In previous posts I have knocked the Mac vs PC ads on Tv. Well sure enough someone else has spoofed these ads. Some are quire funny but language and content on a few is for adults. Have fun!
Stephen
Category Archives: Cool Stuff
Virtual PC 2007
Microsoft has released Virtual PC 2007. It will run on Vista as a Host OS and will run Vista as a guest OS. The product is a free download and is available at http://www.microsoft.com/virtualpc. However you do need a licensed copy of every OS you run as a guest.
What is Virtual PC? It is an application that runs on one OS and allows other OS’s to run as Guest OS’ in a virtual machine, sharing the hardware with the host. It is a great tool for support or backward compatibilty for some applications. For example, although not officially supported, you could install a Linux system as a guest OS. This way you can run Linux and some of it’s applications on a Vista machine. This is a great tool for support people as well as you can have several virtual machines of different OS and start them up as you need them. You do need a fair bit of memory as each guest OS uses memory from the host to run. Here is a great use of VPC. LEt’s say you have an application that you absolutley must have but it does not run on XP or Vista but only Windows 98. You create a Windows 98 Virtual Machine, install the application on there and wehn you need it you just run the VM as Windows 98. This would eliminate the need to have a Windows 98 machie running but you could still use the software you need.
How to start
After you have installed Virtual machine, you create a virtual hard drive for the guest OS you wnat and set up the support you need, for example, DVDROM access or Netwrok access. Save the virtual HD and then start it up. It will look like a brand new PC starting. Next install your operating system, the same way you do on a PC and once it is done you can run the OS at the same time.
Sound confusing.. well really it is not and newer hardware is being built that supports Virtualization right into it (new Intel Processors). My suggestion is to try Virtual PC for yourself and see if it could help you. I have used it for demos in the past and have virtualized servers and workstations to demonstrate how a proposed netwrok will operate for a client. The biggest restriction is the hardware support and ensuring that you have enough Ram to run the guests.
Contact Sysguy if you require any information or want some help in setting up Virtual PC on your systems
KDS 7″ Widescreen Digital Media Frame Review
In mid February, one of my sales reps at a distributor who knows I like cool gadgets, sent me a special on KDS 7″ Widescreen digital picture frames. I ordered a few for us and some family members and had a couple left over. I emailed some clients and offered a bundled special to sell the last two with a 1 GB Kingston SD card and the frame. Well the response was overwhelming and I ended up selling about 12 additional units. These are really great devices! Here is a quick review, and I still have one or two available from my last order.
KDS is a global LCD and Monitor companing and has been selling panels for years. These digital frames started to become a hot item around christmas time and were hard to come by. In a nutshell they are LCD panels mounted in a picture frame of sorts. They usually have digital media slots, internal memory or USB ports to plug media into. Once media (pictures) are loaded the frames can be set up to cycle through the pictures and display them on the screen. This solves the one complaint I have heard most often from Digital Camera owners that they never get to see their pictures.
These little KDS frames are great as they can display more than just pictures. They are a 7″ Wide Screen (16X9) display, much like on most portable DVD players. In the box you will find the frame, the AC Adaptor, a remote control, the stand and a video/audio out cable, Of course a basic (chinese written manual is included). The frame is self is about 8″ by 5″ with a clear lexan outer and a white bezel around the lcd about 1″ wide. There is a noticeable IR port for the remote on the bottom of the frame, but at least to me it is not a big deal. The frame has a slot for SD cards (MMC and Memory Stick also supported), a USB port, controls, the attachment for the stand and mounting holes to attach it to a wall.
Simply load in a card turn it on select pictures and they start to display on the screen. A couple of really nice things about the frame is that you can have it play music (stereo speakers built in) at the same time. The frame also supports several video formats so if your digital camera can take movies these can also be displayed! There are 13 different transition settings you can have between images (1 is random), as well you can pause your slideshow and zoom in and pan around the picture. The display is a matt finish to reduce reflections and is bright enough although brightness can be adjusted. You can have music from the card playing while viewing slides at the same time so you can create your own slideshows.
Want to see the pictures larger. The frame easily plugs in to a standard TV or VCR using the supplied video out cables so that you can show your photos off to guests.
