Colin Charles Agenda

Laptop/netbook for a university student and a HP Mini 311 quick review

Colin Charles — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 11:53:53 +0000

For a college/university student, would you get ‘em a laptop or a netbook? Need opinions ASAP. Thanks!

The Twitterverse was quick to respond. Thank you all for responding! A little summary:

@sniffit suggested that netbooks are underpowered, but might change with Linux being on them.
@redsheep went for a laptop, unless I planned on being a mean uncle that didn’t want them to play games/do graphics/etc. Why, I can’t be a mean uncle ;-)
@spinzer said go with a laptop because students have diverse working nature, and a netbook wouldn’t cut it.
Both @alphaque and @brianritchie suggested to watch for the coursework: Computer Science, Graphics, Statistics deserve a laptop, otherwise, go for a netbook.
@saimatkong suggested a 12″ notebook, but those tend to be quite expensive, to the best of my knowledge.
@sureshdr, @tjunkie, @thechannelc, @liewcf, @bleongcw, @r0kawa all suggested a laptop would be better. In fact, @liewcf suggested a MacBook.
@jerng brought up a good point: it should depend on the preferences of the user as speed tends to be a secondary issue.
@biatch0r was the only one that outright said go for a netbook, lugging around a 10KG laptop is so 20th century :) I tend to agree.

So a bit from where I’m coming from, which I didn’t say in the original tweet. This laptop/netbook is for a complete stranger, whom I’ve never met. We do however, know her father. His daughter had just been accepted into a university somewhere up north in Malaysia, and she clearly needs a laptop/netbook for her coursework.

Anyway, all that aside, and with much thanks to the Twitterverse, I set out to pick up a machine quickly (think, 0.5hr). I had to be near MidValley for another reason, so hopped in. Checked out the Asus, and Acer stores, and found laptops and netbooks to exist, and you’d average around RM2,100 or so. Dell had a laptop for RM1,999, but it was a 14″ clunker, and it seemed really heavy. This seemed to be the large problem with a laptop: they came with everything (including a DVD-RW drive), but would come with a 13″ or 14″ screen – and they were all mighty heavy. Acer seemed to offer OS-less laptops, but I didn’t want to spend more time than need be, so wanted an operating system.

I went over to the HP store, my last stop, thinking in my head, I’d pick up the Dell. But I was taken aback when I saw the HP Mini 311. The specifications were amazing: 1.66GHz N280 Atom processor, 2GB RAM, 250GB hard disk, an external 8x DVD-RW drive (!), 11.6″ screen boasting a resolution of 1366×768, 10/100 Ethernet, 802.11b/g WLAN, 92% full-size keyboard (with great tactile feedback – I spent a lot of time in the store trying it). But that’s not all, it comes with 3 USB ports, HDMI output (why?), VGA output (and no need for any silly cable like their previous items), a multimedia card slot (for SD’s, etc.) and a built-in webcam.

The exact model is the HP Mini 311-1002TU. It seems like its an edition only available in Asia, and it comes with Windows 7 Starter Edition. Did I mention that it cost a mere RM1,799?

More goodness about it. It doesn’t come with an Intel graphics chipset, but an nVidia ION. Video performance is pretty darned good, in comparison to what Intel doles out, even on the netbook that I own (an Asus 1000HE). In my quick experiments, I was getting a good 5 hours of battery life running Windows 7.

First thing I did was install: Mozilla Firefox (and set it to be the default web browser), avast! anti-virus (to protect the PC), and OpenOffice.org with the JRE. It comes with a 60 day trial version of Microsoft Office, but who needs that when OpenOffice.org is free and should suffice. The system is quite snappy, and while the guy at the store told me that Windows 7 Starter Edition will not allow me to run more than 3 applications at a time, it works fine for me. In fact, the only thing that seems annoying is that you can’t change the desktop background – Microsoft is intentionally crippling their software for netbooks. From what I understand, a dual monitor setup will not work either (useful to have an external monitor on a netbook), but I did not try this.

I can confirm that Ubuntu works pretty well on this machine – I tested it when I got home, using the LiveCD and it seemed to “just work”. More information available at the laptop testing team HP Mini 311 on the Ubuntu wiki. A forum post to help with suspend/resume magic.

