September 2006 Archives

A9.com Help and Frequently Asked Questions. A9 just updated their site and they bagged their 1.5% off of Amazon purchases if you use it. Nice if they told someone, but I think that's part of the plan. People keep using it (the main reason I used it was for the Amazon rewards, I have to say the search quality wasn't that good, so no real loss there).

Now I can use Blingo and try to get rewards. Another example of how Web 1.0 companies with earnings (Amazon) are going to have time beating the marketing dollars of Web 2.0 companies like Blingo

Tom's Hardware has an amazing guide on how to crack a WEP key on a Wifi network. Kinda scary how easy it is. Everyone should move to the more advanced WPA or WPA2 if you can ASAP.

Basically, you need a laptop with a Prism2 card in it (this is a particular chipset that the cracking software needs). There is a CD you plug in that has a Linux distribution on it called Backtrack over at remote-exploit.org so it fits on a CD and comes in .iso format

YOu can either use Nero or CDBurnerXP Pro which is freeware burning software.

With the Linux tools on Backtrack, you can use Kismet which is like Netstumbler to find wifi networks and like Ethereal in that it allows you to look at the raw network traffic.

You then use the tools

• Airodump to capture the packets looking for IV or initialization vector packets
• Void11 to kick clients off the network and thus generate IVs for you (a deauth attack)
• Aireplay take the traffic that void11 generates and keep replaying it to the wifi network to generate more traffic
• aircrack to take the captured files and extract the WEP key.

Just got back from a lala.com board meeting. Boy, those guys are rocking. Here are the CDs that I have and also you can start to click on my radio station to hear more.

Click here to get any of my CDs for $1

Don't get along super well. Many of the blocking lists, block out alexa.com which makes sense as you can consider it spyware. The problem is that when you look at Alexa rankings, then the page doesn't display properly, so you should set adblock plus to not be enabled for alexa.com only.

Apple Store. Well, the screen of my iPod nano broke. It was in a case and has a protective cover. Uh oh, $189 down the drain I thought. Wandered over to the Palo Alto Apple Store. First, it is an incredible retail experience and I can't believe how crowded it was with people buy $2,000 desktops. They have an online system where you register and what order you are in. so 10 minutes later, the resident genius says, "yup, you broke it, here's a replacement. Wow! So I now have an unbroken 4GB nano and Apple didn't have to do it, but they sure earned my loyalty.

I had forgotten what buying technology should be like. I almost bought a $2700 Macbook Pro 17" notebook right there. So if you are buying an MP3 player, remember you also get this level of service with Apple, I don't expect the same with PC products. And Apple is right about controlling the retail experience, it does make a difference.

For double protection, I recommend buying your iPod at Costco, but in the first year, Apple has an amazing iron clad product guarantee. Beyond that Costco will take anything back that they sell for a replacement.

Tom's Hardware The Buffulo STation includes a 250GB upto a 750GB hard drive in it and will support any SATA drive. Compared with the Nexstar LX, it has SATA inside and gigabit ethernet connection. Performance-wise it can be very fast particularly if you have Gigabit Ethernet and set it for jumbo frames, it can get to 17MBps over the Ethernet or 14MBps without Jump frames and with 100Mbps Ethernet it is very fast at 10MBps which is pretty close to the maximum theoretical rate. Pricegrabber and PC Nation shows the prices are:

Buffalo	Seagate 7200.10 Only	Buffalo-Drive	Buffalo $/GB
250 GB	$200	$83	$117	$0.80
320 GB	$223	$102	$123	$0.70
400 GB	$396	$150	$246	$0.99
500GB	$343	$220	$123	$0.69
750GB	$642	$360	$258	$0.86

The imputed bare drives prices use Seagate 7200.10 as proxies. As you can see, the 750GB drive is way too expensive, but the 320GB and the 500GB are good deals at $123 effectively for the enclosure while the 400GB is a really bad buy as is the 250GB version.

