Welcome

Welcome to my blog, which is mainly gadget and toy focused. The posting are categorised and I hope that you find something that interests you. My hobbies include ham radio, computing, electronics and cycling and others. I also have a LinkedIn profile that might be of interest.

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Posted on January 1, 2010 at 19:49 by Administrator · Permalink · Comments Closed
In: Uncategorized

Running Windows 7 on the Fujitsu P1620

I have been running Windows Vista on my Fujitsu P1620 laptop computer since I bought it two years ago,but I did try out the Windows 7 release candidates. Well, the time came to run Windows 7 on it full time, especially since Microsoft reduced the price of a student upgrade at “It’s Not Cheating” from $119 to $50 when they announced Office 2010 (which I also bought).

Fujitsu have announced ‘limited support’ for Windows 7 on the P1620, but the good news is that it pretty much works out of the box. Below are the steps I followed.

  1. Backup the hard drive (or SSD if you’ve replaced the HDD with one for an amazing increase in speed). Use Acronis True Image – a copy came with the computer. If it all goes wrong at least you can recover.
  2. Copy the data that you want to keep to another drive so it is easy to copy back.
  3. Check the BIOS revision (comes up during boot). If it is not V1.06, get the update from here and install it. Fujitsu say it is needed for Win 7.
  4. Download the following drivers/software from Fujitsu and put them on a USB drive that the laptop can access once Win 7 is installed. The links will take you to the download page at Fujitsu — I’m not hosting these files. Extract all of the files ahead of time too.
    1. ALPS Stickpoint 32bit Vista V7.0.401.2. The latest version of this had the mouse pointer running opposite. Without this the stick doesn’t have any cleverness – it is just a PS/2 mouse.
    2. Fujitsu Hotkey Utility V3.60. This makes the Fn key work to raise/lower volume, brightness changing etc.
    3. ButtonUtility 7.02.0818.2009 . This makes the buttons on the touchscreen work.
    4. FUJ02B1 V1.23 Hotkey driver.
  5. Get a USB DVD reader/burner and boot the computer with the Win 7 disk. If the Win 7 you have is an upgrade, make sure that Vista is still installed on the HDD/SSD – don’t go formatting anything ahead of time.
  6. Choose the install option that wipes the HDD. I found that an ‘upgrade’ had too many incompatibilities, and Windows benefits from a clean install.
  7. Install Windows 7.
  8. Hook the computer up to the internet (wired or wireless) and do as many Windows Updates as are needed until no more updates are available. It was two rounds for me. This takes care of the network cards, video, modem, keyboard and a few of the P1620 specific hardware.
  9. There will be a device left with a yellow exclamation mark in the Device Manager – FUJ02B1. Right-click, choose to update the driver and point it where the downloaded and extracted drivers are. A reboot might be required.
  10. Install the ButtonUtility, ALPS Stickpoint and HotkeyUtility. Reboot.
  11. Take another backup of the computer using Acronis in case something gets stuffed up when installing new software. It will save going through all of this again!

The laptop should now be running Win 7 with all of the goodies running. Touch screen support is better in 7 than Vista, and the boot times are reduced too. There are other extensions for the Mobility Panel, Security Centre and so on at the Fujitsu support page (choose the Americas to get Win 7 drivers). I haven’t bothered because things work for me as they are. The Shock Sensor might be useful if you still have a HDD in the P1620.

One configuration change to make is in the mouse settings. Go to the ‘Stick’ tab and then click on the Settings button. Disable ‘Use Tap’. I found that with ‘Use Tap’ enabled I was getting wild mouse pointer movement when typing (taking care not to hit the stick). I think the stick is too sensitive, and once that setting was disabled the mouse behaved itself nicely.

Posted on July 24, 2010 at 16:35 by Administrator · Permalink · Comments Closed
In: Computing · Tagged with: 

Why I bought an HTC Desire smartphone

I thought that it might be of interest to others out there (but might be boring too – tweet your comments please) to go through some of the pluses and minuses of an Android phone, and why I selected this one.

The phone choices I came down to were:

The Nexus One and HTC Desire are very close in capability, but the key feature for me was Microsoft Exchange server support out of the box. QUT use Microsoft Exchange and being able to access my email anywhere is a key reason for getting  a smartphone. There is IMAP support, but that doesn’t give calendar or contact support. Other nice things with the Desire are the extra included applications: Quickoffice and PDF viewer.

