The MSI MK9132 Keyboard-Mouse Duo

When I did my most recent build last year, I just so happened to purchase an MSI A75MA-P35 motherboard and installed it on an MSI Eagle slim-ATX case. A few days ago I bought an MSI keyboard+mouse combo I've been eyeing at CD-R King for months. I didn't really know if this was an actual product from Microstar, but heck the price won me over.

For the low-low price (which is what CD-R King is best known for) of 320 pesos, I got this set:

The keyboard is actually quite good. The keycaps are made of ABS plastic. It's supposedly spill-resistant. A quick inspection of the bottom confirms the presence of drain holes. Well, sorry but I won't be testing that for you though. It's also supposed to have laser-etched markings so the letters printed on it should last at least a few years. What surprised me was how quiet this thing is when you're typing. It is quite silent compared to my trusty old A4Tech KLS-5UP mini-keyboard.

The mouse on the other hand felt quite flimsy in comparison. The material for the right and left buttons felt so plasticky I was afraid I'd chip it if I pressed too hard. The wheel was noisy compared with how quiet the keyboard was...LOL. The sensor was spot-on though. No complaints there. I mean, this ain't gaming quality, but for simple everyday browsing, it works fine. I did put it back in the box though. I still preferred my A4Tech V-Track N-400.

I now have a complete system though. I won't be buying an MSI monitor any time soon, so scratch that. But I think having a set like I have now is quite satisfactory.

Cheaper Ultra-Thin Notebooks on the Horizon

Intel announced new Consumer Ultra-Low Voltage (CULV) processors for its latest generation i-Series processor line-up. This is a significant move for Intel in that it also announced that the pricing for these consumer processors will be lower as compared to previous generations of ULV's.


The shift is seen by tech journalists to be in-line with recent trends in the market reeling from the popularity of netbooks. Though netbooks are seen as under-powered when compared to mainstream notebooks, the low price point has induced tremendous growth in adoption by consumers. It has also caused notebook manufacturers to rethink how they market ultra-thin notebooks, formerly known as ultra-portables, because of the close similarities in form factor.


Think about it. Five years ago ultra-thin notebooks were considered premium notebooks, priced well above mainstream notebooks. Just take a look at PC World or PC Magazine for reviews of ultra-portables released around 5 years ago and you'll see what I mean. With the creation of a new niche for netbooks, with screen size ranging from 7-11", ultra-thin notebooks with 12-13" LCD's were on the verge of gathering dust in store shelves and stock rooms. To a prospective buyer, they'd rather have a smaller screen if it means they can tote it around and not pay a premium for it. They would have fewer qualms about it being slower if it's a whole lot cheaper.


Because of that, manufacturers have of late been repositioning the ultra-thin notebooks in a performance and price niche slightly above netbooks but with less power than mainstream notebooks. Their main selling points have been maintained though - low-power consumption that extends battery life and small form factor that makes it light and very portable. Screen sizes are still 12-13", which snugly fits the niche between netbooks and mainstream laptops. To give you a sense of what your money can fetch for you, you can get an Intel CULV-powered MSI x400 for $390 now. An AMD Neo-powered MSI U210 sells for about $407. Both definitely have more powerful processors than the Atom on netbooks. Both have lithe frames, slightly better video and slightly larger LCD's than netbooks. Battery performance is better on netbooks with smaller screens, but CULV laptops still have it better than mainstream notebooks. If you've got the money, you can go a more powerful Core 2 Duo SU7300 CULV processor like the one they packed on the MSI X350. It costs $890, still in the mainstream notebook price range, but as portable as any 13" laptop you'll find. There's also the 11" Alienware m11x for those who cannot do without World of Warcraft on the road. The Alienware m11x will set you back $799 for the base model.


Intel's announcement of cheaper, more power-efficient CULV processors to beef up it latest generation will make for cheaper ultra-thin notebooks. There are also several laptops powered by the latest generation of AMD Neo processor (take for example MSI's U230) that will compete with Intel's CULV offerings. This will make for more products choices should you want to get something with a little more processing heft than a netbook. Bottom line, more choice is always better for us consumers.

