Eko Wahyudiharto :: It's All About Works

Win32 Application Online Update (Manually)

2009-11-01T21:25:00.003+07:00

Anyone knows that updating such that distributed application is a boring activity, especially for those who have tons of PCs. It can make peoples from IT department wasting their times to upgrading client application. Moreover, looking forward email contain application attachment from software vendor also can bring much troubles for wide company and I mean this is an old-fashioned way. Why don’t you just suggest the vendor to change the update method with an online way? But for this, you need to make sure that the client PCs has internet capability so that you only have to tell the operator to download the update.

The update method is very simple and I did this to one of my client across Jakarta. It’s easy for them to update and me as the software developer to publish the application. Any latest update, I just store it to my domain immediately. How to do that? Look at image simulate the process below:

The process is quite plain; just tell the application to generate a link in any latest version available from web server, but simply ignore the priors so that it will only show the fresh version link. Got that? Ok, let say that you have an online web server named abc.com. Next, prepare a single web based script to generate a link if there is any newest version on hand (on this example, I used PHP script and named it with app.php). Now, the question is, how the scripts can detect and compare between current version and others up-to-date? Well, it’s as simply as that app.php needs to catch what the current application version is. This means that you need to retrieve current version number from the program and make it as a parameter when the URL has navigated to app.php. In case I used Borland Delphi for this test, so I drop-in a TWebBrowser component in a form and let it navigate to http://www.abc.com/app.php?v=1. The "1" number refers to current version application.

…
const InfoNum = 10;
InfoStr: array[1..InfoNum] of string = ('CompanyName', 'FileDescription', 'FileVersion', 'InternalName', 'LegalCopyright', 'LegalTradeMarks', 'OriginalFileName', 'ProductName', 'ProductVersion', 'Comments');
…

procedure TFAbout.FormShow(Sender: TObject);
var S: string;
n, Len, i: DWORD;
Buf: PChar;
Value: PChar;
Begin
S := Application.ExeName;
n := GetFileVersionInfoSize(PChar(S), n);
if n > 0 then
begin
Buf := AllocMem(n);
Memo1.Lines.Add('VersionInfoSize = ' + IntToStr(n));
GetFileVersionInfo(PChar(S), 0, n, Buf);
for i := 3 to 3 do
if VerQueryValue(Buf, PChar('StringFileInfo\040904E4\' + InfoStr[i]), Pointer(Value), Len) then
WebBrowser1.Navigate('http://www.abc.com/app.php?v='+Value);
FreeMem(Buf, n);
end;
end;

Done with client application, now it turns to PHP script app.php. The app.php consist of comparison between both current version (delivered from client via TWebBrowser component) and others up-to-date version. Take a look at completely app.php below:

<?
$v=$_GET['v'];
?>
<html>
<head>
<title>Download Update</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
</head>

<body bgcolor="#E4E4E4">
<em>Current Version: <?=$v?></em><strong><br>Download Update</strong>:<br>

<?php
$wrong=0;
$right=0;
if ($handle = opendir('.')) {
while (false !== ($file = readdir($handle))) {
if ($file != "." && $file != ".." && $file !="app.php") {
$file_zip = substr($file,0,1);
$file_tmp = substr($file,1,1);
if ($file_tmp>$v && $file_zip=="v")
{
$right++;
echo "• <a href='$file'>$file_tmp</a> (" . filesize($file)/1000 . " Kb)<br>";
}
else $wrong++;
}
}
closedir($handle);
}
if ($right==0 && $wrong>0) echo "-"; // shows â��-â�� if no update available
?>
</body>
</html>

Store both of app.php and latest zipped application (v2.zip on sample) in a same path over the web server. At last, try to do a test.

Voila, those little scripts now works helping IT department from updating application task over the internet and buried the ancient way. The above scripts can be expanded to do various things for your Win32 application. Good day and don’t forget to leave your comment here.

Accessing Nokia OVI Mail from Outlook Express

2009-10-13T22:42:00.002+07:00

Do you ever see those left banner right up on NOKIA Indonesia website? It’s a door prize offered to anyone who use free OVI email service. This time NOKIA would like to introduce this latest service and – anyway - the promotion looks great since the lottery will be drawing in every month from August to December 2009 with pretty fair rewards. Just check it out the requisite and follow the instruction to register and signing up to OVI. Once you have been registered to OVI, your ovi.com mail will be available.

Especially to whom has preferred email address, accessing OVI mail as your secondary mail from browser is unusual behavior, unless you have this as your primary email. But if you has multiple mail addresses and already manage it with mail client such as Outlook Express, checking out inbox will be much simpler. This article will explain on how to setting up OVI mail within Outlook Express so that you can retrieve and sending mail from it without need to open the mail from browser.

Create new account from Outlook Express and give with your name. Also fill with complete email address on address name column with youraccount@ovi.com.

Select IMAP (OVI doesn’t support POP3) and type imap.mail.ovi.com as incoming mail server. Whereas the Outgoing mail server is smtp.mail.ovi.com. Don’t forget to set the authentication for the outgoing mail server.

Note that both of incoming and outgoing mail server is using SSL port. So, make sure that you have to fill the port number with 993 for IMAP incoming and 465 for outgoing.

Ok, that’s it. It’s enough for the configuration & now is the time to make a trial. Go for icon Send and Receive All from Outlook Express & select the appropriate link for your OVI client name. If the synchronization is going well, make a turn to try sending a mail.

In my first attempt, the retrieval & sending test is success with above configuration. Please make a try & comment here.

Happy Ied-Day 1430H

2009-09-20T18:59:00.002+07:00

The editorial staff of paparadit.blogspot.com would like to say:

"Happy Ied-Day 1430H, Minal Aidzin Wal Faidzin, Please forgive me with all your heart"

I'll meet you again here with latest article based on my best experiences on early October. Thanks for passing by.

Do You AdBrite Your Self?

2009-07-10T02:01:00.002+07:00

AdBrite is one of international online advertising services similar to Google AdSense. If you intended to work on it, both services can bring you additional reasonable revenue gained from internet. Well, this current article will share you a short review about my first experience on incoming cheque from my AdBrite account (which was registered since 2007 – the same year as my Google Adsense account was created).

After running this both online ads within the same year (2007) until now, at least I can say that my AdBrite revenue is 1/10 lower than my Google AdSense. Still, this comparison rate is relatively to others, but in fact, this is all I’ve got. I’m not telling more detailed about targeted ads on a page or other aspects involved to it but one thing for sure that I used this service only on this blog. Note that I just want to proof that this is payable to Indonesian publishers & will cause benefit like any else online advertising.

Regarding to the terms and conditions – unfortunately - AdBrite support cheque payment method only. For the first time – as usual – I need to make sure that my own cheque can be cleared to local bank. In order to do so, as possible as my balance reach the minimal limit, as soon as I have to make a withdrawal. Here’s below the chronologies:

May 1: AdBrite processing my balance automatically after it reaches minimal amount limit
May 6: Post stamp the mail goes from California
May, 13: The cheque delivered to my office
June, 2: Withdrawal transaction started made to BNI
July, 9: The money was collectable on my account on BNI

From occurrence above, I can conclude that AdBrite has sent the cheque faster than Google AdSense (read my first revenue from Google cheque article on this link). It only took 6 days for AdBrite mailed the cheque after the system detected the minimal amount limit. The mail also arrived after 7 days delivery from California to Jakarta, and this is what I called instant service! (a very fast service equal to Google AdSense delivered by mail, but not with Western Union)

Like to what I said before, this is only my first AdBrite payment test. So that I only need my first US$ 101 from AdBrite. Please consider that this amount was collected over 2 years right up on this single blog (since November 2007), and however, this is what I called a mess! (a very unsuitable environment appealed to Google AdSense, at least it happened to me).

So, what the heck is WELLS FARGO BANK? Just like something weird bank name. But, from the internet I found that this is a European Union bank headquartered in Ireland. At first, I so doubt that I can make withdrawal collection from local bank since I didn’t recognize this name ever! But then, thanks to International Collection Clearing staff at BNI which calmed me that this will withdraw able.

After waiting for 5 weeks - from June 2 to July 9 - finally the money was succeeded transferred to my account on BNI. I checked from BNI Internet Banking & there’s a record tracked to my AdBrite collection transaction. Look that I only receipt Rp 472.350 for US$ 101 withdrawal. By the rate of exchange Rp 10.080 per US$1 on July 9, it’s means that BNI charge for this took US$ 54 (similar to Rp 545.730)! I don’t know about bank correspondences charge rate but as I remember for previous transaction, this is a “special gift” for me. For god sake, but I enjoy it.

Configuring Private Domain Email with Google Apps

2009-06-02T08:33:00.003+07:00

Owning personal domain hosted on a hosting company is one of prestige for some persons. This could be a great benefit to whom aware with that, as they could share their profiles just like personal website or blog or e-commerce online application for examples. Along with existing social networks epoch, ease of communication is one of important thing that can never be separated from web 2.0 trend nowadays. Unfortunately, not all cheap hosting provided SMTP services to manage their outgoing email from client accounts. Especially to newbies programmer who wants to develop an automation email for such of auto email notification or auto responder, this will raise a problem.

