Sybreon Ones Nought

I had previously written about the D945GCLF board from Intel that comes with their new flagship Atom 230 low power processor. I had investigated its use as a potential HTPC platform as it is an integrated platform that is powerful enough to playback almost all kinds of video content. There is also little argument that it is a low power platform, which is important for a machine that will be placed in the living room.

Up till today, the only other alternative seemed to be the VIA Nano processor platform. It is another low power platform that is in direct competition with the Intel offering. AMD seemed to have little to offer as an alternative. But a detailed benchmark released today from Tom’s Hardware has blown all prior expectations.

They took an underpowered Athlon 64 processor and under clocked it at 1GHz versus the 1.6GHz speed that the Atom runs at. They coupled this processor with an advanced HTPC focused motherboard that has a modern Radeon 3200 graphics processor with built in HDMI, DVI and VGA outputs. The result is an AMD platform the runs faster while consuming less power than the Atom platform.

While the Atom platform requires 1 fan to cool down the main chipset, the AMD platform is capable of running without a fan on both the chipset and the processor. This allows it to run silent, which is fairly important for a HTPC. I would not want the HTPC fans to be drowning out any movie that I may be watching on it. So, this gave me an idea on options.

It may actually be better to build an AMD based HTPC system that runs completely silent. The price of the D945GCLF is listed as under RM250 for dealerships. The prices of the low powered AMD processors are pretty cheap. A low powered Sempron 64 LE-1150 is listed at under RM100 from the latest LowYat prices. There are a number of AMD motherboards that are priced from between RM150 to RM350, depending on the specifications.

From various benchmarks, the Sempron 64 is easily 3-4 times faster than the Atom and 2-3 times faster than the Athlon 64 2000. Although the fully loaded power is 60% higher than the Atom system, the idle power is only 8% more than the Atom. Another advantage to using the AMD system is that the processor can be replaced with a more powerful and lower powered one, when such a processor becomes available in the future. So, there is a further upgrade path available.

So, this is just another very plausible option to consider.

Notes: Sempron LE-1150 (RM90) LE-1200 (RM95) and GA-MA74GM-S2H (740G@RM240) A-S78H (780G@RM265) shelf price.

The hopes of an entire nation rested on his shoulders and I guess that it was a little too much to bear. As this was our country’s greatest hope for an Olympic gold medal, most of the Malaysians left in Cambridge gathered in my living room to watch the match and boy were we disappointed. It was so obvious from the beginning that it was a trashing, and not an even match.

For some reason, our Lee Chong Wei, was in horrible form today. The two of them have met each other many times in various international competitions. And it isn’t like Lin Dan won all of them. Chong Wei had defeated Lin Dan several times before. But today was not to be our day. Lin Dan was in superb form and trashed all our hopes and dreams. It was such a downer for me.

The support for Chong Wei is totally palpable. There have been so many blogs written about his semi-final match and people’s MSN messages were all in support of him. To think that the hopes and dreams of so many had been let down. I think that the manner in which he lost is a great contributing factor. We were all so depressed that he seemed to have given up hope. In the words of one of my friends, Chong Wei chuak liao. There were also accusations thrown of jampi and spiked food, entirely unsubstantiated of course.

I think that it is time to introduce squash as an Olympic event. Then, we’d be medal contenders for another game. Until then, better luck next time, to Lee Chong Wei! We are proud of you, nonetheless.

I have to say that I have been quite impressed so far, with the relative ease of use of Kubuntu. When I first bought this laptop of mine about a year ago, I did contemplate on whether to convert to 64-bit or otherwise. The new laptop came with a Athlon X2 processor that is capable of executing 64-bit code. There were both pros and cons to doing it and from my initial survey at the time, there were more difficulties than advantages.

The reasons to shift to 64-bit are mainly to do with memory and speed.

With a 32-bit computer, the maximum amount of memory that can be addressed without segmentation is about 4 gigabytes. However, due to the way that most modern PCs are constructed, some of this memory is reserved for accessing devices attached to the processor instead. However, I only have 2 gigabytes of RAM installed in this notebook anyway, and I will not require much more than that in the near future. So, there is no reason for me to switch to 64-bits for memory purposes.

With the use of 64-bit data paths, larger numbers can be computed at once. This will come in particularly handy for people who use a lot of large integers or double precision floating point numbers, which are typically used in scientific computing. Since I am not a user of these sorts of applications, I will not significantly benefit from using 64-bit computing. So, you may ask why bother switching then.

