A number of you have asked for Linux tips on Your Blog. So with a tip of the hat, I’m pleased to pass along a nugget submitted by community member aikiwolfie:

A quick and very simple way to get web cams working in Ubuntu is to install a Gnome application called Cheese. Installation is very simple.

1. Open a terminal window.
2. Type sudo apt-get install cheese
3. Let the installer run and that’s it.

This works for Ubuntu 7.10 and 8.04. I’m not sure about earlier versions. But it won’t hurt to try it.

It’s easy to submit a personal technology tip or an idea for a Your Blog post. Just type your thoughts in the “Idea Submission” box in the upper right corner of Your Blog.

BTW, worth mentioning, for clarity, that if you have an idea related to *improving* Dell products or services, the best way to let us know is to post on the IdeaStorm site.

Editor’s Note: This is the second and final segment of Jacqui Zhou’s post on China’s “Bandit” cell phone industry. If you missed the first installment, you can find it here.

Shan Zhai Ji, or Bandit Cell Phone, is gaining huge attention these days in China. In my previous post, I showed you its cool functions. Besides these functions, what other factors enable Shan Zhai Ji to obtain 25% of China’s cell phone market? Here are several:

Low price
A killer advantage of Shan Zhai Ji is its low price. Usually Shan Zhai Ji is sold at a fraction of the price of brand name phones. Check out the prices here from Taobao, the largest online c-2-c ecommerce site. You can get a phone with all those cool functions mentioned earlier for less than 2,000 RMB (about US $300). Unlike in the U.S. where cell phone hardware prices are subsidized by service providers, Chinese customers have to pay full price for their cell phones with the freedom to choose service providers of their choice. A decent cell phone can easily cost $500.

How can Shan Zhai Ji be sold at such a low price? In 2006, a Taiwan integrated circuit company called MediaTek developed turnkey solutions for cell phones which combine cell phone circuit board with software. It used to cost cell phone companies hundreds of designers months to develop such a solution and now anyone can buy the platform from MediaTek and make their own cell phones. Needless to say, Shan Zhai Ji has its cost benefits because their manufactures steal designs and ideas from other companies, avoid quality and safety compliance, sometimes use shoddy materials, evade taxes and spend no money on customer service.

Low-end target market
More than 90% of Chinese use cell phones. It has become a must-have communication tool throughout the country with more users than landlines. Yet not everyone can afford expensive handsets. Shan Zhai Ji aims at this huge low-end market with its functional yet inexpensive products. They pay a lot of attention to functions and details that are important to shrewd Chinese customers. They don’t invest in building their own distribution channel but are willing to share a big chunk of their profits with resellers and sales people, a very effective method to stimulate sales.

Fast innovations
Shan Zhai Ji manufacturers move very fast. Whenever they see a new trend, they study it and come up with near-identical copies within weeks. Even when the market seems small, they are willing to go for it. For example, they designed cell phones blessed by monks for Buddhists, cell phones with a taser feature for women and cell phones preinstalled with stock market program for avid investors. They even let you build-to-order, where you can add your name and design to the phone and personalize your functions. However small the niche market is, their nimble structure enables them to move along with the market trend.

Unique culture
Shan Zhai Ji attracts many Chinese with its grass roots humor. They do not try to hide the fact that they are copy cats. On the contrary, they make fun of it. For example, they named the knock-off of Apple “iPhone” as “Orange.” It really rubs Chinese people the right way. I asked my friends and most said they really appreciate the non-assuming attitude of Shan Zhai Ji. They laugh at Shan Zhai Ji but at the same time enjoy the convenience of multi functions at low cost. The Chinese media and blogosphere have been discussing the “innovation” side of Shan Zhai Ji, despite all its other obvious misdeeds. Right now, about 40% of Shan Zhai Ji is exported to Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think you should buy such a phone. Besides the fishy copyright issues, you never know the quality/safety of the products and customer service and tech support after sales is practically zero.

Yet with such a trend happening in the world’s largest market, I cannot help wondering whether Shan Zhai Ji will evolve to become a force in the global cell phone market?

