High Definition - My Way

It's a good thing to have a PC around.  The almost all purpose device that we unconsciously use at work and at home.  Last night I just watched a movie in High Definition using my Asus A8He Laptop PC but instead of using the laptop's built-in LCD monitor I used the LG 42LC4R LCD TV instead.  And guess what?  The result is Spectacular! I say goodbye to the dream of having a costly Blu-ray Player since I already have my multimedia power house. The audio is fed into my CD-R King FM Modulator and into our Sony Stereo set. Not only you have a full detailed movie you also get a bass rich sound experience.

The LG 42LC4R displays rich colors and deep black content.  It has a contrast ratio of 8000:1 which is already good compared to other brands with the same dimensions.  It has a standard aspect ratio of 16:9 and with the dimensions 685.5 x 1032.7 x 88.5 mm.  It's color is piano black and is quite attractive and elegantly presentable.  I removed the stand since it came with a free wall bracked plus a free installation.  The wall bracket can enable the TV to tilt up or down but not sideways.  Maybe its because of it's viewing angle of 178 degrees since it already uses the S-IPS technology.  Refresh rate is 5ms which makes this fair enough to use for gaming.  With it's 1366 x 768 resolution this is comparable to its smaller brother LG W1642S which was posted just recently but this one has a brightness of 450cd/m2 and obviously weights heavier at 20kg.  Another thing that made it stand out is LG's 2007 XD Engine with 3D comb filtering.  It is 1080p ready but have'nt tried using it through the HDMI interface since I don't have a player with it yet.  Aside from the two HDMI inputs it also have S-video, VGA, Composite video, and Component video inputs.  As for the meantime I am using the VGA input so what appears on my Laptop screen has exactly the same resolution on the LG TV.  This makes this TV panel as my second monitor. 

This TV set introduced me the beauty of High Definition movies by playing MKV movie files using KM Player software.  But like other 42 inch LCD panels this one costs pretty high but not higher compared to other brands.  Good thing that the LG 42LC4R was given by someone who have much to spare.

LG W1642S LCD Monitor Review

Just bought a new LG W1642S LCD Monitor today in PC Home in Market-Market Taguig.  This will be used on our old Pentium II 233MHz PC that was bought way back in 1997.  I have revived the old fella since our Internet Shop is running out of workstations.  It will be used as a server to run the Cafe Manager Software that I acquired last month.  I just hope that it will last longer since it's past beyond its lifetime.  And if it will die on me then I am forced to buy another workstation to accommodate our increasing number of customers.

This monitor is not the best monitor available in the market.  The main reason that I chose it is because it's one of the cheapest and it is being offered for 0% interest for 6 months.  So it won't be a big bang on the budget.  Another thing is that it has lower ampere rating compared to other brands which made me think that it will consume lesser power even though I did not brought a power meter with me.  Among other choices are AOC and Acer but I chose it because of it's brand.  No offense to Acer and AOC but I already bought 10 of these LG's before and so far I have no problem with them.  I oftentimes opt for products that I have already tried and am afraid to try new ones thinking that I can't afford to do a trial runs.  Aside from this is that our LCD TV is also from LG.  That gets me to think that LG should reward me for being loyal to them.  Anyway, the LCD Monitor that I bought has only a resolution of 1366x768 which makes it a widescreen and it's diagonal size is approximately 15.6".  It's pixel size is 0.252mm with a contrast ration of 5000:1.

It is not ideal for gaming but after trying Special Force and Crazy Kart on these LCD's it gives you decent enough resolution to throw a flashbang and making sharp turns.  It is quite good when it comes to Internet Surfing but it would be better if it had a taller headroom.  Good thing that it does not have one of those glossy screen like the ones installed in cheap laptops so you won't see yourself when the gaming scene is pitch black.  One annoying thing is the power button which has a blue glowing LCD when the status is on. Although you loose to notice it after some time on using it.  The LCD turns orange when the PC is turned off or if the panel is not receiving any input signal.

