:skyecade online

This thing looks great. I can’t wait to actually hold one.

     

Filed under: Apple, Gadgets, Hardware
1 Comment

And what a PC snob I am! I’m guilty of every single one of these.

Top ten ways to know you’re a PC snob.

From GameSpy

     

Filed under: Links, Hardware, Technology, Gaming
No Comments

These are great pictures. They remind me of what my basement (a.k.a. the dungeon) used to look like.

Geek pics.

     

Filed under: Geekculture, Links, Hardware, Cyberculture, Technology
No Comments

Sshhhhhhhhh!! It’s a surprise. She doesn’t know yet…

I’ll keep y’all posted.

     

Filed under: Hardware, Technology, Gaming
No Comments

If they can say Nintendog, I can say Nintenday! And what a Nintenday it was. Let us recap yesterday’s events, shall we?. I was on a quest to get my daughter a Nintendo DS Lite for Christmas. Little did I know that Santa had already given all his DS lites away for the year. (that son of a….) Luckily, M.L.L. has some connections at a local Gamestop. She was able to pull some strings and secure me a pretty new DS. It’s a good thing too, since I already bought Cam a game for it. My priorities are backwards sometimes.

Later on in the day, after gazing at Cameron’s shiny new DS, I decided to take my own out and give it a quick polish — yes I was a little jealous. So I grabbed my lens cloth and I proceeded to carefully wipe off about a thousand tiny finger prints. Hence the reason Santa is bringing Cameron her very own DS. I was just about done shining it up when I saw the cracks. Two cracks to be exact, one on each hinge. I had never noticed these before, so I assumed they were relatively new. After doing a little research, I found that I wasn’t alone here. It seems there are quite a few incidents of cracking hinges on some models of the DS Lite. According to Nintendo, it accounts for only 0.02% of the units sold. Mm hmm, sure it does. They do, however, recommend that you contact customer service right away if this should happen to your DS. So I did, and what a delightful experience it was. Not only are they going to repair it free of charge, they are going to pay for the shipping too. But it gets better! I should get my DS back within seven days. Not too shabby if you ask me. The customer service rep was a nice guy too. We talked for a bit about all sorts of things, such as the Wii, Nintendo’s competition, the industry in general, Nintendo’s philosophies, etc… It was very interesting. He has worked for Nintendo for 13 years.

My Nintenday gets even better. I got to try the Nintendo Wii for the first time and I was utterly blown away. I had some expectations, sure, but nothing like what I experienced yesterday. I only got to try the system for ten minutes or so before I was snapped back to reality, so I may be jumping the gun here, but for those ten minutes I felt like I was looking into a crystal ball. Those ten minutes gave me a glimpse into the future, and not just of gaming, but of how we will eventually interact with everything. Let’s begin. The game was Zelda; the task was fishing. I pulled pack the Wiimote and then lunged it forward as I watched the virtual fishing pole mimic my every move instantaneously. I followed the bobber as in soared through the pixelated sky until it finally plopped into the water. At the very moment of impact, I felt the Wii remote shutter ever so slightly. It sort of reminded me of…..fishing. I gave the Wiimote a tug every now and then until it was finally time to reel in the line. So I grabbed the left part of the controller and started spinning it as if I was actually reeling in a fish. As I did so, the Wiimote started to vibrate rhythmically, in sync with the motion of my left hand. It sort of reminded me of, well…..fishing. There was even a point when people started to gather around to find out what the hell I was doing. From the outside, I must have looked like a demented mime strung out on crack. Anyways, It was really fun and I can definitely see the potential for this system. I plan on writing a full review of the system once I get Cameron gets it for her birthday. Oh, did I mention she’s getting it for her birthday? Which, mind you, is only three weeks after Christmas.

