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.

Fly "Zip"

The name sounded intriguing, so I'm trying FlyZip on my handheld. This little Palm Utility "Zips" programs in memory to save RAM. It can also "Zip" programs to a Memory Card & create a shortcut to run the "zipped" program, like PowerRun. I use Zip in quotes because the format is not compatible with programs like WinZip. For that you need a program like Resco Explorer or LightNzip.

FlyZip has some really cool animation, the first when it starts up and the second when it "Zips" or "Unzips" an application:



If I didn't already have JackFlash and Resco Explorer I would have serious considered buying this utility.

Treo 650 smartphone is here!

Well, officially anyway.

The differences between the Treo 650 and the Treo 600 are:

Bluetooth wireless technology.

320x320 pixel screen

Built-in MP3 player.

Removable battery.

Nonvolatile memory (Like the Tungsten T5).

Camera now captures video too.

Big download

Finally managed to download Knoppix Linux, which is a bootable Linux. I had tried a few months back, but given up. After the second FTP site said it would take 22 hours I almost gave up again. I decided to try Bit Torrent, which is a P2P download method (see Brian's BitTorrent FAQ and Guide) requiring Bit Torrent software on the local machine. I started the download and left it to run all night. It took just under 7 hours for the 700MB ISO Image, but it worked. One advantage of broadband is not having to worry about the line dropping, although I've downloaded a 700MB ISO Image in less than 20 minutes. I had actually downloaded 5 CD images of varying sizes in a couple of hours earlier the same day.

Oh, and Knoppix Linux - it looks cool!

First Sony, now Sharp, this sucks!

FresnoBee.com: Technology: Sharp to stop selling PDA in U.S.

The Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 was on my shortlist of PDAs when I was hunting for a PDA last year. Although it's Linux based, it can run the Palm OS Emulator, and has a slide out keyboard.

Channel..I mean Web..surfing

I've discovered a new way to surf the Web.
StumbleUpon is a downloadable toolbar which works with most (Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox) Browsers and on a number of Operating Systems. Basically, once you've downloaded and installed the toolbar, you choose topics which you are interested in (the more the better). Then you just click the "Stumble" button on your browser to begin channel surfing - give a "Thumbs Up" or "Thumbs Down" to the websites you like or dislike, and surf on. Really great fun.

Gimme space

What's happened to the extra space promised by Hotmail?
In June there were reports all around like this one in USA Today in June: Hotmail and Yahoo to offer more email storage space and another at CNET Hotmail to offer 250MB of free storage

Yahoo increased its space within days of the announcement. So did a number of other free web-based email providers like Myway.com.

So Microsoft, where's the increase in Hotmail space?

YAIEB!

Yikes!, Another Internet Explorer Bug

[Secunia - Advisories - Microsoft Internet Explorer Disclosure of Sensitive XML Information]

What, no Tungsten T4?

The new Palm Tungsten T5 PDA is here. With 256MB of flash memory (215MB available, of which 160MB is an internal flash drive), 416MHz Intel XScale processor, stereo headphone jack, Bluetooth but no Wi-Fi, and NO slider!

What's in a name

I was curious about the multiple name changes for "the browser now called Firefox".

First, it was Phoenix.
Then, it was Mozilla Firebird.
Now it's Mozilla Firefox

According to Geek.com, the Mozilla Foundation had to change the name the first time because the name Phoenix was already trademarked. The second change has come in the wake of unhappy words from the Open Source Firebird relational database development project.

Mozilla's FAQ about the name Firefox

Found PrefBar

Well, I found a version of the Firefox extension "PrefBar" which works with Firefox 1.0 Preview version for download at www.extensionsmirror.nl

Browser catches fire

I finally tried the Preview version of the Mozilla Firefox browser.
I was impressed right from the word go. The first time I ran Firefox it detected which plugins were installed and retrieved updates for the compatible ones. I was really sorry there isn't a compatible version of PreBar out yet. It also asked where it should import bookmarks and settings from (as both IE and Mozilla were still on the machine). The browser is slick and fast, even on my old 500 MHz machine running Windows 98.

Over Amplified

I decided to try Amplify.com after reading a favorable review of it in PC Magazine. Amplify is supposed to help you capture and share parts of web pages which interest you.

I should have realized that wasn't for me when I saw that one of the requirements is Internet Explorer. Without asking, it installed itself in the startup group - a big no-no. It also had some major clashes with the GoogleBar.

Current status of Amplify.com: uninstalled.