Almost 5 years with me

Dear Compaq X1075AP,

We met almost 5 years ago.

2 months after that, we went to UK - for a year plus

You were my small cinema,
You were my small concert player.

You've got a good voice, namely JBL (speaker)
You've got good drawing skill (ATi graphic cards)
You've got good mathematics skill (ah, the days when we did programming in UK)

Your physical memory (hard disk) was slightly damaged last year - and few months ago I planted a new one, transferred the recall-able memory into the new one.

However, a month ago my colleague approached me, he mentioned that he would like to take care of you.

He was sincere and so I trust him.

I know how you feel in the past half year - ever since my father adopted a new member called Dell - we spent lesser time with you.

Therefore, since there's a guardian who's willing to take care of you - I have to let go.

Normally, according to my reliable source, your life span is 5 years.

But I'm sure you can live longer than that.

I truly appreciate the days I had with you.

Take care & bye.

Regards,
Trevor

Instead, I need a superman for this superhero-like brand.

Dell and HP are big players in PC/laptop market.

While I'd suggest to go for clone machine (i.e. DIY or self-assembling with selection of different brand of peripherals) in the PC category, for laptop, it's not wise to go for DIY model, for a very obvious reason:

After sales support.

I'm a user of both HP and Dell laptop.

Unfortunately for me, my HP laptop in its 5 years life time so far, had(or has) the following defects:

1) Spoiled power charger (which cost me 100 pounds to purchase in UK)
2) Dead pixel on my LCD
3) Spoilt card reader
4) HDD with bad sector
5) Battery that last for half an hour after 2 years of usage

The reason I blogged about this is because I had another HP laptop case, that the graphic display went haywire in just 3 months.

Their call centre only opens Mon-Fri, which requires you to send(and collect later) your laptop to their repair centre.

On the other hand, if I could spend just RM400 extra, I get a Dell laptop with:

1) 1 Year onsite support
2) A Windows (the HP didn't come with OS)
3) An Intel processor (instead of the AMD heat generator)

Just spend that little premium, that gives you peace of mind.

And most importantly,I hope my Dell won't give me the same sh*t like HP's.

Oh before I forget, my friend just buzzed me for a HP laptop with issue.

Am trying out the software, for details you can see here

Let's see if it could inspire me to write some music I've not written before ;-)

Goodbye to Mr T41, and welcome the new T61.

T41 had been a faithful partner for the past 1 and half year, giving me the strong support from the daily operation, in terms of work.

It had not failed me.

Now, T61, a younger and more powerful brother, had come onboard to take over his brother's role, as T41 retires.

Too bad, T61's battery went defunct on the first day itself - nvm, let's learn (I'll get the replacement part tomorrow) and proceed.

Yep, in terms of performance, I'm happy with my ThinkPad T61, but quality wise - I'll reserve a bit and comment after a 3 months probation.

This is an audio enhancement plugin I've been using for my laptop and deskstop, for the past few months.

You should have been seeing SRS brand in TV speakers etc. It is good in doing the psycho-acoustic thingy, which helps on enhancing the sound quality on lower range of the speakers

My verdict on this little plugin is that, it REALLY enhance your speaker output. You can get extra clarity + BASS with this plugin. And this is no bull shit. (tips, if you already turned on the SRS audio enhancement in your Windows Media Player, please turn it off, else you may get audio distortion)

Get a copy to try, you have my word :-)
http://downloads.srs-store.com/SRS_Audio_Sandbox.exe target="_blank"

1) Install GreaseMonkey
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748

2) Click on the "Restart Firefox" button (it will save all your session, but advisable to save your work :) )



3) Click on this .js file and select "Install" on the pop up window

While I was blogging about how to download YouTube video with Firefox, I found that they no longer working. Which means that, it has been a while since I last downloaded YouTube video with FireFox.

Now, a quick one, start with this:

1) If your computer can't play Flash video, with the file extension .flv, grab this installer and install in your computer

http://www.codecs.com/K_Lite_Codec_Pack_download.htm
(Download the FULL version please)

This install is called K-Lite Codec Pack, it's one of the best codec packs available that lets you playback many many kinds of video files :)

2) Go to YouTube, search for the video you wanna download.

3) Then right click on the search result item, and copy the link (example shown below, using FireFox)


4) Then go to website like KeepVid, please do click the picture below to see the enlarged version, and follow the steps


5) After that, if you had rename the downloaded file to .flv, you should be able to see the icon shown below


Double click it, et voila! You'll be able to enjoy the dowloaded YouTube video ;)

I love AutoPatcher. It's a cumulative installation of all Microsoft Windows patches in just one package.

And now what: After 4 years(oh, yeah, 4 long years), Microsoft forced the host/creator of AutoPatcher to shutdown because 'no third party should redistribute their patches, fearing that hackers could take the advantage bla bla bla'

Ya right.

Imagine your new copy of (original) Windows, unpatched, and when you tried to connect to internet to download the patches legally from Micro$oft, your computer is immediately infected with allllllllllllll kind of virus.

Do you want that?

Shame on you, Micro$oft.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

P/S: Now I have to find an alternative way to get the similar package - either for my personal use or work.

My blog shown in Safari

Safari 3 beta... in Windows flavour..

What's wrong with Mac? It's invading Windows now!!!!

Try it here

Verdict: After trying for about one day, it's nice and a lot of features that even FireFox lacks


clear, intuitive 'search within page' function


Drag-and-drop tab (means after you drag the tab out, it'll become a new window)


Mac in action - remember those funky animation you see when you hide or show the window? It's available in this Safari too


Those nice Mac interface - is brought over to Windows, thanks to Safari.


But however, I'll still stick with FireFox - Firefox still load pages faster than Safari (therefore, i don't know why Safari they are the fatest)

Firefox is customisable. I love the quick search box, which is customisable (for example, I have quick search for wikipedia etc)

Bottom line - please welcome Safari, to explore the nasty Windows world ;)

Today I received a support call from a user.

"I think my computer got a problem. When the fishes start swimming, after a while they won't move anymore."

Note: fishes = screensaver, won't move anymore = computer hang

Phew, yesterday managed to kill off 4-5 trojans from my laptop, which I accidentally 'welcome' them into my laptop.

The summary?

Manual deletion. All antivirus/anti-trojan/anti-malware is no better than human, when it comes to a situation which they themselves cannot handle!

DSK-ed and found the trick here

Related story and near-exact story happened to Ryan's friend could be found here