There are definitely some supply issues going on in the upper end of the laptop market, but more on that later.

I started my search for a new gaming laptop with the Asus F3 series. As usual, this particular machine in my collection is predominantly driven by the requirements for the latest mobile video card chip on the market. The last machine, an Asus Z96J, had been equipped with an ATi Mobility Radeon X1600. The latest and greatest this time around was the nVidia 8600M series video processor. The M comes in 4 different flavors, each with one or two variants: the low end 8400M GS and GT, the 8600M GS and GT, and the 8700M GT. The 8700M GT is only available in North America in the Toshiba Satellite X205-series of laptops. These were initially ruled out due to their gargantuan 17" form factor. (While I went with a 17" HP temporarily to fit this purchase, I won't cover that decision as a previous post already covers it). Additionally, the X205 starts around $1999, and my desire was to find a replacement very near the cost of the previous machine, which I paid around $1350 for.

The 8400M series is barely game-capable, only meeting the minimum requirements for hosting newer games at low frame rates and low detail levels. The 8600GS, from the practical experience of the HP dv9548us, got by well with older games, but suffered under newer DirectX10 titles and even when running those games in DirectX9-mode had to have many of the detail levels of those newer titles cranked down.

I was firmly in the market for an 8600GT. Supplies these days are short. Of the available vendors I only have found Dell, CyberPower, iBuyPower, ProStar, and Sager offering models with the chip. Dell was only offering the 256MB version in its Inspiron 1520/1521 line of notebooks. Same for CyberPower and iBuyPower until recently, but even then those availabilities have fluctuated from day-to-day; one day the 512MB version is available, the next day only the 256MB version is available.

On all of the vendor sites, the lead times for models with the required video chip and higher resolution displays (1440 x 900 or 1680 x 1080) have been as much as 3 weeks. ProStar claims a 6-day lead time, but I had a hard time believing this when Dell's times were out so far. Additionally, when I originally contacted ProStar and Sager by phone and email, respectively, both were not very confident in meeting advertised lead times on the higher res screens. I was pretty much determined to go with a solution-in-a-box, preferably from Newegg.

Over on the 'Egg, the best-priced low end competitor was the Asus F3V-X1, at $1199. This model was hamstring by a 2.00GHz Core 2 Duo, 1GB of RAM, and the 8600M GS at 256MB. This model would have also required me to chunk down $50 extra to get an extra 1GB stick of RAM to bring it up to 2GB. The crux was that to make a jump up required an increased outlay of $500 to get into an Asus G1, and that model still only has the 256MB version of the 8600M GT.

About 2-weeks ago, the model I wound up purchasing was available at $1400, only a $100 premium over the Asus F3, and it had a faster processor, twice the video memory, and the next level-up video card. Additionally, the design aesthetic was much nicer than the F3, and at $400 less than the G1 and with a better video card. Newegg sold out of this model about three days later while I was still thinking about getting out of the recently purchased HP, which was chugging in many applications. They restocked about a week later. That stock remained available for about 3 days. Two hours after I pushed the 'submit' on my order, they sold out again, and still are as of this date. I'll wrap up this synopsis with my posting of this find over at the GameSpot forums:

"I am not a Newegg employee or an iBuyPower Employee. I am posting this just because I see a lot of people in this forum looking for gaming laptops in here in lower price ranges, so I just wanted to point this particular model out.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16834227028

It comes in for about $100 to $200 more than the Asus F3 models for sale, but about $500 cheaper than Asus models equipped with the 256MB 8600GT, and is equipped with the 512MB version of the 8600M GT.

The screen is only 1280 x 800, which might matter depending on your requirements.

Fear of the iBuyPower brand-name: this is my second iBP laptop, although I have only ordered the direct-to-online-vendor models from Newegg, as iBP does not have a very high vendor rating for its own site. Consumer reviews of the buying experience direct from the website seem to be either gushingly positive reviews of the great deal the customer received, to horror stores of interfacing with iBP when something went wrong with an order. Newegg's policy will contend with certain issues of their own accord.

My last model is linked here:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834227002R

There was about one week between the time I caught this model available at Newegg and the time it sold out the first time. The recent restocking lasted about three days. Two hours after I ordered mine they sold out again. The model is not available right now, and iBP's site shows the model only available with the 256MB 8600M GT, which is a change. When I was considering my purchase from Newegg, iBP had their configurable version available with the 512MB version.

