July 2006 Archives

bq. Intel's Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme processors were announced two weeks ago with much fanfare from the hardware editors and the enthusiast community. Intel had brought a great-performing chip to the market that was faster than every processor currently available and was much cooler than its Pentium-D predecessor. Today, there were a slew of new desktops and workstation announced that use Intel's new Core 2 processors for desktops, so let's get started.

Anandtech did a very complete and glowing review of the new Conroe chips, called Core 2 Duo. It looks like:

The main differnece between the Extreme and the regular Duo is the unlocked multiplier so you can go even higher on overclocking

The prices are very aggressive and AMD won't have a technological answer until 2007, so it has lowered pricing, but it will be hard for them to be competitive at the high end with these chips. By the way, the sweetspot chip is definitely the 2.4GHz E6600 or 1.86GHz E6300 the with its very large 4MB cache and low pricing, plus it can overclock very well. The 4MB cache gives an average 3.5% improvement with most of that gain coming from Xvid encoding. For games, the imporvement is more like 1-2%.

Also architecturally a big advantage for AMD has been the on-die memory controller, but with the new architecture in Conroe, it doesn't need one.

One interesting note is that the Woodcrest chipsets haven't shipped yet. These chipsets will boost FSB from 1066MHz to 1333MHz. The benchmarks show that this is another 2.4% improvement overall. It looks like Apple's updated Intel Macs will use that chip, so they could be the machine to get for both Mac and Windows folks.

The benchmarks for audio/video encoding are astounding, with the Intel Core 2 Duo being very, very fast

And with games you have the same flip flop and the result is even more lopsided than the chart because most games are graphics not CPU bound. With CPU limited games, the results are more like 22-55% performance improvements compared with the Athlon X2. Yikes!

Finally for overclocking there is lots of headroom since the Core2 uses 65nm process. 20% is pretty commong and with a fancy cooler like the Tuniq Tower, they got it the chip to 4GHz with the humble 2.4GHz E6600.

We downloaded the MVP 2004 demo and Calvin just loves it, unfortunately, because EA lost the rights to MLB, they now only have NCAA Baseball and it is only on consoles, so nothing for our beloved PC. You can still get used MVP 2005 on ebay though. And you pretty much have to have a game controller as well to play it.

It has been an eventful year for sports video games. First, EA bought the exclusive rights to the NFL license effectively pushing all competitors out of the market. Then Take Two struck back by purchasing Visual Concepts and the exclusive third party rights to the MLB license. After all of the wheeling and dealing where does that leave the fans who are just looking to hit some dingers? It leaves us with the third and final instalment of the MVP series, at least for the next seven years. It looks like EA Canada wanted to give us something memorable because MVP 2005 delivers the best baseball experience on the market today. Unfortunately for PC users, this experience is a bit more enjoyable on the consoles.

I picked these butter cookies up on the way through Narita, I have to say they are just awesome. You can buy them in America at Neiman Marcus or Saks, but they are from Japan and get gret reviews there.

Yoku Moku
Yoku Moku produces some of the finest all natural butter cookies developed in Tokyo with no additives, preservatives or any chemicals of any kind. The name Yoku Moku comes from JOKK MOKK, a quaint village on the Arctic Circle, 500 miles North of Stockholm, Sweden. The founder, Noriichi Fujinawa was so impressed with the beauty of the village and the heart of the people, he borrowed the name for his company.

In any case, if you ever get a chance, they are a great gift!

Well, I'm glad that J and Robbie are on this, nice to know there will be some competition. The 30GB Zune player direct from Microsoft will have Wifi so you can download without needing a PC. Will be about $400 according to rumors, so it will be pricey. They even have a blog for it and Robbie's pitch is up on the web too.

As an side, all the Financial Analyst Meeting presentations are on the web.

bq. Intel's Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme processors were announced two weeks ago with much fanfare from the hardware editors and the enthusiast community. Intel had brought a great-performing chip to the market that was faster than every processor currently available and was much cooler than its Pentium-D predecessor. Today, there were a slew of new desktops and workstation announced that use Intel's new Core 2 processors for desktops, so let's get started.

John and went to Ai Wan Ting （爱晚亭上海酒店）at the Superbrand Mall (正大厂成, Zheng Da Chang Cheng) and had a great meal. Great views and really fresh fish and lobster too.