But then, thanks to Google as they can provide another free service called with Google Apps, which helpful to solve things like this. Even though this is not a latest service, Google Apps can make possibility to create email based on personal domain. For example; if you have a domain named mydomain.com, Google Apps can enable GMail to provide webmaster@mydomain.com email address. The benefit is, the SMTP and POP3 are absolutely free, so that it is possible to make an automation email responder or something similar. For advanced programmers who wants to connect their script for this purposes, you can switch to this link. In this current article, I just want to share you about how to create personal domain based email using Google Apps.

For this necessity, let assume that you already have GMail account and had signed to http://www.google.com/a successfully. First, you have to verify domain ownership by the instruction given from Google Apps dashboard links.

After finished verifying domain ownership, switch to your domain control panel given from your hosting provider (for this test, I use spanel module. Anything could be different but it has the same points). Go to Domain and DNS Manager from Domain menu and open up Edit DNS link.

You will be prompted similar display showing you current MX configuration from hosting company. Give an attention on options #7, #8, #10 - #12 on below images.

Remove options #7, #8, #10 - #12 and change to the following configuration (options #8 - 15). This will override MX setting to GMail configuration.

After you updated above settings completely, tell Email MX reception type to accept Remote MX from Subdomain Manager on the same Domain menu. This means that the primary MX is switched to Google server and will not be received at all on your hosting server.

While it proceed & still on the same menu, add a subdomain which purposed redirect to Google Apps login page from a short URL of your domain name. For example, you can create subdomain named with webmail.mydomain.com and this is alias name to your Google Apps URL.

That’s it and you’re done. Your current Google email with your active domain will be activated couple days after you had confirmed domain ownership.

After it verified, you can start to access it from your short URL (above defined as webmail.domain.com) and gained all benefits by using GMail account. Just send an email to your other email address and see that sender address is come from webmaster@mydomain.com. Trust me, it’ll works!

Bridging MySQL Server on Different Host with PHP

2009-05-01T12:37:00.003+07:00

Accessing single core database records from several existing online systems is a top application development priority. There are no others choice to retrieve rows on-the-fly accurately without having a pure real live connection. In a corporation which implementing single sign-in on some separated (web based) applications, each login page modules must connected to single dedicated users table in data center in order to verify user’s right. This is a sample about the use of clustering application technique.

Integrating multiple online systems so that it have both data connection; one in local & one in other host can be made with 2 styles; simple & difficult. I said it simple if there’s less or no security policy restriction on both servers. For example, let assume that it’s possible for server B granted request query only from server A. On this condition, it’s easy as provide two common connections in a configuration laid in server A without paying attention on security issues in server B.

<?php
$linkA = mysql_connect("hostA", "mysql_userA", "mysql_passwordA");
mysql_select_db("databaseA", $linkA);
$resultA = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM tableA", $linkA);
$num_rowsA = mysql_num_rows($resultA);

$linkB = mysql_connect("hostB", "mysql_userB", "mysql_passwordB");
mysql_select_db("databaseB", $linkB);
$resultB = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM tableB", $linkB);
$num_rowsB = mysql_num_rows($resultB);

echo "Host A: $num_rowsA Rows\nHost B: $num_rows Rows";
?>

This also can be done if you have designed the network and servers infrastructure by your own self as secure as it should be, by using VPN line or granted all privileges in server B only from server A. But, be sure that you must have root privileges on both servers to configure this out. All of above is a simple one.

But, what if you have no root privileges at all, or there’s a bit complicated situation which server A currently reside on an external web hosting company and server B is behind a firewall on local network (no port allowed except HTTP)? Well … well, this is not a simple way. Although that it’s not a simple, but it has another solutions. Solve the problem - I called it – with bridging method.

Bridging method basically based on SOAP technique. You can clearly read my previous article on this blog about what is SOAP actually including my extra specimen code. This method is simply as using XML to transferring the data. It’s a RMI like on Java (Remote Method Invocation) or known as application server. From picture above, a request query sent to Server B from Server A. Server B recognizing accepted command & continuing to process the query. Then result query will be returned back to Server A. Anyway, it might have a bit degraded performance, but believes me; I don’t want to talk about it right now.

Back to topic, at least, result query retrieval mode on web based application divide into 2 conditions which is single & multiple results. A single result can directly passing to a variable or text box. A more complex is multiple results such as menu/list box. Watch picture below.

Picture above explains a page from server A displaying result query obtained from data bridging from other host (server B). First object (the text box) hold only one row result returned, while combo box can hold many records. Here, I’ll explain what you have done to solve this. To get started, first off all, you need the same PHP SOAP library taken from my previous article. I renamed this library as “bridge.soap.php” & let it stored on both servers. On script in Server A, you must define the initialization:

require_once('bridge.soap.php');
$serverpath ='http://serverB/bridge.php';
$namespace="urn:xmethods-SOAPWebService";

$serverpath is variable hold a target application server on server B. okay, let’s straight more deep, if you need to request a single row result query then this below is the template:

$perintah="SELECT * FROM tableB WHERE fieldB='" . $varB ."'";
$field='fieldB';
$param= array('perintah'=>$perintah,'field'=>$field);
$client=new soapclient($serverpath);
list($field) = $client->call('get_row',$param,$namespace);
unset($client);

$field variable explain what field on database Server B that will be retrieved. And so on, the result query will also be stored on this same variable name (just to make easier). Anyway, it’s quite different if you need to retrieve multiple fields record by bridging & store it to combo box. Check below template:

$perintah="SELECT * FROM tableB order by fieldB1";
$field='fieldB1# fieldB2';
$param= array('perintah'=>$perintah,'field'=>$field);
$client = new soapclient($serverpath);
$record = $client->call('get_loop',$param,$namespace);
$row=explode("#",$record);
for ($x = 0; $x < count($row); $x++) {
$value='';
$col=explode("|",$row[$x]);
for ($y = 0; $y <= count($col); $y++) $value=$value . $col[$y] . '|';
$value=substr($value, 0, -2);
$value_kode=explode("|",$value);
echo("<option value='$value_kode'>$value</option>");
}
unset($client);

Same as first template, $field also hold what field that will be retrieved but it can contains more than single field. For example above, it declared to retrieve fieldB1 and fieldB2 (with # as delimiter). This is similar to query statement:

SELECT fieldB1,fieldB2 FROM tableB order by fieldB1

2nd template actually based on 1st skeleton template. I modified 1st template into 2nd so that it now possible to gain multiple fields. Even both templates look similar, but it’s different; while the 1st calling get_row function, the 2nd calling get_loop function. These both functions are exists on server B. It’s a kind a RPC (Remote Procedure Call) function as a part of application server. For instances, below script are template of SOAP server (I named as bridge.php) only reside on server B (the function definition called from Server A):

<?php
function get_row($perintah,$field)
{
$param = array();
$fieldno=explode("#",$field);

$hasil=mysql_query($perintah) or die($perintah);
while ($row=mysql_fetch_array($hasil))
{
for ($x = 0; $x <= count($fieldno); $x++) array_push($param,$row[$fieldno[$x]]);
}
return $param;
}

function get_loop($perintah,$field)
{
$param = array();
$param_row='';
$fieldno=explode("#",$field);

$hasil=mysql_query($perintah) or die($perintah);
while ($row=mysql_fetch_array($hasil))
{
$param_col='';
for ($x = 0; $x < count($fieldno); $x++) $param_col=$param_col . $row[$fieldno[$x]] . '|';
$param_col=substr($param_col, 0, -1) . '#';
$param_row=$param_row . $param_col;
}
$param_row=substr($param_row, 0, -1);
return $param_row;
}

require_once('bridge.soap.php');
$linkB = mysql_connect("hostB", "mysql_userB", "mysql_passwordB");
mysql_select_db("databaseB", $linkB);

// create the server object
$server = new soap_server;

// register the lookup service
$server->register('get_row');
$server->register('get_loop');

// send the result as a SOAP response over HTTP
$server->service($HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA);
?>

So, now it looks quite clear, huh? The application on server A is connecting to server B through bridge.php. The bridge.php become as database gateway, receive request, querying & send the result back. This is quite stupid, but also more reliable than a technique which I describe earlier (synchronization method) on this blog. Both of techniques were currently used on some of my projects showed on my homepage. You can simulate all appropriate to your existing situation. If you have other ideas or techniques, please let us know. See you on my next experiences…

Google Adsense: Cash with Western Union

2009-04-13T10:03:00.002+07:00

It’s nice to hear that Google Adsense officially introduced Western Union as a new payment method in Indonesia on early February 2009. For me, this payment option is quick, easy, and free compared to conventional checks delivery, as we don’t have to wait checks to arrive, passing couple weeks verified from local bank to US Citibank & eliminating fee to clear it. On this chance, I’d like to share you my first experience about cashing Google Adsense money with Western Union. This is my several times earning money from Google, but this time, it’s only need less than 20 minutes to process! With checks? It could be more than 2 months…

First, let you sure that you ready to receive a payment issued from Google. You might check it out from Earnings and Payments Summary on your account.

Once you have it, track the details link to see the MTCN code (MTCN = Money Transfer Control Number).

