Lenovo Lets You Switch Ctrl & Fn Keys in BIOS!

I really like having the Ctrl (Control) key located at the bottom left hand corner of my computer's keyboard.

It's one my most frequently used keys — which I press using my left thumb or, simply, the side/edge of my left palm — and I like its location to be consistent across all the desktops and laptops that I use.

I use the Control key to:

  • cut-copy-paste (ctrl+x, ctrl+c, ctrl+v)

  • select all (ctrl+a)

  • select entire words/paragraphs (ctrl+shift+left/right/up/down arrows or ctrl+shift+page up/down)

  • move to the start/end of documents (ctrl+end, ctrl+home)

  • move forwards/backwards by one word (ctrl+right/left arrows)

  • delete the rest of the current line in a text editor (ctrl+delete)

  • undo/redo (ctrl+z, ctrl+y)

  • zoom in/out of PDFs, documents, browser windows, etc. (ctrl+mouse scroll wheel up/down)

  • duplicate drawing elements in Microsoft Office (ctrl+click & drag)

  • move between worksheets in an Excel spreadsheet (ctrl+page up/page down)

  • create a page break in a Word document (ctrl+enter)

  • open files/documents (ctrl+o)

  • save files/documents (ctrl+s)

  • switch between window panes (ctrl+tab)

  • select multiple items (ctrl+mouse left click)

  • (and a bunch of other things I can't remember right now but I probably do unconsciously)


Many laptops, however, have the Fn (Function) key located at the bottom left hand corner of their keyboards and, though it's not the end of the world, this placement irritates me no end.



[Source: Engadget]

That's why I'm really excited by Lenovo's recent announcement that it will let users swap the functionality of the Control and Function keys directly through the BIOS!

They plan to offer this in "all future ThinkPad models" so I have a bad feeling it won't be available on the ThinkPad X200 tablet PC that I'm saving up for these days. Still, it's a step in the right direction and the Lenovo keyboard — which is already one of the best out there — just got a whole lot better.

You can read more about this here, by the way:

And speaking of my plan to buy the X200 tablet PC, so far I've saved-up about 60% of the funds needed. However, I've had to put this saving on hold because we're shifting to a bigger, better, and closer-to-work apartment early next week and doing so will cost us quite a bit of money (especially since we're breaking our existing apartment's lease).

If all goes well, however, I should have enough saved-up by the middle of January 2010. Here's hoping there are some good sales or deals to be had around then!

New Lenovo ThinkPad X200T Reviews

NotebookReview.com's Kevin O'Brien recently reviewed two Lenovo ThinkPad X200 Tablet PCs and had this to say:
The Lenovo ThinkPad X200 Tablets we reviewed performed very well in almost all categories. Battery life was excellent with the 8-cell battery, reaching 8 hours and 48 minutes on the sunlight readable version, and 5 hours and 32 minutes on the touchscreen model. Screen quality on both models was phenomenal, with the sunlight readable display being one of the best screens we have ever seen in our office. [...]

Overall performance was very good on both models, with little impact to battery life or system temperatures. Considering the low starting price compared to the Dell XT2, the ThinkPad X200 Tablets are a clear winner. For its amazing screen, great build quality, and excellent battery life we are also awarding the outdoor viewable X200 Tablet with our Editor's Choice award.

Now, I'm not getting the outdoor viewable X200 tablet PC because I am willing to sacrifice awesome screen quality in favour of two-finger touch capability but the "touchscreen model", as O'Brien refers to it, is pretty awesome too. Read the review for more.

Meanwhile, the two new touch-enabled ThinkPads models – the X200 and T400 – also got a mention in a blog post about crapware on Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows.

Crapware, which you get on all new PCs, is irritating even while it makes PCs cheaper to buy. According to Thurrott, Lenovo partly redeems itself by adding bundled software that "expand[s] on core Windows capabilities or, increasingly, simply provide[s] new capabilities that are not present in Windows at all". Read his post for details.

Tablet PCs – Comparing Specs, Keyboards

Now that I’ve narrowed my tablet PC options down to three –  though I may add to this list over the next few months – I can start comparing them to each other.