Duane also took use to South Beauty 881 Club (俏江南, Qiao Jiang Nan) in Puxi (we've also been to the branch in Pudong) As Eurobiz and Conde Naste Traveler says it might be the best Sichuan (read spicy restaurant in Shanghai). It is in an amazing old mansion on the Puxi side that has been converted into a combination of modern and antique. There is an amazing rooftop area where you can watch the skyline. Jon said it was like an evening in Spain. Warm and balmy. Prices were very reasonable too. The cuisine is Sichuan and very tasty. There is outdoor seating and also a really cool bar area. No. 881 Yan An Middle Road, Jing An District, (8621) 62471581

Well, I seem to have misplaced my Plantronics 640 headset again, so not a bad time to look at the headset market once more. Here's the recommendations:

• Plantronics 640. These have come down a lot in price to $65 at newegg. Nice form factor. It is nine grams and loud enough. Main problem I had with it is that the little pen holder clip broke which is how I lost it. Main issues are that clip and also if you are not careful the headset can fall out of its charging holder.
• Motorola H5. Potentially the perfect headset but it is delayed until 2007 due to audio quality issues. It is only 5 grams and uses in bone conductance, so you can use it even in a subway!
• Plantronics Discovery 645. The big brother to the 640, it adds a DSP chip to reduce noise. No word on whether it is worth paying $20 more for this.
• Jabra JX10. It is bigger and bit wierd looking but it does have a DSP and a nice review.

Connie got these Sonicare toothbrushes for Calvin, but I have to say that I really love them. The only confusing thing is the names of the various versions, so here's a decoder ring and where to buy them:

• Elite (a.k.a Best). They have two models, the Elite 9500 which has two speeds and different size brush heads as well as the Elite 7300 which has a timer on it (it beeps every 30 seconds). We have the 7500 and it is fine although superseeded by the 9500. Like all deluxe models it will even tell you how much charge it has left. The super highed is $140 at Amazon with for the person who has to have everything. Replacement heads for the E-Series are $30 for a pair. While the Elite 7500 is $105 at Amazon and that's a good value considering the 7300 is $101 at Amazon but only has a single brush, so you get another one for $5.
• Essence (a.k.a. Better). This is the middle of the line model. Main difference are that the 5500 has that pacing thing (called the Quadpacer for some marketing reason) while the lower end 5300 only has one brush head (each brush head lasts six months and is worth $10 or so) but is just $68 while the higher end one is $90
• Advance (a.k.a Good). This is their low end 4100 model without things like a recharge indicator. It is just $50 from Amazon and it is $20 for a single head. BTW this is also called the A series and used to be called the PS-1

Looking at this pricing, I'd say that the 5500 at $70 is probably the best value. Only small featurette you give up is the 30-second timer thing and for the difference, you end being able to another pair of heads for $30. Or if the pacing thing is important the now discontinued 7500 is a good value at $105 since it includes two heads in it.

A good time to get ready to go off to China. The Anniversary sale started last week but ends this weekend. Hours are 9:30AM-9PM Monday-Saturday if you can believe that.

Then if you aren't done, you can head to REI which is open at 10AM at their flagship Seattle Store.

There are two ways to get your Sony back, first you can create a DVD for yourself. They also ship with an invisible partition with the complete information, but it isn't very obvious how to do it. Sony eSupport{46BFA530-E01F-4F7C-B98B-69C2AA06051B},Case=Obj(395689),TS=Externalv4,T=response_case.tem,VARSET_OBJ=395689,VARSET_TOP=TRUE,question=ref(QC):ord(1),question=ref(QB):ord(1) has this and more generally in the Sony VGN-TX650P support FAQ

1. Choose Start/All Programs/VAIO/VAIO Recovery
2. Choose Create CD or DVD so you have an offline backup
3. Ch\oose Restore C: drive to delete everything and get back to the factory version of your computer

Engadget and Sony eSupport. Well, in the campaign to get things unlocked and ready when I'm off overseas, here are the instructions for how to unlock a Sony VAIO with a builtin EDGE/GPRS modem. You don't need this in the US since Cingular has a $80/month all-you-can-eat data plan.
Here are the complete Instructions:

