I thought I the 95W version of 1055T 6 core Phenom was finally available in the US but it turns out to be a typo. It came up on the search for "HDT55TWFK6DGR" which linked me to TigerDirect.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6455299&sku=A79-1155

When I read the title and the description it doesn't match. I used the chat feature and asked which version it was and they responded that it was the 125W version. Hope to upgrade soon.

VLC 1.1.1 and Catalyst 10.7 have been out for a few days now. I've got it installed and trying it out. The biggest change is the use of graphics card to play videos which should offload the demand off the processor. I've tried it out and this is the result. I used Big Buck Bunny 1080p h264. They both run smooth with or without the acceleration but with acceleration the demand on the CPU is much less.

Without Acceleration CPU utilization starts out at 45% and goes between 15 to 25 at times jumping to 35% throughtout the movie.

With Acceleration the CPU utilization goes from 6% to 12% throughout the movie.

You can find BBB at http://www.bigbuckbunny.org/ and VLC at http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ and Catalyst at http://www.amd.com.

The following are some technologies I miss of the last decade. Some of it can be found on the first computer that I put together, an Athlon 800 MHz. Even earlier was my first packaged computer was an IBM Aptiva 486 SX2 50 MHz. These technologies not found on newer computers like the one I'm using right now which is an Athlon 64 X2. Parallel Port or Printer port. My new computer doesn't come with this port. I had a 10 year old Vision Paperport 3000 scanner that I couldn't use on the new computer. One of our project in College used the parallel port for a Cellphone Charging Machine. Everything seems to USB now.

Serial Port. I never really used this much. One way to use it is for Null Modem Cable. It's a way to transfer files from one computer to another. Using the same Null Modem Cable we played Total Annihilation on two computers. Computers didn't usually come with network cards and this was the easiest and cheapest way to connect two computers.

Joystick/Midi port. This is a port smaller than the parallel port but bigger than a serial port. I had a few joysticks or gamepad that plug use these. Though computer games rarely use joystick, Flight simulator games works great when played with a joystick.

Zip Drive. I never owned this but I know some people who used to use this a lot. It's like a 100 MB floppy drive. It's slow but holds much more than a 3.5" floppy. Nowadays USB drive have taken over. They are faster, cheaper, has more capacity, and more convenient since there are no special drive and media to buy.

Floppy Drive. My first computer had a 3.5" floppy. 5.25" inch floppy disk was on its way out even back in those days. School projects were sometimes submitted on floppies though floppies have a reputation of getting corrupted causing students to get lower grades or to fail unnecessarily. Some would remember AOL disk come to their door and have a collection.

LS 120 Optical or Super Floppies. This never became popular. It was expensive and prices never came down. The only advantage was that it read 1.44 MB floppies and 120 MB Supper Floppies.

Parallel ATA. This is still found on my computer but only one ribbon for two drives. AMD tends to hold on to older technologies while Intel tend be the first to phase them out. It's great for using older CD-ROM drives. Newer Intel motherboards are completely devoid of this interface.

CRT Monitors. I'm still using two hand-me-down CRT monitors in dual screen mode. I had to use two DVI to VGA converter to connect them. Looking around it seems you can't even buy CRTs anymore. Everything seems to be LCDs. And just recently I notice only wide screen are being made. I'm waiting for the new Multi-touch screen to become more available and cheaper. Acer has just release one. I'll get one of those when these CRTs give out.

AGP port. I can't find these anymore. PCI express is the current standard. I remember you had to get a motherboard this port for the best graphics card around.

ISA port. This was being phased out when I assembled my first computer some 10 years ago. Some motherboard had PCI/ISA convertible slots which you can physically plug in a PCI or an ISA but not both. My sound blaster card used ISA.

Ball Mouse. Yeah. These things do get dirty and are hard to clean. It's a ball inside the mouse which rolls and cause two rollers to move left or right and up and down on the screen. Don't know if they make them anymore.

