Category Archives: gadgets

Mac OSX and CIFS/SMB relationship

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After I had a problem transferring file over CIFS with my Macbook Pro, there are a lot of issues: stopping copying, missing files in a destination although successful operation. That was frustrated and surely I can’t give up on Samba just yet. I even have to do rsync or cp to get expectable outcome from such a simple task. By the way, after stumble across threads, KBs, I found the solution that make me happy for couple weeks so far.

Here is what I was looking for Mac OSX 10.5, 10.6: About named streams on SMB-mounted NAS

What you have to do is pretty simple, enabling named streams on Mac OS X client–yeah my machine! By opening up Terminal and type as following:-

echo "[default]" >>  ~/Library/Preferences/nsmb.conf
echo "streams=yes" >> ~/Library/Preferences/nsmb.conf

That is enabling named streams as a default for all smb connection. This makes my day indeed — not worrying if copying works as it should or not.

Popularity: 2% [?]

me & Snow Leopard after first 2 weeks

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For the record, I had been using Mac OSX way way back to iBook G3; as I remember, it’s Tiger back then. I didn’t have much love for Mac OSX. That’s why I turned to Vista (believe it or not, I think it’s better than Tiger in many ways), and Windows 7. Nonetheless, destiny always plays us. I have to get a new machine after 3-year+ with X61 Tablet. X200 Tablet is my next target, but in Thailand, unfortunately, there is none available in brick and mortar store. It’s required a special order which takes like a month or so with *extra special price :( * to get which is much more expensive than Macbook Pro. Thus, I decided to get Macbook Pro with matte screen & i7. My decision of purchasing Macbook Pro is about hardware alone since I didn’t think of software as a barrier.

I won’t go through all detail right away since I still need more time to adjust my routine to suit Mac OSX to get a fair comparison. In short, pros and cons I have found are below.

Pros:

  • [software] Apple makes me believe that their trackpad is good; after I have so much love for Thinkpad trackpoint.
  • [software] OSX handle multiple monitors well (just 2 monitors so far) [Linux is way way behind Mac OSX/Windows]
  • [software] Never in love with multiple workspaces, but Spaces does the job very very well.
  • [software] OSX handle most of Google thingys well: iCal, Address Book rocks w/Google account.
  • [software] Mail app is way better than Live Mail in Windows.
  • [software] Spotlight is as good as Windows Search.
  • [software] VMWare Fusion is pretty damn good with a unity feature; it makes you believe that Windows app is native Mac app.
  • [software] Gotta love having bash shell as default. To me, it’s better than DOS.
  • [hardware] Macbook Pro looks very very nice.
  • [hardware] MagSafe should be on every laptops!

Cons:

  • [software] OSX just can’t handle copying files [from cifs to another cifs, multiple copy & paste, multiple times of drag & drop, copying files within many many level of folders] It doesn’t matter if it’s Windows’ thing. If OSX supports it, MAKE IT fully compatible. >> here is a fix.
  • [software] Emptying trash is a pain in the ass; I don’t know what they do, how secure they are doing, but there is no choice for unsecured and fast one. That’s bad enough. shift+option+cmd+del is good enough to empty everything although it might take few hours.
  • [software] iWork is useless to me–I can’t even open MS Word file.
  • [software] Microsoft Office for Mac is below par when it comes to compatibility with Windows version–It’s not OS fault, but most people around me use Windows, that makes this a con. I expect much better app-and-OS-independent here.
  • [software] Missing OneNote! there is none as good also. VMWare Fusion comes being a hero here.
  • [software] no Windows Live Photo replacement–I hate iPhoto which can do only in its own library. Adobe Bridge comes close but it’s not built for viewing tons of photo in many folders at once. Picasa has its own way of keeping all info. I don’t like that. (I stick with spacebar to preview for now.)
  • [software] a change of not showing SMB/CIFS mount on desktop in Snow Leopard is very very awkward. In Tiger, if you mount CIFS path, you will get a link on desktop. This can be achieved with ln -s, but why make this more complicated than it used to be? my bad that I couldn’t find this: firing up Sidebar Preference | General Tab | you will see connected servers show on desktop option! checked!
  • [hardware] 2 USB for top-of-the-line machine?
  • [hardware] Screen isn’t IPS-comparable; this is less than I expected. At least Thinkpad X200 Tablet will come with a better panel.
  • [hardware] no PgUp/PgDw and many buttons on Mac keyboard, but I do love having CMD as an extra.