1. Very IMPORTANT Before starting anything, make sure you have the ORIGINAL Cingular SIM inserted in your laptop. It will NOT unlock if you have any other SIM instaled..
2. Enable your wireless WAN. In Cingular Connection Manager, Choose Tools/Network Info, record the IMEI #.
3. Open Hyper Terminal and chose Start/All Programs/Accessories/Communications/Hyper Terminal. It will ask for a connection name. Type in whatever you want, Sony support recommends the name EDGE
4. Choose File/ProperitiesConnect To/Connect Using and select Sony Ericsson VDC EGPRS Modem (or COM4), click OK for the defaults which should be 2400 baud, 8 bits, no parity
5. Type AT and check if you get an OK echoed back. Note that the modem is case senstive, so you probably want to hit caps-lock to make sure you get capital A and a capital T
6. If you do, call Sony customer service and request an unlock code and you must have your model number, its on the lower right of your screen, Sony Support at 888-476-6972 (United States) or 239-768-7676 (International). At the time of the call, you must be with the notebook in order to provide information to a support representative.
7. Make sure you tell them you want to unlock your built-in EDGE modem and you need the NCQU number. (This is an eight digit number.)
8. Type AT+CLCK=PN,0,xxxxxxxx in Hyper Terminal, where the XXXXXXXX is your NCQU number and check if you get an OK echo from the terminal. Try it several times, if you don't get an instant OK, but do not hang up. If it doesn't work, check the IMEI and the NCQU with the CSR once again.
9. Close and Shut down Computer. Take out the Cingular SIM. Insert the other SIM.
10. Open SMARTWI and open up the Cingular Connection Manager.
11. Click on Profile. look for the ADD button at the bottom of the window. Click on Create Custom Profile
12. Fill these in for T-mobile or look up the GPRS settings for the country of your choice.
    Service Type: packet or cicuit
    Dialed: *99***1# ( leave it like that )
    Acess Point Name: (internet2.voicestream.com)
    Username: (LEAVE BLANK)
    Password: (LEAVE BLANK)
13. Click next. On IP Settings leave everything on Automatic. Click Next again.
14. In the Profile Name slot, Type in T-Mobile or whatever you want your new carrier is. Then Click Finish
15. You're all set to Connect and when you come back to the US, you can switch back to the Cingular profile.

There are lots of different GPRS and data services and there's a sige that will tell you what connection you can use.

Well its been hot in Seattle and no breeze, so off to find a Window fan, since it gets to 65 outside, but our house just won't cool down:

• Air King 16 inch Window Fan. $100, but you need 19" high Windows. Could be good for top floors. It is 25.5" long, so you need a pretty long window.
• Honeywell HW-628 Twin Window Fan. This is a medium heigh one that requires about 12 vertical inches. Amazon is having a sale right now where these are $32 with $25 off if you buy $125 worth of stuff. Pretty good deal.
• Honeywell HW-300 Window Fan Amazon also has these lower fans too. These are just 5" high so good if you don't some gigantic fan thing stuck in your window.
• Also there are these cool things call Swamp Coolers and there is a good list on Air-n-water and it is a nice looking site. There is a $128 cooler that does 200 square feet (a single big room). Interesting to try for $128 and it uses little more than a fan. You do need to have low humidity though, so it won't work in the deep south, but normally here in Seattle, it doesn't get humid, it just gets hot.

Pretty cool, Wunderground has personal weather stations on google maps soyou can see the temperature around your area. Check it out. And yes, for Seattle having 80 degree weather at 10:30PM is a hot day!

By comparison, Shanghai looks positively nice at 77F and overcast but it is humid and Beijing is going to be positively cold this weekend.

Videohelp. The world of conversion is very confusing and there are many, many video and audio formats and many tools for converting them. Information is all over the web, but Videohelp really is the best for figuring out what to convert to what, so for instance, our Sony hard disk camcorder produces MPG files, so how do we get the various shows and songs we record into an MP3 format for our iPods, just as for MPG to MP3 and you'll know :-)

In this case, though there isn't a specific guide for doing an MPG soundtrack to MP3, so in my case, I'll describe how I do it. It works with either Sony Vegas Movie Studio (or the older Nova Video Explosion or SonicFoundry Vegas):

1. Suck the files into Vega Movie Studio from the Sony DCR-SR100. This is pretty easy since its a hard disk camcorder. It actually records directly into MPG format with a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. Vegas actually only handles two track, but then that's all I need for my iPod. I need more research to figure out which tool can actually edit Dolby 5.1 soundtracks
2. Find the files you want, drag it to the video track area, then choose Tools/Render in New Track and in the dialog box choose Save Type As MP3 Audio or if you want to use LAME or some other high end encoder, choose Wave (Microsoft) and in the Template section choose, "44,100 Hz, 16 Bit, Stereo, PCM"

Here are the official monopoly rules. We argued about the jail rule (you roll three times and end of the three you have to pay the $50 fine).

Here are the commonly missed rules:

• There are only 32 house and 12 hotels, so you can buy them all up and others can't improve them. You can sell them back for half their cost
• If you don't want to buy a property, it goes up for auction and gets sold to the highest bidder, so if you are the richest person, you can have an auction and then buy it for less potentially
• The cards are never reshuffled, so memorize their order and it gives you adn advantage
• If a player goes bankrupt, all the properties go up for auction to be bought by other players
• When you have income tax, you have to pay before you count up everything
• When you buy a mortaged property, you have to pay the 10% due the bank immediately

Also Wunderland has some great variations that make the game funner...
*

Bascially, the average home is 20 degrees C, but this is too hot for wine, the ideal is 10-13 C or 50-55 degree Fahrenheit. YOu can have it as high as 15C for emdium term storage but not above 18C. Main thing is to prevent temperatur fluctuation as noted by thewinedoctor.com with intowine saying much the same that 10-12C (50-55F) is optimnum, but any constant temperature withint 4-18C (40-65F will do). A wine kept at 68F will age twice as fast as those at 50F and at 55F (12C), it will age slowly and with better complexity.

