Looking for a power supply for your laptop?

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

A few weeks back, I saw James O’Neill demonstrating Windows Server 2008 R2, using multiple notebook computers for his demo.

Anyone who regularly travels with several laptops will know that they soon become heavy and one way to save weight is to reduce the number of power supplies used. Unfortunately, there seems to be very little standardisation in notebook computer power supplies, so this is not always possible (even with two models from the same OEM).

James has found a workaround though – he has a switchable universal laptop power adapter and a global travel cable set, which meant he could get away with a single power supply (and some judicious juggling between PCs) to reduce the overall amount of equipment to be transported.

On a related note, I recently had to buy a second power adapter for the Dell Inspiron 1525 that we gave to my parents-in-law late last year. I couldn’t find the part on the Dell website but I an “online chat” led me to a parts department, who would charge me £34.50 for one. By shopping around, I was able to get a genuine Dell power supply (PA12) from a marketplace seller on Amazon (also available on eBay – Essex Laptops), delivered next day for around £16 including shipping and a power cable (which, admittedly was not a Dell part). Definitely worth shopping around!

Identifying power management issues in Windows 7

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

A few weeks back my friend and colleague Garry Martin alerted me to an enhanced battery indicator for Windows Vista and 7 (BatteryBar). Normally, I wouldn’t want to use something that installed a big button in the notification area but this is actually a pretty useful enhancement over the standard power icon (and better looking than many of the OEM-provided versions). Not only can I see how much battery charge I have left but BatteryBar shows information such as capacity, charge rate, battery wear, etc.

It’s worth knowing though, that for tweaking power settings, Windows 7 users have another tool at their disposal – the powercfg.exe command line tool. This tool exists in Vista too but in the Windows 7 beta there is a new switch (/energy) that generates a Power Efficiency Diagnostics Report (saved to %systemroot%\system32\energy-report.html).

In addition to providing details of the system used to generate the report, the report highlights errors, warnings and information about a system’s current state to identify: USB devices that are not suspending (and therefore preventing the CPU from managing power effectively); processes that are requesting a small timer resolution; processes with high CPU utilisation; as well as information about the power plan, battery and processor power management capabilities.

Installing Mac OS X 10.5 on a Lenovo S10e (using a retail DVD)

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Hackintosh Finder Icon by ~3ncI enjoy installing things that shouldn’t work together and making them work. I’m not clever enough to write the hacks but I’m OK at putting together the constituent pieces of the puzzle (with a little help from Google!). This time, the project was installing Mac OS X on my Lenovo S10e – at around 1.25kg and with a 10-inch display, this could be thought of as the ultimate Mac Mini!

Since I was given permission to install Windows 7 on the notebook PC that I use for work, my netbook (which was purchased for Windows 7 testing… at least until my son inherits it when he needs a PC for school) has been a little under-utilised. But with the MacBook now tethered to a monitor and acting to all intents and purposes as if it’s a desktop PC, the netbook would be a great little web-surfing Mac for use when I’m on the move.

There are plenty of guides for installing OS X on netbooks, but most of them involve downloading cracked distributions of the operating system. The difference here is that I didn’t do that – I used a retail OS X 10.5 (Leopard) DVD instead – and, although it may technically be a breach of Apple’s EULA (I’m no lawyer and, like most normal people, cannot comprehend pages and pages of “small print”), because the software was bought and paid for, I figure it’s at least morally acceptable and my karma should be OK.

I have installed OS X on a non-Apple PC before but the experience wasn’t great. Meanwhile the Hackintosh community has made significant progress, and Boing Boing’s Mac OS X netbook compatibility chart suggested that I should be able to get most of the devices in my S10e working. So, this is my guide to building a small, lightweight, “Mac” notebook , for around £400. Or, to put it another way, about half what you’d pay for an entry-level Apple laptop (MacBook) that’s not as well built.

To do this, you will need:

These are the steps that worked for me (based on John Mahoney’s post linked above – which was itself based on a tutorial on the MyDellMini forum by bmaitais but sadly taken down by Dell – combined with funkobongrip‘s retail install guide for the Lenovo S10e – also linked above):