The USB port is a great idea as you can install pictures on a flash drive and plug it in or transfer directly from your digital camera to the media card via the frame. Pretty slick and no need for a computer.
The day my first shipment arrived I quickly opened the package, loaded up an SD card with images from pour Hawaii trip in January, inserted it, plugged in the frame and started it. There they were scrolling through the all the pictures that I took. It was mesmorizing to everyone as all you end up doing is watching the first run of pictures.
After a couple of hours I finally got to paly with it a little more and adjusted the between picture transitions and played with the zoom and rotate features on the remote a little.
This leads me too a few of the minor little nitpicky things I don’t like about the frame:
1) While the screen is 7″ Widescreen, the problem is that pictures in a slideshow look better at 4:3 aspect ratio. Landscape pictures look fine when stretched but portrait pictures become distorted. If you only have portrait pictures or only landscape pictures this would be fine, bit most people will have a mixture of both.
2) Documentation. This is a chinese written manual and some of the translations are not perfect so it gets a little confusining to try and understand it at times. I had to read it a couple of times to figure out some of the features.
3) Remote functions… Basic functionality is simple, but this is a DVD player remote and learning what some of the controls do can take time. The manual does not go into great detail.
4) Probably my biggest beef. I really, really wish this had a random picture selection setting instead of being linear. Currently you select a folder and it plays those in order then moves on to the next folder, all the way through the card, then starts over. It means that if you want random photos, you wouyld have to rename them all (in the order you want) and stick in one folder.
5) No colour control, brightness and contrast only. No biggie the frame looks good as it is.
The frame can handle JPG files from cameras of 8MP or smaller. In the future this may be a problem as camera’s get larger and larger chips. Personally I resized all of my pictures before I put them on the memory card any ways. The best resolution for this frame is 1024 x 768. So why have a picture that is 3000X2200 on the card? This is just taking up space and will slow down the frame to. I use a batch photo resizer that I downloaded via the www.snapfiles.com freeware section and get my pictures down to 1000x (aspect locked resize). So instead of taking up 3 MB from my Rebel XT for each image, it takes les than 200K. I figure doing this on a 1 Gigabyte card I can load more than 10000 pictures! I use an external card reader on my PC for all media card work anyway.
Here is a link to the manufacturer’s web site http://www.kdsusa.com/MF-2007-1.asp
All in all I love this frame. Soon the prices will be down further and the 8 and 10″ frames will also come down in price (currently at about 300.00). At that point I wil surely get one of those.
If you are interested I have one or two left that I can sell and soon I will be able to get more. Current price for the frame with a 1 GB Kingston SD card is 160.00 + GST. Please email me at sysguy at sysguy dot com if you are interested.
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Want A Media Center without the PC by the TV. A sneak peak at the Zio Eureka Hard Drive Enclosure
I am just about to start testing a new product available through one of my distributors. A new Korean company Zio, has brought to Canada the Eureka Player. The device is basically an external hard drive enclusure with a couple of interface enhancements.
It runs a Linux OS and gives you the ability of connecting it to a PC and loading up content on it, then connecting to to a TV or stereo and playing it back on that device. It sells for about 150.00 with no hard drive. You can add any IDE hard drive you want to the device (a 320 GB sells for approximately 122.00) and install it. The unit comes with a remote control, batteries, the enclosure itself, AC adaptor and cord, USB cable and Video Cable. The unit is capable of outputting 1080i HD signals as well as composite or S Video and Digital OPtical Audio out.
It plays back a wide vairety of media types, jpg, wma, mp3, ogg, DivX, Â Mpeg 1,2,4. It can work as a DVD jukebox, video player, external storage and more.
Some people do not want to put a PC near their TVs to set up a Media Center so this little device may fit the bill. Load your Media from your PC. Carry the device to the TV, plug it in and away you go. They feature this as a good car theatre device which is what I was thinking of for a primary use. Plug it into a monitor and away you go.
To learn more watch this blog as I will give a more through review soon or visit Zio’s website at http://www.ziocanada.ca
I will shortly be installing a 320 GB Seagate drive in the device and wil update my testing.
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Stephen
Aloha – We are back!
