games. Loving it.

Now it's about gaming

2011-08-04T09:15:00.000+08:00

I tried out Limbo and Space Channel 5 Part 2 on various of my Windows machine, and I found that my MacMini Late 2009 edition is actually pretty capable to handle these 2 games flawlessly. I used the XBox360 wired joypad and the experience was pretty nice. On the other hand, playing these 2 games on my Netbook Lenovo S12 was pretty lame an experience. Once again, Netbook is joke.

And now I am trying to put these games on Asus Slate Windows tablet. Let's see how good the gaming experience will be.

Finally stopped fighting with Asus Slate

2011-07-17T12:49:00.000+08:00

If there's one thing that I really don't like about Asus Slate (Windows 7 based Tablet), it will be the face that the stylus tip doesn't absolutely match the sensing spot on the screen. And the worst part is that after I exchanged for another one from Microsoft Store this morning, the problem STILL exist. It seems like this is some sort of problem that is intrinsically exist to the product. I was mad, fustrated, fight it by calibrate it again and again and again and again, .....

After wasted a whole day of being angry. I kind of finally accepted the fact, and start to accept the fact that that's the case, and I just have to live with it. Once I reached that realization, I don't feel as terrible anymore . In fact, I established a few ways to make my Asus Slate usage life more enjoyable.

Create a second profile for software development: the default screen font size is bigger than usual, which is essential when I use it as a tablet with my fat finger. However, it sucks when I use Slate to do coding. Everything is so tiny. So eventually I created another user profile, and on that one I use regular smaller fonts. The result seemed pretty good.
Use second monitor: even with the regular size font, the 12 inch screen is still to tiny for software development. Fortunately, the miniHDMI port works very well, and with the mono pricecable, I can really take advantage of the dual screen, and able to be productive just like this device when doing software development.
Use 32Gb SDHC card to gain more disk space: I was very disappointed when I found out that after everything essential installed, I only have 15Gb of space left for my own space, and for that I have to give up on putting Portal 2 on the tablet. That was until I realized that I have a spare 32Gb SDHC Card. Now I simply use it to store all the portable apps, including some game. That gives me a lot of space back on my device.
Take advantage of the screen detached from the keyboard: unlike regular laptop, the screen of Slate is separate from the keyboard (DUH!). So that means I can move the screen up to the eye level, while leaving the keyboard comfortably on the regular up right position, I also find that putting the wireless keyboard at the side controlled by my left hand while my right hand sketching on Slate using Sketchbook Pro really makes my drawing experience more effective.
The machine can be hot while charging, but not as much that I can't use it anymore.
I need to explicitly disable audio when connected with HDMI as my DELL monitor with HDMI plug doesn't really have a speaker.
XBMC is more tablet friendly than Boxee. So I will use XBMC as my main media playback software when I am at home.
Faststone Image Viewer is my favorite photo viewer, but it's really not that tablet friendly. Maybe I should start using XBMC to view photo instead.

The Asus Slate just knows how to drive me nuts

2011-07-16T02:00:00.000+08:00

I still experience the stupid problem when the Asus Slate recognize my DELL bluetooth mouse without problem, yet having serious hard time recognizing the Microsoft Bluetooth Mobile Keyboard 6000. I have to remove the keyboard from the bluetooth device list, and then add it again in order to make it work. That is stupid.

Also I experienced a horrible problem: the space bar key stroke was NOT being recognized after the bluetooth keyboard finally paired with the Asus Slate. I have to reboot the machine in order to get it working again.

On the other hand, the miniHDMI port worked pretty well. I tried a 15 feet long cable, a 10 feet long cable with adapter and a 6 feet cable with HDMI mini adapter, adll they all have no problem. I got those cables from Monoprice, and I have to say their cables are amazingly priced and awesome in quality. Monoprice forever!

Block block block

2011-07-15T04:09:00.000+08:00

The company I work with started blocking Dropbox a while ago, so I was like, maybe I can use Microsoft Live Mesh. Well turns out they seemed to block that one too. The problem was that I checked the check box for saving my credential and also checked auto-login option. Because of that everytime I start Live Mesh, I got the message saying there's something wrong with Internet connection, and then quit. I cannot access the configuration to change that too, which was lame.

Luckily, I figure out how to get rid of the credential. All I need is go to "Control Panel -> User Accounts -> Credential Manager" and then under Generic Credentials, delete all the related hotmail account. After then, at least I got the empty Live Mesh login screen back.

5.50 Prometheus, nice

2011-07-11T11:59:00.000+08:00

I was trying to run "Shin Megami Tensei Persona 3 Portable (USA)" on my PSP with Custom PSP Firmware 5.50 GEN-D3, and I got this error: "This game could not be started (80020148)". Eventually I installed "5.50_Prometheus", and now it's working OK.

On a completely related note, I found that my PSP CANNOT work with my 802.11N Asus router, and cannot work with my roommates router. Lame. Oh screw network then.

On Android: Goodbye Google Music, hello Google Plus

2011-07-10T09:21:00.000+08:00

I was running out of memory on my Android phone, and I need to give Google+ Android app a try, so I uninstalled Google Music on Android. I don't like Google Music app on my Android because it failed to retrieve the songs from my Google music account. Plus I found out that in most case, I DO NOT listen to cloud music on my Android, so it does not make sense to waste space on this app.

On the other hand, the Google+ Android app seemed pretty darn cool. I will spend more time on it and see if I should use it more.

Y Drive really is dying

2011-06-27T12:14:00.000+08:00

After the major crash of the Y drive, which used to host tons of my download, I moved everything important out of it, and only keep the podcast on it.

Today I started to realize that the podcast playback through network was pretty damn shitty. Buffering kept happening. At first I thought it was the network, but ultimately, I found out that it is the Y Drive itself. It is indeed dying. I should expect that all the podcast in that drive will be gone soon, which honestly, I don't care much.

Clumsy way of "syncing" Portal 2

2011-06-25T12:33:00.000+08:00

So I have Portal 2 installed on my DELL M6500 laptop and the Windows 7 of my MacMini since I sometime use my laptop to play the game while other times I want to play it on my MacMini. The problem comes when I need to continue the level I was playing instead of replaying all the "delta" level between my save game on MacMini and save game on DELL.