  1. Prepare the USB Drive:
    • On a Mac, use Disk Utility to create two partitions on the drive – a 200MB FAT32 partition labelled TYPE11 and a Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) partition labelled OSXDVD (and make sure that a GUID partition table is in use).
    • On a Windows PC, run syslinux -ma driveletter: from the win32 folder in the SysLinux download to make the TYPE11 partition bootable (there is no confirmation of success).
    • Extract the contents of the DellMiniBoot123 toolset to the TYPE11 partition, taking care not to overwrite the ldlinux.sys file.
    • Back on a Mac, insert the OS X install DVD and, using Disk Utility, create a new image, saved as live.dmg on the OSXDVD partition (it should be compressed and unencrypted).
    • Extract the System and Library folders from the OSXDVD.zip file (linked above) to the OSXDVD partition (to make OS X think that the USB stick is an actual installation DVD).
    • Copy the kernel from the Mac to the OSXDVD partition using sudo cp /mach_kernel /Volumes/OSXDVD.
    • Extract the OS X drivers for the Lenovo S10e (linked above) to a folder (e.g. Drivers) on the OSXDVD partition.
  2. Boot the S10 from the USB drive and press Fn+F3 until the display appears on the external monitor (only).
  3. Select the OSXDVD boot option (I have a feeling that DellMiniBoot123 should have given me a menu option to do something with the TYPE11 partition but it didn’t seem to, which I put down to the fact that I wasn’t running it on a Dell Mini – and v8.02beta produced a kernel panic, so getting anything working with v8.01 was a huge step forward – I’ve since read that 8.01 is for OS X 10.5.5 and earlier DVDs, 8.02 is for 10.5.6).
  4. The OS X Installer should run and, on the welcome screen, select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
  5. Partition the hard disk (I created a single Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) partition called Macintosh HD and exit Disk Utility.
  6. Continue the installation as normal and when it completes, allow the system to boot from the USB drive.
  7. At the boot: prompt, press the Esc key, then type 81 (for the second hard disk – I spent ages trying to work out why 80 wouldn’t work for me – but my USB drive was showing up as the first hard disk in the system so 81 was the internal hard drive).
  8. Back at the boot: prompt, press Fn+F3 until the display appears on the external monitor (only) and type -f -s -v to bring the system up in single user (verbose) mode, loading all kernel extensions (.kexts).
  9. Enter the following commands:
      /sbin/fsck -fy (and look for the volume name Macintosh HD – if it’s something like OS X Installation DVD then you are working on the USB drive!)
      /sbin/mount -uw /
      cd /System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleAirPortBrcm4311.kext/Contents
      nano Info.plist
  10. Insert <string>pci14e4,4315</string>

    11. (in sequence with the similar PCI device IDs) then save and exit Info.plist.

  11. Enter the following commands:
      cd /System/Library
      rm Extensions.mkext
      exit
  12. At this point, the OS X installer should continue, setting up the regional and keyboard settings, before presenting the option to transfer information from another Mac. I chose not to transfer information and was unable to connect to my wireless network (it eventually failed). The installer then moved on to allow me to complete registration details (not submitted), take a picture with the camera (for my account details) and set the timezone.
  13. Mount and run Chameleon_DFE_for_Hard_Disk.dmg from the /bootloader folder (in the S10e drivers archive).
  14. Run Kext Helper from the /tools folder (in the S10e drivers archive) and install the kernel extensions found in the /driver/system folder (AppleACPIBatteryManager.kext; AppleACPIPlatform.kext; AppleDecrypt.kext; ApplePS2Controller.kext; AppleSMBIOS.kext; and Disabler.kext).
  15. Restart the system and boot from the internal hard disk (on my system that was hd (0,2) Macintosh HD), then press the return key at the boot: prompt.
  16. Run Network Diagnostics to join a WiFi network.
  17. Run Software Update to upgrade to OS X 10.5.6.
  18. After rebooting there will be no WiFi, so enter -s -v at the boot: prompt and repeat steps 9-11. As the machine boots up you should see a message about the link being up on en0 (even link down shows that the device has been found!).
  19. Apply other software updates (for me that was Airport Utility v5.3.2; Airport Utility Software Update v5.41; QuickTime v7.6; iTunes v8.0.2; iLife Support v9.0.1; Airport Client Updater 2009-001 v1.0; Jave for Mac OS X 10.5 Update 2 v1.0; Safari v3.2.1; and Security Update 2009-001 v1.0) – if the downloads appear to have stuck, nudge the trackpad and the screen should refresh!
  20. After restarting there will be no WiFi, so enter -s -v at the boot: prompt and repeat steps 9-11.
  21. Using Kext Helper, install one of the sets of kernel extensions found in the /driver/display folder (in the S10e drivers archive) – I used the option with brightness controls but no mirroring (AppleIntelGMA950.kext and AppleIntelIntegratedFramebuffer.kext) and copy the com.apple.Boot.plist file to /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration.
  22. Restart the system and it should should start up with no requirement to select a boot option, running at 1024x576px with 32-bit colour depth.
  23. Using Kext Helper, install one of the sets of kernel extensions found in the /driver/fan folder (in the S10e drivers archive) (AppleACPIPowerSource.kext and AppleACPIThermal.kext), then copy the DSDT Patcher utility to a temporary folder, run it (selecting 0 for Darwin when prompted) and copy the resulting dsdt.aml file to the root folder on the internal hard disk.
  24. Restart the computer and, using Kext Helper, install one of the sets of kernel extensions found in the /driver/sleep folder (in the S10e drivers archive) (ClamshellDisplay.kext and EHCISleepEnabler.kext).
  25. Edit /System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBEHCI.kext/Contents/ to include:
      <key>OSBundleCompatibleVersion</key>
      <string>1.0</string>
    under:
      <key>CFBundleVersion</key>
      <string>3.1.5</string>
  26. Replace the depency in AppleACPIThermal.kext by editing /System/Library/Extensions/AppleACPIPlatform.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleACPIThermal.kext/Contents/Info.plist to change the depency version below the key com.apple.driver.AppleACPIPlatform to 1.2.4 (from 1.2.1).
  27. Restart the computer and install CHUD.pkg and AzaliaAudio.pkg from the /driver/sound folder (in the S10e drivers archive).
  28. Restart the computer and run Audieee from the /driver/sound folder (in the S10e drivers archive).
  29. Run OSX86Tools from the /tools folder (in the S10e drivers archive) to modify the CPU information in About This Mac (e.g. 1.6GHz Intel Atom).
  30. Finally, restart the computer – and hopefully, you now have a Hackintosh!

