i am a desktop user.  period.  … or am i?

i started my computing history of course with desktops since well they were more accessible than the early portables (ie uber crazy prices for the times for the early laptops).  the apple IIe to the powerpc to a packard-bell 75mhz to my first computer/laptop toshiba 133mhz.  i then built my first desktop system, an AMD Slot A, 900mhz Athlon and about 20+ more systems.

anywho, davak’s recent blogs about helping his dad find a new computer has me really rethinking my setup.  currently i run a rather older (well imo older, Athlon 64 x2 cpu, socket 939; 2gb ddr1, 1.5+TBs of space) desktop which really needs to be updated if not replaced all together.  i also have an even older Athlon 64 htpc setup that just sits and collects dust but yet would not be worth even trying to sell. 

so what do i do? 

davak posted a nice follow up on this, desktop vs laptop, which really got me thinking.

i know that if i go with a more powerful laptop i won’t just toss my current desktop setup in the trash or sell it for pennies on ebay.  as a computer user, i’ve definetely come of age recently ie am ’starting to get old’, hehe or so it seems.  work has become a bit more demanding and having a more portable solutions seems more viable.  however when i am at home though i do want to still be able to do the more powerful things i do normally with my desktop such as rendering 720p video i’ve created or just sd video rendering or basic web server/file server features. 

also as a side note, i saw the best buy deal this last weekend for a toshiba a205-s5825 laptop for a mere $450 and got one and am so far pretty impressed with it for the price.  so the price of a decent new laptop (non mac one that is) is within the 1000us dollars range, imo.  a decent desktop would prob cost me around the same price if i built new from scratch and did not reuse parts (which i prob would not).  yes, the desktop would by default be more powerful but i really do not plan to game on my pc. my main uses these days are hd content, video, music, productivity (office), photoshop, web work.

so.. what do i do?  hmmm… to be continued….

htpc, life, hd, geek, hardware, opinion, pc | 4 Comments »

wow! who would have guessed that begining a rollout of new hardware at my ‘real’ job would be so busy? hehehe.  i apologize for the lack of updates last week; i had a ton of great posts brewing in my head but didn’t get the time to actually materialize them.  

this week i hope to follow up to my previous PS3 vs HTPC post with the HTPC look.  I finally got my Vista Ultimate up and going on that machine and now think that will make for a more fair comparison.

also, expect to see an Eee pc related posts on how I am using mine and a few useful windows xp tweaks for the Eee.

and finally, i hope to have a few ‘breaking’ pieces where i hope to dismantle my PS3 (which is now out of warranty and still having  a few freezing problems; want to see if problems are due to blocked airflow in case or dust/smoke) and also plan to take apart my new work Dell Latitude XT tablet.  Now if only work would slow down to let me get these babies going!

life, fanboy, review, tablet pc, eee, htpc, blogging, opinion, gaming, modding, culture, ps3, windows | 5 Comments »

This entry is one that i’ve been waiting to do for quite some time now.  Today i’ll will be pitting my PS3 up against my Home Theater PC(well, mine is a Frankenstein’d laptop w/o lcd, hehe).  

Sony has boasted about the PS3’s multimedia and computer-ish functionality since its launch in 2006, however can it really stand-up to a similarly priced HTPC?  Does the PS3 live up to its multimedia hype? 

Lets find out, read on for more and see the embedded video.

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ps3, hd, culture, htpc, fanboy, tv, review, life, geek, dvr, psp, web, hardware, vista, music, console, opinion, pc | 4 Comments »

yup, what was i thinking not taking a look at this app earlier when davak mentioned it in his blog….   handbrake is an all in one video converter program.  its for both apples and pcs and does basically all the major file types/device types from iphone to psp to ps3 to apple tv to x360 to quicktime..

anywho, handbrake is able to convert a dvd to a ps3 mp4 file in about 2 hours on my setup (2gb memory, athlon 64 dual core) the quality is very good and the consistency and stability is topnotch vs ps3 video 9.  i have not had the av sync problems i had w/PS3 video 9 (very annoying when the audio would get behind the video by a minute towards the end of some movies)

now if only i could put an even bigger hdd in my ps3! oh handbrake.. how i love thee..

htpc, ps3, osx86, iphone, x360, hd, geek, windows, mac, gaming, music, console, apple | 2 Comments »

well.. this week i was able to get my little geeky mits onto a fun little device i’ve been eyeing for a while now; Sony’s LocationFreeTV LF-X11 unit and lcd/screen.

