Chris’s Domain

Today, my new X301 palm rest arrived, after a 2 week wait on a special order from IBM. The parts were shipped directly from the US and cost me $77. It was definitely a worthy upgrade as I am finally able to replace the poor Alps touchpad on my X301 with the new Synaptics multitouch touchpad. Two finger scrolling FTW!

You’d think that I’d have suffered my (un)fair share of discrimination in Malaysia when it comes to scholarship access and entry into universities. Well, Australia’s much better in the sense that because I’m paying for university, they didn’t discriminate my admission. However, when it comes to scholarship opportunities, the same story unfolds. Looks like being a 2nd class citizen is never good anywhere in the world.

I recently received an invitation to apply for postgraduate research scholarships. I felt honoured that the Faculty sent this to its top performing students, but much to my dismay, I discovered that there is a difference between being “top performing student” and “top performing Australian student” as I was clearly not the 2nd because I don’t hold an Australian passport! In essence, I’m only welcomed to apply for scholarships if I’m Australian. Fair enough, but why the exclusionist principle for one of the most prestigious international postgraduate scholarship programs in the world. Do my qualifications suddenly become irrelevant because I’m not a permanent resident or citizen of Australia?

While I understand that scholarship programs offered by local institutions for higher learning are primarily meant for local students, but if Australian universities willingly accept international students (and charge 4 times more in fees), they should do everything to ensure that international students obtain the equivalent experience as a local student. Being excluded by an overwhelming majority of scholarships, awards and prizes means international students will NEVER be able to gain the same academic experience as a local student. This means they are being shortchanged as we were promised a truly Australian university experience, which is impossible given the principles of excluding international students in any major academic award of significance.

Here’s an excerpt of the mail (there were others too):
“You have been specifically identified by your Faculty as one of their most academically outstanding students in the latter stages of your undergraduate degree, or currently undertaking honours.

At this event, you will learn about some of the world’s most renowned programs that are designed to foster and reward scholastic excellence. These programs include the Rhodes Scholarship, Monash Awards, and Fulbright Scholarships, as well as other opportunities in Canada and the United States.

(i) Almost all of the programs being presented as this session require applicants to be Australian Citizens. However, if you are a Permanent Resident of Australia who is considering becoming an Australian Citizen in the near future, you are also encouraged to attend. If you are a Permanent Resident of Australia but you are not considering becoming an Australian Citizen, or you are an international student, there would be no benefit in you attending this event;”

“The Jacobs Australia Engineering Leadership Prize will be awarded to recognise
outstanding engineering leadership or management exhibited by a UNSW student
undertaking one of the following Engineering undergraduate programs
……..
To be eligible, undergraduates must:
* Be Australian citizens or permanent residents only.”

Disappointed? You bet I am.

HP’s EliteBook 8730w mobile workstation is the flagship in HP’s current professional business notebook range. As HP’s top-of-the-line business notebook, it offers a multitude of configuration options, from quad core CPUs to the highest end Nvidia and ATI mobile workstation graphics cards. It is a replacement for the previous generation 17” 8710w.

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I am slowly, but progressing through my final session in university steadily. I have just handed in my final Honours thesis, a culmination of all the hard work I’ve put in the past 6 months (really, it’s the last few weeks of experiments that really boost some of my results). Now that it has been handed in and can be publicised, I’m allowed to lift the shroud and reveal some broad concepts behind it.

The research centres around the idea of building a sentiment detection engine for internet stock message boards. There has been limited studies on this in the US, but this is the first time a project of such a scale has been attempted on an Australian source. Gathering a vast amount of data from HotCopper/Sharescene and the like, the aim is to predict the general market sentiment of a particular stock and apply this to financial analytics. This is useful in 2 areas, particularly in technical trading strategies where it’s a source of new information, perhaps using sentiment as a factor in regression studies to crowd-source information rather than relying on traditional media; it is also useful in surveillance where analysts (like those guys working at ASX and ASIC) can use the sentiment prediction to gauge market reaction and possibly explain spikes in prices so they can be further investigated. Online forums contain so much content (a lot of noise too, but if we can filter this, we can mine a lot of useful information) where there is ample research opportunities to leverage this information, both for market surveillance as well as to profit from. Human analysts can only process so much information in a given time period, but with high frequency market executions, there is now a greater need for advanced, intelligent analytic tools more than ever.

