Writing feeling on Helix comparing to x201t?

I currently owning a x201t tablet which has wacom pen and the writing is pretty good. Considerring swapping for a Helix, but from my knowledge, the Helix comes with gorilla glass, I am abit worried that the writting could feel slippery as it's writing on a piece of glass.
I do homeworks on my tablet thus have pretty high standards on the writting feelings.
Could someone share their piece of writtingexperience of their helix?

Can't compare it to the X201t, but I can say it felt very good on mine. My handwriting was about the same as in reality, maybe little little bit worse, but I think it will improve as time passes by. I have no complaints about the digitizer pen.
Jonas
Microsoft MVP: Windows Consumer Expert
Yoga Tablet 2 10 || ThinkPad X1 Carbon (20A7007MPH) || ThinkPad Helix (3698-6EU) || IdeaCentre B540
Twitter: @jonashendrickx

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The "feel" of iMovie compared to FCP

Apologies in advance if this seems like a dumb question...
I am very comfortable with Final Cut Pro, and have it, but not a version that works with my current hardware...maybe later there will be money for upgrading.
I'm in a situation of needing to cut up some video using iMovie, and my question concerns getting comfortable with the iMovie way of doing things...wondering if those who know both iMovie and Final Cut can lend some advice about how to get productive with iMovie...
what's snarking me about iMovie are its tendancy, perhaps, to want to "help" me...I move the cursor over a clip and it plays and I find it disorienting. Maybe I need to look at that differently.
I also find it tedious/difficult to select the bits of clip I want.
Maybe hours in the chair will do it, but I'd appreciate any...not sure what to call it..frame of mind, or mental reference that you use to get familiar with iMovie's various ways.
thanks for reading and for any help!
ray

I can see how it would be useful....maybe I just need to get used to it. but as I move over the clips, there it is, ready to skim for me. maybe it's just a change in user behavior that I need to adopt.
the other thing is selecting clips from the "main" clip to put into my little bin. in FCP, I'm used to making a cut here, a cut there, then plucking out what I want, deleting what I don't want.
that yellow selection frame while mostly good, needs to either stay put, or I need a better idea of how to use it?
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Comparing 2 segments based on the same data

Hi All,
I'm using OBIEE 11g and Oracle database. I'm writing a report that compares several measures in 2 populations based on several dimensions (conditions). I tried using prompts, different presentation variables for population 1 and population 2 and using the filter function for each data point in the column formula. The performance is really poor so I'm looking for suggestions.
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Well, then put the "population" column in the Sections area of the pivot table. Now you have everything in one report and segregated.
BTW, based on your vague requirements, you have received two correct answers. Before you respond, if my answer is not correct for you, explain in greater detail. For example, if there is something you tried and it didn't work, explain the steps you did. If there was an error message, what was it? Etc., etc.
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Hey everyone,
I'm writing a script that compares the modification date of a file to the current date, and performs actions based on whether the file was modified 7 days ago or not. I haven't been able to figure out exactly how to do this.
I haven't been able to find much in the way of this online, and I am not that familiar with manipulating dates and whatnot. I was able to get a bit of it, posted below:
currentDate=`date +%b-%d`
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find ~/.backup.txt -mtime +7 -exec yourscript {} ;
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UDF to compare the dates with the input date

Hi,
Help me in writing an UDF to compare the input date with start date and end date.
I had written following UDF, but it is not working. we are on XI 3.0
try {
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else{
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Thanks
Srinivas

Hello Srinivas,
did you import this two classes in your UDF ? java.text.* and java.util.*
In case you did but the program is still not working I just wrote a code without imports. See if this might help. I have tested this with all type of data please test again from your end. I have assumed that if three dates are equal the function return true. I am not sure whether you wanted to exclude the boundary dates. In case you want to exclude those dates just replace '<=' with '<' symbol. The code could have been smarter but in short time I thought this might help.
public class DateRange {
static boolean compareDate(String startDate,String inputDate,String endDate)
          int j,k,l;
          String s[],i[],e[];
          s=startDate.split("-", 3);
          i=inputDate.split("-", 3);
          e=endDate.split("-", 3);
          j=s[0].compareTo(i[0]);
          k=i[0].compareTo(e[0]);
          l=s[0].compareTo(e[0]);
          if(l>0|| j>0 || k>0)
               return false;
          if(j<=0 && k<0)
               return true;
          j=s[1].compareTo(i[1]);
          k=i[1].compareTo(e[1]);
          l=s[1].compareTo(e[1]);
          if(l>0|| j>0 || k>0)
               return false;
          if(j<=0 && k<0)
               return true;
          j=s[2].compareTo(i[2]);
          k=i[2].compareTo(e[2]);
          l=s[2].compareTo(e[2]);
          if(l>0|| j>0 || k>0)
               return false;
          if(j<=0 && k<=0)
               return true;
            return false;
     public static void main(String[] args) {
          String startDate="1992-04-03";
          String inputDate="1992-02-03";
          String endDate="1992-02-03";
          System.out.println(compareDate(startDate,inputDate,endDate));
Plese let me know if this works.
regards
Anupam

How does my system compare to more up to date systems?