Due to the vagaries of the IA32 architecture used in most modern PCs, there are only 8 internal 32-bit registers in a processor. These registers are used to perform all the computational functions of a processor. Data is usually held in these registers and manipulated, before being stored in main memory. The AMD64 extension both doubles the size and number of register to 16 internal 64-bit registers. Technically, this means that more data can be processed inside the processor at a time, increasing speed.

So, there is technical justification for switching, but it was mainly due to the fact that I just wanted to try it to see.

All I can say that the experience was extremely fruitful. I completely reformatted, installed and updated Kubuntu to the latest version with KDE4.1 in just about 3 hours. I can attest to the fact that there were no significant issues with the switch. All the problems and workarounds that were needed in the past, seems to have been fully handled by Kubuntu automatically. For example, when I installed Firefox, it automatically installed nspluginwrapper, which allows the 32-bit flash plugin to work in a 64-bit environment.

As for the perceived performance advantages, I have experienced some aspect of it. Decompressing an archive is much faster than before, as well as compiling code. I have not yet tried encoding a DVD but I suspect that it should be much faster as well. This is not to say that there were not other problems with the installation, it’s just that these problems were also there in the 32-bit installation and I could fix them easily.

So, all in all, I think that it is a no brainer. I will install 64-bit linux on every other 64-bit machine that I get in the future. There is little reason not to anymore. And most importantly, the Atom 230 that I plan to get for my HTPC, supports the EMT64 extensions too.

Time to embrace the future!

The recent suggestion by our Selangor MB that UiTM (Universiti Teknologi MARA) open up it’s doors to people of other races and foreigners, has been met with all kinds of responses. To those who do not know, UiTM is pretty much a single-ethnic university, which was founded by MARA, a government agency created to funnel direct aid to a specific race. So, suggesting that the university turn away from its founding objectives is practically blasphemous, especially since it involves a racial right.

On one side, we have the people who believe that UiTM is the last bastion of education for their race. It provides its students a university degree and a chance at a life that many may not have otherwise. There is no denying that MARA serves a function. I was initially surprised when I first met several SPM Grade 3 holders who were on MARA scholarships, but after thinking about it a bit, I realised that MARA had a different set of objectives and criteria when awarding these scholarships.

Although such cases are extremely rare, MARA has already opened up entry to its junior colleges and also offers overseas scholarships to non-bumiputera for a decade. So, it is perfectly understandable that some people will feel threatened by the very suggestion of opening up a ethnic based university that is seen as many, as the last chance for some down trodden kids to do good. But what confuses me is the type of response that has come from the non-bumiputera side.

Many have taken this opportunity to vent their frustrations. The credibility of its VC has been challenged, the quality of its students have been questioned and the university itself has been a target of ridicule. Most have taken the stance that the university itself is useless and serves no purpose. Under such intense bias, I can perfectly understand why some 9,000 students of the university have come out in protest and promised to take further action if the sanctity of their institution is threatened.

Personally, I think that none of it is called for. The university has a function and a role, which many of us may disagree with. But while it is performing it’s duty, there is not reason to call it (or any of it’s members) names. The question of opening up UiTM affects more than just a single university, it questions the very existence of MARA. MARA has done a lot of good work in helping the bumiputera out of poverty. So, suggesting to dismantle such an institution, would obviously need to be thought through first.

Additionally, I feel that the very people calling it names and ridiculing the actions of its supporters, would do the very same thing if the situation was reversed. Assuming that the MB had called for the closing down of all vernacular schools instead, I can see the very same kind of irrational behaviour coming from the non-bumiputera of the country. In fact, I can imagine the whole thing flaring out of control, if it were to actually happen.

Personally, I see the MARA educational institutions in the same light as any other vernacular institution. Both sets of institutions are seen as the last bastion of whatever racial identity that they are designed to propagate. This is the crux of the problem. If we are to take apart one, it is only fair that we take apart all the others as well. In fact, I would strongly support this idea, if it was ever mooted. But it will take a suicidal politician to actually suggest standardising everything.

I’ve been having a lot of Boots meal deals for lunch recently. As a result, I have amassed a small collection of discount coupons for photograph processing. So, I decided to send a bunch of photographs in for processing yesterday. I ordered a bunch of 9×6 prints for next day processing. I went to collect the photos today and was told that there were problems with my order. They suspected me of breaching copyright and developing professional photographs.

So, I had to explain to them that I had taken those photographs myself using my own camera. The problem stemmed from the fact that I had embedded my signature brush on all of them. The people working there told me that the photos had a professional logo on it and asked me what it was. So, I had to explain to them that it was my signature and I even had to give them a sample of my signature. After comparing it with the signature brush in my photos, they decided that it was okay for them to release the photographs to me.

