Peter's Useful Crap

After 5.5 years of working daily with my previous laptop (an incarnation of the HP DV1000 series, the HP DV1303a) and performing several hardware upgrades on it, it started spontaneously shutting off in the middle of preparation for a site launch. While I still intend on trying to get the laptop repaired, I decided to buy a new laptop for daily use: the ASUS UL80VT-A1.

In a nutshell, I chose this laptop for its balance between portability and performance. It also comes with some unique, useful features. I am quite happy with this new machine so far. Here is my review.

If you do a web search for “UL80VT review” you will get quite a lot of useful reviews, but they’re mostly from techies who try out the laptop for a day, run a bunch of performance tests (which aren’t very useful for most people), and then write the review and move on. Hopefully I can contribute to the “average joe heavy user” review pool.

I use my laptop for business (full-time) and personal use. Tasks include writing web development code, running test websites locally (on quite a beast of a content management system called eZ Publish), e-mailing, web browsing, editing spreadsheets and word documents, photo editing, making phone calls, and watching YouTube videos.

(As a side note, realistically, any non-netbook computer made in the last 5 years should easily handle those tasks. The only thing my previous laptop had started to struggle with was streaming the new high-definition YouTube videos.)

UL80VT Positives

Portability

I like the 14-inch size as providing the right balance between a fully featured computer and being portable.

As advertised, the Asus UL80VT does last between 10-12+ hours when simply browsing the Internet or working with Office documents. I ran it on battery while doing a lot of local website testing (forcing the computer to general complex pages from a content management system) and using Skype for several lengthy voice calls and it lasted for about 6.5 hours.

The Asus UL80VT is quite thin (just over an inch thick) and is very comfortable to pack and carry around. The notebook weighs less than 5 pounds with its extended life battery, and its power adapter even feels quite light.

Performance

The laptop runs Windows 7 with a Core 2 Duo 64-bit 1.3 Ghz low-voltage processor (model number SU7300) and 4gb of RAM. It comes with a very useful program called Power4Gear Hybrid, which lets you control processor speed, screen brightness, and other power settings.

You can even run the processor at 1.73 Ghz, which ASUS touts as “Turbo 33″ (basically, user-friendly, tested overclocking). This works quite well, although for my use I’ve found the default processor speed to be quite snappy. Programs in Windows 7 load fast, and full-screen high-definition video plays fine.

Miscellaneous hardware

Even when purchased in Canada, the Asus UL80VT comes with a normal-size US-layout keyboard (as opposed to a bilingual keyboard with half-size Shift and Enter keys, among other things). The keys are of the chiclet variety, and are easy to type on.

All ports are on the sides of the laptop, with nothing at the back or the front. It comes with a CD / DVD optical drive, which still comes in handy on a regular basis. There are 3 USB ports (the maximum number of ports that I ever use at once), a Flash media card reader, and VGA and HDMI out ports. It has standard, separate mic-in and headphones-out jacks. It might be surprising to some people that quite a few smaller laptops these days come with a single mic + headphones jack — carrying around an adapter for this can be a minor annoyance.

Left side:

Right side:

It also has an integrated webcam and mic like most new laptops. Both are of decent quality.

The AC adapter comes with an angled support piece directly near the plug for the laptop.

This is a bit hard to explain, but my previous laptop had a straight wire into the laptop, which made it more susceptible to becoming bent and wearing out.

The screen size and quality are more than adequate, and comfortable to look at for extended periods of time.

The hard drive and RAM are in physically separate compartments at the bottom of the machine and are easy to get at should they need to be upgraded or replaced.

Noise and heat, or lack thereof

The Asus UL80VT is quiet. I never hear the hard drive, and when the fan is on, it is very quiet. It is well-ventilated out the side, and no area on the computer ever feels more than lukewarm.

Fast-boot alternative

Although a rather fully-featured Windows 7 install boots in less than one minute, this laptop include an alternative power button that loads a simplified operating system called Splashtop in an advertised 8 seconds. And it really is 8 seconds. ASUS calls this functionality “Express Gate”. It includes, among other things, a web browser, Skype, and an instant messaging client. This quick-boot system is very handy (at least for those who don’t have smartphones) if you’re headed out the door and forgot to look something up or send a quick e-mail to someone.

UL80VT Negatives

Touchpad

The touchpad itself is sizable enough and easy to use, but the left- and right-click buttons (which are on the same button) are quite stiff and a bit noisy. Extended use of the buttons can become uncomfortable. Thankfully when I don’t have a mouse I can tap the touchpad for left-button clicks. There’s no alternative to right-button clicks.

Some people might like the support for multi-touch finger gestures. I don’t care much for them or use them.