    31. About This Mac - on a netbook

Notes

  • This post is based on the work of a lot of clever people to whom I’m very grateful for sharing their experiences – I hope I’ve credited them all!
  • I’ve been running this for just over a week now and it seems pretty solid but your mileage may vary.
  • There seems to be a game of cat and mouse going on whereby posts are added to the MyDellMini Forums (this advice can be adapted for the Lenovo S10), then taken down (like this one), then new ones appear. Since I got my system running I found this comprehensive thread.
  • I still have to get some things working: if I let the machine go to sleep without switching off Bluetooth (using the button above the keyboard), it may not come back; and I have no wired Ethernet connection (only WiFi). There may be other items too that I have not noticed but I do have the following working: TrackPad; keyboard (although some of the key mappings are incorrect on a UK keyboard – Apple keyboards have the @ and the ” in the wrong places – even on the UK variants); display (1024×576); WiFi; Bluetooth; audio; camera; SD card reader; and ExpressCard slot.
  • Some dialogue boxes have buttons that appear off screen – this trick to scale the resolution may help (I haven’t tried it yet).
  • The Kitch has also written about installing Mac OS X on a Lenovo S10 or a Dell Mini 9 and the everyday Mac netbook. The menooB Hackintosh tutorial for installing a Mac Leopard OS X Retail DVD on a PC might also be useful.

Did SpinRite actually save my data?

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

This morning, I shut down the notebook PC that I use for work and set off to meet a colleague. Upon returning, I tried to boot the system but nothing happened. Technically, something happened – but not what I expected – basically Windows would not boot and sometimes it reached the startup screen, sometimes it didn’t. Once or twice I’m sure I saw the once-familiar blue screen of death flash up for a fraction of a second before the PC reset itself. I tried a normal startup as well as last known good configuration, before finally I gave up and tried to recover the system using the Windows Server 2008 DVD but this couldn’t locate an installed copy of Windows to recover. What it would let me do though was get to a command prompt, where attempting to access drive C: returned:

The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error.

That didn’t sound good but I managed to run diskpart.exe and list disk told me that disk 0 was online. Moving on to try list partition told me that the two partitions I expected to see were there but it was list volume that really helped shine a light on the problem – the DVD drive and WinRE volumes showed as healthy but drive C: was reported as being a 110GB Healthy partition of type raw (i.e. not NTFS). At this point, I began to panic. Something had happened to the NTFS and that could mean lost data. I have a reasonably recent backup but the last couple of weeks at work have been mayhem and there was some stuff that I know I don’t have a second copy of.

I could call my company’s IT support number but it normally takes at least a day for a callback; I’d have to take the laptop to a “local” office (a 100 mile round trip); if a system won’t boot, the standard approach is to spend a very limited amount of time trying to fix it (probably none at all for people like me who run a non-standard operating system) before simply wiping the system and installing a new corporate build. That means going back to Windows XP and Office 2003 (which is painful when you are used to Windows Vista/Server 2008/7 and Office 2007), the loss of an activated copy of Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition (which is not exactly inexpensive) and also losing my data (the standard build has separate system and data partitions and my build does not… although now I’m starting to reconsider that choice).