I figured out, strangely enough, that on my DELL, the save folder is in "F:\Portal 2\portal2\SAVE\76561201495296321", while on my MacMini it's in "H:\Apps\GamesForWindows\_ Feature\Portal 2\portal2\SAVE\76561198709852266". Fortunately, the content inside these 2 folder are interchange able. so all I need is copy the content from one folder to another folder, and I can then continue my game. I also use Mozy to automatically back up the save game on my DELL in case I need it.

So as of this moment, I am the same set of save game at these 2 places. Wonder where I will proceed to the next level first.

Wasted 4 hours on a stupid idea

2011-04-17T13:29:00.000+08:00

So after seeing how much time it takes to render a scene in Daz Studio 3 64bit on my office machine DELL M6500, I started to wonder: would it be nice if I can do the rendering job on my closet server machine, while I continue doing the scene on the M6500. So I decided to install Daz Studio 3 on the closet server.

Everything went well until it started complaining that the "OpenGL version is in 1.1 which is not sufficent for Daz Studio. Please upate to OpenGL 1.3" (or something like that). So I spent time to install the latest driver first from Asus, then from ATI.

At the end, I found out that on the screen directly connected the server machine, Daz Studio finally started up and running, but through the remote desktop, it still didn't work. It seems like when I use remote desktop, the graphic driver is the remote desktop client app, so that means my original idea was actually not feasible.

So, great, wasted a whole night on something that wasn't working in the first place.

Setting up my Android phone

2011-04-09T02:33:00.007+08:00

Software to reinstall on my HTC Desire phone:

on SD Card:

Evernote
Angry Birds Rio
Pulse
MediaFly
App 2 SD Free
AudioGalaxy
Dropbox
SNES Emulator
GBA emulator
Androzip File manager
MyRadio
Hong Kong Newspaper (serach "Hong Kong" in Chinese)
Google Goggle
eBuddy
Glympse
Pandora
Kindle
SketchBook Express

In the phone:

Google Voice
Amazon MP3
Google Marketplace
Winamp
Amazon AppStore
SugarSync
YouTube
Due Today Lite
ColorNote
Terminal Emulator
MoreLocale 2
Twitter
iHeartRadio
Vevo

Dell Precision M6500 and Disk Director / TrueImage

2011-04-08T11:49:00.000+08:00

I have a habit of keeping a disk image of the system I have so that if something really go south, instead of relying on the IT people which may take several days before I can get my machine back, I can restore the partition by myself. Since I am getting a new Dell Precision M6500 machine so once again I am doing partition back up. I realized that M6500 has problem running the Full version of Disk Director and TrueImage (both version 11 and version 10), so I have to stick with Safe mode.

The process is actually pretty simple. First I booted up the selfboot Acronis CD, select Disk Director 10 Safe Mode, shrink the drive D until I get 200Gb of space, then I create a new E drive partition with 200Gb of space. Then booted to True Image 10 and back up both the C and D drive to an image on the E drive. That's about it.

Now I even have freedom to create another boot partition with whatever crazy OS I like.

Playing music from the cloud: nice in theory, crappy in reality

2011-04-08T02:03:00.000+08:00

I was hyped up by all the talks about playing music from the cloud. So I tried 2 different cloud music solution: Amazon Cloud Player and AudioGalaxy.

Amazon Cloud Player doesn't work for iOS devices yet, so I only tried it out on my Android phone (HTC Desire). I got some music from Amazon, plus uploading some of my own music. The result of playing it using our company network was pretty terrible. So was lagging here and there. So basically, not practical for my use.

AudioGalaxy stream data from my home machine instead of from some cloud storage. It has both iOS client and the Andriod one. Using both of them at home, which I assume that it streams music in my LAN instead of using the Internet, is an awesome experience. I enjoy it so much, and both my Android phone and my iPad was able to handle them smoothly.

Using AudioGalaxy on the road, on the other hand, is a completely different story. I tried using the 3G connection to play music, and I found that the iOS app was stuck and not able to get to the player. Restarting the app, though, seem to solve the problem.

Using the office network, both the iOS version and the Android version were terrible.

So I guess as for now, using the iPad with 3G connection with AudioGalaxy is my best mobile streaming option so far.

Stupid me stupid keyboard

2011-04-06T23:30:00.001+08:00

I was being frustrated by the apple bluetooth keyboard because my Macmini kept saying that it cannot be recognized. It turns out that the keyboard was being taken over by my iPad. The sad part is that 20 minutes of my time was wasted before I realized that.

Remote control my home machine isn't as practical as I thought

2011-04-03T22:50:00.001+08:00

I was always wonder how amazing it would be if i could access my home machine remotely anytime I want, anywhere I want. In fact I was even thinking about paying for gotomypc so that I have that feature available to me anytime I want.

With the iPhone app LogMeIn, I can do exactly that without paying any subscription fee. So I got the app, tried it out, and found that it worked fairly ok. Still, I did not find the need to use the feature. That is, until this morning.

I was trying to start some long batch process this morning, but did not have time to do it before I left room. So I was miles away from home, wondering if I had to wait until I got home and got this long process started.

Suddenly I remembered that I had this logmein application. Perfect moment to try it, I thought.

So I tried. It worked, but the experience was not that pleasing. It was slow and sluggish. Well, still, I guess I should be thankful it at least work, and give me this option to do so something that was not even possible before.

Finally able to run Amazon Cloud Player on my Hong Kong HTC Desire Andriod phone

2011-04-01T02:10:00.000+08:00

I was frustrated for a few days because I couldn't run Amazon Cloud Player on my HTC Desire Android phone which was brought and I was in Hong Kong last year. When I tried to open the application, I will get the message saying:

"To purchase MP3s from Amazon, please change the language in your 'lanaguage & keyboard' setting ..."

And then refuse to even load up EVEN when I only want to play music on the device. I tried to follow the Amazon instruction. But then when I went to the "Lanaguage and Keyboard" page, I found that I only have one English locale option: English (Hong Kong), and then 2 more Chinese options. Really not good.

Fortunately, I read messages on forums and found that there is a free app called MoreLocale and it does exact what I need: add another locale in the list. So I installed it and used it. Sure enough Amazon player shows up afterward. This is the moment when I found Andriod better than iOS.

