slaingod

So I needed a new hard drive for my mp3’s and went to my fav site newegg.com, since they deliver next day in NYC from Edison NJ for most items for free or with just standard shipping. I found a new class of hard drives (if you consider one to be a class), that I decided to give a whirl, the new Western Digital Caviar GP WD5000AACS 500GB 5400 to 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive. In general, I am not looking for the highest performance from an mp3 hard drive, and most of my hard drives in general really.  What I focus on is cool and quiet operation, and reliability.  Man, is this thing cool and quiet!  It uses a lot less power since it can spin down to 5400 rpm, and essentially feels room temperature when running at 5MB/s when transferring my collection over the network.  It can ramp up to 7200 rpm if it gets under serious load, but I doubt I will stress it too much with my usage patterns.  I’ve had problems with drive heat in some of my recent drives, a just had to RMA my Maxtor MaxLine 500GB drive that started developing the ‘click of death’.  This drive only comes with a 3 year warranty, though that is much better than the standard 1 year warranty of a couple of years ago from most consumer grade devices.  That was why I originally switched to MaxLine, as they had 3 year warranties back when everyone else had 1 year, and now they have 5 year warranties.  But this thing is so much cooler and quieter (less vibration), that my gut instinct says it should fare very well. The only other thing I’m not sure of is if this drive is suited to be used in a hardware RAID setup.  Seems more and more drives come in ‘RAID’ editions these days, or you may need to upgrade the firmware, etc.

Drive noise, and drive cooling fan noise is a major contributor to overall system noise in many cool and quiet designs.  Cool and quiet is important for me, as my main system is in my bedroom.  This thing is sitting right next to me in a usb enclosure and I can’t hear a thing. I’ve never really used Western Digital drives, though for speed I know the Raptor is the best out there.  They certainly got it right with this drive.  And the price is the same as regular 500GB hard drives, so you don’t have to pay extra for the privilege.

UPDATE: It’s come to my attention that these drives are simply 5400RPM, not some hybrid speed changer.  That said, these are still green, quiet drives.  While you might not want to use them for a system disk, they are great for anything else that would actually need 500GB, like videos/mp3/downloads/etc.

So the HDHomerun is a little bit difficult to describe, but it does a lot in a little package.  Basically this is a little device that attaches to your router and allows any computer on your network to watch and record HDTV from OTA (Over the Air) antenna or from any unencrypted HDTV channels from your cable provider using the QAM protocol.  Here in New York City, RCN and Time Warner both use QAM, which helps as OTA is less than ideal in the NYC apartment environment. (It can also connect directly to a single computer if necessary.) There is an added benefit that all of the normal, unencrypted, non-HDTV digital channels are also available for watching and recording, as well as the Digital Music Choice channels, at least on RCN. The HDHomerun has 2 antenna inputs, so you can a) watch and record 2 TV shows at once from the same or different computers,  or b) have one set of HD channels from OTA and another from QAM.

Arguably, you have to commit to a fully computer mediated AV experience for this to really be useful to you, meaning that your primary TV viewing/music listening experience is through your computers attached to LCD/Plasma displays and connected to your stereo, rather than through cable boxes.   But if you are willing to do that, you can save yourself 10-15$ a month in HDTV and cable box fees from your cable provider per month. For me, because I download so much of my TV, and have so many mp3’s on a server for playback thorughout my house, it is a no-brainer.  But there is still this reticence in peopel to use their brand new 1080p LCD/Plasmas as the awesome computer monitors they really are.

Since HDTV is the real draw here, this is a list of the HD channels I get on RCN NYC:

• CBS
• NBC
• FOX
• ABC
• CW
• My9 (formally UPN, local origination)
• PBS HD (WNET-HD)
• NGC-HD (National Geographic Channel)
• TNT
• TBS

So no Discovery HD or HDNet, as those channels are encrypted. But you also get digital versions of regular Discovery, BRavo, A&E, MTV, etc. that your normal basic cable package has, all without dealing with cable boxes.

