Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Dreamhost
It's been slow around here, I know. Since I graduated, my school-sponsored web hosting was canceled, so I spent my time huntinng for a good affordable host for crockettquest.com. The verdict is in! I'm going with DreamHost, which was recommended by a friend who was in the Engineering Entrepreneurship Program with me. Keep your eyes peeled for what I hope will be good exercise in a "web 2.0" concept home page!
Sunday, August 5, 2007
VAIO coupon
I've been slacking on getting my reviews up as I work out the details of my new design. In any case, I got a coupon for $300 off a Sony VAIO VGNSZ491N/X in addition to the $250 already marked off the price. I haven't had a chance to test this model, but I can tell you the XBRITE screen is one of the brightest, most impressive screens I've seen on a laptop. This is one of Sony's premium models, so its MSRP is pretty high without this discount. Just click here and enter coupon code VAIOSZ300. It was only supposed to be valid through the end of July, but it looks like they're extending it a few days.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Home Theater
Moving into my first single-occupancy apartment in the U.S., I soon realized that your floorplan can limit what kinds of furniture you can use. This is all fine and good, since I have no furniture save my SleepNumber bed, but I soon realized that TV placement would become a problem. I have a fireplace, which naturally becomes the focal point of the living room, and as it is at an angle, any furniture placed on the adjacent wall can easily protrude in front of the fireplace. My options are thus limited to flat panels... or so I thought.
Flat panels are actually a poor option for me because I cannot do anything to conceal the cords in an apartment. So, hanging a flat panel above the mantle would mean having cords draping as both a firehazard and an eyesore. The only way to avoid the mess, I discovered, was through a front-projection system.
Front projectors have really come down in price. The best deal I came across was the Optoma HD70 Home Theater Projector, which is designed for home theater and can display HDTV signals at 720P, projected onto the screen of your choice. So for under $1000, you can essentially grab yourself a 100" TV. There are a few catches, however. Extra costs include a screen (around $100) and a mount, which can be found on eBay
to avoid getting robbed. The mounting location for the projector should be somewhere you can string cords. (In my situation, this would still be an eye-sore, but at least you don't see it when watching a movie because it's all behind you.)
The projector is user friendly, but you have to feed it content by attaching a DVD player, cable box, etc., i.e. there is no internal TV tuner. If you really want HDTV content without paying for a TV subscription, you will have to dish out an extra $100 for an ATSC tuner for your computer, which can then be fed into the unit. If you don't want to hook your computer straight up to the projector, you can use your computer to record shows, then wirelessly synch them with an AppleTV ($399) connected to the unit.
Front projection has one additional expense for owners of Nintendo Wii. Because the "sensor bar" on the Wii must be placed at the screen, the cord is unlikely to reach all the way from the projector. (Playing Wii Tennis on 100"+ is almost the only practical & comfortable way to get 4 player action without assaulting each other by accident.) Fortunately, NO DATA is transmitted through the sensor bar cord; it is only power! Therefore, a good electrician should be able to swap the cord out for batteries, build his/her own using IR LEDs from RadioShack, or buy a Wii Wireless Sensor Bar
for around $20.
When I was about to buy the projector, however, I went into Audio Advice on Glenwood Ave in Raleigh and was blown away by their setup of a Sony 50" SXRD rear projection HDTV,only 15" deep. The slim profile makes it very usable in my floor plan (on the floor!) and has breathtaking smoothness to the image. The video processing makes standard 480i signals look great, but does introduce some lag, which means video games should either be fed through a progressive signal (which the low-end model doesn't try to enhance) or be played in the TV's "Game Mode", which turns off processing. SXRD is just Sony's brand of LCoS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon), which avoids the "rainbow affect" of DLP (Digital Light Processing), the biggest rear-projection technology competition. If you can save up, I highly recommend the SXRD units for 50" and up. Of course, you could also save by getting a refurb of last year's model KDS-50A2000.
Oh, if anybody is interested in those "Ambilight" TVs from Philips that illuminate the wall with color from the screen... you can also get decent discounts on refurbs for those direct from Philips.
