Nerdy Stuff
Oh Sprint, please protect me from Google!
06 months ago
Getting tired of my T-Mobile service woes and their retarded recent plan changes, I’m shopping around for service elsewhere. I decided to price getting a Nexus S with Sprint and ran across the below gem. Right as I was about to take a screenshot, I get a popup asking if I need assistance. Luckily, the Invisible Shield Dry will protect me.
New laptop, the HP Pavilion dm4-2015dx
27 months ago
After spending 2 weeks researching laptops, reading reviews, playing with in store demos, asking people, ignoring their advice and pulling out my remaining hair, I finally found a laptop that I am happy with. The laptop in question is the HP Pavilion dm4-2015x. The specs are as follows:
- Intel i3-2310m 2.10ghz processor
- 4gb DDR3 (1066mhz)
- 640gb 5400rpm hd
- dvd burner/hdmi/720p webcam/multi-card reader
- Intel WiMax wireless
The thing that really drew my attention to this laptop was the size and the build quality. What I wanted most out of a laptop was portability and in my price range of $600, the pickings were slim especially when it came to trying to find a Sandy Bridge laptop. Because of this, I was going for the Lenovo v570 after reading a lot of good reviews for it. Playing with it in the store and seeing that the price had gone up disappointed me and I really hated the hinge design. It has a plastic lcd hinge which is shiny plastic and looks like it’ll snap at the first instance it’s mistreated.
Walking around looking at other models in my price range, I came across this beauty and instantly fell in love. The dark brown color (they call it umber), the brushed aluminium body, the shiny chrome trim, the sturdy LCD hinges. I knew this laptop would be the one. The downside however, it was an i3 when I was looking for an i5. After thinking it over for a bit, that didn’t matter too much. The biggest advantage of the i5 processors over the i3 is the Turboboost feature. This is nice but after much deliberation, I don’t need it.
I bought this laptop at Best Buy and I was surprised at how well the experience went considering all the horror stories I’ve heard. The sales rep asked me if I knew about the Geek Squad services, I said yes I did and explained that I wasn’t interested, that was it. No trying to force me into buying extra services, no trying to make me reconsider, no forcing an ‘optimized’ laptop on me. Just an “Okay, swipe your card here. Enjoy your new laptop!” I really liked that.
The laptop booted up fairly quickly and without skipping a beat, I fired up PC Crapifier to rid it of the HP bloatware. Unfortunately there is no way to avoid bloatware with any new computer unless you buy a Mac. Maybe that’s why they carry such a high premium over PCs.
Using the laptop is great, the keyboard has a nice reassuring feel and the screen is amazing. I managed to get about 7 1/2 hours battery life out of it coming straight from the box. As of right now I’ve been using it for about an hour after some light photoshop work and I’ve still got 6 1/2 hours remaining.
The i3-2310m processor is plenty fast for everything I’ve thrown at the machine so far. I fired up Back to the Future (the game) last night and it was plenty playable at max settings. There were a few framerate glitches here and there but if you’re bored in a hotel room one night, this wont stop you from playing.
The speakers are of decent quality but they’re definitely laptop speakers. There is no getting away from this in any mobile computer, they just play sound and are pretty loud. Nothing special here.
I’m extremely impressed with the build quality of this machine. The aluminium body feels great but the bottom of the laptop is still plastic. The plastic has a really nice textured feel and appears to be pretty sturdy. My only complaint about the body of this laptop is that it attracts finger prints like a Korean ladyboy attracts horny American tourists.
Overall, I’m happy with this purchase and plan to use this laptop for the next few years. It’s got the sturdy build that I desire and looks that will turn the head of a few Mac users at Starbucks. I highly recommend this computer.
Nexus One and the new screen!
07 months ago
The proper repair procedure for a broken Nexus One lcd screen consists of 3 things:
- Nexus One
- Nexus One lcd
- Beer
Lay all the parts out on a table and dive right in.