The CRZ-90 is built on the Compal FL-90 chassis. ProStar sells a configurable version as well for about $50 more than the CRZ-90 at Newegg and was my fallback if Newegg had sold out before I ordered mine. Sager also sells a model on the same foundation, but the last I checked it was a good chunk more expensive. I also see the Compal chassis available as a whitebox that you install with your own components available at several sites online, if you are looking for other routes to purchase the same model that cause less concern over the branding.

If anyone wants to know the scoop, I'll post a couple of threads of initial impressions after I receive mine tomorrow or Tuesday, and maybe another after exercising it for a week or two, since there are no customer reviews on this specific model up on Newegg yet. As to iBP's track record, I can only offer anecdotal reports of my experience with the last model I had."

The CRZ-90 arrives tomorrow, so there will definitely be a posted report of the results upon its arrival. I may even try pulling off an unboxing video that will cover both the unboxing and the initial setup. It will wind up being pretty lengthy, so I'll make it available for download and you can watch at your leisure and skip ahead when you get bored. Until then, take care.

- Vr/Z.

I am finally back for a more permanent stay at home. I ordered another GeForce 8800GTS 320MB video card, this time for the Backup Tower, and of the PNY brand, vice the eVGA that is in the Main Tower. I also ordered 2GB of RAM, which I will also chuck into the Backup Tower to see if it will take 4GB of memory. In my last configuration, the Main Tower took the 4GB, but the B-Tower became unstable, so it remained at 2GB for the duration of that incarnation.

I also capitulated to another mobile device error for this year. The HP dv9548us I bought in an attempt to replace my gaming laptop was just not working out. It would run Bioshock, but I had to run in WindowsXP compatibility mode, and DirectX9, and then I had to turn off all of the special effects. When I got back from the last trip to Mississippi, I installed Bioshock on the Main Tower and it looks amazing, even in DirectX9. Of course, on that rig, I am able to enable all of the effects and run it at 1440 x 900 resolution.

I was able to install GRAW2 on the HP, but it stuttered along, even after it was patched and I had all of the effects turned off.

I sat on the fence about replacing the notebook after only having had it about a month. But a buddy at work was willing to buy it, and model that fit my exact requirements had become available on Newegg in the intervening weeks after I purchased the HP. I had actually committed to keeping the HP and gutting it out for the 18 months that it was supposed to remain in service, but my friend really wanted a laptop at an affordable price. With a serious girlfriend and domestic expenses looming, he just was not ready to make the plunge on a MacBook, which was his strongest contender otherwise. The price of the Newegg laptop was pretty sweet, and I had seen them go out of stock in the time that I found it online and considered buying it as a replacement. They had restocked and I knew that if I wanted to grab one I would have to move fast. As if to confirm my assessment, two hours after my bud came over, wrote me a check for the HP, and I placed my order, the model went out of stock.

So it is due to arrive either tomorrow or Tuesday. I have not been able to tell over the weekend whether or not my order made it in time for rush processing and ship out on Friday, but I took the UPS Next Day Saver shipping option, so even if I missed a Friday shipping, it should be here by Tuesday.

It is another model from iBuyPower, which was the configurator brand for my gaming laptop before the HP; that one went to my Navy buddy who got hot-sticked with a deployment. That model was built on the Asus Z96 chassis. The new model is built on the Compal IFL-90 chassis. Compal is another of relatively few whitebox, OEM laptop manufacturers that build the chassis that most other branded notebook sellers buy and then populate with components.

The IFL-90 chassis is selling via vendors that include ProStar, Sager, and iBuyPower. This model came in $50 cheaper than a similarly configured laptop would have cost from ProStar, the next nearest competitor in price.

It has a midnight-blue color scheme that appears black at first glance. So what did I get (and give up) for making the jump? Here's the comparo to the HP, from the perspective of the IFL-90:

Deuce: OS = Windows Vista Home Premium in both

Add Out: The IFL has a 15.4" screen in comparison to the dv9548us's 17" screen, as well as a lower max resolution (1280 x 800 compared to the HP's 1440 x 900). I threw this out since I originally did not want a 17" display because a 15.4" is more practical for travel. The only downside is that the two Booq luggage pieces I just bought are both outfitted to support 17" laptops. I considered the smaller display, advantage of portability, and disadvantage for not getting maximum use out of the Booq luggage a wash. Add to that the fact that having a high resolution with an anemic graphics card just means having a feature that you can not really take maximum advantage of.

Deuce: Both are outfitted with 2GB of RAM. The HP, though was capped at 2GB. I am not sure about the IFL-90 since Newegg's site does not indicate the cap. I am hoping that it is capable of taking on 4GB, just in case I ever decide to go that route. A quick search of specs for the OEM chassis (the model I ordered is actually branded as an iBuyPower CRZ-90) shows that the max RAM capacity is 4GB, so hopefully this will prove out once I'm in receipt of the product.

