Seiko SBCM023

I bought a Seiko Perpetual Calendar Scuba Diver 200M watch from Taiwan's evilbay.  Why did I?

I have a Wenger Swiss Army watch.  I've had it for 12+ years, have changed 6 batteries on it, it's just fine, not a problem.  So why did I change my watch?  Well, last week, I decided that I am SICK AND TIRED of having to fiddle with my watch at the end of every other month.  See, most watches go to the 31st whether it's the 31st or not.  Mechanical watches don't know the difference between months.  So I started looking for a watch with a perpetual calendar.  And I finally found one.  Most of the Seikos SUCK.  They are big, complicated, you can't even read the time off of it, and they are so heavy and complex.  So I started looking for the older ones.  This is what I found.  This watch tells time, and has a perpetual date.  THAT'S IT.  My write is fairly small and so I wanted one with a < 40mm diameter, and none of the new ones were; most were 45mm way too big.  I ordered this online, without trying it on; this is a fairly big gamble, but it turned out well.  The watch looks great, and it runs and tells the correct date, what more could you want?  So this is my new watch.  Yes, it's quartz movement, so what?  It just means it's accurate both in time and date, and that seems to be a forgotten theme for watch makers these days.

200M water resistance

Hardlex

Since I moved to Taiwan, I missed my total gym.  So I wanted to buy one, after all, they are all made in Taiwan!!  But of course, I over judged Taiwan, anything halfway decent made in taiwan is for others to use.  So there doesn't exist one in all of taiwan.  Well, there was one, but someone bid on it and won it before I got to Taiwan...  You add the love of Taiwan to not actually use anything they produce, and tada!  You live in a country that produces a Total Gym but you can't buy one.  Well, last week, I spotted on online, and promptly ordered it.  It was delivered to me, and I was just excited.  Now I can exercise again!  So I exercised the first day and because of the lack of use, the wheels dried up, and cracked and broke..  So my total workout on the total gym was ONE DAY.  Having waited 6 years, I wasn't going to let a little thing like a missing wheel deter me.  So I went treasure hunting in Taiwan and I found a semi-comparable wheel.  It was too fat though.  So Bad Wheel 1, Me 0.  But again, I've waited 6 years, wasn't going to let the fact the replacement wheel was too fat deter me right?  So.. out came the hack saw.  But slicing through half an inch of brass prooved too much for my little hack saw, and so...  Bad Wheel 2, Me 0.  That's ok...  I don't give up that easily.  OUT CAME THE ANGLE GRINDER.  at 15,000RPMs..  sparks were flying.  A lot of microburns later...   My total gym is working again..  Who's your daddy?? Damn right!

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I'm going to LA to eat eat eat! Kwons! Savoy!

My Sigma 18~50mm has a wobbly zoom, and now the zoom runs when it focuses..  So it's in the shop. 

I bought a Nikon 35mm F2 today..  A few reasons:  First, the lens is small, and I am sick and tired of hauling the garage around with me.  Second, the lens is actually designed for film, so if later on, I do buy an FX, I will be able to use it.

I think Nikon should redesign some of their lenses; but this one isn't all that bad.  They should put out their 28mm F2.8 with the 8 elements in 8 groups one in an AF format and I would have bought that over this one.

One of the things I take a lot of pics of is food; and this is the perfect food lens.  It focuses very close, the "macroness" of it is quite good, and it's small and light.  So next time I'm out at dinner and want to bring a lens just for food, this is it.

I also find this to be the best indoor lens to mate with a flash.  Bounce flash this, and you get a "small group" (3 people) and/or a 3/4th shot of someone.  All in all, excellent lens.  But I highly recommend as with all camera lenses, that you buy it from a shop instead of ordering it online.  The reason?  I tested on out that was out for testing today, and it sucked badly.  Not very sharp at all.  I'm sure being the "beater" lens they put out to demo, I'm not surprised.  The lens I ended up buying though was MUCH sharper, and as always, there will be sample variances and so you should definitely try before you buy the sample you are about to take home.

 It's a front focus lens, and so the lens sticks out a bit when you focus in close, which scares me a little bit, and the focusing ring moves, which I don't like.  But the advantage of front focus vs. internal focus is that you will not get lateral cyan/magenta splits on the CA.  I've not noticed heavy CA on this lens, and I think resolution varies greatly with samples, so again, try before you buy.

I am a big fan of the 50mm perspective, the "way of no way" as Bruce Lee says, it's the perspective that isn't a perspective, and that lets me capture what looks natural.  The way I shoot, while there are lies, damn lies, and then there's photography; with my pics, I like to be as neutral as possible, I'd like for you to be able to take one of my pics, look at it, and when you get to that place, have you say "This is EXACTLY like the pic".  So a 50mm perspective gives me that.  The Bokeh is nowhere near as good as my Olympus OM 50mm f1.8's, (that thing was a cream machine) but it's not as bad as everybody says, and it certainly isn't as bad as my Sigma 18~50mm was.  The fact that there's no aspheric elements means that your bokeh circles don't look funky from aspheric element distortion.

On a DX, I think this is a superior lens over the 50mm F1.8, even though it's about $100 more.  F2 vs f1.8 isn't really a difference.  The 50mm is probably ever so slightly sharper, but honestly, most people have hands about as steady as a 92 year old drunk.  So most talk about sharpness, but they basically need to learn to hold a camera steady first before they open their mouth.  I've looked at hundreds of samples, I especially love to look at samples from people who complain about the lens sharpness, and when you zoom in, you see the smear that is handshake.  So if you think a lens is not sharp, let me ask, have you tried it on a tripod, with mirror up and on a timer?  And I don't mean that pigeon-toed 3 legged toothpick that people pass off as a tripod, I mean a heavy solid tripod.  If so, then return the lens.

 For me on a DX, this is the superior lens.  The Sigma 30mm F1.4 is a stop faster, but also 2x as heavy and not as good in the corners.  So make your decision accordingly.  FX lens that's light and compact, or absolute center sharpness.  I picked the former so I ended up with this lens.

This election, who did you vote for?  Well, if you voted for either Obama or McCain, then you've voted for big government, tax enslavement, and are basically unAmerican.

McCain is an angry and bitter old man with an enlarged prostate.

Obama is a wishy washy Muslim in disguise that over promises.

The only person in congress that has voted against taxes every single time is Ron Paul.  he is the man with the plan, and NONE OF YOU GUYS want a plan.  Who's the winner of this election?  McBama.  It doesn't matter who wins because both are tax and spend people.

So next time you see your son die in the middle east, or you see your paycheck crater from the taxes, just remember, you did this to yourself by not voting Ron Paul.

I have been watching a TV show called "The Big Bang Theory", it's a story about 2 nerds who live next to a hot chick that works as a waitress at the Cheesecake Factory.

If you are a nerd, you need to watch this.  The "nerd jokes" are some of the best I've heard, and it just cracks me up.  I really like the girl next door also, "Penny"; she's sensible and cute, and watching her tolerate the nerds is just great!

The fact that she's not bad looking at all, I'm sure helps.  (Cleavage shot)

And a Bikini shot..

What kind of nerd jokes can you expect??  Well, for example, one of the principle characters named Sheldon went to a Halloween party as "The Doppler Effect". (Shown on the left of the pic)

They do nerd things like have Halo III night.. I love this show!  It's America's answer to "IT Crowd", another great show about nerds, but British nerds...

This is the show to watch if you are a nerd, get calculus jokes, and just need a good laugh.  Highly Recommended.

I have one of these for my office, an Asus WL-500G Premium v2.  I originally wanted a v1, but all they had left was a v2.  I have a Asus wl-500g Deluxe at home, that was my old firewall/wifi router until I got the pix 506E.

Now this asus is horrible as far as software.  It's got alpha software at best, and not so stable. So I didn't even bother powering it up with the original software.

I first installed DD-WRT, but I didn't find it so stable.  I REALLY REALLY REALLY wanted to install Tomato on it.

So I tried and I tried.. and nothing..  So I looked up the chipset, and it was the same as the Buffalo WHR-G125, which was supported by Tomato ND.  So I tried it and I got it to work!

