Upgrading to Gigabyte GA-M720-US3

Almost two months ago, my PC broke down. After doing some diagnostics, I've determined that the motherboard, abit NF-M2S, a rather cheap board was the culprit. The PC just goes off at certain points, regardless of software. I can't even get Windows 7 installer working.

I decided to buy a new motherboard as soon as I get my money, almost two weeks ago. After a little research, the GA-M720-US3 is chosen for it's price and features. At RM280, its pretty rich in features. A beefy NVIDIA nForce720d chipset, 6 SATA ports, 4 DDR2-1200 slots, supports AM3, AM2+ & AM2 CPUs, a PCI-e 2.0 slot, SPDIF outputs (digital & optical), a couple of IEEE 1394 (Firewire) ports, 8 USB 2.0 ports, and a 7.1 onboard sound system. Oh, and it features Gigabyte's Ultra Durable 3 Classic, which means it has 2oz copper PCB, solid capacitors, and DualBIOS.

What If....?

Sometimes I envision of something in the tech world, and wondered if it really exists. The following will show a few of what I had envisioned.

Windows Audio DSP

Many audio players these days features support for third-party plugins and DSPs, most notably foobar2000, WinAmp, and even Windows Media Player itself. It would be nice if Windows itself would feature these audio-enhancing DSPs, regardless of audio drivers, as it would improve every sound output regardless of software. Of course, the DSPs should be configurable on which application to ignore, or include. A good starting point is to include the basic Balance/Treble/Bass controls, an equalizer, and perhaps my favorite noise sharpening DSP.

Warriors of the 3 Kingdoms (W3K) Freebies!

Buying a copy of last month's PCGamer Malaysia, it included a free DVD of Warriors of the 3 Kingdoms (you can download the client at its website for free) along with some freebies codes. As I don't play MMORPGs, I'm going to give off these codes here, in this blog! So come on, grab it while its still hot.

Intergrating Avira Into IDM

I've been using Avira AntiVir Personal since the last 5 years, and I download a heck a lot of stuff from the Internet. I like speedy downloads, so I use IDM. Now here is the problem: downloaded stuff may contain viruses, and like most people we're just too lazy to scan each and every file immediately after the download.

Fret not, there is the way of automation.

Techranger: The Testimonial

Congrats and welcome to kurniasan for becoming one of us Techrangers at /g/. Now we have 4 of us with different sets of tech knowledge & skills to be some sort of help-desk guys for GForummers generally. With the inclusion of kurniasan , we are close to become a standard rangers team (since it usually needs around 5 people to make it complete LOL). Anyways now it's my turn to randomly give some sorta 'testimonial' for all 4 Techrangers so far, including myself.

1. sharif-strike: The one who are acting as the head of all Techrangers (although all of use share the same green tag color LOL). He may not always around at /g/ (since he is a busy student) but he is quite responsible in performing his jobs there. Skills: most notably has access to core hardware like CPUs, graphic cards, HDDs & mobos as well as some 'modern' overclocking.

2. revolutionworks: Have a long time reputation of being the troubleshooting guy for GForummer's PC problems for many years already. Good at looking for solutions for PC problems on the web. Very reliable when it comes to sfinding solutions for strange/weird problems. Skills: More to delicate, detailed technical stuff as well as programming.

3. kurniasan: The latest member of Techrangers. In earlier days he doesn't look like to have interest in PC stuff but then it turns out that he could be of some help most of the time. Skills: A software guy, I must say. Have lotsa experience in quite a number of software that he is able to notice problems that might resulted from conflicting installed software.

4. halfey: yeah, that's me. I joined the Techrangers after I see the announcement that Techranger are having staff shortage as I believe I could be of some help too. The only Techranger with no professional background in ICT (either study or work). It's all from my experience and driven by my enthusiasm towards tech stuff. Skills: Most likely to possess certain amount of knowledge in networking & connectivity, particularly internet , peripheral interface as well as web 2.0. A very enthusiastic guy when it comes to tech toys. Have experiences in PC-modding and 'classic' overclocking.

Now, d'you have any problems in PC or have some curiosities in PC stuff that you'd want an answer for? Logon to our hive at /g/ and don't hesitate to seek help from us there. I'm sure at least one of us would be able to give you what you need.

We have added a new Techranger!

A gforumer, kurniasan has joined our party recently. It's nice to see a growing number of Techrangers, as things can get a little too hot for one man to handle. Besides, each of us have different experiences (with me being the least experienced actually), so we can combine our heads together as a team to solve all those problems about tech.

