I recently managed to snag a Sprint HTC Touch Pro early before the release date.  I must say, the HTC Touch Pro a.k.a. Raphael, has fulfilled all of my expectations, and then some.  As a bit of background information, I had a Treo 755p, then I switched to an HTC Touch (CDMA) for about a year until I acquired the Touch Pro.  For starters, some of the main features include:

• Qualcomm MSM7201A 528 Mhz processor (The Touch has a 400mhz processor)
• 288 MB RAM, 512 MB ROM (Touch has 128MB RAM, 256MB ROM)
• Wireless 802.11b/g (Touch does not have wifi capabilities)
• 2.8″, 480 x 640 VGA resolution screen (Touch has 240 x 320 QVGA screen)
• Accelerometer (Touch does not have an accelerometer)
• Hardware keyboard (Touch only has an onscreen keyboard)

For this entry, I’ll go over performance, web browsing, and some extra features.  Be sure to check back for more updates which will come soon.

Speed/Performance

Having dealt with Windows Mobile for years now, I was always left wondering when the OS will be “snappy”.  The Touch Pro is about the closest thing you’ll get to “Treo-like” snappiness when switching programs, changing screen orientation, etc.  Programs open very quickly on the Touch Pro and overall the phone is very responsive.  No more waiting for your Today screen to load and no more waiting on Windows to open up SMS/emails.

The new TouchFlo 3D interface is also pretty quick, with no noticeable lag when switching the tabs.  Switching to phone doesn’t take forever either.  When you type in the number you want to dial, the phone actually responds right away and outputs the number to the screen whereas slower Windows Mobile phones would lag and display the numbers a few seconds afterwards.  The same goes with SMS/text messaging as well;  with older phones, I found myself typing the message, only to have it come on the screen half way through.

The only noticeable lag I get is by having 10+ programs running simultaneously after turning on the phone from standby.  Even still, the lag is only for a few seconds and the phone is up and running smoothly in a matter of seconds.  One of the main reasons I had swayed away from Windows Mobile phones was my experience with the sluggish HTC Mogul (PPC-6800).  However, I’m now a Windows Mobile believer because of the improvements in performance with the Touch Pro.

There are a few tweaks you can do to really speed up the phone even more.  I recommend taking a look at the following threads for some very helpful tips and tricks:

XDA-Developers Forum - Tweak Collection
XDA-Developers Forum - More Tweaks
XDA-Developers Forum - Themes, Applications, and Software

Internet

One of the main things I love about the Touch Pro is the VGA screen.  Without the VGA resolution screen, web browsing on the phone wouldn’t be as good as it is now.  Web pages display just like they would on a regular computer.  There’s no more “mobile” view where the page is horribly reformatted with text and images all over the screen.  The Opera browser works very similar to the iPhone’s browser.  Web pages will first display fully zoomed out, then you can use your finger to scroll, double tap the screen to zoom in, or use the touch sensitive scroll wheel to zoom in/out of the page.

Click on the picture for a higher resolution image

Another advantage to the VGA resolution screen is that you can view more text and images due to the higher resolution.  The text will appear tiny on the 2.8″ screen, but it comes out very clear and readable if you’ve got good eyes.  Click on the image above to view a higher resolution image where you can actually see how small and clear the text is.  The text size is about the same size as text size 6 in Microsoft Word, if you can read that, you’ll be able to read the text in the Opera browser.  Of course, you can zoom in and make the text larger, but at a cost of not being able to see the whole page, which basically negates the benefit of having a VGA resolution screen.

Using wireless 802.11b/g doesn’t speed up the internet enough to write home about.  In my experience, the speed increase was slight, although noticeable.  A bandwidth speed test measured wireless speed at about 1.5mbps down, while EVDO Rev. A clocked in at about .9mbps (900kbps) using the same test.  No, the wireless wasn’t slow due to my internet speed, which is 20mbps, but probably because the phone couldn’t handle the bandwidth.

