Month: December 2005

So for some reason AIM wasn’t installed on my computer when I got home. My dad’s been using my computer for some time now since his laptop stopped working, but that turned out to be a fluke. For all this time I thought his hard drive had died since that’s what both my brother and my uncle who I learnt how to build computers and troubleshoot them diagnosed it as. So my dad was pressuring me to fix his laptop this break and I was just about to order a 2.5″ notebook hard drive for him, when I wasn’t sure if a height of 9.5mm was small enough to fit.

I asked my dad where the laptop was and just before I started to unscrew the laptop, I decided to give it a whirl to see what the problem was for myself. The battery was all out of juice, so I had to find the adapter to plug it in. The laptop booted, but froze at first screen. There were several options such as getting the boot list or going into setup. I hit ESC for something and it showed me an extended memory test was being ran. It was really slow. Maybe 10MB/sec out of the 512MB of installed RAM.

I went into bios setup and the hdd was detected and nothing seem out of the ordinary. I rebooted the machine, the extended memory test took a few minutes, but then afterwards, Windows XP loaded and I was able to login to his account and all his data was intact. After a reboot, the extended memory test was no longer there and the system was booting up quickly.

Now back to AIM. Since I don’t use this computer often, it usually has the unfiltered unhacked software. Well besides Firefox, which is needed in all computers I use. So I download the newest AIM. Apparently, they’ve dropped the old AIM client and even changed the version # back to 1.x. The new AIM is called AIM Triton. It’s actually quite bloated and I was on the verge of uninstalling it immediately, however I gave it a little bit longer and it actually has some interesting features. By default, all IMs are sent to 1 window and history is stored. Finding someone on your buddy list is a lot easier too and you can enable aliases to be shown instead of screen names. One thing they removed from Triton is the ability to only play a noise when you first received. However, switching between chats is a bit difficult. There is a less bloated version: Aim Ad Hack 5.0 Beta 17 (from Rayalome). I never did get it to successfully installed because ads are still showing, but you can feel free to try it. I got some help from Rayalome. Apparently there’s this extra menu in Preferences which allows me to disable the ads, which isn’t enabled by default. Sweet! Other stuff it gets rid of includes the AOL Explorer and the Viewpoint Player and tons of other junk. It still feels bloated, but it doesn’t have all those secondary programs installed.

There’s a few extra icons next to people’s screen names now such as the water droplet which I have yet to figure out.

Feature creapage (from rayalome) – interesting info regarding the new AIM Triton.

Some of the stuff that I’ve found annoying include the fact that the coloring doesn’t always transfer to the old AIM. Such as my default green color font is showing up as black. Another annoying thing is that when I’m away, messages get queued in a completely different window and won’t show up in the main chat window unless a chat window has already been opened. Rayalome also noted that the direct connection functionality no longer works (where you can connect directly to any other AIM user and send images and have have no limit on the amount of text to transfer through).

First of all, I’d like you to know I’m sitting in a comfy chair sitting in front of a 55″ projection big screen tv with my IBM X31 on my lap, typing this post and watching 24 – Season Four on my Media Center PC. My analysis on Season 4 will come later, since as this title suggests, it’s going to be about MCE.

As I stated in one of my previous posts, I was really impressed with my friend Derek’s Media Center PC. So I decided one of the projects I’d work on this winter break was to upgrade my HTPC (Home Theater PC) to Windows XP MCE 2005 (Media Center Edition). As a Microsoft employee, we’re allowed to “test” the software for free. I also dropped by the Company store before I left and picked up a Microsoft Remote Control for MCE for $25. Supposedly, the Logitech® Harmony® 880 Advanced Universal Remote (which Amazon.com is selling for $230) is a much better remote, but the price tag is a lot more than what the market price for the Microsoft Remote Control is. I was also thinking about getting the Micorosft Remote Keyboard for MCE for $45 (which Amazon is selling for $80)

Installing the OS wasn’t bad. I didn’t really have anything to back up on this system since all the videos were stored on a network drive. However, since my hard drive in this Shuttle XPC SK43G is a SATA and there’s no floppy drive in it, I had to ghetto rigged a temporary floppy drive from my brother’s desktop to be able to load the SATA drivers. The setup was rather simple and like all the other XP installations I’ve done. The only difference is that XP MCE 2005 has 2 CDs and somewhere in the middle, it prompted me to swap discs.

