Gadzooki

Can Solid State Drives Help Extend Battery Life?

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Asus Eee PC

Notebook designers and manufacturers have long searched for the holy grail of power efficiency. For this reason, the architecture of portable computers has evolved so much since the advent of laptop computers. And one of the main ways to conserve battery life is by reducing hard disk spinning.

Recently, the trend is going towards solid-state storage. This means drives that have no moving parts. Most popular of these is flash memory. They’re cheap, durable, and can hold data even without power (unlike volatile RAM, which loses data when power is off). Since flash memory can allegedly reduce consumption caused by spinning hard drives, some manufacturers have switched to using solid state drives for their mobile computers. There are also flash-based hard drives meant for notebook computers that users can replace their existing drives with.

One such example is the Asus Eee PC (related blog here), an inexpensive ultraportable introduced just late this year.

There is still question, though whether reducing the power consumption of storage media will drastically affect battery life. The answer may be no. While using flash drive reduces consumption, much of a laptop’s power consumption lies elsewhere.

ZDnet has done actual testing to compare consumption between using a conventional hard drive and a flash drive. The findings:

The maximum power difference between a flash drive and a 2.5″ disk is 3 watts. If you average about 3 hours battery life, a flash drive would save at most 9 watt hours (wh). That’s 29 minutes with a 55 wh battery. Less than 20 if it isn’t seeking constantly – and less than 10 minutes if the drive spends half its time in standby mode.

The biggest power sink in my notebook is the “everything else” that stays on when nothing is happening – 13 watts. Next is the CPU when it is busy. Then the display if you keep it above minimum brightness, the DVD/CD player and finally, just above Wi-Fi, a busy disk.

Flash drives have a real advantage in shock resistance over disks. But the performance is about the same as a disk, the power savings minimal and the cost disadvantage huge. They make the most sense for premium ultra-light notebooks with low power CPUs and small screens as well as hand-held devices.

So this means power savings from a solid state drive may be marginal. What’s important is that the computer’s architecture itself is power-saving (i.e., as with how a Pentium-M based processor can throttle down to save on power use, while a Celeron-M based processor does not). Also, it’s in the applications you use.

Still, I personally am hoping that someday our laptops (or other mobile computers) can run more than the usual two- to four-hours they do these days. Maybe 10 hours is good enough. Or maybe a whole day of computing without plugging in? Or perhaps I’m just dreaming.

Children, Reading and Computer Games

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It was widely reported yesterday that the popularity of computer games are being blamed for a drop in the reading skills of primary school pupils, according to a new report. The Reading Literacy Study studies 45 countries in a variety of ways in order to come to some sort of understanding of the level of reading skills across the spectrum.

England has moved down from 3rd in 2001 to 19th in 2006 – something which has shocked many, but not others, who feel that the education system in Britain is currently suffering – which is why there has been all manner of suggestions including keeping children in school until they are eighteen (for those who don’t know, you can leave school in the UK after initial GCSE education, finishing at age sixteen).

Scotland has also plummeted down from 14th place to 26th in the table – so a worrying trend across two of the countries in the UK – despite both having increasing numbers of students attending university.

Schools Minister, Ed Balls, had this to say about the apparent ‘crisis’ in reading:
‘We all need to help our children of all ages to see that reading can bring fun to their lives, feed their imagination, and develop their curiosity about the world,’
‘Today’s 10-year-olds have more choice than in 2001 about how they spend their free time.
‘Most of them have their own TVS and mobiles and 37 per cent are playing computer games for three hours or more a day – more than in most countries in the study.’

I’d like to add this to the minister’s commentary – doing anything for three hours per day (including studying after school) will have a negative impact on your life as a child. However, I’d also say that I’d be extremely surprised if his study was correct – I know from my childhood I had access to games every day, but never had a real chance to play them for three hours during the week. Granted, the weekend was another matter.

This brings me to another minister’s point of view:
‘While the Government says their policies are driving up standards every year, the independent auditors of our education system tell a very different story’
‘We are falling dangerously behind other countries and we know that those from the poorest backgrounds are suffering most.’
This is the view of government minster Michael Gove – Shadow Children’s Secretary. This is pretty much the job of the Shadow government in the UK, they bicker about the other party and then say that their policies are rubbish. Thus, Gove has done a good job here.