Humidty-wise, relative humidity of 50-80% is acceptable, but 70% is recommended and of course it should be dark.

Dumb me, I have a new 8700 and couldn't get it to enterprise activate, the whole activation process would hang with "Activation Server not found." So what's the problem, I have been gettings lots of NTP messages and put a spam filter on it, the way that activation works though is that email messages are sent from Cingular to Blackberry's home serves, these then send an email to my home account which our Blackberry Enterprise server then intercepts. The problem is that my spam filter saw these magic email messages first and then hid them in a junk mail folder, so the Blackberry Enterprise server couldn't find them.

Net, net, if you have problems with enterprise activation, see if your spam filter is consuming these magic Blackberry messages

Final point is that there are many free things on:

• mobile.blackberry.com from your Blackberry. Not well marketed, but there are all kinds of goodies that Blackberry has put there, you can download over the air with Blackberry operating system 4.0 or higher. Rimarkable has a whole list of free things and pointers such as using Skype on your Blackberry
• Pocket Express which is some sort of browser enhancement, go to http://pxme.us from your Blackberry for OTA download
• "Free411": by my buddy Phil Bogle
• Google Maps. This is one direction application that actually works
• Spider Solitair, it's on mobile.blackberry as a free game
• Yahoo Messenger and Google Talk for Blackberry.
• "Stock Quote Viewer" is nice although the BB Today freeware is a little easier to figure out

Yardcare.com has some good advice about how to startup your sprinkler system. These are specific instructions, but it does mean I need to figure out where all the various valves are to turn the thing on. Fortunately, it never really freezes here, so turning it on is pretty easy if you know where the valves are. Advanced Irrigation also has a good check list if you know where the backflow device is

Shutdown is pretty much the reverse, but you do need a compressor to blow all the water out to prevent freezing from cracking the pipes.

Turns out that for our system, its even simpler, there aren't of these fancy valves. You just have to make the the intake drain valve if off (this is on the in water side), then, you open the top valve and put the hose in, this primes the pump and fills the water column, then flip the whole thing on.

OK, here are the detailed configuration you'll need for a phone you want to make work with a China Mobile SIM thanks to kuldaen

For WAP, the official site is on Monternet.com

WAP home: http://wap.monternet.com
Gateway IP: 10.0.0.172
Port: 9201
GPRS APN: cmwap
Username and Password don't matter

BTW with Sony Ericsson phones, they have a site; zone=ps which has all the settings and will sms you the configuration for you.

And here are setting for Cingular for WAP over GPRS

Home Page http://device:home or http://device.home
Session Mode Permanent
Connection Security On
APN wap.cingular (lowercase)
PDP_Type IP
7/12/2002 Version 1.0 8
Gateway IP Address 66.209.11.61
Authentication Type Secure
Login Type Automatic
User Name WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM
(All upper case)
Password CINGULAR1
(All upper case)

Engadget realy does have a good set of mobile tidbit from around the world including some interesting trends:

Innovations

The big ones appear to be making things slimmer and slimmer and also having a real music phone plus an onslaught of Windows Mobile devices:

Motorola Canary, this is the RAZR follow-on codenamed the Canary basically thinner. Technically it will be called teh KRZR and comes out this fall with EDGE.

LG KG800 Chocolate. These things are being advertised everywhere in China which folks love because of the size and the way that it works as a iPod and then slides up to be a phone, it will be the VX8500 over here. LG has another KG99 which is a candy bar version with the checkerboard keys as well.

And HTC is running away with lots of wins for Windows Mobile 5 devices including the Hermes, a Danger like opener, Star Trek, a smart phone that Vodafone Germany, Orange and Cingular will all carry, while Palm tries to stay ahead with the Lennon and Nitro and RIM looks to finally offer consumer services like Wifi, MP3 and Cameras (yeah!) to compete with Windows Mobile.

Segmenting

SCP-2400 for kids features like parental controls on the who they call and restrictions on usage.

Philips 588 is a nice ladies phone that is small as another segment.

Cloning
As another SLVR clone example, we have the Toshiba TS30 from Vodafone .

Sanyo Katana is one of zillions of RAZR knockoffs and Samsung D830 is just 9.9mm thick but has EDGE, QVGA, MicroSD and 2mp camera.

Techfaith has what Engadget calls ripoffs that improve things that look like the i320, SLVR and Universal. Techfaith gets a negative score, but they do point out that they are improving on these

UTStarcom does the same thing with their SLVR clone.

And at the low-end, there are dozens of flip phones like the LG CG225. These are low profit but very high volume.

