August 2006 Archives

OK, now that we've got our network basically working, we've run DSL Reports to figure out that we do have the speed, but it still doesn't seem very responsive. There are also various attacks by different folks, so we need some sort of el cheapo monitoring software. There are quite a few of these utilities that you could try:

As an example, Link Logger is a tool that isn't expensive, but does require that you burn a third party firmware load onto your Linksys BEFSR41 that we have for instance has mulitple hardware versions so you ahve to be careful.

There is also a whole market in firmware hacks for the very popular WRT54G line that include such tools as "HyperWRT":, DD-WRT and SveaSoft. There is also lots of information on Linksysinfo.org is a great resource to understand all of this. The main lesson though is that if you are buying a new one, you want a Linksys WRT54G V4 or lower. The V5 and later are cost reduced and have less memory!!!

Let's review each

Sveasoft

Sveasoft is a good example, they add lots of features but have a $20/month subscription fee to keep the software alive. What are some of the new "features". BTW we can thank Linksys for using an open source Linux and distributing the firmware. These companies are added features because of that. Makes the WRT54G a pretty good line to buy into.

The most interesting thing is that apparently, the earlier models, WRT54G V1-4 were better because the new ones V5 and on actually have less RAM and ROM and switched operating environments, so if you can get the V4, they are probably the best for hacking around.

• Separate SSIDs per box with unique encryption rules for each SSID so you can on one box host both inside the firewall employees and outside the firewall visiters
• About a zillion repeater, bridge and routing modes that you normally only get with the dedicate WAP54G access point. These are now available on the WRT54G
• Lots of file wall improvements including blocking of bad adware sites
• Boosting the power of the system to 251 milliwatts to increase range, the addition of "Afterburner" support to increase speeds

DD-WRT

DD-WRT is an open source project based on Sveasoft so it is free and has a very active forum with lots of the various flavors of the Linksys and other related hardware all based on the Broadcom chipset. Features from their wiki include:

AP Client Mode is the most important for providing more coverage where on WRT54G reaches out only so far, so at the edge, you put another WRT54G to extend the coverage. As an aside, the AP Client Bridge Mode only allows a single ethernet device behind the bridge, so you need to use WDS if you want mulitples. Also there are lots of posts about whether this is implemented properly, so probably not a good candidate.

The main thing it doesn't do is multiple SSIDs on the one box. There is a pre-alpha V0.24 that does that

HyperWRT

HyperWRT is another option. The main page says it won't work on anything new that V3 hardware. So it is a good candidate for Qiming which has three V3 routers, but not for John who has a pair of V4's. But there is a forum that describes how to load it on a WRT54G/GS V4. Confused yet? Also interesteing to see that there is a feature called Speedbooster which are basically hacks to the Wifi protocols that are firmware based, so save yourself some money if you are geek and buy a WRT54G and use this hack to save the $20 extra it costs for a WRT54GS. Specifically its features are:

• Adjustable power and ability to get up to 13 wireless channels. Apparently on the WRT54G by default, it is at 100Mw, the maximum according to the 802.11 specification, but you can artificially boost it to 200Mw with a firmware change
• AP+WDS. This is the mode that we really need, it merges the AP mode and WDS mode together so you can connect together multiple WRT54G servicing wired and wireless clients. (so it is too bad it doesn't work with John's hardware).
• The main complexity is that for WRT54G routers, you have to upgrade them with Linksys firmware to WRT54GS and from there go to HyperWRT.

Hat tip to the genius to figure this out at Hyperwrt named Danielhaden, you basically load DD-WRT to get the V4 in the right state of mind as a V4 GS then from there you can use HyperWRT's GS version. That is because the WRT54G HyperWRT only works for V1-3 of that that hardware. Confused yet:

