ASUS bloatware

Hi guys, as some of you might already have known, ASUS ships with some pretty interesting bloatware which has discouraged me from fresh-installing an OS over the default one but rather, run a dual-boot. So Today, I shall cover all the bloatware which can be found under the ASUS utility on the start menu.

1. AI recovery burner

This would probably be one of the first sights that greet a new ASUS user. Running on every boot by default, this program allows you to create a recovery disk like its name suggests. For those who do not know what a recovery disk is, you can read up more by searching 'recovery disc' on Wikipedia. But in short, it is a disk that allows you to restore the factory state of your program and in this case, the default ASUS customized Windows. This utility is rather useful as most users would not already have a Windows installation disk when they buy a new PC or laptop, causing inconvenience when recovery is needed. Although a third party disk can be created (such as the one from EasyBCD), it would be great to be able to restore to the original version to avoid a void of warranty or any such servicing problems.

2. Virtual Camera

There is really nothing under this program. However, if I am not mistaken, it installs the drivers for the ASUS default web-cam found on your laptop so if you happen to have problems accessing the ASUS webcam, trying downloading this program and tell me if it helps. One thing I have to say though, the ASUS built in web-cam is very sluggish and does not have a particularly high FPS count so taking videos with it is virtually impossible.

3. Control Deck

This is pure eye candy. So you thought the Mac dock looked cool? You haven't seen the ASUS control deck. Think 6 docks lined upwards from the bottom to the top of the screen that allows you to change options from battery mode to brightness to volume to screen resolution to boot options to ASUS applications. Essentially, these collection of docks give you access to every possible setting you would want to change. This eye-candy, as with all eye-candy comes with a price though, lagged response. You would have to wait several seconds, even on the X42JR, before the docks will unveil in an overlay on your screen. However, I wouldn't mind a little lag for something this nice. So good job, ASUS, for the awesome graphics.

I have just realised that none of my posts are getting posted because of the extremely bad internet connection here so I will post them bit by bit and hope that works.

to be continued...

"There are only 10 types of people in the world. Those who know binary and those who don't"

Didn't exactly do anything very interesting so I'll spare you the details and just come to the important points. So everything was all boring as I went, and messed around in City Square mall. Then while waiting for the MRT to arrive on the way back, I saw this guy wearing a cool shirt that said "There are only 10 types of people in the world. Those who know binary and those who don't". Isn't it just amazing that people can come up with this kind of catchy things to put on shirts. In fact, this should be one of those Facebook groups that said 'like if you get it'. I'll see if I can get something like that on the Infocomm Club shirt next year. Then nothing unusual again until just a few moments ago. I was really bored and decided to install an older distro of Ubuntu onto my X42JR so I plugged the drive in and restarted the computer. Asus boot screen. Pressed f2. Changed boot option on BIOS. Restart. *blink blink blink* -10 minutes later- *blink blink blink*. I'm guessing that Asus does not allow you to boot from USB drive if the complaints littered all over the net are to be trusted and I think that that is seriously a waste. After all, what is a computer without 7, Ubuntu, Fedora, XP and possibly iAtkos running alongside each other? I will be trying to get the multiple boot to work soon since I am currently dual-booting Windows 7 Home Premium (with Asus bloatware) and Windows 7 Ultimate (clean install). But that is only because Windows 7 has an .exe file that comes together on the disk, much unlike Linux which does not even support .exe. So wish me good luck and hopefully, I will be posting about my successes tomorrow.

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End of holiday rush

Hey people, I really cannot stand Lego. Not that their software isn't good enough, I find the hardware exceptional when compared to the China made versions. It is the software that I'm frustrated about. In the beginning, I wasn't too critical because I thought the lag the occurs every time NXT-G starts was due to the old and thus slower dual core processor. After re-installing NXT-G on my new laptop a few weeks ago, I figured it had to be that the software itself was lagging. After all, I was using an Asus X42JR with an Intel i7-740QM, a 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon graphics card and 4GBs of RAM. The loading time was my biggest gripe. For a laptop that has the ability to handle Command and Conquer, HAWX, and Counter Strike smoothly, I do not see how a relatively less taxing program like NXT-G could tax the processor. Even after it has supposedly "loaded", it will show a blank windows for quite a long time before the GUI loads. When programming, the interface continues lagging, with connector wires often overlapping, making programming confusing. I can certainly tell you that even with a Chinese program like Robo Express with a slightly inferior hardware build does not lag even on a dual core processor. Moving on, my FIRST Lego League preparations have completely stagnated and the competition is approaching quick. 1 month to prepare (ruling out the week with Outward Bound School) is barely enough to finish the programming, which also means that we will not have the time to do any testing. Either ways, I will be working more on it next week (hopefully) so I hope we can produce a robot which is capable of scoring the full 400 points before school reopens. Things will be very different after school reopens with competitions like Robocup Singapore open to prepare for. Which reminds me that we will have to budget for it, again in a week. Looks like the final week of the holidays is not going to be used for unwinding yet again, or continuing to produce more Photoshop works. Alright, post again soon, bye!

Whoa Blogger is excellent too. After pressing save as draft more than 10 times, it wouldn't save. Deciding to be smart, I opened a new tab, copied the content and pasted. Guess what? It posted on the first try. Makes me wonder what the problem was.