For more specific explanation, see the Statement of Earnings. I suggest that it would be good if you print these both information out to papers before going to Western Union agent.

Next, prepare to go to agent & don’t forget to carry your own valid citizens ID (KTP = Kartu Tanda Penduduk). For this test, I using agent in one of PERUM Pegadaian branch office on Jakarta. At the agent, ask for To receive money form & fill those 4 information which is receiver first name, sender first name, MTCN at the right of the form & the amount of money to receive at the bottom. Also, sign the form.

If nothing goes wrong, then final receipt will be issued in a minute together with money in local currency as a result from amount of USD money times current local Western Union exchange rate. No extra surcharges spend neither revenue stamps cost required for it.

Although Western Union exchange rate is lower than bank (approximately Rp 200 per USD), but it’s still more reliable to cash it in 20 minutes than wasting cost needed to wait & clear the checks at the bank in 2 months. Do you prefer Western Union?

Where’s My Last Record?

2009-04-06T09:14:00.001+07:00

If you have develop an application (Win32 based I mean) & playing around with great number of records then I suggest you not to let users wasting their time to scroll rows in a list of table & select what record they need time after time. Got what I’m talking about? No? Okay, in a specific case, data transactions committed by an assist of others record, let say a combo or grid of records. It would be nothing if it has 10 records, how about 100 or more? I can guarantee that users will be flustered or the mouse soon will be broken because a long scroll or thousands clicks over it.

I’m saying about to keep last record position in memory & store it on next task. Pretty simple but it helps users effectively, at least minimize the use of scrolling. Here my example on Delphi, with TDBGrid contains records retrieved from a table & assigned with TQuery component. Once TQuery refreshed, record pointer will be at first position. To avoid this, save bookmark pointer before TQuery refreshed & store position in after. Check a code sliced below:

unit ULastRecordPointer;

interface

uses
Windows, Messages, SysUtils, Variants, Classes, Graphics, Controls, Forms,
Dialogs, StdCtrls, Grids, DBGrids, ComCtrls, DB, DBTables, ExtCtrls, JPEG;

type
TFLastRecordPointer = class(TForm)
...
private
{ Private declarations }
public
{ Public declarations }
end;

var
FLastRecordPointer: TFLastRecordPointer;
...
ptr_record: TBookmark;

implementation

{$R *.dfm}

procedure TFLastRecordPointer.FormRefresh(Sender: TObject);
begin
try
q3.GotoBookmark(ptr_record);
except
//
end;
end;

procedure TFLastRecordPointer.DBGrid1DblClick(Sender: TObject);
begin
ptr_record:=q3.GetBookmark;
end;
end.

The last record position will be saved if users had double clicking on grid (pick a record) & try to store it after the form refreshed. So that the small black triangle will stay on it’s previous position.

With this help of TBookmark, users job will assisted & no more times will be wasted. Furthermore, your users mouse will be much more durable ;-p

Vista Live Boot from SBM

2009-03-03T00:54:00.000+07:00

What’s this article mean? It’s nothing except playing around with Vista Live released by CHIP international magazine (If you like, here is a link to download via torrent). Even that it seems dated, but I just interesting & want to know what’s behind on it. Well, it’s another live CD tool similar to XP Live build from Bart PE (I wrote an article about it sometimes ago). Anyway, it’s easiest to boot with BIOS pointing to CD in usual way, but this time I’d like to test to boot it with SBM.

SBM (Smart Boot Manager) tool let any bootable media to boot with it. However - on this case - it required UNIX to start. In other way, it’s suitable to work with GRUB as add-in module which helping out booting any bootable media such as USB flash disk or CD (e.g. your old computer which hasn’t any capability to boot from BIOS).

First of all, download SBM files to your computer right on this link (25 Kb contains 2 files ~ memdisk.bin & sbootmgr.dsk). To install it, boot to your Linux then copy both files to any directories you prefer – here in my experience with Fedora 7 - I made directory /boot/grub/sbm & copied the files into it. Then edit grub.conf under /boot/grub directory, add an appropriate line so that GRUB will read it & show as new boot menu. Here below is my example:

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
…
# Add these 3 lines at the end of file
title SBM
root(hd0,0)
kernel /boot/grub/sbm/memdisk.bin
initrd /boot/grub/sbm/sbootmgr.dsk

After editing grub.conf, save it & make a reboot. Now, GRUB menu will add a new boot menu as same as image below.

Try to insert the CD (Vista Live) then select Boot Manager menu. A new window SBM will show up & it will list automatically which media that able to boot from.

Select CDROM & press enter. The SBM succeeded to load & read the CD. Please be patient while the Live CD loaded successfully.

In couple minutes, a new splash welcome page will show up. Just like the name, this CD purposed for diagnostic tools & bootable windows enhanced with anti spyware, password checker, anti virus & also data recovery.

After it loaded successfully, it will display a desktop similar to Windows XP completed with simple file manager & group of tools under start menu.

As it automatically detect & recognized NTFS partition, so I recommend this tools as 2nd live CD after Windows XP in Stick to rescue your NTFS based OS (such as 2000, XP, Vista or Vienna which known as 7). Somehow, I still wondering, why they give name with Vista Live while the environment OS much similar to XP than Vista?

Custom Computer Case PVC Based

2009-02-08T21:35:00.002+07:00

Did you know that one of greatest cost on PC modding is a computer case? Except for those who have lots of money, expends on it could similar to a complete AMD Phenom or Intel Quad Core PC. Although that this only PC case price now is start from US$21 (Rp. 250.000) until US$320 (Rp. 3.824.000), but here in my situation the problem is not that high case price. As I still have an oldies PC (powered by Pentium III 750MHz) which I purposed as Media Center in living room, but anyway I actually intended to make it as a barebone looked like, without changing any of new hardware absolutely. Just try to re-substitute it “skin”.

The problem is that my motherboard which is ASUS CUSL2-C isn’t a Micro ATX based form factor which has dimension of 20.8cm x 30.5cm. So that I can’t see any chance to place it on any barebone case. But then I got inspired from somewhere on internet - which I forgot the URL was - where I can think any possibility to make a PC frame from PVC tube.

I then immediately take off & strip all the devices attached from old case. From this, I started to create an optimal layout for new case & finally I found this one below :

After composing layout, I have to calculate the material needed & measured the dimension in order to define length, width & height the PVC slices. Here below is a complete list of the material:

Part ID	Part Description	Qty	Part Price	Extended Price	US$ Total
1	PVC Male Adapter 1/2" to 3/4" (L letter)	8	Rp. 3.000	Rp. 24.000	US$ 2
2	PVC Cross Adapter 3/4" (T Letter)	14	Rp. 2.000	Rp. 28.000	US$ 2.34
3	PVC 1/2" 2.5M	1	?	?	?
4	Small Hinge – 1 pack	1	?	?	?
5	Fan with LED light	1	?	?	?
			TOTAL	Rp. 52.000	US$ 4.34

Fortunately that I have stock parts #3, #4 & #5, so I didn’t know how much prices expense exactly for that. You can check all of the parts to home depot near to you or check from this link. Anyway, based on layout I then slice the PVC into various small parts which was 16’s of 6cm, 5’s of 17cm, 2’s of 9cm & 4’s of 10cm.

After sawed the PVC’s, I begin to bunch the parts to make a base frame for PSU, hard drive & DVD place.

Next stage plan is to make 2nd frame for motherboard & the rest of devices. Don’t forget to neat the cables & fixing power & reset switch orderly.

From this point, you have completed about 75% of the total progress. The last is to bunched the wrench case so that it will tight fastened.

It’s done & now the time to test it. Apply all of additional devices attached to CPU & let it burning in any way to make sure that the case is now ready to show off.

Resolving AspireOne Problem That Won’t Boot Up

2009-02-02T11:10:00.002+07:00

Here was my experience happened to my AspireOne that has a problem, a serious one I thought. One time before I post about OpenSolaris 2008.11 article, my AspireOne can’t booting up for some unknown reason. It’s a weird situation & truly, I was confused. But anyway, I was successfully how to resolve it since I found a document somewhere in the internet (forgot where the URL was) & tried to followed the instruction explained on it.

From source I read, it was BIOS problem (some product which has 3304 BIOS version like mine). One great thing & I just know is that AspireOne has a built-in BIOS recovery routine, making it possible to flash the BIOS even if the system doesn’t boot anymore. It’s only meant for emergencies & may void your warranty, so use at your own risk.

First of all, prepare 2 files; latest BIOS (876Kb) & flash software included on package (FLASHIT.EXE). Here I supply 4 latest BIOS version on my blog (3305, 3307, 3308 & 3309) completed with FLASHIT.EXE. So, if you think that you have 3304 version, just download 3305. But if you think that you have 3305 version, download 3307 one and so on. Also, prepare an USB stick & format it with FAT type. An article on how to format it you may download & view here.

Next, put both FLASHIT.EXE and the BIOS file in the root directory of the stick. Rename the BIOS file to ZG5IA32.FD, that's important. Do not remove the USB stick.

