Netbooks

Netbooks has grown in popularity over the few years that it has been present in the technological community. It has been a big hit among students and people with average computing demands. Please do take note that i wrote AVERAGE. It should be low but seeing that more and more people are now getting satisfied with the less than powerful abilities of netbooks, i’d say that the general public’s computing demands lessened.

Acer's Aspire One 751h surprised the crowd with its 1366x768 resolution, surpassing the normal 1024x600. What surprised the crowd more, though, was the below-average Intel Atom Z520 1.3GHz processor. It was reported that the 751h performs well only in internet surfing but is sluggish when doing even normal everyday tasks.

Netbooks, in general, are notebooks with low processing abilities and longer battery life, just enough for average internet use and the occasional word processing stuff. They are physically designed to be as small as possible (which is the reason why there’s no optical drive) thus making it more portable.  They should not be compared with their superior brothers when it comes to speed. Netbooks are shipped with their own kind of processors (with Intel Atom dominating the scene) and chipsets. These processors, which usually ranges from 1.4-1.66GHz, are designed to have the most processing power as possible without risking the battery life.

The 2G Surf was the first ever netbook. It sports a 800x600 screen resolution, Intel Celeron M processor, 512MB Ram, and 2GB SSD. Its battery only lasts for 2.8 hours.

The first company to officially manufacture netbooks was Asus, though there were reports about Psion releasing a line of laptops called NetBooks in late 1998. They started with 800×600 screen resolution. That increased later on to 1024×600. Later models include 1366×768 displays allowing more working space. I don’t know about other users but I prefer having 1366×768. I’m currently using 1280×800 and i’m feeling pretty cramped. they say that 1366×768 is not a “netbook standard” because anything bigger than 1280×800 is considered HD.

This one is slowly becoming a crowd favorite. It has an Intel Atom 330 processor bundled with Nvidia Ion thus producing superb graphics. The only downside is the battery life though. It's other 1201 brothers were able to stay up to 8 hours while the N only lasts for 5.

The first netbooks included Intel Celeron processors which were not very good with power management. This led to the production of the Intel Atom line of processors. The first one was the Intel Atom N270 which is a favorite of major brands up to now. Later N280, an updated N270, was released. A big downfall of Intel’s netbook processors career was the release of the Z520, running at 1.3GHz. This was compensated by the Z530 at 1.6GHz. Now, the Intel Atom 330 is making quite a fuss. Bundled with Nvidia Ion, it produces superb graphics comparable to notebooks.

Well, honestly, i have prepared lots of write-ups to post here. There are many concerning the society. Some involving national controversies. As usual, the personal ones will never be out of the picture.

The reason why i stopped myself from posting these is because those write-ups are too sensitive. The views (my views) there are very strong. I don’t want to end up being chased after by the government and be on the headline of prime time news.

soooo. OK. i’m back and that’s all that matters.

My first post after months of rest is a really personal one. We all know that i do some digital designing every once in a while. I have a particular design that I want to share here. It’s my I<3NB design.

What about it, you may ask.

Before that, I should explain what NB is. NB is the common ground that unites all SPECIAL SCIENCE STUDENTS of our school, KNCHS. It was built right when me and my batchmates were freshmen. I could remember the other seniors envy us. We get to spend our four years of high school in it while they only stayed for one.

oh, i nearly forgot. NB means New Building. That way, it never gets old.

Last year, when i was a junior, i couldn’t find anything to give to the seniors on their graduation. I sat there, just thinking. I was short on budget and there were about 70 people that I should be giving graduation gifts to. That’s when I saw a few leftover sticker papers. I GIMPed for about 30 minutes and, voila, I<3NB was born.

Since then, its influence never stopped growing. we made some products with the design. A teacher even approached me and asked if we really arranged these.

But some people never really learn. I never wanted to apply for a license. I know there are some open licenses and the sort where it can be freely distributed and modified but with attribution. It has come to a point when the idea of I<3NB was, IMITATED, period.

To prevent further unwanted events, I have applied for a license for the two versions of I<3NB.

I<3NB by Jan Louis Gazo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Philippines License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at jlgazo@gmail.com.

I know the “i<3something” (which, theoretically, started from I<3NY. some people neglect that thought) is a really lame cliche. The license here applies on the thought that no other people or group from our school release something similar. I mean, a school is a closed environment. Two common designs is not a very good scenario.

All the love in the world,

Jan Louis

PS there’s a handy version in my right sidebar, right under “who writes here”

http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/3.0/ph/88×31.png

After months of purely no activity here in my blog, I have decided to come back.

I’ve learned a lot during the time I was not here so expect to see more articles with actual substance, articles that can actually be productive to the society . Of course, there’s still the occasional “drama moments” but I’ll try to write less about those.

I’ve decided to turn this blog into a personal/current events/photography blog. I need to get myself more involved with stuff going on around me in order to further develop my social and mental abilities. I need to be a better person. I was also recently given an Olypus E410 DSLR (Thanks, Ante Cindy!) so I’m planning to hone my photography skills.

