Looks like the Google street-level view guys hit Portland this last week or so. They have all the streets for most of Portland done – including my house.
I could tell they did it last week because my car is in the shot of my house – and it had a white hat in the back window that was in there just last week. 🙂 So, if you know my street address, enter it into Google maps and check out my block.
In my new group, I got a 24″ Dell widescreen LCD for my development work which recently got upgraded to a 30″. After only 1 week of use, I saw the Dell 2407 went on sale for $559 with free shipping, so I bought one and have been absolutely loving it. I couldn’t justify the $1200 tag for the 30″, and the 24 is actually plenty big for my living area. It’s now my tv (well, for movies anyway), console gaming display, and work display.
See, I was a die-hard CRT fan for many years. LCD’s had ghosting problems in games, the contrast/brightness was not good, fuzziness when not using a native resolution, etc. I stuck with my 22″ near-flat Trinitron CRT for a good while and it still puts out beautiful colors. But after only 1 week with the widescreen real-estate and the beautiful 1000:1 contrast ratio – I can’t hold out any more. Once you use widescreen for development or watching movies, you just can’t go back. Even better/worse – my Trinitron can barely keep up with the contrast when side-by-side with the LCD. In games, there is no lag or ghosting problems that are visible in the work I do (I have ghosted white to pink – but that was while I was trying to beat on it and I never see it in my daily use). It simply looks like they have fixed all my old complaints and LCD’s are now ‘there’ for me.
Also, I have a Huey Pro (made by Pantone – the color gods) which does monitor/color calibration. I do a lot of photo editing and fiddling around. This nifty little device plugs into your USB, and then monitors light conditions. You do a one-time calibration by sticking it’s suction cups to the monitor while it runs test patterns/colors. After the initial calibration, it just sits in a cradle on your desk and auto-corrects the color balance in the background based on ambient lighting conditions – even through reboots. Whites always stay white, reds stay red, etc. I can tell when I turn the overhead light on/off and it corrects on the fly. It saves calibrations that can be used by Photoshop so that when you edit your photos, they’ll be balanced correctly. Nifty gadget – and it works perfectly with the LCD.
‘Soft’ Scissors for cutting out fuzzy objects:
http://vis.berkeley.edu/papers/softscissors/
Light Writing video:
http://www.skycast.com/video/watch/-8109178600655663537/
I was using my IM client to annoy a coworker today. Our corporate IM client sends a tiny ding when a message arrives. If you don’t have the IM app in focus, it flashes the icon at the bottom of your screen. I knew he was in the lab so I typed a whole sentence one word at a time so he would hear it. So, I wrote a haiku about it:
Every time I type
Your boxen dings and flashes
IM clients rule
I call the Intel motherboard support guys, and they were very good – probably some of the most knowledgeable front-line phone crews I’ve ever run into (and I’m not saying that just because I work there). I’ve only had to call them about 3 times, but every time they are right on the money and know exactly what obscure feature of the SATA raid controller I was trying to use, strange chipset interaction, etc and have some clever way to do what I was trying to do by pointing me to an article/whitepaper.
First they tell me to try a Microsoft patch: KB929777 (for those who want to know/try it). This is a manual patch, so I go and download it (did you know you must download the patch from the machine you’re trying to patch? The Windows Genuine verifier tool actually re-directs the website to the matching OS download (and not show you the other versions) based on the WGA response code. I did it from my XP laptop and got the 32-bit version which wouldn’t install on my Vista box. So I download it from my Vista box and you get the 64-bit version. I personally think this is colossally stupid because what if you need a patch for a machine that can’t use the internet/boot properly/etc – sigh) but no luck.
Another call to Intel’s support and we back and forth the info, and he nails it right off. He asks what bios version I’m using (ver. 1687) and says, Ahh, well, the 965 chipsets have a known problem we just discovered with these last two bios revisions. Turns out there is a bug in the bios (as I predicted) that shows itself if you have 4 gigs/4 sticks of ram in at the same time. You must go back to bios ver 1669 before they introduced the problem. Well, upgrading a bios is easy as pie, but rolling back a bios requires a multistage process of setting a recovery jumper, burning a cd, etc (go to support.intel.com and look up article 023360 for the process) then go download an old version of the bios 1669 by going to your board’s update page, scrolling down to the bottom and select “This product has Previously Released software” then download version 1669. Flash your machine, and voila! Super-fast machine. But not only that, I did a test. It took ~1:45 sec to boot with 3 gigs using bios 1687; but with bios 1669, the same 3 gig setup takes ~0:45 sec. That sounds like more than one problem, but anyway…
So, there’s your answer. Go to bios 1669 and wait for a bios update after 1687 that specifically mentions a fix for this 4-stick/gig problem.
