A Better Laptop

When I bought my Lenovo Thinkpad x60s in the winter of 2006, it was intended as a secondary computer for portable use. But soon after the purchase, my desktop failed, likely from a power surge in a storm, and I’ve been using this laptop as my main computer. Contrary to my previous laptop, which literally melted after 17 months, the x60s is quite durable and still functions very well today (besides a dead battery).

As a main computer, it has a few downsides. First, it doesn’t include an optical drive. I had to migrate my old DVD burner into an external USB enclosure in order to run any CDs or DVDs. Second, it has an integrated graphics card, which means that it can’t handle many of today’s games (could be a good thing :P). From time to time, playing 720p H264 videos will lag. As for Bluray videos, the audio and video will go out of sync so badly, it’s impossible to enjoy. Third, the original harddrive size is very small, a mere 40GB. With the recovery partition and Windows XP files, I’m left with only about 30GB to work with. Luckily, that’s solvable!

I have an external IDE enclosure with a 250GB drive as well as an SATA dock with a 120GB drive. While those somewhat solve my space problems, it’s not a great solution. Software usually requires to be installed on the C: drive. Also, needing to connect and turn on all these enclosures to get some file can be annoying. It also means I can’t take much with me elsewhere. Therefore, I wanted to upgrade the harddrive of the x60s. Fortunately, Lenovo changed the configuration of the X series with the x60. It uses typical 2.5″ laptop harddrives instead of 1.8″ one which was in earlier models. I begin looking for deals for a larger capacity laptop drive. And I found one 2 weeks ago. A 320GB 7200rpm Hitachi 2.5″ harddrive for $79.99CAD. In addition, there’s a $20USD mail-in-rebate, making the total price slightly over $65 included tax.

After picking up the new harddrive, I inserted it into my SATA dock and begin cloning it with Acronis Migration Easy. I did some manual setting to ensure that the recovery partition remains at 4.3GB. The default setting will enlarge the partitions proportionally which the Thinkpad won’t like. After some time, the cloning finished. I opened the harddrive slot on the side, took out the old harddrive and slide in the new one. Power on. BIOS screen appears. Then I’m met with a blank screen with a continuously blinking cursor. Normally, the Windows XP screen will appear. Rather puzzled by this, I thought maybe the cloning went wrong. I process to re-clone the harddrive but nothing changed. I adjusted the setting to leave the partitions as it is but it refuse to go pass that same blinking cursor. I started searching on various forums and even switched to using the more feature-filled Acronis True Image. I tried ‘fixing’ the master boot record. Yet, nothing works. By that time, I’ve cloned the drive at least 10 times, and moved it in and out of the harddrive slot more times than that. I was rather frustrated when I came across someone with the exact same problem as me. And the good news is he solved it. For whatever reason, the new harddrive needs to be in the laptop when the cloning occurs. So I burnt a boot disc with the cloning software, insert the new harddrive into the laptop, put the boot disc into external DVD drive, put old drive into SATA dock. Power on everything. Laptop boots up from disc and I was able to run the cloning process. After half an hour or so, the cloning completes. I power down everything and turn on the laptop with the new harddrive. It works!

Although there’s no noticeable difference in the performance with the speed increase (5400rpm -> 7200rpm), I have a lot more space with work with. I’ve always wanted to play with Linux. So I immediately downloaded Ubuntu. But I didn’t want to run dual boot so I looked for a virtualization software. I had used VMWare before but it requires a commercial license. I browsed through a list of virtual machines and decided to try Virtualbox, which is free. Virtual machines allow running multiple OS simultaneously. While it’s convenient, it also uses a lot of RAM. Hence, I decided to upgrade my RAM as well.

I’ve already upgraded my RAM once to 1.5GB since buying the laptop. I decided to get a 2GB stick to get the maximum 3GB recognized by Windows XP. SODIMM RAM prices have drop quite a bit since my last purchase. I picked up a Cosair 2GB RAM for $24. The same RAM was outrageously listed for $82 at Futureshop.