Add out: The HP had 200GB of total storage space. One 120GB drive and on 80GB drive. The CRZ-90 only has 120GB. This another down-check that I threw out though, as even I had not come up with a use for 200GB of storage. If I had gotten around to using the TV Tuner that came with the HP and starting using it directly record and encode video instead of my current methodology (record to DVD on my DVR, rip to PC, encode to H.264 using NERO Ultra Enhanced 7, store on NAS), then maybe I would have. 120GB is still a +20GB add over the previous Asus Z96, so it's still meets my laptop upgrade requirement for storage, which is that the laptop being upgraded to has to have more storage than the unit it is replacing.

Deuce: both are equipped with multi-format DVD burners of the same speed.

Add In (X2): Graphics - I gave this area two pluses, because the CRZ-90 has the next model up in the nVidia GeForce 8000M series (the HP had the 8600M GS, the CRZ-90 has the 8600M GT) and is also equipped with twice the dedicated memory of the HP-equipped card (256MB to the GT's 512MB). The HP's card was also underclocked below the nVidia stock clock and memory speeds, which was kind of a major source of irritation for me when I discovered it. I do not expect the same issue with the CRZ-90.

Add Out: The CRZ-90 definitely has fewer special features than the dv9548us. They both have Gigabyte Ethernet, 802.11n wireless, and fingerprint readers. I pick up one additional USB port with the CRZ. Both also have Firewire, Express Card slots, S-Video and VGA Out, and Memory Card Readers. The HP had a TV Tuner and two remotes, which I had not used, but I thought were kind of cool. The HP also had an HDMI port, again, no feasible use for it, but I thought it was cool and that I might use it one day. The CRZ-90 has Bluetooth, though, and a higher resolution webcam (2.0 MP versus the HP's 1.3MP). Now, of everything in this list, the only thing that I will wind up using on either is the extra USB port. My network switch and Routers are only 10/100 Ethernet; I only use 802.11g wireless at home, and no hotel that I've stayed in or coffee shop that I've hung out at has 802.11n wireless. I am afraid to use the fingerprint reader for fear that I will not be able to login if it ever stops working. Also 70% of the time this laptop will not be in an environment where it could be compromised short of someone breaking into my apartment. I don't have any Firewire devices except for my camcorder which I rarely use, no Express Card peripherals (my cellular data modem is USB), and I never connect my laptops up to a TV or external monitor. The laptop spot in my LAN room is not near a cable connection, so it was unlikely that I would ever use the TV Tuner for anything, other than maybe over the air HD signal recording, but it would just be a novelty. I only USB Thumb drives so I never use the media-card readers in my laptops. My digital camera uses Compact Flash and I use an external reader for that. I never do video calls, so the webcams are a wash. Since I am experimenting with Skype for Podcasting, though, I can see making use of the Bluetooth feature on the CRZ. As I've written my way through these thoughts, I realize that on number of features, the two systems might actually be a tie in this category. Either way, when deciding on the purchase, even though I thought at the time that I was losing features by moving off of the HP, none of them were features that I was shopping for when I bought the HP, or were in my list of requirements.

Add In: Another huge gain that I am getting in the CRZ-90, and that is probably worth more than one plus-mark, is that I am going to a 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, over the HP's 1.66GHz Core 2 Duo. The CRZ-90 also rocks the Santa Rosa chipset, which means a faster 800MHz Front-side Bus over the HP's 667MHz bus, and a 4MB cache over the HPs 2MB cache.

Add In: The CRZ-90 comes in almost a full 1.5lbs lighter than the HP, which will result in a huge difference since I tend to carry two laptops these days when I go on travel.

Deuce: Aesthetics should be about equal. While I appreciate the fact that HP's newest line of laptops does a good job of catering to personalizing the laptop with unique designs, I also am looking forward to the almost MacBook-like simplicity in the CRZ-90's design.

Add-In: Software Load - I had to spend several hours getting rid of all of the pre-packaged crud applications pre-loaded on the HP and even after a month of use I knew that I had not gotten rid of the more firmly entrenched foes. I am certain that these applications were a portion of the root of the performance lag that I was suspicious of in the laptop. The last iBuyPower laptop that I had came with nothing but the Operating System pre-installed. Additional applications cam on optical discs that you could if you so desired. Not even the included version of Nero was pre-installed, which was great since I would have had to uninstall it in order to install my version of NERO 7. I expect the same experience with the CRZ-90. Even if those apps are installed, it will not be near the frustrating level caused by all of the trial applications, ISP offers, casual game advertisements, and HP OnLine support software that the dv9548 was infested with.

