A Goal Accomplished But Microsoft Shoos

Today I was quite eager to going downtown for the PC Fair - looking for the NX 6330 book. Something that I really wanted for quite a time. I wanted to save some money on fuel so instead of driving today, I took a train down to KLCC. I knew that I had to clear up my credit card bills, so that was the first thing I did. I am also aware of a probable occurrence of getting mugged, so I carried a bag alone and changed my money to a $100 notes. After all, having a small number of notes is better than having a big number of small value notes?

I had a tough selection today. Rather than going back and buy it unlike the previous occasions, I decided to buy my stuff today and go somewhere else tomorrow. After going through the entire halls to gather catalogs of notebooks, I went off and go through to narrow my selection. To my disappointment the NX series was not on sale today. Maybe the target of buyers are more for end-users but that book is under business class notebooks. After the first round of going through, I spent 30 minutes in the shopping mall going through and deciding which was best for me as well as money. My final three selections were Asus, Dell and HP. The Asus model that I wanted is good but the price is a little over after adding the upgrades, so that was off. The HP Pavillion was way off my budget and it goes a little over the actual purpose of buying the book - which is for work only. My reasoning to shun Pavillion and ultimately Dell was that the specs beats my intention of work. Finally I decided for the lesser known Compaq Presario. I think the slight limitations may help to remind me that book was not for media entertainment. I know the OS included was not good enough for work, so I paid another $500 for the upgrade - more functionality including the key component - IIS - very important if I were to do an ASP.NET application.

But the surprising thing from my decision to buy that notebook was that I was given two bags for free but the price for those bags was at $249. First was the normal bag and the other was the knapsack style bag. And then I get to spin for a special prize - came close to getting a IPAQ or a Samsung 32 inch TV but at least a spare pen-drive will do well.

On the way back, it's a thunderstorm. But reaching back home proved to be pretty difficult. Running the last 500 meters back home and got myself wet in the process. Ha. I was quite excited to see what's in the package and what can the notebook perform. I was quite stringent in the specs. Anything less than what I need might affect the performance. I think sacrificing some features for actual purpose and savings might be the thing. After this, I just have to focus on how to handle paying the remaining credit back to the bank. Just had those in mind already.

While I was testing the system and installing applications for my new notebook, I came across an interesting article. Microsoft was ordering all PC manufacturers like Dell and HP to stop shipping PCs in XP by December this year. They want them to roll in Vista. Come on, experts say that Vista is still full of bugs and incompatibilities - like some I've encountered just now and you want us to upgrade? Dell is still thoughtful of providing XP systems - particularly Professional Edition favored by every expert user.

It says here: "Many home users- especially gamers- do consider XP the 'greatest'- especially after all the media articles and benchmarks showing very poor gaming performance and compatibility on Vista," wrote another.

At the end of this year, however, Microsoft OEMs' contracts will no longer give them the option of selling XP-powered machines. This is despite problems that have surfaced for consumers as well as businesses, such as games and application incompatibility and driver problems.

Most recently, users complained that Vista's start-up, shut-down and application load times are far too long compared with Windows XP. Users on Microsoft's Performance & Maintenance forum, who sound pro-Vista for the most part, have vented about a variety of speed issues."

Read the article here.

A Greek Myth Twist

I am writing two posts today, as to make up for yesterday’s post. Dad came back home today from K.L since Thursday. This would the first time I met him for the last six weeks. Fifteen days in the United States, the first week he was in the West Coast. The photos that he showed to me documented his one week in New York. He had visited many places in that weekend. He got stopped in Chicago airport, awaiting shuttle flight to JFK airport. He told me that he encountered actor Nicolas Cage – crazed fans chasing him for the autograph.

I came back as early at 9 plus on Friday night, and made a detour to see my maternal grandmother. She’s not in a good shape. She could not longer move as normal and remained in the bed. I fear that she might not last as long by the end of the year. I hope she pulls out well and I wish that the subsequent visits might not be the last few while she is alive.

Dad didn’t expect the weather to be as low as -10 celcius. He thought it would be somewhere between 8-10. He didn’t carry his winter coat. When he was visiting Wall Street, the snow was as high as two feet. Cars could not move at all. He visited many places including Rockefeller center, Central Park, Tussaud’s wax museum, the Ground Zero site and various places within Sunday. He could not cover all places and take all photos.

While I was in K.L people are playing God of War 2 – the sequel to one of the best video games of 2005. So I spent the entire weekend playing that game. It’ like a twisted story of a man who became God but still unhappy over his past transgressions. His decisions have angered Mount Olympus and now he got double-crossed by the Gods. Near death, he was rescued by the Titans led by Gaia – Mother Earth herself, in the Titan’s quest for revenge against the gods. Ever wonder of the famous Titan Prometheus? Cursed to be eaten alive forever for stealing the torch for mankind? You bet it.

Our man Kratos is more of brooding character and sometimes a cynic fellow. He sacrifices his own worshippers – Spartan soldiers into a gear machine to activate a door. He battles some people including Perseus – gee, Harry Hamlin’s cameo and reprisal of his role originated in Clash of The Titans and Icarus – the guy who uses the wings to fly.