So let's first review the hardware.. then we'll get to the software.

The hardware is "not bad".  I like the asus better than the linksys because it's nigh impossible to brick the asus.  Hold down the reset button, unplug for 10 seconds, plug it in again while holding the reset button, and it will flash.. you can then use the asus utility (or tftp if you are on linux or don't have the asus utility) and reflash the router.  Done!  I've tried everything and it's never bricked..  And flashing it doesn't require you to do strange things like rub your belly while you pat your head.

The Buffalo WHR-G125 and theWL-500G Premium V2 both use the Broadcom 5354 integrated chipset running at 240Mhz .  It's the heavily integrated chipset, integrating just about everything you need in a router onto 1 chip. I don't know about the price (I think the Buffalo is cheaper) but the Premium v2 has 8 megs of flash ram, vs the 4megs on the buffalo.  So when more goodies come out, it's much more hackable.  

Here's info about the chip (from its website:)

BCM5354
802.11b/g Router System-on-Chip with BroadRange™ Technology

The BCM5354 integrates a high-performance MIPS32 processor, IEEE 802.11 b/g MAC/PHY, 2.4-GHz direct conversion radio, USB 2.0 host controller, SDRAM controller, and a configurable five-port Fast Ethernet (FE) switch. The BCM5354 provides wireless LAN connectivity supporting data rates of up to 125 Mbps that is backward-compatible with standard 802.11 b/g.

The BCM5354 supports a WAN connection via its configurable media interfaces. The per-port programmable four-level priority queues enable QoS (IEEE 802.1p) for guaranteed bandwidth applications, DiffServ/TOS, and L2/L3 IGMP snooping. The IEEE 802.1Q VLAN allows flexible implementation of VLAN grouping and WAN port segregation.

	Features

• 240-MHz MIPS32® CPU core with 16-KB instruction cache, 16-KB data cache, and 1-KB pre-fetch cache
• 2.4-GHz direct conversion radio
• The BCM5354 achieves the lowest cost and highest performance router system-on-chip (SoC) integration for residential and small office, home office (SOHO) markets
• Time-to-market is significantly reduced through stable Linux® and VxWorks® kernels, board support packages (BSPs), drivers and toolchains

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm not a huge fan of the MIPS chips... but I like them better than the ARM.  Of the 3 smaller chipsets, I prefer PowerPC, MIPS, and then ARM, in that order.  I find that for the same speed, the PPC's kick everybody else's ass, the MIPS is somewhere in the middle, and the ARM is significantly slower.

I have been running my Buffalo HDHG NAS behind it, as both an ftp server as well as running mldonkey on it, as a downloader.  I push up a few hundred gigs a month, and a few hundred gigs downloaded, and router does just fine.  I turned on QOS on tomato, and it is not too bad.  While I haven't found that I can "overload" the router, I do find that when there's a significant load, you can feel it.  That's not true with my pix at home, of course I can't compare them both, one is near enterprise level (especially now that I hacked the 506E ) and the other is just a SOHO router.  But with tomato, it's a significant booster as far as speed and stability.

What I do love about Tomato are the real time graphs, and the QOS control.  It's small, light, easy to manage, and just works out of the box.  I love that.  If I hack my pix some more and it dies, I'll buy another one of these and put Tomato on it.  There's no USB support on tomato, but that's ok, I think of it as a router that happens to do wifi also.

Overall, I am quite satisfied with this router, and highly recommend it over all the other ones for a Soho router.  It's got decent speed, and with Tomato on it, I'm sure it will spank most routers 10x the price.  Running some ADSL speeds, it will saturate my entire office line of 10Megs down / 2 Megs up.  So unless you've got 100Mbits coming to your house, this should do fine.  Like all Broadcom chipsets, max connections is pegged at 4096, but this generally should not be a problem for all but the hardest of hard core home users.  Too bad tomato doesn't support VPN, but I honestly don't think you want to use any SOHO router as a VPN'ed router to the central office.  It is what it is, a great home router or a small office router that doesn't require VPN.  The speed isn't bad if you don't have too many connections, good for <8 computers or so.  It's perfect for the office since I have 3 computers and that's it.  It's not a pix, and doesn't perform like one, but it's not priced like a pix either.  Best Asus WL-500G Premium v2 + Tomato the best bang for your buck as far as SOHO routers PERIOD.

I have always wanted to have a pix.. and so I decided one day, yes.. I will run a pix firewall for my home firewall.  Overkill?  Sure..  But what's worth doing is worth overdoing, so the Mythbusters have taught me.

There are 2 PC100 RAM slots inside, so the first thing I did was buy another 32Megs.  Turns out, I didn't really need to because the ram usage never really topped 17Meg, which is what it starts out at, and never climbs.  The load on the CPU, which was a Celeron 300Mhz with a 66Mhz bus, was at a load of somewhere between 2~7%, depending on how many connections were open.  I manage to get it up to 49% usage, when I was doing 3DES VPN.  I picked 3DES to test because AES is much more efficient, and I wanted to load up the CPU.  The CPU runs really really hot..

Upon reading the Cisco Pix Wiki , I discovered that the motherboard of the 506E is the same as the Pix 525, which has a 600Mhz Coppermine Pentium III CPU.  So I put that on my todo list.  I surfed and googled around, and found a guy who hacks Ciscos.  I asked him about it, and he said it was a fairly strange idea but probably quite doable.  So researching, I figure I would try to mimick the specs of the original 506E but times 2.

Cisco Pix 506E's CPU  (Original):

300Mhz Celeron with 66Mhz Bus on Socket 370

(Ugly looking CPU with no markings on it..  It's made of ceramic, very heavy, and really hot.

Planned Modification:

600Mhz PentiumIII with 133Mhz Bus on Socket 370

The reason I picked these specifications were for a number of reasons:

1. I was scared that with the horrible heat distribution of the 506E, a super fast CPU might burn the mobo.
2. I didn't want to pick something with a 100Mhz bus because I wanted the multipliers to be multiples of the original. So in this case, 300Mhz => 600Mhz.  66Mhz bus => 133Mhz bus. I figure compatibility would be better this way and I'd have a better shot at making this work.
3. Because the 525 uses a 600Mhz and I assume the same motherboard, or at least it uses the same Intel 440BX Seattle chipset onboard.
4. The voltage requirement was lower than the Celeron, not higher.
   

So I found one on the Taiwanese ebay for $4USD.  So I bid and bought it.  Today was the big day.  I pulled out the Celeron and slapped in the PIII.  The "theory" was that I just slap some heat transfer compound, close it up, turn it on, and away it goes!!

And... (drum roll).. it just booted up.  Absolutely no drama whatsoever.  Now, the CPU runs at 0% all the time...  I am not sure if it's running at 66Mhz or 133Mhz, and don't know how I'd be able to check, but in theory, this chip is 4x faster (300Mhz vs 600Mhz) and (66Mhz vs 133Mhz) I doubled the clock bus speed as well as the CPU speed.

The other part of the good news is that the Celeron ran at 2.0V, while the PIII runs at 1.65V.  So the lower voltage should be a heatsource and power savings (hopefully).  The heatsink on the Celeron is MASSIVE.  The one on the PIII is really dinky, so I hope that heat transfer isn't a problem.

I don't really do any VPN or anything that drastic with my firewall.. If I did, I'd upgrade it to 256Megs of ram or something.  Anyway, my 506E is effectively running like a 525.

506E (New) MSRP $1549 USD

525 (New) MSRP $4000 USD

32Meg additional PC100 ram cost me $10.

PIII 600Mhz with 133Mhz bus, cost me $4.

So if you buy a 506E and dump another $20 into it, you will have a 525 equivalent.  Yes yes yes, I know, 525 will run the ASA.  You can hack the 506E to run ASA as well.  But I don't need UTM and so no need for me to.  I might do it though just so I can truly have a hacked 506E.  But for now, I'm super happy with the CPU upgrade.

