Monthly Archives: February 2009

asus tusi-m bios update

Posted on by
Reply

efore finding out that the motherboard only supports usb 1.1, i was getting the TUSI-M motherboard ready for prime time, i made it fanless (Fanless Air cooling), i put it in a nice little box to fit some furniture that was made by idiots for idiots, and installed Ubuntu on it.

But before installing ubuntu, i didnt want to install a floppy drive, they bring back bad memories, so i had to burn a CD and boot from it to update the motherboard

If you have this old motherboard and want a firmware update to the latest 2003 version, download this tusi-m package, Inside you will find the file DOS-BOOT-WINDOWS-ME.iso, burn it to cd and boot from it.

Wait until you are dropped to a DOS prompt
D:
Aflash
When presented with choices chose 2 and hit enter
When asked for the location of the file enter the following
D:1018tm.005
You are done, you now need to exit by hitting escape then restarting the computer

With this out of the way, i installed Ubuntu, but then found out about the missfortunate 1.1 USB posts, and therefore, it was disqualified, at least i had pleanty of fun making the case and the external heat sinks…..

X100P FXO card fax modem

Posted on by
Reply

Got my asterisk X100P but yet to test it.

The minute i got it i opened the package to see what is inside, and the main motorola chip had it’s details hidden with a sticker that reads “Warantee void if removed”, under that sticker was the Motorola
62802-51
QZ0006
E1G32

And 2 more chps from Silicon Laboratories that read
THEN THE 2 Silicon Laboratories chips
Si3014-KS
0409CACABD

AND THE SLIGHTLY SHORTER ONE
Si3021-KS
0346CACACT

This information is already known, this is the card setup that Digium’s founder used to develop asterisk, so why mask it, it is not even your intellectual property !, for your convinced i have posted a photo of the X100P FXO chips etc here

Anyway, this calls for me to give this card a go under asterisk and let you guys know what happenes and all the details about quality etc…

Once i experiment with this card a bit, i will come here and update the information in this post !

Until then, stay tuned

Sam and Li-Lo can't stop fighting

Posted on by
Reply

A “pretty bad quarrel” was the description of these two girls fight just one day before Valentine’s day.

Just an hour before this street fight, the couple were peacefully enjoying Sam’s twin, Charlotte Ronson, fashion show during the Mercedes-Benz New York Fashion Week. But soon after the show finished they were cat fighting. Reporters say that Samantha was the first to emerge from the back door of the club when minutes later Lindsay stormed after her with screams and pleads. She was visibly upset and kept yelling “Don’t do this to me Sam”. The fight continued over night, as paparazzi’s followed the couple, an angry Lindsay was spotted leaving Sam’s house after hours of loud screaming!

This comes as an episode of their fighting-routine, previous bad turns of their relation were also publicly issued. Recently Lindsay’s father, Michael Lohan, expressed his concerns about his daughter’s physical and mental health, accusing Samantha of being a manipulative bad influence. He used the words “destroying her life” and described her relation with the DJ as a “dark turn”. The father even announced that Samantha’s connection to Lindsay is  ultimately based on financial benefits which would ruin his daughter’s career.

Pro C# 2008 and the .NET platform

Posted on by
Reply

So, i went and got this book, everyone has such positive reviews about it.

To begin with, this is by no means a bad book, It can also take you there if you know any sort of Object oriented programming, or even if you code in a procedural language (C or PHP 4) for example, but surely if you are an OO programmer you can go faster.

I have always done C, C++, PHP, and i feel like i know a big bunch more, but really, the only ones i am really good at are the ones i mentioned here, Unless you like to call SQL a programming language you can consider them 4, And now i am at intermediate level C#.

C# is more like Java++ (I have a good idea about Java),but everything changes on the .NET when you code for efficiency and the like.

Our friend Andrew Troelsen does a lovely Job explaining things that you would otherwise google out, the questions that come to a long time developer’s mind are answered on the spot.

