Tech Support Jarak Jauh

Semenjak Abah dah beli MP3 voice recorder utk merakam kuliah dan kelas-kelas agama nampaknya makin digital hidup Abah dan Mak di Aloq Staq. Walaupun dah biasa dengan komputer... melayari laman-laman web dan tengok live streaming kuliah agama, masih ada benda yang agak janggal untuk diorang fahami.

Bila Abah call dan tanya macam mana nak guna voice recorder untuk pindah fail dan simpan dalam komputer, susah jugak nak tunjukkan caranya kalau dah tinggal lebih 400km jauhnya. Tapi takpa, nikmat teknologi kan ada - kita remote pc ;)

Kalau di ofis, saya remote guna terminal client je, tapi untuk rumah di Aloq Staq, saya gunakan LogMeIn. (free version pon memadai). Dah lama saya menggunakan servis website ni, agaknya sejak di universiti. Kalau nak menggunakan servis online remote pc ni, just install client dia kat pc yang nak diremote, setting beberapa perkara berkaitan sekuriti dan sebagainya, dah siap.

Jadi bila Abah call tanya macam mana nak tukar nama fail, saya suruh je Abah on pc, kemudian saya log masuk ke LogMeIn, saya dah boleh tunjukkan Abah macam mana caranya one-on-one (sort of, sebab masih kena guna telefon untuk komunikasi). Sekurang-kurangnya tak perlu lah Abah tunggu sampai saya balik :)

RM862 for a laptop screen

It was christmas eve, and I have a movie date with my wife. We saw Yes Man (Jim Carrey as the leading role) and you may read her post about it. But before can rest our butts on those cushy theatre seats, we had to run a few errands.

My mom-in-law's laptop just past its 1st birthday when its screen busted. The damage? uniquely, an internal plasma shatter - you can see some liquid-like lines on the screen, but it's not on the external. Anyway, it took her a year later to finally decide it's worth a repair :p and that was 5 weeks ago.

So now, we're picking it up at Highway Point (Acer-appointed service centre), at the Berjaya Times Square. A total RM862 for the entire Acer Aspire 5050 screen replacement: RM762 for the screen, RM100 for labour. It took couple of weeks for the laptop to get back to us. But I guess since it involve going to and fro between the actual service centre and the pickup centre, that is more than justified.

Okay, so that was only our first errand. For the next items on our list, we had to split: she stays in the building and look for our friend's wedding gift and I went across two blocks to Low Yat plaza for a couple more tech stuff. As I step outside, whoa, people really do celebrate christmas away from home. There were flashing red hats, foam sprays and money exchanging hands between avid celebrants and occasional hawkers. There are also food hawkers, but I've digressed enough.

Without much bargaining, I bought a two-satellite speaker (RM39) and an Acer power adapter for RM100. Wow, up to now you probably thinking, "Gees, Acer surely has one too many defects". But to their defence, the owner's children don't really know how to appreciate a budget laptop ;) It's cheap for a reason... don't hammer it like a Thinkpad.

Anyway, this reminded me of my own. I have a BenQ laptop and after 18 months of constant beating, my power adapter gave up; this was also about the same time the fan gave up. Mind you that in 2005 it seems hard to find spare parts for BenQ laptop so I had to go for a universal power adapter that can fit most models. That time, it cost me RM180: a fortune if you're a student :p

Backlight inverter was the culprit

My BenQ Joybook 5000 notebook have been acting out for about year now. In a few irregular occasion, the lcd screen just dimmed out (or off). You can somehow still make the image displayed but it was so dimmed like putting the brightness to the lowest level. And I was like, "Dammit, first the cooling fan gave up and now the screen!"

Fortunately, after educating myself (through Googling :p) of what causing it, I was bit relief. Apparently the backlight inverter (the thing that tell the lcd backlight to turn on or off) was feeling the heat from MAXed out brightness. Intermittently, it will shut down when it got too hot.

But the fortunate aren't so as it cost me RM280 for the repair! So last Monday (i.e. 10Nov) I dragged my 2.8kg notebook to Lowyat (to be more specific, Vital Computers on Level 2) and have my screen fixed instantly. Good that everything Lowyat's is prompt.

That reminded me of my sister's more unfortunate Compaq 1000 notebook disaster when the motherboard died (but of course due to spillage by her 2-year-old daughter). It cost her exactly RM850 to replace the entire motherboard but as Lowyat is, I walk away with the newly 'refurbished' Compaq in just an hour :)

Lesson Learnt:
1) Don't max out the brightness of your LCD
2) Don't let your children play with the notebook with drinks somewhere near!

Eyeing for Treo 680

Why the Treo series?

• It's a pda-phone (I need something practical to jot things down, on the go).
• It's has a stylus (Smartphone navigating through keys & buttons? Non-intuitive. Palm felt very strongly on having a stylus/touchscreen).
• It integrates a full qwerty keyboard (Very important as I don't feel like writing using the stylus.. have you tried? You'll end up using virtual keyboard).

Why the 680?

• It's within my budget, below RM 2000
  
• It uses Palm OS, much more intuitive operating system and with fewer clicks to open up application.
• The casing colour is cuter, and more sporty.
  

Why not the 750v?

• It is to damn expensive (RM 2988)
• It uses Windows Mobile as its OS (Oh God! No...)
• I don't need the damn 1.3mp camera anyway.