You can pick up a 506E for cheap on evilbay, and PC100 ram is cheap, and so are PIII's.  If you are brave (or stupid) and would like to try an even faster CPU, knock yourself out.  But so far, no problems with the PIII.  I am still concerned about overheating so time will tell.

From Tom's Hardware :

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

	Celeron celeron	Pentium III
Socket	Socket 370	Socket 370 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_370 or Slot-1
Processor Speeds	366, 400, 433, 466, 500, 533, 566, 600, 633, 667 MHz	500, 533, 550, 600, 650, 667, 700, 733, 750, 800, 850, 866, 933, 1000 MHz
L2 Cache Speed	Full CPU clock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_rate speed	Full CPU clock speed
Operating Voltage	2.0V (366-533 MHz) 1.5V (533A-600 MHz)	1.60/1.65V/1.70V
L2 Associativity	4-way set	8-way set
Price of slowest model	$70 for 366 MHz	$175 for 500 MHz

Note that the L2 cache is much bigger on the PIII, 2x as big.  Also, the bus speed as well as the inherent CPU speed.

So there you go!  Hack your 506E into a near 525.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Update ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am curious, the "show version" shows PIII 448Mhz..  ???!?!  Oh well..

Copy & Past Below:

Cisco PIX Firewall Version 6.3(5)
Cisco PIX Device Manager Version 3.0(4)

Compiled on Thu 04-Aug-05 21:40 by morlee

pixfirewall up 32 mins 3 secs

Hardware:   PIX-506E, 64 MB RAM, CPU Pentium III 448 MHz  (Why 448Mhz??  I'm not sure.. Mobo restriction??)
Flash E28F640J3 @ 0x300, 8MB
BIOS Flash AM29F400B @ 0xfffd8000, 32KB

Since I don't have the budget of cisco, I really couldn't test the router in the way I would like to.. so I had to start thinking up creative ways.  So..

I created a 3DES VPN from my desktop (Windows XP) to the router.  I then looked for an open iperf computer online, (Thank you University of Florida! ) and begin to iperf the crap out of it.

I then did a

iperf -c [server] -u -b1000m -w2m -i1s

to see if I can get the CPU load up.  Well.. I ran 10 of these concurrently, for a full cached saturation of close to 80megs of data.  (I'm sure my ISP is gonna ban me now..) I got the CPU up to 75%.  So that means on this setup, I can reasonally expect about a 100meg ceiling for VPN.  (I picked 3DES instead of AES because the load is heavier on 3DES and the goal was to load up the cpu).  Without VPN, the load topped around 11%.  For regular usage though, the system shows 0% utilization.  So there you go, I haven't quite figured out how to spawn a ridiculous amount of connections to test, but I have over 200+ BT files going, and the connection load floats at around 1000+ at any given time, so it's not too bad.  All in all, excellent upgrade.  Will I notice a difference in my browsing?  Probably not.  Will I smile with pride and joy at hacking yet another piece of hardware?  Absolutely.

My actual pics:

Here's the Pix 506E opened up.  Notice the 2 rows of 32Megs of ram.  I will probably upgrade this later.

 

 Here's a pic with the CPU fan off, showing the Celeron.

 

Here's a Celeron vs PIII shot.

 

 And Finally, here's the PIII installed.

 

One more comment; I changed out the CPU thermal compound and the box got HOT.. which is a good thing, which means it's wicking the heat from the CPU much better.  I was originally concerned about the heat since the heat sink contact point on the PIII is so small compared to the Celeron..  The compound on the Celeron had hardened already, and so changing it out is a great idea regardless if you are going to upgrade the CPU or not.

Ahoy!  Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.  I love these guys.  I love Cap'n Slappy the best.  So if it's still Sept 19th where you live, it's not too late to talk like a pirate!  It's the only day you can call a chick a wench and mean it!  

Arrrg you land lovers!!  

The holy grail everybody has been searching for..

 RVMB to PS3 playable files using only Open Source Software. 

 Short and sweet, here it is:  

my encode_to_ps3.bat 

@echo off

mencoder.exe -ofps 30000/1001 -af lavcresample=24000 -vf harddup -of lavf -oac lavc -ovc lavc -lavcopts vbitrate=1200:aglobal=1:vglobal=1:vcodec=mpeg4:acodec=libfaac:threads=2 -lavfopts format=psp %1 -o %1.mp4

If you are using unix, you can change the "%1" to $1.

That's it!  This will produce a playable mp4 formatted file for you using mencoder.

You can change the vbit rate if you want to.  Also, the "threads=2" is useful to cut the encoding time in half (well, about 33%) if you have dual core.  If you have a quad core, change it to "threads=4".

That's it!  Convert all your rmvb's to play on the ps3.  I love the PS3.  I'm sony's biggest nightmare.. 

I bought a Palm Pilot Z22 after careful research of the functions I needed.  I didn't need to listen to music, since I already had a mp3 player .  Watching a movie on something this small was a waste.  I  Already had a cell phone, that was till in mono color but was rugged, durable, allowed me to call and receive calls, and so all I needed a PDA to do for me, is keep a calendar, provide me a place to make a list, and allow me to scribble things down.

So I really liked this PDA, but this being taiwan, the moisture ate away at the screen cable, and it broke.  So I set out to buy a new one, didn't sell them in Taiwan..  So I finally ordered one from the states.  So this is my second one. 

I gave my HTC PDA to my wife.

Of course aside from the calendar, the most useful program on the palm is DiddleBug .   DiddleBug does what apMemo is to the PPC.  

This is what Diddlebug looks like:

And it is just ridiculously useful.  You can not believe the amount of stress you can alleviate with this one program.  Most complain that it's not in color, but I don't really care.  It allows me to write down what was in my brain before I forget, and that is worth its weight in gold.

Digital Camera on board?  NO.

Cell Phone?  NO.

Audio Out?  NO.

GPS?  NO.

Photo Album on board?  Yes, but on a screen that small do you really want to view any photos?

RAM/ROM/Storage: 32 Megs, 24megs available to the user.  Sounds so small when you come from the world if microsoft bloat, but honestly it's not designed to run Folding@Home, it's designed to store tidbits of info.

eBook Reader: Sort of.. You can download eReader, or MobiReader.  I find that pdf's on this thing is nearly impossible to read, as you are zooming and scrolling all around.  So stick to converted ebooks or Gutenburg Project books.

Ridiculously long battery life?  YES.

A billion times easier controls than the PPC?  YES.

It does what you need a pda to do, keep some info, keep a calendar, keep a todo, and jot down things on the top of your brain.

I'm all about utilitarianism..

I bought a PS3!!  I was by the Taipei 101, having a cup of Illy coffee, when it started raining.  So we went to the mall "New York New York" and guess who was having a show.. Sony!!  Demoing the PS3.. Since I was Considering One , So I bought one.

Black one.

It kicks ass.  The avi's from it are amazing.  I just wish it wasn't so picky about the types of avi..  Right now, I'm battling the easiest way to convert rmvb's so they are playable via my Synology streamed uPnP to the PS3.  Once I get that down, it will be sweet!

I got Yellow Dog Linux installed on it, not very fast, but kind of cool the fact that I got linux to run on it.  Now if only Yellow Dog can have a kernel that's optimized for the Cell Processor, then we'd be smokin'...

I am seriously considering buying a PS3 as a new media center.  Now all I gotta do is figure out how to get it to play RMVB's and we are good to go..  

My wife thinks my 7 year old computer looks ugly as sin by the TV.  The Made in China, $29 DVD player is a POS when it comes to audio output.  I am hoping that the PS3 will not disappoint me.

I just ordered this from some guy online.  It's motor oil for a 2-stroke engine, made by Freedom Oil.  It's suppose to be the bomb-diggadi..  But we'll see.  I'm sure it's better than the Taiwanese crap I've been feeding my scooter.  It should come to my door next week.  So we'll see how it performs.  It's 100% synthetic, so it should hold up to the heat better.  I find that the Taiwanese oil breaks down after long prolonged high speed, like when I'm on a bridge.  Also, the stress of 2 people on a scooter vs 1 is an incredible difference.  My scooter feels fine with just me, but with my wife and I both on the scooter, it feels very sluggish.  I hope this solves that problem.  One of the websites gave this a great review, so I can't wait.  All I know is that it can't perform worse than the Taiwanese stuff!  It does however, cost 2x as much as the Taiwanese stuff, but it will be worth it if it doesn't strand me on a bridge.

