CALLUMHAYWOOD.com Blog

No, I didn’t think so. Well, not if you know about computers.

Firstly, their adverts. “It has a 4GB memory” – which is incorrect. It should simply be “It has 4GB of memory” because memory is a measurement, not a plain object. Then, the annoying “My world is…” theme that revolves around their current marketing efforts. Its simply so annoying. I’m writing this at 30th of December 2009, in two days VAT will increase in the UK, and all the adverts are shouting “My world is beating the VAT increase”; by saving a small amount of money on an already overpriced laptop? Hmm. Not for me, thanks.

Secondly, their staff. I was looking at the Macs, and someone came up and asked whether I needed any help, this is good, shows that they care… but it doesn’t last long, after politely explaining that I already have one, they asked “do you like it?”, and I agreed, of course I do, best laptop I’ve got, and they simply said “Oh right”, blankly, and walked off. Moving on, I heard some poor person being told by a salesman “I actually have this machine at home”, for goodness sakes, we all know that is something sales people just say. Of course, maybe he did, but I think judging by the amount of, overpriced, machines in their stores, he probably didn’t. Call me assumptious but thats how I am. I’m sure if you’re like me, you are pretty knowledgeable with the whole computer thing, you’d agree.

Thirdly, their extended warranties. When I went down to our local store to purchase my Macbook last month, I was forced to take out an extended warranty. First month was free. All seemed okay, I was planning on cancelling a few days before the next month as to not be billed for it. However, they managed to bill me for the second month before the first month was up. My mum was not too happy, she phoned them up and in the end we cancelled and got a cheque for the amount they’d taken out. All ended okay, but it was the hassle we went through. Unacceptable.

Fourthly, their laptop chargers. I’m talking specifically about DSGi’s own brand of machines, Advent. They seem to be made out incredibly cheap plastic and the joints that connect the adapter that goes in the laptop to the wire seem extremely weak. I know countless people who have had this problem, and the charger rendered useless. Thing is, PC World seem to know about this, and price their ‘universal’ chargers above the £50 barrier, sometimes even £60, and in some cases, £70. Totally unacceptable, when you can get a just as good one online for maybe £10 to £20, excluding postage (not usually much however).

All in all, as far as retailers go, they are avoidable as per my suggestions. You can probably tell this has been quite a rant. PC World; thanks, but no thanks.

It was my birthday yesterday, I’m now 16 years old. It’s been a funny old year being 15. Enough reflecting – as per usual, my main present was technology related, and you’ve guessed it, I got an Apple Macbook!

It is my first Mac and I’m still getting used to it – but wow! It’s amazing! It is one of the white Macbooks, with 2GB RAM, 256MB nVidia Graphics, Intel Core 2 Duo, 160GB HDD and a 13″ 1280×800 screen.

Next I just need to get a Mini-DVI to VGA adapter to connect it up to my projector. Not being much of a Safari fan, I installed the latest Firefox. Its very nice indeed. Once I get my mobile broadband working with it, it’ll be amazing.

If you are an Orange HTC Touch Diamond user who has tried to update the ROM, you’ll know how annoying it is when you enter your serial number onto the HTC website and it complains that its not suitable.

If you have a HTC Touch Diamond that isn’t Orange branded, this post doesn’t affect you. You should be able to download the ROM from the HTC website or contact your vendor.

However, you can download a ROM directly from Orange. The URL is http://www.orange.co.uk/diamond/RUU_Diamond_HTC_WWE_1.93.405.1_Radio_Signed_Diamond_52.29.25.12_1.00.25.05_Ship.exe

This worked perfectly for me, however I recommend if you want to keep your contacts and text messages, you can back them up to your ‘Internal Storage’ using a program called PIM Backup here.  This too worked flawlessly for me, now TouchFlo 3D is much much more faster, and the phone feels generally all-round snappier when it comes to both 3D and normal performance.

Further information can be found on this XDA-developers thread.

A while back myself and Mark decided we were going to write a review of the recently released Windows 7 RC combining our knowledge of computers and expertise in different areas of the operating system into one well-written, screenshotted, detailed write-up.

Naturally we were too busy to completely finish it, what with not being able to work on it simultaneously, but we are proud to release the “partial” edition of two teenager’s opinions on Microsoft’s new product!

You can find the article on Mark’s blog, the post is http://compact-mac.co.uk/2009/08/03/windows-7-review/

If you’ve been in the UK this past week or so, you’ll know how hot its been. In certain areas a heatwave has actually been declared. Being British, this isn’t good. We just can’t handle such heat. Or cold, for that matter. Being British means moaning about the weather, and that we’ll do, whilst drinking tea in the boiling hot sun. Or any weather, for that matter.

