Author Archives: John Havlik

Vostro 1400

Posted by in Reviews > Hardware

A week ago the Intel turbo memory module arrived, the last component that needed the keyboard to be removed in order to install. My Vostro 1400 came more or less stock with the following specs:

  • Intel Core 2 Duo T5270 (1.4Ghz, runs at 1.6Ghz according to CPUz and is related to the L7300) (A X9000 is on it’s way :D)
  • 2GiB DDR2-667 RAM running in Dual Channel mode (PQI brand)
  • 160GB 5400RPM Segate SATA Hard Drive
  • Dell wireless 802.11g (model DW1390) (Replaced with Intel WiFi Link 802.11abgn)
  • 56Wh Li-ion battery (up to 6hrs according to Dell)
  • Intel Robinson Turbo Memory 1GiB (Added)
  • Dell Bluetooth 2.1 (model 360) (Added)
  • 14 inch wide screen display (1280×800)
  • Intel Media Accelerator X3100 graphics

After a little over a week with this laptop, I must say Dell put together a very nice machine. When I first received it I powered it up to make sure it worked, and to see how well Dell’s wireless card worked. It wasn’t able to find my wireless network, but it found every neighbor’s network, unfortunately no one keeps their networks open anymore. Replacing the wireless card requires getting behind the keyboard, on the two Compaqs that I’ve taken apart before that required unscrewing some things on the bottom of the computer, and nothing was detailed in the user manual. Not only did the manual lay out exactly what needed to be done, two nice little green plastic tools were provided for aiding in removing the media panel. Good thing they were provided as the media panel is fairly secured and required patience in removing.

Replacing the CPU should be easy as the CPU and cooler assembly has it’s own lid, as does the hard drive and the memory. Installing the blue tooth radio was easy as everything else had been. Installing the drivers was painless, Vista did everything for me. The same was true for the Intel cards, just had to insert the Intel CD when prompted, and everything “just worked” (sounds Macish doesn’t it?). This is even on Home Basic, a version that ran slower than molasses at 5am Wednesday morning this week (It was -15 degrees Fahrenheit) on a Pentium D 2.8Ghz with dedicated graphics and 2GiB of ram.

Dell with its Vostro line, as well as with the XPS line, does not install crapware. Though I did uninstall some of the preinstalled software, Google Desktop (I don’t bother searching for things in Windows), as well as some unneeded Dell software (I’m looking at you software modem driver) I really wouldn’t count those programs as crapware (compare to what a Toshiba comes with). Vista, really is not that bad. I do not like the constant “Are you sure you want to run this” prompts, but beyond that things are very responsive, I think I’ll give Intel the credit here for their Core 2 Duo being so awesome of a chip.

I have a Western Digital Scorpio 120GB (8MiB cache) that I’ll install Gentoo onto and run KDE 4 on it as the desktop manager. This hasn’t happened yet as I’m primarily waiting to do this until spring break in March. Additionally, due to the nature of Gentoo, its advantageous for me to wait for my X9000 to arrive as it is twice as fast in clock speed alone which will really help for compile times.

Speaking of CPUs I should go a little in depth on my findings on the 1.4Ghz chip in this laptop. Even though it reports to Vista and CPU-Z as a T5270 it constantly runs out of spec for that processor. It seems to like to run with a 8.0x multiplier on a 800Mhz FSB, resulting in a speed of 1.6Ghz. Added to that, the reported CPU VID of 1.013V, which is under the 1.0375-1.3V range that it is supposed to operate under. Additionall, CPU-Z gets a bit confused as the top CPU name is claims the CPU is a L7300 (which would explain the lower voltage, but not the constant overclock). Even when running two CPU Burn-in processes, the temperature didn’t get over 30C and once the fan kicked in a bit, still nearly silent, the temp dropped to 22C. I’m going to do more tests on the processor and post results sometime during spring break. With comparisons to the X9000, it should be interesting.

-John Havlik

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Something Lighter

Posted by in WordPress > Themes

The future of Berry, naturally. Right now, though fairly light, Berry’s next iteration will be lighter still. Blue may or may not be the dominate color of the theme, it all depends on how the WordPress 2.5 administration interface will turn out. In case the connection hasn’t been made yet, the header and footer (as well as most of Blu-Berry) were based on the WordPress 2.2 and 2.3 login form’s style. After about a year, themes tend to lose their luster. Blu-Berry, if some work would be put into making it look as it originally did almost a year ago, still is eye catching. Cran-Berry, the next iteration will follow a much more open development process. It will be available for download, and its development will begin around the launch of WordPress 2.5.