You may or may not be aware that we were away for two weeks of relaxation in early January to the island of Maui. Maui continues to be our favorite place to go and unwind and we are still looking at ways of expanding Sysguy to the Valley Island! If you have never been there, I highly recommend a minimum 10 day visit, as anything else is too short! Whales and Dolphins were jumping and the whole family had a great times and there were some tears as we boarded our Westjet flight to return home! If you are interested in more of the trip, I will soon be posting more on my personal blog (the link is on this page)Â in the very near future as well as pictures on my photo gallery.
While I didn’t do a lot of “work” while I was away, I had the opportunity to have an extended test of some peripherals that I use on a regular basis to see how they worked out.
The first was my Linksys Wireless GÂ Travel Router. This device is slightly bigger than a deck of cards, comes in it’s own case and has in internal AC adaptor. This little dvice is always in my bag and really has come in handy. It allows me to do a couple of things. The router works as most home routers do offering firewall and shared wireless access, but this router does a couple of things that other travel routers do not.
Firstly, the AC adaptor for the unit is built right into it. There is a little slide on the top of the device to side out the two prongs and plug the router into a wall outlet or extension cord. This makes it a little lighter and less bulky to travel with.
Another feature that I find is a bonus with this router is that there is 2 RJ45 ports on it. One for a hardwired Cable or DSL modem connection the other for laptops or even desktops and other devices. Most travel routers have one port that you can either plug into a cable modem and use the device as a router, or plug into your hardwired ethernet card on a machine and use it as a wireless client but you can’t do both. With the Linksys one port can be plugged into a cable router and the other can be used for a other devices. For example I used my Linksys Vonage phone adaptor on this port (but more about this later).
Something else I have used from time to time is the routers ability to connect to a wireless network (unsecured only) as it’s primary ethernet (internet) connection. I have used this often in hotels to connect to their wireless internet services and then boost that signal into my room or unit. Another scenario where this can come in handy is if you have a group of people working together, they can connect to a secured wireless network (your own from the Linksys) and share data back and forth and yet still have Internet access on theier own PC’s . This gives you an additional firewall between the PC’s and the hotel or providors Internet Connection.
Look out Microsoft and Sony! Wii has arrived!
First of all I would like to wish all Sysguy Clients and Friends a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year!
I was lucky enough to get a Nintendo Wii for my 6 year old son for Christmas. While I am not a gamer (I don’t have time) and have never been a big Nintendo fan, the Wii is changing my mind!
One of the things I have disliked about Nintendo in the past was that when they brought out a new console it was never backward compatible, nor were the grahics ever up to the quality of the Microsoft and Sony consoles. The Wii has changed all that! The Wii, while it has it’s own game format, it is backward compatible not only with Nintendo GameCube games, but also controllers and memory cards (take that MS). In addition using the Internet and Wii Marketplace you can buy selected games and download them from early Ninitendo consoles (NES, N64 and Sega).
But the biggest thing about the Wii is the new controller scheme! The Wii features a wireless remote and an attachment called the Nunchuk. The great thing about these controllers while they are wireless, the console comes with a sensor bar that you connect and rest on top of your TV. What this sensor bar does is pick up movements of the controllers and translate them to controls. The console also comes with one game called Wii sports. This is one of the most addictive games I have ever played. Wii Sports features Golf, Bowling, Baseball, Tennis and Bowling, and with the new controllers you actually physically move to play the games. For example, if you are playing golf you hold the Wii remote as a golf club then actually swing! You hit tennis balls, bowl, and swing a baseball bat. Boxing uses the Nunchuk controller as well and you dodge, guard yourself and throw punches at opponents and bags! After one day of playing with the kids, my muscles are sore as if I had just hit two buckets of balls my first day out! Every game screen reminds you that you should attach the wriststrap before playing and to make sure you have room. This is important as there have been reports of controllers slipping out of hands and smashing TV screens! Nintendo has also announced a replacement program for early controllers as they have very thin strings connecting the handstraps and these have been breaking!
It will be interesting to see more games coming out for the Wii, personally I am waiting for Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2007 for Wii, where you will be able to swing away on your own!
While you have been able to get attachments for the other systems for these type of games, they only worked with certain games and there always was an additional cost!
Other cool features allow you to surf the Internet on the console, get your local weather forecast, and view news reports.
