Ng Khai Computer Solutions Blog

One of the most significant developments that happened in the techworld for 2008 was the rise of the netbook, or the subnotebook.

It was such a hit that almost all PC manufacturers from HP to Dell to Lenovo to Acer all followed suit.

The group came up with the OLPC, and on its first year also scored success by being able to donate over 500,000 of these units to the developing countries.  What they did was to use the G1G1 promo - Get One Give One.  So somebody interested in the notebook would buy one for $400, and for that amount, he gets an OLPC, and another one unit would be donated out. I think that effort deserves great commendation not only in helping bridge the digital divide, but in opening a new segment for a whole new affordable notebook line.

It has become such an authority that it is now the world’s fourth most visited website, and thousands of articles are accessed and changed almost every hour.  In fact, it is also so authoritative that when you do a search, the articles in Wikipedia normally also come out on top - meaning it is judged universally to be credible, and almost accurate.

However, no one has seen anything close to an Office 14 public beta yet, and Microsoft won’t publicly comment on the software or its release date.  However, because of perceived issues with Microsoft vista, everybody believesthat Microsoft will find it to their interest to release the new Windows 7 as soon as possible rather than later.

When I first heard that over a million notebook computers are lost every year, I could not believe it. But apparently, a study commissioned by Ponemon Instiute showed that in the United States airports alone, 12,000 notebooks are lost every week. Luckily I have not lost a notebook, but so far, I have lost three cellphones over a 10 year period.

Fortunately, notebook prices are going down every year, and losing one does not mean an arm and a leg now. Ten years ago, I remember that a good notebook computer would cost almost a third of a small car. Now, for the money you spend on a small car, you can easily buy 20 notebooks. And these 20 notebooks would all be better and faster, and have more storage and memory than the one 10 years ago. That is how the price of technology have fallen vis a vis the car.

Anyhow, what is painful in losing a notebook are two. ONe is you lost your data. With that, you just make sure that you have a great backup. That means normally for most people that you have to buy an external hard disk where you can safely back up your computer and then if you lose it, then you can still recover it. If external hard disks are a major drag, you can think of backing up your data now on a thumb drive. The thumb drive you can put inside your pocket or in your key chain, and a 4 gigabyte one will cost less than a thousand nowadays.

The other painful thing is the realization that you may have valuable data that will fall on the wrong hands. If the data is important then you want to make sure that your hard disk is encrypted - this comes now for free when you buy Vista Business or Ultimate edition.

The other is to get a notebook with anti-theft protection, for which the latest Lenovo Thinkpad T400 series claims it have. This technology was developed by Intel and adopted first by Lenovo, and it is a series of technologies that makes an enterprise department easier to manage the various notebook computers assigned to people in the company.

IT departments can set policies for laptop security. For example, if a notebook is disconnected from a central server for a long period of time or if it detects a certain number of log-in failures, the laptop could be set to shut down.

Also in conjunction with security software like Computrace, the IT department may be able to track where a notebook is at a given time, if the notebook is used, and logs into the internet. when it is traced, the IT department can also send a message that will disable the computer so that it can no longer be used.

Since the software can be put on firmware, that means it will still activate even if the thief reformats the hard disk. Of course, the thief can still use the computer and never log into the internet, but then, most computers are almost useless when you cannot use it with the internet.

Apparently, human error abounds - and technology aids in human error.
In another study conducted by University of Utah, they found out that there are many more traffic accidents nowadays because of cellphone usage. Of course, it is dangerous to text or even dial when you are driving, and even then, theys ay that even people who use hands free phones or speaker phones are not exempt. Even when drivers are using a hands free cell phone, driving performance can be compromised, because the driver obviously is not paying full attention to driving, and instead is concentrating on the conversation.

I can testify to that. I once had an accident bumping to the rear of the car when texting. How about you? don’t text and drive!

This article is originally written by Wilson Ng. Visit his blog at www.bizdrivenlife.net

This year, we were part of the Cebu Business Month, and now I’m involved in the Mandaue Business Month celebrations. This is normally held in August, and is hosted by the Mandaue Chamber of Commerce and Industry in celebration and to coincide with the Mandaue City Charter Day.