RAM installation went a lot smoother than harddrive upgrade. I took out the 512MB stick and inserted the 2GB. Everything worked as it should. With the new 320GB harddrive and 3GB of RAM, I think I’ll continue using this older laptop for awhile, although I might grab a 22″ monitor to dual monitor with.

Posted in Tech
Tagged as harddrive, laptop, RAM, upgrade

In Search of Yen

As the departure day for my Japan trip draws near, I’m in the final stages of preparation. Earlier this week, I went to the Nippon Travel Agency to purchase the 14 days JR pass. Today’s goal was to do currency exchange. Last time, I went to Japan from Hong Kong and had my aunt help me obtain the Japanese yen. I believe she got them from a bank. It was quite a simple process. It was not the same here.

I’ve kept an eye on the exchange rate for several places including HSBC, TD Canada Trust, and Kingsmark (a currency exchange shop). Normally, the rate at HSBC is the best, with Kingsmark following closely. TD rate is pretty crappy. When I told my dad that, he mentioned that’s probably why they are still making a lot of profits in today’s economy. Anyway, since my dad has an HSBC account, we headed to a nearby branch to ask for some yen. But we were greeted with the reply that they don’t carry any Japanese yen at that branch. The teller directed us to a currency exchange shop in a nearby mall. In the back of my mind, I didn’t think that shop could beat the HSBC rate. So instead, we heading for a different HSBC branch, the Chinatown one. We figured they’ll have some since there might be more Chinese people heading to Japan. But unfortunately, the Japanese yen they have is only available to those with a Japanese yen account. They could only provide a cheque for us, which is pretty useless to me since I’ll have nowhere to cash it in. If we wanted cash, they’ll have to make an order which will take at least 3 days. The teller added that it might be better to leave 7 days as a leverage. That’s already too late for me. We asked her if the main branch will have Japanese yen in cash. After checking with some person in the back, she replied with a ‘no’. She told us to go to a currency exchange shop, which seems to be our only option at that moment. Lastly, she said we can also exchange at the airport. As the stingy traveler that I am, there’s no way I’ll do that. Airport exchange rate is never favourable. I only see it as a last minute resource.

Leaving Chinatown, we head to the Burnaby branch of Kingsmark, a shop which my parents have done exchanges at. I’ve never went to a currency exchange shop before. So it was kind of a new experience. The shop itself is pretty plain. The doors are guarded with metal rails. The counter area is enclosed with some glass with metal rails. There’s only a small area without glass to speak to the staff. It kind of reminds me of these pawn shops I used to see in Chinese movies. Anyway, we asked the staff for some Japanese yen. Turns out, they sold a lot already and there wasn’t enough for us. I asked if they’ll restock by tomorrow and she told us to call in first. Then she said there might be enough at the Richmond location. Another staff called and confirmed there’s enough. Off we go to Richmond. The Richmond branch of Kingsmark is a bit more decorated. There are some plants as well as coins and stamps on display (items which they also sell). So after almost 4 hours and driving across 5 cities, I finally got my Japanese yen. The conclusion from today’s currency exchange trip is that the Japanese yen isn’t as readily available here as Hong Kong. Next time, I should do this earlier.

Route: North Vancouver -> West Vancouver -> Vancouver (Chinatown) -> Burnaby -> Richmond

Posted in Real Life
Tagged as currency exchange, japanese yen

Serious Business

After many hours…

Posted in Real Life
Tagged as google map, trip planning

Random Fact

Half of the airlines I’ve purchased an e-ticket from have either closed or gone bankrupt. It’s something that cross my mind as I was sorting my old emails out and saw the ticket confirmations. I guess it’s not a surprise that the airlines business is in tough position a few years back. As a budget traveler, I tend to pick the most economical flights. But with those cheap prices, they just don’t have enough passengers to cover the operational costs, especially with the soaring gas prices earlier. But then, isn’t the fuel surcharge suppose to leverage that? My latest ticket to Japan has a fuel surcharge which is almost equivalent to the price of the base ticket. ;_;

Anyways, the dead airlines are:
Harmony Airways
JetsGo
Oasis Hong Kong Airlines
I’m lucky that none of these closures affected me. Oasis actually ceased operations just a bit over two months after my return flight. I had intended to delay my flight a bit during that trip but was denied because my ticket did not have that option. Either way, I wouldn’t have extended my stay by two months but it would have been even closer.

