Free 50G for Life

50GB is not a lot nowadays if you compare with normal (magnetic) hard disk. However, it is still a big deal compare to Cloud Storage. The highest free storage is SkyDrive, and you don't need to beg others to sign up so that you can get extra. Others are pathetic 2GB to 5GB. What I mean here is free account, and does not include those paid service.

Okay. How about someone give you 50GB free, and the same "someone" said it is free for life. Well, free until you break some terms and conditions. Or free until they decided not to give you the free 50GB anymore. Or the company being shutdown or bankrupt or the owner being arrested by FBI or CIA or MI7. :P

Alright. It is Box.com that giving away 50GB for free. Wait, box.com is 5GB all this while, right? Yes. But now they are doing some promotion or celebration or just to get more subscribers, I don't care actually, just gimme the free 50GB.

But there is condition. Of course there is always terms and conditions. Everyone have to click agree to blah blah blah before installing a software on PC or installing apk on Android phone, right? Okay, enough crap.

You have to be on Android phone or tablet, install box apps from Android Market, sign up from the box apps and you are automatically getting 50GB for free! Hurry, the promotion end on Mar 23, 2012. It is less than 1 month from now.

LG Android phone/tablet owner is luckier, this same promo last until Jun 30, 2012.

Sony Tablet S or Tablet P, HP TouchPad, RIM PlayBook, and Sony Xperia phone owners are even more luckier, you have time until Dec 31, 2012 to get this promo.

No promo for Apple devices (iPhone, iPot Touch and iPad), hehehe.

If you already have box.com account with 5G only, all you need to do is install the box apps on any of lucky phone/tablet mentioned above and sign in using the apps and you are automatically getting 50GB.

Search for "box" at Android market, or use this link:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.box.android&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5ib3guYW5kcm9pZCJd

Read the faq for more detail:
https://support.box.net/entries/20768867-box-50-gb-promotion-faqs

I have installed this apps on my wife's Galaxy W and got the free 50GB 2 days ago! Today I login to box.com from my laptop, and verified that I am getting 50GB, yeah!


What are you waiting for? Go Go Go.

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source: I wrote this! Why not?

Danger of Smartphone

Ah... Smartphone. We are all tied up with it, be it from iPhone to Android, or some like me which still on Windows Mobile.
[I know some of you will yell, WHAT? Windows M*****?] Anyway, yes, I am still using my Windows Mobile. It is will working, what why would I want to change it? But anyway, I started to get to know about Android when I start playing with Android apk on the emulator called BlueStacks. And ever since I bought the Samsung Galaxy W for my wife, I have been the 'after-sales-service' guy for her.

What are the danger of using Smartphone for extensive of time? Read this:

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source: http://dailyinfographic.com

Dell Latitude ST Tablet review coming soon......

Dell Latitude ST Tablet review is coming soon. I am tied up with works and commitments and stuffs (sigh). Hopefully I can get it out next week or the week after. Stay tune......


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source: sigh

Razer Gaming Tablet

Tablet tablet tablet, another hot items last year and this year as well. With the power of brand and advertisement, people always assume tablet is iPad. But in reality, tablet is original from PC. Just that people forgot about that. Same like iPhone, many people thought that Apple invented the smartphone. But smartphone has been there for many years, until Steven Jobs showed the world his iPhone, then the world start to focus on smartphone.

Anyway, Razer Gaming Tablet is on Windows OS and playing with PC games on tablet with Intel processors is something new. This tablet even got an award on CES "People's Voice.


It will cost about 1000 US dolar. Don't think I will buy that for casual gaming and net surfing. Only for super serious PC gamer.


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video source: youtube

How to Google with More Effective

Google, Yahoo, Bing! are 3 major search engine. However I use only Google daily, I will use Yahoo and Bing! when I cannot find the info on Google, but Google always give me what I ask it to search. Secret? Using this infographic. I found out I have been using some of the methods frequently, therefore this is a very good reference for you too and I should share it here!

Thing to note: Some of the tips showed here are for MacOS, might not work for Windows.
Keyboard Shortcuts:
1. Press CRTL on Windows vs Command on MacOS
2. CTRL+~ and CTRL+tab does nothing on Windows unless you have apps use these shortcut or you assigned them on special tasks.
3. Press "Print Screen" or "Prt Sc" to capture whole screen on Windows
4. Press "Alt+Print Screen" to capture only the Windows you working on
5. Press "Windows+s" to select the area for print screen if you have Microsoft OneNote

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infographic source: http://dailyinfographic.com/the-power-of-google-infographic

How to Measure Disk Drive Speed

Do you know how fast is your disk read and write speed? Usually we really no need to know about this, but disk read and write speed is crucial to determine the overall performance of your system. even though you have a Intel Core i3, i5 or i7, but you use only the normal (magnetic) hard disk, the performance is defenately slow down by the hard disk. Same as solid state hard disk, some solid state drive might not be as fast as the manufacturer claimed. Thumb drive (or known USB drive) is usually slow, I will show you in later part of this post.

