SF on Win7 Works!

I thought I would never make SF (Special Forces from MyGame) work in Windows 7 until I did it today. It took me some time to learn how to actually make it work. I thought that Windows 7 is not compatible with this game but it turns out to be a discover it yourself kinda thing. What I did was copy the whole folder from a Windows XP computer and put it in the Program Files of Windows 7. Then run the DFPatcher.exe found in the SF folder and after it downloads some patches it launches the application instantly. I was so happy that I won two complete rounds. Its like a fire in the hole to me. I've been trying to install the program so many times using it's downloaded installer but it fails to launch the game console after installation. What Windows 7 do is just terminate the program. I thought I had the reason to move back to my old OS but suddenly it vanished in thin air. I hope somebody will find this helpful since I haven't found a single post in the SF forums that tells how to make the game work in Mocrosoft's newly polished OS. As for now I'll enjoy my time throwing flashbangs and shooting at enemy troops.

Sony VAIO VGN-P688E

The unit was bought in the US just this month and yes it was cheaper compared to the ones being sold locally. The one who bought it said that it was a 4th of July sale in Best Buy and even his friend bought one also. The netbook is extremely small that it could fit right into my cheap clutch bag. It has a Maroon shiny Lid and metallic interior on the keyboard side. Located at the front left are two card slots one is for an SD Card and one for a Memory Stick. Just on top of it is the Wifi switch. On the right side is the power switch which is a sliding type and not a push button switch. On the right side of the device is a proprietary connector and one USB slot. While on the other left side is the power jack mating connector and another USB slot right beside it. There is nothing at the back but just the battery.

This baby packs a 1.33MHz Intel Atom Z520 processor with hyperthreading technology. It has 2GB of RAM which makes it faster than other netbooks and a 64GB of solid state hardrive which makes it more robust since there are no moving parts. It also has a built-in VGA webcam, which I really don't appreciate since I rarely use webcams. The unit came with a power adapter, two extra track points, one cleaning cloth and the rest are papers consisting of users manual, License Key for the GPS software and a track-it certification in case you left your netbook somewhere and a kind hearted person returns it to sony.

Despite the fact that it's a netbook it is quite smaller compared to its competition. It has an 8 inch backlit LCD screen to stare at. Although it’s very small the fonts and icons are still very clear. If you have difficulty seeing texts on your cellphone then this device is not for you. But if you dont have any problems staring at tiny screens for a long time then you won't have any trouble. For me this is the smallest PC screen that I have put my eyes on. I myself had a hard time adjusting to its minuteness.

The keyboard is not the full size type but you can type on it decently. The Track Point is quite responsive and is not strenuous to the tip of the fingers. The mouse buttons are located just below the keyboard and it feels plastic when you press it. I hope Sony will improve this by giving it the soft press buttons like the ones you can find in IBM/Lenovo Thinkpads. Additional function buttons are found right beside the mouse buttons. One is the zoom button and the other one is what they call quick function button. Using this button you are able to view your photos, watch videos and surf the net without even booting in Windows. The quick launch interface is similar to a Sony Playstation OS. You have to put all your media files in the designated folders in order for you to access them using this interface. Although its supposed to be faster than loading windows I find it a little slow upon start-up. I did not have enough time to use it since I am supposed to give it back to the real owner later that day. That is why I concentrated on the Vista OS instead. It runs on Windows Vista which made me doubtful of it's speed since it is known for it's being a resource hogger. But guess what, it was not that bad at all. It was fast compared to other netbooks. It seems that Sony asked Microsoft to tailor made it's OS to fit their product. If there is a Vista Lottery then Sony might have won it.

This netbook is good for travel and is a head turner when you are in a coffee shop. But if you will use this for business you gotta spare extra cash for the Ethernet connection and the VGA output since it doesn't have any. When this was bought it went only with the basic and don't come extra free stuff like the pouch and the LAN/VGA adapter. The LAN/VGA adapter costs Php3,499 and the original Sony pouch costs Php3,999.

First impression does last and my first impression on this netbook is quite good. At first, to me it’s just one of those expensive toys thay Sony sells but after using it for sometime it really is a good thing to have this one. My Asus A8He looked gigantic after using this amazing device from Sony. But when talking about the price it really doesn't fit my wallet's qualifications. A Php50,000 on the price tag is an overkill me and I'd rather purchase an HP or a Eee PC which is way more cheaper and already comes with the basic Ethernet and VGA out. If you have lots of cash to spare and want a really small PC to carry around then this one is for you. But if you have your tight budget in mind then this will simply be at the bottom of your list.

CDR King Wireless FM Transmitter

I bought this FM transmitter from one of the brances of the famous CD-R King store. They sell really cheap tech products and they are quite useful. The prime purpose of buying this is to hear out my iPod with the use of my car's speakers. I hate dangling wires that is why I opt for wireless devices and an FM transmitter is one thing I dream of having. This is really not a need for me that is why I refused to buy expensive ones worth a thousand or so. But when I saw this FM tuner from CDR King's website I was anxious to buy it since it was so cheap dropping one zero from the pricetag of competing products. I saw one of these in Electronics Boutique and it costs around Php1,500 while CDR King's only costs Php150. What a huge difference and it just fits my wallet's qualification. My Dad bought an FM transmitter from Belkin a year ago for his iPod and it costs almost Php4,000 since it was bundled with a car charger. It does work fine but the bucks doesn't make it a better product for me.