The CRZ-90 comes out ahead 5-to-2 based on this list, so I pretty comfortable with swapping out. Although I had come to the decision to stay on the HP and that I would be ok, I sort of knew in the back of my head that I would have some level of irritation for the next 18 months every time something occurred that I felt I would not be going through if I had made the jump. My friend's more than casual interest in buying the HP was enoguh for me to make the move, since I do not mind dolling out tech products to friends at reduced prices if I know they are not in a position to buy them otherwise and it partially funds my own upgrades.

Later this week, I'll cover the state of laptop market dynamics that impacted my purchase. Until then, take care.
- Vr/G.

OK, so I've been on the HP for a little over 24 hours now. Let me hit the high points:

HDMI Output is a plus, one of those things that I'll try using eventually just because it is there.

Hard switch for wireless antenna off is one of those things that I really like to see in a design. I can never shake the feeling of uncertainty that the wireless antenna is still sipping some power in the off mode when there is only a keyboard combination on-off feature.

Has one of the things I dislike, and that is front-mounted headphone jacks. When you are on a plane, the headphone plug, if it is not a right angle plug, is always in the way. Even sitting at my desk, there is just a feeling of obstruction when it is jammed out pointing at you. But I will not be using headphones a lot in the LAN room, and the laptop is too big for me to pull out on a plane, so I'll probably get over this.

ExpressCard TV Tuner is a plus in the value of the unit. I have not tried it yet but will be taking it on travel with me. I like the idea of being able to record TV directly instead of only to DVD on my DVR in the living room.

Small gripe about the front-to-rear sloping design that is so popular in laptops these days. The idea is that by making the laptop taper from rear to front, it does not take up as much thickness in a bag. My Gateway TabletPC, more due to the huge 12-cell battery/tablet handle at the rear of the unit, has the same design effect. The problem it creates is that when the DVD drive is mounted on the right-hand side of the unit, the leading edge is too low to clear a mousepad, requiring you to either move the pad to the right, or tilt the laptop upwards when opening the drive. Another gripe about this unit's optical drive is that the release button is so small and indented that I can not even feel for it, I have to lean over and look at the button in order to depress it and open the drive.

I questioned the value of a 17" screen, but this screen is gorgeous. I have yet to watch video on it, but in gaming the screen offers a lot more real-estate, which makes unit management in RTS' better, which is primarily what I have been playing for the initial test run. I have not had a chance to try out the webcam, which sits at the top of the screen.

I have always thought that the rest of the computer and technology media make way too much of an issue dinging laptops with a negative hit in reviews for not having media buttons. I never use them on either my desktop keyboards or on laptops. The ones on the HP, though, are touch sensitive, flat buttons. It will be interesting to see how long into the service life of this unit these continue to function, but the touch-sensitive volume slider is something I have been using, and I'll let you know why below.

The Altec Lansing speakers on this thing are LOUD. The loudest laptop speakers I have ever experienced. I can hear the unit playing tunes when I'm getting dressed in my bedroom. I admit that I am not an acoustic cognoscenti, but I believe that the sound quality is pretty darn good. My iTunes archive of tunes sounds pretty sharp so far and, again, I can not wait to try out a DVD and hear the sound on the unit. I actually have had to crank down the sound effects level in most of the games I have tried because the speakers are just too loud when they are sitting right in front of your face. I had been thinking about getting another 2.0 speaker system for this unit, like I have done recently for my desktops, but there is absolutely no need.

The full-sized keyboard is another plus. The numeric keypad is something I had thought I would not have much use for. Instead of the typical WASD setup that most FPS gamers use, I use the numeric keypad for shooters when I'm on my desktop, but that requires shoving the keyboard over to the left and having only the right-hand side of the keyboard in front of me. You can not do that on a laptop since the screen would then also offset. However, for these first couple of days when I have had to enter a dozen product codes for various games and software loads, it has been useful. There are also numeral lock and CAPS lock LED's that assist in awareness when working on the keyboard. I was not a fan of the travel distance of the keys or the way the main keyboard felt cramped due to the need to fit the numeric keypad into the footprint, but I have grown accustomed to it over the last 24 hours.

