I have to admit that I have a taste for portable devices: first it’s PDA, now it’s UMPC. Despite lukewarm reviews everywhere, Q1 comes quite close as my dream machine. In particular, it addressed many inadequates of PDA. Here are the pros:
1. Size: Q1 has the size of an average package book; with a weight of less than 800g its very portable.
2. Screen: At 7″ physically it is much bigger than anything one could find on a PDA.
3. Touch-Sensitivity: I really like touch-screen–mouse-pad and pointer drive me mad. Touch-screen also allows me to work one-handed, something I really need when I am standing. I actually find entering through Dialkeys, a virtual keyboard bundled with all UMPC, somewhat enjoyable…
4. Windows XP: Since Q1 runs XP Tablet, anything that works on a desktop theoretically works in it to. This is an unbeatable advantage over PDA’s, which need specialized softwares. Just yesterday I demonstrated the concurrent running of World of Warcraft and a program I wrote to a research colleague.
5. CF-slot: This is how Q1 wins my heart over Asus R2H, another UMPC. I need CF-slot to load photos from my DSLR and R2H only has a SD-slot.
6. Spec: Nothing spectacular here–actually Q1 is arguably underpowered–but as a PC it’s still way better than any PDA. I could barely open jpeg’s from my EOS-300D on my X50v, not to mention RAW.
7. Connectors: 2 USB ports and VGA out, things that are not on my PDA, is really all I need.
6. Price: I was originally look for ultra-portable laptops but those are expensive. At ~$1000 Q1 costs at most 2/3 of many popular ultra-portables.

There are quite some cons too:
1. Underpowered: Equipped only with a Celeron M 900Mhz processor, 512MB RAM and 40GB hard disk, it’s not a fast computer in any sense. Q1’s 7″ touch screen is almost triple that of my x51v in size, yet at a native resolution of 800×480 it hardly offers any advantage in resolution.
2. No microphone jack: The built-in microphone works great, but it would still be great to have the option to plug in an external one.
3. No videocam and GPS: Not something I would use often, but Asus’ R2H has both.
4. Mediocre Battery life: This is by far the biggest drawback–battery cannot hold much longer than two hours.
5. Price: I did mention it cost a thousand bucks…well.

In the end I am happy: Q1 is the solution to my need; neither PDA nor laptop could address my need as well as the Q1 does. And while many condemned Q1 to its demise, I do see there are others holding the same opinion as I do. Sometimes you just have to leave aside the zillions of reviews and make your own choice.

Have been messing around with Windows API’s these few days–a good learning experience.

【明報專訊】
問到胡錦濤的說話是否要親政府陣營取得大多數議席，不要讓梁家傑拿到100張選委提名票，陳永棋指出，梁家傑能否得到100張提名不是一個問題，因為他拿不到，代表他民望不夠高，即使他拿到，亦不等於大部分香港人支持他。

So there was this article on Ulrike Malmendier, an assistant professor in the Berkeley’s department of economics–she actually just “switched side” from Stanford this semester. Since I do go to seminars and read papers, I can testify to Malmendier’s brilliance. Now the chance that I can reach the same level of achievement is understandably slim; consequently, as a maximizing agent I should not be aiming that level of achievement. What I do need to check out is whether speed is my comparative advantage.

English.
中文。

陳水扁昨日中午透過總統府公共事務室發出手機短訊聲明稱，「…總統並表示，他個人的去留微不足道，對於各方的意見也都會傾聽」。

陳水扁能當總統到今日本來已是發達社會的一個異例，且看台灣能不能再創下令人歎為觀止的一幕奇境鬧劇。

Given what has happened the fact that Chen Shui-bian is still in presidency ridicules ROC as a developed society. Let us look forward to yet another episode of this astonishing soup opera in the near future.

《神兵3.5》越來越不像話，幾乎到了不知所謂的地步。相反《神兵前傳5》卻是出類拔萃，是港漫難得一見的佳作。讀者也是看得見的，《神前4》和《神前5》口碑銷量均是一流。後繼的《神兵玄奇F》正在大賣廣告。劇情細節當然無從得知 ，但那個「F」字總給我點《Final Fantasy》的感覺。