With this in mind, I proceeded to the counter to talk with the manager who sold me the Nintendo DS. I asked him if he had any Nintendo Wiis in stock. Now, I’ve been to about ten other stores before this one, looking to buy the Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii and have had zero luck, so I was pretty sure I knew what the answer was going to be. I was just hoping he wouldn’t burst out laughing. He never did. Instead, he just looked me in the eyes and said in a very robotic, monotone voice, “We are currently sold out of all Nintendo Wiis”. As he was doing this, his head started twitching to the left. So then I asked him if he thought he would see anymore before Christmas, in which he replied in the same robotic, monotone voice, “We are currently sold out of all Nintendo Wiis”. His head was twitching to the left even more and at this point I was starting to get a little freaked out. I figured it was the holiday pressure getting to him. I was about to say thank you and walk out of the store when he said in the same robotic, monotone voice, “Even if we did get a shipment of Nintendo Wiis an hour ago, we are not allowed to sell them until exactly 9:00 A.M. on Monday morning.” His head furiously twitching to the left now. That’s when I got it. Sitting on the floor to his left were two large brown boxes. I looked up at the manager. He was smiling at me. I smiled back. We shared a special moment.

And that concludes my Nintenday. My Nintenight (that just sounds stupid) was spent trying out Final Fantasy III on my cracked DS. We’ll save that for another post though. Oh, and by the way, I’ll be a little late for work Monday morning.

     

Filed under: Gadgets, Life, Hardware, Zen Geekery, Technology, Gaming
1 Comment

Apple just announced their new Macbook today and I have to say, it looks pretty freak’n sweet. Not only that, the price looks pretty freak’n sweet too (starting at $1049). I’m curious to see what kind of reviews it gets. I still think I prefer the white over the black though. Have a look.

* 1.83GHz or 2.0GHz Intel Core Duo
* 13.3-inch (diagonal) TFT glossy widescreen display
* Apple Remote with Front Row
* Up to 2GB memory(3)
* Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950
* Slot-loading optical drive
* Up to 120GB hard drive(3)
* Built-in 54-Mbps 802.11g AirPort Extreme wireless
* Analog and digital audio in and out
* FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 ports
* iLife ’06, Mac OS X Tiger

     

Filed under: Apple, Hardware, News, Technology
2 Comments

I can remember the days when there was a distinct line between PC users and Apple users. It was a simpler time really. It was a time when Apple users loathed Windows and Windows users despised Macs. PCs had the power and Macs were just plain chic.

Over the years that line has been getting blurred. Mac users are dual booting Windows and OS X, while Windows users are conceding that Macs are a viable alternative to PCs. I can think of a few reasons why this may be the case. PCs have moved away from the conventional beige box look to more sleeker designs. Even Windows got a coolness upgrade with XP. I need not mention the arsenal of apps that run on Windows. On the flip side, Macs have been beefing up their performance and are now in direct competition with the once all powerful PC. Especially now that they are using Intel’s Core Duo processor. More and more third party companies are writng applications for Apple’s as well. Gone are the days when a program would only run on Windows (including games).

As a PC user, sometimes I feel like I fell asleep and when I woke up, I was the only one without a Mac. What happened to our “Macs Suck” attitude? Well to tell you the truth, I never thought Macs sucked. I never really had any opinion on them at all, but I’ve always been curious about them. Have you ever asked a Mac user how they like their computer? Their eyes gloss over and they begin telling you all the fabulous things about their beloved Apple as if they’re talking about their very own children. Steve Jobs must be doing something right to evoke such a reaction.

So I figured it was time I gave OS X a spin. That’s right, I’m jumping on the band wagon. Okay, maybe that’s not the only reason. With the impending demise of Microsoft over the next decade (yes, that’s right, impending demise), I thought it would be a good idea to tuck as many operating systems under my belt as I can. I’ve already mastered all the various versions of Windows (toot toot) and I’m fairly proficient with Linux, OS X just seems like the next logical step. Not to mention Macs are just so damn cool looking.

