Ultimate Windows Tweaker

Are you tired of Windows Vista because your PC don’t have the capability to run full speed on it? Trying many tools to make your Vista machine run faster but it won’t work? Here you might found what you want. Ultimate Windows Tweaker, a tools design to tweak the security, performance, personalization and many more things in your Vista machine.



You can download the tool and run without install it. There are notables stuffs you can tweak to get more performance from your machine without losing any nice effect of vista. Example like shorten the waiting time to end services at shutdown process, waiting time to kill non-responding application, waiting time to kill applications timeout during shutdown, disable built-in feature to manage ZIP folders (if you already have a 3rd party ZIP program such as 7zip) and etc.

Explore yourself and give your vista machine a boost of speed. Create system restore point before doing anything and read the tool tip so that you don’t disable unnecessary thing. It is available for both 32bit and 64bit.

Ultimate Windows Tweaker website: http://www.winvistaclub.com/Ultimate_Windows_Tweaker.html

Imagine Cup 2009 - Interoperability Award

The Interoperability award for Imagine Cup 2009 is up.

Interoperability Award
The Interoperability Award is designed to recognize the software application that best leverages out-of-the-box Microsoft technologies and blends them with other technologies to connect people, data, or diverse systems in a new way. The ability to build technical bridges and blend technologies from different vendors, including free and open source software, has great value in the industry. The experience you gain by participating in this Award will help you and teammates build important technical skills that are highly valued in the job market.

Link: http://imaginecup.com/Competition/mycompetitionportal.aspx?competitionId=30

F-Secure Security Tech Quiz 2008

Today I attended for the qualification round of F-Secure National Inter-Varsity Security Tech Quiz Championship 2008/09 at my University. At first I thought it only has a few team participating this competition but I was wrong. There are several teams from Island College of Technology come over to Universiti Sains Malaysia to complete the competition as well.

Seriously, I only know the competition date the day before the date of competition. The notification e-mail goes into by Google mail’s junk mail. F-secure’s event notification e-mail goes into junk mail, what a funny story. Lucky, my teammate reminded me, or else I sure have a nice sleep this morning. After a half day of wiki reading, I mange to answer to question, but don’t have much confident to enter to the next round. I bet there are around 100 teams but they want to filter it until 32 teams, the probability being lucky is just too low.

Live Meeting Experience

Yesterday, I have my first experience attending live meeting at home (I have experience attending live meeting at school with my bunch of classmate before). This time I have to set up software myself. Feel great. Too bad that the connection is not that smooth along the way, and the voice is kind of laggy.



I was attending Imagine Cup 2009 Software Design talk and Embedded Design talk using Microsoft Live Meeting 2007. It is pretty easy to set up and running. It has all kind of feature that you will use in meeting, such as Q&A that let you type the question, give feedback that you want to slow down or proceed and etc. Because it only show the presentation slide and no eyes contact with the speaker, it make me feel kind of bored. Maybe I will get use to it soon. Another thing which I hate is the slide load so slow usually after they talk a few sentence later I only able to see the slide. I think the software should preload the slide first but there is no option for me to do that. Sad.

Hope future I have more experience on this live meeting. To those who miss the Software Design Live Meeting, here is the link for the recorded video: Software Design Session 1

My 2.5" 7200rpm Hard Disk

I just receive my new notebook hard disk yesterday that I order last 2 week ago from eSquare. Busy reformat my laptop as my last installation in the existing hard disk has some problems cause by the stupid NVIDIA graphic card. I was joy over when receive the hard disk, joy till want to bring around to show the shop that told me there is no 7200rpm hard disk for notebook in this world but in the end I didn’t do that cause I already forget which shop keeper said that, but now I know that shop call C&T Brother. Haha, I will never buy anything from that shop.

My new hard disk is Western Digital Black Scorpion 320GB (All black scorpion models is spin in 7200rpm) which cause me RM360. Ouch that is pain!!! I realize it is BJKT model after I purchase which come with free fall sensor. That makes me not that pain in my heart. Some might ask me is there a different between 5400rpm and 7200rpm. The answer is yes, 7200rpm performance better if you have a large number of files to process and it also shorter the time to boot up. You can see the performance of the hard disk in Windows Experience Index, 5400rpm hard disk usually score 5.1 but 7200rpm hard disk will score 5.7.

