Watched the first episode of the Dilbert DVD series this morning while having breakfast.. dang I should stop tempting myself to eat in front of the computer, with the exception of bread crumbs & tea stains all round the keyboard. I won’t be amused if my desk is the worst bacteria hot zone in my home. Felt slightly nauseated while playing half-life 2 today, very funny though & I thought only wimps or my visitors in roller coaster tycoon get this kind of feeling. Rested away from the computer by reading the daily papers, not to mention the sunday comics before finding out that my computer refresh rate was accidentally set to an all time low- 60Hz while it should be at 75-85hz. Sooo thats the casue of the dizzness…

Looking forward, next week seems to be a week of administration at work/camp. With OVM stores to return and so. The 4 armoured M113 Ultra on the scout side is gonna be returned soon, so are the signal, optics & OVM. Would be able to see few months free of mounted training. Haha just say its an alliance between us sergeants to rid these stores, if not its just inviting “unnecessary training” our officers always want us to do for our troopers, even our troopers are sick of them already. Based on the schedules, next year would see a possible chance of heli-brone training, specifically air-insertion from a chinook helicopter. The closest I could see to that was the rappelling training I did back last year.. haha & yes it was fun… A medic course would be on next week & the highlight would be buddy to buddy “dripping” that involves.. erm poking each other with needles, oh hello bruises!

The day started with some surfin’ on the net in the morning, catching up with discussion on forums & coding my site. Stayed home for lunch, with mum cooking her special pork porridge. Took a bus to heeren in the afternoon to redeem my 180 heeren points left in my account which expires end this month for a niffy printed black card sized notebook at Alternatives, Annex going for 175 heer points. Contiuned my journey to suntec taking 16. With the nichol hightway inccident, now I have to alight opposite shaw towers whenever I take bus service 14 or 16 to suntec, have to walk so far.. haiz.. got to exercise bit loh.. As intended today: buy at least one game but it was cut short with the rather strange shortage of the warhammer 40k: dawn of war game at both PK computers heeren & suntec branches… all the sold out… is the game really so hot? Oh well.. maybe I have to get it at simlim then.. btw Tribes Vengeance is out at $49.90 wouldn’t be getting it so soon till I check out the general reviews.

Met up with mark & dom later around 4pm for “The Incredibles” movie at engwah, & yes this time he got the right tickets for the right show timing. So much for digital picture & sound anyway but overall the movie isn’t that bad. I guess Pixar’s experience in previous movies such as Finding Nemo & Monster’s inc allowed them to include more detail in their scene & rendering outputs in this movie. The story between the superhero family is both warm & loving, with te exceptional hiccups here & there with their superpowers, otherwise the story is rather linear with some exceptional small twists, all ending with a rather, “sprinting victory”. Oh yea, & the old lady who designs their suits is so cool.. me dreams to be a similar accomplished designer (or maybe live & bear similar property assets), maybe more on web, concept & interior designs rather than doing suits for heros. & yes, capes are sooo outdated. Not a bad watch.

Had dinner buffet with the gang at breeks marina after the movie where I finally get to use my $8 off NKF vouncher, shaving $8 off the bill. Stayed in the resturant till about 10pm, closing time. Brought Dilbert, the complete series DVD series collection for $118 from HMV, citylink, together with an extremely retarded VCD movie titled KungPow!-Enter the fist by 20th century fox pictures going for a steal at $4.95. HMV closes at 11pm so that about the time we kinda left the store too.. Got about 6 HMV stamps to go with my purchase. Reached home reasonably late- late enough to unable to play Cs: Source with chonggen & john.. john’s out anyway so I guess he didn’t have the intentions anyway. For chonggen, well he have to have his early nights!

Aims to complete 50% of half-life 2 tomorrow as I am in about 25% completion so far, *checks time* actually today.. sunday! chill-out day.

