Henk van de Goor's Bloggers@large

There is finally something exiting happening again in the universe of the Net, now that Google has launched Chrome. As I wrote, I installed it on my PC right away to discover how fast it really is. Also, as was to be expected, there where a couple of nice bugs found right after the launch and a few of them killed the whole "stability" story behind Chrome. To their credit, these bug have been fixed already by Google.

Anyhow: if you want to hear about the story behind Google Chrome, here is a video from Google in which they give you the details on it's conception and the whole idea behind it.

If Google keeps up the good work with Chrome, I'm quite sure it may become my default browser!

Ok, so So I bought a nice Asus Eee PC 900 last month. After tinkering around a while with the Xandros Linux distribution that came with it, I decided to install the Eeebuntu Netbook Remix RC1 on it. It looks very nice but still I didn't feel I got what I wanted from it. So about a week ago I decided to install good old Windows XP on it. And as much as I would love to run Linux on my Eee PC I have to admit that XP is just so much easier and and offers 100% more compatibility. It runs all essential apps that I need and - most important - I can encrypt both SSD's (solid state disk) with TrueCypt, so I know for sure that there is no privacy problem if I ever lose my Eee PC or it get's stolen.

So I have installed a ton of apps on it and my precious Eee PC has become the ultimate portable tool: much like my Swiss pocketknife.

After all that, there was one thing if found my Eee PC lacked: nice, spiffy backgrounds aka wallpapers for my desktop! As I found out quickly, the usual backgrounds do not render well on the tiny 1024x600 pixel screen. A pity, because I have a ton of nice backgrounds for the PC on my web album.

Therefor I decided that I would do something back for the Eee community and spend some hours this weekend (it was raining cats and dogs anyway), resizing some of my own desktop background favorites especially for the Eee PC 900.

So if you want some nice, cool backgrounds, head over to my free Eee PC 900 desktop background library library and start downloading the goodies! As of today there are 224 backgrounds available (and growing!), like the one that comes with this article.

So enjoy!

Ps: if you like me to include some of your own home-made wallpapers, just e-mail them to me (including the information you like me to include) at: eeepc[at]vandegoor.com.

Just picked it up 30 minutes ago! Can't believe I got it already: they said that it might take 2-3 months, but here it is: my own Asus Eee PC 900 (the improved Eee PC by Asus).

Wow, I'm impressed with my new PC for sure. It's a blast for real. I don't know where to begin telling what I like about it, but let's start with the fact that it's blazing fast compared to my P4 2.8ghz. Vista is very responsive and everything worked straight away out of the box. Windows Media Center is really cool! I very much enjoy watching TV on my Pc and having a DVR (digital video recorder). The program guide works well and I had no trouble installing the IR-remote. The 20" flat screen is very nice looking and is pixel perfect.

And the videocard performs just... awesome! I installed a bunch of games like Battlefield 2 and they al perform very well at the highest resolutions. I was particulary impressed with Half-Life2. It just looks visually stunning! HDR (High Dynamic Range) is looking very nice. And even at 1680x1050 with everything turned on high detail and 6xAA on it got a 135fps doing the performance test.

I did install Crysis and it looks very nice with all details on very high; I haven't had a chance yet to benchmark that but it really is cool to have a PC that is able to run anything I throw at it.

The only thing is that I now have to re-arrange my 7 PC's so this one fits in somewhere ;-)

So call me a risk taker - living on the edge of reason - but yesterday I ordered myself a Dell XPS 420 desktop PC. Before I get into the technical specs of my new PC let me explain how I ended up with a Dell. I have been looking for a new PC for a few weeks now. At first I considered buying a laptop. I had my eyes on the Dell XPS M1330, a nice, small laptop with good specs; you can order it with a nice 13,3" LED backlit screen (better lighting and less power consumption). But knowing myself and what I use my PC for (a lot of gaming), I figured I could get a better deal on a desktop - as laptops still are a lot more expensive and have lesser specs. I wanted to spend about 1200 Euro's and the laptops I looked at (with the specs I want) are a lot more expensive.

So I ditched the idea of buying a laptop and started to research what specs I would need to get a new, fast desktop multimedia PC that at least can run a game like Crysis smoothly. Crysis - at the moment - is a game that is so heavy on your GPU that if you have the hardware to run it, you can damn well run virtually any other game out there without any problems. In fact: getting a good benchmark with Crysis is the holy grail for many video card manufacturers.

To cut a long story short: you need at least a nVidia Geforce 8800 series videocard to run this game. The 8800 series currently has three models: the GTS, the GT and the GTX. The GTS is bottom of the line, the GTX top of the line (which means you pay way too much for it) and - you guessed it - the GT is positioned in the middle. The 8800 GT outperforms it's rivals ATI HD2900XT and ATI HD3870 in most situations. But the really cool thing about the 8800 GT is, that it performs only slightly less (10-15%) than the GTX, but is a lot cheaper; making it a smart choice for gamers.

Having settled that (choice of GPU), the rest was easy: Intel easily outperforms AMD when they came up with the Dual Core (used to be the other way around), so I was going for the Intel platform. Other than that you want off course an optical drive (DVD +/-RW), a fast hard disk and components that work together well (memory, motherboard etc.).

I started to compare prices for systems with these specs online and I found out that Dell actually has systems that are very competitive in terms of specs and pricing! There are several Dutch companies that can build you a custom PC, but I found out that they are actually about 20-40% higher(!) than Dell with the XPS series. Also I found out that delivery time on those PC's can be as much as 20-30(!) workings days and you still pay for delivery!