So far so good, this LCD is worth the buy and is one of the cheapest available. But if you have more money to spare then better get yourself a bigger screen.

Free Stuff Under the SUN

Due to the current economic crisis a lot of belts have been tightened and some businesses are closing. Retrenchment is still haunting employees everywhere. But despite all these we strive to lessen our expenses so we can still thrive to live normally. For the tech point of view there are still things that you can get for free like mobile internet.  Aside from the free Wifi services being offered in restaurants and coffee shop you can access free internet usage using your Java capable cell phone, and a SUN prepaid SIM card with a load less than P10.  I heard it from one of my colleagues and I thought it was just a hoax until I tried it myself.  You can be online wherever you go as long as there is a cell site around.  Well this is a fun thing that doesn't cost a cent.  The speed is quite decent and I do not expect it to be fast using my HTC Viva since it is only a GPRS/EDGE phone and has no 3G.  But it is enough to view my non work related emails and blogs.  This is a cheap way of being online under the SUN.

Encore ENHWI-G2 Wi-Fi Router

I bought my wifi router about a year ago from the famous CD-R King for about Php1,300. Untill now I'm still using it and it still works very fine. I connected it directly to a 16-port switch that was used for a small internet shop just located at the side of our house. It came with a 3dbi antenna that is why it's quite hard to connect when your room is on the 3rd floor of your house. Good thing that our room is located on the 2nd floor and with wooden floorings and the signal is around 34% on my Linux EeePC.  It also has 4 ethernet ports located at the back. It doesn't have a power switch so the power adapter is plugged-in for an instant turn-on. It's really plain and simple plug in wireless router. I had a hard time setting it up since i was quite new to wifi routers but the instruction manual that came with it was really helpful. One problem I encountered is that if you are not using the default Windows wireless network connection manager there is a tendency that you will get lost. I have returned the unit to CD-R King twice thinking that there was a problem with it but discovered later on that it was my Laptop's Wifi Manager that needs setting up. Well anyway I'm still glad I read the users manual twice. But if you are not a beginner then probably it's just a piece of cake.
 
The security option that I used was WPA2 with a passphrase to be able to connect.  So far there were no intruders found accessing our internet connection. There are so many setting jargons that I could not explore more so sorry if I cannot mention more than you expected.  For me it's reliable enough to give me the connection that I want.

N97 Encounter

I got hold of the N97 when my Dad pulled it out of his pocket. I thought it was his old N93 but noticed that it was quite different. It had a 3.2 inch bright LCD display and a quite elegantly spaced keyboard. It still has it's temporary plastic sticker on the flat LCD. I am not quite familiar with the Symbian OS so I was a little bit of slow on navigating my way on the menus. The good thing about Nokia Phones is that they are not hard to navigate. I had a Nokia before when the colored lcd displays are non existent yet. Well as for the user experience I'm quite impressed on how fast it responds to every command. When using the touch screen it vibrates slightly every time it receives a screen tap which slightly annoys me but is a good indicator that your command was acknowledged. The main screen consisted of widgets like Calendar, Facebook Application, Yahoo Messenger and the clock. There is a silver button on the lower right of the screen which will take you to the menu. There are lots of programs in this view including the contacts, calendar, applications, Ovi store, Maps, GPS, and the settings menu. Good thing that I'm under a hotspot that time so I connected to it immediately. I went directly to the wireless LAN menu and searched for a hotspot so I can surf the internet and check my email. The surfing experience was quite well considering the larger screen. Although, its still much comfortable viewing webpages on a full size monitor. The touch interface was often used during surfing since the four way navigation right beside the keyboard was much more accessible. I did not had a hard time on the cursor movement and was able to select on the links easily.