Best way to move files to PSP ...

2011-03-31T10:20:00.002+08:00

... is to use cable. Don't yank the MSPRo card in and out a lot since it may ruin it, like how I ruin the damn microSD to MSPro adapter.

POS Card reader ruin my microSD to MemoryStick PRo adapter

2011-03-31T10:15:00.000+08:00

Somehow one of my shitty SD card reader managed to run my microSD to MemoryStick Pro adapter. Now I have to fall back to using my 4Gb MemoryStick Pro for PSP gaming. Thanks the fking a lot!

Amazon Cloud Player does NOT working on Andriod

2011-03-31T10:14:00.000+08:00

Thanks to some stupid checking on the Locale simply based on input (my input does NOT have US english since I brought the HTC phone at Hong Kong), I cannot use the Amazon Cloud Player. POS.

Damn Router

2011-03-14T14:00:00.000+08:00

The darn router downstair keeps dying. Really don't know why. But one thing for sure: it really piss me off. I have to go downstair and reboot the router several time in the last one hour. I think it's time for me to consider buying yet another router.

Still think of getting Nintendo DSi XL, and still haven't yet

2011-03-14T01:49:00.001+08:00

I was playing a Mario puzzle game on Nintendo DSi XL at Best Buy earlier today. And the fact that I still care about this device after so many months of on and off trying to buy it but reluctant to proves that this device still has certain appeal to me.

The problem of getting it now is that:
- 3DS is coming, and I expect a price drop on older devices.
- in the era of touch screen, a lot games still require using stylus in order to work effectively.
- the screen technology seem so dated compare with other devices like PSP, iPod Touch and so on
- I already have a classic NDS at home, and it is still not dead yet.
- Don't want to pay a lot of money to buy yet another gaming device. I already have hard time finding time tom play even the demo games on PS3.

So, there.

Another suck thing about HTC Desire Andriod

2011-03-13T04:43:00.000+08:00

Found another thing that I did not like about my HTC Desire Andriod phone: It only sees my Asus RT-16 802.11N router if the SSID is broadcast. If I hide the SSID, Desire won't see it. Stupid.

The power of Class 10

2011-03-12T15:18:00.000+08:00

I tested the Patriot 8Gb Class 10 SD card. Copying totally 6.36Gb worth of various data takes 12 minutes. I deleted the files, and do copy again, and this time, it takes 13 minutes. My conclusion: Class 10 is not really that magical.

Use home machine as remote file sever? Not ready yet

2011-03-11T06:01:00.000+08:00

The moment I realized that I could use ZumoCast to serve manga file to my iPad and then open that manga in ComicsZeal, I immediate dreamed of a scenario in which I left most of my manga files at home on the server, and when I need to read something, I just downloaded them on demand to my iPad.

After some test today, that dream was shattered because of one critical reason: the current downstream of my home broadband connection is terrible. Based on my test, I can only get at most 40K/s when streaming something from home.

So using Zumcost to transfer video is pretty much not possible. For small amount of file transfer, like a 11Mb manga will take like 20 minutes. But at least not impossible.

On the other hand, if I am willing to lower the quality to 3G, like 112kbit/s, then using Orb to watch my video stuff storing at home still seem feasible. In fact I pushed to 168Kbit/s (the upper max for the "3G" setting in Orb iPad Client) and the result seems ok. Anything higher, though, seems like a disaster.

Figure out how to connect a router at the back of another router, but ...

2011-03-08T00:57:00.000+08:00

I was very excited on Sunday that I figured out how to connect my 802.11n router at the back of the existing router (which belongs to my roommate). So I went ahead spend the whole day restructure the server and the network, including reinstall the OS on the server machine (but still using the same name).

Everything went pretty well EXCEPT that the MacOSX has problem acccessing the shared files in the file server, yet have NO PROBLEM remote desktop to that machine. That will really push me towards using the Windows 7 side as the main day to day environment.

Another option is moving the Z file server to the router based file server. That will require a few days of observation and make sure everything work as expected, so ... we'll see.

Yep, HD Dock station failing

2011-03-08T00:53:00.000+08:00

So after observed few 2 more days sure enough that harddisk dock station has USB disconnection problem. My 2 problems are :

whether that dock has problem on the eSATA side
whether the ANOTHER dock has the same problem

So again need to observe a few more days.

No 2 USB HDTV Tuner on one machine

2011-03-07T00:07:00.000+08:00

I was pretty disappointed to found out that connecting 2 WinTV USB based TV Tuner to a computer does enable Window Media Center to record video using those 2 tuners. Instead, the old one got ignored and the new one took over when I plugged in an identical second tuner to my closet server. Interestingly, after reboot, but tuner showed up on the device manager fine. It's just that Windows Media Center did not use both of them, which is pretty lame. Guess I will have to use the second one on another machine then.

Odd USB problem

2011-03-06T02:01:00.000+08:00

I brought 2 identical eSATA harddisk dock station. One of them were connected to my Lenovo S12 Netbook. Since 3 days ago, I kept experiencing this USB dock kept disconnect and connect again, causing the Recorded TV video I paused (played from a harddisk on that dock) failed to continue. That was extremely annoying. So last night I finally had enough, and swapped this one with the one using in my closet server computer.

The problem was NOT happening on this another one. So I though, hack, see, so the previous one has problem, and must return it as soon as possible.

The odd thing, though, was that after I swapped back, I still DID NOT experience the constant disconnect and reconnect problem.

So now I really don't know whether the dock has problem, or the simple reconnection solved the problem. will see.

Connecting router to router ... failed at least for the first round

2011-03-04T00:42:00.000+08:00

Sigh, I brought a new Asus router and trying to add it to my home network. It didn't work well. Problem popped up so frequent that I have to roll back to the original setting. Maybe if I hve more time later I will investigate the issue in deeper.

Class 4 SD card experiement failed ... but how about Class 10 ...

2011-03-04T00:40:00.000+08:00

My experiment with bringing just the Class 4 SD card home instead of bring the whole M6400 work machine home was failed completely. The performance was slow and sluggish. The SD card will disappear once in a while, and copying files from the card back to the machine is terribly slow. And then there's a lot of file corrupting and I got prompted to "fix disc" a lot of times. I have roll back to using the machine itself.

