The Beanster Blog

WARNING THIS WILL DELETE ALL FILES ON THE DRIVE. PLEASE BACK UP YOUR FILES BEFORE PROCEEDING. There are a lot of benefits to making partitions on an installed drive but if you wish to extend this to your external drive here is how. Press WINDOWS FLAG + R (RUN) Type diskmgmt.msc press ENTER You will be presented with the Disk Management Interface, be sure you select your External HDD (here it is My Passport ) Right click and delete the existing partition you should see that your whole drive has become un allocated space (black bar) Right click again and choose New Partition… and follow the Wizard. For storage we will be using Primary partition , hit Next Select how much storage you will allocate for the 1st partition for this example I will create a 100Gb partition , type in the size and hit Next I choose not to assign drive letter, hit Next You may choose to Format the new partition here or later under Windows Explorer . For this tutori...

I was listening to TWiW [This Week in Windows] - and one of the topics discussed was keyboard shortcuts. I immediately started tapping around my keyboard and here is what I've come up with... Really useful! ---- Windows Key + -- Tab = Aero [press Tab to cycle between Windows] E = Windows Explorer R = Run Command F = Search X = Mobility Center L = Lock Computer U = Ease of Access P = Projector T = Cycle Super Taskbar Items S = OneNote Screen Clipping Tool [requires OneNote] M = Minimize All Windows D = Show/Hide Desktop Up = Maximize Current Window Down = Restore Down / Minimize Current Windows Left = Tile Current Window to the Left Right = Tile Current Windows to the Right # = Quicklaunch = = Magnifier -- In Windows Explorer -- Alt + Up = Go up one level Alt + Left = Back Alt + Right = Forward ---- I think some of these will work on older versions like XP and Vista, go try it out on your PC/Notebook/Netbook and let me know how you like it.

Yesterday afternoon fuel by my weekend geekout success of loading Win7 on an old MSI MEGABOOK M645. I decided to load Windows 7 Pre-beta Build 6081 on my MSI Wind. -- NB: Windows 7 Pre-beta was released last October 28, 2008 at Microsoft's PDC and has subsequently been leaked out on the net. It is valid until Aug 2009. -- Just to recap: MSI Wind U100 Intel ATOM 1.6Ghz 2Gb RAM Intel 945GM Chipset WiFi 802.11b/g Bluetooth 160Gb 5400RPM HDD -- Installation went smoothly and everything has been detected by the disc I made or by Windows Update. I installed it in the 40Gb OS partition of the Wind U100, of course making a recovery DVD first so I could go back. I went to http://www.withinwindows.com to get the superbar and other features working. -- I am enjoying the Super Taskbar and it makes navigation and using the Wind much better. The downside is now I am wishing that my Wind had a touchscreen. -- I put IE8 on the back burner in favor of Firefox and Chrome. -- I am still getting used...

So far I am liking my 1st day with the Wind :D It's running Windows XP Home SP3 out of the box. The heart of the device is Intel's N270 [aka ATOM] 1.6Ghz processor which runs the OS without hiccup so far. Remember though that my system has 2Gb of RAM and 160Gb HDD. A note on the HDD: mine came with 3 partitions -- 40 OS / 110 Storage / 10 Hidden for OS. I like the fact that it is not the anemic SSDs which are usually loaded in some mini/netbooks. The notebook also has WiFi and Bluetooth, a card reader, and a webcam. The power brick is tiny as well. I'd like to say that the build quality on this MSI is really really nice. The screen is bright and crisp. Typing on the keyboard is comfortable and not really a strain for me. If I do have a complaint it would be the single unit design of the key bellow the track pad. It is really hard to press and register a click. One can easily add a usb mouse, rf or bt mouse though. Overall I am not missing the media drive at the moment, ...

I have been blabbering on about getting a notebook for quite awhile now today I finally broke down and decided to get an MSI Wind U100 in Empire Black. I shot my friend Danny of ACENET an SMS and he said that a unit with 2Gb of RAM and 160Gb of HDD space is available. That actually has double the memory and capacity of the model on MSI's site... NICE! It's running XP Home which is fine by me. I'll be swinging by V-Mall after work so I can get my mitts on my new toy er...  tool. I've already filled my Pirate Nero 4Gb drive with some installers of essential apps the rest I'll just get off the net. I'll be sure to share my experiences with the wind right here on the Beanster Blog so check back soon.