Mandaue is an industrial city, and in many ways is a different city than Cebu. Thus, we are trying to work out some events that would be also different from the traditional Cebu Business month.

One of the events that we are going to do is virtual - that is something to do almost wholly on the web. This is an event which we named Sugbu Kini photo/video tag contest. Let me try to explain why we think this will be important, and also fun.

As you may probably know and can easily surmised, the onset of digital photography which we don’ tneed to buy film, and pay for development anymore has resulted in the explosion of photography and video.
Sometimes, in one day, I can easily shoot thousands of pictures, and why not? It costs almost nothing. The same picture using film and development could easily have cost me an average month’s salary already!

Anyway, as a result of the explosion, there are probably millions of photos about the various towns of Cebu in thousands of websites, and computers worldwide. Scores of them are uploaded to social networking sites like Facebook or Friendster, and more are put into public photo libraries like Picasa, Photobucket or Flickr. Millions of videos are in YouTube, and other sites.

However, many of these photos are not properly labelled or tagged or uploaded to the internet, thus making them inaccessible to search engines, and making it difficult to locate such photos except to the immediate user

We figured that if we can just somehow label and properly describe these photos or videos, and also have people to upload such photos to the internet, it will tremendously increase the ability of internet surfers worldwide to find photos about Cebu and its countryside.

So we are launching this contest in which we are encouraging people to either upload their photos and tag or label them properly and/or simply go around to the internet, find photos about any of the 44 towns and cities of Cebu, and then note their URL and submit their labels or keywords in our website.

In return for identifying the Cebu photos and labelling them, we will be doing a raffle. So the more photos about Cebu that you find and label properly, the more chances you have to win. The contest is open from July 12 to August 20, 2008.

The website is currently in the works, and it is on www.ccebu.net/mandaue

This is a contest where the winners will be chosen by raffle. After the contest close, There will be a count of all entries (each entry has a number), and a randomly generated number will be generated. The entry of the winning number will then be verified:

- is it really a picture taken in a Cebu town or city?

- is the picture of acceptable quality depicts the Cebu town life or culture heritage?

- is the description or keyword an apt one that successfully describes the picture.

Only if it conforms to the quality will the winner be declared.

There are prizes totalling close to 20,000 pesos for the lucky winner.
Please check into the website in a few days!

Most of the people in our country use Yahoo mail. It is pretty obvious that when we do a survey or get the emails of people who register in the trade exhibits for example, I usually get the scan that over 80 percent of the people use yahoo mail.

Yahoo has hundreds of millions of users. There is one problem – your name is most likely already taken, and therefore most people have to switch to names that have a series of name and numbers for their address. Some people add their lucky number, or their birthdays, or their weight, or some numbers to their name just to be able to register an email address.

One of the most confusing is the Yahoo.com.ph. It is possible to get this, but it results in more confusion. When you have an email with the .ph extension, people will mentally note that you are in Yahoo, and more times than you think, will send an email but forgetting the .ph extension. I have had more than several times experience when I send a mail, and the person did not receive it, and they ask – by the way, did you add the .ph extension.

If you are one of those who has a weird email address, or a Yahoo .ph extension that people forget, you might be interested to know that Yahoo has extended two domain names for their email. One is Ymail.com ( hardly imaginative but it is a shortcut that is seen like a copycut to Gmail which is google mail), and the other is rocketmail.com. You still get to Yahoo but at least since these two domain names are less popular, there is a better chance for you to get the name you want.

Whether you want to use it now or not, you may want to register your name already. You don’t want others to be ahead in getting it! It is similar for me in most social networking sites – whether I want to use it or not now, it is always good to register ahead so that when you do use it, you will be able to use a name you already have.

Many celebrities are doing the same – after all if you are Bill Gates, or Barack Obama, somebody will most likely check your name, and if it is not taken, somebody will take your name, and pretend to be you!