At first I thought maybe using a Class 10 SD card will ease the problem, but on the second thought, I think the whole SD card thing to replace HD just doesn't work at all, just forget about it.

Shuting down VMWare caused temporary SDCard access problem?

2011-03-01T09:00:00.000+08:00

Just experienced something odd here: after I shutdown the VMWare VM, I suddenly found my SDCard access of my Dell Precision M6400 halted. I knew it because I was listening to a podcast directly from the SDCard. It didn't seem to create any permanent damage, but it does make me aware that I can't use the SDCard as a cheap version SSD.

Streaming Recorded TV from my closet computer: it actually work

2011-02-27T08:38:00.000+08:00

I remember I tried streaming Recorded TV from the server computer in my closet to my media center (Lenovo S12), and it was not working. The performance was super sluggish and I had to give up. But today I tried it again and it was working great. That really makes me wonder why if worked this time while not the other. Just me write down the setting I have now, so that letter if it failed again, at least I know what setting I should twist:

Server:

Recorded TV hosted in an external SATA harddisk through eSATA interface

Client

Resolution: 1280 x 720

One thing that slightly bugged me for a while was that the media center prevents me from deleting a file that I just finished watching. Irritating, right? No problem. Here's what I did:

Go to the machine where the Recorded TV files were being hosted.
Go to property page of that folder.
select [Security] tab
In "Group or user names", choose [Edit...]
Add the user "Everyone"
give "Everyone" Full control

That's all. Now I can delete watched shows at will.

Swapping harddisk full of Windows Media Center RecordedTV shows doesn't work as I planned

2011-02-27T04:58:00.000+08:00

Here's what I did: I got 2 USB/eSATA based harddisk craddle, one connected to the living room computer while the other one connected to my closure server computer. I used my closure server computer to record TV shows, and use the living room computer to watch those recorded TV show. I thought I could easily swap these 2 harddisk and preserve the drive letter (so that the Recording process in the closet computer won't be interrupted. Well that didn't work as planned. The letter got reset everytime I plug in the drive, so I was like, whatever.

Copy 28G of data from PC to 32Gb SD card : takes an hour

2011-02-24T07:49:00.002+08:00

I know it's just a Class 4 card, and 32Gb of data is a lot. Still, it takes an hour to copy all the files, and I was ... well, guess I have to accept the fact.

Make XBMC to display Chinese: way easier than I expected

2011-02-22T13:07:00.000+08:00

Turns out all I need to do to make XBMC showing Traditional Chines is by doing these:

Go to Appearance Setting, select Skin, and then at "Fonts" select "Arial Based"
In Character set, select "Hong Kong (Big5-HKSCS)

That's all. Not need to install font or whatever.

Correction ... all I need is directx_Jun2010_redist.exe

2011-02-22T12:54:00.000+08:00

Turns out all I need to install in directx_Jun2010_redist.exe, and then Boxee and XBMC will work properly. Now I need to work on finding how to display Chinese properly on XBMC.

Trying to make Boxee and XBMC run as portable

2011-02-22T11:56:00.000+08:00

I spent some time making both Boxee and XBMC support proper Unicode file name and such on the Lenovo S12, and now that tried to run these 2 items on the MacMini running Windows 7, I don't want to reinstall and then configure all over again. So I simply move over the Boxee and XBMC directory, and attempt to run the exe directly. Both failed as they complain about missing some d3dx9 files.

So I downloaded directx_aug2009_redist.exe , and that got Boxee running. But XBMC still complained about the missing of d3dx9_43.dll . So I downloaded "directx_Jun2010_redist.exe" and that solved the problem.

By the way, I got Samba connection error, but PS3 Media Server connection worked ONCE I set up the default SMB user name and password. Since I am lazy, I am not going to waste time to figure out the detail, and just let it be.

Reemember to sync your clock when using Windows Media Center

2011-02-21T13:33:00.000+08:00

I started using my machine in the closet as the Windows media server. Things seemed to work out except that a few minutes of the video got cut off in the beginning. Later I realized that the clock on my server machine was not set up properly, thus the problem. So yeah, need to make sure the clock on your Windows Media Center machine is properly set, or else you you miss part from your favorite show.

new ION driver ... will see ...

2011-02-21T12:58:00.000+08:00

Also installed the newer ION driver through Windows Update ... see if it helps on the Lenovo S12 problem.

Continue disappointed by the Lenovo S12

2011-02-21T12:46:00.000+08:00

Very not happy finding out that the Lenovo S12 SHUTTED ITSELF down while I was in the middle of watching a Recorded video. What the hell.

And the worst part is that the laptop was 2 months pass the warranty. Again, son of the bitch. So with both the Overheat ThinkPad and autoshut down Lenovo, looks like I will never buy a Lenovo laptop again in my life.

In the meantime I need to find a way to keep the shutdown from happening again. So now I turned on the power saving so that once in a while it will go to sleep mode when "necessary". Also I lower the resolution from the highest to the lower one. Hopefully this will help resolving the heat problem.

We'll see ... will continue document the progress.

Windows 7 Ultimate edition with Service Pack 1 32 bit edition, installed on Lenovo S12

2011-02-21T04:34:00.000+08:00

It's time to wipe that damn Lenovo S12. I kept being fustrated by the Lenovo S12 being sluggishly slow. And in the last one week, things went from bad to worst. The machine simply SHUTDOWN itself frequently when I was pausing on either Windows Media Center or XBMC or Boxee. Something was seriously screwed up on the machine and it's time to get them all fixed.

So I went for what usually ultimately solved system problem: reinstall the OS. In fact, I had to since I couldn't even play Windows Media Center recorded files anymore. No matter what files I play, I got video error.

So I reinstalled the OS from a clean partition (by wiping the old OS partition clean first), did the Windows 7 Ultimate edition with Service Pack 1 32 bit edition installation, and then did all the latest Windows update. And finally map the Recorded TV harddisk.

Result, the Windows Media Center Recorded TV files are played properly now. I am not saying that the system is snappy now (because I still sense some lag here and there) but at least this is the best I can get, and I am pretty OK with.