Nonetheless, I’d like to combine both points of view. If Gove is saying the government policies aren’t working yet Balls is saying that children are playing games for three hours a day, I’d suggest another thing. Blame the parents, as well as the system.

If you allow your child to spend endless hours doing something (by my calculations it would be in excess of 25 hours per week, given five hours per day at the weekend) then the rest of their free time is significantly reduced. Therefore, parents take note, make sure to get your child involved in reading and writing.

The system is of course also to blame. I’d say (regardless of what both The Daily Mail and The Guardian would have you believe) that literature is in the finest form that it has ever been in these days. We have access to almost every ‘classic’ ever written, along with everything from papers to medical journals online.

Therefore, the system is failing to adequately get children involved in reading, by (as they have done since the dawn of the modern school system) trying to force-feed them books that bare little relation to the modern world, however ‘classic’ we are told they are. I’m pretty sure that a teacher would have far more success with Life of Pi by Yann Martel than he ever would with Great Expectations for instance. And yes, I would say it is just as good. Times have changed, and so have tastes.

I would like to also point out a massive flaw in the argument here – CORRELATION DOES NOT INDICATE CAUSALITY. In plain English, just because there are more children with tv’s, mobiles and playing computer games, that does not mean that modern technology lies at the heart of this apparent lowered standard for reading and writing. Unless there is another study done to try and find out why children are spending less time with books (I’d be surprised if it’s not in some way because of the parents) then this is just knee-jerk reactionism.

I’ve defended computer games before and I’ll continue to do so as long as I am playing – which I would imagine will be for as long as I can remember. I think one thing Balls et al are forgetting is that their education was probably patently inferior to the education now provided to many children – I’m certainly aware that my cousin (who is fourteen) is now learning HTML, something I was sadly never educated in at school!

As a footnote, I not only a games player but an avid book reader. In fact, I have too many. I donate books now and then. Who knows, maybe one of these will be a book that manages to bring the magic of reading into a child’s life. I can only hope so, because just like computer games, reading can transport you to a magic world that’s all your own.

Google Talk: what now?

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While not very uncommon in the Google universe where products and services are in a perpetual state of beta, Google Talk sticks out like a sore thumb in contrast to the adoption and improvements other products have seen, such as Gmail (where frankly, the only thing missing is IMAP support and I’ll be a happy boy) and Google, the one search service to rule them all in the Web 2.0 world, that not so long ago implemented “integrated search results” where links, images and video all appear in the same search results page without having to go to Google Image Search and Google Video separately.

Google has made enough truckloads of money to cover acres and acres of land and sometimes I find myself asking if that has somehow made it into their heads, thinking dipping a foot and single-handedly stomping the competition at the already-saturated instant messaging market should be a piece of cake. What was it exactly that Google missed? Like every other one of their services, they did the obvious by using the existing accounts without having to require users to sign up independently for Gtalk, and thanks to Gmail, these days a Google account is about as ubiquitous as having a social security number. Later on Gtalk even got integrated into Gmail, but that didn’t help much. Gtalk also implemented making calls over the internet right from the beginning, hot in the heels of Skype and Yahoo doing the same thing. There was also lovin’ for the influential open-source community, in the form of Jabber support and libjingle. On paper, it seemed like the perfect plan to dethrone AIM, the mothership of all IM clients.

For one, we’re now seeing the results of the sticky situation that was choosing an IM client people faced back in the day. Actually there was no “choosing” to begin with; I was 11 when I first discovered the joy of IM, and I was on a crusade for the use of MSN Messenger, fought tooth and nail against Yahoo Pager, because I didn’t like the dated interface and weird-looking smileys (seriously). IM is no fun when you’re all by yourself and alas, I had to give in to the obsessed Yahoo crowd I was around with. Fast forward 11 years and here I am, still around the same set of people, still on Yahoo Messenger. I doubt that’s going to change soon – not for me, not for the MSN users in the U.S., not for ICQ/AIM users of the rest of the world.

Oh and another thing, the Gtalk interface is too spartan. People like their IM clients pink and fluffy and bloated with features that are never really put into everyday use (think of Live Messenger and AIM Triton).

