My UMPCs ( Kohjinsha SR8) Little Accident

It was an ordinary day. I was at my home-office. Had some guests in the house meeting about the MBM Lanparty coz this happened just before the LP. My UMPC was sitting perfectly on the table while I was typing on my desktop discussing things with Jiggy of ACMEweb Solutions.

Anyways, as the guests left, it was just me and jiggy left when all of the sudden the kisame of my office suddenly fell directly on my table and me. Dust flew all over the room, there was albeit of pause from both us and shock. After the dust cleared, I looked at my table and my Kohjinsha SR8 got a direct hit.

Dust and small cement chips were all over my UMPC :-( Mixed emotions really. My first reaction was to call my wife and rant about it over the phone then I called our Architect. Here lies the problem. We have been living in this house around Jan 1 of 2007. It was built for us from scratch by my father in law. It's actually still very new. Well, we have been noticing large cracks in our room, bathroom tiles beginning to crack as well and wooden TMG floors slowly opening up, but we thought this were all natural curing of the house. But the Roof Falling? This is too much. The Architect is a cousin of my better half. That's the problem. How can you actually get mad at your wife's first cousin? I know what you guys are saying, call the contractor. There lies the second problem, it's the same guy. Thinking we could save up on costs,the architect and contractor are both one and the same.

I think our house is sinking albeit on the right side (if your are facing it) as most of the cracks are appearing there. Our master Bedroom is there and so is my small home office. It wouldn't have really been that bad if only my UMPC wasn't involved in this uncalled for accident.

My Kohjinsha is also very new, got it last July at Taiwan when we were there for Computex.

Why I am so pissed off?

I love my UMPC. Its the smallest of its kind in the world. 7 Inch with Everything you need including an OPTICAL DRIVE. Its the only one of its kind really. Even the Macbook air doesn't have an optical drive.

-800 mhz intel Atom (not a speed hog but enough for office word)
-Touch screen
-Can tranform into tablet format
-Bluetooth, Wifi, GPS
-Digital TV tuner (cant be used in the Philippines though)
-SD/Sony MS and CF slots (can take high speed cards as well)
-two USB slots
-VGA out.

I downgraded my OS from Windows Home Premium to XP tablet. Luckily I got a lot of tips from www.umpcportal.com if it weren't for that site I would have been stuck with Vista.

Yes all of that in a small 7 inch package. Fits in my man purse too! Before, I had 12inch MSI laptop, it was already very small but still, when I travel locally or out of the City I always have second thought on bringing it along coz of the weight.

You ask me if the screen is too small? At the office I have a 22inch LCD attached to it, thank God it has a VGA port! And when I travel, I call it my chest top, yup, CHEST TOP, since it doesn't sit on my Lap, it lays on my chest when I am lying down. Keyboard is big enough for you to be comfortable with, again at the office, I have a Logitech MX500 wireless keyboard and mouse attached to it as well wirelessly via its Built in BLUETOOTH PORT.

Now you see how much this baby means to me and why it hurts.

After blowing of the dust and brushing off the small rocks and crumbled cement I tested my UMPC, some keyboard keys werent pressing down anymore.


AAAAAAAAARrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrGGGh!

What's worse is, a couple of days later was showing this little bugger to a friend, and after carefully explaining all the unique functions I showed him the optical drive, it wouldn't eject anymore!!! Dust got stuck, had to manually pry it open and clean it :-(

Oh well, all seems to be well now, but I am quite sure there are still a lot of small debris in there. But I don't want to open it up, not unless I get a complete how to manual form kohjinsha.

Tragedy really.

Here are the pics of the mishap:






Good thing my DSLR was in the Bag. (blue bag beside umpc) if it was out, I think I would be forgetting that he was my wife's cousin.

Oh well, all is well, but I mite be getting someone else to repair it coz the guy my architect sent told us that the only reason for this to happen was a ghost was on our roof! Dope!!!!!!