Ah, so it works on the original copy

2011-02-21T01:23:00.000+08:00

This is surely odd. I just found out that all the recorded video problem I had before was caused by COPY Windows Media Recorded TV files. In fact, the problem ("Video Problem") that I encountered on the copy of the Recorded TV files does NOT occur in the original file. So maybe I am able to make all my TV recording happen in my closet, and so that I can have more flexibility on swappy in and out that damn Lenovo S12.

Experiment will start tonight.

Lenovo saga, and glad that I have Playstation 3

2011-02-20T14:24:00.000+08:00

I started to wonder that it was the XBMC that drove the Lenovo S12 to the edge. Come to think about it, it always shutdown while I was pausing some video file playing on XBMC. So now I am having the S12 pausing on Windows Media Center TV playback, and see if it yields any difference.

For the worst cast, I might need to start using the MacMini as the windows media center machine, and start satying in the Windows side all day long, which may not be a problem come to think of it.

On the other hand, I found that use O!Play and PS3 to watch video and photo a pretty good alternative. In fact, I would argue that if the format is correct, using PS3 to play video and browse photo may actually be a better experience than using Lenovo S12.

Lenovo S12 keeps shutting down

2011-02-20T12:18:00.000+08:00

Starting to worry about the Lenovo S12 I have. I use it as a Windows Media Center DVR. Recently it kept shutting down itself when I am not using it. Maybe some stupid Windows update fk it up.

Giving up on replacing Dreamcast battery

2011-02-20T07:29:00.000+08:00

After opened up my Dreamcast and examined around the battery area, I decided that it didn't worth the risk ane effort to replace the battery. That is because in order to yank the battery out, I have to apply heat to melt the connect point, plus the replacement battery is extremely hard to fine. Guess I have to live with setting the clock everytime I start up the machine,

Lame problem Windows Media Center TV recording: problem when pay back on another machine

2011-02-14T05:02:00.000+08:00

This seems to be consistant with my experience with Windows 7 Media Center TV Recording before, that TV shows records on one machine (in my case, the Lenovo S12) has problem playing back on my MacMini Windows 7 side, Very once in a while I will get Video Error, and can't proceed unless I exit the video, play it again from the beginning, and force to skip that "problem section". Very annoying. There goes my dream of recording video on my S12 and then play back from my MacMini. Sigh. So the S12 will continue to be the dedicated DVR machine.

XBMC 10 on Lenovo S12 gave me joy and pain

2011-01-25T01:00:00.000+08:00

I was very impressed by how good the XMBC 10 running on Lenovo S12 allows me navigate my media center at ease. There's one thing that have serious problem with, though, and that is the TV Library scanning and maintainable feature. For some reason a lot of the video that is supposed to be in my server was reported as missing. I tried several hours trying to fix the problem, until I realized that it's just wasted on time.

The lyrics display feature is also hit-or-miss. But it's cute that at least the feature is there.

Maybe I'll try some later version or even earlier version later.

KM Player cannot rotate my video ... until I mess with the advance setting

2011-01-25T00:53:00.000+08:00

KMPlayer is a very interesting beast. It allows you to amazing stuff that you cannot do in other players. One of those thing is rotating playback. This is extremely useful when you have video taken in portrait mode (thanks to all those video phone and digital camera with video recording feature). However, you may need to spent some time to twist and try out all the setting before you can get it work.

Here's some tidbit on how I made it working on my Lenovo S12:

Make sure you select menu [Options][Advanced Menu], otherwise the rotate menu won't show up.
Go to [Video(Basic)][Screen Rotation (CCW)] to set rotation setting.
If the rotation didn't happen, it's possible that your machine is not fast enough to process the rotation in current setting. One way the fix the situation is by selecting [Video (Advanced)][Preset: speed (1GHz)] That can improve the performance up to a point that you can play the rotate video.

30 minutes of copying

2011-01-12T03:20:00.000+08:00

I wonder if it's the external USB harddisk that makes the file copy slower than expected between my M6400 and my Mac Mini. I was expect that the file copy speed between the 2 machines through gigabit network to be much faster, but copying 40Gb VM from M6400 to macMini still takes 30 minutes.

VMWare Server and VMWare Workstation ... not together?

2011-01-06T03:48:00.002+08:00

Found out tha I can't install VMWare Server since I already have VMWare Workstation running. Really? That's so lame ....

Cavalry Dual-Bay Hard Disk Dock - great power comes with great responsbility

2011-01-05T12:34:00.000+08:00

I enjoyed the RAID 1 provided by Cavalry Dual-Bay Hard Disk Dock, but I also got burned by that feature today by losing a whole harddisk of content. So the whole idea is this: be careful by DOUBLE checking the switch before plugging in your harddisk. Otherwise your secondly inserted harddisk will got wipped and treat as a RAID 1 disk. You don't want that happen if you have precious content in your second disk.

How to get rid of that damn Exchange setting in Outlook 2010

2011-01-05T03:45:00.000+08:00

After setting my new Office 2010 Plus, I tried to setup the office email account on Outlook 2010. Seemed like the server couldn't be connected, so I was like, what the heck, and planned to get rid of the setting. That's when my hell started. I tried to remove the account, but the Outlook wouldn't let me, and didn't even give me a UI to move on. Instead it just exited. Goggled a bit and found that I can run "Mail" to change the setting. But trying to trying to delete the setting and I kept getting error message saying I should do this and that.

Finally I found the ultimate way to delete all the mess: delete the "profile" in "Mail". Problem solved.

So that was why the Innoavtive 3.5" HD Enclosure so magical

2010-12-24T13:04:00.000+08:00

I kept forgetting how unique the Innovative 3.5" HD Enclosure is. This is the harddisk enclosure that I used to connect to Wii. I sometime complain about how this enclosure have problem ripping Wii ISO, like pause in the middle of a long ripping. But today after tired out other enclosure, like the MASSCOOL enclosure, I started to realize that Innovative enclosure does NOT generate video noise when connected to the Wii. On the other hand, MASSCOOL enclosure gave out some wavy noise that make it so irritating to look at.

The dual slot Cavalry also generate no noise when connected to Wii, and rip Wii ISO with no problem, but I just found it kind of a waste to connect that to a Wii.

