Gadgets and Stuff

Ok, here are some of the things I am/have been playing with for a while. I am posting this in hopes of receiving/providing tech help and experiences. I will one day get around to reviewing them properly but for now, I will list Pro's and Con's.

1. Network Storage Drive

Bought from: Bondwell Fiji
Price: <$150 Pro's: Access data over your network, great for network based backup, configure FTP for online access Con's: Does not work with Vista (old linux) firmware, poor manual/documentation, poor online support, hangs up at times (requires power cycle)

2. IP (Network) Camera
Bought from: Australia
Price: <$600
Pro's: Multiple streaming over network, email alerts on motion sensing, recording to ftp/http servers, online access/configuration, 4 zone motion sensing, outdoor enclosure, supports 3GPP mobile streaming
Con's: When not used with bundled software, emails short video instead of snap-shots for alerts, FPS slow when it is in process of emailing

Thats all for today!

Acer Netbook Woes

I got some dandy acer netbooks for work about a year or half back. They all developed some performance issues. Audio playback was affected most, and choppy almost all of the time.

Image: Wikipedia [link]

Initially I thought it was a driver issue but turns out it is the hard-drive. Normally, a windows pc/laptop hard-drive runs in DMA mode (which is pretty fast). When the system encounters a catastrophic failure (e.g. BSOD), it put the HD's in PIO mode (archaic and slow yet effective in retrieving data under horrid conditions).

Fix - put it back into DMA mode. A simple script is here [link].

What causes it?
Some suggest the right speaker is sitting too close to the HD. When loud enough, it disrupts the HD causing cyclic errors. Once say 6 errors have been recorded, Windows XP reverts the HD to PIO mode.