Archive for September, 2007
Housing Long Term
Sunday, September 30th, 2007
Based on past experience, it seems very reasonable to think that we’re only in the very early stages of a many-year-long price correction. Don’t think about the housing market turning around in 6 months, or even in a year or two; I’d suggest that you think about it gradually falling and leveling off over the course of the next 5-7 years or so. So be patient.
The post inlcudes some good historical price appreciation depreciation graphs that put things in perspective.
Halo 3 Update
Saturday, September 29th, 2007
The halls of Quake, seek not. A game of skill, Halo is, young Obiwan.
Halo 3 Synopsis
Saturday, September 29th, 2007
Shoot shoot shoot die. Restart. Shoot die. Restart. Shoot shoot shoot die. Restart. Shoot die. Restart. Die. Restart. Die. Restart. Shoot die. Restart. Shoot shoot shoot die. Restart. Shoot die. Restart. Die. Restart. Shoot shoot shoot shoot die. Restart. Ad nauseam. I assume at some point this becomes a fun game to play? So far however, it’s, well, repetitive, if nothing else. The game has merits, no doubt. It’s not Quake 3 – not even close. I’ll go into that in a future review, once I learn how to survive more than ten seconds of this game. Where the heck is the easy setting in this thing? 
802.11
Friday, September 28th, 2007
Wireless networking is cool. I love it when technology just works.
Finally – Vista Media Center Extenders Arrive
Thursday, September 27th, 2007
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The two dedicated units on the right (top: the new LinkSys DMA 2100, bottom: D-Link DSM-750) aren’t as sexy as a 360, Slingbox or Apple TV, but hiding little black boxes behind TV’s isn’t exactly a deal killer AFAIC, and compared to the competition, Vista Media Center makes up for any design shortcomings in features.
With any of these little boxes you can access the content on a Vista desktop or laptop within wireless range, including content available through services like Amazon Unbox, Movielink, Vongo, and Wal-Mart. (You can also stream ripped DVDs from your desktop if you know what you’re doing.) Media Center also makes available content through a host of custom media channels from services like NPR, XM Satellite Radio, Yahoo, TLC, Comedy Central, Showtime, Discovery, Fox Sports, Live365, MTV, and MSN. I’ve been using some of these on a fairly regular basis, especially NPR to listen to All Things Considered, Live365 channels, and Discovery shows. (I’ve been unimpressed with some, like Showtime, which is basically a content portal selling the same Showtime shows you can find on Unbox.)
Media Center also supports extensibility, so there are a host of 3rd party add-ons you can run which supply additional information and functionality. (I like the local weather information extension.) All of these little add-ons install on your Vista desktop, which then show up in the main interface through the extender on your television. You can also hook your desktop up to your cable signal and use that to stream TV all around your house. I’ve been experimenting with this lately except due to the lack of 802.11n support on the 360 wireless adapter, I’ve had to hold off switching from Tivo to this setup. Which brings up an important point – streaming Hi-Def content via. Vista Media Center to your living room requires a 802.11n router. There’s no question about that. Microsoft recommends you ‘upgrade’ your 802.11 network spec A, but that’s really not an option considering A routers aren’t commonly available, and A spec wireless really doesn’t solve the bandwidth problem anyway. Microsoft really needs to release an 802.11n adapter for the 360. For the life of me I can’t understand why that’s not out yet. Thankfully both of the above stand-alone extenders support 802.11n.
I’ll probably pick up the LinkSys unit once they get released. Hopefully the retail price ends up a little lower than the ESRP, which is currently around $300.00. That’s a bit too high considering you can buy an XBox 360 for less. I’m wondering about the dimensions, because if it’s small enough, I might be able to use it in my kitchen, and it will definitely work in my bedroom. Sweet! I’ve been waiting for these to come out for ages, it’s about time.
Microsoft has a nice overview of Media Center and both of these new devices here.
What The Duce?
Thursday, September 27th, 2007
How the heck did an ailing PC maker from North Dakota raise the bar and compete head-to-head with Cuportino in one shot? Technology blog Gizmodo seems equally perplexed. There are some killer features and design in this thing, including –
- Touch sensitive wireless scroll mouse
- Space for dual HDD drive slots in back
- Screen tilt?!?? Weighted balance, thanks to a low center of gravity.
- Slick, shinny black Vista media center remote included
- NTSC TV Tuner included
- Built-in speakers and mic
- Integrated 802.11a/b/g/n out of the box
- Seamless 19″ display
Coming soon to a Best Buy near you. Visit Gizmodo for the full unboxing. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not convinced there’s a huge market for all-in-ones. Laptops have really replaced the desktop PC as the form factor of choice. So it’ll be interesting to see how this pc effects Gateway’s numbers over time. They also need to learn how to sell it, having iut in Best Buy is a huge step, but I think selling pcs like this as more than just novelties requires consumer level education through advertising.