Such stupid memory restriction ...

2010-12-21T09:04:00.002+08:00

37.29Mb left on my Andriod. Damn it. I hate my HTC Desire.

Quick disk cloning

2010-12-18T03:48:00.000+08:00

I was surprised that the Cacalry Dual-Bay Dock I brought was able to clone a full 1Tb harddisk within 5 hours. So no doubt I am getting another set now.

I think I get the RAID 1 thing working even on different brand of harddisk

2010-12-18T01:45:00.000+08:00

One thing I like about my new Cacalry Dual-Bay Dock is the ability of doing RAID 1. That way, I will always have 2 copies of the same file, and whenever there's anything wrong with one drive, I will always have the second drive working. And to resume to RAID, all I need to do it put a new same size drive in, and everything will work OK afterward.

However, I was puzzled by how I can prepare a drive to be used as the backup drive on RAID 1. In fact, I tried that 2 days ago and it failed. Turns out I was just not doing the right thing.

So here's the set up: I already have a 1Tb harddisk running properly. It's the Z drive on my networked machine. So I yanked that 1Tb drive from the hard disk enclosure and put it in the Cacalry Dual-Bay. The system instantly recognize it as the Z drive. So actually, all is well.

But when I put in a second drive (not freshly clean, but I wipe out the partition), I DID NOT see the RAID 1 copying kicking in. I was puzzled.

Turns out I have to create the same partition BUT NOT initialized on the backup drive. Once I did that, the Cacarly recognize it, and as far as I know, it is doing RAID 1 copying now. Notice that both disks are 1Tb, but in different brand name.

If the copying goes well, then I will buy another Cacalry Dual-Bay Dock and with 2 2Tb disk. I can always find ways to use up all the spaces.

Using Windows 7 Ultimate N Edition

2010-12-10T23:20:00.000+08:00

My friend had a tablet PC with Windows 7 Home Premiere edition installed, and found out that he couldn't use Traditional Chinese hand recognition as it required Ultimate edition. Since I had an MSDN accout and there were a few Windows 7 Ultimate N edition (create to fulfill a EU lawsuit vertdict, which requires taking out all the Windows Media Player feature from the OS) left, I planned on installing it on my friend's machine.

We found out that we could not use Anytime update to update the current Home Premiere edition, and we also couldn't upgrade it using the MSDN installation disc. So I had no choice but to install the OS from scratch. We also found that the installation did not provide the option wipe the C drive (the only drive on the machine) clean before installation, but that's properly because we loaded the installation disc WITHIN the Windows 7 Home Premiere OS. Should we boot the system directly from the disc, I am pretty sure that we can have the disc tool editions. It's not a huge problem since Windows installation will put all the old stuff in Windows.old folder, and all I need to do it delete that folder.

Installation went flawlessly, in fact all the necessary hardware buttons were properly setup, like mute and volume buttons. The installation does a great job to set up all the hardware specific drivers,

I then use Windows Update to install all the necessary language options, and after then and installing Traditional Chinese language in language option, I was able to use Chinese handwriting recognition.

The final thing that we didn't finished was the Microsoft Windows 7 N Media setup package intended to "patch up" the system so that all the missing media player feature would be put back. My friend said he used his own player package (CCCP) instead of the Windows media player, so we didn't complete that. Other than that, my friendly is now fully equipped with Windows 7 ultimate edition.

Pidgin failed to load MSN accounts, and then fixed by using the latest version of Pidgin portable

2010-11-19T11:02:00.000+08:00

I had problem getting MSN account loaded on my Pidgin portable. After hours of frustration, I finally found the using latest version of Pidgin seemed to solve the problem for a short while. But then the disconnecting problem still happened very once in a while. Odd.

Windows Media Streaming ... not as cool as I expected

2010-10-03T03:29:00.000+08:00

I was looking forward to use the powerful workstation in my closet to stream Recorded TV to my HDTV connected machine (Lenovo S12). The idea is to offload the resources consumption on the S12 so that it can perform better. However, it wasn't behaving as I expected. The TV shows did show up on S12, but it lost all the meta data, which makes the navigation painful. So I guess I have to stick with using S12 to both record and watch HDTV. On the bright side, the steaming did run OK.

However, I had problem streaming data from the closet PC to my office laptop M6400. I keep getting "failed to connect". Since I already spent way too much time on this, I am giving up. Gotta spend my time on something useful.

How to allow my Windows Media Center 7 to delete the podcast hosting on another Windows 7 box

2010-08-29T11:33:00.000+08:00

I finally spent sometime today to reorganize my Podcast directories so that I can watch the content from multiple places, as now all files are organized properly in proper directory structure. I couldn't access the right files I want because I relied on iTune to organize them, and I hate how it constrained me to watch the podcast only on my MacMini.

But then I experienced a strange problem: I couldn't delete the file I watched. After messing around with the file system on the file hosting Windows 7 machine. I found out that I can solve the problem by:

Select the "podcast" directory. right click and select property.
Select Security tab
Add "Everyone" in "Group or user names" box.
In Permissions for "everyone", check all the check boxes.
click "Apply"

Problem solved.

Video editing on Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 for Windows

2010-08-28T11:47:00.000+08:00

Last time I used both Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 and After Effect CS5 to edit a presentation for work. The result was kind of a disaster mostly because I cannot preview audio while cutting video in After Effect CS5. So this time I used ONLY Premiere Pro CS5. The editing experience was so much better. Granted I didn't put in a lot of effects, but the result was pretty OK.

The one thing that disappointed me was the movie rendering. First I didn't realize that there's no "make movie" menu item, and instead I get the result by EXPORTING the video. Second, I found the Windows Media export gave me juggling shitting result. I finally choose H.264, change the resolution to 1000 x 7xx , and the result was pretty OK, and the size was just around 200Mb, which is accaptable.

Suprising performance boast on EeePC

2010-08-09T12:02:00.003+08:00

The shitty XP system on my Asus EeePC 900 was slow to a point that I couldn't take it anymore. So a few days ago I wipe the whole thing up and installed Windows 7 Ultimate edition. Notice that I didn't put any other software in it expect the plain jane Windows 7. The result? The machine is now totally responsive. This is pretty amazing consider that my EeePC only has 1Gb of memory in it. As a download and file server machine, I think it's enough for the EeePC to keep me happy for a while.