Ok, PC game check with nitro family aside, the games I have left to complete are need for speed: underground I (80% complete) & II (10% complete). The thing now I better complete those games I’ve brought, so ah games won’t be so much of such a “collector’s toy” for me but some serious play toy, maybe to possibly develop my thinking & reflexes (haha I must be kidding myself). Played CS:source before dinner & half-life II thereafter. I’ve obtained the magum today.. sweettt considering how well it rids grunts with one aimed shot. Gernally weapons are good for the following targets:

Those flying bunch of razers: crowbar, 9mm
Headcrabs: crowbar, 9mm
Grunts: 9mm, magum, SMG if things start to get messy

My heeren card membership would be expiring soon, so I guess I did better dropby there tomorrow after lunch to redemm some cool stuffs before the points expires… think I would go about purchasing on game one the way, maybe warhammer 40k, sims 2, or world of warcraft (dang impulses aagain!). Would be meeting up with dom & qingrui for The Incredibles movie thereafter (finally…. lets hope dom get the tickets right this time…) generally the show is not bad from the the general word of mouth, would see to that tomorrow then. Dinner would be at the usual breeks at marina for keeps. Then what else, we would see from there… On a sidenote, managed to collect $60 worth of donations for my NKF pledge card. Deadline’s on end dec, but I am more or less done with begging people for charitable money now, time to send it it. Lets see (checks card).. $60 would qualify me for a free mini radio.. haha why must they give gifts with increasing value for the $$$ the donor’s give? isn’t giving from the heart & not because of freebee? or is this just singapore?

whee hee completed the game finally today.. at the expense of my whole friday afternoon.. lol anyway haha time to get some rest while I am at it… half-life 2 is next!

hey hey hey, you must be wondering why am I back. Its a day day again, this time in return for an off-in leiu. Whee long weekend! now time to get some game time on half-life2 & nitro family…

Friday & sat in glorious truetype text… long but otherwise, quite a good read.

Friday
Last night was life firing day, it very much needed us to go through bashing through muddy treks & crossing rivers to assault an objective, AI dismounted style for times in all (day blank & life, night blank & life). Us specialists chonggen, janan, tanyi, neo, AI maocheng & yiwei & me were all very much involved in the firing doing safety. So much for that, while the run of the troopers & specs get to stay at camp, DOING NOTHING! moreover, they get to BOOK-OUT on friday evening too… while we finished the life-firing round 11pm only to reach back at camp slightly before 12mn, sob sob can’t book out then, only the next morning, slept around 12.30am dang was I tried.

Saturday morning
The next morning, our PC chen junming admitted being not in a clear state of mind yesterday, therefore allowing the rest at camp to book out. Actually they should stay in camp for integrity reasons, even our old PC, poh was pissed. Chen assured us that it would not happen again. As we guess so, even chonggen’s intel on OC allowing us to book in on monday morning was a dammned hoax, no compensation for us. oh well thats the army. Its going to be quite a day ahead…

Booked out around 6.30am this morning & got a lift from chonggen (CG) to his usual adam road busstop where dad fetched me home thereafter. Concussed the moment I showered upon reaching home, woke up around 11am with cg bugging me to go to simlim with him to buy his new computer parts. Ate breakfast mum prepared & left the house around 12.15pm. Took 855 back to adam road where CG & his loyal uncle fetched us to simlim. Shopping for parts was fast, as we kinda did our “homework” from previous sls pricelists I’ve collected before heading out, purchased everything in 1/2hr comprising of a Geforce FX5500 256MB, P4 3.0GhzE & a Gigabtye mobo. Met maocheng at simlim itself, & he’ve gotten HL2 too, its a small world dude.

Saturday afternoon
Headed back to CG’s house to upgrade his current comp only to find out that his current Dell 8100 system have very limited upgradeable features, like missing a few molex & mobo power plugs. The only way out is to get a new PSU & casing. Even opening the dell casing was a feat, with so many unconventional levers & release hatched here & there… argh I just hate boutique PC casings,.. so inflexible. Moreover, its already 2pm & time is now on our side, considering that I have another movie meetup with my BMT friends at around 3-4pm. Leaving the computer aside, it time to drop by funan to get the Half-life 2 I’ve preordered. Purchased HL2 collector’s edition at $125, while CG got the standard edition at $69.90 consisting our 6 cheaply packed CDs without jewel case & manual, rather disappointing though. If you want a better buy, the collector’s edition is the way to go, though the “free” T-shirt proves to be quite cheapskate as well…

Got a call from dom about “The incredibles” movie showing around 4.10pm. Its already 3.30pm & I am still with CG at funan having lunch (dang & he said he wanna treat me to lunch.. ) at the complex’s basement food junction. Got another call from Dom then later updating me about a 4.55pm movie which he’ve got instead.. 4.55pm? cool just right I can actually reach GV marina on time! But dun VG marinaplex have only one screen for one movie at a time? strange.. 4.10pm & 4.55pm shows? too good to be true…