In conclusion, I didn’t get a laptop, but a netbook. But a netbook with an amazing screen size, a resolution that exceeds my expectations, a good graphics card, and an external DVD writer. Windows 7 Starter does not come with Aero, and I wrote a little README file informing the new owner that it might be better to just install Linux and she’ll be better for it at the end of her three year university course :-)

MariaDB 5.1.42 released!

Colin Charles — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 08:46:49 +0000

Dear MariaDB users,

MariaDB 5.1.42, a new branch of the MySQL database which includes all major open source storage engines, myriad bug fixes, and many community patches, has been released. We are very proud to have made our first final release, and we encourage you to test it out and use it on your systems.

For an overview of what’s new in MariaDB 5.1.42, please check out the release notes.

For information on installing MariaDB 5.1.42 on new servers or upgrading to MariaDB 5.1.42 from previous releases, please check out the installation guide.

MariaDB is available in source and binary form for a variety of platforms and is available from the download pages.

It is also our pleasure to announce that we have a partnership with Webyog to offer their tools for trial and at a discounted rate if purchased within 30 days. Find out more at: Download – SQLyog MySQL Fronted, MONyog MySQL Monitoring Tool or via the software partner downloads.

We welcome and appreciate your feedback, bug reports, bug fixes, patches, and participation on our mailing list. Find out more about working with the community.

Enjoy!

Rekindling my love for the Sony Reader PRS-505

Colin Charles — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 11:08:43 +0000

I wrote this before the Apple iPad announcement, so no thoughts on that yet, in this post. At the top of my head though, I’m still keeping my PRS-505, and not getting the iPad.

In May 2008, I picked up a Sony Reader PRS-505. Its an e-book reader, and in the day, was definitely the flagship device from Sony, for electronic books and PDF reading. Today, Sony still sells this, and they also have models with a touchscreen, as well as a mini-version of this (a pocket reader?). I used the device on-and-off, mostly to read PDFs, but of late, I decided to read full-length books on it, and the quick verdict is a simple win!

A bit about the device. It can be charged over USB (I did not opt to buy the AC charger), and uses a standard USB cable. It has a built-in rechargeable battery, and you’re meant to go for about 7,500 page turns. It does audio playback (which I never use), and it can read SD/MMC, as well as Memory Stick cards (again, I don’t use these options). It has over 128MB of storage available for you to store e-books, which seems plenty (failing which, the external storage options can be utilised). It looks like a book – comes encased in a soft leather cover. To turn pages, there are two sets of buttons, so I can read with one hand, or two.

It also is based on opensource software. It runs MontaVista Linux, and Sony distribute all the GNU based software on the web (mixes of GPL/LGPL software being used). More importantly, I can sync e-books via my Linux or Mac OS X boxes – I’ve never actually used Windows for this task. I can successfully import and export books to the Reader, using calibre.

So, why a Sony Reader rather than an Amazon Kindle? Simply, it boils down to availability. I don’t live in the United States, and Amazon tells me I can’t get myself a Kindle. I’d love one – the ability to buy a few books at 3am, to peruse on a topic I’m interested in? That sort of thing is priceless. I don’t even care about the DRM that they impose, the fact that they can come in and delete my purchases. Its the convenience that matters (beats going down to Borders the next day, finding I might have to wait for a title, etc.).

That aside, I also do not buy books that have been inflicted with DRM, from Sony. I’ve been burned once before – when the Palm Pilot’s were the craze around ~1998, I did buy a few titles. Last I checked, I can’t access them anymore, and for the life of me, I don’t own a Palm device capable of reading that stuff.

What do I read? PDF’s, mostly. Of books, of course. Today, O’Reilly’s Safari Bookshelf is really useful. For about 10 tokens, I usually can download a whole book. I’ve been doing this from time to time over the years, and now, instead of reading them on my workstation, I read them on the Sony Reader. Apress isn’t far behind, as most of their books have PDF versions to boot. So my technical reading material is covered.

calibre also allows me to read bundles of Newsweek, The Economist, and the like. I used to use this, but I tend to visit a library once a week once, at least, and end up reading the dead tree copies that are there. Reading fiction and non-fiction is admittedly harder – author/publisher buy-in is very sparse, and I’m sure I’ll have better luck with the Kindle here.