Synology, nice but way too expensive

The Synology is nice but it is expensive at $280. Compared with the Vantec Nexstar LX, it is better because:

• It uses SATA drives and can plug in three additional USB 2.0 enclosures or an External SATA drive like the Nexstar 3 to really get a lot of storage.
• It has way more features including a Upnp media server, a mysql database and a web server with php support and a BitTorrent downloader (so the NAS does the BitTorrent download and you don't have to leave your computer on).
• It is more efficient, so it doesn't exactly blaze away compared on a disk in a computer, but on a sequential write, it is pretty good at 8MBps for read and write on 100Mbps Ethernet. On Gigabit Ethernet, it gets a real world 14MBps which isn't bad.
• Underneath it has a Freescale processor and uses Linux internally.

It is hard to get this box in the U.S., but apparently TigerDirect will be carrying it soon according to Synology and of course Newegg which has it for a whopping $230 so good things aren't free.

Many of its competitors can be gotten for $300 including a hard drive.

The concept is great, have a weenie little device with say a 750GB hard drive in it and you have a terrific always on server for your home. Well, the problem is that most of the home devices are incredibly slow. Here are the ones I looked at, the Nexstar LX seems nice because it doesn't include a drive, so you can add your own. It is also only $65 for the enclosure. Toms Networking has a big list of other devices as well and he really likes the Synology DS-106e

Nexstar LX. This is nearly the ideal device. I already use the Nexstar 3 SATA enclosure for backup and it fits a 750GB hard drive very nicely. The main issue with this one is that the performance is very, very slow over Ethernet Otherwise, it is nearly ideal, the NST 375LX supports up to 500GB IDE drives and has a smart cooling fan plus it is an FTP and an SMB file server with a Web interface from Vantec

The problem is that a USB 2.0 interface runs at 480Mbps and you get a real 25MBps or so out of a USB 2.0 drive in the read, but Ethernet 100Mbps is way slower and the protocol is much more wasteful so you normally get 3MBps or 10x slower than USB. In the real world a 5GB copy took 13 minutes with USB 2.0 and 23 minutes with Ethernet NAS but that's more a limitation of the protocol. It would be interesting to see how a Gigabit Ethernet interface would fare.

BTW, Sysopt.com found the same basic performance with a direct ATA133 IDE drive running at 39MBps so that's the real world maximum of a NAS drive, the Nexstar GX dedicated USB 2.0 enclosure running at 31MBps, the Nexstar LX over USB 2.0 at 26MBps while the Nexstar LX over Ethernet was just 2.7MBps.

One final point from virtual hideout is that this drive needs to use FAT32 to function, it doesn't support NTFS, so on a 500GB drive, you are certainly going to get big blocks and less efficient storage.

If you want more range, DD-WRT tells you that you shouldn't turn up the power because the laptops you are communicating with don't have the range. Instead, make a reflector that will direct the signal for both reception and transmission.

It is amazingly easy at freeantennas.com, print out the template, they have listed on cardboard and then then cut it out and make the little sale and glue tin foil on the back and voila you have incredible gain. I've got to try it. It works best where you want to direct the pattern in a particular direction, like across a room.

There are two models, the EZ-10 looks liek the simplest as it is just a bunch of straight pieces. It increases the gain by 11dBi which is pretty . amazing. You cut the template and fold it.

If you have DD-WRT or some other devices that need a time server to get the correct time, NTP can help. There is a list of servers that provide the exact time free for network devices.

If your device can take a DNS name, then the pool servers are great since they give you a random selection and you can be pretty sure you'll have a working server. Fill in pool.ntp.org or if you are in the US, north-america.pool.ntp.org

If you need a hard IP address, then you need to use Stratum 2 servers which are for public use. I've been using ntp1.sf-bay.org or  207.126.97.57 if you need an IP address.

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DD-WRT has a great tutorial for the somewhat tricky installation with V23 and above. You have to install the mini version first which is called mini_generic.bin then you reset and you upgrade to DD-WRT standard and again use generic.bin

You only want to use generic.bin by the way when using the web user interface which is the normal way. If you use TFTP then you have to use the specific versions.

In terms of recovery, there are two different set of instructions on the web. Linksys used to have a dedicated utility, but now you just use tftp built into Windows XP. YOu basically run the tftp command as the router is booting and it should take using the TFTP instructions on the DD-WRT wiki.