I wrote hp support yesterday inquiring about the hp 2133 mini-Note PC, it was appearing in some local blogs as being available locally. hp just sent me a response saying that the mini-Note is not yet available. Hmmm I wonder if the units being sold are paralleled in or are really for the local market. I'm still planning on looking for the hp 2133 maybe tomorrow [if I wake up early and beat the traffic].

Still lusting over this ultra portable... :P~

-- HP 2133 Mini-Note PC Genuine Windows Vista® Business (note) w/MS Office (Trial) VIA C7™-M processor (1.6 GHz, 800 MHz FSB) 8.9-inch diagonal, scratch-resistant, WXGA (1280 x 800 resolution) Via Chrome 9 UMA VGA camera included 2048MB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM (1 DIMM) 120GB 7200rpm Hard Drive Broadcom 4311AG 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi Adapter HP Integrated Module with Bluetooth® Wireless Technology 92% full-size, user-friendly QWERTY keyboard ExpressCard/54 slot Integrated Secure Digital Reader Touchpad with scroll zone 6 cell Li-Ion battery Limited 1 year standard parts and labor warranty -- I want one! Too bad this model is only available in the US for now... I hope they start selling this to the ROW soon!

Got my old 'new' desktop for the office up and running today. -- I'm calling it old 'new' because it's new but technically old. -- Intel 1.8 Ghz Dual Core [same processor as my last MSI Notebook which is about 2 years old] 2048 DDR2 667Mhz RAM ECS P4M900 Motherboard Lite-on 20x Super Drive Inno3D NVDIA 7300GT 512Mb VRAM Seagate 80Gb 7200RPM HDD - OS/Apps [from my old P4 box] Seagate 320Gb 7200 RPM HDD - Storage [from my old P4 box] -- Basically, my processor was upgraded to dual core 1.8Ghz, RAM was doubled to 2Gb, Video RAM was quadrupled from 128Mb. I swapped in both my HDD's from my old P4 box, inserted the installation disc for the motherboard and installed the necessary drivers, installed the video card driver, re-activated XP and am now up and running again, total excluding download time a little less than 10 minutes. I can't say I see any real speed or performance benefits except for Photoshop CS2 opening up a bit faster but that might be a placeb...

HTC [High Tech Corporation] the Windows Mobile behemoth... is at it again they've announced the HTC TyTN II the successor to the very popular HTC TyTN , the Mark II will go on sale by mid-October [anyone getting me this baby as a birthday present?]. They've also announced 4 more devices. 2 Windows Mobile Professional Devices [read: PocketPC Phone], 1 Windows Mobile Standard [read: Smartphone], and an UMPC [Ultra Mobile Personal Computer]. The HTC 6500 , HTC Touch Dual , a refresh of the HTC Touch , and the HTC S730 Smartphone. Their first foray into UMPCs the HTC Shift is said to be shipping this November as well. -- It would be interesting how I can juggle my budget to get a taste of the TyTN II, the Shift, and hp's iPAQ 900 series. I need a get rich quick scheme.

White colour 12.1” screen Intel core 2 duo, Centrino duo 1.83ghz 1gb ddr ram 100gb Hard drive 5-in-1 memory card/stick reader Dvd-r/rw combo cdrom Bluetooth PAN network adapter Intel ®/ wireless 3945ABG network connection Realtek RTL8168/8111 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC Extended battery -- Genuine Windows XP Pro McAfee Anti-Virus valid til Jan 2008 -- PhP 45,000.00 [slightly used] -- You may sms me or drop me an email if interested.

I'm selling my UMPC [Ultra Mobile Personal Computer] it's a SONY VAIO VGN-UX280P with Box and all the accessories. -- Specs: This is a Intel® Centrino™ based system can run upto 2.5 to 4.5hrs on a charge [YMMV] Processor: Intel® Core™ Solo Processor U1400 Ultra Low Voltage 1.2Ghz (533MHz/2Mb L2 Cache) WLAN: Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (802.11a/b/g) Chipset: Intel® 945GMS Chipset Graphics: Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 (128MB Video RAM) Memory: 1024Mb RAM DDR2 400Mhz HDD: 40Gb HDD Ultra ATA with SONY shock protection PAN: Bluetooth 2.0 Toshiba Stack WAN: Sony Ericsson GPRS/EDGE Modem [unlocked, I've used it with Globe and SMART] Display: 4.5inch Touch Screen 1024 x 600 resolution [with screen protector] Input: Sliding QWERTY backlit keyboard / Touch Screen with Handwritting recognition / Trackstick Security: Biometric Security [Finger print scanner] Battery: Standard Lithium-ion battery (VGP-BPS6) Cameras: Dual Motion Eye Cameras [VGA front web ca...