My current options are:

Basic Specifications

Their basic specifications are similar. Though, as you can see in the summary below, the ThinkPad X200 edges the other two out slightly:

Item Lenovo
ThinkPad X200		 HP
EliteBook 2730p		 Fujitsu
LifeBook T2020
Processor Core 2 Duo
1.86GHz L9400		 Core 2 Duo
1.86GHz L9400		 Core 2 Duo
1.2GHz U9300
RAM 3GB 3GB 2GB
Hard drive 160GB,
7200RPM		 120GB,
5400RPM		 120GB,
5400RPM
Graphics GMA X4500 GMA 4500MHD GMA 4500
Screen 12.1" WXGA 12.1" WXGA 12.1" WXGA
Digitizer Active,
multi-touch,
in/outdoor		 Active,
anti-glare		 Active,
in/outdoor
PCMark05 4,318 3,489 2,983
3DMark05 1,307 1,278 802
Input Trackpoint Trackpoint,
trackpad		 Trackpoint

 

All of these specs were taken from Tablet PC Review, by the way, and they’re based on the specs of review units. You can, of course, customize these specs when you actually by the computer.

Comparing Keyboards

Moving beyond that, the next thing I always check on a laptop is its keyboard. This is because I do a lot of typing and constantly use keyboard shortcuts so having a great keyboard is crucial to both my productivity and sanity.

As a benchmark, this is what the Toshiba Satellite M750’s keyboard looks like (all photos from TabletPCReview.com):

Toshiba Portege M700 keyboard

Note the Control key in the bottom left hand corner. This is good because most keyboard shortcuts involve pressing that key and it irritates me when the Function key is in the left most one in the bottom row.

Also note the convenient location of the Page-Up and Page-Down keys next to the directional arrow keys on the bottom right hand corner.

The Home, End, Insert, and Delete keys on the top right hand corner aren’t at their optimal positions, I know, but their relative ordering isn’t terrible. Ultimately, that not-so-good location was the sacrifice I was willing to make in order to get this laptop.

Finally, the laptop uses a track pad (as opposed to a track point), which is something I like and am accustomed to.

Let’s now look at the Lenovo ThinkPad X200’s keyboard:

Lenovo ThinkPad X200 keyboard

A number of things stand out. First, the Function key is at the bottom left hand corner. That’s not good, but survivable. On the other hand, even though they’re located on the top right hand corner, the placement of the Insert, Delete, Home, End, Page-Up, and Page-Down keys is beautiful!

That said, the one big adjustment I’d have to make if I got this tablet PC is switching from a trackpad to a trackpoint.

Next, let’s check out the HP EliteBook 2730p’s keyboard:

HP EliteBook 2730p keyboard

I like this one because its Control key is in the right place and it has both a track pad and track point. On the other hand, I hate this one because it’s Insert, Delete, etc. keys are very unfortunately placed.

Finally, here’s the Fujitsu LifeBook T2020’s keyboard:

Fujitsu LifeBook T2020 keyboard

The Control key is in the right place and the Page-Up and Page-Down keys are good, too. The Insert, Delete, etc. keys are survivable but we’re back to a track point instead of a track pad.

So, overall, my least favourite keyboard is that of HP 2730p. I really don’t like that they’ve placed the Home, End, etc. keys in a line on the top right hand corner. The Fujitsu T2020 and Toshiba M750’s keyboards, meanwhile, are both okay and I’d be fine with using them.

The keyboard that stands out, then, is that of the Lenovo X200. Yes, I’d have to use a track stick and, yes, I’d have to get used to the new placement of the Control key…but I did manage to get used to the latter on my previous keyboard so it won’t be the end of the world. On the other hand, I love how the Home, End, etc. keys are placed and this makes up for most of its other shortcomings.

Preliminary Conclusion

So my preliminary choice of tablet PC is the Lenovo ThinkPad X200. The added benefit of this is that the X200 is the only one with a multi-touch screen.

There is more to explore and examine – like cost, for example – but I’d say this was a good start.

A Quick Aside About Lenovo Design

By the way, Lenovo are generally praised for their excellent keyboards and, having used them on and off in the past, I tend to agree.

If you want to know more about Lenovo’s design ideas, be sure to check out their Design Matters blog.

Good posts to read are:

My Tablet PC Plan Changes

I haven't written about my tablet PC obsession for a while but three recent events and two technology lifestyle trends are prompting me to do so now.

