Who shot first?  (that one got me… no clue).  How embarrassed should I be?

Created by OnePlusYou - Geek Test

After having pre ordered it from Amazon (sorry, no links… not making it easier for anyone to give ASUS business they don’t deserve) and paying a hefty $375 for it (in comparison to the competition), the unit shipped on February 7th of this year 2009 and I received it a few days later.

I was motivated to pre order, because as I had read somewhere in the “interwebs”, that the ASUS 1000HE was the first one to offer the (back then) new Atom N280 processor.  Sparing anyone the details of what the benefits of the N280 processor are over its brother the N270 processor (yes, to me processors are MALE because they do all the hard work and the heavy lifting, plus they can multitask!), but suffice it to say it was not because of the clock speed difference: 1.60ghz for the N270 in contrast to the whopping 1.66ghz of its big brother the N280.

3 months after, the unit’s integrated wireless card sadly died.  I called, got on their phone with their tech support, explained my case and after running a series of unnecessary tests to satisfy their need to prove the customer is not an idiot, it was determined (you don’t say?) that the wireless card was indeed kaput! As if I didn’t know already, but oh well… the RMA was issued and the unit went out the door and unto little machine hospital care. 

Little did I know, “little machine hospital” care turned out to be the worst HMO anyone would ever want to put their selves into their hands.

About a month later I received the unit back, and promptly turned it back on making my first order of business to test that the wireless card was indeed in working order.  Oh jolly, yeay! it was.

Don’t ask me why, I can’t tell you, and maybe its part of my stupid OCD habits, but I decided to check on the hardware specs by “right clicking” on my computer and selecting properties (you know these .  Oh, I remember, I wanted to confirm it had 1GB of memory and not 2GB, because my ultimate plan was (and quite honestly probably still is) to install Windows 7 on it.  I wanted to set out to buy extra RAM for it.

This is what I saw:

<<eepcWithn270.png>>

Surprise and darn! WTF??? 1.6Ghz Atom N270… not Atom N280… hmm… am I going crazy?  So I go and check Amazon’s receipts and sure enough, It says right there I bought a unit with an N280 processor. 

<<eepcOrderFromAmazon.png>>

I then went and check the box in which the unit originally shipped, the same one I used to ship it back to repair the wireless card (yes, I keep that sort of stuff laying around.  I told you I have annoying OCD habits).

<<eeepc100heboxlabel.jpg>>

Sure enough, you can see the serial number AND that it is an EEEPC 1000HE, even the color is listed so thank God they didn’t send me back a pink one! can you imagine the post I’d write? 

There it is: INTEL ATOM280.

I quickly call them up, state the case and … surprise #2: with what sounded to me at the time, a very condescending forcibly polite little tone of voice, the tech proceeds to tell me that “it is all ok, because right here in my system it says that the serial number for your machine indicates the unit shipped from factory with a N270 processor”  I literally felt my head flush with the fluids of irrational anger and almost had to run and put it under the bathroom sink faucet to cool it off.   10 minutes later, after futile attempts to use logic to explain that “it must be an error”, I concluded with the statement “I don’t give a fuck what your system says, my unit was purchased as, was shipped from Amazon as, and I used it for 2 months as configured with an N280 processor” and followed it up with “what do I need to do to prove to you guys you are verging on committing retail fraud or at the very least deception by assumption of stupidity?”. 

Long story short (yeah right, but believe me when I say this is the abridged version) I had to write an essay about 5 times lengthier and angrier than this post is turning to be, and included every picture possible to prove to those idiots that I am not an idiot and that indeed my EeePC was originally equipped with an N280 and they shipped it back after repair with a lesser processor, the N270.

Blah, blah, blah, yada-yada-yada… about 2 weeks later I finally got a new RMA, and after my strong position that I wasn’t going to pay for shipping so that they can correct their blatant mistake, they included a pre-paid shipping label.  So I shipped it out and readied myself to let the waiting begin.

Yesterday after approximately 3 or 4 weeks, I received my EeePc 1000HE back from ASUS technical service (well technically speaking, I picked it up).  

