Category Archives: Hardware

Anything Electronics related.

Active Sync Woes : use a Bluetooth connection !

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I’ve had it with the irregular, unresponsive, plug-and-pray manner that Active Sync and Microsoft in general work with USB connections to PocketPC’s. Either it’s Active Sync not syncing or ‘Unknown USB device’ for my cable, it’s just gone on too long.

And I’m not the only one – I’ve read several comments over the last few days that people are getting fed up.

After all my troubles trying to get my Active Sync USB connection going again, removing and reinstalling AS and USB drivers, even going so far as to install AS beta 4.2, I still could not get a connection. So I went the other route and bought a PEABIRD bluetooth usb module.

It was actually 0.50 € cheaper in the FNAC than the D-Link BT120 module which I knew about, plus it promised EDR – Bluetooth 2.0 instead of regular 1.1 Bluetooth that D-Link offers.

After the Toshiba drivers and utilities are installed, setting up Active Sync was a snap (well, almost). I first put both devices discoverable, paired the devices (for some reason or another, the only way that pairing works well for me is when I start the pair process from the pocket pc), and then discovered the services that were offered on each and created the relevant shortcuts for them, both on the pc and on the ppc.

Once that was done, I then set up an Active Stink, sorry Sync connection choosing to use Bluetooth to sync.

To get an actual sync working, I have to do the following steps :
1. Start Bluetooth serial connection on the pc (it has attributed itself COM40 !) using the shortcut it created.
2. Start AS on my pocketpc (making sure that Bluetooth is active)
3. Click the Sync button

and voila ! Sync auto-starts and everything works just fine.

Speed of sync is fine, although I suspect that my pc is only BT1.1 capable, it still works reasonably fast. I set both Bluetooth services back to non-discoverable again, plus only paired devices can connect. This should give some security.

All in all, it slightly more work starting the Sync, but so far all my Sync attempts have worked first time. No more install and re-install hassle (let’s hope so).

Sony : Memory sticks now up to 8 GB

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The PSP fansites are abuzz with the fact that Sony has announced new memory stick produo cards with a capacity of 4 and 8 Gigabytes. I’ve seen several reactions in the bulletin boards by crazed iso collectors (aka pirates) that are just craving for these capacities to store their whole collection of games and ripped movies.

Too bad they will probably need a firmware upgrade to use the 8 GB stick, which will render their isos useless.
(Unless ofcourse, they will write their own firmware – now that I’ve read about what some of these coders are doing, I won’t underestimate them !)

And of course, for all of us : the godawful price you’ll have to pay to get one !

Firmware, PSP games & Recharging

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Firmware :
For the moment I’m staying with my psp 2.0 firmware.
The only reason to downgrade to 1.5 would seem to be the UMD loaders that allow you to play pirated games. I’m not going to go that way.
The only reason to upgrade would be the new RSS capability and some new codecs and download capability to memory stick. I’ll wait, thank you. It works fine as it is.

Games :
Meanwhile I’ve bought several games, here’s a quick overview and a personal score :

  • XMen II Apocalypse : quite a good game, sorta RPG, topdown view, lots of stuff to do (3/5)
  • Ridge Racer : I bought this second hand, as I wanted to at least own one driving game, but it’s so darn good that I keep coming back to it time and time again for a quick fix ! I understand better now how people could become slaves to racing games like this… (4/5)
  • King Kong : some white lines mar the game, and the controls are not all they could be (but you can try different layouts). I’ve only progressed a little bit, need to play some more, but so far it’s scary. (TBD)
  • Lord of the Rings Tactics : bought, but still haven’t played it. I almost regret buying this. (TBD)

I still need a good rpg : Popolocrois for psp seems to fit the bill, if it ever gets released here in Europe. Meanwhile I’ve installed a SNES emulator (via a bootloader for firmware 2.0) and ChronoTrigger. Amazing what Square could cram into 3 Mbyte !!

All these games should be more than enough to keep me occupied !

I think, once I’ve finished a few games like King Kong or Tactics, that I will sell these secondhand and pick up a new one from there. Prices for psp games are extremely expensive, they should really, really lower the price, and this is coming from a working guy, not a young guy with a chronic shortage of pocket money !

