Hard[OCP] is a PC hardware review site. They recently had a forum topic called show your LCD setups. Everyone posted pictures of their LCDs. Some are very standard and some are very elaborate.
Here is some of my favorites from the thread (from about page 280 to page 380).
I have a gentoo linux box that shares out a usb printer. The shared printer through Linux lets us print with only one printer in the house. I make this happen with samba and cups. It hasn’t been the best because it has quirks and problems every once and a while. A network printer would be a better solution, however cutting edge printing technology doesn’t blow my skirt up. I’ve had the same ink slave since college.
Then suddenly, my chica couldn’t print from her mac laptop. She’d print something, the printer app “HP 812c” (the name of the printer) would pop up (similar as the printer icon in the tasktray) and tell her there was an error: NT_STATUS_LOGON_FAILURE. The same thing happened with my mac a while ago but I figured it was just me. Now, she doesn’t update as often as I do and I read a post saying that people are having all kinds of problems with the smbclient and blah blah. So it’s possible that a recent update nuked her print ability, ahem, our print ability. She was our last hope. Our sole printer. Now no one can print mapquest directions and files named hee_hee.txt contianing important information like Your dumb face smells like stupid, hee hee..
Gentoo is a great OS. Linux is a great OS. But for a print server, it blows. It’s impossible to remember how to clear the queue, how to log in to administrate the printer classes and all the rest of the instructions that I had to keep in a text file to remind myself how to troubleshoot a home printer every 3 months.
I googled and googled for this NT_STATUS_LOGON_FAILURE weirdness but couldn’t find anything. I played with samba and remember doing this kind of troubleshooting 3 months ago. Why does this crap work for a while and just break?
I threw up my hands and peddled to the Apple Store and bought a Mac Mini with the intention of sharing it out with AppleTalk or rendezvous for less home-stress.
The switch was easy. I booted it up. It asked if I wanted to migrate data. I said yes and connected a firewire cable to my laptop and the mini. 50GBs later, it booted up with my wallpaper, apps, bookmarks, passwords, wireless network settings, iTunes library, startup login items … everything. Except a few apps didn’t come over right. Subethaedit, Azuerus, DiscBlaze, X-Chat Aqua all had little ? icons in the dock. I found that all of them are PowerPC apps. So I downloaded new versions and everything was fine.
Then it really started to get slow. I was running updates, installing Xcode and doing lots of stuff. The screen would lag and freeze… it ran slower than my powerbook. I ordered 2gb of DDR2 memory off of Newegg and found some instructions on how to upgrade the mini’s memory. I’ll be getting a putty knife I suppose…
I named the Mini Stormbringer, as a new Transformers namimg convention. It beats my lame Calvin & Hobbes one. All the cables were there from my docked laptop, now my laptop can roam free.
I went through my ~/Apps folder (where I throw new installs) and I deleted all my PPC apps. They run way too slow and I was finding replacements for most of them. Firefox runs brilliantly, slaying my g4. All the Apple apps run fantastic. I also found a way to span three screens with my favorite reverse KVM (Synergy). I didn’t know it could do three screens but I guess it can. My XP box is in the middle, the mini is on the left and my powerbook is on the right. It has no problem copying the clipboard from the powerbook (right) all the way to the mini’s clipboard (left) even though it’s the XP’s keyboard and OS (center) that is executing the Ctrl+C (or Apple+C).
All and all, it runs faster than my g4 but doesn’t smoke my AMD PC (fx-57). But it’s apples to oranges, Vista isn’t exactly springy on my AMD box either.
I tried running World of Warcraft on the mini and it’s an interesting experience. It’s faster than running on my crappy powerbook but it’s not too much different than playing slow-pitch on Ether. The mini has this really, really crappy video card. It’s very similar to the business machines that dell loves to sell people in corporations. The mini has an Intel 960gma card in it. It’s very close to the ever popular Intel gma945 and gma950 card as I said many companies bought in the XP SP1/2 hayday. The thing is, Vista and less so OSX really won’t love this card too much. I’m not being a fanboy here, the mini gets by just fine in the OSX world. But then you fire up a game and it really shows its colors. In the Vista world, well, that’s why Intel released the 965 chipset. You’re going to have to upgrade to a minor gaming rig (very minor) and screw that $500 dell business junk. It’s not going to cut it. The corporate world doesn’t care about video performance. And yet, here comes Vista. Better get the intel 965 next time around in that Dell box. Or, just skip Vista until SP1 and WinFS.