He is a VERY GOOD architect though, design wise and functionality wise and he's still our friend ;-)

Le Card Readerrr

My fully functional Internal Card Reader on my Home Desktop will soon be replaced with a new one. Why? Well, it cant read 8 gig SD cards. My Point and Shoot and DSLR both use Sandisk 8 Gig High speed SD cards.

Most old Card Readers can't read these new cards because of the speed mostly and not the size. As memory cards grow in space from SD, Micro SD, MMC, Sony Memory stick etc.. the speed also has to catch up and as it does, it automatically junks our old card readers :-(

Too bad really as my card reader is still in mint condition. Oh well. It hinders my daily use of my PC and my Camera's so off to istorya.net's buy and sell section it goes.

So if you are out in the market for a card reader, whether it be internal (for your desktop PC) or external USB type. make sure to ask the seller to test it with a high speed card so you wont end up replacing it or wasting your money and getting a new one that does.

Just some fyi before I get to bed.

Expect some blogs about:
- A hole in my Roof and how it terribly messed up my UMPC.
- HoneyWld Hard Drive Media Player capable of playing 1080P and 720P H.264 and MKV files hits the Philippines!
- Jabra BT8040 Bluetooth Headset
- Motorola DC800
of course many more to come!!

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Update on my Cancer Stricken Mom
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My mom just got a few bags of blood today at the hospital. Her albumin count went low, we were told she would need 5 bags but wont be able to get all at the same time. Some good news though, her SGPT and SGOT count have normalized. That is a very good sign because during our last checkup we were told that the cancer has metastasized to the liver. Atleast we had some good news. Please continue Praying for my mother, Concepcion Ongking Yu from Cebu City, Philippines.

Thank you for reading my Bloggs people! If you have any requests or questions gadgets feel free to ask or leave a message at the shoutbox or comment on my Bloggs.

BSOD Shirt and the search for the Mysterious IPHONE GIRL.

After taking a short break from a another busy day and reading one of my favorite forums, www.istorya.net I stumbled upon this blog about the "iphone girl" Apparently, one person who bought an Iphone had two undeleted photos on inside his recently purchased iphone and now has created so much Hyped about it. The photo was most likely taken upon testing the goods on the production line and they forgot to delete it.

They even started a BLOG about it here:
Iphone Girl Blog



This blog updates us on some iphone goodies, BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY about the IPHONE GIRL :-D

She is comfirmed to be working still at the factory that manufactures the Iphone.

Bow you may be asking, what the hell is "BSOD SHIRT" doing in the title??!!

I found this very cool shirt at the blog above I want one myself!

So I'll have it printed soon anyone want to join me? :-)

Technorati

Technorati is actually a blog search. I joined it today. FYI post only :-)

Technorati Profile

The Easiest way to Connect your HOME NETWORK

In the age of the Internet, connectivity has always been a big concern here in the Philippines.

Most old buildings and houses are not network ready. When you call you nearest ADSL or Broadband internet provider they usually just tell you that their responsibility only lies on one PC where their modem is connected to and it's up to you to do your own home networking if you want to share your internet connection with other areas of your home.

It means that you will have to decide whether to go wifi or wired. Now if you do wifi, there is a chance that certain areas of your house or small office will not get any signal so you have to locate your wifi in a certain area of your house where it can easily be accessed anywhere, which will require you to hire an electrician or a network team to put a networking cable running from your router all the way up to the center of house to get coverage everywhere. Now, you have to decide whether to let the cable go within the ceiling and some walls, which entail some renovation costs because they have to open your walls up and seal them again after.

Now if you chose to go wired, it actually the same process as above multiplied by the number of workstations you want to connect. MEANING, more it’s even more expensive.

Well, I found this great product, the FU Powerline Products.

What it does is convert your entire electrical system into your Home network.

What that means is all your ELECTRICAL outlets now become network sources. Just plug an FU Powerline bridge at the end and you are ready. You now have internet connection everywhere.

FU also has a Powerline WIFI Access point, meaning just plug this to any outlet you have at home and that place then become wifi ready. Imagine the convenience.