SSD's - Speed vs Cost

The speed of your computer depends a lot on the parts that you put into it. Most focus on the processor, video card and RAM. True, these components do improve performance dramatically should you choose to buy the fastest of the lot. But often the hard drive is taken for granted. A performance boost can definitely be had when upgrading to your hard drive the fastest available in the market. Right now, the fastest are the Solid-State Drives (SSD).

SSD's offer speeds at par with your system memory or RAM. To give you a sense of how fast that is in practical terms, say you installed Windows on an SSD. If you click on an icon to launch your browser, it will launch in 1-2 seconds. Compare that to 3-5 seconds when your Windows is installed on a regular spindle drive. That's one heck of a performance boost, wouldn't you say? It also consumes less power, owing to the fact that it does not have any moving parts. That makes it ideal for stretching battery life in between charges in notebooks.

SSD's are not without cons. Owing to the process of how the data is made persistent in SSD's (remember, RAM looses the data when the computer's turned off, SSD don't), they actually wear out with repeated use. That's why it was necessary to incorporate technology to level out the wear. Data on SSD's aren't written in the same manner as spindle drives. An extra chip on SSD's monitors how many times a certain bit is written to and assigns new data to other parts to spread the wear out to different bits. In traditional spindle drives, data is written in sequence. When data is deleted, that skipped over portion (because it used to have data) is written over with new data. That's why you need to defragment spindle drives to re-arrange related data nearer to each other.

SSD's are also expensive at this time. Take for example the Intel X25-V is priced at US$125, or US$3.12 per GB. The OCZ Onyx, touted as one of the first sub-$100 SSD, is currently priced at US$90 for a 32GB model. That's roughly US$3 per GB. Kingston's SSD Now V Series, touted as an X25-V with a different controller by Anandtech, costs US$90 for a 32GB model and US$115 for a 40GB model. The cheapest still goes for about US$3 per GB, roughly Php126 and change per GB. At that price point, the money you'll shell out for a 40GB SSD will fetch you a 1.5 TB desktop drive in comparison. The prices have been coming down in the last few months as manufacturing costs are brought down by new advancements. However, don't expect them to be as affordable as spindle drives any time soon.

I've been mulling over buying one for the past months. I have an Atom desktop that I chose to build precisely because of it's thrifty use of power. Adding an SSD to my rig would increase the power savings and lower the temperature inside the case. Using an SSD as a boot drive, the Seagate 500GB drive I currently have would make a great secondary drive for data. For these tough times though, value for money is still the priority. Speed will have to wait, at least for now.

2nd Lemon - Router Trouble

Last week I bought an Edimax BR6226N router for my home setup and it work only for a day. Because of a busy week, I brought it in for a warranty replacement this morning. I brought home the router, set it up not more than a few hours ago and now it's dead... again. This is utterly frustrating. Not only have I been recommending this router to friends and officemates, telling them it's the best bang-for-the-buck router they could get. Now I am having problems with the exact same model I had been exalting not a few weeks ago.

I followed my usual troubleshooting, except for using a different working router (which I don't have, the reason why I bought one). The only common thing I could think of on both routers was that they died after I had ticked the options for the firewall and DDOS protection. Come to think of it, I also set them up with WPA2 using a PSK key from GRC.com's Ultra High Security Password Generator. The first one conked out the next day. This second one just minutes after I had applied the settings. Now that's bothersome and frustrating, expecting the second to work after getting a lemon. After that, I could not get to the admin page, or ping the default gateway. I did multiple resets. I changed cables and tested both cables linked directly to the modem and they worked. I modified the settings on the LAN, hard-setting them to 10 and 100 Mbps on both full-duplex and half-duplex, testing each time with just the DSL modem and then the router. On all occasions, my internet connection worked without the router.


I will have to take this back to the shop I bought it from tomorrow. A week's delay in getting my home network setup is enough. Did I mention this whole situation is frustrating? I'm giving up on this brand and I'll ask for a Linksys even if I have to pay extra. A whole lot extra.

Machine Revival - Part I

Yesterday, I went out with my wife and bought a computer table. I had been planning to revive an old Dell Dimension XPS T500 I had laying around and repurposing it to be an all-around computer for the kids. My son has simple needs. He has great fun playing the games included in Child's Play and Gcompris. Well the wife and I ended up buying a cheap computer table from Saver's Mall in Balibago.