The iPhone is well supported by the university and most people know how to drive them. I’ve had an iPod (1st gen Nano) for some time, and have used iTunes before. I’m not an Apple Hater (this is being typed using an Apple Keyboard), but there are some things that I don’t like about the iPhone:

This is offset by some good things I see with the iPhone (bearing in mind I have used one for about 10min in a shop):

The Android (particularly the HTC Desire) options were appealing too:

The HTC Desire is not without its flaws, some of which are not immediately apparent:

I did go with the HTC Desire and these are the reasons that ‘clinched the deal’ for me:

  1. If my battery fails or goes flat I can put another one in.
  2. If I run out of memory (currently 8GB) I can buy a new Micro-SD card and use that instead. These max out at 32GB now, but will get bigger as time goes by.
  3. I can get apps from the Android Market (definitely the easiest), but I am not limited to that and can install independently distributed apps if I choose to.
  4. Bluetooth support is good: keyboards, stereo headsets, 3G data tethering, external GPS, OBD-II diagnostic interfaces and for file transfer.
  5. The screen is beautiful.
  6. The phone mounts as a USB external drive onto any computer, so I can add music, podcasts or videos from anywhere. I can also use the micro-SD card as temporary storage.
  7. The interface is micro-USB so getting an extra charger or data lead is easy, and can be used with future phones.
  8. 900MHz UMTS support. Optus ‘Yes G’ coverage is pretty good (having tested it with a USB 3G modem in South Australia and Queensland), and Vodafone coverage is not too bad. I did have to get a handset from the UK though since  the HTC Desires sold in Australia exclusively through Telstra are 850MHz UMTS.

The iPhone 4 is a very close competitor and I would have been very tempted if it was out when I was deciding. I’d still go with the HTC Desire for a few reasons:

Looking forward to the release of Android 2.2 (Froyo) for the HTC Desire too — it can only make a good phone great.

Posted on July 4, 2010 at 20:04 by Administrator · Permalink · Comments Closed
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Review: PodPuppy Beta

I’ve been trying out quite a few free podcast clients (also called ‘podcatchers’) to see which would work best. In the past I used iTunes, but I’ve wiped that from my PC now that I use aniriver B30 for music, podcasts and videos. I’ve tried Doppler, Juice (iPodder), jPodder, and a few others.

PodPuppy (currently in beta) is my pick. It hasn’t been updates for a couple of years, but that could be largely due to the fact that it works fairly well. The things I like are:

Here’s a snapshot of what you get (click on the image for a full size version that you can actually read):

The setup exe is only 560k, but it does require Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0, but a link is provided on the download page.

The only thing to watch out for is when you add a new podcast it will try and download everything. You have to go into the list of podcasts, select the ones you don’t want, and choose ‘skip’ from the right-click menu. A list of podcast episode is given when the podcast is added, but I haven’t found anyway of skipping them at this stage.

Posted on May 18, 2010 at 12:26 by Administrator · Permalink · Comments Closed
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Review: Motorola International 3200 GSM Phone

I bought a ‘new’ phone September last year and I realise that I haven’t put any details up. I’d had my eye on an ‘old school’ phone for some time, and one came up on ebay that I was able to snag. The Motorola International 3200 was the first hand-held digital cellphone, beaten to being the first digital cellphone by the Motorola International 1000 car phone. A couple of my friends had the 3200 when BellSouth started the first GSM network in New Zealand. The phone was released in 1992, but I didn’t see them until 1994.

It is probably the largest GSM phone out there, and it has some stunning performance figures, with an 8 hr standby time and 1 hr talktime (if you are careful and keep the calls short). The user interface is horrid, with a simple check of the battery level requiring [Shift] [Menu] 6 2 [M+], and signal level being [Shift] [Menu] 6 1 [M+].

There is an envelope symbol on the Menu key, but this phone doesn’t support text messages — that came out on the Motorola 3300 (which is incredibly rare).

The handset & battery weigh in at 590g, so I think that may be heavier than some paving slabs. The Sony Ericsson W880 next to the ‘brick’ is the smallest phone I own and the two are like chalk and cheese. It certainly shows how portable electronics have improved in the last 18 years or so. The standby time on the 3200 is about 8 hours if you are lucky, and talk time is around 30 minutes. The self-discharge of the batteries is huge, so leaving the phone for a week means the battery will be dead.

