I’m always on the lookout for a new laptop, something mobile but packs a punch and its still thin and easy to carry. Dell have been taking shots at these types of laptops, and I think they weren’t extremely successful with the Dell Adamo so they came with the Dell Studio 14z which seems like a very well rounded laptop, not a powerhouse but not on a light weight diet.

Features:

• Core 2 Duo Processors
• NVIDIA GeForce 9400M Graphics Card
• 5 GB Shared Ram
• 5+ hours with 8 cell battery and this is more on the realistic side
• Hi-Def Widescreen LED 14″ display with 720p HD resolution and HD+ 900p optional
• Backlit Keyboard
• 4.3 lbs
• Wireless N and Bluetooth
• 64 bit OS available

A fully loaded version with all the bells and whistles you could possibly choose costs $1964 after the discount which isn’t too bad.

Link: Dell

I had the Belkin ADSL which worked all nice and dandy for only a few days before funky things started happening. I wanted a one box solution which I could use for all my needs instead I got another bunch of headaches. If I left my desktop for more then a day it wouldn’t be able to access the internet, I would have to manually restart the router. If a laptop was put into standby I wouldn’t be able to connect to the wireless connection, again I would have to reboot the router. Another thing which really bothered me was that for some reason the connection was a bit slow whenever I did a traceroute there was always a long delay with a multiple websites, so after going through this hell for a couple of weeks I went back to my old solution.

I brought back the Cisco Modem and D-Link Router, as soon as I plugged it everything was back to normal. Browsing felt very fast and stable, I was downloading and browsing faster then before. Even when I was sharing the connection with the main PC I was having issues with it hanging. Now with this solution its working perfectly, my only gripe is that I can’t really do any configurations with the Cisco Modem, if I try anything from the console I will probably crash it, I can’t even access its web based interface, until I find somebody that can I will leave things as is.

Useful Command Line Tricks:
Window Key + R
Type-“cmd” to get the command line window

Commands:

• “ipconfig” – Look up all information about your network
• “shutdown” – Shutsdown your computer
• “tasklist” – All running processes on your computer
• “ping” – Displays lantency to a remote address
• “net stop wuauserv” – Disables the Restart warning that pops up after every Windows update

System Shutdown Shortcuts
Create a New Short Cut and type:

• “shutdown – s -t -60 -c” – Computer Will Shutdown in One Minute
• “shutdown -a” – A shortcut to Abort the shutdown procedure

I picked up this list from the Maximum PC April 2009 issue, there are some publications which are still worth buying in print and this is one of them. PC Geeks over the years have developed certain skill sets, some are through education, some through knowledge, and the majority of it is through breaking stuff. Well this is a list of things that I can relate with and I know a few people that can as well, there are people with a lot more skills and I’m one always willing to learn.

• Knowing the difference between the board connectors; PCI Express, DDR Memory, Dual Channel Rimm
• Benchmarking a PC
• Know basic HTML tags
• Bypass the Government content filter
• Run all your essential Apps on a USB stick
• Getting through to the real technicians of customer service
• Use photoshop to doctor a photo
• Wire your home with your know Ethernet and know how to crimp it
• Say NO to extended warranty
• Mooch Wi-Fi pretty much anywhere
• Use a DSLR in full manual mode
• Install a Hard Drive in a Laptop (Laptop broke down in the first month, damn annoying)
• Protect your Wi-Fi
• Take apart a damage external hard drive and extract the data
• Pull off an elaborate prank
• Set up a RAID configuration
• Securely Erase your data (They don’t know how to do that at Lockheed Martin)
• Solder like your life depended on it (I used to do that when I worked on my R/C Cars, would probably do some damage to a mother board)
• Rip CDs to FLAC
• Stream your movies, Music, Photos, and anything else to any location in your house
• Dual-Boot your PC
• How to hack a Windows Computer or Router
• Watch TV Shows on the Internet (Legally)
• Installing and configuring a Virtual Machine
• Protecting your tracks on the PC
• Run multiple monitors
• Know the important Linux Commands
• Avoid DRM at all costs
• Use Remote Desktop
• Rip a DVD to H.264
• Find everything you need to know Online
• Install Third-party firmware on your router
• Be an addict to Star Wars or Star Trek
• Be able to use the command prompt like a pro
• Be able to change your own tire
• Connecting to the ECU of your vehicle to tweak, or flash, clear codes
• Play Halo1/2/3 and still don’t want to sleep
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I did something a while back with my Hazmat WHS a while back when I was building it that I forgot about it. I knew the backplane wasn’t full, I just assumed it had all but one slot empty, I plugged in one hard drive and it didn’t show up so I assumed I left the SATA connection empty inside the server which was the case. When I went to plug it in, I found out that I had another slot in the backplane open so out of 5 only 3 were being used and only 3 were connected. I plugged the two but I still had one slot empty. And at the same time I have received the replacement drive for the 2TB which worked perfectly, I was surprised Amazon dispatched it so quickly. The only extra cost I had was spending a couple of KD sending the damaged hard drive back to the states.

After adding the hard drive in the WHS console to the collective of the server I managed to bump it from 11.14 TB to 13.87 TB and still a lot of room for expansion. Now all I need is to get the port multiplier and a few other parts to continue my expansion.

This is the Windows Home Server (Hazmat) sitting next to my 24U Rack which houses the Netgear 24 Port Gigabit Switch, ReadyNAS 1100, UPS, Access Point, and soon to be rack mount server. Sitting next to the big Lian Li case is the eSata attached Storage Tower, which takes up only two eSata ports on the PCI-X card, which has two more eSata ports for later expansion if I wanted to add another Storage Tower.

