The Four-eyed Journal » Memory

Intel’s solid-state drives could boost Asus eeePC

jhay — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 23:53:54 +0000

News from PC World that the world’s biggest chip maker, Intel is readying its solid-state storage drives and will be embedding the said chips on its upcoming platforms for ultra-mobile PCs.

The Z-P140 PATA solid-state storage drives (SSDs) will be provided as an optional module to OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) to embed on motherboards made for the Menlow platform. The platform, designed for ultramobile PCs, also includes the Silverthorne processor and Poulsbo chipset. Menlow-based devices will ship in the first half of 2008, product line manager Don Larson said Friday at an event in San Francisco.

The tiny SSD chip, which weighs only 0.6 grams, will be available in capacities of 2G bytes and 4G bytes. The on-board storage capacity will be expandable up to 16G bytes with four SSDs connected to a standard PATA (parallel advanced technology attachment) interface that links the drives, Larson said. SSDs consume less power than hard drives because they have no moving parts, so they are ideal for mobile devices, Larson said.

One particular ultra-mobile PC that would greatly benefit from this move by Intel is the Asus eeePC, of which I am currently being tempted to get one this Christmas. At present, I hear and read complaints about the eeePCs limited solid-state storage drive, 8GB being the standard spec. Intel’s new chips could very well change all this, and the consumers would benefit the most.

If this could boost the storage capacity of ultramobile PCs, this could also expand the storage capacities of mobile phones. Heck, Nokia just relased new phones from its N-Series that has memory capacities of 8GB so seeing an Intel SSSD chip in one wouldn’t be much of a surprise.

I wonder though, if solid-state storage drives would replace the traditional hard disks in desktops? Imagine that….

Expanding the memory of my SE K800i

jhay — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 12:41:17 +0000

Yesterday, I finally had enough money to do my K800i a favor by buying a 2GB Memory Stick Micro M2. Yes, that’s a whopping 2GB of storage space all packed within that tiny black chip which is almost the size of my thumb’s fingernail.

Aside from the awesome storage capacity, another mind-blowing attribute of this tiny storage media is its price tag. Most dealers I visited are selling the 2GB M2 at almost Php4,000!!

Even my friends and a fellow professor who also use Sony Ericsson phones where kept at bay and frustrated by the price tag. It finally made me realize that there’s really something unique to owning a Sony Ericsson phone, aside from the good quality of its Cyber-shot and Walkman phones, the price tags on its accessories do set SE users in a different class. A class that must really dig deep into their pockets if we want to ‘pimp’ our phones or extend and enhance its already cool features.(Curse Sony’s adherence to proprietary technologies and gadgets )

So after months of saving up on my earnings, I finally braved to scour the malls for a good bargain on the M2. My obsessive-compulsiveness didn’t help me much as I was hell-bent on getting the 2GB version of the M2 so that “it would be the last M2 I’d ever buy.”

3 Phone shops in SM City Dasmariñas offered the M2 on the same price range, which was the near dreaded Php4-k level. I was nearly heart-broken and was about to resign my self to getting the 1GB M2 which was offered at Php1,900 at CD-R King. Luckily, I had a last-minute change of mind and sudden renewal of hope. I went out again in search of store that had the 2GB M2 on price I could afford.

It seems the fates were on my side as I found my way into City Telecom and there it was, a 2GB M2 on sale!! From it’s original price of Php3,000 it was brought down to Php2,100 which was well within my budget. I wasted no more time as I told the saleslady that I was going to buy that M2.

I left that store with a big smile on my face and a 2GB M2 in my pocket. I couldn’t wait to get home, plug it in my K800i and put all the photos, music, games and apps I’ve been saving up ever since I decided to upgrade my phone’s memory.

At the moment I have over 500MB worth of compressed music, 10MB worth of games and apps and almost 5MB of photos. Speaking of which, it is the desire to increase the number of photos I could take and store in my phone before it needs to be transferred or the bad ones deleted in order to make space for more photos that I was determined to get the 2GB M2. Just point-and-shoot the K800i now, delete the not-so-good shots later.

What’s the use of a 3.2 megapixel Cyber-shot phone if the number of photos one could take is quite limited right? Now that my phone’s memory has been greatly expanded, storage space or the lack thereof would no longer be an inhibition to my budding interest in digital-photography. (even though I only have 3.2 megapixel camera-phone to take photos with)

Aside from more photos, more music, more apps and games I could fit in my K800i, I’m beginning to like the idea of using the phone as my primary portable storage device, instead of my aging Creative MuVo thumb drive/mp3 player.

Oh my, I see techie experiments brewing in the horizon. I just hope my phone would not end up broken or screwed up.

9 strategies to improve memory

jhay — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 01:50:33 +0000

Here’s something well worth the time to read, it’s from the