rebelpeon.com

Category: electronics

  • Apple New Announcements

    Last week they announced the Video iPod.  I personally have nothing against it.  However, today, Apple made some announcements about new PowerBooks and PowerMacs.  It’s today’s announcement that really bothers me, specifically the new “quad” processor PowerMac.  Normally, I’d be all about it, it sounds like a beast.  I’m not even going to talk about anything else from here on out.  I just want to show “the people” how overpriced Apple products truly are, but first, some background.

    I had mentioned my home setup at home to a coworkers before.  It’s nothing really that great hardware wise, but it’s more how I utilize it, and the price I got it when it was new.  Anyways, I’ve got VMWare ESX server installed on it which allows me to run multiple “virtual” machines on top of the one machine.  This way I can have a machine dedicated to specific tasks, instead of everything on one.  Obviously this helps for when something goes wrong.  Now, everything doesn’t go down if I accidentally mess something up. 

    Anyways, he realized how great of an idea this was, so he wanted to get a server machine up and running that could do the same thing.  Well, he’s a developer, so he didn’t really know what to look for, so I priced out a machine for him.  Basically I priced him out a beast of a machine for $2500.  The specs of it are listed below.

    Supermicro H8DAE ($356)
    One Dual Core Opteron 265 ($728)
    4GB PC-3200 Reg ECC RAM ($516)
    MegaRAID 150-4 SATA Card ($235)
    3 Seagate 200GB SATA Drives in RAID 5 for 400GB of redundant space ($327)
    Case with 645W PSU ($266)

    Now that, plus a plain CD-ROM drive and floppy comes to just under $2500.  Now, lets look at the Apple Store to see what you get with their “quad” machine for $3300. 

    Two dual-core G5 Processors
    512MB 533 DDR2 NON-ECC RAM
    250GB Harddrive (not redundant and not on dedicated hardware controller)
    Dual Layer 16x DVD Burner
    NVIDIA GeForce 6600 256MB Video Card

    Shall we compare the differences?  Yes, we shall.

    If I were to get my machine up to all the specs listed on the mac (without reducing any of the components), I’d have to add another processor (+$728), add a dual layer DVD burner (worst case +$100), and add a video card (+$110).  Let’s see, adding that all up gets us to $3404.  Shoot, just over what the PowerMac costs.

    But wait, let’s do a similar thing for the PowerMac.

    We’d have to add 4 1GB ECC Dimms (+$1500), and increase the harddrive space, oh wait, they don’t have a redundant solution, so we’ll just go with the 500GB option they offer, even though it’s insanely inferior (+$500).  After adding on those, we’re at $5099. 

    Wow, for a whole 1.5 grand less, you can have a superior machine.  That’s really all I wanted to show.

  • iPod Nano

    Well, I’ve been wanting to buy something for my walk/ride to work in the morning.  At first I was tempted to just get a miniSD card for my phone, but I never really went through with that, especially since 1GB miniSD cards are expensive and hard to come by. 

    And then we all saw the release of the iPod Nano.  I definitely admired the size and cost of the device, but I wanted to see it in person.  So, on Friday, me and a couple of guys from work headed to the Apple store to check out this new iPod. 

    What’s funny is that they didn’t even have any on the floor.  The only way you knew it exists was because a floor salesman was carrying one around showing it off.  We were all impressed with the size and the screen.  However, I was really grooving the black one online, and the guy was showing off a white one.  I asked if he had 4GB black ones, and sure enough, he said they had all of the in stock.

    One of the guys bought a 4GB white one for his wife, and I asked about the 4GB black ones.  The guy at the checkout said they didn’t have 4GB black ones.  Well, I wasn’t going to settle for something that wasn’t even what I really wanted.  I mean, I’ve waited this long.  Turns out they did have one, so, well, I bought one. 

    The thing is awesome.  It shows up as a removable harddrive, has an awesome screen, and the sound quality is pretty darn good (for mp3s).  However, iTunes, sucks.  I’ve got around 55GB of mp3s, and they’re stored on a network attached storage device.  I had some time on my hands, so I decided to add all of these mp3s to iTunes library.  Wow, was that a mistake.  First of all, it took forever, and then to select songs, or even to sync a CD to the iPod, it took forever. 

    I’m looking at anapod to use with it.  At least I can use drag and drop, and even have a shell explorer “send to.”  Plus, I can actually sync albums easily, unlike with iTunes.  I can tell that iTunes is definitely built around single songs and not full albums.  It’s just a shame though, but at least there are other alternatives to it.

    Now, I just need to get it to work in my car correctly.  There are many options.  However, for the best bang for the buck, I’m looking at the VW02/PC-POD.  This way it will work with all of my radio controls (don’t have to use the iPod at all), and it charges for those long trips.  The plan would be to wire it to the center arm rest.  But that’s another purchase and project.  Maybe if I actually used my car more than 3x a month.

  • VLAN Trunking with Virtual Server 2005

    Getting VLAN trunking working on a Virtual Server 2005 host with Intel NICs can be problematic if done on host that already has Virtual Server installed.  The problem arises with the Virtual Machine Network Services that is installed on each NIC.  In order to get everything working, make sure you have the latest Intel Drivers and that you uncheck “Virtual Machine Network Services” under the NIC properties.  You can then add your VLANs that you want trunked to the card under the NIC’s properties.  The new VLANs will then appear as separate Network Connections, and each of the new Network Connections will have the Virtual Machine Network Services installed and checked.