CG had his uncle unlight me around rich-carlton/GV marina area, where I met up with dominic for some chatting & catching up on times. It was later then we found out the tiks are for 6.55pm, NOT 4.55pm when the ticketing auntie told us that a show is still on. Arghh! wrong tiks! so no incredibles. Dom was rather sorry about his box office blooper, this time I was not on intervenation!… Luckily theres a 5pm show on at the box, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. Got the tiks subed & the next thing we were seated 4 seats just behind the screen at center (incredibles was worst). When the movie is starting dom suddenly ask me in a worrying manner.. “shit I did time indents for my artillery life firing yesterday, I hope I saw timing right…”

Saturday evening
Overall, the show was good, same Bridget, but a brand new diary, laughs & adventures. Guess I would have to catch incredibles some other day then. Then dom suggested watching it next week… haha if that is so I would be watching movies with the same bunch for 3 weeks in a row now… & now is that bad?… It was 6.45pm then marina square is still under major renovation with lots of stores closed, so we decided to walk to suntec to chill out for some coffee or so till 7.30pm. Dropped by Dell’s “try it” booth while at suntec to make enquires about the Dell x50v pda. to my joy, its out! the sales rep told me it came out today, well why don’t I be the first in Singapore to get one then.. haha at $911? I guess I would wait a little while more for the price to drop or when they decide to offer online discounts or so. Checked out tower records & PK computers.. mm man do the collector’s edition of HL2 a rare item around stores.. luckily I’ve got me tucked with me for an install later at home!

Got a call from mum & dad that they are in the suntec area already. Aide-ohs! to dom, catcha dude next time then.. Headed back to marina square, Hans eatery for dinner with my family. Overall I still prefer the food at this hans branch rather than the one at home, maybe the portions are bigger/tastier, or was I just hungry.. oh well downed a silion steak set meal & salmon mixed vege rice while dad had fish & chips & mum, chicken chop.. (yes I guess I was hungry). Next stop the Singapore motorshow 2004 at suntec convention & exhibition center at 8.15pm, walked the area till closing time 10pm, theres not many people around as its the 2nd last day of the event now. Dad met up with some old friends doing cars at the honda & suzuki booths. The thing about cars now is that most people are scrapping their 5-6yr old cars now for new ones due to exponential car value depreciation, furthermore the COE is quite low now, I guess this is the trend, wonder is dad considering a new car or not. But otherwise he expressed rather great interests in the mazda 3, honda stream & suzuki liana. For me I was totally out with on-board ride entertainment & concept cars, wow.. those subwoofers, theres more, let the photos do the talking when I upload the photos of the event soon…

Headed home thereafter, installed & tested out HL2 while typing this blog. Would be tryin’ the game out tomorrow.

UPDATE
The photos of the exhitibition are UP now with captions. Feel free to check it out here or navigate your way to the photo gallery “miscellanous” section to check it out!

There will be times at a go where you will start to outgrow the harddisk capacity on your computer, that is where the magic of externally storage devices come in, not only allowing you to expand your storage capacity on your current setup but adds a degree of flexibility by allowing the content to be accessed to any computer it is connected to and not isolated to a single setup. This tutorial aims to teach anybody about assembling a simple affordable, large external storage option using an external hard drive & case.

The drive enclosure, as it is
Drives for consumers generally come in 2 formats, a 2.5″ harddisk which are typically used on laptop computers given it’s smaller size and lower power consumption. The other are desktop equivalent 3.5″ harddisks which are usually more bang for the buck per gigabyte, spots faster seek times and performance (7500 – 15000 rpm to the 2.5″ 5400 rpm speeds), but draws much more power and require a dedicated power supply which are not actually very portable in nature. Both types of drives can come in various types of formats, with the more comment SATA I/II, the older and generally defunct parallel ATA (or PATA IDE drives), to the more performance and server orientated SCSI or SAS (Serial Attached – SCSI) drives. For consumers, PATA or SATA are the more common ones.

I will be using the 3.5″ hard disk in my illustration, but the logic of installing a 2.5″ is very similar otherwise much simpler in nature as well. It’s just open install, plug and close it back on, it’s that simple.