In the above image you’ll see all that is necessary for working on the Nexus One. I had planned on taking pictures of the entire process but two things happened; the phone was a massive pain in the ass to take apart and my battery died on my camera.
Luckily, iFixIt has a pretty good article on the tear down of this phone located here. Unfortunately however, the teardown procedure misses a few steps and I was confused at several parts. With enough time and beer however, the phone was repaired and now it works again… except the lock button…and I had extra screws.
Go on, void that warranty. You know you want to.
The Samsung Google Chromebook exclusive pre-sale
08 months ago
So I was really excited when I got an email earlier from “The Chrome Team” with the subject “Be the first to get a Chromebook”. At first I was thinking “Maybe they accepted me into the pilot program!” but then I opened the email to find this.
Okay, so the Chromebook is officially on sale pre-sale. I click the ‘Go get one’ button to be forced to create an account with Gilt.com to even view the Chromebook and more importantly, it’s price. $500… are you kidding me? $500 for a computer that is supposed to simplify and revolutionize mobile computing. The specs of the laptop rival that of $199 Acer’s you can buy at Microcenter. The biggest insult however is not the price but instead the company that is selling this thing.
If you read about Gilt on Wikipedia, this is what you’ll learn.
Gilt Groupe visitors must be members in order to view sales. Membership can be requested at the website, but otherwise it is by invitation only. New sales typically start at Noon EST, last 36–48 hours, and feature merchandise from a single brand or small groups of brands at prices 50%-70% off of manufacturer’s suggested retail prices
Does that mean the Chromebook at $500 is 50-70% off the suggested price?
On top of that, Gilt has nothing to do with technology or gadgets. The closest they come is a tech blog which is barely advertised and seems more like an after thought than anything else. They don’t even mention the Chromebook which their own website is selling.
Let me get to the point. If the Chromebook is going to be $500, I believe it’ll be a failure. In order for it to be successful, I think it needs to aim for the price point of netbooks. The reason I feel this is because netbook users are looking for the same thing, a small cheap computer that gets great battery life. Googles market is nerds, not yuppies who want to buy designer fashion. What the hell were they thinking?
Nexus One, tough little phone but don’t fall on it
08 months ago
The other night, we returned home with a car full of groceries. We live in a second floor apartment so getting the groceries into our home can be an annoying process when making several trips. My normal stance on this situation is to load as many bags possible on my arms and carry everything up in one trip. This process has been successful in the past but this night would be different.
Walking up the stairs, over-encumbered (a word I learned from Fallout 3!) with groceries, I found myself losing my balance as I make my way to the top. Unfortunately about halfway up the top, my flipflop caught one of the stairs causing me to lose my balance. Knowing that the fall down the stairs could be painful, I did the only thing I knew and let myself fall into the incline of stairs. Luckily for me, I didn’t tumble down and none of my groceries made the plunge to the bottom.
Laying on my side for a few moments, pain set in as I had landed pretty hard on the stairs with the left side of my body. The impact was mostly my upper arm and my left leg. I usually keep my phone in my left pocket but I thought nothing of it at the time. It wasn’t until later that night I learned what I have done.
My phone took the entire weight of my body against the corner of the stair and cracked the LCD. Somehow the digitizer escaped injury but the screen below it took the impact. Sadly however, I had to slowly watch the phone screen effectively bleed to death as the colors faded more and more to black. The above picture was halfway through the death process for the display.
Luckily for me however, replacement screens are available and cheap. Now I just wait out for the new screen to arrive so my phone can breath life again.
I fell in love with a computer mouse
311 months ago
Early last week, my faithful Logitech MX500 finally died after 5 years of service. This deeply saddened me as it was the greatest mouse I had ever used up until now. I never thought I’d find a replacement for it and debated scouring eBay for a used model. The idea of owning a used mouse disgusted me however, I don’t know where it’s been or even worse, I don’t know where the previous owners hand had been. Think about that the next time you’re handling someone else’s computer mouse, it’ll disgust you.
