Nate Oyama

Apple Macintosh (intel inside)

Link: Apple to ditch IBM, switch to Intel chips | CNET News.com.

I heard such a rumor three months ago, but I can't believe it! I don't understand that reason!

Steve Jobs used to demonstrate and compare their new Mac based on IBM CPU with a new PC based on intel CPU. For example, filtering a complex image with Adobe Photo Shop, and compareing the time.
"Look! The new Mac is far faster than the PC!"
Then the audience cheer loudly. A Japanese magazine referred the show as a TV shopping!

Anyway, the term of wintel (Windows PC based on intel CPU) is dead. The logo intel outside will make people laugh because of its rarity.

But I'm worry about the IBM, rather than the future of Mac and intel.

Japan's Counterattack against iPod

A Hard Drive (HD) player is very famous in Japan especially Apple iPod mini. People did not understand why Japanese Companies are so passive in this trend. Yet I believe that someday they will distribute more advanced stuffs than iPod. These days, Sony distributed some great HD players, therefore I bought its mainstream, Sony NW-HD5. Unfortunately NW-HD5 is only available in Japan. But if such stuff spread all over the world, you should have a great interest in them.

Sony NW-HD5 vs. Apple iPod

	Sony NW-HD5 (20 GB)	Apple iPod 20 GB	Comment
Size	89.3x59.9x14.5 mm (3.5x2.4x0.57 inches)	103.5x61.8x14.5 mm (4.1x2.4x0.57 inches)	As you know Sony is very good at making small equipments!
Weight	135 g (4.8 oz)	158 g (5.6 oz)	135 g is still a little heavy for me, however.
Battery	30 hrs (@128kbps, ATRAC3plus)	12 hrs (@128kbps, AAC)	Be warn that these are just the theoretical values.
Design	Fair (**---)	Excellent (*****)	NW-HD5 reminds me the day I was an elementary school student -- bought Nintendo Gameboy 1st generation.
Language	English, Japanese, French, German, Italian, Spanish	Almost all languages in the world!	Why NW-HD5 doesn't support for more languages?
Format	MP3, ATRAC3 plus	MP3, AAC, Audible, Apple Lossless, WAV, AIFF	I admire [email protected] for its compatibility and audio quality, so that almost all audio files of mine are MP3. Thus I'm not interested in others.
Software	Sony SonicStage	Apple iTunes	Both of them require their own softwares unlike iRiver. Though my friend complained SonicStage for its stability, it is more useful than I expected!
St. Price	31,600 JPY (293 USD, 233 EUR)	31,200 JPY (289 USD, 230 EUR)	I think HD player is expensive, even though you can use them as an external HD.

NW-HD5 Review
Mobility: Very Good
Ease of use: Excellent
Design: Fair
Price: Good
Pros:

• 20GB is enough!
• This may be the smallest among all 20GB players.
• An outstanding finder let you access the song which you want.
• Long battery life.
• Having few functions allows you to use it easy.

Cons:

• Not support for some languages.
• Some time it crashes and out of control for seldom minutes!

Overall: Very Good

To prepare for RAM prices skyrocket

Day by day RAM prices are coming down. Eventually generic PC3200 RAM came down to 3 988 JPY (37 USD, 28.5 EURO). It's too inexpensive. Plus, now that I won't regret even if it will be coming down.

So that I bought RAM PC2100 512MB. It was 4179 JPY (39 USD, 30 EURO, inc. tax). However I don't agree that its shipping cost was about 1 500 JPY (14 USD, 11 EURO) ! In fact I let it send collection delivery mail (COD), not a credit card.

Fortunately, my PC could load this generic RAM.

256MB vs. 762MB

	Before	After
Starting Windows XP	1'28''	1'05''
Starting OpenOffice.org 2.0	1'58''	50''
Calculating pi to 1M	1'57''	2'31''

Hey! What makes calculating pi slower? Probably a grid computing servise let it do so. Anyway I believe that my PC got faster and stable.

Opera 8 (2nd Beta)

Alternative web browsers become popular which people use instead of Internet Explorer. You know that Firefox by Mozilla is the greatest and even recent trend. However, Mozilla will never become its monopoly like today's Internet Explorer. Because, the number of firefox users and security problem such as viruses, spywares are improving simultaneously. Thus we will have to consider not only non-Microsoft but even non-Mozilla.

