Getting a High Google PageRank May 16, 2008
Posted by Rey in EEE PC.Tags: amarok, creative zen, EEE PC, google, page rank, pagerank, top ten
4 comments
It’s been a while now since I last posted in this blog. I’ve been spending my time on my new blog themobileme.net. So it came as a surprise when fellow bloggers started telling me about my page rank for this blog being high.
Sure enough when I paid a visit and allowed Craig Raw’s Search Status check my front page out, I saw an unbelievable 4/10 page rank. I was like “what the hey!”. I have no idea how this came to be. Is it because my pages have been indexed by google in a major way? The post I made about getting my creative zen stone detected in amarok is getting a lot of visits lately and if you try a search string like “creative zen stone linux” my post will be in the top ten out of 208,000 results.
With my wordpress stats widget I notice that a lot of people get to my blog using search strings like “twofish aes asus eee” and get this: if you search for “eeepc blog” my post about being an eee user is in the top ten out of more than 3 million results!
I’m not really sure how this all worked out but I have an idea. Maybe when my mind clears up a bit more I’ll make a post on How I got this awesome PageRank. Maybe it’s because I have to get dressed for work right now or else!
Say hello to themobileme.net April 20, 2008
Posted by Rey in Uncategorized.Tags: moving, new blog url, new site, themobileme
add a comment
Hello folks, those of you who’ve been kind enough to drop by. I want to let you know I’ve just moved my blog over to a domain I got a while back but haven’t gotten the time to fix up until now.
My new blog url is http://themobileme.net.
This will spare you from having to type the extremely long url of this blog. Please expect that this “old” blog will become a lot less updated since I’ll be posting any updates over on the new site.
This isn’t goodbye. I’m not going to totally abandon this site. I might change the content and blog more about life who knows?
Be seeing you at themobileme.net!
Truecrypt: The Ultimate in Personal Data Security April 7, 2008
Posted by Rey in Advances, Encryption, Personal Computing, security.Tags: data encryption, data security, decryption, Encryption, file security, free data encryption, free file encryption, on the fly, open source, plausible deniability, security, truecrypt
1 comment so far
And it’s free too!
What I’m referring to is the Truecrypt disk encryption utility. I’ve been using it over a month now and it’s the simplest most convenient way to keep your data secure.
Truecrypt is on-the-fly disk encryption software using the most advanced encryption technology publicly available. One overkill feature of Truecrypt is it actually gives the option to chain ciphers to encrypt a volume. I mean come on folks AES is a strong cipher on its own. But the paranoid creators of this great piece of software provide an option to cascade ciphers (e.g. AES+Twofish, Serpent+AES, or AES+Twofish+Serpent). It’s been given a stamp of approval by no other than Steve Gibson, well-known in IT circles as a security guru who would use it “without hesitation”. Google him hehe. Truecrypt is also cross platform which means you can run it on Windows, Linux, or even MacOS.
What Truecrypt essentially does is create an encrypted volume to which you save your data. Once mounted, this volume would appear as a new drive letter and process “on the fly” data encryption/decryption to data going in or out of the volume. It can also encrypt an entire partition or entire device, which would come in handy if you wanted to encrypt for example your whole 2GB/4GB flash drive or SD/SDHC card. As long as you use a great password (20+ characters long with a mix of numbers and special characters) to protect the encrypted volume it would be inaccessible to anyone short of the NSA and mistook for a chunk of random data. I personally use a 6-letter password though which I’d say is pretty good enough. Come on I’m not exactly hiding information which if exposed would be a threat to national security here.
The Windows version of Truecrypt provides the option to create hidden volumes so a scan of your hard drive wouldn’t be able to detect it unless it was mounted which allows for plausible deniability. Let’s say the CIA were to storm your house looking for a Word document that would implicate you in a “world domination” master plan. You could easily dismiss their charges and say “What file? Never heard of it, never saw it. Do you see it?” and actually be believable.
The latest version of Truecrypt is 5.1a. For more information you can scoot over to the Truecrypt wiki or it’s home website to download and read up.
The New Generation Eee PC March 4, 2008
Posted by Rey in Advances, EEE PC, Personal Computing.Tags: 12GB SSD, 8.9", Asus, Cebit 2008, EEE PC, eee user, engadget, new generation
1 comment so far
Just a few hours ago Engadget, while at the 2008 Cebit, posted pictures of the “New Generation” Asus Eee PC which is due to hit the market mid-2008.
Asus is a little mum about the Intel processor chip that’s under the hood of this baby but they gave indications that there will be units configured with 1GB for RAM and 8GB to 12GB SSDs for storage.
The main attraction, I’d say, would be the 8.9″ screen with 1024×600 resolution compared to the current offering’s 7″ screen with 800×480 pixels. Web surfing will be a lot more comfortable and convenient on the Next Generation Eee that’s for sure.
