Jul 15
Why do you have to pay for a text message when someone messages you ?!?!
Why does a single text message cost exponentially more than a phone call ?!?!
Why are the phone companies ripping us all off ?!?!
Jun 24
Recently, Playstation 3 has gotten more hype with the release of the much anticipated Metal Gear Solid 4. I finally succumbed and bought a 40GB PS3. I realized the 80GB PS3 was coming out with MGS4, new controller, backwards compatibility, and more USB/SD ports. The new features was certainly enticing, but unnecessary for my case; I have an existing PS2, rumble was never a big deal, and what the heck am I going to do with more ports and 40GB.
The PS3 arrived nicely packaged and very shiny as advertised. I plugged it into my existing network and updated to the latest firmware, which took about 30 minutes. The wireless controller charges directly through USB so there is no need to worry about batteries. Setting it up to run as a media server was a little more painful. I’m running Vista and I thought there was a way to share folders easily, but apparently you can only do it through Windows Media Player, you have to add folders to the Library and enable Media Sharing. In addition, you may have to change some network firewalls settings to allow streaming. Once set up it was beautiful to behold the upconverted videos whether avi, mpg4, or wmvs. I do wish the user interface was better, there is no way to play a folder, you have to rely on a playlist, and there is no slider to advance the media.
The PS3 also integrates to your PSP, this allows you to stream media and games directly to your PSP anywhere, even over the internet. This is certainly a cool feature and nice for the lazy. The web browser on the PS3 is functional though its certainly not a very fun time.
I’m currently playing Resistance: The Fall of Man, its not bad for a FPS, but I still prefer Gears of War and Call of Duty 4. The games are still a huge rip off at $60 a pop. I’m sure I’ll eventually get MSG4 even though I haven’t felt the draw as much as the original. Overall, the PS3 feels shinier than the Xbox360, but not always as user friendly.
Nov 26
The Hardware
If you have been reading up on Vista and the state of gaming, my issues will sound familiar, but there’s nothing like sharing misery, chuckling over mistakes, and in the end you may even learn something new.
To kick it off right, I needed new hardware. Vista Aero is a huge hog and to play the latest and greatest games with DirectX 10 (more on later how much that sucked) I need the latest graphics card. I went cheap with the CPU and went with the dual core, but I bought the Gigabyte P35 motherboard that would support the latest Penryn 45nm Intel chips. I bought 2 Gb of ram and the current champ of video cards, NVidia’s 8800 GT. TechReport has a good system guide here. Slightly off topic, in order to save some cash I decided to reuse Dell’s case, a BIG mistake. Dell has the greatest deals on systems, however to prevent you from cannibalizing their parts they have a lot of non-standard parts. The case fans on Dell have non-standards plug wiring such that if you plug them into any other motherboard they do not work. The motherboards do not have the standard screws into the case, this was my gotcha, double check between your new motherboard and the case there is no short circuit. After a lot of hours, $30 dollars poorer, and more pissed off at Dell, I did get it all to work.
Newegg did the job, no major complaints, parts did come in two separate shipments. Its another story on getting it over clocked and stable, but next time we actually get to how Vista doesn’t play nicely with Crysis.
Jul 22
I finally got a chance to play with the new IPhone. I was impressed with its small size and responsiveness. It definitely had the cool factor. The touch screen was sensitive and accurate. Web surfing was fast with its ability to rotate the screen. The down side of course is the price and the single provider and no gps. I feel the disadvantage far out weighs the positive. For a dedicated mp3 player there are far more choices out there. As a phone you don’t really need all these features, once the cool factor wears off, its just another device in your pocket. Of course if your the lucky few with money to burn, its a good buy. Then again you can instead buy a Mac mini and you can stream meda to your tv.
Update: Read why The iPhone is a piece of shit, and so is your face, strong recommendation for the Nokia E70.
Jan 12
I just bought a new Logitech mouse which is being advertised as the “World’s most advanced mouse.” Previously I had a Microsoft Wireless Optical Blue mouse.
- > 
As you can tell there has been some vast improvements since back in the day of mouse making.
-
Features:
- Quick search
- Document flip/Zoom
- Smart scroll
- On/Off switch
- Battery indicator
- Programmable
- Horizontal shift
Con: - Price - $$$
- A little bulky
- Weak software
- Lots of buttons
It took a few days to get used to all the features and get the keys mapped correctly. My biggest complaint is the Logitech SetPoint software. Its very barebone minimum and very hard to map the keys to your own taste. My firefox default button mappings did not work as the Revolution does not per se have a middle click button. I had to download uberOptions a free utility to customize SetPoint in order to make it behave better. Its highly recommended. Once that ordeal was over I really enjoyed all the new features. The smart scrolling is awesome once you get used to it, the wheel can spin freely and when you flick it, it smartly accelerates the scrolling. The battery indicator should be mandatory on all mice, I hate it when your mouse suddenly stops working in the middle of something important and you have to drag out the obsolete wired mouse. The MX Revolution mouse cost around $80 and thats steep for a lot of the features that are icing, but really not necessary. If you have the cash and your willing to spend the time to tweak the buttons then this mouse lives up to its name.
Additional reviews -
AnandTech Mx Revolution review
ExtremeTech Mx Revolution review
