Categories
Electronics Kindle

Unboxing Kindle Touch and First Impressions

This is my first e-ink device, and I was really pumped when I saw the specs for the Kindle Touch. I just received mine today as well! So here’s some unboxing and first impressions of it so far.

I purchased the Kindle Touch with Kindle Special Offers for $99. If you are here, I am sure you are already very aware of the specs, if not check them out on Amazon’s website : Linky Clicky

My first impression is that it’s very sleek, and the back is a bit gripper then I thought it would be. I thought it would be sleek like my iphone 4 is. It is also very light, I am surprised at that, and I think it will make it very easy to read for long period of time. Turning it on for the first time was pretty cool as well, it’s pretty dummy friendly. I turned the wifi on and got onto my WPA2 encrypted network and off I went.

The touch interface’d keyboard works surprisingly well, I was expecting it to be pretty rough, but it is pretty responsive. The only thing I kept bumping into was how I need to wait on menu’s to pop up/repaint. I am used to the iphone, but I am sure this will come to me quick once I load all of my books up.

Overall, I cannot wait to get it home and put some books on and start reading off of it!

The KSO version already saved me $17.50, because when I turned the Kindle on, and looked at the special offers, I saw one for cases/covers, and it was 50% off a cover I already purchased! So I hoped on live chat with Amazon, and gave them my code, and they refunded me $17.50, pretty awesome.

picture time!

[zp src=”1.JPG” album=”blog/kindle/” width=”600″]

[zp src=”9.JPG” album=”blog/kindle/” width=”600″]

[zp src=”2.JPG” album=”blog/kindle/” width=”600″]

[zp src=”8.JPG” album=”blog/kindle/” width=”600″]

[zp src=”7.JPG” album=”blog/kindle” width=”600″]

I will have a post to follow that will have my review of my new Marware Eco-Flip for Kindle Touch cover. Stay tuned!

EDIT :

added case review : Case Review Link

Categories
Gaming

How to turn off bloom in Battlefield 3 for PC

open C:\Users\xxx\Documents\Battlefield 3\settings\prof_save_profile in Notepad (make a copy beforehand just in case.)

Search for the word enlighten and then change the “1” following it to a “0”, then save.

Categories
Gaming

How to play Battlefield 3 early

1. Search Windows for “proxy”
2. Click “configure proxy server”
3. Click “LAN settings”
4. Check “use a proxy server for LAN”
5. Input this IP: 203.232.208.116
6. Input this port: 8080
7. Run the release date check by launching Battlefield 3 on Origin
8. If the release date check fails, click “retry”
9. Once it succeeds, disable the proxy
10. Enjoy playing Battlefield 3!

super easy :).

Categories
iPhone

Where to download ios 5?

Just in case anyone was having super slow downloads from iTunes, you can download your new firmware directly from apple, at much faster speeds.

Categories
Electronics Kindle

Amazon Kindle, Kindle Touch, and Kindle Fire

Lots of new information released about these bad boys.

Kindle
Kindle Touch
Kindle Fire

Pricing :

A lot of websites, even Amazon.com, are advertising the Kindle, and the Kindle touch at $79 and $99 respectively. They fail to mention (obviously), that they are with ads. They are non obtrusive ads, also called KSO (Kindle Special Offers). You can purchase non KSO’d Kindles for $109 and $139 respectively.

Obvious differences :

The Kindle Touch has twice the battery, twice the space/memory, and the touch screen compared to the non-touch version.
They also have 3G models for the Kindle Touch, which offers unlimited, no plan data from your kindle.

Release date is November 21, 2011.

Categories
Operating Systems Software

Code 12: This device cannot find enough free resources that it can use – PC770 verizon air card

I had an E6400 Dell with an issue where his Verizon air card (PC770) would not connect up every time. It would say device unknown. I looked at device manager, and it showed the NEC driver as have an error code of “Code 12: This device cannot find enough free resources that it can use”. After some goggling, and failed attempts, I found a fix!

I ran this command in the command prompt (right click->administrator in accessories) :

bcdedit /set CONFIGACCESSPOLICY DISALLOWMMCONFIG

rebooted, and he has not had an issue since.

Categories
video

Betty White and Shaq.

Categories
Computer Hardware Laptop

Lenovo x220 BIOS 1.21 – fixes CPU throttling problem

update : 1-17-2012 a newer BIOS is out which includes these changes :

Go Here

Looks like my Lenovo x220 got a new BIOS update!

official download link : 1.21 BIOS

——————————————————————————–
CHANGES IN THIS RELEASE
Version 1.21

[Important updates]
Nothing.

[New functions or enhancements]
– Improved system performance when heavy program is executed with 65W AC adapter.
– Improved system boots time.
– Disabled keyboarding while the lid was closed to avoid unexpected key input
when the computer was held with the lid closed.