Got it home, power it up and of course the first thing I do is go into the BIOS to check the processor… surprise, surprise, or should I be surprised?  You guessed it… same shit.  N270 Processor… this is even AFTER their order slip reads and says they actually replaced it AGAIN with the N280 (see the picture of the body of the repair slip included in the box back from the repair center):

<< eeepcrepairslip2fixed.jpg >>

Breath in Guillermo, Breath in… on the phone again, calmly explain the situation to the rep on the other side and guess what line they tried to feed me yet once again? “sir, the serial number for your machine shows that…” I said “STOP… STOP it right there and get me the highest ranking someone that I can talk to right now that is not going to insult my intelligence”.  She did, and I got Irish on the line, and she listened and did not try the “the serial number says” line again on me, although in all fairness i did warn her about it.

I am still waiting for yet another RMA, yet another pre paid shipping label and will send it out again.  This unit has spend more time in transit and in repair than it has on my lap and in my house.  I am not hopeful, but I have no recourse so I’ll try to make myself a believer.

Maybe I am not helping my case, but I felt compelled to and so I did… and wrote a note to the poor soul who is fortunate enough to be dealt the card of opening this box when it comes into ASUS’s technical black hole.

Here it is in all its glory.  Tell me what you think.

<<pleasetest.jpg>>

Got myself a new toy, a Linksys NAS 200, picked it up at on sale at buy.com for $75 and stuffed it with dual 1TB Hitachi 7200RPM hard drives from Newegg.com for $65 a piece after $10 immediate coupon and, where I to get my ass in gear I have a $10 rebate on each that would bring the price down to $55 a pop.

Here is my cliff notes review.

Installation

Physical

A snap, quite literally (do notice I did have a helper throughout so take that into account!).

Take the front covers out by releasing the plastic latch, then squeeze in the 3.5” SATA drives which fit snuggly and perfectly, until you feel the connectors in the back perfectly couple with the drive’s own.

Power up…

Setup

Pop in the Installation CD, which runs the app that scans for the device in your local network.  Either follow the wizard (which I did the first time) or change settings manually (without the wizard).  Settings to set include device network name, IP (static or DHPC) and drive configuration.

The NAS supports as much as you would expect from a $75, 2 drive device.  RAID 0 (stripping) for speed, RAID 1 (mirroring) for peace of mind.  You can also configure it to use the Two separate disks (Recommended)or Two disks configured as one large disk (JBOD/LVM).

I configured it using RAID 1, since I don’t think I have close to that amount of data requiring “secure” storage.  This is the purpose that best fits my immediate needs and that in my mind justified the roughly $150 expense.

One small shortcoming that I think is, again typical to expect of your $75 device, is that you are tied to manage permissions and setup shares and such from the proprietary software interface, something that may fall short of a great experience but also something that I am probably going to do seldom if ever now that it is up and running. 

It is manageable via its self contained and hosted web interface or via a desktop app included with the supporting media.

If you happen to need additional storage to be served via the same mechanism and want to add to the NAS, one option is to do it via it’s USB interface.  The device will manage up to 2 external USB drives and serve them up via the same interface with some limitations, served straight up no RAID.

Some cool, non advertised features include power management (very welcome indeed) and a “Media Server” option which I haven’t tried out yet.

Thus far, not quite 1 month into the purchase, installation, setup and configuration, I would recommend this product to anyone looking for a truly inexpensive way to store and manage (secure if so desired) data.  How expensive or cheap you end up going depends on your options for the actual drives you put in it, but you could start with one and add to it.  Of course that would limit or somewhat restrict your ability to use mirror after the fact.

So looking around bensbargains.net I realized I could put together a very decent machine, for less than or very similar price to, the “brand name” junk we are all accustomed to.