There are very few Synaptic keypads that I have ever cared for; I always use an external mouse except when I am sitting in the lobby of an airport. That being said, there is a hardware on-off switch for the keypad on the HP, which is a huge value. Disabling the keypad via software, and then disabling the driver startup in MSCONFIG frequently results in buggy behavior when you do have to enable the keypad. I have not used the finger-print reader, which tend to send you an alert from time to time when my palm brushes over it while using the laptop. This has not proven a huge deal, and so I have chosen to not disable it just in case I do decide to use it later.

Performance has been more than adequate so far. Although I have not subjected it to any really punishing games or ripped any video, my experience so far has been good. The unit rates a 4.5 performance index in Windows Vista, and that is for the processor, not the video card. I am pretty confident this unit will fit my needs as the next few months go on.

OK, so how about Windows VISTA? I like it, but that is about all I can say. Aesthetically, it bears some semblance to OS X, at least in visual cues. I like the "Games" module in the Start pop-up. It represents each game with an icon of the box cover, and the mouse fly-over and details area when the icon is actually left-clicked, shows version information, release date, and last played date and time. All of these fields are things that I usually track either via a text file, or by renaming the shortcuts, so it is nice that Vista does it for you.

Despite all of the comments of Vista incompatibility with various applications and hardware, I have relatively few issues. My AT&T Communications Manager and USB Cellular modem both work. iTunes, Firefox, and Thunderbird are all good to go. Communications and Security Apps are good: Ad-Aware, AVG Anti-Virus, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, X-Fire, and Zone Alarm all installed and run without a hitch. Foxit Reader and all Microsoft Office 2003 Apps have shown no problems so far (someone once told me that you had to go to Office 2007 to use Vista; apparently no longer the case).

DivX, DVD43, are all onboard NERO 7 Ultra, although I am reserving judgment until I actually get a chance to fully test these applications.

I will also site that I am adopting Vista 8 months after its launch, so I reckon a lot of bugs have been addressed. I can not say that every single thing has worked; there are no Vista drivers for my Network Attached Storage, although I am able to access them by making them shared drives on the B-Tower and then mapping to the drives as if they were drives on the desktop. There have been a few games that would not install or not play. Some of them I determined that the installer would not work if it launched from another front-end application, like an autorun menu. Once I explored the CD and actually used the Setup executable, a lot of those titles installed fine. Finally, my GameSpot download manager keep re-initializing in a do loop, never actually downloading the file I directed it to.

Overall there are so few hiccups that I have not been frustrated or dissatisfied. The OS is a resource hog, like all of its predecessors. There is no doubt that anyone who cares anything about performance is probably going to want 2GB of memory. I have this much on the HP, and almost 600MB were being used by the OS during normal desktop ops when I was not playing music.

So far I have to say that I am happy with the HP and with Vista. I can not recommend any rush to update to the new OS. The DirectX 10 games are still trickling in, and I predict they will still look pretty good, even running in DirectX 9 mode. The user login and account management features are pretty nice, and I do not mind being asked to permit an item to install before the executable proceeds. This will probably be a nicer feature for people who have multiple users on single systems, and parents who have kids that they want to security block from installing stuff on their PC. I also like how the OS will tie and store passwords across all applications and websites to a specified account. I have had to setup guest accounts on laptops before because someone I was on travel with did not have one and wanted to use one of mine.

As with all new gadgets, games, and software, my true judgment of any product's value is reserved for mid-term and long-term reports. For now, the initial impressions are good. Let's hope they stay that way.
- Vr/GulliverJR.>

With the advent of online gaming on consoles hitting the mainstream, many people who had heretofore been excluded by the high-price of online gaming on the PC are now entering the fray. While there are a relatively small number of those people choosing to exemplify some of the less apealing aspects of mankind, far greater are the number of people negatively effected by their actions. While some of those actions tend to relatively minor infractions (screaming kids), several other acts are more severe, including the voicing of racial slurs and the nude self-exposure of owners of the XBox Live Camera.

The social culture of XBox Live is something that Microsoft needs to police, however distasteful that policy may be. In my personal opinion anyone using discriminatory verbiage in the community should be banned from XBox LIve. Now, I will admit that, as a minority, my opinion in that vein may be biased.

There are a host of problems with interrelations on XBL...little kids who come into rooms yelling and screaming, I also can not stand people who have off-game conversations with their microphones still open (put your mike on mute if your going to have a long conversation that is not about the game with people who are not on XBox live), and the largely discussed crap talkers, braggers, so-called gaming elite, etc.

I always had a fear about the camera, and I would have never gotten one, but I got one sent to me for free by MS due to the atrocity that was getting my third 360 repaired and returned. So now I have it, and I still fear it, buit fortunately have not been exposed to any mind-raping images.

