Bixi, Bicycle Sharing

I have a bike, but right now it is out of commission. At this present time, I would be a good customer for Bixi, a bicycle sharing program.

It works by going to one of the bike stations that you see in the picture here, and borrowing one of the bikes. All a user needs is a credit card, and then the user can ride around freely as they normally would with their own bike. Once the user is done, he or she simply returns it to another bike station.

I am not certain how Bixi keeps track of all of its bikes, but I’m told that the setup is “computer-chip based, solar-powered, and Wi-Fi enabled”.

Montreal is the first North American city to host this program, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t the last. I’ve never heard of Bixi before, but it really is a program that is ingenious in its simplicity.

In fact, this bicycle sharing program has to be big in certain regions of Asian countries like China. I’ve seen pictures of Asian bicycle racks that rival parking garages in the Western world. If Bixi doesn’t have presence in places like these, then it really ought to.

But hey, who am I to offer advice to a bike lender? Right now, I am in need of one. Too bad I’m not in Montreal.

Source

RIDE set to Thrill

The skateboard is one mode of transport that tends to lean more towards the hardcore segment of the population as there is a huge international scene behind it. Well, for those who prefer to experience the thrills minus the spills, here’s the new Tony Hawk: RIDE game from Activision Publishing which will require the gamer to play physically using an innovative motion sensing skateboard controller. We’re guessing seasoned skaters will find this to be much easier to use compared to those who have even yet to try out the Wii Balance Board.

Tony Hawk: RIDE features a wireless skateboard controller designed in conjunction with the game to offer a dynamic gaming experience built from the ground up. Using a combination of accelerometers and motion sensors, the intuitive controller allows players to physically control the action by performing various movements and gestures on the board that directly translate into amazing tricks in the game. Without complex button combinations or analog sticks, gamers of all skill levels can literally step on the board and play!

Those who are interested can check out Tony Hawk: RIDE when it arrives later this year - just make sure you’re rocking to an Xbox 360, PS3 or Wii consoles.

Source

UFO-shaped Electronic Drums

Do you have the beat of drums coursing through your hands that you can’t wait but to express it? Well, this concept UFO-shaped Electronic Drums by Petr Kubik ought to fit the bill if they ever make it off the manufacturing line, featuring a smooth surface that will emit a sound whenever you strike your palm against it. Needless to say, the harder you beat it, the louder the sound is, but hopefully you won’t crack the thing in the process since it isn’t made out of tough cow hide. Gotta love the psychedelic lights that appear to suit your current playing style - that certainly adds to the overall mood.

Source

Another Acer Fan Control Program

Here is another Acer Fan Control Program called A1CTL by Noda

Works for Acer Aspire Laptops as well.

I prefer this one as no installation is required just need to run with Admin permission.

Another Acer Fan Control Program called 1810tray by Intek.
Originally meant for Acer Timeline 1810 but works well on other Acer Laptops as well.

PC Troubleshooting Advice

Post Your Computer Related Problems here

Although sometimes I might not be able to solve your issue I can probably point you in the right direction.

FAQ:

My laptop is hot even when not doing anything:

First Download and Run HWMonitor to check if it is really hot internally.
Also a hot laptop can result in sluggish gaming performance as the computer detect high internal temperature and attempts to reduce performance to reduce the temperature increase.

Hot CPU/GPU Possible Solutions:

• Check you have AMD Processor Driver Installed IF YOU ARE USING WINDOWS XP.

• Download Acer Fan Control and decrease the temperature for the Fan to Activate so the fan will spin more often to bring down the temperatures.

• For advance users

1. If you have sent it for repairs open it up and replace the thermal paste using a better brand like Arctic MX2 the technician probably didn't replace the thermal paste when they dissembled it.
2. Replace the default thermal pads and thermal paste to a high quality type such as Arctic Cooling MX-2 or Arctic Silver 5 after dissembling the laptop.
3. Run Acer Fan Control Utility while gaming.
4. Tear away the air filter at the bottom of the laptop to allow better air flow (I did this)
5. UnderVolt your Processor

Hot GPU only Possible Solution:

• Check if PowerMizer is enabled
• Replace the default thermal pads and thermal paste to a high quality type such as Arctic Cooling MX-2 or Arctic Silver 5 after dissembling the laptop.
  