One very nice thing about GSM is the backwards compatibility. My Vodafone and Optus SIM cards both work in the 3200, but Telstra SIMs didn’t. The Optus SIM was a 3G one too, and it surprised me. Vodafone comes up on the screen as AUS-03 and Optus comes up as OPTUS. A lot of the GSM phones after this one used the SIM in the full credit card holder, but I’m pleased that the small size suits as I can move the SIM around when I want to use this phone. It doesn’t serve any practical purpose, but it is fun to call someone up from something they think is an Ikea prop :-) . I might take to a phone dealer when I buy a new phone saying that I need an upgrade to something that can do text messaging, and I heard that the new 3G phones can do this now. If I’m not careful though the phone will be older than the sales assistant …

I compared the size of the last three phones that I bought, and I can see a disturbing trend. I wonder how big my next phone will be?

It is nice to have a piece of communications history, but I wonder how long ‘bog standard’ GSM networks are going to be around for — hopefully some time yet. With a phone this well built, and this old, I can’t see anything going wrong with it.

Posted on May 6, 2010 at 11:59 by Administrator · Permalink · Comments Closed
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EndNote X3 and OpenOffice Write Errors – Invalid Class String

I’ve just done battle with EndNote and OpenOffice trying to get Cite-While-You-Write and bibliography formatting working. Each time I tried to do something in Write I would get a pop-up saying ‘Invalid Class String’. Complete reinstalls of OpenOffice and EndNote X3.0.1 didn’t help. To really frustrate  things, the same install worked just fine on my desktop PC.

There is a FAQ on the EndNote site about Invalid Class String errors, but this only relates to Word (I’ve asked for it to be expanded to OpenOffice). The key was there though! On my laptop there was no EndNote13.AddinServer class entry in the registry to change permissions for, but there was on the desktop. Once I exported the registry key from the desktop PC and installed the .REG file on the laptop, and changed the delete permissions as per the FAQ (just to be sure, but perhaps it had been deleted) it all worked!

If you have this problem with EndNote and OpenOffice (under Windows), save the text below into a text file with a .REG extension:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\EndNote13.AddinServer]
@="EndNote13.AddinServer"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\EndNote13.AddinServer\CLSID]
@="{575B6FEA-477B-4595-A478-9B141A98D869}"

Double click the file you’ve created and it should automatically import into the registry. The follow the instructions at the bottom of the EndNote CWYW FAQ 13. Hope this works for you, but I take no responsibility if your PC fails after you do this — backup first before doing anything with the registry.

Posted on April 21, 2010 at 09:27 by Administrator · Permalink · Comments Closed
In: Computing

Review: PhotoFast G Monster 1.8″ V4 SSD

Here are some preliminary benchmark results, using CrystalDiskMark 3, for my new 1.8″ SSD. I have also performed tests using a 1.8″ HDD. The SDD is a PhotoFast G Monster V4, in the 1.8″ ZIF form-facto and the HDD is a Toshiba MK1011GAH.

5x 100MB + 5x 1000MB with HDD

5x 100MB + 5x 1000MB with SSD

The SSD goes like stink! 4x the performance sequentially, 8x with 512k blocks and 30-60x with the 4k blocks. Boot times are less than half and the noise is significantly reduced.

The only difficulty faces is that the drive dimensions are not the same (unlike standard 2.5″ and 3.5″ drives). The MK1011GAH is 71x54x8mm and the G-Monster is 70x52x5mm. This meant that the mounting tray was sloppy and so foam adhesive backed foam was needed to stop the SSD slopping around. I can’t vouch for power consumption, but the specs have the HDD using 1.0W reading and writing, and 1.1W seeking. The SSD claims to use 200mA-450mA which is 0.7-1.5W which is in the same range as the HDD (those 1.8″ drives are very efficient to start with).

Word of advice to other people running Vista: turn the automatic defrag off (this page has the simplest instructions I’ve found). Windows 7 is clever enough to disable defrag for SSDs, but Vista needs help. General advice is that defragging will reduce the life of the drive due to the rewrites and provides no benefit since the random seek time is almost instant.

Posted on April 20, 2010 at 12:29 by Administrator · Permalink · Comments Closed
In: Computing, Toys · Tagged with: ,

Review: Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad

My Unicomp keyboard (see review for details) has been banned at every place that I’ve worked due to the noise. This is a shame because it is a nice keyboard, but it did prompt me to go on the hunt for a ‘workplace compatible’ keyboard. I’ve used an Apple keyboard on a PC before (the Bluetooth Apple Wireless Keyboard A1016 – works great on a Sony Vaio running XP and the Microsoft Bluetooth stack) so I knew that it was possible to use these on a PC.