UPDATE:

So I got it in the mail 2 days ago and put some in right away...  As soon as the oil hit the engine, RIGHT AWAY the engine quieted down.  As far as acceleration and smoothness, it was like a whole new scooter!  Amazing what a difference.  HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

So I use to buy this:

Then, I thought, I should support Taiwan, and so I bought this or this:

This is suppose to be low smoke.

 Which I guess makes this the smokey one.

 So I switched from my Mobil Super 2T to the Taiwan 國光 brand.  Boy, was that a mistake.  The scooter started stalling.  There however, was a lot less smoke than the Mobil.  So the scooter starting having problems and then while I was on the bridge with my wife sitting on the back, the entire scooter ceased up.  I took it to the shop, where the guy proceeded to tell me that my engine block is a little bit warped now, due to lack of lubrication.  He then asked me, do you use "國光 brand"motor oil?  He asked that as a rhetorical question, not as an actual question as he knew the answer to that.  So he asked me to change oil.

When something like this happens, there's only one person to blame, ME.  What was I thinking??  I put the trust of my safety and the safety of my wife to a Taiwanese brand when I had other choices??  NEVER Again!

So if you would like to be stranded in the middle of crossing a bridge, I suggest you use the Taiwanese brand.  If not, SWITCH.  This has been a public service annoucement.

I listen to this book all the time.  It covers a few basic items, such as saving a portion of your earnings, not less than 1/10th.  Doing the math, the "magic" happens somewhere around saving 24% of your income.  You should save a percentage, not an amount so as your income grows, so do your savings.  Most people just suck at math, I mean if you work from 20~55 years of age, that's 35 years.  If you then need to live until you are 90, that's also 35 years.  So you basically need to save the same as you earn right now!  But you have the advantage of time, and so you can make your money grow.  Rule of 72 says divide 72 by the percentage you are getting to see how long before it doubles.  So if you are making 6% a year, it will take you 12 years to double that...  If you do the math, and say you start working at 19 and retire at 55, and you are getting 6% ROI, then you can get 8x your money in 36 years.  This book is a great starter for people who are clueless about money.

It is told in parables, and very easy reading.  I recommend getting the audiobook like I have, and listening to it over and over again..  Remember, repetition is the teacher of teachers.  If you don't have this book in your library, you don't really have a worthwhile library.

Jim Rohn was the first to recommend this book to me, and I have to say a big thank you to him.  Jim is the MAN.

I alluded to this book before, when I talked about my PDA applications.   David Allen has a goal, and that is to be the laziest guy on earth, while at the same time, being one of the most productive men on earth.  Paradoxical??  Probably, but he does it and he teaches you how to do it as well.  Do you not have enough time in the day?  Are you forgetful?  Then buy this book and a PDA!!

Things I learned from this book + the apMemo program as well as the list maker, has allowed me to not worry so much about forgetting something, and that in and of itself is worth its weight in gold..

This book has inspired me to "Risk it All" to start my own business; and I have.  Has it cut my work week to 4 hours??  Absolutely.  My workweek now is right around 4 hours.  Am I making 2x as much as I use to?  Yes I am!  I now teach 80/20 as well as Parkinson's Law to my students as well.  Amazing book.

I will introduce books that I think will change your life..

This is one of them.  The basic premise of this book is that Thoughts are things, and thoughts control your entire life.  You are what you think about.  It's not "Law of Attraction" only, it's more like "Law of Definition".  Your thoughts define who and what you are, as well as who and what you will become.  

The good news is you control your thoughts, and you control your own destiny.

This book is very short, and super inspirational.  Highly Highly Highly Recommended.

Basically, I'm sick and tired of smokers.  Non-smokers are 2nd class citizens.  Here in taiwan, 40% of all men here smoke.  Basically, they will smoke anywhere, that's the taiwanese way.  If you ask them not to smoke, they will threaten you.  Taiwan is a 3rd world country.  Those who say otherwise, haven't lived here.  Those who live here and disagree have never lived anywhere else.

 It's lawlessness at its worst.  Red light?  who cares?  Don't smoke in the elevator?  who cares?  The guy delivering propane is ALWAYS smoking.  I even saw a guy, put his cigarette on his motorcycle gas tank cap at the red light.

 Taiwanese wake up in the morning and ask themselves, "What ridiculously dangerous things can I do this morning?"

They do things like, run red lights, place dangerous objects everywhere, make sure the windows are all closed when they use caustic items, (of which almost all Taiwanese items are), and I mean sure the island averages 95% humidity, so we need to work hard to make sure the houses are dirty, and moldy all the time.  Not enough mold?  Don't worry, taiwanese will spray water everywhere just to create mold.  Walk into any taiwanese bathroom and understand what a biohazard really looks like.

Taiwanese have the sanitary habits of the French, the smoking habits of the French, and the pigheaded-ness of the french.  I hate the french and I'm ashamed to be called Taiwanese.

Want to better the economy??  NOPE, we just want to argue green vs blue all day.  And you'd better be careful because taiwanese are a violent bunch.

Taiwan, Formosa, the beautiful island my ass.  To taiwanese, taiwan is nothing but a big ashtray.  Want nice scenery?  Don't bother, no matter how pretty, there will always be a rusty tin roof shack in the middle of the picture.  Or some sort of telephone poll, or trash on the streets.

I hate taiwan.  I cannot wait to leave here.  Let the pigs play amongst the mud.

Taiwanese are a bunch of smoking cockroaches.  They invade, and infest.  It's one of the smelliest, noisiest places on earth.  And if you complain about the smoke and noise, they will want to beat you up.  Don't bother calling the police because the police in Taiwan are basically Eunuchs.  They will do nothing, because taiwan is lawless.

I don't say what I say out of bitterness, or out of stereotype, it's ALL TRUE.  If you don't believe me, come to taiwan, drive in San Chong or Tainan for a day, and understand this is a place of savages and cavemen, a lawless pith of despair.

I have one of these at home.  The guy in the picture is a Catholic Priest. He became famous in Taiwan helping people, speciality being foot massages as therapy.

 I've got this machine under my desk.  It's the easiest way for an IT nerd to get more blood circulation.

The massaging of the feet as therapy is called "Reflexology".  It stimulates the internal organs and detoxes the body.  It increases blood circulation which we as IT people need help with. I love my machine.  The cloth cover on it, wears out, so you'll need to order a new one eventually, I'm on cloth cover #2, and it's worn to shreds and so I'll be ordering another one soon.

OSIM makes 2 foot massagers:

The iPoke

and

The iSnug

The iPoke does only the sole of the foot.  The iSnug is a bit better, it does the bottom and the sides, it also adds heat.  But I still prefer the 吳神父 腳底按摩機 to both of these.

One of the things I really like about this machine vs something from like OSIM, is that it is able to hit all the major pressure points, including the topside of the feet.  The two little grayish bubbles pulsate to give a massage.  You can stick your feet into the two slots to get a "side" massage of the foot too as it squeezes the sides.  I really really love my machine, the buttons are all in japanese, which isn't that great, but come on, there's like 5 buttons..  There are 3 speeds, 2 directions, and 2 program buttons.  I usually use it at the highest speed.  It stops by itself after 20 minutes.  Don't use it after you've eaten.  Other than that, I use it before I go to bed to get rid of tired feet, and use it when I first turn on my computer in the morning, to stimulate blood circulation.

If there's a machine that pays for itself in terms of health,  this machine is it.  Some people put it in the living room for use by the family when they watch TV.  I don't agree with this strategy.  You are watching tv usually after you eat, and that's not when you can use it.  You need to put it under your computer table.  This way, whenever you are sitting too long, just press the button with your toe and you will get instant blood circulation.  This is great when you are feeling tired and fatigued.