There are a lot of free software out there to do disk read write speed accessment, but I found DiskMark is very simple and direct, or sometime I call it "no-nonsense".





As you can see in picture above, DiskMark interface is very simple, just a few buttons only. Buttons on left are the type of read and write test. Usually I just execute all of them (click "All" button).
As for the pull down options, you can choose to run how many times to run each test on first pull down option from left.
The second pull down option is to choose the file size of the test, 50MB to 4000MB, long bigger the file the longer the test time.
The pull down option on right is the choose which disk to run the test. It will not update automatically if I add in a new drive (on USB) after DiskMark is opened. I have close DiskMark and open it again.

There is skin option which I think is the only nonsense thing on DiskMark. Why need skin when what is needed is the test result.

The help is very simple and direct as well. Disk Mark is available in 32 and 64 bits, if you have 64bits Windows 7, you should use 64bits version.

There are the result of some of my SSD, thumb drive and external HDD:

Intel Solid State Drive on my sandy bridge laptop:


Samsung Solid State Drive on Dell ST tablet (which I will post of review of it soon!)
If you compare it with Intel Solid State above, the Seq write and 512k read/write on this drive is faster than Intel SSD.


Kingston DT101 G2 8GB thumb drive
Not only limited by the USB2 port speed, but also the common problem on USB thumb drive, which that write speed is super slow. The Seq write speed at ~4MB is about the same when I use it to copy HD movies to this drive. Therefore this DiskMark is ready giving me the result as close as possible to the real usage.


Normal HD (magnetic) on external casing, connected over USB2 port
The read and write speed are limited by the USB2 port if not mistaken. These non-solid state HD will have higher read and write speed if it is install inside PC/USB and connected though P-ATA or S-ATA.


To download DiskMark, go to this link:
http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskMark/index-e.html
The latest version is CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1c. Portable version also available, therefore you can put it in thumb drive and run it on any PC/laptop you wish to test the HD/SDD/flash/memory card.


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source: I wrote this!

Star Wars: Episode VI in Iconoscope

To complete the Star Wars saga, here is the Episode VI presented in Iconoscope.

Since there are 5 very long pictures, I resize them to be very small, please click on the image to see it in full size. Better method I would suggest, right click on the image and open it in a new tab.

There you go, final episode of Star Wars original saga.


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source: http://waynedorrington.blogspot.com/2012/02/star-wars-episode-vi-retold-in.html

Star Wars: Episode V in Iconoscope

I posted Star Wars: Episode IV in iconoscope previously:
http://outdatedpenanguncle.blogspot.com/2012/02/waste-time-sunday.html

Now it is time to continue our journey in Star Wars by reading Episode V in Iconoscope:

Now, how much time you wasted reading this? :P


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source: http://waynedorrington.blogspot.com/2011/04/star-wars-episode-v-retold-in.html

Another PS Vita teardown

I have posted PS Vita teardown some time back:
http://outdatedpenanguncle.blogspot.com/2012/01/ps-vita-teardown.html

iFixit finally have this game machine teardown as well:


As usual, if you prefer to read it at iFixit website, here is the link:
PlayStation Vita Teardown

Demo of rear touchpad of PS Vita, go straight to time 1:00



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source: iFixit

Running Windows Mobile on Windows Phone 7

Someone managed to port Windows Mobile to Windows Phone 7. Why would someone want to run Windows Mobile on Windows Phone 7?

Simply because Windows Mobile is a classic. Same like vinyl record, it is an old type of audio storage with lots of disadvantages (noises, statics, huge size, etc), but why do some people still prefer to listen it? Because there are a lots of memories to it and also the sounds some people claimed that it is still the best media to hold. CD, DVD, Super Audio Disc, MP3, AAC, etc etc are digital signals that convert the analog sounds to digital format and then when you want to listen, the analog sounds being constructed back from the digital format, therefore some information are lost during the conversion.

So back to this Windows Mobile on Windows Phone 7, for Windows Mobile users, WM served as good old memories. In fact I am still using my WM phone, the HTC Touch Elfin. I use it to make phone calls, sms, surf net (very slow, still works), read ebooks, play music for my children, snap photos, etc.



This video is just preview of the WML (WM Loader). It still not available publicly.


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source: Youtube

Angry Birds go to Space!

