Sunday, January 04, 2009
post://6159892700569416999/Peapod has taken forever to come to the area... it sucks because I would love to order my groceries online and then have them delivered. The next best thing to that is ordering online and picking them up. Well the time has come for online grocery shopping as Big Y has BigY2Go in Greenfield and Springfield (Walpole too but that's all Boston-y).
I was able to go through our entire grocery list and order. You can search, or go through by category and choose what you want in your order. The best part was that it not only shows you the sales, but you can sort by unit price so you can see which is the cheapest method of buying each thing. I saw poptarts, an 8 count and a 12 count and I could see the 12 count was quite a beat cheaper per unit.
That may seem obvious, but there are other foods where it's not so obvious, and even when I'm curious I don't want to look all over multiple shelves comparing the tomatoes... and what happens when you see that thing you want in an odd part of the grocery store, do you go look for the best deal where it's home is, or do you just pick it up? That's what they're counting on!
Shopping this way allows me to see all the raisins available, and judge whether it's really worth the 6 cents a unit or 30 cents a package for the better tasting ones. The issue can't really be made for saving money, however - because if you were really looking to save all this money you wouldn't be paying them $10 to go grab your list of items off the shelves for you.
$10 for an entire order of groceries (translates to $3 an hour the way I food shop) is well worth it, and I feel quite a reasonable price. So if you live in Springfield or Greenfield MA - give it a shot, it sounds like this could be the feature and I'm loving the potential.
Labels: consumerism, cool, technology, web
posted @ 21:42
-x-
(0) comments | Post a Comment
Sunday, December 07, 2008
post://6314627219298098290/Here's the same progression in GTA benchmarks. I didn't have to do much work for this because GTA writes each benchmark to a separate txt file automatically. I pasted into Google Docs and made a graph of it all.
The details are here but this is the graph:
Labels: 3dmark, consumerism, games for windows, hardware, materialism, SLi, technology
posted @ 11:37
-x-
(0) comments | Post a Comment
Saturday, December 06, 2008
post://8239767402186441602/Ok, so after the dust has settled I've completed the Hard Drive externalization (technical prototype) and here are the past couple benchmarks:
2 x New Graphics Card + CPU
New Graphics Card + CPU
New Graphics Card
New Motherboard
Original
Read em and weep.
Labels: 3dmark, consumerism, games for windows, hardware, materialism, SLi, technology
posted @ 22:51
(0) comments | Post a Comment
post://7178261761764014228/
I think I've thought of all that though being short on material and the means to create something like this, I'm a bit unsure how I'm going to work it all through.
For now maybe I'll use some metal "gutter mesh" I have left over from my bumper screen I made for my Legacy. I had taken a rock directly through the intake area of the bumper the first few months I had the car - took out the whole A/C grate so I made a guard for those rogue CT highway rocks.
In any case it's about 2 feet long and 6 to 8 inches high, originally meant to keep the leaves out of gutters. It's got small enough holes where screws ought to hold and it's bendable while still being (somewhat) strong enough to hold the hard drives.
The "prototype" if you will, is actually just 2 3.5" bays of 3 slots each from 2 old computer cases. My plan is to put them side by side but there's actually no room for that with my current setup. In order for the SATA cords to reach outside the tower, the whole arrangement needs to be pretty close.
So here is what I've got so far and in concept it works. I jumped a 250W power supply according to this ATX Power schematic. So it's switched off the power supply itself and otherwise "always on".
After speaking with my electrician friend at lunch he said that I had to be careful because without a load on the other end, running a "jumped" power supply would overheat if it couldn't offload it's power. The other thing to note is that a jumped power supply will also always run at full load, so that's a constant 250W. Still better then a variable (with new energy star 80-rated) 1.3 Kilowatt power supply.
So here's some pics, I'll post more as it evolves/burns up.
Labels: pics, project, technology
posted @ 16:45
-x-
(0) comments | Post a Comment
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
post://601768146272237493/I was surprised to hear that Michael Crichton died today.
He's probably my favorite author, followed closely by Douglas Adams who died just a few years ago. I think I need some new authors, but I'm afraid they might die on me. At the very least there are a still of Michael Crichton's books that I have not read and remain on my bookshelf. There's just so much I loved about how he created a picture with his words that my mind just ran off with. I was able to picture them much more vivid then any movie could convey, and in the case of Timeline actors could portray.