But as a reminder, Techrangers doesn't necessarily do tech support all the time. They can also submit reviews and news for a lot of cool stuff going in and out of the tech world.

I hope that our new member here can help us improve /tech/, for all your tech convenience. And to top it off, let's give a warm welcome to kurniasan :D

Wireless Broadband War

PacketOne Networks, better known as P1 is steadily expanding their WiMAX network coverage in Peninsula. The most recent one is announced in some place in East Coast and Southern area. It is just a matter of time for them to reach East Malaysia, probably by earlier next year if not by the end of this year. I was informed that in Peninsula P1 is not the only player that brought in the WiMAX technology to Malaysian. Even in Sarawak there's already a provider, RedTone who claimed to have a network speed 44 times faster than any other existing wireless broadband service provider. And all that comes with a hefty price; even their cheapest package cost more than MYR100, but in return you get more monthly bandwidth to utilize as well as a fixed IP address, allowing you to virtually host your own web server at home, provided that you are willing to keep it on the whole day of course.

Wireless broadband has gradually maturing in Malaysia, thanks to their initial presence in the from of 3G network since 2006. Soon after that the 3.5G follow suit and now we have WiMAX in the list. Most of us may have known well about both 3G and 3.5G. To sum it up, 3G is the most basic wireless your money can get while 3.5G is nothing but 3G on steroid, and comes with extra price too. WiMAX on the other hand evolved from a completely different path. However, unlike the relationship between  3G and 3.5G, the WiMAX you know today is not Wi-fi on steroid, so to speak. It sure have evolved from the traditional Wi-fi but now it is a completely different technology from its 'ancestor'.

Just like both 3G and 3.5G (which have been existing long before they become accessible to us), WiMAX also has been around since 2005 when Intel first reveal about it on that time. As we already know Intel is one of many tech bodies who pushes the Wi-fi technology to us, thanks to their Centrino technology found in most notebooks. It was also their plan to bring Wi-fi to the next level and Wi-MAX is the answer. However, unlike Wi-fi, WiMAX requires special carrier (service provider) to put the technology into use, thus it is not really an upgraded version of Wi-fi.

Well, you might wonder all this time, if Wi-MAX is not Wi-fi on steroid, then what is? Ever heard about Super Wi-fi? For me that is what I call Wi-fi on steroid. Believe it or not, the one behind this technology is not Intel but Altai Technologies. Rather than working on something new (like how WiMAX was born) their approach is simple; boost and enhance whatever the current Wi-fi today have and voila, you got Super Wi-fi. Unlike Wi-MAX, you don't need special modem to connect to it. Only the access point needs to be change and with that all are set. Hmm, I wish I could experience it myself too but I have a feeling that this Super Wi-fi will be like cable TV technology that never sees it's day here.

Lurk, Lurk - Exploring The Net

I'm planning to make a new XP installation disk with SP3 integrated, from my existing XP SP2 disk. Things like this are possible for users with the use of slipstreamers, which in my case, I use nLite. This way I can simplify the installation process via automation, removed the unnecessary stuffs, and have the updates installed from the very start. Apart from slipstreaming SP3 into the disk, I've also integrated RyanVM's Post-SP3 Update Pack, Internet Explorer 8, Windows Media Player 11, and a few other nice stuffs.

The XP installation disk originally comes in a CD, so at most the size should be less than 700MB. However, I'm using a DVD, leaving me with a lot of space to put in stuff. So I decided to put in a whole slew of useful softwares into the disk, which I don't integrate to the OS but available to be installed from the same disk.

Looking into my software collection, I realized that most of them are old versions that needs an  update. Up I go lurking the Internet, scavenging softwares (mostly freeware and open source). Quite a few new gems I found.

Among them is ThumbView Lite, which allows a number of files - PSD, DDS, TGA, and a few others - to have thumbnails just like JPG files in Windows Explorer. Unfortunately it doesn't work in Vista, but I tested them in XP under Virtual PC 2007 SP1, and it works like a charm. Still, it doesn't allow you to open the files to view them, so it's better coupled with an image viewer like IrfanView (with plugins).

Another one is Chrome Frame. This is actually a plugin for Internet Explorer, but it replaces IE's Trident engine with Google Chrome's WebKit engine. The result: IE with a loading speed of Chrome. Yes, a ninefold speed increase. Kinda neat, although you can just get Google Chrome instead. It's still in early stages, so expect bugs and crashes though.

For most of my stuffs, they were merely updates made possible over this rarely good speeds in this crappy wireless service today. Among them are DirectX August 2009, Pidgin 2.6.2, Rainlendar 2.6, Opera 10, and a quite a list of softwares.