Not much info at the Angry Birds website, just a video and some wallpaper for you to decorate your PC/Mac/laptop/tablet.

http://space.angrybirds.com/teaser1/

I tried to go to the root, meaning delete teaser1 at the address bar, but it still go back to the same address.

Angry Birds are going to space for sure! On March 22.
:D




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source: internet!

Waste time Sunday

It is Sunday in Penang. How about a waste time post on Sunday? I haven't do any waste time post on Sunday before, so here it is.

I am a Star Wars geek, I am very interested with anything to do with Star Wars. Evident:
1. I watched Star Wars movies for more than 10 times. Okay, only episode IV, V, and VI. Not so with I, II and III.
2. I followed the animated series "Clone Wars".
3. I subscribed to Star Wars official newsletters.

Alright, alright, I am not so Star Wars geek after all, otherwise I would join the "Star Wars Freeze Mob" at Queensbay Mall (Penang) yesterday. I don't buy any Star Wars toys and t-shirts. The only thing I bought was DVD. HAHA.

Wayne Dorrington uses icon to retold the story in Star Wars: Episode IV:

Click this link to View Full Illustration in another windows/tab

If you are lazy to read the long long pix in the link above, you can watch it in animation, made by Greg Burrus:

It is a almost 4 and half minutes video, that's why I call this post a waste time post! :P

Stay tune for Star Wars: Episode V and VI on tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.


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source: http://waynedorrington.blogspot.com/2011/02/star-wars-episode-iv-retold-in.html

Motorola Droid 4 Teardown

Teardown time!

Motorola Droid 4 is a LTE phone. So far it is only available for Verizon in US but it can be a world phone because it supports GSM, CDMA, HSDPA, CDMA2000 and LTE.

It is powered by Dual-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A9 and PowerVR SGX540.

iFixit took it apart recent in their latest teardown, found the chips being used:
Samsung K3PE7E00M-XGC1 4 Gb LPDDR2.
Hynix H8BCS0QG0MMR memory MCP containing Hynix DRAM and STM flash
Qualcomm MDM6600 supporting HSPA+ speeds of up to 14.4 Mbps
Qualcomm PM8028 chip working in conjunction with the Qualcomm MDM6600 to provide wireless data connection to the phone
Motorola T6VP0XBG-0001 LCM 2.0 LTE baseband processor
ZE55431140KHD, which appears to be the RAM sitting atop the 1.2 GHz main processor
Infineon 5726 SLU A1
Skyworks 77483 700MHz LTE PA module
Avago ACPM-7868 quad-band power amplifier
Texas Instruments WL 1285C WiLink 7.0 single-chip WLAN, GPS, Bluetooth and FM solution
ST Ericsson CPCAP 6556002 System on a Chip

The teardown:


If you prefer to look at iFixit website, here is the link:
Motorola Droid 4 Teardown

It's full spec at gsmarena:
http://www.gsmarena.com/motorola_droid_4_xt894-4418.php


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source: iFixit

Manage Hotmail or Windows Live Mail with Outlook

Hotmail, it was the first ever internet account that I registered. I still keep it until now, just in case someone from schooling time would like to contact with me. Facebook? All of my online account are using Gmail, so no one can find me in Facebook using my Hotmail account.

I never like Hotmail/Windows Live Mail website interface until now. That's why I once I get the invitation to Gmail (yes, it was by invitation at beginning), I moved all my contact/subscriptions to Gmail. Another thing about web based Hotmail nowadays is the ads is very annoying, at least 25% of the Hotmail/Windows Live Mail screen is fill with ads.

Another thing about Hotmail/Windows Live Mail is it is very difficult to manage the contact, especially the grouping of contacts.

Therefore I always use this method to manage my Hotmail/Windows Live Mail account. Too used to it that I forgot to share it in this blog. However when my wife asked me how to create contact group in Hotmail/Windows Live Mail recently, I show her this method.

This method is to use Outlook to manage your Hotmail/Windows Live Mail account. Therefore you will need Outlook to be installed on your PC/laptop.

First thing to do is to download Outlook Connector, go to MS website to download it:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/outlook/microsoft-office-outlook-hotmail-connector-overview-HA010222518.aspx
Note: 64-bit version works on Outlook 2010 only. If you have older version like mine, download the normal version.

Close and exit Outlook before install Outlook Connector.

At the first time Outlook start after install Outlook Connector, Outlook Connector will ask for Hotmail/Windows Live Mail login name and password. Check "Remember Password" if you are not sharing the PC/laptop. After that wait for it to download emails from Hotmail/Windows Live Mail from server and all the emails will be appear as a personal folder in Outlook, with Inbox, Junk, Sent Items, drafts, etc sub folder inside this folder. Usually the folder name will appear as your Hotmail/Windows Live Mail email address.

