KhimHoe.Net » Review

Microsoft Wireless Optical 2000 Review

HMMaster — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:29:30 +0000

Check out my video review for the Microsoft Wireless Optical 2000 here:

Please click HQ for high quality video!

You can also check out my older review for the Logitech Classic Keyboard Plus here.

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Logitech Classic Keyboard Plus

HMMaster — Fri, 11 May 2007 14:51:14 +0000

My old keyboard was dead few months ago and I’ve been using my housemate’s keyboard during this period. Since I’m going to Lowyat, so I decided to buy a new keyboard. At first, I actually plan to buy the Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000 as reviewed by Sian Siew. But my budget is quite tight, so I have no choice but to choose a cheaper keyboard. I decided to go with with cost me RM23. It is quite cheap for a branded keyboard since some unbranded keyboard can cost up to RM18!

Full review after the jump!

Features of the keyboard (taken from official website):

Spill resistant
UV coated key printing (last longer)
Sleek styling
Responsive soft-touch key
Small footprint (save space)

The box

The package only come with the keyboard and nothing else (excluding the box) Since this is a normal keyboard without any multimedia features, driver is not necessary. The build of the keyboard is actually quite good. There are actually 19 screws that hold the keyboard together!

The back of the keyboard

I can’t comment much about the “sleek styling”, but it is just like most keyboards. (Btw, this is a full-size keyboard. Not those compact keyboard)

The keys are very responsive and quiet. But you won’t get those notebook-keyboard feeling since it is much thicker. But the keyboard (and the keys) itself is quite slim.

I tried the spill-resistant feature, and it works great! But please remember not to try this at home! I need to open up my keyboard to dry the internal components (maybe because I used too much water in the demo) I’m surprised with the internal of the keyboard. The keys are actually locked to the front-plate of the keyboard. Which means that you can’t take out the keys.

I’m very please with this keyboard especially the quality of it. For this price, I definitely recommend any of you to get this keyboard instead of some non-branded keyboard. I’ll give the Logitech Classic Keyboard Plus a rating of 9/10.

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Clean Forwarded Email

HMMaster — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 13:48:53 +0000

One of the things that I hate about email that forwarded to me is all the extra symbols such as the ‘>’ that added in front of every line! It is damn frustrating if you want to remove it one by one.

Thank fully, I found a website that can help you remove all the symbols! Check out the e-mail Cleaner! All you need to do is paste your email in the text box and click a button to clean the email. It is that easy!

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Disposable Email

HMMaster — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 16:32:27 +0000

Tired of spam? Well, disposable email is here for you! So, what exactly is disposable email? Disposable email is an email that require no registration and the mail in the inbox will be deleted within a certain time frame. For example, when a website require you to provide your email address during registration, you can simply type anything you want (ie: dave@dodgeit.com) and register! Next, go to the website of the temporary email provider and type in the user name that you use to register (in this case, dave) to check for the activation mail! If the website sells your email to spam list, all the spam will go to this email! (And will be deleted automatically!)

But please remember that the email address is public. So, it is not advisable to use this email to store any confidential data such as password. And also, the email will only be keep for a short time. If you need to save it for reference use, you can either copy the content of the email or just use a permanent email address.

Here is a list of temporary email provider:

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Online File Converter

HMMaster — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 15:14:46 +0000

I finally manage to try out two online file converter that I mentioned in my earlier post. The two converters are Zamzar and Media Convert.

The file that I try to converter is a Microsoft Word file. The format that I want it to be converted is PDF. The doc is quite big, which is around 8mb. I try to convert the doc file using media convert first. The upload process is quite easy and there is a progress bar for the upload. It takes few minutes to convert the file once it is finish upload to the server. Media Convert will provide the download link of the converted file after it finish converting. This is definitely a plus since several online pdf converter require me to enter my email address and send the file to my email. This is quite time consuming.

Next, I tried converting the file using Zamzar. Zamzar’s interface is quite clean and Web 2.0-ish. You can upload multiple files at once, which is great. But Zamzar require you to enter your email because it will send the download link to your email. Zamzar also display a progress bar for the upload process. It even allows you to cancel the upload. If you upload multiple files, Zamzar will provide a zip file that contains all the converted file along with individual link for each file! I really love this feature.

