Daily Archive for April 4th, 2007

NDS Lite vs PSP

Published
by
Zz85
on April 4, 2007
in NDS and Updates
. 0 Comments

Why I chose the Nintendo DS lite (NDS Lite) over the Sony Playstation Portable (PSP).

Its seemed like a long month in May. I was spending more on projects in Camp, but my concentration is definitely drained elsewhere. It wasn’t duties, so maybe music, maybe something else.

May is a month lots of money spent, on gadgets mainly, perhaps kicked off by the IT Show.

So I bought a NDS Lite -this will be added to my memories of hand-held computer games I bought in my life (I could count all of them with my fingers) since young.

While the majority of people I know owns a PSP, and rare minority an NDS, why the latter for me?

Here’s my reasons. NDS..

- Seemingly cheaper (~$230 vs ~$300)
- More portable (Easier to carry around or place in the pocket)
- Longer Battery Life
- Touchscreen (With a stylus, even 2)
- Although hardware’s power no where near the PSP, games are more creative and innovative (hardware usually fully utilized)
- Interesting homebrews
- DS sales wins high over PSP
- Comes in nicer colours

In no way here I’m looking down on the PSP. The points above are mostly debatable, eg. price of the PSP is quite low now (and getting even lower after a recent news says sony will cut down another 15% due to low sales). For its powerful hardware and features, its hard to beat. Tons of quality homebrew / hacks are available for the PSP.

For advice I would say, take the PSP if you want the entertainment (nice screen, graphics, and music) but pick the DS if you want something special, innovative or classic.

See this link which had a big influence on me for buying the NDS. Maybe this might affect you another way.

MIO is here, at last.

Published
by
Zz85
on April 4, 2007
in Stories and Technology
. 6 Comments
I signed up for the value plan of $68 for internet, home and mobile lines each month. Below is my first day experiences plus the changes that affected me.

So finally, MIO was scheduled to arrive today, and the home telephone line got cut off for its conversion into digital voice. I took off the whole day especially for this (actually plus other events planned but got canceled due to wet weather). A mio personnel was supposed to be here at the given time slot, but he was extremely late. I had to go out, and later I had to provide him my singnet login details over the phone.

The most significant change will be the “MIO Box” or actually a 2wire 2700HGV-2 router with a customised/restricted singtel/mio firmware. Not too bad actually, supports ADSL2, 4 ethernet ports, usb connection, line, VoIP, 802.11g, except maybe its bigger and runs warmer. I soon know the restrictions of the router, or maybe its firmware. I know I can update the firmware to unlock more features, but I resisted the temptation of such risks even though I thought I’m capable of doing it.

So hit http://gateway.2wire.net/ or 192.168.1.254 to log into the router. I differences and adaptations I had to do from my previous router- the netgear dg24m are-

* Different router address/subnet. I attempted to configure the 2wire router to retain my old subnet but it refuses. Time to redesign my home network.

* Navigation and settings are shown in an easier, more “user friendly” style, icons and such, but seems its a different way of configuration compared to usual routers and advance configurations seems to be lacking.

* Doesn’t allow me to add a static route, or add another network, which means, to allow another router to work together. The solution? Reconfiguring my linux router into a linux bridge with an interface (aka firewalled bridge). See my next post for details.

* Doesn’t provide updating of dynamic dns services like DYNDNS.org. I decided to install ddclient on my linux server in this case.

* Doesn’t seem to support uPNP for port mappings and such.

* It should support port forwarding (described with a different term on the 2wire router) but I haven’t seem to be able to get it to work.

I stop here with this list about the MIO Box temporary.

At for its unlimited voice call service, I have yet to find out where the bad interfaces I hear during calls come from. 1) MIO Line 2) Old Sanyo Analog cordless phones 3) new philips DECT phones

So much for now.