If you have calendar and contacts in your Hotmail/Windows Live Mail, it will be sync into Outlook as well. The contacts in Hotmail/Windows Live Mail now will appear in Outlook contacts, but they will not be mix with the original contacts in Outlook. These contacts usually in "Contacts in xxx@hotmail.com" or "Contacts in xxx@live.com". Using Outlook, you can now create groups of contacts and use it in when you send emails from Outlook.

With this method, you can also choose to send email from Outlook, using your Hotmail/Windows Live Mail account. What you need to do when you writing a new email is change the "Account" (right under "Send" button) to xxx@hotmail or xxx@live.com or any Hotmail/Windows Live Mail account that you added into Outlook using Outlook Connectors.

Not only emails, calendar and contacts are being sync from Hotmail/Windows Live Mail, but Tasks and Notes from Hotmail/Windows Live Mail are also being sync.

Another advantage of using this method is you can search Hotmail/Windows Live Mail with Outlook. The search in web-based Hotmail/Windows Live Mail is simply too crappy. You can access your emails on Hotmail/Windows Live Mail offline, no longer need to find a Wifi network just to look at one of the email in Hotmail/Windows Live Mail.

Best of all, no more crappy ads! It is just you, Outlook and Hotmail/Windows Live Mail.

One thing to note, this Outlook Connector is not working with Outlook Express. Outlook Express however is not being included since Windows Vista. Outlook connector works for Outlook 2003, 2007 and 2010 and it is free!

Have fun managing your Hotmail/Windows Live Mail account using Outlook!


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source: I wrote this tutorial for my wife :-)

AngelList - Angel for new startup companies

New startup companies, there is always the most important factor, the capital. Many people have good idea, brilliant ideas that cannot be put into reality because lack of capital or money in layman's term.

You have keep on looking and looking. Look for networks, get into some rich people club to meet with investors, do a lot of presentations, sales presentations to be exact. Most of startups need two years to get sufficient funding to start the real works. It would be too late into the market because nowadays everything move so fast that the hare in "The Hare and the Tortoise" story seems like not running as fast as we think. HAHA.

There is a new initiative where startup companies can utilize this social network to raise money, call it AngelList.

The investors are not necessarily come from Forbes Top 100, but they are from the same social network that get funding from here and they are on their way to success. Go to the website to see which startup companies benefit from this network, some of them might be the Facebook or Google of the future.

How do investors get their ROI (return on investment)? Simple, by getting 1% of shares in your startup. Imagine you are the Facebook of future, 1% of your share would worth millions of dollars.

After register, you can choose to:
1. Start writing a startup profile
2. Find startup for you to invest in
3. Find talent in this social network
4. Find a job in startups
5. Just surfing :D

If you have a good idea, go to AngelList to find out how you can make it a dream come true. Good luck!


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source: http://www.technologyreview.com

Infinite Storage on Your Hard Drive?

Another cloud storage, again! Bitcasa is another upcoming cloud storage service company. They market them-self as "Infinite Storage on You Desktop".

How to do that? By installing their software on your PC/laptop/Mac (yes, Mac is supported), and then specific a folder to be "cloudify". Whatever files you put in that folder will be sync to the cloud at Bitcasa after that. Theoretically the storage on Bitcasa will be infinite and it is free during beta now, however I can't get into the invite list yet. Therefore I cannot really do any review on it.

I am on waiting list now to try the beta, would appreciate that if you kind people out there follow the link below to register with BitCasa beta. That would boast up my chance to get into Bitcasa. Thanks a lot!
http://www.bitcasa.com/beta-signup?share=1913710543

Marketing video of Bitcasa:




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source: I wrote this!

Free software: Space Sniffer

Happy Valentine Day!

There are a lot of software out there that can show us the disk utilization and also how much disk space each folder consume, but either some of them cost a high fee or cannot meeting my requirement.
Treesize Professional and SpaceMonger are two famous software for this kind of function, however I don't think it should cost so much. Treesize Prefessional cost US$52.95 for single user license, and SpaceMonger cost US$24.95 for single user license. That is too expensive!

Thanks to Google, I found this free software that can do the same job like Treesize and SpaceMonger.

SpaceSniffer is using Treemap concept that invented by Prof. Ben Shneiderman.

Not only Space Sniffer will show the file size graphically, you can also apply filter and check for certain file type only (example: *.mp3). You can also exclude file type as well.

The filter will also works for time, type the condition (Example: >5years), the view will be updated accordingly. Combine filters is allow.

