Here’s a sample video on how clumsy the user interface look:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=juleRDMsUls

This was done on a $1500 Tablet PC.

My 4-year old daughter used an iPhone, for the first time last week, at an Apple Store.  She immediately knew how to use  it with hardly any trouble.  Apple’s excellence in usability design is apparent.  I should take her  to test out the touch screen PC laptops, and see how much she likes (or dislikes) it.

Maybe the designers for touch screen PCs should take the cue from a toddler.  If it’s not user friendly enough for them, it’s not worth using.  And I’m definitely not getting one… yet.

This article was posted on Rudy Amid's Blog:

Touch Screen Laptop

Related posts:

1. Building An HTPC
2. Upgrading to Ubuntu 8.10

So, with existing parts and new ones, I started to put the HTPC together:

• Intel Pentium 4 Duo running at 3.2 Ghz
• ECS G31T-M(1.0) LGA 775 Intel G31 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
• Corsair 2x2Gb PC2-6400 DDR 800 RAM
• ASUS EAH3450/DI/256M ATI Radeon HD 3450 Low Profile Video Card
• Western Digital WD6400AAKS WD Caviar SE16 SATA Internal Hard Drive – 640 Mb
  
• Seagate Barracuda® 7200.11 SATA Internal Hard Drive ST31500341AS – 1 TB
• Rosewill RCR-IC001 40-in-1 USB 2.0 3.5″ Internal Card Reader w/ USB port
• CORSAIR CMPSU-400CX 400W ATX12V V2.2 80 PLUS Certified
• VisionTek ATI TV Wonder HD 650 Combo PCI Express
• Old firewire PCI card
• Old Logitech Wireless Keyboard and Mouse
• Old LG DVD/CD RW drive
• Old black mini-tower Antec case

For the most part, this setup works pretty well:

1. Re-using old PC parts is one of my main goal.  It’s my way of “recycling”.
2. The setup is quiet.  The Corsair Power Supply is whisper quiet.  The Q-fan control on the Rosewill HSF kept the CPU fan noise down too.  There’s no fan on the video card.
3. The PCIe 16x video card is more than capable of handling YouTube and Hulu videos, as well as videos played using VLC player.
4. The VisionTek’s TV Tuner comes with ATI Catalyst Media Center that lets me record live TV to mpeg, Divx, and H.264 codecs.  It’s more liberating than Windows Media Center’s “dvrms” propreitary format!
5. I got a good deal for the Seagate 1TB drive for $90!
6. Also took advantage of the dropping RAM prices. I maxed out to 4G for $30!
7. The Rosewill all-in-one card reader is useful when Ineed to sneaker net files around using CF and SD cards.
8. Since I’m connected to the network via a Linksys wireless repeater, I can start experimenting with streaming-anywhere apps like Orb.

However, I still have a few kinks to work out:

1. I couldn’t get the ATI TV tuner card to work with Windows Media Center 2005.   It’s not a big deal, but it would be nice to have the option to use WMCE.
2. It’s having a hard time keeping up with 1080p HDTV playback.  I’m suspecting it’s the CPU fault (see below).
3. The Intel CPU (given by Matt) is an “experimental” test CPU.  It’s a dual-core Prescott chip, but it has a tiny 200 Mhz BUS!  This is an obvious performance bottleneck.
4. The TV tuner is not able to control my satellite dish because the DishNetwork set top box remote is RF based.  I’m sure someone out there has a gadget to interoperate IR and RF.

The beauty of a PC is the upgradability:

1. Get a better wireless keyboard/mouse combo.  I need them small and have more range.
2. Get a new CPU with a bigger bus.  Perhaps upgrade my other PC to a Quad, and use the Dual in the HTPC.
3. Upgrade to 64-bit Windows 7 Media Center.  Hopefully ATI will update their drivers to support it.
4. Get a Blu-Ray Disc drive.  However, with the unstable flux of Sony’s BD firmware revisions, I doubt I’ll get into this any time soon.

I enjoy putting a PC together, much like playing with a giant jigzaw puzzle.   With this one, I learned that a custom made HTPC is not so easy to build on a budget.  It takes time and patience, and a lot of experimentation.  Other HTPC enthusiasts will attest to that.

