Tired of waiting for my CarPC... Just buy this one...

Stealth Computer has announced a new mini-PC designed for in-vehicle, mobile and embedded applications



[From Stealth Announces In-Vehicle MiniPC]

Video Conversation from within Gmail

From viewing videos on YouTube to screening family events, people love being able to watch something exactly as it happened. And as webcams have become popular, more and more of us are realizing that video is the next best thing to an in-person conversation. Today we're introducing Gmail voice and video chat, which lets you have free voice and video conversations right from within Gmail.



Video chatting from Gmail is as easy as sending an instant message. With our team spread out across Google offices in Sweden and the U.S., it's been really handy in helping us work together. Just click on the new "Video & more" menu in a Gmail chat window and select "Start video chat" or "Start voice chat." You can switch to a full screen view or pop out the chat window and change the size and positioning as you wish. Of course, not everyone has a webcam, but even if you don't, you can still have voice conversations alongside your email and regular chat. Take a look at this short video to see more:







Gmail voice and video chat will be rolled out globally over the next day or so for Macs and PCs. The first time you use this feature, you'll be prompted to download and install a small plugin. To get started, visit http://www.gmail.com/videochat or click on the "Options" menu in a Gmail chat window and choose "Add voice/video chat." Find out more on our Gmail Blog.



Posted by Serge Lachapelle, Product Manager, Stockholm

[From Talk face-to-face right from within Gmail]

The Twitter Twit

I'm trying out twitter again after i saw Adam being the top 5 in Coventry. I don't quite understand what's the buzz is all about with twitter. I don't think it's famous among malaysian. I know that because i try to search for twiiter user within my emails but the only one that came up is Adam. No wonder he's top five twitter user in Coventry. I've sign up for twitter a few weeks ago but doesn't quite understand what it's all about until i watch the video tutorial on their website.

Basically it's a site where you update your current status, in the form of answering a question, "What are you doing?". SImilar to how you update your custom status on Yahoo messenger, Adium or MSN Messenger. Some might ask, why should i use twitter if i already have yahoo messenger for that. Well, twitter is all over the web now. You can sync your twitter message in Facebok or even yahoo messgener and adium. This make is easier for us. I can just update my status on twitter and it will show up on Adium, Yahoo Messenger and my Facebook. You can even send your blog to twitter using their add-on plugin.

For those interested in syncing their twitter with yahoo messenger, you can use twitter sync messegger. I personally haven't try this but i would say it's very straight forward. I have tried twitteradium to sync with Adium and it's working quite well.

For those interested to know more about twitter, head to their website and watch the video tutorial.

The Onion Takes a At Crack Comparing OS X Snow Leopard and Windows 7 [Humor]

Will [From The Onion Takes a At Crack Comparing OS X Snow Leopard and Windows 7 [Humor]]

Media Player Portable Hard Disk Drive

Just got this for a friend of mine. It's a 2.5" Portable Hard Disk Drive Media Player. It's essentially a 2.5" portable HDD casing with built in capability to play videos, picture and music on your TV or monitor. It even comes with a remote control.














This casing bought from Hong Kong through Ebay comes with a video cable, usb cable, power supply, manual, small scredriver, 4 screws and a remote control. The hard disk has to be bought separately but i'm sure there are some other people selling this on ebay complete with the harddisk.














Basically, with this portable player you don't need to burn your media on a CD to be able to play it on your TV screen or monitor. You can copy your media straight onto the disk (just like a normal removable drive) using the USB cable and play it directly on your tv screen using the RCA(yellow, red, white) cable. It supports many media format such as MPG, MPEG, MP4, AVI, MP3, and JPG. Being a media player, it doesn't mean you can only put media files on here, you can backup all your files on this portable hard disk just like you would on a normal portable HDD.















Here's the inside of the casing. As you can see it has a mini usb connector, 5V connector, VGA connector and two green connector which is the RCA and Audio connector. It also have a SD card slot if you want to play media straight from your SD card. If you want to play your movie using a monitor, it can be connected directly to a monitor without the tower. This is useful if you have LCD TV with VGA connector. As for audio, the audio connector can be use to connect to any standard speaker.















The only problem i have with the casing is pre-formatting the harddisk for use. When i first plug this harddisk, my PC doesn't even recognize it as a removable drive. I have to format the harddisk using another USB to IDE converter to be able to use it. It has to be formatted as FAT32 otherwise it won't be recognize by the software. Just in case somebody is wondering, yes there is a SATA version available.

