New Gizmos Archives - Page 2 of 4 - Baclaran Parañaque Rizal

December 4, 2015July 20, 2022

The Story of 4K (UHD) Monitor and Windows 10

After almost nine years of faithful service, my beloved 20″ Princeton monitor finally had to be handed over to the recycler. It was hooked up on most occasions to my server – which had seen three (3) revisions – located in one of our bedrooms. I was able to save it in its 5th year, after simply replacing a couple of bad capacitors.

As a replacement, I yanked away from the 24″ Acer HD monitor that was attached to one of the PCs in our living room. And since it happened only in late August of this year, it is running the latest version of Windows — 10 but I couldn’t recall what build it was then. Currently, it’s version 10.0 Build 10586.

I had been longing to set my hand on a 4K monitor for quite a while but their prices had been very prohibitive for the casual user. Compared to conventional HD (1920 x 1080) monitors that had seen their prices fall to their lowest these days, a 4K monitor will still set you back at about the US$400 – $700 range for the 27″-28″ varieties.

It is also worth noting that bigger-sized 4K (UHD) television prices are incredibly much lower than their smaller-sized 4K monitor cousins.

To my surprise, in early September, while checking my e-mails, I stumbled upon an offer by the old, reliable electronics store chain store in the Bay Area for a 28″ 4K monitor for a reasonable $250 if you’ll buy it using their new marketing gimmick — promo codes.

A few hours later after I hopped in the car, I had already unboxed and connected the shiny 28″, 4K monitor to the living room PC.

It has inputs for two (2) DisplayPort, two (2) HDMI, one (1) DVI, one (1) headphone, and a power connector. The set also came complete with the necessary cables for the three (3) types of video inputs mentioned above.

My enthusiasm was cut short after I found out that my video card, although it has both DisplayPort and HDMI connectors, can’t handle the requirements needed to power the 4K monitor at the higher 60 Hz screen refresh rate.

Using DisplayPort, it only ran the 3840 x 2160 resolution at 30 Hz which rendered the entire Windows 10 experience very, very frustrating: the screen was erratic and raggedy.

The video card only has the DisplayPort v 1.1 while v 1.2 is needed – DisplayPort versions don’t apply on the cables as long as it’s certified to comply with the DP standards – to drive the 4K monitor at the proper refresh rate of 60 Hz.

After another trip to the same store to purchase the correct video card (an AMD Radeon R9-390X – and, ok, this cost me a lot more than the bargain 4K monitor), a more robust power supply from Thermaltake to drive all the components without hiccup plus a new, slimmer version of DisplayPort cable which I made sure was certified, I was all set.

I booted the PC and found out that I was now running at 3840 x 2160 at 60 Hz with everything looking sharp but very small.

No problem. This is the latest baby of Microsoft and Windows 10 Pro should easily handle the idiosyncrasies of display-scaling. Just click the Windows icon, Settings, Display, and ‘Change the size of text, apps, and other items’, slide it to, say, 200% and everything’s reasonably bigger. Well, except for a few 3rd-party apps.

To further test it out, I ran all the experimental ‘El Fuente’ 4K clips on Netflix as well as on other sites that host 4K video clips. I was in 4K heaven. Or, so I thought.

The issues started to show up when the PC comes out of hibernation or sleep mode. It was specially noticeable in Microsoft’s Edge browser. The fonts in the address bar in all the open tabs as well as on the window prompt when you try to close the browser were all gibberish.

On occasions, the fonts also become weird on other functions like when you try to shut down the PC. There were also times when the AMD video driver would suddenly terminate for no reason at all. And, I had no recourse but to stop an application and/or restart the PC.

The issue is definitely DisplayPort hardware related since all these problems disappeared after I tried running the PC using the HDMI cable at 1920 x 1080. But what’s the whole point of getting a 4K monitor and that other expensive hardware only to run the unit at the same HD resolution?

