Eee-PC No Sound Xbuntu Simple Fix

For the longest time ever, I had been searching for a simple solution to increase the sound volume of my Eee-PC. The bug seems to happen after I remove the earphone from the Eee-PC and the volume became so soft that I cannot hear anything when watching youtube.

1. Open a terminal (Ctrl-Alt-T) type "alsamixer"
2. Try playing with the volume sliders until you get sound.
3. You use the up and down arrow keys and the "m" key to mute and unmute channels.
4. For more info "man alsamixer".

This fix is for the pre-installed default Operating system.

Just bought Eee-PC recently!!!

This is the "latest" ultra-portable notebook from Asus, presenting to you the Eee-Pc!!! The above photo is my Eee-Pc sitting on top of the macbook to compare the size and you can see it's as small as a standard hard cover size. At 0.92kg, it's lighter then most conventional notebook and it's packing Linux Operating System instead of of the resource hog Window which is excellent!.

I had tested most of the functions such as surfing the internet (firefox), Email (Mozilla Thunderbird), MSN/Yahoo/Google/Skype, and their open source (free) spreadsheet/word processor/presentation software without any problems!

The downside is the following,

1. Battery indicator is not accurate (Which might be able to patch in the future...I dunno)
2. The voice command activation is not responding accurately
3. Lack of a large storage space (Now I got 8GB SSD instead) which I need desperately for downloads.
4. Installation of new software (not included as standard softwares) is a pain for those used to window.
   
5. Speaker not loud enough even with ear phones.
6. Small keyboard need some time to get use to.
   

The good features of this Eee-Pc is the following.

1. Feather Light weight (0.92Kg)
   
2. Small and portable!
3. Fast boot up time!
4. Smooth Running of all Pre-installed softwares!
5. Great graphical User Interface which is extremely user friendly.
6. Similar to Mac, the power plug is uniquely designed to suit international market.
   
7. Built In Webcam & microphone for skype video conferencing.
   
8. The super cheap price tag!!!!
   

This ultra-portable may not be the most powerful system in the market right now and not the most rich featured ones but the price tag is the killer for me. In the IT fair you can get this Eee-Pc (dunno which model) at about $300++, I got mine 8GB SSD model at SGD$698 at Sim Lim Square 1 week before IT Fair!!! I almost faint when I heard someone else got it half the price! Sucks to be so "kiasu" (scare to lose) and bought it too early.

My DIY Enhanced Night Vision Mod for PSP

Enhancement PSP Nightvision - The most popular videos are here
This mod I soldered overnight learning from Metacafe's kipkay video on the IR Led modification and Acidmods.com's night vision modification to PSP Camera.

It's not fantastic now as the IR LEDs are normal 2-3Volts type not the super bright ones used by KipKay.

Researching The Time Traveler "John Titor"

John Titor Videocast - Free videos are just a click away

OK, this is going to be interesting...many of the original transcripts of the Time Traveler "John Titor" have really comes true whereas some have not.

A website dedicated to him is at http://www.johntitor.com/
I also found another site that host a large amount of transcripts at abovetopsecret.com

It's hard to go through all these conversation that John had written online since the year 2000 to March 2001 about the future that is going to be filled with civil war and nuclear war.

I had found at least one of the information to be accurate for now....

06 December 2000 21:36 (about the future) 114
(What is the entertainment industry like, movies, tv, radio, internet?)
Again, entertainment is less centralized. There are "movies" and "tv" but everything is distributed over the net and more people produce their own "shows".

Me: well...check out YouTube over wikipedia and found out they had started in mid February 2005 and had taken the internet media by storm creating "movies", "tv" and own "shows" on the internet!! Now if you check out Joost in wikipedia and their website you can in fact watch FREE INTERNET TV by major internet media networks and the big networks had also joined in the fun including Fox News to flash media bloody cartoon "Happy Tree Friends".

This prediction written back in 2000 came true obviously and certainly changed how people view the internet and the media as a whole.

I will quote more prediction in the John Titor Internet Transcripts that had came true and those not...and possibly the reason why. John Titor might not be a real name but he claim it is putting himself in danger as someone will seek and confirm if he is real in the our world lines.

John Titor name might be owned by thousands possibly millions after his story breaks into the internet public so the real John Titor will be relatively safe....I guess.

How to pimp up your Presentation!!

Pimp Up Your Powerpoint Presentations With Real Time 3D - Funny bloopers R us

Seems like a 3D version of a presentation for your power point!! :)

Google Powerpoint is here!! - Thanks Lowem for the tip

Google quietly launches their new google Docs's ability to create presentation easily over the internet anywhere in the world!

This also means you can actually present the presentation online by sharing your file with others!

I haven't really fully test it yet but the simple 5 minute test did show that it can produce simple basic presentation document easily!

Try it and see for yourself!

A 416GB flash drive--but probably not for you

According to CNet News

Enough with the eensy weensy flash memory drives such as Dell's 64GB model. It's time for a solid-state disk whose capacity is closer to a conventional hard drive with spindles and platters. Bitmicro Networks this week announced a 2.5-inch flash drive with a capacity of 416GB that will be available in March 2008.

Alas, though, the drive is geared for military, industrial and commercial users, not for arming high-end PC owners with bragging rights. Bitmicro's drive is designed to withstand shocks, vibration, and hot and cold temperatures.

Not being a conventional retail product, it's no surprise that Bitmicro didn't disclose a price. But given that the 64GB drive in Dell's Alienware PC costs $920 or so, I'm guessing that it's probably better to remain ignorant.

The company already sells 2.5-inch flash drives with capacities up to 74GB and 3.5-inch drives up to 156GB.

Thanks Lowem for the news update!! The huge 416GB flash drive probably will be not for us at the moment...at least not that affordable...haha.

If someone just build a series of SD Card Readers Extension...hee

HOLY SD Card Reaching 32GB!!

According to CNET News

Quote:

Toshiba bumping SDHC cards to 32GB

Toshiba announced it's reached the 32GB frontier with SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity) flash memory cards, a successor to the widely used SD format that extends to bigger sizes.

Holy smokes! This is getting too much! 32GB SD Card can be how many DVD combined? So next time maybe it will replace CD/VCD/DVD forever!? How fast can this be? Anyone can give me a good answer? Time to build a Video Player using SD CARD folks!

Latest update on this, I had taken a photo of my own SD Card and M2 Card and the size of it is almost the same as above...but I guess they are not the same. Haha...

Just researched on this SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity) in wikipedia and it says plenty on SDHC and it's FAT32!! Great!

A new SD format, SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity, SD 2.0), allows capacities in excess of 2GB. SDHC uses the FAT32 file system which supports a higher data density than FAT16^[10]. It uses the same form factor as SD, but the SD 2.0 standard in SDHC uses a different memory addressing method (sector addressing vs byte addressing), thus theoretically reaching a maximum capacity of up to 2048GB. SDHC cards only work in SDHC compatible devices, but standard SD cards work in both SD and SDHC devices. The SDHC trademark is licensed to ensure compatibility.^[11]