The keyboard was well spaced and not hard to use. Although your hand needs a little offsetting to the right due to the navigation control is located at the left side of the keybard so a little adjustment will is needed. I'm not used to slider phones so the mechanical structure of the device gives me some doubts on it's robustness. But the position of the screen to the keyboard is well inclined for your viewing pleasure.  As far as I had used it I don't find anything that belongs to the downside.  It didn't stayed long with me so I have'nt had the chance to test how long it lasts but according to some reviews it doesn't even last a day.  I'd still say that to try is to believe.
But despite of all the good things that I have said this baby still costs a lot (SRP:P34,000) and it's not within my budget range so I'd still sick with my HTC touch viva which has been a good companion to me ever since I bought it.  But if you have a lot to spare then maybe this device will keep you occupied.

Easy Peasy Not the Ordinary

Today I have encountered a couple of worms lurking on my EeePC and it's really not comfortable knowing that you might have a security issue anytime while using windows. That is why I decided to try Easy Peasy which was derived from Ubuntu. Just like any other Linux distro it can be used without installing it locally on your hard disk. But this time it's different, since the EeePC doesn't come with an optical drive the linux distro can be run using a USB thumb drive. Yes you heard it right I ran this using my 4GB thumb drive and I was actually excited to try it. The OS was a bit slow upon boot up while loading the kernel and stuff but upon using it I didn't experience a freeze just like I did with windows xp, just yet. I ran out of time again and will continue the experience tomorrow, that is if I can get home early. So expect a part two of this post soon.

EeePC 900 Acquaintance

I just got my new (second hand) black Asus EeePC last Monday and it's just now that I have tried using it. Last night I did a hassle-full of uninstallation. There were so many applications installed by the previous owner that are deemed unapplicable to my purpose of acquiring this wonderful piece of netbook. I wanted to have a netbook instead of a notebook since nowadays I don't usually use my laptop for power-use. I temporarily ceased digital edititing (both video and photos) that is why I opt for a more light and smaller PC. Besides, I am very busy with work lately that I no longer have the time to check my personal emails and also do some blogging.

Although the A8He gives me enough display real estate, it was not handy enough to carry it at different parts of the house. But with the EeePC 900 it's like a handheld notebook that can fit anywhere I go. I do not mind having a small screen since I am used to the screen of my PDA Phone. The 8.9-inch (226 mm) 1024×600 LCD was not a bother to me unlike the Sony Vaio P series which have greater screen resolution but is difficult on the eyes. It came with a VGA camera which I really do not use and do not care if it's there or not. It's Intel Celeron 900MHz processor is not as speedy as the Pentium Dual-Core on my A8He but it sure is enough to do some basic task like word processing and web surfing. I do not expect to play SF on this machine and I do not want to play games using the small screen. It came with a decent 1GB of RAM and a total of 20GB of solid state drive. And since it's solid state then it's more robust but a little bit of slow when it comes to file transfer.

The OS that came with it when it was bought was Xandros Linux Distro but when I received it, Windows XP was the OS that greeted me. I planned to change it to the original OS but after doing some system maintenance it went just fine so I'm having second thoghts right now. Maybe I'll install the Linux distro later when the Win XP installation is already bloated with viruses and malware. I also need Win XP to run active sync to connect my HTC Touch Viva and back up important information. I also liked to use the Atheros wireless utility because it somehow maximizes the wifi capability of the device. When using the Windows built-in wireless connection the signal seems to be weak but if using Atheros the wifi signal seems to be strong. The 3 usb 2.0 is quite useful when copying files from my former notebook PC. It also came with a headphone jack found at the left side and is quite useful when you don't want to disturb someone when watching movies or videos from youtube. I have'nt had the time to test the VGA output but I'm sure this will work just fine.

One major problem that I'm encountering right now is that the keyboard is not that user friendly. It adopted the EeePC 700's tiny keyboard. But somehow I manage to type words correctly except for the numbers, backspace, enter, and the right shift button which is located far to the right and is often mistaken by my huge fingers as the up/down keys which ruins everything. The problem escalates when you are typing in dark and slows you down a little bit. But this is a type of thing that's getting used to so I gotta do some typing more often. As far as I can assess it won't take time to keep this gettin going.