1. Used the Linksys CD that came with the router to set it up initially and make sure the thing worked out of the box." It is always wise to check out a brand-new product before modifying it. wink
2. After confirming the router worked, I went to 192.168.1.1 and reset the factory defaults. Did I need to? Probably not, but I wanted to start clean with no funny business. . ." This is a very important part of the official directions for DD-WRT mini generic that is used in the next step. Setting factory defaults before loading firmware reduces risk.
3. Navigated to the 'Upgrade Firmware' section of the Linksys interface and browsed for the dd-wrt mini generic (121005 release, v23) I downloaded from DD-WRT. Note that there is no specific download for mini generic. It is in the 121005-2.dd-wrt.v23.mini_beta1.zip archive and you will see it after unpacking the archive." This information may have changed, but others have had success with the final version of DD-WRT mini generic V23.
4. Clicked the 'upgrade' button. danielhaden suggested that due to the v4's alleged stubborn nature, it is a good idea to wait five minutes and walk away. So I did. I even set a timer. However, the upgrade was successful in about one minute with no hang or apparent problems. I waited five minutes anyway. Hey, why not?" Also a vital part of the DD-WRT directions is that you wait 5 minutes after loading. This is specific to DD-WRT.
5. I clicked the 'continue' button on the page that said the upgrade was successful and verified that dd-wrt was indeed running.
6. Then I navigated to the "Upgrade Firmware" section of dd-wrt's interface and browsed for Thibor's HyperWRT 201105 .bin file I had already downloaded from Hyperwrt and held my breath as I continued." See the FAQ on where to get the latest HyperWRT.
7. I set my timer for five minutes, just to keep me honest. And again, I didn't need it- after approximately one minute, I saw the page that said the upgrade was successful...and again, I waited the five minutes anyway. I wasn't in a big hurry." It wasn't necessary to wait 5 minutes after loading HyperWRT. The router was ready to use as soon as HyperWRT appeared. Still, not a bad idea. wink
8. After my (probably unnecessary) five minutes, I continued from the upgrade successful page and found that HyperWRT was running. I had a momentary bout of panic as the interface looks very similar to the stock Linksys interface. Uh oh. Then I saw the Thibor HyperWRT firmware description up in the right corner. Whew." HyperWRT adds many features onto the original Linksys sources, and it is made from the latest Linksys code for the latest in fixes and security. That is why it looks similar.
9. I then performed a hard reset on the router. Unplugged, pressed the reset button- one one thousand, two one thousand...thirty one thousand- then plugged it back in for ten more seconds with the reset button still pressed. One one thousand, two one thousand...."
10. After the reset, I went to 192.168.1.1 in my browser and HyperWRT was still there. Yay. I navigated to the startup script page and entered "erase nvram; reboot" into the. . ." run command section of the administration page. At first, it is difficult to figure out where to type, but the single line is where you type, not the big box.
11. At this time, it is recommended that you set your router to factory defaults. It will restart. Now, set an administration (admin) password, and then login with username admin and your new password. Until you save an admin password, many of your changes will not save.
12. Success! Thibor's HyperWRT made the 54G appear as a 54GS. Neat. I don't know if it's faster or better since this is my first wireless router, but it was fun to stick it to The Man (?) and turn it into the more expensive model."

Fix your Intel Drivers they have security holes!

As another aside, it turns out the 2200BG Intel driver we have has all kinds of security issues, so if you have downloaded as of August 9, 2006, you should download the new Intel drivers at http://support.intel.com/support/wireless/wlan/sb/cs-010623.htm

We have three Linksys WAP54G and the documentation is just abysmal when it comes to figuring out how to set things up. We don't want anything fancy, we have three APs all with hard wired LAN connections that then go to a simple Linksys router. So why is it so hard to figure out from the web how to wire this up? Well, after an hour of searching, here are the answers for what the the four modes that a Linksys has actually mean which are:

• Access Point. This is the normal mode where you have a wired connection (usual several) and then a wifi connect. One of the connection usually goes to a separate router somewhere and then to the Internet. You can think of the WAP54G in this mode as a 4-port hub with a wifi hub connected to it that shares 54Mbps.
• AP Client. This mode is pretty useless in that what it means is that you bridge together two WAP54Gs, but the one that is the client can't have any PCs connect to it, only the hardwired PCs work You wold never need this mode for a normal office, so I'm not quite sure why it is the second thing there.
• Wireless Repeater. In this mode, one AP runs in normal AP mode, while the other is a wireless repeater, it just repeats everything it hears and thus you can extend your network. The big tradeoff is that it halves your bandwidth since half the bandwidth is used to the send and the other to recieve.
• Wireless Bridge. IN this mode you have you put the router on oned side and then set the a pair of WAP54G into bridge mode. It is also called "point-to-point" bridging which is a little clearer. This basically connects two wired Ethernets together

Tom's Hardware has the only decent tutorial. The Linksys manual is useless. Some other notes from this are that it requires that

We finally ended up just making them all just standard APs since we have Ethernet access wired for each. There is no use to have a wireless repeater bridge or whatever AP client mode is.

The big change we made was to change all the access point to use channels 1, 6 and 11, so we have minimum interference. Netstumbler is a good tool for doing this. Another issue is that someho we are still getting lots of port accesses from random sites through our router. Not cleR WHY THIS is happening as the Linksys BEFSX41 router doesn't seem to have any logging tools that are any good. My D-link had DMon but there is nothing for this from linksys.

Well, the printer market has gotten simpler in the last year. Now the main thing, if you want a printer for digital photos is that you can either pick an all-in-one that gives excellent print quality or you can get a high end dedicated printer. Here are the two choices from PC Magazine that make the most sense to me:

All in One

It use to be there was a big tradeoff in quality if you got an all-in-one that included scanning and printer, but the Canon Pixma MP800R seems just about perfect. It doesn't include a fax module, but does allow you to network it with Ethernet or 802.11 which is great. Print quality is excellent and it lets you scan as well.

Pricegrabber has it for $370 street.

Professional Printer

I have a Canon i9900, but just this year, Epson one upped this high end category with the Epson Stylus Photo R2400. It uses no less than 10 different color inks and the quality is amazing. It is $800 street, but worth it if you have a DSLR and want to print gigantic (19"×44") posters or want something indistinguishable from professional.

Pricegrabber has it for $750 street.