Extra Features

One nifty feature of the Touch Pro is the built in accelerometer.  One cool thing is the ability to switch the screen from portrait to landscape, just by physically rotating the phone.  There are also lots of cool applications that take advantage of the accelerometer, like Klaxon, a feature filled alarm clock in which you turn off the alarm by shaking the phone.  Games, like Teeter which comes bundled with the Touch Pro, also take advantage of the accelerometer.

The folks at HTC really impressed me by including a mini-USB audio output module.  Obviously they saw that some people use their phones as multimedia devices.  This module plugs into the mini-usb port on the bottom of the phone and provides a 2.5mm headset jack, 3.5mm headphone jack, mini-usb headphone jack, and a mini-usb charging port.  My previous phones (Treo 650, Treo 755p, HTC Mogul, HTC Touch) did not have a 3.5mm jack and most phones on the market today don’t either.  What’s the big deal you ask?  A 3.5mm headphone jack lets you use standard headphones to listen to audio.  No more crappy 3.5mm to 2.5mm headphone adapters with horrible quality!  The quality of audio output on the 3.5mm jack is surprisingly great!  I connected my Sennheiser HD280 Pro headphones and I was simply amazed by the quality; I could tell no difference between music playing on my computer and music playing on the phone.

HTC also decided to add a fifth row to the keyboard.  This introduces a new row of keys which includes the 0 - 9 keys, which have come in handy more than once so far.  The keyboard is comfortable to type on and I find the keys to be the perfect size, not too big and not too small.

All in all, the Touch Pro is a great upgrade from any previous Windows Mobile smartphone.  The developers at the XDA forums are hard at work creating custom firmware (ROMs) and applications for the Touch Pro already.  It will be interesting to see how far the hardware can be pushed and what it can accomplish.  Check back for more updates on the HTC Touch Pro in the future!

To all you coffee drinkers out there, you’re going to love this.  Vietnamese style single cup filtered coffee is extremely flavorful that packs an extreme kick.  Think of this type of coffee as espresso, but instead of a shot, you’ll have a whole cupful of delicious, strong iced coffee at a fraction of the price you would pay at Starbucks for a “gourmet” cup.

You will need the following items and ingredients:

• Glass cup
• Single cup filter
• Coffee grounds - it is best to get dark roasted, coarse grounds.  Trung Nguyen and Cafe’ Du Monde make excellent choices
• Sweetened condensed milk - DO NOT get evaporated milk, they are not the same.
• Additional cup with ice
• Hot water (near boiling temperature)

First, pour about 1-2oz.  of condensed milk into the glass cup.  The condensed milk adds sweetness to the coffee to offset the bitterness.  You can use more/less condensed milk based on your preference.

Then, measure out your coffee and insert it into the bottom of the single cup filter.  Typically, I use 2 heaping spoonfuls, but this can be adjusted based on how you like your coffee.  More grounds for a stronger brew, less grounds for a weaker brew.

Here’s a picture of the coffee grounds in the filter.  Try to get the grounds as even as possible, but you don’t need to be perfect.  Note, the stainless steel filter is not inserted at this point.

Insert the stainless steel filter over the coffee grounds.  How much you screw the filter down will also determine the strength of your coffee.  Screw it tightly for stronger coffee or lightly for weaker coffee.  However, if you screw it down too tight, the coffee will take a long time to brew (over 10 minutes).

If you cannot screw the metal filter down because you used too much coffee grounds, then just set the filter in and give it a firm push.  This will compress the grounds and keep the filter in place while brewing.

Now, place the filter over your cup.  Add a small amount of hot water (near boiling temperature) to the filter.  About a 1/4 inch of water would be good.  Let the water seep through the filter until there is no water left.

Here’s what the brewing would look like in the initial stage.  After the initial 1/4 inch of hot water is finished brewing, you’ll have a small amount of brewed coffee as shown in the picture.  You’ll then want to fill up the filter to the brim with hot water, then put the top cover on.

Now, just sit back and wait for your coffee to brew.  This should take 4-5 minutes.  If your coffee is brewing faster, then you either need to add more coffee grounds or adjust the tighten down the filter.   If the coffee is taking longer than 4-5 minutes to brew, then you’ve probably screwed down the filter a little too tight.

Here’s what the process will look like after the coffee has finished brewing.

