Here’s another contender in the plastic skin protection industry. GadgetShieldz. Its supposed to be “again” the same material used in other brands like InvisbleSh*eld and BestSk*nsEver. However GadgetShieldz promises a lower price compared to the other two brands and after browsing their website, it really does turn out to be cheaper with its free shipping worldwide.

Well, does this product really live up to its ” cheap but same quality as the more expensive brands” standard? Hmm.. yes and no.

YES / PROS

1. GadgetShieldz gives an almost perfect cut on the skin letting very little of the phone surface exposed.

2. GadgetShieldz offers a more variety of skins, ( more than the BSE but rather the same or less than IS). They didn’t have the skin for the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 on the BSE but they did have them on the IS site with a much much higher price.

3. GadgetShieldz comes with free worldwide shipping via courier.

4. Like the others, it does give some scratch protection.

5. It’s reasonably priced.

Here’s how the screen protector look like once it is applied on the screen. Pretty nice almost-perfect cut.

NO/CONS 

1. Some of the skins arrive with a little scratches on them already. One of the review units had a pretty long but fine scratch on it.

2. The skin magically turns black / oil-mark stain if too much pressure is applied on it after some time. I had a few cases of this happening already. Even though I was given the replacement for the skin, this phenomena repeated. Shame on you GadgetShieldz.

Anyway, I was told that this phenomena does not happen on every skin. Probably the batch that I received had some problems during manufacturing.

Left: A new piece of GadgetShieldz. Right: The “oil-stained” GadgetShieldz.

Verdict: The only reason I’m using GadgetShieldz currently is because they have the full body protection for my SE Xperia X1. Otherwise, I’ll rather spend a little more and get the BSE instead. Although that skin costs a little, yes a little only bit more, it would save the hassle of replacing the “oil-stained” skin from GadgetShieldz.  Anyway, if you’d like to get some GadgetShieldz for your devices and keep them scratch free thoughout their lifespan, I’m selling them too here. Oh yes I know that contradicts my sentence above.. but oh well.. as I said, it only happens on some skins and it can be replaced for free.

Thanks to GadgetShieldz for the skins =) .

Few weeks ago I wrote a post regarding the Samsung T400 dissected and the screen was brought back to life. However as posted there, the keypad of the phone was slightly cranky and had to be modified a little. Well modifications don’t really match the quality of a real working unit.. The keys were still a little hard to press and each key would require different amount of pressure to make the input work.

Oh anyway, let’s get to the point. I managed to get the replacement unit for this phone at a local flea market. The phone was pretty much screwed up with its flipping parts broken into 2. LOL. The unit was from Vietnam though.. (says the firmware when it was booted up).

Ahh, the two keypads together. Look at the hinge where the other phone broke. *ouch*.

(“new” and old)(rev 3.3 and rev 3.2)

The two mainboards together. The keypad of the phone was actually soldered on the main board of the phone so it would be a little messy if the keypad was replaced. Instead, the easier way was to simply swap the main boards and plug everything back in. The “new” board was a rev 3.3 board while the original one was rev 3.2 . Didn’t notice any difference in performance though. I accidentally broke the volume button ribbon during the brain transplant. Such a waste, no more volume control for the phone but then the other functions works good. If there’s a need for the volume control in the future, I shall perform another surgery to transplant the volume control ribbon from the working unit.

Now the phone is working great. Time to get another sim card and get it back to duty.

Total cost of repair: RM2.

Alright, there was this Samsung T400 phone lying around because the screen was supposed to be “not working” . Sent it to the repair shop for a checkup and was told that RM80 would be needed to get it fixed. The ribbon connecting the main board to the LCD screen was “supposed” to be broken.

Heck.. for a 7 year old phone, RM80 isn’t worth the money. So lets get dirty and break it up.

The Samsung T400 was only secured by 5 screws on the lower part of the phone while only 2 screws held the screen in position. Unscrew them, un-clip the plastic holders securing them together and its open. Easy huh?
The phone consists of only 2 parts which are the screen and the main-board. LOL.

Once opened, the whole board looked like a “forest” of IC’s and pins. I’m no expert in this so I’ll just have to do it the usual NBTD way, which is to remove all removable pins/plugs and simply clean the device. The chances of getting your stuff repaired this way are close to ZERO but then what else can be done? Just trying my luck.

The phone was simply powered up to see what comes out and *pooof*
It lights up!

Before assembling back the parts together,  the keypad of the phone was slightly modified by adding some supporting pads on some of the keys. Due to wear and tear, some of the keys are no longer that sensitive and they needed more contact pressure to work.

There you have it, another device brought back to life!  My X1 would be having a good rest now while I’ll get this Samsung T400 up to a good stress test.