I have been dumping more and more data into my second WHS Server, Hazmat, for a while now. I had about 7.5 TB of space available without duplication, and after a couple of months I have reach 94% of the capacity and I didn’t want any of the files being stored on the OS drive, and I haven’t even switched on duplication for the files which makes the total space needed about 15 TB. I took snap shots of the WHS Console, and by clicking on the smaller images you get the larger images to see all the details.

Luckily I ordered a couple of 2 TB drives to bump up the amount of space by about 6 TB, so to about 14 TBs which would be the equivalent of 12.9 TB of logical data. The setup I have is pretty simple, I have one backplane in the Lian Li case which I plan increasing once I cannibalize the old WHS server which has two extra backplanes fill with 1 TB drives, which adds up to another 10TB worth of space. Instead of plugging in more backplanes I decided to take advantage of the PCI-X slot in the mother board, so I plugged in an eSata controller to integrate the 8-HDD Raid Tower which housed all the other disks. You can even tell the ones that are mounted by the Disk Management screen on the Console where the drive temperatures that can’t be read, and say “n/a”.

Continue Reading…

I think I have a love of building PCs and seeing these creations come to life, such simple steps to building great machines. I’m going to dismantle and pretty much cannibalize the first Windows Home Server and use it as parts for the current WHS Server. I’m also building a rackmounted server as test bed and I managed to find another Asus P5Q WS motherboard, I have to say that it is probably one the best motherboards I have used and its a real work horse.

I have about 8 TB in the new Hazmat Server, and that has been the capacity since day one. Now that I’m going to use the parts from the other server I’m planning to expand that to about 18 TB or more. WHS safeguards your data by spreading it across multiple drives and switching on the “Duplication” feature which basically keeps a copy of it, meaning I would need about 16TB to duplicate all the data I have, which I don’t have at this point. I have to commend Microsoft, for once, on a great product such as WHS, I think they need to dedicate more support and development for it since it can really make having a server at home a very simple task. The hardware setup is fun for someone such as myself, and the software setup is a breeze so I don’t mind that I keep reinstalling or reconfiguring. Then there are the new WD 2TB drives, I already ordered a couple of those and I am waiting to see their performance and durability, I’m hoping they drop in price quickly because right now they were a little too pricey. I’m planning to use the Kandalf case from the gutted WHS Server and use it as a power house machine, I have had the skultrail motherboard laying around for a little while now and its a powerhouse of a mother board, but its so damn big that it doesn’t fit in any normal case, it needs a special case and this beautiful silver case will do the job wonderfully. I also have this sudden urge to build some Lego Technic machines, those were the days I loved putting those machines together.

I remember playing City of Heroes about 3 years ago and I had pretty cool character. He was something between a touch superhero who could really kick ass, I remember going on quests with so many people, joining a guild and fighting these big battles, some of them were impossible, and the best part was advancing your character. I remember playing that game hours on end, it was probably the last game that I really played full on for about a year. Then it just took too much time for me to play, you can’t just play it for an hour or two, it really sucks you in and I was sitting in front of the PC for at least 6 to 8 hours and getting very little sleep.

Now it seems NC Soft has a new offer that you can revive your super hero or super villan for free until the stroke of midnight on Sunday or you have to pay to have your account revived. Whats cool is that this game has been going for five years and recently they developed the game so that the players can create and rate quests and it has created a new adventures for all these players, and they are loving, an ingenius move.

Link: Kotaku

A WordPress plug-in which works with WordPress 2.7+, its meant to format the posts to be easily reable and loads up very lightly onto the iPhone, iPod Touch, and Android phone. I like when its a very simple piece of software which works as it is supposed to. You can view the blog horizontally or in landscape mode, making it a versatile piece of software and simple.

You can change your view to the full normal view instead of this compress version. If you are just looking to read then this is the best format but if you want to see everything then you have to go into full view mode.

Link: WPtouch

I have been thinking about switching my current ADSL modem to something simpler. I had a problem with the ADSL Linksys modem from Zaijil, it kept disconnecting, so I upgraded it to a Cisco ADSL Modem, and used the D-Link Router as the DHCP and main connection of that network.

The one problem I am facing is that I am unable to pass through the public IP Address from the Cisco Modem to the D-Link Modem. I want to access the servers through the DYDNS website, and haven’t been able to due to this hiccup.

I have recently gotten my hands on a Belkin ADSL Modem, with decent reviews. So I am planning on using it as the main connection and DHCP modem for the network, and I can use DYDNS with this modem to access my network. The one thing about the Cisco modem is that it hasn’t had any problem what so ever since installing it, the only problem I have with it is that you have to have a Cisco Certificate to even think of configuring the damn thing.

After plugging the telephone cable in the Belkin ADSL modem, I called KEMS to get the information, turns out they login through PPoA and not PPoE, and I got the VPI/VI numbers needed. As soon as that was done, the router restarted and within a minute it was connected to the internet. Of course during configuration it was wired to the laptop. After that I disconnected the D-Link Router which is performed perfectly, finally removed the Netgear Dual Wan Router which has operated as a heat sink for me and nothing else, then I disconnected the Cisco ADSL modem. One thing for sure is that the Cisco modem is extremely dependable, but difficult to manage for a layman such as myself. I was having a few problems connecting the wireless but after restarting it, the laptop connected fine. I was hoping that I didn’t need to restart the machines, but I knew I would. So I restarted the WHS servers, but first I shut them down, cleaned them out with a dust blow which turned into its out little mini dust storm in the room, connected the main WHS server to the UPS and powered it back up correctly. After going through this whole process which took about two hours to make sure everything is connected, I was satisfied with the results.