I didn’t want to dive into a $2000 Apple. Luckily a friend of mine was able to commandeer me an older iMac G4. I plan on beating the crap out of this thing. The first thing I noticed when I booted it up was how closely OS X resembled Kubuntu (a version of Ubuntu (a distribution of linux) that uses KDE instead of Gnome). I realize that OS X is basically a pretty version of Unix, but what I didn’t realize was how much of the fuctionality is the same, let alone the visual aspects. Needless to say I was extremely happy to see this, familiar ground and all.

Oh, and one last thing. I am in the market for a new, more portable laptop. I currently have a Dell Inspiron XPS. I love it. It’s fast, it’s powerful, and it’s huge. It’s way to big to lug around. So I decided to take a look at some of Apple’s notebooks, only I couldn’t justify spending all that money on a laptop I wasn’t sure I would even like. The iBooks are nice and small, but again, I don’t know if I could justify buying a new laptop with just OS X loaded on it. The Macbook Pros look nice and they can dual boot OS X and Windows XP (sweet) and I really like Intel’s Core Duo, but it’s still a little larger than I actually wanted. Enter the Macbook Mini. It’s about the size of an iBook, with the dual boot capability of the Macbook Pro. Nice, huh? The problem is they don’t exist yet. The rumor going around was that Apple was going to announce it’s new laptop two days ago. Alas, no such announcment was made. But hopes are still high that an announcement will be made by the end of this month. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

     

Filed under: Apple, Life, Hardware, Technology
2 Comments

You know what I think we don’t have enough of in this world? Good old fashioned wooden computers. The best thing about wooden computers is that there is no upgrading. When it’s time for a new computer, just chuck the old one in the fireplace and widdle a new one.

     

Filed under: Gadgets, Hardware, Technology, Random Bits
No Comments

Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station. Well it’s not quite as cool as the Death Star, but it’s got about as much computing power.

If you recall, back in October I experienced the great cellar flood of 2005 which single handedly wiped out three of my four computers. As luck would have it my XPS laptop miraculously survived the great cellar flood. This was mostly due to the fact that it was 10 miles away sitting on my desk at work.

After almost five months of desktoplessness, I finally finished all the repairs to the cellar and restored the command center (also referred to as the dungeon) to its former glory. Everything got a complete upgrade; the walls , the ceiling, the floors, the windows, and most importantly my computers. Ahh yes, my new babies. Take particular notice of the brand spanking new Dell XPS 600 sitting ever so menacingly to the left of my desk. This thing is so screaming fast it actually hovers off the ground. Complete with full blown dual nVidia GeForce 7800 GTX w/ SLI, Creative X-Fi sound, 2 Gig of DDR2 ram, and a dual TV tuner. Click on the larger of the two images above to check out all of my new goodies.

     

Filed under: Life, Hardware, Technology
No Comments

It’s been a grueling and annoying last couple of months. But alas, it’s finally over. It all started one fateful night when my computer decided to reboot for no apparent reason. It was an isolated event, or so I thought. A couple nights later it rebooted again. And then again later that same night. Still, I ignored it out of sheer laziness. I thought that maybe if I didn’t think about it, it would just fix itself. And it did!!. But to my utter dismay, it did not. That’s when I decided to kick it into high gear and fix it. I mean come on, I’ve had to troubleshoot more complex problems than this.

fast forward to the present day

I’ve killed my computer. That’s right, dead. How’d I do this you ask? Let me tell you the series of events that led to the final demise of my beloved PC.

Let me first tell you about when it reboots. This is important to know when troubleshooting. Out of the dozens of times it randomly rebooted, only 1 time was while not playing a game. Every other time was in-game. I ran a bunch of benchmark programs and torture tests to try to get it to reboot (processor, video, audio, memory). Nothing. I really tortured this machine too. Nothing I did made the computer reboot. The only constant I had was that it reboots while playing a game. Specifically Battlefield 2 and Half-Life 2. And never at the same point in either game. I think you’re all caught up at this point. This is the information I had to work with. And the following outlines my train of thought and the actions I took.