Anyway, whatever card is in it, it’s only slightly better than my powerbook’s ATI 9700 which is a real dog. The 960 has no video memory on it! Yeah, that’s right, it shares system memory. This is bad. This is real bad! Video memory is usually super fast. It can do all these great tricks before it hits the slow lane cpu bus. Developers know it, hardware people know it. And consumers looking to save money (like me), don’t care. You cut a corner and bam, no video performance when it comes to games.
But that’s ok. The damn machine is like a drink coaster. It’s quiet (it spins up in WoW but not even 25% what my powerbook does), it fits in a tiny space on my desk and it actually shared out my printer correctly. I hope to god I can avoid the cups.conf file and just get on with my work/play when I come home. Anyway, I’ll let you know how the memory upgrade goes. It needs it badly.
Check that iStat dashboard widget to the right. See how it picked up the icon from the harddisk? Pretty cool.
Here’s the obligatory step-back opening statement of a rant. If I was ranting about baseball, I might say “I’ve been a fan of the national pastime for 25 blah blah”. If I was ranting about poltics, I might say “Every once and a while the clowns in Washington surprise me by blah”. So without further introduction, allow me to open this rant in this weak and typical way that exhibits my inability to be a real writer or pundit.
The gamer market. An unending showcase of consumerism and popular thought. Faster, more, better. Win, frag, hi-score. With so many products, so much assumed demand and furious pace, it’s no wonder why video games have outpaced the film industry for a while. $13B or some such market figure.
I am the kettle calling the pot a lovely shade of ebony. After all, I picked up a Creative X-Fi, buying into the hype. Sure, I hear a small difference. But it’s super small and not very super cereal.
Q:I want one, where can I buy it?!
A:You can pre-order it now at www.killernic.com. We will be announcing ‘where to buy’ locations soon!Q:How much does the KillerNic cost?
A:$279.99.Q:Why does Killer NIC cost so much?
A:Lag and Latency Reduction technology is extremely expensive to make, and quantities are extremely limited. Killer was designed from the beginning for Elite gamers who want an edge…who want to win.
Ok, whatever. $280 for a NIC that magically gets rid of lag. Here’s a thought. Take that $280 and bribe your congressman to pass a law stating that Verizon must share it’s new FiOS network with federal assistance. Or maybe just pay your congressman to ignore telco bribes. Your $20 gigabit card is fine. It’s your cable and telco company that isn’t giving you 20-50mb like even lower density countries (Iceland, Norway, Sweden) are. US is far behind other places because our government is for sale.
So let it be written, let it be done. All hail the OBEY, for Microsoft won.
I bought a 360 tonight. I cracked. I wandered into Best Buy simply to pander around the DS titles and maybe check up on any GBA releases. But there they were, a bunch of 360s and the wireless controllers everywhere. I watched a demo of Rockstar’s peace-loving, non-killing Table Tennis and realized the genius of a non-violent well designed game. It screams Zen. It screams mastering a simple task to better understand your Chi. It’s introspection. Ok, fuck it. New hardware rules.
Yep. So I got PGR3 because the demo was really a lot of fun. Table Tennis and FIFA World Cup Germany 2006. I got the wireless USB network plug (and it really is just a plug) and an extra controller. Didn’t get the Core package, that’s lame. Got the charger packs for the wireless. Coolest feature:
With the wireless packs, you turn off the 360 and it charges while staying on. After charged, it shuts down. Seriously, pretty good design. What a feature, it’s pretty non-intuitive but neat, huh?
Table Tennis is very well done. The graphics are way beyond anything my TV has displayed before. It’s pretty easy to say, on par or better than my PC. The gameplay is good. Playing Pong on a next-gen console pretty funny. I guess we’re not progressing as fast as we think we are. I mean, I go out and spend $780 on a console and I play Pong.
Yes, that figure is correct. And to all the Sony nay-sayers … the 360 was $400 and the wireless NIC was $100. So add in your blueray and maybe the PS3 looks, well, damn cheap at $600. However, I will still get the PS3, and the Wii (unless marriage changes all that), we all have our vices.
Here, the charger is still charging after powering off via the controller.
Neat-o.