Sigh, feature VS privacy

2010-08-04T04:38:00.001+08:00

Because of all the privacy concern, I was trying to disable third party cookie on Firefox UNTIL I realized that Gmail Manager DOES NOT work unless I enable third party cookie. Sigh, feature vs privacy.

Can't believe that upgrade caused downgrade: Boxee upgrade experience

2010-07-27T12:56:00.002+08:00

I was running boxee-0.9.20.10711 for almost 4 months and it was a pleasant experience. Recently Boxee released boxee-0.9.21.12594 and so I thought it may be good to give it a try. Big mistake.

The new version showed everything in pixelated way. The mouse on the app didn't allow me to navigate everything on the screen. Plus the Windows start button and all bar at the bottom didn't go away.

So I tried to rollback by reinstalling the older version, but that didn't solve the problem. Eventually I uninstalled Boxee, and then reinstall the boxee-0.9.20.10711, and now everything is back to normal. I even got all the history back. Glad that I keep the older version of Boxee.

BTW, I also set the screen resolution to the highest solution native to the HDTV. Picture on the screen now looks even shaper, which is nice.

Time to remove from crap from my media center computer

2010-07-25T04:05:00.002+08:00

I was starting to find that my media center machine (Lenovo S12) is getting sluggish is performance regardless of whether I am watching media through the network or from an external USB harddisk. After looking into the issue, I found out that I have 2 machine sessions running (one from Windows remote desktop, and one by directly using the machine). But at the same time I also found that there are tons of stuff installed on that machine which I never use. So I think it's time for me to start reinstalling every single crap and only left those that are essential for media playback.

Slower with domain

2010-03-30T23:21:00.001+08:00

I just realized that ever since my office machine (DELL M6400) joined the office domain, it starts up slower than it used to be. Not that I am extremely complain, but it's just my observation.

Boxee supports ISO playback, but ....

2010-03-28T12:09:00.002+08:00

At first I was delighted that the ISO that didn't play (with proper audio) on O!Play plays properly on Boxee. However, here's the problem:

There's no keyboard access to easy navigate the DVD menu and the DVD time line.
Getting out of the ISO playback proved to be troublesome.

So eventually, I found out that the best way to watch ISO on my S12 media center PC is by use Daemon Tool, mount the ISO, and the playback using Windows Media Player. In fact, even KMPlayer doesn't do as great the job because something the playback will hang up. WMP on the other hand, allows me navigate the timeline, and also switch to another audio track.

Boxee on Windows: so much better now, but why ...

2010-03-15T10:13:00.002+08:00

It's so irritating to see a product that is so close to be awesome, and yet still have some minor problem here and there.

I am talking about Boxee, the media center appliaction. I had it running on my media center machine and tried to see if it could surpass Windows Media Center. On certain area, it does, including:

The user interface seem speedier.
History is an awesome feature. Not only it remembers where I left off on the video, but there's a whole history list that can access so that I don't have to remember what I watched yesterday.
Old school .mov files that didn't work on Windows Media Center work nice on Boxee.
Very pretty UI.

However, I encountered the following problems:

Updating video file list in TV Show area takes forever.
There's duplication in the music list after I imported all my iTune music.
There seems to be problem running .mkv file.

Still, it's awesome to have competition, and multiple media center app allows me to mix and match setting to fit my need.

Bluetooth mouse failed to work,and how to fix it

2010-03-08T10:22:00.002+08:00

Somehow the blue tooth mouse stopped working (after I unplugged all the USB cables from the Mac Mini, which is where the Windows 7) is running on. Even though the system said that the mouse is connected, it's obvious not working. So I had to delete the device form the list, and let the system recognized the device again. How it's working OK again.

Tablet button stops working, and my workaround

2010-03-02T22:13:00.002+08:00

Recently, I found out that the buttons right underneath the tablet screen stops working. I tried reinstalling the Tablet button software, but that didn't seem to solve the problem. After some experimentation, I found out that:

- If I logout or temporary lock the machine, the "Rotate screen" button will WORK. But once I logged in, these buttons will stop working again.
- Pressing the "Rotate screen" button on my stripped down giant font "TV" environment, the "Rotate screen" button was once crashed the display driver.

I start to think that maybe it was the Group Policy setting that I did a while ago for the sake of fixing the Tablet Flicking problem that kept the Tablet Button from working. Meanwhile, I guess I can work around the problem by first temporarily lock the screen, press button to rotate, and then log back in again.

By the way, after using multiple keyboard, I still found my Lenovo X60T having the best keyboard among all the keyboard I use daily. It just feel right.

Nero 9 and annoying "Could Not Get Class ID" message

2010-02-20T23:32:00.001+08:00

I got the annoying "Could Not Get Class ID" message after freshly installed Nero 9 on Windows 7. Serached the web and found that the best solution is to run the application as administrator. Well, works for me.

Running Windows Home Server on VMWare Workstation 7

2010-02-20T03:24:00.003+08:00

I am starting to get interest in using Windows Home Server at home, but instead of risking messing up my existing machines, I tried installing Windows Home Server on the VM Machine first. The trial run was paid off as I learned a few things along the process.

I tried installing Home Server with the default SCSI based virtual disk. It failed. I changed it to IDE and it proceeded properly.
The boot disk has to have at least 60Gb. This is kind of a blow to me since my plan on using my EeePC (with internal 32Gb hard disk ) will not work.
The whole process, including all the updates, all take almost 2 hours. Definitely much longer than I expected.
The magic of connecting to Windows Home Server is mostly rely on the Connector software you install on your client. But then I heard that Windows 7 has better integration with Windows Home Server. We;ll see.

Continue have blue screen of death in home desktop, and it always happen when ...

2010-02-10T22:42:00.002+08:00

Rare do I get Blue Screen of Death in such rapid frequency on home home desktop DELL PC. Luckily, the problem seems to show up in a pretty consistent way. It's either when I have Mac OSX 10.5.7 running in VMWare Workstation 6, or have Mac OSX 10.6.x running in VMWare Workstation. And at the same time I will probably be browsing file system on the hosting environment (Windows 7 32 bit), usually navigate up the hireachy, and if my fussy memory is correy, it tends to be browsing my remote machine (netbook, on T Drive).

