I know I wrote a while ago that I had the new blog for our Thailand trip, but somehow I did not find the time to fill it. But now I did (eureka! you just have to make time) and it can be found in the top level navigation above.
The goal is to put some information that about our trip to Thailand in November this year and to add information and photos during the trip. Open for suggestions on what to see, where to go, stay and eat.
So, I returned my screen to Fujitsu-Siemens, which was quite an act due to the fact the the foot of the screen was fixed with four of those clickable plastic clips. It seems that people who are able to get those loosened have at least 4 hands, because I had to use several tools to get it done. Anyhow, the screen is back to the factory and as soon as I have my money back I'll have to see what I will do. Order another screen, the same, a different one, go to a shop to get me one.
First thing I should do is check how big the risk for dead pixels is, because I must say that I really went from totally happy that my screen was there (yeah, new toy) to complete desillution for the dead pixel and the fact that it seems to be normal to have those ....
Thursday : 30 Aug '07 - 19:57 | damen default No comments yet |
Somehow this week was not too good for me for the driving part. On Tuesday I went to Leipzig for a meeting, a 275km drive, and of course I managed to get myself caught in one of those typical 'speed traps' where in the middle of the highway the speed limit is suddenly 100km/h for about 500 meters, and there was the radar.... That'll cost me another 50 euro, let's call it subvention for east Germany.
Then today, driving here in Nürnberg and I'm on the phone. Yes, I KNOW!
So there was a police car behind me and even though they were very friendly, it will cost me another 40 euro. I already got myself a device to put my phone in and tomorrow I'll install a car kit... grmbl.... don't laugh!
I just got off the phone with one of the most annoying technical help desks I ever had to cope with. Today I picked up my new monitor and it has one dead pixel just in the middle of the screen.
Because I was so naiv to think this was a technical failure I called their helpdesk (their documentation said not to call the normal guarentee for technical failures) and explained my problem.
The instance I said pixel that @$*()&@*)($ started going though a standard talk that dead pixels were not within guarentee and that I could read this everywhere in the internet. Grmbl..
Thank god for the 14 day return policy, which means that I will return this monitor instantly and get myself another one. But No Fujitsu Siemens anymore! No way!
:@:@:@:@:@:@:@
Yeah, I know that the new toys are coming in too fast lately, but let's just say I'm in a phase where I need them as motivation Less then a month ago I also got some new toys and they are still doing fine.
But unfortunately I have had the opportunity to work for half a day behind a 22" screen, which really made me think of out. Because they are not too expensive anymore I have convinced the needed parties of it and went and bought this baby this week:
Specs: General
MPN: S26361-K1188-V201
Display Type: Flat panel display / TFT active matrix
Width: 51.4 cm
Depth: 21.9 cm
Height: 41.8 cm
Weight: 5.4 kg
Display
Diagonal Size: 22" - widescreen
Viewable Size: 22"
Dot Pitch / Pixel Pitch: 0.282 mm
Max Resolution: 1680 x 1050
Colour support: 24-bit (16.7 million colours)
Max Sync Rate (V x H): 76 Hz x 83 kHz
Response Time: 5 ms
Controls / Adjustments: Volume, brightness, contrast, H/V position, H/V size, colour temperature, phase
OSD Languages: English, German, French, Italian, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Dutch
Backlight Life: 50,000 hour(s)
Signal Input: DVI-D, VGA
Image
Image Brightness: 300 cd/m2
Image Contrast Ratio: 1000:1
Image Max H-View Angle: 170
Image Max V-View Angle: 160
Video input
Analogue video Signal: RGB
Digital Video Standard: Digital Visual Interface (DVI)
* 1 x VGA - 15 pin HD D-Sub (HD-15)
* 1 x DVI-D - 24 pin digital DVI
* 1 x audio line-in - mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm
Miscellaneous
Cables Included:
* 1 x VGA cable - 1.5 m
* 1 x audio cable - 3.5 mm to 3.5 mm - 1.8 m
Flat Panel Mount Interface: 100 x 100 mm
MTBF: 70,000 hour(s)
Features: Security lock slot (cable lock sold separately), tilt adjustment
Compliant Standards: Plug and Play, CE, DDC-2B, EN 60950, EN 61000-3-2, EPA Energy Star, GS, ISO 13406-2, TCO '99, VESA FPMPMI, EN 61000-3-3, EN55024, EN55022 Class B
Power
Form Factor: Internal
Voltage Required: AC 120/230 V ( 50/60 Hz )
Power Consumption Operational: 55 Watt
Power Consumption Stand by / Sleep: 2 Watt
Environmental parameters
Min Operating Temperature: 5 °C
Max Operating Temperature: 35 °C
Today I got the email the they send out the product with UPS, so I'm hoping to receive it either today or tomorrow
Now it is time to think about this post of Scott Hanselman, evangelist for three screen setups
I can't wait to see how Vista looks on this screen
Monday : 20 Aug '07 - 07:28 | damen default No comments yet |
Microsoft Vista has a cool feature called the sidebar, which allows you to put several gadget on the side of your screen. This weekend Joost told me about the Dilbert Sidebar Gadget, so I went and got it. It is quite nice and will provide the latest 5 Dilberts directly to your screen.