No-Sense Websense

The days of crappy networks in my college seems to be endless, and it just went crapper than ever. Yesterday I was trying to upload a small image (my current avatar in /g/), using my usual image hosting site, imagehost.org. Oddly enough, this site seems to be blocked with Websense by the network admin, under the category "Personal Network Storage and Backup". I wonder what kind of genius is that, it's far beyond my comprehension.

This Websense filtering has been used before over here, with numerous revisions, but it has never been as nonsensical as this. "Personal Network Storage and Backup" supposedly belongs to file hosting sites such as MediaFire, RapidShare, MegaUpload, DepositFiles, etc. It makes sense if they are trying to improve the Internet surfing experience by not allowing the users to leech large files from these sites, thus saving bandwidth.

But why image hosting sites are blocked as well? Many of us rely on these services to upload and view images all over the Internet. And most of these images doesn't go larger than 100MB, due to the website's restrictions over unregistered/free users. C'mon, do us some justice. There's no good reason why image hosting sites should be blocked.

I tried a number of websites and keywords that I expect to be blocked, the results are pretty much weird. Popular file hosting sites were blocked, as well as popular image hosting sites. XS.TO, which I used to upload the image just now, isn't blocked, probably because its less popular. The keyword "porn" is blocked, under the category "Streaming Media". Keywords like "sex", "nude", "warez", "hentai", etc. haven't been blocked, which is indeed weird. So they're stopping us from downloading stuff, which might be important/legal, but allow us to view porn sites?

I can't get YouTube, Metacafe, or Google Video to load though, so I don't know the results for the time being.

Websense is never a welcome addition to me. It just worsens the Internet experience. Now since file hosting sites are blocked, I can't download regular cool stuffs from there anymore. Just throw the web filtering nonsense away and give us better networks instead. We pay for that.

Busting Ghosts - Frame by Frame

A friend of mine just lend me his copy of Ghostbusters: The Video Game a few days ago. Although most licensed games end up bad, I'm actually looking up to this title, since the gameplay video looks kinda sweet in X-Play.

And so goes to the installation. It was all fine until it said the installation failed in the end. Oddly enough, I found the files in my Program Files folder, and actually able to launch the game. Perhaps it's the crappy installer by those pirates I guess (sshhhh!).

So the game launches, and I reach the main menu. And... it lags like hell. More like a slightly movable slide show. Whatever. I tried to play career mode, regardless of the lag, hoping it would be fine there. It was indeed better, but still unplayable. I set the resolution to 800 x 600, then it becomes playable, but not entirely smooth either.

This mystery of extreme lagging has puzzled me. My rig is a good 2.6GHz dual core CPU, 4GB of DDR2-667 RAMs, and a factory-overclocked 9600GT with 512MBs of DDR3 memory. What could've gone wrong? Vista sucks? Unlikely, since my friend also uses Vista, and his game was really smooth.

I almost gave up playing the game, until I briefly re-played Call of Duty last night. I tweaked the game (Call of Duty) via Nvidia's Control Panel to give the old game justice some time ago. Then I realized, maybe I should check something in that control panel.

Indeed it was. The culprit is the global 3D settings were set in a way that not all games are compatible, perhaps a mistake I've done some time ago (I should set profile setting instead of global, which affects all 3D apps). Reset to default settings, and voila, problem no more. In fact, other games seemed smoother than before.

So yeah, next time, try looking up into the control panels if there was any problem with your games. Perhaps you can find a solution there. Now the only problem is beating up those tough and swarming marshmallow minions. Wish me luck, because it's really hard.

There goes my job interview

I've been absent for 2 weeks, thanks to my job interview I attended on Friday Aug 7. It was for vacancies of computer technician in various federal departments and I was quite happy to think that if I'm lucky I'll work (and play) with computers.

The interview is supposed to be easy but somehow I screwed up a bit since I don't have time to think, to manage my words but still the interview runs smoothly and everything seems to be fine.

10 questions being asked to me:

1. Tell us more about yourself
This is where I first screwed-up. I shouldn't have talked much about my bio since everything is already in the resume. I should have talked about what I like/dislike, my interest in computers as well as my opinion related to that stuff. Of course i had them planned in my head but they interrupted me before I could go any further.

2. Main component of a computer
This is easy. I explain everything from CPU to GPU, types of monitor and even the development of Terabyte HDD. My only worry is I might have gone too far LOL (too excited?).