Other advantages that the author mentioned in the website:
Fast and easy to use
Supports drag and drop
Export module lets you produce customizable textual reports
Intuitive structure layout, multiple views for different media
Zoomable elements, navigate like a web browser
The Windows folders and file popup menu is accessible by right mouse click
It's possible to restrict the view content by typing simple yet powerful filtering criteria
Lets you temporary tag files with four different colors and perform filtering on them
Different views of the same media can show differently filtered elements
Customizable in geometry, colors, behaviors
You can navigate even during the scan
Smart cached scanning engine, multiple views, single scan
You can refine a zoomed area by a secondary scan process, even with main scan active
Reacts to file system events, keeps always in synch, warns you by blinking elements
Can scan NTFS Alternate Data Streams
It doesn't clutter your registry, only a plain XML configuration file
It's portable, no installation required, just put the executable somewhere and let's go

Best of all, it is free!
You can donate to the author to help the development of this software.

Why not install this software on your girl friend or wife or spouse's PC or laptop on this valentine? Not only they will appreciate your effort (this add points!), this will reduce the number of times of they call you for help because out of diskspace on their PC/laptop.

To download, go to this link:
http://www.uderzo.it/main_products/space_sniffer/download.html


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source: I wrote this software review!

How to Choose LED TV or LCD TV

Update: I put this post at Squidoo as well: http://www.squidoo.com/extreme-method-to-choose-led-tv-or-lcd-tv

This is not an ordinary post of "How to Choose LED TV or LCD TV" that you can find in google or any other search engine. Here is the link to google it, if you insist so:
Google "How to Choose LED TV or LCD TV"

Back to this post, I would like to give a few suggestions on the method to choose the right LED TV or LCD TV. CRT TV is not covered here. :P
Plasma TV might not be applicable as well since this type of display is outdated just like Outdated Penang Uncle. :P

Here are the normal flow that most of us will use:
1. Want to buy a new LED TV or LCD TV (some will do some research on the internet)
2. Go to shops to look for the LED TV or LCD TV
3. If convinced by the sales assistant at the shop (because of sales/discounts/freebies), buy the LED TV or LCD TV
4. Self install or install by the shop technician at home
5. Start enjoying the LED TV or LCD TV
5. Found out missing out some features
6. Regret!

Here is a "minimize-regret" flow that I suggest:
1. Want to buy a new LED TV or LCD TV (some will do some research on the internet)
2. Prepare a thumb drive (USB drive or whatever you call it) with file formats that you wish to test out at the shop
3. Go to shops to look for the LED TV or LCD TV with the thumb drive and paper (file list)
4. Test out the files inside the thumb drive that you bring along to the shop
5. Satisfy with the playback of the file format on the model of LED TV or LCD TV
6. Buy the LED TV or LCD TV
7. Self install or install by the shop technician at home
8. Start enjoying the LED TV or LCD TV
9. Happy!


How to prepare the thumb drive?
The most simple direct method is to copy all the movie/music/photo files that you usually play on your DVD player or home theater system or media player into the thumb drive. One file for each type would be sufficient but since thumb drive nowadays is quite cheap, why not copy a few files for each file format into 4GB/8GB/16GB/etc thumb drive.

What file type should be cover?

1. Movie
• VOB - the DVD format that direct copy/rip from DVD disc
• AVI
• DivX
• XViD
• H.264
• AVC
• MP4
• H.264
• AVC
• MKV
• H.264
• AVC
• MPG
• TS/TRP/TP
• DAT
• WMV/ASF
• MOV
• Motion-JPEG (some digital camera record video in this format)
• FLV (not popular on LED TV or LCD TV yet, but no harm to try)
• And also the subtitle files for each of the movie if you watch foreign movie
2. Music
• MP3
• WMA
• AAC
• Other formats that you usually have
3. Photos
• JPEG
• MPO (3D format if your digital camera support this)

Rename files:
Try to rename the files in thumb drive to reflect the resolution and format of the file. Example:
Before:
Smurf_2011.avi
After:
Smurf_2011_1080p_H264_AAC.avi
In this example, The Smurf movie that I wanted to test at shop is in 1080p that encoded in H264 video format and AAC audio format.

Another example:
Before:
Elmo.mp3
After:
Elmo_128k_48kHz.mp3

Even though we are going to prepare a file list that contain all the needed information, it is still good to have the file rename to shorten the time to navigate during testing out the files on LED TV or LCD TV.


File list:
Prepare a piece of paper that listed all the file format (and the resolution, video/audio encoding)that you included in that thumb drive. This is to allow you to check the file format that not being supported. LED TV or LCD TV will not list out the file that it's format not supported, therefore we might forgot that file during testing LED TV or LCD TV using thumb drive. Bring along this list during LED TV or LCD TV shopping.

