rebelpeon.com

Category: electronics

  • Weekend Nerdiness

    On Friday I got a copy of Knights of the Old Republic 2 (KotOR2).  Needless to say, the weekend has been dominated with playing it.  Amazingly enough I still haven’t finished it yet.  For those of you that didn’t play the first one on either xbox or PC, go do yourself a favor and get it.  It’s by far one of the best game I’ve ever played.  Needless to say, KotOR2 is pretty much more of the same. 

    Now, I know that a lot of you are thinking, “What?  It’s just more of the same exact game?”  Well, in a nutshell, yes.  Granted there are a few improvements, but 95% of the game is exactly the same, just with a new/continuation of the story.  What’s really nice, is that they pretty much took everything that everyone wasn’t a fan of in the first one, or stuff they wanted, and put it into the second one.  The ability to have two weapons config set and ready to go, longer gameplay, dual-bladed light sabers, more weapons, etc. 

    What’s really creepy is that it seems as if it’s using my saved games from KotOR1 to fill in the story for this one.  I’m not sure if it really is or not though, because it’s been so long since I played it, but you go to some of the same planets in both, and it’s crazy because how the story has progressed.  If you haven’t played KotOR1 yet, you really should play it first before 2, just to appreciate the way the stories blend so well together. 

    I actually never beat the first one because I got to the end boss, and since I didn’t have light saber throw, I was practically impossible (I was light side).  Then I tried to beat it again on the harder level and didn’t even get to the end boss as the dark side.  So far, I haven’t had any problems with this one, so I’m imagining it’s going to be like the first.  At least in this type of game it makes sense.  I mean, at least in the last one, you were combating the strongest being in the universe.  I suppose I shouldn’t have just been able to roll over him, but it would’ve been way cooler.

    Now, I’m just hoping that they don’t have a max cap on the level of character you can have in the new one, because if it’s anywhere near where it was in the first one, I’m about done leveling up.

  • Incredibly Frustrating Part 2

    Well, I finally got around to trying out the Automatic Document Feeder for my scanner that HP shipped, and low and behold it works.  Well, not 100%, but it works.  The only problem now is that when it’s doing duplexing some documents get stuck half way through on the second pass.  Mildly frustrating, but not nearly as much as not having a functioning document feeder at all.  I wish I could praise Motion Computing the same though.

    If the University didn’t pay for this POS laptop, I would’ve sent it back months ago.  So, the problem is that my mouse “dances” in one of the corners.  It essentially gets stuck there, bouncing around and clicking till it’s heart is content.  The only way to get it out is to take out the pen and use it.  Now, granted, it’s annoying but at least you can still use the bloody thing.  That brings us to problem two; it mysteriously going into standby.  Yes, that’s right, I’m using it, not really doing anything intensive (writing this entry for example), and the machine decides it wants to go into standby. 

    Now, being the inquisitive and helpful person that I am, I’ve been troubleshooting these two problems on my own since they first started happening.  About 2 weeks after the dancing cursor started happening, I had concluded it was solely based on heat buildup in the laptop.  It was only occurring when it was in sunlight, I was holding it, or I was doing something very intensive like running VMWare.  I sent it back to them (on their buck) to see if they could fix it.  I get it back, still does it.  I then get a call about a month or so later from Motion asking if I was still experiencing the cursor problem.  They wanted to get as much info as possible since they weren’t sure exactly what the problem was since simply replacing the digitizer didn’t work.

    During this time, I thought I’d help them out and wipe my machine to start from scratch.  Well, that’s when the lovely standby problem started rearing it’s lovely head.  Granted, it wasn’t the first time it had happened (last time I wiped it, same problem), but I somehow got it to stop before.  Needless to say, this problem makes the laptop 100% useless.  I can’t even attempt to do anything without it shutting itself off.  I narrowed it down to the machine actually overclocking itself.  Who knows why, but at times the front side bus was running more than 33Mhz faster.  Being that there’s no fans in this tablet, that couldn’t have been good.  Well, I started up another RMA for that, but also mentioned that my cursor was still doing the same thing.  They said to send it back.  This time, they didn’t offer to pay for it.