I was just curious as to how you experts feel my system compares to what is out there now?
Is my system obsolete already or does it still have a few years of life left?
Would an additional 512 MB of RAM help much or not?
Thanks
Mike

Quote from: Richard on 14-July-05, 20:57:27
Mike,
It is a Thermaltake Heatsink and Fan:
Thermaltake Silent Boost 80mm Ball Cooling Fan
But I still prefer the Polo 735 since it will let you upgrade to an Athlon64.
Richard
I went back and found this thread because my computer kept shutting down tonight and I thought it was the PS at first. Then I pulled it out and looked at the Mobo and saw that the CPU fan was not spinning.
It was hot on the heatsink too.
So I found this thread and got the name of this cooler and went out to Fry's Electronics and bought me a Silent Boost.
Now I am up and running again.......hopefully.
Mike

E72 - Honeymoon to Divorce.

Like many of you here, I've had quite a few mobile phones through the years and it's always a source of great excitement when a brand new phone lands on your desk. The new OS to explore, the Apps, the form factor. The downside of playing around with so many phones through the years is that there is no perfect device, no form factor that's perfect in every situation and no OS that can retain your interest beyond a few months before it's time to convince yourself that you need to try a new 'thing' which will solve everything for you (and make you more productive).
As long as you know this up front and understand your interest is going to stray, you can get a fairly balanced view of what makes a great, as opposed to a good phone. Here are my thoughts on the E72.
As a background to my adventure, I recently had an iPhone and although it's far from perfect I was fed up with the lack of a physical keyboard. It's not that I failed to bang an email out but I found it tedious when I made a typo and then had to spend 10 seconds trying to edit the message by tap'n'hold to move cursor, delete (x10), tap'n'hold to continue typing etc. It just got 'old' so I started to look for a device with a keyboard - remembering with fondness the keyboard on the old E61, Treo680 and even the Blackberry 8700 (love those clicky keys!).
Last October I bought an E63 because it was 'cheap' and to see if I could get back into using S60 + keyboard after such a long period in iPhone land. To my surprise, the E63 whilst creaky and a little too 'red' for me, was good, it, I even took it to Hong Kong on a trip and left the laptop behind as an experiment (it worked.. but only just) although it obviously had some shortcomings. Toy like Email client, browser standards, ram, camera etc.overall it was a positive experience that made me want to explore further.
I had bought a Nexus One in January the day it was released and although it's a super phone, it still had no keyboard and the Droid keyboard is awful so having had a half decent experience of the E63, I decided the E72 was the next best thing and decided to snap one up.
The Honeymoon / First impressions.
First impressions of the E72 is that it's a 'handsome' phone - not a good looking phone or a kiddy toy but a good, solid, classy looking phone for business. The keyboard was as good as the E63, the form factor was obviously near identical other than the materials being of higher grade and obviously it's slimmer and easier in the pocket. First impressions were very good.
The screen was a step back from most new phones, especially the Nexus One's gorgeous High-res effort but it's certainly clear and as it needs to be judged as a utility, not a spec-sheet competition so it fitted the job of a phone with a keyboard. The screen was clear and bright and easy to use.
Software seemed to be not much of a step up from the E63, I was expecting a higher grade of Application to be included and to my surprise (not disappointment) there was little on the surface to distinguish the E72 from the E63. I disliked the new transition effects as they felt like Nokia had iPhone envy rather than functional enhancements.
Camera quality was very good for a phone although I don't like the viewer application with its spinning wheel of pictures - iPhone envy again? what's wrong with a 5x5 thumb view that would work well with the D-Pad? Once again, it works but it's not designed to optimise the experience of the form-factor.
The touch-pad, I quite liked it, although I rely on the D-Pad more as it's just too small a surface to be useful.
The Email client. At first it felt like a step back from the E63, the E72 client seemed 'bare' for some reason and I also wanted to make the font smaller so I could see more email headers on the screen at once (cant do it), I put all of this down to the email client being prosumer rather than consumer
Overall, first impressions were good with the caveat of some changes to what I was used to, no bad thing.
Married life / day to day:
Day to day, as a Phone, the E72 is fantastic. Calling people by typing their name is so much easier than 'flicking' through lists, call quality is absolutely top notch, signal strength and 3G connectivity is years ahead of my old iPhone/Nexus/Blackberry/Treo and really shows that Nokia know how to make connectivity work from a technical perspective, something that almost every other company from HTC to Apple trail considerably behind on.
Short-cuts to communication 'tasks' are as good as it gets. Series60 is a superb, intuitive and well polished hierarchy of menus to get your calls and messages answered, read and replied to in record time. I can't praise the work that's been done over the years any higher.
Setting up email was easy enough as standard manual entries although after a week or so I decided to setup mail through OviMail - this was painful.
I'm pretty experienced in these things and technically very able (I'm into heavy tech for a few decades) but this was a challenge for me. Passwords, logins, usernames etc.. it all becomes one mixed up frustrating jumble that I think would have any mere mortal turned off or turn to their I.T. department in haste. It took me a couple of days to get it set up properly and even then it felt like it was hanging by its fingernails. Blackberry by contrast feels military strength compared to OviMail and BB's are far from a walk in the park when it comes to ease of setup. Once I did get OviMail setup, it did work but I always had the feeling that it might break at any minute if I touched the wrong option. To its credit, it never actually did break, but it just left a bad taste that I never quite got rid of.
Nokia are obviously moving heavily into services such as cloud infrastructure with Ovi services, Music etc. This push into services is being implemented the same way as Microsoft did a while back where none of the teams talk to one another other, it's all through a technical specification sheet. The E72 software works as silo-applications with each requiring the same login information being entered independently rather than simply log into Ovi services once, per device, and everything else flows. This constant entering of information per application is what makes S60 feel dated, it's unforgivable for a product manager of an integrated device like the E72 to let this pass. It either shows weak leadership within the product team or it shows a lack of cohesion between the teams within Nokia - again, a failure in leadership although higher up the chain of command. Yes, it's a big company but to let this happen shows the company has too many toothpaste managers and not enough tech savy people that love their work.
A second level of confusion is the PC software that's bundled and are encouraged to install. Nokia's PC suite is solid, but why am I encouraged to install Ovi software and map loaders which seem to replicate the same job? It's not a problem with the device itself, but it significantly dilutes the user experience to bemused confusion. Obviously this is not the E72 but companies can no longer separate user-experience from device experience, especially when they're intertwined to the degree that they are these days.
Setting up through a Mac was a lot simpler as you dont get all the Nokia apps, you just use iSync after manually searching for a plugin online. You loose some features but you do that with Macs anyway (yes.. I use one every day so stay away mac fanboys).
The Calendar and contacts apps are adequate but feel dated and slow and could do with some new views and features.
No Internet Radio feature as was in the E63.. I needed to scour the web to add this manually for some odd reason.
OviStore is an average implementation with some average applications. As the E72 is a prosumer phone, not having games and apps, whilst good to pass time on a 747 are far from needed and using the stock built in applications was fair enough.
Music player is 'functional' and did its duty without a hitch.
