Going New-Old School

I've been using a pair of older 17" Westinghouse lcd's as my primary desktop displays. I've been wanting to go larger for a while because the smaller screens feel more and more cramped as I use apps like Aperture and iMovie more. Apps like these are really designed to be used on larger resolution screens. Once you include things like the menu bar and dock, these 1280x768 screens provide too little working room. Being the cheap bastard I am, I hold off on getting better equipment till I can get a really good deal. My main issue is that while the larger lcd screens have got cheaper, they have consolidated to 1080p resolutions. I know they have gone this way because it is cheaper for lcd manufacturers to make the same screens for both TV's and computer monitors. 1080p screens are fine if you primarily use it for video, but I prefer the extra vertical space of a 1920x1200 screen for applications. The main downside is that the price more than doubles when you go from the 16:9 to 16:10 aspect ratios. 

So, I've been making do with the screens I had till I could find a good deal on something bigger. I troll the local craigslist, keeping an eye on what pops up on larger lcd monitors. Most of the time the only ones that pop up are the older/smaller 4:3 screens. Or people put up ones that are priced not much lower than you can get it new. Every once in a while though, a really good deal pops up and I try to jump at it. Usually there too good and they are already taken by the time I inquire about it. Fate blew my way over the weekend as I saw a post for an older 23" Apple Cinema Display for $100. Figuring it was most likely spam, I replied and got back a response. After meeting up with the seller and checking it out real quick with my laptop and a power inverter in the back of my Element, I purchased it.

Now this is the first 23" Cinema Display that Apple made starting back in 2002. This is the last of the clear, plastic case designs before they moved to Aluminum bodies. These screens also used the now defunct ADC connectors. This was Apple's attempt to make a single cable going from the monitor to the desktop tower(Powermacs at the time). The cable combined DVI, power for the screen, and usb for the 2 ports on the back. Apple pushed this standard in their desktops for most of the time they used AGP video cards. They finally dropped it for the DVI standard when they moved to the Aluminum Cinema Displays and later G5 Powermacs. Now this would normally be an issue trying to use this older Cinema Display with a newer Mac like mine but luckily I had already acquired an ADC to DVI adapter from a local Goodwill for $10 over a year ago. +1 for thinking ahead.

Once I had my new monitor home I was able to go through it more thoroughly. I could see that it was in good shape for it's age, but was very dirty. You could see that a spider had made a home of it at some point with the cobwebs and bug carcases in the case. Also, the previous owners didn't ventilate it the best with all the dust and dirt buildup in the vents. So I did what any decent OCD fellow would do and tore it apart to clean it out. Used the opportunity to document this with my recently acquired GoPro Hero HD....

 

After scrubbing out all the crud, it cleaned up real nice. Then it was just a matter of making room on my desk. You don't realize how much space such a large screen takes up till you try to move stuff around for it. Here is the before picture...

And after...

Also, you can really see how small the 17" looks compared to the 23". I have a feeling that I'll end up replacing that screen down the road with something bigger, just to match the size of the 23". If I do that though, I'll most likely have to move the tower under the desk. These things suck up a lot of desktop space. For now,  I'll just enjoy my increase in screen real estate and retro look. 

GoPro Impressions and Time Lapse tests

With all the good buzz for it, I have been knocking around the idea of picking up a GoPro Hero wearable HD camera. While browsing Amazon.com a few weeks ago I saw that they had the GoPro HD Motorsports bundle for a very cheap price(sub $250). Being a cheap bastard, I jumped at it. Good thing too, considering the price jumped back up to close to MSRP a few days later.

Well so far, I've just been playing it. Seeing how well the suction cup mount holds and where it's best mounted in the Element. Being the low-level OCD person I am, I really can't stand mounting any of the adhesive mounts permanently on the dash. Luckily the suction cup holds fine just above the center vents and gives the GoPro a good angle over the hood.

Tried other locations in the interior but having such a wide field of view makes it challenging to find good points to mount the camera. Found attaching it from the inside of the moon roof gives a neat fisheye  look at the inside of the Element but the exposure inside blows out the view outside the windows. Also I can see getting the GoPro LCD bacpac later just to help skip much of the trial and error that goes into finding the right placement.

The first thing I wanted to try was the time lapse shooting of the GoPro. This was one of the main features that drew me to it. I've been wanting to do more time lapse shooting but have been hesitant to wear out my DSLR doing it. The setup is easy once you figure out the menus and gives you nice flexibility in the shooting. You can pick from 2/5/10/30/60 second shooting increments. From there it will go till either the card is full or battery dies. To test it, I set it up to shoot my commute to and from work.