The unit consists of only two switches, one for the power and one for the frequency selector. There are only four channels to choose from that is why I cannot use this on my Dad's car stereo which was imported from Japan. The Japanese stereo's frequency selector can only reach 100MHz while the FM tuner's frequency starts from 106.7MHz. So before buying this device I recommend to check first if your FM tuner if its made from other countries which has a limited frequency selection. The unit gets the source from its built-in standard 3.5mm stereo jack pigtail. This is good news since you can almost feed different types of devices aside from an iPod. It is being powered by a single AAA Battery. I cannot estimate on how long the batteries last since I do not use it everyday but it already served me a couple of times already including three full two and a half hour movies. I use my laptop to play movies in our LCD TV and feed the sound to our Stereo system which do not have a built-in Line-in or Audio-in that is why this device really come in handy. Although the distance of the antenna of the FM receiver should be near to the device to get better reception.

Since were talking about FM you cannot avoid getting disturbances from other sources of noise. So you should position your transmitter to get the best reception. What I did is that I searched for the perfect position of the transmitter where there is less distortion and as soon as I found it I placed a velcro sticker right on the spot and the other to the device so that I would know where to put it by the time I plug in my iPod. Another velcro sticker was placed on my iPod and a spot on the dashboard where I can easily view videos especially when I'm stuck in traffic. Although my iPod Nano has a very tiny screen, the sound is clear and pretty much audible. Another cheap device very well used and has freed me from wires ever since.

iPod Touch 2G - A Lot of Touching

The iPod touch was received with it's full pckaging still intact. The unit came with the standard Apple iPod proprietary connector, earbuds, users manual, cleaning cloth, and a piece of it's docking device which I have no idea how to use. Apple does a good job in packing their iPods. It's quite intuitive and very presentable as well. There are no polybags, corrugated carton, tie wires, and silica gel. It's perfect for displaying in stores since customers can already see the product without removing them from the packaging.

The cable that came with it was truncated loosing the clip release button. The earbuds were standard but it would be great if it already came wth the foam since this somehow improves the sound quality most especially the bass. I love to listen to high quality music that is why I choose players which deliver deep bass with rich high and midtones.

The capacitive display is very responsive and does'nt seem to loose its integrity. Compared with my HTC Touch Viva this device is meant for entertainment. Its large 480-by-320-pixel LCD screen is perfect for viewing pictures and videos. The pan & zoom function is an awesome way to view pictures and is quite responsive in every way. When viewing videos the orientation is always a default full screen mode. You cannot rotate it if you want to view it in portrait mode. But there's no problem in doing playback you just tap the screen then appears the controls and the volume slider control. One thing I love about this device is it's ability to automatically adjust the screen brightness depending on the ambient light so this helps prevent eyestrain.

I tried using the Wi-fi and found it quite slow compared to my HTC Touch Viva. It also has a built-in Youtube program. It loads video thumbnails quite slower than the Viva. The built-in Map is very useful and faster than other internet programs. I found the map of our house in no time. Other programs are also useful like Notes, Calendar, and contacts but I'd rather store these types of information in my Viva instead.

The music function is the most important thing since it is the soul purpose of the device, to play music. The sound is sparkling to the ears compared to my Creative N200. Although it came with the standard earphones I still recommend buying a more high performance earbud or headphones maximizing it's standard 3.5mm input jack. For cheap and high quality earphones I'd recommend Sony MDR-E818LP series. Since these are older models they are much cheaper. I bought mine in Hong Kong for around HKD35 (PHP250) and it had never failed to impress me. Compared to other higher priced equivalent, to me, it still sounds better. My friend bought a pair of Senheiser and another bought a Pioneer both costs around PHP700 but still my Sony Earphones sounded superior. Just always install the included foam for a much richer bass experience.

The Touch is quite big and a slight discomfort in holding it was observed. But maybe this is due to the thin and flatness of the device which takes getting used to. It requires to be operated both hands to get the correct function you want. Although you can still use one hand but to me it seems not quite comfortable. Most especially the playback controls which requires the lcd screen. It would be more better if it had external controls just in case you need a backtrack of something. The back of it is a stainless steel covering and is a fingerprint magnet. The model labels were laser printed and is not a hinder to the beauty of the device.

The iPod Touch 2G is an ultimate portable entertainment device and can also be a personal organizer. It has capabilities that other media players don't have. Despite Its gorgeousness, it is difficult to operate when not looking on the screen so you'll be forced to use both your hands. The automatic screen brightness adjustment function works perfect and really is eye friendly. This baby is quite expensive but does it's job well but if you love viewing in a bigger screen with higher definition then this device is for you.