Maybe it is a sign that I should stop using Mac OSX in VMWare , and that's OK since my MacMini is about to come this week.

Still, I am a bit worry that the same problem may occur in situation when I am NOT using VMWare with OSX. I multitask a lot, and anything that prevent me from multitasking would be bad.

Poser 8 is still too slow for my Lenovo X60T

2010-02-09T22:35:00.001+08:00

At first I thought Poser 8 will be fast enough to be usable on my Lenovo X60T Tablet PC, but today I tried putting some figure object (Miki) and instantly the system slowed to clawing. Moving scene is so slow that it's not usable.

Guess I can only use SketchUp 7 on my Tablet to manipulate 3D.

Time to roll back

2010-02-09T01:06:00.002+08:00

So yeah indeed I found the darn Wacom update that I installed a while ago mess up my machine. So now I need to rollback to the previous driver. Fortunately, the process is not that difficult:

Go to Device Manager
under "Human Interface Devices", find "Wacom Penabled Dual Touch" entry, then open the Properties.
In the [Driver] tab, click on button "Roll Back Driver".
That's it. The driver should have the following info:
Driver Provider: Wacom
Driver Date: 7/30/2007
Driver Version: 2.8.0.1

Glad to see things sort of get back to "normal". On the down side, it does roll all the way back to the original one. So that Wacom driver for overcoming the TabletPC problem (to make Photoshop pressure sensitive work on Tablet PC) is gone. No problem. I'll add that back later when I get time.

X60 Tablet Driver problem

2010-02-09T00:27:00.003+08:00

As I realized that for Lenovo X60T, the stylus was not being recognized after coming out of hybridization, I took the chance and installed, from the Windows Update, the Wacom Tablet update. I am a bit worry that there is some side effect of this action as I experience that the tap click seems to be not working for a short while until I lock (Ctrl-Alt-Delete) and then unlock again.

But then, it that's is the price to pay for getting stylus support back after hybridization, then maybe it's an OK trade off.

Editing .Wtv file, try 2

2010-02-08T09:05:00.003+08:00

So I got this PSB dance performance video recorded in my Windows Media Center DVR, and now it's time to edit it. Unfortunately, DVR Edit does not work, giving a merely 1 minute length when loading the video into the application. Then I try this DVR-w-WMV. Well the application doesn't even start in Windows 7.

So I am trying Windows Live Movie Maker. It recognized the file, and I did all the editing in it. Strange thing comes when I tries to save the result as 1080p video. It simply stay at 0% complete like forever and ever.

However, when I tried the second best quality, which is High Definition 720p, it worked, excepted that the aspect ratio was not right. So I select [View] [Aspect Ratio] and chose Wide Screen. Finally everything looked right. The 16 minutes 16 seconds video took 17 minutes to compress, and the file size is 705Mb. Not too bad.

Got 2 blue screen of death on one day on my home desktop

2010-02-05T13:23:00.001+08:00

So what was happening. I don't quit understand why I got 2 blue screen of death in one day on my home desktop. I suspect that there's something to do VMWare since in both case the VM was running.

Solution to get rid of duplicate entry in Windows Media Center on Windows 7

2010-02-01T03:04:00.002+08:00

The problem started about a month ago when all the sudden there's duplicated entry showing up for every single Recorded TV episode in my Windows Media Center under Windows 7. I wasn't paying attention to it until I finally found it annoying enjoy to force me taking action. It seems like the duplication is caused by Recorded TV folder in drive U is being shared, and thus for every recorded TV file there's one entry as the local file, and one entry is a network mapped file.

Once I get rid of the network mapping on that Recorded TV folder in the file system, the duplication goes away.

Fixing WiFi problem

2010-01-20T00:43:00.001+08:00

Sometimes, when I bring my laptop to the office, the Wifi doesn't being recognized properly. Restarting the WiFi router may not solve the problem neither. The ultimate solution is reboot my laptop.

Dell M6400 blue screen

2010-01-19T02:19:00.001+08:00

Out of the blue, the Dell Precision 6400 on my office desktop suddenly went blue screen. Great, great Monday gift.

How come the stylus is not being recognized after X60T came back from hibernation ?

2010-01-18T22:55:00.002+08:00

I found out that the stylus on my Lenovo X60T was not being recognized after X60T came back from hibernation. I have to reboot in order to get the feature back. I realized that it happened ever since I installed to Wacom driver to all stylus support on other non-WinTab friendly applications like Photoshop. Sigh. Maybe I just have to live with this limitation.

Totally give up on use eSATA on Dell M6400

2010-01-16T09:17:00.002+08:00

After trying and trying, using different cables and such, I finally gave up on using build in eSATA port on my office DELL M6400. It gave me tons of problem when using VMWare. Honestly, I still don't know if it's the problem of the port on that M6400 or not, but it shouldn't be the problem on the removable harddisk, as it works great on my home desktop and my office M90.

Shitty problem with the eSATA port?

2010-01-14T02:55:00.001+08:00

I suspect that there's some serious shitty problem with the eSATA port on my office M6400. It keeps giving me problem when using with VM. Very odd and irritating.

Stupid 64 bit Windows 7 at workplace M6400 machine

2010-01-14T01:27:00.002+08:00

I was trying to install some software on my office machine running Windows 7 64 bit. However, I got into trouble and on iTune 64 bit and VMPlayer 3 installation. So it turns out, the OS Drive, F drive, was corrupted and affected the installation. After doing scan disk, both application installed properly. Kind of strange to me, but glad to see that things work out eventually.

Finally going back to VMWare, and here's why

2010-01-08T11:24:00.002+08:00

I was using Portable Virtual Box and was pretty enjoying it's ability. But now I need to finally switch back to VMWare Workstation. Why?

Portable Virtual Box does not support networking well enough to let other machines on the network to access resource in that environment. This is super lame for my development work, because I always need to set up some virtual machines as servers like database servers or web servers. Lack of such ability totally handicap my work.
USB device support is lame. VMWare, on the other hand, can totally access USB devices on the hosting machine directly.