I have heard the rumor but I left it at that, a rumor. Little did I know that it turns out to be true. The Phoenix Suns has traded Shaquille O'Neal to the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Suns get 2 players plus a draft pick. And the Cavs get Shaq. The Cavs were destined to go all the way. But the Orlando Magics threw a wrench in the machine and screwed things up. Originally it was going to be the Cavs vs the Celtics. But the Celtics were hurting quite badly. With Kevin Garnet out with injury, the defense isn't really up to par. Eventually the Magics got past the Celtics and soon squeezed by the Cavs to meet the Lakers.
So now Shaquille O'Neal is a Cavaliers. Will this get the Cavs back into the playoffs for 2009/2010? I hope so. But if that doesn't get them back into the playoffs, then I don't know what will.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
The Digital Evolution
So on June 12th, the analog TV age has ended. And with it, some pains and troubles started. This is of no surprise, as any transition and migration cannot go without a hitch. Having waited for so long for this to happen, I’m finally glad that the analog signal has been cut off, mostly.
And while those who use cable or satellite TV will not notice a thing, those using old fashion rabbit ears will feel the transition pain. The first is reception. Digital signals are different in how it is received and shown for your TV. You don’t simply get fuzzier images as the signal gets worse. Instead, the picture becomes more garbled with pixel blocks and weird image artifacts.
As I am one of those who are “in the know,” I have been well prepared for the DTV transition for a very long time. A converter box has been purchased early on but it was never put to use due to poor reception. But that was until it was suggested to use the big antenna that is mounted up in the attic. The connection was made and the signal quality improved significantly. Now, having seen that reception is possible quite easily even where I live, I have started to even consider jumping on the bandwagon. But therein lies the problem.
I have noted a couple of times that the TV tuner card that I have (a Hauppauge PVR-150) doesn’t work. This is due to a couple of things. One is an unknown limitation where the hardware does not work on systems with more than 4GB of RAM installed. The second is that the TV application for the hardware doesn’t exactly work very well, even though the hardware works with it.
My RSS reader picked up a little deal from a feed that I keep track of. The offer was tempting and I figure I’d give it a try. And the signal strength discovery as noted earlier has me wondering if this can work out well in the end. While the channel availability has me limited to about 4 major channels, it was enough to go through with this. After all, once a while there is a show that may be worthwhile to view using DTV. So I placed the order, a Hauppauge HVR-1600.
Originally, I did not want to pick up a new TV card, since I want to make them last for as long as I can, to maximize the value of the card. Another reason why I did not want to pick up a new card was to see if it can work well with my current setup. One of my biggest gripe is when you upgrade to a new OS, the hardware that you currently use would not work with it, either because of a certain problem or because it’s just not supported any more. It frustrates me to no end on how unsupportive some companies can be when they just don’t try to fix the problem or create a work-around of sort in order to make it work. I have seen many hardware flaws and issues and there are always work-around fixes and patches that helps the old or legacy hardware to function properly. I don’t see why they cannot do the same here.
Anyway, the hardware arrived in a day’s time, all thanks to a warehouse located out in New Jersey, so UPS Ground Shipping doesn’t feel like it’s taking forever. After getting the drivers removed and preparing the system for a new hardware, I shut the system down and swapped the card out. The system boots up and I begin installing the drivers and application. Everything went well without a problem until I tried to scan the DTV signals. The TV software either cannot do it or I have a faulty card. I tried everything, using a different cable to using a different connector. And then I fired up Windows Media Center and set up the software for the new card. And lo’ and behold, it can scan the DTV signals! Wait, the manufacturer’s own software cannot scan for DTV yet WMC can? So after WMC got the signals set up and I set the proper channel listing, I switched it over and gave it a test run. Wow...
I have seen 720p Blu-Ray movie rips of some movies and I love how clear it looks. But what amazes me is how good it looks watching live TV with it. I’ve already seen some HDTV stuff and know how good it looks. But they were all elsewhere and not at the comfort of home. Granted, there’s a difference between watching it on an actual HDTV and watching it on a computer monitor. I don’t know about you but it just looks amazing watching it. And that’s strange since I should not be all that surprised or amazed since I have already seen it before.