I was actually inspired to write my first computer program based on Jurassic Park. With my TI80, a black and white TV, and book in hand - I set out to recreate the computer system in the book. From the main menu and submenus you could do an array of things from jump-starting the generators (to get the fences back online) to recycling the door locks. I also made it into a game by creating different scenarios and error messages based on what you had already done, and with certain dependencies that had to be met before you were allowed to proceed.
I'm really sad to see him go, one of the only people that could get me reading like you hear about - nonstop until it's done. He touched on cancer quite a bit in his novels and even in ER - which ironically enough even with his money and knowledge, he was still unable to overcome.
Labels: books, death, games, nostalgia, programming, technology
posted @ 20:46
-x-
(0) comments | Post a Comment
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
post://8616507402771462167/Nicole got her G1 yesterday - the first and foremost "Google phone"
It runs android - the open source phone OS developed by Google.
At first glance it's about the side of an iPhone (and that's the exact demographic this phone is going for) though no where near as sleek. The screen swings out from the base and pops into place when going into landscape mode.
The home screen has a clock widget with 4 basic icons at the bottom. It appears you can fill up the whole screen with up to 16 icons, if you didn't have the clock there. You're not limited however, because if you slide your finger to the left or the right you have an additional screen on either side for other program icons or widgets. If your application icons aren't on the desktop, they're in the application window. Touch and slide the application tab at the bottom upwards and you'll see all your program icons but I didn't see a way to organize them such as folders or sorting. I'm awaiting more widgets, such as weather or RSS, but with Android being open source - it's only a matter of time (and it'll probably be free).
Making a call is pretty quick and the contact list imports your Gmail address book as soon as you add your info. It's a very detailed set of information and it's easy to add to it when you have a new number - just hold your finger on the number and you can choose new or add to existing.
The camera supports embedded GPS information, for those who like to add to Google earth.
There's no brightness/contrast that I could find, nor a zoom feature but it's pretty high quality with good autofocus. I'd also like to see video capture, but that's probably on the way.
Trackball is great - I'd compare it to an IBM laptop intellistick, similar texture but I still can't say for sure whether it's actually rolling or inferring based on the direction I'm moving my finger over the textured surface. In either case it's really sensitive and great for more accurate movements.
The google maps is pretty good, and uses mylocation over gps by default, so you have a large circle that is your general proximity rather then a precise dot. You can see streetview, which brings attention to one of the coolest features: Compass mode. If you're in streetview and turn on Compass mode whichever direction you turn (even up and down), the phone will indicate the corresponding street view. It's fancy and impressive, but I couldn't see a need for this at first until I realized this was "compass mode" - ie: which way is NESW. The image is good just for verification but not much else other then cool factor and I can't see it working without streetview at your location.
Setting up email was pretty quick, and we were able to get to both web based email as well as import an IMAP (also supports pop3) account without issue. It inferred the servers from the email address, just provided the password and boom - all set.
The data transfer was acceptible, but nowhere near "high speed" as it took over 45 minutes for a 20mb video file. Speaking of which: there's no standard video player. You can view YouTube but individual movies don't play.
When checking voicemail, it was neceesary to pull up the phone keys, press the button to delete, and then put the phone keys away, otherwise I'd accidently hit the keys when I put the phone back up to my ear. So it can be cumbersome to go through several voicemails at a time.
The touch on the screen isn't overly accurate, and dragging can get tricky. You also can't drag an icon from one section of the screen to another. For example: move an icon from the middle screen to the right or left when your main screen gets full. To do so you have to drag the icon to the apps tab to remove it, and re-add it to the screen where you want it. It's not that big of a deal, easy enough to do, but a seemingly needless limitation.
Depending on the application it's difficult to tell when you should hold your finger down, slide it, or tap. I had to try it several different ways for most applications to figure out which was necessary for the particular application. I think this is mostly standardization at this point, and will probably get better as developers get to use the device more.
The battery life doesn't appear to be stellar. I charged it to full in about 3 - 3.5 hours, then used it to download and perform nonstop data transmission for about 3 hours before it was down to 50% battery. I charged it overnight so we'll see how it does after a normal day in standby.
I'm a bit worried about the application store. Granted - each application tells you what permissions it requires from your phone before you download - but that alone can scare you. I'm worried about the rogue program that does what it promises but is actually phoning home and sending your info while you're using it. A lot of the applications require "full internet access", "gps positioning", and some even "access to contact information" such as the Weather Channel's application. That's pretty scary and I'm concerned what they might do with it - some people never read the fine print for free programs.