Turn the AA1 off, make sure both battery and AC adapter are connected. Press Fn+Esc, keep it pressed and press the power button to turn the AA1 on. Release Fn+Esc after a few seconds, the power button will be blinking. Press the power button once. The AA1 will now initiate the BIOS flash, do not interrupt it under any circumstances. After a while the power button will stop blinking, and the AA1 will reboot shortly after. Wait patiently.

The BIOS has been flashed and all settings reset to default. If for some reason you made a mistake during the procedure and it doesn't reboot by itself wait 5 minutes before turning it off, just to be safe that it isn't still flashing the BIOS. If you think that flashing procedure has completed successfully, turn on again the system to check that your system now is ready.

OpenSolaris 2008.11 on Acer AspireOne (Part II: Installation & Exploring)

2009-01-16T10:02:00.002+07:00

Welcome back to 2nd articles about reviewing of OpenSolaris & this could be the last one I share you. The first part of it you may view here. If you have tried the live CD yet & certainly to continue to installation session then you must be sure about on where disk the OS will be placed. Since the manual documentation about it not touching very deeply, so I thought that this wouldn’t be a big problem – it is a common way to set Unix OS families – but then I was wrong. There’s some facts I found regarding to it:

Can’t Install on Logical Partition
This is rules that hasn’t documented very well yet. OpenSolaris setup will reject the installation if your dedicated space located on logical partitions; this is a contrary way on Mac OS or Linux. I found this when I have my last partition tables on my AspireOne. Take a look at below picture:

The green box refers to target partition which is currently installed with Fedora 7 & located on logical partition (7GB). With this situation - which I thought it wouldn’t rise a problem - I determined to install it no matter what. I then insert the CD, plugged-in external DVD drives, turn on the netbook, switch BIOS to boot the CD & let the live CD to run, just like the 1st article did.

After live CD completely loaded, you may found an install shortcut on desktop or jack’s desktop directory in file browser. Just double click on it.

The install wizard will start to run, but it only shows primary partition on Disk wizard! You see that my target partition is behind on EXT LBA partition type (91GB).

Based on this, I then go back to Windows to re-make the partition so that 7GB logical partition becomes a primary. Below picture show you what my partition table look like now (see that yellow part defined as BF type partition):

Once again, I run the live CD to start the installation wizard & voila… it has no problem anymore since I select that 7GB primary BF partition as target. Anyway, installation goes on smoothly without creating any problem. An article show you a complete installation of 2008.05 version (similarly to 2008.11) from A to Z, just click here to see.

This installation running on AspireOne will take approximately about 45-50 minutes, but I don’t have question about that. After giving it a bit of patient – finally - my first login was really a good experience... a decent wallpaper, slim design, attractive look and feel. Everything was pretty great. A GNOME default desktop.

A Bit Differ File System
Now, let’s take a look around on file browser (GNOME Nautilus). On picture below, you may see that the file system structure is a bit differs than any Unix OS families. There’s an additional system directories such as export, kernel, net, platform, rmdisk, rpool & system. Well, we’ll figured it out some later. By the way, my pendrive (USB mass storage device) was automatically detected in the system, check out an icon on the left panel (1.0 GB Media).

A weird thing happened since I doubt to describe why it shows so. While I expressly run Disk Usage Analyzer & found that 29.1GB are held on OpenSolaris system. What is this? I then check on df command on terminal & see that those 29.1GB seems come from total size of mounted file system (6.4GB readable from 7GB mounted as root).

However, my others existing FAT32 logical partition must readable from OpenSolaris (Local Disk D: & E:). A mount command – a common command on Unix – will solve this, I though but actually, it’s not that easy since disk device node is different from Unix. The node on OpenSolaris is what they called disk number. To see the disk number available on system, switch to root first & issue format command.

#format
Searching for disks...done

AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
0. c4d0 ["DISK NUMBER"]
/pci@0,0/pci103c,30d9@1f,2/disk@0,0
Specify disk (enter its number): Ctrl+C

WARNING: Press Ctrl+C here and not enter. Otherwise you may format you Solaris partition. Anyway, from command above, a disk number named as c4d0 exist on my AspireOne – a pretty weird name huh? Before continuing, create d & e directory under /mnt. To mount my both FAT32 partition (D: & E:), issued a command:

#mount -F pcfs /dev/dsk/c4d0p0:d /mnt/d
#mount -F pcfs /dev/dsk/c4d0p0:e /mnt/e

Notice that the partition number should be entered exactly by typing pX after disk number, which X refer to partition number (p0 means partition 0). To mount NTFS file system, you need to download ntfs-3g package & issue a same command above. Read this manual for more details. Later, you can edit /etc/vfstab file for enabling automatic mounting drives at boot.

Enabling Network
On OpenSolaris, you can’t find ethX (similar to Unix) on your system. But I found a weird – again – name, it called rge0. To practice it, I then plugged in Ethernet cable with DHCP environment from my current office, thus I connected my system to internet. The picture below show you before & after the DHCP activation.

Package Manager provides another impressive feature which enables you to download & install software in your system by using graphical window. Here you can search a package by name, select it and click install/update. It will resolve all dependencies (Installation of a package requires another packages), download all of them and install in your system. "opensolaris.org" is the default repository, you can add your own repository and create new package of your own.

While download process by Package Manager is running, I then try to run FireFox to surf my blog. Surprisely that OpenSolaris 2008.11 was fully equipped with FireFox version 3. The surfing access now more similar to others.

Also, I checked out messaging program which is Pidgin as default application. I then login to my account on yahoo & in short, it running & connected successfully.

Changes on GRUB
I was trying to edit the "menu.lst" from "/boot/grub/menu.lst" but found that "For zfs root, menu.lst has moved to /rpool/boot/grub/menu.lst". I need to edit it because I have to enabling boot menu for the AspireOne recovery disk accessible. And finally, here below is complete of menu.lst file:

splashimage /boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
background 215ECA
timeout 5
default 1
#---------- ADDED BY BOOTADM - DO NOT EDIT ----------
title OpenSolaris 2008.11 snv_101b_rc2 X86
findroot (pool_rpool,3,a)
splashimage /boot/solaris.xpm
foreground d25f00
background 115d93
bootfs rpool/ROOT/opensolaris
kernel$ /platform/i86pc/kernel/$ISADIR/unix -B $ZFS-BOOTFS,console=graphics
module$ /platform/i86pc/$ISADIR/boot_archive
#---------------------END BOOTADM--------------------

title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1

title AspireOne Recovery Disk
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

# Unknown partition of type 15 found on /dev/rdsk/c4d0p0 partition: 3
# It maps to the GRUB device: (hd0,2) .

# title OpenSolaris 2008.11 snv_101b_rc2 X86 text boot
# findroot (pool_rpool,3,a)
# bootfs rpool/ROOT/opensolaris
# kernel$ /platform/i86pc/kernel/$ISADIR/unix -B $ZFS-BOOTFS
# module$ /platform/i86pc/$ISADIR/boot_archive

After made a reboot, here below picture of my boot GRUB splash:

Anything Else?
Actually, there’s more things to explore but I didn’t have much time to did it & share you to this blog. By now, it’s about hundreds of current title spread over the internet or you can find useful tips & trick by joining forum on opensolaris.org.May this article brief you a bit benefits.

OpenSolaris 2008.11 on Acer AspireOne (Part I: LiveCD)

2009-01-15T09:09:00.002+07:00

Somehow, in early 2009, I’ve been interested exactly on rumors spread over the internet about latest version of OpenSolaris & finally I made an experiment on my AspireOne. Better late then never, this is my first experience to face with this free Sun OS product based on Unix family in x86 machine (UMPC), even not a truly SPARC one. But at least, I was too curious to try or need to figured it out & compared to others Unix based OS such as Linux or Mac OS.

OpenSolaris 2008.11 available for free download from solaris.org. It comes with single ISO’s CD (687MB). However, I was succeeded grabbed it for almost 2 days from my office computer. Actually, my first plan is try to create a portable LiveUSB, but obviously this method also offered from Belenix, another OpenSolaris distribution community. One else important things is, I was too sick to get different fresh USB ISO one. So, here I go, steady still with LiveCD instead.

At first, I wonder if I can make a way to boot the ISO from AspireOne without external CD/DVD drive. But unfortunately, none of my thought was did. The plan to bundled the ISO to USB flash has failed. Another plan to boot from an existing Fedora 7 partition with GRUB also didn’t worked. Last plan to load native ISO from GRUB was too far. So, I end up doing more crazy things with an external DVDRW plugged on it after burning the ISO on a blank CD. Pretty dumb to wasting too much times ha ha...

Anyway, in minutes, I’m ready to boot from LiveCD. This LiveCD completes with GRUB loader & nothing fails from hardware detection initializing. At the end of loading process which I thought it was completed to show a desktop, but it only show a text mode console login. So, where the hell is my desktop? It must be a trouble with VGA card, a common equal problem as Linux happened when startx failed to executed. From this point, I then login as user (user: jack & password: jack, default LiveCD user) & started to verify the log. I found that the trouble raised when LiveCD tried to load intel driver. If you meet the same problem as I did, then login as root to generate a representative xorg.conf to change the driver to vesa from intel.

