Month: March 2009

I have always loved IKEA. In the past, I used to just visit IKEA to browse through their displays and let my imagination run wild. It is like a candy store for adults. I’ve discovered that I still feel the same way about IKEA today.

I went to IKEA a few days ago and bought some stuff including a decent office chair and a lap top laptop table. While shopping for the chair, I’ve noticed something about expensive ergonomic chairs. I hate them.

When we moved into the new lab building at Cambridge several years ago, each of us was given a new table and expensive ergonomic chair. However, I have always found these ergonomic chairs very uncomfortable.

They are typically expensive because they are fully adjustable. The theory is that they would fit almost every possible body frame and table height. However, they were uncomfortable because I tended to feel like I was falling off them all the time.

While I was at IKEA, I tested a few ergonomic chairs that cost more than RM1,500 each and found them to be of the same variety. They were fully adjustable and were obviously very well built but I felt like I was falling off them all the time.

So, I ended up getting one of their new mid-range standard office chairs with a high back rest. I’ve brought it home, assembled it and have been using it for the last few hours. It feels very comfortable so far – more so than my previous office chair.

The reason that I’m talking about this is because I like IKEA. I like the type of creative ideas that go into each and every piece of furniture. Their furniture is of good build quality and at an affordable price. With some personal creativity, there is so much potential in a piece of IKEA furniture.

Earth Hour is an annual international event created by the WWF, held on the last Saturday of March, that asks households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights and electrical appliances for one hour to raise awareness towards the need to take action on climate change.

I got an email from a friend recently, telling me about this silly event and encouraging me to participate in it. There was only one problem. I do it already, anyway. The lights at my place are always turned off during the day and during the night.

I am one of those people who questions the claims of the eco-mentalists. So, I am definitely not doing this turning off the lights at night thing out of any sense of common compassion for our planet. I do it from purely selfish reasons – I am more comfortable working in the dark.

I find it interesting that they have managed to rope in so many local artistes and celebrities to promote this campaign. I guess that if you wish to reach the target masses, you will need to employ some mass appeal. I wonder how much these artistes get paid. They are being plastered everywhere from television to print.

So, earth hour day will be no different from any other day for me.

I’ve just recently (I’m very blur when it comes to certain things) noticed a pricing issue that makes it possible to build a 2TB NAS at under RM1000 (£190). The thing is, the price of a 1TB drive is actually cheaper than that of two 500GB drives. So, it would be possible to only use 2x1TB drives instead of 4x500GB drives!

This would make it possible to install the drives in a small ATOM based system, which only has two SATA ports. In addition, the system would only need a 1GB memory module. I’ve already got everything else necessary.

I have recently salvaged two 125W ATX power supplies from two older mini-itx systems (along with the chasis). I also have a dozen Compact Flash cards and half a dozen CF-IDE converters. So, I can easily install the OS on the CF card, attached to the single IDE drive on the D945GCLF board. The whole system will definitely fall within the power envelope of the supply.

The only mod that I would need to make is to the power supply. These 125W ones do not come with the required P4 connectors on newer supplies. However, they do come with enough drive power connectors to fashion my own hack. All it needs is a plastic connector connected to the right wires anyway – trivial.

In fact, I’m currently playing around with a bunch of old VIA systems that I used to sell. The systems come with a 36W peak power demand. I’m planning to turn a Eden based system into a machine for doing hardware debugging and possibly another one into a home development server.

I’ve also got two other systems with TV outputs a 800MHz and 1GHz C3 system. However, they can only output standard-def NTSC/PAL signals. So, they would not be suitable for the new LCD-TV that I plan to get for my HTPC system and I won’t be using them.

So, looks like my plan to set up a wicked development environment for my self is on-track. All I need now are some killer screens. Besides the TV that I plan to get, I also plan to get some 23″ monitors for my development machine. Small screens are making me hunch at the desk a lot.

Top Gun has always been on my Top 10 list of greatest films of all time. Even with all the special effects in films today, very few are able to beat this movie. It was also one of the two quintessential films that cemented the career of Tom Cruise.

There are a few things that I like about the film – the dog-fight scenes and the music. The dog-fight scenes were so well shot that nothing even came close to being as adrenaline inducing as this film was, until Pearl Harbour came along.

As for the music, the soundtrack gave birth to many classic songs that are still popular even today. Many of the songs are just as adrenaline pumped as the film itself but there were also a few mellow romantic tunes as well.

I have always been partial towards the F-14 Tomcat. I have had a love affair with it from the very first time I laid eyes on it. I consider its swept wing design an engineering marvel and beauty.