The environments are not as frustrating as the first game, but in place of frustration are boss fights. It took me about at least 5 tries or so to beat them. BTW, I am using the Normal mode to start out. However, after one point, I could not proceed on. I was supposed to step at one point of the Deep Chasm in order to trigger a cutscene but it didn’t show out. Then my brother told me that the game was split into two discs and the disc that I played was only the first half of the game.

I really wanted a notebook out of my own – but I am typing this at my brother’s house using my dad’s old Pentium III book intended to be used by his staff. Seriously, seeing that I am to venture into additional marketing business to support myself, I think that I need one for portability. I definitely believed that I can raise half of the total cost as to support my payment in the coming months.

A Loot That I Cannot Resist

I had to go out today. I'm getting a little out of shape since I didn't have time to exercise this week because of numerous premier free-ticket screenings.

Today there was a IT exhibition / cum sale at Mid Valley, where various electronic gadgets including notebooks were on sale today. I really had been looking forward into getting a notebook for myself so that I can carry it anywhere to do work and even pass my time without wandering around. I know I must have one but there are many choices to pick from. So that's where I browsed through each brand's specs, prices and payment methods.

So far, after searching through, I finally came down to two brands, three models and licensing models. They virtually have the similar hardware configuration OS.

The final three models under my scrutiny were:

1. Acer Aspire 5684 WXMI
2. HP Pavillion DV2201TX
3. Compaq Presario V3205TU

Each of these models have strengths and weaknesses. The Presario model has a HD monitor which allows viewing of high-definition trailer at 1080i. But then, it lacks the video graphics processor that others have. The first two models are priced at $ 5000 Whereas Presario was priced at $4000. But then they have one missing thing in common:

OS - Most of those systems offer either Vista Basic (= XP Home Edition) or Home Premium ( = MCE edition). Since I work mostly on client-server programs, I would definitely need Vista Business or XP Professional. The earlier Vista editions are buggy and it does not have the remote desktop connecting feature included in Vista Business. However, I am aware that the licensing cost of Vista Business is 50% more than the Home Premium edition. Sadly, vendors could not do special request such as upgrading the OS to a different level - which is a bad thing since a trick of business success, according to Ron Kaufman is do to something unbelievable.

But still it is a loot that many amateur thieves would be out to get their hands on it. The poor people could not afford to have one of this since the price derives from the production costs of hardware and OS licensing.

You must remember for sure that such piece of equipment don't cost $50, but from $2500 to $15000 with the most expensive being Sony Vaio's Blu-Ray notebook.

Thieving for this isn't as easy as Garrett did before. He until today remains the only person in the world to have Keeper glyph powers to help keep him in the shadows. Not only that, you had to deal with security cameras that more sophisticated than the so called 'Karras' Eyes - big, bulky security cameras that might help trigger turrets if you are spotted.

Thief 2 - The Metal Age is by far the most difficult of the trilogy. The defunct Looking Glass Studios had raised the ante / challenge of stealth, making things go more difficult than Thief: The Dark Project. I believe that following feedback and comments by expert players of the first game lacks the challenge. In some levels of the game, such as raiding Shoalsgate Police Station to frame an officer - think as the medieval Bukit Aman Police HQ in Kuala Lumpur, you are not allowed into confronting people - which is an addition to the expert mode - which forbids killing people - a mark of an amateur as Garrett would comment. And there are levels that make you conserve your inventory as your loot and the stuff you might carry in a mission would be carried over to the next half of a mission.

It took me a month to play through all the 15 levels of the game with the climax being the most difficult of all - shutting down a mad patriarch's factory full of non-living beings.
Now back to the main point:

The picture above is the notebook that I really wanted: HP NX6330. It has the features that fits me most. But then I was angered that retailers do not have this model in the inventory. It seems that I may have to order one directly from the manufacturer. Which brings us to another problem here - the dilemma that I'm facing right now.

I remembered that my technical director of my company said that there are four categories of knowledge usage - that forms a 4-cell square.

1. The first one (upper left) is: Don't know and you couldn't.
2. The second one (upper right) is: Don't know but can do.
3. The third one (lower left) is: Know but couldn't do.
4. The fourth one is: Know and can do.

Using this square clearly benefits much as this can apply to any problems that we're facing.
For this scenario, I'm facing the problem: I can pay but I don't know whether I can pay in the way I want to pay - which is the upper right square that I've mentioned. If translated, it means, I can pay 1/3 of the cost in advance but in cash, but the remaining in card. House of Notebooks is a dealer that does that...thank god! But I'm planning this for April. Another good news is that the price has dropped by $500, which means I can afford it already!

I had to go amateur in the last three months to save as much of advance money that I can pay as to minimize the credit spending. But I treat this as paying monthly rentals.

When I came back for dinner, sometime came across my mind about bootlegging. It made me trying to put into the perspective of the opposition. But that would be another topic to be discussed some other day. I'm trying to keep a habit of 1 post per day.

Nay, simpleton. Knowst thou not that to speak that name is to mock our defeated adversary?
- A warning not to speak the word 'taffer'