I guess that I'm lucky that I've had my 360 since launch, so I've been on live for over 18 months, and have a strong circle of friends who all have agreed upon rules of conduct for our games and lobbies. I have also recently joined a clan of other Gamespotters who are now on XBL and have some reasonable beahavior. I have yet to use it, but I know that there is a XBL matchmaker service that is supposed to facilitate finding other gamers who have the same principles and values and conduct. So many of my rooms on particular games are friends only these days, and that is the best preventative means to staying away from the social idots on XBL.

I know that XBL should be free for people to communicate and behave how they see fit; I agree with that basic principle of freedom of speech. However, when it impacts my ability to enjoy a service that I am paying for, there seems to be justification for some more stringent rules of conduct to protect consumers from being offended to the point of not being able to enjoy the product they have paid for.

I have always wanted, and yes I'll put it bluntly, discriminatory lobby features in XBL games. I should be able to have a teens and over room (like 14 and up). I hate to say it, but to make it equal, if I want to have a room where Spanish is the main language, I guess I should be able to set it up. Outside the moral mainstream, if I want a homosexual room or even a white supremacist room, I guess it would have to be considered fair to have those available as well.

I do not know how you would police this, or an effective means of technically implementing it that would not get broken, but I think a means to segregate rooms might be a way to allow people to ensure (to a certain extent) that players get what want out of their XBL subscription, and little or none of the stuff they do not want to be exposed to.

- Vr/GulliverJR.

The number of articles I have written over the past year that have, unfortunately, painted a negative picture of Sony's management direction of the Playstation 3 product line have reached a significant number. And, again unfortunately, it is time for another.

Sony's management of the Playstation 3 platform is an organization that is searching for direction, still trying to establish its identity. The console is fighting for a place in the living room, fighting for a place in your home network, and fighting for an identity that equates to good old-fashioned fun, a grain that it is finding tough to take a hold of due to the perceived complexity and identity of the device as a high-priced luxury.

No indicator is stronger of this search than the announcement of a price drop for the 60Gb version. A price-drop of a console that has been at market less than one year is the universal sign for "struggling". Both the original Xbox and Game Cube dropped their prices last generation after the six-month point once they realized that their launch prices did not offer a competitive enough stance aside the Playstation 2.

If this were the only indicator of a poor business position for Sony, I would not be obliged to write this next in series commentary. But couple the price drop with the fishtailing SKU's, and the update is warranted. After much internal confusion by PR reps and management spokesmen as to what exactly the PS3 price drop really meant, it was made clear that the 60GB SKU is actually going away. To be replaced in North America by the 80GB version. I will not re-state Ars Technica's article this week on how the majority of console gamers are not using the additional features of their next-gen consoles, but here's the URL:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070809-report-gamers-largely-clueless-about-next-gen-console-media-capabilities.html

OK, so now it is clear that gamers are not as concerned about networking, streaming, and high-definition formats as some of the manufacturers would have you believe. So, the price point of the PS3 should be called even further into question. Moreover, it begs the question, who the heck needs an 80GB hard drive? And how does that compete well against the Xbox 360 Elite, which has a 120GB hard drive? Add to that the fact that the Xbox Live Marketplace has enough content to warrant a SKU with a 120GB drive, whereas the Playstation store's content can be called anemic at best.

I just do not understand how a company that owns a movie studio and its own record label can not seem to find the mechanisms to populate its online console store with enough content to be competitive. There is not even the same volume of movie trailers as there are on the XBL marketplace.

More fuel to the fire: Sony's leadership has stated that their reason for price markdowns and liquidations of SKU's is because market research has proven that customers are confused by and do not like multiple console models form their manufacturers. I would say that multiple SKU's of a console that are coming and going without firm dates associated with them only further obfuscates the problem, despite Sony's stated reasons for making the moves.

The final signal of flailing comes form the fact that PS3 owners (of which I am one) are still waiting on a killer app. Many of us thought it would have been Lair, but the title's drubbing in review circles of the gold disc prompted the developer and publisher to withhold the title and give it another two months to clean up glitches and bugs in the game. Right now, in my opinion, the PS3 has nothing to compete with the 360's Gears of War, Forza Motorsport 2, and are about to be buried by Halo 3's impending launch, to say nothing of several other holiday releases that will follow it up on.