Summary, this is a better method to help you to make sure you buy the right LED TV or LCD TV.

Wish you all the best to find your favorite LED TV or LCD TV that not only meet your budget, also meet your appetite of file playback.


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source: I wrote this!

Samsung Galaxy S 2 teardown - the XDA way

Teardown, it's been always my favorite hobby when I was in school. I didn't teardown new gadget at that time, just some old stuffs that not working anymore and try to fix them. Most of them are able to work after I fixed them with limited knowledge at that time. Too bad there is no full time teardown job in Penang/Malaysia for me to do, otherwise I would take up that job. Okay, here is a super extreme teardown, hacking/modding also included. I wonder why they call it unboxing. It should be teardown. Anyway, this video was being capture/made by AdamOutler of XDA.

Here you go, extreme teardown (and hacking) of Samsung Galaxy S 2:


I have posted the (not so extreme) SGS2 teardown by iFixit:
http://outdatedpenanguncle.blogspot.com/2011/07/samsung-galaxy-s-2-teardown.html


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source: XDA TV

Good Bye Cooling Towers

Even though this is an advertisement by Ecotricity (a wind-power advocacy group), this video still trigger me to think that we should continue demolish all the nuclear power station. Think about Japan that hit by earth quake and tsunami and then the nuclear leaking issue. Nuclear energy has it's disadvantage much much more than advantages. Why do we have to do something that harm everyone and mother earth? There are a lot of green energy like wind and solar that are really very low harm when we use this kind of source of energy.



Support Green Energy whenever we can!


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source: youtube!

Fun facts about Facebook Timeline

Do you use Facebook? If yes, do you use Facebook Timeline? Well, as an Outdated Penang Uncle, I haven't use Facebook Timeline yet. Because I have too few photos and video to put in there, hence make no-sense to enable the Timeline. However if you are celebrity or famous people with lots of fans and likes, it might be a good choice to enable Timeline.

Here is a video taking about fun facts about Facebook Timeline. The narration supposed dubbed by someone sounds like Mark Zuckerberg.

Introducing Facebook Timeline: The End of Free Will -- powered by Cracked.com

Your future has been determined and own by Facebook, hahah.


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source: video source cracked.com

Made-in-China WinRar - HaoZip

90% (or more?) of goods in this world are Made-in-China. Even your iPhone 4S and iPad 2 are made in China. Therefore Made-in-China does not mean it is low quality, it can be high quality as well. When torrent and file server being shutdown world wide, China still have a lot of good quality servers. How about PPStream, Thunder and Qvod? Can't deny that China will be the center of the world as the name in Chinese say so (中国, direct translate is middle-country).

So here is a Made-in-China WinRar, HaoZip. In Chinese it means Good Zip. Well, the Chinese name is 好压, which mean Good Compression, but zip is more common name than compression right? Do you tell your friend to compress a file or zip a file?

Even the logo is somewhat similar to WinRar. Above picture is the icons showed in Chrome tab, left hand side is HaoZip, right hand side is WinRar.

Best of all it is free, contradict to the original WinRar, which cost $29 excluding VAT. I don't care it is Canadian dolar or Singapore dolar, don't think it is US dolar because of VAT, it still cost too much. Therefore I am using 7zip, which is free as well.

What the company claim on this HaoZip? [my opinion in square bracket and italic]
1. Better compression, 10% to 30% better [didn't mention which type of file]
2. Intelligently filter files to compress, increase throughput time [yes, there is no need to compress jpeg anymore]
3. Directly support zip, 7z and tar without external plugin [7z also have this]
4. Compatible on Win2k to Win7 [can you not support Win7?]
5. Compressed files guarantee can be unzip by other industry standard compression software [who does not?]
6. Repair damaged header on files download from Internet [can try this]
7. Skins [er... what for?]
8. Support Chinese characters encryption [good for Chinese Companies]
9. No ads, no plugin, free forever [yes, this is what a software should be, free forever]

To download setup files:
http://www.haozip.com/Eng/index_en.htm
To download other language:
http://www.haozip.com/Eng/download.htm
Download page in Chinese:
http://www.haozip.com/download.htm


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source: I wrote this!

How to choose insurance in Malaysia

How much does your family need to survive without you? How much insurance will you pay? How much to save up every month for your children education? How much do you need for retirement?

For US or other western countries, these information are easily available. However there is very little information for insurance in Malaysia in the Internet. Therefore this website is a very good reference before we go to talk with insurance agent. It is because some (not all) insurance agent want to make money from the sale, but not really understand the customer needs. If we know what to look for, then it will be much easier and faster to find the right policy or plan.


www.compare-insurance.com.my is the own by LIAM (Life Insurance Association of Malaysia). Therefore it should be all the insurance companies in Malaysia that being feature in this website, including Islamic insurance, aka Takaful.