There is amazing feature list includes things like Client Mode, Afterburner that are too numerous to understand, although the HOW TO list is really useful:

* Afterburner you should only use this is you have the special client cards from Linksys that enable this kind of optimization or if you have a notebook with a Broadcom chipset. Look in the Wireless LAN Card setup and see if there is a property in Advanced Tab called Afterburner. Hyperwrt has more information on this which has lots of trade names include Afterburner, Speedbooster, SuperSpeed, 125mbps, Gplu and G+

Most of the great restaurants in Seattle are closed on Mondays, including Rover's, Union Bay Cafe, but Sostanza is open. They also use a service called Savvy Diner or low tech folks can call 206-324-9701

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It is really confusing now that there appear to be two ipods both that are 30GB, the confusing question is what's really changed. For instance Costco has a 30GB iPod, but not he 80GB iPod, so which is it. The only way to know appears to be the model number for the new one (MA444LL/A).

The specs appear to be just about identical, with 14 hour battery life for music and 2.5" screen that is supposed to be brighter. Apple advertises that they are showing 640×480 movies, but the specs say that screen is just 320×240, so I don't completely understand from the tech specs

The other model is the MA0002LLA

According to ilounge the main difference is not screen resolution but that it is brighter than before. The music playback is 14 hours as before, but video playback has doubled to 4 hours from the original 5G.

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; Giant has a superstore in Shanghai, here is what you can get there. Appears a very limited set of what they offer in the US and they don't offer their TCR carbon fiber or OCR aluminum high performance road bikes there for instance

The two to look at are the TCR 7700 Hybrid and the TCR 6900. The 7700 Hybrid has Shimano 105 parts and 700×23 wheelset.

They have a lot more mountain bikes probably because the roads are so rough in China where the ATX 870 is a hard tail that should be light enough. It even has disk wheels, runs Shimano Deore XT components.

The LAVA 680

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I've been using Topolino wheels since they first came out. They are exotic and expensive, but very lightweight and incredibly durable. I just had the hub rebuilt and I've only had to true the wheels once in 10,000 plus miles.

Now they are doing a next generation wheelset so they will get lighter and even more expensive :-)

The claimed weight is CX2.0 is 1360 grams (compared with 1475 for the aluminum rims I have). They still use their very lightweight carbon-kevlar spokes. Tjhey also now use ceramic bearings and have a lighter freehub that supports the Shimano 10-speed freehub. It will be about $1200 per wheelset available in January. Their aero profile AX3.0 is 1460 gramsand 30mm high.

If you have $2000 handy and don't mind tubulars, they have a 1125 gram tubular set as well that does have a carbon fiber rim (vs. aluminum in the CX2.0 and AX3.0).

Let the bike lust begin :-)

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. Here is the coolest headset ever. The aren't in stock yet, but folks are now adding them to their lists, it is the smallest and uses in-bone conductance. Prices range from $130-160.

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Here is where they are in Xujiahui at the Taipingyang Shopping Mall is the Apple outlet on the first floor

Macsimum News - People’s Republic of Mac; The East is Mac

The East is Mac. I’ve yet to see a place on the mainland where the Mac is more felt than in Shanghai. Apple ads take their place in electronic billboards (and by trhat I mean really recent ads as well), while there are about a dozen buildings nearby Huangpi West Road. Meanwhile, we see Apple ads and Apple authorized outlets all over the place at Xujiahui—a tech-hub of sorts. The ubiquity of Apple ads make me feel (from what I’ve seen on Flickr groups) that Shanghai is more Taipei than anything.

Allow me, therefore, to take you on a stroll—in Mac Shanghai. (Note: Two days just wasn’t enough for me—thank heavens I’ll be back in Shanghai in several weeks for another day-long visit, where I’ll explore the rest of the city.)

Hub Xujiahui

Take Shanghai subway line 1 all the way to Xujiahui. That’s it—you’ve reached one of those big Mac hubs in Shanghai. In both buildings that form Taipingyang Shopping Mall, you see an Apple outlet—smack on the first floor. The gang’s all here: Macs, iPod and so on and so forth.</blockquote

OK, so here is an interesting shootout, take the Dell XPS 410 that has the Core Duo and compare it with the Apple iMac.

