Entries Tagged 'Reviews' ↓

Now days its really common for people to use more than one computer whether it be at work or school. Transferring files from machines is a common routine as well. With larger files now being used floppies have long been out dated and have given way to flash drives. With this new technology people started to wonder what if we could transfer more than just files. What if we could use programs straight from our keys and not have to hope that the machine you’ll be using has the right programs. The trouble with this is that most windows programs need to access the registry and create files on the hard drive so simply installing a desired program on a flash drive will not work. Some companies, most notably open source, offer portable versions of their software such as revo uninstaller and scribus, but for those companies that don’t, PortableApps.com has edited the source code to many open source programs and released them to the public. One may download their suite, which includes all their portable apps in their own auto run start menu like program, or one can download each program individually. I prefer the latter because that way I won’t have to wait for their menu to load and use up valuable cpu and memory. I don’t have all their apps, I only downloaded the ones I would use at home and at work and I plan on doing a full review on all the ones I use one at a time. The first app to will be reviewed will be Firefox portable and I will post that in the coming days.

I’m reviewing the Playstation 3 today, the 80GB Metal Gear Solid 4 Bundle, specifically, and I want to try to do something with this review. I’m going to try to review it from a technology standpoint, rather than a video game review stance. I also know that in reviewing a game console, that there is no way to fully separate video games from the review, and videogames, in this case, are important to this review, and I won’t try to completely remove them, just, like I said, try to review from more of a technology standpoint.

The Playstation 3 is very large device. I started off as a Sega Genesis player, and from there to a Nintendo follower. In comparing the PS3 to the Nintendo family, and even the Genesis, it is a very large machine. It is also very loud in comparison. The package I received it in stated that it was 7 kg (though, that is including all the wiring and Metal Gear Solid 4 that came in the box). I carefully lifted my black behemoth out of it’s packaging, scared to death that I would damage this thing that I had spent my last paycheck on. After plugging it in and getting it started, I noticed that a very warm breeze was coming out of the side of the unit. I realized that it was the unit’s cooling system, and it was just idle, sitting there in it’s menu system. It was easy to set up though, and unlike the Wii, GameCube, and 360, which all have a power unit that sits outside the ‘box’, the PS3’s power unit is contained inside, and it has just a standard black PC power cable.

As for pure technical specs; my PS3 (and all PS3s for that matter) have an IBM developed, 7-core processor, running at 3.2 GHz, which would explain how it is much like a black space heater. It has 256 MB of system RAM, and another 256 MB of VRAM. As mentioned earlier, it has an 80 GB HDD.

The PS3’s native menu was a bit, overwhelming to say the least. It has more options than you can shake the proverbial stick at. It took a bit of getting used to, and I’m not sure that I’m fully comfortable with it yet. That being said, it has an internet browser built into the menu system, and Stanford’s Folding@home pre-installed. The first of which, the browser, works, however, I can’t say that I like it all that much, it has a very confusing control system, and it’s a bit awkward to type in letters using the PS3 controller, especially when those URLs get very long. As a comparison, I have the Opera-based Wii browser, which although is $5 extra on top of the Wii’s price, is far far better, despite the Wii’s lower overall technical power, plus the nature of the Wii’s controller makes it much easier to enter information, even if it is by the ‘hunt and peck’ method. I guess I could plug in a USB keyboard into the PS3 to type in faster, but that seems like adding more unnecessary price to an already expensive machine. The Folding@home, however, is an amazing piece of software, and beautifully done. Though I still have a minor gripe or two with it. First the good: Besides having a beautiful overlay, showing active Folding@home global PS3 network, it allows you to play music, stored on the hard drive, while it shows it’s animations. It’s also aiding a very good cause. My minor gripes with it are that you cannot play anything, or do anything else while the software is running. It would be great to be able to play Playstation 1 and 2 games while F@h is running in the background, but it will not allow that functionality. I doubt, that even with software emulation, that a PS1 or 2 game takes all 7 cores to run. But maybe F@h does, and that’s why it won’t allow it, I don’t know.

The PS3 also has a store, which you can download software from. In doing my research, it apparently used to be a browser-based store, and was recently changed over to running as an application based store. It has a clean interface, but I have one major gripe with it. The Playstation 3’s store, and occasionally other parts of it’s menu system, have an itty-bitty, nasty to read text. I believe, in all honesty, that it was designed for an HDTV display. This leads me to the assumption that the Sony assumes that you have and are playing the Playstation 3 on an HDTV, which is odd since they only give you the standard RCA cables in the box, the component cables are sold separately. I don’t have an HDTV, I can’t afford one, especially after buying a PS3. I am quite vexed about this, but I don’t know what else to say, other than I wish that they didn’t assume that I’m ultra wealthy. I’d like to point the reader back to the middle of the 3^rd paragraph where I state that I spent an entire month’s paycheck on it. Anyway, as I look back on my review so far, I notice that I’ve yet to say anything really good about the PS3, and that makes me think that readers are thinking, ‘Why the heck did you buy it if all you can do is complain about it?’, I want to change the tone of my review from here on out.