Editor’s Note: Shanghai native Jacqui Zhou manages the Direct2Dell Chinese blog. This is the first of a two-part post in which she gives Your Blog readers a glimpse into a marketplace that can be starkly different than our own. 

Natalie blogged about some of the world’s most expensive cell phones the other day. While the newly rich in China are all over everything brand-name, there is an emerging trend in the world’s largest cell phone market that goes in the opposite direction.

The phenomenon is called Shan Zhai Ji, which I would like to translate as Bandit Cell Phone. It refers to white box cell phones manufactured by unauthorized or small-scale factories on the southeast coast of China.

Though the popularity of Shan Zhai Ji has been building for some time, the buzz only surfaced after recent news coverage from China Central Television, the national television station. Shan Zhai Ji has since generated tons of discussions in the Chinese blogosphere. I won’t be surprised if one day people around me think it is cooler to carry a Shan Zhai Ji than an iPhone. Shan Zhai Ji is apparently becoming a unique sub-culture with dedicated Web sites promoting it. 

As background information, you might want to know that with the fierce competition from global brands like Nokia and Motorola, most Chinese brand name cell phones have seen better days. So how does Shan Zhai Ji manage to survive and even acquire 25% of China’s handset market? 

Shan Zhai Ji copies the designs of popular products such as iPhone and BlackBerry. At the same time, they throw in a lot of other useful functions that mainstream companies do not. For example, extra-long stand-by time of up to one month, dual SIM card support, quadruple cameras and speakers, radio, GPS, touch screen, extra large screen, handwriting recognition, and compatibility with all types of media files.

Shan Zhai Ji even has a lot of functions that you never dream of, such as analogue TV reception tuner, taser, ultraviolet laser for testing counterfeit bank notes and even fortune telling programs. These highly localized functions with Chinese characteristics are not usually on the radar screen of a multinational company’s design team.

Don’t assume all Shan Zhai Ji are mere imitations. Sometimes you will be amazed by the imagination of those Shan Zhai Ji designers.

This is not a pack of cigarettes. It is a cell phone. Yet you can insert as many as seven cigarettes into it.

It has micro SD card slot.

It even has a 1.3 mega pixel camera.

Adding a couple of more bucks, you can get different covers.

A cell phone with Beijing Olympics mascot.  

This watch-like cell phone incorporates four microphones, metallic rim and a camera.

It is not a Ferrari toy car. Turn it around and you will find a cell phone key pad and screen.

Hopefully I’ve given you a good overview of Shan Zhai Ji. In my next post, I would like to walk you through some of reasons why Shan Zhai Ji has attracted such a big following in China, as well as Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Stay tuned!

As more and more people buy laptops, some of the most common questions we hear involve wireless networking.  I know when we moved into our house we didn’t want long network cables connecting all the rooms, so we bought a wireless router.

We’ve all seen those commercials about Internet-ready wireless laptops and they look great.  No wires to plug in or trip over, and the ability to be mobile and connect from any room in the house.  What’s not to like about it? But there are some practical concerns to having a wireless network as well.

Wireless Internet routers use the same 2.4 Ghz radio wave range as most cordless phones.  If you’ve used one of those phones you know that there are places in the house where reception isn’t all that great.  The same thing can happen with wireless networks.  Walls, overhead lights, baby monitors and electrical wiring are examples of things that can cause interference.  Even the water in pine needles has been proven to cause problems. Anything that causes interference will slow down your wireless connection and could be enough to drop you offline. 

You will want to take all these into account when deciding where you want to set up your wireless router.  Linksys has some tips to help you decide where to set everything up. 

And it’s not just things inside your house that could be causing interference.  As wireless and cordless devices improve and have more range it could actually be your neighbor’s cordless phone interfering with your connection.

While wireless networking is great when it works correctly, it can be frustrating when it doesn’t.  If you’d like to learn more, and get help from other Dell customers, Dell has a forum that is dedicated to helping with wireless, Internet and networking problems. 

I’ll be posting more information on the different types of wireless cards as well as tips for troubleshooting and securing your wireless network.  Let me know what’s on your mind when it comes to wireless networking and I’ll be glad to try and work it in.