The iMac is $2200, has a 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4MB cache, 1GB of 667MHz DDR2-SDRAM (PC2-5300), 250GB 7200rpm SATA Drive , nVidia GeForce 7600GT 256MB SDRAM and includes 1 year of repair and 90 days of over the phone support for $2200.

Anandtech looked at a sample Dell which was similarly configured with Dell P965 BTX motherboard, Intel Core Duo 2 E660600 (2.4GHz 4MB), 2×1GB Nanya PC-5300 5-5-5-15 Ram, GeFore 7900 GTX, 2×320GB WD 7200 RPM and a 24" Dell 2407WFP. So it is a bit higher at $2900 (vs. 2700 for a homebrew similar system). The overclock loving XPS 700 costs about $400 more and the assembly and Dell name costs about $200 more than a home built system.

The net conclusion is the 2407WFP is an amazing monitor for any system. At $800 street, its a great buy if you want really great video quality. They do say that it is a decent machine and that you should get the $50 upgrade to the #6400 and that you can safely get the nVidia 7900 GS without losing much gaming performance, so if you are stuck on a decent performaning machine it isn't a bad choice. The net price would be $2300 where the big differences are a 2×250GB, 2GB of DDR 667, ATI RAdeon X1300 Pro 256MB (if you are a gamer a 7900GS is $150 more). So it ends up being about the same price as the Apple when you consider upgrades.

However its interesting to see how close the Apple iMac is actually in terms of pricing and performance. Makes it a winner from the POV of ease of use, etc if you want something really plug and play.

We'll, our primary 75GB drive looks like its failing, I took a new 750GB (!!) drive and made a 700GB data and 50GB system area, but in order to install Windows XP on the 50GB section, I need to make it recognizable. Apparently, only certain types of partitions can be used for Windows XP. Here's how to convert a dynamic partition back into a Basic disk. Basic are those partitions used in previous Windows before Windows 2000. Dynamic was introduced to allow you to do RAID dynamically. Basically, for most users, you should never need to go to dynamic disk although it lets you change the size of a partition and the space doesn't have to be contiguous and you can RAID striped for more performance.

How To Convert to Basic and Dynamic Disks in Windows XP Professional

How to Convert a Dynamic Disk to a Basic Disk To change a dynamic disk back to a basic disk. You basically have to backup and format it again.

1. Back up all the data on all the volumes on the disk you want to convert to a basic disk.
2. Log on as Administrator or as a member of the Administrators group.
3. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
4. Click Performance and Maintenance, click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Computer Management.
5. In the left pane, click Disk Management.
6. Right-click a volume on the dynamic disk that you want to change to a basic disk, and then click Delete Volume
7. Click Yes when you are prompted to delete the volume.
8. Repeat steps 4 and 5 for each volume on the dynamic disk.
9. After you have deleted all the volumes on the dynamic disk, right-click the dynamic disk that you want to change to a basic disk, and then click Convert to Basic Disk.

Beware of theses guys at Mobile sidewalk a buddy of mine, Brian, told me about them, I browsed their site and then they asked me for my mobile number. Little did I realize that they would start charging me $10/month via T-mobile for a service I never used.

Amazing that folks can get away with this kind of stuff since it is at the bottom of a bill that you'd never notice. T-mobile is super (unlike Cingular, arrgh, those guys are just terrible, I'm still fighting over bills for the last three months) in blocking them, so if you head to this site, don't give them anything!

Ilounge covers iPod backup and copying utilities. It recommends the $15 PodPlus or the 10 pound Podutil.

With the new iPod 5.5G out, time once again to look at the best accessories for home where you need some sort of dock to listen to music and in the car where you need a way to plug your iPod in. Here again from ilounge are the recommendations which basically says the Athena iVoice is best for large setups, the Altec Lansing inMotion iM7 is the best boom box size and the Logic3 i-Station7 is the best super portable for being on the road. If you are looking for truly stationary speakers than the Harmon Kardon Sounds stick II sound good and look great at $170 to get although for best value, the $70 JBL Creature II's are really hard to beat.