Most folks only seem to have the very rudiments of a protection on their PC. At most you might have the anti-virus software your OEM put on your computer. Duane reminded me it is hard to figure out what you need in today's world. Here is what I put on every PC that I own. These are all free utilities, but they are quite good:

• Antivir. This is free for personal use and gets updated regularly. It seems to work decently as an anti-virus package.
• Zone Alarm. Thi s is a free firewall that I like to use instead of the Windows XP firewall. It is more complicated to setup but tells you when you are being attacked. Many times, it is more valuable to know you are under attack so you can figure out why. For instance, we were using PPStream here and it turns out it automatically uses uPNP to open ports in our firewall, but never closes them down. So we could go in and do it manually. It is complicated to figure out though if you change networks alot because it will block DNS requests and other things that are benign, but if you ever to go a Wifi hotspot, you absolutely have to have this.
• Spybot. This is a free utility that blows out spyware and malware. It is free and you just have to make sure you also go into options and turn on TeaTimer so that you are protected all the time against registry changes and also from spyware 24-7.
• Final thing is to turn on Cookie acceptance in IE or Firefox. YOu really need in this day and age check out everything that is laying down a cookie on your machine.

Then there are utilities that you can add that help get more spyware out. That seems to be the least mature in terms of full protection. Here are the ones I use supplementarily when I have time:

• Yahoo Toolbar. Normally toolbars are terrible spyware themselves, but in this case, Yahoo bundles a very nice antispyware package in their IE toolbar. I think it is webroot who makes it. Finds somethings spybot doesn't
• Adaware. I don't use this as much since spybot seems to get rid of most of the bad stuff.

When we are working on companies, it is often times useful to see what's related to what, here are the tools that I use:

• Google Sets. This lets you type in a bunch of related ideas and see from the web, what else is related, so if you type in Microsoft, Ignition and Oracle, the related terms include Oracle, IBM, Novell, Intel, Cisco, Netscape in that order.
• Alexaholic. Once you have the related companies, its easy to see where they are ranking if they are consumer sites.

: http://www.notebookreview.com Well, John's Sony VAIO is having a screen problem and he's worried about reliability. Personally I just love the T-Series VAIOs and have been using them for the last three years. Before that I was a Sony Portege man. For me, having something very small at 3 pounds (三磅 san bang4 or 1.4 kilograms, 一点四公斤 yidian gongjin) is just a requirement and this is still the only laptop that does this with a DVD player, bright screen and long battery life. The only thing I now regret is no webcam on it.

Hold off for the Core 2 Duo

In any case, here's a review of the so called thin-and-light notebooks, I personally wouldn't buy a notebook until the Core 2 Duo ships. It is about 2x faster in raw processing speed and with two cores is way more responsive. It should ship in quantity in October-November and PC Magazine has a good overview of some of the machines. This chip is just so much faster than the current Core Duo. Still if your laptop breaks and you have to have one today here are the recommendations. You can see the latest announced Core 2 Duo processor here with the most interesting one being the upcoming Macbook Pro which folks believe will ship with Core Duo 2 and accelerate graphics.

These are generally about five pounds or less. I personally only get a notebook with the Core Duo processor if you don't mind being bigger or the Pentium M ULV for the really small notebooks like the Sony T-Series and you should remember to include the charger in the total weight, what matters is traveling weight. To me a five pound notebook feels really heay while a 3.5 pounds is amazingly light. As an aside, this list only include Intel Core Duo machines (or Pentium M if weight less than 4.5 pounds) and there's a bias towards dedicated graphics with an eye towards Windows Vista which requires graphics acceleration. Here are top sites from light and light notebook review

Notebook Review

Notebook review has a great list of constantly updating Core 2 Duo (aka Merom) notebooks. Here's a quick review of the ones that are now available with an emphasis on finding a lighter one in order of what I'd expect to be good ones based on past experience based on PC Magazine as well which reports that these new Core 2 Duo are mainly faster for media applications like Photoshop and games of course.

1. Apple Macbook Pro 15.4 . This one isn't announced yet, but personally I'd really think about waiting for it. Rumored spec are that it will be 2GHz Core Duo, 512MB (you can upgrade the memory separately since Apple memory is so expensive), 80GB, 4x DVD burner, ATI X1600 grpahics card for $2000. Also it has a webcam and it can of course run both Windows and the MacOSx
2. Dell XPS M1210". As a the biggest PC vendor, they have a huge lead in the number of Core 2 Duo producs with the high end XPS flipping in particular the is very small while if you really want to splurge they have a 20" (!!!) notebook as well. These models are scheduled to ship in mid September right now. You can get it with a webcam, T7200 2GHz processor, 1GB DDR2-667 memory, 120GB hard disk, 8x DL DVD burner, nVidia Go 7400 graphics for a pretty amazing $1900. There isn't anywhere on the site I could find what it weighs though. In China you can order this direct from Dell buit they don't ship the M1210 with Core 2 Duo so beware. There is also a consumer version of this called the Precision M65 with T5600 1.83GHz processor, 15.4 Wide WUXGA panel, 1GB memory, 80GB, 8x DVD burner for $2K mainly because it has a nicer 15" screen. As an amazing aside, you can get a 24" widescreen monitor now for just $880 from Dell.
3. Dell XPS M1710 won the PC Magazine Editors Choice and although expensive at $2900 for the tested configuration (2.16Ghz, 2GB memory, 8.8 lbs, 17", 7900GTX graphics, 100GB disk, DVD DL burner, 802.11 pre-n

Cnet

The did a shootout and the most interesting thing is that as of last year, the Sharp M4000 won with 7.2/10 while the old Apple Powerbook G4 came in at 7.1. I've never owned Sharp, but this has a nice widescreen 13.3" screen, 3.7 pounds (4.3 pounds with charger). It streets for about $1600. It has a DVD drive in it, 5+ hour battery life and 1.7GHz Pentium M its perfectly good for the business guy.

