Stay away from the SONY laptops..

Oh dear...
Sony VAIO makes some really pretty laptops that are cool looking, and mostly functional. Problem is they provide hardly any upgrade path unlike other OEM's. I have a SONY VGN-SZ330P. Nice aluminum cast shell, really pretty looking.

First i was a bit irritated when i learned they dont support Intel-VT enabling in their BIOS, even though the processor is able to handle it. But that was ok.. maybe they didnt want to support issues on laptop for virtualization products and such.. other than the fact i cant use it for some of my top applications it didnt bother me much later.

Windows 7 is out, and seems pretty darn good in terms of startup, visual appearence and making a better PC than XP. Looks like we have 2 devices for which Sony doesnt offer driver udpates yet, which is a real pain. The laptop is about less than 2 years old with core2 duo, and its a bummer that you cant use it with the most recent operating system.

Mass Storage
PCI\VEN_104C&DEV_803B&SUBSYS_81E6104D&REV_00
Windows 7 compatibility scan shows there is an update, but i havent been lucky to locate one yet.

Camera:
USB\VID_05CA&PID_1830&REV_0100

Such a bummer that we cant use a nice laptop like this one with the most recent OS, given that this isnt such an old laptop.

Hope Sony would do something to make these better than paper weights.

Hoping someone would post a link to the drivers for Windows 7 64bit version...

My experience building Nehalem based system and Windows 7

Hello all,

Intel EPP had a nice combo deal. A Nehalem 3.xG processor, DX58SO mother board an Intel 160G SSD for only $758. I couldn't resist but buy that baby. The SSD is still back ordered and i waited couple weeks before knowing that. So i headed to Fry's and bought myself the other missing pieces of the puzzle.

1. Antec 902 gamer case
   
2. Antec Earth watts 750W
   
3. Crosair CAS7 6G DDR3
   
4. Hitachi 1Ter SATA
   
5. Intel MOBO Combo
   
6. ATI Graphics x16 PCIE
   

Total Cost was ~ $1200.00

The installation was very simple and easy. The case looked really cool, with nice cool blue lights, clear case to see components inside. The power supply is also very efficient, and it appeared to turn off fans when system is idle. Pretty quite for having 4 fans on the case, not including the power supply fan and the fan on the Graphics card!!!

Antec, Nehalem

I tried the Windows 7 premium to start with. The installation was a breeze, didnt have to select anything and it also went pretty fast. Had 2 real issues that iam not able to resolve yet.

1. I had a download from MSDN going, but system apparently got suspended as if no activity was there.Not sure how that happened, with all the interrupts from network still happening but the system thought there was no activity. My download was stuck at 57% and never made progress until i moved my mouse around.
2. DVR/CD writing isnt possible. There was some silence, absolutely no writing happened, and then it gave me some hex error code (didnt write that down) and said a problem happened when the write happened.

Tried Imgburn and it also failed. Not sure if this is a drive issue (since same drive worked fine under Linux. Searching via google, it turned out many people have got the same failures with Win7.

I need to play with the ultimate edition next to see how the media capabilities work on Win7. Thats an exercise for next week.

The Stupidity of payment schedule from Developers in India

Hello there!. I am in Chennai for the last couple weeks. I was here due to an emergency and sudden ill health of my dad. Thankfully he has recovered pretty much and about 70% back to normal. Thankful to the almighty!.

I had never invested in India up until this second. Many of my relatives said i should invest here and the property values are going up like crazy again. So we decided to look at a few properties, now that its just 2 more days to head back home.

We looked at the following properties.

1. DLF properties
2. Opaline from Olympia
3. Hirandhani Upscale
4. Land Marvel

DLF is owned by Kushal Pal Singh, apparently 3rd richest man in India. He is very known for his buildings in Delhi. Its a contruction over 50 acres or property. The main issues i saw were lack of model homes. Apparently there was some rumors about some issues with land acquisition etc. In fact i think they are a large enough builder than can easily scale out of the problems. But yet, the construction seems a bit slow compared to other properties. The other major issue is the approach to the complex is very complex. You have to drive through some communities build for people affected by the Tsunami. It just doesnt look a pretty scene heading into the area.

