How cheap can a Win7 laptop be? Try $250! Schwing!

I'm now using a new and rediculously cheap Acer notebook. It is an Extensa 5230-2177. I got it for $250 at BestBuy. Specs are pretty sweet, especially if you consider that this is netbook pricing for a full-service laptop:

15" screen /2.2G Celeron 900 /x64 chip and OS /2G DDR2 RAM/148G 4600 RPM HD /
3-USB ports on two hubs /a PCMCIA-II slot / 802.11n-draft 2.4G wireless /and a screen-bezel webcam.


This ain't no stripper. The "Windows Experience Score", a new metric introduced by Windows 7, is just 3.3 (on a 1-7.9 scale), but that's determined by the lowest subsystem score, not an average. The low-end is the graphics subsystem, Intel "Mobile 4" on-chip (GM45 probably, but I haven't dug in to find out for sure--Intel's chipset identification utility refuses to run in Windows 7, though they claim support). The rest of the system is snappier, 5.5 score on the CPU, 5.4 on the RAM, both respectable.

As for how this snuck out of BestBuy for $250 when lesser computers (i.e., every one of their 10" screen Netbooks by any vendor) all went for $100 more, I'm guessing this was a "pre-black-Friday" loss-leader. I found it on the BestBuy website quite by accident and they didn't have it on display when I went to the store an hour later (no online orders). I had to ask the clerk for it, and he hadn't heard of it. I told him the website said they had it in stock and he went looking. The next cheapest laptop was also an Acer, for $329--and it didn't have the specs of this one! When the clerk brought out the factory-sealed box, it was as-advertised. I suppose I was supremely lucky as today I look through all the stores in my area (6 within 50 miles) and only Marina (Salinas) is listed as having any. Perhaps they only had the one yesterday and I got it? Google it and you find folk selling it from $300 (SEA) to $400(ORL).

I can imagine it would be down into OLPC price range if you could get it w/o Win7 (Home Premium version!). It has a decidedly "Target" button feel over the MacBookPro's "Nordstrom" ergo that I've become accustomed to, but it is very serviceable. My biggest complaint is that the trackpad buttons to "mouseclick" are extremely loud. There's a big spring under them, quite obviously, and it sounds like a castanete. It's not thin, but that's only noticable if you have a crowded backpack.

iPhone development will have to move to our iMac, but I probably wasn't going to get into that anytime real soon. There are presently other fish to fry.

Some interesting notes are that the Acer came pre-installed with Adobe AIR and Acrobat.com AIR app, as well as Acrobat Reader, but it inexplicably did not have Flash pre-installed. Had to run the downloader/updater on just the second website I went to (after Google).

I should also point out that on our 2.4Ghz Athlon Phenom quad-core HTPC (see previous posts) Windows 7 is pretty snappy, but on this single-core 2.2G Celeron (512Mb L1 cache) it has some significant pauses--especially before throwing up an Aero dialog box. Its using main memory (800MB of the 2G avail) for the video, so the DMA controller has to do a lot when windows are swapping around. This machine isn't for gaming at all, though it does support DirectX 10. The expectations of the graphics system isn't high. It plays HD full-screen from Vimeo and Hulu w/o stuttering and will probably handle that even better when I replace the router with an "N-spec"
[Update 11/16: did get the "N" router as the venerable Linksys WRT54G started flaking out. More on that later, but the laptop loves it for streaming video!].

The 160G disk has only 148G formatted. But at least Acer doesn't squirrel away 10% of your HD for a system restore volume as other vendors do. I believe that a 500G upgrade will be pretty easy. However, following Markham's Computer Axoim #2: "Never buy disk storage until you need it because it will always be cheaper in the future", I'll wait until I'm down to low double-digits in free GBs before I make that purchase.

Other nits on the Acer are when you switch from battery to plug-in, it gives an Awful alert, probably not-unlike other versions of Windows have done when you're below the sleep threshold and the system is about to die on battery. My daughter's old ThinkPad did that just the other day. It sounds like an 80s Casio keyboard version of a french police siren. This is probably controlled by a setting, but I did jump when I plugged the laptop back-in after running on the battery all morning.