New Services

MobiTV gets $70M from Oak. Congrats to the boys at Redpoint

Helio is an MVNO that rumors say have a 100 subscribers. Wow, that's low!

The Boy Genius Report: HTC Hermes & StarTrek, and iPAQ hw6920 coming to US - Engadget Mobile. The rumble is the HTC Star Trek is a flip phone that has Windows Mobile 2005 and is supposed to be nicer than the RAZR. Cingular is to ship it this fall as the 3125 according to Howards Forums. There is also something called the Hermes to be called the Cingular 6500 that looks like a Danger.

Every phone has a whole series of WAP and GPRS settings to get data to work. The SIM card lets voice traffic work, but for some strange reason, the WAP and GPRS settings are completely separate, so for each phone you own, you have to go to the Internet and figure out both how to enter the settings in and what the exact settings are for your phone. Here's a quick list for phones I own:

The Phones

For the Nokia 6600 and related models (6620), Filesaveas has detailed instructions. You basically go to the Services application and select Options/Setting/Default Access Point/Options/Change then Options/New Access Point/Use Default Settings and then you need to find the specific operator settings. Also, WDSGlobal provides over the air configuration for all Nokia models

For Motorola V3, you need to go to Menu/Settings/WEB ACCESS/Web Sessions to get to the various settings. Different ones are required for Web and MMS as Mobiledia points out.

The carriers

For Cingular, Mobiledia has the settings in details, they are separate for MMS and for WAP. For MMS, the Homepage is mmsc.cingular.com, Service Type 1 is WAP, Gateway IP is 066.209.011.61, Port 1 is 9201

For T-mobile USA, Mobiledia notes that there is an over-the-air configurator at http://tmobileus.wdsglobal.com/phonefirst that will send the configuration over the air, it differes for WAP and the MMS as well. You do need to pay $5/month for unlimited WAP access though

O2. Filesaveas has a good list for o2, Orance, Vodafone and T-Mobile in the UK.. Think this is reasonably up to date. They also have setting for email/web which is different from wap.

China Mobile. China-mobile-phones.com shows that they have a bunch of GPRS plans with the being $29/month 800MB free download. That's not a bad rate for my Sony laptop. Taniwha has the connection list that is very useful which says that the settings for China Mobile are APN name is cmnet, user name is guest and password is guest, this doesn't quite agree with voq.com which says the access point name is cmnet, but that there is no user name or password. "GPRS Easy Connect':http://www.gprsec.hu/ is a linux project that has as a side effect a very long list of carrier settings they have information for which says for China Mobile that the APN is cmnet and the username and password can be anything. Also says the DNS is 211.136.20.203.

Well Lance isn't in it this year and just about every major star (Ivan Basso, Jan Ulrich, Vino, etc.) are out on a doping scandal, so its been interesting following things.

See it on Tour de France 2006 blog for blog commentary.

Yahoo also has good coverage with particularly easy to find photos

United has a very strange system for calculating mileage if you are a Mileage Plus member, basically, if you are a United 100K traveler, then any ticket you book from full-far economy to first class and even including discounted business is counted as 150% of your actual mileage flow for the purposes of getting to 100K miles, but the actual miles you earn are tieed from 150% for First (Fare classes F,A and P), 125% for full fare business (C and D). So your redemption and qualification can vary quite a bit.

Dan Harris notes that Blackberry will be in China in the middle of this year with its own Blackberry. About time. That would be truly great and let's hope pricing is reasonable too. Apparently, China Unicom will have a cloned service called the Redberry as well.

Wow, Mark has a great tutorial on how to modify and make the razor really yours. Here's a quick summary of what I did based on his excellent site.

Getting Started with the right bootloader

• Software. First off, he tells you about all the software you need. A key piece is going looking for various Motorola service programs that you have to find in various torrents somewhere like PST (Product Support Tool) which has the Multi Flash Flex (MFF) program you use to download new firmware. As well as the newer RSD Lite which replaces MFF.
• To find out what version of the bootloader you have, you have to hold the * and the # key down and then press the power button. Its the equivalent of the ctrl-alt-del on a PC. This gives you the boot loader the software version number. The main issue here is that if you have bootloader 08.26 or higher, then Motorola put RSA encryption on, so you have to downgrade the bootloader to 07.d0. In my case, our late model Cingular phone had Boot Loader 08.26 and Software Version R374_G_0E.41.C3R_B (how is that for obscure!)
  • Download the P2K Drivers drivers. Internally, the RAZR V3 and many other phones are on the P2K platform or if you have RSD Lite or MFF, they have their own \drivers directories where p2k.sys lives
  • Turn off the phone and turn it on in its normal mode, plug it into the USB port of your computer, the USB Modem will install, then unplug and replug it and the Accessory, Data Logging MCU Interface, Test Command will install. You will have to keep telling it where the drivers are
  • Download the Scotty's Downrev Loader for use just with 08.26. When it start you will see the phones Bootloader mode, click OK on the phone to start. Windows will then as for the Flash Interface driver and it will you get it from the P2K drivers location you downloaded above. This DOS program will then open an interface to the phone and start downdating it to the more friendly 07.D0 bootloader
  • After you downgrade the V3 bootloader to 07.D0 the phone may not display the bootloader screen in flash mode correctly, it may be just a black screen. Don't panic, this is normal and will not cause any problems in the operation of the phone.