Right when Gtalk seemed like a doomed project, best left for logging chat transcripts you want to keep records of, the big surprise: last this week we see Google getting ready to snap up the 700MHz band opened up in the U.S., up against Verizon and the others. Why would they want this, and what would Google do with it? TWiT 106 raises a very interesting and not-so-far fetched possibility: the “Google phone” rumors might actually be a set of applications designed to make over-the-internet calls. Now let me add to the conspiracy: remember GrandCentral acquisition just a few weeks back? The writing’s on the wall: the acquisitions and bids for more is extending Google’s hold into the communications market, and the instrument of doom: Gtalk. Hah!

My premonition: GrandCentral’s technology integrated into a wifi-enabled device, iPhone-looking with a button on the main screen labeled “Gtalk”. User pushes Gtalk button and makes a call – over the internet via the exclusive Google-owned spectrum untarnished by all other web traffic from the unregulated internet pipes. Lovely. When that day comes, we’ll all say goodbye to unreasonable air time rates.

Smarter Microsoft for a happier Windows

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Some weeks back, Google jumped at Microsoft for – or so the charge goes – making it difficult for third-party providers to implement desktop search solutions – in Windows Vista. Microsoft responded by promising a change in Windows Vista Service Pack 1 where desktop search options will be included in the “Program Defaults” control panel option. From here you can select built-in search, Google Desktop Search and whatnot. Microsoft insists that native search indexing is too baked into the core operating system that it’s impossible to shut it down altogether, but a link alongside each window’s search box results which they will be providing should compensate. End of story? Not just yet.

Google, probably thinking it has one-upped Microsoft, tries to push it even further, and started asking for something more than a link – a “step in the right direction”, but not quite. The funny thing that happened here? In a manner unlikely you expect of the DOJ, they actually sided with Microsoft and declared the concession “enough” already. Google shuts up. Turns out what seemed like a weakening Microsoft, giving in to Google so easily, was actually just being coy about the whole thing. The book of what was bound to be a lengthy series of lawsuits on a matter as focused as desktop search suddenly gets closed, and Microsoft gets away, with Vista relatively unscathed.

While we’re on the topic of Windows Vista SP1, you might have heard that Steven Sinofsky (from the Microsoft Office 2007 group) replaced the reverend Jim Allchin when he stepped out of Redmond’s campus. News is, all the transparency that was while under Allchin gets thrown out the door. No more roadmaps if only to drop features down the pike, no more release dates only to slip, none of that. I specifically remember only three points in Office 2007’s development, what was Sinofsky’s group at that time, where screenshots flooded the internet: (1) a peek at Office 12 immediately after Office 2003’s release, which made sense since people are always on the lookout for what’s next; (2) the limited-group Office 12 beta – which was over a year after the first; and (3) the unveiling of Office 12 at PDC 2005 (or was it WWDC?) with the Ribbon interface and the public beta that followed.

If that’s anything to go by, we’re likely to see less press fodder on a significantly smaller project such as a service pack over a full-fledged suite as Office. True enough, it’s already the end of July and we’ve heard practically nothing – and Microsoft is required by the US DOJ to have some form of Vista SP1 ready by November this year. On a more typical day we would’ve at least heard of a target date. Today? Nada. Zilch.

Turn down the aggression slider a notch, and play smart, not hard with the rest of the tech industry. Under-promise and over-deliver. Maybe Microsoft isn’t so dead after all.

We Live in a World of Cons

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con1.JPG

Conventions and conferences, that is. (If you thought of the seedier “con”, that’s not wrong, too.) For simplicity’s sake, let’s lump in trade fairs, exhibits, and symposia to our little word for the day.

Browsing through today’s dailies reveals a lot of cons being held all over the sprawling conurbation I call home, Metro Manila. For sure, there are many more being planned and held in wealthier cities in wealthier countries, as I write these words.

These cons run the gamut of conceivable interests, hobbies, and disciplines. In one international computer science magazine alone, I found around 40 computing-related events to be held around the world in the next three months. Just last month, the FCRC 2007 in San Diego, California served as the mother lode for almost 20 separate conferences – cons within a con.

And that is just for one field. Year after year, in this little, Third World corner of the world where I live in, cavernous malls (the Philippines has 3 of the world’s largest 10), five-star hotels, and expo grounds are flocked by millions of not-so-rich yet not-so-poor people attending book cons, toy cons, gardening cons, computer cons, food cons, comic cons, sporting arms cons, SME cons, gaming cons, name-it cons.