Even though Media Convert manage to convert my doc to pdf successfully, but I can’t open the file. I tried several times, but the result is still the same. I’m not sure whether it is because I’m using the track changes in the doc that caused this problem. But I don’t have problem converting the same file using Zamzar.

For me, I definitely recommend Zamzar because of several features that it offer and Media Convert does not offer. But the only downside is that I can’t download the file directly after it finish converting.

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File Conversion

HMMaster — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 04:32:27 +0000

Recently, Sian Siew posted an article about problem viewing Microsoft Word Document on non-MS viewer (such as Open Office). The way he suggested is to convert the doc file to pdf. But his suggestion require you to install some software to convert the document. This might be a bit inconvenient if you are not using your own computer. To solve this problem, the easiest way is to use online file converter. One of my favorite online doc-to-pdf converter is NeeVia‘s Document Converter eXPress. It supports large number of input format, which is very good. Some of the less common filetype, such as *.pub (which is a Microsoft Publisher file) is also supported. You also can configure some of the settings for the output file such as the resolution of the pdf file.

I also found two online file converter that convert file to format other than document/text file. These converters support both audio and video format. The two converters are Zamzar and Media Convert. I haven’t try these converters yet, but I think it is a good site for those who want to convert video such as flv to avi. [via TechCrunch]

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The New Google Reader!

HMMaster — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 10:24:44 +0000

Google finally updated their web-based RSS Reader! The previous version of Google is just waayyyy to sucks. I have no idea why Google can come out with something like this.

The old Google Reader

The new version of Reader is way better than the old one. Now it looks more like a normal rss reader and the interface is quite similar to GMail. In the previous version, there is no category for you to select form. All feeds are jumbled up together, which something I don’t like since it is very hard to read the feeds.

The new Google Reader

The first thing that I notice is that now that include a “List View”! So far, I haven’t see any web-based RSS aggregator provide this kind of view. It is quite convenient if you just want to browse through all the headlines without read the description.

List View in Google Reader

When an item is clicked in the list view, the entire item will be displayed.

If you prefer the ‘normal’ view, you can switch to expanded view. It is good that Google actually let you to select the view option.

The expanded view

If you prefer to view all feeds together, just like the old one, you can select the view all item option. It also include a new column, which is the category that the item belong to. So, it is much easier to differentiate the news item.

Viewing all the items

Some other minor features that they include are Starred Item and Shared item. Starred Item is just like you Favorite while Shared item is to let you to share the news item.

I think that Google finally make their reader right. The new version is much more resemble a feed reader which improve readibility. And another thing is that the ‘navigation bar’ which stay at the top instead of scrolling. I notice that there are few web-based rss reader that can’t do that right. One feature that I hope that they’ll implement is that allow user to mark several items as read. Currently, you need to open it one by one or mark it all as read. Other than that, Google Reader is currently my No.1 web-based RSS reader. (But I still stick with offline reader for better speed)

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Windows Live Writer

HMMaster — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 18:07:12 +0000

Microsoft just released a blog authoring tool not too long ago. This tool is Windows Live Writer, which is part of Microsoft’s Windows Live family.

Windows Live Writer (WLW) is a WYSIWYG blog authoring tool. So, what you edited in WLW will look exactly the same when you published it. This make blog posting much easier. Currently, there are few blogging service that provide WYSIWYG editing, but web interface is still not as good as an offline application.

WLW is compatible with Windows Live Spaces, which is a blogging service by Microsoft. But don’t worry, WLW is also compatible with other blogging site such as Blogger. It is also compatible with blogging platform such as WordPress and MovableType.

Setting up your blog

Configuring WLW to work with your blog is very easy. All you need to provide is the URL of your blog, username and password. WLW will analyze the publishing interface for the blog. After finish setting up the blog, you can start writing your blog entry!

Windows Live Writer Default Window

The interface of WLW is very clean and simple. It looks like a normal text editor, but with some extra functions.

One of the feature of WLW is that you can edit your post in 4 types of views. The views are normal, web layout, web preview and HTML code. The normal view is just like a normal text editor. For web layout, WLW will use the design of your blog for editing. But it only include the header/title and the body of the post. It will not display other parts of the blog such as your header, links, etc. The web preview is basically something like print preview where you can preview the post so that you’ll know how it will look like once you publish it. The HTML view is to allow you to editing the post in HTML.

