Toshiba 1.8" ZIF Hard Disk

Not long ago, I replaced my laptop's slow ZIF hard disk with a Compact Flash card.

Today, I got a portable ZIF hard disk enclosure so as to use the ZIF hard disk as a portable drive.

Now, I didn't attempt to sell this hard disk, as I'm under the impression that many people have problems attaching and reattaching ZIF cables. The last thing I want is to have a typical Apple retard (seeking to replace his faulty iPod disk) accuse me of selling faulty hardware. Take a look at negative comments on Ebay and you'll know what I mean. I suspect that in many cases, the buyers are the ones who are defective - not the merchandise. I'm not about to become a victim of someone's stupidity. What I find easy, others might find it to be a big challenge. Now, I don't want to be mean, but that's a harsh reality of life.

This drive is extremely slow. I still haven't quite figured out what to do with this piece of scrap. :-)

Dell D420 with Compact Flash Card

I managed to replace the slow 4200 RPM hard disk of my Dell D420 with a CompactFlash card and a Secure Digital card just moments ago. The ZIF connector looked intimidating and I'd never handled one before, so I was quite certain that I'd rip the entire cable apart. Lol. But it turned out just fine - removing it was a breeze.

They call this "the poor man's SSD". The dirt cheap components necessary for this upgrade originated from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

The root files reside on the CompactFlash card (which has been turned into a hard disk using a Compact Flash to Zero Insertion Force converter) while the home directory resides on the Secure Digital card (the D420 comes with an SD slot).

There's the redundant 4200 RPM hard disk which I'm still wondering what to do with. If I sell it, it could fetch a high price because of its rarity, but I might just want to use it as a removable hard drive with a ZIF hard disk enclosure.

It feels strange....Well, for one, my system is a lot faster now....and I'm not too sure if I really need a laptop cooler pad with fans anymore.....

Old Hard Disk

*Blinks blinks* *Blinks blinks*





I can't believe this....... It's such an old hard disk - yet it's perfect. XD

Biostar MCP6P M2+ V6.2 Died After Bios Update

I updated the bios of a Biostar MCP6P M2+ V6.2 motherboard to 61PBM629.BSS (dated 29th June 2010) and when I rebooted the system, the whole system died. The screen went blank and there wasn't even the familiar beep to signify system initialisation. Now, I had double-checked that I had the correct bios, so there was no apparent reason why that happened.

This motherboard really sucks!

Well, I tried removing the CMOS battery and putting it back on again to reset the bios, but that didn't work. It turned out that I had forgotten to unplug the power supply! Doh!

So, I turned off my UPS, removed the CMOS battery and put it back in again. This time round the screen showed the updated bios.

Grrrrrr!!! But, oh well, at least it came back to life. :P

There will be people whose first response would be, "Haha, idiot!" The majortity of these imbeciles reside in $in-gapore. Experience tells me that these are the people who don't know what to do when such a situation arises. In every situation, they'll go into a state of frenzy and panic. The only thing they will do is curse and shout at others to solve their problems, and if you are foolish enough to help them, they'll curse and swear at you while your working; after the job is well done, they'll tell everyone how you screwed things up and take the credit for themselves.

Am I going to help these imbeciles and get cursed? Why, of course not! I'm waiting for them to dump their "faulty" hardware so that I can pick them up! Lol.

It is amazing, isn't it? Just as Death or Life is determined by a (seemingly) simple choice made by the One, this one simple decision by you can change how the world treats you. :-)

But if you ponder a bit deeper, you'll realise that the decision isn't ours to make. Ever since I stopped helping those imbeciles, my life has been a lot better. I'm getting more rewards and there aren't so many smart alecs around me anymore. In other words, it might have been God trying to correct my attitude and my lax choice of company.

Think about it. ;-)

DIY USB Fan

Materials

1. Laptop CPU suction fan salvaged from a spoilt acer laptop which didn't belong to me.
Cost: Free

2. USB socket with wire, salvaged from a spoilt pair of speakers for which I got a full refund.
Cost: Free

3. Some of the excess PTFE Teflon tape left over when I replaced an old leaking tap a year ago.
Cost: Free/negligible

Total cost: $0










Wires twisted into place.












Soldering done to secure the wires.











PTFE Teflon tape added.


I placed this beneath my "Thai Girl HSDPA/3G/UMTS modem" (which usually runs very hot) and it felt really cool to the touch.









Priceless! There are some things in life that money can't buy - like free things. If you buy them with money, then they wouldn't be free anymore. :P

Linux - Things Can Only Get Better

With Linux, things can only get better. :-)


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Ultimate Edition...........
Date: Sat, 15 May 2010 11:25:05 -0400
From: Fred A. Miller
To: Wei-Yee Chan

On 05/14/2010 01:34 PM, Wei-Yee Chan wrote:

On Friday, May 14, 2010 10:13 AM, Fred A. Miller wrote:

Hello, this is a capture of my laptop with UE! Man, this IS the way Ubuntu SHOULD
ship!! AWESOME! You should take a GOOD look at it!