I played that Hexic title that ships with it, very cool that game. Casual. I dunno if I’m going to sign up for Live or not … no one I know has Live … the crowd is pretty young. We’ll see.
Politically, this purchase has been rough because my better half bought me my Xbox 1. So in her mind, I’m trashing her present. It’s been hard to argue but I’m hoping to mod my Xbox1 and turn it into something. Maybe an emu box. Besides, some games still run. Dunno what to say, I played the Xbox1, it was fun, I love her to death but tech gets ousted.
Dunno what to say, bigger and better. The Xbox1 had some major issues, display, lack of real Dolby sound (imho) and wireless controller issues (logitech). I played the hell out of ESPN and Halo 2(ergh), but yeah the Xbox was my least used console. A very … 4×4 experience. Blocky, heavy, meh.
The 360 is clear, crisp. Makes me love my TV again. The sound is great, my receiver lights up with all kinds of fancy: “Hey! I’m doing digital! Hey! I’m doing 5.1!” lights and crap. Obviously, lots of important things are going on … so I clap my hands, jump on the couch and start urinating on my facey-face. It’s fun times for all.
Tomorrow, I come home before the chica, figure out loading MP3s and blast some PGR3 with a custom soundtrack. I dunno all the details about Media Center or connecting to XP, we’ll find out.
OLED 3d googles from emagin. Here’s the quick scoop. 3d googles have never taken off. Lots of companies tried to jump on the bandwagon mid 90s in reaction to the term virtual reality, which in itself never really took off. Maybe in a reaction to lawnmower man, I dunno. Lawnmower man was in 1992? Man, I’m getting old.
There have been lots of googles in the past. There have been all sorts of little tricks to pull off the 3d effect. There are pairs that use red/blue tricks, you put on old-skool 60s style red/blue glasses and a driver makes your CRT red/blue to create the effect. There have been grayish glasses that pull of this effect with sort of polarized lenses. Nvidia (since the 67 driver releases) have been supporting 3d stereo drivers for XP to ease this process.
Ok so, there’s a few things these glasses can do:
If you go to their site you can see a demo of them. Well, it’s sort of a demo. It’s more like watching a guy where sunglasses and be magically transported off to magical lands of 1st-person action and race driving. Counter-Strike is the first game they show. Woot.
They have a great FAQ section. I can understand why. There’s lots of questions I have even beyond the ones that they have listed there.
Honestly, I was looking around online just last week wondering where all this 3d glasses stuff has left off. A lot of the products really didn’t deliver (except headaches) and it’s uncanny to see these come out.
In the video a guy comes home in a button-down shirt and plays. Obviously, they are marketing to people like me. People who want to decompress after a day’s work but have too much expendable income. :) What.
Here’s what I’m waiting on:
$900. Ah screw it. I’d rather get a intel mac mini that I don’t need. :P
TL got a Quad Core G5 today. It has 3.5gb of RAM in it and 4 cores at 2.5ghz each. That’s 10ghz of PowerPC amazingness.
After a dramatic rescue from FedEx who apparently wanted to keep it for themselves, we hooked it up to his two 24″ Dell LCDs. It was amazing. I reckon he has the best setup on the Eastern seaboard.
I know what people are thinking … what the hell does anyone need that kind of power for? Well Cubase is a hog. And this beast can push it.
TL is building a studio and he’s going to use this monster as the audio processing station. Record to a iMac and do all the heavy lifting on this thing. It’s going to rule.
We added in the 3gb dimms. The case was so nice to pull off. A really great plastic enclosure of happiness and joy.
I hope Apple doesn’t change anything. The Intel macs better rule.
Meanwhile, Apple updates go, we play around with dashboard. It smokes my powerbook even with 10.4.2 loaded. I noticed that 10.4.3 is a bit speedier on my powerbook. Don’t know if the quad core is the same, I won’t ever find out.
BECAUSE IT IS NOT MY QUAD CORE
*sob*
As god as my waitress…
Words cannot describe. 2x 24″ LCDs = 48″ = (2) 1920×1280 resolution.
This is nothing special but I’m bloggy anyway. I played the Xbox 360 at CompUSA and saw another demo at Best Buy. The one at CompUSA was running a demo disc (as was the Best Buy one) but the funny thing was it reset two times while I was trying it out. It reset probably because it was encased in plexiglass without any obvious venting. Wtf.