Some are criticizing the book for 2 reasons, the first is that it explains SQLDataSource rather than the new objectdatasource, Others criticize it for missing the cryptographic features in .NET (security and crytography namespaces), I agree with the 2 above fully, No doubt Andrew Troelsen should have explained those in Length.

As to all the other reviews i found online, I totally disagree, here are the points

–Takes 2 long to read

You are learning something new, C# is not small, what do you expect

–Expects you to already know Object Oriented

Not true, in chapter 4 one single page says, if you don’t know OO come back here after you finish chapter 5, and really, i think this is the best way to do it.

–I already do C# and i wanted to be updated, i only need 25% of this book

Really, he wasen’t targetting you alone as an audience, it did the job for you, you can go faster on what you already know, and he did the job fine for all other programmers of all sorts

–Useful but no advanced material. Bloated writing style

You can’t be serious, “the depth is limited and for those areas with which I was familiar, there was little new.” So it seems you are already master of C# why read this book ?

The book explains pleanty about new things in .NET 3.5, or is it that the sound of your own voice soothes you when you say “As a professional programmer”….

– Real hard topics (Understanding Object lifetime, Behind the scenes of Linq etc.) are more like touch and go type

It says PRO in the title, what do you expect… and i think the hard parts are explained in a very nice fashion

–Maybe a little disappointing the examples

The examples are simple and quick. the best kind i know

Rihanna is a victim of abuse

Posted on by
7
Chris Brown beats up Rihanna

Chris Brown beats up Rihanna

Chris Brown lost his two chances in performing at the 2009 Grammy Awards and also in spending a romantic or at least a normal valentine’s day. This comes as a result of attacking his now officially ex-girlfriend Rihanna; leaving her with various bruises, a split lip, a swollen forehead, a bloody nose, various bite marks on her arm and leg, and a completely swollen shut eye.

The 19 years old singer has voluntarily turned himself to the cops at Los Angeles Police Department after being accused of Domestic violence. Rihanna was rescued by the police when a neighbor heard the screams and accordingly called 911. The cops took some pictures of battered Rihanna to be used as a proof in court against Mr. Brown who bailed himself out of jail paying 50,000 US Dollars yesterday, to be later standing in front of a judge on March 5th 2009.

A statement has been released confirming the attack seems to be not in any way the first one. Rihanna told the police that he had attacked her before through what she described as “an abusive relationship”, she even says that this time it got out of control, especially that Chris used the words “I’m going to kill you.”!!

Madonna devotes her LOVE to Jesus and Jesus is LOVING it

Posted on by
2
Madonna is in love with Jesus Luz

Madonna is in love with Jesus Luz

Madonna never gives up on love. After less than a month of ditching her ex-lover Alex Rodriguez, Madonna seems to find the real love again with the the handsome Brazilian model Jesus Luz. According to a close friend of the Queen of Pop, Madonna got interested in the hot latino models the minute they started shooting photos for “W” magazine, and accordingly invited him to her “Sticky and Sweet” musical tour at Sao Paolo in Brazil. The couple clicked instantly and descriptions like “madly in love” and “absolutely happy” were heard each time an insider was asked about their relationship.

And although Luz is currently dedicating most of his time to Madonna, it seems that he didn’t bother some buisness deals that normally come along when you hang with a celebrity like Madge. It is said that the young 21 years old lover-boy has left his former modeling agency, asked for much higher payments that jumped from 225 $ to 135,000 $ per a show, and finally offered his dear mother a-quit-work proposal because they won’t be needing that any more. All this came briefly after the media focus on the Madonna-new lover, something that his former agent described as “overestimating his importance”!

Red Carpetostraphy : red carpet disasters

Posted on by
Reply

The last couple of days were full of major events from BAFTA Awards to  Elle fashion Awards, Grammy Awards, and Berlin Film Festive. And as you we all know, such formal gatherings of celebs require a minimum amount of preparations, specially that celebrities do their best to meet the media icon-stereotype expectations. Some even might concentrate on minor details like searching for perfect jewelry brands, dress or/and suit designers,  makeup artists reservations and hair dressers appointments. Though it might sound overwhelming to some, some find joy in reading their names the next day under a blog or/and newspaper headline like “Gorgeous outfit” “perfect glam”.