One thing that worked particularly well was Skype. I do a lot of international calls and I think the Nokia implementation is the best around, hopefully they can make more of this feature as times goes by.
Ovi/Nokia Maps. Where do I start with this? It's absolutely wonderful. I went a few trips to California, installed the map data on the device for California and Nevada and it worked perfectly. I bought a little car stand for $10 in Fry's electronics which worked for the trip and this just blew me away. Even with it's small screen, this has made me give away my Tom-Tom which I took with me on trips and never turned on once. Full marks.
Battery life is incredible, for a device in this day and age to last 4 days on a single charge is simply stunning. I'll put up with the lack of a decent movie player any day if it means I get 4 days out of a single charge. Once again, Nokia should shout about how awesome this is to anyone that will listen. iPhone users get trained into worrying about battery life and turning things off where possible, not having to worry about battery life is an absolute blessing. Well done Nokia.
To give an example, I drove from San Francisco to San Diego which takes 9 hours. I had the GPS running giving me directions, I had the Phone wired into AUX in the Car playing some Audio books for the entire duration and the battery life still had a good 2 days before needing a charge. The E72 battery life will forever go down in Legend as an 'I remember when' story.
Not that this piece is about comparisons with other Phones, but coming from the UK it means heavy roaming charges if I use data. I took a similar business trip with a Nexus One and it was pretty much useless as their GPS mapping software is US only in features and, it can't work with offline maps and would have cost me a pretty penny to use on a roaming contract with all the Data it would download. The Nexus one is arrogantly setup to be of use to US consumers, overseas users get a half-glass feature set (no turn by turn / street-view etc..).
The Divorce:
There is a time in the daily life of using a Phone where the 'unique characteristics' of the Phone start to become tedious. This happens with all phones and gadgets, if it didn't we'd all still be using Videostar VHS recorders (does that give my age away?).
After travelling up and down California, replying to a hundred or so emails over the course of a week, I noticed that I had just sent a handful of emails without being connected to Wifi. After examining a little further I worked out to my horror that the email client does not connect over Wifi - ever. It fails to work with Profiles, connection orders or anything remotely standard on almost any other Nokia/other device. Profiles for the uneducated should remain an unknown, it's a black art from a previous era that has no place in a modern day smartphone. Devices should simply connect over Wifi if connected, otherwise prompt the user if it's roaming - simple as that, no 'profile' needed. This is how all smartphones work, even the senile Blackberry OS does this out the box.
I foolishly presumed that as the old mule E63 has worked over Wifi, the E72 being an 'evolved' device would also have this feature as standard. Nokia took it out.. what the $£%$£?
I can only imagine at this point in time, Nokia deliberately engineered this deficiency to keep carriers happy. The E63 being 'consumer' can be used over wifi with a standard phone tariff, the E72 being a 'prosumer' device needs the user to buy a more expensive Smartphone tariff. I can't for the life of me work out why Nokia would remove a standard feature that was in all of their older phones.
This little oversight of the Email client not connecting or alerting me that it was using a non-wifi connection actually cost me over 100 euros in data charges. This is simply not acceptable, no excuses, no patch-it at some point please. It's simply stupid. Yes, I've used Profimail etc.. but should I need to on a messaging device? I bought the phone for this feature, paying to replace it is simply counter-intuitive when so many other options exist without wrestling with work-arounds.
Other than creating a hole in my wallet, I also through sheer paranoia removed all my Email accounts from Ovi and set them up as 'pull' accounts where I manually check my email. I need to do this simply as I travel so much and the roaming feature sometimes works - it's back to the holding on by your fingernails thing with this device, it should work but you're not quite sure.
Running the much loved Maps application brings up a notice asking to connect to download data - even after saying NO, I still fail to have faith in the profiles working which removes the confidence you have in the device, It removed the feeling that you're in control and that really gets to you after a while. If Email has been engineered to ignore profiles, what else if going on under the surface, I should not have to read forums to gain confidence and if I was a typical consumer I wouldn't know where to start to find this out.
Other problems starting to appear are that the E72 is starting to crash a few times every week, the dreaded space-bar problem has appeared, I can't upgrade the firmware for some reason even though I'm a few revisions behind (I bought it unlocked from Nokia), the back cover feels like it's starting to work loose and has fallen off a few times and the transition effects needed to be turned off (only half of them disappear). All of these things are in the forums here to some degree. Sometimes they annoy, sometimes not, but overall when you're having a tough day they all get to you.
Summary:
There's a scene in the Film "Flash Gordon" where a poor chap puts his hand in a tree trunk as a drunken game to see if the creature that lurks will bite him, he puts his hand in, smiles then slowly starts to pull his hand out before getting bitten just before he pulls his hand to safety - for some odd reason the E72 reminds me of that this. You approach with trepidation, become comfortable with the device then you get bitten just when you think all is well and you're about to make off with the cash.
The E72 is the end of an era. You can tell by Nokia's responses to the problems on the E72 that their corporate focus is no longer on developing S60 but maintaining it with minimal effort.
Their focus is now on Maemo and 300 other pressing priorities, their software engineers are stretched way too thin working on OviCloud services, Maemo and a multitude of new devices and holes/low quality are starting to become standard. This is starting to reflect on devices like the E72 which should be a flagship device but instead is not much more evolved than an 'old' E63 at half the price - which incidentally has an email client from the same codebase that can download over wifi. In many ways, plastic aside, I thought the E63 was better, more stable (for me) especially for the price.
Nokia will obviously keep churning out yearly revisions to the S60 line (C6, E5 etc). But you know for a fact that they're pretty much the same devices with a cavalier attitude to improvements and the least engineering time to fix bugs/features as they can get away with. Arrogant yes, damage to the Nokia Brand by doing this? Absolutely. It will take me 5 years before I return to a new Nokia device after seeing the speed of progress and responses despite some great promise. Look how quickly Google turned around a Nexus One update with multi-touch after an outcry - it can be counted in days after launch, not 'devices' as seems to be the case here.
The E72 device feels great, I love the form factor, the Keyboard is not the absolute best as that remains with Blackberry but it's certainly one of the very best. The phone functions are second to none.
Ovi-Maps is just brilliant and the Battery life is as covered above is the stuff of legend.
In many ways the E72 is the device I'm least able to move on from as there is so much to like and so much potential, but the amateur email implementation and creeping software problems makes this device seriously handicapped for anyone that travels or cares about the significant roaming fees that this device is designed to incur which is a genuine shame.
Hopefully these things will get fixed in firmware upgrades, I'm sure some of them will but why should I wait? this is not the 1990's - this is mature technology and a (very) mature Operating system which should be solid as a rock.
I like many on this forum would like to see Nokia do well but they've simply not stepped upto the plate by fixing basic feature holes nor have they communicated to the community that they're listening and will fix any of the problems. Instead they've announced new devices to replace the handsets that still have serious flaws. This is not the actions of a company that listens but a company that simply churns like a machine on a pre-set course with nobody at the wheel.
Despite much to like about the E72, I for the single reason that Nokia seem to have no ears to hear and no fingers to type, am out until further notice.