I set the GoPro to shoot every 2 seconds. At this setting, the first trip took over 900 shots. The second took over 3k shots since my commute generally sucks. I used Time Lapse Assembler for Mac to convert all the shots into a h.264 video @24fps. Then did a quick edit in iMovie '11 to add some audio.

Overall, I'm fairly pleased with how the GoPro performs. The low light performance isn't the best but that is to be expected for such a small sensor. The video recording is good. I plan on doing more shooting with it when I travel down to Anime Central in a few weeks. I'm going to try to do a time lapse of the road trip from the Cities down to Chicago. Will have to play with the mounting more though.

PS2 Unboxing and First Impressions

Well I figured my first ‘real’ post should be on something I’m playing with at the moment. Last year my faithful launch day Playstation 2 met an unfortunate fate. Insurance was covering the cost of a replacement, but I hadn’t got around to actually getting one due to my attention being drawn by the current generation of consoles. That changed this week when I happen to notice a local Target had their stock of PS2’s on clearance. After a quick check of nearby stores, most either were also clearing their stock or had already sold what they had. It appears that most of them have finally decided after more than a decade to stop carrying Sony’s second Playstation.

Well, in fear of having a hard time getting one later, I picked one up. You can tell the interest in the PS2 has waned since I was able to score one of the ‘holiday’ bundles that Sony put out late last year that contained a copy of Toy Story 3.

You could tell that it was a repackaged deal, since the cover was re-taped with the game inside and the game label slapp ed on. The packaging is very minimal and barebones. You can tell overall that Sony has economized the PS2 as much as possible. It shows with the system itself too as we will see.

After pulling everything from the box, except the Toy Story game(don’t see myself ever playing that), this is what we are left with. The console, one Dualshock 2 controller, a composite A/V cable, and a standard power cord. In my setup I will be using the Dualshock from my last system and a component A/V cable to hook it up to my A/V system. So the new controller and composite cable go back in the box.

First thing I noticed about the new system is how small it is compared to the original model. It’s a feather weight and less than half as thick as the original. I do have to say, I don’t like the newer pop-up disk door. Feels very flimsy compared to the original slide out disk drive. You can tell most of the design changes were to make it lower cost for Sony to make but gives it a very cheap feel. Even though the original model was bigger, I much preferred that design.

On the front we have the standard memory card slots, controller ports, power/eject buttons, and usb ports. We also have the inclusion of the IR port for remote controls. This use to be handled by a accessory that plugged into a controller port on older systems. The newer models also have removed the 4-pin Firewire port. This was never really implemented in any games. Which is a shame since firewire is such a robust port and was forward thinking to add to a game console. As a side note, it’s nice that they kept the rotating Playstation emblem on the front.

On the back we have the standard power, AV multi out, and digital optical out. Also on the newer models is the ethernet port for online gameplay. The older models required a network adapter, which I never ended up getting due to none of my games having online support. I will eventually hook it up to play with but don’t ever see really using it.

The setup is like any other Playstation 2. One thing a I did notice is how LOUD the thing is. I guess the re-inclusion of the power supply requires the fan to run at a high rpm to maintain cooling. Very off putting compared to how quiet my old model performed. No big changes in the UI as far as I can see, except for the inclusion of the network MAC address. Everything works like you would expect a Playstation 2 to do. It is surprising how dated the interface looks on a newer HDTV. I know it’s only 480p on a 1080p screen, but I remember how slick and futuristic the UI looked back in 2000 when I powered on my PS2 for the first time. Made you really think that a new generation of gaming was starting. Just shows no matter how cool and advanced a product, time stops for no man or hardware.

The Rebeginning

Well after playing with this new fangled software called ‘blogging’ a few years ago, I’ve decided to try my hand at actually posting. Through all my poor spelling and grammar, I’ll try to convey what is catching my interest at the moment. Perhaps delving into my hobbies may be interesting to someone in the ether. If anything it’s something new for me to play around with till I find something else to grab my attention........  

The Beginning

That which is started can not be stopped without first traveling at least a small distance. For it is the nature for things to move in step with all others in the journey we call 'life'. To discover new things and press forward is the drive that compels us to learn, experience, and assimilate all that is around us. This also is what shapes us as individuals and changes how we perceive that which is around us. Which in turn causes more movement forward.....