Here it is:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz Core Processor	$152		CompUSA.com
PNY Geforce 9600 GSO 768MB PCI-E Video Card	$50		Frys.com
WD Caviar WD10EADS 1TB SATA 3.0Gb/s HDD	$90		NewEgg.com
Asus P5Q-E Green Motherboard	$131		Buy.com
Thermal Take VJ70001N2Z Steel Mid Tower Case	$42		ZipZoomFly.com
OCZ Technology ModXStream Pro 500W PS	$44		ZipZoomFly.com
Corsair 4GB PC2-6400 DDR2 Memory Kit	$20		NewEgg.com
LG GH22NS30 Black 22X DVD+-RW Drive	$23		NewEgg.com
Total Cost	$552

Indicates a rebate.  All prices used include shipping.

Just over $550 for a QUAD Core based rig, is not bad at all… add memory at will if you want more than 4GB.  1TB HD should be enough for all the junk we tend to accumulate, and even accounts for the “green” factor.

I assume you still have your old keyboard and mouse and a decent monitor laying around.

I don’t think these deals will be around too long, as we all know they come and go but this is gearing up to be a weekend project!

Created by Train Horns

I head this loud and clear and was quickly annoyed by it… since I am 0x26, I thought I’d be less annoyed… not so!

This comes to me via the hand waver.  Hey, thanks for nothing buddy!

I am currently dealing with a little annoyance which is not having a reliable wireless connection. 

Now, I've always had issues to some degree or another with my wireless signal at home, as has much of the wireless community in general.  Wireless just isn't as reliable, period.  However, up until this Sunday (or at least I think it was Sunday) I was getting a usable signal, if not the most highly performing one.

For the life of me, I can't think of what changed either purposefully or not that may have caused my current signal woes.

My first suspect was the wireless card I was using.  Mind you I am running an "ancient" Dell Precision M50 workstation which doesn't have wireless integrated, so my wireless connection comes via a Netgear WG511 card.  I was initially using the "v1" of the card, or simply WG511, and given my initial suspition I then tried the "v2" of the same card, and even tried different PC card slots (although I only have 2).  Because of the change of hardware, I also uninstalled the "old" drivers and installed the new drivers that go with the v2 of the card... all by the book... no good.

I run a  Netgear WGR614v4 Wireless Router as my main router, and also a Netgear WAG302 Access Point.  Both of them are located in my basement, both within arms reach of each other (that is, if routers and access points had arms).  What I know I am doing wrong, is that I should place the Access Point in the highest level of the house.  My excuse is that it is an older house, brick, hard to impossible to fish cabling through walls for an amateur cabling tech.  So what I will probably do as I further analyze my situation is probably have a cabling contractor run a couple of cables to my 1st and 2nd level from the basement, and use those to connect the access point.  I will follow up on that.

Back to the problem on hand, and trying to keep the idea on course, although the "solution" would appear to be to move the source of the signal, I was presented today with an interesting curve ball to deal with.  My wife brought home her work laptop a Dell Latitude D510 with Dell Integrated Wireless card and placing the laptop on the exact same spot as where I experience the lowest signal on the aforementioned crippled laptop, I get a great signal strength reading... very weird.

In addition to this, if I take my laptop down to the basement "by" the router, I get great signal with no intermitent drops like I get while at the main level... so, yeah, it appears to be a matter of signal strength other than the fact that my wife's laptop (on which I am writing this post), has perfect signal from pretty much anywhere in the house... I am totally puzzled.

My next steps: I will test my laptop with a 3rd wireless USB adapter from D-Link, to change both the vendor and the form factor.  I will update as I unravel this mystery.

I was looking for a simple icon to use as a "shotcut icon" for one of my pages, and I came across this wonderful, very elegant collection of FREE icons by Axialis in ICO, GIF and PNG formats in sizes from 16x6 up to 48x48 for the GIFs and PNGs.

They are released under the Creative Commons Attribution License. It means that you can use them in any project or website, commercially or not.

Very cool.  Thank you very much! I can see myself using these frequently, especially when I need some non-branded extra umf graphic appeal to my work.  I know I haven't mentioned it but I am seriously graphically challanged, so this is like huge for me... I am psyched.  As you can see, it doesn't take much.... oh well, sad but true.

UPDATE: My friend Benny pointed me to this additional resource with additional free icons... oh yeah, adding "stuff" to the library.