October 29 2009

MSI Wind U100 netbook review

I’ve had my MSI Wind U100 for about 7 months now so it’s about time I wrote a quick review.

In a 2 line summary I would say that this is the best netbook I have seen. It is cheap, fast, easy to use and highly portable. I bought this netbook specifically because I was travelling and it was an excellent choice. I’ve had no problems with it and I would highly recommend the MSI Wind U100 to anyone.

I would recommend the relatively cheap upgrade to 2GB RAM. I’ve found the MSI support site to be excellent and the drivers on the site have all been updated for Windows 7, with which the machine boots up quite fast.

Highly recommended!

Favourite points:

  • 3 x USB 2.0 ports come in very useful
  • Battery life is quite good – get about 3 hours out of it
  • Full sized keyboard is very easy to use
  • A good weight and size for travelling
  • The rounded edges and glossy finish make it aesthetically pleasing
  • Wider screen than other brands

Negative points:

  • The built in speaker is underneath and therefore you lose some of the volume. If I’m using it for Skype or watching a movie I’ll usually connect a headset or external USB speaker.

VALUE FOR MONEY 9/10
PERFORMANCE 8/10
FEATURES 8/10
BUILD QUALITY 8/10
OVERALL 9/10

MSI Wind U100
MSI Wind U100

Processor & Cache

Intel® Atom™ N270 1.6GHz processor

Operating System

Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit

System Memory

DDR2 2GB

LCD Display

10” 1024×600  LCD Panel

Audio

HD Audio, Stereo speakers

HDD

120GB SATA

Webcam

1.3M / 0.3M

Card Reader

4-in-1 Card Reader, SD/MMC/MS/MS Pro

Communication Port

Built-in 10/100 LAN
802.11b/g/n WLAN Card with Bluetooth Supported

I/O Port

Graphics Card Output (15-pin, D-Sub) X 1
USB2.0 Port X 3
Mic-in Port X 1/Line-in Port x 1
Headphone Output X 1
LAN Port X 1

AC Adaptor

Output: 20V DC, 40W / Input: 100~ 240V AC, 50/60Hz universal

Battery Pack & Life

3 cells

Dimension & Weight

260(L) X 180(D) X 19-31.5(H)mm
~1.0KG with 3 cell battery

Category: Geek | LEAVE A COMMENT
October 27 2009

Clarification on Windows time stamps

There is an old but good reference on the Microsoft support site that givea some clarification on how Windows presents time stamps (eg event logs, NTFS times) to the user.

Of particular note is this paragraph:

If you are viewing another machine remotely across one or more time zones through Event Viewer, the times for events on the remote system appear relative to your local time. In other words, if you are viewing an event remotely that actually occurred at 8:00 PM Central Daylight Time, the time displayed for the event on your computer will be 6:00 PM when you view the event from the Pacific Daylight Time zone.

Link is http://support.microsoft.com/kb/129574

Category: Windows | LEAVE A COMMENT
October 8 2009

Time sync using w32tm on Windows clients

As we know, in a domain environment, domain controllers sync with the PDCEmluator and then workstations and member servers choose one available DC in the domain for the time sync.

If something does not work and you have errors in the event viewer about time sync, make sure that port 123 udp is openend on firewalls, then if the domain machine time is still out of sync, run the below command:

w32tm /config /syncfromflags:domhier /update

This does two things.  First, it sets the HKLMSYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesW32TimeParameters Type value to “NT5DS.”  Second, it notifies the w32time service that settings have changed.

In the majority of cases, you will see the clock adjust immediately. If not, restart the service using:

net stop w32time
net start w32time

This will resync and fix your incorrect time in the majority of cases.

Category: Tools, Windows | LEAVE A COMMENT
October 6 2009

Office Communicator and Live Meeting Client Version Tool

The guys over at www.insideocs.com have released a great little simple tool that reteives the versions numbers of Office Communicator and Live Meeting Client installed on your machine. A great time-saving little tool for troubleshooting.

The link is http://www.insideocs.com/Tools/ClientVersions.html

The HTA is also available here:

http://blog.danovich.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/ucclientversion.hta

Category: OCS / Lync, Tools | LEAVE A COMMENT