This bundle includes a DualShock 3 controller. The first PS3 controller to have rumble feature. It has a good weight and feel, but I’m still getting used to the whole ‘Square Circle Triangle’ thing. And SIXAXIS is crap. Completely worthless, why Sony, why? But, that being said, I also love the fact that it’s wireless, and they give you a USB cable to charge it on the PS3. I believe that the 360 does the same thing, and it’s nice to see a company do a rechargeable controller (I’m looking at you Nintendo).

I have also popped in MGS 4, which after installing (which was a bit weird, installing a console game), I played. It is amazing, the detail level, even on my old analog color TV, is incredible. In the opening sequence, I couldn’t tell that the images in the background were digitally created, I won’t say that they looked real, they were real, and I had to keep telling my brain that this wasn’t real, because it couldn’t tell the difference.

And finally, anyone who’s walked into a Best Buy or other big electronics retailer I’m sure have seen the beauty of Blue-Ray disks. They are absolutely incredible. The PS3 is a Blue-Ray player, and it’s game disks are the same format. Blue-Ray has won the so-called ‘format war’, and the PS3 is a fair priced Blue-Ray player, on top of an extremely powerful console, with potential literally oozing from the same pores as it uses to warm your home in winter. It is the only console(I’m not counting PC) that can output to 1080p (provided that you have a HDTV capable of it, he says as he shakes his fist at Sony). And overall, the PS3 is an incredible piece of technology and hardware. And I like it, quite a bit. Aside from the issues that it has, including, quite possibly it’s biggest flaw, it’s prohibitive price point, I would recommend it as a piece of beautiful engineering.

I got this some time ago but forgot about it until last night, when I was playing Counterstrike: Source with a few buddies (including Evan). With voice chatting becoming a popular feature being added into online games (and ventrilo servers making up for those that don’t), the gamer is finding more and more reasons to jump on the bandwagon and get a headset. While I am biding my time until I can get a nice wireless one, I was in Gamestop around January and came across this gaming headset for about 20 bucks. Features include 6 ft. cable, easy-access volume control on the cord, behind-the-head grip, fold-up microphone for storage, and no setup required. Microphone requires no preliminary setup. Decent sound quality for the price, and the microphone’s pickup quality is actually quite nice for the price. The behind-the-head look is very stylish , though if you wear them for an extended periods of time they (for lack of a better term) feel like they chafe the ears since, like all related styles of earphones, pinch the ears to stay on. Overall a great little portable headset if you feel the need to give in and try one out for yourself.

although I didn’t order it from there, I found a link to the headset at newegg.com here.

Keep your beverage cool while you’re AFK.

I was very excited to finally receive this little USB cooler today. It took less than a week to travel from their offices on the east coast to over here in Oregon. I ran up and plugged it into my computer so that I could test it out to its fullest potential. Now, I’m not going to say that this was the best item I’ve purchased from ThinkGeek.com because it has its fair share of problems.

Don’t get me wrong, this product is very magnificent and stylish. It is very easy to install (just plug it in) and it provides an excellent cooling system that feels cool to the touch almost immediately; however, there were some key things that were missing from it that should have been added. These include:

• No On/Off switch - I guess this isn’t the worst problem in the world, but it would be nice to be able to turn it off while I’m not using it without having to resort to unplugging it.
• It isn’t tall enough - The cooler only fits 12oz cans. It’d be really nice if I could fit a Rockstar or Amp into it.
• The USB cord is short - This isn’t a problem for me, but I’d imagine for those who wish to put it more than 4 feet away from their computer, it would be.

But hey, for 15 dollars, I can easily overlook those issues.

I suggest you head on over to ThinkGeek.com and get one for yourself. I have a Sprite cooling in mine right now. :-)

A good majority of you reading this are fellow geeks like myself. Well geeks, if you feel like your wardrobe is lacking a sense of your geeky personality then fret no more! thinkgeek.com once again has provided me an answer to that very dilemma with a shirt that is the epitome of geek fashion (and function).

I just bought their wi-fi detector t-shirt, and I must say, it is quite rad. The shirt itself is merely a black t-shirt with a velcro patch in the center, but it comes with a decal that, as the product name states, detects wi-fi signals around you in real-time. Thats right, without busting out your laptop, you can merely glance at your shirt to see if the connection is strong enough to get online and show that video to your friends you’ve been raving about. How awesome is that? the answer is very awesome, my friend. The first day I wore it to school I got nothing short of amazed looks and responses from everyone :-) Awesome way to make yourself stand out! Other stylish electronic shirts the have include the T-qualizer shirt(shirt with a sound equalizer board that displays nearby ambient sounds and noises).

the shirt itself is listed on their site at $29.99. to view the t-shirt itself, click here.

3D Caffeine Molecule LED Keychain is a big let-down.

This product has to be one of the worst built that I’ve ever purchased from ThinkGeek.com. Usually, they’re great at providing excellent products, but with this, they really let me down.