Well, well. I installed a very beta Vista application I used to use, and low and behold – it goofed up my system something fierce. Unfortunately, uninstalling left buckets of configuration problems that I could fiddle with for hours, or in the same time just backup and re-install. I chose option 2. But something strange happened. When I tried to run the install DVD again, it took 5-10 minutes between each dialog box – mouse was slow, screen repaints were painfully visible, etc. Everything was going at a horrible snails pace. What happened?! I did my last install in like 20 minutes.
I methodically unplug all my devices until I get back down to the bare system board (no effect), then on a whim I take 2 gigs out – since I’d recently upgraded from 2 to 4 gigs of ram. Maybe those were bad sticks of memory. Voila – super-fast again. Huh? I try different combinations of the sticks, and the same result. It’s not bad ram, it’s the fact there is 4gigs total ram. I start looking on forums and sure enough, other people are having similar problems. Seems there are various motherboards that are having this problem when they upgrade from 2 to 4gigs, or in some cases, 4 to 8gigs. Extremely slow system responses, etc but pull the memory out and it works like a champ. I downloaded the latest bios and flashed it, but it didn’t fix the problem. Guess I’ll have to wait or order another motherboard. This isn’t a huge problem as 2 gigs has been more than adequate for everything I’ve been doing so far; but now I have 2 extra gigs of really nice DDR2 800mhz ram sitting around waiting for a bios patch. Bogus. For the record it’s a DG965OTMKR motherboard (which I really love b/c of it’s built in SATA raid, etc)
I finally settled on a HP dv2000t for replacing my old laptop and ordered it with a $200 discount coupon. For just over $800, I got a Core2Duo, 14″ widescreen brightview display, dvd+rw, 1.5 gig ram, 120gig hd, nvidia 7200 graphics card, and Vista Home Premium. I got it a week earlier than planned (it was FedEx’ed from their China manufacturing site). They are super-sleek and nice looking laptops. I really liked the 14″ displays and their bright glossy finish. The wireless remote that hides in the PCIe slot is a nice touch and the fact you can watch DVD’s using the surface touch buttons without actually having to boot the machine is super cool.
Alas, after a week of use, it would randomly and instantly power off in the middle of watching videos or playing games. I figured out that anything that got the system hot would cause it to happen, not unlike what some MacBook users were experiencing (http://macbookrandomshutdown.com). I called support and they graciously offered to fix it. They paid for next-day shipping both ways – and I only lost my machine for a total of 5 days. When I got the machine back, it did some weird driver reloading at startup. I checked the device list and the nVidia 7200 was gone and the cheaper/slower Intel 945 was in its place. Sigh, they’d put the wrong motherboard in it.
Worse still, I couldn’t use the system re-install disks in it since ‘the hardware didn’t match’. Stupid locked OS install disks. I call support and back it goes again. Sigh. I certainly hope they fix it this time. The case got escalated (not by me even), and I was promised that if it wasn’t fixed this time, I’d get a new machine. I will hand it to HP’s customer service – they are good at not stonewalling you and do the right thing for the customer but I just want my working machine back. Can’t wait to get to really using it.
The Thoracic and Cardiovascular Institute at Michigan State University presented a paper at an annual meeting in Denver that says iPods can and do interfere with pacemaker operation – up to and including causing the pacemaker to stop functioning altogether when held anywhere from 2-18 inches from the device.
Now, iPods are all the rage, but I for one have just never been sold on them. They are slick and I like the wheel interface; but they are overpriced and don’t do what I need. I bought a 2gig iRiver that also has a FM RADIO, is about 1/3 the size of an iPod so I can run with it, RECORDS mp3’s off any source – including recording a radio program (which I do all the time), and runs on a single AA battery for weeks – all for $69. For this price, you could barely get a refurb shuffle with none of those features.