Opaline had some neat plans, i didnt know much about the builder, but their models were cute and nice. This is what my first choice was. Well i havent looked at the other homes.

Hirandhani Upscale, owned by Niranjan an ENT specialist. He is also now expanding to build chain hospitals. The models were really cute. The plans were very nice. Our first visit didnt go well, as we ran into a lady who didn't sound like she was interested in talking to us. But we were interested in the building compared to others. Resulted in some escalation to their Mumbai office and someone responded back who was more accommodating than the person who we dealt with earlier. (Finally we sort of decided on investing here .. sort of...)

LandMarvel at Torraipakkam seemed like it made no progress the last year or so... Unfortunate to who all paid, since they are almost paid up completely and none of the apartments are complete.

Now finally the topic of the blog. For people who have purchased their homes in USA will find this process a bit of an instant heart attach... Reason?

The payment schedule is the worst i have ever seen and doesn't absolutely any logic. Iam surprised that no banks have protested yet and that even the government has completely ignored the issue.

1. It starts like this.. Pay Rs. 5 Lakhs on booking. V.s just a token amount in USA typically only a few thousands.
2. When the foundation is done, everyone pays ~25%. This is ridiculous since if they have 27 floors even before your floor has seen the floor you pay a huge sum.
3. When the 1st floor is done, you pay another 25%.
4. Subsequent floors bring in some additional %, and by the time they have reached the 10th floor most people have paid close to 80-90% of the total cost.
   
5. If you miss a payment, you pay 18%, but if the builder skips the deadline its probably nothing.

The real bad thing is most builders take money from people who buy apartments and actually put that money as a seed for the next project. So you have to pray the next project gets sold soon, before they can get more money to put into to complete the project. This should be plain illegal, they should only start getting money as the platform/base for your particular floor is done and also have more stages.

I heard that DLF is almost constructed from money from ICICI, just that they were the preferred lender, and have funded close to 90% of the project. The Land Marvel at Torraipakkam is a similar story, and they are scores of such ill projects around town. Unfortunately there is no getting around the payment schedule in Chennai. You have to choose a better builder who is financially sound and wish he doesnt go broke before your project is done.

I have to admit.. that i have planned to become one of those people.. but have no choice.. i trust Hirandhani and hence have committed.. and i pray that they would be complete by 2011 June timeframe.

I wish this would change and the buyer experience becomes better over time in India.

Until next time...

Ciao!

Restaurant POS

My wife runs a restaurant here in Hillsboro, OR. I'm the unpaid tech support for her.. (well cant complain, i do get free lunches.. so well compensated i guess :-)).

When we purchased the place from a previous establishment, they had an existing POS, so we ended up using the same, since it appeared simple enough to use and configure. Its also runs on open hardware, unlike Micros/IBM solutions where you get locked in expensive hw and support after that..

After a while it started to bite.. The software support cost is just out of hand, (~$400 per year) poor support, useless forums (moderated)...

Some of the issues are around the model of sucking more money.. and the pathetic support they have. For instance.

1. Each terminal has separate licence.. ~$400 each.
2. Each can be activated only 4 times.. i.e if your hardware fails/switch Ethernet cards, you need to activate. When we purchased it from previous owner, we needed to transfer.. so that's 1 activations, and my hardware broke so that's another... and the prior owner activated his when he purchased.. that's 3 out of 4. That's completely crap.
3. Database they use is MSFT... i cant even do a backup without having to quit the software connected to all stations.
4. Any bug is categorized as Working as designed by their top support folks.... meaning its a feature not available in that software and its intended to be not available.
5. The forums are available only if you pay for an entire year of support.. yes.. including the knowledge base...
   
6. The forum comments are moderated.. so if you say there is a bug, and the support team feels empowered to give you "Working as Designed (WAD)", then your post wont make it. Since its giving a wrong impression about their software.
7. They have a forum for suggestion/enhancement requests.. all of them get removed randomly.. and there is no feedback to customer in terms of if they are considered, or shelved by the teams..
8. Tip accounting, Net sales, Gift Card accounting when discounted, ability to print duplicates of CC receipts, email alerts.. among several that's missing...
   