Unlocking the phone

If you phone is unlocked, try to give Cingular or your service provider a call. Otherwise, there is a program you can try that Mark covers. It is an unlocker that need the 07.0D bootloader. You start the program and click yes and it seems to unlock the phone. Give it a try if you dare :_)

Backing things up

Scotty has some really great directions on what to do next. In short, you install a bunch of programs and make sure that it works:

• Install the RSD Lite and see if you can see the phone. You just want to see if it connects. You use this to download news Flashes (.SHA files) for new firmware and for new flexes which are language packs. In my case, I want to download the simplified chinese and english packs which is the whole goal of the exercise.
• Install the P2K Phone File Manager to see if that works. This is the program you use to edit all the files. The file system in the V3 has all kinds of magical places for everything from the startup screens to the settings for GPRS, so you do need this as a way to navigate.
• If you have the Motorola Phone Tools (you can buy this) see if that works. As a note, this is a really nice program, let's you copy your selected contacts as well as your calendar to your phone from Outlook.

As a note, the P2K.sys driver can definitely have problems. In my case, it stopped working and when I tried to reboot Windows, the shutdown hung on the driver. Forcing the shutdown fixed everything.

Then you need Randoms Flash Backup and other utilities and then you run FlashBackup/Full Backup and select PHone memory size 32MB and disable compression since the program is buggy with compression. This thing actually hangs on my machines, but BigDaddy5 says that you don't really need to backup, if you can get to the bootloader with the *, # and Power button combination then you can just reload with RSD Lite or MFF a Monster flash that includes flash and flex from Motox. For me, I can't figure out why it hangs, maybe I'll try a different machine?

Installing Flash, Flex and Language Packs

Ok, the Motorola terminology is very confusing on Flashing. The lowest level is the bootloader that does the basic connection (much like the BIOS in PCs), the Flash is the firmware that controls the hardware, Flex controls the applications and the software while language packs get added on top. There is something called a Monster pack which is flash, flex and a set of language packs. Motox has some he has made himself so right now the latest US version has the brilliant name R374_G_OE.42.09R_MOTOX.shx (.shx is the filename of a flash file). The main number here seems to the "42" with Flex Version, hold your breath!, GSMV3MXCINO1NA0F5 which seems to say GSM, Motorola V3, Cingular and finally the language pack is MXLP0001 US English. You use download the file, unpack it and point the RSD Lite to the file, plug in the phone in "flash mode" (that is turn the phone on while holding the # and * key down) and it does it.

Normally you don't have flex a phone unless you want to get rid of the carrier branding. For instance my Cingular phone has all kinds of logos on startup ,etc. So for instance, after you use the Monster pack to get the latest, you can use Flexlash files which are flex files in .shx format so that you can easily upgrade just the flex (or application part), in my case for instance right now, I could use the previous monster pack with Cingular to get the latest Flash and then use R374_G_03.42.09R_GSMV3MXTMB01NA106_flexlash_MOTOX.shx to get T-mobile branding.

There are also Reflash files that download the flash but don't change any system settings. The latesst version of these mainly seem to allow multiple letter search on phonebooks and also video recording.

For Language Packs, once you have the file, flash it onto the phone. Don't be alarmed if the flash fails and your phone screen continues to display "SW Upgrade in progress..", just shut the phone off and turn it on again. Mine did the same thing when I tried a new language pack, but the new language was installed. When you do this, all the previous languages installed on your phone will be erased before the new language pack is installed.

SEEM Editing, Startup, Shutdown and Screensavers and other Mods

SEEM is Motorolas name for its registry where all kinds of thinks can be changed. You use XVI32 to edit these files and the P2K Phone File Manager to transfer them. There are zillions of very nerdy flags you can edit. http://xlr8.us/hofo/ keeps a list of everything you can edit.

In addition to SEEMs, there are various magic files in magic locations that you can use for customization. Mods include being able to change the startup

Most of the time you don't need to create your own files. As Mark points out there are zillions of enthusiasts who have created everything for you. For instance Motox has lots of cl.gif files. You add them with PK2 Menu Commander jsince it is just a file replacement.