Stir the coffee and condensed milk until the condensed milk is completely dissolved.

Then, pour the coffee into a separate cup with ice.  You don’t want to use the same cup you used to brew the coffee because the overall temperature of the cup will be hot, which will melt the ice quickly.

You can either enjoy the coffee hot or cold.  I prefer cold because the coffee tastes smoother and the melting of the ice helps even out the bitterness.

Enjoy your full flavored, espresso strong coffee!  The key to getting the brew you like is to experiment.  Adjust the amount of condensed milk to adjust the sweetness.  Adjust the amount of coffee grounds to adjust the strength of the coffee to suit your tastes.  In my opinion, this coffee is more like a cold treat than a cold drink.  It is very, very tasty with a huge caffeine kick!

Being without electricity for a few hours is one thing, being without power for a few days is a completely different story.  After Hurricane Ike took it’s toll on the Gulf, the winds did not stop there.  The 60+ MPH winds came to Louisville, KY and knocked out thousands of power lines leaving over 300,000 people without electricity, and I was one of them.  After a few days of sitting in the dark with no generator (like my neighbors), I needed a solution.  The quick and dirty solution was a  power inverter, but it was impossible to find one locally that wasn’t extravagantly marked up in price.

I took a look around Amazon.com for awhile and found a winner, the Cobra CPI 875 Power Inverter .  At a tad over $50 and supposedly providing 800 watts continuous, I was a little skeptical if the unit could actually perform.  The reviews on the site said nothing of the unit’s performance, however; they were mainly complaining about the product description.  I already had cables and didn’t care if they came with them or not, so I went ahead and purchased the unit.  Luckily, I had Amazon Prime at my disposal and opted for $3.99 next day shipping.

I received the unit the next day, but unfortunately, electricity was still out all over the place.  However, it was also a good thing since it gave me a chance to test out the unit.  It is packaged in a black plastic carrying case and comes with the battery cables needed for the connection.  Being that the unit is rated for 800 watts, you cannot plug this into your standard cigarette lighter because you’ll be likely to blow fuses or overload your car’s wiring.  Instead, you must connect the  unit directly to the car battery via the included battery cable clamps.

The Cobra CPI 875 features two 120v AC power connections and an additional 5v USB port.  Among the first electronic items I tested were my 50″ Plasma TV, a DVR, and an Xbox 360.  The TV came on just fine, but let out a loud buzzing sound coming from the power supply area.  This is because the power inverter outputs a modified sine wave which can induce noise.  The DVR and Xbox 360 all ran perfectly as well, no buzzing from these components.  I got fed up with the buzzing from the TV and switched to an LCD monitor.  This time, the buzzing was much quieter, but it was still there.  I ran the LCD monitor, Xbox 360, and my laptop off of the inverter for a combined total of over 12 hours in 2 days.

The inverter held up fantastically and did not drain my 2 batteries as much as I thought it would.  I was able to run an LCD, Xbox 360, and laptop for over 5 hours before my battery voltage got too low for my liking (11.5v).  I could’ve gone longer, but I did not want to risk dead batteries in the morning when I needed to leave.  The Cobra CPI 875 did not heat up much either, in fact, it was cool to the touch throughout its usage.  As far as the performance goes, I can’t say much more because it performed when I needed it to and that’s what counts to me.  I don’t have any doubts that it will last and I look forward to using it more.

Cobra CPI 875 Power Inverter

If the boot loader to your Windows Server 2008 machine gets corrupted or deleted for whatever reason, it really is a painstaking process to get it fixed.  The boot loader to my machine got deleted somehow while I was resizing partitions.  After scouring the web, I could not find anything on rebuilding the boot loader for Windows Server 2008.  All I could find were instructions to restore a Windows Vista boot loader, but luckily, the process for Server 2008 is similar.

Due to the lack of recovery tools on the Server 2008 installation CD, the boot loader must be rebuilt manually.

For this guide, I’m going to assume your installation has a drive letter of C:.

Insert the Server 2008 installation CD into your DVD-ROM.  Restart your computer and boot from the CD.

Choose to repair your computer, then open the command prompt.

