Ho John Lee’s Weblog

The first batch of Centrino 2 / Sonoma / Dothan notebook computers are starting to be reviewed now, following the official product introduction a couple of weeks ago. I had been looking forward to seeing some improved battery life and performance from models using the new chipsets. However, it’s looking like it may be a better idea to look for price reductions in the Dothan-only generation of notebook computers that are currently on the market.

Using the IBM T42 (Dothan) vs T43 (Sonoma+Dothan) as a comparison, it appears that the newer systems have a modest performance advantage, and a slightly shorter battery life.

See this thread and this thread at thinkpads.com

I ordered a copy of Marc Faber’s book Tomorrow’s Gold: Asia’s Age of Discovery last week from Amazon. Shortly afterwards, I got a message indicating that the book was no longer available, and the item was dropped from my order. I guess that’s a reasonable behavior for their order fulfillment system, but I’m surprised that the book was initially showing as available in 1-2 weeks, then became unavailable.

Subsequently, I placed my first order ever with Barnes and Noble’s site, which is also showing availability in 1-2 weeks. I have been ordering books from Amazon since they launched, and haven’t had a good reason to sign up for another site until this point.

I have been moving in the direction of quieter/silent PCs for the past couple of years. So I ‘m always happy to see more coverage of this topic and vendors with product offerings in the area.

Today’s News.com features an overview as the lead article for the day and some photos to go with it.

I have been holding off on computer upgrades for years now, partly because of the increased noise and heat output of most new systems. One of the major improvements I made last year was to move most of the equipment out of my office and into an adjacent closet, which has left my office much quieter. It has, however made me more aware of the aging bearings in my notebook’s disk drive.

In the Red Herring, another initiative for affordable computing clients for emerging markets, this one led by Nicholas Negroponte.

See also discussion at Slashdot.

The founder and chairman of the MIT Media Lab wants to create a $100 portable computer for the developing world. Nicholas Negroponte, author of Being Digital and the Wiesner Professor of Media Technology at MIT, says he has obtained promises of support from a number of major companies, including Advanced Micro Devices, Google, Motorola, Samsung, and News Corp.

The low-cost computer will have a 14-inch color screen, AMD chips, and will run Linux software, Mr. Negroponte said during an interview Friday with Red Herring at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. AMD is separately working on a cheap desktop computer for emerging markets. It will be sold to governments for wide distribution.

I’m finally getting more serious about replacing my well-used HP Omnibook 4150. It is now over four years old, and has been on a few hundred thousand miles of business travel. The computing world, networking, and my work have all changed since 1999 when I originally got this system, so there are very different choices available now.

Of immediate interest, the new Intel Centrino chipsets are due to be launched next week January 19th. The Alviso chipset runs a 533MHz frontside bus, while the new Dothan processor will have up to 2MB of onboard cache. The net effect is that the new systems should have similar battery life improvements to the earlier Centrino chipset, but with improved system performance.

I just got e-mail confirming my registration for this year’s Big Sur Marathon on April 24th. Had been putting off signing up for a few weeks now, debating whether to run it again or to try something different in the spring, or to hold off until the fall.

The course is beautiful, and we always enjoy spending time in the Monterey/Carmel area. On the other hand, it’s a famously hilly course, so I have no expectations of going particularly fast. I have been making slow, but steady, improvements to my endurance and pace, and am gradually getting within theoretical range of a Boston Marathon-qualifying time. “Theoretical” meaning that the various equivalent race-pace calculators such as McMillan Running indicate that I might be able to hit a 3:20 marathon time, based on my current 10K time, provided that I complete adequate preparation and training.

came across this in December 2004 Technology Review.
http://www.fez.go.kr
There are actually 3 different development zones, one near Incheon, Busan/Jinhae, and Gwangyangman.

Still interested in coming up with something interesting to do in Korea.

More stuff from old boxes of paper

WSJ article, September 14, 2004, “The Annual Physical Gets a Makeover” writes about comprehensive physicals that include various CT/MRI, stress, body comp, and extended blood tests. Expensive and takes a day or more.

St. Helena Center for Health
Cooper Aerobic Center
Cleveland Clinic
Mayo Clinic
Pritikin Longevity Center
Canyon Ranch
Princeton Longevity Center
Scripps Center for Executive Health

Found an old newsletter in a box of papers.
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~korea

This story is discussed at Slashdot. The service is intended to provide a minimum of 2mbps to all subscribers, including rural villages, by December 2006.

A consortium led by Gurgaon-based Aksh Broadband Limited has been selected to implement the Rs 400-crore Andhra Pradesh broadband project, which aims at extending broadband services to each and every village of the state in the next two years.

The project, once completed, is expected to give a stiff competition to other broadband service providers, including the BSNL, as the promoters have indicated to charge just Rs 100 a month for a domestic broadband connection.

The project will provide services with a minimum bandwidth of 2 Mbps, which is almost eight times higher, as compared to the bandwidth offered by the BSNL.