DSL working

I finally got DSL working on my old Desktop PC. I needed a longer CAT-5 UTP (Unshielded Twisted-Pair) cable which bought from RadioShack. Apparently DSL won't worked with "Patch Cables" - which works with Cable. I also had to change the static IP address that I had assigned to the machine in Windows XP Networking

DSL for the New Year

For the New Year I'm trying DSL, or at least trying to try DSL. For a total of 4 hours over 2 successive nights the furthest I've got is installing the DSL software and setting up the account. That may sound good, but it took less than an hour to set up my Cable modem connection the first time.

So, if I have cable internet (fast cable internet I might add), why am I bothering with DSL?. Simple Economics: The DSL should save me over $100 per year.
I have 30 days to decide whether to keep the DSL. So far the prognosis is not good. Unless it goes smoother I'll be returning the DSL package...

Less Spam?

AOL Reports Drop in Spam Messages.
Good advertising for AOL - join AOL, get less spam?

Top 10 List

Well, here's my top 10 list of Tech products for 2004, in no particular order. I'll limit this list to products I've actually used or own - how can I put the Palm Treo 650 on my top 10 list (as much as I'd like to) if I don't have one?):

Mozilla Firefox 1.0 browser

Fedora Core 3 Linux

BackupMan PalmOS Backup software

StumbleUpon downloadable toolbar - channel-surfing web-style.

Google Mail - Free 1 GB - say no more!

Windows Ultimate Boot CD and Bart Preinstalled Environment (BartPE)

Scite4AutoIt3 - freeware editor for AutoIT scripting language downloadable here

Xandros Desktop OS Version 2 OS Open Circulation Edition, a free version of their excellent Desktop linux

Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 - yes, I know it's a Microsoft product, but it's still pretty neat.

Motorola V600 quad-band GSM phone. Although it's not really a smartphone, it has excellent reception, and some really cool games.

Linux has fewer flaws

From ZDNet: Research finds Linux has fewer flaws.

The Linux operating system has many times fewer bugs than typical commercial software, according to an upcoming report. Read the complete story.

Fedora re-installed

Well, I re-installed Fedora Core Linux. This time I did a Custom install, and excluded Open Office which takes up a lot of space. After that the updates went through without a hitch.

Fedora Core gone

As I thought, Partition Magic would not let me resize the Linux ext2 partition. I took one look at the Linux command line tool for resizing partitions, GNU Parted, and decided that deleting the partition and reinstalling Fedora Core 3 Linux would be my best option. Then Partition Magic gave an error when I tried to delete the Linux partition Error 510: "The version of the file system is not supported". Great. The Partition Magic support site says:
"Norton PartitionMagic 8.0 and PartitionMagic 8.0 may not work with Linux Ext3 partitions when the dir_index file system attribute is enabled. Recent Linux releases from Red Hat and Fedora set the dir_index file system attribute by default. To prevent the error, disable the dir_index attribute, perform the partition modification, then re-enable the attribute.
To disable the dir_index attribute
1. Boot into Linux single-user mode."

Okay, now I first had to figure out how to "Boot into Linux single-user mode"
A quick web search picked up the answer "How To Boot Linux (Red Hat Fedora) Into Single User Mode Using Grub".

A few minutes later the linux partition was gone - I had to re-format it in Partition Magic before I could delete it, but it worked.

Now I need to reinstall Fedora Core 3 Linux.

What would Windows do?

That's what I wonder: What would Windows do if I tried to run some major updates and I didn't have enough disk space? This is all in defense of Linux of course. The Fedora Core 3 Linux I installed on Saturday gave a lot of confusing error messages when I tried to apply 63 updates. It didn't take too long to figure out that it had run out of space. I wish it had warned me beforehand, like Windows (hopefully) would have done. I since its space on a partition that it ran out of, it can be fixed - my Linux knowledge isn't enough to quickly figure out how to move some Mount Points, which would solve the problem. Instead I'll first try to increase the size of the Linux partition using Partition Magic, but I suspect that Linux might object to that. If that doesn't work, its a case of increasing the size of the Linux partition from 3 GB to around 4GB (once again with Partition Magic), clearing it and reinstalling Fedora Core 3 Linux. Its time-consuming - but since its not my primary machine I can do it in the background.
For anyone who really likes multitasking, I would highly recommend running two (or more) Desktop computers with a KVM switch - I was able to check e-mail and update this Blog on my newer machine while installing Linux on the older one.

Fedora Core 3 Installed

Well, Fedora Core 3 is installed (and saying that there are 63 updates available). Let's just hope my Windows XP still boots!

Just call me...

A sucker for new technologies.

I'm just starting to install of (Redhat) Fedora Core 3 linux on my old PC...

Almost bought a Mini Mouse

I almost bought a Mini Mouse, sight unseen. That would have been a big mistake. Have you ever seen any of those mini mice? (hey, obviously I'm not talking about Mickey's main squeeze here). Fortunately I decided to go to a real store and check them out. Some of the mini mice looked like they would be more at home on a keying. A good compromise seems to be a "Notebook mouse", which is about two-thirds the size of a normal desktop mouse. An optical mouse was a must have - maybe because it's the in thing - I've still got an old mechanical mouse at home, and it works fine. Being wireless as well was a nice-to-have, especially when I saw the prices - I don't expect to use my Notebook that much to justify a wireless mouse.