For in the car performance, not much has changed, the Ten Technology Flexible Dock ($50 from the apple.com site) is the best holder and the Sony SCA-9 Cassette Adapter can be had from Buy.com for $9.

Athena Technologies iVoice Wall Mountable Speaker

Though there’s no question in our minds that the best all-in-one iPod speaker for the dollar is Altec Lansing’s inMotion iM7 (iLounge rating: A-) $200 street, sales of Bose’s SoundDock have eclipsed the iM7’s by a wide margin, owing equally to Bose’s marketing strength, the SoundDock’s simple design, and its good-enough-for-most-listeners sound quality. What Athena has done with iVoice is to quite nearly replicate the SoundDock’s sound signature, feature set, and simplicity at a $100 lower price point, adding a few bonuses in the process.

nIf you don't need a full blown system, then the Logic3 Station 7 docking station is a good choice for a portable system at $100.

PC Magazine has a slightly different view of the world judging by the Editors Choice winners and they appear to do more technical testing, here are their favorites:

• "Think Outside BoomTube H2O1 review by PC Magazine Think Outside BoomTube H201 looks like the Apple Hifi, but according to PC Magazine, this $150 portable sounds much better. It is round and has dual subwoofers (if you can call 2.2 inch drivers subwoofers).
• Apple iPod Hi-Fi. Super expensive at $350 so way too much for me.
• Saitek A-250. Super alien design. $130 direct, it sounds OK, with a 3" subwoofer underneath and it connects wirelessly with a proprietary 2.4GHz connection. Not much bass though.
• Klipsch Pro Media Ultra 2.0. Klipsch is a great brand name and it sounds good, but without a subwoofer, its a bit thin at the low end.

Mystery chips, no PortalPlayer inside new iPod nano

the new second-generation iPod nano has three Apple-marked chips of unknown origin and no chip from PortalPlayer. According to a Wedbush Morgan Securities report, one of the Apple-marked chips is a Samsung ARM processor, occupying the socket formerly supplied by PortalPlayer. Earlier this year, PortalPlayer warned that Apple would not use its chips in the next nano, followed by reports that Samsung had won an Apple contract to supply chips for new iPods.

Wolfson and Philips chips are also not apparent, but are believed to be the other two Apple-branded components. The report also noted that Cypress Semiconductor, Linear Technology, National Semiconductor, and Silicon Storage Tech maintained their sockets in the new nano. Wedbush said Apple purposely “concealed the identity of its chips and their suppliers” with the new nano models.

The Wedbush report also said that Apple is likely to generate higher gross profit margins from the new nano line this holiday season. Craig Berger of Wedbush Morgan Securities estimated that Apple’s gross margins could be as high as 50% on the new nanos due to the falling price of NAND flash. </blockquote

Lu Bo Lang Restaurant (绿波廊酒楼) lu4 bo1 lang2 jiu3 lou2 or literally green wave porch) was one of first restaurant we ever visited in Shanghai. It is right next to the famous Yu Gardens and has been host to lots of Presidents most recently Clinton. There is a huge picture there. They are famous for their typical Shanghai cuisine （上海菜） including xiao long bao 小龙包 which you need a tutorial to eat without burning yourself that is essentially to nibble from the bottom to get the great soup. Don't just gulp it down!

They also have a version of Shanghai dian xin 上海点心 which is quite tasty. It is a wonderfully touristy location with lots of westerners and a Starbucks right outside and lots of bargaining for counterfeit trading cards, etc.

It is so hard to tell with Dell's what you are really getting because there are really very few reviews and they are outdated as the hardware changes, still for about $1600 you can get a really amazing machine in china from Dell.