Have you heard of Regina Lewis?  She’s on national TV and radio, and she’s an accomplished writer who does a great job simplifying technology for the masses. She also happens to be AOL’s consumer advisor. 

You might be one of the millions who frequent CNN, ESPN and Google – but you might also be interested in virtual vacations, dining for less, fitness and going green.  These are just a sample of the recent and timely topics on reginalewis.com.

Would you like to know which stores in your area carry the Nintendo Wii or Wii Fit?  I would.  Try the Wii Tracker site, which was mentioned last week.  No need to make dozens of calls or spend time driving around the city with today’s higher fuel prices. 

Were you interested in knowing about Dell’s (PRODUCT) RED Super Bowl commercial?  She had it covered in this entry from February, two days before the big game.

Her site is highly relevant, frequently updated, and allows you to enjoy the best of the Web and technology without having to find it yourself.  Additionally, Regina brings a style to each of her postings that is approachable for novice and advanced computer users – you won’t find technical language here.

I look forward to your comments as I begin developing future topics on simplified personal technology.

I was recently reading Thomas Hawke’s blog called “The Digital Connection.”  If you are interested in photography and all things related to digital photo and the Web, Hawkes’s blog is a must read.  He also writes about the digital home and I find every aspect of his blog insightful and helpful for the fun things in life (ok and some of the work things, like Friend Feed, too)

Thomas recently noted he had been playing with PicLens.  He said “if you haven’t installed PicLens yet for browsing photos on the Web you are missing one of the most beautiful ways to view photography on the Internet yet” linking to this Firefox add-on.  It even supports YouTube, which I have not yet tried.  Check it out.

Here is a snipping tool pic of some of my photos in the tool…but trust me this doesn’t do PicLens justice.  Read Thomas and visit the PicLens site.

If you think you’re arriving late to the social media party, relax. It’s just beginning.

In your quest to master our new Web 2.0 world, here’s a thought: Why not start with yourself? Chris Brogan recently penned a brilliant post on 100 things you can do to better brand yourself online. Home Base, Passports, Outposts and a lot more, including some helpful offline tips like if you’re terribly shy, consider finding a “wingman” for events.

Check it out here, then come back to Your Blog and tell us if you had any “Aha!” moments.

Reading Natalie’s post below on outrageously priced cell phones led me to recall a recent news story about a copy of the world’s first telephone book, circa 1878, surfacing in Connecticut, which in turn got me to wondering what online conversations might be like in 130 years.

I can only speculate based on what I’ve read and from what I hear from the technologists here at Dell, but it is likely our online experience will be 3D and on displays as ubiquitous as sheetrock in the not-too-distant future.

Thought leader Brian Solis and others have been writing about the future of communications, in the context of social media, for more than decade. But just as Alexander Graham Bell couldn’t have fathomed a $26,000 mobile phone back in the day, thoughts of social media and Web XX.0 some 13 decades from now make my head hurt … However, you can bet so far, so fast will be a given.

Which brings me back to that New Haven, Conn., phone book. It included some amusing instructions that I guess were helpful to the 391 local subscribers taking the next leap in two-way communication. For example, the book advises:

• “Should you wish to speak to another subscriber you should commence the conversation by saying, ‘Hulloa!’”
• “Never take the telephone off the hook unless you wish to use it…When you are done talking say, ‘That is all,’ and the person spoken to should say, ‘O.K.’”

The book, which is being auctioned this week by Christie’s, states that readers should leave the “lower lip and jaw free.” They were also instructed not to “use the wire more than three minutes at a time, or more than twice an hour” without first “obtaining permission from the main office.”

What do you think the future holds for online conversations?

That is all.

Ever since I started to teach myself photography just a bit more than 10 years ago, I loved the high contrast and surreal dreamy feeling of black and white infrared photographs.  In fact, most of work has been usually done as black and white infrared.  The first time I developed one in the darkroom, I was blown away and fell in love forever.

Without getting into all the details, infrared film captures a part of the light spectrum (wavelengths) that are not visible to the human eye.  This is not about seeing in the dark with military-issue infrared goggles or some such thing.  I suspect somehow they are related but I am no scientist to understand. For information check out the Infrared FAQ.