3. Ports at the back of a computer
This one is also easy. I listed out everything I know, including the obsolete and legacy ports (PS/2, serial, parallel, etc). Even the graphics ports (RGB, DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort, etc) also not spared haha!

4. Types of topological networking
This is where I screwed up again. I was taking too much time to explain about LAN and I didn't have a chance to explain about other types of networking since they interrupted me in the middle.

5. Frequently used ports in networking
This is quite easy also. I quickly learned from my mistake from earlier questions (although it might be too late already) so I just explain things straight forward. What port is used by HTTP, FTP, POP3/IMAP mail, p2p networking, etc.

6. How to prevent virus infection
This is relatively easy since this is what I'm always asked for help in my current workplace, although I'm not a computer technician there. Of course I answered everything about antivirus, firewall, email attachment, etc. Luckily for this question I got time to explain about source of infections, what are rootkits about, worms, trojanhorses, backdoors, keyloggers and many other as well as how to deal with any of these.

7. The diference between RG11 & RG45
Too bad I failed to answer this. I know this is about cable stuff but since I'm lacking of experience in working with network so I don't know much about types of cables & antennas. What did I do then? Well, I just apologized and told them honestly that I don't have much experience in networking in the most polite way I could think of.

8. How many bits in a byte
Simple. I just answered straight to the point because I know time is running out.

9. The differences between 32-bit computing and 64-bit computing
I also don't take much time to answer this so I just told them whatever I have in my head.

10. Ways to connect to the Internet
The most unexpected question comes last! I just managed to answer 2 (fixed-line & wireless) before being interrupted, marks the end of the session.

All that took roughly 20 minutes. The guy before me took longer, almost half an hour. I'm not sure why but that guy possess a diploma in electric-electronic while the 2 guys after me possess a cert in electric-electronic from local polytechnic. I am the only one with only SPM in hand so I was quite surprised to know that my job application was accepted. Not sure about those who are interviewed days before us though.

The limited 'unlimited' 3G network

limit July 27 marks the 3rd month I am on 3G network. Thanks for the 'cheap' unlimited plan by Celcom, I finally able to enjoy 'broadband' too, which term was made exclusively only for fixed line users in the past. How cheap, you asked? At 68 bucks per month for the so-called 'unlimited' plan, it's only slightly higher than my monthly Astro bill.

Most of you may wonder what's the meaning with the words between those single quotes. 'Cheap' because it is still affordable for me, though I hope it was 50 bucks or less. 'Broadband' because it is peaked at 384kbps, thus allowing me to do some torrenting & listening to internet radio. 'Unlimited' because there is no time restriction, I can stay online for the whole day if I wanted to.

Seriously how 'cheap' this service actually? For me I'm like paying more than I was offered. They said it is 'broadband' but torrenting & any existing p2p network, just like the issue faced by all Streamyx users, are cruelly and mercilessly throttled. Not only I'm not allowed to do port-forwarding, due to the fact that all Celcom 3G client IPs are NAT-ed (Network Address Translation), I'm forced to comply with the monthly allocated 5GB data transfer.

Wait! Only 5GB? I can fill that in no time! I remember in the first month of my 3G subscription, that 5GB limit was reached within 2 weeks only, although I only downloaded 4 anime episodes and 12 mp3s, as well as occasional (weekly) online games session. I learned something on that time; limit the uploading speed for my torrent so other people are not eating my bandwidth too much. Sorry my torrent peers but I'm forced to do so. Celcom is Streamyx by another name after all.

Thank goodness Celcom did not ban the network for exceeding the limit. Instead they throttle everything down to the same level as a dial-up modem! That means I can still do some 'Twitting', 'Facebooking', blogging & emailing but downloading would be a pain. Can you imagine taking 10 minutes to download a 5MB mp3 when we are so used to downloading them in seconds before? Torrenting is a complete no-no when the full throttling imposed. I can't understand why Malaysian ISPs are so mean towards torrenteer? In the US 3G networks are not NAT-ed, allowed to do port-forwarding and even may have fixed IP, allowing one to host a website on a home server!

Oh yeah, I did mention about the so-called 'unlimited' right? The plan I'm subscribing to is indeed unlimited, to certain extent. Although 5GB is the maximum data transfer allowed for me, I can keep continuing for more without extra charges. However, this limitation is close to impossible if I must say. 5GB is too small for an avid downloader like me. Sure there are better but more expensive plan (HSDPA plan with double the amount of the bandwidth plus the 3.6MBps speed) but that would be overkill for me, even if it is only 98 bucks per month.