Recharging :
I am amazed : It seems as if Sony has done a major job of keeping the power consumption extremely low when you put your machine on standby. Keeping your psp on ‘standby’ (instead of really switching it off where you need to keep the off position pressed for 5 to 10 seconds) seems almost not to use any power at all. Reactivation is (almost) instantaneous.

I continue to be amazed : I thought my battery would run flat in less than a day, but I can comfortably play my game mornings or evenings in the train (both morning and evening seldom happens – when there are friends on the train they take precedence) and not even get to two bars down (ie the battery still reports as full). However, if you play an hour or 3 the battery does suddenly drop a bar down. Maybe it is the game I play : XMen does not use the UMD disc all the time, which seems to consume the most power.

Pressure… Crack !

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PSP

I have transformed my impulse buying into a higher level !

After months of not looking at it, after weeks of remarking regretfully to myself that I would have loved to have this when I was a kid, I succumbed to dreaming about it.

It took me a week of talking myself out of it multiple times (and back in again). After actually standing in the aisle with the gear in hands and then putting it back and walking away, a day later I finally cracked : I caved in, and bought a Playstation Portable (PSP). As you probably guessed from the picture with this piece.

It’s such a cool piece of kit that I could no longer resist it. Even though I have dozens of reasons why I don’t need it (for one, I’m too freakin’ old!) I said ‘Damnation to all reasons’ and bought it.

This is no longer impulse buying we’re talking about, this is crazed lemmings behaviour ! No, you don’t have to let me know what you think about that – I’ve probably already said it to myself…

I’ll post a bit more about using it (and what games I’m playing) later on, once I can spend some more time with the beast.

First impressions though :
- it looks and is extremely cool.
- you need a screen protector from day one – seriously.
- you need a good screen protector – the bad ones seriously degrade the screen quality !
- I can live with the battery charge – I don’t get to use it anyways longer than an hour or so per session… snif.
- An option to install a real hard drive in there (or otherwise : using a 4 or 8 GB memory card) will seriously let you expand your options what to do with it (play multiple games without changing discs, store more content).

Also, with regards to the last item above, Sony should be a bit more ‘open’ in letting people run unsigned code from their memory sticks : for now, if you want to run MAME, UAE or SCUMM emulators (there are dozens more) you need to have firmware 1.5, which you can only downgrade to if you have firmware 2.0 (Sony is at version 2.60 now).
Of course, it also allows you to run UMD-rips stored on your memory stick…

My psp (hmmmm ! that has a nice ring to it, my psp) has firmware 2.0. I’m still mulling about what to do : upgrading to the latest version (which more and more games require) or downgrading or just keeping it like that. I’ll probably be upgrading though, it’s not like I have time to do much more than play the occasional game on it.

Update on the minimax

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I’ve been very happy using the Iomega minimax drive, but I did not find anywhere the Dantz Retrospect backup software that was promised to come with it, as was mentioned in the Apple page (and on the Iomega page) when I ordered it. I looked on the Minimax drive itself, I double-checked the box and the included Solutions CD, but nowhere was there any trace of the software.

Since then, I’ve contacted Apple After Sales support, and I am happy to say that I have gotten a very helpful After Sales Support person by the name of Harriett. She has contacted Iomega and they will send me the Dantz software on disk.

On the (slightly) minus side, I noticed that while my Firewire connections worked, my USB connections on the Minimax were not working. I thought that there was a chip inside that rerouted the usb connections via the Firewire cable (or vice versa, depending on which connection you made).

After reading the manual a bit more (yes I know, I should read it more thoroughly), I’ve discovered that there is no technical wizardry involved in having an extra USB and Firewire hub on the minimax drive. You have to connect both a Firewire link and a USB cable for both hubs to function, which means that you gain 2 Firewire ports instead of 3. The USB uplink is provided seperately, so you gain 3 USB ports.

I’ve used them all ! USB Webcam, small USB hub, USB mouse, FW DVD drive, FW camera link, oops full already ! Luckely I’ve got enough connections for now…

Iomega Minimax 200 Gig : first looks

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2005/minimax_drive

I bit the bullet and ordered last Tuesday an Iomega minimax from the Apple Belgium store. They have a special discount running till the end of this year where you buy the 200GB for the same price (199 €) as the 160 GB.

