You cannot be truly humble without self confidence

James Eadon

Configure action for closing the lid
Main script: /etc/acpi/lidbtn.sh
This script gets called when the lid is closed. The default action (see the script) is: /etc/acpi/suspend2ram.sh but you can obviously comment that out (so closing the lid doesn’t do anything - useful when laptop is connected to all external devices and acts as a “PC box”) or change it to any action You want

Backup
backup: dd if=/dev/sda | gzip -c > /home/user/E:/eeepc/backups/sda.$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%s).gz
restore: dd if=/home/user/E:/eeepc/backups/sda.2008090118451220291153.gz | gunzip -c | dd of=/dev/sda

Staroffice: how to get spellchecker to work
StarOffice installation seems to be messed up and doesn’t come with English dictionaries which need to be installed for spellchecker to work. This is what I did:

• Download: DicOOo.sxw macro into directory of your choice
• Tools->Options->StarOffice->Security->Macro Security->Trusted Sources->Trusted file locations->Add - add the directory You downloaded the macro to
• In File Manager navigate to that directory
• double click on the macro (or right click and “Open”) to run the macro. This will open a new document, with links to languages. Chose the language You prefer (CTRL-click) (this will be the language for running the macro - not the dictionary)
• You will be presented with a “Start DicOOo” button. Click on it and follow instructions
• Shut down all instances of StarOffice and restart. Now You should be able to select correct dictionary (it might be already selected for You) in Tools->Options->Language Settings->Writing Aids

.
.
.
.
.

Working example: links
Installation:

• Make a backup of original imp-links.php in …/wp-content/plugins/imp-links directory
• Download: >> imp-links <<
• Rename downloaded file to imp-links.php
• Copy renamed imp-links.php to your WordPress installation, into …/wp-content/plugins/imp-links directory

|
|
|
|
|

Display

Will not even boot if BIOS is not set to AUTO (i.e. set to BOTH monitors)

lshw -C network

*-network
description: Ethernet interface
product: RTL8101E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller
vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:08:00.0
logical name: eth0
version: 01
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: bus_master cap_list ethernet physical
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.2LK ip=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx latency=0 module=r8169 multicast=yes

iwconfig

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

dmesg

output: toshiba.dmesg.txt
.
.
.

Final Verdict:

Please bear in mind this is a subjective, ‘personal preference’ verdict
I’ve had enough of this laptop but thanks to this painful experience I know now that what I need is Asus EEE PC + stationary PC. It is most likely a great laptop and good value for money for those who wish to follow The Vista Path of Virtual Enlightenment.. Unfortunately I am simply tired of Micro$oft / Hardware Manufactures politics and private agendas, particularly if, as a result, it is me who has to waste endless hours re-instating this or other system. My personal requirements demand that I have a system which is tailored to my needs and that I am in full control of that system. Unfortunately this laptop does not offer such freedom due to the fact that operating system is not supplied as a software and hardware is not OpenSource friendly.
Mouse on the right hand sucks… I thought I would change my mouse habits but I have not… mouse keeps sliding under power cable and keeps pressing OK button… reformat disk.. OK … I cannot change my habits. Need to buy another laptop. think aboiut it.. one port mouse.. one port removable drive…2 ports taken… what’s remaining is 2 ports on the right…. and they are NIGHTMARE!!!! Not to mention that it makes DVDs very hard to insert and play.

Review:

Context:
Bought in PC World on 11 Dec, 2007.
I am not a hardware expert and I am definitely not a laptop expert. The only laptop I used in my entire life (and am still using) is Dell Latitude D620. But, since it was just allocated to me at work - I never had to think what I like about it or not - because I did not have any choice anyway and also, nothing to compare it against.
Therefore I will use that laptop for comparison. TOSHIBA A210-17I is my first, “privately” owned laptop.
This review is not about absolute, objective facts. It is about myself assessing whether what I bought is what I wanted. And since this is my first laptop - I never really knew what I wanted. Until now that is.

External Display

• Doesn’t work with my IBM E74 monitor which is rather critical to me. I wouldn’t have bought this laptop if I had known that.
• The monitor lid opens only to about, I dunno, 135 degrees? That will make using external monitors difficult - because the laptop’s monitor will be in a way! Dell’s lid / monitor opens full 180 degrees so I can slide it beneath the monitor I am using
• I connected flat screen. DVD would not play.

Hardware Support: general
Laptop does not come with any drivers.

