ThinkVantage System Update – big UPDATE coming??
Although all ThinkVantage softwares are likely to be just redundancy from Windows stock, System Update is one of the best ThinkVantage software provided for Thinkpad. It basically automatically finds all necessary drivers and apps (of course within ThinkVantage suite) that need to be updated or installed and set all we want up by single-click. It works on and off sometimes but, 70%-80% chance, this helps save quite a lot of time spending on IBM support site. I don’t blame their unorganized site by any mean since there are tons of update every week. It’s just hard to be that organize and up-to-date at the same time.
By the way, I COULD NOT UPDATE ANYTHING with System UPDATE recently. What they tell us is only this pop-up?!? Well, May is coming—tomorrow!!. I hope it would turn out to be something very good for us, Lenovo!!! Don’t just refresh new UI like all new ThinkVantage but only a few improvement then. I don’t care if that looks cool; I want it to work well.
I’m PC Ad: I’m not cool enough to be Mac. That’s why I’m using Thinkpad, perhaps LOL
Popularity: 7% [?]
While most video streaming web sites have moved to flash based, some stuck with WMP. Then the problem is likely to be more complicated than just installing newer version. If you have the problem like no video & audio, but it says buffering then “ready”, then the way that might help is forcing WMP to use HTTP protocol only and all multicast by following procedures.
1. open WMP
2. Menu: tools > options (if you can find it, click "alt" on the keyboard)
3. Tab: Network
uncheck RTSP/*, but leave HTTP checked under protocol section
check "allow to receive multicast stream" below.
4. Done!
happy watching whatever you want =)
Note: if you are one of Thaitv.tv followers and have this issue, this definitely helps.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Adblock plus like on IE8 with InPrivate Filtering
Although I don’t use IE8 that much, it’s good to see how to implement adblock in IE. You will see it work like a charm as you experienced with Adblock plus on Firefox. It’s actually a feature in InPrivate mode (aka. porn mode) called Private Filtering. You may add rule yourself, but anony101 from dslreports.com did the list for you to import easily.
How to:-
1. Enter InPrivate mode in IE8 (Ctrl + Shift + P)
2. Menu: Safety | InPrivate Filtering Settings
3. Get into Advanced Settings
4. Then import this file "rules.xml"
You are now good to go! You will find that ad is gone in InPrivate mode. However, how about normal mode? All ads still there. If you like to enable this feature, you gotta get yourself into Registry Editor.
1. Start | Run "regedit”
2. Add “DWORD 32-bit” entry named StartMode with value 1 as shown below.
Start your IE again, you will see InPrivate Filtering Feature is on and available in normal mode too. You can always disable and enable at all time or by shortcut Ctrl + Shift + F
Well, it works =) Happy surfing without any extra stuff.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Crunchpad getting real!
Since the earlier prototype didn’t look that good, recently there are some leaked photos of new one, probably the final product including the box. It comes in many colors as well.
View Full AlbumThey look pretty good, don’t they? TechCrunch came to talk later about the detail that it is still the same idea they want at first—dead simple web tablet. Spec is still unclear, but it is 12” touch screen equipped with camera, speaker, microphone, 1*USB port, audio ports. That’s it and it’s probably powered by Intel Atom or VIA Nano. These two won’t make anything different anyway. One more thing is price. They mentioned that less than $250 is the cost. $300 could be the price for sell. How does it look to you? Will you like to try?
For me, 12” might be a bit too big for me. Also battery life is a deal breaker. We’ll see how it turns out pretty soon
more info @ techCruch.com
Popularity: 2% [?]
Verizon Hub – VoIP Renamed
Well when I first saw the ads about Verizon Hub as “the Home Phone Reinvented.” I thought it was such a good idea integrated some sort of little computer into home phone. With a nice interface, that could really help technology grow exponentially into non-geek folks.
That’s really neat. I couldn’t wait figure out what is running behind. As a result, it comes with unknown processor, 128MB RAM (as storage??), 10/100 Ethernet, WLAN, support most video and audio codecs, and 7” (800×480) touch screen. On application layer, it has sort of gadget for weather, traffic, movies, traffic, calendar, contacts, tracking system w/map, and messaging (I assumed that it is e-mail?)
