Chet’s Chatter

A little writing distraction

Posted on 18 November 2008 @ 13:08 in Gadgets

I can blame it on the Typewriter Brigade, but really, it’s just my own interest in retro gadgets, especially those to do with writing.

I brought out my Olympia portable typewriter just now and placed it on the breakfast counter. This is the machine I brought to England with me to type my class assignments.

I put in a sheet of recycled paper, aligned it, and pressed the letter “t”. Nothing appeared on the paper. I pressed harder. Still nothing. Actually, “pressed” is the wrong word, “tapped” doesn’t quite describe the action either; the best word is “pounded”.

Finally, I figured out why nothing was appearing on the paper. The typewriter ribbon had dried out.

I wasn’t too sad to put the typewriter away. I’m sure I can find a new typewriter ribbon, but I’m not sure I have the strength to pound enough combinations of keys to type up a page. Besides, my apartment doesn’t have space to accommodate a manual typewriter - it requires twice the width of the physical machine for the carriage to move for the words to be typed across the page.

Strange, but I can use a manual notebook, but I can’t use a manual typewriter.

To console myself, I registered for a software that I tested recently. It will let me feel I’m using a manual typewriter, but without having to hurt my fingers or find physical space for it in my little apartment. It’s a retro word processor and it’s called Visual Typewriter.

In a way, it’s the best of old and new.

Yes, I should be writing instead of checking out writing tools.

Travels with my eee

Posted on 3 August 2008 @ 16:48 in Gadgets, Stress Busters

I’m currently in Bifengxia Panda Base in Ya’an, China. I was originally supposed to go to Wolong and had in fact purchased my air ticket a few days before the earthquake on 12 May. After the earthquake, I kept hoping things were really not so bad in Wolong and it would re-open close to the time of my trip. But when it was confirmed Wolong would not be re-opened to the public any time soon, the volunteer programme was transferred to Bifengxia Panda Base, and I followed suit.

Bifengxia was set up in December 2003 as an alternate to Wolong, to house some of the pandas (mostly the older ones and the females not in the breeding programme for a particular year). It was part of a “disaster management programme” to house the Wolong pandas in two places in case anything should happen. And something did - something BIG - the earthquake on 12 May 2008.

While some of the pandas have been relocated to zoos in other parts of China, and seven remain in Wolong, the majority of the Wolong pandas are now living in Bifengxia, including 4 of the cubs born in 2006. Eight of the other 16 are in Beijing Zoo, including my Feng Yi, and three are in Yunnan.

What? Oh, this post is called “Travels with my eee”.

eee is the ASUS eeePC 900 that I’d bought in early July. I’d actually bought it for this trip. I’m typing this post on the eee. It’s great! Very light, gives me about 3.3 hours with the wireless turned on. And it’s drawn a LOT of admiring looks and questions from the staff at Bifengxia. Even the director, Mr Zhang Hemin, who was in the Base on the first day I was here, came over for a look and asked some questions.

The eee is now running on the original Linux OS. I had a lot of problems with the XP installation - lots of blue screens, followed by lots of recovery back to the Linux OS. Eventually, I decided to stick with the Linux OS, only to find that the 16GB hard drive partition had disappeared! But thanks to a very hardworking tech support, I got the missing partition back. Apparently, the disappearance was due to the way the two OSs format hard disks - in a word, differently.

Now, back to my trip.

I’m in Bifengxia for 11 days, helping out in different areas. So far, my work has included helping to edit some of their English materials translated from Chinese. I will also be helping the keepers to clean panda enclosures, move bamboo around, and scoop panda poop, too.

This morning, I was working in the Volunteers Office located in the same building as the nursery and enclosures for the 4 cubs from the 2006 batch and 2 older pandas. Each time I heard a panda bleat, I would look up and walk out to look in on them. This is panda heaven for me!

Oh okay, this has been a post about pandas, too. Pandas and the eee.

The tech reality of my life

Posted on 16 July 2008 @ 17:57 in Gadgets

When I bought my first computer back in 1993, it was a top-of-the-line model, complete with a 128MB hard disk. Yes, I wrote that right - MB - GB was still in the future. Well, a week later, something new and better came along (I can’t even remember what it was), the price fell and my top-of-the-line computer became bottom-of-the-heap.

So it is with my latest tech toy, the ASUS eeePC 900. I spent weeks walking around shops at Digital Mall and IKANO Power Centre, asking when would the 900 XP version be available. Eventually, the 900 Linux version was released, and I finally figured it out that that was the version available in Malaysia. Finally, last week, I bought one for myself. Same price as the XP but with 8GB more storage (wow, more than my 1993 computer).

I must not have walked around the right shops. This morning, I went by the IT floor at The Curve to get an external DVD-Writer. And saw there, the new Acer Aspire One. That wasn’t all. There was also the MSI Wind in a display case! I was so single-minded on getting that one item that I’d walked into the shop without looking at anything else.

So there, before me, two competitors to the ASUS eeePC range of UMPCs (Ultra Mobile PC). Did I regret getting the ASUS? Here’s what I posted on the Flickr AlphaSmart forum:

So, let’s see - besides the ASUS range, there’s now also similar machines from HP (MiniNote), Acer (Aspire One) and MSI (Wind). I’ve seen all three.

Both the HP and MSI offer regular HDs. The Acer offers an 8-gig SSD. The MSI is the largest with a 10″ screen. But when closed, you can see the keys in the space between the two halves of the clam shell. That bothers me (or maybe I’m just looking to console myself for not having waited … )

I find different things I don’t like about the 3 machines that are now available after I bought the ASUS eeePC. Do I regret not waiting just that little bit longer?

Please believe me when I say I really like my ASUS eeePC 900. I bought it when I needed to, not a second too early or too late. I have promised myself to use it for a year before looking at another machine. It does what I need it to do, plus it’s light and not very eye-catching, which is what I like. Plus, I conquered the keyboard in less than 3 days, learning to use the left shift key which was what was giving me the most typos (and headache).

For those of you out there looking to get an UMPC, there’s now more choice in the market beside the ASUS eeePC range. Walk around Low Yat in KL or Digital Mall (old Metrojaya across from Jaya Supermarket) in PJ. Be amazed by the choice. Hold one in your hand. Enjoy the lightweight. Open it up. Run your fingers over the keyboard. Decide what feels right beneath your fingertips (and your budget). Then take out your credit card and commit. BTW, Dell is joining in the competition, too, with its Mini Inspiron.

Meanwhile, I’ll be enjoying my eeePC even more, having installed XP on it this afternoon. It’s now running very close to the way I like it. The only snag to be sorted out is the wireless connection - my eeePC won’t connect to my home wireless network … not yet, anyway. I think I’ll go to Hoxe’s this evening and see how it runs.

And here’s my eeePC on the MacBook (which I’ll be selling off soon). The desktop icons are hidden so I get the full picture of “teddy bear” Lang Lang on the eeePC, while that’s Feng Yi on the MacBook. Both of them are currently at the Beijing Zoo for the Olympics.