The package

Fig 1.0

One of the main reasons why I got a 3.5″ external hard drive is the convenience it offers by having the ability to store my all songs, photos & work files on a common drive which I can access from any computer within the house by just plugging it in. This means I can not only able to work & access my files anywhere, but packed in are my tunes to work/keep me entertained while I am at it. Furthermore, with the ablity for PCs to boot off external storage devices, you can literally also carry your workspace with you by including your OS in the drive as well (but do not expect any breakneck speeds unless you have a fast port connection like e-SATA). This all beats having all your files stored only one one drive in one computer, seriously limiting your working capabilities.

Moreover its also a cost effective way to transport large files compared to purchasing expensive flash or micro-drives in comparative gigabyte capacity, not to mention cheaper than the slightly steeper priced but more handy 2.5″ hard drive option. Whats more? the 3.5″ hard drive is a universal format, which means you can use any old 3.5″ IDE hard disk from any IDE interfaced computer of any capacity to work with this (or most enclosures). Furthermore, it also a great way to share files with you family, friends or neighbors alike by just plugging this hot plug & play device to their computers via USB 2.0, let be SATA II hot ports.

Fig 2.0

Fig 2.1

The drive enclosure I’ve got here is a Micro-G ZX-8 model MS-35U2 external 3.5″ aluminum enclosure with a built-in fan priced at around $90SGD. Included in the package (Fig 1.0) is the main enclosure unit on the upper left followed by its stand on the right, box then from bottom left to right, the power adapter, standard computer power cable, pack of securing screws, driver mini CD-rom (which I won’t be needing) for non plug & play OS, USB 2.0 cable, warranty & manual. From what I’ve seen most manufacturer don’t include fans in their enclosures- a mistake for most if you are taking about up-time & stability issues due to excessive heat build-up in the case. Instead some manufactures have in place, USB hubs, 7-1 card readers which I don’t see as important as included hard drive cooling, so if you are intending to get an enclosure, at least get one with a fan. Now lets see what this baby have to offer:

The face of the drive

Fig 3.0

The face of the drive is as shown in Fig 2.0 the button on the left is the power button to its right is the drive activity LED, the grey grille like things on the top & bottom are air vents to allow air circulation by the internal fan. At the rear (Fig 2.1) the power plug is located on the right while the USB port is on the left. Compared to the 2.5″ hard drives found in laptops, 3.5″ hard disks require power from an adapter (unlike the latter which draws power straight from the USB port). Its due to is comparatively higher power drain due to its offered higher capacities, higher data seek & revolutions (7200rpm to 5400rpm), therefore lacking the full ease of portability & the need of a power adapter to work.

Fig 4.0

Fig 4.1

Assembly process
The drive is made out of aluminum with a plastic face & can be placed flat on its side, or placed as a tower with the full aluminum provided stand. As said, assembling one can actually be quite easy, everything you need is usually included in the box, what you need is just a harddrive for it to house. Its almost similar to that of plugging in you standard IDE harddrive into your motherboard with the ribbon cable. Upon opening the enclosure you can already identify “where goes where” if you’ve assembled PCs before.

Over here you can see a close up of the internal fan with transparent motor housing. Theres sufficient space for airflow with the given slots of the base where the harddisk is supposed to sit (Fig 4.1). There is also sufficient headroom for the drive when the enclosure is close so as not to cover or obstruct the “breathing hole” found in almost all hard drives.

Time to resurrect this old baby!

Getting you jumpers right.

Here I have an old Samsung harddrive which I would be using for this tutorial. Before installing the drive, ensure that the drive has its jumpers set to “master mode”, all PATA harddrive enclosures will only work in MASTER and not SLAVE. Consult the jumper arrangements which are usually printed or crafted onto the drive itself. If you have a SATA drive (those with a small clip on ribbon cable, usually in red), you can completely ignore this part competely and just plug in the data cable straight away.

The IDE & power cables

Make sure the cables are in tight & secure

Thereafter, plug the ribbon cable into the drive’s IDE port, followed by the 12v power cable. There are only 2 cables needed for a drive to work, le tbe for both PATA and SATA drives. Remember, both the ribbon & power cables can go only one way so it wouldn’t be much of a problem unless your IDE cable on your drive do not have a “right side up” notch. Thereafter look at the the edge of the cable for a small arrow, that denotes the “first pin”, align it to the harddisk’s first pin (the harddrive’s first pin schematics are printed on the drive itself, otherwise its usually on the right most pin if you hold the back of the harddrive facing towards you).