Ever wondered what happened to the HP Mini 2140? This interesting backstage insight to Microsoft’s 2009 TechEd event in Australia provides all the details relating to what is essentially the first ever mass scale temporary netbook deployment program, with over 2500 HP Mini 2140’s ordered, shipped, reimaged with Windows 7 and handed out to attentees of the event.

http://4sysops.com/archives/deploying-2500-windows-7-netbooks-at-tech-ed-australia/

http://www.techedbackstage.net/2009/09/04/netbook-imaging-is-almost-done/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkYg46-6yfA

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37473564@N00/3877137526/

Some additional points:

• Every 2140 ordered was a custom base unit SKU with FreeDos, with Windows 7 installed by the deployment staff.
• All 2140s deployed have the standard 1024×576 resolution screens with 160GB hard drives.
• The large supply of 2140s ordered resulted in a stock shortage earlier than anticipated, but there were enough 2140s committed for this event.
• The 2140 runs Windows 7 beautifully and is fully compatible.
• Attendees will be asked if they wish to receive the device as a gift or a loan. Those who elect for the loan option will be able to use the netbook as much as they wish during the event but must return it on departure. MS will then donate all returned netbooks to a community program aimed at helping the disadvantaged develop technology skills.

I spoke to some attendees during the event and they appear to be very satisfied with the netbook, albeit with battery life being the only concern as 3-cell batteries were handed out with a promotional offer for 6-cell batteries which they could purchase at a very good price. Being IT pros, there’s great praise for the keyboard, nice touchpad, bright screen and of course Windows 7 performing very well on this netbook. Even the HP DriveGuard and durable shell was put to the test as I saw many instances of people dropping their netbooks, but no casualties! The HP Mini 2140 is officially the best enterprise netbook out there. Period.

As I posted on NBR:

The HP Pavillion dm3 will be one of a series of updated HP Pavillion consumer notebooks that HP will launch in conjunction with Windows 7. These notebook will be announced in the coming weeks and should be available upon Windows 7’s official launch on October 22nd.

The HP Pavillion dm1 and dm3 marks HP’s first foray into the consumer CULV platform, directly competing with Acer’s successful Timeline series. Prices suggested here will be competitive with Acer’s offerings.
HP Pavillion dm3 Tentative Specifications
ETA: Mid September 2009, shipping October with Windows 7
13.3″ HD Display (1366×768)
Intel CULV, AMD Athlon Neo platforms
AMD HD 3200/3410 graphics
HDMI, USB/eSata, no optical drive
Ultra-thin design
1.8kg
Chiclet keyboard
Brushed aluminium highlights/HP Imprint
The other notebooks to be launched in the consumer range include:
dm1 - 11.6″ CULV
dv6 Refresh
dv7 Refresh - new i7 mobile CPU configurations
dv8 - 18.4″ entertainment notebook with i7 mobile CPU
Additional Analyst Notes:
No information on HDX updates yet, but the dv7 and dv8 will now overlap the HDX series, especially with new HD resolutions expected to be offered.
A 13.3″ commercial notebook counterpart to this is also expected.

Today, I discovered this really cool utility that allows one to share a single keyboard/mouse setup on 2 separate computers. My home workstation setup consists of an 8730w workstation laptop connected to an external monitor and with this utility, I can now share my external keyboard and mouse across the main laptop and my ultraportable X301 and have an effective dual PC solution.

http://www.inputdirector.com/downloads.html

Watching the WWDC segment on the new Macbook Pro line up this morning and then reading the comments on various web forums, I began to realise how shallow some people can be when it comes to owning a computer. Apple rebadged the 13″ unibody Macbook as a Macbook Pro, and suddenly, I see comments from people saying how they now deem this to be a worthwhile purpose, all because it is now a “Pro” device.

Come on! It’s only “Pro” because Apple says it so. How is the notebook different in any way from its predecessor, besides the addition of some features which is probably irrelevant to most buyers. Let’s break it down:

1) Firewire 800 - Unless you’re a digital content professional (which probably means the 13″ Macbook was never the right device to use in the first place due to the limited screen resolution, processing power and graphics chipset), you’d hardly use this. An eSata port may have been a better solution.

2) Built-in Battery - Now, this is probably worth an upgrade IF the single battery 6 hour light to moderate usage scenario suites you.

3) Better Screen - The original Macbook doesn’t have such a bad screen either. Now, if the resolution was higher at say 1440×900, then it will be completely worth it.

4) 8GB RAM - Too expensive and by the time I can get one, I’d be upgrading the notebook anyway.

5) Larger HDDs and SSDs - NewEgg.

6) SD Card Slot - Seriously? This is a cheap addition and completely unnecesary. A full-sized ExpressCard slot would offer better expandability.

7) Processor speed bump - Insignificant

Backlit keyboard - Already have it if you had the higher end model.

9) Pro nametag - Ah ha! The big ticket item, or so it seems. I can assure you there are people who refused to buy the first unibody model because it wasn’t “Pro”. It’s interesting how people actually react to branding. Must be the reason why GM was so successful.

Head on to eBay in the next few weeks and expect to see a whole bunch of people selling off their Macbooks in order to “upgrade” to a Pro’er version. I’d rather wait for the next Intel platform refresh which will actually bring in real performance gains worth waiting for.

Clearly Lenovo believes that its customers are immune to the current economic climate. With prices like these, how could Macs possibly be overpriced? Apple tax vs Lenovo tax, your pick.