Any foot massager is better than no foot massager, but of all the ones available on the market in Taiwan, this is the one I prefer the most.  It does what it says, and hits all the pressure points.  Easy to use.  Lasts a long time, I've had mine for over 3 years and I use it for about half an hour every day.  My wife uses it too when she's on my computer.  While it's not cheap, it's not as much as the OSIM.  And besides, what kind of price tag can you put on health anyways?

It easily pays for itself within the first month.

Our house is quite small and we needed a coffee table.  Most coffee tables were either too big or made of compressed wood or hollow.  So we ended up buying this children's table and use it as our coffee table.  If you think it's too high, you can saw the legs shorter..  

I don't particularly like soda; I do like drinking that German malt stuff, but for me, drinking soda is horrible.  It's just sugar water.  I prefer tea.  On one of the boards talking about saving money, this guy said that he switched his entire family over to something called "Kombucha", which I had never heard of.  But reading about it online, I went on a hunt, and finally found someone who had it in Taiwan.  Fast forward two years, I'm drinking some kombucha as I write this entry.  I prefer it in the winter over the summer, when it is hot, it ferments too quickly and gets sour a bit too quickly.  In the winter, that doesn't happen all that fast, and so you get a lot of fizzy bubbles and it takes like slightly more astringent coke.  It tastes great!

Health benefits aside, I just think that it's a much cheaper (and healthier) alternative to soda.

Breakdown of costs:

1 Large back of loose tea ~ $1.50.

1 Large bag of sugar ~ $3.00

Total cost, $4.50.  Number of cups, probably 200.

The cost of a cup is probably close to 4 cents.  Use the cheapest tea possible because the tea is just for flavoring, all the kombucha cares about is the sugar water.  Try different teas and different flavors.  Enjoy the money savings.

My newest hobby is hacking Ikea furniture..

I own one of these:



I removed the middle piece on both the left and right side of the top section, and made it into a TV stand. It's space between is flatter than a conventional TV stand one, but fits my NAD amp just fine. It's got air slots in the back so running wires isn't a problem. It's perfect, more so than the actual tv stands they sell at Ikea. It's smaller, sleeker, slimmer, and easier to use and did I mention cheaper??

Hacking Ikea will be a regular theme here I'm sure..

Ikea, Swedish for hackable crap..

VS



Toyota Tercel 1997
MPG (city) 28
MPG (highway) 35
MPG (combined) 31
Cost to Drive 25 Miles $3.29
Fuel to Drive 25 Miles 0.81 gal
Annual Fuel Cost $1977

Toyota Prius 2008
MPG (city) 48
MPG (highway) 45
MPG (combined) 46
Cost to Drive 25 Miles $2.23
Fuel to Drive 25 Miles 0.54 gal
Annual Fuel Cost $1335

This all sounds great, until you realize the cost of one vs the other..

You can find a great 1997 Toyota Tercel (these things last forever) for about $3000. A decent one for about $2000, and a dumper for about $1000. You can't find a Prius for under $15,000 on any market.

So we go ahead and crunch the numbers..

We'll say you paid for the most expensive Toyota Tercel in Pristine condition, like mine. $3000. (I paid $3300 for mine because I'm in Taiwan, but the car is like brand new, inside and out. The owner just changed the timing belts last year too, runs great, no problems.)

Let's take the average Ebay Motors price for a Prius about $25,000.

So the Toyota Tercel has got $22,000 head start on the Prius.

We do a little math to see when the Prius will catch up to the Tercel in terms of recouping the cost from fuel savings and we arrive at:

518,867 Miles.

That's how many miles you need to drive on a Prius before it "pays for itself" against a Tercel. But wait, there's more! At that many miles, the amount of pollution is ridiculous.

But a Prius is "cleaner" you say?? WRONG. Because the Tercel was already built!! You forgot to factor in manufacturing cost and pollution! When it's all said and done, for a tiny car, a used Tercel can't be beat. It gets great mileage, has pep, is not a hybrid (hybrid = worst of both worlds) and pretty much a Prius will never catch up to it in terms of savings.

And it pisses the tree huggers off..

I sometimes feel that I either have a 3rd eye or just more common sense than most.

When buying a car, coolness seems to be high on the list, that's why most people forget that above all else, UTILITY is the most important. And when I say utility, I don't actually mean SUV's..

One of the biggest items you HAVE TO HAVE is rear folding seats if you own a sedan. Basically, it's my #1 buying criteria.. Well, not buying a Ford is my #1 buying criteria, but this is a close 2nd.

I try to get AWD if possible, but folding rear seats is a must.

I put in a full sized hutch into my little Toyota Tercel yesterday on the way back from Ikea.. How was that possible? Rear folding seats.

It makes any car more useful. I searched for a long time to find one with a rear folding seat. You should too.. because you should ALWAYS be buying used cars instead of new ones.

If you don't know what David Allen and GTD are, you can pretty much bet that you are an unproductive person.. David Allen wrote the book "Getting Things Done" (GTD for short) and I have been a big fan ever since!

So this is so right up my alley! Efficiency Efficiency Efficiency!

So let's talk about you and your PDA phone.. Or me and my HTC Touch Cruise, same thing.

A PDA Phone should be used for the following:

1) Phone calls!
2) Contact Management
3) Calendar Management
4) JTD ~ Jotting Things Down
5) Making Lists


I am going to address each one of these.

1) Phone calls. Basically using it as a phone. Not much more than that needs to be said.

2) Contact Management ~ A lot can be said about this but basically, you need to be able to find info about a person be it a family member, friend, or client. I have purchased a business card scanner, mainly because I have a billion business cards, and so I will talk more about this in the future.. I REALLY hope the business card scanner works well and easily.. If it does, in the ideal world, this will allow me to keep my contacts organized.

3) Calendar Management ~ appointments basically..

4) JTD ~ Jotting Things Down. If you don't know what "Psychic Ram" is and you feel stressed all the time, you really should buy David's book. Basically, he talks about the fact that we stress because our brain doesn't trust that we have a system to remember or a system to remember that our brain trusts. And ideas are fleeting and so you need to jot it down as soon as you get it. When you do this, you will feel a sense of peace.. I swear it's true. My last PDA was a Palm Z22, which I loved to death but it died on me. In between when it died and when I bought my HTC, was about a 2 month period, and during that time, the amount of stress I had was incredible, simply because I had nothing to write things down with when I had a thought.

The app I used on the palm was called "Diddlebug" which is great.

The app I use on the Pocket PC is like Diddlebug++, it is called

apMemo

I seldom pay for software, but this is one that I paid for. It's that useful, and I would say that it dominates the majority of my PDA use.

Why something like diddlebug and apMemo and not something that types? Well, first, hand writing is faster. 2nd, you can hand it to someone to write something (which I often do) and they can just write with it, no need to teach them. 3rd, the context of the writing helps you remember the item.

Both of these programs allow for an alarm to be set on it. apMemo allows for different color backgrounds and pen colors. Also, this mimicry of pad and pencil allows for internationalization without the need for internationalization. It's really great.

Whenever you have a thought, you just write it down. My PDA is next to my bed and I often wake up in the middle of the night to write something down I just thought of or dreamed about. This allow will foster creativity and reduce stress, I kid you not! apMemo is on v2.3 as of this writing, but 1.0 is free. I highly recommend you pay for it though to encourage the continuation of good software.

5) Making lists ~ I had used Bonsai on the palm, which I didn't find all that easy to use, but on the pocket PC, the program I am using is called Check List Tree.



It's just a super simple tree listing. That's it. But it's powerful, because you can list things and collapse and expand the tree. I love this program and have donated to the author, and hope you do the same if you use it and like it. I hope auto-save and view/unview completed tasks are an option as well as nodal movement. When this is added, this will be the ultimate list making program.

So that's basically it, this is what I require from my PDA.

Email?? sure, I'd love to, but it's not that important, the occasional email yes, but it's not a substitute for my 22" monitor.

GPS? Yep, this is another item I wanted a PDA phone for.. With a GPS option, I can mark the locations of my favorite restaurants as well as drive around.. Exciting..