What don’t I like about the device? There’s no backlight. I’d like to read in the dark sometimes, and having lighting is inconvenient, so it would be great if it were backlit. While I can bookmark pages, I cannot highlight text, or even write notes about what I’m reading, inside the Sony Reader. In contrast, if I use the iPhone/iPod Touch to read a book, I get a nice backlight, and I can copy text out, as well as make notes in the notepad. Of course, I don’t get 7,500 page turns on such a device, but if I can squeeze about 20 hours of reading off any device, I’d be pretty happy (think: long flight).

Text from PDFs can be a bit too small. They don’t seem to use up all of the available space, which is truly annoying. Zoom options are available, but there are only two supported sizes: S or M. M makes for easier reading, but I wish it took up more of the device. I’d rather have more page turns, than bad eyes over the years!

Currently on the device (I purged everything from before, just because – disclosure: most links below go to amazon.com and are part of their affiliate programme):

Bringing Nothing to the Party: True Confessions of a New Media Whore by Paul Carr. Most interesting, I’ve completely read this already, and should post up a review soon.
Coders at Work by Peter Seibel. I just finished a couple of chapters, and am going strong here.
Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age by Paul Graham
The Art of Community: Building the New Age of Participation (Theory in Practice) by Jono Bacon

Two of the above are author released PDFs, while one is from O’Reilly’s Safari Bookshelf and the other an outright purchase from Apress.

Would I recommend one? Sure. If you like reading, have a tonne of PDF’s in ~/Downloads, its about time you got yourself a Sony Reader. Would I recommend one if you already have an iPhone/iPod Touch? Sure (I have an iPod Touch, too!). I think they’re two different devices, and its not time to converge them just yet (maybe, if the iPod Touch had a bigger screen).

Do you have an e-book reader? Where are you getting your fix of content?

Interactive git add

Colin Charles — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 10:53:04 +0000

I’ve been using git a lot more (its become my personal favourite; though on a daily basis I have to context switch between Bazaar and SVN as well – glad that I’ve stopped using CVS and BitKeeper) and am really liking it. Recently, I found out that git add has an interactive mode!

You can add a whole bunch of files real easily. Ditto with reverting changes. You can also add certain lines of a file (this is seriously useful).

Go give git add -i a twirl. Any other good git tips?

Last chances to submit your MySQL Conference talk!

Colin Charles — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 17:16:48 +0000

The O’Reilly MySQL Conference & Expo 2010 will be closing the Call for Participation at the end of the 27th January 2010. You have less than 48-hours – so get submitting already.

Take a gander at some of the shortlisted presentations, look at all the amazing tutorials, and what’s keeping you waiting from registering?

MySQL with yaSSL vulnerability

Colin Charles — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:00:46 +0000

It’s worth noting that if you’re using MySQL 5.0/5.1, with SSL enabled, and you’re using yaSSL as opposed to OpenSSL, you’re vulnerable to CVE-2009-4484. Its a buffer overflow, that works over TCP, via the MySQL port, 3306. Lenz furnished us with some information, and the patch is available. You’ll see this rocking when MySQL 5.1.43 gets released.

It affects Debian (presumably, it will also affect Ubuntu). Red Hat/CentOS is spared, because instead of using yaSSL, OpenSSL is used.

MariaDB 5.1.41-rc (based on MySQL 5.1.41) which was just released a few days ago, naturally is also affected. The next release candidate might potentially be rebased against 5.1.42 (the builds are already ready, from what I understand), and will include this patch.

Some yaSSL trivia: did you know that one of the two co-founders of the project, is actually Larry Stefonic? Larry was an early MySQL Ab employee, holding quite a few positions at MySQL Ab; he was the President of MySQL KK (the Japanese branch), and was also SVP for worldwide OEM sales!

Pompous Malaysian Minister discourages immersion in Western-created sites such as Facebook, Twitter

Colin Charles — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 11:13:48 +0000

“The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.” – Thomas Jefferson

A lazy Saturday, I’m taking a break from most things, and I figured I’d fire up Twitter and see what’s on. Many people pointed me to: Malaysians advised against being immersed in Facebook, Twitter (a href=”http://malaysiakini.com/news/122094″>Malaysiakini picked this up too). It features Rais Yatim, being more pompous than he usually is (yes, please watch that video – its highly amusing).