After I got home, I immediately started working on the machine. I installed an 80GB Maxtor IDE drive I bought used a few months back. I also removed a non-working network card, and stuck a more recent PCI LAN Card i had lying around in one of my desk drawers. I also installed a PCI USB card.  The  Dimension XPS T500 had slow USB 1.1 and the card would at least bring it up to USB 2.0 speeds. I then closed up the side panel and expected the thing to boot. But it didn't! Beeps ensued and the Diagnostic LED's on the machine's back lit up with a pattern. So I went to find an online manual, praying one was still online at all. This machine has a date stamp of November 1999 after all. 

As luck would have it I found one (if your interested, it's here: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dkub/) . Following the clues as to what was going wrong, I reseated the video card and tried booting it. It booted up but the color on the display was yellowish. I reseated it again and powered it up once more. It beeped with a memory error. I unplugged the DIMMs, moved 'em to other slots and gave it a try. It POSTed! But then it was showing a PCI error. I forgot I left a PCI dial-up modem installed and decided to chuck it. The thing booted fine afterwards.

After I got it working I tried Fedora 12 Games, but it was just too slow to be usable. I was just hoping, but I knew the machine was too slow to use Fedora 12 Games. Anyway, I went off and tried another live distro, Linux Mint 8. This time it booted a lot more faster than Fedora, but it was still quite a good 8-10 minutes before I saw the desktop. I could just imagine my son jumping in anticipation only to get tired before the machine had fully booted. He's a little hyper over waiting time and jumps excitedly at times. While that was happening, I was waiting for my DreamLinux 3.5 download to finish. I've used DreamLinux 3.1 before on this same machine and it worked okay. And so I went with the reliable option and went ahead and installed  DreamLinux 3.5. After rebooting though, the machine wouldn't boot into it. It looked like the drive was having problems. So I tried disconnecting it and checking if the cables and connectors were okay, then booted it up again to try and install DreamLinux 3.5 again. Then I noticed the drive size was only 74.++ GB when it should be a little over 76 GB. Something wasn't right about the capacity. While thinking about it I decided to think it over. 

So today, after I got home and after thinking about it the whole day while at work, I gave the drive a go with DBAN. It's still running, actually. I don't expect it to finish any time soon. Maybe tomorrow morning. So I'll post an update if i get this to work. It would be a waste if I didn't get to play Tux Racer on this old machine now, would it?

Kindle - Now International!

Just read this a few minutes ago. The Kindle can now be shipped, with the wireless subscriptions, internationally. I checked the link that had the country-specific information and the Philippines is one of the first 100 countries it can be sent to. I can have a Kindle and use it here!




I've been wondering about getting one since the first gen came out but I never thought they'd be bringing it to the Philippines this soon! This is another great geek gift. If you have a geek in the family and you're looking for a perfect gift for the Holidays, get your geek a Kindle.

And by the way, that makes me wonder whose 3G network they are on? Smart or Globe?

Ever Wonder What Happens in TechSupport?

Here's a funny look at tech support, how things are supposedly done behind the scenes - LOL. For people working tech support, please don't take this offensively. It's just a comic after all.



For more funny and geeky comics, go to http://xkcd.com/

Making The Most Out of My Aging PC

It's been a while since I last blogged. I haven't been getting enough time to do so. Mostly I update Twitter, but that's because I can easily access it through SMS. It's really trivial to just jot down an update, especially so when your limited to 140 characters.

Anyway, I was looking forward to an upgrade but I had to use the money for car repairs. So I just decided to extend the functionality of my current PC, until I save up what I need. I have an old XPS T500, just to give you an idea what I meant when I said "aging PC".

Since most of the things I do need updated hardware, I prudently bought what could improve its functionality, considering this is a 10-year old machine. Here's my very short list:

• LAN Card - D-Link 10/100 Fast Ethernet Card, Php 300
  
• PCI USB card - CDR-King 4-port (+1) USB 2.1 expansion card, Php 200
• USB Card Reader - CDR-King Classic Multi-format card reader, Php 120
• PCI SATA Controller - CDR-King 2-port (+1) SATA controller card, Php 380
• SATA Hard Drive - Seagate 7200.9 Drive, Php 1,000 (used)
  

Let's get into what I needed and why the above hardware. The LAN card on this 'Kublai' machine died around 2 weeks ago. No amount of coaxing could resurrect it. Hence the need for a LAN card. I settled on the D-Link as I have been using their products for years and I have had a great experience overall.