Fred









--
I call several liberals friends. Fortunately I don't require my friends to be intelligent, able to think logically, or politically astute.

Woohoo!!! It's just awesome, Fred!!! Love it!!! And congratulations on the successful switch to Ubuntu!!!

As I said before, I couldn't stand the older versions of Gnome, but his release makes Ubuntu a LOT easier to deal with. ;) The UE version is VERY, VERY nice....you should check it out!!

Fred <---- Professor, University of Wei-Yee Chan, Hong Kong

Hehehehehe........well, that's a new one! :) Tell ya what, if I could get to Hong Kong, I would....just for the food! I LOVE Szechwan!!

It seems like things have been going really well for us recently. :-)

http://chanweiyee.blogspot.com/2010/05/my-brand-new-1-tb-hard-disk-2gb-ram.html

GOOD! You got the hard drive working "out-of-the-box" or did you have to do something different with it?

Fred

--
I call several liberals friends. Fortunately I don't require my friends to be intelligent, able to think logically, or politically astute.

My Brand New 1TB Hard Disk & 2GB RAM

I received this two days ago. It's 1TB cos that was what Western Digital awarded to me when I returned a defective 500GB hard disk (the circuit board was faulty) to them in an RMA (Return Material Authorisation).









The new 2GB RAM strip has arrived, bringing my total system RAM to 3GB. I've tested it with Memtest86+ and found no problems.

Don't ask me why, but I always play the following song after I've completed a computer hardware upgrade:




Related: My "New" ATI HD 3450 Series Graphics Card

My "New" ATI HD 3450 Series Graphics Card

It's not really a new card but one that was re-sold to me, cos the owner in Wales has no use for it. This card speeds things up considerably when I'm playing 3D games and editing photos. For around US$20 more, I could have gotten a better card with twice the RAM, but I'd decided that this was good enough for me.

I am still waiting for my brand new RAM from Spain, which will bring my total system RAM to 3GB.

Today, I decided to replace my semi-faulty speakers of more than 10 years, so I placed an order for a set of Chinese speakers that supposedly consume only 6 watts, but can produce fantastic sound. The cost? Only slightly over US$20. No more bulky speakers with a gigantic subwoofer for me! I'm looking forward to less power consumption. :-)

The cost for the RAM and speakers has been covered by proceeds from sales of used clothing today. I've still got some spare change in my pocket......

4K Sector Drives & Windows XP

4K Sector Drives are on the way and will become standard by 2011. Windows XP users are likely to face problems accessing them. Even if they do manage to access the drives using built-in emulation software, accessing a 4K sector HDD in 512 byte mode will slow the drive down significantly. In addition, XP users will run into issues with disk utilities such as formatting and disk cloning software.

If you're using Linux with a kernel released after September 2009 (like me), you won't need to worry about anything.

For people who're still using ancient Windows XP, anytime would be a good time to switch to Linux. I personally recommend Ubuntu.


Related:

Drobo, XP Users: Beware of 4K “Advanced Format” Drives!

Hard drive evolution could hit Microsoft XP users

Cook Your Puny Brain With iPhone!

tawkon monitors and analyzes your mobile phone radiation so you can “talk on” as usual and receive smart prompts to avoid radiation just when you need to. tawkon achieves this with RRI™ (Real-time Radiation Indication) patent-pending technology that collects and analyzes your phone’s dynamic SAR (Specific Absorption Rate) levels, location, environmental conditions and phone usage at any given moment. RRI leverages iPhone’s unique capabilities including GPS, accelerometer and proximity sensors to help minimize radiation exposure.

Tawkon measures the radiation spewing from your iPhone. Is there any wonder why Apple doesn’t approve of it?

"A few weeks ago stealth Israeli startup Tawkon gave me a sneak-peak developer build of what I believe is the most important app on my iPhone. What does it do? It analyzes the cellular radiation your iPhone emits at any given moment, at any given location, whether in standby mode, or within a call.

Sounds like science fiction, right? Well, that’s where Israeli hardware and software engineering prowess come into play (more on that in a second). Sadly, Israeli military training may have met its match . . . the infamous iPhone App Store approval process."




Related:

Stubborn iPhone Still uses Health risk Radiation Emitting Batteries

Pong iPhone Case Reduces Cell Phone Radiation

Computer Printer Repair

Caller : Hi, our printer is not working.

Customer Service: What is wrong with it?

Caller : Mouse is jammed.

Customer Service: Mouse? Printers don't have a mouse!

