I've just read a /. article about TechCrunch looking into creating their own Tablet PC for $200. I just thought I'd throw my own 2¢ into the mix.
I've seen a lot of comments in both sites where the spec just seems to be getting bigger and more powerful as time passes, as I like to say "Keep it Simple, STUPID!"
Well lets first start with the design, since that's short and sweet. The mock-up, is almost perfect, only the camera, microphone & speakers require inclusion, of course it'll never look like that, but one can only dream.
Hardware
- ARM, VIA, Geode or equivalent CPU (400MHz+)
- 7"/9" LED Touch Screen (High Resolution would be ideal eg 1024x600)
- 256-512MB RAM
- 1-2GB SSD
- SD-HC Hidden Slot
- Wi-Fi 802.11b/g
- Bluetooth (It really is a must)
- 0.3-1.3 megapixel video camera
- Microphone (next to camera - it's no good at the back or side)
- Stereo Speakers
- 1-2 usb ports
- Headphone port (Mic port really not needed)
- No physical Keyboard or Mouse (It's a Tablet, ffs)
- Removable Battery? Preferably but it hasn't stopped Apple with iPod and iPhone, plus you have to think about the cost vs design
- Battery life around 3-4 Hrs
- Graphics - as long as you can watch youtube and such, so the least you can get away with
Software
- Ubuntu MID or similar
- Firefox + Flash
- Thunderbird / Web Based
- Abiword (OOXML + PDF Support)
- Gnumeric
- Evince (Simple PDF Viewer)
- µBook like ebook reader - FBReader (Ability to change colour schemes eg High Contrast, green/white text on black background)
- Pidgin for IM
- Skype / Ekiga
- Blogging Software (like dare I say it, Windows Live Writer)
- Tomboy
- Camera Software - Take photos & video
- Vinagre, rdesktop/tsclient (just Vinagre when RDP is supported)
I've probably will have missed lots of other software but you should get the gist of where I'm headed. Also it would be fantastic if something along these lines made it for $200 or less but some might think TechCrunch only posted this to get some more adsense views, but at least it got people talking about the cost Tablet & NetBook PC's.
Base line taken from :
ASUS Eee PC, OLPC XO-1, Elonex ONE, Elonex ONEt
Just a side note, the Elonex ONEt looks pretty cool especially if it's retailing at £100 even my better half might be interested...
Birkoff - General - -
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I came so close today to own a 100% legal copy of Delphi 7 Enterprise (I do own a legal copy of v5 but that was bought via college), beaten to the punch by another like minded ebayer. If there is something I really want I wait till the dying seconds to place a bid, if only I had waited another few seconds I might have got it.
As anyone who knows Delphi, Delphi 7 was the last version to feature the Original IDE, v8 saw Borland copy Visual Studio's IDE look and the Enterprise version its self was the most expensive, feature complete edition you could get. Over a thousand easily...
| Delphi 7 | Delphi 2007 (11) |
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Anyway, right up until 1 min, the auction had been sitting at £46, at the 30 second mark I put my bid in at £100 hoping it'll be enough to see off anyone else's bids, plus it would be a bargain at that price not so much the pro version though. Straight away there had been another bid, shooting up the total to £94. Suffice to say the same person put a higher bid in, in what had to be less than 10 seconds to go. In the end I did manage to put another bid in but alas not high enough, but I wasn't going to pay anymore that what I put so I stuck to my guns and let it slip away.
Gutted I am, but I'll keep looking, as people move to Java & .NET there are sure to be more auctions. Now if anyone has a old copy of Delphi 7 Pro or Enterprise be sure to give me a shout, I will be interested less of course it's an academic license then no thanks.
Birkoff - General - -
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Birkoff - General - -
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Well strictly speaking just one feature, Shared Folders. I've been running VirtualBox 1.6.2 for the last 2 days ago. I thought it was about time I tried it out properly, which just coincided with me wanting to create my very own Performance/Tiny XP.
Out of the last 20 or so installs (Testing my TinyXP) I've done of windows the last couple of days I have only managed to get Shared Folders functioning, even then I'm not too sure how I did that. After another search on Google for help, I noticed the VirtualBox forums are pretty damn full of people reporting the same problem. Thank God, at least it wasn't just me. This time I have two leads on getting Shared Folders working correctly, Reinstall Guest Additions or Install the 1.6.0 Guest Additions.
If anyone is wondering where the hell they can get the previous additions, they're here, and here is the direct link. Although I have yet to try either there does appear to numerous reports that it works.
Ignoring the Shared Folder problems just now, VirtualBox is IMHO the best performing Virtualization software out there, the smallest download too.
I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone, get it here.
Birkoff - General - -
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iPhone 3G… - 15 June 08 - 10:01
I am loathe to say it, but I quite fancy it…
First a few things I need to know, how much will the 8GB iPhone 3G cost on o2 Pay as you Go?
Will TomTom be on the iPhone, I could get rid of my TomTom One XL.
But most importantly do we have eBook support? By that I mean PDF, CHM & PDB support. With my Dell AXIM X5 I use µBook for PDB & TXT, fantastic program btw. I’d love a µBook version for the iPhone.
If the answer to those becomes not too expensive, yes & yes, I could throw away three devices for one. The only big problem with that idea… Single point of failure.