That is all the trouble for PATA drives, SATA cable connectors are mostly foolproof and can only go in one direction, which are more common used now.

The assembled package

Securing the case

With that done tuck the cabled neatly into the provided space & secure the drive using the provided screws, make sure no cables are blocking the fans or vents so as not to disrupt airflow and affect cooling- these drives can run very hot after a few hours.

Final preps

Now a test run…

Powering on and detecting
Put on & secure the cover. Plug-it-in, the power & USB cable that is & turn it on. If your drive is a notebook 2.5″ one, simply just plug in your USB cable and your drive is able to run off the USB port power itself. For notebook hard disks manufacturers usually include a second USB connector for additional power or when you drive won’t turn on, usually you won’t need this unless your USB power is un-powered, that is where you plug in this secondary USB port into a powered one to run the drive, only when sufficient voltage is satisfied, then the enclosure will power on the drive.

3.5″ enclosures on the other hand will require a separate power brick to feed power, usually running off the wall mains.

Detection & use
Once plugged in and powered on, windows should detect your hard disk by it’s brand or device name (as a prompt on the task bar) as a USB mass storage device & automatically install the needed drivers & register it like DRIVE 2 or the next available drive letter as shown, depending on what you name you 2nd hard disk.

You usually won’t have a need for drivers at all, unless if you are running an old OS or plug & play is not available (OS before WinXP, Vista or Mac OS X), install the drivers included in your package. That is, provided that you’ve already formatted your disk. However, if you are using a brand new, un-formatted drive (though almost all manufacturers sell their hard disk’s formatted) windows will prompt you to format the drive, otherwise you can always run fdisk at command prompt of by just simply booting into the dos environment to do it.

The limit of the this enclosure’s capacity of course depends completely on the hard drive you provide, usually the enclosure is just a basic circuit to link the drive integrated electronics to interface with USB then to your system, so technically there is no restriction to the hard disk capacity an enclosure can take. Though using a higher rated drives may result in cooling, vibration or noise issues in the long run which might shorten the life span of the drive itself.

Little about file formats
If you are using Windows XP or Vista, format your drive in the NTFS format, not FAT. This format is native to windows on the windows NT format unless you are using a old low capacity harddisk with 20GB of storage space or less (like me), formatting in FAT32 may be a good option & it allows a performance increase, at the expense of functionality, security, reliability & performance NTFS offers.

Do note that NTFS is a proprietary format for windows, so if you intend to access your files on Mac OS or Linux out of the box, FAT32 is a good choice. This applies too if you wish to multi-boot Operation systems or :install back dated operating systems such as Win9x, or Win2000. For hard drives or partitions with 2GB of storage space or less (which I will recommend mostly for thumb drives as well), the lower FAT format is recommended. Once done formatting, wollia! your external drive is ready for data loading!

Aunt julie dropped by our home yesterday morning to pay us a visit, strange though considering that its a the Hari Raya period, we should actually have paid a a visit! Brought along with her are some traditional Muslim delicacies such as curry chicken, longton & some homemade pineapple tarts & marble cakes, surprising that she actually brought this feast here… But I can tell that she enjoyed it anyway, spreading the Hari Raya fun & mood, very enjoyable. So guys & gals out there if you are invited to a hari raya dinner or so by muslim friends/neighboors this week DON”T MISS IT! you will love it. Would be bringing some excess marble cakes & cookies to camp to finish as most of us here at home are already over loaded with da goodies. Then having it finished at camp shouldn’t be a problem either with my glutton bunkmates John & Darryl around, that shouldn’t be a problem…

Well, half-life 2 is expected to be released tomorrow. As already mention in my previous posts, I’ve re-ordered the collector’s edition at the software boutique, funan for $129.90 plus a free poster. Would most prob be collecting it on friday night or so, during my bookout. Alternatively if theres nights off tomorrow, why not drop by there too? & yes, everything have to timed so nicely.. You must be wondering why I am I still at home at this time on a tuesday morning, well book in for my coy is slated at 12noon today.. oh well better get going to chonggen’s house.. tete for a free lift to camp…