I had purchased two of these little gadgets. One for me, and one for my girlfriend. At first I loved it, especially since I’m a huge caffeine fanatic. It came in a small box with the batteries pre-installed. When you press down on a button on the side, the three-dimensional etched molecule lit up in bright blue brilliance. The keychain itself seemed to be well built.

One problem, after two days of using it, the keychain broke. I was of course, disappointed, but at least my girlfriend’s was still functional. Well, at least for the time-being. Shortly after, perhaps a week or two, her 3D Caffeine Molecule LED Keychain broke as well, in the exact same fashion.

There seems to be a problem with it when you remove the batteries from it, because it was at that point that neither of us could get it to turn back on.

But hey, at least it still looks cool. Don’t buy this product unless you don’t mind having it break on you. Or unless you don’t mind ever removing the batteries.

This phone is the pinnacle of ThinkGeek.com’s collection of cool.

I recently was given one of these as a birthday gift (April 29), and what a gift it is. Even though I’m only 20, I still enjoy those old rotary-dial phones. It was great to pull this out of the box and find it to be such a great resemblance of the original. They even did a decent job at making it weigh the same. One thing that was different, though, was that it wasn’t attached to a rotary phone!

The only thing that aggravated me was that I had to wait 6 hours before I could use it in order to give it enough time to charge, which was a problem because I was really excited to try it out.

Finally, once it had charged (via USB from my computer), I paired it with my great LG VX8300 by using the PIN 0000, and then I was ready to start chatting like it was late 1949.

This phone is great for casual use around the house. I wouldn’t consider it practical for walking around with, but if you’re looking for attention, I’m sure you’d get plenty of it from this device.

To answer and hang up, there is a small white button on the bottom of the receiver that you press. Also, by holding it, it toggles the power. I was very happy to find out that the charging port is a standard Mini-B USB connector. If you don’t have a mini-b to standard usb cable lying around, don’t worry - it gives you one for free.

I’m very happy that I received this gift from my girlfriend, Alysse. She obviously knows me very well. Now all I need is for somebody to call me so that I can use it more often. :-)

This product can be found at:

While SDD’s seem to be the new big thing in cutting-edge data storage, they still have yet to become a solid competitor to HDD’s (Hard Disk Drive) in the market in terms of price-to-storage space. While I usually favor the more cutting-edge technology, this 320GB Seagate Barracuda Hard Drive really restored my faith on them in several ways. Apart from an amazing price offered by Newegg.com as usual (only about 90 bucks!), the drive uses an interesting piece of technology that is revitalizing (if only briefly) the HDD market known as perpendicular recording. For those with an interest in computer hardware, click the link. Otherwise, its basically a newfound way to cram data ever-so-tighter onto the disk space and in an even more efficient manner.

As for my personal opinion about it, I have been using it for about 6 months, and I must say it has far surpassed my expectations. Quiet as a mouse, runs much cooler than I imagined, and with a reliability comparable to the old family dog (based on my past experiences with hard drives from the same series for about 10 years), it was one of the most amazing purchases I have made off that site.

NOTE: the exact deal I got on the drive is not availible anymore, but the same drive can be found here.

Wow, this has to be the cheapest digital photo frame I’ve ever seen for at about 165 dollars. With a 10.4 inch TFT LCD screen,
COBY Digital Photo Frame boasts a 800 x 600 resolution and a 400:1 aspect ratio.

It supports a plethora of various media types, such as SD, MMC, and most importantly to me, USB flash drive.

It supports JPEG images up to 12 megapixels. I don’t know anybody who would actually be able to use the full potential, but at least it can be used for bragging rights. It also supports movie files such as MPG.

What I find interesting about it is that it also doubles as an MP3 player. I’m not sure whether or not it comes with a remote control, but I’d hope it does. I do, however, know that it can be hooked up to a home theater.

Of course, I know that not all of us can afford to spend 165 dollars, so for 30 dollars cheaper, you can get the
Mustek 9.5″ Digital Photo Frame that’s LCD screen is just over 1 inch smaller. You also don’t get the buit-in MP3 player support.

Unfortunately, neither of these have any reviews on the site that they’re being sold yet. If you own either of these products, please contact me so that I can share your review with everybody else.

I am a fan of space. I have more hard drives and external storage systems than I am likely to ever use - but whoever said I shouldn’t get more?

The other day, I purchased yet another network based storage system, none other than the LaCie 500GB Ethernet Disk mini w/ USB 2.0, via thenerds.net. I have never been happier with any network storage drive than this one!

With support for 10/100/1000 MB/s (up to a Gigabit), it works excellent on any network and interfaces with all kinds of protocols - FTP, SMB (for Windows & Linux), AFP (Mac) - even it’s own built-in HTTP interface for anyone else who needs to access it.
LaCie also provides special backup software for certain OSes - you can schedule backups on your computer and they’ll automatically be transferred to the drive!

For those who can’t (or don’t want to) plug this baby directly into their network, there is always the USB 2.0 option - in which it will act the same as it does as if it were on the network directly.

Definitely a must buy for anyone who is in need of more storage space, or a place to stream and share your music with your friends and family.