Gentlemen,
Thank you for your kind words and replies to my experiences with the E72. Since writing the original post my Firmware has been updated not once, but twice no less.
As I bought the device 'vanilla' style from Nokia online, I have no idea why I was unable to use PCSuite to upgrade my firmware despite my E72 being clearly a few revisions behind, I also tried upgrading from the device itself and it gave me a firm but fair 'No'; one day after hammering the server for a few minutes with constant requests, Nokia's servers finally rolled over and let me download an upgraded firmware directly onto the device. I can only presume it was a load-balance issue with their servers although open to being educated otherwise, I have no idea why PCsuite/Ovi Suite failed to upgrade the E72 despite downloading the new firmware every time I checked for an upgrade. Not to worry, these things happen.
The new firmware (031.023) has some new features with a few new icons added and many bugs fixed. If I were to relate it to my original 'Honeymoon to Divorce' post, it's a bit like the Wife has put on some heels and lipstick and has lost a bit of weight in an attempt to win my affections (sorry female readers, I know it's unforgivably sexist).
In that spirit, and considering the Nexus One that I moved back to using is a poor quality phone (remember that function?) I thought I'd give the E72 another spin to see if it fixed my original problems. I reset the device, cleared the SD card and set the device up from what should be a clean and sparkly install.
You'll all be glad to hear I wont go into another vast post as most of my thoughts still stand, however:
Email:
The new email revision does fix some of the Wifi connection issues I was having. I'm glad to say it's faster and does indeed work over Wifi although it seems very slow when updating itself. Other phones seem to download a full header+message infinitely quicker that the E72. As I've been using the new firmware for a week solid, I'm increasingly annoyed that I need to download the HTML versions of email manually which takes terra-years; I believe the E71 email client can be configured to download HTML versions automatically as can my old E63 so why not the E72? Did someone 'merge' the old email source-code into Nokia messaging when they made the E72 client?
A new bug has appeared that seems to lock into a constantly 'downloading' logo loop - where it never completes the email download. I need to click 'cancel' manually then the email appears as if by magic. There are other niggles that have seemingly crept in such as when using the E72 without a SIM card, the email client will work for a few hours then simply stop connecting manually or automatically, needing a reset to come to life again. **Geek alert on** As an old games programmer, this looks to me like a memory leak problem that could be easily found (or a thread that's gone haywire) - especially considering good debug tools have been around since it's Psion Series 5 roots. **Geek alert off**.
I'm sure your mileage - or bugs - will be different from my own depending on your own unique circumstances but it's another of those two steps forward, one step back things which Nokia seem to do with the E-series.
What's frustrating is the phone part of the E72 is world-class which when coupled with a bottom of class email client it defeats the reason to have a QWERTY in the first place. I'd trade the Phone stability for a best of breed email client on this device in a heartbeat. I've not tested the Gmail client as RistotheGreat did (above) so this may solve the email conundrum for some.
Memory:
As Beowulfpt above originally questioned, Ram is becoming as scarce as the Yeti. Before the firmware update I had plenty of spare RAM, after the firmware update I get low-RAM notifications every few days and I'm running the exact same email accounts without running ANY 3rd party software whatsoever.
Stability:
Overall crashes of the device are now far and few. It seems to be a step forward. Well done Nokia.
Other:
It's worth mentioning (thanks DeadKenny) that you can now sign in once to Ovi services and it's supposed to work across the Ovi suite of apps. I've not checked this personally as I'm using the device without adding extra apps at present but there was a note in the firmware note when upgrading.
Internet Radio has now been added back to the Radio client - no need to go hunting for external versions of this anymore. This, as before, works pretty well.
To close, it's interesting to read others frustrations (above) with this device, there are many good things about E72 and I can live with compromises in a device if it does other things well. In the case of the E72 it's a great phone but it's an incredibly poorly implemented email client, too poor if you ask me. If Nokia added a half stable email client with HTML (as they had many years back in other similar devices) then I'd put up with the tedious old-school 'profiles' and an old-school approach to connectivity and other such compromises. As it stands I can't in all honesty make this my main device when it's fails to offer a usable email client that I can use without frustration on a daily basis despite the new lipstick.
As Nokia are so close to making this device 'ok', should I go back to the Nexus and put up with the lack of a keyboard and poor phone functionality, but excellent mail client - waiting for one more Firmware revision from Nokia? How long did you good E71 owners need to wait until Nokia fixed the problems for you? I really want to like this device despite my sheer frustration at it's implementation.
Note: Despite the E72 still sitting on my desk and not on Ebay, my original post conclusions about Nokia's tardiness in selling half-finished devices still stands. I'd find it incredibly difficult to justify buying a new Nokia device for a number of years. This is a real shame when they have so many voiceless employees within their organisation that if given half a management-vote could turn this cheap strategy around.

