Hardware

After a painful experience where my graphics card gave off a burning smell and I found out it had died, I realized the hardware temperature program I was using wasn't enough. It could only detect CPU temperature. So I went looking for something else and found OpenHardwareMonitor. It can read the temperatures of many components in your computer, such as the hard drive, graphics card, CPU, and motherboard, and it can also plot temperature changes as a chart or export them to a file....

Most of the well-known smartphones today have a built-in market. For example, iOS has the App Store and Cydia, and Android has the Android Market. A market makes it easy to install programs on your phone or tablet, and the process is simple: installing an app takes little more than a tap of a finger. Today I'll introduce the market built into the Android operating system. Recently, the Android Market released a new version that changed the trial period for apps to 15 minutes. The interface was also completely overhauled and looks much better than before....

Today I went to Guanghua Market with a classmate to buy a webcam, and I couldn't resist buying one. Orz. I had wanted one for a long time, but I kept deciding against it and saving the money instead. Then today at Guanghua I unexpectedly came across the WEICHO WA-306. The price wasn't high, and the picture quality was decent. The WA-306 doesn't have any special features. Like an ordinary webcam, it can take photos and record video. But it supports autofocus, has a built-in mic (the built-in mic's sound quality isn't great...), and has 8-megapixel still images. The video resolution wasn't listed, but the shop owner said it's around 3 megapixels. I bought it at Guanghua for 550 NT dollars, but I felt I could bargain it down to 500, because when I asked the owner whether 550 was OK, he agreed very readily... ...

Nowadays almost every household uses PPPoE to connect to the internet. If you signed up for ADSL, or if you need a modem to get online, you have to set up PPPoE before Ubuntu can connect. If I remember correctly, setting up PPPoE used to be a real hassle in older versions of Ubuntu. But after I came back to Ubuntu 10.04 recently, I found that the newer Ubuntu already includes a command called pppoeconf that lets you set up PPPoE quickly. Addendum: I’ve heard that pppoeconf is still slow and there are faster ways to do it, orz… But compared with the version I used before, pppoeconf is actually pretty fast XD ...

P.S. Image from the Apple iPad official site The most common tablets on the market right now are the ViewPad (there are the ViewPad 7 and 10; this post covers the ViewPad 7), the Galaxy Tab, and the iPad. The ViewPad and Galaxy Tab both run Android 2.2, and only the iPad runs iOS. Recently the iPad finally went on sale in Taiwan (so exciting!). On launch day I rushed to Apple’s store to try an iPad. Since I still can’t afford one, I could only play with it, lol. I expected the place to be packed, but it was only a bit busier than usual, and I got my turn with the iPad right away. Having played with the iPad today and comparing it with my earlier experience with the ViewPad and Galaxy Tab, I think the iPad will be a long-lasting product, while the ViewPad and Galaxy Tab may fade from people’s attention by next year. Many more tablets will come out next year, so my advice to anyone who wants a tablet is to wait a year or two for more choices and better prices. Personally, I think the iPad will not disappear even if many tablets come out next year, because of Apple’s brand reputation and its customer service. The ViewPad and Galaxy Tab, however, are just short-lived products. I expect everyone will have forgotten about them by next year. ...

This ubuntu 10.10 update doesn't add many new features. It mainly fixes some problems from the earlier 10.4 release, and it replaces the photo manager with Shotwell. Apart from that, I didn't notice any added features. I also noticed that the installer interface has changed at some point, so I'm covering installation again in this post. What impressed me most is that Ubuntu 10.10 automatically downloads the language packs and the programs you need during installation, so you don't have to wait to download them after the install. The downside is that installation takes much longer. ...

Recently I needed a new phone. This is actually my first mobile phone. To pay for it, I even sold the iPod Touch I bought last year. I had bought the iPod Touch because the school had a rule against phones. But now that I’ve moved on to vocational high school, the school doesn’t really care about phones, and it even has WiFi. My mom also set up a phone plan for me, so I saved up and bought this little IDEOS phone～ To be honest, the story is pretty funny… Buying an HTC Hero would have meant waiting until December, when I’d have NT$4,000 in income. But since I had sold the iPod Touch, I had nothing to get online with, and that was really hard to put up with…… I’m used to pulling the iPod Touch out of my pocket to go online whenever I want, so I couldn’t stand it and rushed to the phone shop to buy the cheapest IDEOS. I’ll save next month’s NT$4,000 instead～ ...

Recently, while playing with Ubuntu, I ran into something: if you manually format the hard drive that Ubuntu is installed on, your computer will no longer be able to enter the operating system. This happens because the system’s MBR file has been damaged. Formatting Ubuntu directly isn’t the only way to hit this; sometimes it happens when installing a dual-boot system as well. When it does, don’t panic, because the MBR file can be repaired, and the steps aren’t very difficult. First, prepare a Windows installation disc, then set the computer to boot from the disc…. ...

No joke, this time it's a real one-click jailbreak. From start to finish, you only need to press one button to complete the jailbreak. You don't even need to download any jailbreak program. All you have to do is open a web page on your iPhone or iPod Touch. It's really amazing. When I saw the news this morning about this magical jailbreak method, I didn't believe it. But just now I tested it on my own iPod Touch (sweating nervously the whole time...), and the result is real!! However, this web-based jailbreak method currently only works on iOS 4, and it may stop working very soon. Also, don't worry that this web jailbreak program will sneak a Trojan horse onto your iPhone. I had that concern too at first, but then I saw that it's a product of the famous iPhone Dev Team, so I felt better~...

Let me count: it has been about half a year since I bought my iPod Touch (it's August now, and I bought it in February, so 8 - 2 = 6). My feelings about it have changed a lot. When I first bought it, I was simply drawn to how cool and flashy it looked and the fact that I could play games on it. Now I find the iPod Touch really handy. It helps me get everything done and makes use of the small gaps in my day. A big reason for this change is that my home switched to a wireless network, so I can easily go online with the iPod Touch at home. As soon as I wake up in the morning, I can check my email. I can't remember which Song dynasty figure said it, but there's a saying about getting things done "right away, on the toilet, and on the pillow." I've already put the toilet and pillow parts into practice. When I go to the bathroom, I usually bring the iPod Touch along to chat on Plurk or look things up. I also use the iPod Touch as my calendar. Before I bought it, I mostly kept my schedule on paper notes, writing down what I had to do each day. Now that I have the iPod Touch, I don't have to waste paper anymore XD...