About

They just did a review in May of the same category, but without any rigorous testing, this is more like a quick overview of what one person likes. I don't know if I'd buy an HP, but the ever so strangely named dv5190us has the perfect feature set with a very fast Core Duo T2400 (1.83GHz) processor, 1GB DDR2 PC2-5400 ram, 100GB 5400 rpm hard drive, 8x DVD DL Lightscribe burner, 15.4 widescreen LCD, dedicated nVidia GeFore 7400 graphics. The main tradeoff is that it weighs in at 6.5 pounds, but it is a very complete multimedia system. The other machine they like i the Toshiba Satellite M105-S3004 with similar spec having a 1.66GHz processor, 1GB PC2-4000 memory, 100GB hard drive, 8x DVD DL, 14" widescreen but it is lighter at 5.4 pounds and doesn't have high speed graphics you would need for games. I haven't ever owned a Dell and would worry about reliability but the Inspiron E1405 has a nice feature set with a 1.66GHz Core Duo, 1GB PC2-4200 memory, 100GB drive, 8x DVD DL burner, 14.1" wide screen at 5.4 pounds with the main tradeoff being the lack of dedicated graphics, so it won't look so great with Windows Vista.

Notebookreview.com

It had to happen eventually but there is finally a review site dedicated to just notebook PCs. The other two reviewers above have high page rank, but they aren't specialized (read better) information sites so these are more detailed:

Toshiba Satellite U200 is a consumer oriented notebook with all the features (4.1 pounds, 1.66 GHz T2300E Core Duo, 1GB DDR2@533MHz, 100GB hard drive, DVD DL burner, 12.1 wide screen, bluetooth) Performance wise, its about the middle of the pack of Core Duo machines. It has a 4.5 hour battery life and Bluetooth is nice for those of us who Skype alot. Main drawback is lack of accelerated graphics, but that' smainluy a furutre issue.

Since I've been traveling, I've been way off of my goal of logging onto 10 Web 2.0 sites a day. Sorry! but here are the latest:

This looks like a delicious clone, but it has been getting impressive increase in traffic according to Alexa and is now 4000 after just a year. Seems related to Furl, Simppy, Spurl.net, Netvives and Jots according to Alexa. I found it because it is the number hit on google:"RSS Bittorrent" search

It reminds me quite a bit of Furl which is owned by Looksmart. That thing is even more successful at Alexa. It is quite a bit older, but has really moved in the last 18 months.

This is right next to the Jinmao and I'd agree, it is a great place for a fancy lunch. The dim sum is very good and they have a very open feeling. By foreign standards it isn't too expensive and the decor is very, very nice.

Paradise Garden is located on the 6th (top) floor of the J-Life Building, which is an annex to the Jinmao Tower. This is a Dim Sum place There are private rooms for group dining, and tables in the open atrium area for groups of 1-6 people. The food is of very good quality and they have a good selection. When I go with my colleagues for lunch we usually pay between RMB60-90 per head

I someday wish that someone would solve this, but fresh on leaving work, I got to spend an evening fixing another network here in China. This time I had a good education in Chinese user interfaces and thanks to dltool, it was easy to figure out the interface and learn some Chinese words for things like subnet mask:

• TP-Link . This is the largest networking vendor in China and they have their own firmware. This is an 8-port router and wired hub. They have a good English download tool. Basically, the main fix was to turn on uPNP support so programs could automatically open ports

• Linksys. We got a set of Chinese Linksys WRT54G routers to use as access points. These are strange babies as they have all English packaging, instructions and setup wizard, but the actual firmware is in Chinese. Pretty wierd. I basically had to turn off the router functionality to use them as just APs. Another oddity is that there are no less than six versions of this box, we got V4.0 which you can only tell by flipping the box over and reading the exact Model Number
  * Since I've used this router before, I was really tempted to download the latest firmware
  

Also is hard to find, but the default user name and password for the TP-Link is admin for both.

Well, the network at Qiming doesn't seem to work that well, we have a low end all Linksys system with two access points and a LAN router, so how to diagnose it. Tech-faq.com has a very good list of tools and at the top is my old favorite Netstumbler this tool only works with Prism cards, but fortunately, the Intel chipset in my VAIO is compatible. So now I can look at the Signal to noise ratio and see what channels the APs are on.

With wireless, you have to be careful about channels because you don't want things to interfere. In fact over here, we had a 2.4GHz phone right next to the router, you never want to do that as it will interfere with the signal. As About.com says, the so called 11 channels are actually overlapping, so if you have any choice, the default is typicall channel 6 (the middle channel), so if you have two access points, use channel 1 and 11 (these are the only ones that don't overlap). Here is the scheme:

Only 1, use channel 6, the default
If you have two, then use channels 1 and 11 to maximize the difference
If you have three, then use channels 1, 6 and 11 and try to keep the 1 and 11 APs far apart.

