Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Madonna Free from Material World?
Saw this article:
About Madonna being disgusted by the material and physical worlds and thinks people should free themselves or risk going to hell.
I find that strange considering about a month from today she announced she will finally sell her music online through Apple's iTunes service. She should check herself for actually contributing to the material and physical worlds be hawking her music online, in CD's, whatever. I just find her statements conflicting because she sure isn't expressing disdain from all the money she earned selling music in the past and selling it again in online format.
Well, maybe she's enlightened but I just checked iTunes now and her music is still available for purchase.
About Madonna being disgusted by the material and physical worlds and thinks people should free themselves or risk going to hell.
I find that strange considering about a month from today she announced she will finally sell her music online through Apple's iTunes service. She should check herself for actually contributing to the material and physical worlds be hawking her music online, in CD's, whatever. I just find her statements conflicting because she sure isn't expressing disdain from all the money she earned selling music in the past and selling it again in online format.
Well, maybe she's enlightened but I just checked iTunes now and her music is still available for purchase.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Product Review: Logitech V200 Cordless Notebook Mouse
Been eyeing this mouse for a few months now. I like it because of the claim of up to 1 year battery life. I know this is a company claim and as always company claims are like up in the air kind of thing.
But I have confidence in Logitech. Having bought and received several Logitech products before, I can say they are neck and neck with Apple in terms of presentation, great out-of-the-box experience, easy quick-startup guides with big clear pictures and generally simple instructions that don't eat up multiple paragraphs. Also want to add very clear and effective software that matches up with the quick-startup guide.
Finally back to the mouse itself...
I like it! Works great! It's a buy!
I'll list out things I like:
1) Optical sensor is a new type that works even on clear surfaces.
The sensor isn't the usual bright red light thing, in fact no light even comes out, maybe there is but it's not visible. There is however this small green LED light but I don't think it turns on when the mouse is actually being used.
2) Needs 2 AA but can be operated with only 1
3) Of course haven't proved the up to 1 year battery life claim, but I believe it. However to be realistic, I think it'll last minimum 8 to 9 months and maximum 10 to 11 months.
4) Horizontal scroll is neat! Also like the universal scroll feature, neat for scrolling really big pages for scrolling up, down, left and right.
5) Like the comfortable universal design so that the mouse can be used left or right handed.
6) Small USB receiver
7) On another note, but related for me, my wife approved of purchase. hehe :D
Unfortunately there are some stuff I don't like:
1) Logitech was quite smart with their advertising on the small USB receiver connected with the mouse. I thought it can hide inside the mouse, in actuality it attaches to the back of the mouse, so it's not flush with the mouse and also there's most likely chance of it being clipped off if not handled carefully during transportation.
2) Would have been nice if the receiver had additional functionality, like flash storage.
But I have confidence in Logitech. Having bought and received several Logitech products before, I can say they are neck and neck with Apple in terms of presentation, great out-of-the-box experience, easy quick-startup guides with big clear pictures and generally simple instructions that don't eat up multiple paragraphs. Also want to add very clear and effective software that matches up with the quick-startup guide.
Finally back to the mouse itself...
I like it! Works great! It's a buy!
I'll list out things I like:
1) Optical sensor is a new type that works even on clear surfaces.
The sensor isn't the usual bright red light thing, in fact no light even comes out, maybe there is but it's not visible. There is however this small green LED light but I don't think it turns on when the mouse is actually being used.
2) Needs 2 AA but can be operated with only 1
3) Of course haven't proved the up to 1 year battery life claim, but I believe it. However to be realistic, I think it'll last minimum 8 to 9 months and maximum 10 to 11 months.
4) Horizontal scroll is neat! Also like the universal scroll feature, neat for scrolling really big pages for scrolling up, down, left and right.
5) Like the comfortable universal design so that the mouse can be used left or right handed.
6) Small USB receiver
7) On another note, but related for me, my wife approved of purchase. hehe :D
Unfortunately there are some stuff I don't like:
1) Logitech was quite smart with their advertising on the small USB receiver connected with the mouse. I thought it can hide inside the mouse, in actuality it attaches to the back of the mouse, so it's not flush with the mouse and also there's most likely chance of it being clipped off if not handled carefully during transportation.
2) Would have been nice if the receiver had additional functionality, like flash storage.
Sunday, October 09, 2005
Part II: SingNet Broadband 10 & 25Mbps and Thomson SpeedTouch 585
Yay! Short story is I finally figured out the extra steps needed to configure the ST585 into a modem-only bridge mode device.