Back in the USA

Well, after 2 weeks of rushing around in sunny SA, it's back to sunny but chilly New York.
Apart from the temperatures, the prices of technology are a lot lower here. At a computer chain store - The Incredible Connection - I saw the PalmOne Zire 72 on Sale for R2500 (about US$ 440! - normal price in the US is about $299!) The Treo 600 costs over $1000, the average DVD movie costs between $30 and $40; and Windows XP Pro costs around $590. But apart from technology and cars, lots of other things are cheaper in South Africa...

Us and Them?

Linux and Microsoft - from eWeek Enterprise Wars: Linux vs. Windows

Less confused

My assumptions about the Intel Celeron M and Intel Celeron processors appear to be right, according to this article about the Compaq Presario 2210us at ExactChoice.com.

Guide to Laptop Processors has even more information.

Processor confusion

While doing research for a new Notebook, I came across what can only described as processor (or CPU) confusion. I know about some of the differences between Intel and AMD Processors for Desktops, but this was confusion caused by Intel-only Processors:

Mobile Intel Celeron
Mobile Intel Pentium 4-M (or Mobile P4)
Intel Pentium M
Intel Celeron M

The Intel Celeron and Intel Celeron M confused me because of vastly different clockspeeds. A notebook with a 2.6GHz Intel Celeron chip costs about the same as one with a 1.4GHz Intel Celeron M chip while they have similar specifications (like Memory and Hard disk size) Only when I read this article on PCMag.com did it sort of make sense, with the performance of a 1.4 GHz Pentium M being roughly similar to a Mobile Intel Pentium 4 running at 2.4 GHz.

So I assume the same must apply for Intel Celeron M and Intel Celeron processors...

Refurbished PDAs cost more than New

I spotted this:
RefurbDepot.COM - PDA's
SONY CLIE PEG-NX60
Palm OS v. 5.0, Built-in MP3 audio player, High resolution TFT color display, Swivel LCD design, Voice recorder function, Wireless expansion slot,

List Price: $699.00 (interesting - It was $399 to $450 max in May 2003!)
Our Price: $269.95
You Save: $429.05 (61.4%)
RefurbDepot.COM - PDA's

I really must have got a good deal when I bought my Sony Clie NX60 brand new for $299 in May 2003!

The winner is

The next Backup Utility I tried was the $20 BackupBuddyVFS Professional from Blue Nomad software. Now I have read a lot of good reviews about this software, but installing it crashed my handheld - Fatal Errors during install, and Fatal Errors while trying to run it. So much for that...

I finally decided on BackupMan. One of its features is that it creates the Backup as a single file, which helps me when I'm searching the Memory Stick for a particular file. The Restore feature works - I know - I've used it several times already.

Next Up: TealBackup

TealPoint Software has a good reputation, and I use two of their other software titles.

TealBackup has a host of features:
Backups though HotSync, manual backups (a feature?), incremental backups, dual-timer scheduled backups, optional encryption and compression, exclusion lists and inclusion lists.
With these features it costs around $17 .

When I tried it with the compression option it was incredibly slow on my Sony NX60. I tried to cancel the backup, but it just ignored me. Over ten minutes later the backup was still running, still on the same file, so I had to soft reset my handheld.

To give it a good test, I also tried it on my other handheld, a Tungsten E, without compression this time.

Like MSBackup, it backs up as individual files, I guess so you can manually restore individual files. The two different Backup Schedules seemed useful (one can be full, and the other incremental), but overall it was slow when populating file lists for inclusions or Exclusions.

Need a Backup

I've been having a number of hard-resets on my Sony handheld recently. Fortunately I haven't lost any important data, as I've been backing up my whole handheld every couple of days with the MSBackup software which came with the Clie, as well as copying files to the Memory Stick. So far I've been lucky, but sooner or later I'll forget to do a backup. Backups done with MSBackup have to be manually started, so a Backup Utility with scheduling capabilities would be ideal.

The first one I tried (or second, if you count FlyBackup, which really wasn't a contender), was BackupMan. This simple $10 software does scheduled backups, but lacks advanced options like selecting files to exclude, compression and encryption. Despite that, it works well.

Backup doesn't fly

While I was looking on FlyZip's website yesterday I came across FlyBackup.
Aha, backup utility with compression and encryption for $10. I really need a backup program which has scheduling capabilities, let me try it.
The first backup didn't complete, possibly because TealLock interrupted it, and a second backup ran for 2 minutes alternating between displaying either 17 minutes or 14 minutes to go. (It DOES compress though!)

Several minutes later, with 9 minutes to go the stupid program ran out of space on the card (there was only 6MB left on the SD Card). Why couldn't it have told me beforehand?
Maybe the simpler BackupMan will be better.