I've tested it on both TV screen and Monitor and it works wonderfully well. Easy to navigate and very quick. Anybody interested can search for them on ebay.

Car Project : Part 2, Hardware

I've manage to get all the hardware for my car PC. Here are the hardware spec for my car pc:

MAINBOARD - Intel D201GLY2

For this project, i use Intel Mini-ITX D201GLY2 measuring just 6.75"x 6.75". It has built in graphic, sound and network which makes it suitable for this purpose. It also has 1 pci slot for expansion but i'm not planning to use it since i'm trying to make this pc as small as possible. This motherboards comes with an Intel Celeron 1.2Ghz Processor which is not that bad. But the heatsink could have been a bit better though. The temperature idles between 55 C to 60 C. I'm now looking for a 40mm CPU fan to cool it down a little. This mainboard has 2 back USB with 4 optional connection. I'm using 2 on the internal usb connection for my bluetooth and wifi adaptor.

Memory - 1GB DDR2 RAM

Nothing much to say about this one. Just a standard 1GB DDR2 RAM. The motherboard only have one RAM slot so if i want to upgrade, i have to replace the ram with a bigger one.

Power Supply - Pico PSU 60W supply by 12V 5A Adaptor

Since i'm trying to make his as small as possile, i've chosen the smallest PSU i've ever seen. It doesn't get any smaller than this. Got this off ebay for less than a standard PSU. It can only supply 60W at 12V (5A) though but that should be enough for my use. It has a standard 20pin power socket with 4 pin 12V power supply. Comes with one 4 pin harddisk power supply. The only problem i had was the weird 2.1mm DC power connector doesn't seem to fit any of the power supply i had. I had to buy a replacement 2.1mm DC Socket to replace this connector.The original 2.1mm DC Socket on the left. Looks the same but just doesn't fit.

Harddisk- 80GB IDE Laptop Harddisk with IDE Converter

To make this pc even smaller, i've opted for a laptop 2.5" harddisk instead of standard 3.5" harddisk. I have two main reason why i wanted a laptop harddisk. Firstly, it's lighter and smaller which helps me in achieving my purpose, a small car pc. Secondly, it has lower power consumption which is very important because i only had 60W to play with. I use a 3.5" to 2.5" IDE converter to be able to use this harddisk.

Display - 7" Tevion DVD Player Monitor with Built in Speaker

Some might wonder why i'm using a DVD player as my monitor. Well, firstly, this is already available in my tool box, which means i don't have to spend an extra £50 just for a monitor. Secondly, the dvd part of this player is broken. Doesn't play DVD anymore. So, might as well use this as a monitor instead. It has a built in speaker which translate to less component in the system. It accept standard RCA connection(Yellow connector) for the video which means i need to have RCA output from the motherboard. The only problem is , in the motherboard manual, it says, S-Video is optional. That means i have to find the connection and make it usable and then convert that to a RCA video output. I'll get more into this in my next post.

Communication- Wifi, Bluetooth, 3G

For wifi, i use a BT Voyager 1055 usb dongle connected to an on board 9 pin USB connection. The semicircle looking dongle in the picture is the USB Bluetooth dongle. It is very small and it works with microsoft built in driver. Will be using bluetooth for my wireless mouse and possibly internet sharing through my Tytn II. Another option for 3G connection is using USB connection to my Tytn II.

Keyboard and Mouse - USB Mini Keyboard with Microsoft Bluetooth Mouse

Last but not least, i use Microsoft bluetooth mouse and a mini keyboard as an input method. If everything goes well, i might consider placing a touch screen over the DVD player monitor. See how well this project goes.

Well, that's it for the hardware. My next post about this project would be the s-video connections. How to make it usable on the motherboard and converting it to RCA output. Stay tune.

Pocket PC Mag Software Award 2008 Results

For all pocket pc fan, the annual Pocketpcmag.com Software award results for 2008 is out. It's amazing the number of nominated categories compared to last year. It's also nice to see some software develop by www.xda-developer.com here. I've just finish browsing through all the categories. Definitely more software choices for us Pocket PC fan, and i believe much more to come next year. It would be interesting to see how long it will take for the Android community to overcome Microsoft Windows Mobile.