Note: if you are look for the driver for the SM Bus Controller in XP, use The Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility. There you will see a link Get the utility, which will help you install the missing drivers.

Once get into computer science and IT and people know that, you will never stop giving tech support. As a result I came to enjoy it and always welcome new stuff that I have never played with. This week I got my hands on  a Acer Aspire One Netbook, with Windows XP, 500 MB RAM, 8GB Flash Disk N270 1.6 GHZ Intel Atom processor .

The owner (and friend) told me there was something wrong with the sound, so I decided to check it out. First impression on case and keyboard was good, but boy was it slow in booting and lagging when using it, so I decided to make it faster. Here is what I did:

Tip #1

Go to Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> System

Then click on the Advance Tab

Then Click On Settings and you will see the following window:

Here select Adjust for best performance

This will remove any eye candy and give you a look similar to Windows 2000.

Tip #2

Uninstall any programs you don’t need and any bundled antivirus. I recommend you a lightweight one like AVG (which is free).

Tip #3

Remove any startup your computer, some software and services that you need may boot. To remove them go to

Start->Run

Type msconfig and then ENTER.You will get this screen:

Click on the Startup Tab, where you can see and disable which process startup when you boot. In this case I disabled Google Update, MSN Messenger and other stuff. If you don’t know what to remove, try or go the the task manager and see which process that you don’t need are consuming much of the memory.

Next go the the Services Tab.

There you do the same thing, look which services you don’t need.

Tip #4

Defragment the hard drive, in the case of this Netbook it had 40% fragmentation and after this I saw a noticeable change. To defragment your harddrive, go to:

Start-> Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk Defragmenter

Tip # 5

Patience.

If you have a Laptop with a Atom Intel N270 processor, you need to have some patience, because it lacks L1 cache and its L2 cache is only 512 KB. Means that it can’t process many instructions as other with more L2 Cache. Also the Bus speed is 533 MHz, which means that data coming from memory come slower, almost by a magnitude of three, than the speed of the processor, which creates a bottle neck. So if you see that the clock icon in your mouse, don’t start clicking on other places, give it some time. It doesn’t matter if it has Hyper Threading (you will see two CPU graphs in the Task Manager), you will need to wait, the speed of the processor is to fast compared to the speed of the other components. However modern processors get a bit of help from the L1 and L2 cache, which store data and instructions that can be access at fast speeds.

Every time I put my laptop (with Windows Vista Business) on hibernation, sleep or just lose internet connection, my MSN live messenger will not connect. Sometimes I will fix this by just killing the process and restarting the program. Still, is just big a pain to the point that I will go days without using it.

Like most of you visiting me from google or yahoo, I started by searching Error 80040200. While reading many results I found the following instructions from this blog post:

1) Close Messenger. Go into Task Manager and ensure that the “msnmsgr.exe” process is not there. If it is, kill the process.

2.) Navigate to C:\Users\<YourUserName>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Contacts and delete the entire contents of the folder.

For XP go to: C:\Documents and Settings\Users\Local Settings\AppData\Microsoft\Windows Live Contacts (thanks to Mary for bringing this up)

3.) Restart Windows Live Messenger.

If that works… great!!!, no more error 80040200 for you. However, if you are stuck in step two trying to delete all files without success, then continue reading.

The reason we got stuck is because another process was using the files you can’t delete, one of them being contacts.edb. Just try to find the process wlcomm.exe in the Task Manager. This might be the process stoping you from deleting the file. So, if you can’t find it, proceed to download the Process Explorer. Once you go it, run it and press Ctrl+F or go to “Find” in the main menu and click on “Find Handle or DLL” button. Then you will have a pop up where you write the name of the file contacts.edb (which is the one you can’t delete), as shown in the image bellow. (If you think this is a bit advance for you or need any help, please write a comment and I will gladly help you)

Once you find the process kill it, delete all the files and restart the MSN live Messenger. Again, if you got any questions drop them in the comments and I will be back to you.

If your touchpad or mouse stop working after windows update of IdeaCom Technology Inc. – Input – IdeaCom HID Touch Screen (PS/2) update, then your not alone. I have Vista Business 64 bits and I have seen reports on the net that the problem occurred to XP and 32 bits versions. My hardware is a
Dell Notebook XPS 1330. However this is applicable to other laptops and computers that have the same problem (that is trusting Microsoft).

