Shitousan - Lion's Head Mountain

Started the morning with an early phone call from US - I guess "Bedside mode" on my BlackBerry does NOT mean the ringer is off.. Since I'm up, might as well get up. First stop - the concierge desk. I asked them about going to Shitousan. What they said followed what my Lonely Planet book says: take bus to Jhudong, then a different bus to Shitousan. The Shitousan bus is not very often (4 times a day) and he got the schedule for me (I tried to go to the website myself, but it was only in Chinese). I ate breakfast quickly and then waited for the bus - fortunately, the bus to Jhudong passes in front of the hotel. I had to stop 2 buses that says "Zhu Zhong" before getting to the correct one (NO bus numbers make it really hard to figure out the bus system here). I got off at Jhudong where MOST of the people on the bus got out - but I have NO idea where I was suppose to catch the other bus - I only have about 10 mins to figure it out. I randomly asked a girl that was passing by. Fortunately she spoke a little English and walked me to the bus station (just one stop before the one I got off at).
Right on time, the bus left the station. The bus driver wasn't very friendly but an old woman knew what I was trying to say and said it to him. Bus ride took about 40 mins. EVERYONE left the bus one stop before mine. Eventhough it's Saturday, I guess no one goes to this park??? Or at least not using public bus :)
I went to the visitor center where they greeted me in Chinese (like everyone else so far). At least I know the phrase "I don't understand Chinese" - which I utter multiple times in a day. She gave me an English map and called on another person that barely speaks English. She told me where to go and I insisted that I wanted a circular route instead of to and fro and she was surprised. Kinda laughed at me and told me good luck. I went to an off-site cave temple nearby first. The stone steps going down is covered by moss and pretty slipery - all I can think about is how this would create a lawsuit opportunity in US.
I started walking and it was all uphill. I'm definitely out of shape! First temple is Wanfo, which is a welcome relief so that I could pretend on taking pictures instead of walking uphill. This uphill continues forever. Walking through trees with beetles chirping and the occasional birds too. Occasionally there's a break in the trees where you can look out but it's very hazy. Wind blows occasionally which brings a welcomed relief from the slightly humid weather. There are a bunch of different caves temples, pavillions along the route - I think I visited them all although none very impressive. One in particular seems brand new and looks so austere - unwelcoming concrete. I reached the peak where Wangyue Pavillion is - there's also a stone block marking the Hsinchu-Miaoli county borderline. I started up the side trail to the weather station 700 meters away, but turned back halfway when I realized no one goes on this trail and it's not maintained very well. There were some sketchy slippery sections where I could've fallen off 10s of feet down. Maybe wearing my Chaco sandals today wasn't such a good idea afterall.
It's pretty much downhill from here. I finally reached the other side of the mountain where the most famous temple lies - Cyanhua Temple. It's definitely the biggest and nicest looking one. Very ornate roof that seems new. This side of the mountain is where the big parking lot where the tour buses go. I considered having lunch here, but there's no English and I didn't know what to order. I started going back through a side trail to see Kaishan Temple. This trail eventually meets with the first trail I was on. About a mile on the same trail, it branches off to a different trail that pass by Cising Sacred tree - basically a big tree or 7 trees together making one big one. Nothing too interesting on this trail, although I could see the river along side it once in awhile. I hurried down so I won't miss the 2:45 bus because the next one after it is 5:35. The bus came on time. The bus driver is a cheerful old man that tried his mightest to converse with me. It's kinda funny how people would repeat what they're saying louder in the same language even when I said I didn't understand. But my few Chinese lessons helped a little. He asked where I was from and whether I was traveling alone. He bought some oranges from the vendor for WAY cheaper than the sign posted says. The sign says 10 for NT$100. He got about 30-40 oranges for the same price. He insisted that I took 2. I decided to stop by the town Beipu on the way back. The middle of Beipu is crowded with people going to the market. Food is everywhere, which was my main reason why I wanted to stop by here. I saw a long line and decided to try this gooey thing filled with mushroom. It's pretty tasty but has too much MSG to be enjoyable. I also tried ban ciao, which is the wide noodle famous in this Hakka food area. And finally, I tried their lei cha (literary "tired tea") where they pounded tea, nuts, etc and brew it. It's kinda tasty, especially the cold kind. After the food tasting, I took a bus back to Jhudong. When I entered the bus station office, the old bus driver was there and start telling everyone how he met me before and that I'm from US. I was directed to the correct line for the bus back to Hsinchu and I managed to get off at the correct stop. The GPS function on my BlackBerry seems very useful so far. I was so tired that I just took a nice long shower and went to bed.