Bloatware

The pre-installed Windows 7 system comes with a lot of unnecessary software courtesy of ASUS. This software includes trial games and some useless software utilities mixed in amongst useful utilities such as Power4Gear Hybrid for laptop performance / power management. It was a waste of time to have to sift through which programs to uninstall. I would suggest consulting guides such as this one which tell you what each of the included programs do.

No Windows 7 disc(s)

This might be the norm for laptops these days, but the ASUS UL80VT doesn’t ship with a Windows 7 installation disc, and you have to supply 4 writable DVDs to create a recovery disc.

Other UL80VT considerations

• The regular price is between $900 and $950. Its feature set is unique, so it is difficult to do an apples-to-apples comparison. It is about $100 more expensive than other decent mainstream retail laptops that I’ve seen, but a couple of hundred dollars cheaper than the truly high-performing, highly portable laptops.
• The ASUS UL80VT has an integrated graphics card (for normal use) and a dedicated graphics card (for heavy graphics activities like gaming and 3D modelling). You can switch between these cards on-the-fly. This is cool, but not useful for me except on very rare occasions.
• The build quality seems quite nice. The surfaces are smooth and seem sturdy, although there is some squeaking if you push down on the areas directly to the right and left of the touchpad’s button.
• The speaker sound isn’t quite as good as my previous HP laptop. The sound is a bit tinny, but it doesn’t really bother me.
• There were two semi-useful hardware features on my previous HP laptop that this laptop doesn’t have: a second headphone jack and Lightscribe disc support
• A general Windows 7 consideration: One day I’ll learn to use the Windows 7 Start menu, with its non-expanding menu items. In the meantime, this program works perfectly in restoring the classic Start menu behavior.
• It’s nice that ASUS laptops come with a two-year warranty — including a one-year accidental damage warranty — for which you can register for free online. But this means that you have to ship your laptop away to be repaired, which I hope I won’t have to do.

Given that the great classical artists like Bach, Chopin, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Schubert, Beethoven, and Mozart died hundreds of years ago, their music is in the public domain. This means that there is no legal reason why you must purchase sheet music editions such as the famous Schirmer’s (although, kudos to those publishing companies who sell very nice sheet music).

Of course, even if the composers’ music is in the public domain now, you cannot just blatantly pirate the copyrighted sheet music. Someone (this could even be you) has to produce or release non-copyright editions of the sheet music. The Mutopia Project is a website that hosts high quality, downloadable, legally free sheet music that has been typeset by generous volunteers. Unlike some other so-called free sites I’ve seen over the years, Mutopia does not trick you or send you into endless loops of clicking only to find out that what you thought was free is in fact not available.

I first stumbled upon Mutopia while looking for Chopin’s “Raindrop” Prelude in D flat major for the piano. Some might have recently discovered this song for the first time because it was featured in Halo 3 ads. Commercialized or not, it’s a beautiful piece of music. Click the image below to download the sheet music in a letter-sized PDF file.

Most of the sheet music at Mutopia is licensed under one of the Creative Commons licenses, which states in a nutshell:

“This license says that you are free to copy, distribute, display and perform the work, make derivative works, and make commercial use of the work. You must, however, give the original author credit.” And often it also includes this: “If you alter, transform, or build upon the work, you must distribute the resulting work under an identical license.”

To date, Mutopia has over 1600 pieces of sheet music, over a third of which are for piano. It has sheet music for almost 30 other instruments. The sheet music comes in several formats, such as PDF and editable LilyPond format. The piano sheet music that I’ve looked at on Mutopia has been accurate, and includes useful meta information such as tempo, articulation, phrasing, and dynamics.

Before you fly, write down the phone number (non toll-free version) of the airline through which you booked in the originating country. If the originating country is different than the base country of that airline, write down the phone number for the airline in its base country as well. If you booked through a travel agent, write down their phone number as well. These phone numbers could be useful resources if you ever experience flight connection and/or booking problems while in a foreign country.

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Recently I was flying back to Canada from Europe through Frankfurt. I had booked through Air Canada but was flying on Lufthansa due to the two airlines’ partnership through the Star Alliance. My flight to Frankfurt had been delayed, causing me to miss my connecting flight from Frankfurt back to Canada.