He added that facilities like internet could not be accepted wholly because it was a form of business introduced by the West and “Malaysians were just users.”

Malaysians were just users. Why were they not the creators of sites like Facebook and Twitter? After all, with organisations throwing money away in the form of grants, so readily to companies, why haven’t we created the next Facebook or Twitter? Ping.fm had only two employees, picked up some angel funding, and have recently been acquired by Seesmic. RM150k for a year, is enough for two founders to hack on something, and make it worthwhile, yet, we see higher amounts of folk gaming the system. What about Twitpic? This list can go on, but that’s not going to be the focus of this post – Malaysian’s can create, if they put their mind to it. To boot, there are also funds that they can have access to.

He goes on to talk about how one must upkeep religious values and be mindful of them when using social networking services. Wow, whatever he’s smoking, I want some.

“We must be strong in our believes and culture because the identity and image of our country depends on us.

Yes. The image of the country today, largely depends on what the people say. Politicians can go overseas and lie to others, but what do people do before the want to visit a country? Invest in a country? Move to a country? They check up on the prospective new place on the Internet. They use Google search. They’ll read Google News. Heck, they might even go read Google’s Blog Search. Others will check out Flickr and Picasa to find good photos, some will check out YouTube. Others will look at TripAdvisor to find a good hotel. Others will check out the newspapers. The list goes on. However, what citizens do, is they speak their mind, when online – so the government clearly lacks control of their old one-way-mediums.

His next statement makes absolutely no sense at all. Maybe he should have spoken in his native Bahasa Malaysia?

“They are just selling Facebook, Twitter, L-Band and various other services, even through space, as a product but we do not do such business. We accept all this in a state of cultural shock,” he said.

Culture shock, eh? Seriously. He continues…

“We should not be quick to condemn or look down on those who do not use Facebook. Newspapers are still relevant, so is Facebook, but do not be carried away with everything and disregard the old system,” he said.

Of course. That would be plain wrong, and ageist. Not everyone needs to be on Facebook. Or Twitter. Or read online media. Its fine that people have a choice. Today, if one chooses to go “old school”, all one has to do is wake up in the morning, buy a dead tree edition of your favourite newspaper, read it, then go over to the boob tube, watch the myriad of programming available on free-to-air channels, and suck in all the propaganda. However, as a society matures, they do tend to disregard the old, and check out the new (for example, if I’d had followed the old system, I’d be seeing this silly media article in the dead tree edition of The Star – I saw it half an hour after it was published because I was on Twitter). Societies mature, and their needs mature, so they do outgrow the old (same applies to political regimes).

It continues, in where he says things about how one shouldn’t use Twitter, Facebook and SMS messaging for the wrong reasons. He tells us that we cannot escape from the law for our actions. And that most people understand the whole 1Malaysia concept. Drivel, in general.

Anyway, newspapers in their dead-tree form are losing relevance. We have two that are free now – The Sun and The Malay Mail. The Star has pretty much all its content online. And Malaysians can read The Malaysian Insider (Malaysian creation) for free, or subscribe to Malaysiakini (Malaysian creation). As the Internet penetration rate goes up, we’ll see more of this. The magazine industry in Malaysia has been suffering for a couple of years (no eyeballs, no advertising ringgit).

So, there are Malaysian creations, used by people, where Malaysians are not just users but creators. I’m sorry Rais, you’re so out of it.

Some MySQL-related links

Colin Charles — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 04:10:57 +0000

Check out how Linden Labs, creators of the popular game Second Life, upgraded their MySQL database. The MySQL they use? Straight out of Debian! Of course, now, they’re running with the Percona patchset, against MySQL 5.0.84. Definitely a good read.

Its good to see Lars post about contributing to the MySQL replication & backup codebase. It sounds like the replication & backup team have decided that mentoring is the way to go – you get a “coach developer” if the idea is accepted. I like this very much, and sincerely hope it spreads to the rest of the server; it will help decentralise development of MySQL, and the endgame is a larger community.

While I know Christmas is over, The 12 Days of Christmas (MySQL Edition), is actually quite a fun watch :)

Happy New Year all!

StarOffice no longer on the SIA’s Airbus A380?

Colin Charles — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 11:16:04 +0000

Going to and from London, I flew on Singapore Airlines’ Airbus A380 and loved every bit of it. The last time I got on one of these planes was when I flew to Sydney.

