Verbatim HD DVR

201211160003


I formatted my 2TB drive on my Verbatime HD DVR a few weeks ago, and earlier - late last night, since it's November 16, 2012, 00:03 GMT +8 right now, I formatted my old 1TB Samsung drive in the DVR. It's been getting S.M.A.R.T. Errors, so I decided to replace it with my newer 2TB drive, and relegate the 1TB drive to the DVR. So the 2TB drive is now in the computer and the 1TB will be for my DVR for storing movies and music and for recording TV programs.

The Verbatim HD DVR formats the drive like this, though I don't know in which order it does it:

1. The first partition ("partition1"), takes up most of the drive space, and the size depends on the size of the hard disk drive.
2. The second partition is 157MB.
3. The third partition is 16.03GB - this might be for the time buffer - you can set it from 1 hour to 4 hours.
4. The fourth is 315MB of unallocated space. 

Hope for more tests in the coming months and updates in the coming months.

SpeedTest.Net Results - After Fresh Install of Windows XP Pro (32-bit)

201207232302 My SpeedTest.Net result after a fresh install of Windows XP Pro: http://www.speedtest.net/result/2079511875.png ...and after a second test: http://www.speedtest.net/result/2079514780.png I think it's good enough for very basic, albeit stuttery streaming on http://www.livestream.com Will try i later. Have to install Windows 7 64-bit now... 201207232306

Broadband Dilemma

Bought a Globe Tattoo 4G device today - a Huawei e357... Here's the first speedtest.net result - a LOT faster than my Motorola Canopy-powered SmartBro Postpaid subscription, which maxes out at around 1Mbps:
It's still a far cry from the claimed maximum 7.2Mbps, but then again, according to scans I took using my SmartBro prepaid software and SmartBro USB dongle (a Huawei e156c), only 3G is available here in San Joaquin, Iloilo. And only Globe has that - Smart and Sun haven't upgraded theirs in our area. Oh, well, at least we're no longer truly underserved when it comes to broadband. I lent my SmartBro device to Jocedel and Claudine, Neneng Aileen's cousins. So I had to buy this one because on Friday, June 8, 2012, one of Smart's Customer service reps told me that Ssmart's technicians' schedule for our area here in San Joaquin is Saturday, and there I was hoping that they'll be sending their technical team on Saturday - the day after I called - June 9 2012, but unfortunately, according to the CSR, there was no available timeslot for me, so the nearest would be Saturday, June 16, 2012. WTF??? Are they so pre-occupied that they can't even reduce my internet downtime?that And does that mean that I'll be getting a discount for each day I don't have my SmartBro connection? There are 30 days in June, so 999 divide by 30 would result in 33.30 pesos per day, which would mean that including Friday, June 8, 2012 until Saturday, June 16, 2012, I should have 9 days' discount - which would amount to 299.70 pesos... hmm... I've lost thousands of pesos in the past because I didn't even bother to attempt demanding a discount for every day that my SmartBro postpaid was out of service. Time to take a stand... I'm calling *1888... I just wish the CSRs would take these kinds of problems up with management. Having been in the call centre industry for a while, I know a little about how things work there - too much partitioning of information. This is the speed with my torrent client running.

Diablo III Open Beta

201204202318


Well, I finally get a shot at the Diablo III Beta as Blizzard has opened it up.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/4963739/Diablo%C2%AE_III_Open_Beta_Weekend-4_19_2012#blog

Thanks Blizzard... now if only Blizzard will allow manual changing of regions, everything's going to be all set... because as things stand at the moment, it's 90 Singaporean Dollars!!! And when that's compared to the US version at 59.99 US Dollars, that would make it around 500 Philippine Pesos - which is about 3-4 Kg worth of fresh Tuna...

Problem is, the Diablo III Open Beta is only good for this weekend from April 20 to April 23 - and I'm still up to about 80% downloading the Client Downloader... and after that, I still have several (3-6 maybe???) gigabytes worth of the Client to download.... -_-

Default Windows 7 Permissions for a Newly-Formatted Drive

201203131148

Windows 

How to delete the Windows.old and Other Generally Non-deletable Folders in Windows 7

2012/03/01.11:26
March 1, 2012, 11:26

In order to delete folders from Windows 7, particularly old/archived system folders, the following instructions might work. once the first command is completed (takeown /f), first check the folders for files you may need.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/930527/en-us

To delete the Windows.old folder from an earlier installation of Windows, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, type disk cleanup in the Start Search text box, and then click Disk Cleanup.
2. In the Disk Cleanup Options dialog box, click Files from all users on this computer.
3. In the User Account Control dialog box, click Continue.
4. Click to select the Previous Windows installation(s) check box, and then click OK.

Advanced users can also use a command prompt to delete files and folders from an earlier installation of Windows Vista. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator.
2. In the User Account Control dialog box, click Continue.
3. At the command prompt, type takeown /F <DriveLetter>:\<FolderName>\* /R /A, and then press ENTER.
   
   Note When you run this command, you are granted ownership of the administrator group for the folder, of all the subdirectories in the folder, and of all the files in the folder.
4. At the command prompt, type cacls <DriveLetter>:\<FolderName>\*.* /T /grant administrators:F, and then press ENTER.
   
   Note When you run this command, administrators are granted full rights to all files and to all folders.
5. At the command prompt, type rmdir /S /Q <DriveLetter>:\<FolderName>\, and then press ENTER.
   
   Note When you run this command, all subfolders and all files in the specified folder are deleted. Additionally, the specified folder itself is deleted.