At that point, I was told to head to the Lufthansa booking counter to get on another flight. It was a Sunday afternoon, and the next (and last) flight to Canada was leaving in 3 hours. This is a summary of who I politely tried to get to book my flight:

• Lufthansa in-airport booking counter: The line-up was over 2 hours long. By the time I had gotten re-booked by another means, the person who had been directly in front of me in line was still waiting. Therefore, had I waited in that line the whole time, I might have missed the last flight, or they might have given me the same “can’t help you because you booked on Air Canada” answer as the Lufthansa German reservations phone centre.
• Air Canada in-airport booking counter: She said she could not help me because I was on a Lufthansa flight and it was Lufthansa’s responsibility to get me on another flight since they had caused the delay. After I pleaded, she supposedly tried to do what she could but said she simply didn’t have access to book me.
• Lufthansa German reservations phone centre: She said she could not help me because my flight was booked through Air Canada.
• Air Canada German reservations phone centre: It’s closed on weekends.

(While the Star Alliance is useful in terms of giving you more booking options for a particular airline, it also makes it easier for airline representatives to play a game of “pass the buck”.)

I then called Air Canada’s Canadian reservations centre. Within about 5 minutes, they had booked me on the last flight home.

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I was lucky in a couple of respects:

• I met a fellow passenger who was in a similar situation as me. He was able to lend me his phone to call the German phone numbers.
• I had a laptop and headset in my carry-on bag, and my home phone provider is a VoIP provider. This meant that I was able to look up Air Canada’s Canadian reservations centre toll-free number and call it as if I was in Canada (although on an expensive airport Internet connection). As I noted at the beginning of this post, be sure to have the non toll-free number of your home airline, because if you are stranded in a foreign country, you will likely not be able to call the toll-free number.

TransLink, the Vancouver publish transit authority, has a nice “mobile site” at m.translink.ca. I use it frequently even though I don’t own a web-enabled phone.

TransLink says the following about the mobile site:

TransLink’s mobile information service – m.translink.ca – gives you quick and easy access to transit schedules, alerts, advisories and even the Buzzer blog – all via your mobile device!

The mobile site is also accessible from any device that is Internet-enabled and that uses a web browser, so there’s no reason why you can’t use it from a desktop computer or laptop!

If you’re looking for the next bus times, first and last SkyTrain, SeaBus, and West Coast Express times, this is a much more efficient site than the main TransLink site. It addresses a few of the deficiencies of the main TransLink site, as the mobile site is:

• Faster
• Simpler
• Provides bookmarkable URLs (so that you can return to find key routes or stops much quicker)

Now, the mobile site is not as fully featured as the main site, as it doesn’t provide things like maps, full bus schedules (or schedules for specific times), and lots of other general information. (In particular, I think that bookmarkable HTML pages of full bus schedules would be really handy.) But consider it as the better alternative for day-to-day lookups and usage.

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If you’re a developer, consider experimenting with the unofficially documented TransLink API or the static full dump of route data.

Supposing you have a spreadsheet with keys (Domains) and values (Count):

If you want to display the count for “orange.com” in a different cell, you would use the function VLOOKUP, whose basic use is nicely described here.

But as in the screenshot above, certain domains such as “green.com” appear several times. What if you wanted to sum the values of all of the “green.com” counts?

The solution doesn’t actually involve VLOOKUP, although it is somewhat in the spirit of VLOOKUP. Rather, you would use the function SUMPRODUCT, which multiples two columns and sums, well, the products. However, we only want to include certain rows if they match our criteria. This involves testing the key (Domain); the result of our test would be TRUE, which has a value of 1, or FALSE, which has a value of 0.

In E2 (replace comma with semi-colon for OpenOffice.org Calc):
=SUMPRODUCT($A$2:$A$10=D2,$B$2:$B$10)

In E3:
=SUMPRODUCT($A$2:$A$10=D3;$B$2:$B$10)

… and so on. E2 is essentially summing 1 * 2 and 1 * 4 for the blue.com rows and 0 * the count for all the other rows.

The actual spreadsheet I was working on involved full URLs containing the domain:

Therefore, I couldn’t do a simple comparison. I had to do something more like “does the URL contain a certain domain”. This is where the function SEARCH (case insensitive, as opposed to the case-sensitive function FIND) came in.

In E2 (replace the commas with semi-colons for OpenOffice.org Calc):
=SUMPRODUCT(ISNUMBER(SEARCH(D2,$A$2:$A$10)),$B$2:$B$10)

In E3:
=SUMPRODUCT(ISNUMBER(SEARCH(D3,$A$2:$A$10)),$B$2:$B$10)

… and so on.

Since the SEARCH function returns a number (specifically, the placement of the needle in the haystack) and the error “#VALUE!” if the search term does not exist, the ISNUMBER function will return 1 or TRUE when there’s a search match.

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Limitations: If you’re doing something similar to this with URLs, note that we are searching for “blue.com”, “green.com” and so on to appear anywhere in the URL. You’ll need a more robust solution to support matching those strings only in the domain (since technically you could have a URL “blue.com/green.com”.