On the other hand , or on the other red carpet, some made an unforgettable disastrous arrival. Like the rock star Courtney Love who ultimately never fails to shock us every time. The consistency of her out-of this world fashion wardrobe was reported again on the red carpet of the 2009 Elle Style Awards which was held at Big Sky London in England yesterday. Love seemed either sleepy or sick with that unjustified hair mess and home-made like dress. She posed continuously with half-opened eyes to the cameras who kept taking multiple pictures of her. After she attended the fashion awards she was spotted leaving a private party 5 hours later looking worse than she came. Her black eye shadow was all over her face and she even looked as if sleep-walking.

C Sharp

Posted on by
Reply

So, i am not really happy about this C# thing, although i have to learn it i don’t get the idea behind this .NET framework, i discovered all about salamander and all the decompilers out there.

I don’t even understand how Microsoft can claim Virtual Machine running your code can be faster than native code, for one thing i know, if this is true then they have not put enough effort on the native compiler.

Easy, straight forward, if you want me to stay here, you need to give me means of pre-jitting my software at the factory before i ship, Not as the user installs !

IP, Speed, Compatibility, Support for those extra processor flags i learned to love, What’s wrong with you Microsoft !

Windows 7

Posted on by
Reply

Not so impressed with Windows 7, i must admit some features like the native VHD support are nice, but it will all depend on the pricing to me, most of the changes are very welcome if they dont cost a fortune !

I have started looking around Windows 7 already, and i plan to write all my findings on a website about Windows.

So, my review of Windows 7 is still in the makes, So stay tuned

Data CD and DVD are not for me

Posted on by
Reply

It may be true that CDs and DVDs are cheap, I think they are very cheap, especially DVDs, but they are not the way for me, they become bulky, and finding them is not easy, you have to physically go through them time and time again !

I already have hundreds of data DVDs and CDs, What i do is, i make an ISO file from the data CD or DVD, store it on the network and then mount it from there on any OS.

Most (All the ones i know of) linux distributions can mount an ISO file, Under Windows, i found this very nice utility that is also free called Virtual Clone Drive (Others may exist).

Install that, Double click any ISO and then you will find it in My Computer Area of your personal computer.

The only question that remains is, are DVDs and CDs worth it ?

1- When doing the math, you might be tempted to devide the price by the number of GBs and see the cost per GB, this is not very accurate, for every 4 or 6 disks need a computer to host them right ?

You can also use NAS enclosures to do the magic right ? yes you can and for this example i will do the math with a NAS enclosure

At the time of writing, the seagate 1.5 TB costs $130, That is around 8.5 cents per GB (Impressive).
Add to that the price of a NAS enclosure for about 40 Dollars (If you have extra SATA ports on your PC or network this is not necessary). the cost per GB becomes. ((130 + 40) / 1500) = 11 Cents per GB !

But is that cheaper than DVD ?

Last time i got DVDs, they were 20 Cents each, this means they cost around 5 Cents per GB.
So, no doubt, that today, DVDs are cheaper than disk space, but the question remains, can the low cost of a DVD justify its use ? they are harder to manage, but they do have advantages,

1- Security, If it is stored away from light, Humitdity and other things, you can’t loase data that is on a DVD like you can lose data on a hard disk, Hard disks are very reliable, But never as reliable as a DVD.

2- Cheaper, as we have just seen.

3- Portable, You can carry them around easily

4- they come in smaller chunks, you can not lend 2 GBs of your hard drive to your friend

So, DVDs may still have there place (And other forms of optical storage), for me, i would go the hard disk route, and when i need a DVD i can just burn one from the ISO files on the hard drive.

NOTE – If you go the hard drive route, the cost doubles if you want to back up your data !