The battery experiment went from a first-charge (overnight, sleeping computer) indicating 100% in the tray to running on the battery with screen all the way bright, wireless activity, a 2.5" 7200rpm Hitachi USB2 disk, and a thumb drive all active. I got the 5% notice at almost exactly 2.5h after unplugging and waking-up the computer. After 10 minutes of being on the wire, the meter shows 17%, a good charge rate a 6-cell LiOn. I stopped watching after that. I'll look at it again after I've exercised the battery a little and am not using the external HD to load up the internal disk.

So color me happy. Double bonus of retail therapy win and new computer. I'll report more as it burns in. But even if it lasts just a year (the screen hinges look particularly lightweight and vulnerable)the amortization is still less than a computer that would last 3 years and cost $750, as was the case for the last laptop I bought, a Compaq.

Now what to do about Kasia (inheritor of the long-demised aforementioned Compaq), because she is once again the only one in the family laptopless. There is this Toshiba Satellite L455-S597 at Best Buy.... Ah, the problems of 21st century middle-class America.

Toshiba's new TV has a 218GFlop PS3 processor inside

Full disclosure, in conjunction with new FTC regulations regarding blogging about products. Toshiba, its affiliates and subsidiaries in no way influenced this posting with an offer to give me a

CELL REGZA 55X1

LCD television set in exchange for my views on this most awesome and excellent innovation to home theater viewing. Of course, if they were to give me one, post facto, I wouldn't have to report it nor would I be required to revise this review--either up, nor down. I think you know what I'm saying, Toshiba.



But onto the facts:

First, there is a seriously awesome CPU in this TV set.

It is the Cell Processor, a new version of the one co-developed with Sony and IBM and which currently powers the PS3 for Sony and IBM's server line. Here (in Japanese) are all the details about it.

It has 218GFlops...in a TV!! Wow. Why all that power? So that it can use the 3TB (!!) of DVR storage in its external dongle to present up to 40 split-screens showing scene selections to jump right into a recording. Or up to eight simultaneous projections of video. Wow! It's like that screen in Back to the Future 2 where Marty's kid comes in and asks the TV for "Channel 34, 126, 22, 44, the music channel and the news". Oh, and one or more of those channels could be YouTube, in HD using an Opera browser co-developed with Toshiba.

I'm telling you, man, this TV just Rocks! Available in December in Japan, and not soon enough in the USA. You have got to get yourself one of these.


Okay, I'm waiting, Toshiba.

What I learned at the DMV

Not me, I can't take credit for this lovely list.
A friend of mine, who is a bit of a curmudgeon but who has a keen eye for the absurd, sent this to me.

I had to go to the DMV to renew my license this year and did you know?

1) You are required to stop at a red light!

2) At 8 sided red signs that read STOP, you are required to stop.

3) You are not allowed to drive down a sidewalk.

4) Right of way rules means that the car on the right has the right-of-way even if they are turning left.

5) If slowing or stopping your car will prevent an accident, it is saver to use the brakes than honk the horn.

6) When merging onto the freeway the freeway traffic has the right of way.

7) The flashing lights on the back of a vehicle indicate a plan to turn in the direction of the flashing light. Emergency signals do not mean that you can choose at the last second.

8) If you are blind you are not allowed to drive faster than the speed limit.

9) Parking at colored curbs is not racist.

10) Do not open the driver’s side door unless it is safe to do so.

11) Don’t make gestures to other drivers.

12) If you drive faster than other traffic you will have to keep passing other cars.

13) You must use your headlights if it is dark out.

14) If you are stopped by a police officer hang up your cell phone and turn off the radio.

15) You can not be a designated driver unless there are at least 2 people in the car.

I hope that this information helps you in your day to day driving. My trip to the DMV went really well. I spent 3 hours and managed to get my picture taken for a new license. I did find a California Driver Handbook written in English of all things and read it several times as I was waiting. The people at the DMV were personable and apparently received a 15% raise this year. Most of the people at the DMV were wearing SEIU polo shirts. Some may have had an ACORN for distinguished service on their lapel. I didn’t actually see this.

