Author Archives: John Havlik

Breadcrumb NavXT 2.1 Discussion

Posted by in WordPress > Plugins

As March approaches and the release of WordPress 2.5 nears, development on Breadcrumb NavXT 2.1 begins. Right now in the SVN, the trunk received a minor update that won’t be tagged, though it’s version happens to be 2.0.3. The trunk SVN in never stable unless immediately following a tagged release. Version 2.1 will feature:

  • A newly revamped Administrative interface. Complies with the WordPress 2.5 guidelines, even though they recommend using tables in ways that they shouldn’t be.
  • Smarter method for trimming the title to stay within the maximum length while not cutting off in the middle word.
  • Reimplement static front pages.
  • Allowing post breadcrumb organization by category or tags.
  • A widgetized version. (May or may not make it in this version, not sure if it is appropriate for this plug-in.)

Hopefully, the current problems that some are experiencing when enabling the Administrative interface can be resolved in an elegant manor. One cause of this is known and an appropriate error message with instructions on how to resolve the issue will be given to the user.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

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Core 2 Duo X9000

Posted by in Reviews > Hardware

What is fast? When in Vista you double click on Firefox’s desktop icon and it’s ready to go. When Thunderbird loads just as quickly. When Visual C++ 2008 loads even quicker. When MPLAB, something that usually takes quite some time to load takes the amount of time Firefox used to take to load. Intel’s Core 2 Duo X9000 is one fast beast. It runs at a slightly higher voltage than the T5270 when powering off of the battery (1.0375V vs 1.01V), but it does correctly clock down to 1Ghz when appropriate. Vista estimates the same battery life as with the T5270. Vista’s performance checker evaluates the processor as a 5.6, up 1 whole point from the T5270’s 4.6, additionally the memory metric went up a full point to 5.0 from 4.0. The only thing holding this back now is the X3100 graphics, but the purpose is not a gaming laptop so I can deal with that. Though I must say it does run Sim City 4 quite well.

Installing the chip was easy. The thermal assembly was held on with four screws near the processor and one near the heatsink. Finding my Arctic Silver 5 took longer than replacing the processor, this was mainly due to the remodeling that we are doing. I did a quick 20 minute burn in with CPU burn-in, one process for each core, and then shut down the laptop. The performance gain was not entirely noticeable until after letting it cool down for the first time. A few more CPU burn-in cycles and that Arctic Silver will get setup for better thermal conductivity.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

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

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

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

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

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

[end of transmission, stay tuned]