It is great to see that soon, 1.5 terabytes of hard disk will be available. Gosh, in one stroke, Seagate added a 500 gigabyte storage space to their already big 1 terabyte hard disk! Who wants to use that much? Well, wasn’t that the same question we were asking when suddenly we saw 20 or 40 gigabyte drives? What is big now, will be seen as sorely lacking in a few years! There are just so many files!

But it is good that vendors always upgrade – after all, that is how you get new sales. I recall that for wifi, there was the 11 mbps speed, which was the 802.11.b standard. Then they came out with the 55 mbps which is the 802.11g standard. Pretty soon, there will be a 802.11n standard which promises to be faster.

So we get every few months, more memory, more processor speed, more hard disk space, and we keep buying. One of the items that have not seen very good sale is the network switch. Remember that we are using currently mostly 100 mbps ( fast Ethernet switches) which was already introduced more than 10 years ago. There are new standards like the gigabit ( 1,000 mbps), and 10 gigabit ( 10,000 mbps), but it is not so far getting that big a response. As a result, we see many people who periodically get new servers, and get new computers, but do not upgrade their network switch because they think that the old ones are just as good.

This is probably a challenge for the network switching company how to introduce faster switches, and also convince the users that they really need more speed. This is a challenge that cell phone companies have been able to do very well. After all, your cellphone is really good,but most people are still switching their cellphones every 2 or 3 years. It is this attitude that makes the cellphone companies have very healthy sales!

Its closing to August, and the Mandaue Business Month is getting close.

The website is finally up. There were some things that had to take time like some of the things we wanted to do i.e. cebu Blog Contest, Sugbu Kini Tag contest and the Subasta sa Sugbu which required a fair amount of programming but now its almost done. Pls. do browse the website for details at www.ccebu.net/mandaue

There are a lot of exciting events, and there are developments daily, and therefore sometimes, it is really what a website is good at - giving periodic updates.

One of the events that is fairly exciting for me is the LAN party that the Mandaue Chamber is organizing which will happen a month from now - from August 23 8 a.m. in the morning to August 24 8 a.m. That is a 24 hour long stretch party which some of the techies are already starting to get excited about.

What is a LAN Party? It is just a gathering of Gaming and computer enthusiasts who bring their computers together to play PC or online games. It is also a meeting of PC and gadget enthusaists who wants to share files, comptuer and gadget knowhow, and show off their ‘rigs’, a term that talks about PCs that are modified and customized. If you see car enthusiasts spend a fortune to make the car or their bikes very personal, there are also an increasing number of PC enthusiasts who are on the same boat, and I have seen PCs which have been reengineered and remodified and cost upwards P250,000 pesos!

In that event, there will be case modding comparison/competition, as well as file sharing and tips as well as mini seminars. It is also an opportunity to meet PC and gaming experts, see some cool software. In one corner will also be Play Station Portable Eyeball and Meet, as well as challenge booths where gamers will compete against some well known players for prizes. There will also be an eyeball for bloggers.

We will set up a network in the Cebu International Convention Center which has a capacity of at least 500 computers. Why is the Mandaue chamber of Commerce doing this? Simply to show the people around the world that there is a sophisticated PC crowd here in Cebu! LAN Parties are fairly common worldwide, and the events are followed and published. One town in Sweden called Jönköping would probably not ring a bell. Now they are fairly famous in techdom because they host DreamHack, which in essence is billed as the world’s largest LAN party attracting over 10,000 computers! As a result, the town became famous, and the big companies started to take a look seriously at them… if you can host that big a LAN Party, you must have a fairly sophisticated populace! And Dreamhack is now a tourist drawer.

Our goal is to be able to put 500 computers under one roof, and show the world our increasingly sophisticated gaming and tech crowd. Hopefully if we are successful, that is a fast way to put Cebu up. Maybe next year, we will aspire to go for 700 or even 800. After all, there is now a venue big enough to host it - the Cebu International Convention Center.