Caller: Mmmmm??... Oh really?...I will send a picture.

School-issued Laptops Used As Spycams

(Not actual photo - for illustrative purposes only)


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Thanks, MickySoft!
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:30:45 -0500
From: Fred A. Miller
To: undisclosed-recipients:;


This would be hard to do if the laptops had Linux installed or they were Macs. MickySoft has the back doors for this and other intrusions built-in.

Fred

A suburban Philadelphia school district used school-issued laptop web cams to spy on students at home, a federal lawsuit claims.

Officials at the US school district can activate webcams on the computers without students' knowledge or permission, a family alleges in the lawsuit.

Plaintiffs Michael and Holly Robbins suspect the cameras captured students and family members as they undressed and in other embarrassing situations.

--
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams, 2nd US President

"New" Gadgets

Newly acquired, but they've all been used.












TDK 440N DVD RW drive. I'm putting aside my more advanced external CDROM drive in favour of this ancient one, as I want to save some desk space.

Cooler Master makes great computer casings, but one thing I dislike about them is that they're too sophisticated. In my case, I had to dislodge the entire front panel in order to unscrew the drive bay cover, to insert an internal CDROM.










APC Back-UPS ES 500. I don't really need this, but I guess it'll come in useful when there's a power disruption.













Philips SBC-HP2000 HI-FI Headphones. I've got this hooked up to my Creative Audigy 2 bay. The sound quality is great!


Related:

Microsoft Wireless Mouse & Ubuntu

My "Tiger" Modem-Router

Why My Computer Died

Philips Monitor

New Computer System

Microsoft Wireless Mouse & Ubuntu

Microsoft Wireless Mouse Model 1025. The reception is extremely good.

I'm using two of my eight spare made-in-China rechargeable batteries to power this baby up.

Honestly, I didn't expect this one to work with Ubuntu - but it does.

My "Tiger" Modem-Router

*Ahem*...Thai girl modem-router, I mean.

$in-gaporeans (especially the ones who failed to get me to sell this modem to them for S$30 and below) will curse and swear at me if they know that I'm using it now. :-)

They'll call me shameless for using something that belonged to a whore. Whatever happened to "Judge not, that ye be not judged", which they use ever so often to defend their countless $ins???

Ironically, these are the very people who surf porn sites, watch porn DVDs 24/7, visit prostitutes, patronise sex bars and have affairs behind their wives' and girlfriends' back. They are what Jesus would call, "white-washed coffins".

Many claim that the Bible is irrelevant in today's world, when in fact, nothing could be more relevant!

You can find the whore here: Luke 7:36-50

You can also find $in-gaporeans here: Matthew 23:27-28 and this is their fate: Matthew 23:33.

As King Solomon put it, there's nothing new under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

Why My Computer Died

When my Pentium 4 died, I wondered why God allowed it to happen.

Now, just a little more than a month, I'm using a great 17 inch Philips monitor, a powerful duo core CPU, a Cooler Master casing, I've got an additional 160GB SATA II hard disk...etc - all at zero cost.

I know better now. The trial was brought upon me so as to deliver what I needed. Note that it's what I needed and not what I wanted. This is similar to why God sowed eternal discord between the $in-gaporeans and me. If He didn't, I'd be on the highway to Hell. :P















Related: New Computer System

Philips Monitor

Ever since my lousy Dell LCD monitor died a premature death, I'd been using a 14 inch Compaq monitor.

Today, I got hold of a 17 inch Philips monitor, so I upped the resolution from 1024 x 768 to 1280 x 1024.

The next thing I did was max out the resolution and graphic effects of all my games, expecting to see a performance deterioration. Surprisingly, I didn't notice any difference!

Well, it seems that my onboard NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nForce 430 graphics card must be pretty powerful.

Screenshots of games running under Windoze:











PS: None of my hardware sponsors are related (directly or indirectly) to AMD, Compaq, Philips, or Nvidia. :P


Related:

New Computer System

Linux - Cars & Fags

New Computer System

Well, it's not exactly a new system, considering the fact that all of the parts are old and used, and regarded by most people as "junk".

Call me a cheapskate, but few people know about Alchemy as much as I do. :P

Smartbooks: Embracing Linux With Open ARMs

Netbooks have received a great deal of attention in the Linux community for their role in gaining wider acceptance for Linux.

So, when Freescale and Qualcomm recently introduced a line of what they call "smartbooks" at Computex -- featuring ARM processors and a low price point, the blogosphere had no choice but to sit up and take notice.

Tools of The Trade

Today, I had to deploy these tools that I had stashed away for quite some time, to retrieve a hard disk from an old laptop for use as a portable hard drive, as a normal Philips screwdriver would never work on HP / Compaq computers.