The USB ports on this machine hail back to the early days. It only has two USB 1.0 ports. Painfully slow, I knew I needed a boost eventually, I just had to find good enough reason. Enter the great season of Christmas and I got a hand-me-down iPod Video (Thank you, Auntie!!!). So now, I felt the pangs of having a slow USB connection hampering my transfer speeds. I got the PCI USB card primarily to speed up syncing the iPod. Second benefit is I could connect more devices on the same hi-speed interface now. I solved the dilemma of having to remove my USB Bluetooth Dongle when I need to connect another device. It was kind of odd though that the PCI card had 4 ports at the back and 1 additional port located on the side of the card. I found a use for the internal port. I connected the Bluetooth dongle and it's now inside the case :-) I also bought a recently-made card reader so I could transfer files to my wife's phone (the mini-card uses an MS Pro Duo adapter). It's always connected to the machine now.

As for the PCI SATA controlller card, I needed to buy a hard drive for extra storage. IDE HDD's are now becoming rare. Most HDD's are now SATA. Add to that the fact that my machine will choke on anything bigger that 120 GB's. The PCI Card allows me to use a bigger SATA Drive. The catch is that it would be difficult to install XP on it since it I would need to slipstream the SATA/RAID drivers into the installer before XP detects it. That doesn't matter to me right now. I have a working 80GB IDE HDD where I have the OS installed. What matters is the ability to use SATA to allow me the flexibility to use bigger drives and use current hardware on my aging machine. Heck the card even has an external port for connecting SATA devices. This card is what we call "sulit" in Filipino. My next buy would probably be a SATA DVD Writer ;-) How's that for an old machine?

I did buy a few other things from CDR-King, mostly for the iPod. But that's another blog post :-)

AMD's 'Bobcat' Platform

With Intel positioning its Atom and Via competing with it with the Nano, the public is wondering what AMD is planning for serving the UMPC and low-power segments. I only recently learned of 'Bobcat', AMD's platform designed from the ground up for ultra-mobile PCs, devices and consumer electronics. Basically, its a re-designed x86 processor optimized for low-power devices with a TDP of 1 to 10 watts. It's being developed in parallel with Bulldozer, a seperate processor platform aimed at low-power desktops. In contrast, Bulldozer will have a TDP of 10 to 100 watts and a CPU-integrated GPU core that's squeezed right into the processor piece. Both are projected to launch in 2009, but by the way things are going, AMD should launch them earlier if they want to catch up.

Register Hardware ran a story on this last year. A more exhaustive article on Anandtech discusses the platform as a whole, with information interspersed with details from interviews they conducted. Another article from Tech Report discussed the technical merits of the platform when it was first revealed.

JungleDisk 2.0 Launched

Jungle Disk has announced the release of the final version of it's popular backup software. Jungle Disk 2.0 includes many performance enhancement that make backing up important data easier than ever.

Jungle Disk 2.0's new features include :

• An Improved User Interface - with a better and easier setup wizard makes, a new backup preview dialog and a new backup selection dialog for easier to set up automatic backups.
• Support for new Jungle Disk 2.0 buckets - allows users to instantly rename files and directories, encrypt file & directory names, change encryption key (bucket password) instantly and support for unlimited number of buckets.
• Support for European S3 buckets.
  
• Support for connecting to multiple buckets at the same time.
• Support for multiple backup jobs with independent scheduling.
• Expanded bandwidth limiting - flexible choices to control network drive and automatic backup traffic, set limits on both upload and download rates, on the fly changing of limits and setting schedules for limits.
• New command line options that tightly integrate task schedulers and batch jobs.
• Optimized performance improvements for larger directories and larger cache sizes.

Save on These Tech Deals...

