Memory Upgrade surprise…
The Mission: Track down a 1.5GB RAM upgrade for the CF-Y4. Previous experience had been showing prices at $300 – too high.
The Execution: I knew the specs of the chip I needed – but for some reason, prices were still high! Froogle and Pricewatch were unhelpful, so I started checking out the Google ads…and holy crap. Went to Memory-Up.com and found a “compatible chip” for <$70. Done.
The Outcome: Despite my trepidation (I am always skeptical of cheap RAM) – worked like a charm! New Kingston brand chips and ran multiple tests to be sure. Very happy with it and no shipping, just sales tax. If anyone wants my old 512MB chip – hit me up.
Windows 7 Impressions – Part 1
Installed Windows 7 on a spare partition on the Y4 and found the following “inconsistent behaviors”.
1) Sound isn’t consistent. Used the Sigmatel XP drivers and sometimes the sound works and sometimes it doesn’t. It does alternate – but couldn’t find a consistent reason. blah.
2) Touchpad drivers (Synaptic) were not happy. Not too big a deal – but then you lose the scrolling functionality with default windows mouse driver – lammmme
3) Keyboard driver(s) – was having some funkiness with the keyboard layout (gave me an error that a CF-50 keyboard was not supported by Vista). The buttons worked, but the layout was a little jacked up. Also – Function key drivers were not happy – so changing brightness/sound level was not happening.
4) Video drivers – appeared to work well. Only ran into one issue consistently – video playback was not happy all the time. Regular use had great resolution and the screen looked good. Going to try some updated codecs and see how this goes…
UPDATE: Codecs made no difference in video playback – still broke it. Dug up some more information on the Intel 915 video chipset on the Windows 7 Forum. Does not look like a WDDM driver is coming any time soon…:(
Overall:
So far, so good. The system has been stable with no crashes. IE8 crashed once when I tried opening Google Analytics in IE8. Apparently the missing plugin killed it. Performance is pretty impressive and comparable to XP with more eye candy. The feature improvements are a small step up from Vista – but the implementation is so much better. I look forward to checking out the final release…
Digsby…sigh…
Ack! IM outages are lame – but when they are so much more and incorporate other pieces, it becomes a bigger problem. Digsby is down 
so that means it’s off to my trusty backup multiple IM client on the Blackberry – Web Messenger.
As far as what happened to Digsby? Just can’t connect and the last cogent information from their blog says the following:
We are having server-side issues that brought down the service. We are working on the problem now and will be back up shortly. If you want to be notified when we come back online, send an email to bugs@digsby.com.
After a year of almost perfect uptime, this is the second outage in the last week. This is completely unacceptable and we will make sure this does not become a regular occurrence!
Wish there was more information – but to be honest, I would rather they focus on fixing the problem and get the service up. Here’s to hoping that zombies were not involved. Or if they were, there is some great footage.
UPDATE: Back online! Also had the chance to start playing around with their embeddable widget – VERY cool.
Panasonic Laptops – where’s the love?
Right here. I use a Panasonic CF-Y4 (the new ones are the Y7 and up). You never hear about these laptops – but though “old” I have not grown tired of the design.
- Great compact keyboard layout with normal pitch
- FANLESS design for quiet computing
- Extraordinary battery life (still get about 3 hours per charge with screen at 75% and wireless after almost 4 years of daily use)
- 14″ screen with decent color/contrast
- DVD burner flips up on the wristpad area for more compact design
- Resilient – I spilled water on it twice and had a couple rough landings – works great and dries out easily
- 3.4 lbs with a small AC adapter. Still not sure why this is a challenge for laptop manufacturers.
Of course, there are some downsides:
- Limited expansion (60GB HD standard – later models have it easier to remove – mine requires pretty heavy disassembly to replace). It has 512MB soldered to the motherboard with an expansion slot.
- Centrino 1.6Ghz processor – it’s not a slouch, but it is not a speed demon either. I also fully realize that this chip came out in 2003. Editing photos, etc. works well – only had problems with ridiculously large workspaces (was working on a 300dpi 8.5×11 folder layout and it was sloooooow). But it worked
- 2 USB ports – really? They could have squeezed in one more. But I understand.