• Run Acer Fan Control Utility while gaming.
  
• Tear away the air filter at the bottom of the laptop to allow better air flow (I did this)
  

Acer Aspire 4530WebCam shows nothing:

WebCam solution

• Use the Bison AP Driver the SuYin one is really problematic and the Bison Driver Work on the WebCams and try to make sure the webcam cable is not too taut.

Driver Error Messages:

Possible Solutions:

• Update Microsoft DirectX

• Search and Update Display Drivers (Check What Graphics Card you possess)

1. For Nvidia GFX card use Nvidia Driver or use this Universal Recent Nvidia Driver don't worry about stability as Nvidia Drivers are always very stable even the Beta Ones
   

Enhance Your Laptop Experience:

• Update your Device Drivers (Check all the links for the device driver for your particular laptop model)
• Drivers to Update:
• Chipset, Audio Driver, Display Driver, Touchpad Driver, Wireless Adapter Driver
• Optimize Synaptic TouchPad
• Use Windows Vista Tweaker to disable extra programs you don't need
• Uninstall Trialware from Acer (If you have trialware preloaded from the disk image)
  
• Run Disk Clean Up and Sdelete to Zero unused harddisk space(Write Zeros to unused Space)
• Tweak Firefox and Internet Explorer
  
• Edit the Acer Aspire Shortcut Buttons to point to the programs you want to launch
  
• Remember to burn the recovery partition to DVD if your laptop comes with Vista Preloaded
• Make Windows Start Faster
  

Encounter Weird Laptop Behaviour:

Hardware Reset:

• Remove all power sources including Battery and AC Adapter.
  
• Press and Hold Power Button for 60 Seconds.
  
• Turn on Computer.
  

Possible Solutions:

PLEASE FLASH YOUR BIOS ONLY WHEN YOU NEED THE FIX, DO NOT HAPPILY FLASH WHEN YOU LIKE IT ACCIDENTS CAN OCCUR.

• Update BIOS Acer Aspire 4530 BIOS 1.3334 here (1.3335 has a weird bug)

Need to Recover Preloaded Acer Disk Image:

• Try to recover it first by holding Down Alt-F12 on Boot (With D2D Recovery Enabled in BIOS (F2)) if it doesn't work follow this

I installed Vista myself but get a Blue Screen of Death if I selected AHCI Mode in BIOS

• Solution

I want to install Windows Xp in AHCI mode but Windows Xp cannot detect Disk Driver when BIOS is in AHCI mode

• Solution
  

Solution

If you encounter Blue Screen Of Death, note the error messages + Check the Event Viewer logs and post the offending files below.If the BSOD occurs randomly it can be due to damaged RAM.

Run memtest86 to test for faulty RAM.(Press F8 in Vista to select Memtest86 test)

Wireless Not Detected Properly.

• Make sure you install the launch manager with the wireless driver.
• The launch manager switch is tied to the wireless card operation.

Dissembling Aspire 4530 - Full Guide

First if your Laptop is still under warranty doing this may void it!

1. If you are not comfortable with opening your laptop do not do it.
   
2. I hold no responsibility for any damage done to your laptop.
   
3. If you follow this guide carefully and do it meticulously nothing bad should happen to it.
4. Do not handle electrical components at the metal contacts or circuit board, hold it by the edges.
5. Read this guide once and fully understand it before proceeding.

1) Disconnect ALL POWER (inclusive of battery pack + AC Power Adapter).

2) Ground yourself to make sure you are free of static.

3)Remove all the dummy SD & PCI Card from the Perimeter of the laptop.

Unscrew the screws circled in Red.

Then using a flat-head screw driver and lever the catches boxed in Green.