SteelSeries Siberia V2 MSI Dragoon Army Edition - Member Unboxing and Review

Hello guys,
So I finally received the SteelSeries Siberia V2 MSI Dragoon Army Edition I won from the forum event. I did some unboxing photos and a short review as well. Hope you guys like it.
Front of the box. It is totally different from the ordinary Siberia V2 sold in stores. This particular headset goes along with some variants of MSI Gaming Laptops.
Side of the box.
Top of the box.
Back of the box.
The headset. It is surprisingly lightweight and the headband really hugs your head firmly. It feels very comfortable compared to my other headset which is a Roccat Kave 5.1. It feels secured and I doubt it would fall or budge during intense gaming. Audio quality is superb! The highs are very crisp. Now I know why this headset is really popular. It is not just stylish and cool, the performance and superb audio quality plus the lightweight material is really a winning formula. Good job SteelSeries! Perfect match for an equally superb gaming laptop from MSI.
Volume rocker and microphone mute button
Two 3.5mm jacks. One for audio and one for the microphone. There's an engraved steelseries logo in the rubber joint the connects the two jacks.
Right side of the headset. There's a MSI Dragoon Army logo in the mesh part of the headset and a SteelSeries logo in the frame.
The retractable microphone of the headset.
Left side of the headset also have the MSI Dragoon Army logo on the mesh but also on the frame instead of the SteelSeries branding.
The headband hold the MSI notebook branding.
There's also a MSI Dragoon Army design inside the muffs.
Included in the package is a 2-meter cable extension just the other Siberia V2 headsets.
A tiny product guide.
Last item included in the package is a SteelSeries sticker.
Again, I thank MSI for the awesome event and for the readers as well.
:D

Thanks guys!
Words cannot explain how surprised I was about the headset. The weight is just totally surprising! It's the lightest full sized headset I used so far. I was listening to music for 2 hours last night and it felt totally comfortable. Heavy full sized headsets tend to be hot in the ears after long hours of wearing and the leather muffs are also warm... you get this hot sensation after wearing one for a long time... the siberia v2 doesn't since it's really lightweight and I think it is somehow ventilated through the mesh... I am not sure but it does help a lot