At the command prompt, use the following commands:

c:
cd boot
bootsect /nt60 c: /force /mbr
bootrec /rebuildbcd

After using the “bootrec /rebuldbcd” command, you will be prompted to accept a Windows installation.  Accept the installation, then wait for the process to finish.  Once it’s done, reboot your comptuer and you should have a boot loader ready to go.

If you do not have a “boot” folder in the system C: drive, then copy the “boot” folder form the Windows installation CD to the C: drive.  Use the following command which assumes E: is your DVD-ROM

mkdir c:\boot
copy e:\boot\* c:\boot\

Afterwards, just use the boot restore commands to rebuild the bootloader.

After dealing with the numerous issues of my previous AMD Geode carputer motherboard, I decided to upgrade.  Some of the problems I had were hanging at POST, bluescreens due to driver issues, and overall weird behavior.  I also wanted more features, such as the ability to boot from a USB drive.  Not only that, but the board ran pretty hot in my glove box and lacked performance that I wanted.

Alas, the Intel D945GCLF2, based on the Intel Atom, is finally released.  One of the key features that caught my eye was the dual core Atom processor.  Not only is it dual core, but its power usage is outstanding.  It’s estimated to use 4 watts under load while consuming milliwatts (thousandths of a watt) when idle.  Being in a carputer, power consumption is a vital specification because you need to figure out how large of a power supply you will need.  The power consumption spec can also give you an idea of how much heat will be disappated, because after all, the power not  used for computing will dissipate into heat.

Intel D945GCLF2 Dual Core Atom Motherboard

The power supply I am using is an Opus 120.  It’s rated for 120 watts and has powered my previous build just fine.  I ran into one snag that I didn’t expect, however.  The motherboard uses a 12v P4 ATX connector (see pic below) as well as the standard 20-24pin ATX connector.   The power supply I have (and most that I’ve seen) do not have this connector incorporated into their harness.

P4 ATX Connector

To solve this problem, you can either purchase a molex to P4 adapter, or you can mod your existing wiring harness and add the P4 connector.  I chose to mod my existing wiring harness and add the P4 connector to one of the existing molex connectors.  Basically, I cut off the P4 connector from a regular ATX power supply, stripped the wires, and crammed them into an existing molex connection.  See the pictures below to see what I mean.

Closeup of P4 Connection

Closeup of P4 to Molex Connection

Molex to P4 Adapter

After everything was setup, I installed the full Windows XP Pro with SP3.  I opted not to use TinyXP because I felt that it could cause issues down the road with all the drivers it has stripped out.  After the installation, I installed the usual Winamp, VLC media player, SpeedFan, iGuidance, Centrafuse, and finally the drivers.  Instead of configuring Windows to hibernate after the car was shut off, I chose to shutdown completely because I’ve had lots of issues with hibernation such as it not resuming correctly.

With 1GB of RAM and a 2.5″ 80GB 4200RPM hard drive, the performance isn’t too bad.  You would think that a 4200RPM hard drive would be kind of sluggish, but I can hardly notice it.  Windows starts up from a cold boot quickly and so do all of the programs I use.  I’m never left waiting for the next song to load or a program to open.

The low power consumption of the board is also very noticeable.  With my old board, the CPU temperature would always be at least 45C upon boot, and rise to a little over 60C after being used for awhile.  On a cold morning, at about 55F, The Intel Atom managed to boot up at 30C and after 20 minutes, it had only risen to 35C!  Now, when I open my glove box, there’s no more hot air oozing out.  The air inside the glove box is almost the same temperature as the air in the cabin!  However, the temperatures will differ based on the ambient temperature inside the cabin, so the CPU will run hotter on a warmer day.  On an 80F day, the CPU boots at 30C and rises to about 55-60C, still not bad on a very warm day.

All in all, the Intel D945GCLF2 is a great buy.  At only $89.99 from Mini-box.com, you get tons of features, and best of all, a dual core processor.  With low power consumption, low temperatures, and high performance it seems as if the board was made explicitly for carputer usage, in which it excels.

Full Carputer Setup in Glovebox

Caputer without Fan Showing P4 Connection