$su
Password: (default password for root is opensolaris)
# /usr/X11/bin/Xorg –configure

This procedure should create /jack/xorg.conf.new. Edit this file using vi text editor, search for Device Section & modify the Driver line to:

Driver “vesa”

Still stay in root mode & try to lunch GNOME desktop manager (I couldn’t find any desktop manager except this on OpenSolaris LiveCD):

# /usr/X11/bin/xinit /usr/bin/dbus-launch gnome-session -- \/usr/X11/bin/Xorg –config /jack/xorg.conf.new :0

And… voila, here we’ll see the GNOME desktop. Until this, everything is much similar to Linux than Mac OS. LiveCD image looks fine, really decent and pretty impressive.

Check out a "Device driver Utility" icon on the desktop. If you think any of your hardware device is not working, check out from here that whether driver support for that device is available or not. For example below, my wireless on Acer AspireOne recognized but it need 3rd party driver to work properly. Though, I couldn’t resolve how to activate built-in webcam & both of MMC readers has failed when I tried to insert 1GB of SD Card.

Anyway, this is still “a work progress” since I have not yet finished the configuration of all devices. Come back soon for more detailed version.

Available General Hardware

Item	Hardware Components	Status	Notes
CPU	Intel Atom 1.66Ghz - Chipset Intel Mobile 950	works	No problems
Graphics	Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950	works	Using driver "vesa" as default, read above
LCD Panel	8.9" WXGA 1024x600	works	Stick around with 1024x768 resolution
Disk Storage	SATA 100 GB - 5400 RPM	works	With native OpenSolaris ZFS file system
Ethernet	Broadcom Corporation Netlink Tigon3 PCI Express 10/100/1000Base	works	Identified with rge0 as default
Wireless	Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG - 802.11 a/b/g	Untested	Need 3rd party driver
Sound	Intel Corporation 82801G - High Definition Audio	works	Good
Built-in Card Reader	Memory Stick reader, SDcard, Xd Card, MMC	Untested	Testing failed while I plugged in 1GB SD card

In a while, enjoy that root’s GNOME desktop for a bit. I’ll continue my next post for the installation process in a short.

JavaScript: Return Multiple Values in Count Between Dates Function

2009-01-02T09:37:00.003+07:00

JavaScript is one of parts that can’t be separated with web programming. Sometimes we usually depend on it, although we can solve the problem with another technique but the use of JavaScript is much helpful to support dynamic runtime application. For example manipulating or counting math is possibly without refreshing the page. Therefore, it is much simpler than AJAX. This article purposely dedicated to my self & any newbies which want to learn JavaScript methods.

Just like my own experience improving a page counting difference between two dates, here I found something new & I’d like to archived for me then share to you. The web page project it self are related to MySQL date field type & based on PHP programming. The subject was, how to calculate the year & month difference by both dates after the page loaded & once the date object is changed? As usual, I set the date interface with JavaScript so it would generate an interesting GUI just like common date object on Win32 programming.

Those dates GUI are compatible with date type format in MySQL (yyyy-mm-dd). When the date icon clicked, it will show small interactive calendar panel. The first date object I named with date_start, the second is date_end & sequentially, the difference year & month is n_year & n_month. The core date subtract function need 2 parameter dates & I created as well as it will return more than one value (year & month). On JavaScript, the treatment is put it on array mode. Pick out a small portion below:

function selisihTgl(dateEnd,dateStart)
{
…
return [yearAge, monthAge];
}

Displaying returned both value from function in array are simply called the array variable just like any others programming which is 0 based in bracket.

function fSelisih(sender)
{
…
obj.n_year.value=selisih[0]
obj.n_month.value=selisih[1]
}

That’s it, kinda simple isn’t it? By the way – unfortunately -, when dates changed, the date GUI object doesn’t have trigger event to call the function. So, I take <FORM> tag with onMouseMove event. Pretty dumb, but it works fine. Below is complete script from A to Z, check this out:

// portion of PHP code to retrieve both dates value from MySQL database
...
//
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Your Title Please</TITLE>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
</HEAD>
<script language="JavaScript">
function selisihTgl(dateEnd,dateStart)
{
var baru = new Date(dateEnd.substring(0,4),
dateEnd.substring(5,7)-1,
dateEnd.substring(8,10));

var yearBaru = baru.getYear();
var monthBaru = baru.getMonth();
var dateBaru = baru.getDate();

var lama = new Date(dateStart.substring(0,4),
dateStart.substring(5,7)-1,
dateStart.substring(8,10));

var yearLama = lama.getYear();
var monthLama = lama.getMonth();
var dateLama = lama.getDate();

yearAge = yearBaru - yearLama;

if (monthBaru >= monthLama)
var monthAge = monthBaru - monthLama;
else
{
yearAge--;
var monthAge = 12 + monthBaru -monthLama;
}

if (dateBaru >= dateLama)
var dateAge = dateBaru - dateLama;
else
{
monthAge--;
var dateAge = 31 + dateBaru - dateLama;

if (monthAge < 0)
{
monthAge = 11;
yearAge--;
}
}

return [yearAge, monthAge];
}

function fSelisih(sender)
{
var obj=sender;
var selisih = selisihTgl(obj.date_end.value,obj.date_start.value);
obj.n_year.value=selisih[0]
obj.n_month.value=selisih[1]
}
</script>
<BODY onLoad="fSelisih(this)">
...
<form action="path/to/save/or/ignore/it" method="post" name="form1" onMouseMove="fSelisih(this)">
...
</form>
...
</BODY>
</HTML>

Don’t forget to insert the function within onLoad event on <BODY> tag to automatically count them expressly when the page are fully loaded.

Done! Enough for now lesson & I’ll be back with another unique tips & trick programming.

VirtualBox in Aspire One: Fedora 7 Guest on Windows XP Home Host

2008-12-01T11:47:00.002+07:00

On this series article of Aspire One (A110) – at least at current month continuously, I’d like to share you about my experience installing Fedora 7 guest on Windows XP Home host with VirtualBox. This might be a different one since I hadn’t tried before, moreover on netbook class. By the chance, I need to test about the virtualization performance on Atom processor running Linux system simultaneously. If you’d like to take a try your self, you must prepare VirtualBox software (I used 1.4.0 or download latest here), Fedora 7 ISO DVD (or others Linux image) and Nero ImageDrive (or your any virtual CD favorite application).

First, load the ISO image with virtual CD drive tools (I used Nero to load the ISO image).

Run VirtualBox & prepare the virtual hardware environments. In my test, I setting up with 384MB of RAM & 3GB fixed size of virtual hard disk.

Boot the machine & it will shows default welcome splash. Select the first menu; Install or upgrade an existing system.

Follow the on-screen wizard until you meet with hard drive partitioning window. Select Create custom layout & continue to Next button.

Divide the 3GB virtual hard disk with each configuration; root system (ext3) with 2753MB & swap file with 314MB or depends on your custom size.

As it default, leave the GRUB boot loader to be installed on this virtual hard disk. Click Next to continue.

Obviously, the network interface has been detected as Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] 79c970 [PCnet32 LANCE]. Give the interface with manual configuration IP address & similar with the host network class (I used 192.168.1.1 to host & 192.168.1.12 to guest).

Select your appropriate software with Customize now radio button or simply leave with it’s default selection value.

Installing files then established…

During this, the load of CPU usage was high. Every single task on host OS may decrease the speed of installing process.

Approximately, it took about 1:20 hours until the installation completed with office packages installed. Next, click Reboot button. Note that, the ISO image will ejected automatically during this screen.

System will now restarted, the live GRUB boot also appears.

Loading progress established with (very) low speed.

The great was, 2nd device – which was sound card – had recognized as 82801AA AC97 Audio Controller & currently using snd-intel8x0 module. A sound test clearly hear out from the speaker.

I tried to test the network connection (host with 192.168.1.1 and guest IP 192.168.1.12) & both of it was successfully responding. I pinging out guest from host, while I made an attempt to load the host share drives from guest OS.

Conclusion
Somehow, running Fedora 7 with VirtualBox on this netbook feels the same with running exactly Fedora 7 on Pentium III physically machine with 256MB of RAM. Everything has working but with slow-moving around. However, with all weaknesses, still I need this virtualization to test my web based application project on different OS (for example: Linux act as client) & browser capability environments.

Acer Aspire One A105 with Windows XP Performance Experiments

2008-11-18T19:32:00.002+07:00

This is my reports about measuring AAO A105 on Windows XP after succeeded upgrading from Linux Linpus. On previous article, I also tests ‘his brother’ - AAO A110 which originally bundled with XP Home & 120GB hard drive. So, we will figure out the comparison of both machines, typically the same but with minor difference, the storage. To gain equal results, still I used the same benchmark application which was SiSoft Sandra 2003 & 3DMark 2003.

The first test takes the comparison of CPU arithmetic benchmark. SiSoft result explains that Dhrystone ALU & Whetstone FPU/SSE2 in AAO A105 actually higher 20 MIPS than AAO A110.

Take a look further to CPU multimedia benchmark; Integer iSSE result on AAO A105 was lower than AAO 110 with fine disputes, 6033 vs. 6049 iteration per second (it/s).

Anyway, cache memory benchmark on both systems (the same 1 GB on each) has none difference. Take a look detail on the blue line below referring to the AAO A105.