The laptop support pads are boxed in Blue if any of them fall off reattach them with new double sided tape.

The front panel should pop up as shown.

Gently pry it out.

You should see the following:

The left box shows the White Connector which consist of VGA/Monitor Port + Webcam port

Above it is the LCD Monitor Grounding Cable

Below it is the Microphone Cable

The right box shows the Wireless Antenna Cable for extended Range Detection of Wireless Networks

Removing the Keyboard

Next pry out the keyboard gently

The Flat Ribbon Cable is the PS/2 Port

Lever the Connector and disconnect the Cable

DO NOT BREAK SUCH CONNECTORS ON THE MOTHERBOARD IF THEY ARE BROKEN YOU HAVE TO GET A NEW MOTHERBOARD !

You should see something like the above

Next flip the laptop around and remove all the screws circled in Red.

It is actually ALL the screws you can see at the base.

Removing the Harddisk

Next, Unscrew the screws circled in Red (3 from the Harddisk Region, 2 from the Wireless Card Region).

Disconnect the Wireless Antenna from the Card boxed in Yellow by levering it out.

Don't pull it out vertically !

I noticed in my room white wire on top, black wire below, gives better connectivity.

Disconnect & remove the harddisk by sliding it towards the right and pull it out via the black flap.

Next unscrew the screws circled in Red (3 in the Harddisk Region).

Removing the LCD Monitor

Flip the laptop around.

Disconnect the box in blue and unscrew the screws circled in Red.

The top blue box holds the VGA Monitor Connector and the WebCam Connector.

The bottom blue box holds the Microphone Connector Cable.

The Red Circle above the top blue box hold the Monitor Grounding Cable.

Notice there are engravings beside the red circles.

60 stands for 60mm screw the long ones

45 stands for 45mm screw the short ones

There are only 2 types of screw you will encounter in this guide.

When removing the Monitor make sure you don't pull it out vertically, you might damage the plastic cable groove.

Follow the groove and remove it.

Next unscrew the screw circled in Red and disconnect the connectors boxed in blue.

The blue box on the Left is the Audio Connector for the laptop internal stereo speakers.

The blue box in the Centre is the Connector for the Acer ShortCut Buttons Panel.

The blue box on the Right is the PS/2 Connector for the Synaptics Touchpad.

The blue box on the Top is the Power Switch and LED Light module (The green circuit board on the top).

Removing the DVD Drive

The yellow box indicates the CMOS Battery (replaceble) you don't need to remove it.

In Case you need the CMOS battery data:

ML 1220 MAXWELL 3V (Rechargeable)

Next Slide out the DVD Drive by pushing it out towards the Right.

Unscrew the screw circled in Red (There are 2, 1 at the Top Right Corner, 1 at the Centre) .

Notice there is a screw like symbol beside each of them.

Here comes the difficult part.

It is now possible to separate the casing from the motherboard but there is one obstacle.

It is the Audio Adjustment Knob Region boxed in Red.

The Audio Adjustment Knob is integrated to the motherboard separating it from the motherboard is impossible.

So you have to carefully push the casing down so you can create a gap at the audio adjustment knob to pull the motherboard out.

Start prying from the top right corner.

DO THIS SLOWLY!

REMEMBER HASTE MAKE WASTE !

DON'T BREAK THE MOTHERBOARD BY OVER-STRAINING IT !

ENSURE ALL SECTION OF THE MOTHERBOARD IS WELL-SUPPORTED!

Heat sink Removal

Unscrew the screw circled in Red and disconnect the connector boxed in blue to remove the heatsink.

I will not post a picture of the dissembled outcome as I had applied an excellent layer of Arctic Silver 5.

If I remove it I have to reapply it.

To get a nice layer it takes a lot of time and patience more then the time taken to dissemble this laptop.

In short

Remove the thermal pad on the GPU.

Clean the GPU surface, CPU surface and Heatsink surface with Rubbing Alcohol (Google)

DO NOT USE WATER AS IT IS A GOOD ELECTRICAL CONDUCTOR!