As you might guess, if our eyes cannot see infrared light, the camera cannot meter it.  But film can capture it.  With some work and a lot of bracketing you get photos like the one on the left below (sort of a bad scan of a print, but you get the drift).  The picture beside it is a normal black and white film print scan of the same location/same day.

I became familiar with the film, how it worked, and with a camera loaded in complete darkness, and a red filter I was off to shoot like a mad man, many a time…and able to catch a good shot almost every time, with bracketing.

Then along came digital photography!  The camera manufacturers put an infra filter in the digital sensors to remove infrared light rays because it causes noise for digital photos.  This was looking complicated and you can read more about digital infrared here or follow items in this Google search.

There were software conversion programs, often called “Faux Infrared” because they could not exactly duplicate what the eye cannot see anyway;  I tried special infrared filters and recalibrating white balances, but this extended exposure times, meaning I had to use a tripod….I shoot photos more freely than a tripod.  Previous to this latest edition of Photoshop, I played with various formulas in channels and everything else…but I was not getting where I wanted.  By the way, the current version of Photoshop (CS3) has the expanded black and white conversion tool that does include a set of conversions for infrared…they are not bad.

I really didn’t want to give up the black and white infrared and as such remained a film buff as the digital revolution proceeded. 

Then I found Lifepixel.com and they have been my savior!  I took an old digital SLR, sent it off to them and for a couple hundred dollars, I am back to shooting what I consider to be real and challenging black and white infrared images.  For the adventuresome, Lifepixel also offers a do-it-yourself instruction page. 

If you want to see some of this work, drop by and say hi on Flickr.

A lot of us have more than one PC that we leave on for extended periods if not 24/7… All of us know people in our families or even closer in our hearts who suffer from various diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Lou Gehrig’s, Huntington’s and others.

So what’s the connection? A huge project called Folding@Home that uses idle computing power to study the process of amino acids “folding” into proteins. From this research, Stanford University scientists hope to annihilate diseases that kill many humans around the globe.

Currently there are over 120,000 teams consisting of well over 1 million people and a huge number of CPUs, PS3s and ATi graphic cards running this project worldwide in almost 100 countries.

The process requires you to download software (with a very small footprint) to run various projects (called WU or Work Units) while your machine is idle. The client software automatically downloads WUs and, once finished, uploads results back to Stanford’s servers.

The client working on your machine will earn points based on the intensity of work. These points are for no other reason than bragging rights! The point system merely creates a competition within each team and between all teams. The project is fun to watch and addictive — in a good way — at the same time.

If you like to use stability software (like OCCT, Prime95) to test your gaming and over-clocked machines, F@H can really test your machine with its “High Performance SMP” clients.

The team I’m involved with — Team_XPS — was established in July 2007 with fewer than 10 people. Team_XPS was team number 80856 at the time. So the project had grown from nothing in year 2000 to more than 80,000 teams in July 2007. Currently with over 120,000 teams, the project shows a huge recognition as it has grown by an additional 50% in less than a year. Some weeks, there are over 1,000 new teams established.

Team_XPS is currently at the Top_70 Ranking (in points) and still advancing. There are over 150 members, of which about 60 are currently active. When comparing our team to others with 10 to 100 times the number of members, we show our great determination to this project. One member even bought 16 Dell Vostros and an H2C unit to fold with us (we jokingly call it his “Folding Farm”).

Please consider studying up on this project and joining F@H if you can. All you need is a desktop, laptop or PS3 to join. There are varying number of projects that can suit your needs and equipment. More than anything, you will be helping humanity or even someone near and dear to you. If you like you can create your own team, or join any team(s). Again, Team_XPS’ number is 80856 and we will be glad to have anyone Fold with us. Feel free to use the Team_XPS thread stickied at the top of DCF (Dell Community Forums).

Click here for additional info. To monitor the performance of Team_XPS, check out these links:

folding.extremeoverclocking.com: http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php?s=&t=80856

kakaostats.com: http://kakaostats.com/t.php?col=11&t=80856

Drop in and say hello if you need assistance with the project.