It used to be that the in-flight entertainment allowed for you to play with StarOffice 8, opening and saving documents via the (powered) USB port. That generally gives me a kick, since its nice to see your name 38,000ft in the air.

According to this, it’s also available on the Boeing 777-300ER. However, I noticed that you don’t have this option any longer – it has since been removed.

There’d a PDF viewer, a media player (connect your iPod, be impressed), but no StarOffice in sight. I wonder if a licensing deal with Sun Microsystems had something to do with it? After all, no need to license StarOffice, just go forth and use OpenOffice.org!

Yes, it took some 30 seconds to start up StarOffice the last time I played with it. Could it be due to that, customer complaints got rid of it? I sincerely hope not. Suddenly, the QWERTY keyboard on the gamepad seems a lot less useful…

On free WiFi at hotels

Colin Charles — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 10:40:01 +0000

I was reading Hotel WiFi Should Be a Right, Not a Luxury, by Sarah Lacy at TechCrunch, and I tend to agree with her – Internet connectivity should be provided as part of a hotel package. Its not a right, but its 2010, it should be common courtesy.

I write this, while I myself am staying at an Express by Holiday Inn, in London, where the charge for 512/128kbps wired Internet is GBP7.50 for 24 hours of usage. To me, that is daylight robbery – it is about 1/10th the cost of the room! It is bitterly cold here, but if I was willing to walk about three hundred metres, there’s a bar nearby, with free WiFi access. So, I’m paying a comfort fee.

From a hoteliers point of view, I’m not using their telephone, because I have a mobile phone. I’m probably not buying their pay TV movies, because I can watch stuff on my 15″ MacBook Pro, or since I’m in the UK, and am using their Internet, I could also go to youtube.com/shows and catch something (it buffers a bit at 512kbps down, but that’s another story). If I didn’t want to use my expensive mobile phone (that’s roaming), I could always fire up a VoIP service, or use Skype, and make cheap phone calls via my PC. So from a hoteliers perspective, even giving me a 512/128 link, basically means they can’t slap me with charges for the usage of the phone, and they probably can’t even sell me pay TV.

I’ve stayed at many hotels over the years, and there is one thing I notice: the cheaper the hotel, the chance of getting free Internet access (at least in the lobby) is definitely higher. The more expensive it goes (think InterContinental’s, Westin’s, and the like), there’s usually a charge of about USD$10/day for Internet usage. Usually, if you’ve stayed at a chain long enough, priority members end up getting Internet access for free. Also, if you book into an “Executive” room (i.e. you’re on an expense account and the travel agency books this for you), there tends to be free Internet (alongside, some free fruit).

Sarah is lucky, living in America, since if most of her travel is within the States, you tend to be able to have mobile phone access, so 3G Internet shouldn’t be too far away. Or the Sprint MiFi’s. In fact, that’s exactly what I did when I stayed in Penang recently – the hotel was going to slap me a RM58/day fee for Internet usage (that’s 1/4th the cost of the room by the way), but I carried my 3G dongle, and DiGi gave me 1500kbps transfers, for free :-) (OK, I pay a monthly fee for it, but I use it everywhere I please, in Malaysia, where they have 3G coverage – otherwise I drop down to EDGE).

The same applies in Singapore. Charging folk up to SGD$20 per day of Internet usage, when Wireless@SG is available at most cafes for free, seems ridiculous. This is again, a case of paying a comfort fee. In Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, nowadays you can buy yourself 3G Internet prepaid SIM cards, that charge way less than what the hotel is going to slap you with, so if you have a dongle, go for it (they usually also sell SIM-unlocked dongles).

Why not do what the Royal Orchid in Bangalore does? They offer a basic connection for free, and offer a paid rate if you want a faster speed.

Spot on. Give me access for basic web surfing and email. If I really need to make VoIP calls (I’ve found 7kbps is more than enough for VoIP calls…) with better clarity, I can pony up and pay a fee. Ditto if I want to watch streaming video.

Let 2010 be the year where either data roaming can be capped (in Asia, I have data services capped at RM36/day while roaming), or there is widespread data usage from prepaid SIMs. The telcos can beat the hotels into submission! Or, let 2010 be the year, where we get free Internet piped in our rooms. Ubiquitous connectivity.