Setting up HTPC using HDHR and BeyondTV

This is more for my own reference so I don't have to research what I need everytime I'm building a new HTPC.

Hardware I use:
PC
Silicon Dust's HD HomeRun external dual QAM tuner.
Microsoft MCE Remote v2.

Steps:
1. Install OS
2. Install latest version of graphics drivers. I use nVidia, so get it from here. If you use ATI, get it here.
3. Install .NET 2.0 (version used by BeyondTV 4.7.1). Get it here.
4. Install HDHomeRun drivers - this will automatically install VLC too. Get newest drivers here.
5. Install BeyondTV. Get latest version here.
6. Install HIP for remote control. Get it here. During install, select MCE IR plugin. Great instructions here for installation for BeyondTV use. You can download a HIP config file that programs all the remote key for BTV functions there.
7. Instructions in setting up channels with HDHR and BTV here.
very good instructions to setup HDHR
That's pretty much it.

You can improve the BeyondTV install by doing the following:
1. Install new themes. The one I use is Black Metallic.
2. Install new WebAdmin interface. Latest versions here.
3. If you're unsatisfied with the built-in commerical detection (SmartChapters), you can use an external program called ComSkip. Detailed instrution on how to install it in BeyondTV is outlined here. When using batch file, a black DOS window will appear whenever the script is launched. VERY annoying if you're watching something. I use Quick Batch File Compiler so there's no DOS window popping up.

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)

After delays in manufacturing OLPC, I recently got my hands on a new OLPC for a few hours. Currently, the only way of getting your laptop is via the G1G1 program where for $400, you give one laptop to a child in need and you get one. Tmobile was also generous enough to give 1 year of free Tmobile HotSpot service with this!

First impressions:
It's pretty small & light, and cute with a little handle on the top.


It took me a few minutes to open the laptop since I didn't RTFM. Hint: need to open both antennas first before the laptop would open.


This laptop is definitely for kids. Everything seems small. Small screen, small keyboard (so small that I can't touch type on it). The keyboard is not the tactile type, it's molded rubber so it's still OK if you spill stuff on it.


There are some thoughtful design:
The LCD swivels 360 degrees, allowing you to show what on your screen easily.

When you open the antennas, it uncovers USB and headphone/mic jacks. I like the fact that there's one horizontal and one vertical USB ports. Depending on what you try to plug in, sometimes it fits better one way or another (because of the antenna).

It's also equipped with stereo speakers, and even a camera!


I find the software not too intuitive though, at least not for me. A taskbar appears when you drag your mouse button to the edge of your screen. Then there are a variety of applications you can run. The only thing that took me awhile to figure out is how to switch between applications. They have some pretty cool applications pre-installed. Like a video recorder, sound recorder/analyer (you can see the waveform on the screen and it changes when you talk).


Overall, I think it's a good first laptop that will help educate many children abroad. It's not something for me to use daily - even if it's only for web-browsing.

Ubuntu first timer

First, I downloaded GParted free utility to repartition my HD. I reduced my current Windows boot partition to 30gb and left the rest unformated. GParted is a straight-forward FREE program that let you do this. Just boot off the CD that I created off the .iso. Boots with a nice X-windows with the util loaded already. After it's all done, I rebooted to Windows just to make sure that partition still works. Windows ran the diskchk since it thinks the disk is "dirty", but everything is fine after that.
A couple months ago, I requested a ubuntu 7.10 CD. Finally got a chance to put it to use. I booted off the CD. It loaded ubuntu and ran it out of RAM. There's one "install" icon on the desktop and clicking that start the install. I made a mistake and let it choose the biggest partition to install (I should've configured the partition to 30gb and put the rest as a shared storage partition between my windows and linux OSs). While it's installing, I'm free to web-browse using the firefox already loaded. It was by far the easiest Linux install I've experienced (the last time I installed Linux was redhat circa 2003).
That's it! Now I have a dual boot machine in less than an hour.