The one caveat here is that setup can be a little bit of a pain. There are tools for mapping the channels from QAM/OTA to get them to work with various media center software out there, like Windows Media Center, GBPVR, Team Media Portal, Beyond TV, and SageTV, but it will take you an hour or so and possibly a forum post to get everything in order, with the channel guides, etc.

The technology behind this puppy is pretty cool: It basically takes the raw ATSC/QAM data and strips it of a few headers, and then transmits the raw MPEG2 TS/TP (Transport Stream/Transport Program) data at full resolution over the network, which uses a couple of megabytes a second on your router. I may have the details slightly off here, but you should get the basic idea.

This device isn;t for everyone, but if you have a little bit of the computer geek in you, then this is hard to pass up.

I’m recently new to the whole graphics tablet market, now that I’m doing more and more development with Flash.  After trying to find a decent yet recent Wacom Intuos 3 on eBay for a few weeks, I finally took another look at Newegg.com (my fav!) and found the Genius F610 Graphics Tablet.  It has a lot of the features that you would expect, and it comes in a great widescreen layout.  The size is HUGE: 6x10 inches, especially for $90 delivered (normally $105, there was a $15 off sale when I got mine). Perhaps if you are strictly a professional designer, the Wacom tablets have that little extra polish that the Genius doesn’t have, but for my purposes, and I would assume 90% of users if truth be told, the Genius F610 is more than adequate for all of your needs. If anything, this is what you should buy your kid for Christmas/Birthday if they have even a hint of artistic talent, and at the price it won’t break the bank.

I do have one problem with it: the drivers for x64 Vista don’t work with it, and according to support won’t in the near future.  This means that two features won’t work on Vista x64 in Photoshop/Flash: Pressure Sensitivity and the Macro Manager buttons. Even without these features it is a great product, but it would be better with them. Why companies are having such problems releasing 64 bit fdrivers is a testament to something, and probably not a good something, about the state of driver development on Windows. I’m not sure if the drivers work for XP x64 or not.

Features:

• 6” x 10” working area operates with widescreen laptops and monitors perfectly
• Very slim design, which should make it easier to use on a desk surface
• 1024-level pressure sensitivity shape and thickness control
• 2000 lines per inch drawing resolution (I think wacom may have >3000lpi but can’t really imagine how that would affect things)
• Has a plastic cover/overlay that should allow you to easily do tracings without damaging the original
• Works for both Mac OSX and Windows
• Let’s you use all of the Windows Tablet PC/Ink functionality, like Windows Journal (which supports pressure sensitivity without the drivers even on x64), and the Tablet PC Input Panel where you can simply write words out and insert them into your document with a very high recognition rate (better than my trained Windows Mobile PDA).
  

Common Complaints:

• Pen uses 1 AAA battery.  I don’t really see how it affects people’s drawing, but I have seen vehement complaints about the thought of needing a battery in the pen. It is still a very slim design.
• No eraser tip on the other end. This may be the best complaint about this device, that you can’t simply flip the pen and erase like you can with the Wacom.  But is that really worth another $250 dollars? A comparable Wacom tablet costs ~$350.
• x64 drivers missing, but the pen still works, just without pressure sensitivty and macros

Basically this is a great little input device for the price, and if you are on the fence about getting one for yourself or the kids, this should be the one to get for yourself or your budding artist if price is a serious issue.

I’m really looking forward to the new Logitech DiNovo Mini.  It looks absolutely awesome, perfect for media center usage, as well as light usage for surfing, or when ‘one-hand surfing’ is necessary.  While reading the reviews for it, I saw some references to not so stellar reviews for the Logitech DiNovo Edge. It isn’t perfect, but it is by far the best keyboard I’ve ever used, so I wanted to throw in my $0.02.

What I love about it:

• Style: It looks freakin’ gorgeous, especially when you turn it on or press the [FN] function key.
• Volume Control: The built-in slider volume control is easy to use and very stylish as well.  There are some complaints about the range of the volume control, but you can typical fix this with something like AutoIt if it really bothers you too much.  Note, there is an issue in Windows XP that prevented it from working as intended, but it works great in Vista (even x64).  The issue with XP is probably related to my use of SPDIF out, where the Edge’s Volume Bar only affect the Master Volume or Wave volume, I can’t remember which.
• Touchpad: The touchpad is one of the best I’ve used.  I’ve seen a lot of complaints about the touchpad, so I wanted to point out a few things.  No it isn’t a ‘multitouch’ touchpad, like you have on a MacBook, but to be honest, this is my least favorite feature of MacBooks.  I have RSS (repetitive stress syndrome) in my wrists, which prevents me from using a mouse, so touchpad is the only way to go for me. 
  

