Published by 9527 August 21st, 2006
in 生活點滴, 無聊之極 and 資訊科技.
I am on leave and will be back to work on Thursday. I am not going anywhere. My main objective of these 3 days is to clean my room. That’s how I spend my vacation … 
When I was cleaning my computer desk this (early) morning, I realized that I had something very very special:
Yes. This is a sound system from Microsoft but Microsoft discontinued this product some time ago. I bought this when I was visiting Microsoft campus (for training) many years ago. I have been using this for more than 7 years and it is still working very fine. I love it so much. 
Published by 9527 July 21st, 2006
in 資訊科技 and Freeware.
Good news! X1® Enterprise Client (formerly X1® Desktop Edition) is now FREE!
I used Yahoo!® Desktop Search (a clone of XDS) because XDS was not free. I talked about this last year. Since X1 is free, I have already switched to X1. 
New for X1 Enterprise Client 5.5:
- New Look & Feel
- Client/Server Federation Option
- Real-time Outlook Email Indexing
- Real-time File Indexing
- Drag & Drop
- General Performance Improvements
- Outlook Calendar Support
- Outlook Task Support
- Attachment Preview within Email
- Range Searching
Go and download it now at http://www.x1.com/download/.
Published by 9527 July 14th, 2006
in 9527.net, 資訊科技 and Freeware.
I got an invitation email from The Google Team two days ago. It said:
Welcome to our beta test!
Thanks for helping us test Gmail for your domain! We’re excited to help you offer Gmail accounts with your domain.
…
I was so excited. I applied for this beta several months ago. I didn’t have any expectation at all. But suddenly I was told that I was in and I could host all my 9527.net mailboxes on Gmail.
Gmail for your domain lets you give Gmail to every user at your domain. This service is hosted by Google so there is no need to install any hardware and software to host mailboxes for your domain. That is, you no longer need your own mail server but Gmail provides you everything to host mailboxes for your domain.
Gmail for your domain is basically the same as the standard Gmail. However, there are some differences (as far as I have observed):
- You can use your own domain address instead of @gmail.com address
- The size of each Gmail for your domain mailbox is 2GB only, not the same as a Gmail account (2.7GB now, but is still growing)
- You can login Google Talk using your own email address
- You can create new mailboxes thru a very nice control panel
- You can customize your own logo to replace the original Gmail and Google Calendar logo
- No Gmail account invitation will be given
- No Gmail / Google Talk personal picture can be set
I am happy with it. If you want to apply for this service, please visit http://www.google.com/hosted/. If you want to have a @9527.net mailbox, please feel free to let me know. (Note: for my family, friends and Vorsichtians only)
Published by 9527 January 7th, 2006
in 資訊科技 and 流動通訊.
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. and ATLANTA, Ga., January 4, 2006 - Lenovo and Cingular Wireless today announced plans to integrate wireless wide area network (WWAN) technology from Cingular in upcoming versions of ThinkPad notebooks. ThinkPad users will have built-in, immediate high-speed Internet access via the Cingular BroadbandConnect service without needing a separate PC card or additional hardware.
Through this agreement, ThinkPad notebooks will be preconfigured for BroadbandConnect, which delivers average mobile data connections between 400-700Kbps (kilobits per second) on the downlink and bursts to more than a megabit per second using Cingular’s third-generation (3G) network based on UMTS/HSDPA technology. With Cingular BroadbandConnect services, users can connect anywhere they receive Cingular Wireless data service and will no longer need to be centrally located near wireless hubs, or WiFi “hot spots,” an ideal situation for mobile and small business professionals who are on the go and often located in areas where WiFi hot spots are not readily available.
… more
3G technologies and applications are getting more mature. Especially when I first read this news, I was really excited and realised that it’s really the right time to get a 3G phone (not really because of this press release but mainly because of streaming TV news, Japan and Korea roaming, etc.). This is really a good example to let people knows that 3G applications are not limited to games, gambling and girls (that’s why we call it 3G!). A laptop computer with embedded 3G technologies is good for people to access the Internet (or private networks thru VPN) on the road at high-speed without the presence of Wi-Fi hotspots.
I guess this is an exclusive deal at this point so I don’t think we can get a 3G enabled ThinkPad until later this year or something. But this is already a good start to have a laptop computer embedding long-range packet radio technologies (most of the laptop computers nowadays come with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi which are classified as short-range packet radio technologies). If you are not familier with 3G technologies, the following references will provide you some basic idea of what they are.
References:
Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Mobile_Telecommunications_System
Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W-CDMA
High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSDPA
Published by 9527 January 2nd, 2006
in 資訊科技, Apple and Freeware.
VLC (initially VideoLAN Client) is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, …) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network. VLC media player runs on multiple operating systems like Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, BeOS, etc. I am currently using it on my iMac. Once I have this installed, I do not need to install anything else because VLC comes with everything that I need to watch my movies and videos in any format. And VLC media player is free.
Published by 9527 December 8th, 2005
in 資訊科技 and Freeware.
Yahoo!® Desktop Search is a FREE desktop search tool which can:
- Find anything on your computer
- Search your instant messages from Yahoo! Messenger
- View results instantaneously - as fast as you can type
- Protect your privacy with easy search controls
- Find information related to your desktop content
I love this tool. This is actually a variant of X1® Desktop Search. X1® Desktop Search is a proven and well-known desktop search tool in the market. Yahoo!® Desktop Search has most of the features of X1® Desktop Search except the network drives indexing and searching capability. Other than that they are exactly the same! And, the most important, Yahoo!® Desktop Search is FREE!
If you are using Windows XP/2000, Yahoo!® Desktop Search is definitely a must have software on your computer.