Here are some pictures of the hard disk. After read my blog, please don’t tell people there is no 7200rpm hard disk for notebook in this world…

Diary: Restless Day

These few days really have a lot of thing in my mind. I got ton of project due date. I was just too busy every morning sitting in front of my PC drawing and typing non-stop. Some time I get a short nap, when wake up, I can’t even remember I already have my dinner or not. My whole life gets mess up. Today I even release one of the project due date is on next Wednesday not this coming Wednesday. What for I working until half dead to rush the due date. I really need to cool down my mind. My mind was having too many bug recently, need to debug it.

New Award for Imagine Cup 2009

There 4 new awards offer to Imagine Cup 2009 competitor this year + 1 award existing award. They are Multipoint Education, Design 4 Development (aka Unlimited Potential), Interoperability Award, Parallel Computing and Hardware Design. Where is Windows Live Award? Well, I also don’t know, maybe removed from Imagine Cup 2009, maybe not.

Come check it out:

Multipoint Education Award
In many classrooms in underserved areas, groups of students must share one computer—there are simply not enough computers to go around. While the existing solution to this problem is to acquire more computers, that is often difficult for schools with limited resources.
With the Windows MultiPoint SDK several mice can be attached to a single PC – allowing students to learn, interact, and collaborate on the same computer at the same time. This makes the MultiPoint SDK the perfect tool to create learning games designed to help achieve Universal Primary Education
Reference: http://imaginecup.com/Competition/mycompetitionportal.aspx?competitionId=28

Design 4 Development Award aka Unlimited Potential
At Microsoft, we believe that making technologies that are relevant, affordable, and accessible to more than 5 billion people around the world who make less than $8 dollars takes more than serious coding skills.
It takes spending time with underserved communities, interviewing and understanding end-users to learn about their needs, and the daily challenges they face with each day – the same challenges that underlie the UN Millennium Development Goals.
Reference: http://imaginecup.com/Competition/mycompetitionportal.aspx?competitionId=29

Interoperability Award
Temporary no information yet.
Reference: http://imaginecup.com/Competition/mycompetitionportal.aspx?competitionId=30

Parallel Computing Award
Many core systems hold the promise of delivering 10 to 100 times the processing power in the next few years. This technological advance has the potential to open a world of possibilities, from creating immersive 3D applications to addressing some of the world’s greatest challenges. Developing applications that harness the full power of manycore systems is difficult and requires software developers to transition from writing serial programs to writing parallel programs.
The objective of the Parallel Computing Award is to recognize the Team that develops parallel algorithms with demonstrable speedup on a manycore processor in order to help solve some of the world’s toughest problems.
Reference: http://imaginecup.com/Competition/mycompetitionportal.aspx?competitionId=31

Hardware Design Award
Temporary no information yet.
Reference: http://imaginecup.com/Competition/mycompetitionportal.aspx?competitionId=32

Imagine Cup 2009 will be fun.

Purchasing 2.5” 7200rpm hard disk

Lately I have been considering upgrade my current laptop’s hard disk from 160GB to 320GB. Usually I install many development tool programs which take quite a large number of disk spaces, but because of my small hard disk and it is not enough to store as many system restore file, and cause my laptop to fail in an important system restore.

I decide to buy a 2.5” 320GB 7200rpm hard disk. Now I only realize there is no shop that sells 7200rpm notebook hard disk in Penang, Malaysia at all. I don’t want to use 5400rpm as it takes more time to load my program which I very hate. There is some shop even don’t know there is 7200rpm version of hard disk for notebook. I wonder how they open shop to do business. Well, final go through 20+ shops, I manage to find 3 shops who allow me to place order for the hard disk as they don’t keep any store. Well, I can understand that because this kind of hard disk is not hot selling item.

