I had to wait a week before writing about the latest addition in my network — the ASUS Eee Box. If I may, I would say that the Eee Box is ASUS’ answer to Apple’s Mini PC; only smaller. The unit weighs 3lbs and is 1-inch thick (8.8×7x1) only. It comes with two mounts — one is for desktop mount and the other is a wall mount or like what ASUS advertises, the unit is mounted behind an LCD monitor to get the effect of “no box PC”. The box comes with wired keyboard and mouse. Of course if you chose the wireless route, you can do so because the machine already comes with wireless adapter (and antenna for range maximization). Knowing me, this featureis of course disabled. The machine is also very quiet and does not take up so much power consumption. The Box is also DVI ready so if your monitor has DVI, that would be great. For an average user, it won’t be a difficult computing because the Box is pre-installed with Windows XP Home Edition.
The Box!!!
Why did I have to purchase this gadget? For one, I wanted to test it and it’s cheap enough to experiment with. I plan to install other *NIX flavored OS in it instead of Windows. I also needed a PC that can serve MySQL database and it shouldn’t take space in my workspace and won’t consume so much power. Eee Box is the perfect specimen. The Box has been running since I bought it an a few restarts were executed because of Windows’ unfailing releases of bug fixes (don’t they get tired of this why not release a less buggy software instead).
I only recommend the Box to an average user. Average I mean a user who only does: web browsing, chat, email, music, photos, occasional videos, word processing. I don’t prefer this to a hardcore user who may wish to do audio-visual editing and multi-tasking applications although it’s hyper-threading. However, it’s enough for daily computing.
November 3rd, 2008
It’s been a few years now that I’ve pondered how to share faxes with our office overseas. Before anyone criticizes the problem and offer a solution of CIF or Exchange routing, the problem is not as simple as that. Here’s the best simplification I can offer of the problem:
- Given 2 sites. Let HQ be the headquarter & XO be the offsite location.
- Given incoming faxes only.
- Faxes must be sorted according to its content. The sorting is manually done (drag & drop) into folders. Let’s say we have to sort into 3 folders, A, B, and C. These folders must be sorted by Day, Month, Year. That gives us 4-levels of heirarchy.
- HQ and XO may sort the faxes interchangeably.
- HQ must always have all files, thus it makes sense that files are hosted by HQ. XO does not need to have all files; only the files they need.
- Hierarchy must always be preserved.
- Both sites should be able to print faxes anytime they want.
- Low cost solution.
To satisfy my readers who are itching to recommend Goldmine or Exchange routing, how are you going to sort 300-500 faxes daily and easily access them when needed?
My solution was the use of Terminal Services. The disadvantages are:
- Expensive because of licensing, so I had to resort in limited users.
- Since the setup is minimal (click me), the resources are lacking which causes sluggish performance. That means, access is very slow. TS is already slow itself.
- Maintenance is too much of a hassle.
- It’s annoying to access RD in order to check faxes.
Experimental Solution
The latest solution I thought of is using
Dropbox. The first 2GB is free and subscription is only $10/month @ 50GB. Therefore, I have 2GB of test space before implementing the logistics. Faxes will still be archived and hosted by
HQ then
XO will sync from it.
XO must be restricted from deletion. Although Dropbox has the recovery feature that is a failsafe in case someone in
XO’s end is trigger-happy (my instantaneous backup in
HQ’s end will still remain of course; I’m paranoid).
With DP, the heirarchy is preserved, faxes can be easily accessed by both parties because the files will be locally (network scope) available to them. Since XO does not need the files, HQ will do deletion (folders have to be moved to reduce clutter in the workspace — imagine 30 folders when you only need the last 7 days.)
October 15th, 2008
I can finally come out of the shell and talk about Smart’s latest technology release — Plug ‘n Talk. I met with Smart representatives earlier today and I was able to witness a demonstration of this very cool gadget. It is a hybrid VoIP unit. In a nutshell, the unit which is essentially a thumbdrive accepts a Smart Buddy Simcard, plugged into a Windows computer with internet connection and can take outgoing and incoming voice calls and SMS/MMS messages incurring Philippine local rates. The hybrid nature of the technology is derived from the model whereas the party using the unit uses an over-IP technology which connects to Smart’s network in the Philippines and from there a circuit-switch communication occurs. The reciprocal applies when the unit becomes the receiver. In other words, it’s a VoIP-Circuit-switch technology.
Though I know the launch date, I will not provide that information as well as any pricing. I’m just to excited to post the technology’s overall concept. For more information, visit the hyperlinked site above.
During the demonstration, the call is quite loud and clear, however I won’t be too optimistic. There still is that VoIP characteristic. I’m only after the text messaging because it only costs P1/outgoing message to any Smart/TNT and P2 for Globe/TM/Sun and the MMS which costs the same as what they charge in the Philippines. I’ll have my dongle hooked into my PC and find TXTM8S.
September 3rd, 2008
I have had Verizon FiOS for more than a year now and as the service areas continue to grow, with the technology’s excellent service, I’m sure a lot have signed up for it. If Verizon provides you with an Actiontec modem/router then let me advice you to purchase another router because Actiontec will drive you crazy in the long run. I have 10mbps/3mbps down/up throughput and I download a lot as in I average 1GB/day (that’s a modest number). They aren’t illegal downloads per sé because they are distributed openly (KDrama). If I have more than 3 huge files in my μTorrent (or any other bittorrent client), others in my network wouldn’t have Internet access. That’s because I have NAT running and the routing table in Actiontec is not enough to handle huge amount of traffic. Therefore, overloaded packets are dropped giving my users nil resource.