The techie in me tried all the possible solutions like reinstalling the latest video drivers, updating the BIOS, trying out the other DP and HDMI ports on both the monitor and video card, using an app called ‘Windows 10 DPI Fix’, modifying the registry, swapping out video cables as well as tweaking all the possible combinations in the 4K monitor’s on-screen menu settings.

These woes went on for almost a month until I decided to just use the HDMI cable at the lower 1920 x 1080 resolution for the entire day. Since I just left the other video cables – DP and DVI – dangling at the back of the 4K monitor, I also connected the DP cable to the video card.

Back of monitor showing HDMI, DIsplayPort and DVI connectors — HMDI (2), DisplayPort (2), and DVI

Back of PC showing graphics card ports — Simultaneous use of DVI and DisplayPort ports on an AMD Radeon graphics card

Typically, you only use either DisplayPort or HDMI but not both on the same monitor. However, since XP, Windows has the ability to detect and configure multiple monitors.

Connecting both the DisplayPort and HDMI cables at the back of my video card and configuring Windows 10 in the display settings to output the seemingly dual monitor settings to ‘Show only on 1’ helped boost the video signals going to the 4K monitor after the PC emerges from hibernation or sleep mode.

While the above-mentioned procedure did not totally fix the font-garbling issues, it not only eliminated most of the problems like the self-terminating video drivers, constant lock-ups, and reboots but also improved the overall clarity of the 4K monitor.

And, while I wait for the next Windows 10 and video driver updates, I’ll keep looking for the ultimate solution to totally enjoy ultra high definition on the PC.

July 3, 2015August 25, 2022

The Trials and Tribulations of Working on Vintage Macs — in the 21st Century

The world is constantly changing. More so in the very fast-paced environment of technology.

These days, you have just bought a shiny-new, state-of-the-art phone, tablet, or any gadget today, and tomorrow, it’s already obsolete. So, while you were sleeping, a new feature or model is already being tooled in an unspecified factory in China — waiting to be shipped out to consumers “in just a few more weeks or even days.”

I had been an Apple/Mac head since the days of the Apple II in the late 70s. More so when the original 128K Macintosh came out in 1984. During those days, using them made practical sense (except for the price, of course) since the Mac – with its GUI – was far superior to DOS-based PCs. It took Microsoft a couple of years to develop its first GUI – Windows 1.01 or “Presentation Manager.”

After Windows XP became the global OS standard, the Mac, once again, became the “niche-market” machine – used only by die-hard Apple fans, musicians, video editors, and “me-to-Apple-user-johnny-come-lately“s.

Our attic is full of odds and ends of old Macs, Apple IIs (Plus, IIe, IIc, and IIGS), PowerBooks, and their accessories — external drives, cables, dot-matrix printers, mice, cameras, scanners, add-on cards, and assorted software and manuals.

So, after almost 35 years, while tinkering with some of the units in my vintage Mac collection, I can still recall the good old days when they were state-of-the-art during their heydays. I plan to sell them to new collectors so that I can finance a trip that I had long wanted to do — an overland tour across South America. Ala-Che Guevarra’s “Motorcycle Diaries.” Most probably, without the motorcycle.

Vintage Macs have varying idiosyncrasies: from the batteries that power the clock and retain the System Settings down to how the keyboard connects to the central CPU unit. Only the shape or form factor looks similar.

The original 128K Mac, released in 1984, has a seemingly plain-looking AA battery –1.5V DC. No, it’s 4.5V.

The Mac SE used a 3.6V battery in 1/2 AA battery size, while the Mac LC 575 used a 4.5V battery shaped like a cube. Good luck if you can still purchase these batteries today. I’ve scoured all the major electronic stores in our area for the 4.5V cubed battery and came up empty-handed. And, even if you chanced upon them online, be prepared to pay an arm and a leg!

Now, let’s talk about diskette drives. Yes, those electro-mechanical contraptions that gobble up the 3.5″ or the 5.25″ plastic diskettes read the information and pass that to the CPU for processing. The original Mac was among the first PCs to make the 3.5″ disk format a standard.