I was very surprise large computer hardware shop like PC Depot doesn’t sell 7200rpm notebook hard disk at all. I was more surprise when I ask the shop keeper about the hard disk. He replied me that he never heard of 7200rpm hard disk for notebook before. I always though PC depot only hire experience employee only. PC depot can’t fulfill my need yet give me this funny answer. Disappointed!

I go to Prangin Mall to try my luck. Nan Yang, which is the largest computer hardware shop at Prangin Mall and I was first time step into the shop since I haven’t step to Prangin Mall long time already. I told the shop keeper what I need and the shop keeper brings me go around the world. They told me we have but out of stock currently. Wow, out stock? That hot selling? So I ask them the price, he answer me is RM275. Second wow again, so cheap? Then I confirm with him again, I want 7200rpm not 5400rpm. The shop keeper realizes that he was misunderstood what I need and start giving me funny explanation. He said that their shop did not sell this hard disk as many customers complain head crush always happen on this fast spinning hard disk. Well, how a shop which never sells 7200rpm hard disk will have customer complain about head crush on hard disk. Damn, want to cheat me to buy 5400rpm also find a better reason please.

I also went to another computer hardware shop, but I can remember the name already, is name “brother” in Chinese name. I ask one of the shop keepers about the hard disk, and he replies me they also don’t have. Another shop keeper heard our conversation and shout out, “There is no 7200rpm notebook hard disk one, 7200rpm is only for desktop”. That time I really think of shout back him. If don’t know just said don’t know or just like other said did not sell, don’t act smart said this thing never exist. Unless you are professional and sure this thing never exist, or else just keep your mouth shut! In the end I also did not shout at the dumb shop keeper as my friend was around.

Surprisingly, I found eSquare which mainly sell notebook but not main on selling computer hardware got this hard disk, although need to order. They offer me the lowest price as well (so far I only found 3 shop sell this hard disk include eSquare). So I place my order there and even buy 1 external hard disk casing to place my 160GB hard disk when replace with 320GB hard disk later. Too bad all 3 shops only sell Western Digital Scorpio Black, although I want Seagate Momentus 7200.3, but Western Digital was not bad just slightly behind Seagate (according to tomshardware review).

Lesson learned, it is so hard to find 7200rpm notebook hard disk at Penang, Malaysia. Many computer hardware shop keeper know nothing but only know how to cheat customer to buy what is in their shop. If not sure about something, don’t act smart, people won’t said you smart but you making yourself such an idiot in front of others. 7200rpm notebook hard disk is damn expansive, almost the cost of 500GB hard disk for 320GB.

NVIDIA: Save only after you dead

Frankly speaking, I really hate NVIDIA now. Now I’m sitting at home waiting for Dell technician to come over to have the 5th motherboard change due to the stupid NVIDIA GPU defect graphic card broken down. I was very happy with my Dell XPS M1330 since I brought it, but because of NVIDIA, I now suffer for every half year of graphic card broken down.



Thanks to NVIDIA, before that I never knew that laptop’s motherboard can be replace, never saw a laptop motherboard, never knew that graphic card is fix on the motherboard and cannot be taken out and etc. After all, I had seen countless of motherboard changing due to NVIDIA. 4 times of motherboard change, can you imagine that? Now the 5th time is coming.

Some of you might never know about this as NVIDIA cover this problem very well. It only release the news of GPU defect on 8400 and 8600 series after countless of graphic card sold although they already find out at the beginning but they don’t have solution. In order to win ATI, they will just continue to sell defect graphic card. What to do? NVIDIA is such a big company, after people find out this thing and they still didn’t get any punishment.

NVIDIA did mention they will replace the graphic card for you, but when your graphic card broken down only. What a joke, can you imagine you carrying a time bomb with you all the time? Even Sony will replace all they defect battery, before they blow up. Is it because of NVIDIA graphic card cannot blow up, that why it wait till broken only happy to replace for you?

I will never buy NVIDIA graphic card!!! No, I should say I will never buy NVIDIA product if I can (Hope ATI still there). Recently, I upgraded my PC to Ubuntu 8.10, but the graphic driver is not working, NVIDIA graphic card again… Argh, I HATE IT.