Dell Dimension 9200 Product Details

Here's an analysis of what you get based on reviews on the web:

• Dell UltraSharp 2007WFP. This unit has been controversial as the initial ones had terrible banding problems (blocky colors), seems to be fixed now. If you really want a great monitor though I'd pop for the $800 Dell 2405WFP, this is a remarkable 24" diagonal and you'll use it long after the cpu and everything else is obsolete.
• nVidia 7900 GS. This is a cost reduced 7900GT and for $200 or so is a great deal.
• They are running a constant promotion that takes about $100 off if you get a 20" or bigger monitor or 2GB or more of memory and at least an E6300 (1.8GHz processor). The text is deceiving as it implies you get it only if you go from 19" to 20", but I tried the configurator and the discounts take hold for any higher model like the 24"
• Intel Core Duo 2 6400. This is the 2.13GHz processor but it only has 2MB of cache. Benchmarks show it doesn't make much difference but i fyou can afford to wait, the E6700 has 4MB of cache and is slightly faster. OTOH, if you dare, you can overclock the Dell.I wouldn't recommend that as I bet the memory is slow.
• Memory. This is generic 2GB memory, main issue is the motherboard uses the older 965 chipset, so it is slower while the newer 975 is 1033Ghz so will give you about 5% more. Again if you can wait, get the newer model which is already in America.

As an aside, a unit you can't get in china is the XPS 700 line of gaming machines, the review shows it is pretty good except the memory is very slow and hurts performance.

I tried to upgrade to the latest driver on the Sony site for my VGN-TX140P and there is now something wrong, the Intel Pro Wireless application doesn't come up and I now will get blue screen of death with a W22n51.sys stop message.

Upgrading to the Intel generic driver doesn't help. The version is 10.5. I'll try to downgrade to what the factory install was (thank you Sony recovery and then see if I can't debug).

IBM Personal computing support - XP Crash: System may hang or restart with a previous version of the Intel PRO 2200BG Mini PCI adapter wireless software - w22n51.sys may cause Stop Error Message - ThinkPad R50/p, R50e, R51, T40/p, T41/p, T42/p, X31, X40

W22N51.SYS may cause a Stop Error Message or Windows may stop responding with an error message on a blue screen or the system may restart just after the error message.</blockquote

With Intels Core Duo 2 out and the 975P chipset, its way out in front in terms of performance. However, AMD has just dropped all their processor prices, so if you don't overclock, at the budget level, get an Athlon X2 3800+ over a E6300 1.83GHz

However, if you go up even a little bit, then the E6400 2.16GHz is a great buy. When overclocked, it is litterally a tremendous performer, so its the dream processor.

Finally, if you don't overclock and want very good performance, then the E6700 is the ticket. It has a 2.4GHz and 4MB cache and also runs faster. Unfortunately, right now in China, you can't get the E6700 nor the new 975P chipset with the faster 1066MHz RAM, so if you live in the US, get an overclocking board, if you live in China, then wait for Dell to trickle down their E6700/975P computers.

AnandTech: Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 & E6400: Tremendous Value Through Overclocking

The E6400 finds itself in between the X2 4200+ and X2 4600+ in price, but in performance the E6400 generally lands in between the 4600+ and 5000+. Once again, with these 2MB parts the performance advantage isn't nearly as impressive as with the 4MB parts (partly due to the fact that their native clock speed is lower, in addition to the smaller L2 cache), but even with AMD's new price cuts the Core 2 is still very competitive at worst. If you're not opposed to overclocking, then the E6400 can offer you more than you can get from any currently shipping AMD CPU - our chip managed an effortless 2.88GHz overclock which gave us $1000 CPU performance for $224

OK, here's the definitive set of tools that I use to make sure a wifi network is working:

• Advanced LAN Scanner. This is super useful for figuring out what devices and computers are actually on a network. When you get to a new network run it and it will tell you what's running and what they are.
• Wardriving. This is a great site for all the tools you need to find open access points around town. That's called wardriving.
• Wardriving downloads. They host a great list of all the tools that you can have
• Netstumbler. This tool now works with Prism2 (what Intel uses), if you put it into NDIS mode and then you can see all the APs that are around
• Aircrack This tool sniffs and cracks WEPand WPA keys if you forget them.

Here are some device specific things:

• WAP54G. This is a definitive guide to the various hacks around the web for this access point. Of main note are the hacks that let you turn up the power from 20mW to 100mW to get more range.The builde at hyperwap is based on the latest 3.04 firmware and is very nice.

The Intel Core Duo 2 finally appears in the chinese market as the Dimension 9200. They have a great "promotion": right now where if you pay an extra 4000 RMB ($500), you get 2GB of memory and a 20" monitor. Given that they make them in China, not a bad price and they deliver too!