How about the memory speed? It shows that AAO A105 few faster with 31 mark slightly than AAO A110. But it’s no big deal with that.

The only amazing point downward to AAO A105 is the very poor storage index. Even that SiSoft couldn’t finished this test completely. It hangs on the middle of the test while the storage led show it’s busy indicator. Although I had apply the SSD tweak manually but it feels doesn’t give any effect.

One thing for sure that AAO A105 has a bit score for gaming machine category than AA0 A110, with 17 mark difference. Is a real game benchmark left off the storage index measurement?

Anyway, for me instead, AAO A105 is such of interesting machine, especially with SSD built-in on it. The SSD performance is great on Linux while the other way, it’s poor on Windows. Even though, I still couldn’t find the answer what is wrong with that. Was it caused by ‘low quality’ SSD hardware or lack of Windows XP standard device driver? Anyone has the answer?

Rescuing System with USB DOS

2008-11-09T13:26:00.002+07:00

However, these sounds more little bit primitive but I believe that it’s still useful to administering your computer, especially for systems that don’t has floppy or optical drive. On this chance, I’d like to share you about on how to creating a USB based DOS boot. This was my experience happened last month when I need to make a GHOST partition image from a typical laptop which doesn't have floppy or internal optical drive except tons of USB slots.

For this, you need a USB flash disk at least with 128MB capacity & DOS packages (2.7MB) which available from this link. Extract on your local drive directory (e.g.: C:\) just like image shown below.

Execute program hpusbfw.exe after plug in the USB disk. Automatically, the program will detect & recognize your flash disk (it's refers to H:\ drive letter on my experience).

Browse the DOS file system on the same path where you execute the program then click Start button to begin the formatting process.

Note that it will erase all of files on USB disk, so be careful & backup your data first.

Formatting process will established.

It's done & your flash drive is ready to boot.

If you checked it out from Windows Explorer, there's 3 files only on it. But actually, you can freely adding others DOS based utility tools you prefer. As an example, I added ghost software since I only have a deal with it.

Restart your computer & prepare for USB boot.

Here it is, a lovely C:\ prompt will appear. Next step is up to you. Have a good day.

Installing Fedora 7 from USB Flash Disk on Aspire One

2008-10-24T09:36:00.002+07:00

Actually, this current article has many header titles. As I succeeded uncover several hidden things behind my Aspire One during the installation of Fedora 7. But the great was, it’ll describe how to make Fedora 7 USB boot setup and also revealing what is under the 1st partition of the Aspire One hard drive - the recovery partition indeed. Why I choose Fedora 7 because I already loved it so much, a better performance, quite complete applications including 3rd party additional tools and of course a stable operating system kernel.

What you need to do this is a Fedora 7 boot disk image, an idle USB flash disk at least with 32MB capacity, Fedora 7 ISO DVD image and also a Linux computer system for preparing of USB boot. Anyway, disk partitioning tools such as Partition Magic might be required to restructuring the Aspire One hard drive partition under Windows.

Install disk partitioning tool if you don’t have any dedicated partition for Linux. At minimal, it need 2 system partitions; the root system & swap space. The size is up to you, but in my experiences, 7GB root partition & 500MB swap space was more than enough (see green box on picture below). Anyway, a red box on image referring the Acer recovery partition. This partition is unique. Somehow, we can’t see it from Windows Explorer even that it has been on FAT16 file system. You even can’t reach it from GHOST tool which I though it can. So, it makes me so suppressed & would like to see it physically from Linux.

Back to topic again, after you prepared the partition, put Fedora 7 ISO image on any kind partition with FAT32 file system, so that it readable from Fedora 7 setup. In my experiences, I put it on 2nd partition (drive D under VBOX directory ~ D:\VBOX). Next, it’s time to create the bootable USB disk. Download disk image from this link & extract it on your existing Linux system. Type the command below on current path in terminal where you extract the image.

$ dd if=diskboot.img of=/dev/sdax

The device /dev/sdax refer to your USB flash disk, so make an appropriate for your situation. If nothing goes wrong, now you’re ready to boot the flash drive. Change boot selections from F12 shortcut after you restart the computer. Press Enter to continue.

Then, a welcome screen will appear. Select first menu to begin the installation process. Continue the setup wizard until it asking the installation method screen.

On this chance, simply select Hard drive option then click OK to continue.

Next, the wizard will asking what partition and directory on selected partition hold the image for Fedora 7. On my example, select /dev/sda5 and type VBOX (without the ISO file name) which refer to directory holding image. Click OK again to continue.

The installation will begin. Follow the rest wizard just like the same as you install in normal condition until it completely finished. Now, you have Fedora 7 inside your Aspire One (dual boot with default Windows XP Home). By the way, did you remember when I told you about Acer recovery partition above? Check it out from file explorer (e.g.: Konqueror) after you manually mounting it, you can see the files physically & backup it to safe place.

To gain more additional 5GB space, you can delete it or merge this 1st partition from Windows Explorer to another existing partition using Partition Magic. Be careful, the change of partitions table might caused your Fedora 7 could not boot properly anymore.

Free Aspire One from Google

2008-10-21T08:29:00.002+07:00

How the hell can Google gave me an Acer Aspire One? No no… actually, the money is true from Google but then I exchange it with Aspire One. Fortunately, my Ad Sense checque arrived from Google just for couple weeks ago. And lucky me that this “harvest” time, the amount accumulations from month to month in short was higher than before. So, I guess it’s not too bad that I spent about US$ 520 for a tool to increase my blogging spirit. Yeah, from blog for blog, I though.

At First Sight
There’s so many netbooks present now but I don’t’ know, why I love Aspire One so much? Actually, I was drilling over when it appears for the first time in the middle of the year with that damned 8GB SSD. But, I have to be patient until this hard drive storage version is released officially since I got interested more with large storage. Like others review said that this tiny thing has standard in light weight & also hardware platform, I mean in netbook class. But I was too impressed with Acer cute design, especially with white casing color.

This A105 type released bundled with Windows XP Home & SP3 included. It comes with 120GB hard drive (10GB reserved for recovery partition), 1GB RAM & Atom typically processor. The Aspire One dimension has a slightly built. About 25% smaller than my Acer Travelmate 6291 & 40% littler than my old fatty Micron Pentium III notebook.

Take a look further over their display, the 14” normal screen, 12.1” & 8.9” wide screen. The first display looks too bulky compared with this white Aspire One. It was indeed that non existing of optical drive (and others devices) significantly helping reducing it’s size & weight (almost 4kg on Micron & 1kg on Aspire One). But after all, this is what we call technology, when trends are heading to a smaller & lighter weight devices.

Anyway, using Aspire One to write this article was comfortable enough. The keyboard feels so soft & pleasant to use, even the “weird look” internal touch pad (which some peoples hate it that way). But, I don’t have any trouble as I used both devices. Well, sometime in early, I often hit “=” character when I thought it was a backspace key. But now it doesn’t happened anymore. By the way, as you see on picture below, there’s no more Acer empowerment special key on keyboard panel. The only non standard button is just a power switch.

Having a netbook with 0.3Mpx is more than enough for me, as I rarely (even never) using it as video chat messenger. Anyway, web camera existence in notebook not more than just an accessory (or electronic mirror to self-look for me, precisely). But, it’s all seems alright.

On left panel of Aspire One, there’s 5 I/O connectors available; SDHC for storage expansion slot, 1 USB slot, LAN, VGA out & power jack. Meanwhile on right side there’s 2 USB slot, headset & microphone jack, 5-in-1 card reader (again) & also common Kensington locker. At the front panel, nothing is there except a wireless switch at the right side. Switching on or off as simply as slide it in right direction.

Even that the 8.9” screen looks small, but it’s excellent to display out the 1024x600 resolution mode. Like everybody said, this resolution is standard particularly to seeing website for browsing conformances. You can compared to others which having poor smaller screen (e.g.: 7” with 800x480 resolution) in Asus 1st generation of Eee netbook.

This is my first time having a notebook which has longer age of battery life. With 6-cell, I can make up to 5 hours typing without plugging in the power jack. This is superb for me while I can carrying this over everywhere with no afraid of losing out the power. Unfortunately, one thing I hate is the shape of the battery. It’s too sticky out make it appear being fat. This kind remains me to a local model with this same battery form – which I very dislike it that way.

Core 2 Duo vs Atom: And the Winner belongs to…
Indirectly, the born of Intel Atom has teased me apart. What kind of its CPU performance? Does it match to the price? Is it quite powerful to serve it as programmer machine? Well, here’s the explanation with my style of course. The test environment only involving 2 type of hardware devices; Acer Travelmate 6291 & Acer Aspire One. Please note that this comparison doesn’t purposed to judging device or machine subjectivity but nothing other than “drawing” each of it’s capability in semi-real utilizing. On this chance too, I only use 2 benchmarking application which is SiSoft Sandra Professional 2003 & Futuremark 3DMark 2003.

The first test takes the comparison of both CPU arithmetic benchmarks. SiSoft result explains that Dhrystone ALU & Whetstone FPU/SSE2 in Atom actually is 70% lower than Core 2 Duo. That was surprising me about arithmetic processing speed on Atom. Although, this test still placed Atom more bit powerful than Intel Pentium 4 1.6GHz with 256 L2 cache.