Opera 8 (2nd Beta) Review

Feature	Good	Opera gives me too many features and functions. Not only Web-browsing, download managing, e-mail and RSS but even chat, note, reading with voice, and so on. Therefore I cannot introduce them one by one. Basically I can browse the web without touching any options (it is a reason why Opera developers and fans consider that Opera is user-friendly). I tried to use it as a default e-mail client for three days, however, its complexed and highly specific interfaces and security options were not useful for me (so that I use AOL communicator today). I can join IRC chat extremely easily: only type my real name, e-mail address, and nick. It is a little complex than AOL's one, however, I cannot change basic options; For example change text color, auto log saving.
Price	Very Good	Although American magazine PC world (February 2005) said that Opera's ad is quite unpleasant, I don't think so. Since it is only a beta, not free, no-ad-supported version is not available. Its ads are only texts, and not animated nor blinking so that it makes me little unpleasant.
Ease of use	Fair	Too many functions do not allow me to use them easily, so that I recommend it for only Computer geeks. They should distribute two or three types: simple version and advanced version. Yet It is nice that I don't have to find and install any extensions unlike Firefox, "mouse gesture" native support, for instance.
Efficiency	Excellent	To my surprise, its installer is almost same as previous, stable version 7.54! Even though it contains far more functions than Firefox, its size is only 3.6MB! (cf Firefox: 4.7MB) Besides, I have examined seldom times and each versions, Opera vs. Firefox which one is faster. Firefox is always a little superior than Opera (ie fast displaying pages and small memory resource). However I must remember that Opera includes e-mail and chat.
Stability	Excellent	Amazing! Now that I should call it "Preview Release", or rather only beta. I have never crashed for two days, even I didn't restart it at all! It can be stable more than Firefox.
Overall	Very Good	I understand that why some computer geeks become Opera fans. Not to mention its stability and efficiency, so many features and options may make them exciting. In fact I would like to give it "Excellent (five stars)", however there are still room for improvement its interface, e-mail, and chat.

Netscape 8 (Beta)

My favorite Japanese computer web-magazine Mycom PCweb announced that Netscape 8 Beta was released. In fact its alpha version was released December, 2004 however I could not try it as the entrance examinations were in the corner then.

Netscape 8 (Beta) Review

Feature	Very Good	[Figure 2] Its most new feature Dual Engine gives you the selection view as your Internet Explorer or Netscape (strictly, Firefox 1.0) and it is esier than I expected: only [right click] and select [Display as Internet Explorer (or Netscape)]. These days, I recognized that some pages don't allows me to see with non-Internet Explorer, even I use Browser Identification (eg [email protected] this Active X based service is given for only AOL members). Thus there are no pages which Netscape 8 cannot see. [Figure 3]There is one bookmark toolbar in my default browser firefox. Although I know that it is quite useful, many toolbars looks bad. Multibar may slove this problem: you can choice each toolbars from the buttons. Don't you think it's revolutionary?
Price	Free	You can download from Netscape.com
Ease of use	Fair	There are so many functions that I recommand it to only computer-geeks.
Efficiency	Good	Needless to say it still not be efficient like Opera or Firefox, however, it is more than I expected. Since it doesn't use its own engine, I don't describe the lettering-speed.
Stability	Fair	Only beta; I had got a freezing soonly.
Overall	Good	According to popular American computer magazines or something, recent trend themes are "efficience" and "security". Anyway the former is not so bad. The later has a little problem. Internet Explorer engine can cause damages such as spywares and viruses to your computer. In my opinion Netscape should develop more Internet Explore-like engines, not actual one. At least, I would like to use in popular web-sites such as [email protected], haha.

Figure 2

Figure3

OpenOffice.org 2.0 Beta Candidate is available!

Since personally I don't like anything from Microsoft, I am a "open office.org" user. This free, closs-platform, and open-sourced office-suite is produced by Sun microsystems. It has a compatibility with current Microsoft Office (however, it still be bad at displaying MS Office files) then I use it as an alternative one. On February 27th, 2.0 BC (Beta Candidate) was released!

In fact, I tried 1.9.49 (ie 2.0 alpha version) seldom months ago. But it was terrible, often crashing so that I cannot use it as well. Finally, I used its old, stable version 1.1.3. I really waiting for 2.0 stable version.

Japanese version is also available! I surprised and downloaded it in curiosity. As its translation was work-in-progress, its interfaces and helps were written in both Japanese and English. It's quite funny.

I will write its review some day.

OpenOffice.org 2.0 Beta Candidate Download
OpenOffice.org 2.0 Office Suite
Guide to New Features

WARNING: This Beta Candidate has been testing, therefore there are no guarantees.

Virus Block V3 2005 (by Ahn Lab.)

The new version of Virus Block (by Ahn Lab, Korea), my favorite anti virus software is available! This Korean product is very famous in there, however, it has been unknown in foreign country. I've use major anti virus softwares Norton (Symantec), McAfee (Network Associates) and PC-cillin (Trend Micro), but I think Virus Block is better than them.

It contains:

• Anti Virus
• E-mail (Outlook, Netscape, Becky! and Eudra)
• Web-browser (Internet Explorer, Netscape and Opera)
• Explorer
• Messanger (New)
• Firewall
• Anti Spam Mail (New)
• Anti Spyware (New)

V3 Virus Block 2005

Anti Viruses	Outstanding	Scan speed is fast and upgrade its engine very frequently. Plus, protect from viruses when I use web-browser, POP 3 based e-mail services (Outlook, Netscape, Becky!, Eudra, not AOL (AOL is quite rare in Asia)), and even messangers (AOL, MSN, Yahoo!, for instance).
Firewall	Very Good	Often ask me "This software try to connect to the Internet. Do you accept (make a new policy)? " then I can use softwares without worry.
Ease of use	Poor	Cumbersome interface requires some knowledges of computer security, so I cannot recommend to a novice.
Support	Very good	Phone (10:00 AM to 6:00 PM on weekdays), fax and free e-mail support.
Price/annual renewal	2980 yen (27 USD) / 1500 yen (13 USD)	Very inexpensive! I cannot trust freewares, but I can trust it.
Overall	Outstanding	Its small footprint is suited for my older PC, and stable, but it's really powerful!

Why don't you try it?
Ahn lab.