The remote that the card came with is nice, and appears to be the exact same thing that the other card came with. I’m not too sure if there’s any difference. But it works well with Media Center. And frankly, I think it works wonders in it. This could very well determine which version of Windows 7 I intend to purchase when it is available. But I’ll have to see on how much this will set me back first when compared to the other versions. It looks like I’ll be using Media Center a lot more now that I have it all set up.
Monday, June 08, 2009
Windows 7: WindowBlinds 7 Beta1
Well, it's bound to happen. This is one of the cool things about Stardock. They don't just make a version and let it sit and rot. They keep updating it, bringing in new features and making it work with new versions of Windows. Today, WindowBlinds 7 Beta 1 was released to ObjectDesktop subscribers. Having caught sight of the news blurb on the WinCustomize website, I fired up Impulse and had it installed. After it was done, I fired up the configuration program and notice the skin that was shown on the news page isn't included. Oh well. Let's try one of the pre-installed skins. It changed but the taskbar looked pretty messed up now. The taskbar buttons appear to be skinned correctly but some of the little Windows 7 aesthetics are now not functioning correctly. But that's to be expected, since it is, of course, a beta. Well, for the time being, I'll stick with the default Aero style for a little while longer.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Windows 7: Small details
*ahem* Okay, so I installed Adobe CS4 and it comes with a 64bit version of Photoshop CS4. I figure that I'd toy around with it for a quick minute and see how it is.
After running the installation, I find that for some whatever reason, Adobe decides that it wants to install support files related to other programs like After Effects and Premiere, when I specifically set the install to just put in Photoshop and Illustrator. I don't know why it wants that but it basically bloated my minimal install to about 2.6GB in total. I cut down as much as I could as I do not want some of the other related programs like AIR, Media Player, or Acrobat. I mean, I have no absolute need for AIR as there's nothing that would make me want to use it. And why would I really need Adobe Media Player anyway??
But one of the fancier feature to Photoshop CS4 is the use of OpenGL and the video card's GPU for rendering things on screen. I'll admit that it does make doing simple things like zoom much faster. Before, zooming also means it has to redraw the visible parts again. Anyone who have used Photoshop before would know how it does this process.
But now that it's installed, I can fiddle around with some images. And one of the first order of business is to take a few wallpapers and cram it down to size. Some of the wallpapers in my archive are large, large enough that they don't fit on my screen. So in order to make it fit and to simplify the process of telling Windows what to do for wallpapers (center, fit, or tile), I resize them to my monitor's native resolution. The good thing is that I do not have a lot of wallpapers to go through. Just enough to spice things up and make the desktop look different at least. This is perhaps one of the more interesting feature to Windows 7, the ability to automate the rotation of wallpapers. No longer do you need a 3rd party application to do this single task. Windows now does it for you. And yes, you can set it to change every X minutes or hours or whatnot.
The above desktop screenshot was taken shortly after some quick cleanup. There are certain files that I do not want visible since they're not public-safe. The wallpaper displayed here is one of many that I have selected to go through. I can hardly wait to see how the other wallpapers look when they change.
After burning off a couple of more movies onto DVDs, it seems that burning files onto DVD works as expected. I still have yet to determine if mounting a disc image works without a hitch under Windows 7. I guess I'm just being lazy about it. Then again, there isn't any image to mount in order to take a look through. With the proposed 1.50 patch to Battlefield 2, there's word that DICE/EA wants to remove the copy protection system altogether, due to the age of the game as it stands now. To me, this would be a welcome addition. All the more reason why I do not have to really test if disc mounting an image works under Windows 7.
After nearly a month of normal usage, I have little problems, issues, and quirks to deal with. Only one hardware is unused and that's my TV tuner. But the rest is working great. USB drives and hard drive enclosures work without any problem. My Logitech G5 mouse runs without a hitch. Logitech's SetPoint software doesn't seem to have any problem working with this unknown version of Windows. And Creative Labs has working drivers for their X-Fi series of cards.
What's even better? One of the issue I have when playing movies, especially with audio being played and sent out via SPDIF, is that AC-3 and DTS audio would not play smoothly no matter what configuration I was using. I do not know if it's due to the drivers being more recent, as my Vista setup was one minor version older than what's available from Creative Labs. But being able to hear the surround sound without interruption as I watched the beginning of S.W.A.T. in 1080p quality, it was a blast. But nothing would be complete without a surround sound playback of two scenes from The Matrix. That, however, will have to wait.