After the OS installed successfully, everything was fine and dandy. Media Center started without a hitch and the setup process went through smoothly. Adding folders to “My Videos” was also easier than expected. The remote control did wonders. However, the moment I tried to play a video, I hit problems. I would get audio, but no picture. The screen would go completely black. After some searching online, it turns out apparently some video cards are compatible with MCE. That meant the onboard video on my Shuttle XPC SK43G which is a S3 Graphics with Via KM400/KN400 isn’t compatible with MCE. I tried a bunch of things like updating the drivers and even trying to look for bios/firmware updates, but there were none. I’ve tried playing with the video settings, but that didn’t get me anywhere. The only thing left to try was sticking in another video card and trying, but it was already 7am and I was tired. Do note, this was my first night home.

So this afternoon when I found some time, I once again borrowed something from my brother’s desktop. I stole his Rosewill Radeon 9200SE and plugged it into my Shuttle XPC. However, S-Video was giving me trouble. The screen was black and white and it was scrolling down continuously and wrapping back at the top. I didn’t really know what this problem was. Was the video card having s-video problems. Was the card loose? I even brought out my 19″ LCD to diagnose, updated to the latest Radeon drivers, and played with the display settings. An initial search resulted people with a black and white problem, but not the scrolling problem. There wasn’t really a simple answer on fixing the problem and at this point I was getting frustrated. While trying to look for updated drivers/firmware and playing with display settings, I was googling for what may be the cause of this problem. Then I hit a thread talking about PAL and NTSC problems and having seen PAL VHS tapes in my NTSC VCR before, this was exactly the problem when a PAL signal is sent to a NTSC device. But there’s no way to configure that setting through software. The user manual wasn’t much help and the online threads were saying something about DIP switches which didn’t exist on my video card.

However, the card did have some jumpers. 4 in fact: J1, J11, J12, and J13. The only jumper that connected the 2 pins was J13. I’m not exactly sure why this card was set in PAL mode since I bought it from NewEgg. The user manual didn’t have any information regarding these jumpers, so I ended up taking a risk and unconnecting J13. Bam! No, that wasn’t the sound of my video card blowing up, but it worked! Color and no more scrolling!

Once Windows loaded, the problem came back and I’m like, oh no! WHY!?!?! Then it hit me that the problem may be because of the drivers I installed. I uninstalled them and reinstalled the drivers (same executable), rebooted the machine, and it WORKS! If the driver could control the PAL/NTSC setting, why the heck couldn’t I change it? Grrrrrr.

Anyway, I loaded up Media Center and the videos play fine. w00t!

Now, my brother’s system doesn’t have a video card. I searched Anandtech and Fatwallet for some deals on cheap AGP cards and found that mwave was having one for sale for $15. They also had one with DVI for $2.50 more. So I chose that one instead. I also had a $10 off coupon. After tax and handling fees, it came out to be $13 for a FIC A92 Radeon 9200SE, which is basically the same video card. Hehe.

You can read the Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 Review. The Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 Review is also available. Here’s the official What’s Hot with Media Center. There’s still so much to play with like the online gaming and music which I haven’t had time to check out yet.

I happened to find this link: Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP Media Center Edition which includes Tweak MCE for Media Center Edition 2005, Alarm Clock, Media Center Soltaire, and Playlist Editor.

Hate have 3 different players to play all your media. Needing Apple QuickTime to play .mov files and needing RealPlayer to play .rm and .rmvb files and Windows Media Player to play everything else. Even if you have Media Player Classic, you’ll need both of those respective players installed to get it to play .mov, .rm, and .rmvb files in it.

Unless…

You have Real Alternative and QuickTime Alternative. After installing these files, you won’t have to download the corresponding players and be able to play those files in any media player that you choose. I’d recommending either Media Player Classic or VLC media player. Actually, I’m not too sure that VLC media player will play QuickTime and RealMedia files since I never really tried. No more gunk from these bloated players. The reason why I was looking for these today wsa because I was trying to get MCE (Media Center Edition) to play all the video files I have. MCE is pretty sweet and I’ll be getting into that story later.

Wow! How long has it been since I got this? Over 2 months ago? I purchased the Linksys PAP2 Phone Adapter for Vonage Internet Phone Service awhile ago… well I wouldn’t say purchase. It was FREE after rebate, so I only paid sales tax of $5.44. I’ve already received my rebate already so all is cool. This was basically a cheap toy that I wanted to play with and I’m amazed at what it’s going to save me.

