a few posts back i had mentioned that i was contemplating a full system upgrade either by building a totally new desktop or by going the laptop route.  well, this week i finally made my decision.  choosing between mobility/convenience vs raw power and upgradability is a hard choice for me since i’d like to have all four things at once (which you really can’t get in a desktop since well its a desktop and stuff). 

yup, a laptop would fit me the best right now.

however, after making my decision i realized that not only was i going to be getting a fast new laptop vs a desktop but i also was in turn going to be changing the way i computed, worked.

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life, osx86, laptop, culture, opinion, mac, gaming, pc | 1 Comment »

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 | 6 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 | 7 Comments »

this week i realized that its about time for me to do a desktop system rebuild.  prior to the last year and a half, i had been on an upgrade rampage in regards to my desktop pc.  i initially built my very first desktop system back in 1998; it was an AMD Athlon (Slot A) 999mhz cpu w/ 512mb pc133 memory, a whooping 20gb harddrive and dvd/cd-rw combo drive and cost about $400 to build. 

through my upgrade bender i went through about 12 different computer cases, 10 motherboards, 6 video cards, and 3 monitors.   so with all of the components i went through, what was the best upgrade? 

my Dell 24″ LCD Monitor hands-down!

i don’t know if you have ever used a 24″ widescreen monitor before but lets just say once you do you’ll never go back.  i have friends who own/use crappy little 15″ crt monitors or a 17″ lcd and it baffles me on why one would not upgrade the one thing he/she uses each day?  if you have to use it or do use it on a daily basis, why not make it more enjoyable and better on the eyes?

i’ve had my dell for about 2 years now and would consider it to be the best pc upgrade ever.  prior to my dell 24″ widescreen, i had a very decent standard 19″ Lcd but it still wasn’t enough desktop space for the stuff i was doing (photoshop, video editing/mixing, gaming, geeking).  my work 20″ widescreen just doesn’t seem the same, however having two of them does help though…

so, whats your best/favorite pc upgrade you’ve done? feel free to share in the comments.

culture, random, geek, opinion, general gadgets, hardware, pc | 4 Comments »

this year i’ve decided to take up a few of my older projects that i never really got very far on.  another one of those projects was ripping of all of my movies from dvd to a high-quality digital format, such as wmv-hd or divx-hd or mp4.  with the latest firmware updates adding support now for more of the HD formats such as divx and wmv, i figured i finally had a device which would be worthy of hosting my fav movies.  plus, i had previously converted a few movies to avi and mpg as a test and loved being able to quit out of a game and go into a movie. 

here’s a quick tip on how to get album art added to your music (sadly, it is a manual process but works pretty well and is done on the ps3).  read more to see the video.

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culture, hd, ps3, geek, console, hardware, gaming, music, pc | 9 Comments »

happy 2008 everyone! (yes, i’m a bit behind already, and the year just started!)

this year i’ve decided to try to give back more to the community and the public as a whole; last week i started it off by donating blood and at quitting smoking cigarettes. this week, i’ve decided to unshackle the chains on my wifi network/internet access and in turn open it up to the public or those in my area. the main reason behind this was because of my gratitude to whoever’s unsecured wifi network i had to use for 2 days when my own internet was down. i realized that without that connection, i would have been pretty lost since i rely perhaps a bit too much on my internet connectivity (yes, i could have tethered my phone to my desktop via bt or usb but doing it w/my PS3 would have been a bit more complex and prob very laggy).

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geek, culture, life, laptop, handheld, console, general gadgets, hardware, web, opinion, pc | 4 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 »

yes, the title of this post is correct.  being as big of a geek as i am, most of my pals are pretty shocked to hear that i hadn’t owned an mp3 player since the first generation of mp3 playesr.  back in 1998, i bought my first ever and up to this point 2nd ever mp3 player.  it was a Rio PMP300 that had a whopping 32mbs of memory and 10 hour battery life.  video? photo? click wheel/touchpad? none.  this was before Apple made mp3 players.

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launch, Zune, fanboy, review, culture, geek, hardware, windows, music, handheld, pc | 13 Comments »

i love it.. as a windows user/pc user, i love how the other side claims that its product/os is nearly unhackable but yet only less than a day after being released; Leopard has been hacked and patched to work on an Intel/AMD based pc hardware. 

Daily Apps has the full guide to making your own patched dvd and installing over here:

http://dailyapps.net/2007/10/hack-attack-install-leopard-on-your-pc-in-3-easy-steps/

i plan to try the patch myself on my Tiger partition.  hopefully my network cards (one of the two hopefully) will be recognized and then i can try using Leopard as a main os for a week or two and give a write up on it.

just thought i’d let the uninformed informed! Go OSX86 Hackers and pc geeks!

fanboy, news, osx86, culture, geek, apple, mac, hardware, pc | 5 Comments »