Forty Hours

You cannot teach a man anything. You can only help him discover it within himself. - Galileo Galilei

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Nokia 6500

Slim Nokia 6500 Classic's worth the wait

AFTER lagging behind the likes of Samsung and Motorola in the slim phone market, Nokia is finally in the thick of the action with the 6500 Classic. At 9.5mm thin, the 6500 Classic would be one of the thinnest Nokia phones ever, and Nokia has really done a good job at it.

My first impressions - simply classy and elegant with nice clean lines and curves. Apart from the micro USB port at the top, there are no side buttons to disrupt its minimalist aesthetics. Its sleek look is achieved with polished anodized aluminium and black glossy plastic with touches of chrome.

The anodised aluminium on its top half gives it a solid feel and heft, while keeping it lightweight at the same time.

The glossy plastic lower half, however, is a fingerprint magnet.

The 6500 Classic's beauty extends to its display as well. Nokia has outfitted it with a 240 x 320 pixel display that is excellent, with razor-sharp text. Even the smallest font size is easily readable. Pity it's just a 2-inch display; another half-inch would have been

perfect. The phone's standard numeric keypad layout has keys that are a little too small and flat.

Even though the keys have raised bottom edges, they are still rather hard to press even for ladies. I had to resort to fingernails for best results. It comes with 3G and 1 GB internal memory, but no expansion slot.

One final minor shortcoming is the micro USB connector. As it's also a charging, data synchronising and audio connector, you can't listen to music when you're charging the phone.

FINAL SAY

A definite head-turner, the Nokia 6500 Classic is excellent if you want a chic-looking phone that does its job well. It's also a splendid choice as a weekend phone.

By Tony Lim, who works in the IT industry.

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Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Stream videos from your laptop to your TV

Live Stream Video

All you need is a media extender. PETER KENNY and JULIAN WONG show you how to do it

stream video

Turn your TV into a media centre wirelessly by plugging in a media extender, then stream content from a laptop or PC within Wi-Fi range. -- ST PHOTO: MUGILAN RAJASEGERAN

IT'S GREAT to watch your downloaded movies and home-made videos on the laptop.

But it's so much better to watch them on the big TV screen telly with the whole family lounging in the living room.

The old way was to pull a cable from your laptop to the VGA port of your TV, but in today's wireless world, this is so uncool.

The good news is that you can easily Wi-Fi-enable your TV. Turn it into a media centre wirelessly by plugging in a device called a media extender into it. You can then stream content from any laptop within the Wi-Fi range to your goggle box.

If you have multiple TV sets, simply add additional media extenders to each TV and suddenly you have a movie warehouse in your laptop that can stream to multiple terminals.

There's no shortage of media extenders in the market. We took three of them - the Pinnacle ShowCenter 200, NetGear Digital Entertainer HD and the Apple TV for a spin.

How to set up
To set up the media centres, locate the audio and video output cables accompanying the units and connect them to the correct input ports on the TV or flat screen panel.

For HDMI, the newest cable for speedy image transfers, you just need one wire to connect both the video and audio signals.

Next, you need to install and run the software on to your PC.

Finally, point the software to the folders in which you store your audio, video and photo files.

The Pinnacle ShowCenter 200 showed signs of its age - it does not support Windows Vista and had only component video outputs instead of the de-facto HDMI, necessary for Full HD full-screen monitors and for better image quality.

The Netgear Digital Entertainer HD media centre, on the other hand, supports Windows Vista and comes fully equipped with an HDMI connector. The on-screen user interface is also way friendlier and navigation is a marked improvement over the Pinnacle ShowCenter 200.

The third product, the AppleTV, is slightly different in that it has a hard disk inside the box. And the reason for this became apparent in our tests.

When it comes to streaming music and photos wirelessly from the laptop or desktop to these media centre devices, all the products performed as claimed.

However, when we tried streaming HD-quality videos over the 802.11g network, the fastest network of current genres available, the Pinnacle stuttered badly and the Netgear played everything in slow motion. (Note: There was no stuttering on standard videos, though.)

Not so for the AppleTV: The only way of accessing this media centre is via iTunes.

This ensures that all the video files are encoded into the right format and then sent to the hard disk before it is able to play, avoiding video stutter.

As for Pinnacle and Netgear, it was obvious that their wireless networks did not have enough bandwidth to stream HD media.

Peter Kenny and Julian Wong are from the Republic Polytechnic's School of IT

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Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Ubuntu Linux

Ubuntu Linux - Carry the Ubuntu OS in your hand

Install it in a portable flash drive, and boot into your own system on any PC, says LIM YEE HUNG

This article is compliment from Straits Times Digital Life and Mr Lim Yee Hung

TIRED of having to familiarise yourself with new settings each time you use a different computer?