I’ve thought about two comeback dates. It’s either next week, right before New Year, or next month. Just wait and see when it’ll actually happen. I’m also thinking about, starting from scratch – as in a new blog.

So while your waiting, here are pictures to update you, guys, on what I’ve been up to during the time I was gone.

Ugh. MONEY!!!

The contest is open for all bloggers. There will be two winners, both will be rewarded with a free domain name. The winners will be announced on August 22, 2009.

All you need to do to enter is:

• Write a blog post about this contest on your blog (Write at least 150-200 words)
• Add a screen shot of SEO Blogging Tips blog in your post.
• Follow @amolwagh on twitter and tweet these lines:
  I’ve just entered to win a domain name  contest! Just follow @amolwagh and RT. http://bit.ly/qlJTT (Follow instructions here)
• Leave a comment on the original contest post with your post link.

SEO Blogging Tips concentrates on topics like search engine optimization and proffesional blogging.

I really wish I could win this one. I’ve been waiting for the day that a free domain name will come to me. Well, I can’t afford one.

-Jan Louis

It’s semi-free ‘cos Nathan went over for like two hours to do our Physics project. I didn’t count it as schoolwork ‘cos his visit was fun and he helped me with JB’s Fly With Me chords. Thanks, Nathan! It’s also semi-free because I woke up before 8am (breaking the free Sunday rule) because of a sound produced by a budding monster that lives right behind our house. Right outside the window, directly to my head went “Yawmeowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeo!” I was so irritated! I went directly to the window and shouted until my sound box went boom! The monster stopped and the rest is history. The last factor contributing to the day’s status is because my brother would not stop crying whole day. Just before I began writing this, I caught him feeding on my iPod! I got furious and my mother went mad at me. It’s an IPOD! It’s not digestible, it’s not healthy, and most of all – it’s not CHEAP! So unless you could reward me with a better iPod (preferably a Touch), stop chewing my iPod!!!

-Jan Louis

• January ’09- second major appearance at a school event: tabulating laptop for the OpenTech Fair ’09.
• Late March ’09- I just made my laptop’s desktop look like a Vista-Mac OSX crossover.
• Early April ’09- A really disastrous facial deformation.

• Mid April ’09- the internal fan stopped working- right in the MIDDLE of SUMMER!!! This means that heavy multitasking won’t be possible due to frequent crashing resulting from unbearable temperatures. Talk about global warming. Sheesh.
• Late April ’09- I just found out that my brother and my cousin did stuff with my cooling pad. I’m stuck with manual cooling (e.g. awkward positioning, hispeed electric fan).
• Early May ’09- the fan worked again! We were staying at the Marikina Hotel and my mother’s boss borrowed my laptop. I was really antsy thinking about the condition of my fan- but it worked! well, only for a bare quarter-hour. It returned to it’s previous state after we ate dinner.
• July ’09- i found out that there was an authorized Acer repair shop in the next city. My warranty expired. Gosh. It’s be hard going there having puppy-eyes and going out with real tears knowing that everything would cost half the whole machine.

Wow. It’s like my laptop’s history for the year is all about its fan. Well, yesterday my mother and I passed by a computer shop after doing the groceries. Something weird caught my eye- a cooling pad! but with a slightly different form. It was foldable and had an extra USB port. It costs PHP500. My mother persuaded the girl to sell it for PHP450.

I tried it when I got home. It’s speed and temperature was not much compared to what I had but I had no other choice. The first time I used it, my laptop crashed (yet again) so I positioned it so that most of the two fans would be under the ventilation holes. it worked.

I’d be thankful for it even though I realized how this would restrict my laptop’s mobility. For one, i’d have to avoid moving it because it’s hard to position the fan right under the ventilation holes. Due to my room’s organized chaos, i’d have to move it away from The Tech Kiosk (a quarter of my room.) to my mother’s room where it would be at ease with the environment. Second, I’d have to lessen my laptop’s trips to school, *where it would be of great use to me. Lastly, my mind won’t be at ease during our Software Freedom Day ’09 celebration. I would have to bring it for my presentations and that would mean that I’d have to watch for it every waking millisecond.

Well, too much about that. Another big matter of discomfort for me is my laptop’s optical drive. I tried watching a DVD last week and it would not recognize the disc. I tried other CDs/DVDs; no optimistic response. whenever I open my laptop, the optical drive would make weird sounds. I tried consulting my ICT teacher about it and she says that it is really a common problem with Acer laptops (this was the time I knew about the authorized Acer repair shop, see timeline above). It’s either I have the drive replaced or I’d have to buy an external optical drive.

Gosh, now I’d have no chance to try other linux LiveCDs and watch borrowed DVDs/VCDs.

I hope nothing new would come up in my lake of hopeless puzzles.

Analyze. Only once in your lifetime.

Jan Louis

They have not set a date yet for the said event.

Congratulations, Kevin!

Jan Louis