Image editing in WLW

Another nice feature of WLW is the image insertion and manipulation! It is so damn good that I’m sure that none of the web editor can do this. It allows you to edit the image within the editor. Some of the options that you can change are borders and effects. You can add effects such as watermark, B&W, etc.

Besides image, WLW also allow you to insert map. The map will the Windows Live Map service. This is very convinient for bloggers that want to publish a map in their blog.

Spell checking in WLW

WLW also feature the spell checker. Now you can spell check your post before you publish it.

The summary:

Pro

WYSIWYS.
Clean, simple interface.
Support major blogging platform.
Powerful image editing.
Spell checker.
Plug-ins
Category detector, post properties, etc.

Con

Some of the features like opening new link in new window is not working properly. (For Spaces)
Image publishing is not supported for WordPress/Blogger. (need to manually specify a FTP server to upload the image)
Not compatible with Blogger Beta .
Cannot edit multiple posts in same window.
HTML view is not formated.

WLW is still in Beta, which mean it still have space for improvement. Even though it is beta, I haven’t face any clashes so far. I hope that the WLW will come out with a better version soon. If you want a simple offline tool that allow you to write post for your blog, WLW might suit your needs.

*Edit*

Btw, remember to check out AsenDURE’s review too

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Writely Review

HMMaster — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 14:19:04 +0000

This is my mini review on Writely. Once you login, you’ll see a list of documents that you recently use. The interface is simple and clean. There is no ad at the site, but this may change in the future.

The main page of Writely after login

Documents are divided into four types (or view): Active, Starred, Tagged, All Documents. Active means the documents that you recently use (within 1 month). Starred documents are documents that you marked, something like favorite/bookmark. If you are GMail user, I’m sure that you see the feature before. You can also apply tag to your document.Tagging is one of the best way to organize your files. This is because you’re not restricted to one type of tag. You can add several tags to one document. For the ‘All Documents’ tab, as the title said, it view all the documents that you created and saved. There is also a trash function where you can recover documents that you deleted.

Tagging a document

Send email to Writely!

There are three ways for you to choose from for creating a new document. You can create it on the spot, using the ‘New’ link, or you can upload a file from your document. You can upload files like txt, doc, images, etc. You can also use email to send the file to your Writely account. Writely will provide you a custom email address to receive and store the email. Writely will convert the content of the email to a document.

Uploading a document to Writely

The document editing page is quite user friendly with some basic function that normal user usually use. You can insert things like images and tables into the document. You can right click on the editing area to access some of the function that you usually use, like copy/paste/cut. Drag-and-Drop is also supported. If you want to move you picture, just drag-n-drop the image to the new location. Fonts are quite limited. Only some common fonts are available for you to use.

The edit screen

One of the best bout Writely is that you can share the document with other people. Just use the collaborate function. All you need to do is add the email of the person that you want to share the document with into the collaborator list. Writely will then send them an email with the link to the document. The collaborator can edit and change the content of the document that you shared with them. This function really helpful if you usually share your document with other people.

Sharing the document

Next, you can ‘publish’ the document. It is something like publishing a web page. Writely will generate an URL to the document so that you can share the document with the public. But, of cause the public can only view it, and not edit it.

Previewing a document before publish

The next best thing bout Writely is that you can actually post the document to a blog! In fact, this post is posted using Writely! Pretty neat huh? Currently Writely support most of the blogging system that are commonly available in the internet. You can post it to blogging website such as Blogger or Typepad. If you are hosting your own blog, such as WordPress, you can also use Writely! As long as the blogging system the API, Writely should be able to post to your blog.

You need to change some settings before you can post it to your blog

Another function is the revision. Basically this is the ‘history’ of your document. Everytime the document is changed, Writely will quick save it. This quick save or something similar to a snap shot of the document can be accessed through the revision menu. Using the revision function, you can keep track of what other collaborators had changed, and if you want to revert it back, just select the version that you want. You can even compare the changes between revision so that you’ll know what had changed.

The revision/history of the document

I guess thats all that I can write now. To sum it up, Writely is quite similar to your usual web-based email. But rather than an email, now you are editing a document. You can also share the document and also publish to your blog. Even the functions inside Writely is quite limited, but for simple word processing, I think it should be enough. Now you can access your document anytime, anywhere! (as long as you have internet connection and browser xD)

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