My recommended router is D-Link DGL-4100. It’s best for serious gamers. It’s easy to configure and maintain. Below is a simple diagram of my network using this technique.
Stay tuned for the step-by-step guide on doing this.
August 20th, 2008
As I posted a few weeks back, I switched my mobile carrier from Sprint to T-Mobile. With the switch I purchased a Nokia 6301 unit. I spend most of the time in our basement because that’s my room. It’s an underground basement and network signal from any mobile carrier is very faint or nil. Most of the time, I had to go to a spot in order to get a signal. It’s frustrating especially if I’m expecting an urgent call. Thanks to T-Mobile and Nokia, my problem is solved.
I’m probably behind in the knowledge of this technology, but let me document it here anyway. T-Mobile has a service called HotSpot where if you have the service, you can use T-Mobile WiFi hotspots as your network connection. You may call it VoIP plus all the capabilities (WAP/SMS/MMS) of a mobile phone minus the wires. T-Mobile advertises the service by informing you that you can only use their hotspot, thus you have to pay for the service. I had to conduct an experiment before posting this.
After a few weeks of observation, I’m convinced that I can use any available WiFi network that will provide my cellphone an IP address and internet connection without signing up for the T-Mobile HotSpot service. I have my cellphone configured such that anytime it is on the range of my home network, it’ll connect to it. That means I have a very clear signal in my basement. Also in the mall where nobody seems to get any signal, T-Mobile provides a free hotspot — that’s the case in the mall where we frequent anyway.
I can’t say about other carriers and cellphone units because I didn’t sign up on T-Mobile simply because of this capability. As a matter of fact, I only realized this capability when I got home studying the phone. I’m really not a cellphone expert which explains my late discovery of this technology.
August 13th, 2008
Kalam is a public service documentary by a Philippine television network GMA. The episode discussed the rice shortage facing the world and especially the Philippines. The show was very thorough in discussing the causes and possible outcome of the crisis facing the world today. I will discuss and give my two cents on some of the issues.
A few years ago, Philippines was one of the top exporters of rice, but now it has become the number one importer of rice. The Philippines import rice from the world’s number one importer of rice, Thailand. However, since the demand for rice has gone up in the last couple of years, Thailand imposed an export ban on rice. The Philippines had to find a solution and imported from neighboring nations like Cambodia and Vietnam. Both countries imposed export ban on rice also which was later on lifted.
Why would these nations ban the export of rice when they should be happy because their export could rise due to a high demand? Let’s talk economics. The basic concept in economics is that as demand goes up, supply goes down and vice-versa. As far as I know, rice production is quite limited because there can only at most three harvests annually (I’m exaggerating my number for a best case scenario). Rice production is not like any other production where you can simply increase your resources so that production increases. Many factors play roles in rice plantation. So if the production is fixed, the supply is closed to being constant. If the demand for rice increases, the balance is affected, therefore if the country keeps exporting to satisfy the demand overseas, the price of rice locally will rise. A proper nation, unlike the Philippines, would halt the export of rice and feed their own people by keeping the affordable price. That is why they ban, but the Philippines will not do this and will treat this crisis as an opportunity to increase the nation’s export (hypothetically speaking if the country was an exporter of rice). Such is our character.
How did Philippines become an importer, rather than an exporter of such valuable commodity? Corruption and negligence.
Political corruption affects the pre-production of rice. Kalam claims that we are the only farming nation that still uses manual labor to produce rice. Most nations use tractors from preparation to harvest. We use carabaos and sickles. Since rice is the most important commodity for Filipinos, agriculture should be the main concern of the officials that are currently enjoying their grafted incomes. There is least support from the government for the agrarian reform. The government should be providing our farmers new technology and not let themselves work out how to produce such technologies because most farmers aren’t millionaires. Quoting an expert from the show, “we lack industrial strategy.”
International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is an institution that studies how to grow rice properly and all kinds of research on improving the productivity of rice, quality of rice, etc. The institute is located close to the University of the Philippines in Los Banos, Laguna. Farmers from the leading rice exporting nation learn how to properly grow their rice from this institute. Filipino farmers learn or rather weren’t taught the knowledge learned from the institute. It’s located in our backyard and we get nothing from it. What does that make us? I have been agitated by our lack of awakening. Our lack of self sufficiency. We have all the resources that other nation would die for and all we do is look at it. We would sensationalize our scientists if they win prestigious award from overseas from discovering such and such. What we really are doing is asking for the world’s approval. It is very sickening! I don’t give a damn if a Filipino win the freakin’ Miss World or has won four WBC belts. Stop sensationalizing ourselves within the international masses and let us sensationalize ourselves from within our nation. Apply those achievements to improve the country’s current pathetic state. Let us not compete with each by proving that we can excel abroad and other Filipinos can’t.
July 14th, 2008
Today I had a tiny luxury to watch Pinoy Dream Academy 2’s performance night. I’ve seen their contestants scholars a few days back because the network seems to be injecting every little bit of segments from the 24-hour affairs within the academy. That means I see their faces everytime I pass through the channel. I may sound bias and I believe I may be, but the Idols are better than the scholars.
The Idols have variations when it comes to talent and style; the scholars don’t. It’s boring when you see a singing contest and all contestants have the same style of music. That’s why I like the Pinoy Idol. However, I like Cristina “Cris” Pastor a lot. That’s the only thing I like about PDA2.
July 12th, 2008
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