The bridge.ini file the vendor sent me did half the story. The other half of the story involved a few items:
1) Absolutely the most important is to turn off DHCP under "Home Networking" -> "Interfaces" -> "Local Network"; and click the "Configure" link located on the top right side of the page. This DHCP left on is the reason why my download speeds were always halved. Both the ST585 and my external wireless router were doing DHCP which slowed things down.
2) Another important item is to turn off the wireless access point feature in the ST585. Following on 1), I don't want any devices to connect to the ST585 other than my external wireless router. And the rest of the devices should only communicate with the modem indirectly via the external wireless router.
3) The ST585 also has some built-in DSL/WAN inspection features which should be turned off because my external wireless router will now handle that. And plus the whole point of configuring the ST585 as a modem-only device in bridge mode is to send the DSL signal unfiltered straight to my external wireless router to handle.
These features are firewall, intrusion detector, UPnP, Address and Content filters, and Remote Assistance. Firewall and intrusion detector need to be disabled by way of CLI. Actually firewall is shown as disabled, but it's not quite there.
3.1) First my computer needs to be connected to the ST585, then I telnet in, enter the username which is Administrator(will be let in immediately), then type "firewall config state=disabled". Next you'll also want to disable intrusion detector by typing "ids config state=disabled". When you're done, type "saveall", "exit" and that's it.
Now I unplug my computer from the ST585 and plug it back to my external wireless router. I also plug my external wireless router to the ST585(in port 1) and also no other devices now connect to the ST585.
Whew!
The bridge.ini file the vendor sent me did half the story. The other half of the story involved a few items:
1) Absolutely the most important is to turn off DHCP under "Home Networking" -> "Interfaces" -> "Local Network"; and click the "Configure" link located on the top right side of the page. This DHCP left on is the reason why my download speeds were always halved. Both the ST585 and my external wireless router were doing DHCP which slowed things down.
2) Another important item is to turn off the wireless access point feature in the ST585. Following on 1), I don't want any devices to connect to the ST585 other than my external wireless router. And the rest of the devices should only communicate with the modem indirectly via the external wireless router.
3) The ST585 also has some built-in DSL/WAN inspection features which should be turned off because my external wireless router will now handle that. And plus the whole point of configuring the ST585 as a modem-only device in bridge mode is to send the DSL signal unfiltered straight to my external wireless router to handle.
These features are firewall, intrusion detector, UPnP, Address and Content filters, and Remote Assistance. Firewall and intrusion detector need to be disabled by way of CLI. Actually firewall is shown as disabled, but it's not quite there.
3.1) First my computer needs to be connected to the ST585, then I telnet in, enter the username which is Administrator(will be let in immediately), then type "firewall config state=disabled". Next you'll also want to disable intrusion detector by typing "ids config state=disabled". When you're done, type "saveall", "exit" and that's it.
Now I unplug my computer from the ST585 and plug it back to my external wireless router. I also plug my external wireless router to the ST585(in port 1) and also no other devices now connect to the ST585.
Whew!
Saturday, October 08, 2005
Apple iPod Nano is AWESOME!
Ok, I admit that ever since the iPod first came out, I was never a big believer of the the entire product line. My biggest peeve: hard drive based! With all the movement the player gets, even in Apple's own TV commercial of the user holding the iPod shaking it while listening to music, is just prime for hard drive failures.
I want to relay a related story on hard drive based music players. About a year or so ago before the iPod first came out, I knew of a guy who began having lots of problems with his laptop. My colleagues discovered the root of the problems was due to hard disk failures. After some questioning, the guy said maybe it's because he listens to his mp3 collection off his laptop when he's mobile: walking, taking the bus, whatever. Immediately my colleagues rolled their eyes. They explained to him that the hard drive in the laptop is a fragile item. And just because a computer is in a laptop form doesn't mean it's ok to move it around while computing. The guy had the balls to respond that it should be ok! because he listens to his collection off the smaller hard drive! My colleagues were now way past rolling their eyes. They had to explain to him yet again. There were two issues to go over, 1) the logical and physical sizes of the hard drive do not affect fragility and 2) his laptop had 2 hard drives because it was partitioned.
So back to the iPod, I recently bought the Nano for my wife and have never looked back. I like the size, that it's flash based, the UI including the click wheel and most importantly the entire music experience handled by iTunes. I think when Apple set out to create a nice and luxurious mp3 player, they weren't just focused on that like most companies did, in fact they were looking at the entire music enjoyment experience. That's where iTunes comes in, it helps users build and organize their collection, it easily syncs up songs that users want to listen to on their iPod and finally it has two outlets for users to reach out and get more content in terms of the music store and the podcast directory. Just AWESOME!