The Nintendo Wii has a firm position and identity: it is the fun console, the living room toy that you show off to your friends and specifically invite people over to play. The 360 is the console you use to keep in touch with a tight circle of friends, integrates with your Windows network, marries up to your Zune, and allows you to keep up with or view individual episodes of your favorite TV shows. It has downloadable games and demos that some owners get as excited about as retail release titles, or at least use to tide them over in between those releases. There is even a website where my 360 tells me and anyone else how much of what I have been playing and when, and a matchmaker service for XBL Gold members to find other players with similar interests.

My PS3 looks nice on my gaming desk. It plays the one blu-ray movie that I own. But other than that, I do not really know what its purpose in life is. Apparently, Sony has not figured that out either.

I decided to present myself a challenge: could I build, install, and fully test a new Main Tower build in the three days that I was on the ground at home before flying out again on Sunday. It was no small pill. Last year's main tower design was built on a Gigabyte Motherboard of an ULi chipset. It hosted an Athlon 64 X2 4200+ and 4GB of Mushkin Enhanced performance RAM. I had been very happy with the performance of the Athlon, the machine having been my primary video ripping and encoding machine since it had the fastest dual-core processor and the most memory of any machine in the house.

It's weakness was in graphics; since I had just bought a VisionTek Xtacy Radeon X850XT Platinum Edition (AGP 8X) 3 months before the processor upgrade, I felt obliged to get my money's worth out of the video card, which meant going with the Gigabyte board as it was one of the few on the market that could host the newer dual-core processors, but still had an AGP slot. However, for the last 18 months thereafter, that meant never being able to upgrade my video card unless I was willing to also upgrade the motherboard in order to get a PCI-Express slot for the video card.

Finally reaching the point where I was ready for such an endeavor (having felt I got enough use out of not just the video card, but also the processor, motherboard, and memory in the main tower) it meant gutting the case of everything but hard drives, optical drives, floppy drives, and power supply...in three days. No small task.

OK, so I cheated a little; more on that later. While this post will sound mostly like a detailing of the scope of work I laid before myself to call the challenge met, it is also a presentation of some of the prudent things I have learned to do over the years of building machines. While a lot of the articles in Area 51 get into the mechanical and electrical sequence of events, the things here are designed more to aid in preservation of your sanity and ease of startup.

Back to the cheating...I used to insist on keeping a machine up and running right until I actually had the upgrade parts in my hand. As my breakdown procedure has become more involved, I have backed that out so that I have plenty of time to get myself sorted before actually starting the build. Planning a build out will truly determine the success of the event more so than the parts.

So, before taking off on the last trip and well before even ordering the parts, I backed up my pertinent data. Since I use NAS for global files, when I need to backup an individual machine, I usually just need to copy everything from the local My Documents Folder onto a local External USB Drive, or even an internal one that I just use for storage and know that I am not going to reformat. I don't spend the time sorting through it. If I put it in the My Documents folder, I probably meant to keep it; copying it ad hoc to a backup drive is a quick and easy task.

On of the key things I pat myself on the back for is finally learning to prep my software load. A new build for me means loading somewhere between 20 and 30 applications; email, browser, media suite, instant messengers, security apps, and so on. You've heard the stats of how quickly a new PC can become infested with malware following its initial hookup to the internet. I always download the most recent versions of all my desired applications BEFORE I break down the old PC, so that they are available via a local drive, preventing me from ever having to connect to the internet until I already have anti-virus, anti-spyware, and firewalls installed on a new build.

OK, once this was done, I finally physically break-down the machine. I took any cords and plugs that ran behind the main tower's computer table to the back of the PC and pulled them to the front of the table, so that I could readily find and identify them when it came time to hook everything back up to the PC. For this particular upgrade, I draped any interior cables that would interfere with dropping in the new mainboard onto the outside of the case and out of the way. Since my main tower case does not have a removable motherboard tray, I tend to assemble the motherboard, processor, heat-sink and fan, and memory outside of the case, and then drop the entire assembly into the machine.

I should also mention that there are always nagging structural issues with any PC mod, whether it is a cord that hangs somewhere I do not want it to, or a component that does not work that needs to be cabled up differently or moved to a different slot. Often, if it is not a critical piece, like a floppy drive or an add-in sound card, I sometimes leave it until opportunities like this when I make a necessary adjustment to correct it. For this build one discrepancy that needed addressing was the huge amount of dust inside the case. I don't think I have ever stayed on a build for 18 months without upgrading, and certainly not with the machine remaining in the same spot, so I do not think I have ever had this much dust inside a case. A quick stop at Target on my home from the airport following the return flight to pick up some compressed air provided the tools for me to rectify this bit of housekeeping.