This category has been pretty stagnent for a year now. The 802.11n standard is not yet out and it won't get ratified until March 2007. So we are right now at 802.11g with some improvements that are mainly about tweaking TCP/IP and other parameters. There are some nonstandard protocols as well, but these require special PC Cards in laptops. For instance, we have a D-Link DI-624 that needs a special card to bond channels. PC Magazine did a review last year and interestingly, they thought Linksys was the winner across all three categories although the differences were truly minor

* Vanilla 802.11g. Linksys WRT54G has been the model name they've used for ever.
* 802.11g with some tweaks. As usual, the model is very obscure, you have to look for that ending S, so you want the  WRT54GS and PC Magazine. The piece claims that performance improves even with standard 802.11g in notebooks. I'm guessing, this is the high volume and has the best prices, others, I'd just get the vanilla WRT54G.
* 802.11 pre-n. These use MIMO for better performance, buy they are completely non standard, so until this stuff goes into vanilla

Cowboy Frank". Here are his current best products:

* "Logitech Quickcam Fusion": $99 list. His choice for the best overall camera. This uses USB 2.0 and has a 1.3 megapixel imager.
* "Logitech Quickcam for NOtebooks Pro. $99 list. His choice for best notebook. It is very compact with just a 640×480 imager, so its stills aren't as clear as the fusion, but it is smaller. It is also very compact but did note it does get hot, so if you are completely portable it might run down the battery

Cnet also has a set of reviews of their typical (e.g., mediocre) quality. Here are the ones that they liked which interestly matches what cowboy frank thinks:

I bought both the Quickcam Fusion and the Notebook Fusion. They are expensive, but they work great. The microphone on them is very good and the picture quality quite good. Skype has very jerky images, but that's to be expected for a free service. I wouldn't use for business, but for personal use it is great.

• Logitech QuickCam Fusion; 7.6/10. $80 street. It has a really neat look to it and it can fit on top of any LCD or laptop but they did find it kind of unstable. As with most of these products, it can do 1.3 megapixel stills but video is always 640×480×30 frames per second. It has a built in microphone too. Pricegrabber has it for $76. Newegg has it right now with a $20 mail in rebate so it is $55!
  * "Logitech QuickCam for NOtebooks Deluxe": . 7.3/10. It only works really on laptop or very think LCD monitors. Its built in mike works up to three feet away and works pretty well. Pricegrabber also has this for $75.
• Creative Live Cam Voice. 7.2/10 stars. This thing is kind of huge, but it has nice auido features. The thing is really quite big but it has this Webcam center software and has a 1.3 mp imager. The big feature is a built-in Mike that can record normal conversation 20 feet away so it is really good for teleconferences as a result. Street is $90.
  * Logitech QuickCam Pro 5000 7.0/10 which is clunkier looking than the QuickCam Fusion and has lower resolution. Main thing is that it is cheap at a $80 list, $50 street

Eagle Creek 0-50 Transformer. Steps down foreign voltage (220-240V) to a North American (110/125V) current for use with electronic appliances such as; shavers, battery chargers, curling irons, and other 110V electric appliances between 0-50 watts.

Since BSplayer went adware, I've been looking for a good free decoder, Inmatrix makes the Zoom player which is free and seems to work very well. The best thing is that they are very clear on what decoders you need to play specific formats. Super useful since there are so many incompatible codecs.

I've also tried vlc which seems to be able to play many things that others can't, but I don't like the user interface as much as Zoom.

Well since I'm learning Chinese in earnest here are the tools that I use. All are free and publically available and here's the order:

If I see a Chinese word or sentence and don't know the translation:

1. Google Translate. First I use the Google translator to see if I can generally see what it means
2. Mandarin Tools WordDict. They have a bunch of applications, but the one I use are the WordDict which takes Chinese and puts it into its parts with pinyin and english meanings. This uses the open source CEDict dictionary
3. Mandarin Tools Add Pinyin takes a web page and adds pinyin next to it. Pretty useful if you want to read a Sina.com page. Use Google to translate to English and this tool to translate into pinyin and you should be able to read it.
4. CEDict. There are a bunch of projects that use the same dictionary, so for instance from a phone, you can use it via MobileCEDict which you can access from WAP enabled phones by typing in http://ktmatu.com/chinese/mobilecedict/search.php or http://ktmatu.com/go/?mc if you like to type less.
5. DLTool is a nice standalone Windows tool. You just look at a page and what every you copy to the clipboard, DLTool will translate.

Well it sure is a beauty the Jin Mao Tower (金茂大厦 or literally jin1 mao4 da4 sha4 or golden thick big tower) is surely one of the most amazing buildings in Pudong. It is going to get dwarfed pretty quickly with several new towers coming up, but it was the first all Chinese building and proud of it.

It has a Grand Hyatt which is reportedly the highest hotel in the world. (上海金茂君悅大酒店 jun1 yue4 is the name for a hyatt or literally pleased ruler)

It also has a great and very lucky address:

浦东 世纪大道 88号 金茂大厦 Jin Mao Tower, 88 Century Avenue, Pudong

City Shop This is a super highend grocer in Shanghai. It is super expensive and convenient. The one we visited was right next to the 滨江店 (Binjiangdian) Riverside Shop right in the Citigroup Tower . The prices there are really amazing and it is probably best for produce. The signs say that they are doing mainly organic, although the individual labels don't make that clear. For sundries, going to Metro probably makes more sense.

