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Sony Vaio T2XP

4 months ago I bought my latest computer - a Sony Vaio T2XP laptop. It was Jim Webber's fault - when I met him earlier in the year he pulled out an earlier model (the TR) which completely dwarfed my Dell D600. I immediately challenged him as to its practicality, and almost as soon as I had was forced to eat my words. My model, being somewhat more up to date, has a fast but power-savvy processor (1.2 GHz ULV), 1GB RAM (upgraded from the standard 512MB), 60GB hard disk, an internal DVD re-writer, firewire, USB, etc.

However, what people notice first about it is the size - its tiny (the same width as a 12" Powerbook, but widescreen form factor so not as deep) and very light (about 1.2 kgs, I think). Then they notice the screen - a gorgeous little 1280x768 number that uses Sony's X-Black technology (the same as the PSP.)

So what I have is a machine I can carry everywhere, use in economy on a plane (which I am proving today for the first time as I type this blog entry), and yet which is powerful enough to happily do .NET development on. Oh, and did I say it has a (better than) 6 hour battery life? And standby comes back in less than 5 seconds? And it has a really nice clicky Sony keyboard and a trackpad that actually works?

About the only thing I can't do is play World of Warcraft on it since the 3D graphics aren't all that, but with the amount of time some of my colleagues are spending on WoW at the moment maybe that's a good thing.

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GMail Extra - Gmail Drive

Yes, more Google dribblings. This time its Gmail Drive which lets you have a Windows Drive that is backed by your GMail Account! (Go back and read that again and think about it. Its your own personal file server accessable from anywhere.)

The idea was based on GmailFS for UNIX, but its still inspired.

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Google Desktop - I guess it was just a matter of time

I know I'm at risk of starting to sound like a bit of a stuck record when it comes to Google, but I needed to blog Google Desktop. Its a really simple concept - Google searching your own machine - which I think will become as ubiquitous as their internet search engine.

They're in early days with at the moment - it only works on Windows, only searches specific extensions of files (e.g. I'd like to search other plain text files, not just '.txt'), only searches Internet Explorer (I'd like it to search Firefox), etc., but you can see where they're going.

What will be interesting to see is how this fits in with the new Search functionality coming out in Longhorn.

Surely its only (another) matter of time before they release a server application people can install on their Corporate LANs to do the same kind of thing (which Google Desktop could talk to, maybe - perhaps called 'Google Enterprise'?). They already have the Google Appliance, but I think companies would be happier to install software on their own kit than use a totally separate piece of hardware. The software could sit next to any corporate version of GMail!!

Anyway, go get Google Desktop, try it out, and send them feedback.

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You've got GMail

I've always considered myself a fairly demanding email user. For a long time, I've expected to be able to use folder hierarchies, server-side rules, secure connections and an easy to use interface. For personal email I've used IMAPS or IMAP/ssh tunnel and procmail since 1999. I expect proprietory mail systems to fit the bill too (which I'm often disappointed by.)

But now along comes GMail and its changed 5 years of habits. I have switched pretty much all of my personal and mailing list email to it. It doesn't have offline support, but I spend most of my time at a computer on a broadband connection now so that's less important.

There are several reasons for switching, but they are all usability related: filtering is much easier to do than in procmail; I find I don't need hierarchies anymore; I have a manageable inbox for the first time in years; its blisteringly quick, and so many reasons more.

I can't recommend it enough - switch to GMail today if you can. If you know me and want me to refer you for a GMail account just ask.

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What does Skype mean anyway

Skype is a free Instant Messaging App that also does really high quality free Voice over IP. Its easy to use, free, and the sound quality and lag are great even over wireless LAN and long distance. And did I say it was free?

It also does voice calling to real phones. That's not quite free, but is cheap (probably cheaper than using a phone card if you're making international calls.)

Go get it from www.skype.com. And if I know you, email me, we can exchange contact details, and start Skype'ing!

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A bird turns into a fox (that's what I call evolution)

I've been using Mozilla Firebird as my browser for a while now. Its had (another) rename and is now called Firefox.

One of the best things I've found with Firefox recently is Type Ahead Finding - just start typing and Mozilla will highlight a link. To skip to the next result, hit Ctrl-G; to open the page hit Enter; to open the page in a new tab hit Ctrl-Enter. I'm not normally a keyboard shortcut fan, but this really speeds up navigation.

Oh, and Flash works now. :)

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Archive Quality MP3 Ripping

When I started using MP3 music files in 1998, the standard was to use 112 kbps encoding, which produced a notable loss of quality when played on speakers of any quality. One of the great things about the iPod, and the increasing size of hard disks generally, is that these days there's no point being so stingy about the quality of your MP3s.

So now I use high-quality VBR encoding, which tends to give a bit rate around 200 kbps. The files are therefore almost twice the size compared with 112 kbps encoding, but the result is music that sounds great even on a decent hifi. Such MP3 encoding has become known as 'archive quality' since it produces the kind of files you'd want to keep in case you lost the original source.

To produce such MP3's I use 2 pieces of free software. For ripping I use Exact Audio Copy, which isn't quick, but guarantees a 'perfect rip'. This hooks in with the separately downloadable LAME, available here. These 2 combined give me an average 4x ripping speed on a 1 year-old PC.

One hint if you try these yourself - LAME has a special setting that sets all the various options to a mix that a bunch of people with better hearing than me reckon is the best audable MP3 quality you can get, for the smallest file size. To use this, go to the EAC menu, select 'compression options', 'External Compression' tab, and set the 'Additional Command Line options' to '--r3mix %s %d' (having already selected to use the external lame.exe as your MP3 encoder.)

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