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life, fanboy, review, laptop, vaio, htpc, culture, psp, hardware, opinion, mobile, geek, pc | 3 Comments »

happy belated turkey day to everyone! 

like most that work in the retail sector, i sadly had to work this weekend also (oncall but still working imo).  so since i had to be around my pc all weekend anyways, i figured i’d pick up on a few projects i’ve been meaning to get done.

my first and now-bigger-than-i-thought-it-would-be project is turning out to be quite the task.  my mom had a ton of slides from back in the 1960s of her trips across the USA.   being the geek and good son i am, i told her that for part of her xmas present, i would scan about 1000 of them in and make a DVD video showing them (thinking it would be a weekend project only).

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fanboy, htpc, life, tv, guides, blogging, Zune, windows, opinion, geek, culture, pc | 10 Comments »

well, a few weeks back i did a full system rebuild from scratch and originally had planned to do a six os install but decided to cut back to just a quad booting system.  i realized that installing windows98se and windows 2000 was just a waste of partitions and space since i really have no need for them. 

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geek, htpc, osx86, vista, windows, apple, mac, hardware, pc | 3 Comments »

well, i’ve been using the Netflix Watch Now option w/my netflix account.  basically what the Watch Now option is netflix’s VOD via the internet and an embedded video player in IE.  they offer a slim selection but have been good about adding more and more older movies. 

however, i am blogging about their service since tonight i’ve noticed a very dramatic boost in quality.  the video looks pretty decent even on my 24″ fullscreen.  pixelation is pretty low and i have not experienced any lag or stuttering most services usually encounter.  then again the performance boost i’m seeing may be due to the fact that i’ve been getting some nice 2mbs download speeds lately w/azerus and just normal web downloads. 

the amount of free per month viewing you get depends on what type of subscription you have, basically for each $1 of your subscription, you get 1 hour of viewing; with a max of 13 hours per month.  ( more details over here: http://www.netflix.com/WatchNowMessage?msg=99 )

so check it out if your a netflix member w/a highspeed internet account! i know i can’t say no to some free and decent quality VOD!  peace

culture, htpc, geek, applications, windows, opinion, web | 3 Comments »

well, like most geeks out there, i have quite a few ‘crappy’ systems.  basically computers that have been ‘frankensteined’ together with parts i’ve gotten from pals, co-workers, random strangers. 

one of these systems consists of an Athlon 64 3000+, Winfast mobo, 512mb memory, 100gb hd, and using onboard memory (64mb shared).  for a while i was using this pc as a living room pc and had vista business ed running on it, however dvd playback on it was horrible, unbearable and the OS just seemed to lag.  i decided to bring it back to the parent’s farm so i had a pc to watch movies at night when up there.  after struggling through the choppiest movie i’ve ever seen (major lag probs in vista, video playback just seems to blow). 

so this last weekend i decided to put good ole XP Prof back on it.  dvd playback was perfect, no lag or anything.  os was much snappier and music playback also was smoother.

obviously this makes sense since vista requires a much higher set of hardware requirements and i was using onboard video.  however i never thought the difference in video playback would be so much different (unbearable in vista and smooth in xp).

this actually leads me to my rant on vista. where is the video driver support??  seriously, i’m a little sick of not having the ability to use full screen overlays on my secondary monitor.  for being an OS that claims to be aimed towards multimedia, it sure seems to fall flat on its back. however most of the blame still goes towards the video card manufacturers and their horribly slow updates to drivers. come on! you’ve had over 2 years to get drivers working.

i’ll get off my box now, but seamonkey’s ‘mr. obvious’ tip of the day, stick w/XP for those crappier, slower systems.  vista just is too much of a hog for these notsopowerful systems. 

peace

culture, htpc, geek, opinion, windows, vista, hardware | 1 Comment »

well, i’ve been using my ps3 mainly for its multimedia capabalities as of late and was overjoyed to see at midnight my ps3 saw the v1.80 update!!

basically this update adds a slew of things we’ve been wanting, not quite the infamous v2.0 update list but very nice nonetheless.

the list includes the ability to now upscale dvds and ps2/ps games to 1080p.  on top of that add in the ability to connect to DLNA devices (ie my pc running vista and Windows Media Player Media Sharing; lets me stream all of my music, vids, photos to the ps3 now; works pretty good.  however you can only stream a limited but popular formats like mp3, wmv, jpg, etc).  head over here for the full press release from sony.

nice job sony! this summer may end up being a good sony summer afterall.

the upscaling on my hackers dvd looked pretty good, figure w/that much cell power you should be able upscale better than most standalone dvd upscaling players.  prob will check out god of war tomorrow sometime and see how that upscaling looks.

aiy, peace.

htpc, fanboy, news, ps3, culture, vista, console, geek, gaming | No Comments »