And no escalation path..when you call it just goes to the same person, i called sales to escalate, ended up the same guy replying to my email... a sales guy said "send to attn: management team" even that went to the same guy who has been blocking my posts.

Now.. trust me, there is no fowl language in my blocked post.. just that the guy feels I'm trying to spread incorrect information about their SW. That's rude.

So growing around open source at the place i work for the last 15 years.. i decided to hunt for a Linux version of POS.. and stumbled upon ViewTouch POS.. and surprisingly homegrown in Eugene Oregon. Gene Mosher the founder seems to have several years of experience in POS, and its based on Linux, my favorite OpenSource OS. I have a list of capabilities that my current POS software (Aldelo) cant address. I'm going to post a list of those requirements and going to evaluate ViewTouch for those features and go from there.

Hopefully i will succeed by the end of year to get a decent path to live and breathe freely without shackles, able to fix and maintain without having to pay for support when not necessary, have a free community support, and don't need to look at their knowledge base...

Signing off.

Werid i would think these would influence Global Warming..

This is a bit humorous to me... Folks i re-iterate this is only for the humor value OK!

Bicyclists and Joggers on the road.. I think there is 2 big issues here. One, that this is a serious hazard for others on the road, since we need to adjust to the jogger or bicyclist on the road. I think in addition, by slowing down every car spends more gas burning hydrocarbons... thereby increasing global warming :-)

Stop Signs. They are useful in some areas, but i have seen them in certain neighbourhoods such as Murray rd in Beaverton, where this is just simply pain. 9-10 times my stopping is just formality, i have never ever seen a pedestrians, or another car waiting to cross. Again this is certainly contributing to global warming.

Pedestrians in shopping areas. I really hate people walking right behind my vehicle when I'm trying to backup from my parking lot in Costo or such. Its strange, the guy walking behind me has immediate knowledge that i'am coming behind, but still chooses his right of way to be directly positioned in a spot that I have real hard time looking into. Why wouldn't they want to stop or take a different path so i can just backup my vehicle?

The country should make these a bit more practical, i understand people need to cross the road, but consider a place like in front of BestBuy/Winco in Sunset Mall. People would just cross in random intervals not even considering the car is idling to just move ahead. They could put some signals there so pedestrians don't get to choose to walk by always, but be a bit more fair to share the road to cars and keep the pedestrians on pavement where they belong.

Its time for change America!

History in the making....

It was a moment yesterday... a unique chapter was being written that marks a change in America and truly the rest of the world. For the first time, a presidential address that talked about compassion, making forward progress. Two million people, and not a single arrest. Every word Obama spoke was powerful, meaningful and it was clear he spoke those with passion. A 20 minute address, that for the first time spoke some of the bigger religions around, Christians, Hindus.. calling for peace.

John. G Roberts lived up to his nominees expectations... as Chief Justice.. un-der prepared and unable to repeat the words correctly even after Obama gave him a chance to recover, clumsy.. just like the outgoing president.

The costumes.... awesome...Appreciate Michelle Obama for giving young and unknown designers a chance to be part of history, defining first lady by design and not following a traditional color that most would have chosen.

Hope corporate America would be less greedy, and return the country's economy back to where it belongs, hope that religions factions would find a way to live and let others live in peace.

Obama has set himself aside compared to any i have seen so far...

Now its about time, we pick ourselfs up, dust off and get back to work... so off i go..

Media should leave John Travolta alone...

Its really sad to see how celebrities have to deal with personal loss like this one that John Travolta has to go through. I think the media should respect privacy and just not hunt them down even in moments like this. The couple lost their son who was medically ill, and now every one who has had contact with them those days are being looking for their moment on TV which is so sad and inhumane IMHO.

Being a celebrity is like a double edge sword. The same media that game them the popularity is also drowning you when you have a grieving moment. This is not a time to try and figure out scientology was the cause... Just leave em alone and quit peeking at personal life...