My friend's notebook was infected by SPYWARELOCK [formerly SPYLOCKED] a nagging malware that is usually disguised as an Audio or Video Codec installer. Which when installed shows fake alerts and tries to get you to purchase crap software. Don't buy it!!! Though it was fairly easy to remove [this is the 2nd time the same notebook had been infected by a similar malicious app, and this is the 4th time I've done this 2x more with different notebooks of different friends]. It maybe frightful to people who don't know what to do. -- First off don't panic. Identifty the infection and see if it can be treated. Worst case scenario is that you have to rebuild or reformat your system which is a PITA. Best case scenario you find the infection and clean your system. Although some say once you get bit you're system is un-secure forever and opt to reformat after backing up their data. Well a quick Google search turned up these instructions and tools and I was done in 5-10 mins....

Since my shobe has a notebook already I decided to take the home pc to the office to make it my work pc. This will free up my UX to make it my personal system and admittedly the UX is slow even compared to this old P4 box. -- Before: Intel Pentium 4 2.8Ghz HT Intel 915 Motherboard 1024Gb RAM @ 400Mhz 80Gb Seagate 7200RPM HDD SATA PCI Lan - yeah it's that old that the board doesn't even have on board LAN NVIDIA GeForce 6200 Graphics Card Samsung DVD ROM FDD 15" AOC CRT Monitor Windows XP Pro SP2 -- The box is a bit dated but I think a few upgrades here and there will probably tide me over until I'm able to save up for a more powerful notebook. I'm telling it straight the UX is an awesome UMPC but it is underpowered for some tasks [i.e. Photoshop] so I need a workhorse PC. -- So what do I want to change with this box? I'm removing the FDD, I don't need it. The 80Gb HDD is too small IMO, I'm adding a 320GB Seagate 7200RPM SATA HDD [that'll bring storag...

Check out Hamad Darwish's [aka Vista Wallpaper Photographer] site to get additional Wallpapers that didn't make it to the RTM release of Vista. The images are really nice. Thanks for sharing Hamad. -- http://www.hamaddarwish.com/index.html

If you own a SONY VAIO VGN-UX280P on Vista, head on over to the eSupport Website . There are 2 Hotfixes from Microsoft. One for Windows Media and the other for the Camera. There's a BIOS update and the new SmartWi Manager for Cingular.

If you've upgraded to Office 2007 and are experiencing some performance problems with Outlook, maybe this fix will help you out. It's supposed to address issues with performance when dealing with big PSTs. I installed it on my system and will report back if it indeed gave a significant boost to Outlook 2007's performance. Click here for more info and download.

[Right Click the My Computer Icon then Properties] [Clicking Windows Experience Index will show more details] [you can get even more details too...] Snipped my VAIO's Windows Vista Experience Index [the score is so so IMO], as you can see the processor brought down the score significantly still not too bad for a UMPC. I do feel a lag sometimes when trying to do too much all together. Photoshop is not the best on this system I can tell you that. My next system should probably have a higher score than this. The price of mobility I guess.

Did some speed tests last night with the UX280P and my Globe SIM. Location Power Plant Mall, Makati. Used the 200Kb test.

[Music] [Pictures] [Program Launcher] [Videos] [SuDoKu] Found this in one of the forums I joined in the past few days to tweak and optimize my UX280P. Anyway it explains how to get the Origami Experience Pack onto your non-UMPC system [note ORIGAMI was/is the codename for UMPC's], the whole post explains everything you need to do as well as provides links to the softwares needed! :o) So far I'm liking OE except for the fact that it is a bit blurry on my VAIO's 1024 x 600 reso screen [I think it was designed for 800 x 600] no matter I like the interface and the big buttons are easy to press / tap. I'm also liking the included game... SUDOKU! Yeah! So what are you waiting for? Start reading/downloading/tweaking/installing and enjoying follow the link bellow! -- ORIGAMI EXPERIENCE PACK on non-UMPC systems