To solve it you need to uninstall it, however you can’t do it from the Remove Software, it has to be done from the device Manager. Go to the device manager and look for the IdeaCom HID Touch Screen (PS/2) in either Human Interface Devices or in Mice or other pointing devices as shown bellow:

(I apologize for not having screen shots from when I have the problems, I just forgot.)

Once you have found the IdeaCom device, right click on it and Click on Device Uninstall. Your will get a confirmation windows, there check on the option Delete the driver software for this device.

If you also find the Dell Touchpad,  uninstall it and delete the drivers as you did with the IdeaCom. The reason is because we want to have no conflicts and windows loading drivers that “compete”. In my case this happened because I tried to Install the Synaptic drivers for the Dell Touch Pad (that I download from support page). If didn’t reinstall the drivers, I don’t know if you have that will be your case. However to be sure double check and uninstall the all IdeaCom and Dell Touchpad devices.

You may have to reboot after each uninstall of devices (in the case of being more than one) instead of doing both at the same time. Remember ONLY to uninstall the touch pad drivers and IdeaCom, forget about the other USB Human Interface Devices.

Download the drivers for the Touchpad (in my case if was from Dell). If you have another laptop or computer then download the corresponding drivers and Install, then reboot. Everything should work after this.

There is another approach to look for the driver file in the C:\WINDWOS\system32\drivers\ folder and delete it. I don’t like and recommend this approach because windows doesn’t know the device is not on the system, it just messing. Although Windows has it problems, it will have less if it’s well inform. Think about it with your Linux distro, it’s better to use the package manager to install programs, instead of download the sources and compiling. In the case you do an update it the package manager will update the dependencies. However if it doesn’t know the program is installed, then it will not update the dependencies. Or vice versa, other programs may depend on it and not get the corresponding update.

Finally, to avoid future problems DON’T download device drivers from Microsoft. Its better to download them from the manufacturer. Although they should be generic, manufactures sometimes tweak them or test them better than Microsoft.

Originally this was the title of this post:

Removing your battery from your MacBook, will decrease its performance.. So what?”

I still feel the same, however I changed my mind, when thought about it from a broader point of view. If your laptop, either made by Apple, Asus, Sony, HP, Dell, slews of the performance of the CPU if its ONLY running on the power (no battery), do you care? In my case it depends, for a few it might be important, but most users might not care. As its stated in “The Inmates Are Running the Asylum“, its better to make 20% happy, than trying to satisfy everybody. More on this later…

It is reported that “Apple notebooks take huge performance hit with battery” and Apple apparently acknowledge this some time ago. After pondering on it, I got to a conclusion: so what and who cares? Is this important to most Mac owners ? My guess is that the majority will care less, what they care about is that their laptop works, in such way that they don’t have to think about what is going on under the hood. They don’t even want to think about the hood, they just want to concentrate in their books, designs, emails, art, etc. , they want to be able to create and worry about other thing and not the pains sometimes one has to suffer with computers.

Looking more into the the reduction in performance, it seems  logical, because one of the main parts of the device is not connected to it, meditate about it. Take cars for example, your car can run without a battery, but will it start? Will you be able to play some music on the stereo? Its all about the tradeoff, you give something, but you get something else: trade. Expanding more on the car example, will it be great if your car will calculate how many kilometers were left, when you are bellow one third of the full tank. Even better if it will ask me if I will like to go into “gas saver mode”, while detecting that you haven’t gone over 50 km in the last 10 minutes. It could be possible, but will complicate things more, making the care more robust and rise the cost for: tradeoff.

Here is clear example about tradeoff Wii vs Play Station 3

Its interesting to read the comments in the post mentioned above, how this is not news, talk about tradeoff or criticized Apple decisions. Here is little secret: if you don’t like it, don’t buy it, if you don’t like Apple buy another thing. I don’t like them that is why I own a “Dell From Hell” XPS 1330. I’m satisfy with it, I love the fact that has a small adapter (as MacBook). I understand when I need full power and brightness in the screen and when I need 4 hours of battery, and I appreciate the freedom of choice. It doesn’t run hot because it has a 5400 rpm and integrated video card, I don’t need more because I don’t play games. I used to have 17in, 10 pound monster, with a 2 pound power adapter. I was giving up something that now I value more than the value of having everything. I want mobility, portability, comfort. I identified that new value and decided to trade for it.