I checked on the TigerDirect's page and found a few deals that looked good. Save mucho moola by using the links below:

• SAVE $4 - Case Logic Small Camera Case $5.97 (US)
• SAVE $3 - Cables to Go 6-Foot HDMI Male/Male Cable (Black) $6.97 (US)
• Low Price! - Logitech V100 Optical Mouse for Notebooks (Refurbished) $8.97 (US)
• SAVE $10 - Logitech V200 Notebook Mouse (Refurb) $14.97 (US)
• SAVE $10 - Logitech Cordless Mini Optical Silver Mouse (Refurbished) $14.97 (US)
• SAVE $10 - Logitech V200 Notebook Mouse (Onyx) (Refurb) $14.97 (US)
• SAVE $5 - Logitech MX Revolution Rechargeable Cordless Laser Mouse (Refurbished) $44.97 (US)
• SAVE $80 - Targus 15.4 Corporate Traveler Vertical Roller $59.97 (US)
• SAVE $25 - Sandisk Sansa 4GB MP3/MP4 Player (Refurbished) $44.99 (US)

Deliveries

I went to the local 2Go branch earlier to pick up my uMobile SIM card. The delivery guy came by 12:00 PM yesterday but I couldn't accept the delivery because I didn't have a photocopy of any of my ID's. He showed me the instructions from uMobile stating no to deliver the SIM unless the recipient provided photocopies of proof of identity. I told him I'd drop by their office after work the next day.

So I went to their Balibago office at 7:30, waited till 8 AM, eventually signed forms, and left with my new uMobile SIM. When I got home, I was barely out of my socks when an AIR21 delivery guy parked in front of the house. He was delivering the memory I won a few days ago. Schweet!

I've plugged in the SIM in my trusty Treo650 and let it sit for a while. I'm currently testing the RAM using Memtest86+. Memtest86+ will take a few hours to finish. Hopefully nothing is terribly wrong with the memory.

FTW - Won My First Auction!

I got an email an won a bid for a 256MB SDRAM module. And I got it cheap too. It cost me Php 350, including the shipping. I am currently texting the seller. Paid for the item through Smart Money. Amazing how convenient these electronic payments are! Transaction was smooth to say the least. The seller was easy to deal with and I had no problems with him. He was actually very flexible. When I suggested sending the money through Smart Money, he obliged and created his own Smart Money account. All I need to do now is wait for it to arrive.

Via Nano Running Crysis

Found a video of the demo Via Nano unit I blogged about 2 days ago. The video is posted along with first-hand accounts of the event and it's posted on TweakTown. I must say I'm impressed. This platform might prove its worth and become Via's chance to really make an impact in mainstream PC market.

Eee Box - Asus' Eee PC Comes to Desktops

I read about the Eee Box from three articles several days ago. CNET, ZDNet and HotHardware all had articles pointing to emerging details about the Eee Box. Even Gizmodo had a few words to say about it. I must say it reminds me of the HP Blackbird, but that is altogether a different kind of machine.

Anandtech had a much more exhaustive feature on it. They benchmarked a demo unit. The article established the price point and corresponding configurations. The Anandtech article mentioned that all three units will b powered by an Intel Atom processor clocked at 1.6GHz. There will be a $269 base unit that will come with 1GB of RAM, an 80GB 2.5" laptop hard drive and Linux pre-installed. A Windows XP unit with the same spec will retail for $299. A third variant with Linux pre-installed will have the same $299 price tag as the XP unit but will have double the RAM and hard disk space. Goes to show how much you're really saving when you go for Linux ;-)

No fresh news is forthcoming, though. But I'll be watching.

Via Introduces OpenBook Mini-Note

Via introduced the latest iteration of it's OpenBook series of ultra-mobile PCs, the OpenBook Mini-note. The reference design has an uncanny resemblance to the form factor of the HP 2133 Mini-Note, with the exception of the faster processor. Both designs share the 8.9" LCD screen configuration, with the Mini-note upping the ante by having provisions for built-in broadband connectivity to WiMAX, EV-DO, W-CDMA, or HSDPA services in addition to the now standard WiFi through a factory-configurable device module.

The Mini-note will be powered by a 1.6 GHz VIA C7-M ULV processor and will accommodate up to 2GBs of RAM. This is an offshoot perhaps of the decision to make it capable of supporting Windows Vista. Though the VIA VX800 Digital Media IGP chipset it has for video isn't the most powerful in the mobile computing space, it will certainly be enough to support DirectX 9.0 3D graphics up to a resolution of 1024x600. That being said, I would opine that it would comfortably work with MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV9, VCI and DiVX for the multi-media entertainment needs of prospective owners.

It would be exciting to see what final product OEM's and ODM's could produce from the reference design.