On Sunday it was just too warm to sleep – and I had school the next day. The servers obviously didn’t help, so in the 3 years of having servers, I actually had to shut them down (may I add; at 1.20AM), for several reasons. Number one; overheating. That would have been catastrophic however slightly unlikely. Number two; they throw heat out. Which isn’t what I want. Number three; the auxiliary fan on server2 is too noisy. When it kicks in, everyone knows (to be fair, as a computer, its really quiet, but you know, being British, I have to moan about it), so that was highly annoying. Number four; hourly backups. Hmm, strange one this one. Well no, its just the fact the ~4GB backup that takes place every hour and takes just under half an hour to complete causes 3 hard drives to spin continuously for that duration. When you’re trying to get to sleep, that doesn’t help.

I can’t cope well with the heat. Sun is good, but the heat gets unbearable. [/British rant]

On Wednesday I got myself a PlayStation 3, with Little Big Planet and GTA IV. First of all, it is fully amazing on my DLP projector, and I’m still waiting for my HDMI to DVI cable to arrive, so thats with composite. Naturally I logged into the PSN after having an account for some time for my PSP, and added all my gaming friends. Due to my fast connection, I’ve not yet experienced any lagging, so thats good. I don’t yet have a headset (and don’t intend to get one either) because I have configured my Logitech EyeToy (for PS2) so that its microphone works as if a headset would, and yeilds very good results indeed – and because it’s also a camera, I can make video calls via PSN too. Moving on, I have installed TVersity on server2 that has my NAS disk #2 installed (as well disk #1) so thats where I save all of my media, like downloaded films, TV shows and music albums. TVersity then allows me to watch them on my PlayStation 3 whenever I like, because my servers are always turned on. Windows Media Player also works, however that isn’t ideal as a dedicated media server application.

So yeah, the PS3 is the games console for me. Oh and if your going to comment, please remember… EVERYONE HAS THEIR OWN OPINIONS SO YOU SHOULD RESPECT THAT JUST LIKE I DO! Yeah, no fanboyism; YouTube comments are for that.

This post renders the one below out of date, and in effect, a rubbish method to go about turning your projector setup into an interactive whiteboard.

My new setup uses… the Wii remote (which is Wiimote if your not in Europe)! So here’s how it works, the Wii remote is next to my projector, and is connected to a computer via bluetooth (if you want to connect yours, enable bluetooth on your computer, press the red button on the back of the Wii remote, and search for devices on your computer – the Toshiba bluetooth stack seems to work well for me). I then run software called Smoothboard (www.smoothboard.net) that turns the Wii’s IR camera into a HID (human interface device). This then means that I can use my IR pen (from www.irpens.co.uk) to control my computer – and can I just say this creates an AMAZING interactive whiteboard experience. Once it’s all connected, I do a 4 point touch calibration to map the corners of the screen to the IR camera so it can respond correctly to wherever I place my pen. It’s just as good as most commercial ones, and costs a LOT LESS. It’s also surfaceless in the sense that I can take my netbook, projector, and Wii remote anywhere with me and set up an interactive whiteboard – at home now it projects simply onto a wall.

The software Smoothboard is good. So is Johnny Lee’s Wiimote application, the original developer of the Wiimote project. However both of these lack any drawing programs – and Microsoft Paint fails for this type of task. Never the less I did write my own program, which is extremely basic at the moment, so its not worth publicizing, however I might in the future. I called it WiiDrawPC. A program you might like to try is Linktivity Presenter which is also good, as it lets you annotate your screen. Ideally I’d like a free suite of software similar to Promethean’s ActivStudio, which we use on the majority of whiteboards at school, but thats only for their hardware.

Overall I have an extremely functional interactive whiteboard. One small problem; the board is too big for me – I’m about an average height for a 15 year old, but I have to stand on a chair to 1) complete the 4 point touch calibration and 2) interact any higher than half way up the screen, lol.

UPDATE: Here’s the video I said I’d do.

There are loads more on YouTube, including a number of insanely crappy setups whereby they use a monitor instead of a projector, which = fail, however enjoy my real setup!

If you’re in high school education, there’s a good chance that your school uses ‘interactive whiteboards’, the surface that the computer image is projected onto then you can use a pen to play word matching up games or draw pictures, in effect control the computer.

Considering I have a projector, I have always been fond of this idea, however I don’t have the money to install a proper interactive whiteboard, and even if I did save up it’d be a bit pointless, it’d be for show more than actual use, once the ‘coolness‘ had worn off. This led me on to think “can I have an interactive whiteboard without the surface?”, of course I did some research, and came across eBeam Projection – which, yeah, it looks cool, but it’s also expensive. I then thought “can I make my own interactive whiteboard?”…