Dell from Hell – source

Back to making 20% happy: that is why Apple does best, he makes them really happy. If you think Apple design decisions are stupid, then Apple is not designing for you, is for others that find their products worth the so called “premium”. I don’t like their products, but doesn’t mean they make crappy ones, its just not for me (or maybe you). Someday this might change, like when comfort became more value than power, in the meantime I will continue to learn from Apple, understand their customers and have fun posting about it.

Recently I had the experience of “playing” around with a Asus Eee PC 900, to be mo specific I was fixing some issues with the wireless. You can find the post here.

I always been a fan of the Asus Eee, from the time that the rumors started. Just the concept of having a very portable laptop a netbook, as a traveling replacement of the my laptop, was very attractive. Furthermore, with all the talks of OLPC, and the project not going as planned, I thought this was the answer: give every student a Asus Eee. The main issue with the OLPC, is that it tried to do a lot of things, I guess from the start,  is not possible.

I was kind of disappointed when it wasn’t sold at 200 USD, but at a higher price 300 USD. At 200, it will be at the price as some mobile phones out there, meaning it could be a true road warrior laptop. I guess they didn’t take into account distribution channels, when first teasing us with that price. Still they had sold well and now every manufacturer has a netbook in their line up. The problem I have with current offers is that they come to close to the notebook, in features or/and price. So, manufacturers and consumers need to define what is a netbook and what is a laptop and forget about the offers in the middle. If not done, the true essence of the netbook will be lost: a machine that is light and useful enough to travel with, cheap enough to replace if damage.

The picture shown above is from a article that compares the OLPC to the first Asus Eee PC. I never been closed to OLPC XO but I can tell you some things about the Asus Eee PC 900. The Eee PC can be a nice replacement of the OLPC. The keyboard might need a learning curve, because of the small key, however people learn to type email in the “crack berries”, and small keyboards are not a problem for children and their small fingers. However you have the price challenge; why not continue producing the original Eee PC 701 for educational purposes. Also they are cheap enough, and reaching economies of scale may do the trick.

The netbooks need a Operating system, so if the Eee PC will be used for educational purposes, it needs to be tailored for that. Edubuntu could be used, which is the Ubuntu distribution for the classroom. It’s free, meaning that no price increase is necessary, and trust me they will not care if its Linux, OS X or Windows, the opportunity to learn, is what they care and what we should be caring about. However there is a challenge with Ubuntu on the Asus Eee. Ubuntu needs to tailor a distro that fits and works perfectly with the netbooks. While using it, it was evident that for Ubuntu, the Asus Eee is jut another Laptop, which shouldn’t be the case. Screen space management is important with the windows system, maybe this is a task of Gnome or KDE, however it requires attention. Performance  was not an issue, although it took long time to compile the wireless drivers. The desktop environment was responsive, but  it didn’t look that smooth (again dito to Gnome and KDE).  Finally it should work without looking for drivers, fixing code, tweaking the OS, etc. Installation should and operation should be a breeze.

There… I just solve one the world problems. Yeah sure, its good to dream.

The point here is that using “off the shelf” components may be enough to solve some problems, instead of going into a journey of designing and building the perfect computer for the third world. If UNICEF decides, today we will provide kids in x and y countries with learning tools, using off the shelf components, its possible, no point on waiting and talking: execution is the key. If they don’t have electricity to run it, then here is a good excuse to use some of the war money to provide it to them. While providing the electricity, they can check and also provide them with water and Internet. Using Asus Eee PC 701 and Edubuntu could be more successful than the OLPC XO. Also, if they don’t have electricity to charge it, unfortunately they have to be excluded (temporally ,while they find a way to provide them with the electricity).

Every human being is entitled to education, health, water and electricity, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel to provide them with that, just use what we have.

Update: apparently there is already a Eee ubuntu distro: Ubuntu EEE. I will see if I can convience my classmate of installing it in his Eee. Will keep you posted..

By the way Windows 7 is also being tailored to run on this netbooks check it out here.

Yesterday I said hi to a classmate of mine and while going through the routine: “how are you.. what’s up .. blablabla”, he told me he had trouble with a new “mini” laptop he just bought. He installed Ubuntu on it and the wireless wasn’t working. So, I asked him if it was a Asus Eee and he told me “Yes”.

I’m a fan of the Asus Eee and netbooks in general, because they are practical, “cheap” and can replace a paper notebook. Also they could proliferate the use of 3G Internet, only if mobile operators could see the potential and market it in a smart way.