    Now, if you don’t uncheck the “Virtual Machine Network Services”, after you add the VLANs to the NIC properties, nothing shows up.  Talk about wasting a lot of time.  Also, all of this should be done from the console session, otherwise you may or may not see the tab on the NIC properties to add VLANs.

    I hope this helps someone else out there, because there was a lot of time wasted on this here.

  • Pirates!

    I just want to thank Aaron for pointing me towards the awesome game, Sid Meier’s Pirates! It’s so basic, yet so incredibly fun.  In other news, it’s coming out for Xbox, well, today.  So, go rent it or something.  And if you don’t have an Xbox yet, shame on you.

  • Good Time to be a Gamer

    As many people know, this week is E3.  This means, that all the soon to be released stuff gets previewed this week.  The most notable stuff that’s come out in the last few days is the Xbox 360, and the PS3.  Nintendo has released some stuff on the Revolution, but nothing to the extent of Microsoft and Sony.

    Needless to say these next gen consoles are going to rock.  Microsoft has finally realized what the original Xbox should’ve been (and actually almost is with xbmc).  Sony, has, at least on paper, produced a machine that seems unheard of with respect to hardware.

    Personally, I’m looking forward to the 360 more than the ps3.  Yeah, the ps3 seems to have the edge with hardware specs, but who knows if that will really mean anything, plus it’s coming out after the xbox.  The things I really am looking forward to the 360 are the multimedia hub aspect to it, because, frankly, that’s pretty much all I use my xbox for right now.  However, the dual HD outputs and the ability to have 7 wireless controllers on the ps3 entices me also.

    I guess it all comes back to the title…it’s a good time to be a gamer.

  • PIO Mode

    I bought a DVD burner recently, and that has been my primary burner in my new Dell machine.  However, just the other day, I realized it doesn’t have the ability to burn from cue files.  This, unfortunately, is a problem, since that’s how I backup all my CDs with flac.  Thankfully, my trusty old LiteOn 52x burner that I got for like $20 after rebate does. 

    So, I throw in the LiteOn in addition to the DVD burner, and start burning.  However, during the burn process my computer starts acting very slow.  Thankfully, I know that the problem is that the burner is in PIO Mode.  Usually, this is an easy fix; you just go into device manager, and then hit up the disk controller and change the pull down from PIO Mode Only to DMA Mode if Available under advanced settings.  I do this, restart, and STILL in PIO Mode.

    Now, I know that this LiteOn works in DMA mode, because that’s the way it used to be in my old machine.  So I check out google, and one of the first links I get to talks about enabling the drives in BIOS.  It also mentions seeing if there are events in the logs about it timing out in DMA mode.  Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case, so BIOS here we come.

    Now, this seems a bit odd.  I mean, if it’s not enabled in BIOS, how the hell can Windows even see the drive at all?  Well, I figure it’s worth a shot.  I head into BIOS, and sure enough it’s disabled.  I enable it, boot back into Windows, and low and behold, works like a charm.  This may also explain why the DVD burner was having such a hard time while the CDROM drive the machine came with was plugged in too.

    I guess you do learn something new every day.

  • Bluetooth and MPx220

    Well, I finally had the time and got around to setting up syncing my phone via Bluetooth and Activesync this evening.  Amazingly it wasn’t all that hard (contrary to many website posts I’ve seen about it).  Hell, I even bought a generic Bluetooth key off ebay. 

    So, now when I come home, I just have to tell the phone to sync, and then it’ll keep sync’ed while I stay around the house (I got the 100m bluetooth key, so I doubt I’ll be moving more than 300ft away from my main machine).  Granted, there’s still a few more things I want, like it actually syncing to the Exchange Server, instead of my desktop, but I figure that this is working well right now.  It’ll be fun to play with for awhile.

  • XBox Power Cable Revisited

    I actually received my replacement xbox power cable about 2 weeks ago, but I just haven’t gotten around to posting about it.  I have no idea what got into me, but I’ve been supremely lazy.  Anyways, the reason I even mention it, is because it came with a manual.  That’s right, a power cord with a manual.  What has the world come to?  I suppose I could be thankful, since I could’ve been sent the ginormous cord.

    Well, apparently, even the new power cords aren’t doing what they were initially planned to do.  Here’s a shocker, since the problem seems to be the actual solder jobs in the power supplies.  Not quite sure how a power cord could alleviate that problem, but then again, I’m no Microsoft engineer.

  • Cell Phone

    Anybody that’s trying to call my cell, don’t bother.  I just ordered an MPx220 from buy.com, and since I’m porting the number, my current phone is essentially dead.  When I attempt to place a call I get, essentially, the operator saying I need to supply a credit card, calling card, or I can place a collect call.  Honestly, I never knew that the cell phones would work that way.  I don’t know why they wouldn’t, but it never dawned on me.

    Good thing I don’t use my phone that much anyways.  Oh, and I’m donating my old phone to A Woman’s Place that a friend works at.

    **Update**
    Well, I have the new phone, and it and voicemail have been setup.  Now to just figure out all the bells and whistles with this thing.  Good lord, it has about eleventy billion more options than my old one.

  • Xbox Power Cable

    Apparantly there is a recall on Xbox Power adapters.  You can read all about it at news.com.  It seems to effect US consoles sold before Oct ‘03.  Go get yourself a new cord!