Dial Up Modems. Yeah everybody has got broadband now it seems. My SEGA Dreamcast came with a 56K modem, thanks to those engineers which pushed to have it included in the North American version of the console. I used this to order most of my computer parts to assemble my first computer. An Athlon 800 mhz. This computer was fast. I could download and play MP3 on the computer. 20 GB was feeling spacious.

Next post will be some software missed.

Recent upgrade is two pairs of 2 GB memory for 8 GB of DDR2 1066 mhz total memory from an old pair of Kingston 1 GB sticks for 2 GB total. The new memory is running at 800 mhz for now because of the limit of the memory controller on my Athlon 64 X2 5000+ AM2 to 800. My computer is running a lot smoother. Before this I thought the RAID setup was ineffective but now I can see that it is with shorter load times.

The next upgrade I'm planning on getting is the new Phenom II 1055T (HDT55TWFK6DGR, HDT55TWFGRBOX) 95W version. Motherboard is limited to 95W TDP processors. I also updated the BIOS so it should be ready to install. This will be great for when I am rendering my 3D videos on Blender. From what I read on the internet is has made available in Japan but not anywhere else.

Also sometime in the future maybe I'll get some new LCD monitors. Still using two 17" CRT monitor in a dual display mode. It's a hand me down monitor. I'll replace it when it breaks down.

Previous upgrade I did was RAID 0 to a pair of 500 GB Western Digital Black and RAID 1 to a pair of Western Digital Green. I put my system on RAID 0 and my data on RAID 1. It's not an SSD but runs pretty fast.

The Video Card is a Radeon HD 4650 which I won as part of AMD's 40th anniversary contest on YouTube. Would have been satisfied with the onboard graphics but free is free. Not a heavy gamer anyways.

Winners were announce. No luck this time. 48 Cores went to 48 Cores for cancer. 800 entries only one was chosen.

blogs.amd.com/work/2010/04/15/winner-announced-what-would-you-do-with-48-cores/

A long time ago, as far as anyone can remember, nobody had grocery insurance. Grocers compete with other grocers for customers this in turn keep the grocer's prices low or at least reasonable. Shoppers can shop at the nearest location or look for a lower priced grocer elsewhere.

Then grocery insurance companies showed up. At first they covered only emergency items which include nonperishable goods and emergency supplies. Items that usually are not needed every day but only on rare occasion like in an emergency. Few people had insurance and everything was nearly as it was. People either shopped at their nearest grocery store or look for a cheaper price elsewhere.

At some point somebody decided that grocery insurance should be offered as benefits by employers. After some time, more people had insurance and insurance covered more and more grocery items. People can go to the groceries, buy a bunch of stuff and pay nothing out of pocket except maybe a small copay. Ironically this copay is about the same price someone pays before insurance became ubiquitous. But nobody noticed because prices has gone up twenty folds and copay looks cheap compared to what someone was to pay without insurance. What was different was that insurance hindered the ability of the consumer to vote with their wallets the price they should pay for groceries. It created a moral hazard for grocery companies to raise prices because insurance companies will pay the bill anyways and pass the cost to the consumer. This caused the prices to spiral out of control.

The government in its attempt to help the poor and/or those that can't afford grocery insurance, stepped up and said everyone will be covered, no one will turned down because of preexisting conditions like being overweight. Everyone gets a food ration. The government decides what you can and will eat. The government will make frequent visit to your fridge at home to check for compliance. If you don't follow their direction you will pay a fine, be put to jail and/or go through rehabilitation.

This is just fiction. There are no grocery insurance as far I know.

This will be my entry to the new contest AMD is having(4). Hope I win.

What will I do with 48 cores? 48 cores will help out greatly on our first Pinoy open movie project. Pinoy Blender users around the world can participate in the development of this animated short. It is a story about Ferdinand Magellan’s landing on the Philippine Islands.

Before the day Magellan landed on the Philippine Islands, it was simply known as Maharlika. Each island was ruled by different tribes by leader known as datu. On Mactan Island, it is ruled by Lapu Lapu. There were some interisland conflicts which Lapu Lapu was able to overcome. When Magellan arrived on to neighboring island natives on those islands allowed themselves to be taken under Spain’s control and be Christianized in exchange they would conquer Mactan Island. Magellan set off to conquer Mactan Island and is killed by Lapu Lapu on Mactan shore. Magellan’s crew continued on to circumnavigate the world without Magellan.  Lapu Lapu became the first Filipino to resist the Spanish colonial influence.