But what I marvel over is how amazing Apple is at its marketing and image control. They have a CEO that is in dutch for some stock backdating, MacBooks with exploding batteries (well, everyone had that for a while), have the industries most vicious reputation for suing and prosecuting bloggers that out info about upcoming products, people with bending and warping laptop cases because of heat and corroding connectors, is notorious for denying problems then later quietly offering replacements, were just labeled by Greenpeace as the most eco UN-friendly computer company (after IBM and Dell for heavens sake) when even Al Gore is on their board of directors(!). They’ve also been catching flack from the security community because they don’t announce known security holes and ETA’s for the fixes (you did know they have security holes and have been quietly patching them right?), and now iPods that might actually kill you. Yet they are still seen as the most forward-thinking, user-friendly company for the creative class out there.
The fun part is that I doubt this even makes the slightest dent in their image.
Well, put the latest performance review’s positive outcome to some new hardware this weekend.
First off, bought a new case since my old one wasn’t cutting it with the RAID drives and keeping everything cool. These were on smoking sale at Fry’s so I bought a limited edition Antec P182 – which comes in a wicked-cool gun-metal color.
I can’t say enough about the great fan layout which is super-silent and keeps everything very cool inside (each fan is 3 speed 120mm with external speed control and external removable lint traps for easy cleaning). The style, silent operation, excellent airflow, and functionality (the front audio jacks actually work on this case – finally!) are complimented by the ability to mount any board and its ample drive bays (each drive mounting point has rubber shock mounts and the drive bays have a silky smooth slide operation) which accommodate my 1.2 terabyte RAID just nicely. I have a feeling I’ll be using this case for years to come.
Next up was to finally replace my old laptop. I finally sold my old Dell Inspiron 8000 (P3, 1gig ram, XP, etc). It was a great laptop – the first model to have a 3D accelrator in it (gforce 2) – but weighed a ton and was just too bulky with its old 15″ rectangular screen (they didn’t have widescreen back then). I actually got $450 for the whole setup – about $100 more than I thought. However, compare that to when I found the paperwork and discovered I paid $2700 for it when it came out in 2001 – ouch.
Swallowing that lesson on technologies’ steep capital depreciation curve and vowing not to spend over $1000 ever again, I used the cash towards a new HP dv2000t. It’s a 14″ widescreen Core 2 Duo, 1gig ram, 120gig hd, 128meg nvidia gforce 7200 graphics card, dvd-dl burner, built-in webcam, vista home premium, 802.11/b/g, works, and usual bundleware. I found a $200 off coupon (thanks NotebookForums) and got it all for $800. I really fell in love with the glossy finish and style of this laptop after looking at many 14″ notebooks. Outside of a Mac, I think it’s one of the nicest looking laptops around. I settled on the 14″ because 15″ simply got too big for me anymore. This one was super-nice sized – fits in carrying satchel’s pockets very easily, was very light (tiniest power supplies I’ve seen), was more than powerful enough to play simple 3d games, ran Photoshop CS2, Visual Studio, Office apps, Dreamweaver, etc. On top of that, you don’t even need to boot it to watch dvd’s, just use the touch buttons on the surface. Can’t wait till it arrives in 2 weeks.
An interesting side note is that I got much more for my old Dell laptop on craigslist than what it was selling for on ebay. Similar laptops sold for $275-$325 on ebay, but I had bidding wars all the way to $450 on craigslist. Probably because you meet face-to-face with craigslist (ebay is full of laptop scams), but also people seem to really *REALLY* want used laptops on craigslist. Got a number of starving arts/student types. Interesting.
Continuing my laptop performance review. I have a HP dv2000 laptop with a geForce 6150 and AMD Turino 2x I’m evaluating. It will play Quake 3 with a resolution of 1024×768 at a surprisingly great framerate, but not Half-life 2.
Half-life 2 stutters (or should say flat stops) for whole 2-5 seconds at a time even with almost everything turned off at 800×600 – definitely not playable in the outdoor scenes. However, you can turn things back up and get 30fps inside the buildings. It does play flash games very nicely at full-screen (Deanimator, Madness Interactive), has snappy UI in Vista, runs Photoshop CS2 without much effort, and (outside of Half-Life 2) would have been my laptop choice. However, there is a Core 2 Duo with a geForce 7100 for about $75 more, so I think I might go for that since graphics performance is theoretically x2 and the cpu’s are Intel. 🙂