Intel Atom on the Desktop

Word spread of the desktop implementation of the Atom platform when Engadget broke the news about the D945GCLF. It was followed by a post on Ars Technica and a blog post about the board being available in the UK. This will be the first desktop motherboard to support the Intel Atom. As I had posted a few months back, I knew that an Atom-based solution for desktops was very possible. Intel positioned itself well in the ultra-low power PC segment with it's introduction of the Intel D201GLY late last year and the Intel 201GLY2A earlier this year. It was only natural that it would tout its initial success with another low-power solution based off its newer technology.

The D945GCLF is already available for sale from TranquilPC for US$82. Complete systems based on the board can also be purchased from Tranquil PC and range from the US$358 T7 to the US$558 T2e.

Below are 3 videos that'll get you acquainted with the D945GCLF :









Update: The boards are starting to show up for sale online. Saw a listing on eBay for one. This one is being sold for $79.95

Via PX5000EG and The Naked Pico

While we're talking about Via, watch this video feature about their latest Pico-ITX board. The PX5000EG uses an ultra-low voltage VIA Eden processor running off 1 watt of power. There's an announcement towards the end of the video about how to enter a contest to win your own Via Artigo Builder Kit.

Isaiah, Where Art Thou?

A lot of news recently about Via's other products(most recently, its latest Pico-ITX board), but nary one about Isaiah-based products. Most of articles about the Isaiah have to do with conjecture at this point. No product announcements of any sort. That's opposed to Intel's Atom, with a few final products already announced and waiting to be launched. One of them, MSI's Wind was already launched in some countries, AFAIK. No announcements have been made of any Isaiah-powered product that will launch in the next few weeks.

When will they launch an updated Zonbu Mini Desktop with Isaiah in it? Any products that will compete with say the likes of the MSI Wind? Or at least a Via Artigo powered by the Isaiah chip? I'm waiting, still.

MSI Titan 700 SFF Solution

Not to be outdone in the small form factor (SFF) side of things, MSI has released its own entry into the low-power "green machine" market. Compared directly to the Zonbu Desktop Mini, the Titan 700 ups the ante by including a DVI output, a DVD Dual-RW drive, a 120GB 2.5" hard drive and 1GB of RAM. This is (in my opinion) as close to having a full desktop in a small form factor that still saves on power consumption. It's a bit pricey though, as to be expected. That may change as similar machines come to market. As it stands, this machine is definitely worth the money.

Incidentally, I found out about this product after reading a post on Net Traveller (you can read the article here). There also posts on the GameRoom Blog, Slash Gear and Engadget about it, mostly based on MSI's announcements.

Back to the Titan 700. If your into the nitty-gritty, the specs are listed in detail below:

MB Specification
PCB Size	. Mini-ITX form factor, 170mmx170mm
CPU	. VIA C7D (V4 Bus) NanoBGA2 , 2.0GHz
Chipset	. North Bridge: VIA CN700 . South Bridge: VIA VT 8237R+
Memory	. DDR-2 400/533 SDRAM (1GB Max) . 1 DIMMs DDRII memory slot
LAN	. Realtek RTL-8110SC LAN 1Gb
Audio	. AC97 CODEC by VIA VT1618, 5.1 channel audio output
IDE	. Support Ultra DMA 66/100/133 mode
SATA	. Support two SATAII 150MB/sec device
DVI	. VIA , VT 1632AG
TV-Out	. S-Video output by VIA VT1622AG
Barebone Specification
Front I/O	. AC97 Mic-in x 1, Headphone-out x 1 , USB2.0 x 2
Rear I/O	. PS2 x 2 (1 for Keyboard,1 for Mouse), Serial Port x 2, D-Sub15 VGA x 1, Mic-in x 1/ Line-in x 1 /Line-out x 1(5.1 channel), RJ45 LAN x1, USB2.0 x 2, TV Out x1, DVI x 1
Power Supply	60Watt Adapter, Active PFC
Driver Bay	Support NB Slim ODD x1 and 2.5" HDD (Hidden )
Dimension	70mm(H) x 185mm(W) x 240mm(D) (with Bezel) ; Volume ,3.1 Liter
System Configuration
ODD	. slim type, SATA Supermulti DVD Dual RW
HDD	. 2.5", SATA HDD 120GB
DDR2	. 1GB DDR2, 533 MHz