Marvin Lee Dot Net

Recently, I needed to get an additional external storage due to the growing collection of photos. 🙂

I had no specific choice in mind and visited PJ’s Digital Mall in Section 14, and went all the way up to All IT Hypermarket. I don’t mind going up as I found out the price of products there are cheaper than the shops below it, provided you are paying by cash.

Anyway, I was recommended by the salesperson to get the Western Digital- My Passport Essential.

I got the 320 GB version of the portable hard drive. It prompts you to install its WD Smartwave during the first use.

It takes around 1 to 2 minutes to get the WD Smartwave program installed.

It actually helps to manage or sync your files to the drive as backup.

Just like some thumbdrive, I personally believe the software that comes with it are kind of annoying to me. It could probably be useful to some users who need to have interface to work things out.

Besides, I only needed the external hard drive as my additional storage and not as backup for my harddisk.

That aside, I am very happy with the speed of the USB 2.0 Hard drive, I copied a few GB of files way faster than from other mediums. I’m not too sure what helps with that though, but I’m not complaining, and in fact quite happy with it.

If you need more information of its specification, you can visit Western Digital My Passport Essential page.

It’s selling for somewhere around $79.00 from Amazon or RM 309.00 from All IT Hypermarket.

Gadgets, Hardware, Technology All IT Hypermarket, My Passport Essential, PJ Digital Mall, WD Smartwave, Western Digital

I killed my 2 year old wireless router recently and got a new router (with modem) : D-Link DSL-2640T.

Once I got it home, I thought setting it up would be as easy as 1-2-3. Well, not really 1-2-3 la, although it’s still easy.

So I figure if myself needed like 30 minutes to get things figured out to work, because I needed to switch to the router to test, doesn’t work, then try using direct connection from my computer and even mobile phone because TM website is super slow.

I hope this helps anyone who bought the same router modem too.

Anyway, I thought I might include the steps for you to test a direct connection from your computer to Streamyx without using TM’s modem or any of your own purchased modem.

If you are using Windows XP or Vista for that matter, you are able to connect to broadband provider directly.

Create a new Streamyx connection by going to Control Panel -> Network Connections or Start -> Connect To -> Show All Connections.

Follow the following steps

1. Create a new connection, Next
2. Connect to the Internet
3. Set up my connection manually
4. Connect using a broadband connection that requires a user name and password
5. Enter ISP Name : Streamyx or Screamyx…
6. Create this connection for (your preference)
7. Fill in your Streamyx username (user@streamyx) and password + confirm password
8. Finish and try connecting to it

If it doesn’t work, then you should get it figured out, is it your username or login problem. If all fails, dial 100 with your LAN line.

If you got pass the direct ADSL connection, then congratulations! It means you can connect to Streamyx and there’s no problem with your Streamyx account.

Next, we will put in the D-Link DSL-2640T router between the phone line and your computer. The phone line jack from your wall will go into the router and the network cable will go from the router to your computer. (Set up the wireless settings later).

Turning on your router and waiting for a while, you computer should be able to obtain and IP address from the router and shows that you’re connected to a network.

Open up your browser and go to http://192.168.1.1/.

If it asks for a password, the default login is admin and password is admin. Remember to change this after you have finished your configuration.

Run the Setup Wizard at the Homepage. A popup window will be displayed summarizing the steps you need to go through.

Step 1. Choose your time zone -> Choose Singapore or GMT+8

Step 2. Set Internet connection – > PPPoE/PPPoA -> Provide your login info and remember to set VPI to 0 (zero)

Step 3. Set wireless configuration -> Fill in your preferred wireless configuration

Step 4. Restart -> The router modem will restart and it might take a while to connect

Check the status after the restart completed from the Status tab. If the status is Disconnected, click on the Connect button.

Good luck!

Good To Know, Internet, Malaysia D-Link, Dlink, DSL-2640T, modem, PPPoE, router, Streamyx, TM, VCI, VPI

I had the need to make a EXE triggered program and I had to make it with Java. Some of you might have had encountered this need before.

Is it possible to have a Java program triggered by an EXE file? The answer is YES.

I would understand that some would naturally oppose to this, but I would rather stand in the middle between a geek and a user. Java geek might say no to EXE, a user wouldn’t care how a programmer make an application, all he or she wants is a damn EXE file to click and then everything will run superbly super nice. Truth is things doesn’t always happen both ways.

Well, I wouldn’t go into details of Why, When, When Not and How to make a EXE for a Java program. Just read this article, which is where I referred to.

What I tried and was able to make it work was with JSmooth.

JSmooth is a Java Executable Wrapper, and when no VM is available, the wrapper can automatically download and install a suitable JVM, or simply display a message or redirect the user to a web site.

Download JSmooth here, and run it.

Click on the images to view the larger version.

There are options for you to configure based on your liking. For eg, you can choose if you want your program to be single instance or multiple.

Provide the settings for your EXE file as well.

The usual Java stuff, Main class and library files.

Settings for the JVM to be used.

And any other java properties you need to be added.

I have created an example EXE program that runs a basic HelloWorld Java program.

The saved file is with the structure above. Just extract this zip file and try running the runHelloSwing.exe.

If it runs successfully, the HelloWorld Swing program will pop up like the following screen.

I hope you can make your own Java program and run it as EXE already. Of course, if only you still run Microsoft Windows.

Java, Review, Software EXE, Java, Java Program, JSmooth