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The iPhones... they're everywhere!
Err, everywhere I look its news about the iPhone. What's a big deal? It's just a phone, it doesn't do anything that current smartphones doesn't already do. Ok, so it's from Apple, and that fact alone makes it cool. But get a grip, it's just a phone!
I still think my Motorola Krzr is the perfect phone.
Posted: Jul 02, 2007 @ 10:32 am
Where is my reset button?
When I was having some network issues with my file server last week, I discovered that apparently Vista's Windows Explorer doesn't know what to do when a mapped drive goes dead while being accessed. So it just hangs. The computer isn't frozen, things still work, but that Explorer window just hangs. I can't kill the window, I can't restart, and I can't shutdown, there was nothing I can do from Windows. But wait, what's this? My shiny new Dell doesn't have a reset button!? I don't understand, where is my reset button? Is a reset button that expensive? Why even have a power button? Just have it power on when it's plugged in, that's good enough isn't it?
Posted: Jun 29, 2007 @ 01:56 pm
Shopping for an MP3 Player is Hard Work
I've been in the market for a new MP3 player for a while, ever since it started getting warm. Without a jacket I really don't have anywhere to carry my 20GB Gmini 400 (about the size of an iPod, but a little thicker). What I usually end up doing is carrying a bag just to hold the Gmini. So this summer I decided to get a small flash player so I can just put it in my shirt pocket instead of carrying a big bag.
Here are my requirements: 1GB or more, small, cheap, rechargeable batteries, charges by USB, standard USB connection, display, good battery life, drag and drop music.
The first player I got was the $30 Audiovox MP6610FM with 1GB. The sample that I saw was perfect, met all the requirements and it was cheap. But turns out the display model I was looking at was the 512MB version, and the 1GB model slightly different, mainly non-standard USB connector. The proprietary connector was so bad I thought I got a lemon, but turns out it must be shoved in all the way, and if you move the player there's a good chance it'll get disconnect. This I can live with, but the battery life for this unit sucked. The battery indicator was at nothing after about 3 hours, and completely died after 4 hours.
Pro: Small, Cheap
Con: Crappy Proprietary USB Connector, Poor Battery Life
Conclusion: Returned - The battery life was the deal breaker, my commute is about a little over an hour each way, and that doesn't leave much juice for anything else. It also blue screened Vista, probably because it keeps getting kicked in and out due the crappy connector.
The next unit I tried was the $50 Philips SA1333/37 with 1GB. It's a bit more expensive and larger than the Audiovox, but it looks a lot nicer. The packaging for this thing was insane, it was about a foot tall and a foot and a half wide, it took me a while to open. Unlike the Audiovox the Philips has a standard USB plug, it's like a USB thumb drive. The only problem I had was it did not show up as a drive but as an audio device, and when I imported my music not all of it showed up. I called Philips and they told me the player doesn't work with Vista and WMP11 and that I should use it on an XP computer or get one of their newer models that support Vista. Uh, bull. I ran the driver wizard on the player and switch to the USB Mass Storage driver, it showed up as a drive after that and problem solved. I did some research and turns out the player supports both MTP (for transferring music) and MSC (mount as a drive), and unfortunately WMP 10/11 defaults to MTP. I tried the player on an OSX and Linux, both showed up as a drive.
Pro: Shiny, Retractable USB Plug
Con: Defaults to MTP, Big (twice the size as the Audiovox), Browsing is Slow
Conclusion: Keeper - This was supposed to be returned, but now that I figured out the MTP vs. MSC mess, I think I'll keep it. It meets all the requirements and it looks nice.
Posted: Jun 08, 2007 @ 12:27 am
Slim Jim Cluster
I've been meaning to put this up for a while. Just got this for my desk at work. 
Posted: May 03, 2007 @ 07:58 pm
First Vista "Crash"
For the first time since I got the Dell (about a month ago) Vista "crashed". It didn't really crash like blue screen or anything, but everything stopped working and applications would freeze one after another. I think it all started when connection was lost to my file server, not sure what happened but the event logs on the server didn't have anything on it. Once that happened explorer windows started freezing, then the task bar, I tried Alt+Ctrl+Del to get the Task Manager and that froze too. I couldn't even restart. At then end, I had to hold down the power button to power the machine down. After that and a restart on the file server, everything as A-OK again. Windows 2000 just popped up a million messages saying connection was lost, I guess this is Vista's way of telling you there is a network problem.
Posted: May 01, 2007 @ 12:51 pm
Netflix Streaming Video
I finally got the "Watch Now" tab on Netflix. Looks like it's only for Internet Explorer, on Firefox it said the browser is not supported. I had to install their player, but it worked fine on Vista/IE 7. The only problem is the annoying "you don't have the right to watch this video" boxes that pops up when each video starts streaming. Why does it keep saying that and make me click two more buttons before I can watch the video? Err, reminds me of UAC. Other than that, it works great.
This service is perfect for me since it goes by the amount of time you watch instead of the length of the movie. And I like to skip around movies and watch all the good parts and the ending. So a 120 minute movie may take me 20 minutes to watch. Unfortunately, there is not much of a selection.
Posted: Apr 23, 2007 @ 02:55 pm
Vista + Large FAT32 Drive = Bad?
One big issue I forgot to point out about Vista is that it didn't recognize my two external 320GB FAT32 drives (it was formatted under Linux if that matters). My previous OS was Windows 2000, and although it couldn't format large FAT32 drives, it could read and write to it just fine. But I guess that ends with Vista (unless it's a limit for Vista Home Basic), both my drives showed up on Vista as unpartitioned free space. Since I couldn't find any info on this I ended up converting the drives to NTFS and its working fine since. Not good if I plan on using the drives on other operating systems, but I guess I can use the NAS for that. My external 20GB FAT32 drive works fine on Vista BTW.
Posted: Apr 12, 2007 @ 07:02 pm
Vista Home Basic Is Good Enough
As I posted a few days ago, I just got a Dell and it came with Vista Home Basic. I was a little worried because I've read at a few places (online and in magazines) that Vista Home Basic is crap. I was ready to format and install XP if it was not up to the task. Well, that's just bull. After using it for a few weeks, other than the BIOS update not working (and resulting in a dead motherboard), Home Basic has been pretty good. I haven't found anything lacking, it's better than XP Home in my opinion.
There is no DVD editing software, but I have no need for that (my Philips DVP642 plays XVID). And those who must have DVD making software probably already have their own that they've been using and won't even touch the windows freebie anyway. No Areo? I put it in the same category as Active Desktop, cool for the first few days but pretty much useless. Limited network connections? I run a file server with several mapped drives and a web server, I haven't seen any problems. I really doubt many average home users out there run a file server.
Also, classic mode is your friend. I can't stand all this fancy do nothing stuff. And User Account Control is evil! It made me think my brand new 22" monitor was broken until I figured out UAC was making it blink. Off with it! And what is up with the search box in every window? I organize my files and know where things are, I don't need to search for everything. If there is a way to get rid of it, I haven't found it yet. Another thing I discovered the hard way was the right side panel in Windows Explorer isn't active when you select multiple files after using the left side panel. So I used the left panel to select a folder, then highlighted multiple files in the right panel and hit delete. It deleted the whole folder! I guess it's my fault for not reading the confirm dialog. And it was on a mapped drive, so no recycling bin. Good thing they were files I've already burnt to DVD, else I would have been pissed. There are other issues, but not major and I'll deal with them.
Vista Home Basic is good enough for me, and I consider myself a power user. My tune may change after some more time with it, but so far so good.
Posted: Apr 06, 2007 @ 06:42 pm
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