I’m not going to write down a howto however I will reference to the sites I used and point out what, problems, what was done differently, etc. So the first thing you need to do is STFW . And started with the follow page:

http://www.tommcfarlin.com/2008/07/11/ubuntu-on-the-eee-pc-900/

I tried two of the fixes the post regarding Ubuntu on Asus Eee. The shutdown fix, worked without problems. However the wireless fix didn’t work all the way. First I couldn’t download the package because the madwifi domain couldn’t be resolve. A quick search, permitted me to find out that madwifi had a problem with the DNS and they changed their domain to madwifi-project.org. The second challenge I got, was when I tried to compile the madwifi drivers, since I received some errors on the make:

:~/madwifi$ make
Checking requirements… ok.
Checking kernel configuration… ok.
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.27-7-generic/build SUBDIRS=/home/ndaula/madwifi modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.27-7-generic’
CC [M]  /home/ndaula/madwifi/ath_hal/ah_os.o
cc1: warnings being treated as errors
/home/ndaula/madwifi/ath_hal/ah_os.c: In function ‘ath_hal_lookup_register_name’:
/home/ndaula/madwifi/ath_hal/ah_os.c:451: error: format not a string literal and no format arguments
make[3]: *** [/home/ndaula/madwifi/ath_hal/ah_os.o] Error 1
make[2]: *** [/home/ndaula/madwifi/ath_hal] Error 2
make[1]: *** [_module_/home/ndaula/madwifi] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.27-7-generic’
make: *** [modules] Error 2

Honestly I was to lazy to try to go into the code and check what was the problem. So, after trying, updating and doing everything that was in page, I decided to give it a rest. After a couple of hours, I went back and tried to fix the this issue. After searching the Web for the error on the make, I ended up in the follow page:

http://madberry.org/2008/11/how-to-get-atheros-ar242x-to-work-on-810-intrepid-ibex/

Given that it was similar process to the first page, I decided to give a try. Here, instead of using the drivers from madwifi, they use the drivers from kernerl.org. So, I download them, made the make (which took a long long time) and then continue with make install, unload and load of the new drivers. And after a reboot it work good.

[Side note]

By the way, I think madberry has a script that updates the url of the tar with the driver. You see, every day kernel.org changes the name of the tar, with “today” date. This is pretty neat since visitors can follow the tutorial step by step without thinking.

The computer is personal again, and it may sound very familiar. But if you think about it, all in this age is about being personal and unique. You are a image and you market yourself. One way is through clothing and gadgets, other through social media.

People will think that Apple products as beautiful and unique, or I’m wrong. Well that is the “feeling” I get from people that buy apple products. “I’m cool, hip, not like you with your ugly PC” an exaggeration but in some sense it may be true. But apple notebooks and computers are not personal; they say I’m one of a small pack that is easy to spot. I like easy and not complicated and don’t mine paying a premium for it.  The same feeling I get with ipod, iphone and all their other white, silver or black products. Are they personal? Personal Computers may have the personal name on it but are not personal. In the other hand blogs are personal. Where I’m going  with all this nonsense you may think (and hope you are still reading and willing to read). Hear is the deal:

So, I just created this blog and I’m searching for a theme in the wordpress presentation section and stumbled with this theme. And it was like hitting the first piece of a domino line, one memory after another where going down.

Image source here

 Well, there like just four pieces knocked, but you get the pictured.

 So I saw the theme and a say to myself, “this looks familiar”.

And I remember a recent news post I saw in notebookreview.com where HP announced a new version of a laptop called the Artist Edition. They are not the same design or maybe colors, but I just remembered it.

Image Source here

I don’t know for you, but for me this is something way better than an apple laptop, when dealing with art, not functionality, ART. Apple computers (desktop and laptops) may be simple, clean and nice but they don’t let you express you self. They don’t provide nothing like hp in terms of artistic expression. Yes I can’t create my own designs in HP site, but that is not far from now.

Remember I said it sounded familiar, here is why:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX98H96A_SY]

And from where did HP have all this sudden artistic competence? Remember the Voodoo PC acquisition (news post here). HP new all the way what it was doing and the competence they got from this. Yes Vista sucks and that may be a killer in some sense, but it will be hard to agree if you don’t think that the Artist Edition is a step toward letting a machine that will let you self express.

It’s a marketing campaign, but yes thanks to HP (and Voodoo), the computers are personal again.