Hardware Compatibility: Ubuntu Desktop 7.10
Most of the devices (including sound card) not detected. FN keys (HotKeys) don’t work at all. Full list of what You would get after fresh Ubuntu install can be found here

Wifi rtl8187b linux native driver for Ubuntu ( download ) - I followed the instructions but couldn’t get past the compilation errors.

Hardware Compatibility: Fedora 8.0
Definitely better than Ubuntu. Graphics card detected OK but generic VESA driver used, Sound seemingly detected as well - but it doesn’t work.
VMware Server install failed due to ‘non-standard’ kernel. It then tried to compile specially for that kernel but that failed as well.

Hardware Compatibility: PCLinuxOS
Similar to Ubuntu. No Graphics or Sound detected.

OS Support: Vista
It appears that the laptop DOES NOT come with Windows Vista as a separate software. It comes with a DVD which contains an image of laptop’s hard disk which does contain Vista. In other words - you will not be able to install Vista yourself - you can only re-instate what you bought originally. This is important to understand - you will not be able to install Vista the way you would like to (i.e. on a different partition etc)

‘Vista-laptop’ bundle ownership considerations
Imagine that you bought a laptop which is specifically built for a certain Vista configuration so the laptop will not work properly without this particular Vista setup, and this particular Vista setup will not work on any other laptop. You no longer own the hardware - because it is entirely dependant on certain set of software. And you don’t own the software either - because what you were given as software was just a backup of what was installed on the laptop in the first place. So you paid money - but you own nothing in return, apart from rights to spend more money on hardware, and more importantly, Vista upgrades, without which your laptop might cease to work altogether. So effectively You haven’t bought a laptop, but merely leased it from Toshiba-Micro$oft Coorporation.

BIOS
Very basic comparing to Dell. Too basic IMHO. Dell’s BIOS offers loads of very useful, user friendly (as opposed to “very technical”) options.

Ports layout
USB, external display, even power supply ’socket’ are located on both sides. There is nothing at the back. This is not ideal. I tend to use mouse and don’t want any sticking out plugs in a way. Luckily USB ports are located on BOTH sides. Right-handed person might discover that Power Supply plug annoyingly and dangerously gets in a way - mouse accidently slides under it and then right-click button is activated. And external diplay plug might be getting in a way of a left-handed person using a mouse.

6 months later:
I was hoping that my ‘mouse habits’ would adjust to this new, different setup but they did not. Instead I am developing RSI as a result of having to constantly try to avoid the power plug sticking out.

Volume Control
Perhaps a wee dash too granular and its placement is also not perfectly ideal - it is very easy to accidently touch the touch pad when using it. But otherwise rather cool and makes a refreshing change from Dell’s ‘up’ and ‘down’ buttons which don’t have enough granularity.

Speed
I haven’t noticed speed improvements as yet, but haven’t had time to test it properly due to all other issues. Windows Vista as well as Ubuntu take their time to load up but it is perhaps a little bit faster than my old XP. I will run some performance comparisons running GIMP later (I am hoping that extra 1GB memory should make big difference)

• BIOS takes a dash too long to load IMHO
• Freshly installed Ubuntu Desktop 7.10: boot - 40+ seconds, shutdown 10- seconds.
• Freshly installed Fedora 8.0: boot - 30 seconds, shutdown 10- seconds.
• Freshly installed PCLinuxOS: boot - 26 seconds, shutdown 10- seconds.

DVD does not open when powered off
Mildly annoying but annoying nevertheless since it seems to be simple ’spring out’ mechanism but when powered off it is locked for one reason or another - important when one wants to boot from a CD/DVD (or forgets to take bootable CD/DVD out).

Battery
Measured: In ‘Balanced’ mode with wireless on, internet browsing only (FireFox): approx 1h 40min

Fan
Seems to keep coming on quite a lot?
Warm air escapes on the left-hand side if that’s any consideration.

6 months later:
This sound maybe trivial but became a great inconvinience for me. As a right handed person I use mouse with my right hand, leaving left hand for doing anything else like stuffing buiscuits into my mouth etc. So everything I use tends to end up on the left hand side of the laptop, caught in the stream of warm air coming from the fun. The air is not hot, but warm enough to melt chocolate or cheese, dry up tobacco, warm up cooled drinks. So the left hand side of the laptop has to be virtually clear, apart from tea or coffee perhaps which fun will keep comfortably warm.

Physical dimensions
It is quite bulky and heavy comparing to Dell. That is an advantage if one wants to work with laptop only - it will definitely sit well on one’s lap hehehehe. It is a slight disadvantage when one is usually using other external devices (such as mouse, keyboard and monitor) - it does occupy quite a bit of desk-space.