Open letter to Cisco regarding the UC320 platform

Cisco,
I have never in my life been exposed to a "production" piece of equipment with so many bugs, missing features and oddities as the UC320. While I am sure many of you are working hard to reign in the problems, this platform is an utter embarrassment that should be in the preliminary alpha stages, not a channel product being sold to end users.
It is clear that Cisco has little understanding of how SMALL business works and how SMALL partners work with small business customers. A larger partner may be able to string a larger business along with promises of bug fixes and feature additions while charging them to make things right and.or padding the overall cost to account for the callbacks. True small businesses don't have the time, patience or money to deal with problematic hardware. When a partner sells a small business a piece of technology, it better work (at a reasonable cost) or the technology and the partner are out the door.
I was extremely excited when this system was announced and saw great potential for small business customers and an alternative to the Avaya Partner IP and other platforms targeted at the same demographic. I jumped in and put a UC320 in the office of one of my small customers. This whole experience has cost me the trust of a client and is going to end up costing me $3000-$4000 out of pocket (hardware, labor, travel) to make things right with the customer.
As it stands, countless hours have been spent trying to get this system to operate in a reasonably stable and productive manner. At this time the UC320 system has been reset and reconfigured in KEY mode (this time using 2.1.3(0), as the problems with steering digits, call routing and redial in "hybrid mode" made the system more than a little cumbersome to use. Now in KEY mode, caller ID only works on some stations AFTER a call is picked up. On one station, incoming calls are somehow routed to the "Phone Monitor" buttons instead of the "Shared FXO Line" buttons. The user has to press the monitor button to pick up a call, but the call does not always ring at the station so she has to watch for the lights. While the caller ID functionality is a bit better after the latest firmware update, it is still far from working properly. These basic call routing problems are not reasonable and not acceptable, period. The customer is tired of "we are working on it" and so am I.
Other problems (to mention a few):
The GUI is full of buggy behavior. One example if many: The impendence matching dialog only works the first time around and then the GUI loses track of what it is doing and must be reset.
It takes 7-10 minutes for the GUI to load to the login screen over a remote connection. The UC320 is connected to a Verizon DSL, while not blazing fast it is a decent connection. Initial GUI loading on the LAN is almost as bad.
The IE9 product that ships with every new Windows computer is not compatible with the GUI. This is not reasonable.
The AA is somewhat unpredictable with regard to picking up calls and sometimes results in a busy tone and dropped call, even if the call is the ONLY call on the system. Sometimes the prompts are garbled and sometimes the AA does not even pick up.
Steering digit redial issue - still not addressed. Redial on hybrid mode is useless, as is the phonebook.
Caller ID only works part of the time, yet on every other system I have ever used, it works 100% of the time. This is not acceptable.
Answered calls on shared FXO lines show as MISSED on other stations with those lines. The workaround: remove the missed calls display feature. This is not acceptable.
Thus UC320 is not happy unless it is the only router, DHCP and DNS client on the LAN. The grayfield implementation appears to fail no matter what LAN topology and equipment are used. This device is far from friendly to the typical SBS or existing LAN with a dedicated DNS and/or DHCP server.
The handsets have a cheap feel to them compared to the Avaya and other competitors phones.
The sound quality of the ringtones is almost laughable if not sad
The speakerphone quality and overall voice quality are not as good as the competition's.
The filtering functionality of the logging feature does not appear to work properly
Firmware updates often result in a HANG condition where either the GUI needs reset, the system needs a physical reset and/or sometimes defaulted
Firewall port forwarding rule oddities where a rule is deleted from the gui but is still active in the firewall, yet the inability to easily use another data router to work around this problem.
The inability of the device to properly use the LAN port for INTERNET based functionality (Time for example) if the WAN port is NOT connected,
countless other 'issues" raised in the support forum and other venues...
These are ALL very basic functions that one would expect to be fixed BEFORE a basic telephone system platform is released for production. It is absolutely unreasonable for a CUSTOMER to have to put up with a system this buggy and it is absolutely unreasonable for a partner to have to devote this much time and money to getting system to work at even a very basic level of functionality.
To repeat the scenario: This config is as basic as it gets running 2.1.3(0) with (3) system phones, (3) users, (2) pots trunks and that's it. There are no odd call routing scenarios, no complex AA rules or schedules (in fact the AA is defaulted, including prompts). All (3) system phones have BOTH shared FXO lines (KEY MODE). Each and every firmware version has been tried and the system has been defaulted numerous times. The system fails to meet even the most basic expectations of myself or the end user and has become a sore spot between our company and a very good client.
I am somewhat baffled, if not outright bothered by the fact that this device is riddled with so many problems and the fixes are taking so long to be implemented, if at all. I have been asked (ordered) by the customer to get this "hunk of crap" out of their office and replace it with something that works "at no additional cost". I could not agree with the customer more...
A very unhappy Cisco Partner.
William Burnett

To William (and Cisco,)
Honestly, I like Cisco.
I like their "openess" (you can find documentation and help on almost anything anywhere), the contribution they make to industry by their huge R&D effort (more than all their competition combined....or so I've been told...), the accessibility and responsiveness of some of their key people in the distribution channel, and yes, I like the ecosystem in terms of support, tons of free education and sales support for both their SMB and classic enterprise solutions.
Having said that, I thank God for people like William Burnett, who I am sure opened the eyes of many partners about the things that are horrendously wrong with some of the products in the SMB portfolio, most notably the UC320. I think it is fair to say, that William has effectively "killed" it (the UC320) in it's present incarnation. That is, unless Cisco, decides to really rise to the challenge and fix a product that at first seemed ideal for the small enterprise, but which was poorly implemented in terms of QC and in some cases design.
We certainly are not going to be touching the UC320 with a 10ft pole now Nobody wants (or can afford to) get a bad name by selling "trouble" to your Mom&Pop shops or to people whose trust you worked hard to gain and who are really depending on you to deliver. Not in this economy....not ever.
Coming from a Nortel telephony background, its really hard to accept that having to respond to trouble calls or complaints continuously from customers when Nortel products worked so reliably. In fact, Nortel Norstar is so reliable as a key system that people joke , that's why they went out of business, they couldn't generate enough turnover in new sales on account of people holding on to their Norstar's forever.
As a seller/installer/user of Cisco voice (UC540) and CME there are a couple recommendations I would like to make to Cisco:
1)Private line emulation - inability to transfer or conference calls on a private line. (using the TRUNK XX command) on the CME/UC500 platforms needs to be significantly improved in order to keep up with the competition:
for one, when you select a private line and make a call you cannot transfer that call. Every other system I have worked with allows you to do this. This for me is a glaring "defect/design flaw". I spent a lot of time trying to get this "fixed" as I couldnt believe that Cisco would just omit such a basic function when all their competition has it. (You dont even think about this when dealing with other systems.) Its just expected.
2)Private line emulation - Inability to reflect the dialed number in the Call Detail Records for calls made via a "private line". If you select a private line on the UC500 or CME and make a call, the dialed number would not show up in the CDR. I have programmed systems from Nortel (Norstar, BCM,CS1000), Avaya - (IP Office 500, Partner Plus, and S8x00 Communication Servers) as well as various systems from Mitel and
Panasonic . The CDR packages for these systems are very well implemented and documented. Cisco's systems are well documented as well, but this is an area of the implementation where Cisco falls behind the competition. I am sure this can be fixed, but for some reason, despite a number of requests, it hasnt.
In trying to understand why it is Cisco, with such a huge R&D budget, can't seem to get some things working properly that the competiton has long ago solved and moved on with, I have come to the conclusion that it must be that Cisco propably didnt tap enough of the right (human) resources when it was developing its voice portfolio, and the lack of industry experience shows up in some random places. Sad to say, not paying attention to some of these details, to real world usage scenarios, makes what would be an otherwise super product, just good enough.
Cisco is the biggest networking vendor on the planet. People have a right to have high exectations of Cisco. Their marketing also conditions users and partners to expect more when using their solutions. While we accept that no one is perfect, not even the mighty Cisco, I think most of the complaints and dissapointment expressed in this forum, on this particular thread, are justified because there is a strong feeling that if Cisco can be such a trailblazer with their enterprise portfolio, that they should have understood the importance of ensuring and enforcing good quality control in the design and manufacture of the SMB portfolio. I honestly hope someone from "Corporate" or high enough to make a differnce, looks at this thread started by William and uses it to inspire the will to fix what needs to be fixed to redeem the UC320 in whatever incarnation, in the eyes of its partners (even former ones....such as William)and customers. This is beginning to look like a textbook case of how not to do product development.