The trends have made me re-evaluate my reasons and primary selection criteria for getting a tablet PC. These trends are:

  1. After five years of having a laptop as my primary and sometimes only computer I have recently started using a desktop. And I really like it. What with a good processor; lots of RAM; a huge, high-speed hard drive; a large, widescreen monitor (like I have at home) or two large monitors (like I have at work); lots of USB ports; and all my accessories close at hand…how could I not like working on one?
  2. With so much of my life in the cloud, an increasingly mobile lifestyle, and the ready availability of mobile broadband Internet, small and light mobile computing solutions like smart phones and netbooks are becoming increasingly interesting and useful to me.

As for the three events:

  1. Windows 7 is due to be released on October 22 and its tablet-specific features are really good.
  2. Both Lenovo and Fujitsu have announced that their flagship tablet PCs – the ThinkPad X200 and LifeBook T5010 respectively – now have multi-touch screens options. Till this announcement, only the Dell Latitude XT2 had one of those. 
  3. If I continue to consciously save money, by the end of the year (or the start of next year) I should finally be able to afford a tablet PC.

What Does This All Mean?

Two things:

  1. The end of this year is a good time to buy a tablet PC. Not only will I able to afford one, it’ll ship with Windows 7 and will have the latest touch screen on it.
  2. I’m not sure any more if I really need or want a high performance tablet PC. It might make more sense for me to get a less powerful one for mobile use and an upgrade to my home desktop (if I really need one in the future) for power use.

In short, my front runner tablet PC choices – and, in particular, the Toshiba M750 I was planning to get – are now no longer the ones I’m looking at.

Instead, I’m looking at one of these:

All three are less powerful than my previous choices (also, they don’t have optical drives) but, instead, they all have longer battery lives and they all weigh less. Oh, and they don’t cost as much, either.

Only the ThinkPad X200 has a multi-touch screen at this time but I’m sure the others will have one in time for the back-to-school or Christmas shopping seasons (particularly since HP is targeting the consumer market).

So, What Next?

My task now is to start the tablet PC comparison process once again and, over the next few months, keep an eye out for updates to these three systems.

Unfortunately, because these tablet PCs are very similar to each other (particularly the Lenovo and HP), it’ll be hard to choose among them.

Fortunately, all three are excellent and all come highly recommended. That means, regardless of which one I end up going for, I will be getting a great tablet PC.

Meanwhile, I’ll start the preliminary comparison process and will proceed to bore you with my ruminations and computing preferences :)

Switching to Gmail Becomes Easier

Long-time readers of this blog will know that, just over a year ago, I moved all of my e-mail to Gmail. I wrote about this in some detail in these three blog posts:

I absolutely love Gmail and making this shift is one of the best technology, usability, and productivity decisions I’ve made so far.

However, switching to Gmail wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to do – particularly since most of my e-mail was stored locally on my laptop (in Thunderbird) and the rest was distributed across various e-mail accounts. (You can read more about this in the blog posts listed above.)

Things have changed since then and, as announced today on the Gmail Blog, importing contacts and e-mails from other online e-mail accounts into Gmail has just become a lot easier because the whole process has been automated. This won’t help you if all your e-mails are stored locally in Outlook or Thunderbird, of course, but it will make it easier to switch from services like Yahoo! and Window Live Mail.

If you’re still using one of those services, I suggest you try Gmail for a while to see how you like it. Indeed, one of the new import features is that you can have your e-mails forwarded to Gmail from your other accounts for 30 days while you try Gmail out. I’m confident that many of you will like it so much that you will want to switch over permanently.

Yaay! I Have Ubuntu

So a couple of days ago I installed the latest version of the Ubuntu operating system (v9.04, called Jaunty Jackalope) on my desktop computer. I did this via Wubi, which lets you install Linux from within Windows without your having to re-partition your hard drive or do any other advanced Linux, Windows, or hardware configuration. The installer basically creates a folder in your C drive (called ‘ubuntu’, in my case) and everything to do with your Linux installation goes in there.

What Wubi does do is make your computer a dual-boot system which means that, from now on, whenever you start your computer you will be given the option of booting into (in my case) Vista or Ubuntu. Vista does remain the default boot option which means that, if you don’t choose otherwise within ten seconds, your computer will automatically boot into Vista. You can, of course, make Ubuntu the default boot option if you want.

Later, if you decide you don’t want Ubuntu you can always uninstall it from within Windows as well. This is as simple as going to Add/Remove Programs and uninstalling Wubi from there.

Why Did I Do This?

So why did I install Ubuntu? The simple answer is: because I wanted to. The more comprehensive answer is: Ubuntu is fast, Linux is fun, I love open source software (and support the FOSS movement), and am a little nostalgic. Oh, and I am a geek.