The late Steve Jobs was a big fan of Japanese companies, notably Sony Corp., that, during those days, Macs came with CRTs and disk drives made by Sony. Even his later venture, NEXT, came up with workstations and servers containing components from Sony, Toshiba, TEAC, Alps, Panasonic, etc.

Again, the original 1984 Mac came with Sony’s 3.5″ disk drives that read/write single-sided 400K diskettes. But during that era, most PCs used the 5.25″ diskette format. To access the PC data, you must use an external Apple 5.25″ diskette drive with a DB-9 port. And even before Apple came up with the ADB (Apple Desktop Bus), the 1984 Mac had a special connector for the keyboard that looked like a telephone jack.

My saga that dealt with the various formats and ports in vintage Macs began when I was trying to load the appropriate OS on the Mac SE and the Mac Color Classic onto their respective hard drives.

While both used 50-pin SCSI drives as storage, they have – you guessed it – different internal diskette drives. The former has a lower capacity 800K drive. At the same time, the latter used a 1.44 MB drive (Apple nicknamed it ‘SuperDrive‘ – for its ability to read/write all the various diskette formats during those days). As expected, Sony made both disk drives.

Now, if you don’t have an external SCSI CD-ROM – and the appropriate CDs to load the OSes – you will have to do with loading the OSes via the diskette drives.

And, where to get those 3.5″, 800K & 1.44 MB diskettes these days is just the beginning of my vintage Mac odyssey.

February 19, 2015July 20, 2022

Never Send That Bad ASUS Transformer T100TAF to their RMA Department – From Store to the Garbage Bin in 40 Days

Here’s my review of the very overrated ASUS Transformer TA100TAF “2 in 1 PC” that I tried to send to Microsoft Store’s website but was moderated (to hide the ugly truth??? ):

cracked_TA100TAF — The cracked screen of the ASUS Transformer TA100TAF

The title of my review was: ” Warning: The screen is very easy to crack.”

“Bought my unit at MS Store in SFO 12/11/14 for $199 plus tax during the Christmas sale. Used it about 3-5 times until the unit just won’t start on 1/20/15. Looks like it has power issues related to BIOS. Called ASUS for support since the MS 30-day return policy expired. Got an RMA# from ASUS since the tech person can’t resolve the issue by phone. Shipped my almost-new unit to ASUS RMA (Milpitas, CA) but they returned the unit back to me (nothing was done) since according to ASUS RMA, they received the unit with a damaged screen & that they attached pictures when they received it damaged. However, there were no pictures on the returned package. Assuming, it was damaged during the transit, and ASUS was not really at fault, it was within the one-year hardware warranty & they could have fixed the non-power-up issue even with a cracked screen. Nothing was done by ASUS. They simply returned it back – unrepaired nor replaced. Note I had the unit for only a total of 40 days and it had already power issues. My saga with this unit did not end there. I ordered a replacement screen at eBay (about $25) and tried to replace the cracked screen myself. It was in this process that I discovered that the screen is very flimsy. The screen is made of very cheap plastic and not the “Gorilla Glass” variety. Don’t flex the replacement screen (the replacement one that I bought also had the “ASUS” logo) or your tablet — not even a bit as it would definitely crack. Disgusted with how cheap the screen is, I decided to just take my loss and dump the entire unit in the garbage bin where it belonged. Then I went to the nearest bulk retail store in our area where they had the Acer Switch 10 on sale and bought one. That unit has a “Gorilla Glass 3″ screen and is well, well made than the ASUS cheapo that I just threw away. Never an ASUS again.”

In my 38 years of buying tech products, this was a first. I had only used it for maybe a total of about 15 hours and was in my possession for a mere 40 days and it went from store to the dumpster.

The reason why I threw the unit away was that after I had replaced the screen with a new one, it cracked again in the process of re-assembly. The screen is just too flimsy and too brittle. You will spend a lot of time in the disassembly process only to go back to square one of the problem.