    “The motherboard may need to be checked out, it maybe defective.  I suggest you send it in again.”

    So, of course I send it back in on the 19th.  I live without the tablet for half a week and then got it back on Monday.  Played with it a bit, and it seemed to be working fine.  Well, that didn’t last long.  Standby over and over.  It makes the workday so enjoyable.  So, I start back up the email conversation, continuing on from the previous one where they said they’d check out the motherboard.

    At first I just conveyed that it was still doing it again, but this time it seemed to be regardless of what I was actually doing on the machine.  After a day of no response, I received an email.

    An RMA has been issued to you so that you can send the unit in and have it fixed by a tech.  It sounds like an issue with the motherboard and needs to be checked by a tech.  I don’t think this problem can be fixed over email, please let me know if you still want to use this RMA to send the unit in.

    What the hell?  Why are they looking at the same problem that they apparently looked at last week.  It didn’t seem right to me, so I responded.

    I just sent it in 2 fridays ago, and just got it back on Monday from an rma (9949) on this exact same problem and I was told you were going to replace the motherboard.

    “>>Shane Farris
    >>The motherboard may need to be checked out, it maybe defective.  I
    >>suggest you send it in again.”

    Now I know that this laptop is indeed overclocking itself.  I used cpu-z (http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php) the fsb is more than 50% of the time >100Mhz (and therefore the quad-pumped bus speed is greater than 400Mhz).  In fact, using cpu-z I’ve seen bus speeds ranging from 250Mhz to 750Mhz!  These speeds were noted while Outlook, Trillian, and internet explorer were open with no intensive tasks running.

    Also, I just received a phone call that there is a permanent solution to the dancing cursor problem, which I also have.  It would be great if both of these problems could be fixed the next time I send it in.  Unfortunately, I have a presentation tomorrow afternoon in which I need the tablet, so I wouldn’t be able to get it out until afterwords.  It would also be nice if you guys would pick up the shipping to you this time, especially since it looks as if nothing was done last time I sent it in.

    And their non-helpful response was then beamed back to me.

    I’m sorry I thought you didn’t send the unit in yet.  Motion has found a solution to the erratic cursor problem and can fix that for you now.  I also told them to check out the motherboard issue and see why its over clocking the bus.  Please send the tablet back to the same address using RMA number MTC10518.  Thanks

    Once again, I was going to have to pay to send back this piece of crap laptop.  At least I’d be able to kill two birds with one stone.  Granted, I’d still have to send it back on my buck to pay for their mistakes.  Well, I figured I’d give them a call and see if I could get them to at least consider it.

    Before I called, I wanted to see what they actually did on my machine last week when I sent it back.  They at least have a website where you can type in the RMA number and see what they did. 

    Symptoms 1 (SS01)POINT DEVICE FAIL
    Root Cause 1 DEFECTIVE
    Part Used 1 DIGITIZER

    WTF?!  So, they replaced the digitizer, even though that wasn’t the main problem, plus they knew it would’ve fix it.  I’m starting to fume, I figured now would be the time to call.  Called, and of course I got Shane, who I’m assuming is the guy that I’ve been dealing with, since he starts all his emails with his name (don’t you usually start letters/emails with the other persons name?).  I asked him why they replaced the digitizer last week, even though that wasn’t really the problem I sent it in about, and that they knew it wouldn’t be fixed.  He sidestepped it well and mentioned that there was a fix for the digitizer problem.  Somehow they figured it was a heat problem, and by putting a cover over the hard drive, it would solve the problem.  I wanted to hang up right then.  I’d been telling them this for months, and they finally listened.  Well, I told him that I do want that fixed, but that is not the most urgent problem, the one where my computer randomly goes to sleep is.  He said that they’d have to replace the motherboard, and I asked, “Like they were supposed to do last time?” 

    Well, finally I said that there’s no way I’m paying to send it in, since I paid last time and they didn’t fix anything.  I also informed him that they previously paid for me to send it in, the first time, when I thought they were a decent company.  He said that he could get me labels, but would have to have his manager/supervisor do it, since I would need them for tomorrow, not today. 