[Problem fixes]
– Fixed an issue where the computer might not be booted from bootloader program.
– Fixed an issue where a 1820 error might occur at power-on when the external
fingerprint reader device was attached to the computer while the integrated
fingerprint reader was disabled in the ThinkPad Setup.
– Fixed an issue where the computer might fail to boot when connected the
Smartphone with the USB port.
– Improved cooling fan noise.
– Corrected spelling mistakes in BIOS setup menu.

——————————————————————————–

Reports so far are that it has improved WEI score (useless, I know, but some enjoy big numbers).

One user said : “As for the throttling fix. It appears to be working, when I run OCCT (the graphic/cpu stress) the cpu does not go to 800mhz, GPU is mostly at the 1300mhz turbo boost but fluctuates a little bit, so does the CPU but its mostly at 3.2-3.4ghz on both cores during the test. Before when running OCCT the CPU would drop to 800mhz.”

A lenovo staff member is quoted saying : ”

The version released yesterday is the version I was expecting later this month as I said yesterday. I didn’t realize, but the support team expedited it through. The internal testing shows good improvement on throttling with benchmarks and lab tests.”

Other users said they still experience the throttling though. Me personally, do not have the issue since BIOS 1.19

You can view the throttle issue thread here : link

Categories
Operating Systems Software

Fresh AHCI install vs AHCI registry tweak

When I was running my AHCI vs ATA tests, I thought it would be a perfect time to see if a fresh install (factory image from dell) of AHCI is better then a registry tweak AHCI install (basically coming from ATA, without reformating with our stock image).

AHCI with registry tweak :

[zp src=”atto-ahci-samsung.jpg” album=”blog/samsungSSD/” width=”600″]

[zp src=”crystal-ahci-samsung.jpg” album=”blog/samsungSSD/” width=”600″]

AHCI after a fresh install :

[zp src=”atto-ahcifresh-samsung.jpg” album=”blog/samsungSSD/” width=”600″]

[zp src=”crystal-ahcifresh-samsung.jpg” album=”blog/samsungSSD/” width=”600″]

It’s interesting that dells factory image (fresh install) is almost slower performance wise! If anyone’s interested, I might have time to do a test from a fresh install (from win 7 DVD).

Categories
Uncategorized

E6420 SSD benchmark ATA vs AHCI – Samsung 128GB SSD Model: MZ-7PA1280/0D1

There’s not a lot of informationon these drives, but this is what Dell gave us, and charged us an extra $300~ for (rip off)…but at least it makes for some pretty benchmarks for you guys :).

It was a bit difficult to find specifications for this drive, but I did find an ebay listing with some specifics :

Manufacturer: Samsung
Model: MZ-7PA1280/0D1
Manufacturer P/N: MZ7PA128HMCD-010D1
Made in: Korea
DP/N: 0MG6KH
F/W: AXM06D1Q

Main Features
Connectivity
Connector Serial ATA 7-pin
Connector Type SATA 3.0 Gbps
* Capacity: 128 GB
* Form Factor: 2.5 inch
* Interface: SATA
* NAND Flash: Samsung 32 nano
* Shock: 1500G, duration 0.5ms, Half sine wave
* Vibration: 20G Peak, 10~ 2000Hz, (15mins/Axis) x3 Axis
* Performance:
Sequential Read Rate: 250 MB/s(max)
Sequential Write Rate: 200 MB/s(max)
Random Read Rate: 25K IOPS
Random Write Rate: 7K IOPS
* MTBF: 1,000,000 hours
* Power Supply: 5V ± 5%
* Dimensions: 69.85 x 100.2 x 9.50 mm
* Weight: 68g

So Dell gave us a Sata II drive for a Sandy bridge system with Sata III, nice and cheap of them. All I did to test ATA vs AHCI was test/install under ATA, and then run the fix for ATA -> AHCI which cab can be found here

Here’s a picture of the laptop (E6420) :

[zp src=”e6420.JPG” album=”blog/e6420/” width=”600″]

and the SSD itself :

[zp src=”samsung-ssd.JPG” album=”blog/samsungSSD/” width=”600″]

Here are the ATA benchmarks :

[zp src=”atto-ata-samsung.jpg” album=”blog/samsungSSD/” width=”600″]

[zp src=”crystal-ata-samsung.jpg” album=”blog/samsungSSD/” width=”600″]

And the AHCI benchmarks :

[zp src=”atto-ahci-samsung.jpg” album=”blog/samsungSSD/” width=”600″]

[zp src=”crystal-ahci-samsung.jpg” album=”blog/samsungSSD/” width=”600″]

I also did a test on new, from scratch build with this laptop/samsung SSD :

[zp src=”atto-ahcifresh-samsung.jpg” album=”blog/samsungSSD/” width=”600″]

[zp src=”crystal-ahcifresh-samsung.jpg” album=”blog/samsungSSD/” width=”600″]

I think there was a fluke during the 4k read with the crystal benchmarks, but the bump is impressive. There’s almost a loss when doing a fresh install (which is a dell factory image), interestingly enough. Good information, hopefully helps people move towards AHCI for the performance gains!