Also, since ASUS’ RMA Dept. did not even bother to check and fix the non-power-up issues of the unit (which was very much under their 1-year warranty), how can I be sure that I will not have those issues even if I had a brand-new screen?

Where are the pictures (as proof that they received the product already damaged in their RMA Dept) that ASUS told me in their accompanying letter when they returned the unit to me?

replacement_TA100TAF — New replacement screen before installation

So, the reason for this blog is to let other prospective buyers of the ASUS Transformer TA100TAF be reminded of my experience and look for something better.

CONCLUSION: A very poor quality product backed up by very lousy customer support.

February 1, 2014November 20, 2020

My HP Customer Support “Horror Story” — or, why Amazon.com is the Best in Customer Service

On May 4, 2013, I purchased via hp.com an HP Pavilion 23xi 23″ IPS LED widescreen monitor for use with my new 2013 Mac mini. The purchase of the monitor was hassle-free. Ordered it online, and I received the order confirmation almost instantaneously. Bravo!

Two days later, May 6, 2013, I received the ‘shipping notification’ that the unit had shipped via FedEx together with a tracking number and, finally, four days later, May 10, 2013, the monitor arrived at my doorsteps.

I did not waste time and put the monitor into action. I hooked up the very sleek 23″ monitor to my Mac mini using the HDMI-to-DVI adapter included in the Apple package.

The HP 23xi monitor has 3 types of video connectors: HDMI, DVI-D, and VGA as well as an external power adapter to compensate for its thin, sleek design and very light overall weight.

The monitor performed flawlessly until late December 2013 when I noticed that the right portion that spanned about a quarter of the screen’s area, had turned red with a corresponding alteration in resolution in the affected areas although I had been using a predominantly white desktop background. Not a good sign.

Cemetery Skeletons Silhouettes — HP founders must be turning in their graves if they knew how lousy HP Customer Support is these days

The tech in me did the basic checks: a). Turned it off, waited a few seconds, then turned it back on. The red tint was still there. b). Disconnected the power adapter connector at the back, waited a few seconds, reconnected, and then powered it back on. The red tint was still there. And, to add more damage, there was a very noticeable ‘image-ghosting’ of a window that I previously opened in the same area where the red tint was. c). I tried the monitor on a different computer – a Windows 7 Pro PC – that I use side-by-side with the Mac mini but the red tint, altered resolution & image ghosting had remained.

Thinking that the problem will eventually go away, I continued using the monitor for a few more weeks. However, by late January of this year, after I had turned on or woke my Mac mini from its ‘sleep mode’, the red tint, altered resolution, and ‘image ghosting’ problems persisted on the monitor — exactly in the same areas when I first noticed it.

After I had verified my invoice that my 23″ monitor is still under HP’s limited, one-year warranty, I decided to purchase an “HP 2 Year Next Day Exchange Service for Consumer Monitors” Care Pack on January 27, 2014, through hp.com, so that I can have the replacement as soon as possible.

HP’s web site specifically mentioned that “while your HP product is still under the original standard warranty, you can purchase an HP Care Pack to extend the warranty of your HP product for another 1 or 2 more years by purchasing the 2-year or 3-year Care Pack respectively.”

My HP Customer Support “horror story” began two days after I purchased the 2 Year Service Care Pack. After I ordered, as with all online merchants, you get an ‘e-mail confirmation’ after your payment had been verified. A few minutes later after I finalized my order, the confirmation arrives in my e-mail’s inbox: ” HP Direct Orders – Order Confirmation 4xxxxx4.”

Two days later, on Jan 29, 2014, I decided to call HP’s Customer Order Support telephone number to ask them about the status of my order. After I had provided the HP customer support person on the other line with all the details of the order, he told me that “for my HP Care Pack order, there was no physical product.” And that It just needed to be registered and HP would provide me with a serial number for the Care Pack for the monitor that I was registering the care pack for.