For doing startup and shutdown, Mark's method is very complicated. There is another tool called Motokit that does it much more simply according to Motomodders.net where you just edit and add. The main problem is out of the box, I get a vsnetmenu.ocx not found so there is something missing from the standard setup at Motox and Exmotocd

Ringtones and Wallpapers and Skins

There are many ways to get these, but the easiest way by Samsung is to take the MP3 cut it to 30 seconds and less than 300KB in MP3Cutter and go to Mobstorage and upload, then with your item code, go to wap.mobstorage.com and enter the cod and save it.

For skinning the various graphical parts, Lazy202 says download Skin Manager and then find the .ski file on Motox Skins somewhere and then it will download onto the phone for you. Sweet!

Short guide to it all via unbranding

And finally there is a good guide for removing Cingular customizations. This unbrands the phone and gets rid of all the animations and the like. This guide by the way seems much simpler than the others I've found. It uses P2KMan to access files and the SEEM on your phone and XVI32 to edit the SEEM files as noted in the Motox SEEM Editing guide.

1. External screen. Replace /a/mobile/system/cl.gif with a 96×80 GIF with P2KMan
2. WAP Shopping links. Delete /a/DL_DB_INET-RECORDS with P2KMan
3. WAP Browser startup animation. Delete /a/mib_op_greet and create your animated 176×220 GIF and put it in own /a/mib_op_great (note there is no .GIF at the end)
4. Startup and Shutdown animations. Create /a/custwakeup.gif and /a/custgoodbye.gif
   1. Deactivate standard startup animation with SEEM 00032_0001 > offset 1D > bit 3 uncheck
   2. Deactivate standard shutdown with SEEM 0032_0001 > offset 31 > bit 0 uncheck
   3. Activate custom startup with SEEM 0004a_0001 offset 23 [Set 01]
   4. Activate custom shutdown with SEEM 00032_0001 > offset 46 > bit 0 check
5. Create custom startup in /a/mobile/audio/Cust_Start~up.mp3 and powerdown in /a/mobile/audio/Power~down.mp3
   1. Activate startup wtih SEEM 0004a_0001 > offset 22 [set 01] and SEEM 0032_0001 > offset 24 > bit 3 [check]
   2. Activate shutdown with SEEM 0004a_0001 > offset 24 [Set 01]

Time once again to look at bikes for that interesting age between 9 and 13 where the standover height is about 26"

Anything above say 5 feet and most kids can get into an adult small or extra small, but here is the tough part. So here are some choices for reasonably lightweight road or cross bikes:

• IBEX Vantage JayVee. $600 with $950MSRP, this bike is 18 pounds, has 650cc adult wheels, but is only a 37cm frame, so sized nicely. Alex loves his and you get it direct. Also has Shimano Tiagra parts (a step up from the low end Sora) and a carbon fiber fork which is pretty amazing when you think about the price.
• Redline Conquest 24. This is a Cyclocross bicycle so not as heavy as a traditional mountain bike. It has 24" rims and does use Sora, but has an FSA Compact crank set at 34×46T and 24×1-3/8" tires. It lists for $669.
• Specialized Hotrock A1. These are traditional mountain bikes. $310 for the 21-speed. $350 for the full suspension version. Heavy but vesatile.

At the very high end, Bikyle has some amazing recommendations:

• Pinarello makes a whole line of kid bicycles with Campagnolo Xenon no less at a whopping $1500 a piece with 22", 24" and 26" rims
• Bianchi does the same with a $1100 list Bianchi Junior 24 with a 35/45T crankset and Campagnolo Xeno 9 speed as well.

Apple sells in 50 countries, but for some reason they don't sell in China where the darn things are made. How depressing. They do sell in Hong Kong though, but I don't know how computer imports are sold.

If you do ship into China your own Apple, Fedex has a good site that summarize the rules and make me thing its better to just buy something in China :-)

Importing Personal Effects of Foreign Employees

The importation of personal effects by foreign employees of foreign invested enterprises or representatives of foreign companies requires that the following paperwork be submitted to Customs within the term of validity within three months of the applicants entry into China:

• Copy of the Certificate of Business
• Certificate of Customs Clearance Registration
• Application for the importation of personal effects. Although printed in English and Chinese, the application form must be completed in Chinese in quadruplicate (4 Copies) with the stamp of the foreign representative office.
• Applicant's passport and Permanent Residence or Temporary Residence Certificate

When completing the Application for the importation of personal effects the dutiable and non-dutiable commodities must be listed on separate forms. Dutiable commodities include: TV's, washing machines, drying machines, refrigerators, video recorders, video players, acoustic equipment, desktop computers, telephones, pagers, fax machines, typewriters, furniture, lamps, food, quilts (filled bedclothes). Non-dutiable commodities include: one each of the following: home-use telecamera, camera, portable radio, portable laser disk player, portable computer and reasonable amounts of commodities that are in daily use. The forms must be signed by the importer and the exporter and sealed by the representative office.