Another small quirk I have is trying to get the Xvid codec installed. I don't know if the codec is even working or installed correctly. ffdshow seem to work fine, as I was able to take control over Xvid decoding easily. I'll need to dig up info on this or be stumped and start asking on some forums for answer. But sadly I may end up resorting to a codec pack, which I have personally avoided for many months. Yet this particular codec pack is designed to be minimal, slim, and compatible with Windows 7 and x64.
And so the month of May comes to a close. The next month will be interesting and different. Windows 7: I am definitely getting it the moment it is out!
After running the installation, I find that for some whatever reason, Adobe decides that it wants to install support files related to other programs like After Effects and Premiere, when I specifically set the install to just put in Photoshop and Illustrator. I don't know why it wants that but it basically bloated my minimal install to about 2.6GB in total. I cut down as much as I could as I do not want some of the other related programs like AIR, Media Player, or Acrobat. I mean, I have no absolute need for AIR as there's nothing that would make me want to use it. And why would I really need Adobe Media Player anyway??
But one of the fancier feature to Photoshop CS4 is the use of OpenGL and the video card's GPU for rendering things on screen. I'll admit that it does make doing simple things like zoom much faster. Before, zooming also means it has to redraw the visible parts again. Anyone who have used Photoshop before would know how it does this process.
But now that it's installed, I can fiddle around with some images. And one of the first order of business is to take a few wallpapers and cram it down to size. Some of the wallpapers in my archive are large, large enough that they don't fit on my screen. So in order to make it fit and to simplify the process of telling Windows what to do for wallpapers (center, fit, or tile), I resize them to my monitor's native resolution. The good thing is that I do not have a lot of wallpapers to go through. Just enough to spice things up and make the desktop look different at least. This is perhaps one of the more interesting feature to Windows 7, the ability to automate the rotation of wallpapers. No longer do you need a 3rd party application to do this single task. Windows now does it for you. And yes, you can set it to change every X minutes or hours or whatnot.
The above desktop screenshot was taken shortly after some quick cleanup. There are certain files that I do not want visible since they're not public-safe. The wallpaper displayed here is one of many that I have selected to go through. I can hardly wait to see how the other wallpapers look when they change.
After burning off a couple of more movies onto DVDs, it seems that burning files onto DVD works as expected. I still have yet to determine if mounting a disc image works without a hitch under Windows 7. I guess I'm just being lazy about it. Then again, there isn't any image to mount in order to take a look through. With the proposed 1.50 patch to Battlefield 2, there's word that DICE/EA wants to remove the copy protection system altogether, due to the age of the game as it stands now. To me, this would be a welcome addition. All the more reason why I do not have to really test if disc mounting an image works under Windows 7.
After nearly a month of normal usage, I have little problems, issues, and quirks to deal with. Only one hardware is unused and that's my TV tuner. But the rest is working great. USB drives and hard drive enclosures work without any problem. My Logitech G5 mouse runs without a hitch. Logitech's SetPoint software doesn't seem to have any problem working with this unknown version of Windows. And Creative Labs has working drivers for their X-Fi series of cards.
What's even better? One of the issue I have when playing movies, especially with audio being played and sent out via SPDIF, is that AC-3 and DTS audio would not play smoothly no matter what configuration I was using. I do not know if it's due to the drivers being more recent, as my Vista setup was one minor version older than what's available from Creative Labs. But being able to hear the surround sound without interruption as I watched the beginning of S.W.A.T. in 1080p quality, it was a blast. But nothing would be complete without a surround sound playback of two scenes from The Matrix. That, however, will have to wait.
Another small quirk I have is trying to get the Xvid codec installed. I don't know if the codec is even working or installed correctly. ffdshow seem to work fine, as I was able to take control over Xvid decoding easily. I'll need to dig up info on this or be stumped and start asking on some forums for answer. But sadly I may end up resorting to a codec pack, which I have personally avoided for many months. Yet this particular codec pack is designed to be minimal, slim, and compatible with Windows 7 and x64.
And so the month of May comes to a close. The next month will be interesting and different. Windows 7: I am definitely getting it the moment it is out!
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Windows 7: It Looks Right
This took me a while as I have been doing nothing but playing Guild Wars and Call of Duty as of late. But despite this, there are a couple of things needed to archive and burn to a blank DVD. So in order to do that, I decided to install two applications: ImgBurn and Alcohol 52%.