Is there a way of....?

hi guys
i use the Apple Support Communities EVERY day because i run constantly into trouble AND it's such a good place to get friendly & to the point help . no faffing about, just the way i like it...
only recently did i notice that the Forum as been ''set up'' differently & has some new ''functions'' as the ''insert image'' - which i love, it's sooo easy !
now, i usually have a problem posting in forums w/ my 27'' iMac, the fonts being WAY TOO SMALL to make writing/reading comfortable + it's difficult to go back & correct something one wrote - placing correctly the mouse cursor becomes a hit or miss affair.. - luckily here there is a ''font size selector'' which TOTALLY solves this problem - BRILLIANT !!
however i've found that each time i come back here to post, i have to re-set it to my desired size !?
i tried looking around in my profile, my stuff, etc...to see if there was a way to set it permanently to a certain size & leave IT at that
the same applies when displaying the discussions page - i like to set it at displaying 30 items per page but if i leave & come back later i have to re-set this as well !
maybe i'm being finicky but would you guys know of ANY way to set these functions permanently ? kind of as in an ''app's preferences pane'' so that each time you launch it, it ALWAYS comes up set up the same way, you know what i mean ?
that would be SO useful to me ....
many thanks, any suggestions will be very appreciated

Hi Alancito
& thanks for your input - unfortunately that is something i already do but had to settle to ''size 14'' because beyond that many sites start going ''bonkers'' - check the screenshots below :
i guess it has to do with how the sites are ''written'' or something.....
after much trial & error, i found that 14 is a good compromise, only producing the occasional garbled site
now for you to have an idea of how writing here looks like compared to say a google search page look at this screenshot :
the letters of the text i write are 2mm tall, it's just crazy !
let's face it - i know my sight isn't THAT sharp anymore, i'm 51 years old but i do wear properly prescribed reading/computer glasses ( don't know how these are called in english.. ) but come on i only have 2.5 on my strongest lens, i sit at roughly 20 or 25'' away from the screen - it seems to me it SHOULDN'T be THIS difficult , you know what i'm saying ?
at the end of the day this isn't a BIG, BAD thing - it's just annoying, forces me to constantly reset things a certain way & it certainly slows me down A LOT
again many thanks, let's see if somebody else has another solution
cheers

Is there any limitations to purchasing iTunes songs?

I'm wondering if I should be concerned about anything as far as restrictions on how I can use songs I purchase from iTunes. I thought I heard somewhere that there were certain limitations putting your iTunes songs on different mediums. Or maybe that was the iPod that doesn't allow you to share music or something... It seems as though once I download and purchase an iTunes song onto my Macbook I can do whatever I want with it.
I've purchased many iTunes songs before, I'm only asking because I'm planning on buying a bunch of songs/albums and also I'm basically going to import most of my old CDs I have lying around and put them in iTunes (so I can sell the CDs). And I was wondering if it;s better than going with something like Rhapsody.

stikygum wrote:
I'm wondering if I should be concerned about anything as far as restrictions on how I can use songs I purchase from iTunes.
They are sold for personal use only and may not be used for public performance. You can get more detail from the Terms of Sale.
I was wondering if it;s better than going with something like Rhapsody.
Feel free to compare.
For purchasing downloads, you will find that many of the tracks that cost $1.29 at the iTunes Store can be had for 99 cents at the amazon.com MP3 Download Store.
Rhapsody also offers a subscription option with unlimited listening for a monthly fee, which may be of interest.