The War So Far
Thursday, September 27th, 2007
So far I’m enjoying it. A lot of wartime footage I doubt any of us have seen much of, and great detail on the various operations and general march of the war, combined with the excellent back home story. I do have one criticism though, while there’s a lot of detail which I appreciate, I would have liked to hear more about the Axis side, their strategy, and their reactions to what we were doing, winning or losing. Other than that it’s been great.
Other misc. observations – I had no idea the Japanese were so cruel to our POW’s. I had seen at least one PBS special on some of the things that went on in the pacific, but after this I’m amazed at the level of cruelty they displayed overall. On the American internment camps, I had known about that for some time. My father told me about it when I was a kid when I asked him about an old scientific slide rule he kept (which currently sits in front of me on my desk). The story goes a Japanese American chemist my father worked with was being shipped off, and he gave the rule to my father to hold onto until they “met again” in the future. That never happened, so now it sits here in front of me as a small reminder of how far we’ve come technologically. For those curious it was made by “Keuffel and Esser Co. N.Y.” and is quite nice, and still works – it’s made of a waxed cherry wood, with a shiny off white lacquer finish where the numbers are printed. On the side it states the company had a “patent pending” on the design, which was ultimately issued to Keuffel on July 06, 1937. That makes it about 75 years old, obviously my dad kept good care of it.
Maybe someday one of the decedents of my father’s friend will read my post, get in touch, and I’ll be able to fulfill my dad’s promise of returning it to its rightful owner.
BillG Makes The Rounds
Thursday, September 27th, 2007
Bill Gates, the official king of the uber geek. No doubt smiling because he just made another bazillion dollars in 24 hours on a simple video game. If I was Gates I’d be over smoozing with the hot blonde picking up her own copy of Halo 3.
Unfortunately Destin’s diehard Halo fans didn’t get a chance to try out the game until the morning since no midnight release stores were located down here in our sleepy little beach side town. By the time I got out to a local Best Buy in the afternoon – all copies were gone. I’ll try one more time tomorrow at Best Buy and Wal-Mart before biting the bullet and ordering up a copy on Amazon. I need a copy pretty bad, I’ve burned through Bioshock now twice to get at both endings, and it’s got me jones’ing for more hard core 1st person shooter action.
Gateway One
Wednesday, September 26th, 2007
When I first heard Gateway was working on an all-in-one desktop, I thought, oh man, yeah this should be good. (not.) But all be damned, they actually came out with one very slick machine. The external casing is metal instead of plastic, something I wasn’t expecting at all, it sports a super slick looking keyboard, built-in webcam, side loading DVD, multiple input ports and some ‘striking improvements’ over other all-in-ones – according to Macnn (Isn’t that a Mac site?)
Called simply the One, the design is far sleeker than Gateway’s earlier Profile systems and fits the entire design within a single metal shell just 3.6 inches deep. The entire front face is black to hide the borders of the 19-inch widescreen LCD and blend into home decor, such as the living room. The One also builds on Apple’s minimalist emphasis: where the iMac plugs all cables directly into the back, the One feeds gigabit Ethernet, four USB ports, and AV ports to the external power adapter to take clutter away from the desk. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are standard and eliminate the need for a wired mouse or keyboard.
Looks and sounds pretty great to me. $1300.00 for the base model sporting 1.5GHz Core 2 Duo, 2MB of Ram and 320 GB hard drive. $1500.00 for a mid model and $1800.oo for the high end with a Radeon graphics card. That’s about all the info out at this point, I’ll definitely dig deeper and post back.
Overall this really great to see, if there is an upward trend in the popularity curve of design conscious all-in-one desktop pc’s, this certainly competes head-on in that space. Plus against its biggest competitor – the iMac, it offers something macs can’t compete with – Vista and Windows compatability. Good news for the PC camp for sure, assuming there’s a market.
Buy Album With 1-Click
Tuesday, September 25th, 2007
Great new service from my favorite retailer – Amazon. I am flat our amazed at the selection, which includes NBC Universal music. I honestly never felt something like this would come about.
Some key points I’ve noticed so far –
- Like Unbox, the music is well integrated into Amazon’s site, so when you shop for a CD as you normally would, anything that’s in the MP3 store will also be listed.
- Amazon’s recommendations also work, which makes it easy to find related content.
- The little downloader runs on Mac and PC. I’m kind of bummed it’s not integrated with the Unbox client, but I can see why they separated them for simplicity’s sake. The Unbox client is pretty big and takes a while to install.
- Prices are lower or equal to that of Marketplace and iTunes.
- Selection is impressive, I just don’t see how they convinced the record companies to provide this much music.
- MP3′s appear to have alum cover art embedded in the file. I’m not sure though if that’s Vista/Marketplace doing this or if it’s Amazon. Ars claims it’s in the mp3, which is pretty cool.
- Like Unbox, content quality trumps that of other online retailers at the same prices. All tracks are 256Kbps.
Resident iFan GigOM says “In short, I will be checking in with the Amazon MP3 store before spending the dollars with Apple. ”
Me too.