Let me unpack my comprehensive answer a little bit.

Ubuntu is fast. On my current desktop, from the time I press the power button to the time I can type a URL into Firefox and start browsing, it takes me less than one minute. Doing the same thing on the same computer in Vista – though with Chrome as the browser instead of Firefox – takes me just over three minutes (and the PC still hasn’t finished booting-up by then because complete boot-up takes about five minutes).

Now I’m not saying this to complain about Vista or to say that my computer is slow. In fact, I really like Vista and the way that everything is set up on my computer. Unfortunately, the downside of having everything set up on your computer just the way you want it is that it’ll be a little slow to start up. And by ‘everything’ I mean things like Google desktop and sidebar; Twhirl and Skype; Zone Alarm, KeePass, and Cobian Backup; and all my Windows settings – all of which get loaded at boot time. My Ubuntu install, meanwhile, is plain vanilla. I don’t even have any major Firefox plugins installed.

So my point is: if I need to use the computer in a hurry – to, say, send a quick e-mail or check on weather conditions later in the day – it’s much quicker to boot into Ubuntu than it is to boot into Vista. And that’s why I like it.

Linux is fun. There’s so much that you can do on Linux that is slower, more complicated, costs money, and is less geeky on Windows. For example, there’s nothing quite like shell scripting using Bash. I also love a lot of the software that is Linux-only; and often that software is both more powerful and much more configurable – though sometimes less pretty – than its equivalents on Windows or Leopard.

I love, support, and keep up with the FOSS movement. The Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement is important and I’ve spent a lot of time and effort supporting, promoting, and being a part of it. Ubuntu is a huge part of FOSS – particularly for the non-tech community – and, till a couple of days ago, I hadn’t actually messed around with it all that much. The release of Jaunty Jackalope finally prompted me to jump in and see for myself what Ubuntu was all about.

I have a lot of nostalgia associated with Linux in particular and UNIX in general. I’ve been using various flavours of UNIX – such as AIX, FreeBSD, and (Debian and RedHat) Linux – since 1996. I’ve also done a lot of programming, server and daemon configuration, and shell scripting in Linux. Indeed, the first time I became sysadmin was for a RedHat Linux server – the only student-run server at my undergraduate university, in fact – back in 1998.

Good Tech Ethic

Actually, it more than just those reasons. As someone who is technologically inclined – and also a geek – I want to try every technology or gadget that I can get my hands on. And I do this not just because I enjoy it immensely but also because it makes good sense to learn all you can about every kind of technology that’s out there.

This is why, for example, I have Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari all installed on my computer. This is why I use all the online services offered by Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, MySpace, Facebook, Orkut, and so on. And this is why I have the latest versions of Java, Flash, AIR, Silverlight, .NET, QuickTime, Real media, Windows media, DivX, etc. on my computer as well. Not to mention at least nine media players, four word processors, four text editors, five graphics applications, six audio applications, four video applications, and crap loads of media and system utilities. (I could go on…)

Using all kinds of technology is good tech ethic for someone who is tech savvy and is a fan of technology, a technology analyst, a technology teacher/trainer, and a technology evangelist. Oh, and is someone who frequently gives tech support to friends and family and is a geek :)

Stellarium Is Awesome

I recently downloaded Stellarium, which is free and open source planetarium software for your computer. It’s awesome.

For example, according to Stellarium, here is what I’d see if I was to look due west at the sky in Melbourne, Australia just before midnight on 4 May, 2009:

Stellarium 1

That’s gorgeous, isn’t it? Now let’s add some labels (planets, nebulae, and constellations) and some lines (constellations):

Stellarium 2

But that’s not all – zoom into a bit of the sky and add a grid to see so much more (and you can zoom in much farther than that):

Stellarium 3

But if that’s too much information, you can instead stick to the star lore section with its associated constellation art (which you can turn on and off, of course):

Stellarium 4

And if you don’t want Western constellation star lore, you can always switch to Chinese, Egyptian, Inuit, Korean, Lakota, Maori, Navajo, Norse, Polynesian, or Tupi-Guarani (though not all of them have constellation art associated with them).

All in all, this is a fabulous bit of software that I highly recommend.

Two Web Milestones for Me

I can now officially say that I have been blogging for two years because on 24 April 2007 I published my first post on this blog. Woo hoo!