Huh??? Hello, HP ??? Why did you not inform me about that in the Order Confirmation e-mail???

Besides, this was not my first time to buy an HP Care Pack for a monitor. In November 2010, I purchased a 27″ HP 2710m Widescreen monitor and an HP Care Pack for it but both items arrived at my doorsteps. There was a booklet with a serial number for the Care Pack. It was a ‘physical’ item.

Anyway, the first HP support person I talked to on the phone routed my call to another HP department that was supposed to give a serial number for the Care Pack. After about 15 to 20 minutes on the phone with yet another HP customer support person and had provided her with all the details of my purchase, our conversation ended like this:

HP support person: ” So, what’s the serial # of the care pack?”

Me: ” I don’t have a serial # and that’s the main reason why I was transferred to your department. To get a serial # for the care pack!”

Total number of cell phone air time I wasted on the calls on Jan. 29 — about 45 minutes.

Frustrated, I gave it a rest and decided to call HP Customer Order Support the following day or I might die of emotional distress just for a monitor. I cooked something good for dinner instead.

I finished my breakfast early January 30, 2014, and called the same HP Customer Order Support phone again and this time around, I got luckier.

My initial call that day to HP Customer Order Support lasted about 5 to 6 minutes and I got the serial number for the Care Pack as well as yet another HP Support phone number.

Now I can register the Care Pack’s serial number with the HP monitor that I was looking forward to getting a replacement. The day looked very promising. Nice. Or, so I thought.

Frustration, confusion, and dismay followed immediately after I placed the next call. I was informed that the Care Pack I purchased was ” from HP’s Small Business Unit” while the monitor I was trying to validate/use it for was purchased from “HP’s Consumer Products Unit.“

What #$%??? Say that again, HP???

The Care Pack I purchased on Jan. 27, 2014, was HP item # 234473 and the Item Description on the invoice was ” HP 2 Yr Nbd Exch Consumer Monitor Service Pack.”

The keyword is: “Consumer.” Given that I purchased it online from HP’s Small Business Unit, aren’t all HP’s products the same??? Consumer, Business, Enterprise, whatever, aren’t HP’s item # all the same???

Why can’t HP simply validate their damn Care Packs after I had even emailed them the invoice?

Total number of cell phone air time I wasted on the calls on Jan. 30, 2014 — about 40 minutes.

Before frustration and regret become my theme for the day, I thoroughly checked out HP’s various web sites on how to get an immediate replacement for the defective monitor.

So I tried filling out a form on HP’s “Technical support after you buy” located under “Email HP” at http://www.hp.com/go/assistance where you’ll have to choose your location and then enter your HP product number and you’ll be redirected to a page where you’ll need to enter your product’s serial # and product # again to verify the warranty.

If your product is still under warranty, you’ll be directed to another page where you can put in all the details of the problems of your HP product as well as a bunch of personal information. Don’t get frustrated if sometimes you get error messages after you clicked the “Submit” button.

For a company as big as HP and you get a lot of error messages on their numerous web sites, then, something’s really wrong about this company. They make all those servers and various networking equipments and all those modern technology and yet their web sites can’t even operate properly???? I was so dismayed that HP had gone this low.

On the other side of the coin, my frustration with HP’s Customer Support reminded me of why great companies like Amazon.com come to be.

I had ordered, returned, or exchanged lots and lots of items from Amazon.com since I became a full-time member in 2009 – in early 2012, I opted for their “Prime” membership – yet I never had used the phone to talk to an Amazon customer service person for any issue about an order.

Their e-mail system as well as all of their websites are just so reliable and efficient.

If Amazon.com is very, very efficient and handles customer service almost to a-T yet sells way more products than HP, why is the latter’s customer service so horrible?

Management is the answer.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezo’s clearly has the customers in his mind while HP’s management are thinking only about their pockets.

HP had cycled through six different CEOs in the span of ten years but the company’s downward spiral continues.