They have quite a few convenient locations in Shanghai with one on Riverside the only one on the Pudong side at:
1F,West Side Citigroup Tower
33, Hua Yuan Shiqiao Rd (花园石桥路) or literally Flower Garden Rock Bridge Road) Lu Jia Zui,Pu Dong

Or reverse in the usual Chinese way as:

浦东 陆家嘴 花园石桥路 33号（富城路）

No I don't mean the subway in Shanghai, I mean Metro Cash & Carry (麦德龙, mai4 de2 long3 or literally wheat virtuous dragon), the multinational chain has really a tremendously great shop in Pudong. They are a warehouse store with literally all the goods. You do need to have a Chinese work permit to be able to shop there, but for instance, while a tube of Crest was $3 at the City Store, you could get three tubes for the same price there. What a deal. They were the first group to open in China and have stores in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan and Beijing":http://en.ce.cn/Business/Enterprise/picnews/200607/31/t20060731_7953398.shtml (this last one opened just this July).

TThe official name by the way is METRO Jingjiang Cash & Carry Co. Ltd according to chinahr and the flagship store is very close to the Maglev station in Pudong (中文).

1425, Zhenbei lu (真北路, literally true north road) Road, Putuo Qu (普陀区 literally Wide Steep bank District), Shanghai 200333, P.R.C Tel: +86 21-62658888

in Chinese address form, which is backwards from the US (you start city, then district, then road, then number): 上海市 普陀区 真北路 1425号,200333

There isn't a central directory for Haagen Daaz outlets at least that I could find in Shanghai via google:"Haagen Daaz Shanghai"

We visited the Haagen Daaz on the Riverside Promenade (滨江大道 binjiang da dao) right in front to the Shangri-la Hotel (香格里拉大酒店). The view is spectacular there and I have to say that it is the first ice cream store I've ever seen with three plasma monitors above it. And the $5 Haagen Daaz bar sure is good in all the heat of Shanghai in August.

As an aside, does anyone know what the Chinese translation of Haagen Daaz actually is, I couldn't find it on Google.

There are three Paulaner(Binjiang) restaurants in Shanghai alone and they all look like Bavarian beer gardens although maybe a little hotter in the summer ;-) The one we've been to twice is located on the Riverside Promenade in Pudong which is right next to the river and has a great view. They do brew it hear apparently and beer is good, although the night we went, it was just jammed with lots of folks and there was a Phillipino band playing country western in a german beer garden. Think about it.

Lunch this time had a good sausage plate with pretty authentic sauerkraut as well. Pretty filling, but if you are trying to do something different not a bad choice. It is very near the Shangri-la Hotel (香格里拉大酒店, xiang1 ge2 li3 la1 dajiudian). Mondays feature 50% off of food and beverage between 1600 and 1900 hours.

The address is Riverside Promenade, ( 滨江大道, literally riverbank big street) Binjiang Da Dao and phone number is +86 21 6888 3935

The Kitchen Salvatore Cuomo is a little hard to find since it doesn't have a Chinese name and no one around there seems to know where it is. If you ask for 厨房 (chu fan) in Chinese, then people just look at you. It is in Lujiazui (陆家嘴, literally land house mouth) near the Oriental Pearl Tower on the Pudong (浦东) or east side of Shanghai.

Salvatore Como has made a really amazingly good new Italian restaurant right on the river on the Pudong side of town. The views are terrific and it has a great open kitchen and Enzo who runs the kitchen is fresh from the Grand Hyatt Shanghai and is doing an amazing job. The veal the night we were there was terrific and the Tortelli (gigantic tortellini) was really fine. They have a very good selection of wines as well and we had a terrific and not that expensive Chilean red that was just great. The appetizers were really good. I don't know what it is about me, but I kind of like the appetizers (mezzo plates) better sometimes than the main meal and these were really good. Imported and hard to get Italian cold cuts and such and really great cheese as well.

Give it a try but make sure to call first and I'm sure you'll be calling trying to get directions too ;-)

Address:
2967 Bin Jiang Da Dao

Phone:
+86 21 5054 1265

Now that I'm there so much, figuring out the right way to call is pretty hard. The dial around services like Globalphone let you use just about any phone and the rates are about $0.59 to the US from China and $0.12 to China from the US. These work pretty well on a temporary basis.

Then there is Vonage at $20/month which works over the Internet.

I've been trying Skype though, it is free PC to PC of course, but the most attractive thing is that it is 1.5 cents (wow) from the US to China or vice versa and you can buy in $10 increments, so the effective cost is way less than Vonage. Also, you can get SkypeIn which gives you a real US phone number for $38 a year ($3.50 a month) which is incredibly cheap. Call quality isn't bad.