Keyboard
A little bit wobbly (pressing keys hard causes the keyboard to ‘cave in’ slightly). It does feel rather slightly ‘cheap’ and doesn’t exude much confidence. Dell’s keyboard is much more solid - it doesn’t give impression of ‘caving in’.

LCD Display
Great clear and shiny screen. Looks lovely but how easily it will get dirty? Seems to me that one has to employ a strict ‘do not touch’ policy here.
The picture quality is quite amazing and definitely better than Eizo flat screens I have. This is one of the strongest points of this laptop IMHO. Wide screen makes browsing Internet quite a different experience - I am not sure if it would be that good for designing new web pages though (due to the fact that most people do not use wide screens of course).

Speakers / Sound quality
I think rather good, considering those are ‘internal’ speakers. Together with the screen they make watching DVDs rather refreshing and VERY pleasurable experience.

Aesthetic Look
I think it looks quite good. Looks very cool when closed and looks sort of Apple-like (white keyboard) when opened. The downside here is that any touch (including opening the lid) leaves superbly visible fingerprints. Which doesn’t look aesthetic at all - so remember to wear gloves (preferably white for an effect) when handling it! And keep a soft cloth for wiping both sides of the lid handy at all times!

• Display started to flicker once (went sort of ‘runny’) and I had to power off laptop twice before it stopped. Hopefully it will never happen again. (x 2 now (one reported in comment)
• When using Skype in Vista (is it Vista compatible?): laptop just sort of hang / froze / got stuck. The power was up but the screen went blank and connection went down. Had to power it off and reboot.
• microphoe stopped workig (x 1)
• can not log into my own website… after reboot I can… this is KRAZY!!!!!
• “n” key became erratic
• Downloaded some file - mouse stopped working (x1)
• Could not buy stuff on Amazon… after reboot I could (x3)

.
.
.

AFTER:

Technique used:
Well… it is a bit of mystery to me…. and I am quite shocked that the wires seem to be much closer to the viewer now (IMHO)… I wish I knew how to save History in GIMP for future references… anyway.. the generic term for this technique is “messing about” which consited of:

• NOT using Colours -> Auto
• There are 3 layers merged together. Each layer was processed by messing about with some colours / filter options.
• Top layer is merged using grain extract 74%. This gives wires their cool look. I think this layer was created using Colours -> Retinex
• 2nd layer is merged using Hard Light 49%
• 3rd layer is normal, and there is just a black canvas below to make picture standard size
• 2nd or 3rd layer was created using Colours -> Curves and ‘EXTREME messing about”. The starting and end points of the curve were moved almost to the middle point. Only thouse 2 points were moved.

.
.
.

[...] you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A prison for your mind.

–Morpheus

We can live in our thoughts, we can live our thoughts, we can be our thoughts, caught up in dramas generated by our minds, thinking, analysing, obsessing, re-living, agonizing, shortly: digesting the thought food supplied to us by our brain - that’s the Blue Pill, Virtual Reality, Bondage we were all born into.

Luckily, as creatures equipped with consciousness, we also possess a seemingly hidden from us ability to distance ourselves from our thoughts, ability to allow them to exist without actually us paying too much attention to them, without us acting upon them, without us reacting to them - that’s the Red Pill, Quantum Reality, being the Observer of the Experiment called “life” rather than laboratory animal being experimented on by our very own mind.

The choice is ours but it is important to consider Morpheus’ words here:

I didn’t say it would be easy, Neo. I just said it would be the truth

–Morpheus

Those words are absolutely critical: many of us bravely decided to take the Red Pill, but in a wrong arrogant belief that it would somehow give us an advantage, improve quality of our lives, enable us to have more control over Virtual Reality we have to deal with every day, free us from the bondage we were born into. What Morpheus is trying to emphasise then, and many of us had a pleasure of painfully learning that lesson themselves, is that taking the Red Pill does not automatically “make things better” - it is often, in fact, that taking the Red Pill makes things seemingly worse, to start with anyway - so it is vital that we understand our choice and the reasons behind it if we are determined to stand by it.

Why would anybody want to take the Red Pill then? Because, IMHO, that is the only choice we have, even though Blue Pill not only sounds more attractive, but also seems to make much more sense.