Yeah, sounds nice, but when it comes to the price and how to hook it up, that really kills the deal since it basically is VoIP phone and you need *your own* broadband to do so. $200 for device and $35 more a month for service. That is about $420 a year excluding all surcharges. If it really is home phone with DSL + access point, that would be fine. However, this thing uses up our internet. Nationwide free unlimited call is what you can find for free or much cheaper, e.g. Google Voice, or ~$15 for 4 months free US call with VoipBuster, $10 with T-mobile@home, etc, thus this is not counted. That’s just too much $ for Verizon to ask.
Briefly with this setup, I guess $15 or $19.99 for service charge would be an okay point, $25 maximum! For me, I would love to have Eee Top thing + T-mobile @Home over this any day, but hey! this would be nice replacement for Vonage-like users though. In the end, Verizon hub is just another toy with premium price basically, not any innovation or evolution as I expected. You still can’t make a phone call when blackout. If you want more info then jump to VerizonWireless.com/hub [This is not even on Verizon.com]
note: This setup costs $620 for first year + $420 more next year, while Eee Top 15” touch screen costs $600 + $120 a year for T-mobile @home. That’s 7” with limit vs 15” with almost anything
Popularity: 2% [?]
Linux 101: file structure/hierarchy
File structure is the basic things people get confuse when start using Linux. Most people nowadays are likely to stick with Windows’ idea, e.g.C:\Windows\ or C:\Program files\ or C:\Users\xxxx. That’s pretty easy to understand. *nix file structure was confusing at first, but it’s not that hard to understand. In order to learn using it, then you have to know where things are first.
In *nix system, everything is a file. Whatever they are, they are represented in file format. There is no extension to distinguish any type of file, but utility called file can identify it. directory is also one kind of file. Process is also represented in file. We’ll talk about ‘file’ in detail later. Ok, I got to start with what each of directory in *nix is for.
/ Every tree needs root, file structure is also the same. /boot This is for boot loader files, e.g. GRUB, KERNEL, SYSTEM.MAP, VMLINUZ, INITRD, … /bin bin == binary; it contains commands stuff and /bin is for essential ones only. /etc This is for any system configuration; if you ever need to adjust things, this is likely to be the place to go. /sbin it doesn’t differ to /bin that much, but it contains system utilities that don’t need that much speed. /home This is the same as c:\users in Windows’ sense. Just contain any thing of each user in /home/<usr> commonly. /usr This is not where users store file, but it has hierarchy like / too. /usr/bin, /usr/lib, /usr/local/share, /usr/share, for example. What difference between /usr/bin and /bin is /bin usually contains kernel command while /usr/bin contains user commands that are not related to kernel/OS At first, /bin was designed to use in different disk (faster one) and the rest will be in /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin. /usr/binvs /usr/local/bin The difference is /usr/bin stored user commands while /usr/local/bin stored local software /opt That’s for application software, such as Thunderbird and such. /root This is home for root =) /tmp tmp == temporary; it uses as its name. /var var == variable. It uses to store configuration, logging and application information /mnt mnt == mount point; some distros use this, some don’t, some even use /Windows or /media instead of this
note: basically each of these will be in different partition/disk as well, so there is another factor involved, speed. That’s why it has commands in all over the place. Some utilities are just more important than others.
Above matrix should cover basic filesystem structure. As usual, different distribution might have a bit of different point of view, but they all share the same idea =) After knowing each of these files are for, then you will know where to expect particular files or things you need. Have fun with *nix experience.
Popularity: 11% [?]
Well, fonts are the weakest link in Linux in my opinion. Sharpness, crispness, or smoothness are just not right. That’s most likely to be the reason why Linux never gains that much user like Windows or even Mac in desktop environment.
Besides using package manager which is truly find and click, when you are going to add fonts in Linux by yourself, you should put in fontpath. They are in /usr/share/fonts or /usr/local/share/fonts or ~/.fonts/ then what you have to do is copying.
$ cp *.ttf ~/.fonts/
At this point, it will not notice the change yet. New fonts will not be visible. You have to run command, to update and rebuild its of fonts first.
$ fc-cache
That would be it. However, if you decide to put fonts in somewhere else, you have to edit ‘fonts.conf’ to add font directory in the list as well.
$ vi /etc/fonts/fonts.conf
Where <!— font directory list –> is by adding
<dir>/opt/fonts/xxxx</dir>
Then rebuild the list and restart x (easiest way is Ctrl + Alt + Backspace). At this point, all fonts will be available to use =) Anyway, I still don’t think font smoothing or crispness in Linux is good enough so far. If that day comes, I bet Linux will outpace Mac and Windows in desktop environment surely.
Popularity: 2% [?]