Digi recently launch their first 3G network but currently only available in the Peninsula. They used to have only EDGE network but only usable on EDGE supporting phone and no specialized modem for it. I'm thinking of switching to Digi 3G once they reach here but for now Celcom is my only/best choice. Well, Digi offers 50GB monthly data transfer how could I refuse? WiMax, on the other hand has made its move in Bolehland as well. Packet One Networks, the nation's first WiMax telco has launched their WiGGY service in May. Now, another provider, RedTone already make its presence in Borneo, offering "48x faster speed than any other wireless technology" as they claimed, premiumly priced at 138 bucks per month. I'd only consider subscribing to any one of these if the price dropped by 50%.

Seriously, I need around 100GB data transfer per month, judging from my usage rate. Using some rough calculation (based on 384kbps speed):
(384kbps)*(60seconds)*(60minutes)*(2hours/day)*(30days/month)=83GB
And that was assuming I on online at average 2 hours per day (though I think might be 4 hours or even more).

Now, comparing the speed before and after full throttling:

Before:


After:


Celcom is sick. Now I'm waiting for them to reset the throttling so I can resume my torrent again (weird? It's already the 1st day of August but it seems like my network is still throttled. They were never this late before). Honestly, the 5GB limit is a little too small for me. It is supposed to be a 'broadband' right? And being 'broadband' means they are geared towards heavy user like me, regardless they are mobile or on fixed line. What's the point of using the term 'broadband' if its usage is limited then.

Attention All Gforumers, We Are Recruiting!

It comes to my attention that someday, I won't be able to handle all the stuffs in /g/'s Tech section. Well, the time has come anyway, with revo being quite busy with his life, and apparently I'm starting to get busy myself. Being a final year student, assignments are getting heftier, studies are getting harder, and more responsibilities are showing up. Added with the fact that my room no longer has any access to the Internet, I need to find more people to assist me.

So now we're recruiting new Techrangers. Basically, any gforumer can be a Techranger, as long as they will help us in any way possible for them. Just send an application to me and I'll consider your request to be one. You can do it via:

• Commenting to this post
• PM me in gforum
• Posting a reply to the recruitment thread
  

You'll receive a number of priviledges for being a Techranger. It isn't much, but it may help. So yeah, come and apply, now.

Update: Added another option for applications via recruitment thread.

Update 2: Gforum is gone, and the new Gforum Mark 2 still has no plans on having Techrangers.

Continue the journey, to the master level!

Last April I finally finish and graduate for Bsc (Hons) Computer Science (Multimedia Computing) from UiTM. Being one of the pioneer of Multimedia Computing degree program at UiTM, I feel so great that I finish my study on time (unlike my diploma that takes 8 semester :P)

While waiting for convocation somewhere on October or November 2009, I take Microsoft Certified Professional course for ASP.NET and .NET Framework. It takes a month of class and 3 exams to pass in order to obtain the certificate.

I flunked the .NET Framework on first try, but I summon all of my spirit and knowledge, and try re-sit the exam for second time. Alhamdulilah, I manage to pass the re-sit exam, with flying colors too ^^

And the result; Im now one of the MS Professional developer for ASP.NET and Technology Specialist for .NET Framework 3.5. As my name and data stored in Microsoft database and also university database, I got a lot, a lot of calls for jobs.

Instead settling down and hunt for jobs, I registered for Master of Science (Computer Science) at UiTM. With lots of job call Im getting, most of them sounds disappointing when I say I further my studies. Some also congratulate me, and they wish I can work for their company someday, wow~ Im moved~

Now I just got to be patience and hording through another 3 semester for my master, and I hope I can strive for it, just what like I did before.

Crappy Wireless, and Some New Hardware :3

Pardon me for this blog getting a bit slow for updates, and when they do, it lacks pictures. Not fun, IMO. I put the blame to the college wireless services, which is so unstable that even loading /g/ might take forever. Secondly, I've been busy since I've gained some reputation among the higher-ups around here. That said, I've been receiving requests for graphic designs, Flash animations, video editings and computer repairs in a rather short timeframe. Revo, on the other hand is always 'busy' and needs to be poked a bit to get him posting here.

Anyways, yesterday I went to Low Yat to buy something that was ditched from my original plans; the speaker. Earlier I used Sonic Gear Tatoo 303, a rather cheap 2.1 channel speakers for RM35. It was fine, until I cranked up the volume a little higher. It just doesn't sound quite right. Well now, with some money at hand I can now afford a brand new Altec Lansing BXR1121 for RM119, and been loving it since. I'm not much of an audiophile, but listening to quality sound is surely a pleasure. Originally I've been planning to buy this since last year, but was cut short due to financial reasons. Now that I have it, my ears deserves a better place, finally.