I’m pretty sure that the root of this problem is a failing hard disk (after all, it is a “Western Dodgital“) but, without the tools to prove it, I’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell of getting a new one) and, to cut a long story short, when it comes to supporting my non-standard build, I’m on my own (at least unless I can prove that the hardware is faulty).

One of the podcasts that I listen to is “Security Now” and the hosts (Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte) spend far to much time plugging Steve’s SpinRite product. I’ve often wondered if it was any good but was not prepared to spend $89 for speculative purposes – this afternoon I decided that it was time to give it a try.

After paying up, downloading the software, extracting the ISO and creating a bootable CD, I ran SpinRite and performed what is referred to as a “level 2” scan. For the first 20 minutes, SpinRite ran through my disk finding nothing untoward but at the 50% mark it switched into “DynaStat” mode and started trying to identify lost data on one particular sector, slowly narrowing down the unrecoverable bits of the sector. Just this one sector took almost 5 hours and around 2000 samples but all of a sudden SpinRite took off again and finished up the rest of the drive in another 20 minutes. Even though the sector was marked as unrecoverable, a technical support conversation by e-mail confirms that this relates to the data, not the sector. With some trepidation, I restarted the computer, waited with baited breath and have never been so glad to see Windows start checking its disk(s). After a short while, chkdsk was complete and I was presented with a logon screen.

There’s nothing in the Windows event logs to indicate why my system failed to boot so many times this afternoon so it’s difficult to say what the problem was and whether it really was SpinRite that fixed it (although SpinRite did report the SMART data for the drive and there were a number of seek errors, backing up my theory that the hard disk is on its way out). What’s important though is that, as I write this post, Windows Server 2008 is 63% of its way through a backup and all seems to be well. I’m not quite ready to wholeheartedly endorse SpinRite – it does almost sound too good to be true – but, on the face of it, it seems to have recovered enough data on my disk to let Windows boot and for me to gain access to my system. That’s worth my $89 – although somehow I don’t see me getting that particular item through on my expenses…

Running Windows 7 on a netbook

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Now that the Windows 7 beta is out and my NDA has lifted, I can finally write about my experiences of installing Windows 7 on a netbook. In a word:

Sweet.

You see, Windows XP works well on one of these little machines but who wants XP? It’s eight years old (an eternity in IT) and, for anyone who’s used to working with anything remotely modern, it’s a bit difficult to step back to (I was recently forced to revert to Windows XP and Office 2003 for a month whilst my main machine was being repaired and it was painful). I could install Vista but even Microsoft doesn’t think its the right OS for a netbook (that’s why they allowed vendors to continue shipping XP). Meanwhile, much has been said about how Windows 7 requires fewer resources and I wanted to find out how it would run on a typical netbook.

My Lenovo S10e arrived in early December and before installing anything I took an image of the hard disk so that I could return it to factory state if required (Lenovo provides a Windows PE-based recovery image but that’s not much good if you’ve accidentally wiped the hard disk using a pre-release operating system). I could have used Windows Deployment Services for this, but it was just as easy to fire up an old copy of Ghost and boot from a floppy drive and universal network boot disk.

With the disk backed up, I set about installing Windows 7 in a dual-boot scenario (I still needed to drop back to XP occasionally for BBC iPlayer downloads – although since then the BBC has made a version of iPlayer available that runs on other platforms). This was where I found James Bannan’s step-by-step guide on installing Vista to dual boot with XP so useful – the process that James describes is not exactly rocket science but it is good to know you’re following a process that has worked for someone else – and it also works for Windows 7.

Following James’ notes I used diskpart to shrink the existing disk partition, create a second partition and install Windows 7 (with no optical drive available, I used a USB hard disk as a boot volume and Windows 7 installed quickly and easily). There were a couple of unrecognised devices (the Broadcom wireless card and the Lenovo power management but I installed the XP drivers (I would have expected Vista drivers to work but not XP) and they seemed to do the trick. Everything else worked as intended.

Next, I downloaded and ran EasyBCD to edit the boot options. The Windows 7 installation wiped the boot loader that Lenovo had supplied, so I have no access to the recovery volume but it was simple enough to put Windows XP back in as a boot time option (actually, it should be simple enough to put in the recovery volume when I get around to it).

With Windows 7 installed, the next items to install were Vodafone Mobile Connect (which installed using the same options as for Vista) and some antivirus software (I used the free version of AVG, although I’ve been having problems whereby the resident shield won’t start automatically and I have to deactivate it, save the changes and then reactivate it.