Just remember in the world of complexity, "Less is More" but only if you know what is the part you should keep and what are the parts you should cut.

When it's all said and done, I have to say that apMemo is the high high high recommendation here. I also recommend you quick button a button to it. You will after a while, discover it's a piece of software you can't live without..

So I wanted to buy a PDA. I was going to buy the Eten Glofiish M800, but when I was at the store, this old dude about 55 years old told me not to get the M800.

He said that he was semi-retired, and that his favorite hobby was to buy a bunch of electronics gadgets, play with them for a few days, and then sell it back to the store at a loss.. I guess whatever floats his boat..

But he said the only item he did not return and continued using was the HTC Touch Cruise. So he _HIGHLY_ recommended it to me...

So I bought it.

I bought the "Euro styling" version instead of the American version. I thought it looked better.

I first hacked it to install the English version on it, but found out after 2 weeks that it was nigh impossible to get chinese fonts back on it, because in a world of internationalization and compatibility, Microsoft made best efforts to prevent internationalization.

So I just reinstalled the Taiwanese version back on it, so I can use PaPaGo! Which is a GPS software for Taiwan..

The one thing I do like about this PDA is the USBmini connection for everything. I use to charge my cell phone at night, but with the PDA phone, it seems that I charge it during the day.. since I'm almost always at a computer, it's actually quite easy..

The Chinese version recognized Chunghwa telecom here in Taiwan and the signal seems stable. The English version was not. So I have no idea. The same thing with the GPS. The GPS signals were ridiculously weak with the English version but quite strong with the Chinese version..

So I guess when you buy a PDA, when in Rome, use the Roman PDA firmware.

I highly HIGHLY recommend against buying a PDA in a foreign country, you'll cry. Especially if it runs Pocket PC. Next entry I'll talk about software for the PDA...

If you don't know what NTP is, then you are stupid but it doesn't matter because you should still download this program anyways.

NTP = Network Time Protocol. It is like fiber for your computer clock, it keeps it regular. There are billions of freeware NTP programs out there and THIS ONE IS THE BEST.

You can download it from here.

Why is this one the best? Because when you minimize it, it shows the date of the calendar. This is a feature I have long wondered why does not exist in windows. Windows just shows the time, but what about the date?? Or do dates just not matter when you are using windows??

I bought a pocket PC and it seems that regions, and languages does not matter when you use a pocket pc, you want to add another language support?? YOU CAN'T. It seems to be the way MS works, they decide what you need and don't need, and if what you need is outside the scope of what they decide you need, then you are wrong, and that's it.

What? You think you are right?? Don't make me get Balmer to throw a chair at you!

All kidding aside, this is one of the best pieces of software I know.

Set it to start minimized at startup, have it align your clock every hour, and you will know the date and have an aligned clock.

The first thing I do when I install a new Windows install is install this.

It's a "can't live without it" item.

I have this guy in a RAID 1 configuration. Basically, it's a NAS++. It has a web interface, and it is fairly fast, but it cannot handle the amount of torrents I give it, so it's download is not really up to snuff. But the interface is excellent, and it should be a great solution for 99% of the people out there.

I love RAID 1, there's a sense of security you get with RAID1 you just don't get from single HD's or RAID0.

I use it to backup everything from my emails to my photos. But mostly for my photos. I envision we are 2 years away from everybody doing this.. the reason is, we have too many damn photos!! Can't back them up. So we need to run our own mini RAID1 at home. I do!

It's a great box, highly recommended. It's a little bit on the $$$ side but the quality is there.

Of course the first thing I did was upgrade it to beta software, and then hacked it so I could get ipkg on there running and working.

I don't want to download on it, the reason is, downloading to RAID1 is taxing; and also, isn't the point of a backup NOT to be so busy that it suffers from wear and tear and dies? So as you can see, I have a Buffalo HD-HG160LAN to do all my downloading.

At some point in your life, you will need some sort of backup of your photos and burning DVD's are not an option, maybe Blueray DVD's, but regular 4 gig dvd's aren't an option because I now have 320 gigs and I don't think 80 dvd's is the way to go. So you need a backup machine, and you need it to run RAID1, and this is the box I'd recommend.

This is the monitor I have.

Previously, I owned a Samsung 17" which I really liked, but that was 4.5 years ago, and now the prices are ridiculously low, and the quality is amazing.

I originally was looking for the version with HDMI, but as this is a monitor, there's only HDMI-video only, so I thought forget it. It does have both D-sub and DVI.

This monitor also has one of the most important features.. it uses a regular 3 prong computer power supply cable.



Those with the transformer on the OUTSIDE of the monitor are not as good.

With a maximum ratio of 5000:1 this monitor is beautiful.

One of the biggest questions that most ask is, with the availability of 24" monitors, why not buy a 24"?

Let me explain..

First, since 24" monitors are out, that's the most expensive. Since 22" are a step below, the only way to sell them is to drop the price, and so automatically 22" monitors are cheaper.

Also, do you have the desk space for a 24" monitor?

But the most CRITICAL of reason is this, when you sit down and look straight forward, assuming your monitor is reasonably place far away enough, you will find that 22" is the MAXIMUM your peripheral view can see without moving your head.

It sounds trivial, I know, but it's absolutely critical.

The fact that I can stare at the center and still see everything on the screen without panning my head like I'm watching a tennis match from center row, makes it absolutely the most important thing when selecting a monitor.

These are the little decisions that come back to haunt us later.

One hint, if you are using windows, the way to do it is to place the task bar on TOP for large monitors. Because looking so far down is difficult, top is where you want to place your task bar.

So how does this monitor do??

The reaction time is fast, and the video is smooth. One of the biggest problems I had with the old Samsung monitors was the power button, which is the one most often used. On the LG, it's a bug button on the bottom right side, below the LED blue triangle. It should last for years. The Samsung one was a small button that was only hinged on one side, making it prone to breakage.

The controls for monitor settings are shit, but like I keep telling people, when you've got it all set, how often do you really change your monitor settings??

I liken it to manual seat movement on a car. Buy the manual one if you don't share a car, it's probably 500lbs lighter than the electronic seat adjustment, so you can save gas, easy to fix if it ever breaks at all, and once you've set it, you don't really reset it, so carrying around 500 extra pounds is stupid.

A lot of people ask me what they should buy as far as computer products. I tell people that most of them are too stupid to think for themselves so they should just buy what I buy; when you do that, at least you get the benefit of someone doing some analysis vs blindly trusting the stupid guy behind the counter.

I have the Asus assembled version of this graphics card, it has 512Megs of DDR3 on it instead of 256Meg. Is there a difference? I'm not sure, because I've never used the 256M version, but I'm sure there is when graphics come crashing down on you for movies etc..

Like everything I pick, there was a HUGE amount of thought that went into picking a graphics card.

So it went like this:

ATi or Nvidia?

I'm not a big Nvidia fan, so I picked ATi. I picked ATi for another reason as well, Crossfire.

The ATI crossfire lets you put in 2 ATI video cards and connect them together so you can output video while using the GPU power of 2 cards. Yes yes yes, I know the environmental electricity drain, but I wanted the option. Before my new system, I didn't upgrade my system for SEVEN years, so I had no idea what kind of speeds I'd be facing. So I ended up picking a motherboard that was crossfire enabled, and an ATi video card.

For the $$, I thought the HD3850 to be a much better value than the HD3870. I just didn't see the benefits for the cost, and I am a man all about the maximization of cost/benefit ratios.

I actually gave the people at the hardware store my "spec sheet" and they built it for me. One of the comments I got was from one of the nerds behind the counter, and he said that if he was building a system for himself, these would be the EXACT specifications he'd use.. So it feels pretty good to get affirmation.

The video is smooth, the playback on the Intel CPU is smooth, and the graphics look great.

Highly recommended.

I have always been a HUGE fan of AMD. I hope they never go out of business because we need competition to keep Intel innovating.

But recently, while upgrading my entire system, I was looking into which CPU to pick.