My Oldie O2 XDA Mini Buddy

My almost 5 year old O2 handset was bought as a second hand unit. I was looking for a mobile device flexible enough to do micro computing while I'm on the go. Majority of it was monitoring my credit card, reading my work related pdf files, reading e-books, viewing presentations, watching movies, and playing my music. Since it was a second hand, it costs less than it's original market price. At that time it was about P42k, but i bought it for only P20k. The device was imported from Germany and was bought from a cellphone botique/stall in a Mall according to the owner. The first owner was from Epson Philippines and said that the reason that she's selling it is that she will be leaving the country in a few weeks and she needs the money in addition to her travel expenses. We met at Starbucks Libis to did the exchange there.

At first glimpse the unit it looked quite elegant, small and thin. The words Pocket PC was written all over it. It is indeed a pocket PC and it boasts a lot of features that the traditional PC's have. It has a buit-in Microsoft Pocket Office and a Pocket PDF viewer. It's 2.8 inch LCD with has the same number of pixels compared to it's bigger brothers, the O2 XDA, and XDA 2. This means that it's as sharp as them but smaller. Its running on Windows Mobile 2003 which is not the latest at that time but has more available third party applications than the newer Windows Mobile 5. It has an Intel PXA272 processor with a clock speed of 416MHz, 64MB of RAM and also 64MB of ROM. The memory is not enough to open all the programs that you want that is why you have the option of installing programs in the external SD card when using ActiveSync. One thing that bothers me is the memory allocation/usage technique of WM2003. The local storage space is shared with the current running programs, that is why you have to close those programs that is the least importance. Aside from that is that the programs does not terminate when you exit it using the x at the upper right corner of the screen. You have to end the programs by accessing the task manager in the settings menu(control panel in Windows). Good thing that Dinarsoft's Handy Switcher can be installed to make things easier. Another software that I recommend is Resco Explorer. It makes file browsing more easier like it was Windows Explorer. You can expand or compress folders for easy navigation. It also comes with a Today Screen monitor to view the status of your main battery, back-up battery, RAM allocation, internal storage, and external storage.

I have maximized it's potential when I went to China for a business trip. I asked my Chinese counterpart to sent me pictures of Chinese characters and symbols of my Hotel, Company, and the names of the places to help me tell taxi drivers and people that I bump along the way of where I am going. And while I am riding the train and ferry I never got bored since I have packs of reading materials right inside the Mini most especially Avantgo channels like PC World, CNET, and CNN. I even watched an entire 12 rounds of my favorite boxing match. I also installed an English to Chinese translator with voice, that even helped me further in reaching my destination.

O2 bundled it with Sprite Back-up software so you do not loose everything when you experience an unexpected device black-out. When your device looses all the juice thats left in it's main battery it has a back-up battery to maintain all your contacts, calendar events, tasks, installed programs and other current information for a short period until you find the charger wherever you left it in the house. But when you find your charger on a later time then all of your data is gone. So I suggest that you back-up regularly maybe at least once a month to safekeep all your precious data. That is why i created a cd that has all the necessary programs that I need when a black-out on my device comes in the way. The programs that are very useful to me are: Resco Explorer, Tome Raider, Repligo Viewer, The Core Media Player, WordBook Dictionary, Avantgo, DinarSoft Handy Switcher, and Adobe Pocket Reader. I stored these installers in a folder and burned it in a CD so I have something to break in case of emergency. I usually use Outlook to back-up all my contacts and calendar events. Take note that you have to configure your ActiveSync set-up as to how to resolve changes made either in your PC or your PDA. I usually configure ActiveSync to overwrite the items on my PC during syncing since I always enter new contacts on my PDA rather than on my PC. Also, be careful not to accidentally open the back cover since this is the major cause of data loss. The device will turn-off itself when the cover is removed.

The built-in 1.3 Megapixel camera is not as good compared to Sony Ericsson handsets. Although it has more pixels in store but the quality takes it down since it does not have an aoutofocus and is not really good when using at lower light levels. Imagine the picture quality of the Nokia 7250 with increased picture size. I do not recommend using this in taking those special moments but use a much abled point and shoot digicam instead.

Call quality is not a problem since my wife and me never had a misunderstanding while talking over Globe's cellular GSM network. But problems came when receiving my Dad's Smart handset which gets to the point that it's like I'm holding a single duplex radio. Maybe it's the interconnection between Smart and Globe that's the problem and not my handset.

As of now my XDA 2 Mini is in my wife's possession and she said that it's much better than her Nokia handset since she likes to read e-books. She asked me to install e-book readers such as MS Reader, and Mobi Pocket Reader so that she can maximize it's potential. Although the battery is not as good as before, she have no problem charging it every night. She never lost her data ever since she used it. I

The O2 XDA 2 Mini is a perfect device for those who need a basic phone and a powerful multi-tasking PDA. This has helped me a lot while I am on the go and has served its purpose as being really a Personal Assistant.

For more information about the O2 XDA II Mini please click on the links below:

http://www.gsmarena.com/o2_xda_ii_mini-944.php
http://mobile.softpedia.com/phones/O2/O2-XDA-II-mini.shtml