    Hopefully my machine does restart too many times while I’m trying to be professional and doing a presentation on and Exchange Migration.  For some reason, I’m not holding my breath.

  • Remote Controlled On/Off

    I love the Xbox, and everything it does.  However, there’s one annoying little thing that you simply can’t do, turn it on and off remotely.  Yes, I know this makes me supreme of lazy, but since it’s so tied into my Home Theater setup, it would be extremely nice if I could operate its powerstate like I do all the other components in my system. 

    If you visit Xbox-Scene, there is a tutorial on how to do it, but it requires you to find a specific chip and then program it.  Since I don’t have a programmer, that was kind of out of my league.  Of course, someone figured this would be an easy way to make a few bucks.  Welcome the XIR from CheapLPC. 

    I purchased the Pro version, because I’m ok with spending less and having to do one solder connection.  Installation was a snap; simply slide some wires into the motherboard molex connector, and solder the one point.  Granted, the one solder point was a bit awkward because of it’s location, but definitely not that hard by any stretch.  I had to reprogram the Pronto last night with the xbox remote configuration, since I currently don’t have an xbox remote.  This, unfortunately, took the vast majority of my time because I pretty much redid my whole configuration since so much had changed (no more DVD player, Colleen’s, no more Digital Cable Box).  However, the XIR preformed flawlessly, just as advertised.  I slipped the IR Receiver so it just pokes out on the front display and now when there’s a commercial or nothing on TV worth watching, I can easily flip to the xbox without having to get up to turn it on.  The thing can even turn on and off my modchip via the remote.  I just have to install a (not included) wire from it to the dreaded d0 point.  Granted, for me, there’s no real reason to have the modchip off, but who knows.

    Now all I need is some Wireless Controllers, and I’m all set.  Granted, they are already on my Amazon.com Wishlist, so here’s wishing.

  • Cell Phone Consumer

    Nick Rogers got a cell phone the other day.  He apparantly broke the antennae off his old phone, rendering it useless.  Now, both of us got our phones at the same time, two years ago.  So, naturally, since my Verizon contract is up (man, it’s been two years already?), I started thinking about getting a new phone.  Nick got the Motorola V551, which is a nice phone.  Looking through all the features I started contemplating getting a new one.

    Some background.  When I bought my Samsung a310, it was one of the more top of the line phones.  I laid down some serious change for it.  Three months later, color screens dropped like a rock in price, camera phones and downloadable/changable ringers became the norm.  I then realized that spending that much money on a phone was rediculous.  Never will I spend that much money on a phone.  Now, the V551 is only $100 after MIR, which isn’t too bad. 

    However, when Nick and I actually went to the Cingular store, I started questioning purchasing it.  I then asked about the 1000 minutes deal for $39.99, but I was told it expired on the 15th.  The deal is getting less and less a better deal.  The saleslady then told me that the current $39.99 deal was 450 minutes.  Now, this is 150 minutes more than what I currently get with Verizon, plus I’d get Rollover minutes, but I never even come close to 300 minutes as it is.  Plus, I’m not dissatisfied with Verizon.  Arg

    Well, I ended up passing on the deal.  I mean, I don’t use half the features on my current phone, and it works.  Granted, it doesn’t have all the new features, nor is it a GSM phone, but I really can’t justify spending $100 MIR for stuff that I’ll probably never use and then only getting an additional 150 minutes.

    I’m so proud of myself, showing some constraint over this.  Maybe sometime soon I’ll feel the need to upgrade.

  • Incredibly Frustrating

    I absolutely hate it when my tools to do a job don’t work.  Which makes it even worse, is when they work, then the putz out, and so on and so forth.  My work computer is doing such a thing, and being that it’s a tablet computer, there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.  Of course talking to the tech support people, isn’t very reassuring.  Granted, the support people for Motion Computing, are leaps and bounds better than the outsourced help that HP has. 

    Motion Computing follows up on problems, HP doesn’t even call you back when they say they are going to.  Even after you called them back after they forgot to the first time.  It’s so annoying.  I just want it to work.  There is a simple fix for either of these problems I’ve been having.  Send me a new one.  That way, you can either properly fix the one I sent back in, or scrap it. 