Decorum, Outburst, Parry, Thrust, Riposte!

Today, in a fit of pique, I decided to parry with Salon.com and take a tilt a pop culture reporting. What an utter waste of time. To prove that it is thus, I "retweet" it here, to use the vernacular.

Decorum is dead! Long live the outburst! --at Salon.com

If this article had not been published, would it have made a noise? --my letter to the Editor
(anywhere else this would just be a feedback forum, but Salon pretends to be a print rag)

Why do I waste my time reading such dreck, and then compound it by writing to rail against it? And then pile insult on injury by reposting it here, spreading the virus without a sleeve to my sneeze? Because, dear reader, without it, the interwebs would implode from the vacuum.

Parade Laps at the Monterey Historic Races

Monterey Historics Porsche Club of America Parade Laps from Chris S Markham on Vimeo.

The Monterey Bay Region of the Porsche Club of America sponsored these two parade laps about the Mazda Laguna Seca Raceway during the mid-day break of the Rolex Monterey Historic Races, August 16, 2009. The video was taken from inside a 1959 Porsche 356 A Coupe. At the top of Turn 8, a Monterey County Sheriff deputy fell in behind me, with lights flashing. I really wish I had asked my Dad to turn the camera around--a once-in-a-lifetime shot being chased down The Corkscrew by a cop! There wasn't much high-speed as there were over 250 cars participating, but there was a lot of good cheer. But I couldn't help but think the motorcycle cops had it in for me....

The Maestro gets Domain Parked: One site, One story

HCP Research is Dead, Long Live HCP Research.com

I'm not a total wizard at reverse lookups and ICANN records, but it appears that the former home of Harry Pellow's HCP Research, once at http://hcpresearch.com/ has been re-registered and parked on or about 15 June of 2009, the very when the previous domain registration expired. Talk on the 356Talk web forum indicated that Harry's heir, Andrew, was alerted to the lapse too late. He found out on the 25th of June. I had raised the issue on 356Talk just two days prior. The site had been sniped by that time already, nothing to be done about it.

What this means for the availability of Harry's Books and Videos remains to be seen, but it likely doesn't bode well. They're listed on Amazon.com, but fulfillment has been spotty and the CD-ROM version...well, I don't get much feedback about it aside from the occasional reference to my Amazon review. But the website is definitely gone, and there's not much hope in reclaiming it for the 356 Faithful.

There are folk who fish for expiring domain registrations. They set up robots and get email notifications when domains expire. Then they re-register and set up some skeleton site that uses some of the terms that the site used to be known for (in search engines, exploting past glories). Sometimes the new owner is hoping to just get ad click throughs, other times to squat and hold the domain hostage until the previous owner realizes the mistake of their procrastination and has to buy it back from the new registrant at above market prices.

There's part of me that's loathe to point out that the website, though parked--and now having nothing to do with HCP Research--is alive. I don't want you to click through there, and I certainly don't want you to click on any links on the page. Because it puts money in the pocket of a cybersquatter and reveals nothing to you that you couldn't have found with a google of your own.

Who Owns HCP Research Now?
There are >6300 other domains registered to this particular server--and the company that owns it has 20,000 (yes, twenty thousand) domains more, indicating that it is indeed in a parking lot.

Below is the registrant info from a "whois" lookup & below that is a decoding for the curious.

• Registrant: privateregistrations.ws
  
• Private Registrations Aktien Gesellschaft
• CNR of Granby & Sharpe St.
• Suite K2134
• Kingstown kingstown, VC
• Domain Name: HCPRESEARCH.COM

"privateregistrations.ws" = What is ".ws", I hear you ask. Why, ".ws" stands for "Web Site", doesn't it? Suuuure.

You see, .ws is the Internet country code top-level domain for Samoa. It is administered by SamoaNIC, for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of Samoa.