After a few more apps (Microsoft Live Meeting, Windows Live Writer, Google Chrome – not to use as a browser but to set up application shortcuts for Google Mail and Calendar) and I had the machine configured as I needed for roaming around, checking e-mail, writing the odd blog post, etc.

So, how did it perform? Absolutely fine. This machine has a 160GB hard disk, a 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU, integrated graphics and just 1GB of RAM. 3D graphics support was great (with really smooth transitions – e.g. Flip 3D) and the Windows System Performance Index showed 2.2, which may not sound high but makes sense when you look at the subscores:

Component What is rated Subscore
Processor Calculations per second 2.9
Memory Memory operations per second 4.4
Graphics Desktop performance for Windows Aero 2.2
Gaming graphics 3D business and gaming graphics performance 3.0
Primary hard disk Disk data transfer rate 5.3

So, fast disk, fast memory, let down by the CPU and the graphics. Not surprising given the class of machine that we’re looking at here.

Task Manager shows that Windows 7 is using 650MB of RAM, which doesn’t leave a huge amount for Office applications but it’s fine for a bit of browsing, e-mail, blogging, and even watching videos. Regardless of the fact that the machine seemed to run well with only a gig of RAM, I decided to see if adding more would make a difference.

First, I tried ReadyBoost to see if it would increase system responsiveness, using an old 1GB SD card, but I have to say that I’m not sure it really made any difference. Then I bought a 2GB SODIMM from , taking the total installed to 2.5GB (for some reason, XP only sees 1.99GB but Windows 7 recognises the whole amount) and measured the stats again. Surprisingly, the score dropped, but only by a fraction as the graphics subscore fell to 2.1 with memory IO slightly up to 4.5 and all other scores unchanged (as might be expected – after all, none of those components had been upgraded).

Windows 7 System Properties on Lenovo S10e after 2GB memory upgrade

So, eight weeks after installation, what’s my verdict? Well that is probably pretty obvious by now – Windows 7 runs nicely on a little netbook. How it will perform on older hardware is anyone’s guess but it also seemed fine on my Compaq Evo D510SFF with a 2.4GHz Pentium 4 CPU and 2GB of RAM (albeit with basic graphics). On that basis, it should be fine for most corporates (although even Vista should also be, with tactical RAM upgrades) and the only barriers to adoption will be cost (of a desktop refresh at a time of economic uncertainty) and application compatibility (as with Vista). It’s also remarkably stable – and I’m still running the pre-beta code (build 6801 with the Blue Badge “tweak”).

There’s plenty written elsewhere about Windows 7 features but those were not the purpose of this post. The one thing I cannot ignore is that Microsoft is yet to make a statement on netbook support for Windows 7 although TechRadar includes the major points in its article explaining Windows 7 netbook system specifications. Microsoft’s problem is that revenues are lower on netbooks (if the hardware is sub-£250, then it’s difficult to sell an operating system at full price without making the Linux alternatives look more attractive) but they also wants to stop shipping XP.

It seems to me that this is purely a marketing issue – from a technology standpoint, Windows 7 (plus Windows Live Essentials) seems to be an ideal netbook operating system.

A quick look at Windows ReadyBoost

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

My netbook it only came with 1GB of RAM, so I decided to see what effect the option to “Speed up my system using Windows ReadyBoost” would make (presented by Windows Vista and later when inserting removable media – more details can be found over on the Kodyaz Development Resources site).

First of all I tried a 1GB USB key that I’d been given with some presentation materials on it but Windows told me the device was not fast enough to use for ReadyBoost.

That was something of a surprise to me – I knew that not all devices were suitable for ReadyBoost but how could I tell why my device was failing? In his article, Is your flash drive is fast enough for ReadyBoost?, Ed Bott explains that:

“If you get a failure message when you first insert a flash device and try to use it as a ReadyBoost drive, you can click Test Again to get a second hearing. If the drive fails several tests, you can look up the specific performance results for yourself. Open Event Viewer (Eventvwr.msc) and click the Applications And Services Logs category in the console tree on the left. Under this heading, click Microsoft, Windows, and ReadyBoost. Under this latter heading, select Operational. The log entries in the center pane include performance test results for both successful and unsuccessful attempts.”

Sure enough, checking the logs on my Windows 7 system showed messages like:

Source: ReadyBoost
EventID: 1008
Description: The device (UT163 USB Flash Disk) will not be used for a ReadyBoost cache because it does not exhibit uniform performance across the device.  Size of fast region: 0 MB.

and:

Source: ReadyBoost
EventID: 1004
Description: The device (UT163 USB Flash Disk) will not be used for a ReadyBoost cache because it has insufficient write performance: 173 KB/sec.