For some unfathomable reason (at least to me!) Apple took the numeric keypad off their wireless keyboard when the aluminium chiclet style was introduced (A1255) so I was limited to the cabled keyboard. After a bit of a play with the keyboard in the computer shop I thought that it was worth the $70 and took it home.

The  keyboard looks good and certainly attracts attention in the workplace. It also saves a lot of desk space, having the least overhang of any keyboard I’ve used. I don’t go much for the Apple computers or software, but their industrial design is superb.

That’s when the fun started! My previous keyboard had all of the required buttons, with the only change being that ‘NumLock’ was labelled ‘Clear’ and ‘Insert’ was labelled ‘Help’. I can live with that. Unfortunately the new keyboard has an ‘fn’ key instead of ‘Insert’ and special Apple drivers are needed for the combination functions to work. There is a page describing the combos on the Apple Website, but these require a special USB keyboard driver that is included in the BootCamp software and is not official made available to PC users (although if you look on the internet you’ll find it).

There is another option which doesn’t stuff up other keyboards on the computer, and that is to remap keys using features built into Windows. I used SharpKeys to do the mapping, and it is a great program for the task. SharpKeys has a learning function and then a drop down list of what you want it to do. Once the settings are saved into the Registry the software doesn’t need to be run again. It can also map other keys around (such as ‘Ctrl’ and ‘CapsLock’ which some people prefer). The settings I used are:

This makes F13 the insert key (just above where it should be), F14 is a Print Screen, and the = key on the numeric keypad works (there isn’t normally an = on the PC keypad).

The keyboard itself has two USB sockets which could power a mouse or low-power memory stick. I use the port for the wireless transceiver of my Logitech MX Revolution mouse, and it sits in there nicely and is very close to the mouse. The key feel is very good, with surprising tactile feedback given the short keystroke. It is the antithesis of the Unicomp and is my preferred keyboard. If you have wrist problems then the very flat nature of the keyboard means that your hands are as close to the desk as you can really get and might help out.

All in all the keyboard is well worth the money. I’ve been back and bought two more so my wife can have one at home at and work too.

Posted on April 11, 2010 at 17:07 by Administrator · Permalink · Comments Closed
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Review: Audio-Technica QuietPoint ATH-ANC3 Active Noise Cancelling Headphones

I’ve been using Audio-Technica ATH-CK5 -in-ear phones for about three years now, and the little plastic loop on one perished and so it doesn’t sit well in my ear any more. This is a shame because these earphones have great sound (considering the price) and have the bulk of the cord removable. They’re designed to be used with a remote control (such as Sony Ericsson make for their cellphones), or by themselves.

Time for some new earphones, and given that I’m going to be spending more time on trains and buses over the next few years I thought that I’d give some noise cancelers a go. I have a set of the original Sony MDR-NC20 noise canceling headphones (over ear) for the last 12 years and I was pleased with their performance, but they’re quite bulky.

After a quick look at Bluetin, an online retailer of headphones based in Singapore I found what I thought was the best option: the Audio-Technica QuietPoint ATH-ANC3. These are in-ear (so are smaller), come with a case, aircraft adapter and had good reviews. The like of Leo Laporte have mentioned these earphones, and given the amount of travel he does, I value his recommendations. Ordering was very easy: a confirmation of FedEx shipping cost, a bank transfer in AUD (no cost to me) and about 6 days later I had the earphones.

First impressions were that they were a bit chunky compared to the conventional earphones. I got used to this and the little control box clips nicely to my belt and so I can leave the iRiver B30 in my pocket.

To me it doesn’t matter what earphones look like (as long as they are not white) — it is the sound that matters. Without noise canceling, in a quiet place, the audio was very good. Quite a bit of bass, no fuzzing and the highs were there too. I’m not an audiophile, but I like the way they sound. With the noise canceling turned on there is a bit of a background whine, possibly a DSP artifact. In a quiet room this is annoying, but that isn’t the place that noise canceling is used. In a noisy place, such as the bus stop or on the bus, the whine is not noticeable. What is noticeable however is how quiet things are — these things are amazing!

The manufacturer claims upto 90% (20dB) reduction in noise, and it wouldn’t be too far off. Low frequencies (which are the easiest to phase match) disappear, but higher frequencies (such as cicadas chirping) are reduced a bit.

A nice feature is a ‘monitor’ button on the control box. When noise canceling is turned on, pressing the button disables the noise canceling and cuts out the music too. This would be good when you’re waiting for an announcement at the airport (or similar) so you don’t have to take the earphones out.