    All I want is a tool the works, consistently.  Is this so much to ask?

    **Update**
    Well, I called back HP today, since they were supposed to call be back early in the week (2nd time they didn’t call me back).  The guy on the phone told me that they could send me a new Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) (the broken part that doesn’t actually feed any documents through) that it wouldn’t work, but they were getting close to a solution to the problem.  He then has the gall to ask me if I wanted to purchase and extended warranty.  I’m like, “You guys can’t even call me back TWICE, and you expect me to send you more free money?  How about now.”  I’m then put on hold for 20 minutes while he consults with someone or something on where to go from there.  He comes back and goes through some troubleshooting steps.  Steps that the first guy I talked to went through, plus I had gone through from the HP website, and have told them ALL that I went to the website and did it.  Well, I was at work, so I’m sure you can tell how well the troubleshooting went.  Anyways, he finally gives up and says that they’re going to send me a new ADF.  Didn’t he just say that it wouldn’t do any good?!  Sigh, at least it’s better than sitting on hold.  I figure, if it works, great, if not, I’ll just get my money back.  Of course, before we hang up, he asks about the extended warranty again.  I hate crap like that.  Who in their right mind is going to say yes, after they were just on the phone for 30 minutes, and at least two-thirds of it was on hold, or waiting for the person to do something?!

  • Nerds

    So, I officially sank to a new low of nerd this week.  As everyone probably knows, Halo 2 came out yesterday.  Well, since I’m such an Xbox fanboy, I snagged it.  Now, granted, I own very few xbox games, but I figured, Halo was so quality that I had to give props to Bungie and Microsoft and make the purchase.

    Now, the reason that this has made me reach a new level of nerd, is because I didn’t just wait to get it on Tuesday or pre-order it.  Oh no, I was out on Monday night at midnight picking it up.  First stop was the EBGames on campus.  Wow, that was mistake.  I got there around 11:30 to find a line that stretched from EBGames to Follett’s (for those of you unaware, that’s about a block).  However, being the resourceful person I am, I hadn’t gone on this Halo 2 journey alone.  Instead, a coworker went to Meijers, while I went to EB.  Turns out he was the line at Meijers.  Needless to say, out to Meijers I went. 

    Now, you may be thinking to yourself, “Wow, he is a nerd,” but just wait, because the story isn’t done.  I then headed back to my apt and played till about 3am. 

    “Damn, 3am, what about work the next day?”

    Already taken care of, since I took Tuesday off to play with some friends and coworkers.  We had a projector for 2 of us, and a large screen tv for the other 2.  We also ordered a Jimmy John’s sub platter and had a good ol’ time.  It was crazy how fast the day actually passed.

    Overall, I’m very impressed with the game.  The graphics are top notch, and they added a bunch of cool stuff (like throwing someone out of a vehicle while it’s going, weilding two guns at the same time, etc).  It has definitely lived up to the hype.  Now I just need to take the time to beat it and watch all the cutscenes, since we weren’t really watching the cutscenes while playing co-op.

    Yet another game that I need to beat on the Xbox.  This past weekend, I really got into Fable as I waited on stuff being reconfigured on my server.  Good times indeed.

  • Gamecube Stuff is Gone

    Well, as of today, the last of my gamecube stuff is gone.  The broadband adapter sold today.  I just have to send it out and I’m done.  Overall, I lost $4 on the Gamecube mistake.  I’m happy with that.  The broadband adapter sold for $45 (retails for $35), the memory card sold for $24 (retails for $30), and the Phantasy Star Online game sold for $55 (I paid $45).  If only amazon.com didn’t take out such a huge chunk, I could’ve made money on the venture.  Oh well, no biggie, at least I made back all the cash I spent (minus taxes).  I’d definitely recommend using amazon.com if you’re trying to sell something, especially if amazon.com doesn’t actually sell it, but they have it listed.  That’s how I was able to get over retail value for two of the products I sold.

  • Getting Rid of the Cube

    Well, I was easily able to return the cube to best buy.  However, ebgames doesn’t take returns on cube accessories that have been opened (broadband adapter and memory card).  Plus, I accidentally disposed of the reciept for Phantasy Star Online 1 & 2, so they wouldn’t take that back either.  Talk about a bummer.  Well, off to ebay to sell them, or so I thought.