After all the comparing of specs and prices I still kept ending up with the Dell XPS 420. It has good base specs that you can tweak yourself, which I like a lot. In fact; every Dell you order is assembled by hand according to your personal specs. Now, I am aware of the bad reputation that Dell has with some people, but the people that I know that actually own a Dell PC (either private or business) are pretty happy with Dell's service and support. So I figured: why not.

So what did I end up with and what did it cost me? Well, here is the low-down:

My Dell XPS 420 specs:

Dell XPS Casing with Windows SideShow
Viiv Q6600 Quad Core Processor 2.40GHz, 1066Mhz FSB, 8MB cache
2GB Dual Channel DDR2 800MHz Memory (standard 667Mhz)
512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT GPU
640GB Serial ATA2 Raid 0 Stripe (2x320GB) 7200Rpm Dual HDD
DVD+/-RW (Read/Write) 16x and CD-RW (Read/Write)/DVD-ROM (Reader) 48x
Integrated HDA 7.1 Dolby Digital soundcard
TV Tuner and AVIO / Accellerator
19-in-1 Bluetooth Media Card Reader
USB 2.0 and FW 400/800
20.1'' Wide Screen Flat Panel (TCO99) DVI-D HDCP-compliant 1680 x 1050 / 60 Hz

Looking at the combination of CPU, GPU, fast RAM and the RAID 0 hard disk configuration this system should really perform well with games and other multi-media (i.e.; editing video).

And the best thing of all: the above configuration costs me exactly € 1205,- with no delivery costs. Because of that, and the fact that I had a coupon that gave me an extra 10% discount on any configuration, I threw in the 20" widescreen flat panel screen. Without that, it would have been € 1026,- So, not only am I right on budget, I think I got a very good deal for a mid-range to high-end system.

Dollar vs Euro
Some blogs ago I bitched about the fact that although the Dollar is very low against the Euro, you do not benefit from that with - let's say - Apple. This is not the case with Dell! My Dell XPS 420 costs exactly € 1205,- and - as said - includes a 20" wide screen. Now, when you go over to the US Dell website, and you configure the 420 with (roughly) the same specs as the one I ordered, you end up with a total around $1799 Dollars (note that the US version of the 420 has 3gb of RAM standard, and does not come with RAID 0 stripe but RAID 1). So at least Dell has the decency to not rip you off.

Are there any downsides? Yeah: the system comes with Microsoft Vista (ugh!!). I rather would have had it with good old XP.

I should receive my spanking new system before or on Thursday January 17th. That's 9 working days guys. Not 20 or 30 as with their Dutch competitors who - by the way - do not deliver a 20" flat panel, nor a RAID configured system for anything near €1200.

To be continued!

Here is a cool thing I stumbled upon: Wubi.

Wubi is an unofficial Ubuntu installer for Windows users that will bring you into the Linux world with a single click. Wubi allows you to install and uninstall Ubuntu as any other application. If you heard about Linux and Ubuntu, if you wanted to try them but you were afraid, this is for you.

In other words: if you have been wanted to try out Ubuntu, but you are afraid about repartitioning your harddisk and you want better performance than running Linux in a virtual PC (usually sucks unless you have a high-end PC), then this is the tool for you.

Wubi installs Ubuntu on a virtual disk. It's a big file and Linux is run from within that file. This means no partitioning is needed but you still can run and install applications as with a real installation. It also means you can uninstall it whenever you want and reclaim your harddisk space. Another benefit is that you do not have to download, burn and boot from the Ubuntu CD as the installer downloads the CD image and boots from that. Also useful if you have a ultra portable laptop or a PC without a CD-player.

Related to this project (in the sense that it is similar), is UNetbootin:

UNetbootin is a tool that allows you to install various Linux distributions (Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, OpenSuSE, Debian, ArchLinux) from a Windows or a Linux desktop over the internet (i.e., you don't need to burn the Ubuntu, Fedora, ... CDs). Unlike the Ubuntu installation with Wubi, real partitions are created during the installation. In the end, you have a dual-boot system (Linux/Windows or Linux/Linux).

As the description tells you, you will be partitioning your harddisk when you use this tool.

Either way: both options are interesting if you like to mess around a bit with Linux. So go ahead and give it a spin.

One of the more annoying things in life is trying to help a friend with a computer problem; i.e. playing helpdesk. It's frustrating because your friend on the other line has a problem but they do not have a clue what they are doing. Otherwise they did not need to ask you for help. If you try to help them over a phone and you need to tell them word for word what to do, it just adds to the frustration. If I encounter a problem it usually is something that I can fix in 5 minutes or less because I know where to look and what to do. I know my mind usually works out multiple scenarios and if one doesn't fix it, I am already working the next one. Being on the phone slows down that process and just makes it more difficult. The best way for me to fix someone's problem is to physically get behind their PC and just do it. However, I know plenty of people that do not exactly live around the corner so that makes it impossible to do that. Off course the computer industry has a solution for that too; "remote desktop". It enables you to remotely control a PC over the Internet and work with it as if it is your own computer.
Sounds good, but the problem is that firewalls and internet modems or routers usually do not allow for this. Which means you need to "open up a remote portnumber" in the firewall/router. And trying to explain how to do that over a phone is - well - like a brain surgeon trying to explain to a monkey how to remove a tumour: it's a certified "mission impossible".

Luckily there are people way more intelligent and smart than myself - called programmers - that had the same annoyance and they have come up with a remote desktop program that is secure, safe to use and, most important: hassle free to install.

So here is my tip of the day for all you out there that want to help your fellow computer users but always run into the same frustrating over-the-phone helpdesk like conversations: use cSpace. cSpace is a no-hassle solution that will help you help others. No need to set up difficult things, just install and start using it. Because people can see what you actually do, they learn from what you do and hopefully they don't need more help.

I have now installed this program on the PC's of about four people and it works excellent. So do yourself a favour and start using this!