Whenever I go to Mercury Drug, I think of Native Command Queuing

Hey cool, my article about SATA came out on the PCMag.ph site.

I wrote this very technical article for the January 2006 issue, and I really enjoyed writing it as I learned a lot about Serial ATA (SATA) and consequently, Parallel ATA (PATA), the technology it’s supposed to have replaced. It’s basically a geek’s dream.

The most interesting factoid is the ATA naming schema used by the technical committees in charge of creating standards for hard disks over the years, vis a vis how the manufacturers named them, which is completely different and ultimately made to confuse the market, making it appear their products had improvements where there wasn’t any. Also another revelation: if it wasn’t for SATA II, hard disk technology would be pretty much the same as 5 or 8 years ago, the main difference being only in capacity, but certainly not speed.

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Thoughts about ‘Survey: Majority of Blogs are Personal’

  1. Duh.
  2. Obviously focused on American bloggers, but it’s safe to assume many of the details, like the reason why people blog, are the same worldwide.
  3. On a similar article titled “Report exposes real deal about bloggers“, it says that “While 74 percent of Internet users are white, only 60 percent of bloggers are white.”, and goes on to quote a Gartner research analyst: “Blogs have given those who perhaps don’t feel that their issues, thoughts or opinions are addressed in the mainstream media, an outlet to express themselves in some way.”. That’s funny, because one of the reasons I’m blogging about this very same article is that as a Filipino blogger, but still a blogger, I feel my opinion was not expressed as well. Therefore, this is a blogpost about a blog article about bloggers who are excluded from mainstream media by a blogger who has been excluded from mainstream media! Kewl!
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Nokia N91 Writeup Out

Tuned for Tunes is out, where I write about the Nokia N91.

Trying out any N-Series phone is a really special experience. I take a great deal of time trying to figure out what exactly they were trying to do with it before writing it up, and N-Series phones always have a lot to say. Their designers and engineers spend a lot of time dreaming it up, and sometimes I think they’re given a clean slate when it comes to N-Series. What I want to do is to figure out the goal they were trying to achieve, and after using it, determine if they’ve achieved it.

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My PCMag Notebook Shootout Notes

I was lent five notebooks last May by PCMag, and I’m posting here the spreadsheet I used to make the comparison.

Featured notebooks are the Acer Travelmate 3242 WXMi, the Amoi Blue M626 Laptop, the NEC Versa M350 1704DW, the Asus A6R and an Asus A3A. The specs I mentioned are the ff.:

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‘Authors’, nice Moleskin alternatives for hallucinating writers

I’m a big notebook collector, and no it’s not ‘notebooks – computers’ but ‘notebook – Jolina on the cover’. You know, the one with paper, and requires a pen.

Anyway I’m nuts about these. I appreciate it whenever us press people are given freebie nice ones (I tend to use them till they fall apart), and there was a time I’d buy one every time I’d go to National Bookstore, so I’ve tried the ‘Blue Feather’, the yellow ‘King Jim’, ‘Green Apple’ and all sorts of other brands. I don’t like the spiral ones, I prefer the ones with a spine and I’d use it till it’d get all worn out and loose – leafed (if there’s such a word).

So this brought me to start wondering what the best type is out there, so I surfed and learned about Moleskins, reportedly the ones used by Van Gogh, Chatisse, Hemingway, Matisse and Gary Mercado. Yes I just sneaked my name in there, to see how it’d look aside those legends. Pitiful, I know.

At any rate, I was meandering about Greenbelt 2 the other day when I found these, called (I hope I get it right) “Authors” notebooks. Sorry about the lousy 1.3mpx pics. Anyway they’re covered in soft leather, come in fashionable colors (black, blue, red, pink, green, white etc.) and have really nice unlined paper in it, perfect for when you’re harboring hopeless thoughts of writing the next great Philippine novel, as I am wont to do often during the day.

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