Santa's Gone Centro

I saw this in one of the local Palm forums and it's very funny and interesting. Giving an old concept a new twist. Some might find it weird, but some might get entertained. Me, well, I like change. Or new concepts of old stuff.

To Eee or not to Eee

I like the ASUS Eee Box. I like it because simply because of it's size and it's capabilities. What am I going to use it for? I will use it to replace my Ubuntu box which acts as my media server at home.

I have an old WinBox that acted on me last year when I upgraded the HDD and Win XP doesn't want to install on it. Hopeless, I got myself a new WinBox with a Core 2 Duo processor. So what did I do with the old box? Since I cannot install Windows on it, and I am such a cheapskate to throw it away, I tried installing Ubuntu, and what do you know, it worked.

Now what to do with an extra CPU? Simple! Use it as a server, a Media server at that! I hooked it up to my HDTV, and it is now the center of my, ehem, "media" downloads. That's direct watching on the HDTV.

Anyways, let's go back to the EeeBox. Well, the Ubuntu Box uses a full-sized power supply, meaning, it eats a lot of energy, from in-use to standby. If I will replace it with the EeeBox, it will greatly decrease my carbon footprint, decreases the heat it produces, indirectly lessening the load on the airconditioning unit, cooling the basement faster.

But I'm hesitant to get one now. Though dirt-cheap at less than P15T, I am hopefull that a newer model will (more powerful) will come out in the following months as parts will come in cheaper.

The Vista View: Rated Average

I've finally dove into the Vista realm. Though technically I've used Vista since it's Beta and RC days. 

I think I caught a Blaster worm thru my USB flash drive from that printing shop who claimed that the .exe program in my flash drive was a virus/trojan horse. 

Ok, so after inserting the flash drive in my system, suddenly, I got that dreaded 60 secs shut down prompt. I tried playing around, you know, troubleshooting, but I guess my patience got to me and was not in the mood to play around. I decided to sacrifice the few photos and files I have in my un-partitioned hard drive. So the only solution I have at that moment was, to reformat. So, I popped out my XP CD and did a clean install. But after the whole process, I found out that I didn't have the drivers of my motherboard, thus I can't connect to the internet because I'm missing the Ethernet drivers. SHIT! I'm getting impatient.

I changed, walked all the way to the nearest SM (didn't bother to bring the car because it will just add time when I look for a parking space), and went straight to the Tech Shops. I went to Silicon Valley, asked how much Vista is, P4500 for the Home Basic and P7000 for the Home Premium (didn't bother to ask for the Ultimate version). Went to Octagon, but all they had was the Vista Starter Pack P2200. So I went back to Silicon Valley and asked for the Vista Home Premium (of course this is the OEM version), and the lady told me that there's a discount and I'm getting it at P6700 (hmmmm though I think even if there's no discount I'm still decided on getting one). 

At home, I inserted it into the DVD drive, restarted the PC, but no "press any key to boot from CD/DVD". WHAT? Perhaps I got a fake DVD? Yeah right! Ok, tried it a couple more times but still no progress. Ok, what to do now? I remembered that I have a downloaded Vista iso disk. Got it, and inserted it. THERE! Booted from that DVD and was able to get into the install part. Ok, here I am, holding a genuine Vista Install Disk but I'm using a bootlegged copy to install Vista. Yeah, confusing! Now, it's asking me for a product key. I entered the product key that came with my sparkling new DVD install disk and prayed profusely that the series of number would work. And it did! 

The installation was smooth and I was able to set up the OS in no time. I installed Vista drivers for my motherboard, soundcard and videocard. Installed drivers for my Samsung Laser Printer and Brother all-in-one printer, my wireless Logitech keyboard and mouse. Went into the web, downloaded and installed Firefox, Chrome, iTunes, Picasa 3. Installed Microsoft Office 2007 suite. Re-installed Palm Desktop and Hotsync Manager, all my Palm Centro apps including ePocrates, Merck Mobile Medicus, and Documents-to-Go.

In other words, I have revived the persona of my "old" PC, but renovated it into a new system. So why is it a big deal? Well, I am still convinced that Vista is a raw operating system and comparable to Windows XP, it's fairly a half-baked OS. I still consider XP as the more "stable" sibling. A friend of mine has been convincing me to "upgrade" to Vista, to be honest, one of the reasons why I don't is that, I find it expensive to spend on something that will be "obsolete" in a couple of years. Another thing that prevents me from using Vista is the availability of the drivers for my peripherals. Good thing, before I really decided to get the original software (up to now, it's hard to find a "reliable" bootlegged Vista), I looked for drivers for my peripherals, and Vista drivers were already available. So here I am, using a PC with Vista Home Premium available. 

One Interesting Device (Toshiba G450)

This is one interesting device. It's a mobile phone, a USB Modem, and an MP3 player all in one. Yeah, I know, all other cellphones can do the same but then again, it's not as cute and perhaps functional as this. Just look at how sexy it looks. I just don't think it's going to be SMS friendly.

From U to RED

Yesterday I got a phone call from someone, she told me that I will be receiving a new SIM to replace my current uMobile SIM. They are changing names, from uMobile to RED Mobile. They are now finishing the transition towards full integration with SMART network.

uMobile is the mobile phone division of one of the telecom companies that was granted 3G license by the NTC. But a few months in their launching, they were acquired by SMART.

Their marketing strategy was to give out free SIM cards and free loads in return for allowing advertisement on the subscriber's mobile phone. Meaning, the more ads you click the more load you get. uMobile's initial promotion was an invite-only SIM which comes with P100 load/month. Midway on this promo, they will now change callsigns from uMobile to RED mobile.

I wonder what "unlimited" means in their teaser commercials?