Spread high quality thermal paste over the GPU and CPU surface (I recommend Arctic Cooling MX-2 or Arctic Silver 5).

Replace the parts.

Removing the Bluetooth

Turn the motherboard around

The bottom yellow box is the bluetooth card

There is 1 screw holding it

The top 2 boxes is the unused USB Connectors.

For Future purpose if you suddenly need to add a Wireless 3G card which has internal USB for Laptops you can use them.

Note:

You don't have to remove the motherboard from the casing to gain access to the USB Connectors or Bluetooth.

Removing Internal Speaker and Touchpad

Turn the plastic cover you removed around.

You will see screws to remove the Internal Speakers and Touchpad.

Just unscrew and remove them accordingly.

Note:

You don't have to remove the motherboard from the casing to gain access to the USB Connectors or Bluetooth.

It took me a long time to come up with this very simplified guide so please show appreciation by clicking the google ads if it helps you =)

To reassemble it just reverse the process.

WHEN IN DOUBT ASK!

Reformating & Disk Erasure of Harddisk

For some of you who seldom perform OS re installation you might not know the differences clearly.

First, reformatting is usually done when the operating system is corrupted beyond repair.

Usually when your machine is bogged down a lot of malware, reformatting solves the issue faster than finding fixes for each malware.

Personally, I prefer reformatting because certain types of malware corrupts System Files beyond repair.

What reformatting does is that it destroys the partition tables and recreate them.

In Windows it would be C:\ partition.

The old data is still present but it is no longer readable by normal methods as all the references to the old data is overwritten (It is like the content page is destroyed hence the book appears as new because all indexes are gone, the old data is still present but there is no link to access them properly) but this is a "as good as new" for end users who want a new OS installation.

Disk Erasure Tools is usually used by organizations with highly sensitive information.

Tools such as DBAN or Secure Erase removes all traces of data by overwriting the whole hard disk with other data.

Differences between DBAN and Secure Erase

• DBAN writes by Sector therefore when bad sectors are redirected data erasure maybe incomplete. However Secure Erase writes by Cylinders so complete data erasure is guaranteed.
• DBAN takes a longer time compared to Secure Erase.

Why is this so?

Secure Erase is the standard included by hard disk manufacturers to clear sensitive data as a feature requested by governmental organizations.

Quoted from the Data Sanitisation Tutorial

Complete eradication of user data off drives can be accomplished by running data Secure Erasure utilities such as the freeware “HDDerase” downloadable here. It executes the Federally-approved (NIST 800-88) Secure Erase command in the ATA ANSI standard, which is implemented in all recent ATA drives greater than 15-20 GB. A similar command in the SCSI ANSI standard is optional and not yet implemented in drives tested. Normal Secure Erase takes 30-60 minutes to complete. Some ATA drives also implement the standard Enhanced Secure Erase command that takes only milliseconds to complete.

It uses a standard ATA set hard disk native instruction set to wipe the entire drive quickly.

You might have heard that 1 or 2 pass of overwriting might not be enough to clean the hard drive however this is not true as nowadays hard disk comes in high density capacity.

For a similar sized hard disk 5-10 years ago it can only contain like 30 or less GBs.

Hence when you overwrite such high capacity hard disk it is impossible to recreate the original data.

An analogy I can think of would be you have 2 trays of coloured arranged sand, one fine, one coarse.

If you imagine each particle to be data, if I substitute half with sand particles of another colour randomly, the tray with the fine sand will look more messed up then the tray with coarse particles.

Sdelete is like a DBAN inside Windows.

What it does using the -c (clean command) is it takes all the unused hard disk space and overwrites them.

You can also use it to overwrite the data region for a particular file.

Usually when you delete something in Windows it only remove the reference to the file and marks the region from occupied to unused.

When you use sdelete, it will remove the reference to the file and overwrites the region with random data before marking it from occupied to unused.

I hope you understand more about hard disk from this simple introduction.