Rest In Peace, CM Aquagate VIVA, And A Few Other Stuffs

Hauling my 'waifu' (my desktop PC) back and forth from my college at Setapak Jaya to my campus (or, my 'office') at Jalan Semarak for like two weeks seems to have some consequences as my 'waifu' is starting to feel 'sick'. And so one day I left my 'waifu' in the 'office' overnight, the next day she 'screams' as I turned it on. The cause: lack of coolant flow in my Aquagate VIVA triggers the safety alarm. After a little fiddling with the internals, I do manage to get it into working state again, for another two weeks, but not without the occasional quick-fixes. Heck I even have to reformat my HDD due to some data corruption from frequent restarts.

In fact I've hauled it to Temerloh, Pahang for a week during a community welfare program, and then for a few more days back and forth from my college to my campus. Think of how much endurance my 'waifu' have to take.

Until yesterday, I decided to put the faulty liquid-cooling system to rest, replaced with the far cheaper CM Vortex 752. I don't do any overclocking due to the motherboard's limitation, so I think that would suffice for now.

Things doesn't go well all the way. Removing the water block caused the CPU to be plugged out by force, which in return caused two of the pins to bend. Fortunately enough I can straighten the pins again, and get it working. Damn I was worried I would have to spend another RM200 just to get myself another Athlon 5000+ BE. The thermal grease made the bond so tight like a powerful suction cup, and with the water block still there, I can't lift the latch which holds the CPU in place. With the help of a screwdriver, I finally manage to separate the water block and the CPU. Whew.

Speaking of damages, my trusty CRT monitor sometimes needs to be plugged off before it can be waked up from standby mode. And my keyboard, Microsoft Comfort Curve Keyboard 2000 also failed me after a simple wash (some drink spilled on it, unfortunately). Fact is, the keyboard is waterproof, or so it was claimed. Splashed it with some water, let it dry, then some keys no longer work. And so comes another dirt-cheap replacement for RM18. At least the only thing which isn't a replacement is a Logitech Dual Action gamepad, which oddly slows my reaction in certain games suitable for a gamepad, like GRID, HAWX, and NFS Undercover. Maybe I'm just not used to it. Devil May Cry 3 works very well for me though.

There goes my salary, RM200 for making a Flash presentation about global warming, and another RM50 for designing graphics for some sort of resume (not mine). A part of it was lended to the Photography Club to repair a faulty Nikon D70s, and another part was spent for pizza.

Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not

Ah, the refreshing music from Arctic Monkeys plays in my favorite media player: foobar2000. Their music is somewhat unique and catchy, that I don't know which genre it belongs to. Anyways, I'm not here to talk about the album (which is the title of this post).


Out of boredom, I began to type in the keyword "techrangers" and "techranger" in Google. And so I discovered that we're not the only Techrangers out there. Simply put, here's the result:

1. CDWS: Techrangers
They are a division of Course Development & Web Services at the University of Central Florida. Obviously they have nothing to do with us, since none of us ever stepped foot on that university. Their role, however, is pretty much similar: provide tech support.

2. Flickr: Six Degrees of Techrangers
A collection of party pictures, probably related to the first result. Again, none of these pictures have us inside, so don't waste your time looking for us there.

3. High Tech Rangers FC Information
Some football club I guess. From Cheltenham League? Never heard of it.

4. http://techranger.com/
Pure rubbish. It's not even a real website.

5. Tech Ranger
On-site PC support & rescue.

6. Techranger's "just for fun" site
A blog about racing horses. Weird.

7. techranger.com blog
Honestly the blog doesn't make sense to me.

Other than that, it appears that someone is using "techrangers" as his/her username. Oh well...

Jumping Ship! All aboard AMD! :P

Been playing Empire:Total War and Sims 3 on my PC for a while, at first I been patient enough to withstand the low frame rate and low settings. Even on that settings, the frame rate still stutter and the game perform poorly :(

And yesterday I was reaching a breaking point. Been greeted with 3 times (yes 3 times) blue screen of death is not funny, and worse, it happens when I play the games For the motherboard, I pick Asus M4N78 Pro with GeForce 8300 onboard graphics. Capable of Hybrid SLI, this board sure can accommodate my need for performance.