What's a good external keyboard for MBP

Given that the MBP keyboard is so inadequate and Apple is seemingly too stubborn to give us a good one, an external keyboard is mandatory. However, I'm not sure what's good in the Apple world. There is, of course, the Apple keyboards and I'm going to take a look, but there are also some from Logitech and others. Does anyone have any suggestions on good ones? I purchased the iHome IH-K236LS, but just looking at it and feeling it and seeing that it requires a power cord is not making me feel like it's a good purchase. Plus the mouse feels incredibly cheap. Like something from a kids toy. And it requires two of the three USB ports (but does add two on the keyboard). Anyway, I'm thinking I'd better check into other possibilities, so any suggestions would be appreciated.

People have such different views of what makes a "good" keyboard, GTGeek, that it is almost impossible to make suggestions without getting a better idea of what your requirements are.
I grew up using manual typrewiters (Olivetti Lettera 32's etc), migrated to IBM and Brother electrics, and then nearly 30 years of different computer and data terminal keyboards.
In the early years, perhaps not surprisingly, the closer a computer got to approximating that of an IBM golfball the happier I was. Few computer keyboards seemed to have the "feel" or travel that I was used to. Despite this i gradually found I adapted to almost all of them.
I still have many of my older computers and I often get a bit of a shock when I use them these days! My favourite in days gone by on a portable was on the NEC8021a, but today when I use it the keys seem too sculpted and to have too much travel (both features I once really liked about it!)
The keyboards on modern MBPs , of course, are at the opposite extreme - flat keys and little travel. The same goes for Apple's own current external keyboards. I now use them all the time, but if you don't like the keyboard on a current MBP I doubt you will want to yourself. The feel is very similar.
The older white Apple Bluetooth keyboards had more travel , and more sculpting and a nice feeling of "solidity", but can only be found second hand these days.
I personally like the Apple Pro wired keyboards in days gone by, but, as with the white bluetooth they are now history.
I have two Logitech wireless and and a Microsoft USB keyboard tucked away in the draw (together with just about every keyboard Apple have ever made) . The Logitech and MS ones feel very "plasticky" compared to Apple offerings, but, as I said, I have simply adapted to the latter over time. You might find them fine if that is what you are used to.
On Mac notebooks my favourites in the past were those on the PB1400, the PB 12 and the earlier models of the MBP, but I've adapted to the current MBP ones now as well.
All of which adds up to the fact that the only way to decide something like this is to test them yourself, and, perhaps, to be prepared for a period of adjustment whatever you get before you can really judge it. Familiarity breeds contempt, they say, but in the case of keyboards it has always seemed quite the opposite to me. What you have been using most in recent times always seems to be the best after a while!
Cheers
Rod

Don't understand how to enable OpenGL?

I just installed Photoshop CS4 around a week ago and as many have already said it feels pretty sluggish compared to the CS2 that I upgraded from.
I get the message "photoshop has encountered a problem with the display driver, and has temporarily disabled GPU enhancements..." which essentially disables OpenGL and I am sure probably has some adverse effects.
I have a modern up to date computer so I don't see what the issue is. Whenever I try to enable it when I restart it tells me to either search for updated drivers or gives me the error. I hate thinking I paid all this money for something I am not getting optimal use out of.
Thanks for any help
Specs:
Windows XP SP3
Directx 9.0c
4GB Ram
Quad 9450 CPU
Nvidia 8800GT 512MB video card (which is on their supported list)
Most up to date video drivers you can get 178.24

I have a very basic 1600x1200 resolution which is pretty standard for a non wide screen setup.
I just deleted my CS4 settings file at startup as described by adobe's help files as they said it might be holding onto old info. I don't get the initial error now and I am getting some changes (no more flickering when moving the files around, and there are smooth transitions now between zooming and moving) so I am assuming this is the OpenGL feature set?
I still do get a popup on load however that says "to download your latest video drivers please visit..."
I wish adobe provided a utility that tests your functionality (much like direct x and some video games do) and would issue a pass or fail and if so give an explanation.

Is the iPad 2 charger the same as the charger for the original iPhone?

My understanding is that the charger that comes with the iPad 2 is more powerful and will charge the iPad 2 more quickly than will the charger that comes with the iPhone 4. However, the iPad 2 charger is the same shape as the charger that came with the original iPhone. Does anyone know whether the iPad 2 charger and the original iPhone charger are identical in function? (BTW, my understanding is that the iPad 2 charger will not charge the iPhone 4 faster than that phone's charger will).

No, they're not the same. I compared mine awhile back and while they're the same shape, the iPad 2 one has writing on it that says "10 W USB Adapter". The one for the original iPhone doesn't have that writing, but if you compare the detailed input-output information, it does show that it is less powerful.
I believe that's why Apple changed to the two different sizes, so you can quickly determine which are for "phone" type devices and which are for "larger" type devices.
iPod USB Power Adapter
Input 100-240V ~ 0.15A (0,15A) 50-60 Hz Output 5V ----- 1A
10W USB Power Adapter
Input 100-240V ~ 0.45A (0,45A) 50-60 Hz Output 5.1V ----- 2.1A

Should I use screen lock with find my iPad.

Im using a wifi only iPad, so if it is lost or stolen the finder or thief will need to be able to access my iPad and connect to a wifi signal before I can track it. I therefore think I should not use keypad lock so that I can allow them

You don't have to use one, it's personal preference as to whether you use one or not - I use one on my iPad Mini as I prefer the feel of them compared to the glass screen, other people don't like or use them as they prefer the glass (and some screen protectors can affect the clarity of the screen). Depending upon where you will be using the iPad (e.g. if it's dusty or dirty) you may want one to give the screen a bit of extra protection.

Writing feeling on Helix comparing to x201t?

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