I want to relay a related story on hard drive based music players. About a year or so ago before the iPod first came out, I knew of a guy who began having lots of problems with his laptop. My colleagues discovered the root of the problems was due to hard disk failures. After some questioning, the guy said maybe it's because he listens to his mp3 collection off his laptop when he's mobile: walking, taking the bus, whatever. Immediately my colleagues rolled their eyes. They explained to him that the hard drive in the laptop is a fragile item. And just because a computer is in a laptop form doesn't mean it's ok to move it around while computing. The guy had the balls to respond that it should be ok! because he listens to his collection off the smaller hard drive! My colleagues were now way past rolling their eyes. They had to explain to him yet again. There were two issues to go over, 1) the logical and physical sizes of the hard drive do not affect fragility and 2) his laptop had 2 hard drives because it was partitioned.
So back to the iPod, I recently bought the Nano for my wife and have never looked back. I like the size, that it's flash based, the UI including the click wheel and most importantly the entire music experience handled by iTunes. I think when Apple set out to create a nice and luxurious mp3 player, they weren't just focused on that like most companies did, in fact they were looking at the entire music enjoyment experience. That's where iTunes comes in, it helps users build and organize their collection, it easily syncs up songs that users want to listen to on their iPod and finally it has two outlets for users to reach out and get more content in terms of the music store and the podcast directory. Just AWESOME!
SingNet Broadband 10 & 25Mbps and Thomson SpeedTouch 585
I recently convinced my wife to recontract her broadband plan to SingNet's Challenger Pack with speeds of (down/up): 10Mbps/1Mbps. She accepted the idea because the plan didn't require a long term commitment, only 3 months! I was so excited to step up to the higher speeds and began wondering how the broadband hardware would change. I knew that the current ADSL modem we used could only go up to 8Mbps so we obviously needed a new modem. Luckily the plan came with a free modem, a Thomson SpeedTouch 585.
Unfortunately that's where the excitement ends. After I received the modem, things just went downhill. The only positve experience was that at one point dslreports.com reported that I was able to download a little over 10Mbps.
Here's the list of bad experiences:
1) Can't use my existing wireless router with it following the previous set up I arranged, where the old adsl modem was set in bridge mode and the router talked to the modem by way of PPPoE sending the ISP login and password.
2) Modem can't be configured to bridge mode, learned that the vendor has to send me some configuration file in order to set it to bridge mode.
Note: I would publish the contents of this configuration file as it's just plain text but it's got over a thousand lines and looks like Blogger has a limit, email me at kfcblog AT gmail /dot\ com and I am more than happy to give.
3) Speed differences:
3.1) If I use the ST585 as is(without the wireless router), I get around 9 to 9.5Mbps. But tonight I got as low as 1Mbps!
3.2) If I configure ST585 to bridge mode and connect the wireless router with it, for some reason I only get around 4 to 4.5 Mbps!
On an unrelated note, if I use my old adsl modem(not ADSL2+ compliant), I get around 6Mbps. But I haven't tested it as much to see if the speeds are consistent.
In the meantime, I'm thinking of buying my own ADSL2+ compliant modem and be done with the ST585. I also don't like the web gui, router security, wireless and generally the difficulties with configuring it.
Unfortunately that's where the excitement ends. After I received the modem, things just went downhill. The only positve experience was that at one point dslreports.com reported that I was able to download a little over 10Mbps.
Here's the list of bad experiences:
1) Can't use my existing wireless router with it following the previous set up I arranged, where the old adsl modem was set in bridge mode and the router talked to the modem by way of PPPoE sending the ISP login and password.
2) Modem can't be configured to bridge mode, learned that the vendor has to send me some configuration file in order to set it to bridge mode.
Note: I would publish the contents of this configuration file as it's just plain text but it's got over a thousand lines and looks like Blogger has a limit, email me at kfcblog AT gmail /dot\ com and I am more than happy to give.
3) Speed differences:
3.1) If I use the ST585 as is(without the wireless router), I get around 9 to 9.5Mbps. But tonight I got as low as 1Mbps!
3.2) If I configure ST585 to bridge mode and connect the wireless router with it, for some reason I only get around 4 to 4.5 Mbps!
On an unrelated note, if I use my old adsl modem(not ADSL2+ compliant), I get around 6Mbps. But I haven't tested it as much to see if the speeds are consistent.
In the meantime, I'm thinking of buying my own ADSL2+ compliant modem and be done with the ST585. I also don't like the web gui, router security, wireless and generally the difficulties with configuring it.