To make it work more like a regular phone, there are three alternatives:

• Handset to PC. For $40, you can get a handset that plugs into the USB port of your PC. So you need a laptop or something on all the time and you are set. Froogle literally has a sea of these USB handsets.
• Bluetooth. If you have a laptop with Bluetooth, then you can use your existing laptop and a bluetooth headset. The drawback is that you have to dial from you PC. On the other hand, it means you can use Outlook for all your dialing which is great and you can look at any web page and dial from there, so there are real advantages if you are a geek.
• Wifi Handset These are the most expensive options, but they look like mobile phones, but actually use Wifi. The major benefit is that you don't need a PC at all. Belkin makes a similar model that is $180, still you will break even pretty quickly if you use it a bit since a cordless phone costs $80 anyway. All of these are preshipment. Amazon says the Netgear phone won't ship until October 2006 and the Belkin in September.

Final interesting factoid for $6 you can buy from Telovoce a piece of software that runs on a US based PC. This would relay calls from say China into the US. Since US calling is now free for Skype, you could call from China to the US for free as long as your US desktop PC was up and running. Amazing what people will do to save 1.5 cents per minute :-)

o get the Jabra JX10 into pairing mode, there is a tiny button on the back of the headset. Initiating pairing mode on the Jabra JX10 was easy enough.

This thing doesn't work like any other bluetooth headset I've had. Normally you hold the ON button to get it pair, but with this thing, there is a micro button. You turn it on and then hit the button and the headset goes solid blue.

120W AC/DC Notebook Power Adapter We currently use the igo power70 for on the road and it is one pound plus with all the accessories. This Kensington is just 6 ounces and has 20 watts of power, the Kensington Notebook AC/DC Power Adapter uses patented technology to deliver all the power you need in a size that is 40% smaller and lighter than other power supplies.

Looks like a real winner and pricegrabber say Amazon has it for just $91. Main problem is that it doesn't have a tip for the Sony VAIO T-series, so won't work for us.

: http://shanghaibyc.org Shanghai Boat and Yacht Club had to happen. Some fun things going on and there if finally a sailing club here. It is at Dian Shan Lake and for instance this Sunday they have a Round the Lake Pursuit

They are based at the Shanghai Water Sports Center. Form March to November the Club has a bus that leaves at 10AM and returns at 5PM downtown. This is 50km from downtown and 30 minutes from Hongqiao so it is a little bit of a ways.

Connie says I shouldn't but just for information, there are organized mountain bike rides by Bohdi. For instance tomorrow there is a ride that leaves Bohdi at 11AM by van to Dianshan Lake where there is some on and off road biking for 2-3 hours and then you return by 7PM. Seem slike a long way to go (3 hours there and back for 3 hours of riding, but its China). Fee is reasonable at RMB 150 (US$20) per person and there are rental bikes.

They also carry some pretty mean looking Bohdi bikes for $1,000 US and up.

It's never clear in China where you'll get Wifi access, but the Air China Club in the domestic terminal has free Wifi access. They also have about a dozen network taps but about half seem to be broken all the time. Also the airport has real time arrival information which is pretty valuable if you live in China.

Read a good piece about identity theft. One thing they mention is pulling your credit reports every year which is a pain. Annualcreditreport.com seems to do this and makes it easy.

Well, it is almost impossible to discover, but Blackberry has for its latest models running Blackberry OS 4.1 a very cool site that free games, ringtones and other such stuff. It called mobile.blackberry.com and for some reason is buried in the help menu. The best way is to type it into your blackberry browser and then bookmark it.

When you fly enough, you'll see everything, in my case, this was some strange odor on a flight yesterday that caused the plane to return. All the smoke detectors went off over the Olympic Peninsula, so it wasn't super fun to have to divert. The flight left this morning, so hopefully it will be trouble free :_)

The United incident involved Flight 875, which left for Narita Airport at 1:42 p.m. Tuesday afternoon with 252 passengers and 14 crew members.
Airline spokeswoman Megan McCarthy says it turned around a short time later and landed safely at about 2:30 p.m., as emergency crews stood by.

McCarthy says one flight attendant was checked by paramedics for some respiratory discomfort, but there were no other reports of injuries. The source of the odor is not immediately known.

The plane was taken out of service, and passengers were to be put on a replacement plane for the flight Wednesday morning</blockquote

A great marketing blog. This rates various marketing campaigns in a simple format. Great idea. And it includes a reader vs. their rating. Great idea.

Google Analytics. Bob says that this is without a doubt one of the coolest applications he has ever used. You basically put a tiny piece of javascript onto every page and you can see what the world sees.

Google Analytics tells you everything you want to know about how your visitors found you and how they interact with your site. You'll be able to focus your marketing resources on campaigns and initiatives that deliver ROI, and improve your site to convert more visitors.

"Matt" reminded me that you have to be pretty smart these days about photography. He sells his photos online and says you have to have a nice portfolio and then can get on stock photo sites. A good dream. Also reminded me that Glasers is a great place to rent and try lenses.

Final great tip is that if you are Canon guy, they have a regular rebate program for the Spring and the Fall and you should time your purchases accordingly. When are these, well, Canon-USA : Rebate Inquiry gives you a good sense for the last two years and there is also a good listing to get a sense of what they discount typically.