I knew several things about what I wanted in my next computer mouse. I wanted it to be Logitech; they are known to stand behind their products. I wanted it to be wireless. I wanted it to fit my hand and I wanted it to work on damn near anything. Luckily for me, they had just the mouse I was looking for.
Enter the Logitech Performance MX. It’s a $99 wireless laser mouse utilizing their new Darkfield technology. To put it simply, this mouse works on damn near any surface you can think of. While I never had a problem with my previous mouse on my wooden desk, I’ve debated over the years about upgrading to a nice glass desk. The thing that had stopped me before however was my hate of using a mouse pad and the fact my favorite mouse wouldn’t work on a glass table top. The Darkfield technology fixes this problem
When I first opened the box for the Logitech Performance MX, I was a bit overwhelmed by the amount of stuff it came with. I found the tiny USB receiver, a black zipper pouch, an a/c USB charger, micro USB cable and a USB extender cable. Holy crap, do I really need all this stuff? Well, sort of. The USB cable can plug into the mouse and charge it’s included single AA battery when it runs low on juice. The a/c charger however, I don’t see myself using this for anything other than charging my phone. Thanks for that Logitech, I needed another phone charger!
The size and shape of the mouse is the perfect fit for my hand. I could see it being issues for people with small hands but for me it’s like the mouse was made just for my hand. To top that off, the quality of the mouse feels very nice as well. The top of the body is your standard plastic but the quality is nice. The sides of the mouse are textured and rubberized which has a great feel and it helps grip the mouse. There is a single silver line that runs up the left side of the mouse and upon closer inspection, I realize it’s metal. I really like that!
The mouse has plenty of buttons that are customizable to your hearts content. It has the standard left and right click, 2 back/forward buttons on the left, a button bellow that labeled Zoom (I preprogrammed it to change DPI), a customizable thumb button (not using it for anything yet). The scroll wheel has it’s own button to toggle between free scroll and clicky scroll. The scroll wheel itself is metal and rubber and has a very high quality feel.
Overall, I absolutely love this mouse. Logitech says its not really geared towards gaming but I found it performed just fine.
The Xbox 360 Special Edition Controller
012 months ago
After many years of gaming, my original 360 controller and the replacement controller for that one are worn out. The rubber on the d-pad no longer have the raised nubs and is peeling in places, the analog sticks aren’t as resistive, the bumper buttons are hard to press and the control doesn’t have that textured feeling any longer.
Since it’s new controller time, I decided to take a look at the new 360 Special Edition controller. The slick design is a real eye catcher as this controller no longer looks like a toy and instead a nice expensive piece of electronic sexiness. The big selling point for this controller however is the redesigned d-pad.
As everyone is aware, the 360 d-pad is garbage. It’s poorly made and hard to move in certain directions which made playing fighters such as Scott Pilgrim vs. The World a real pain in the ass. Microsoft decided that a d-pad design change was in order and that’s the primary feature of the new controller.
The design is pretty neat, by default it’s got the same layout as the original 360 d-pad but if you give the d-pad a twist, the corners of the d-pad lower giving you a more Nintendo-ish feel. Is this really better that the original d-pad? Well, sort of.
Even with the d-pad lowering those corners and giving you a better feel of the actual d-pad itself, it still suffers from the same piss poor design as the original controller. The d-pad does feel nicer and it’s a step in the right direction but if you compare to the current gen consoles, it’s still the worst. Even going back a few generations of d-pad, it’d still be the worst. In fact, it may possibly be on the list of worst d-pad’s ever made only bested by the original 360 controller.
Forgetting about that, the controller itself has a very nice textured feel and it’s a pleasure to hold. The buttons look nice, I love the different shades of grey for the buttons. I love the textured feeling of the controller and the black accents. I also love the new feel of the analog sticks.