My ears are the ‘medium’ size that Audio Technica fit the earbuds for, but large and small are also provided. The fit is snug and comfortable (quite a lot more so than my Sony earphones). Most people should be able to get these to fit.

The extra weight of the controller is not a problem for bus/train commuting, but I’m not sure that I’d use it for anything more strenuous than quick walking. For fast walking (no backpack) or jogging I’d use some plain earphones so the plastic box wasn’t swinging around — and noise canceling is probably not the best thing on the street when vehicles and other people are around.

The earphones and the supplier are definitely recommended.

Posted on February 3, 2010 at 18:36 by Administrator · Permalink · Comments Closed
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Review: Cambridge Audio Sonata AR30 Receiver

Our old stereo amplifier finally got to the point it was taking too long for the right channel to turn on, and our hands were getting sore from thumping it, that it was time for a new amp. Decisions, decisions! Our requirements were quite simple:

After some looking around, with quite a lot of frustration, we found the Cambridge Audio Sonata AR30 receiver. This has a Sirius satellite radio option in the USA, and DAB in Europe (called the DR30), but here in Australia you get nothing. We’ve got DAB+, so DAB won’t work and there isn’t any satellite radio service.

Anyway, the little amplifier is quite amazing, and for several reasons:

There are some extra features worth mentioning as these really suit our situation.

All in all, the amp/receiver does a very nice job in a tidy little package. There’s pretty much the same guts as the C320, but 10 years passing means that single-sided through-hole circuit boards have been superseded by surface-mount (and probably double-sided) and so everything is much smaller inside, while retaining the same sound quality. Win win!

Posted on February 3, 2010 at 17:53 by Administrator · Permalink · Comments Closed
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Review: Vantec NexStar LX Ultra NAS (Network Attached Storage)

My home ‘server’ has been playing up and dropping off the network a bit lately, so I thought it was time for a change. I didn’t want a real server, taking up lots of room and using plenty of power, and so the old ‘server’ was SME Server running inside a virtual machine on my ‘do everything’ Eee box.

After looking around on the net and the reviews out there it seemed that the big brand names were quiet expensive and have a few compatibility problems. Umart had the NexStar LX Ultra (also called the 475LX) quite cheap and so I bought one and a 1TB Seagate Barracuda SATA drive to go in it.

The features of the NAS are quiet impressive:

The manual showed how to put the drive inside (requires a screwdriver, so not as streamlined as the more expensive boxes) and that was pretty much it. The user interface is very basic, but does the job. Some guides would have been good, so this might help someone:

  1. Change the admin password before doing anything.
  2. The hard drive needs to be formatted first, before any shares can be set up. Go into ‘Disk Utility’ (on the left) and click the “Format” button (yep, the little one way over on the right hand side).
  3. In the Status page decide what services you want to have. SMB & FTP can each be turned on or off, and the host name and workgroup name should be set.
  4. Also on the Status page is a button for the time setting. If your firewall lets the NAS talk to the world it can set the time automatically with SNTP. The default server is clock.isc.org, but I’m using oceania.pool.ntp.org to spread the load. I’d suggest using an NTP pool near you.
  5. Setting up SMB shares is odd. The first thing to do is to create a user. Do that. Users can have read/write privileges, or just read only. Once the user is created, select that user and click on the Modify button. The sharing list has two panels. On the left are the available shares and on the right are the ones that the user has access to. The PUBLIC share is a default, but the Create button lets you make more. Once the share is created it can be added to the user with the arrow buttons. When the shares are set up, click the ‘Back’ button.
  6. FTP access is basically the same deal. Create a user or two, and then assign permissions for the various shares. The shares are common between SMB and FTP so you only have to set them up once.
  7. If you are going to use BitTorrent, you need to define where the files will go, and optionally set up the email notification for when jobs are complete.
  8. The media server can share three types of directories: photos, video and music. You can have the same share for each, or separate out your files.

Performance is pretty good. I’ve got it plugged into my router (which has a 4 port switch) but I connect wirelessly using an Access Point plugged into the router. Transfers of 15+GB when doing backups work quite well and don’t drop out. There is a programmable spin-down interval to stop the hard drive, and while the drive is spinning up there can be a delay of 5-10s before the shares respond. It works with my Beyonwiz DP-S1 PVR as a source of streaming AVIs and MP3s. This makes watching Vodcasts and Podcasts quite convenient.

Final conclusion is that it is a cheap, fairly quiet, not-ugly box that simply does what it needs to. No hot-swap, no RAID, no fuss.

Posted on February 3, 2010 at 17:27 by Administrator · Permalink · Comments Closed
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