Spring 2006. 04-01-2006 to 07-15-2006
Fall 2005. 10-15-2005 to 01-15-2006
Spring 2005. 04-15-2005 to 07-15-2005
Fall 2004. 10-15-2004 to 01-31-2005

So with this, I think you can pretty much guess that the next time to buy a lense or something if you want to see a rebate is going to be mid October 2006. Set your meeting minder :-)

Wang just sent me a great set of tips on wide angle lenses and his recommendation. If you recall from
Tong Family Blog: Bob on Canon Lenses Bob talked about getting the Sigma 12-24 for wide angle work if you can find a good sample. Or the Canon 16-35L potentially.

Wang's comment is mainly that with the 1.5x lense factor, the EFS 10-22MM makes more sense for the Digital Rebel, while the 16-35 lense is really best for the full frame 5D. Great points, Wang! Also good point that quality L lenses comes with way more size and weight, there is no such thing as a free lense (lunch :-)

Hi Rich,

I just read your blog http://www.tongfamily.com/bob_on_canon_lenses.php and would like to make a comment but found that registration is required. So I wrote this email and hope you get ideal lenses soon.

Have you considered the combination of EFS 10-22 mm for the Digital Rebel, and 16-35 for 5D? Although Sigma 12-24 could fit for both bodies, someone comments that images are not so sharp even at its best aperture 5.6-11 range. I believe getting both lenses will meet your goal for different circumstances.

In film era I’ve heard that Sigma lenses occasionally have problems on Canon bodies. Canon L lenses offer better image quality but the more weight and bulk in size decreased your fun of taking photos without being noticed :D

Here’s a review for the sigma lens in Chinese at dpgallery

Hat tip to Cable & Tweed here is Sports Illustrated vote for the 10 best sport songs of all time. And they had some strange criteria where they excluded "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" but they included Glory Days, which I don't think of a sports song, but I love the boss :-)

10. Stephen Foster - "My Old Kentucky Home" (1953)
09. Alan Courtney and Ben Homer - "Joltin' Joe Dimaggio" (1941)
08. Bruce Springsteen - "Glory Days" (1984)
07. John Fogerty - "Centerfield" (1985)
06. Leo Arnaud - "Bugler's Dream" (aka "Olympic Fanfare") (1958)
05. Joe Raposo - "Winners" (1973)
04. Bill Conti - "Gonna Fly Now" (Rocky theme) (1976)
03. Freeman "Brother Bones" Davis - "Sweet Georgia Brown" (1925)
02. Lavallee/Routhier (French), Weir (English) - "Oh, Canada" (1880/1908)
01. Freddie Mercury - "We Are the Champions" (1977)

What a cool craft. The story according to Skyscrapercity.com is even more interesting, instead of building a road through a wildlife preserve, about 200 people got congres to give them a $8.8M hovercraft. Wahoo. Tax dollars at work. I want one. hattip to Bob who has by the way been revamping Bob's Planet with the new Serendipity blog software that is pretty cool.

The gremlins ate our CMOS and also the boot hard disk of Connie's computer this morning and now we get the dreaded DISK BOOT FAILURE: INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER. It is an incredibly obscure error which no site seems to document properly. In my case, what happened was that I had put a 750GB dynamic drive as the first drive in the system and CMOS defaulted to looking at that drive as the first one since it forgot everything. Then when it tried to boot, there wasn't anything there. So the fix is to always make sure with Windows machines that the boot drive is the default first drive in the BIOS!!!!

The same thing is true is you make the default first drive in the BIOS a dynamic partition, then Windows XP CD won't install, it needs a readable (that is primary partition) in the first slot. I have another machine where that isn't the case, so the order you put the drives in makes a difference and it is very hard to figure out

On the other hard, I learned a good lesson in how to try to recover that I'll blog in case you ever have a real hard drive problem:

What this means is that the system attempted to find a drive to boot the operating system but couldn't find anything to load. There is something wrong with the partition map that doesn't mark it as bootable. While hardware disk failure is one case, the one above is another that I would be is more common than you would think because the error message is so obscure.

Making recovery backups

I swear I did nothing to it. Nonetheless, this is a great lesson in not having the various boot recovery disks that you should have taped to every computer and also to the fact that all my machines lack a real floppy which most of these things need to boot. Here is what I did. Note to the wise:

* The message is the dreaded, "Disk Boot Failure Insert System Disk" which from google reveals that it is most like a Master Boot Record failure. This is a vital piece of information at the start that tells Windows where it needs to go to start
* First off, try to run the a Windows CD. If you have just this configuration problem, then when you get to the setup, you have to select "R" for Recovery console. This is a low level environment where you can fix things.

Saving and recovering your Administrator Account password.

Now, you need to know the password for the Administrator account. In Windows XP, you can't and shouldn't ever login, so goodness knows what the password is. Some more groveling with Google reveals, an amazing page by Daniel Petri. I want to marry the guy, it is so amazing a resource. Basically, it gives you fifty ways to crack the Administrator account password.

The one I used is the amazing, Petter Nordahl-Hagen Offline NT Password & Registry Editor which is a CD or floppy image that you can boot to get directly edit the SAM or the Security Access Module and delete passwords. This is way better than starting all over.

As an aside, to prevent this annoying password, check, you have to make sure all your PCs are set to automatically allow the Recovery Console to login and make sure you store the Administrator password somewhere safe at Control Panel/Switch to Classic View/Administrative Tools/Local Security