The first stages of developing the new iteration are already underway. It all begins with finally taking some time to reorganize and categorize the posts on this blog. This allows for the current dysfunctions to reveal their hideous heads while navigating the site. Next up is a replacement for Enhanced Live Archives needs to be found, one promising title exists. Then that little Attachment NavXT plug-in needs to get revised and released for mass consumption. The new design may more or less support it in a nice manner.

-John Havlik

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Breadcrumb NavXT 2.0.2

Posted by in WordPress > Plugins

This is a quickish update based on the work of Tom Klingenberg and myself in fixing some deficiencies in the Administration interface. The administrative interface has been tweaked lightly, but not to the extent that will be present in 2.1. The multi-lingual system should work now, and a German translation has been included in the default distribution. As a heads up for anyone who has modified their Breadcrumb NavXT core file, the upcoming 2.1 may feature more drastic changes in the core as things are reorganized a bit. As always don’t rely heavily on modifications the anything in the api file as it is likely to change rapidly between versions.

-John Havlik

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WordPress API Bug

Posted by in WordPress

Some users of the Breadcrumb NavXT plug-in have noticed that upon trying the enter the administrative interface they are greeted by an error. Earlier version presented a “Bad user, no cookie for you” error, which should only be seen by malicious individuals. As of 2.0.1 this error was refined to letting the user know that part of the WordPress API on their blog is not working correctly. In particular, the get_currentuserinfo() function is malfunctioning. This is due to a shortcoming in WordPress in which the developers have know about and passed off as a plug-in problem since version 2.2. The cause is when WordPress is first installed, the default user that is created is set as an administrator, yet it has no usermeta in the database, hence has no user_level. This problem seems to be resolved by the upgrade functions in WordPress when upgrading from one version to another. Hence, fresh WordPress installs will have this bug, while older/upgraded ones will not. The best solution is to under the Users section and edit the user that is used primarily and make sure administrator is selected under role, then save. That should make the problem go away.

Tom Klingenberg has been working with me to fix some things up with the Breadcrumb NavXT. Our collaborated work will be present in version 2.0.2, which features several bug fixes. Included in 2.0.2 is the official German language file for Breadcrumb NavXT. Other major reworkings of the administrative interface will be included in 2.1.0. For all the users out there that need localization support, it is fully working in 2.0. thanks to the work of Tom. If there are any polyglots out there who could or have translated this plug-in, via the .po/.mo system, and would like their work to be included as part of the official package, leave a comment below. You can take a sneak peak at the 2.0.2 code by clicking the “Breadcrumb NavXT Latest Build” download link, be aware that the version number on this code may be incorrect and some things may be broken.

Lastly, anyone out there still using Breadcrumb Navigation XT of any version, please upgrade to Breadcrumb NavXT soon. On the 19th I will no longer offer any support for Breadcrumb Navigation XT and it’s project page may mysteriously vanish.

-John Havlik

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SMS Spammer

Posted by in Enemy of the Spammers

Didn’t see that one coming. Now that proxy dialers exist on the internet, it’s no surprise that some internet to SMS services exist now. The sad thing is they are being abused at the expense of the message recipient.

Back on the 24th of January, a spammer by the name of Giovanni@instantmash.com sent a text message to my cellphone advertising getwellwontyoust.com. Usually e-mail spam’s only cost is time and bandwidth, in which for the end user bandwidth is usually unlimited. For SMS, the cost is 50 cents per a message received, plus an additional 50 cents for connection (with Verizon as SMS is not part of my plan as I don’t text people). Luckily, I believe Verizon will be removing the charges as it was a Spam, otherwise I’ll use the WHOIS information for both the spammed address and the sender and send them a bill.

A quick Google search reveals that istantmash.com has been suspended and that getwellwontyoust.com is a sex spam site. Looks like the latter is registered to a one Natalie Wood, of Sacramento California. Natale Wood is most likely as pseudo name as the fax number is invalid (area code 555) and I have doubts on the legitimacy of the provide phone number of (916) 742-3301. Under federal law and a precedent set in the class action lawsuit Shen v. Distributive Networks LLC. No. 06 C 4403 the offender may owe me and any one else he or she SMS spammed up to 150USD in damages.

-John Havlik

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