All in all it's a pretty powerful phone with a lot of potential. It's fairly slim, fairly light and the keyboard is handy and with the trackball you can do everything but type when the keyboard is away. It didn't do much without a data plan, but it does work. It can use wifi, and even with no data* or wifi I was still able to pull down GMail but no web or Pop3/IMAP. There's also no proxy settings like in Windows Mobile so looks like you'll need that $30 data plan.
*-I have Voicestream 2.99 unlimited wap internet on my account
Labels: consumerism, cool, linux, materialism, review, technology
posted @ 11:36
-x-
(1) comments | Post a Comment
- ...I'll proofread later :)
Thursday, October 02, 2008
post://7950685253127620400/
Here's what I got with the MKZ Benchmark:
Labels: games for windows, technology
posted @ 21:05
(0) comments | Post a Comment
post://2317820311472832986/
This means towers that can be taken down, realistic wall destroying, and many other items only possible with a physics engine. Just like GPUs advanced the graphics, Physics processing will advance the gameplay and realworld feeling of video games.
Labels: games, games for windows, graphics, technology, video
posted @ 19:44
-x-
(0) comments | Post a Comment
Sunday, June 15, 2008
post://7579065082664969228/I picked up another card to do SLi this weekend. I wanted more, I wanted 2560x1600. I priced out what it would cost me to get a 9800GX2 including the trade-in from EVGA and it was going to be like $350+, so I instead spent $170 for another 8800 GTS - which were getting scarce so I moved on it.
I tested using 3D Mark Vantage (for VISTA) as my existing 3D Mark 2006 is not working in VISTAx64 because it says OpenAL32.dll is not present (which it is).
I'd rather use 3DMark 06 as it's a more accurate guage given my past configurations were also based in 2006 but with Creative software not installing for some weird error they can't solve I'm just working with what's working for me.
In any case, you'll see the difference with the score of 1 8800GTS vs 2 in SLi
1 x 8800GTS 640mb
Score: 4383
- CPU: 4228
- GPU: 4437
2 x 8800GTS 640mb in SLi
Score: 6642
- CPU: 4275
- GPU: 8145
I might post another score if I try some overclocking. It's nowhere near the 20,000 score reached by an individual with a QuadCore, 9850GX2, and PhysX card but I figured it out and I'm 118260 out of 155217 total, so that's a decent standing with a 76%.
Labels: consumerism, games, games for windows, hardware, SLi, technology
posted @ 21:43
-x-
(0) comments | Post a Comment
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
post://7782757885757208656/I picked up GTA IV this morning, and by some odd cooincidence also had today off. I popped it in, it did a file copy to the HD (about 5 to 10 minutes) which is like 3+ Gig.
I got in it and it looked blurry... I checked the box, 720p, 1080i, 1080p... and then I checked the TV - 720p. There were no settings in the game (guess I'm too used to PC games) so I went out to the main PS3 menu. There are normally settings when hitting /_\ but not in this case - nothing relevant other then it's a parental control level 9 game :)
In any case I finally weeded through all the tiny text in the back of the game manual to find the technical support line. I got through after not too long (they'll probably get a bunch later on) and spoke with the guy. I was skeptical at first because he told me it was the display settings of the PS3. He told me (in a cockney accent) that I'd need to set it to 1080p. I said I was in 1080p and the main menu was displaying in 1080p, so I knew it was working. He put me on hold to check.
Apparently in the display settings you can check all the boxes for the resolution(s) your TV can handle. I had 720p, 1080i, and 1080p checked. Per his instructions I unchecked 720p and left 1080i/p.
Saved, went back into the game... and voila 1080p.
So if you're experiencing issues with GTA4 getting HD res, you need to take 720p out of your settings. I assume they'll fix this with an update down the road, but if you're checking it out day 1, you may want this handy little tidbit.
*sidenote*
After some additional confusion regarding the multiplayer aspect, simply press Up on the D-pad and then X when the phone is up to get the sub-menu.
Check out the Getting Started in Multiplayer for GTAIV PDF. It's got both PS3 and XBox360 but I bet XBox Live users didn't have such a difficult time with it ;)
Labels: games, ps3, technology
posted @ 09:32
-x-
(0) comments | Post a Comment
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
post://8139086312421466235/Graff.
I'm finally back online.
let me just start with the fact that Virtual Machine 2007 started this... wait... maybe MixMan DM2 started this... yeah...