173KB per second is about 10% of the required speed for ReadyBoost so I tried again, this time using a 1GB SD card.

First I saw an event to indicate that the card exhibited the necessary performance characteristics:

Source: ReadyBoost
EventID: 1000
Description: The device (Generic- Multi-Card) is suitable for a ReadyBoost cache.  The recommended cache size is 991232 KB.  The random read speed is 3311 KB/sec.  The random write speed is 3500 KB/sec.

and then a second event recording the creation of the cache:

Source: ReadyBoost
EventID: 1010
Description: A ReadyBoost cache was successfully created on the device (Generic- Multi-Card) of size 966 MB.

So, after creating the cache, did ReadyBoost actually make a difference?  It’s difficult to say – on a relatively low-powered PC (the one I used only has an Intel Atom 1.6GHz) performance is not blindingly fast and, as the USB ports (including internal ones used for devices like media card readers) rely on the main CPU for IO processing, it could be argued that use of USB attached memory would even compound the issue when the PC is running out of steam.  Those with faster PCs, or faster memory devices may see a difference.

Long Zheng has a good summary in his article which puts forward the notion that ReadyBoost works but that it’s not a miracle:

“I don’t agree with […] how ReadyBoost has been marketed and perceived by the public. ReadyBoost does not improve performance, it only improves responsiveness. It won’t make your system or [applications] run any faster, but it will make things faster to load and initialize to a working-state.

If you’re on a budget, then ReadyBoost is premium accessory that is definitely not value-for-money. You’re literally paying a price to slice milliseconds off loading times. But if you’re a professional or heavy business user, then ReadyBoost might be a cheaper, easier or the only alternative to upgrading memory.”

Long suggests that ReadyBoost is not value for money. I’d add that it may be if, like me, you have a lot of small USB keys that are doing nothing more than gathering dust on a shelf.  It’s probably not worth investing money in new hardware especially to use ReadyBoost though.  Indeed, one of Long’s readers (Tomer Chachamu) makes a distinction which is extremely important to consider:

“I am using [ReadyBoost] for several weeks now and I can confirm your experiences, that it helps a lot to improve the responsivness [sic.] of the system.

So it helps to make the whole system perform faster. So isn’t it the same?

High responsiveness: the system ‘feels fast’ and you don’t have to wait for something to load when you’re about to go to a command. (Example of high responsiveness: when you logon, you immediately want to go to the start menu and launch something. The time from logon to launch is a busy wait for you.) – this is affected by readyboost [sic].

High speed: the system performs computational (or I/O) tasks fast. (Example: you are ripping a massive library of CDs. It takes about 10 minutes. If it took less time, say by offloading floating point calculations to the GPU, then that would be high speed. It’s still longer than half a minute so the system is fast, but not responsive. When you’re encoding the CDs, you can do other useful activities, so it’s a non-busy wait.) – this is not affected by readyboost [sic].”

ReadyBoost is not about high speed – it’s about responsiveness (which explains why PC World were unimpressed when they tested some ReadyBoost-capable USB flash drives on Windows Vista).

In the end, I decided to buy some more RAM but, for those considering using ReadyBoost, it’s worth checking out Tom Archer’s ReadyBoost FAQ.

Get more memory at Crucial.com!

Sometimes it really is just time to get a new PC

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

My parents in-law have been saying for some time that their PC is slow.  I couldn’t really understand why – after all, it’s only a couple of years since I put some memory in it, added a DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive and rebuilt in to run Windows XP – I thought that would be fine for a couple of silver surfers to look at and store their digital photos, catch up on e-mail and surf the web.

Oh how wrong I was.  It was fine when I set it up, but after a couple of years of Windows updates, plus the installation of various programs bundled by their ISP, bloated security suites and the like, the PC was practically crawling.  It wasn’t unresponsive, it just took forever to load a web page, open a document, etc. and I even began to wonder if the Internet connection was failing to deliver the advertised ADSL broadband speeds.

My brother-in-law also complained about it every time he came home from his work overseas so when my wife suggested that he shared the cost of a new computer with us as a 70th birthday present he was more than happy to do so.

This afternoon, I’m copying over the files, setting up the printer, and doing all the bits and pieces that I couldn’t do at home when I imaged the new PC and decrapified it a couple of weeks back but, just out of curiosity, I ran a speed test on the Internet connection.