• Video Card - My first thought was that it must be video related. It just made sense. At the time I was using a nVidia Chaintech 6800 GT 256. I rolled back the drivers. I must have tried 6 different versions of the drivers. Rebooted. Then I switched the video card out completely with a nVidia BFG 6800 GT 128 OC (my original card). Rebooted. I was dumbfounded. Back to the drawing board.
• Software Related- I should first tell you that I am obsessed with having a clean system. I methodically run multiple anti-virus programs a week. Not to mention multiple spyware and adware programs, CWShredder, highjackthis, IBprocMan, Tweaknow Regcleaner, diskclean, defrag, etc… I know every process that is running on my computer at any given time. But still, I had to know. So I reformatted and reinstalled my OS. Rebooted.
• Power Supply- It must be the power supply. Granted 420 watts should be more than enough to run what I have. Perhaps it was bad. Power supplies are one of the leading causes of this type of problem. So I went out and bought a new power supply. Rebooted. Son of a…
• Memory- Another leading cause of system failures. I ran memtest86 for 24 hours straight. No errors. But I still had to be sure. So i popped out one stick and fired up BF2. Rebooted. I popped out the other stick and replaced it with the one I originally took out. Fired up BF2 once again and boom, rebooted. Hmm, well at least I was expecting this.

Audio Card- This was my next thought. The games I play are not only graphics intensive but audio intensive as well. And it is the oldest piece of hardware in my computer. I’m using one of the first edition Soundblaster Audigy cards. So I popped it out and used the on-board audio (which I hear is actually very nice). Rebooted.

• Monitor- I know, I know, I’m stretching here. About right now I’m just praying it’s not the motherboard or processor. And I actually read in some random tech forum that this guy switched monitors and it solved his rebooting problem. I can’t imagine a monitor ever rebooting a computer, but at this point I’m desperate. I have a rather old 21″ NEC that is obviously on it’s way out. So I swapped my computers. I put Big Blue on a 19″ Micron. I switched power outlets too just to be safe. It actually didn’t reboot for several days. I was crushed when it actually did. Son of a…
• Network Card- I figured why not, I’ve swapped out everything else. Rebooted.
• IDE Cables- Rebooted

Where on the home stretch here folks. I should have mentioned before that overheating is not a problem. I have 5 case fans, 1 ps fan and a vortex cpu fan which I can control the rpm’s manually. The processor’s temperature is well below the specified limits.

I figured I’m running out of options here. I pulled everything out of the pc and checked for metal on metal or anything that might short out the motherboard and force a reboot. Nothing. I decided to out pull the cpu and cpu fan and investigate. This my friends is where the problem lies. As I was pulling the cpu out, the cpu and heatsink separated. I had to reapply the arctic silver thermal paste. I hate doing this. And I think this led to Big Blue’s ultimate destruction. Ever since I put the cpu/heatsink back into the computer it has decided it doesn’t feel like booting up. AT ALL. Instead in decides to spew out these obnoxious beeping sounds at me. I’m not talking about any post beep or standard error beeps you would get from a fully functional motherboard. No, this was more like the binary equivalent of getting flipped off by a computer. That’s it, this officially marks the day my computer shit the bed. What pisses me off the most is not figuring out what the original problem actually was. At this point I hope it was the motherboard or processor. That way I wouldn’t feel so bad about frying it myself.

Oh well, what to do now. I’ll be without an uber computer for a while. I have other computers to get me through this very traumatic time. It’s just not quite the same though. I don’t think I mentioned that the motherboard was an Asus KV8 Pro with an AMD 64 3200. I’m thinking Abit will be my next motherboard of choice. Maybe I’ll upgrade a little to an AMD 64 3700 while I’m at it. Yeah, that sounds good. See, I’m feeling better already. I’ll keep you posted. Big Blue shall rise again.

     

Filed under: Life, Hardware, Technology
3 Comments