I have 2 guides and ungsunghero to thank in helping me set it up. The guides I used were:
B$: Linksys PAP2 Unlock Info
FW: Linksys PAP2 Phone Adapter FAR (Or Make Money) @ Staples

Setting it up wasn’t that difficult. In fact all the firmware flashing and hacking was quite simple. What really got me was the setting up of the service part. Have you seen the Advance menu of the PAP2? It’s ridiculously complicated.

So the remainder of this section is actually a step by step guide on how to SETUP your PAP2 to work with TelePacket and VoipBuster.

TelePacket:
I actually signed up for this awhile ago, back when it was called CallPacket and during the month of October, they were giving out free accounts with 100 free outgoing minutes to USA and Canada and 99999 free incoming minutes. Yes. that’s 5 9’s. That’s 70 days of non-stop talking on the fone. I don’t even use over 60 minutes a month which basically means I’m going to have probably free incoming calls for the rest of my life + a generation after me. I’ve verified that receiving calls actually work and the quality was very clear. The free plan was a promotion back in Octoboer, but they still have a great deal with their 95 cent plan. Personally I hardly ever receive or make phone calls from my landline. It’s just there so I can give a number to companies and banks so I don’t have to give them my cell phone number. I even set my answering machine to pick up after 2 rings to screen cause or to ignore them. This plan gives you 100 free incoming and 100 free outgoing minutes per month, which should be plenty. The cool part is that you get a local number. The closest to Monterey Park I found was Alhambra, and the closest to Seattle/Redmond was Kirkland and Bellevue. They even have local numbers for Oakland and Berkeley.

I would suggest you purchase the PAP2 on your own because they’re charging $60 for it here (in the activation fee).

To setup the PAP2, login to TelePacket. Click on Phone Feature Management -> My IP Phone Config.

The 3 pieces of information you need is:
Sip Proxy : voip.telepacket.com
Sip Username : cpxxxxxxxx
Sip Password : xxxxxx

In your Linksys PAP2 configuration (advance view) for either line 1 or 2, update the following fields:

Proxy: voip.telepacket.com (Sip Proxy)
User ID: cpxxxxxxxx (Sip Username)
Password: xxxxxx (Sip Password)

Dial Plan:
(*xx|<:1aaa>[2-9]xxxxxx|1[2-9]xx[2-9]xxxxxxS0|<:1>[2-9]xx[2-9]xxxxxxS0|011xx.)
Replace aaa with your area code (i.e. 425, 626 or 510)

VoipBuster:
VoipBuster is a bit different than TelePacket. It caters toward a different audience. But the cool thing about PAP2 is there’s 2 lines meaning it can support 2 different VoIP services. TelePacket was more of an incoming phone service where it can replace your landline to recieve calls. VoipBuster is better at making calls. Check out their rates chart. Each month they have a list of countries you can call for free. This month includes: Argentina, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United States. Do note, these do not include cell phone calls. Cell phone calls to foreign countries are more expensive due to the fact that the caller is the one who pays the bill and not the receiver. But Hong Kong and China for 1penny/min is ridiculously cheap. China and Hong Kong I believe were on the free list last month. USA has been on the free country list for the past few months already and there doesn’t seem to be any plans to remove it from the list. There is a caveat. You have to put some money into your account before these free stuff rolls in. The minimum amount is €5, which comes out to be about US$6 and free calls to the USA for life (hopefully)! People have been using it for several months and not much complaints have arisen.

To setup your PAP2, first go to VoipBuster and download their software. This is the only way to register as I found out. Install the software and create your account. Remember your Username and Password because you’ll need them to set up your account.

In your Linksys PAP2 configuration (advance view) for either line 1 or 2, update the following fields:

NAT Mapping Enable: Yes
Proxy: sip.voipbuster.com
Register: Yes
User ID: (Username you created above)
Password: (Password you created above)

Dial Plan:
(<:001aaa>[2-9]xxxxxx|<:00>1[2-9]xx[2-9]xxxxxxS0|<:001>[2-9]xx[2-9]xxxxxxS0|<011:00>xx.)
Replace aaa with your area code (i.e. 425, 626 or 510)

Click on the SIP tab and edit the following fields:
STUN Enable: Yes
STUN Server: stun.voipbuster.com (or any other public STUN server)

Others have also recommended StanaPhone for receiving free incoming calls, but the only numbers they are giving out are New York local numbers.

All in all, I’m really satisfied with this. You know what the best part of this is? I can stop paying my $25/month to Verizon. You should hear my story on how hard it was to disconnect my Verizon service tonight. Maybe I’ll talk about it some later time.