Overall I agree with the disabled wookie post on the 360, it’s very PC-like not really pushing any boundaries besides framerates. Although this is a large step up in the console world, I don’t think it’s going to be any kind of gaming revolution. Oops, I might have linked that last word on purpose.
Anyway. The framerates are crazy high even with all kinds of obvious shader tricks (heat mirage in the distance etc) and no doubt little boys will flock to it for crazy ultra-violent entertainment, ignoring all M 17+ stickers and blah blah blah. I’m sure to be one of these boys but probably after the hype settles down and you can actually buy one for less than $999.
It was the same old Medal of HistoryBook game playing on the demo disc. “Oh WWII! Oh the conflict! You damn kids today! Buy my mass produced media!”. The effects were neat but it wasn’t any different than FarCry, Doom3. And certainly wasn’t up to par with FEAR’s firefights. Still I longed for a keyboard and mouse because the controller was not built for first person shooters. That genre started with PCs.
It’s a step in the right direction and it’s way cheaper than a PC. I hope someone runs OSX on it one day, triple 3.2ghz PowerPC cores for $400 would be sweet.
As I said before, I was considering getting a second 2005fpw LCD to go dual head on my new rig. I was looking forward to browsing the web while doing full screen stuff. My desk was arranged in a 90 degree fashion so surfing on my laptop wasn’t really working. Dual head would be so much faster because I could just move my mouse over.
Dell had this great deal going and I got the 2005fpw for $525 with tax and shipping. Amazing.
It came in and I hooked it up to my PC to run dual head. It turned out that the new monitor didn’t have the LCD backlight bleeding going on like my first one so I swapped them around so the new one is my primary.
XP booted up, the BIOS screen, boot list and all were mirrored until XP started. Nvidia includes lots of spanning options that I didn’t see before when you have dual head going. Like, you can horizontally span (taskbar spans across both monitors) or you can just have windows extend the desktop. It was a neat setup but I kept wanting to center the two monitors directly in front of me in a V shape. I wasn’t feeling it and I rearranged the whole dealy.
I wasn’t feeling it.
The main reason I scrapped the dual head is the whole point of browsing while gaming. When I was playing World of Warcraft full screen on Screen #1 and had Firefox on Screen #2, clicking on #2 would minimize WoW whereas with Synergy it can detect a mouseover and not lose focus. It’s not a total loss as the 2005fpw gives me more desktop space than the built in 17″ screen but it’s kinda poopy. That is, until the Intel Macs come out and then I can have 3 screens like I wanted. :P Someone stop me.
So in the end, I closed my mac’s lid so that the 2nd screen is the primary and I set up synergy to run on bootup. So I can control my mac with one keyboard and mouse. It’s much better to have two compys I think.
Last night I watched Total Recall on screen2, with transparent terminal monitoring CS server in case anyone started playing while I was playing WoW, surfing etc. It was so awesome.
I was hoping to get a triple screen thing going but the laptop’s screen is set back a bit too much and I couldn’t make it work on my desk.
I’m not whining.
It was however, very awesome to get full screen Playstation2 on Screen2 and a game guide on Screen1 for example. Playing GT4 with the wheel off center might be weird however (I’m not whining).
Displays are fun as crap.
Like I need any more toys.
But let’s just ignore that for now. Mocked up placement of a second LCD. I have had mult-head at work and I miss it when I come home. Dell EPP plan is pretty sweet and my new box is rockin way past my little Mac (*cry). So why not more displays!
The Dell 24″ is sweet but I’d have to buy two of them to match. So I’ll just double my 2005fpw. Maybe.
Pictures!! (These are rough Photoshops so don’t judge)
Original Head Tasty
Nothing to say here. Least consumer option. Be happy with what you have, etc. etc. Shut the hell up and live. *cry*
Dual Head Tasty
Offset second monitor. Lose some desk space on the right hand side. Boo. Books will have to be read from the left hand side, desk lamp behind all of this.
Triple Head Tasty?
I can’t do triple head but hehehehehe. Maybe one head to the server? Meh. Overkill. :)
Or …
No doubt eight LCDs on one computer is impressive. It’s listed on Ebay. But I’d really rather spend $10k and get a dual 30″ Apple G5 rig with nearly the same resolution (Mac: 5120×1600 vs This Array: 6400 x 2400) and not nearly as much bezel action.
Plus, what computer could really drive a decent game at this resolution!?