It is such a vibrant scene where millions upon millions of pesos change hands, leading me to conjecture that if it weren’t for a glaring and yawning gap between those above and below the poverty line, the Philippines would be a Second World nation.

 

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For me, today’s breadth and depth of cons in any country demonstrate:

1) A decent, if not great, spending power on the part of the consumers (better if there are lots of them, e.g. 11-million strong Metro Manila);

2) A decent, if not great, confidence on the part of companies, businessmen, and the cons’ sponsors;

3) An effective communications infrastructure – newspapers, magazines, TV, radio country-centric websites/forums/e-groups – with a good subscriber base. This spurs consumer participation and, consequently, helps sustain the success and commercial viability of the cons.

4) The advancement of a society as it moves from general interests to more focused ones – a computer scientist now has the luxury and resources to specialize in multi-agent systems, a green thumb specializes in cacti and succulents, a video gamer specializes in MMORPGs. Best of all, the market is wide enough accommodate both the general cons and the specialized cons.

I haven’t attended a wide variety of cons (I’ve gone to mostly tech and arts events), but I do feel blessed that I live in this “con world”. I know that if and when I delve into a new hobby or interest, chances are there’s a con already waiting for me…as long as the hobby’s not too obscure, of course. (But even then, there are esoteric cons!)

 

con3.jpg

What does this “world of cons” offer me?

I view cons as a venue for education. It’s a good place to pick up both the basic and advanced facets of a field; to learn the types of people, organizations, and products tied to it; to familiarize one’s self with the unique terminologies and idiosyncrasies of the hobby; to broaden one’s view of – this will sound cliché – the world.

I view cons as a venue for human networking. Which is quite a daft conclusion, as cons are meant to make one person interact with another person. (Or at least, make one company/product/institution represented by a person interact with another person.) It’s one of the best places to build your list of contacts, clients, employers, partners, and even rivals.

Last but not the list, I view cons as a venue for shopping therapy. Cons often boast of discounted or hard-to-find products. These events present a great (if not the best) array of related products, from the mainstream to the arcane, all in one roof. Cons also present the best way to empty your wallet (and assure yourself of an empty stomach), just to get that wondrous feeling of, “W00t! I bought something cool for myself!”

Speaking of shopping therapy, I’ve got to save some cash, and save it soon – the 28th Manila International Book Fair is just a month away!

Is Google showing signs of growing pains?

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In a move that will potentially position me as Gadzooki’s official Google warden (after Mac basher, Microsoft fanboy, and what-have-you), today we will delve into the wonderful world of technology politics making it more obvious that Google is not an industry sweetheart out to just spread the love. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: Google is laying out (and probably already has!) the foundations of its world domination schemes.

Earlier this week they already took center stage for whining to the authorities about how Microsoft, with Windows Vista, is making it difficult and unfair to third parties who think they can do a better job at local/desktop search. Google’s contention is that like the browser and mail client and media player applications, local search is central to the end-user experience and that Microsoft should play the field as such and provide means for alternate solutions. Surprisingly, Microsoft announced that Vista’s first service pack will indeed provide this means, via a socket in the already-existent Default Programs dialog, which itself was an outcome of a previous ruling against Microsoft’s perceived monopoly. Google then recognized this “step” in resolving the issue, and looks forward to a fairer move (read: put competitors in equal footing with native Vista search) to ultimately end this tussle.

Here’s an über-burger analogy: should Burger King put a McDonalds’ Big Mac poster next to one with a Whopper right in their own stores because McDonalds makes better burgers? I didn’t think so.

Another big story of the week: a post entitled “Life at Google” over at the freshly-minted No2Google blog details the culture and goings-on of life Google. While it says “The Microsoftie Perspective” right up front, there appears no official Microsoft financing whatsoever (frankly, something like this from the Redmond camp will put them at a bad rep, plus I’d figure they’d change the theme to something other than the WordPress default). It makes for a very interesting read, if not to only have a better insight at who’s been brewing all these very compelling services.

Does the future bode well for Google? With the amount of dependency we as the internet community have grown, it certainly does not look like Google is going away anytime soon. The closest thing I see to “fall down”, or “demise” if that’s even a valid argument against Google, is the very essence of what Web 2.0 is – the No2Google blog is already a crack in the ice – in the end, democracy in the Web prevails, and those who power and drive this new age on the Web will not let them get away with more than what they should; be it Google, or Microsoft, or any other evil empire.