Totally outfitted, it is 11,000 RMB or $1375 including 2GB of memory, 320GB hard drive and 20" monitor. Not bad!

The Mercury News notes Apple announced a refresh of their iPods for the fall selling season and unexpectedly, demonstrated their upcoming set top box code named iTV which looked really cool. Here is what you can now get, in rough order of importance:

• Downloadable movies. They are going to do full length movies now for $15, so about the price of a DVD, no word yet on how the copy protection will work.
• Search. They (finally) put search into the user interface as I'm tired of scrolling through 6000 songs to find the right one
• iPod. They went to 80GB in their high end model, but more importantly improved the battery (20 hours and 6j.5 hours of video instead of 2 hours) , the screen thats 2.5" (vs. 2") and 640×480 in resolution (vs. 320×240) and 60% brighter. So really making it a good video player more than anything, so if you are a video guy, then you need one, but not revolutionary.
• iPod nano. They brought back the cool iPod mini colors and are now using aluminum again, so all the good things the mini used to have. They also extended to 8GB. Net, net, not really worth upgrading, but nice for new ones.
• iPod shuffle. They totally changed the form factor to the size of a match book and dropped the 1GB price to $79. This is a great product for kids and other folks who don't need a lot of music. Get a bunch for christmas.

OK, here are the tidbits that I gathered froma quick read of the planning guide and also there are some SBS enthusiasts like SBS Rocks and the very useful "Documentation by Task':http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/sbs/techinfo/productdoc/topic.mspx for SBS

• After you install SBS, you can not change the DNS name of the domain, the Netbios name or the computer name of your server without reinstalling!! So choose wisely at the beginning.
• There are magic web addresses, so that you should be able to configure clients by going to http://ServerName/connectcomputer as a URL. You login as an admin on the client computer and you can do a setup.

In older windows NT and 2000, there was something called WINS that mapped the names that Windows likes to use (Netbios names) with names that the worldwide web likes to use (DNS names). with SBS 2003, it acts like a DNS Server, so when you register a machine to it as a Active Directory node (the old Domain controller), this registers the computer and its Netbios name. SBS then takes this and maps it to a DNS name. The names used are all of the form computername.local This does mane that the SBS server should be the first DNS server in the list for your router. That's the mistake we made, we pointed all the addresses at the external internet so SBS could never resolve it.

are here the next generation RAZR is now available from OEM sites. They are expensive at $400 or so, but they are
coming. They are basically slightly slimmer and smaller, but the main technical features are a 2 megapixel camera, EDGE for faster data services, a MicroSD memory card so you can listen to music as well as AAC+ support, stereo bluetooth.

To buy one, see Mpire

We got one of these for our office and it is just enough different that it is a little confusing to me. I kind of lost track of how Windows and Exchange worked with Windows NT and Exchange 4.0, so I date myself. Fortunately, Microsoft has Technet which has lots of free information about it including how to plan and deploy it and there is the less useful marketing that tell me there is something obscurely named 2003 R2 coming out.

Our current configuration doesn't seem to work well, our client machines aren't in a domain and you can't find things via Netbios names, so on to figuring out what is wrong.

Concierge is the Conde Nast Traveler web site. Aside from T8, they have some other great recommendations including 3 on the Bund. I've been there and while the food was very good, the main thing was the amazing view of the Bund.

Other ones that I need to check out are Creek Kitchen which is the reasonably priced fifth floor restaurant at this warehouse district hip hangout and Lan Na Thai wchih has great thai food (yum!)

T8 is in the Economists list and the Conde Naste Travelers list of the best 50 restaurants in the entire world! John and I went there for dinner and I have to agree. You have to try the bar and also the upstairs area which feels like someone house. The set house menu was excellent and it is really amazing Pan-Asian/Mediterranean, whatever that means. What it means to me is incredibly freshly cooked food that seems Chinese sometimes, but other times, the foie gras is just so amazing. The flavors work well together and wine list superb.

Get there if you have the chance. It is in the really cool Xintiandi neighborhood, so leave time to stroll around afterwards. Also it is part of a hotel operation that also looks amazing.