On the other hand, today I went and deleted my old GeoCities website because Yahoo! is closing that service down by the end of the year. Here is what the home page of that site used to look like:

Ye Olde Homepage

I created this site on the free GeoCities web hosting service back in 1999 when I graduated from LUMS and realized that I would no longer be able to host my personal site on the LUMS ACM Chapter’s Student Sever (which, by the way, I was the administrator of). I’d had a site on the Student Server since 1997.

Want to Take a Look?

You can see archived copies of my very oldest websites thanks to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine:

Make sure you check out my Ameel’s Page o’ Links page from February 1997. Yep, that’s what the web was like back then. I still maintain that page, by the way, except it’s now called Ye Olde Page o’ Links :)

A Quick Trip Down Memory Lane

1997 was also when I became head of TeamWeb, the group of students responsible for maintaining the official LUMS website. There were many first for me in that year: my first job interview, my first professional website management job, my first website re-design project, and the first time I installed and started administering a UNIX server. Good times.

The late 90s, meanwhile, was a time of change with regards to how websites were designed and laid out. For example, when I started managing the LUMS website, the web design ethos was textured backgrounds and not too much colour. By the time I left, however, it was fill colours and information categorized into tables. Ah, the good old days of the web.

Back to the Topic

I stopped maintaining my GeoCities site when Nadia and I got the insanityWORKS.org domain in 2004. And now my old site – which was a very important part of my life on the web – is gone for good. Well, except that it’s still archived in the WayBack Machine.

But still, the shutting down of GeoCities will mark the end of the free website hosting era that began with sites like Angelfire and Geocities. These days, of course, the free web hosting sites of choice are blogging sites like Blogger and WordPress.org in conjunction with media hosting sites like Flickr and YouTube. Times change, eh?

Leaving GeoCities behind, though, I now move into my third year of blogging, my fifth year of running insanityWORKS.org, my thirteenth year on the Internet, and my twenty-fifth year of using computers.

How time flies.

TEDx Melbourne was Awesome

Saturday, 17 January was definitely “a day of TED” in Melbourne [1].

TEDx Melbourne

Over forty of us TED geeks got together at Monash University and spent the whole day watching our favourite TED talks, talking about those talks, and also watching a live talk on rebuilding faces (through engineering assisted surgery) given by Dr. Ninian Peckitt of ComputerGen Implants Limited. The video of Dr. Peckitt’s talk will be uploaded to the web some time soon.

What I loved most about the day, though, was meeting and talking to all the people who were there (search for #tedx or #mted on Twitter and you’ll find a whole bunch of them). In between the talks we managed to swap stories on how we got hooked onto TED, we talked about what each of us is doing personally and professionally – we’re a fun bunch doing a lot of fun things, by the way – and, of course, we talked about the talks themselves. [2]

So a million thanks to the organizers who did a wonderful job planning and then running TEDx Melbourne. I’m sure this event will becomes a regular feature from now on – maybe with groups of us taking turns to organize it each time – and I’ll keep you posted on this blog every time such an event does take place.

Meanwhile, Shawn Callahan has written about this on his blog as well so make sure you check that out. Also, keep an eye out for the post-event survey that Cheng is in the process of putting together.

- - - - - - - - - -

[1] This despite the fact that they didn’t include one of my all-time favourite TED talks: ‘Benjamin Zander: Classical music with shining eyes’. Oh well. Next time, perhaps :)

[2] My apologies but the over-use of the word “talk” in this blog post was inevitable!

TEDx Melbourne Details

There are ten days to go to TEDx Melbourne marathon! Thanks to Monash University entry to the event is now free and there are already over sixty confirmed guests :)

Here are the basics:

Date: 17 January, 2008
Time: 10am to 7pm
Location: Lecture Theatre H1.25, Building H, Monash Caulfield campus

For more details visit:

There’s still time to nominate your favourite TED talk on the TED Facebook app (there’s a link on the Facebook group page) so make sure you do that soon.

See you there :)

My HP Printer Driver has MPD

My HP printer driver has Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD). Why? Because while my printer – an HP Deskjet F4185 All-in-One – scans and copies everything just fine, its printing functionality is seriously messed up.