The Real Deal With Safari’s Font Rendering

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The word is out. The next major release of Apple’s web browser Safari–version 3–is upcoming, and a public beta has been made available for download. And an even bigger news is that there is now a version available for Windows! I think we had this coming. Ever since Apple switched over to the dark side (Intel, that is!), theoretically most (if not all) of their software can be run on Intel-compatible PCs.

I’m actually surprised it took Apple this long to release Apple for Windows. I’m of the opinion that the next software wars will not be fought on the desktop, but online–on the browser. And while the browser used doesn’t matter as much as the applications/sites it’s being used on, it still pays to have a hold over part of the market.

At any rate, much has been said about the high points and low points of Safari, particularly the Windows port. Ia recently reviewed it here, and gave it a dismal 0.5 rating (meaning it’s more or less neutral, leaning a bit to the positive side). There have been a lot more reviews on the blogosphere, but here’s one thing in common that I see: Windows users are very bothered by the on-screen font rendering.

People say it’s horrible. It’s blurry and it’s not crisp at all. The typeface also looks fatter than usual, and occupies more space than it should.

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Image from joelonsoftware.com.

Okay, coming from the tech agnostic (really?) camp, meaning one who uses Windows and OS X side by side on a day-to-day basis (sometimes simultaneously navigating both laptops with both hands), I can say the difference is there, but it shouldn’t be such a big deal. For one, I’ve always known the Mac to render typefaces beautifully and as if faithful to the written/printed word. Windows, meanwhile, has focused more on the screen.

Joel Spolsky writes an excellent analysis here. He writes that this difference stemmed from Apple’s roots in desktop publishing. Microsoft’s approach is more pragmatic, though.

The difference originates from Apple’s legacy in desktop publishing and graphic design. The nice thing about the Apple algorithm is that you can lay out a page of text for print, and on screen, you get a nice approximation of the finished product. This is especially significant when you consider how dark a block of text looks. Microsoft’s mechanism of hammering fonts into pixels means that they don’t really mind using thinner lines to eliminate blurry edges, even though this makes the entire paragraph lighter than it would be in print.

But in the end, it’s psychology that will be the real deal breaker. Joel sums it up here.

… Apple users liked Apple’s system, while Windows users liked Microsoft’s system. This is not just standard fanboyism; it reflects the fact that when you ask people to choose a style or design that they prefer, unless they are trained, they will generally choose the one that looks most familiar. In most matters of taste, when you do preference surveys, you’ll find that most people don’t really know what to choose, and will opt for the one that seems most familiar. This goes for anything from silverware (people pick out the patterns that match the silverware they had growing up) to typefaces to graphic design: unless people are trained to know what to look for, they’re going to pick the one that is most familiar.

It’s not a question of which is better. It’s a matter of which you are used to, and which you would rather stick with. So this means Safari’s font rendering is not weird and wrong. It’s meant to be that way; there is a reason.

Now I was thinking designers and web publishers would have one reason to celebrate–they no longer need to buy new hardware (Macs) just to test browser compatibility. I for one, have found Safari to be helpful in weeding out inconsistencies in coding and design work (e.g,. missing/misplaced closing DIV tags. Damn those DIV tags).

Reality check (stoking the fire long after the Apple fanboys vs Ryan Block faux pas)

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Short version of the title story: Engadget reports “they have it on authority” that the iPhone and Mac OS X Leopard will be delayed; Apple’s stocks go down; the whole thing was found to be a kludge; Apple’s stocks shot right back up.

The story doesn’t end there, however. The debacle stirred the Mac faithful, and illogical, inconsistent, and irrelevant attacks were all there was to find among rabid Mac fanboys’ podcasts and blogs (no need for a link there, that’s a whole lot of pimping work). Surprised? You must have been sitting duck with your Windows 98 machine without an internet connection, but that’s just because you’re careful of catching the latest attacks against the NT kernel and how the whole thing succumbs to a sneaky little mouse cursor like a house of cards.