Flat panels are actually a poor option for me because I cannot do anything to conceal the cords in an apartment. So, hanging a flat panel above the mantle would mean having cords draping as both a firehazard and an eyesore. The only way to avoid the mess, I discovered, was through a front-projection system.
Front projectors have really come down in price. The best deal I came across was the Optoma HD70 Home Theater Projector, which is designed for home theater and can display HDTV signals at 720P, projected onto the screen of your choice. So for under $1000, you can essentially grab yourself a 100" TV. There are a few catches, however. Extra costs include a screen (around $100) and a mount, which can be found on eBay to avoid getting robbed. The mounting location for the projector should be somewhere you can string cords. (In my situation, this would still be an eye-sore, but at least you don't see it when watching a movie because it's all behind you.)The projector is user friendly, but you have to feed it content by attaching a DVD player, cable box, etc., i.e. there is no internal TV tuner. If you really want HDTV content without paying for a TV subscription, you will have to dish out an extra $100 for an ATSC tuner for your computer, which can then be fed into the unit. If you don't want to hook your computer straight up to the projector, you can use your computer to record shows, then wirelessly synch them with an AppleTV ($399) connected to the unit.
Front projection has one additional expense for owners of Nintendo Wii. Because the "sensor bar" on the Wii must be placed at the screen, the cord is unlikely to reach all the way from the projector. (Playing Wii Tennis on 100"+ is almost the only practical & comfortable way to get 4 player action without assaulting each other by accident.) Fortunately, NO DATA is transmitted through the sensor bar cord; it is only power! Therefore, a good electrician should be able to swap the cord out for batteries, build his/her own using IR LEDs from RadioShack, or buy a Wii Wireless Sensor Bar
for around $20.When I was about to buy the projector, however, I went into Audio Advice on Glenwood Ave in Raleigh and was blown away by their setup of a Sony 50" SXRD rear projection HDTV,only 15" deep. The slim profile makes it very usable in my floor plan (on the floor!) and has breathtaking smoothness to the image. The video processing makes standard 480i signals look great, but does introduce some lag, which means video games should either be fed through a progressive signal (which the low-end model doesn't try to enhance) or be played in the TV's "Game Mode", which turns off processing. SXRD is just Sony's brand of LCoS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon), which avoids the "rainbow affect" of DLP (Digital Light Processing), the biggest rear-projection technology competition. If you can save up, I highly recommend the SXRD units for 50" and up. Of course, you could also save by getting a refurb of last year's model KDS-50A2000.Oh, if anybody is interested in those "Ambilight" TVs from Philips that illuminate the wall with color from the screen... you can also get decent discounts on refurbs for those direct from Philips.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
In the Market
The internet is revolutionizing the way new content is being published, empowering voices that have no financial interest in going public with their views. Google has bought into this "Web 2.0" craze by investing in a number of technologies that enhance online interaction, including the very blogging platform used to publish this very text. However, as more people are seeking an online identity through services that hide their true identity, such as Second Life, it appears that maintaining a simple online journal through a blog service may fall short of the idea of a "personal site" that encompasses many aspects of the blogger's desire to publish a true-to-life online identity. There are social networks, personal photo galleries, online portfolios, and a wide range of special interest forums, but these services all tend to be limited to the fields provided on some "profile" form.
So I'm taking the plunge and exploring the boundaries of "personal web site" by piecing together themed blogs, portfolios, social networks, and now, advice. I am always on the move, so it makes sense to segregate the questions raised in my journal and the answers derived in my new reviews column. I am making many transitions with my new job and apartment, and I'm eager to share the products and services I've come across.
So I'm taking the plunge and exploring the boundaries of "personal web site" by piecing together themed blogs, portfolios, social networks, and now, advice. I am always on the move, so it makes sense to segregate the questions raised in my journal and the answers derived in my new reviews column. I am making many transitions with my new job and apartment, and I'm eager to share the products and services I've come across.
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