Now that I've settled into the new Canon Digital Rebel XT, the net is that the flash is nice, the camera doesn't feel so tiny anymore and the reviews are right, having a F/4 lense really is an issue for indoor shooting. I love the 24-105mm lense for general shooting but really could use F/2.8. Even though the IS stabilization helps for camera shake, it doesn't help for people moving around. So Bob was right, the 24-70 was probably right. So word to the wise Bob is probably right, get the 24-70 F/2.8L is a better choice particularly if you don't shake the camera that much.

But on to the next set of lenses, looking at wide angle for scenary and then telephoto for distance, there are a few choices:

Running longer, the 70-200 with a 1.5x lense factor, you get a huge 350mm lense which is just awesome. The choices are complex, but The-Digital-Picture thinks its his favorite lense. Luminous Landscape says its might be the best lense ever from Canon. Here image stabilization makes a big difference, giving you 3 stops of performance for handheld shooting. Photo.net does a great overview of the three similar lense, 70-200 F4/L, 70-200 F2.8L and 70-200 F2.8L IS. The performance is great at the price of being really heavy and expensive.

24-70 F2.8L USM, 70-200 F/4L USM, 70-200 F2.8/L IS

On the wide angle side, the choices are the 16-35 F2.8L and 17-40 F4/L. The Digital Picture thinks it is the best full frame Canon ultra wide angle lens available. It seems slightly sharper than 17-40. Main issue is the 16-35 is more expensive so should get the 16-35 if shooting in lowlight or available light. Also if you don't have full frame the EF-S 17-55 F2.8L IS USM for small frame cameras is better but doesn't work if you are ever going to get a Canon 5D. Luminous Landscape also did a comparison where they say that shooting at 17MM about 6% and the images are softer especially when it is shooting wide open.

BlackBerryToday: Software: Games

BlackBerryTools OTA. Browse to this with your Blackberry and it downloads over the air. See Powertoys for more information about it.

A good buddy of mine was asking about fun quick trips in China. While there are many, hat top to Duane for these two suggestions:

1. Cruise of the Li River and spending a day or two in Yangshuo, a very scenic and unique town at the end of the cruise. This would be a 4 day trip.

2. Ride the newly completed rail line to Tibet. This is the world's highest altitude train and it takes you from Beijing to Lhasa on a 50 hour journey. The rail link was just launched last week and the ride in Tibet was just spectacular. This could be a week long journey since most people can't go about their normal activities right after arriving and it takes a day or so to adjust to the high altitude (4,000 meter above sea-level). I want to do this myself.

Also folks are always asking me about hotels. I haven't been to all the hotels that Imperial Tours recommends, but they are right on Grand Hyatt Shanghai. The other recommendations look good particularly in Xian and Guilin where it is often tricky to get nice western style accommodations.

Turns out that Blackberry has done specific versions for each carrier as I noted before, but the Pinstack site was sometimes right, sometimes wrong. Google however seemed to be able to find the correct software downloads.

Just a warning, before you do a download, back everything up!

1. BlackBerry Software for Cingular All Cingular customers (including former AT&T Wireless customers) can view available BlackBerry software at this page. Download the desktop manager and the latest version of the Cingular software for your favorite device, say the 8700c.
2. BlackBerry Hong Kong CSL. These are downloads for the Chinese version of the Blackberry software download these and then install it. Good luck!
3. Pinstack has instructions for installing the Bharti 4.1 software, that should work for the Hong Kong software. Good luck. The main thing is to undelete vendor.xml from c:\program files\common files\research in motion\apploader and then install it.

I've been using Videola which has been OK and is free, but the user interface is confusing and it is easy to create invalid iPod Video formats particularly with variable bit rate encoding. It's best to stick to 640Kbps video and 128Kbps audio and you get good results.

Using Videohelp, I found DVD-Guides.com - H.264 FAQ & Basic Conversion Guide.

If you just need to do a simple conversion, I suggest SUPER, a GUI for ffmpeg and mencoder that can use x264 to create an H.264 encoded file. We show how you can do that in the guide below this FAQ. If you want to convert DVD to H.264 the best choice would be Fairuse Wizard. Other free solutions to convert DVD to H.264 are MeGUI and Gordian Knot.

SUPER seems to be the one that these guys like and it looks like it has more control for random video files or use Fairuse if you are backing up a DVD to H.264. It has an aamzing number of parameters though, so is more daunting that Videola.

Videohelp has an amazing tool that lets you put any type of format conversion to any other type and then shows you the guide that it has and the tool to use. For instance, to convert a VOB to MPG, see the search got me to this guide which tells you how to do it with a bunch of different tool with VOB2MPG listed as the easiest.

Pinstack FAQ.

Cingular customers Try the free route first. Ca