The event has been drawing a lot of comments and interest when it was posted in www.istorya.net, Cebu’s foremost forum. Hopefully anybody interested should check it out. They can also register at http://www. bfwgaming.com. The cost is just P400 pesos if you bring your own computer ( and that is to take care of the venue and electrical, and also the internet/network costs), and that is good for 24 hours gaming! If you register and pay before August 10, it will be P350.00. There will also be LCD monitors available for rent for those who don’t want to bring monitors, and also for those who dont’ want to bring computers, there will be computers on the site you can rent for P1,000 for whole 24 hours, or P50 an hour. Entrance for spectators and other interested people is just P50 one time.

The organizers are as follows, and please do get in touch with them. Let us show the world we also have a sophisticated tech populace!

a. Mike Pato –Trustee, Mandaue Chamber of Commerce
b. Ryan Yu –Fine Upgrades(www.fineupgrades.com)
c. Brian Gerona –ACME Web(www.acmewebph.com), BFW Gaming(www.bfwgaming.com)
d. Brian Chua –Trustee, Mandaue Chamber of Commerce

I have been playing around with 2 cool netbooks – a new category of notebooks that promises to be lighter, and also cheaper. Based on the feedback, it looks like this has not only revolutionize the way we play, but also have attracted a whole new batch of enthusiastic users, thereby increasing the market significantly, and broadening ownership.

The first is the second version of the Asus EEE PC , which was one of the first bestsellers that launched it all. The Asus Eee PC 900 is a new version that still promises to be less than one kilogram, and of the same size as before, but is slightly more expensive, but have more features.

First is that it has upgraded the specs as well. Instead of the 512 mb, it is now 1 gigabyte. It now has a bigger 8.9 inch widescreen ( it was 7.9 inch before), and a higher resolution 1.3 megapixels webcam. Because of the bigger screen, the resolution now can also be 1024×600 ( from the previous 800×400). Most welcome is the bigger storage – the Linux xandros version has a 20 gigabyte solid state hard disk, and the Windows XP version has a 12 gigabyte hard disk , and both versions sells at the same price, which is roughly about 22,500 to 24,000 in most stores.

I was able to get the Linux version which still has the same interface and mostly the same software as the previous earlier Asus Eee PC, but I preferred to run windows– because I had some applications that I wanted to run, and moreover, I really wanted to install the PLDT WeRoam HSDPA software so that I can surf anywhere, and I still could not make heads or tails on how to install it and some other programs in the Linux version. The Windows Version has a smaller hard disk, so one way to get it is to buy the Linux version, and install Windows XP yourself. Which is what I did, and doing it was easy and straightforward.
The second one is the HP 2133 Mini-Note. While Eee PC is always thought to be lightweight, and also great in value, it is a utility notebook. If you want something cool and slick, that’s the Mini-note, which has an all aluminum case that is both shiny, and surprisingly light. It has the same screen size as the Asus EEE PC 900 ( 8.9 inch), but it has a higher resolution 1280×768.
The weight is approximately about 1.2 kilograms, and for its slightly larger size, it has almost a full size QWERTY Keyboard. It is powered by a Via C7-M processor. There are 3 models that I know of ( the cheapest runs SuSe Linux, and is cheaper – about P24,950). The next 2 models run Windows Vista and is more expensive not only because of the OS, but the model also have a faster processor, bigger memory, and also a bigger hard disk.

I like the HP because it obviously does not look cheap, and the full size keyboard is really for heavy typists. The higher resolution screen is also a lot better. One thing new that I just recently saw in Notebook computers is a ExpressCard /54 slot.

It’s a great notebook at a low price and yet nothing on the computer looks or feels cheap. The only thing I am not so sure about is the use of the Via Processor, which is new. However, from the reviews I read, it is 100% compatible, and will run all applications, and moreover, benchmark shows that the speed is acceptable, though not blazingly fast, and comparable to most processors at that clockspeed.

And it does look like the public agrees – for weeks now, I have been bombarded with calls now for people who want to reserve, or take a look. I guess you will see them finally — in COMDDAP from July 3 to July 5 at the SM Cebu City Trade Hall.