The Samsung NC10 Netbook has received many positive reviews since it’s release and many believe it to the best Netbook on the market.

A colleague of mine has recently purchased one at, what he thought, was a bargain price from Comet¹. It turned out that the low price was due to it having a far inferior battery. Indeed, the reason why it often garners such good feedback is its 7.5 hour battery life. This one struggles to a couple.

Some users are pointing out that some retailers are referring to this as the “award winning” NC10. In fact, it’s the bigger battery life version that has been winning the awards. Naughty.

So, be careful out there..

1. I’d provide the link but the site was strangely “under maintenance” when I tried [↩]

Lenovo has been “tweaking” its laptops and PCs in preparation for Windows 7, heavily improving startup and shutdown times.

Some of the methods, however, can be easily transferred to any Windows system – in this post I’ll be concentrating on XP, but I’m sure many of these will work on other versions.

So, here are some of the things that Lenovo did and what you can do that’s similar…

Fixed the drivers of on-board hardware components that were cumulatively causing massive delays.

Ok, so there’s not much we, as individuals, can do to fix drivers. However, it is important to stay on top of Windows drivers to ensure that you benefit changes of this type.

Personally, I have a spreadsheet of download links for my drivers and regularly check them. The other option is to use software that will look for updates for you. DriverMax is a popular example, although others are available.

Tweaked the BIOS phase of startup to temporarily hide some devices from Windows 7, so that the OS only loads the drivers after the boot is finished.

What they’re doing here is hiding hardware devices from Windows until its loaded. This may be a webcam, CD drive, etc. Now, there are some things you can do here for yourself…

1. Create a secondary hardware profile. This gives you an additional boot option where, say, lesser used hardware devices won’t be loaded. This is done by turning off different services (and having different startup options too). I used to have one for gaming, whereas non-gaming services would be disabled, saving memory and boot time.
2. Switch hardware off that you don’t use very often. No, ok, this won’t stop the drivers from loading but there may be some exchange (or handshaking) of information that may be reduced. My scanner and lazer printer, for instance, are used only occasionally, so are left unplugged when not in use. Of course, this also saves on electricity!
3. Uninstall old drivers. When you change hardware, you often leave the old drivers behind. Plug everything in, start up your PC and then find and uninstall any old drivers.

Tweaked Windows 7 to delay the loading of non-essential services and applications until after startup.

Ah, now this is definitely something we can do ourselves.

The first thing I’d recommend you do is to go through the various startup programs and disable those you don’t feel you need (RealPlayer, Quicktime and Java update checkers are popular ones to disable). You can use msconfig, but I find the option within the Tools section of CCleaner a better option.

A quick tip… you’ll find some startup options that don’t appear within the “Startup” folder in your Start Menu. If one of these is only relevant to particular users, who have their own profiles, then note the URL that this startup is running. Disable it and then create the relevant shortcut within the appropriate profile startup folder.

You can also delay when various startup options execute. So, lets say you REALLY want Quicktime, et al, to do their online checks, do they have to do them as soon as the computer starts? Programs such as Startup Delayer will allow you to delay startup tasks.

That’s applications. Now services. You have to be careful with these, but its still worth going through all your services and looking for those that are best set to manual or disabled entirely. There are many websites dedicated to which ones should be changed.

And that’s it. If you have any suggestions on how to improve startup and shutdown, feel free to contact me (or add a comment to this post).

The Sony VAIO VGF-CP1

My bargain of a photo frame turned up last week, and it’s a corker.

The frame is very square in appearance with a clear plastic section at the top. This contains status lights and the whole section can glow blue¹. Unlike other frames there is no bevel between the screen and the surrounding frame, which makes it look like a single piece. Indeed the screen quality is so good, it looks like a printed photo stuck to the front of a slab of plastic!

The menu options aren’t overly intuitive but it doesn’t take long to work it out. Coming from a “normal” photo frame one thing you need to grasp initially is Sony’s concept of “Frames”. These are collections of photos and you can easily flip between frames, via the included slimline remote control, or timed. Yes, timed. The timing function will even bring the frame out of standby. Thankfully, Sony have thought to have a timed power-off function as well, meaning that you can set the entire device to start and end at particular times of day (saving you have to turn it off overnight, and making a useful security function as you can have the frame left on whilst you’re out).

Back to the frames – you can set different types up based on templates. These can be tweaked a little, but not to a great extent. For example, one such template is “Photo and Info” which will add a clock and scrolling RSS data to the photo. By use of the remote you can turn on or more of these “extras” off. However, if you don’t want these then the basic photo template would sound the better option. Except the photo display options with this are limited. So I ended up using the Photo and Info option and then turning the latter off. Hmmm. It works, but is a strange way to do it.

Yes, it has Wi-fi, and I immediately set it up to connect to my network and my Picasa Web Albums account. So, right now, it’s displaying photos from my Picasa account.

The photo frame also comes with a CD-ROM that allows you to set up your PC as a photo and music server – a useful function if you leave your PC on all the time but as I don’t, I’ve not made use of it. However, it does include streaming radio functionality (and the speakers in the frame are rather good considering their size) via SHOUTcast. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work – a post on a forum would suggest this is due to the SHOUTcast URL changing. A firmware update from Sony would be the solution but as this frame now appears to be discontinued, I’m guessing one is not forthcoming.

I have a NAS drive connected to my wireless network and the frame immediately recognised this. In fact, it also found the NAS’ in-built music server and connected to that.

One problem I did have was registering the product. The Sony UK site doesn’t seem to know of the product when you search for it. It’s a VAIO, but when you go into the VAIO part of the site, it’s to do with the branded computers and not photo frames. General product registration, again, didn’t recognise the product.

So, I gave Sony a call and, credit where it’s due, immediately sorted the issue out. Although a touch confusing, it’s covered by the VAIO brand – however, all their other photo frames are not. Anyway, there is a specific page for VAIO registrations² and once the model details are entered, the product is recognised and registered.

There are video demonstrations available, and also the inevitable “unboxing“.

Summary of Sony VAIO VGF-CP1

It’s a great frame and needs snapping up whilst at a brilliant price. In the US Sony are selling this for £250. Dabs has this for £83. A bargain.

Reviewed by David Artiss on 24th September 2009.

1. you can have it on all the time, off all the time or get it come on when there’s some kind of status update [↩]
2. although is does seem to be PC-centric [↩]