Moving the ADSL modem connection from the aging PC (which Windows XP reports as a Pentium II with 412MB of RAM) to the new on (a Dell Inspiron 1525 with a 2.0GHz Core2Duo CPU and 3GB of RAM) boosted the reported connection speed from 1360kbps downstream and 152kbps upstream with a 502ms ping response (averaged over three readings) to 1883kbps downstream and 242kbps upstream with a 34ms ping (again, averaged over three tests).  And this was the same ISP, the same phone line, and the same modem, just plugged into a different PC.  Who would have thought that the CPU was just to slow to keep up with the network (and, before someone tells me that Linux could handle it… ask yourself whether the average grandparent can handle Linux?)

So, next time you wonder if your ISP is delivering the advertised connection speed, it might just be worth taking a look at the PC you’re using to access the connection.

(Now, if one more pensioner tells me how good it would be to set my in-laws up with a wireless network, I’ll scream…).

My MacBook is broken (again)

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

A few weeks after my Apple MacBook arrived, it had to go for repairs after the plastic top cover in front of the keyboard split.  To be fair to Apple, they repaired it under warranty (as they should – this is clearly a design fault – although they also scratched the top case and had to replace that too!).  Today, just 8 months later, I’ve noticed that it’s split again.  This is obviously a weak spot where my palm rests as I’m typing (after all, that is what the palm rest is for) but I’m not happy.  Looks like the Mac will be off to the Apple Store for repairs again soon but I really don’t want to be without my primary multimedia machine over the Christmas holidays.

Last week I wrote about how Steve Jobs said that Apple couldn’t produce a $500 computer that’s not a piece of junk.  It seems to me that Apple doesn’t need the diversion of a small form factor PC (the context of Jobs’ comment) – they need to get the build quality on their normal (overpriced) models right first of all!

Computer clamping

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

There’s just been a bit of entertainment in the office where I’m working today as one of my colleagues accidentally locked his computer to the desk!

Having seen a spare desk with a full size keyboard, mouse, screen and port replicator/docking station, he hooked up his laptop and started working – only to find that the docking station had a security device attached and he couldn’t release the PC without a key.  Furthermore, the keyholder had already gone home and wasn’t answering his mobile phone.

To be honest, I would have fallen for this myself – I didn’t know that the security device worked that way (I would have assumed that I needed to lock the PC in place with a key and not just attach it to a locked docking station) but, for those with a permanent desk and a docking station in a predominantly hot-desking environment, this could become a lucrative sideline in computer clamping – the principle being that if someone uses your desk they can pay to have you come along with a key and unlock their laptop!

Lenovo’s IdeaPad S10e is exactly what I’d hoped for

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

If this blog post is full of typos it’s because I’m conducting an experiment.  I’m trying to see if I can type an entire post on an 85% keyboard without making an unacceptable number of mistakes… and then I’ll tell you if the keyboard on my Lenovo S10e is any good.

Readers may recall that, just over a week ago, I was very excited at the prospect of the imminent arrival opf my new toy – my Christmas present to myself.  Some of you even indicated that you’d like to know how I get on with my new netbook and, I have to say, I’m pretty impressed.

Let’s get one thing straight – a 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU is not going yto blowe you away with blinding performance – but then consider something else (wehich my friend and colleague Dave Saxon pointed out) – this machine is not designed for content creation and is really intended for content consumption.  Eben so, I reckon it will be the machine that I use for knocking out most of my blog posts for a while.

OK.  Keyboard experiment over… I will correct any typos from now on but, bearing in mind I’m a 16-and-a-half-stone (230lb/105kg) guy who stopped growing before he got to 6 foot tall (i.e. a fat bloke) with podgy fingers, I’m quite happy that I managed to type three paragraphs with only five mistakes (I’d probably have made a couple on a full-sized keyboard).  Like I said, this machine is not designed for content creation but as a half-way-house between a fully mobile (PDA/smartphone) device and a standard notebook PC.  Comparing the keyboard on my Lenovo S10e with some of the other 10” netbooks the 1 is a little too far to the left (so I keep hitting 2) and some others manage a full row of 12 function keys (the Lenovo only has 11 – requiring a Fn+F11 combination to get F12).  Based on looks alone, the Samsung NC10 seems to have a better keyboard – it’s a pity it’s such an ugly machine.

Which nicely leads me into the topics of aesthetics and build quality.  Apple PCs are often held up as examples of design excellence and, when asked about the increasing number of netbooks sold, Apple CEO Steve Jobs is quoted as having said:

“We don’t know how to produce a $500 computer that’s not a piece of junk”

[Steve Jobs, October 2008]

He’s probably right – after all, my Apple MacBook is not as well built as I would like and it cost me around £800 (it’s not quite a $1000 piece of crap – but it’s certainly not as good as it should be).  So, if Apple can’t even get a premium-priced notebook PC right, they have no chance with anything at this end of the market.  On the other hand, Lenovo have managed to build a good looking little PC for around the $500 mark (mine cost £292.25, including 15% sales tax) and before I got my hands on it I said that I hoped Lenovo had continued the build quality that previous IBM ThinkPads displayed – I’m pleased to say that the S10e does not disappoint. The one criticism that I have is that the back of the screen appears to be constructed from a single, thin sheet and it does flex if pushed.