In related news ZiPhone jailbreaks iPhone 2.0
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The long overdue redesign is finally online... I will still have some tweaks here and there, the usual gremlins 
| Before | After |
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This is also my first post with Windows Live Writer... ScribeFire is doing my nut in! 
Birkoff - General - -
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Seriously...
With all the talk about Cheap Computers, affordable by everyone, why is it that the price keeps going up?
OLPC was suppose to be $100, now closer to $200. The thing about the OLPC if they actually sold those to you and me at $250 / £130, they would probably cost $100 to manufacture already.
I would really like to see a real 'cheap' NetBook PC @ £100-£200.
My ideal specs:- 9 or 10" OLED TFT
- Low Powered 1Ghz CPU (<20 Watt, Preferably ATOM which has 4 Watt TDP or equivalent)
- 20GB HDD (40GB or 80GB much better)
- Wireless-G & Ethernet (Wireless-N & Gigabit Ethernet, Dreaming?)
- Webcam
- 2-3 USB2 Ports
- Decent Keyboard (MSI Wind)
- 3 Hrs Min Battery
- XP & Linux (No difference in Hardware! I wish the only difference in price was the OS.)
Admittedly I find my self drooling over the MSI Wind, but it's £320 or £350 depending on the OS. Now this is suppose to be in the cheap end of the laptops, right now I can get a
Fujitsu Siemens ESPRIMO MOB V5535 Intel CEL M540 15.4 inch 80GB 512mb SiS Mirage 3+ Windows Vista Home Basic for £250. That gives me a 1.86GHz basic standard laptop vs 8.9" eeePC at £375, are you kidding me? Before anyone even says it I know the Esprimo is a standard laptop, the eeePC and the rest are UMPC's, but what I am asking is how are these new UMPC's cutting costs and yet more expensive than feature laden laptops?
And yet after all that I still want a MSI Wind, I just wish it was £100 cheaper!
It is pretty though.... Pamela wants the Pink one...
I might make do with a £75 T20/T21 Stinkpad off ebay, at some point.
Another thing why the hell can't we use a laptop as a KVM? I'll leave that one for another time...
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We slag off America for electing a bubbling fool as President, and here we are today with our very own version.
Boris Johnson
To be honest I am in disbelief, Boris Johnson as London Mayor? We really have lost the plot on that one. Just how much more right wing can we end up? If you haven't got lots of zero's in your bank balance or a business the Tories don't care for you. Admittedly Gordon Brown looks more at home with conservatives than he does with Labour (New Labour = New Conservatives) and as for David Cameron he's just a Tory version of Tony Blair, considering everyone just about hate Blair now, you would expect them to elect someone completely different? No, that would be too logical, too smart, too simple. No, lets go for a the same guy but different Party. That makes sense.
You know the TV show Little Britain, well Britain it's self is more like Little America.
VOTE Lib Dem it's the only choice left (Bring back Paddy Ashdown or Charles Kennedy)
Of course if your right wing minded, vote BNP and stop pretending you aren't a Racist Nazi Bastard.
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The Gathering
Season 1
Season 2
Season 3
Season 4 - "Into the Fire" EP6
Thirdspace
Season 4 - "Epiphanies" EP7
In The Beginning
Season 5 - "Objects at rest" E21
River Of Souls
Legend of the Rangers (Optional)
A Call To Arms
Crusade
Season 5 - "Sleeping in Light" E22 (Last Episode)
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Well I tried one of my generic "Datasafe" branded 1GB Flash drives, ran across a wee problem. Even after formatting with Max Drive it didn't work, I did notice previously with the kingston drive, that Max Drive created a directory called "MaxSettings" with a couple of files, "arsettings.dat" and "mmsettings.dat". I copied these to my Datasafe drive, and would you believe it, it worked!
I've packaged the "MaxSettings" directory to
here. Simply copy the exe file to your flash drive, double click and extract. No need to download Max Drive.
What I've Tested So Far...Kingston DataTraveler 128MB (FAT) -
PassedDatasafe 'generic' 1GB (FAT32) -
PassedIntegral 'generic' 4GB (FAT32) -
Failed*
Freecom Databar 8GB (FAT32) -
Failed*
* Incorrect size shown in ARMax, failed to copy save.
1GB Looks to be the limit, Max Memory only shows 988740Kb as the size for the 4GB & 8GB drives.
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Well I've read lots of forums, blogs and websites talking about this, but none gave guidance on how it was actually done and most didn't even know how to go about it... I did see one thread which did seem to guide you through it (I'm sure it was on
afterdawn.com), but I lost it, even going through my Firefox history didn't help.
Anyway... Things we need...
- Flash Drive (I used an old Kingston Datatraveler 128MB Drive)
- Max Drive PC Software
Some people have said that they just needed to use the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool, this never worked for me. No matter what I did ARMax didn't recognize the correct size of the flash drive, and hence didn't work.
What to do next...
- Install Max Drive Software
- Format Flash Drive with Max Drive Software (As FAT or FAT32 not NTFS)
- Use Flash Drive with ARMax (You should now see the correct capacity in ARMax)
- Remember stuff on your flash drive will be in crushed form, you need to uncrush it to your PS2 Memory Card.
Hope this help some people, but this isn't 100% guaranteed, as I've only used my Kingston Datatraveler. I might follow up when I try some higher capacity flash drives. Would be interesting to see if there is a size limit.
Birkoff - General - -
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I've 