The .ws domain is an abbreviation for “Western Samoa”, the nation’s official name when two-letter country codes were standardized in the 1970s. ICANN restricts geographic use of ".org.ws", ".gov.ws", and ".edu.ws", but all other second-level .ws domains can be sold anywhere in the world. If it matters, this particular server is located in Portland, OR. But it doesn't. Matter. Because the web host has nothing to do with the domain registration. Except for an entry in some DNS servers translating the IP number of that humming server in Oregon to "hcpresearch.com" in your web browser.

"Private Registrations Aktien Gesellschaft" = This is like saying "Incorporated", in German. So this company does Private Registrations. It's the Swiss Bank Account of domain registrations. It has more than 26 thousand, and aside from some google hits on some of the registered porn sites (no big surprise), you're not going to find out a lot about this company.

"CNR of Granby & Sharpe St." = Corner of Granby & Sharpe streets. Yeah, that's supposed to be an address. Okay, so its a small town, and maybe Granby is a small street. Well, not really.
There are major banks on this street, as well as the Finance Ministry and the Telecom Ministry.
And in the same building, at Suite K059 (ground floor, no doubt) a very interesting little company, an Internet Service Provider and the islands' largest cell service provider, named Digicel SVG Limited. But that's just a co-incidence, because this drop-box registry parker doesn't need any kind of infrastructure in St. Vincents, just the right regulatory (i.e., non-taxed) infrastructure.

"Suite K2134" = Umm... That's a lot of numbers. Its a city, but not with 20-story skyscrapers. Okay, maybe a two-story. Which means its probably a mail drop and not an office. With forwarding...or not.

"Kingstown, Kingstown VC" = Kingstown is the largest town on St. Vincent, largest island in the Grenadine islands chain, part of the Carribean Islands being just west of Barbados and north of Grenada.

You know, it is fascinating that Google Maps has no street information for this thriving metropolis. I don't mean that it doesn't have Street View. I mean...no features. But check the satellite view, its a big city, with a doc for the expected cruise ships and everything.


View Larger Map

But you can't look up street addresses in Google Maps for this island. Hmmm.

So, as you would expect with anything Internet-shady, this is pretty well obfuscated, and unless I wanted to do a Neal Stephenson "Hacker Tourist" kind of thing, I don't think I'll ever find the bottom of this rabbit hole.

Gone, but is anything really gone on the internet?
That's not the end of this tale. privateregistrations.ws just has the "now" of HCP Research (and probably the future, too). But it doesn't have the past. That's available from The Internet Archive, which is just really a fantastic and under-rated resource. While google updates its cached web pages often, and now it reflects the "new look " of (nee) HCP Research, the Internet Archive has all the old pages that were developed and published by Harry Pellow.

To be very safe about it, I've snarfed off a copy of his Stories and Quizzes into PDF, which I can't publish here due to copyright, but they may be available in the future on the 356 Registsry website.

Here are the Internet Archive links to the Maestro's Stories from the old HCP Research Website. And the Maestro's Quizzes, too. All copyrighted by Harry Pellow, All Rights Reserved, Aktien Gesellschaft et al., not withstanding.

Long Live HCP Research, indeed.

Wireless A/V Audio is 7.1, uses new 5.1-5.8Ghz band

Reported on TWICE, an A/V marketing newsletter, manufacturer Focus Enhancements will debut a "Summit" multichannel wireless-audio technology for direct-to-customer release via distributor Aperion Audio in Q2 of '10.

The Summit line transmits uncompressed 48kHz/24-bit PCM over the air, using FEC, and uses the 5.1-5.8GHz U-NII band. The 23 channels in that band are non-overlapping and are an ITU standard for unlicensed use not interfering with the 802.11a/n wireless-network band.

Focus plans to upgrade the technology to deliver 96kbps PCM audio over the air in mid-2010.

Other features are spread-spectrum OFDM modulation, four-antenna tuning, dynamic frequency selection (automatic channel hopping), up to 10ms of interpolation to fill in dropped packets, and automatic speaker discovery and channel assignment for easy setup.

A