EPILOGUE: Did I finally get a replacement for my still-under-warranty HP monitor for which I even purchased an HP Care Pack?

Not yet. It’s been 6 days since I ordered the HP Care Pack and I’m on day #4 and still trying to sort out the maze of HP’s various 800 numbers just to talk to the correct department.

Feb. 03, 2014, I missed answering a call from a so-called, ‘HP Case Manager‘ who sent me an e-mail anyway that informed me that I can reply to his e-mail directly so that he can try to sort out my problems.

And so I replied to his e-mail three (3) times and attached all pertinent invoices & e-mails to explain my whole confusion & regrets about their entire customer support department.

He never even bothered to answer any of my e-mails neither did he try to call me again.

How’s that for customer support from an HP Support case manager, huh???

The entire process had left me dazed and confused and wondered why I had even bothered to purchase a product made by HP.

I now got this feeling that when an HP product goes bust while still under warranty, you must brace yourself for the agony and frustration that lurk beyond their entire customer support department.

By the way, HP is the same company started by Bill Hewlett and David Packard.

These iconic folks must be turning in their graves & wondering what happened to their great customer service and support when they were still running the show.

Jan. 2020 update:

The HP monitor did not last long either. Sometime in Aug 2019, the unit would sporadically overheat and render it unusable.

I replaced it with my old, stand-by monitor (Acer P244w – 24 inch LCD with DVI & VGA ports – no HDMI).

Amazingly, the Acer monitor -which I had purchased all the way back in 2005- not only looks good compared with today’s newer monitors but also works very well.

January 2, 2012February 3, 2020

Notes on the Blackberry Playbook

Embed from Getty Images

What separates the Blackberry PlayBook from Apple’s iPad and other Android-based tablets?

The answer lies in the operating system.

The PlayBook runs on QNX which is a true micro kernel operating system.

Apple’s iPad runs on iOS which was derived from its core Mac OS X. OS X was basically Darwin – an open-source, POSIX-compliant OS which was derived from the Steve Job’s founded NEXTStep OS (which Apple bought in 1997), BSD and other free software projects. These are mostly UNIX-based derivatives.

Google’s Android is basically Linux – another UNIX variant – plus a lot of free-Java implemented codes. Google basically patched-up the Android OS which they bought in 2005.

It’s interesting to note that UNIX, as well as most of Microsoft’s OSes like Windows, NT as well as the OS/2, have huge core OS codes. And this is what slows them down.

Hardware makers tried to compensate for these monolithic OSes by using faster processors.

However, faster processors had been a bane on the battery life of these portable devices.

Remember the battery issue with Apple’s iPhone 4GS? Apple issued a software patch.

The QNX OS on Blackberry PlayBook is what makes the device run so fast compared to the iPad and any other Android-based tablet.

QNX is a true micro kernel implementation of an operating system. It’s so ideal for embedded platforms.

QNX is not new either. It has been around since the early 80s. The last gadget I had messed with that runs on QNX was the very ambitious Netpliance device released in 1999. See post on my old version of my web site here.

Given that all hardware components inside the guts most tablets are sourced from the same suppliers. And, given that some designs may be better than others, it’s always the OS that run the hardware that makes the most magic.

And so, I thought my 16GB Blackberry PlayBook – which I had scored for $199 during their November 2011 sale – will be relegated to the junk bin in my closet after only a few weeks of use.

I was wrong.

No, no, no. Hands down, it’s way much better than Apple’s iPad or any other Android-based tablet out there in the market today.

Now, I intend to get a second one – the 32GB this time while it’s still on sale.

And, I’ll say it again.

Some companies, no matter how good their products are, don’t always serve the best interest of their customers.

September 28, 2011November 20, 2020

Will The Clouds Go Down the Amazon?

Kindle Fire: Out of the Box (Photo credit: Brian Sawyer)

You have to admire the spunk of Jeff Bezos (CEO, Amazon.com).