I know that many are applications’ cons, but if I only include what OS can do, not considering 3rd party app too, it would be non real-world experience. Is there anyone still uses computer w/o any 3rd party software nowadays? I’m sure I will have a lot more to add here; wait and see.

 

Popularity: 9% [?]

Toshiba Folio AS100 – ruining their own reputation?

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I was expecting to grab AC100, but unfortunately Toshiba Thailand decided to stay put releasing AC100 indefinitely. Nonetheless, they, at least, are in a hurry having AS100 on sale (hoping to get some market share from Apple iPad, perhaps.) 10″ slate tablet powered by promising nVidia Tegra 2 and Android. It does look good on the paper indeed. Unfortunately, it’s doomed to fail hard.

Not a single thing is right. From cheapy chassis; half baked Android Froyo; ugly look. Checkout photos below if it’s true.

Toshiba Folio AS100 Toshiba Folio AS100 Toshiba Folio AS100 Toshiba Folio AS100 Toshiba Folio AS100 Toshiba Folio AS100 Toshiba Folio AS100 Toshiba Folio AS100 Toshiba Folio AS100 Toshiba Folio AS100 Toshiba Folio AS100

A pixelated screen isn’t from the camera. The screen looks worse in person, believe me. Touch sensitivity isn’t responsive as it should be. On-screen keyboard is just plain stock Android, no optimization to suit large screen like Samsung or Dell did with their tablets. You may see that all menu is tweaked for menu + key which is supposed to be for AC100. Tweaked UI like home button on top left is pretty small, not even suited fingerprint touch. It seems like everything isn’t for AS100 at all. Actually, in other words, it’s failed since the screen is off. When screen is on, it’s even worse.

It definitely gets 0 rating from me, failed miserably.

Popularity: 4% [?]

PDF reflow on Kindle

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Although the latest Kindle is capable to handle PDF file with some good tricks: zoom & contrast. It doesn’t have a reflow feature which is needed for regular size Kindle (I have no comment about Kindle DX since I don’t own one.) which most of PDF file is in letter or A4 paper size. At fit-to-screen zoom, everyone will have problem reading freaking small text size. Zoom isn’t natural enough to read comfortably also. Fortunately, Amazon realized this issue and have a way to solve this issue. Amazon will convert PDF to reflowed kindle own format for you for free (or a small bucks via Whisper sync)

What do you need to do?

  1. Add your email in “Your Kindle Approved E-Mail list,” if you don’t know where to find this, go to amazon.com -> your account -> manage your Kindle
  2. If you want to do this freely, then set Maximum individual charge limit: $
    If you don’t do this, then you have to make sure that you use you Kindle’s email with @free.kindle.com domain only. By setting as $0 limit, Amazon will switch from @kindle.com to @free.kindle.com automatically.
  3. Prepare PDF file; attach this file; send by e-mail in approved list to Kindle’s email address [with @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com if you set limit to $0] with subject convert
  4. Wait and see the magic from Amazon. If you do have WIFI on, this document will get in your Kindle less than few minutes. If not, then you can grab the file in replied email from Amazon.

What will you lose? Unfortunately, you will lose something figure or format, but all I can say is it’s much better than I expected.

Is there any alternative? yes, there is. Auto Kindle is a project that converts PDF file to mobi format which is able to re-flow in Kindle. But as I tested, output is not as good as Amazon’s way.

Now, I’m only waiting for Moleskine to release a cover for 3rd generation Kindle, I would be all set!

Popularity: 15% [?]

Sync Contacts problem in Froyo?

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Symptom: No matter how you tried, you will not see Twitter and/or Facebook data in your contacts.

Cause: When you upgraded your Android to Froyo, you are likely to face this issue–missing Facebook and/or Twitter contact in your existed contacts. It’s somehow broken the bond between Contact & Facebook & Twitter.