The reason why Blue Pill does not represent any choice is simple:
“everything we pay attention to grows”
If we chose to live our thoughts, listen to them, pay respect and cultivate them, effectively becoming their slaves - then they will just grow larger, hungrier, more demanding, and haunting, knowing that we have become dependant on them, until we will get totally trapped in them, unable to escape, stuck in a Virtual World of our own anguish which, over time, will become more and more unbearable, a living Hell.
Blue Pill is like any drug addiction - sooner or later it will start to bring in increasing misery, agony and suffering - its original purpose and attraction lost. Our investment in Blue Pill will cease to pay off and our losses will just keep mounting up over time.

The reason why Red Pill is the only choice is simple, for the very same reason:
“everything we pay attention to grows”
If we stop paying attention to our thoughts so deeply and passionately, particularly to unwanted ones, they will stop growing and slowly start to wither away, for they won’t feel needed anymore and there won’t be anything they can cling, hang on to. Our investment in Red Pill will start to pay off and our profits will just keep mounting up over time.

But the choice of becoming an Observer is not an easy one - some parts of us will still be deeply locked in Virtual Reality Bondage and therefore we will have to maintain the state of “dual reality” - being an Observer as well as a person trapped in his/her own Virtual Reality. And how will we know which is which?
One also has to accept the fact that one will never be able to fully free oneself from the Blue Pill Birth Bondage - Red Pill is not an absolute, guaranteed solution - it is an “every little helps” remedy.

Being a Prisoner of one’s own thoughts is a Living Hell
Being an Observer of one’s own thoughts is a Good Laugh

One single negative thought we managed to eradicate from our mind is one single improvement in quality of our lives, and therefore lives of others and the Universe as a whole. “Old habits die hard” implies that any newly learnt habit becomes more and more permanent over time. “Practise makes it permanent” as they say.

Harmony naturally results in a deep silence, joy, delight.
Conflict results in anxiety, anguish, stress, tension.
The EGO is nothing but all the tensions that you have created around
yourself.

–Osho

Now then:
Let’s consider for a moment a balloon being filled with air. If we continue filling balloon with air - it will explode sooner or later. But if we make a tiny hole in it - some of the air will be escaping. The explosion will not be as powerful and entirely different - because of this tiny little hole.
Or, if we consider a particle in its un-determined state - even a sneak glance at it, a minute observation, will determine at least some of its state - and therefore particle will lose its infinitive potential of being anything.

Therefore any useless speculation on what is or will be actually chips away from what is or will be, dilutes it. It is like watching the balloon filling with air, not knowing that there is a tiny hole in it somewhere.

Furthermore we are, particularly these days, “digital creatures”… we think in “digital”, not analogue, we think in “steps”, we think in “if this then that” procedural language.
But we also know that everything, including our brains, is analogue. Therefore there are always “gaps” between “steps”, between “this or that”, we think, we perceive, we analyse, we speak - always digitally, always from one point to the next, missing the gaps in between points.

Therefore the outcome we expect is always “skewed”, inaccurate, or not even resembling our “trend predictions” - because we are entirely blind to half of the “story”… i.e. “gaps”

The more we try to predict, analyse, define, describe - the more “gaps” we create in the process… and hence the more we move away from what is really happening. One could say that the “real life” is happening exactly “there” - in the field of gaps which we cannot perceive, due to digital, logical “yes or no” nature of our brains, due to the fact that we think in order to determine.

And I start to think that this is where “being in touch with oneself” term originates from. It is not a metaphor, it is actually an act of Mind touching, “linking” with the Heart, on vibrational level, thus creating an envelope of stillness and silence, embracing the field of potential, rather than panickly trying to dissolve it with thoughts and/or words.

It is only natural. We are scared of stillness and silence, energy seemingly not moving, not manifesting itself - for we simply and quite logically equate it with Death.

“Being in Touch with Oneself” is a practice, a method, of opening oneself to those “gaps”, learning to acknowledge them, learning to CONCIOUSLY live through them, and, first of all of course hehehehehe, learning to unlearn the fear of them.

(:o

P.S.

• Some people touch the area of their heart in order to confirm/re-affirm that they are trying to get “in touch” hehehehehehe
• Eadon tells me: So getting in touch with reality is touch in the sense of “observation”, by observing ourselves, we make ourselves reality and hence learn about ourselves, hence getting in touch with ourselves.

And I probably trust the people in my guild, many of who I don’t even know, more than just about any other community of people that I know, much more than my business community

…people who have MBAs are typically bad leaders…

All I am trying to say is that Comfort Zones is what one seeks more and more the older one gets. Which means preference to put up with whatever we have rather than facing a change of getting something better.

(:o