OpenACircle is a new a new online collaboration and workspace tool being targeted at small and medium businesses. I was offered to do a review on this so why not? Let’s give it a try. This online collaboration tool gave me an impression that it was going to become like Google Wave which most of you might have heard of. However, Google Wave is currently available only by invitation. So why wait for google?

OpenACircle runs on the Java platform which requires a Java JRE to run . It is readily available for free at Java’s site. To my disappointment, even though this software runs on Java, it doesn’t work on Macs.  Yes you read that correctly, no Macs.

Anyway, the registration process and usage went perfectly alright with my pc loaded with Windows 7.

A quick signup brought me to this dashboard which prompts me to create my business card details and to get my contacts into this circle by email invitation.

Then it brings me to my dashboard.

A quick glance at the dashboard shows the calendar,  events, number of connections, the people currently online, number of circles.. etc and of course, a huge advertisement at the bottom right corner. Perhaps it is needed to fund their operating costs? I thought that ad was rather large and a smaller one would not be such an eyesore.

So what are the features included in OpenACircle? The name might have already gave you a hint on what it does. The publisher states that it allows people to interact with each other virtually, anywhere and of course, FREE (There is a paid plan too).

Well it does have features such as voice conferencing which allows up to 100 users at a time. Next up would be having able to share your workspace/desktop with the users you are connected with. This gives users the ease of being able to discuss on a specific matter without having to go through tedious ways.

There’s a file sharing feature implemented in OpenACircle also. Simply drag the file and share it with anyone who is in your circle. There are no limitations on the file type, so just share whatever you want in your circle.

When someone posts up a note on the circle, you’ll be immediately alerted via email and its up to you whether you want to respond to that person or not.

This online based software has pretty much everything that you need to be able to discuss and work out something with your partners. However for me currently I have yet to need such service as my basic Instant Messaging and Push Mail works perfectly alright. Nevertheless, one day if I do happen to need such service, I’ll be glad to use this software as it as almost everything (I think) that I would need.

The TX-2 thermal compound offers industry leading thermal conductivity.  The non-toxic and non-conductive nature of the TX-2 means more peace-of-mind when it comes to cooling your CPU.  Molecularly small and structurally stable, the multi-award winning TX-2 is the perfect thermal compound for your cooling needs. This is what that is published on the manufacturer’s site.

I managed to get hold of a portion of this Tuniq TX-2 from Reng Kwan to replace my Intel E5200 processor’s stock thermal paste which I thought it was running at a rather high temperature and it was hindering its overclocking capabilities. This popular Wolfdale chip is based on the 45nm manufacturing process and has been known for its achievable overclock speed of over 4Ghz from its default clock speed of 2.5Ghz.

Let’s see how well this paste performs.

The Tuniq TX-2 Thermal Compound.

Have a greater detail on how the E5200 looks like by clicking on the image =)

I know the motherboard is quite dusty. Haha.

I did not have any thermal compound remover so I just used pieces of tissue paper to scrape the old paste off the chip and the heat sink as well.

Tried my best to remove the existing thermal paste.

And then, the Tuniq TX-2 Thermal Compound was applied on the E5200.

Thermal paste is supposed to be applied just enough to cover the processor and not more/thicker layer than that. Too much would reduce its efficiency and too little, would also do the same.  Positioned back the heat sink on the processor. Locked the unit back to its sockets and its good to go.

Booted it up and it showed 28 degrees celcius AT FIRST ( Mind you, the ambient temperature in Malaysia is rather high). But then the temperature rose up and then after stressing the E5200 to its maximum temperature, it can be concluded that the Tuniq TX-2 did reduce the temperature of the processor by an average of 3-5 degrees Celsius.

The Tuniq TX2 is quite a good thermal compound if you have a tight budget and can’t afford to replace the whole heatsink with the custom unit. It would still bring the temperature down, but just a couple of celsius.

After a few months looking for a wireless usb adaptor, I’ve finally bought this TP-Link TL-WN321G. A cheap but extremely nifty little device.

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Since I had a long break few weeks ago, I decided to replace my old Best Skins Ever skin protection that was used on my Sony Ericsson K550i cellphone. It was already 6 months since the last application and I thought that it should be changed already. (click for larger photos)

Peeling out the old Best Skins Ever Skin. As you can see, the plastic had faded and this is a must to change the skin already if not your display would be slightly yellow-er.

Hmmm, my phone still shines thanks to the Best Skins Ever that was protecting it since day one. Sadly , I could not manage to apply the skin on the keypad area as well.

Tools needed for the application. A cutter, a metal ruler, and the Best Skins Ever itself.

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