FU also has a Powerline ROUTER for those of you who don’t have one yet, this router acts as your powerline bridge at the same time it provides you 3 Lan (RJ45) Ports at the back.

FU Powerline gives you 200MBPS throughput for a paired connection. You can place up to 64 slaved connections but the throughput is also divided by the number of stations connected simultaneously, just like WIFI networks.

Prices:
FU Powerline Brdige (Single) - P2,900 Website
FU Powerline Bridge (Double) - P5,600Website


FU Powerline Wireless Access Point - P4,850 Website


FU Powerline Router P4,500 Website



How it Works.
FU Powerline BRIDGE (Assuming you already have your own existing Router)


One Bridge acts as the Master. It connects to your router via Network cable and plugs in to your electrical system. You only need one master and you can plug as many Slaves as you want. As not to confuse you, the master and slave bridges are the same piece of hardware. You may also plug a FU Powerline access point which also just acts as a slave bridge.

FU Powerline Router (Assuming you don't have an existing router yet)


The FU Powerline router acts like a normal router except that its plug to the wall giving it power is also a Powerline Bridge.

FU Powerline Access Point


The Wifi access point acts as a slave bridge to both the FU Powerline Bridge and the FU Powerline Router.


The FU Powerline System is designed for small Home and small to medium businesses. They do not work in structures with 3 Phase Electrical systems. Don't worry, unless your house is fitted with an elevator or some heavy factory type machines, you are most likely connected to a regular electrical system.

Some people may ask, will my neighbor be able to get my signal if he has a powerline bridge? Well, the signal is terminated when it reaches the transformer. So unless you’re living or working in a place that has as sub-metered electrical system then you will not have this problem. If you have this issue though, there is a software to manage and secure these connections.

I live in a 3 home compound. I could get a signal from all of my outlets. From the Garage, Dirty Kitchen to my Ground floor guestrooms bathroom all the way up to our master bedroom's bathroom :-D No problems at all, even my electrical system has separate lines running up and down with different circuit breakers. When I plugged it in to my father in law's house which is just a few meters away from my house, signal was dead. We are plugged in to one main transformer from VECO (our local electrical company) and have 3 separate meters as well.

Who’s it for?
1.) For homes that are not network ready yet you want to share your internet connection to different areas in the house.

2.) For people creating a MEDIA Network. Media appliances are very abundant nowadays. You would want to create a MEDIA server to house all your videos, photos, music one place and share them to the rest of the house through your network. We have tested this for Video streaming a 1080P Resolution video file through Honeywilds network ready HD player and it works perfectly! Will post a review on that very soon!

3.) For offices just beginning or expanding.

4.) For people who want to be free of clutter and don’t want to spend the extra cost of renovation or rewiring.


All I can say is, this product is revolutionary. Its ease of use is amazing. Plug and Play, no configurations needed for the bridges. For the wifi, it's like any other wifi access point or wifi router setups.

Do not be fooled with the price tag. Do some computations and you will see that you will actually be spending more if you when you include the Labor charges for Cabling, the Roughing-in/Renovation Charges just to hide the cables.

Thank you fineupgardes for the test unit you sent us :-D !!!

For more information please visit them at www.fineupgrades.com

The After Party - MBM Lan Party, First and the Biggest In the Philippines

MORE PICTURES OF THE LANPARTY HERE
The MBM LANPARTY After Party Recap.
It was definitely a challenge. The MBM Lan Party successfully culminated last Aug 24, 5am. Well, we had to cut it short from the previously planned 8am to trim down on expenses none the less, it was a success! Kudos to everyone who helped organize this first ever , the Biggest in the Philippines LAN PARTY.
Our goal was 1,000 techies in one roof, a combination of around 500 gamers and viewers. .
We Achieved 1400+, about 500 gamers and 9 viewers.

The last COD4 battle ended at around 4am. Awarding Ceremony began at around 3am for the DOTA and COUNTER STRIKE tourneys which finished earlier. More than 100,000.000 in prizes were given away.