Alcohol 52% was a trivial matter, since the backend or foundation for which the virtual drive system works with wasn't compatible or usable in Windows 7, at least at first. But a recent update to the backend now adds preliminary support for the new OS. Hopefully there will be additional support down the line. I will have to check to see if the entire virtual drive system works completely, since I have recently deleted a few disc images to free up space.
For ImgBurn, getting it to run is a simple matter. But working with it is a different story. Unlike some of the bigger and more versatile disc burning software, like CDBurnerXP or Nero, there isn't an easy-to-use interface for assembling files together for disc writing. CDBurnerXP, while being free, has a few quirks. I do not know if the developer(s) have fixed this. But I found it to be bothersome and annoying. I may give it another try when Windows 7 is finished and I acquire a copy of the final/RTM disc. Nero is perhaps the strangest out of the bunch of burning software out there. It isn't strange in that it has a weird interface. But instead the drastic change in direction from what it used to be. Years ago, Nero started out simply as a CD burning application. Not only did it has a simple and straightforward interface but it was slim and small, a necessity when you only want a single feature and want the software to do it elegantly. At the time, there were one or two other CD burning programs out there, one of which was the bloatware Easy CD Creator. Since trying out Nero, I have stuck with it for a while. But as the development for Nero continues, the software and the developers started to take aim in other matters, namely CD ripping and MP3 encoding. Later on, they started adding other features which are unnecessary. Before long, Nero has blown up into a giant software suite capable of everything except the kitchen sink.
So as of "writing," I am burning a 720p encode of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. It fits nicely in a single DVD and the software appear to work. But what surprised me is how Windows 7 displays certain things on the taskbar. For example, if you were moving/copying a bunch of files and a progress meter window shows up, the Explorer icon will turn into a progress meter of its own, enabling you to minimize all the windows and not wonder how far until the operation completes. At this time, I do not know if this is something the author of ImgBurn programmed into the software or if Windows 7 recognizes the progress meter in it. Either way, it's a nice little thing that you get and makes using Windows 7 all the more better.
The more I am using this, the more it feels like I'll be glad that I didn't splurge on getting Vista when I needed an x64 build of Windows to use all 8GB of RAM I have installed.
Alcohol 52% was a trivial matter, since the backend or foundation for which the virtual drive system works with wasn't compatible or usable in Windows 7, at least at first. But a recent update to the backend now adds preliminary support for the new OS. Hopefully there will be additional support down the line. I will have to check to see if the entire virtual drive system works completely, since I have recently deleted a few disc images to free up space.
For ImgBurn, getting it to run is a simple matter. But working with it is a different story. Unlike some of the bigger and more versatile disc burning software, like CDBurnerXP or Nero, there isn't an easy-to-use interface for assembling files together for disc writing. CDBurnerXP, while being free, has a few quirks. I do not know if the developer(s) have fixed this. But I found it to be bothersome and annoying. I may give it another try when Windows 7 is finished and I acquire a copy of the final/RTM disc. Nero is perhaps the strangest out of the bunch of burning software out there. It isn't strange in that it has a weird interface. But instead the drastic change in direction from what it used to be. Years ago, Nero started out simply as a CD burning application. Not only did it has a simple and straightforward interface but it was slim and small, a necessity when you only want a single feature and want the software to do it elegantly. At the time, there were one or two other CD burning programs out there, one of which was the bloatware Easy CD Creator. Since trying out Nero, I have stuck with it for a while. But as the development for Nero continues, the software and the developers started to take aim in other matters, namely CD ripping and MP3 encoding. Later on, they started adding other features which are unnecessary. Before long, Nero has blown up into a giant software suite capable of everything except the kitchen sink.
So as of "writing," I am burning a 720p encode of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. It fits nicely in a single DVD and the software appear to work. But what surprised me is how Windows 7 displays certain things on the taskbar. For example, if you were moving/copying a bunch of files and a progress meter window shows up, the Explorer icon will turn into a progress meter of its own, enabling you to minimize all the windows and not wonder how far until the operation completes. At this time, I do not know if this is something the author of ImgBurn programmed into the software or if Windows 7 recognizes the progress meter in it. Either way, it's a nice little thing that you get and makes using Windows 7 all the more better.
The more I am using this, the more it feels like I'll be glad that I didn't splurge on getting Vista when I needed an x64 build of Windows to use all 8GB of RAM I have installed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)