This article was posted on Rudy Amid's Blog:

Building An HTPC

Related posts:

1. PC Build 2008: Part 2
2. PC Build 2008: Part 1
3. PC Build 2011

• Free Arby’s roast burger.  I had the bacon cheddar burger, and it was good.  We generally liked the roast burgers.
• Consistent, Simple, and Repeatable process.  Something we should strive and enforce in the work place.
• Obama left, or try to be right wing?  Or just down the middle?
• Led Zeppelin vs The Beatles – who’s more influential?  The Beatles had talent but had a lot of marketing (movies, interviews, etc.).  Led Zeppelin was innovative with minimal marketing.  I thought The Beatles, as a group or individually, was more mainstream, so they were more influential.

This article was posted on Rudy Amid's Blog:

Lunch Bits – Edition 30

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1. Lunch Bits – Edition 8
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I upgraded the hard drive before, so at least I could preserve my Apache, PHP, and MySQL setup. However, Fedora 7 wouldn’t boot with the new hardware, especially the on-board S-ATA controller on the ASUS motherboard. It would not find the VolGroup00 RAID setup and threw a kernel panic. I used the rescue CD and examined the /mnt/sysimage/etc setup (and a bit of google searching). I couldn’t figure out how to fix it. I even tried to use the Fedora 7 disc to do an “upgrade” over my current setup. But the kernel update won’t happen because I had several kernel patches since the original install.

So my only way out was to do a real upgrade to Fedora Core 8. I downloaded the DVD ISO off bittorrent for 3 hours, ran the upgrade setup, and recompiled PHP/Apache. Now I’m back in business! Phew! Hopefully this setup will be more stable. I’m going to watch that uptime!

This article was posted on Rudy Amid's Blog:

Linux and hardware upgrades

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2. Ubuntu Linux – Very First Impression
3. Web Site Tuning – Let’s Start from The Bottom

Some product, like this Logitech stand, claims that it reduces fatigue if the monitor is at eye level. However, there’s a research into CVS reveals the most important thing is the way we view our monitors:

CONCLUSIONS: Our findings show that most important factor leading to the syndrome is the angle of gaze at the computer monitor. Pain in computer users is diminished when gazing downwards at angles of 14 degrees or more.

So no amount of gadget can help if I don’t have the proper monitor downward viewing angle, fix my posture, and blink my eyes.

Also, the research said, “… CVS remains an under estimated and poorly understood issue at the workplace.” Not many people that I know are aware of it. Fortunately, my optometrist said this problem is fixable, as written in their newsletter article. CVS is now less scary than I previously thought.

This article was posted on Rudy Amid's Blog:

Prolonged computer screen viewing

Related posts:

1. My Old Friend The Amiga
2. Linux and hardware upgrades

It was a very specialized computer introduced in 1985. Mainly, it was marketed for gaming and ray-tracing (see Babylon 5 TV series’ CG graphics made using Video Toasters). The graphics and sound were way ahead of its time, much better than the IBM and Apple PCs.

I was more involved in the gaming side of the Amiga such as Lemmings, Shadow of the Beast, and Arkanoid. I owned the Amiga 2000 with upgrades such as a whopping 1Mb Chip RAM, and the Commodore A2090 SCSI controller with a SCSI hard drive (which I couldn’t remember the make and size). I used to go to computer conventions in Toronto to spend hundreds of dollars on hardware and software. I would also visit my friends, who has other Amiga models, and see their setup, exchange ideas, etc.

Like all good things, the Amiga didn’t last long. Commodore filed for bankruptcy and ended the Amiga. Its community fought to the very end. They kept the flame alive by continuing to support and discuss Amiga topics on BBS, Usenet, and chat channels (IRC’s #amiga was my home for a while). I ended up giving away my Amiga 2000 to a cancer patient who needed a computer. Since then, I have not heard of the Amiga for a long time.

I just read a series of article on Ars Technica. It’s about the history of the Amiga, and it’s worth the read for nostalgia (and historical) sake. Below are the direct links:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4

This article was posted on Rudy Amid's Blog:

My Old Friend The Amiga

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