Solution: Go to Settings | Applications | Manage Applications – find Twitter and/or Facebook, then tap Clear data. Restart once, check if you have Sync Contacts turn on for those apps. You should be good to go now. If you still find a problem, try Clear data in Contacts too. It will be a bit slow to recover this time since it will have to start from scratch again, but you will have everything in order again.

Popularity: 2% [?]

MOTOLORA: Buy from another company if you like to have custom ROMs.

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MotoDEVThis has been addressed by Motolora couple days ago before upcoming Droid X, which is named to be the best phone yet, is available.

I really don’t understand yet how Motolora decided to piss customers (or soon to be customers) like this. As Nexus One owner, I can do pretty much all I want with phone. However, I still use stock ROM, why? I don’t like any custom ROM over vanilla one. Nonetheless, I do push some edited libraries I like to my phone such as light_mahimahi and indeed superboot image which is for root access. Nothing is better than what you’ve done by yourself.

The way I see this is Motolora can just do the way Google did with Nexus One. You can unlock easily, but the consequence is no turning back and surely voiding warranty. That is software part of course—if your phone turned to a brick, that’s yours since you gave your consent before unlocking. However, if hardware failure happens, that should be covered. There is a rumor about eFuse being used in Droid X as well, but that ain’t confirmed. If it’s true, it would be the worst move ever. By the way, we all know that rooted phones are just a minority; custom ROM phones are even less, but these are groups of people who are willing to buy every single new phone or considering as pretty loyal customers. I guess that Motolora never learned when Palm, Inc pissed off all loyal customers then.

For me, the worst thing of this issue is Motolora is like the only company so far that has a physical keyboard which I really want. Milestone was my target. This issue gave me a big pause—since I was waiting for superboot image for it for a while now. However, with new Droid X, I guess Motolora will have no real advantage to other companies then.

Good bye, MOTO until you change your mind.

updated: (July 28, 2010) It seems like DroidX can be rooted pretty easy w/o breaking anything; what a good sign that is.

Popularity: 1% [?]

AT&T Nexus One to Froyo

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It’s been a while after T-mobile one got Frozen Yogurt. However, it’s time to end since Google started pushing Froyo OTA update since last week. I got 2 OTA updates, but they both failed to complete the update. Why? because I rooted my EPE54B. Thus, OTA will not do the job nicely.

How? you can do all manual update =) As of now, Google released FRF85B. For whom you might not understand, all T-mobile and AT&T, which have their own build number, will have to same build, FRFxx. When Google first released Froyo to T-mobile Nexus One, it’s like FRF50. However, not it’s FRF85B which is official.

Update procedure: it will be 2 path for rooted N1 and unrooted N1.

1. For unrooted N1, EPE54B, you just grab images of your build below.

2. Rename the file to update.zip and copy to root directory of SD.

3. Reboot your N1 to recovery mode by holding volume down + power. You will get into HBoot/Fastboot mode.

4. Use volume up/down to select menu and power to select “recovery.” N1 will reboot again to /!\ page. That’s fine. Then, you have to get into recovery mode by holding power and press volume up.

5. You will see Android system recovery;you now can use your trackball to select any option. Choose apply sdcard:update.zip

6. Wait until reboot and have fun with Frozen Yogurt.

 

For rooted N1, you will have to take rougher route. You actually have many ways to do so. Custom ROM like Modaco or else, for example. However, I just prefer to have original ROM with root access. You can follow these steps to do so:

1. go back to original image.

2. update as unrooted N1 steps above

3. root FRF85B

For the first step, you need to download original image, here. Please check md5 too. Then you have to extract boot.img, recovery.img out to your android-sdk tools directory (c:\android-sdk\tools for me) Now you are ready to copy old image to replace superboot one by fastbooting. You have to get to Fastboot mode and check if it’s Fastbook USB which is indicated connection between N1 and computer.

c:\android-sdk\tools> fastboot devices  // to check if computer sees N1
c:\android-sdk\tools> fastboot erase userdata
c:\android-sdk\tools> fastboot erase cache

This 2 steps above are optional and if you use Amon_RA’s recovery, you will have to get into recovery mode to wipe those.

c:\android-sdk\tools> fastboot flash boot boot.img
c:\android-sdk\tools> fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
c:\android-sdk\tools> fastboot reboot

That would be all set for returning back to original image =) (well, not exactly true since we didn’t care about system.img and userdata.img which the update doesn’t bother.)