At this website, either you can start with the calculators (retirement, education, protection, etc) or straight away start to look for policy for protection, retirement, education or saving and investment in the form of investment-linked, life, term, endowment or takaful insurance.

Too bad that this website does not include auto insurance and medical insurance.

The website future plan is to have a feature to find insurance agent in Malaysia. But I would doubt it because which company would be listed first? Would it be like Google search or being listed first if pay more money?

Thing to note: this is for reference only, please talk with your insurance agent for more detail. Also please read and understand all the fine print in the insurance policy.

The link:
www.compare-insurance.com.my


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source: I wrote this!

Download YouTube Video with JDownloader

JDownloader is a famous downloader for downloading files from file servers. Not only this, JDownloader can also works as normal download manager, meaning you can use it as replacement of FlashGet or other similar software.

JDownloader also can be use to download YouTube video. JDownloader by default will monitor clipboard for links of anything, including YouTube and file servers. Here I am trying to download a YouTube video regarding GDP.


JDownloader will analyse the link and show you all the available format. In this example, there are 360p and 720p for mp4 and Webm format. There are 240p, 360p and 480p for flv format. Flv format is the default format of YouTube, meaning usually flv is the format being downloaded by web browser if we directly watch the YouTube video on web browser. One of the advantages of JDownloader, it can tell us the file size of each file, we can pick which one is worth the time/bandwidth to download it.

Check to accept the terms of service if you are downloading YouTube video with JDownloader for first time and then click OK.


Right click on any of the file (or press ctrl for multiple selection) and then click "Continue with selected link(s)". In this example I am downloading mp3, but the file listed there is not .mp3. Next picture will show you why.


After download .tmp, JDownloader convert it to mp3, automatically.


The mp4 and mp3 that downloaded from YouTube using JDownloader. Simple right?


Of source any software also has it's disadvantages. First one is it need Java to be working. There is no way to get around without installing Java. Or maybe you can look for portable Java. Because of it is in Java, it available for Windows, Linux, Mac, and any other OS that can support Java.
Another one is when we copy a YouTube link into it, it will take some time to finish the analysis. It took me about 30 seconds or more for the example showed in pictures above. This is something a lot of users find that quite annoying because it is too slow. The reason why it is slow is because it get all the information of the files,  not only the video encoding type, the audio type also being listed there.

Okay, the JDownloader links:
http://jdownloader.org/download/dld
Even though I like portable apps, don't bother to use portable version of JDownloader, because it update too often that using portable version is making no-sense.

To install Java:
http://www.java.com/en/download/installed.jsp?detect=jre&try=1

Happy downloading.


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source: I wrote this!

Ultrabook

At last CES at Las Vegas recently, ultrabook is everywhere and every PC manufacturers. Even though I am not using ultrabook yet, but the Sandybridge platform on my HP Elitebook 8460p can make my happy enough. Why? Because:
1. on wired network, it can last up to 7 hours of normal surfing and office works with stock battery only (not the extended battery)
2. on wifi network, it can last up to 5 hours of normal surfing and office works with stock battery only (not the extended battery)
It is still a distant to the 9.5hours of iPad2. But does iPad2 really last that long on single charge on wifi? Nobody bother to verify that now right? Can't you sit at Starbucks for 9.5hours? :P

Here is quite brilliant ads from HP on it's ultrabook. Yes, it is normal to see people sitting at awkward spot at StarBucks, McD, airport, and many more, not that they are nerd, but they just want to charge the laptop, pre-sandybridge laptop to be exact. I don't have the problem if I bring my sandybridge laptop but I haven't try it out at airport honestly because I don't want to bring laptop to my vacation.
Vacation should be free of gadget, okay, just the smartphone and tablet. No? Okay, just the smartphone, I still need that to show the 2D barcode to print boarding pass.




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source: I wrote this! video is from pre-SOPA youtube :D

Nano Quadrotors

Quadrotors is helicopter with four rotors.
Nano Quadrotors is small quadrotors. (duh!)
GRASP Lab of University of Pennsylvania demonstrated a team of nano quadrotors. These vehicles developed by KMel Robotics. Enjoy the video before the world being take over by SKYNET and its terminator robots. :P





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source: youtube before SOPA :P

Another Fake Website

There are too many fake websites out there. Not only they try to scam, phishing, financial hoax, and many more endless traps to steal your money and identity. I even have a few posts being stolen from this blog. Some websites use this blog name and meta tag to steal traffic from google. Sigh. SOPA might have the use in this case? :P Anyway SOPA has more harm than help, so no thanks.

