AppLocale is a free download from Microsoft that allows you to run non-unicode applications without changing the entire system’s locale to another language. In short, it acts as a ‘wrapper’ for the non-unicode program and force the program to display the correct locale properly.

1. Once you install AppLocale, go to Start -> Program -> Microsoft AppLocale -> Applocale and the wizard will popup as shown below. Click Next

2. Click browse and select the chinese program exe file and click Next

3. Check if the language of the application is detected properly. if not, select the correct lanaguage and click Next

4. Tick the checkbox if you want to create a shortcut. The shortcut will be place under Start->Program->Microsoft AppLocale

5. Run the program by going to Start->Program->Microsoft AppLocale

And now the program is able to display the correct unicode

• Download AppLocale

1. Disable AHCI in BIOS; turn HDD configuration to IDE
2. Click Start, type regedit in the Search box, and then press ENTER.
3. Locate the following registry key
4. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci
5. In the right pane, right-click Start in the Name column, and then click Modify.
6. In the Value data box, type 0, and then click OK.
7. Reboot your computer and boot into BIOS setup
8. Turn on AHCI in your HDD configuration

I googled around and found out that this is a bug or issue caused by buggy/conflicting monitor profile with Windows 7.

And here’s the step-by-step procedures to solve it.

1. Click on ‘start’, ‘control panel’ and click on ‘Adjust screen resolution’

2. Select ‘Advanced settings’

3. Select ‘Color Management’ tab

4. Follow the steps as shown below.

5. Click ‘continue’ when prompt

6. Click ‘close’ or ‘OK’ all the way back to control panel. Now try open any photo/image and it should display correctly now.

Does it helps?

Extending a wireless network is not an easy task.

There are various way to extend your wireless network – you can connect a cable directly from one router to another and extend from there OR you can ‘join’ 2 wireless router via wireless means.The article here will talk about the second option. The correct term for this wireless-wireless setup is Wireless Distribution System (WDS).

WDS

By definition, a Wireless Distribution System (WDS) is a system that enables the wireless interconnection of access points in a wireless network.
It allows a wireless network to be expanded using multiple access points without the need for a wired backbone to link them, as is traditionally required.

Limitation (or Requirement) of WDS

• Some router might not support the newer WPA2 security. Note that Tomato firmware on Linksys WRT54g does not support WPA2 in WDS mode. Fortunately, DD-WRT does support.
• Speed may decrease by 50%
• Not all routers support WDS. I bought a Belkin N router and only realized that it doesnt support WDS wireless. Thus, do some ‘googling’ before you go and buy a wireless router.
• A lot of patience for trial and error- if it doesn’t connect for the first time, try rebooting all the routers and try again.

My Wireless Setup

My setup is quite a challenging one as I am not only extending 1 router but 2.
Due to the location of my furniture in my living room, I have to extend 2 routers to cater for both my xbox360 and my wired network printer.

In short, my overall wireless layout is as below.

The routers that I am using for my setup are

• D-link 655 – main router which connects to the internet modem
• Engenius ESR6550 – A 3G cum B/G/N wireless portable router which is connected to my XBox360
• Linksys WRT54G – an old (but reliable) G wireless router which is connected to my Epson Stylus Office TX510FN

Some basic concept/setup for WDS to work

1. You need to manually set the ip address for each of the access points (sub-router) and the IP address must not conflict with each other. i.e. my dlink ip address is 192.168.0.1, and the rest of the router is 192.168.0.2,192.168.0.3
2. The access point’s gateway IP should point to the main router. i.e. in my Linksys router, my IP address is 192.168.0.3 and the gateway IP is 192.168.0.1
3. If you are using DHCP, you can set it in the main router ONLY or in each router. If you are using the latter option, the DHCP range must not conflict with the rest.
   For example, if you using only the main router for DHCP only. The main router DHCP ip address is set from 192.168.0.100 to 192.168.0.199
   if you are using DHCP for each routher, you can set 192.168.0.100 to 192.168.0.150 for router A, 192.168.0.151 to 192.168.0.199 for router B and so on
4. Set DNS server in the access point  to your main router i.e. 192.168.0.1
5. Wirerless SSID for all routers should be the same

My setup

• Main router IP address is 192.168.0.1
• Engenius router is 192.168.0.2
• Linksys is 192.168.03
• Subnet mask for all routers is 255.255.255.0
• Using WPA2 AES security
• Gateway IP and DNS are my main router IP address – 192.168.0.1
• Wireless channel 6
• Same wireless SSID for all 3 routers

Coming soon: WDS setup part 2

Things get more frustrated when I recently upgrade my graphic card from the old 8600GT to the GTX260 and the lag problem does not go away!

Its only recently that I came across this thread in steam forum that suggest a fix to this problem.

if you have a similar setup like mine

• Intel Core2Duo E6320
• 4GB RAM
• Windows 7 Home
• GTX260
• Onboard Realtek soundcard
• MSI P65 Neo2 motherboard

and encounter the following symptoms…

• lag or shutter after 2-3 seconds when you walk in a straight line in the game
• framerate drop to 10+ in heavy fight
• sound shutter in heavy fight
• ping spikes randomly

for the following steam games…

• Source Engine Games (Team Fortress 2 (TF2), Left 4 Dead, Counter Strike Source (CS:S, CSS))
• Heroes of Newerth (HoN)
• Call of Duty Series (CoD), possibly including Modern Warfare
• Overlord Series (Overlord, Overlord: Raising Hell, Overlord 2)

perhaps you may want to try the following method and see if the problem would go away.

1. Open regedit
2. Go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Multimedia\SystemProfile
3. There will be an entry for network performance throttling, default value is 10; set it to FFFFFFFF hex (willl look like 0xFFFFFFFF to the right of the entry
4. Reboot

I googled out and the easiest way to restart/shutdown such computer via remote desktop is to bring out the user menu and shutdown/restart from there.

To do it, you simply press Ctrl + Alt + End key. Cheers.

Bought it at USD199 per pcs and SGD17+ for the shipping charges.

Im still backing up my files and will be installing Win7 over the weekend.

Here are the photos. Click on it to enlarge.

Hehe... Notice that it is USD1?

Amazon Box

The content

32 and 64bit dvd