Inside is pretty much basic stuff, surprisingly from Asus. But it got nice small thing that most motherboard manufacturer didn't see, a small socket call Q-Connector. This small connector organized casing power button, reset button on single connector and just plug the connector. I didn't have to use magnifying glass to see what's written on the board anymore :D

The price? its price RM365, but the seller give me discount RM2.... ^_^;


And for the processor, meet Phenom X3 8650 (OMG! Its AMD!) I know, Im jumping ship as I short on money and need quick upgrade, this is the best I can buy, just for RM275.

In short, my upgrade costs RM638. Not bad, in a few months maybe I will upgrade my graphic card too, currently running on 8800GT 512MB.


Windows Installation nightmare


After assembly and first boot-up, Windows Vista load normally but detect so many new hardware. I decide to repair or upgrade windows installation only, but at that time, its already 1am in the morning.

I left my PC to install Windows and sleep..........

Around 4am I wake up and see blank screen with "Disk read error, press Alt+Ctrl+Del to continue" message. Damn, is it my seagate drive malfunction? Im scared like hell already.

And the windows installation stalled. I dont have a choice but to reformat partition C: from my Seagate drive T_T After clean install, Vista works perfectly but pops out new message.

"Please activate your Vista" LULZ, ok I just go activate. But.... the system said that my key has been activated! Ouch! There it goes my original copy of Vista, >.<

After all drivers installed and system is stable, I install the games. See what triple-core can do compare to my old Pentium 4. And hell yeah! it was a blast. Although I still can't play at max settings (because of my graphic card) at least I can play smoothly on medium or high on 1680x1050 resolution.

Well after done testing, I need to go back study, I had exam today! wish me luck! :)

Windows 7 craze! Microsoft release boxart

DailyTech website posts up picture on Windows 7 boxart will look like. Seems like Windows 7 will be package in Home Premium, Professional (reminds me for XP Pro) and Ultimate version.

Pick which one you like, as Microsoft plans to release Windows 7 on 22nd October. Buy original! XD

Meet The Techrangers

Techrangers

• is a Gforumer
• have green and bolded usernames
• have semi-mod powers
• is responsible for the Gforum's Tech Section
• should be fairly knowledgeable in tech
• is constantly in need for new hardware & software (please donate)
• somewhat have a dry sense of humor

sharif-strike

• leads the Techrangers
• is taking Diploma in Computer Science (Multimedia)
• still uses CRT monitors
• craves for raw power
• ventures into 64-bit computing
• uses foobar2000 v0.9.5.5 with noise sharpening plugin
• likes Google Chrome
  
• plays Zerg
• uses liquid-cooling system (broken and replaced with CM Vortex 752)
  
• prefers instrumental music
• almost immune to moe
  
• is usually stuck in crappy wireless services
• also does photography and graphic design
• wishes he owns a DSLR (do give me one for free :D)
• dreams of driving a muscle car
  

RevolutionWorks

• veteran moderator who been semi-retired by being techrangers :D
• Currently studying for Master of Science (Computer Science)
• Hold Diploma in Computer Science and Bachelor Degree in Computer Science (Multimedia Computing)
• Microsoft Certified Professional Developer (MCPD): ASP.NET
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• Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS): .NET Framework
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• runs Windows Vista on an AMD Phenom X3 processor (with 4GB RAM!)
• Got 2 free copies of Windows 7 Pro from MSDN AA but still don't upgrade yet.
  
• have 6 fans running inside its NVIDIA casing
  
• plays GDI (Global Defense Initiative)
• is known to own a PS2,PSP,PS3 and an X360
• rarely watch anime or read manga nowdays
  
• is older than sharif
• NVIDIA FTW
• is busy "with his master study"
• never met sharif face-to-face before

halfey

• freestyler (in terms of fashion)
• loves extreme music (rock) but classical always own by default
• likes to cook and experimenting with new recipes (western food)
  
• shares everything with nobody
  
• gives a damn (LOL)
• hates happy-fun anime
• wants an Intel Core i5 CPU
  
• wishes to see a true-color pigment-based display technology in his lifetime
• needs ridiculous amount of money right now (seriously LOL)
  
• will kill for nothing
  
• hopes everything he dislike will vanish from this world
• asks "what's the answer for life, the universe and everything?"
• has been on internet forum since 2003
• was a lolicon (and still a lolicon LOL)
• wonders what would happen if the internet never exist
  
• feels uneasy when the boss is around LOL
• thinks equal rights ain't necessary; equal chance is
  
• says "Qui genus humanum ingenio superavit"
  
• is an audiophile

Sorrow Days, and Extra Storage

Lately it's been a little sorrow for me, since my Chinese grandfather just passed away last Friday. To be honest, I don't know him much, since he was Chinese and lives in Johore, while I live high up in Kedah. Still, it does leave some impact to me. If you're wondering, yes, I share a blood relation with him. He was very old, but yet very kind. Although our cultures and religion might be different, a family is still a family.