While on the topic of Mac fanboys polling against the NT kernel employed in Windows 2000, XP and now Vista (albeit reworked every step up): it’s amusing how they still use the eons-dated argument about Windows being so much less stable than Macs. There is not even need for technical knowledge to understand what’s going on here: the more factors that come into play, the better flexibility there is to the system, and the more odds there are that something will go wrong. We suddenly begin to wonder, is the world lacking common sense nowadays?

Which leads me to a bit wisdom my girlfriend taught me: if one finds something seemingly too expensive, he is not the market segment targeted at, and the call at which price point products and services are offered does not fall on the consumer. The only one consideration on pricing is how much the consumer is willing to pay for the products – nothing more, nothing less.

There is something utterly disgusting about all forms of fanboy-ism and reality distortion. (Yes, the earth is flat and I would not have it any other way if the authorities say so.) Members of the religion I instituted that is Tech Agnosticism also do not understand how is it logical to attribute abhorrence of a certain technology to the personalities that run the companies that make them. Finally, there is something utterly shammy about using strong language against the anti-fanboys in the public space that is the Internet, and then taking offense when one is dealt with in the same unfriendly manner.

Do You Click or Do You Tap?

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I’ve been an avid laptop user since the time I was first assigned a laptop at work. Laptops I used included Thinkpads with trackpoint nubs, Compaq Presarios with the usual touchpads, an iBook and a Powerbook, both of course with one-button trackpad clickers. With my experiences I tend to think that one’s machine would define one’s habits.

For instance, when the Thinkpad was my main work computer, I was really used to the trackpoint nub. I could work with touchpads, but I could do things faster with the trackpoint, especially because of the proximity of the nub with where my forefinger usually lies on the keyboard.

Now that both my laptops have touchpads, I still have what I would say are strange habits when it comes to touchpad use. I don’t tap to click. I use the clicker.

I guess I formed the habit of clicking instead of tapping from two things. First is my preference for trackpoints before. Second, is because of the Mac default for not registering taps as clicks.

On most Windows-based laptops, the default setting would be for the touchpad to take a tap as a left-click. On Mac laptops, though, the default is for the touchpad (called the trackpad in this case) to ignore taps or read them as part of cursor movement. You click the button to click. Simple as that.

I’m not sure if I stand well with majority of laptop users out there. Most people I know are used to tapping rather than clicking. And I sometimes watch them in fascination how they tap on stuff instead of clicking (and even double-tap to drag).

One drawback of having the tap-to-click feature of touchpads is if your touchpad driver doesn’t have tap filtering. Sometimes your palm would brush the pad while you’re typing, and the movement registers as a click. Your mouse cursor would then select a point elsewhere in the document or worse, to some other window.

You can see how much of a clicker I am (rather than a tapper) by how much my year-old Presario’s rubbery left clicker has faded. On my Powerbook, though, the single clicker is still clicky and springy even after years of use–as if it were new. But that’s another story.

Google’s Omni’s

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Just this afternoon on the way to Robinsons Ermita I was hit with a question I’ve never thought about asking before – is there anything else Google has not thought about? Some things to keep in mind:

Google is everywhere
The ubiquitous search engine, Gmail, Blogger, Orkut, News, Google Earth! Sometimes I think about being shot nude while soaking up the sun in middle of Boracay.

Google has all the answers
Google even knows you’re too lazy to type in ‘www’ and ‘.com’ and he keeps his mouth shut when your Google.com home page’s first search of the day involves your daily dose of sweet, sweet Gmail pleasure. Seriously, dude. How hard is it to type a four-letter word and hit CTRL + enter?

Google’s power pwnz joo
All we like sheep have turned over our emails and pictures and embarrassing search terms that make you think “I wish no one saw me search for that”, not to mention our full names and home addresses and credit card numbers and the maiden names of our mothers because Google is so damn easy to trust, unlike that other company. Not to say that Google will rat us all out one day, but my gut tells me we are all bound to be doomed when today’s feel-good Google gods and goddesses transcend time and space and an evil empire rises from within.

It’s becoming frighteningly more difficult to resist the power that Google as a company yields over the web. Backed by the brightest minds, every new idea seems to have come from the G camp, and we are left without a compelling reason to turn our backs and go to the competition. I would like to see the day when Yahoo and Microsoft and even more players come into the scene and take it out like wild animals in a galactic battle for the best services. In the end it’s always the consumer who benefits from competition, however fierce it may be.