As a strange aside, the Iomega Europe site does not sell the 200GB anymore, only the 250 GB so my guess this is one or other Apple deal with them to get rid of some overstock ?

It arrived the Friday morning, and I have since installed it after reorganising my desk. It fits very nicely under my Mac Mini and is fast enough. It connects via an ultra-short firewire cable that is delivered with it. However, the fan generates more noise (when it activates, which does not take long when you use it) than the Mac Mini itself.

At first I was going to boot from it using the firewire link between them, but I’ve come to enormously appreciate the (almost) silence from the Mac Mini, so I am going to try to keep on using the Mac Mini as initial boot drive and put all my backups and large files (like Garageband, iPhoto and iDVD projects) on the Minimax drive.

Got me a Mac Mini

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Mac Mini

I just bought myself a Mac mini (1.2 Ghz, 265Mb RAM, 40 Gig HD) for 399€ in the MediaMarkt. They have them on sale as they are clearing their old stock out. Actually I am not so sure that they are going to buy new mac’s at all.

This was going to be a headless server box, but it is sooo much snappier than my powerbook.
Well, after my do-it-your-self-upgrade to 1 Gigabyte RAM, that is (I ordered it online from www.crucial.com). Otherwise it crawls along if you open more than 2 apps, due to Apple’s decision at the time to give the minimum amount of memory OS X could run on.

I am planning on buying a 200 Gb Iomega external firewire disk ‘minimax’ to complement it and have set it up to on my KVM switch.

My Mac powerbook (G4 867Mhz, 768 MB Ram, 40 Gig) was bought almost 2,5 years ago. I use it for all my email and photo’s and homevideo factory, but it is getting a bit long in the tooth to run the latest mac applications like Garageband, iMovie and iDVD which all seem to expect gigabytes of RAM, a fast disk and at least a 1Ghz CPU. And as for games, I can forget playing those that came out the last year or so.

As an aside, the gaming scene on the mac is seriously handicapped : only the most lucrative games are ported to the Mac, and you always have to wait 3 to 6 months for them to arrive (one exception : World of Warcraft !).
So I continued playing the latest games on my pc (Half-Life 2 and recently Guild Wars) and I even upgraded my graphic card to a Radeon 9800 SE which, while not the very latest card, still allows me play all of the games I want playing. With 2 kids, I don’t exactly have lots of free time anymore…

PlayStation !

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This Sunday morning I went to a ‘brocante’, or as most people know it : a flea market. The weather was not too shabby, the sun was shining, a coldish breeze played around us as a gentle reminder that summer is over.
In short, it was one of those days where you top of your internal batteries, ready for the winter that is coming.

I did not intend to buy anything except maybe a small toy or so for Sam and/or Tom, but I stumbled over a PlayStation one game console that sold for 40 euros. It was in an original PlayStation bag, and came with everything you needed to set it up, owners manual included.

PlayStation one consoles must be on the way out, I guess. There are lots of games and consoles for sale right now… I thought, it’ll do nicely for the kids.

After some haggling, I got the whole kit for 30 euros, games included, and I probably still overpaid :-) as a bit further they were selling PSone consoles (the small kind) for 20 euros, but without any cabling or joysticks.

Tom, our eldest at almost four, had previously seen some older kids playing PlayStation 2 games, and adored just watching them play, particulary the Dinosaur game. I found that one game as well on the market, and bought it for just 5 euros. Probably about one tenth of the price it costed originally !

Back home, I showed the Dinosaur game to Tom – he was totally delighted ! He is eagerly trying to learn how to play and move the little monkey around – his favourite character at the moment. Words like ‘up’ and ‘down’ are getting to have a whole new meaning for him.

The only thing still needed was a memory card to save his progress – the only thing missing.

TomTom 5 for PDAs ?

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Where, oh where is TomTom5 for PDA’s ? It’s available for mobile phones, and was supposed to be available May 2005.

You might remember that I talked in a previous post about buying a HP iPAQ hx2410 as the first part of my mobile gps solution.

The second part would be a TomTom5 bluetooth gps solution. However, it is now the 12th of May, and there is still no TomTom5 solution available from their website.

Grumble, grumble, grumble.