For the last step, download superboot image here. Then rename to update.zip and apply sdcard:update.zip in recovery mode like when you did with updating Froyo image.

Now you will be very happy AT&T Froyo Nexus One like I am.

 

Note: FRF85B root update.zip didn’t do the trick for me since it’s error while updating. If you face the same situation, just ask. You can do a manual way also =)

Popularity: 6% [?]

Apple iPad – too big or just the right size

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Apple iPad First of all, how the hell Apple manages to get *4:3 IPS panel* at this time while no others even care to get one. Kudos to Apple for that.

I don’t know what Apple plan for iPad; some says to beat netbook to death; some says to beat tablet pc; some says to create new category; whatever that is, I know Apple will find the way to establish their products well, regardless how big market share would be. When I first saw iPad, my react is like, “hmm they really did that!? I love to buy one,” but  when I got to specification and realized that it is 9” screen; it gave me a big pause, here. 9” is way to big to consider as on-the-go device and one-hand operation, I don’t know really how I’m going to use it if I have one.

Well, it’s iPhone OS. I’m not sure if that is a good choice for such a big device like this. If it were 7”, that would be awesome with iPhone OS. I guess I gotta tryout on this. The only reason why Apple use iPhone OS I see is the thinness since it runs on ARM CPU; I can’t imagine Apple uses such a low end stuff like Atom either. Imagine that Steve Jobs claimed that Apple works with Intel specifically to have such a powerful CPU package named Atom. Nah, it just never works out well.

ipad keyboard God almighty huge on-screen keyboard! That looks good. I think it will beat any on-screen keyboard indeed and yet, it might beat Apple own real physical keyboard as well since I have no clue why the heck they have that uncomfortable, thin and no tactile feedback for bigass iMac.

On the couch, it will be one of the hell device out there—no arguement here. I would love to see how IdeaPad U1 goes too since it’s basically the same thing as iPad, just differrent OS, which Apple already proved their supremacy, while Lenovo is just newbie. However, I can’t see iPad being used anywhere else. We’ll see if my imagination is too short here.

In short, this is just one of million opinions on iPad. We’ll see how it’s going to change when iPad releases.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Lenovo Ideapad U1 – fantastic 2

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LenovoIdeaPadU1Hybrid21_thumbIt’s good to see new idea implemented. Now it’s Lenovo’s turn. The idea of having tablet and the base is not that new since always innovating introduced a while ago although they don’t do mass production as of yet [or can’t build enough.] However, Lenovo came up with a similar idea, but it seems to be much more practical. Instead of having 1 machine which can be separated into 2 pieces, they decided to have 2 separated machines that can be merged into 1 device. Really interesting!

A tablet part is running by 1GHz ARM processor, 16GB SSD, Wifi-n, 3G, resistive touch, webcam, and battery. It’s powered by Lenovo-customized version of Linux. A base part is another machine running by Core 2 processor, standard HDD, memory, HDMI, Wifi-n [another NIC for base!!], and battery which is operated by Windows 7. You might wonder if they can really run as 2 devices; They can! according to laptopmag.com. You can use your TV or monitor plug to HDMI for the base while playing with the tablet part somewhere else.

How do they work? There is some sort of synchronizing program when 2 parts are joined. You will not lose anything when running on each device. For example, you are browsing Google Reader on tablet part. When you merge it to the base, that page will show in Windows 7 too. Well, I’m looking forward to it!

Lenovo blog says it is believed to cost $999 as starting price point and will be available in April, 2010. Not too shabby.

More information:
Hand-on video @ laptopmag.com
A lot of pictures @ pocket-lint.com
Inside info @ Lenovo blog

Popularity: 5% [?]

Pandora is real now; so close!

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well, I wish I had Pandora with me now. MWeston was showing/playing trying to make us want Pandora even more !!

Like someone in the community said, “take your damn time, but it’s better be damn good.”

Yeah, I can see that’s coming!! hold your breath, it’s so darn close now.

Popularity: 1% [?]