I think I'll browse for some more cool sidebar gadgets, who can give me good tips?
Saturday : 18 Aug '07 - 09:09 | damen default No comments yet |
This week (and the next one) I'm having a collegue from the USA here, so we decided to introduce him to the good franconian life this weekend. We will visit the Burg Rabenstein, a very nice franconian castle about one hour drive from here. There we'll have everything together, caves, castles and biergarten
Just the thing to impress an american
Then, on Sunday, Joost & Tanja will come by and do a sort of pitstop at our place, before they drive further to Italy. He said something regarding bringing kroketten with him, so I really look forward to it !!
Thursday : 09 Aug '07 - 07:56 | damen default Only one comment |
This morning I was finally able to get myself together and get out for half an hour jogging. The problem was that I somehow could not get my heartbeat (I'm using one of those puls monitors) to get over 80. Even as I really pushed it the heartbeat only went to 90...
Soon I found out though, it was 90% of the maximum... somewhere around 170/180 bpm.
oops... perhaps I'm getting old and in that phase where you need to read manuals before you use stuff.... eeks!
Tuesday : 07 Aug '07 - 07:21 | damen default No comments yet |
I found a solution to get the image on my tv without having it all screwed up and black and white. It turned out that you have to change the localization settings from US to Germany to ensure that Vista knows you're having PAL.
Still this is very strange, in the old Nvidia advanced settings you could change everything you wanted and were able to fully configure your card. Now all of these are hidden (I hope) or completely removed (would make me sad). For example, I cannot tell my card that only the video image needs to go on the tv and when I activated the second (tv) screen my resulution drops to 1024x768....
Funny enough I haven't found much info on this on the internet, somehow it seems that I'm the only one with these problems....?
Monday : 06 Aug '07 - 10:10 | damen default No comments yet |
Last Saturday we spend the evening with "Klassik im Park", a big classical concert which was held here in Nürnberg. The interesting thing of this event is that it is provided for free by the local government and everybody is invited to come by and join the pick nick. So in the end there were more than 20.000 people having a giant pick nick in the park while enjoying the music.
Yesterday we went to a nice swimming pool we discovered here in Nürnberg. It isn't really a pool, actually its a small lake which has been turned into a pool. It lies in the middle of the Pegnitz grounds, which is the area where the local small river is floating. It is called the Langseebad and is managed by a local sporting club.
Interesting enough there was even a masseur who offered massages. He had built up a kind of tent and had his massage table inside. One side was facing the river and woods and it was open, so you'll have a great view and atmosphere during the massage. Of course we both took the opportunity
Because of the new hardware I got today I am now able to run Windows Vista in an acceptable manner.
I just installed the basic system, interesting enough I had undo some of the bios tweaks I've done over the past year which were no problem for windows XP. It looks like Vista is a little bit more naggy about this stuff, but now the system is running OK. I do not really like the fact that my experience score is 2.0 because of my video cart, I still have to work on that
Now the whole installing procedure starts, and I have to check that my hardware is running Ok because I'm running Vista in 64bit modus.
This is the software which is (gonna be) installed:
Perhaps you've noticed that must on this list is also onthe list of Scott Hanselman , which is not so strange because I've used his one as a reference I just wished I had the rig he is currently working on
Update:
I'm currently fighting with my video card to get a good picture on my TV. I have a MSI FX5200 with 128Mb in my computer, but since Nvidia changed their configuration to the new Nvidia control panel I'm not able to get it working anymore.
Saturday : 04 Aug '07 - 08:36 | damen default No comments yet |
This afternoon I will drive to the local KM Elektronik store and get me new toys to extend my pc. The following is on the shopping list:
1024 Mb Infineon / Qimonda PC400 CL3 memomy
3.5" Seagate 7200.10 320Gb ST3320620AS Harddisk with 16Mb cache
This way I will have one harddisk free (I currently have 2x 80Gb in my computer) and can use that one to rebuild my old machine. I want to prepare that so I can give it to the parents of Manu, because everytime I'm there I get insane by their slow computer
The memory will allow me to install vista on my box, it should run smooth with that kind of ram.
This is kind of a balance between not wanting to spend a lot of money on the computer anymore and wanting to buy a complete new one. Also the WAF is ok with this solution
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and went and bought 