I can see that as more people get a taste of the console that it will appeal to a lot more people than the previous Nintendo ttarget market, 8-15 year olds. Even my daughter who will play games occaisionally on the consoles we have, is hooked on the Wii! I think I am too!
Stephen
New Cell Phone
Normally I wouldn’t get really excited about a new cell phone. That was until yesterday. Over the past couple of months I have often wished I had email when I was in meetings or on client visits. I finally took the plunge yesterday and upgraded my phone to a new Blackberry Pearl!
I was hoping to get one of the Windows Mobile based devices so that I could sync the device with my SBS 2003 server, but the poor battery life of these devices available through Rogers kept me away. Enter the Pearl.
Rim released this phone in Sept 06, and it didn’t have the typical Blackberry look. It was sleek, didn’t have the standard keyboard and the track wheel was gone, replaced by a white trackball that lights up (the pearl)!. The form factor is like a chocolate bar. This phone is very light and the display on it is nice and bright. Reviews I read on the Internet all raved about the phone.
So I broke down yesterday, added the email plan and purchased the phone from Rogers (did you know you can now upgrade your Rogers hardware every 12 months). With the plans comes the Blackberry Internet Service which allows me to add up to 10 email accounts to the phone. One of the nice surprises is that I can add an exchange server account that has access to Outlook Web Access. I liked this because I can keep the email server from having to run as a pop3 mail server. Unfortunately without the BES (Blackbery Enterprise) server I cannot update contacts or calendar items using this method like Activesync does. Hower I can connect the phone to my PC and sync it.
Voice Dialing is a cool feature that I think I will use a lot as well. I can give the phone a command and then say a name or a number and the phone will dial.
IT also features a 1.3 MP camera with 5X zoom and Flash and the ability to play Mp3. There is a slot under the battery for a Micro SD card.
I still have to try to connect my laptop using the phone as a Bluetooth wireless device to the internet, but it should be possible.
So far after a day and a half of playing with it I have been impressed. If I find other thigs about it (good and bad) I will post them here.
Stephen
Intel Core 2 Duo Quick Review
One of the really cool things about doing what I do is that I get to play with new technologies before or just after they are released. Usually it may be something that I get for my self but in regards to processors and computers it usually someone elses that I am configuring.
I have just had the opportunity to work on my first Intel Core 2 Duo system. I attended an Intel product briefing session this past week and got some of the scoop on their new processors. Firstly the Pentium name is gone. In the new Core 2 Duos the entire internal architecture has changed and so that have removed the Pentium Brand name…
The first time I worked with a Duo Core (Pentium D) system I was lessed than impressed. In fact for gamers it was probably slower than the Pentium Ds or AMD single cores that they were using. Multiple Core systems excel at multi tasking and multi threaded applications.
Sirius Canada subscribers, we finally get to listen online!!!
I got an email today from Sirius Canada indicating that we can finally listen to our radio subscriptions across the Internet! This is something that US subscribers have been able to do for some time and was expected in Canada last spring. That day is here!
If you are a Sirius subscriber and have not received an email yet, contact Sirius customer services to get your login account ID and password!
Roger’s Portable Internet Service
In some areas of Canada, Rogers is now offering a new Portable Internet service. The service is based on Wimax technology and requires a special wireless modem available from Rogers. While the solution is not mobile it is portable! let me explain.
Mobile internet allows you to connect anywhere and is usually acheived by adding a PC Card to a laptop. It is typically fairly slow and very expensive in Canada. It does however allow you to roam and switch stations, and is generally available anywhere there is a cell phone signal.
The portable Internet service relies on transmitters on specific Cell phone towers and the modem requires a power outlet. This modem does not automatically switch to different towers as you move about.
The service however is extremely cost effective! Rogers offers it for 49.95 per month (minimum 1 year contract) and requires the purchase of the modem for 99.00. The published speeds are quite impressive however (nearly double todays cellular technology) at 1.5 Mb per scond download and 256K uploads. In addition you get 30GB downloads per month, 5 email addresses and the abilty to take your connection with you to certain areas. At this cost, and with these bandwidth amounts it is a far better deal than going with a cellular based service.
With a power inverter in your vehicle you do get some roaming ability.
We have not decided if this would be a good solution for Sysguy yet but are looking very closely at it.
Please let us know if you have tried this service and if it works well in your scenario.