Dell Inspiron 530s

Got my new Dell Inspiron 530s (the 's' for slim) computer yesterday.



Here's the spec for it:
Intel Core2 Duo processor E6550 (2.33GHz 1333FSB) w/Dual Core Technology and 4MB cache
1GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
Dell USB 4 Button Premium Optical Mouse with Scroll
Dell USB Keyboard
Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100
320GB Serial ATA 2 Hard Drive (7200RPM)
Dell 19-in-1 Media Card Reader
Integrated NIC card
56K PCI Data Fax Modem
16X DVD+/-RW Drive

I ordered on Friday morning. It shipped on Saturday (the next day) and I got it on Tuesday! it's amazing how quickly Dell can configure a computer.
Even though I could've gotten a QuadCore for the same price, it doesn't come in the slim-case version - which would look nicer if I decide to use it as a MediaPC connected to the TV.

The first thing I noticed when I turn on the computer is how LOUD the fan noise is. It's like sitting on the plane near the jet engine.

When I first got a Dell about 5 years ago, I was really impressed by their computers. It was so quiet, well built and nicely engineered. I remembered it was the first time where I saw a clam-shell case (no screws needed) and slide-on HD and optical drives. Many of the features that common cases now have. It was then that I decided that I couldn't beat Dell with price or the quietness - it was the end of computer-building era of my life.
When I heard this new 530s, I thought that era might come back.. yes, it was that loud.


I had thoughts of selling it off immediately. I guess I'm impatient - because if I rebooted the computer just once, I would notice that the fan noise would be gone :) A sure way to fix the fan noise is to reset the BIOS to default settings and start over.

The good thing I like:
The media reader!

In Windows Explorer, you can actually see the icons of the type of media card each drive letter correspond to. This has always been my pet-peeve with multi-media reader, it would pop up as E,F,G,H drives and you don't know which one is which.
Cooler still, the icon would turn to color when you insert a card.

Looking inside the case, everything is pack tight.

Still, there are 2 PCI slots, a x1 PCIe slot and a x16 PCIe slot. They're all half-height (low profile) slots though. Which will make my search for a good video card slightly harder, but I expected as much. My current choice is the MSI 8500GT low-profile fanless video card. It's at the top of my list because it has both HDMI and DVI output. HDMI is useful so that I only need one cable to carry both 1080p and audio.

I do like the fact that this case has space for 2 Hard drives. Most slim cases only have space for 1. It also have 4 memory slots. Currently it's only populated by 2x512MB 667Mhz DIMMs, but I plan to buy at least 2x1GB 800Mhz DIMMs.

My dissapointments:

• No SPDIF!! The onboard audio (HD Realtek) supports 7.1 surround sound, but it doesn't have a simple digital audio output .
• No Gigabit - another cost cutting measure from Dell. My 1.5 year old Dell Dimension E510 comes with Gigabit Ethernet. This brand new one only comes with 10/100.

I got XP home just so I don't feed Microsoft's Vista bandwagon. I fully intended on putting Linux or move my XP MCE from my old computer to here.

Next would be my experiment with ubuntu 7.10 before deciding which OS to keep.

Flickr

Yes, I'm probably one of the late-bloomr in the flickr craze, but I recently found out that Yahoo! is EOL-ing its photo service. When you go to http://photos.yahoo.com, it will ask you to move your photos to a different service. Since flickr is now owned by Yahoo, they have a special deal (which they don't advertise until AFTER you pick flickr) that will give you 3 months free of the pro account. With a pro account, you will have unlimited upload capability. I've been uploading my old pictures like crazy. This also make me realize that I take WAAY too many pictures. It made me take less pictures on my next outing.

The interface is nice and you feel accomplished when you've uploaded a set of pictures. :) Still a long way to go for me, but at least I have a place to show my pictures instead of the dusty DVDs they're in right now....

I fixed it!!

Yes, 4 months later, a few more grey hairs, I finally figured out what was "wrong" with the router. I decided to remove the 'Connection Name' field from the PPPoE connection (made it blank) and it connected! How weird is that?! I tried it both with the Tomato firmware router and the brand new Buffalo WHS-G54S router I bought to fix this problem (which it failed).
Phewwwwww.. still doesn't make sense, but at least I got it fixed.