The one thing that lets the S10e down is battery life.  In fairness I haven’t run a full charge cycle on my battery yet (so it’s not fully conditioned) but Windows’ prediction of 4 hours and 13 minutes from a fully-charged battery is wildly optimistic – I reckon I’ll be lucky to get three although I am using the WiFi connection.  If this becomes a problem then a 6-cell battery is available – I haven’t found a UK price yet but at least one site is selling them for less than $80.

Some people have criticised the Lenovo for running hot – mine’s been charging on the desk for the last few hours and admittedly it is a bit warm but nothing compared to my Fujitsu-Siemens Lifebook S7210, which is quite an effective electric fan heater, or my Apple MacBook, which regularly reports internal temperatures of 70-80 degrees.

My S10e was supplied with 1GB of RAM (512MB fixed and another 512MB of DDR2 PC2-5300 RAM).  For the type of work that this machine is designed for, that should be plenty and I’ve not seen any evidence of excessive paging with a few Internet Explorer tabs, a couple of command prompts, a few Explorer windows and Windows Live Writer running.  Running some Office applications might start to push the envelope slightly though. I can’t comment on how well it works with Windows 7 (I’ll write more as soon as I’m freed from NDA restrictions but Paul Thurrott has reported that there will be a public beta next month so hopefully it won’t be too long), in the meantime I’ll just quote CNet’s Brooke Crothers, who wrote that:

“[Microsoft said that] Windows 7 will run on 1GB of memory and 16GB of (solid-state drive) storage. Higher-end Netbooks will have a 160GB hard disk drive, according to Microsoft ‘guidance.’”

And who am I to argue with CNet?

Even if 1GB is not enough to run 7 on this hardware, there are reports that a 2GB SODIMM can be installed to take the total to 2.5GB (of which 2GB will be addressable).  In addition, for those who are running Windows Vista or later, a USB flash drive or SD card can be used with ReadyBoost to improve system responsiveness.

On the expandability front, it’s a bit of a shame that the SD slot leaves the card sticking out (especially as I have a card in there all the time for ReadyBoost) and it’s the same with the PC Express Card slot but these are still valuable capabilities (most netbooks have media cards readers but few offer a PC Express Card slot).

So, onto the million dollar question – is a netbook actually of any practical use or is it too big a compromise?  To answer that, I’ll refer to my previous point – this device is for content consumption not content creation – and for web browsing, streaming a bit of TV from the BBC website, catching up on e-mail, RSS feeds, etc., a netbook is fine.  TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington wrote that there are three reasons why netbooks are not good enough and I cannot agree at all.  Arrington contests that:

“They’re underpowered as PCs, the screen is too small for web surfing, and the keyboard is so small that effective typing is impossible.”

Underpowered?  Well, you’re not going to be doing media compression on one of these but it’s more than adequate for the purposes I described above.

Screen too small for web surfing? 1024×576 is a little shallow but it works on most sites – there’s the odd dialog box that causes an issue (poor UI design) but it’s easy enough to adjust the font size to read a bit more on a web page (Ctrl+-)and, as Liliputing wrote in their response:

“[Arrington] points out that you can only read the first 8 lines of an article on his web site when using a netbook, while you can see the first 22 lines using the iPhone web browser. But you know what? The iPhone doesn’t have a higher resolution display than a netbook, it just has a different web browser. This is a software issue, not a hardware issue”

(I’d also add that TechCrunch takes up a huge amount of space above the fold with ads and navigation…)

As for the keyboard?  I’ve already proved that, whilst it’s not ideal, it is usable – it may not be great for writing huge documents or knocking out code but it’s fine for leaving the odd comment on a website or responding to e-mail.

Whilst slightly larger alternatives such as the Dell Mini 12 offer a much better specification (closer to a notebook than to a netbook), the whole point of this purchase (for me) was a small, lightweight package – so a 10” model was about my limit.  Sure, there are some compromises (like the keyboard and the 576px display depth) but this netbook is everything I wanted it to be.  For less than £300, the Lenovo S10e is fantastic value – better built than the Acer/Asus netbooks, more fully-featured than the Dell Mini 9, and better looking than the Samsung NC10.  I’m pleased to say that I have absolutely no regrets about this particular purchase.

For more information, check out the Lenovo IdeaPad S Series Forums.