I ended up picking the Intel E8400 with the Wolfdale core. When you take a look at bang for the buck, this is the king of the hill. The E8600 is too expensive, and this is a much better processor than the QX9650 it replaces.

With a HUGE 6M of L2 cache, it's cranks. But it still is light on the electricity.


None of the X2's in the AMD barn can touch it, so while I love AMD, I had to pick the best bang for the buck, which surprisingly, is not AMD.

Oh well.. This CPU however is fast, and when ripping movies or burning avi's to dvd's, it absolutely screams. Stability has not been a problem nor has heat.

I don't know about in the future, but at least as of this writing, the absolute best bang for the buck in CPU, bar none.

In LA, I had a pair of 302's that had "anechoic chamber" style foam in the back to diffuse sound reflection and break up standing waves.

The 303's however, have a blow port in the back.



The port has golf-ball like dimples, which allow better airflow so you don't get stagnant air jammed in the same place.

These sound pretty good, I thought the 302's sounded great, more full, these sound slightly more open and relaxed.

I find B&W bookshelf speakers + NAD amps to be a very difficult combo to beat.. highly recommended.

This is the amp I have right now in my living room and if I did a little NT to Dollar conversion, it cost me a total of $60. Doesn't get cheaper than that!!

I like NAD, they make the most bland looking audio equipment. Are they the best? Nope, I've heard better. But on the used market, is anything $60 gonna beat it?

I don't think so.

I have long paired NAD's with B&W speakers, small, compact systems that generally blow the doors off of more expensive systems, and the 302's are no exception.

The NAD's claim to fame is the 3020, which is MORE expensive than the 302, but is the previous generation to the 302's.

Most keep talking about watts when talking about an amp, and this 302 is a peanut 25 Watts. BUT... it's not about the watts, it's about the amps.. The toroid in this badboy is HUGE... the size of 2 cantelopes..

The music is clean, if I had to complain about it, it's too clinically clean..

If you just need a system for your room, then this is one that I recommend. I use to have an integrated amp (also from NAD) but I prefer this one. Because I don't really listen to stereo anymore, I only listen to talk radio in my car. Also, this is an integrated amp, so it can act like a pre-amp or a power amp, so if you ever get a more powerful amp, you can just use this as a pre-amp.

I highly recommend getting one if you don't have an amp for your room.

Also, it takes a headphone plug, which is great if you use it for your desktop computer.. (overkill, I know, but cool..)

I own a Transcend T.Sonic 520


I'm going to make a ridiculous statement and then I'm going to back it up.

This mp3 player is the best investment on earth. PERIOD.

I will do the math to back up that claim..

I categorize mp3 players into two categories:

1) Those who want to be cool

2) Those who want something functional

If you are part of group 1, then buy an iPod, be proud that you've over spent, and be done with it. Truth be told, as a Microsoft hater, I would STILL rather buy a Zune than an iPod... how's that for dis-endorsement of an iPod?!?!

So we will be focusing on group #2, the people who actually have something useful for an mp3 player.

Brian Tracy says you should always have something educational playing in the car and I agree. "College on Wheels" as it were..

If you have an mp3 player capable car CD player, then great! If you don't, then I highly recommend you go the cheap route and buy a FM car transmitter that plugs into the cigarette lighter. These things are cheap and they are great. Plug your mp3 player's audio out jack to it, and it will broadcast via FM so you can listen to it via your car stereo. This is one of the cheapest and smartest devices in the world. I loved mine until I got a CD player for the car that plays MP3's. This way, you can carry all your music with you, and no need for CD's.

So let me get to the criterias for picking a good mp3 player that is functional. There are 2 main points and I doubt they are what you think they are..

1) Standards compliant battery. That means AA or AAA ONLY.

2) Changeable playspeed. The Pièce de résistance.

Batteries:
This player would be even more perfect if it used AA batteries instead of AAA batteries. But as it stands, AAA will do. One of the reasons I wish this was AA is because AA's will last probably 3~4 times longer as far as play time per charge. But the reason you want an AA or AAA based mp3 player is simple; you don't get locked in by the battery. Most mp3 players, in their quest to make the player so small you will lose it, use a lithium ion battery. They last a long time on a single charge, but as the battery begins to die, the playtime shortens until you need a new one. With an AA or AAA battery based one, this will never happen. So the first thing you need to do is "open source" your battery so to speak.

The other reason is speed. If you have a lithium ion based one, you have to charge it or else it will run out of juice. The newer ones use a usb cable to charge, which is great, unless you are in the middle of Africa, then you are screwed. Do you really want to carry a laptop around just so you can charge your mp3 player??

Also, what if you forget to charge it or the battery power is low and it won't quite recharge? You are screwed then!! But if you have an AA or AAA based battery, then you can buy one ANYWHERE in the world. I do mean ANYWHERE. They are plentiful and abundant. If your mp3 player dies at the airport, you cry.. Where as I just go to the store to buy another one. I have been to small villages in Thailand, no running water but AAA batteries!!

The other HUGE advantage is non-stop playing as well as out the door quickly advantages. I have 3 batteries that I use; 2 are always being recharged, and 1 in the player. When I am about to walk out of the house in the morning, I take out the old battery, replace it with a freshly charged battery, and I'm out the door. In rotation, 3 batteries will last me forever in rotation, I'm never without a fresh battery.

But what if you are an mp3 listening MONSTER and you think you might be cranking more than 6 hours of mp3?? Funny you should ask, I get that question all the time..



This is the answer.. I bought 2 AAA batteries from GP, and it came with one of these little USB sticks. You can put a AAA battery into it, and plug into a USB port, and voila! You are USB charging your AAA battery. I do this when I'm at work, so on my drive back home, I have a fresh battery. What you can do of course is leave this at work, have 4 batteries, and always rotate the one at work as well. The fact that you can precharge a battery and rotate them gives you infinite combinations.

The last thing I'll mention that nobody seems to take notice of is the fact that 6 years ago, an average rechargeable AAA battery was 650mA. Now the newer ones are 900mA. 6 years ago, the average rechargeable AA battery was 1800mA, now they are 2900mA. So with AA and AAA batteries, they keep improving every year, and you get the benefits of that; but the same thing can't be said for the permanent lithium ion battery in other mp3 players.

Changeable Playspeed

So here is where I back up the statement above.

This player has a function in which you can change the playspeed. I am glad they changed the TEMPO of the play, not the actual speed. The difference? When you change the tempo, everything is faster. When you change the speed, everybody sounds like the chipmunks or in a time dilation device. So this function is technically named incorrectly, but we'll ignore that for now and get to the meaty part.

This player has the following 5 speed settings:

1.00X
1.14X
1.33X
0.80X
0.67X

This means you can set it to play up to 33% faster. This is why I bought this player.

The math of it all:

I commute about 1 hour a day each way, for a total of 2 hours a day. 5 days a week gives me 10 hours a week X 50 weeks a year yields me 500 hours a year I'm in a car or on my scooter.

I only listen to books on tape, so let's compare this to college.

College:

200 Credits required to graduate, average credit per class is 4.
So 50 classes to graduate from a 4 year college.
Each class averages 4 hours a week, for 12 weeks.

50 classes * 4 hours * 12 weeks = 2400 hours total.

2400 / 4 years = 600 hours per year.

So college-wise, 600 hours a year is college.

Now back to our mp3 player..

If I'm doing 500 hours a year but instead of listening to the book at 1.00X speed, I listen to it at 1.33X (which is what I do) in one year, I'm now getting 165 MORE hours of audio learning, for a total of 665 hours a year. That means listening to this little machine for a year gains you about 4 more classes a year.. Multiply that by how many hours you work, and it becomes staggering.

This however is not a fair comparison, because hidden within it, is a secret. When you listen to everything at 1.33x speed, your brain has like "learning vertigo" and is forced to think and absorb at a much faster rate than normal. Consequently over time, your brain's ability increases by about 33% as it "normalizes" to such a speed.