T8
No. 8 Xintiandi North Part
Lane 181 Tai Cang Road
Shanghai
太仓路181号，新天地北里8号楼
Tel: 21 6355 8999
Fax: 21 6311 4999
t8@ghmhotels.com
www.ghmhotels.com

Wow, I flew ANA business class from Shanghai to Tokyo, it sure is luxurious. The seats are nice and firm. (I sure wish United would upgrade theirs) and they reline to just about flat, but 130 degrees down, so not quite flat. Also they have those cool movie on demand systems that Cathay also has. Best thing about them though is that you can use standard 120V power plugs to make your laptop sing.

I have to say their first class looks amazing with new 777s that go from Narita to New York, Los Angeles and Washington DC non-stop. They include 15" color screens, lay flat beds too. Cool! Too bad you have to fly so far to get stuff like this :-(

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Talk about an insidious threat, Media Motor hijacks web addresses like alexa.com by installing as a domain thingy in the registry. It is very hard to find. Ad Aware didn't find it, Spybot doesn't find it. Only Yahoo's toolbar (which is Webroot) found it.

The behavious is strange, it gives you pages that sort of look like Alexa, but which have their advertising on it. As Panda Software explains, it is downloaded with various freeware silently.

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When you are a support guy trying to figure out an unfamiliar LAN that the last guy didn't document, hyou need some sniffing tools to figure out what is going on:

Here are some from What is the best LAN sniffer? and they recommend:

• Ettercap is a network sniffer and there is a windows binary The install fails though looking for a DLL.
• Cain and Abel This is a network password recovery tool that you can downloadat oxid.it.
• Ethereal. I've used this before, it is a packet sniffer

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Linksysinfo seems to be the place where all the various firmware projects are discussed.

I've used DD-WRT and it worked OK, but when I upgraded our WRT54G to HyperWRT Beta 21, it completely bricked it, so beware.
Other projects I haven't tried include Svearsoft, EWRT, HyperWAP. Also there is the MustDie Firmware for WAP54Gs.

Another thing is that Linksysinfo has a post for a fix for v3 WAP54 that lets you set the power up to 100dbm so past the FCC limit, but you get more power. Of course you also need more power at your clients too.

We have a bunch of these APs

Linksys.com – Support/Technical Support/Downloads

WAP54G - Wireless-G Access Point

. One thing is the use of hyperwap on it to give it more features. This is a version of Hyperwap based on the 3.04 firmware that is the latest from linksys.

Apparently the DD-WRT firmware works with both the wap54g and the wrt54g . Who knew?

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Think Secret is the top site according to google for Mac rumors. There are a bunch of things happening:

• This tuesday, we should see the 2nd generation nano and a wide screen iPod coming out. Wahoo!
• 24 inch iMac In case you missed it a 24" iMac is now available for about $2K. Its a dream machine with a beautiful screen and a 2.16GHz Intel Core Duo 2 so it should be fast too! Mac Rumors already has a review and a bnechmark of it courtesy of Macworld. These show the new Core Duo 2 machines are about 10-20% faster.

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T-Mobile BlackBerry® Pearl™ phone details from T-Mobile

Exclusively from T-Mobile, the new BlackBerry® Pearl™ 8100™ makes staying connected via e-mail to friends, family and life as easy as calling. You can combine up to 10 personal and work addresses and have them automatically delivered – right to the palm of your hand. The BlackBerry Pearl is a full-featured quad-band world phone, with 1.3 megapixel camera, real Web browser, Bluetooth® 2.0 connectivity, and a media player with extra storage

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Connie has exactly this problem right now. In reading this long thread, it looks like the keys are somehow out of sync. Folks have tried installing a new version of the desktop manager, deleting all the service books and reregistering and sometimes that fixes it. Others have just tried regenerating these keys. So, I guess I'll try that.

unable to reply to redirected message - BlackBerryForums.com : Your Number One BlackBerry Community

The mails come to me fine. However, I am unable to reply through my bb. When I reply, initially the message appears to be transmitted fine, but shortly, it returns with a Message Status of "Transaction error-decryption error."