I've recently gotten a bit of DJ gear. Nothing special, a turntable, then a mixer with the phono on one side and MP3 player or MiniDisk player on the other, followed by a SB Audigy FAT4L1TY. I'm really craving a way to have samples within easy reach. I have the midi keyboard but that was a bit large for what I wanted - here comes sexy DM2 (for XP). Just assign a sound to each little block, and decky decky blip blip at will.
But oh no, it doesn't work on VISTA - let alone VISTA64 - and I didn't have my XP or XP64 because my RAID 0 (<--0 is VERY important to the story!!) wasn't working because of what I thought was a bad bios on my motherboard. I figured a virtual machine might be just the ticket - I'd just run XP32 on top of VISTA64! (spoiler alert - it was my power supply - suddenly insufficient with the addition of the new soundcard I got). Lo and behold upon installing VM I was 15Gig less in my HD, USB doesn't work for VM and I was in a world of hurt in my config. My system had a layer of virtual everywhere I looked. I couldn't uninstall it right, it retained the tendrils and my network cards were kablooi due to the extra layer.
Countless hours of drivers, new drivers, wrong drivers, no drivers, anything to get it to work! Finally I put in an old PCI LAN card I had about... popped it in, popped in the cable, clicked the switch - baroooom, click. Huh? clicked the switch again - barom| click. ???? clicked the switch again and a nice ozone filled the air, pulled the plug, and lamented in the fact that my power supply had now gone kablooi.
Fast forward to a week and a half later (extra half for shipment from Puerto Rico to CA, only to re-ship to me in MA. New power supply, and finally able to get my computer up and running - set up the bios - yeah, everything's good. Put in the rest of the hardware and set up the RAID in BIOS - turned it on - BOOT DISK BLAH BLAH, INSERT SYSTEM DISK... and it did it in capitals just to smak me around.
Oye, so I tried the 3rd non-complicated-RAID disk for VISTA 64 that I had been running in all this disillusioned BIOS time. It also failed to boot. OK - so it's because I never had raid running in VISTA64? BSOD due to nvRAID driver? OK, I can understand that... disabled - same issue. DISKCRC.DLL even in safemode! GRAAA!
Finally put in the VISTA DVD and booted from it to do a repair to the system.
Repair worked! I could boot to VISTA 64, but alas, even once booted I still had no RAID - oh it showed up as a drive - 320G of space but no partitions, no drives, and no luck. Windows Update had some nvidia chipset drivers - oooh, I'll try those, nvidia raid, nvidia networking... all good stuff.
Rebooted, still no raid but I had networking. Put the computer to sleep.
Fast forward to today when I found a raid recovery program today at work - I was all ready to go... but no network?!! Try Try try... same issue I had before the whole system went kaput! ARG! FF>> 3 hours later and I've disabled nvidia onboard LAN ports (plural, 2 x gigabit) I inserted 1 x Intel PCI 100tx... and I'm online.
Never underextimate the replacement factor. I still think Vista is hoarked, I'm never getting the 15G back from the virtual machine reservation... looks like I'm in for a restore anyhow. Time to put the RAID to RAID 1 - mirroring, and buy 2 more drives for striping - where the very NONessential files will be kept. I've lost over 120 gig of music I've collected (maybe 110 is in other places - HDs, CDs, DVDs, etc) but mainly my purchased software, serials, and documents. I'm putting it all on my mac disk in the future. I'm sick of losing the stuff I pay to download. I want CDs dammit!
So now things are running (kinda) I can at least get back into the music. Nicole got me the expansion drive for my birthday so I can output to optical (which enables me to record to minidisk) and have some straight RCA ins. She also got me some real headphones, so I'm looking forward to letting loose on the deck when I'm not so hardware stressed.
So the lesson is RAID 1... RAID 0 is tempting, until you can't even restore it because it's a conglomerate mass of poo!
Labels: hardware, lament, onomonopia, technology
posted @ 20:28
-x-
(0) comments | Post a Comment
Monday, June 25, 2007
post://677787430548305474/I saw this article about the best HDTVs for gaming on MSN. It caught my eye and it started out with just what I wanted to know: response time and refresh rate averages.
Apparently Plasma is 4ms, LCD is 8ms, and refresh rate with the new LCDs is effectively 120hz (120 updates per seccond).
It doesn't really go into what else you may need, but review the models they chose on the seccond page, and compare those stats and you may just learn what makes them better then the others for HD gaming.
Labels: games, technology, tv
posted @ 12:03
-x-
(0) comments | Post a Comment