The project is in its storybook phase. There are design concepts scattered about.  We got the script and a storybook is being drawn (2, 3). The people that contribute to this project do so on their free time and do not get paid. The group has been mentioned by Ton Roosendaal (1), the lead developer of Blender the open source media creation software. They themselves are busy with their own Durian project in Amsterdam and coding the new version Blender 2.50, that’s two point fifty, redesigned from scratch.
If we get this prize, there will be no more reason to procrastinate we got 48 cores to feed.

1. http://www.blendernation.com/interview-with-ton-roosendaal/   @10:50
2. http://www.pinoyblender.com/
3. http://buko.pinoyblender.org/
4. http://blogs.amd.com/work/2010/03/03/48-cores-contest/

A new screen comming out dubbed CELL will have 4k by 2k resolution and will be lit up by 512 LED light. This would make the dark area and the bright area of an image more darker or more brighter for better contrast.


At the Venetian I got lost. I kept finding myself at the Palazo. Just follow the sign to the conference room and I finally got there. Philips was showing iPod docking stations. I asked them why so many iPod docks and not many others. The answer is that iPod dominates 90% of MP3 sales dollar wise but not necessarily unit wise. Also some portable digital TVs, DVD player with screen and some alarm clock. One alarm clock is a charging station with many adapters inside.

One room I've stumbled upon is the Ubuntu room which is the few places where I got free stuff. A USB Flash memory with an OS inside and installer CD. One thing the guy mentioned is WUBI. It installs Ubuntu like it was a windows program but you run it like a dual boot. You don't have to mess with partitions on your harddrive.

One laptop I came across is this Lenovo laptop using ARM processor. It has a customized Linux OS. It's stylish like a make up case. You can browse the internet, you can view pictures but not edit them. Basically it's lite device with a not so lite price

This was my first time at CES. I felt very out of place amongs men in expensive suits. What am I? Just a little blogger. I proceeded to the place anyway. The place took up the Hilton, the Las Vegas Convention center where my High School graduation took place and the Venetian. I arrived early at 7:00 am at the Hilton expecting a large crowd. There hardly anyone in line. Then I preceded to follow the other guest to the opening keynote speakers.

Gary Shapiro drove into the stage in a FORD car. The main topic of his speech is the role of government and how laws can either hurt or help innovation. He was definately against the bailout. Bailed out companies would have to compete with other companies strugleling with the economy and bailed out companies would have an unfair advantage over those that didn't get bailed out.

One of the car company that had not accepted any bail out from the government is FORD. And they are the next presentor of this keynote. They are presenting connectivity of their cars while minimizing distraction for drivers. They will use in dash display, Voice command, and touch. In other words the GUI, VUI and TUI.

Moving on, the immediate booths outside the keynote room was the international booths. It had an area for different Asian country. One for Hong Kong, Taiwan. China. Nothing particularly interesting about it. The one that caught my attention are LED lights. Though CFL, Compact Flourecent bulb was just as low powered, LED don't contain mercury and also LED last much longer. Years longer.

Crossed the street to the Convention center. Passed by some booths for cars. Found a nice LCD panels to replace the wiplash head rest of your car.

There are some LCD displays in an aquarium under water showing its durability against water.

AMD ATI is showing their video card with Eyefinity. This treats the screen in multidisplay as one image.

On the nVIDIA booth they are showing Avatar game in 3D in 3 projector screens. You need glasses to see it. Though the 3D technology was available in the original GeForce card 10 years ago. This one is not out yet at least the 3 screen 3D ones.

I've had this NAS for awhile now. It was part of a contest. I was to copy this page and repost on my blog. You've seen it for awhile if you visit my blog. I was chosen an received mine. It needs two SATA laptop harddrives so I haven't been able to use it. Just would like to post it. Thanks.