Asus gives the New Generation Eee PC or Eee PC 900, as it’s rumored to be called, a €399 pricetag which converts to roughly $600. A bit pricey wouldn’t you think? But hey it’s a fourth the price of other similarly, if not larger, sized UMPCs. I’d go get one just for it’s ultra-portability.
Its essentially the current Eee PC with a much nicer screen and who knows faster CPU? It’s a wee bit taller too with a slightly bigger touch pad based on the picture above. We won’t know about the CPU until the press conference which will officially announce the New Generation Asus Eee PC which is scheduled for tomorrow.
Hybrid F1 car anyone? February 28, 2008
Posted by Rey in Advances, Auto Tech.Tags: F1, Formula one, FT-HS, future hybrid, hybrid sports concept, toyota
1 comment so far
Say hello to the Future Toyota Hybrid Sports (FT-HS) concept car. Launched by Toyota a couple days ago, it promises ultra high performance and ultra low fuel use and emissions. This baby can make 100 km/h in 4 seconds from a stand still just as fast as any Porche GT3!
“Produced by Toyota’s research and design team in California, the FT-HS mates an electric motor to a 3.5-litre petrol engine. Toyota says its front engine, rear drive layout provides optimum performance, reaching speeds of 100 km/h in around four seconds.
“What we’re able to do is use a smaller capacity engine in conjunction with the hybrid transmission and electric motor … (and) give the same performance as a vehicle with a … larger engine,” Mr Soden said. “
Like I was saying about F1:
“Toyota corporate manager Greg Gardner said the FT-HS showed hybrid vehicles didn’t need to be boring and conservative.
“As well as environmental benefits, they could also be fun to drive,” Mr Gardner said.
He said there could be a day when a hybrid vehicle sporting a lightweight design was taking the track in a Formula One race.”
F1 racing with hybrids does look to be a ways off but something that looks a lot more feasible after this launch. Though the experience of Formula One cars and all the glorious 130 decibels their V8s produce zooming by would be sorely missed by many a racing enthusiast. These hybrids are terribly quiet you know…
Read up on the launch here…
Back to square one…how liberating! February 26, 2008
Posted by Rey in EEE PC, Personal Computing.Tags: Easy Desktop, EEE PC, eee user, f9, restore to factory
add a comment
Hahahaha! It finally happened after nearly three months of playing around with the Eee, I managed to get it to a point where I had to press F9 and restore it to factory install status.
Now I’m looking at a (Easy) desktop I haven’t seen on this baby since 2 days after it arrived at my doorstep. It’s quite refreshing actually. Like getting the chance to start off with a clean slate.
Looks like I’m back to square one for personalizing this thing. Hmm, will I do anything differently? It’s back to the Eee Wiki for me.
HD DVD is dead, long live HD DVD February 20, 2008
Posted by Rey in Advances, Media Format.Tags: blu-ray disc, discontinue hd dvd, hd dvd, Toshiba
add a comment
After a two and a half year hi-density disc storage “format war” with rival Blu-ray Disc, Toshiba Corporation, the champion of the HD DVD format, has just announced they will cease to develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders.
HD DVD was designed to be the successor to the DVD format with a disc having 15GB per layer storage capacity compared to DVDs 4.7GB per layer. Sadly this was not to be as the concurrently developed and marketed format Blu-ray Disc won the hearts of major media producers like Warner Bros. which announced they would only be supporting Blue-ray by June 2008. This announcement marked the decline of HD DVD as more media producers and retailers started announcing support for the rival format.
In terms of capacity, Blu-ray trumps HD DVD offering 20GB more for all those Director’s cut versions, Introducing the Cast bonus clips, or maybe space for 3 alternative storyline endings…
Toshiba has committed to continue stockpiling HD DVD recording media for those folks who bought players/recorders and maintain they will continue to fully support the DVD format and market DVD players/recorders.
“We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called ‘next-generation format war’ and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop,” said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation. “While we are disappointed for the company and more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass market opportunity for high definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality.”
This definitely clears up any confusion with what to go for if I ever see the need to buy a Hi-Def player.
The format war is over, the crown goes to Blu-ray.
Read more about this development here.
Getting my Creative Zen Stone Plus mounted on the Eee PC February 11, 2008
Posted by Rey in EEE PC, Personal Computing.Tags: amarok, Asus EEE, creative zen stone plus, EEE PC, Linux, mount, xandros
7 comments
Thanks to this source, I was able to figure out how to get my Creative Zen Stone Plus to work with Xandros on my Eee PC.
When you connect the ZEN it will be detected as “ZEN Stone Plus”. In order to get Amarok (1.4.3 in my case) to detect it you will need to mount it first.
UPDATE: If your ‘usbstorageapplet’ has been upgraded (mine is currently version 1.1.69-1), Xandros will automatically assign a drive letter for any USB device or SD card you connect to the system and automatically mount it. If this is the case please proceed here for updated instructions.