    Aaron Binford recently started selling his cd’s on amazon.com, while undercutting all the other personally sellers on there.  Turns out he’s already made close to $300.  Well, what have I got to lose?  I throw up the game, broadband adapter, and memory card on Sunday.  Today, just an hour or so ago, PSO sold for $55 ($10 more than what I bought it for, but $10 cheaper than the cheapest other seller on amazon.com).  Hopefully the other items will sell just as nicely.  One can only hope.  Now I just need to get to the post office tomorrow and get it sent off. 

    This is way better than taking a huge loss, that’s for sure 🙂

  • Gamecube Mistake

    Well, I finally got a GameCube.  Granted, the only reason I got it was because of the $100 Gift Certificate to Best Buy I received from my credit card company.  So, I bought the broadband adapater, memory card, and Phantasy Star Online for it.  I got it all hooked up and I was able to stream some of the games to the gamecube.  Most of the games worked fine, but granted, it’s a wee bit more of a hack than on the xbox.

    Now, this morning, I’m questioning my decision.  The system was free for me (minus tax), however, the other 3 things added over $100.  I think I’m going to return everything and just use the $100 Best Buy gift card to buy cd’s instead.  The nice thing about the xbox, is that I can use it for other things (i.e. streaming music to my reciever and speakers from my server upstairs), but the GameCube can only be used for games and I don’t game that much.  Once the initial fun wears off, it will just sit around collecting dust.  Heck, the xbox does that enough on it’s own.  Thankfully the xbox is easy to repackage, and I’ll just return it to Best Buy.  The other stuff (minus the game) might be a little harder, since it’s some great packaging that you have to destroy to actually get the product out. 

    Hopefully EBGames will take them back, otherwise ebay here we come!

    I guess this marks the end for the gamecube category.

  • Xbox Media Center

    I normally keep fairly up to date with releases of Xbox Media Center (xbmc), but lately I haven’t been because I found a version (the build released on January 5th) that was stable, and did everything I wanted to.  All I can say, is, DAMN!  I downloaded the latest release as of 2 days ago (the May 9th release I believe).

    First of all, they’ve gotten rid of the same skin they’ve been using as the default for a long time.  It’s not that I wasn’t a fan of the old skin, but this new one is so much more polished. 

    Second of all, the smb streaming is absolutely perfect for me.  However, that may be because of the new router that actually doesn’t reduce the speeds to the xbox to 1Mbps.  I’ll talk about my new router a little later though, because I don’t want to give it intensely glowing reviews, and then have something stupid happen a day later 🙂

    And finally, the greatest feature I think they ever could’ve added, is the addition of an http server.  Now, you may be thinking, why the hell would they do that?  Well, all I can say is, this http server allows you to control whatever xbmc is playing.  Yes, that’s right, you could essentially hook up your xbox to a reciever, speakers, and a network connection.  Granted, not all features are currently supported via the website, but you can easily add things to your queue, etc. 

    Now, the reason I think this is so damn cool, is that in my office, ever since we moved out the noisy rack, we contemplated getting some sort of jukebox setup that we could all connect to and add tracks to, etc.  This way we don’t all have to wear headphones, or have 5 different songs playing in the background.  A modded xbox is now a possible solution to our problem.  We could all add whatever songs you want to listen to to the playlist.  There are still a few things that would need to be tweaked (like deleting stuff that’s currently in the playlist, etc).  This is the exact sort of solution that I was thinking about for the office.  In fact, I had seen a similar thing at a party I had gone to a few years back at Presidential Towers.  I can’t remember the name of the company that was having the party, but they do a lot of training, and web developement.  Needless to say, they had a webapp that you could browse their music collection, and then add to the current playlist.  It was one of the cooler ideas I’ve seen for a small business/office.

    And now that xbox’s are $150, this means you can get a awesome little media center for around $200 (if you mod it yourself).  To all those with xbox’s, I say go for it because it’s so easy, and you can get so much more out of your black and green box.