- Intel Video chipset – it’s not that it’s bad – it’s just not great. I had to update the driver to get it to work consistently with my external monitor. But other than that – pretty stable.
- Not a beautiful laptop by modern standards. It’s not sleek, svelte or sexy. Unless you appreciate Tonka trucks for their industrial design. Then it should suit you just fine. I will say that the design protects the innards quite well. The LAN/modem ports have a sturdy rubber flap that seals nicely and the screen (though it seems bulky) has plenty of protection without getting keyboard marks on the screen from being packed into your bag. I have seen some very nice uber-thin notebooks succumb to this design flaw. It’s great to have a super thin screen – but when the anti-glare coating starts getting rub marks from your keyboard – that sucks.
I got my Y4 laptop from Dynamism in 2005 – great service and was able to get the laptop configured to my specs. I will be checking them out for my next laptop upgrade.
Alas, Panasonic has been making some kick butt laptops for a while – previously I used a CF-L1XR and loved it. Bought in 2000 and retired in 2005 so it served me well. It had a P-III 600, 1″ thick, 4.3 lbs, CD-RW, with dual batteries (would get 6 hours out of it easy). I still use it for playing with Ubuntu.
DLNA and your OS
So if you want to use a uPnP client – you have to get creative. Music is easy – but the video piece requires some finagling. Finding uPnP servers is easy – finding software clients is the tough part.
If you are on Windows XP - you can use XBMC – but it’s a little demanding on older hardware – also kinda tough to “minimize” – it pretty much takes over. I haven’t been able to find a free DLNA client for XP (on2share has mixed reviews and costs money). I am going to try the VLC plugin next. I know Vista has it built into WMP – but my laptop can’t hang…
If you are on Ubuntu – RhythmBox is good for music and Totem works great. There are some independent projects for a uPnP client which work decently. This plugin has worked for me so far with Totem. Can’t wait til it gets folded into production code.
I have been messing around with Windows 7 and it has worked pretty well with my setup. Was able to stream music/photos/movies from my DLNA server on the network. Pretty nice having it built into WMP – might be worth the upgrade and it performed decently on my “older” laptop.
Post further ideas if you have em!
DLNA – it’s getting there
So took the plunge and decided to digitize our entire DVD collection. I wish I could say that it was a quest to forge ahead in the technical world – but alas, it was just a space issue. We have a bunch of DVDs and they take up space in the tiny place we have. Now they are in plastic bins in the basement, and we don’t miss them at all.
So if you want to take the plunge – here is the easiest way.
1) Backup the DVD into a single file (DVD43 and Handbrake are the easiest – Windows only though)
2) Put the file somewhere on the network that makes sense (I had an old server setup for a while, but then grabbed a NAS and haven’t looked back).
3) Hook up a DLNA compatible player hooked up to your monitor/tv (I snagged an 80GB PS3 – was able to retire my PS2 and get a decent blu-ray player).
4) Browse your media collections (the NAS works with Video, Photos and Music) and enjoy. Worked like a charm with minimal setup. I think this is how it’s supposed to work – awesome.
Integrating in the cloud…really?
So the notion of data warehouses is/has been a standardized approach to being able to parse it and do some analytics. Have had some recent experiences that are beginning to show promise in getting the analytics functionality without having to dedicate hardware and management.
Companies like LucidEra and Pervasive are giving businesses a chance to outsource typical BI (Business Intelligence) gathering duties. I have had the chance to use both and am very impressed with the direction these companies are going. By allowing connections to leverage APIs in the cloud – administration seems like it would be easier. The other upside? Access to reporting is through a web interface or an existing application – so no new systems and easier access controls. Worth seeing how companies like LogiXML pop up in various ways as the logic engine under the hood of integration startups.
Great writeup on managed hosting options…
I have to give some kudos – my colleague Sean Tario put a lot of effort and research into a post on managed web hosting. There is so much misinformation and deceptive marketing out there – it’s tough to know what your options truly are.
Sean – thanks for putting this together – it’s a great resource and breaks down what managed hosting means for the typical entrepreneur.
http://seantario.com/2009/01/server-hosting-options-a-rough-guide/
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