Well, that was good. I would have gotten into a fit if they did not release the photographs to me. I’m glad that they took the extra precautions to verify that the photographs actually belonged to me first. I guess that they have to do that with the strict intellectual property laws in the country. I doubt that they would want to be caught in any copyright infringement scandal. I guess that most professionals would not take their prints to Boots for processing.

As for the quality of the prints, I actually went to Boots to experiment. I wanted to see how the prints would come out in real life. As far as I can tell, the prints came out okay. Noise in the photographs were made more prominent in print than on screen. Dust specs on the lens appeared prominently on the photographs, especially against the sky. The colour saturation was just right although they seemed to have stretched the contrast a little.

So, this means that I’ll need to take photos at low ISO settings, and clean my lenses more often. At least, I should be very careful and treat my lenses with tender loving care. Also, I may not want to stretch the contrast of the photos too much. For post processing, I will just increase the colour saturation and correct the white balance. Prints tend to look duller and darker than on screen.

I still have another 5 coupons that I can use, which means that I can order another 75 large prints for a very cheap price. I’ll try to use up as many of them as possible, before I leave for home. It is certainly not cheaper to develop them at home

Just days after everyone in the world called the opening ceremony to the Beijing Olympics, the most spectacular show ever put up, it is being taken down one notch at a time each and every day. So, as much as I was impressed by the opening ceremony, I am no longer impressed with it anymore. Personally, I think that the director missed the memo that told him that he was directing a live show, and not a hollywood blockbuster.

1. It has emerged that the cute little girl who sang the song at the beginning of the ceremony, merely lip synced. I noticed this during the ceremony itself, but I didn’t think too much of it because lip-syncing was a pretty normal practice for grand events. But in this case, I did not find it acceptable that she lip-synced to the song sung by another little girl, who was apparently dropped because she wasn’t cute enough, even though her voice was golden.
2. It has also been discovered that part of the out door fireworks display was computer graphics. The decision was made to render the sequence in advance because they realised that it would be impossible to capture the entire sequence live. While this would be perfectly acceptable in a movie, doing it for a live show is very wrong.

On another note, it has also appeared that some of the computers used to project images for the opening ceremony, crashed during the ceremony. Many people had captured the classic Blue Screen of Death appearing in the stadium towards the end of the ceremony, when the flame was about to be lit. I wonder what Bill Gates did when that appeared. He was present for the opening ceremony, afterall.

Personally, I think that the Olympics show was still good, just not great and certainly not as spectacular anymore. If we are going to turn a live show like this into a hollywood movie, then it should be benchmarked against other movies. It certainly cannot compare with LOTR for example. Furthermore, if we continue along this line of show fakery, we will be hiring Pixar to do the opening ceremony by 2020. Where is the fun in that?

Most of you must have visited my blog and noticed the new look and feel it has. Some of you would have noticed the four little photographs on the right. I thought that I should describe the process behind turning my blog into this new look. It might be good if others are interested in adapting the process to modify their own blogs. I changed the theme, colours and customisations.

First, I looked up some good themes on the Internet. I wanted a theme that was simple and classy. A very quick search brought me to the grid focus theme. I liked the style and the fact that most of it was accomplished without many graphics. However, the theme was a little old and did not cater to WordPress widgets. Another quick google and I found this site, which explained how to widgetise the theme. I modified the steps slightly as the sidebar_widget class does not exist.

Next, came the time to customise the colours. To do this, I created a new custom.css file to override the original styles. I like to use this website to choose colour schemes. In my many years of web design work, this is the best website that I have found for colour scheming. So, I just browsed through some random colour schemes until I found one that I liked. I looked for a dour single colour scheme as I tend to like them. Then, it was just a matter of substituting the styles into the custom style sheet.

Finally, came the decor. I realised that as nice as the design was, it would be better if it was garnished with some photographs. So, I perused my collection of photographs and picked out four nice ones. As there was little space to place a photo anywhere else, I decided to composite them into a montage and put it in the sidebar. The result is the “vanes” image on the right. From left to right, they represent the time of day from morning to night, and the four seasons from winter to autumn. The dimensions of the image are close to the golden ratio. Then of course, the final flourish was the signature brush that I have described earlier.

Throughout the process, I relied solely on open source tools. For making the custom style sheet, I recommend using Firefox with its web developer add-on to display the names of the page elements, which can then be accurately styled. For the images, I used the Gimp, of course. No animals or children were hurt during the production of this theme.

PS: Feel free to let me know your thoughts on this new look by voting in the polls to the right.