Let me give you an example. Let’s say I want to scan a photograph: I’ll put the photo on the scanning glass, turn the printer on, wait a bit for Vista to recognize the USB-connected device, run the HP Solution Centre software, and click the ‘Scan Picture’ button. The scanner with then do a quick scan of the entire scannable area after which I will select the bit I want scanned and will click ‘Accept’. The photo will now get scanned and saved to the ‘My Scans’ folder. Nice and simple, eh?

Now, let’s try printing a document: I’ll start Microsoft Word, type in some text, and click the print icon. This will pop-up the print dialogue box and I’ll select ‘HP Deskjet 4100 series’ from my list of printers. I will then wait about 4-5 minutes while Word “connects” to the printer. Once it does, I’ll click ‘Print’ and my document will get printed immediately.

Yes, for some reason the scanner driver connects and communicates with the computer just fine (and pretty much instantaneously) but the printer driver takes ages to do the same thing. Now if that isn’t MPD – in the computer software sense, of course – then I don’t know what is.

The good news: This is a “known issue” that HP is working to resolve.

The bad news: They haven’t fixed it yet.

The interim solution: Either I be willing to wait 4-5 minutes to print every document (which will be a real pain) or I copy the document(s) I want printed over to Nadia’s netbook (an Acer Aspire One that’s running Office 2007 on Windows XP) and print them off in just a few seconds.

Such is life.

New Keyboard

I spend a lot of time on the computer and do a lot of typing so, as you would expect, keyboards are very important to me. Unfortunately, the keyboard that came with the new desktop PC that I bought was terrible. It was loud and clacky, it wasn't very comfortable to type on, its multimedia keys were both irritatingly-placed [1] and only minimally configurable, and its Home-End and Page Up-Page Down key pairs were in a non-standard location.

So today I finally got sick of it and bought myself a nice, comfortable keyboard that I am really enjoying typing on. I got the Microsoft Comfort Curve Keyboard 2000 which is comfortable, well-designed, completely configurable (if you download the IntelliType Pro software that goes with it), and low-cost. I've used it in the past so I knew what I was getting though, in general, all of Microsoft's hardware products are pretty awesome.

Ah yes, life is good.

[1] For example, its sleep button (which would put the computer into the new Vista sleep mode) was located in the top-left corrner where you would normally find the Escape key. It took me a whole week to stop putting the computer to sleep when all I wanted to do was close a dialog box! Most irritating.

R.I.P. Michael Crichton

Michael Crichton, one my all-time favourite authors, passed away a few days ago.

I loved his books and the way he wrote them: they were exciting, inspiring, and a whole lot of fun. Indeed, I've read all his fictional works though I've only read one of his non-fiction ones (must remedy that). I've also watched almost all of his films and remember being blown away by 'West World', 'Jurassic Park', and 'Twister'. Heck, I even remember the ending scene from 'The Andromeda Strain' which I watched on TV back in the mid-80s! I must now watch the three films that I've missed.

You can read more about Crichton here:

Rest in Peace, Michael.

Tetris!

I love Microsoft: The original Windows 3.x version of Tetris (the one made in 1990) runs just fine in Windows Vista :)  I've actually been carrying that version of Tetris -- all 76kB of it -- around with me since the mid 90s. Of course it requires quite a bit of window resizing to get it just right on a 22" wide screen!

Why do I and so many other people care so much about this game? The good folk at Graph Jam said it best:

Reasons to Play Tetris

A friend and I even organized regular Tetris tournaments at our undergraduate college during the late 90s which were hugely popular. Also, Tetris is the only game I've ever bought for my mobile phone. Yes, I am addicted.

Though, really, Tetris is less like a drug and more like a good cup of tea: it's perfect for any occasion. Whether you want to wake yourself up, relax before going to bed, keep your hands busy while talking on the phone or listening to a podcast, or do something when you have nothing else to do, Tetris is always the answer.

So thank you Microsoft and, more importantly, than you Alexey Pajitnov for creating such an awesome game.

New Desktop PC!

Back in April 2007 (in my third post on this blog, in fact) I wrote that my laptop had died and that I was stuck using my mother's ancient, somewhat-battered laptop. My plan was (and still is) to get a job and then buy myself a nice, high-end tablet PC.