Moving on, I've just arrived in KL yesterday, and went straight to Low Yat. I managed to collect enough money to buy myself a new hard disk: Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB. Gone now the days where I have to delete something just to get something else in. At least for now. The already cheap drive just got cheaper; mine is priced at RM320, giving an easy 32 cents per GB. A fresh new hard drive waiting to be filled. Yay. Bigger drives generally mean faster drives; each section of data is smaller on the disk, which results in lesser movements required by the read/write head.



On the side note, whenever you buy an extra internal hard disk, plug it in and directly turn on the PC, you won't find the hard disk in Windows even if it shows up in the BIOS. This is because a fresh hard disk has no partitions. So you will have to create at least one partition for your hard disk, using a Windows Setup CD/DVD (just stop at making partitions, you don't need to install Windows). If you don't have one, you can grab a DOS bootdisk instead. If you're going to use DOS, use the command FDISK to create a partition. A menu should appear and it shouldn't be too hard to understand the interface. Formatting the drive in DOS or Windows Setup isn't necessary, the drive will appear in Windows after that. You can then format the drive in Windows, and your new hard disk is good to go.

Getting Things Right, A New Service Pack, and Becoming a Hero

Finally! After scrolling down carefully on the comments section for this layout, I found this blog which posts most, if not all, the bugfixes for our current layout. Thanks to the author various fixes has been done, such as the missing comment form, the footer now has links to recent posts and comments, and also the ad header, which collapses if an ad blocker is present, has also been fixed. So I suppose that ends all the bugfixes, hopefully, so that I can focus more on blogging instead. Again, please report for any bugs you find.

AimanThe9th has just posted about Vista SP2 now available for download in Tech Talk, an update I have been longing ever since the beta version of SP2. While the x86 version is only 348.3 MB, an x64 user like me will have to download a 577.4 MB file instead. Hefty, but I hope it's worth it.

Yesterday, after the last post, I went on to play Battlefield Heroes beta. It was quite fun, although I didn't do much kills during the session. I chose the soldier class, and joined the National Army, which is the Nazi's in disguise. Eventually I got pwned hard, thanks to my low ranks (currently level 3) and frequent grenade spams. I'm not sure if that was a perk or the specialties of the Gunner class, but it's hellishly effective at lowering my HP drastically. So instead of assaulting the enemies, I focused more on capturing points, which allows me to gain some more experience. The fights were quite tight thanks to a player nicknamed hipstler (you can expect he's a National), who balances the National Army which consist mostly of noobs like me. I'm a hero now. A noob one. Haha.

Major Layout Change

If you guys stumbled on this blog with broken things here and there, it's because I'm still customizing this blog. You can see now that I'm using a custom layout, and because of that things get a bit complicated.

There are a few things to do to get this layout right, including some bugfixes and some removals to the HTML code. Fortunately, I have resolved most of these bugs but that doesn't mean that it's completely bug-free. Do report for any bugs you find, broken links, etc.

Oh yeah, you may give us some suggestions as well.

A Little Tweak, and The Crave for Banana Milkshake

Tweaking this blog doesn't seem as easy as it looks, because there are some problems regarding cookies and JavaScript. I have a WordPress blog of my own, and it doesn't cause me so much trouble except for the slow loading page, which is one of the main reasons it's not so active.

After fiddling around, I shut down ZoneAlarm in an attempt to overcome the problem. And voila~, it worked like a charm. So I got happy-feely adding up stuffs to pimp the blog, such as that shoutbox, live traffic feed, and the blogger list based on whoami's Gforum Blogger List v1.6. I also tried to apply a custom theme, but things got messed up so badly that I have to use one of the default themes instead.

The next thing I want is a banana milkshake, or the equivalent of "pisang blended" (doesn't seem to exist though). It's so easy to make that it makes me wonder why this drink is so rare in Malaysia. All you need is some ripe bananas, some milk, some ice, a kitchen blender, and the ability to operate the blender. Sugar is optional. Blend them all together in your blender, and you're finished. Fresh homemade banana milkshake. Oh yes.

First Post, and a Warm Welcome.

Ahoy there! Starting from today the Techrangers of /gforum/ will have their own official blog. You can expect those techy-geeky rants of ours in this very blog.

So yeah, nothing much for now, but we'll have something up soon. Stay tuned for more updates.

Bon voyage, mon ami!