On the other hand, the ones still alive are:
Air Canada – I really don’t see this dying or traveling for Canadians might get very problematic.
Westjet – Last I heard, they are still doing fairly well.
Southwest Airlines – I haven’t pay attention to this company since I left US.

Posted in Real Life
Tagged as airlines, bankrupt, closed

Preparing…

It’s been a month since my last post. While half of that time was spent being lazy, the latter half of this month had been rather busy for me. I’ve finally booked tickets to Japan. Since I’m not joining any tours, I had to do a lot of research. This will be my second trip to the Land of the Rising Sun. Last time, I went on a 5 day tour with my sister and two aunts to Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe. This upcoming trip will be much longer and cover a (somewhat) broader area.

My original Japan plan was two weeks in the Tokyo area. My friend, Missa, is teaching English there and her contract will be completed at the end of March. She’ll stay behind for two weeks in April before flying home. This was the window of time I had plan to visit and have her show me around Tokyo and its neighbouring area. However, a little over two weeks ago, another friend of mine had a few days of holiday to use up from work and want to take a short trip to Hiroshima around March. She asked me if I’m interested and I ended up moving my departure date up a week in order to tour Hiroshima before Tokyo.

After booking my ticket, I started looking up information on Hiroshima such as sightseeing spots, hotel, food, transportation. This is my first time planning a trip to a location where the main language isn’t a language I know. While there are a lot of English sites with information on Hiroshima, the Japanese ones always provide more information. Additionally, many official site of tourist locations are in Japanese only. I literally got a headache looking for hotels one night. This site I was using, Rakuten, showed a lot more hotel listings on its Japanese site than English site. Cheaper ones too. Eventually, my friend and I ended up booking the hotel on the hotel’s official sites, both of which are in pure Japanese.

Another thing that gave me a headache is transportation. The train system in Japan is so complicated. There are A LOT OF trains running in Japan but they are operated by various companies. I intended to buy the JR pass which allows unlimited riding on the JR trains including Shinkansen train. However, that also means I’ll have to pay for trips on non-JR trains. With this being a budget trip, I’d like to avoid that as much as possible. Since the city of Hiroshima is not that big, we had to plan which other neighbouring towns to visit while minimizing the traveling time.

Trip planning is serious business. :P More to come later…

Posted in Real Life
Tagged as Hiroshima, Tokyo, trip planning

A Gift from Zuka

Zuka bought me a Kanu SD Gundam from the Sangokuden series during her trip to Hong Kong. I finally put it together.

[16 images - click for larger view]

I actually have the headgear on wrong here. The golden part is put on lower than it is supposed to be and thus the eyes are covered. This is fixed in latter photos.

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Posted in Entertainment
Tagged as kanu, SD gundam

Hitting the Slopes…

Throughout the years, I’ve gone to Whistler several times. However, those trips were all in the summertime. As a snowboarder, I’ve always wanted to board at Whistler. But since my family doesn’t do winter sports and my boarding buddies had move out of the province, the opportunity never came up. The past Christmas, my friends, Zuka and KK, from Toronto came over to visit. One of them is a skier. Therefore, the chance to head to Whistler during winter time had finally arrived.

The weather this year had been a little crazy. There was an overwhelming amount of snowfall in Vancouver. Good thing my friends rented a truck. Or else the drive to Whistler would be very ‘fun’. We departed around 6:30 in the morning. It was still pitch black outside and all my pictures turns out to be nothing but darkness. We arrived at the village around 8:30. After parking our car, we changed at one of the hotels and headed to rental shop where my friends got their boarding equipments. Then the long wait in the line for the Whistler Gondola followed. It was a beautiful day though.

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Posted in Real Life
Tagged as snowboarding, whistler