The answer is, yes I can! (and of course I have). I’m writing this less than 24 hours into the project, so at the moment my interactive board isn’t as good as one of the commercial ones. Nevertheless, it works! Let me explain how it works; my Optoma EP721 DLP projector has a Logitech EyeToy webcam next to it, these are both connected to a computer. I then have a program that detects light objects and can manipulate the location of these into mouse movements, therefore allowing me to shine a laser beam at the board and that be reflected in the movement of the mouse pointer. I can also use a torch as a pen against the wall to move the mouse. Two issues I have with this; number one is that the webcam is too far back and picks up more than just the projected image (and I can’t move it forward because it’ll interfere with the projected image and theres nowhere to mount it) rendering it out of calibration, a theoretical workaround for this is to have a piece of software to zoom in so it picks up only the projected image then relay the zoomed image to the light detection application – I say theoretical because it didn’t work when I tried it, which leads me on to the next issue. It only works on black, in respect to the first issue, it thinks the mouse pointer is a light object and creates a movement loop only ending up in the mouse ending in a corner. Any other colour, such as the desktop, also doesn’t work because the program cannot distinguish between the desktop image and the laser dot or torch light – so because of this I’ve wrote two programs (sorry, I’m not releasing them), one called “The Green Dot” (see video below) and another called “Flipchart”, the former basically being a dot that moves around the screen controlled by the mouse and the latter a simple drawing program, but you don’t have to click to draw, so you just point the laser at the board and it draws, but of course as I mentioned calibration needs some work so its not excellent.

Here’s a video I uploaded to YouTube demonstrating “The Green Dot”.

That’s all for now!

Just recently, well mainly in the mid part of 2008, netbook computing became really popular. So I decided to get one after having my eye on them for a while. Since its my 6th computer I didn’t want to spend too much, but thats okay because they’re considerably cheap anyway.

My machine is an Advent 4213. The specs are 1GB RAM, 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, 160GB HDD running Windows XP. I have quite a few programs on here (I say here because I’m writing this entry on it) such as Firefox, Office 07, Windows Live Messenger, Adobe Photoshop 7, Avast, Google Earth, Zattoo, Skype, YouCam and more. I have installed San Andreas and SA:MP but its a nightmare to get going. GTA VC refuses to even start even after installing. I have tested this machine running Ubuntu 8.10 booted from my 16GB USB drive, which works very well too. I paid extra for Windows so do not plan on removing it (and putting Windows back on seems impossible without an external DVD drive, so far I’ve coped with mounting ISOs over my network). The webcam, bluetooth and wireless are all very good and I’m adjusting to the keyboard well.

One of the biggest advantages about this machine is that it has a built in SIM card holder, this means that you can connect to the internet via 3G without having to use a dongle. I’m on Orange with my HTC Touch Diamond however chose to test it out with an old Virgin Mobile SIM I have lying around from my old phone. The supplied software detected it and correctly identified it as T-Mobile UK and connected me to their network. If I had credit I could actually hit ‘Connect’ and browse the web. Thats not all the software is useful for either, you can send and recieve SMS messages with it! That’s cool, text messaging on my laptop!

Next up, battery life. I’ve managed to get about 3hrs 10mins out of the battery, which compaired to my 30mins on my now 4 year old full-size Fujitsu Siemens laptop is pretty good. When I got it, I was too excited to wait till I got home so I opened it up there and then in the car and was pleasantly suprised to find Advent had charged the battery fully! That was kind of them.

Overall it’s an insanely good machine, I didn’t pay an awful lot for it either to be fair,  for how fast it is and its built in features (especially SIM card holder, a huge bonus) and generally good looking casing, I’d highly recommend the Advent 4213.

UPDATE:

Here’s a picture of two Advent 4213 netbooks. Mine is the one on the left, the one on the right is a friend’s who went out and brought the same one after she used mine. I’m installing some software on it, hence the USB drives.

Oddly titled post, displays! I’m posting about some recent displays I’ve got, by that I mean VDUs (visual display units) as in computer screens…

Anyway, I recently got an Optoma EP721 DLP projector. One word; WOW! I’ve always liked the idea of projectors, and now having one, well it’s amazing! DVDs, browsing the web, MSN, digital TV – you name it!

The picture to the left is it in operation. As we can see, it’s displaying the www.betaarchive.co.uk homepage in Firefox in full screen.

It’s also really good when it comes to games. I’m not much of a console person, however I have a PS2 (lol) and a Nintendo Wii. The Wii in particular is good, as it makes the games feel more interactive having them life size. Another point is when I plug my main PC with good graphics into it to play games like SA:MP, GTA VC and GTA IV, and because it’s VGA rather than composite, the games GTA SA and GTA VC are much better quality than their PS2 counterparts.

Combined with my set of 6 surround sound speakers unstrategically placed around my room, its a pretty neat multimedia experience.

Now projector aside, just this morning I purchased a 19″ Acer LCD monitor to go with my 22″ Acer LCD monitor. Knowing that the 22″ Acer X223W was an amazing display unit, I knew the 19″ Acer 193W would be a good choice – and indeed it was. I love dual monitor setups, and now I have a pretty sophisticated one myself (considering the monitors are the same design). Just one thing, my 22″ monitor is 1 year, 2 weeks and a few days old at the time of writing this, and my 19″ monitor is 3 hours old – and it shows slightly. The colours are more vivid than the 22″ and the overall picture looks slightly sharper. Suppose thats just LCD for ya (and the reason I have a DLP projector).