Today, after the release of Amazon’s tablet, ‘Fire‘, he fired the opening salvo towards the heavily-fortified Apple castle with this quotable quote: ” There are two types of companies: those that work hard to charge customers more, and those that work hard to charge customers less. Both approaches can work. We are firmly in the second camp.”

While it’s true that both companies ran perpendicular business models, the short-term future may see these two pioneering firms seeing eye-to-eye, toe-to-toe in the fast-evolving, streaming multimedia market.

Yep, Apple creates very elegant products that command premium prices. On the other hand, Amazon was only an accidental player in the cut-throat tech hardware market. Their only hit hardware product was the Kindle. And, they had no choice but to come up with it to augment their status as the number one digital book purveyor.

Recession-friendly priced at $199, middle-class Americans – who are already credit-pinched- will take a long hard look at Amazon’s Fire tablet before casting their fate to Apple’s uber-popular iPad.

If they feel the Fire didn’t scrimp on quality to achieve that $199 price tag, they might forego altogether that burning desire to get Apple’s iPad (which this author still believes, is really an over-sized, over-priced version of the iPod Touch…ho-hum, really nothing new in here except a lot of advertising superlatives).

After all, gadgets will still be gadgets while the $300 price discrepancy can feed a lot of homeless folks in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Only time, – and, maybe, apps – can tell if this Fire created by Amazon will be strong enough to generate the right amount of rain clouds to douse the scorching heat generated by Apple.

September 5, 2011November 20, 2020

The Great HP TouchPad Fire Sale

On the 3rd week of August 2011, HP announced the news that they were exiting from the very competitive mobile business.

HP TouchPad as seen with regular price at a Best Buy store — English: HP TouchPad with webOS on a Touchstone. Deutsch: HP TouchPad mit webOS auf einem Touchstone. Español: HP TouchPad con webOS en el dock de sincronización inalámbrica Touchstone (Photo credit: LA Times)

Apple and the Android-folks led by Google were making it too difficult for HP to breathe in the mobile arena. It had only been more than a year since HP acquired the PDA-smartphone-mobile device pioneer from Palm.

On the following day, they decided to liquidate all their mobile devices inventory. And so, the Pre phones as well as the HP TouchPads – which they had introduced just a month earlier – had to be sold at steep discounts.

I am a frequent HP.com buyer, but, on that fateful day, I had totally forgotten to check out their website.

Three days later after the announcement, all the HP TouchPads were sold out.

The fire sale overwhelmed HP and so they promised that more HP TouchPads are coming at the same discounted prices: $99 for the 16 GB and $149 for the 32GB version.

I am still waiting.

HP TouchPad gets Android 4.4 KitKat (unofficially) (liliputing.com)
Our beloved lost technological products! (techtimesco.wordpress.com)

May 21, 2010

Palm Pre (via Sprint) as a Personal Router – – The Easy Way

The typical scenario:

OK, you have a Palm Pre with an unlimited data plan from Sprint. Yes, you make calls and can navigate the web but it’s really the small screen that turns you off when using cell phones for web browsing.

Apple‘s iPad is a bit pricey (of course, you want the 64GB with WiFi and 3GS version) at $909 (tax inclusive in California) and you don’t want another data plan from AT&T just to use that iPad anywhere (to be honest, I don’t like AT&T’s customer service at all).

The solution:

Get a netbook and install either (or, both), OSX Snow Leopard or Windows 7 Ultimate on it and then install the app, My Tether on your Palm Pre. If you’re tech savvy, it could only cost you the netbook and an 8 GB USB drive. All the rest are freebie. Courtesy of the your pal, Google and a little bit of research.

How I did it (for a total of $251):

Hardware: Deeply discounted netbook with the new Intel Atom N450 processor, 2 GB memory & 160GB harddrive ($229 tax inclusive), 8 GB SanDisk USB drive ($22, tax inclusive).

Software: Snow Leopard 10.6.3, Windows 7 Ultimate, My Tether (for Palm Pre), Palm Pre webOS SDK (required to install My Tether), NetbookBootMaker (to install Snow Leopard).