Here’s how to do it in Advanced Desktop mode:
1. After connecting the ZEN, determine the device name for it:
a.) open a console (CTRL+ALT+T)
b.) type “sudo fdisk -l”
c.) Here’s what I see:
Disk /dev/sda: 4001 MB, 4001292288 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 486 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 300 2409718+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 301 484 1477980 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 485 485 8032+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda4 486 486 8032+ ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32)
Disk /dev/sdb: 2007 MB, 2007498752 bytes 29 heads, 28 sectors/track, 4828 cylinders Units = cylinders of 812 * 512 = 415744 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 4829 1960320+ 6 FAT16 Note: sector size is 2048 (not 512)
Disk /dev/sdc: 1974 MB, 1974730752 bytes 243 heads, 62 sectors/track, 64 cylinders Units = cylinders of 15066 * 2048 = 30855168 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 * 1 64 1928324 b W95 FAT32 Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?): phys=(0, 0, 62) logical=(0, 1, 1)
Based on the above output my ZEN is detected as /dev/sdc1. sdb1 would be the 2GB SD card in my card reader. Of course sda would be the main SSD.
2. open /etc/fstab using a text editor like kwrite:
at the prompt type “sudo kwrite /etc/fstab &”. Replace kwrite with any text editor you’re comfortable with.
3. Add the following line to fstab and save the file:
/dev/sdc1 /media/ZENStonePlus vfat noatime,auto,users,uid=1000,gid=100,umask=007 0 0
4. Open the Admistrator File Manager at Applications->System->Administrator Tools
5. Navigate to All File Systems and open “/”:
6. Then open the folder “media”:
7. That’s where you should find the folder “ZEN Stone Plus”.
8. Rename “ZEN Stone Plus” to “ZENStonePlus” by clicking the folder then pressing Function key F2.:
9. Return to the console and mount sdc1:
type ’sudo mount /dev/sdc1′ or ’sudo mount -a’ (to mount all partitions in fstab which works too)
10. Open amarok and go to “Settings->Configure Music Manager”
11. Scroll down the left pane and select “Media Devices”:
12.) To the right of the detected Media Device “sdc1″ change the plugin to “Generic Audio Player”:
13.) Click Ok. On the main amarok screen click the Media Device tab and Connect to the Generic Audio Player at /dev/sdc1:
To start transferring files, simply select a song or set of songs and drag it into the transfer queue. Take note that if you were to remove the ZEN Stone Plus and reconnect it without rebooting the Eee the ZEN may no longer be detected as sdc1. It might change to sdd1.
To make sure there aren’t any problems what I usually do is reboot the Eee before connecting the ZEN to make sure it is always /dev/sdc1. The next time you connect the ZEN there will be no need to reedit fstab or rename ZEN Stone Plus. Simply mount the ZEN in a console using “sudo mount /dev/sdc1″or “sudo mount -a”.
Hope this helps stop some head scratching out there.
Otto’s take on the Eee February 6, 2008
Posted by Rey in EEE PC, Personal Computing.Tags: Asus, Asus EEE, EEE PC, microsoft, Origami, Otto Berke, UMPC
add a comment
Here’s what Microsoft’s Otto Berke, father of the MS Origami project and architect of the UMPC, has to say about the Asus Eee:
“The Eee adheres to some of the core tenets of the ultra-mobile PC – a low-cost, highly mobile, full-fidelity companion computer. In fact, the Eee PC hits one of the key UMPC targets dead on; there’s one place where all of the other UMPC products missed – price. People expect mobile devices to be affordable!”
Read more from Otto’s blog here.
Crossing a mouse and play dough February 4, 2008
Posted by Rey in Advances, Personal Computing.Tags: carpal tunnel syndrome, liteon, modelling clay, moldable mouse, red dot design
add a comment
For you folks who can’t stand the generic shape of the standard mouse, here’s a look at what the mouse could look like in the years to come:
Designed by the folks at Lite-On, well known for their CD/DVD drives, this mouse is made of a non-toxic modelling clay covered with a fabric made of blended nylon and polyurethane. Take note this is still a design concept which recently won a red dot design award so don’t expect it out at your local computer store any time soon.
Not only will it help prevent carpal tunnel syndrome but it will be made of materials that are eco-friendly. Here’s an excerpt from the red dot design article:
“Its softness significantly increases the comfort level of the mouse over that of the traditional plastic versions. Patterns and graphics can be printed on the fabric to make the Moldable Mouse more visually appealing. The base of the mouse, made of 100% recyclable PC/ABS plastic blend, houses the PCB (Printed Circuit Board), laser optics and batteries. Reducing plastic usage to a minimum by using mostly non-toxic clay and fabric, the Moldable Mouse is also an ecologically responsible product. “
Read more about it at Engadget and the red dot design website.