I have used this mp3 player for over 4 years, so doing the math, I've gotten equivalent of a college degree from it. But one of the things that most don't tell you is that most of the time, the audio book contents are MUCH MUCH better than college lectures. People like Napoleon Hill or Jim Rohn are MUCH better teachers than the ones I had in college.

If you want the single biggest ROI as far as your education is concerned, this is it.

I have gone through 4 batteries so far, for a total cost of about $8. The mp3 player at the time I bought it was about $100. So my total hardware expense for a college degree equivalent is $108.

I can't even begin to put a number on the ROI of something like that..

I have told many many of my students to buy this, and what do they do? Of course, they don't listen to me and they go out and buy the non-AAA battery one... At least all the Transcend mp3 players have a change speed feature so at least not all is lost.

I know of at least 7 people (my students) who have bought this player. They should pay me to do such great advertising..

Play quality.. so so
Sound quality.. so so
Controls.. not so logical
Battery life.. so so
The ability to change playspeeds..priceless..

I wanted a box strictly for downloading...so...
I recently bought a Buffalo Linkstation HD-HG160LAN.
At 17~19 Watts running at full blast, it seemed like a great choice..

I bought this for a few reasons:

1) It was on sale ~ due to the small HD..
2) I wanted the HG version because I prefer a PPC to a MIPS.
3) It's gigabit
4) I can install linux on it.

So I bought it, and of course the first thing you do is hack it.

I installed Freelink on it..

So I wanted this to be a downloading box only, doing nothing but downloading. All the torrent clients on linux sucked badly, and just ate CPU like it was free, and so I ended up picking the ONLY torrent client that had both DHT and low CPU usage... rtorrent.

I tried to get the gui interface to work, but gave up on it as it required a bunch of recompiles etc.. So what I ended up doing was removing the apache and php and all the other crap, and basically reverted it back to its original caveman linux box.

I then installed 5 items and that's it:

1) Screen ~ This program kicks ass in ways I can't begin to describe.

#screen rtorrent

This gets you to rtorrent, but running under screen, the multi-terminal program. When you are about done, Ctrl-A-D exits without killing rtorrent, so downloading occurs still.

When you log back in later to recheck your rtorrent, just type:

screen -r

and it reattaches the previous process. NICE.

2) rTorrent ~ of course rtorrent itself. None of the gui's worked all that well, and I found out you really don't need it.

All you need is a rtorrent cheat sheet and you will be just fine.

3) iptraf ~ It tells you what's going on as far as your network.

4) Openssh ~ Turn off telnet and uninstall it. Use Openssh instead!

(Optional)
5) vsftpd ~ You eventually will need to get the files off your box, and ftp is a good choice.. The reason this is marked optional is because if you have openssh installed, you can use SCP, (in windows, you can use WinSCP) and not have to install ftp.

The PROBLEM is, ftp for me downloads at like 30MEGS/sec, while SCP downloads at like 560Kbits/sec. OUCH.. So I leave ftp on..

Also, because only nerds know how to use SCP, everybody else needs ftp..

So there you go, the way to go if you want download in a box.

The box has more than enough CPU and ram to handle rtorrent, you didn't install apache and php and (cough cough hack hack) mysql or something like that, and so it's not CPU or memory ladened. This is the perfect download box.. Now if only I can get xfs working on it instead of ext3, I'll be a happy camper..

I decided that since my right shoulder kept crackling, that it was time for me to change from a mouse to a trackball..

And so the search began..

I categorize trackballs into 2 categories:

1) "Thumb" trackballs

2) "Hand" trackballs

The thumb trackballs are as they sound, they are trackballs where the ball is controlled by the thumb only. I am left handed and although I have mastered the use of a mouse with my right hand, I just can't get a thumb to do that much..

So I looked for a hand based trackball..

I wanted a scroll bar on the trackball, but all the ones that had it disappeared. I have to say that I use the scroll almost as much as I use the left click, and so it was a feature I HAD TO HAVE.

Well.. basically none of the trackballs fulfilled my requirements, and so I will probably start my own company to make a trackball...

It seems like Microsoft makes a pretty good trackball, or they use to anyways.. I guess those were the Bill Gates day huh?


But there were 3 I considered:

1) Kensington Orbit


2) Kensington Expert Motion


3) Logitech Marble Mouse


The old Kensington had all the features I wanted, like a scroll wheel, but the new ones don't. The Kensington Expert has a 'scroll ring" around the ball, a great idea but from all the online stuff I've read, most weren't so happy with it... and my God.. the price!!

So it was the Kensington Orbit vs the Logitech Marble Mouse left.

Well, I didn't see any Kensington's and the Logitech's were MUCH better priced.

I ended up buying the Logitech Marble Mouse.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Scrolling & Middle Click

So the software it came with was called Setpoint 4.2, which was a piece of crap. Don't bother installing it.

Instead, download MouseWare 9.80.

Scrolling: Set it so that when you press both buttons, it is set to Auto-Scroll. This gives you up and down functionality as far as scrolling, and the ball then scrolls.

Middle Click: Mouse Properties -> Buttons Screen, select Button #2, and then click "Modify". If you have set it to Auto-Scroll (Not Universal Scroll) it will give you an option of Chording the two buttons to produce a middle click.

I don't know about you hacks with low IQ's on IE (It's not me saying that or a linux bigot saying that, it's just a statistical fact, look it up..), but I use Firefox, and so middle click is LIFE. Without middle click, your life will be an utter POS...

So there you go, this is the trackball I have chosen, and these are the reasons. I'm sure The Kensington Orbit would probably have been just as good, but I couldn't get a hold of it here to try it out.

As far as the "smoothness" of the ball, it's quite smooth, It takes about 2 hours to get use to it, and then there's not much thinking involved.

So far, every app has been pretty easy except for photoshop.. But since I know CAD designers etc.. use a trackball, it then probably is my ineptness and not the ball itself.

The Logitech ball uses what is called "Marble Technology", it uses dotted speckles on the ball itself; 2 lasers in X and Y orientation is shot and bounced off a mirror reading the dots on the trackball. This way, it never gets dirty. There are 2 colors to choose from, a red trackball and a gray one, I have the red one.

I now have two of these: one at home and one at work.. I hope this fixes up my shoulder tendonitious..

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tips and Tricks:

One of the things I found was that my coordination was not good enough to get a nice straight vertical scroll from the ball. So I did something I thought was neat and so I thought I'd share.

Because the ball is a ball, I press my middle finger against the SIDE of the ball, acting like an axel point against the ball. Now with your fore-finger, you can scroll vertically and it will scroll straight up and down because your middle finger prevents the wobble.

Everybody loves to play the blame game. Wanna-be photographers blame their cameras, and wanna-be chefs blame their knives, their pots and their pans. But honestly, it's about understanding the item at hand.

Cooking, like photography is 50% math, and 50% art. The art part, is teachable but limited, but the science part is DEFINITELY teachable.

If you want to know how to cook well, you first need to have a good palette. And how many people do you know who actually works on improving their palette? That's right, and that's why there are so few good chefs in the world.

Not even 1 month after I wrote the following:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I believe that files should be kept in a filesystem (that's why they call it a file system right??) and data that is sorted or searched or catagorized or to be made searchable should all be put into a database. That's why they call it a database right? And I also believe that photos and images should be kept in a photo gallery, that's why they call it a gallery right?

I believe that most of the unix people keep preaching unixy methods but keep violating it!

A blog should do ONE THING; let you write and store and catalog stuff. It shouldn't store your photos.

A photo gallery should do ONE THING, it should store your photos.

I believe that unless you are flickr, most databases regardless how "lite" they are are more than enough. In fact, my outlook is like this; everything web related that is not really of "commercial size" should use sqlite instead of mysql. Mysql is a POS. It's YOURSQL not mine. I believe that sqlite will do just as much but has easier backup and restore.. you just copy the file!!

I have a lot more gripes about permalinks.. but I will save that for a War&Peace sized entry..

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've switched over to a database based blog.  How horrible, I know, but the thing was just SLOW!!  How can static pages be so slow??  I will have to spend some time thinking about this, and design a new blog.  But for now, I guess it's F2Blog for me..