Nerd Life

I'm on a train right now (typing this into TextPad) and I'm sort of realizing that the WiFi ubiquity I have been experiencing for the past few weeks was actually an illusion! :-/

It all started last month when I bought a new laptop with built in WiFi. It's the kind of gadget you just can't leave unused, even if it's hidden deep inside the machine. You know it's there and you just gotta check it out.

I thought the cheapest way to give it a try was to buy an USB WiFi adapter and plug it into my desktop. So I went for a Netgear USB key and quickly set up an 'ad-hoc' network between my laptop and my desktop. (For the record, the laptop uses an Intel "centrino family" WiFi chip.)

The other way to go would have been to buy a standalone WiFi access point, maybe even one that's merged into an ADSL modem. This would be called 'infrastructure' mode. I thought ad-hoc and infrastructure were basically the same, except I would not have had to turn on the desktop to act as an internet router everytime I wanted to access the Internet from my laptop. So I decided I'd simply go the cheap way.

Well... I was wrong.

Read more »

Sendo has unveiled more of its Sendo X in a press conference today. Let's tell it as it is: that smartphone totally rocks! It's even better than what we could expect from previous announcements.

Of course, in this industry, product cycles are very short, so it's only going to be a matter of months before someone (Nokia?) comes out with something better (I mean a better smartphone, not an experimental device like the 7700! :>>).

The Sendo X should be priced around 500 € (unsubsidized) and actually includes pretty much everything you could wish from a smarphone: compact, true phone form factor, normal keyboard, color display (176*220*16), integrated camera with flash, recording and playback of video (15 fps), sound, music, support of standard formats (mp3, mpeg...)

And of course, it runs on Symbian + Series 60 with Java/MIDP support.

One thing I was pretty unsure of until now, was if it was possible to connect a stereo headset for mp3 playback as an alternative to the built in accoustic system. Not only is it possible, but the headset is provided in the box! B)

The other good news is that the device supports SD cards up to a 1GB capacity and beyond. That's exactly what you need to store the mp3s you want to listen to and all those sound/video recordings you're going to make. Even better: the SD cards are hot swappable! B)

Actually, the only drawback I could find so far is the lack of support for SD/IO.

Also, I had written before that many pocket devices were going to converge soon and this time has definitely arrived (it only lacks an emebedded GPS! :> ) However, I stated that we'd still want PDAs with larger screens and a pen interface to take notes.

Well... the fact is you don't need to take notes no more! Just record or picture the info! You'll process it later anyway. ;) Moreover, when you really need to enter text (for email for example) you can always use T9. (That is for western countries with limited alphabets... :>>) However, for massive emailing, you'll probably want to get the external keyboard accessory. Plus, stylus technologies aren't so reliable anyway!

I am glad I managed to wait that long to replace my aging PDA and phone, because the SendoX is definitely going to replace them both at the same time, with increased efficiency on all my previous plans! ;D

Can't wait! Gotta check availability in France. :)

Every year or so, there comes a time where my W2K hard disk seems to fail in mysterious ways. Every time my reaction is the same: I desperately start searching the GUI for the disk checking tool. Damn it, where have they moved it in this version of Windows!?

It occurs to me that I have to learn this again and again: there is no GUI checkdisk in W2K (and this is most likely true for all 'NT' derivatives, XP etc...)

So this time I'm writing it down here, so maybe next year I will not have to rant at Windows for a couple of days before I find the answer!

You just gotta type this:

chkdsk d: /F /R

Quoting Jim Gray [dead link] again:

"We have an embarrassment of riches in that we're able to store more than we can access. Capacities continue to double each year, while access times are improving at 10 percent per year. So, we have a vastly larger storage pool, with a relatively narrow pipeline into it.

We're not really geared for this. Having lots of RAM helps. We can cache a lot in main memory and reduce secondary storage access. But the fundamental problem is that we are building a larger reservoir with more or less the same diameter pipe coming out of the reservoir. We have a much harder time accessing things inside the reservoir."

You really ought to read the whole interview [link dead]. It's very interesting.

Of course, I don't really have a clue on that subject but as the discussion moves to access times (currently at 5 ms which is still very long!), I always wonder why those HD manufacturers don't put multiple heads on the arm... For example, if you'd put 4 heads on each arm, you'd have to move the arms 4 times less to access any cylinder on the disks. Considering disk rotation to the right block marginal (remember at 15 000 rpms an a half rotation only takes 33 µs!), that would almost divide access times by 4 instantly! :!:

I cannot even imagine this being a cost issue... so what :?: (ahem I mean, what am I missing... ;) )