I saw this from another blog, hope he/she don't mind that I didn't credit him/her since this is just FYI for internet users, we just want to let everyone know.

There is a fake website asking people to donate goods for some elephant reserve effort, not only food but electronics gadget like camcorder and GPS. However the Malaysian authority claim that they don't have any affiliations to that website.

The Malaysia authority, at last paragraph.
http://www.wildlife.gov.my/index.php/bm/perkhidmatan-kami/kemudahan-rekreasi/385
My translation for that paragraph (don't use google translate in this case, okay?)
Department of Wildlife and National Parks would like to clarify that information displayed at www.myelephants.org has no relationship with the Elephant Conservation Center, Kuala Gajah, Lanchang, Pahang.
The website and the bank account number for donation purpose was created without the knowledge of Department of Wildlife and National Parks.
Department of Wildlife and National Parks are fully responsible on all the elephant related matters for Peninsular Malaysia and we have sources to support all the conservation activities and we do not accept any donation from public through third party bank account.

What do you think? Have you donated online to these website before?
Usually I don't donate to unknown bank account.
I only donate to organizations like TzuChi, hungersite, RedCross, and WorldVision (listed in the table at top of my every post here) that are valid one.

Another thing you can do is to check who is the owner of the website using whois.net service. I checked this website and found this, the person don't even work for the authority.

Domain ID:D88541258-LROR
Domain Name:MYELEPHANTS.ORG
Created On:19-Jul-2002 04:00:04 UTC
Last Updated On:18-Jul-2011 00:30:37 UTC
Expiration Date:19-Jul-2012 04:00:04 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:OnlineNIC Inc. (R64-LROR)
Status:OK
Registrant ID:ONLC-1245332-4
Registrant Name:Mohamad Razali
Registrant Organization:Utan Bara Adventure Team
Registrant Street1:284-14-03, The Heritage
Registrant Street2:Jalan Pahang
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:Kuala Lumpur
Registrant State/Province:WP
Registrant Postal Code:53000
Registrant Country:MY
Registrant Phone:+6.0193422049
Registrant Phone Ext.:
Registrant FAX:+86.5920000000
Registrant FAX Ext.:
Registrant Email:info@ubat.com.my

You can see more detail in this link:
http://www.whois.net/whois/myelephants.org.com

So please be careful when there is website or email pledging for donation. Those valid one provide valid and working phone number for you to further verify.


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source: saw this at borhochiak, but I put more detail in reporting this fake website, haha

Another cloud storage?

More and more could storage company is popping up like popcorn. Okay, not popcorn, but it is growing, fast. I saw this one at on some adsense at some website (don't ask, okay). So just give a try. Today I am sarcastic a bit about website review, see square bracket with italic font, heheh.

CX.com is giving 10GB storage for free plan. [Excuse me? Skydrive is giving 25G for free, unless I have allergy with Microsoft, why would I want to sign up CX? But still better than dropbox which offer 2GB only for free account, sigh]

Get up to additional 6GB storage when you refer your friend. Each referral you will get 300MB. [I remember there is one website offer up to 100GB storage with referral, too bad I lost the name, sigh]

Sync up across devices [Sugarsync is also doing that, CX can compete on the free storage, since Sugarsync only offer 5GB only]

Share [nothing special, every cloud storage also can share]

Collaboration [something new, you can share and let other comment on it, you can also create a group for discussion, the best selling point so far?]

Go ahead try it at cx.com or if you are nice people, please click the referral link to increase my storage, hahah.
https://www.cx.com/mycx/referral_signup/5t548UywEeGxORIBOQ7lQg


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source: I wrote this!

p/s: if you think your website/service/product can survive my sarcastic, please contact me for a trashing review!

The largest Protest In History

If you have notice, more than hundred thousands of website teamed up to protest the SOPA and PIPA. That is the largest protest in human history, including tweets, emails, complaint phone call. Congratulation Internet and Internet users, we won, for now. Hollywood and some crappy US Senators would come out something new crappy law in future, have Internet ready for that?




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source: frugaldad.com

Good luck!

Wow, time flies so fast that it is February already. Closer to rupture/end of world? :P
Anyway, have you pick up a new skill? Have you archive one of the resolution? Or at least working in progress of the goals?

As long as we make the effort to work on our goal, either the goal being archive or not, there is always good learning from the process.

We can learn from these Japanese ladies, as long as we make good use of our skill, we will be success (or at least appear on TV and youtube :P)

Hyper speed calculator lady:


Stamping machine lady:


Japanese Keyboard Typing Master:


Good luck!

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source: http://www.japansugoi.com/wordpress/fastest-japanese-calculator-lady/ - warning this site have NSFW content.