The Overclocking Competition
As for the OC competition, for me both of them had really good Overclocks. It would be nice, if in the future, Sponsors could provide rigs ready to be Overclocked, companies like ASUS or Gigabyte etc.. but in the meantime its an investment the end users have to make for Fame, Glory and a Kick Ass prize from Silverstone, an ST1000 Modular PSU to be exact worth about 11k. I commend Ryan and BO for joining. They were willing to show and share to the world their skills. They are good examples of great CEBUANO enthusiasts. I know there are more of them out there, next time, hopefully with more contestants, we can separate AIR and Watercooling and we will also have different types like BREAKING GIG BARRIERS, SPEED and CRUNCHING JUNKIES, VIDEO CARD BENCHIES etc.. This was the second ever PUBLIC OC Competition in CEBU the first being around 6 years ago at Mango Square at an ARCtech event there. I think OC GAIN is the safest OC competition since it just shows how much percentage you have OC'D your system which is the true essentials of Overclocking.

The FU Challenge Booth
Warcraft and Starcraft fans of all ages were there challenging our WCG champions guests. It was fun to watch these players go at it as they aim to win. I was surprised to see even Vice Mayor Mic MIc Miranda there as he was also one of the WCG players and all these champs were buddies of his. This Just goes to show that gaming is a sport for everyone.
On the back of the challenge booth, Fine Upgrades also showcased the latest and the Greatest Gaming Gear available in the Philippines and in CEBU! They also helped educate the people who asked about how to assemble the right PC that is built to last for a long time. Since they do not sell directly to end users, all interested inquiries were forwarded to their resellers. For more information about them visit www.fineupgrades.com


Play Station Portable

The PSP group had their awarding Ceremony Early in the evening, they were there the whole time playing KILLZONE and we commend them for joining as well. I spoke with sir NEOS and he told me for sure during the next LP he will put up his shop there and make sure there will be a bigger tournament for PSP, PS3, Xbox etc.. Cant wait for that!

Cebu RC Drifters
A big Thank you also to the very COOL RC DRIFTERS group, while PC gamers were fraggin, they were draggin! I never thought drifting could ever be converted into remote controls, man! they’ve though of everything, Indeed another proof that gaming, whether it be computer games or remote control cars are definitely for Children of all Ages, from 7-50 years of age and some even more!
EGAMES
And of course EGAMES, the LP wouldn’t have been the same without them. Online gamers are really growing, they had about 300+ attendees there! The Lan Party Wouldn’t have been the same without them.
So for the next smalltime LP check out http://www.bfwgaming.com

Anyway all in all, it was a big success, the biggest LAN PARTY in the Philippines!

Again thank you all for making it a success, you were a part of HISTORY!
The Organizers:
Brian Chua – Suzuki Cebu
Wilson Ng – Ngkhai Development Corp
Ryan Yu- www.fineupgrades.com
Mike Pato –www.multiconx.com
Brian Gerona –www.acmwebph.com/www.bfwgaming.com

The SPONSORS:
Suzuki Cebu, Ngkahi Development Corp, WWW.FINEUPGRADES.COM, Association of Computer Resellers of Cebu( ACRC)[Fine Upgrades Technologies Unlimited, NGENIUS IT HUB, Thinking Tools, REM Traders, FastNet Computers, MDR, CBX, and NUTECH Marketing] . www.istorya.net, RCTV, Silverstone Power Supplies and Casings, Sunbeam & Tuniq Casing and PC Accessories, www.bfwgaming.com

MORE PICTURES OF THE LANPARTY HERE

Apple Iphone HITS RP MARKET & Gets released by Globe Today!

Lastly before I go, the Iphone 3G was released today. Finally, a clean and legal way to own an iphone in the Philippines! No more parallel imports or grey markets with ridiculous pricings. Sadly, I'm locked up with gobe till next year and not getting any for free from globe :-(

Oh well, let's see how they deal with the issues.
- Phone Restarting/Ap Restarting
- 3G signal failing resulting in dropped calls.

Gluk to everyone who owns one! Feedback here if you can!