After spending about 6 hours for installing both Windows 7 Ultimate and OS X Snow Leopard via the 8GB USB drive, I now have a netbook that I simply connect my Palm Pre to, enable USB tethering while on the road, and, viola, I am on the web anytime, anywhere!

Saved me $658 while being able to watch my favorite Netflix movie, anytime, anywhere!

March 2, 2010

Palm WebOS 1.4 Worked Wonders

HP Pre3 WebOS phone (Photo credit: Tom Raftery)

A big leap – from webOS 1.3.5.1 to webOS 1.4 indeed. Had Palm bundled out this version initially when they launced the Palm Pre last June 2009, it could have probably taken some bite off Apple’s iPhone -or, even Blackberry’s – stranglehold on the smartphone market!

webOS 1.4 was the “real webOS” Palm was suppose to showcase their new smartphone at the 2009 CES in Las Vegas, but dwindling revenues and pressure from Palm’s biggest investor – Elevation Partners– to put out a product as soon as possible, probably resulted in the initial version that lacked a not only video recording capability but also was too slow and sucked-up power too quickly from the battery.

But, why is the iPhone still so popular compared to Palm’s Pre and Pixi running webOS 1.4 when the iPhone simply runs on a mobile version of Mac OS X? Three reasons:

1) Long time Apple fans. Apple had been in the personal computer business for too long and has an established cult following. These are the same folks who bought iPhones when they were initially released.

2) Hardware elegance and software reliablity. Like their iMacs, MacBooks and Mac Pros, the iPhone was so elegantly designed using top-notched materials. While the Palm Pre could stand up to the iPhone with its well-conceived and elegant industrial design as well, the materials they used on the Pre could not. The Pres used too much plastic & screens that cracked very easily when the USB charging cable was recklessly attached.

3) Steve Jobs. Steve is the ultimate tech hardware showman. And he really knows how to whet the appetites of long time Apple fans as well as new ones.

January 9, 2010

A New Year…A New Web Server: Mac Pro Dual Quad

I greeted 2010 by upgrading my web server hosting this site and blogs.

Apple‘s PowerMac had been my favorite platform since 2004. I had been hosting the site on my very own web server since I got hold of an Apple PowerMac G4 (466 Mhz) and broadband access.

Then, in early 2006, I upgraded to a PowerMac G5 (Dual 2.0 Ghz) after several months of penny-pinching and bringing my own lunch to work. Apple’s products are by no means cheap. With their elegant design and top-notch quality, Apple is the very best in personal computer technology.

In my honest estimation, since early 2004, these two (2), trusty servers had a downtime of, probably, only 30 days. Those were the days when I had to dust-out the internals & fans, upgrade the memory or video or, move their location around the house . These babies just keep on running & running.

Remember your first HP LaserJet? Those brutes just keep on printing since the early days of ‘desktop publishing’ until you get tired of them only because of aesthetic reasons. You hate to put those machines in the landfill. They are still working. Donate and recycle!

So, the PowerMac G5 is now my back-up server. Enter the Mac Pro Dual Quad.

Physically, it looks very much the same as the PowerMac G5’s anodized-aluminum case including the weight (about 40 lbs). But, did I notice that it’s now much sleeker & shinier?. Or, maybe, simply because it’s just a newer model?

It now sports two DVD drives – dual layer but no Blue-Ray capability here, a redesigned board which makes it easy to install hard drives (up to 4) or upgrade the video card & memory.

Upgradeable parts, basically, are on sleds now. Slide out, upgrade, then slide back in.

The installed video card has a dual-link DVI port & a new Mini DisplayPort (a smaller reincarnation of their ADC port). And, of course, there are more USB & FireWire ports.

Simple yet elegant. That’s Apple for the rest of us.

But, I have to bring my own lunch to work…again. Everyday.

The new Mac Pro finally available to order on December 19th (imore.com)