Take a look further to CPU multimedia benchmark; Integer iSSE result on Atom only 20% compared to Core 2 Duo! And Floating Point iSSE is about 60% lower than Core 2 Duo. This means that Atom processor basically has the same performance with Intel Pentium III-S 1.2 GHz with 512 L2 cache.

How about the cache memory benchmark? The result even more fantastic! It shows that cache memory on Aspire One has left about 75% lower than Travelmate 6291. So, all I can said that cache memory on Aspire One typically similar only with Intel Celeron 1.3 GHz on Intel 810E PC100 CL2 SDRAM.

Anyway, memory speed on both systems (the same 1 GB on each) has a bit dispute. Only 10% difference makes Aspire One not too slow when opening an application with huge resources needs compared to Travelmate. With the same references, memory bandwidth used on Aspire One having equal value with SiS 645DX PC2700U CL2 DDR on Intel Pentium 4-B 512 L2 cache.

The only amazing point upward to Aspire One is the fastest hard drive. Drive index of it is 13% speedy than Travelmate even that it has same size of partition within NTFS & 15GB of drive C:\. I still wonder why that it happened. Is it caused by the type of Western Digital manufacture used on Aspire One? Anyway, it did resembled with the use of ATA66 2xRAID0 in 7200RPM with 2MB cache.

Overall with those 5 benchmark tests above still bring Core 2 Duo processor as the winner because it’s approximately 3rd time faster than Atom. Such was the case, I think Aspire One still potential purposed for web based programmer machine beside the use of daily office, internet & presentation only. And for me, the price is quite match for it.

One thing for sure that Aspire One has poor index for gaming machine category. It was proven by it’s low score on 3DMark 2003, about 50% below Travelmate 6291. And it even couldn’t playing Need For Speed: Underground smoothly on 640x480 with medium graphic details (I though it was 10 FPS only). No doubt that netbooks (the same class from all manufactures, I though) is prepared to concede the point of simple jobs like office & internet activities such as blogging, browsing or chatting & not intended to gamers or others difficult task. So, be more considerable before you buy this machine.

Upgrading Aspire One from Linux to Windows XP

2008-10-20T08:30:00.004+07:00

Aspire One was typically netbook released from Acer. The first series – the A110 which released in the middle of the year - was a revolutionary product intended to intercept the existing of Asus EEE PC & HP MiniNote. The plus was the higher hardware specification (the first Atom processor built-in on netbook class) & lower price, but with the minus of 8GB SSD & Linux OS. It was worthless, since the used of Linux significantly decrease the whole price. Somehow, the SSD & Linux just life in harmony, the performance is great & all devices are well known recognized. These things still makes me amazed.

Anyway, for some customers, the uses of Linux just limit their use. Nothing can be done except playing internet, working with several office applications, manage a bit files & having few of funs. Even the user interface looks weird for them (which - some of - familiarly with Windows GUI). Well of course, there’s a way to solve it with upgrading the OS to Windows XP. Thanks to my boss for borrowing his Aspire One as the unit test for this article.

Let assume that you have successfully made a Windows XP setup from USB Flash Disk (UFD). Now, it’s time to practice your work. First, plug-in the UFD & turn on your Aspire One. Press F12 to make USB boot selection. If your UFD is ok then you will see boot menu on the screen. Select menu #1 as you have to prepare the Windows installation. Follow the on-screen wizard just like common XP setup until you face the hard drive preparation.

Note that your existing Aspire One has 2 partitions in a single 8GB SSD; 6.6GB with Linux file system & 1GB of Linux swap file. That’s why that both partitions shown as Unknown & not well recognized from Windows XP setup. The U: drive refer to UFD, so don’t bother with it. What you need to do is delete the first partition, re-create & formatting it with NTFS file system. Anyway, a quick format is fine. After you do so, simply follow the copying progress.

After the copying files is complete, the system will now reboot for the first time. Still plug-in the UFD, select menu #2 (GUI installation) after boot USB established. The installation will now continue in GUI mode.

This time, you need more than minutes to complete the 2nd stage of installation since the Aspire One SSD performance running on Windows is not much better than Linux. So, I suggest you to make a cup of coffee & having relax with 2 or 3 cigarettes.

After it completed, the 3rd reboot continue & the last phase of installation will run. Now, you will see the first Windows XP boot logo but still, the SSD seems work too hard after boot process. The busy led indicators always on, indicating that read & write process established at low speed. Never mind, just wait until to the rest of process.

And here we go, the desktop are now turn up after a long waiting. Everything seems to be normal, but the performance of the SSD is not increasing at all.

On my experience, I checked out the SSD partition with Partition Magic tools & here below the summary.

SSD Tweaking
To get more space, I merged the 2nd partition into 1st partition. So that the SSD now only have a single partition. It’s not too bad to have 4GB free space for others application installation. By the way, many peoples talk about the lack of SSD performance issue on Aspire One. In a quite moment, I only see & apply 3 solutions for this. The first solution required a change on a key in registry. This purposed is to disabled the memory management prefetch. Just pointing to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters & change the value data to 0 (zero).

Next, you must convert the NTFS file system to FAT32. For this, you need 3rd party application such as Partition Magic. The last tricks is just disabled the D2D Recovery in BIOS options. Even the speed now has increasing significantly after above tricks, but I though the SSD read & write speed still working under it’s standard percentage. However, for single small task processing in this A105 series, it’s just acceptable. Have a great upgrading.

The Making of Windows XP USB Portable

2008-10-14T08:45:00.002+07:00

What if you have this situation: you need to install Windows XP into a notebook or computer without any existing optical drive on it. In this case, you only have 3 solutions; 1) Leave the situation & stick to old-dummy OS, 2) Buy an (USB) optical drive or 3) Simply using your existing USB drive to create your own setup. This article below will describe you a trick how to create Windows XP installer using an UFD (USB Flash Disk) & make it boot from any computers that allow you to boot from UFD (including netbook, notebook or PC). All you need is a single UFD with 1GB capacity at minimal & another computer with optical drive built-in to make the USB portable process. Don’t forget to provide device drivers & also an original copy of Windows XP CD (or at least both SATA drivers & Windows installer mixed on a bootable CD). Prepare these 3 tools also (bootsect.zip, PeToUSB_3.0.0.7.zip & usb_prep8.zip) before getting started. Download them all from link available.

First, create a folder named xpusb on C:\. Extract 3 zipped files on each folders name, so that you will have same display on yours just like the picture below. After this, you may plug in the UFD to begin preparing the format session.

Next, copy PeToUSB.exe from PeToUSB_3.0.0.7 folder to usb_prep8. Then, execute usb_prep8.cmd. A common DOS based application will run, press any key to continue.

PeToUSB program will running. If your UFD has plugged in, you may see the destination drive on which drive it will be formatted. On my experience, the UFD assigned on H:\ drive letter. Press Start to begin formatting.

After operation completed successfully, a dialog box will show up press OK to continue.

Okey, formatting process has done. Now, open command prompt & enter bootsect path on c:\xpusb. Execute the following command to updating FAT filesystem bootcode to the UFD (H:\ drive letter on me or depends on yours):

Bootsect.exe /nt52 h:

After the bootcode was successfully updated on UFD, now exit from existing command prompt & close PeToUSB application. Load a copy of Windows XP CD into optical drive then back to first command prompt (usb_prep8.cmd) & the display will change to the following image:

Enter “1” to continue to browse your XP CD drive letter & press OK to continue.

Then, enter “2” & give non existing drive letter as virtual drive for Tempimage. Give it “T” as default drive letter.

Last question menu is entering target UFD drive letter (H:\ on me).

The creation of virtual drive T:\ is started. Continue to proceed with format.

After format process completed, the files extraction from CD to virtual drive will established. This will take couple minutes, so I suggest you go to kitchen to make a coffee & back to your desk with a cigarette.

Files extraction process has done & a confirmation window will show. Press Yes to copy files from virtual drive to UFD.

Copying files now established. Please burn your cigarette, sit back, relax & enjoy your coffee. This will take more than couple minutes.

Press Yes to below like confirmation dialog.

And again, press any key to continue. The process is now releasing the T:\ virtual drive.

Your UFD now is ready to boot. Curious with the disk size? It’s a similar to your CD installation source & get synchronized to UFD!

The fact is, there are more than 300MB free on UFD. Is there any additional way you can do to make the UFD more perfect? Yes, sure! Copy the device drivers or portable application into it. Note that this is an optional & you don’t have to do it. A complete set of portable application can be downloaded from this link. For shortcuts, install it first on your local drive. It’s faster than you install it directly onto USB.

After it finished, create a special folder (eg: _PORTABLEAPPS) on UFD. Then, copy installed files in computer to this new folder. You also able to add or remove the application depend on your necessity.

Now you have a complete “weapon” right on a single UFD. The latest process is plug the UFD in your machine, turn it on & activate the UFD boot from BIOS.