I’ve used Cirque touchpad products in the past, and while they general make a nice touch area, the rest of it is garbage.  The drivers have typically been terrible, locking up the mouse, etc. across numerous devices.  My last USB Cirque they finally got right in the driver arena, but the physical pad itself was the cheapest thing ever, when before the hardware had always been the one saving grace.  This thing had sharp edges, horrible button layout, and generally required me to use a dremel and adhesive-backed foam to make it anywhere approaching comfortable.

Where the Edge really shines is in scrolling.  I haven’t seen much mention of this, but basically you just start stroking (hehe) your thumb in a circular motion clockwise and you start scrolling down, and you can keep doing this indefintely.  You can pause scrolling and, without lifting your finger, continue, or start going the other way, no matter where on the pad your finger happens to be at that time.  With other ‘side scroll areas’ on other devices, you have to lift up your finger at a certain point and start scrolling again, etc.  And don’t get me start on how much better this is than the MacBook’s two finger scrolling. OK, fine, now you’ve got me started…1) it takes 2 fingers! 2) It takes many strokes to get where you need to be in a large document, 3) TWO FREAKING FINGERS! Twirling a single thumb kicks two fingers ass (insert ‘bowling’/’pink-stink’ joke here).

I’ve seen complaints about the Edge having a ‘useless’ touchpad which makes it larger than it needs to be for a ‘compact’-type keyboard, and lack of numeric pad.  Apparently, they weren’t aware that there was a specific DiNovo product designed for them: diNovo™ Media Desktop® Laser. I’ve also seen complaints about not being able to get the cursor to move far enough.  If you set acceleration to at least ‘low’ in the SetPoint software you shouldn’t have any issues with getting the cursor to go across a 1920x1080 screen in one swipe.  It would be nice if it worked without acceleration, but it does take 2-3 swipes if acceleration is turned off.  

• Built-in CAPSLOCK disable.  I’m simply not a touch-typist, and CAPSLOCK is my bane.
• Lithium-ion Rechargeable battery built-in.  For heavy users like me, the charge only lasts 5-7 days on average, but gives plenty of warning before going out, and you can just toss it on the stand for 10 minutes and use it for another few hours if needed.
• Key action is very nice.
  

There is room for improvement:

• The charger is nice, but it would be more functional to be able to have a way to charge it that wasn’t vertical, so you could use it while it was charging.  Not a huge deal, since you can charge it for like 10 minutes and get a few more hours out of it.
• The SetPoint software could use some more customization options, with setting buttons, etc., or setting the Volume Bar to a different mixer channel, for instance. The software looks like it was designed by a kindergartner.
• It would nice to have more easily accessible multimedia keys without having to press [FN].  But this is a flaw in Windows Media Center as well, not being able to set keys, etc.  The fact that space bar isn’t pause/play is ridiculous.
• It’s a little heavy the way I use it.  I have sort of an unorthodox work environment, namely my bed, so it can get a little heavy trying to hold it at times when I’m moving around trying to get comfortable, which is one reason I’m looking forward to the Mini as a second keyboard.
  
• It seems like there was a little bit of a settling in period for me, where the keyboard would stop responding, etc. when I first got it.  But after the first couple of days,  I had very few issues.
• Slightly odd key placement  for delete, home and end keys.  I want Home and End to be on top of each other, but they aren’t here. 
  
• OMG it gets fingerprints on the finish…who cares?
  

 So all in all, the Edge is really a solid all around keyboard, and utterly stylish. Its $160ish street price is a little hefty, but if you are looking for the best keyboard touchpad combo out there, then look no further. I’d given up on wireless keyboards before the Edge, due to battery frustrations, but the Edge has brought me back with a vengence.