However, over the last couple of months, my mother's laptop started acting up so I had no choice but to find a replacement for it. I didn't want to buy a tablet PC because I don't yet have a job so I'd rather not dip into our savings too much (and I'm not willing to buy anything but a high-end tablet PC). Instead, I bought a cheap desktop PC that I could work on in the interim and upgrade in the future. I was always going to buy a desktop for home use, I just hadn't planned on doing that right now. But as plans tend to do, this one changed so now I am the proud owner of an HP Pavilion desktop PC:

New Desktop PC

It's reasonably low-end as desktop PCs go: with a 2.4GHz Dual Core Intel Pentium Processor instead of a Core 2 Duo and, importantly, integrated graphics instead of a separate graphics card. Fortunately, this isn't much of a problem because I don't plan on getting into computer games, high-end graphics editing, or power intensive computing just yet. I do plan on recording and editing videos and doing some basic graphics editing but all that will work fine on this system. In fact, this setup runs the Windows Vista Aero interface without a hitch so it's not like I'm suffering here!

In other areas, it's a pretty kick-ass system: with 2GB of DDR2 RAM, a 360GB 7,200RPM hard drive, a CD/DVD reader and writer, and the usual set of ports, card readers, and networking options. The best part: it came with a 22" wide screen LCD with a 1680x1050 native resolution :)  After using a 15" screen for a couple of years and then a 12.1" screen over the last year this big screen is fricking awesome!

In fact, the whole system is pretty awesome and I'm having a great time using it. Woo hoo! :)

Tablet PC Update: Good & Bad News

If you've been reading this blog for a while then you'll know that I'm dying to get myself a high-performance tablet PC. I can't afford one right now but, as soon as I can (which I'm hoping is very soon), I plan on getting myself a Toshiba Portege M700. Regarding that, I have some good news and some bad news.

Exchange Rates

First, the bad news. I was planning on buying the M700 from the US (by ordering it online from Portable One) because the configuration available in Australia is both underpowered and overpriced. You can get a significantly more powerful configuration for an overall lower price (i.e. even after you add customs fees and international courier charges) if you order one from the US and have it shipped to Australia.

However, after the recent financial market "issues" and the US-Australian dollar exchange rate changing, ordering the M700 from the US will now cost me a few hundred dollars extra. Bummer. Here's hoping the exchange rate swings back the other way when I do actually getting around to ordering one of these :)

An Upgrade!

On the other hand, there's some really good news. Toshiba recently launched a follow-up to the M700: the M750! The new model is physically similar to the old one but, under the hood, the M750 kicks just a little more ass:

  • The processor (still an Intel Core 2 Duo) has been upgraded from the T8xxx line to the P8xxx line so instead of, say, a 2.4GHz T8300 processor you would now get a 2.4GHz P8600 processor. What's the big deal about that? The P8600 will let you use Windows Vista 64-bit and will give you access to all 4GB of RAM instead of the 3.2GB you had access to with the T8300.

  • The RAM has also been given a speed boost from 667MHz to 800MHz and the standard hard drive speed has also been bumped up from 5,400RPM to 7,200RPM (though I would've ordered the higher-speed hard drive with the M700 anyway).

  • The graphics engine also gets an upgrade so, instead of the Mobile Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100, you now get the 4500MHD which is not only twice as fast it also supports full HD video (1080p) natively.

  • You also get a gigabit LAN connection, a newer Bluetooth version (which faster transfer speeds), and a combined USB/eSATA port (eSATA is great for external hard drives as its data transfer speed is much faster that USB transfer speeds) which is also a sleep-and-charge port (this lets you charge accessories plugged into this port even if your laptop is off).


All in all, the M7xx series -- which was already one of the most powerful tablet PC lines in the market -- now packs an even greater punch with the M750. And the best part? This new, upgraded M750 costs the same as the old M700! Awesome.

[Quick caveat: The M750 isn't selling in custom configurations right now and is, so far, available only in the US and Canada. Also, it doesn't yet have a multi-touch screen -- i.e. with both pen and touch input -- but I'm hoping they'll add that to this model very soon.]

UPDATE: According to Craig Pringle, the M750 has a dual digitizer that has both active and resistive touch. This means you can use both a stylus and your finger on the screen. Excellent.

James Nachtwey's story

In 2007, photographer James Nachtwey won the TED Prize which awarded him $100,000 and "one wish to change the world". His wish was:

I'm working on a story that the world needs to know about. I wish for you to help me break it in a way that provides spectacular proof of the power of news photography in the digital age.

On 3 October, Nachtwey's story will break -- both online and around the world. Melburnians can view his story at Federation Square while the rest of you should check the TED Prize Event Location page to see if it's being shown at your location (it's on in 16 countries). If not, you can always view it online:

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