After booting from UFD, here come 2 menu displaying on monitor. Select menu #1 (TXT Mode Setup Windows XP). Use only C: drive of computer harddisk as partition for install of Windows XP & then select quick format with NTFS filesystem. XP install copying files is automatic.

After it finished copying files, quit XP setup with F3 or switch off your computer & boot in any case from UFD again & select menu #2 (GUI mode). Let the rest process run as normal as you install from CD. But I noticed, never unplug the UFD until after first logon of Windows XP. Your computer now is ready with Windows XP.

Setting Up Email in Nokia N95 8GB

2008-10-07T08:58:00.002+07:00

I believe that email is one of communication components that can not be separated from some peoples life. Some persons (including me of course!) think that it seems will be no sunny day without checking an email account. Every day in the morning at the office, I never forget to check it whether only just retrieving or sending something. This will happened too if I were in the middle at weekend on some place or in a time that I must sending someone a file by email. For this necessity, I always counting on mobile phone through GPRS connection (since I don’t have any line to make a dial up, especially in my house).

For me, it’s still a wise idea selecting an email with POP enabled if you are a “price sensitive” type, because it will cost less money compared to login via web based email client (I notice again: if you decide to use your own money to have internet connection). If you has a mobile phone or similar gadget which have email messaging feature, you can utilize it. Article described below will giving you instructions how to setting up email (GMail: Google Mail) on Nokia N95 8GB step by step. I’ll assumed that your GPRS connection is up, having an active GMail account & already enabling POP activation option from Setting menu over GMail web application.

First of all, enter messaging menu from your N95, pick on Options menu & go to e-mail settings.

There’s available 4 objects to set in Mailboxes sub-menu; Connection settings, User settings, Retrieval settings & Automatic retrieval. Now, open Connection settings. This menu only consist of 2 sub-menus; Incoming e-mail & Outgoing e-mail.

Each of it required a specific values regarding to your own account such as User name & Password. Set other values with typical adjustment similar with pictures below (in a series; left is Incoming & right is Outgoing settings).

<- Incoming | Outgoing ->

Note that you have to specify (security) port number each of it which is 995 on incoming & 465 on outgoing. This connection settings is done. Now, entering the user settings menu. Change My name with appropriate to your name.

Leave the retrieval & automatic retrieval settings on its default values (retrieve headers only & disabled automatic retrieval). Once you get back to root menu, your settings has already saved. It’s time to take a send & receive test. If your configuration is well, then now you have an active email client from your mobile phone. Just try & let me see you prove!

Macintosh: Setting Up Bluetooth Internet Connection from Jaguar

2008-10-06T10:37:00.002+07:00

It was beyond my expectation that setting up Bluetooth internet connection from Mac OS seems more simple & easier than any others OS in this world. Since I found this way couple weeks ago, I always waking up my Jaguar from my bed room & get internet connection using Bluetooth cellphone modem to grabbing articles related to my college task necessity. All you need is only a mobile phone and a computer (laptop or PC is OK), both devices must be Bluetooth enabled already. For this test, I using Nokia N95 8GB & my 12” TravelMate.

First of all, open Bluetooth Setup Assistant (upper right taskbar icon from Mac) to pairing the mobile phone. Make sure that Bluetooth on both devices must be enabled before you do this. Click Continue from this window.

Next, select a proper device type & choose Mobile phone option.

After clicking Continue, the computer will searching for mobile phone. Select it in the search result list once the process finished. Next, press Continue.

The wizard will automatically create a passkey random numbers. Next, enter the same number to your mobile phone. Once you have entered it on your mobile phone, the pairing process will be completed.

Make sure that you select second option & let the Jaguar decide it’s default choice or you may want to change regarding to your needs.

On next display, enter the GPRS CID string related to your regional GSM default dial number (*99#) & empty the username & password column since it will be processed automatically.

The Bluetooth Setup Assistant has finished. Next, open Network Setup Assistant to begin the internet connection. Choose I use a telephone modem to dial my ISP option & click Continue.

Focus to Bluetooth selection & click Continue button.

On Bluetooth mini window, just simply press the Connect button.

If the connection has established, you will see a connection status on the bottom left side of the same window referring send & receive signal, connection time & IP public number.

Next, you may now open Safari browser application & start to browse the internet.

That’s it & you’re done. Pretty simple & driverless compared to other OS isn’t it?

Happy Ied-Day 1429H

2008-09-23T10:43:00.002+07:00

The editorial staff of paparadit.blogspot.com would like to say:

"Happy Ied-Day 1429H, Minal Aidzin Wal Faidzin, Please forgive me with all your heart"

I'll meet you again here with latest article based on my best experiences on early October. Thanks for passing by.

Nokia N95 8GB: A Brief Review

2008-09-15T13:47:00.002+07:00

At the end of August 2008, I decided to sold my 3 months old Nokia 5610 & bought a brand new Nokia N95 8GB. Basically, I still love the 5610 with all it’s simplicity but what I really need is a mini computer replacement, compact size & weight, equipp ed with wide coverage multimedia enhancement & also dedicated for power user functionality. As I don’t have to wake up my laptop on a hotspot zone just to checking out my AdSense account or remote those far away servers or simply killing time to playing games or just sit & relax reading my tons college paper tasks. Actually, there were other candidates beside N95 which is HTC TyTN II which comes with almost similar category class & price. The truth was; this TyTN was almost perfect for me (qwerty keyboard, Windows OS) but after all, I choosing the N-series with all pros & cons.

The N95 pros is; a huge 8GB internal storage (need additional cost to buy 1 GB external memory on TyTN), 16M color display (256K on TyTN), Carl-Zeiss 5Mpx lens with flash camera (3Mpx without flash on TyTN). While the cons in N95 is simply no qwerty keyboard, no touch screen & Symbian 9.2 installer (S60 3rd) has difficult to search over than Windows Mobile application. Anyway both devices are ready with 3G, WiFi, GPS & rotation screen (portrait or landscape mode). Pretty tight features, eh?

Display Features
N95 8GB has a bright & clear display showing 7 icons & 3 shortcuts referring to major applications on desktop screen, thus the menu structure inside is so simple to understand.

Portrait mode

Landscape mode

The 240x320x16M resolution is more than enough displaying on both portrait or landscape mode.

Office Applications
By default, this gadget has capability to read several office application types; text & word document, excel sheet, presentation file & PDF.

Note that the write function is disabled until you buy the license.

Digital Camera
The 5Mpx auto-focus Carl-Zeiss lens with flash is amazing even in a very dark room. The camera also work for hi-res video recorder. On screen, you’ll see a pro-like digital camera interface; the viewfinder & main camera features icons arranged on the right side of the display.

Too bad that N95 8GB has significant delay while switching on the camera. Also there is no dedicated button (or back shutter) to activate it automatically. Anyway, saving 5Mpx on storage is quite fast (internal memory effect?). Another camera lens are laid on the front panel.

The front 0.3Mpx camera is dedicated for video call feature. But, If you like to shot your own face, you can switch it from main camera.

Multimedia Gallery
Beside the camera button, there is one switch dedicated for gallery room. The gallery room has an intuitive interface with thumbnail animation displaying captured images & videos.

From this menu, you may open images or video & show them as animated slide running or just open it & edit object using simple native image/video processing application.

Media Player
N95 8GB has standard media player software support to play common multimedia files such as sound (MP3, wav, midi) & video (3gp, mp4 & rm).

Well, it’s a basic Nokia native compatibility with multimedia files. Anyway, you need to install from 3rd party software to extending it’s capability (eg: playing divx or mpg video type).

N95: PlayStation Portable a la Nokia
This Nokia series has been dedicated to support N-Gage games software. With screen rotation capability, N95 become a great mobile PSP.

Unfortunately, 4 multimedia keys on top side doesn’t have any purpose when game mode activated in landscape screen, so practically the only key you have to use for playing game is the navigation buttons.

Digital Compass
The enabled GPS built in on N95 is presented for traveler, at least it useful for me who just living in Jakarta for 3 years. Anyway the GPS activation take about 1 minute with some conditions; must use on open area straight vertically with the clear (no cloud) sky or no any barrier above your head & take 45’ phone position with slider keypad opened.

The great is, the location where you stand are found on the map accurately even it took some times to display it. If the connection is established, the blue dot in the map screen will follow where ever you move on.

WiFi Experiences
This is my first time to have wireless connection test with non computer device or PDA & overall result is more than I expected before. The connection mechanism quite simple from the auto search process until it can browse an online page & it completely different compared with PDA or laptop.

Surfing website on N95 display is more than enough, especially when the screen rotated in landscape mode but you may have difficult to entering text in this mode.

For power user necessities, you can install various network based application such as PuTTY, FTP client, Google Mail kit, VNC viewer software or simply chat application (Yahoo Go or Morange V).

TV Out Function
N95 8GB equipped with standard 3.5” jack purposed to output sound into stereo headset or external active speaker. With this jack too, Nokia provide an RCA cable to displaying out the screen to TV set or projector device.

This set will enabled you to perform mobile presentation show or simply watching video recorded from the phone on TV.

Resume
For power user purposed, this N95 8GB just awesome & perfect, at least for me – a slider keypad mobile phone lover. Even that it is not a fresh product from Nokia, you must exchange it with a very high price.