Load the entire Ubuntu operating system (OS) into a flash drive. It's do-able because the OS takes up just 2GB of space compared to Windows Vista's 20GB.

Then, simply plug in the Ubuntu-installed flash drive into any computer and, like Agent Smith in the Matrix, you will be able to 'clone' your own computer settings onto the new PC.

What you need:
*Internet connection

*USB portable flash drive of at least 2GB. (Make sure that the flash drive is empty as any data on it will be erased once you install the OS.)

<>*Ubuntu Live CD - order it for free from www.ubuntu.com or create one (download from the website and burn it onto a CD).

What to do
THE following instructions will make use of the command line interface, somewhat like the MS-DOS application. In Ubuntu, it is called Terminal.

In it, you will be required to type in computer commands, as opposed to just clicking on a few buttons with your mouse. Take note that all commands are case-sensitive.

Step 1
FIRST, boot your computer into Ubuntu. If you don't have the OS installed, use the Live CD to boot up Ubuntu instead. Make sure that both the CD-ROM and the flash drive are plugged into the computer. Then, run the Terminal application (Applications >Accessories >Terminal).

Step 2
TYPE 'sudo su' and enter your administrator password to give yourself full access privileges.

Type 'fdisk -l' to list all the drives and partitions in your computer. You should see your flash drive listed under '/dev/sdx', where x is the letter assigned by your computer to the drive. So, if your flash drive is listed under '/dev/sdb', replace x with b for the following instructions.

Type 'umount /dev/sdx1' to unmount the flash drive, allowing you to configure it.

Type 'fdisk /dev/sdx'.

Type 'p'. You will see all existing partitions on the drive. Press 'd' to delete them.

Type 'p' again to check if all partitions have been deleted; if not, repeat the delete command.

Once that's done, type 'n' to make a new partition.

Type 'p' to create a primary partition.

Type '1' to make this the very first partition.

Press the 'Enter' key to use the default cylinder.

You will then be prompted to set your partition size. Set it to 750MB by typing '+750M'.

Type 'a' to make the partition active.

You will now need to set the file system of this partition, so type '1' to select the partition.

Type 't' and then '6' to set the filesystem to the FAT16 filesystem.

Create a second primary partition by typing 'n', followed by 'p', then '2'.

Press the 'Enter' key twice to use the default cylinder and the default last cylinder.

Type 'w' to edit your partition table.

Unmount the first partition by typing 'umount /dev/sdx1'.

Format the partition by typing 'mkfs.vfat -F 16 -n ubuntu710 /dev/sdx1'.

Then, format the second partition by typing 'umount /dev/sdx2', and then 'mkfs.ext2 -b 4096 -L casper-rw /dev/sdx2'.

Step 3
NOW remove your flash drive and plug it in again.

Type 'apt-get update' in the Terminal window. You should see a long stream of text as Ubuntu looks up the latest updates for your system.

Step 4
YOU will need to install the Syslinux and mtools applications, so type 'apt-get install syslinux mtools'.

Enter 'y' for 'yes' when prompted whether you wish to install the application.

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Type 'syslinux -sf /dev/sdx1'.

Step 5
NOW you will need to use the files on the CD-ROM.

Type 'cd /cdrom' to access the CD-ROM directory.

Type 'cp -rf casper disctree dists install pics pool preseed .disk isolinux/* md5sum.txt README.diskdefines ubuntu.ico casper/vmlinuz casper /initrd.gz media/ubuntu710', to copy the files from the CD-ROM to your flash drive.

You may see errors stating that the system 'cannot create symbolic link'. Ignore them.

Step 6
TYPE 'cd' to return to the previous directory. Next, download a zip file from the Internet.

Type 'wget pendrivelinux.com /downloads/u710fix.zip' to download the file.

Type 'unzip -o -d /media/ubuntu710/ u710fix.zip' to extract all of the files in the zip file to your flash drive.

Step 7
NOW you are all set! Remove your CD and reboot the computer (leave the flash drive plugged in). You should now see the Ubuntu bootup menu.

Choose the 'Run in persistent mode - USB' option each time so that all settings will be saved for every boot.

Got trouble? Look here
IF YOU have trouble booting into Ubuntu on your flash drive after following the instructions, check for these two reasons:

Your computer is not set up to boot up from USB drives. Reboot your computer, and at the startup screen go to the BIOS Menu (press the F2 key). Make sure that the computer's boot menu includes USB drives, and put them on the top of the priority list. Save your changes and restart the PC.

If you still encounter problems, your flash drive's Master Boot Record (MBR) may be corrupted. Repair it by booting into Ubuntu normally and typing 'apt-get install lilo' in the Terminal application. Then enter 'y' if prompted for permission to install the program. Once it is installed, type 'lilo -M /dev/sdx' to repair the MBR.

Lim Yee Hung is a PC enthusiast studying in Britain

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