What I hate however is the Play and Charge kit. To start with, you can’t charge the controller with the 360 off. This holds true with the PS3 as well but unlike the PS3 controller, plugging the 360 controller into my PC’s USB port will not charge the controller. The control does not charge at all unless you are actively playing a game on the 360 with it. Luckily the controller comes with a AA battery pack that I can load my surplus of re-chagerable batteries in to.
Overall, I like the controller. If you absolutely need a new 360 controller, I’d say it’s worth jumping on. If you want to use this to replace your current working 360 controller because of the new d-pad, it’s not really worth it.
Kitty vs. Robot
0Feburary of last year, I spent about a minute attaching a video camera to my OWI Robot Arm (cs-sales.net) kit that I got for Christmas the year before and set out to make a video. Playing with the robot, I had discovered that it absolutely freaked out our newest kitten Zoey. Her reaction to the robot ways always violent and amusing.
After making the video, I trimmed out the best part and threw it up on Youtube. Since ThinkGeek sells the robot, I sent them an email with a link to the video and from there it was all history. They posted the video on their twitter and before I knew it, the video had basically gone viral and was posted on tech blogs all over the internet. I was contacted by various media outlets and I heard the video was actually shown on TV on G4′s Web Soup show.
The video has basically disappeared into the buttcrack of the internet and only gets about 500 hits a day. Still, over 300k hits in a matter of several days was really damn impressive, especially for something that I put little to no work into creating. That’s the story, here is the video.
The best way to play Gran Turismo 5
0Luckily Santa Claus, or rather Brandy Claus, was very kind to me this Christmas and I got the Logitech Driving Force GT steering wheel that I wanted to play GT5. One thing that is never mentioned about racing wheels is that actually using the thing will require a bit of DIY work or some McGyver skills. In the past, I always used racing wheels on the PC so I always had a desk readily available to attach it to. Playing on the console however presents a different challenge so I had to come up with a solution.
My solution? Our Ikea coffee table and 2 4×4′s to lift the front legs high enough that I could use it with my office chair. Completely ghetto and crappy looking but it’s super effective.
I saw an idea involving an Ikea chair and a few bits and pieces from Home Depot. It’s something I’ll probably give a try in a few weeks but for now, this works just fine.
Some more thoughts about Gran Turismo 5
0I’ve been playing a lot of Gran Turismo 5 lately. The latest update actually does a bit to improve a few gripes with the game but overall the menu still sucks. The biggest additions to the game that I welcome with open arms are the Seasonal Races and the Online Dealership. The Seasonal Races appear to be unique events created by Polyphony that yield decent prizes and change every so often. It looks as though each event lasts around 2 weeks and they actually provide a fairly decent challenge.
One of the events I’ve been working on is just a standard racing event however it requires that you use a specific car and the car can not go above a certain HP (Usually stock) or under a certain weight. This means that the only real modifications you can do to the car is suspension work. You will find yourself upgrading the car a bit to stay competitive as some of the cars you are racing against outclass your vehicle and the races are rolling start. You may start a race 40 seconds behind the leader before you even reach the first corner… With some patience and a ton of practice, the races are worth completing and a podium finish really pays off well. It appears that you earn all the possible credits for each position in the race up to where you finish.
The Online Dealership appears to be a rotating inventory of cars chosen by Polyphony and the advantage here is that they’re actually listing cars you need to complete races. If you’re tired of waiting for the regular dealership to get that one obscure British car for this one stupid race, check out the Online Dealership and it will most likely have it.
Lastly, I finally figured out how to transfer pics from the photo mode. The game doesn’t really explain it (that I’ve seen) but there is an option to copy photos to the XMB and from there you can copy them to a thumb drive or other medium. My craptastic examples are below!
I’m hoping that they continue to improve the game on a regular basis. I’m also hoping that they’re going to work on some track packs and possibly slowly converting the Standard cars to Premium. I still think the Standard car thing is just pure laziness on their part. But hey, what do I know? I’m not a game programmer or a 3d modeler.