Why the sudden nostalgia with old films, you may ask? Well, I watched it several times last week and I thought that it was still as good today as it was 20 years ago. Top Gun made a distinct impression on an entire generation, mine included.

I’ve been cleaning my house recently, going through about two decades worth of junk. Through this exercise, I ended up digging up a lot of junk that I had not seen in years. Among these, I found this little card that someone anonymous gave to me more than a decade ago.

Young Beethoven,
Einstein at work,
A man of wisdom,
A hero in action,
A winner inside,
A star that sparkles,
Fire that burns,
All day through,
Just you,
Shawn…
My inspiration.

I did not think much of it at the time, but reading it today, I thought that this was pretty well written! It goes on to say a few more things in reference to a specific event in April of that year. I cannot remember much from back then but I do remember the debate competition where our team kicked-ass and lost.

We made it all the way to the finals and ended up leaving the other team babbling as we shot down their points, one after the other. We gave no quarter. After deliberating for more than an hour, the judges deemed we were too aggressive and awarded the victory to the losing team.

During the prize giving ceremony, our team almost boycotted it. The MC ended up announcing our names several times while we were discussing whether or not to collect our prizes. In the end, going up as a team, we collected them and got applauded for it.

What this event taught me was that – it ain’t over until the fat lady sings – anything can happen in this world.

PS: Sometimes, loosing with pride is definitely better than winning with disgrace.

Well, at least that’s what it says on the label – Full HD 1080p. The price of these screens are coming down. In fact, they may be cheaper than some 720p screens.

While there are many old 32″ 720p screens selling for under RM2k, newer ones are selling for more than RM2k. I saw a 32LG53FR screen, which is a 32″ 1080p screen selling form under RM2k today with a 5 year warranty, at Best (a local tail chain for electrical appliances). This is the cheapest Full-HD display in the market.

The difference between a 720p and 1080p screen is in the screen resolution. The 720p screens have 1366×768 (1MPixels) while the 1080p screens have 1920×1080 (2MPixels). While resolution is not the primary measure of image quality, it is an important factor.

Most Internet sites seem to suggest that there is no discernible difference in image quality between a 720p and 1080p screen at 32″. I have been struggling to find a side-by-side comparison as most local stores don’t keep them side by side.

However, while I was out shopping the other day, I managed to come across a 32″ Samsung 4 series (720p) and 5 series (1080p) side-by-side. I can say for certain that there is a difference in image quality.

In most cases, there is absolutely no difference except for on-screen text. The store was showing a bunch of movie trailers on them. These Hollywood trailers all start with the screen on the left (except in green). And it was during this time that I spotted the difference.

The word “PREVIEW” was smooth on the 1080p screen but displayed jagged edges on the 720p screen. However, that was the only perceptible difference in image quality. The rest of the trailer looked exactly the same on both screens.

This probably means that for movies and films, the screens are similar in quality but not for text. So, if one intends to use the TV for watching movies, a 720p display is more than enough for a 32″ screen. However, if one intends to use it as a living room computer screen, a 1080p display is much more suitable. Plus, a 1080p screen will future proof itself as an investment.

I have mentioned several times that NVIDIA needs to enter the x86 market if it is to survive the next decade. Otherwise, it stands to be beat by Intel, AMD and even possibly VIA. However, the rumour mill today seems to confirm that NVIDIA is thinking along those very same lines.

The question is not so much, I think, if; I think the question is when. If you look at the high-end of the PC market I think it’s going to stay fairly discrete, because that seems to be the best of all worlds. We won’t talk much more about what we think about that timeframe, but there’s no question it’s on our minds.

NVIDIA obviously has the necessary resources to do it. It has swallowed up small x86 companies. However, the only nagging problem is that NVIDIA does not have a license to sell x86 chips. It is unlikely that Intel/AMD would allow them to do it quietly.

I still think that their best bet would be to buy up VIA or merge with them. At the very least, VIA has been happily selling x86 chips for years. Their x86 designs are famous for being extremely low-powered. However, VIA does not really need them as they have conquered their own little niche.

Alternatively, NVIDIA could think of doing a Transmeta. If their graphics processors are powerful enough as general purpose processors, they could emulate the x86 functionality entirely in software. With all the processing power at their disposal, this could be a viable alternative.

Then, all you would need to do is buy a NVIDIA graphics chip, which would be able to do graphics most of the time, and spend some of its time pretending to be an x86 processor. This may even skirt around the whole x86 licensing issue.

This would be a very interesting and elegant solution. I like.