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.

I think it’s kind of a cool device although I’m a bit skeptical about the whole touchscreen user experience especially of resizing or shuffling around ’stacked windows’. Anyway, it’ll be neat to test it out. I guess I am adding an AT&T store as one of destinations for my upcoming New York trip.

You can view more information and videos of other capabilities of Surface at the Microsoft’s official site.

Source:
Engadget [Microsoft Surface launching April 17th... with AT&T]
Engadget [Video: AT&T's Surface makes comparing phones, transmitting illnesses a breeze]

It’s basically like a dock for harddrives, which allows for easy switching. You can check out the video at Akihabara News. It’s a more convenient alternative to harddrive enclosures which I use right now. I have large and growing collection of media files which can fill up harddrives quickly. My laptop’s 40GB harddrive forces me to rely on external drives or optical media for storage purposes. However, I don’t have that many USB ports (or power outlets!) to handle multiple external devices. And DVD is an impractical medium since these media files become larger as high definition releases becomes more common. A 500GB harddrive can store over 100 DVDs worth of data!

While this is the perfect solution and it is totally affordable (and worthy) with a $47USD price tag, the shipping price is horrendous, sitting at $39.70USD! A total of $86.70 for the cool gadget is bad news for my wallet. Apparently, the stage rack is directly ship from Japan which explains the high shipping price. And I haven’t been able to find it at any other online stores which prompts me to think that it’s kind of a Japanese exclusive thing. So, anyone heading to or is in Japan want to pick one up for me?

Image source: GeekStuff4U.com

It works but the quality of display is so-so. The monitor has maximum resolution of 1280×1024 but the converter only outputs 1024×768. I’m able to play games on it fine. The screen is just a bit small. Well, at least it’s better than bringing the 50lb spare TV up to my room. Maybe I’ll invest in a larger monitor later. I also want to try out component output with the Wii.

Earlier this month I purchased a simple 4 port mini USB hub to compensate for the lack of ports (or overload of USB devices) on my laptop. It worked well for the past 10 days until I plugged in my scanner yesterday. The scanner, unlike the other devices plugged into the hub, is USB powered. I first had trouble installing the driver of the scanner due to the unintuitive self-extracting driver program. However, immediately after I figured out how the driver install (let the files extract and just plug the scanner in), I got the familiar warning pop-up on the tray. A power surge. Last few times I got the power surge warning were because I was using the USB power for DIY devices. This wasn’t the case. The packaging on the USB hub clearly stated that each port is provided with 500mA of power which, I believe, is that limit for USB powered devices, such as my scanner. I unplugged the scanner and hooked it into a laptop port to finish my scanner job. Then I realize the USB hub no longer works. It’s as if it’s stuck on surge mode. Whenever I plug in the hub, I get the warning and the computer doesn’t respond to the hub. I figure drawing power from the laptop port to power my scanner somehow fried the circuit and it was stuck in that state which constantly request for some amount of power beyond USB standards. For that fact, the laptop refuses to recognize the hub and so anything connected with it is also ignored.

I desperately need the hub for my external drives and printer connection, as well as other USB devices I have in plan for the future. So today, I took the hub back to the store I bought it at and complained that the hub isn’t working. I eliminated the part about plugging in the scanner to minimize the reluctance in giving me an exchange. The guy at the service department was fairly nice. He tested the hub out on the machines there and concluded that it’s probably fried. He checked the purchase date on my recipe and gave me a new one. I felt like I’ve scammed them even though technically it should be consider a defect. Or maybe that’s just an excuse for myself. I’ll remember not to plug any USB powered devices into the port from now on.

The new hub

Well I couldn’t use the sensor bar from the Wii console so I have the option of either purchasing a wireless one or make one myself. I chose the latter. It’s actually pretty easy to improvise. The Wiimote respond to a lot of light actually. People had used candles for such purpose. I decided to use red Christmas lights. Recall my USB motor project? I’m going to make it lights this time. I happen to have taken off the Christmas lights around my room today. It’s one of those wall outlet powered multi-coloured lights. I needed to turn it into USB power. Remembering my power surge incident last time, I needed to make sure the lights doesn’t take more than 5V of power. I cut off a four light bulbs section from one end. I then replaced the first and the fourth slots with red lights. The middle two slots were cut off and re-wired. It was time to test it out. I plugged the USB cable from my motor experiment into a USB port. I slowly let the two wires from the light strip touch those of the USB cable. It lit up! I unplugged the USB cable and properly attached the wire ends together. Next I found a strip of cardboard and punched two holes in it. Stuffed the two light bulbs through the holes and there I had a self made USB powered sensor bar. Pictures of the result here.

With the sensor bar working, I started testing out the light position data and created an algorithm that will translate light position to a cursor position. Even though I made a sensor bar with two lights, I’m only using data from one of them. It limits the motion detected but easier to start with. Anyway, I was able to have a semi-working Wiimote mouse.

There is, however, a problem due to my monitors set up. My laptop screen has a different resolution than my external monitor. Therefore, the Y positioning (up / down) is tricky and I haven’t figure out a solution for that yet. Next I’m going to try use both lights and see if I can generate smoother results.

I had since then improved it a bit but I would like to do more tweaking for smoother control.

Materials Needed for USB Motor:

USB Cable
Toy Car Motor

First I had to make sure that the motor was not busted. I did a simple test with batteries and surely it was working. Then I had to find a USB cable I was willing to let go. I was so sure that I had a ton of camera, MP3 Player cables laying around but I couldn’t find any of them. The only extra cable around was the one I was planning to use for my new printer. It’ll cost $5 to replace. While contemplating between whether to use the free cable or not, I came across an old USB hub I used for my first laptop. It was probably USB1.1 which wouldn’t work with my current laptop. I tried it out and I was correct. So without hesitation I cut off the cable with my swiss army knife. I carefully split the plastic protector and found the four wires, black, red, green and white, as indicated in the article. Red is the positive wire and black is the negative. I connected them to the nodes on the motor. The moment of truths came as I plugged the other end of the USB cable into my laptop’s USB port. The sound of motor spinning immediately emerged. WOOT, I did it! But almost instantaneously, I saw a little warning popping up from tray bar. It read “Power Surge On Hub Port”. LOL. The motor required too much power. I immediately unplugged it. Nonetheless, it worked for a few seconds there. I hope I didn’t fry the USB port. =x

Split USB Cable – from clockwise: green, white, black, and red wires

USB Cable connected with motor

Power surge warning on computer

I ended up researching on power that can be drawn for USB device on Wikipedia. Seems like 5V is the standard. Time to see what requires 5V power to test out my USB power again… Maybe Christmas lights would be a good start.