Technology

Nothing like rebuilding laptops

Jeromey Balderrama

Over the last week I’ve been a laptop setup fool.  In less then 8 days I have set up three different laptops: a brand new one for my friend, a new one for my sister, and then a used one for my other sister.  Two of them came with Windows Vista, and the other one was re-imaged with Windows XP.  Since then I have made multiple visits to NewEgg to pick up additional parts (2.5 GB of RAM, a replacement CD/DVD Burner, a Bluetooth dongle, a WebCam).  With all of that, I came to some realizations:

  • I learned a lot about Windows Vista.  It’s really pretty, and I think most people will enjoy it.  I personally hated navigating through it, since the XP keyboard commands are second nature to me.  Vista changes all of that.  The constant access requests pissed me off too – try making changes to your Start Menu with those stupid alerts one.  Moving a freaking shortcut around gave me two separate alerts (let alone deleting the folder).
  • You’d be surprised how some extra RAM and a re-formatted hard drive can make your computer feel as good as new.  This Dell Inspiron 5100 is pretty fast.
  • I can rebuild a machine and get all of the necessary software back on in about a 1/2 day (that is if the machine is accessible to you the whole time).
  • A 500GB external hard drive is your best friend during this process
  • XXCopy is a great utility for backing up your hard drive
  • It’s ridiculous that I had to install 82 Windows Updates on an XP-SP2 reformat – I hate how it turned a 2 gig Windows installation into a 4 gig windows installation.

There are some great utilities that I initially installed on my sisters’ machines.  I love FileHippo for downloading all of these:

I’m about Laptop’ed out at this point, but I have one more to go.  Part of the deal with my sister’s new laptop was that I would get her old laptop to fix and get to my mom.  Luckily I’ll have a few weeks to wait for it to come in.

1500 songs scrobbled and counting on Last.fm

Jeromey Balderrama

I just looked on my Last.FM profile and saw that I eclipsed my 1500th song that was “scrobbled” – or played – from my library.  It’s pretty cool to look back at what my music playing habits, especially on a week-to-week basis.  Last week’s kick was Gym Class Heroes, we’ll see what this week brings.  It’s no surprise that Dave Matthews Band is at the top of my “total tracks played” list. 

It’s pretty easy to knock out music while you’re studying.  I think while I was studying for my test 50-60 songs got scrobbled!  Work is also a good way to pass the scrobbling time.  It’s still a bummer that there isn’t an easy way to get the music off of your iPod/mp3 player. I know there’s that iSproggler, but I’ve had a lot of problems, especially when I share my iPod & Last.fm account across two machines.

Here’s to another 1500!

I guess you get what you pay for

Jeromey Balderrama

Had a bummer of a purchase today.  Before I left for New Orleans I decided it was time to replace my long-long Plantronics Bluetooth headset.  I loved my Voyager 510 headset, but it disappeared several weeks back.  I was going to simply replace it, when I decided to go with the next model of Plantronics headsets: the Discovery 640E.  It looked like a great deal on Buy.com.  

It finally came, and I opened the box and was amazing how small the thing was.  It comes with this holder that looks like a pen cap which also charges the headset.  The cap can clip on to this other end of the “pen” to offer a charge from a AAA battery.  It looks like a very innovative design.

Like a good tech geek, I wanted to fully charge the device before using it, which introduced the problem.  I plugged in the charger, put the thing in and nothing happened!  I fiddled and fiddled with placement of the device in the charger and the best I could do was have the thing charging for about 15 seconds before it just slipped out of place!

Talk about sensitive!  What a piece of crap!  The design looks sleek and sexy, but is fundamentally flawed!  The headset doesn’t snap into the charger, you just press it in there and hope you didn’t bend anything!  I must have removed and reinserted the headset into the charger a hundred times.  There was no way to tell if I was doing it correctly.  I must have re-read the instruction manual over 10 times, with absolutely no luck.

My individual device may very well be defective unit, and I’m praying that’s what it is.  I’m returning this to Buy.com as a defect, in which I can only exchange for the exact same product.  We’ll see if I have any luck with the next one. However I fear that the product is just poorly designed.  After owning many different kinds of Plantronics headsets I find myself questioning my future loyalty to their products.

Technorati tags: Plantronics, Discovery 640E

Oh I am so getting Madden for the Wii (and hence a Wii)

Jeromey Balderrama

Through Digg, I just watched the coolest video previewing the new Madden 2007 for the Nintendo Wii. After watching this video I am now drooling over my laptop wishing that I could push time forward like that Japanese guy in Heroes.  Simply put: that game looks amazing!

I’ve been a big Madden guy since Madden 2000, and for the last six years I’ve been buying both the console and the PC versions of the game – up until this year.  When Madden 2007 came out in August, I was already stressed out by a busy schedule and strapped for cash from the Broncos tickets and starting the news business.  I did the unthinkable and held off buying Madden.  Two months later, I haven’t gotten around to buying the PS2 version.  Part of my reluctance is also due to my feelings that PS2 is now obsolete, and I am wondering if I should move to the next generation of consoles.  The XBox 360 is expensive, but the quality is definitely there.  The PS3 has been  tarnished in bad press – from constant delays to shortages to the shockingly expensive price – and quite frankly I’m not really interested in giving Sony any money. 

When originally launched, I thought the Wii wasn’t going to be able to compete with X360 of Ps3 at any level.  However, watching the news about the console develop it sounds like Nintendo is doing everything right.  The new controller looks like an awesome concept, the graphics look like they can be competitive, they have a healthy schedule and production line (supposedly they’re going to produce 4 million consoles at launch), and best of all – the price is right ($250) and won’t break my Christmas budget.

After watching this Madden video, I’m sold – November 19th can’t come soon enough.