OK, so all of these were things I did before ever receiving the parts to do the upgrade. The job itself went surprisingly quick on the front end. Three hours from start to plug-in and initial boot-up. A few notes on things to watch in new builds with some of the current industry trends:

1. Over the last three builds, my insistence on getting an after-market heat-sink and fan assembly has gotten me into trouble. Last main tower build, the blooming onion was so big and the AGP slot so high, that the copper fins of the fan actually contacted the fan retention bracket of the video card. I stuck a piece of cardboard between the two, but I always suspected this condition as the culprit of the last 18 month's worth of random restarts. This time, my chosen HSF could only be oriented one-way to keep from being obstructed by the northbridge heatsink. The one option left has the CPU cooling fan directly below the Power Supply exhaust fan, which I am sure is why I am only able to get normal operating temps down to the low-40's (degrees Celsius), with peak temps up in the mid-50's.
2. I had to move the C: Drive, which is still a PATA drive, from its slot (the top-most internal 3.5" bay) to the bottom external 3.5" bay (which is still covered and not visible from the case exterior by its bay cover). This was because the hard drive wound up lining up directly against the back end of the new video card, which requires a 6-pin power connector; the bottom of the hard drive Molex connector was pushing down on the top of the video card power connector. I almost convinced myself it was not worth the trouble of moving the drive (I could not move it down because the IDE cable was routed into the space between the main hard drive and the backup SATA drive two spots below; this due to the horizontal alignment of the IDE ports prevalent in most mainboards being sold today, vice the previously traditional vertical alignment). The pain in moving it was that from the 3.5 inch bays, you can not simply slide a drive up or down once you have unscrewed it; brackets require you to actually slide it fully out of the rear of the non-removable drive cage (where the new honking video card was already installed and screwed down into its backplane bracket). Fortunately, I was able to tip the rear-end of the hard drive up and slide it backwards by only pulling out the ATX power connector to the mainboard, which was easy enough to re-insert.

Once I had the physical parts of the install done, I did one of the most recommended-against things in DIY building; I buttoned up the case as if I knew I had everything installed correctly. I have only done this one time before; both times I have been lucky and have not had any issues. I will normally leave the side-panel off so that I can get into the case after initial start-up to correct any discrepancies discovered, but I guess I am getting bold.

Notes on startup: I just plugged in the power, flipped the circuit breaker on the power supply and did three test starts of the system to begin with. In each of these test starts, I confirmed startup of all cooling fans, starting with the CPU fan on the first start. I used a flashlight and visually checked rotation on each of the fans. The final test start I used to verify that I had front-panel indicator lights correct and knew that I do not need to go into the case to monkey with the often begrudged front panel connector wiring harness. In each of these starts, I hit the power button, observed, and then killed power with the circuit breaker. I am not willing to let the machine run for anything more than a few seconds at a time until I am satisfied that everything inside the case is copasetic. I should admit that I did have to pull off the side-panel once, because there was an errant power-cable in front of one of the side-panel cooling fans that had to be moved out of the way. A very minor adjustment and nothing in comparison to some of the other adjustments I have had to make when building systems in the past.

The first real start, being start number four, was a BIOS check. I hit the power button and then intercepted the startup to get into BIOS and validate that the defaults settings were ok to get started or had settings that needed to be changed. Typically I have to change the boot sequence to my liking; this board, though, curiously did not have Plug-and-Play OS enabled; proof that it always pays to double-check and not assume that your BIOS' factory default settings will not cause unexplained issues during initial configuration.

The WindowsXP install went pretty good, and activation went off without a hitch. I as sure I was going to be harrased electronically about having had that XP license tagged to another machine and then asking to activate it on another, but I did not even get a prompt to confirm that I was no longer using the other machine.

Always have the machine connected to the internet for Windows activation. I did a restore of a laptop once before selling it on eBay. I had always connected wirelessly before, but of course either the wireless drivers had not been installed, or I had not established connectivity to my wireless router before Windows refused to let me into the OS until I activated it. Despite the warnings that you have 30 days to use Windows until activation, it will also block you out if you do an extensive number of restarts without activating it, which I was what happened to me during the laptop re-load. I actually had to call in to do a phone activation just to continue my setup that time, and I will tell you that there are few experiences more painful in the world than activating Windows by phone. Connect the cable, and activate the first chance you get so you don't get pestered throughout your setup.

All software installs went fine until I tried installing the drivers for my Turtle Beach Montego DDL sound card. I downloaded the drivers from the Turtle Beach site, since I could not find the CD; they installed but whenever I started the control panel, it claimed it could not detect a Montego DDL (like I mentioned before, this is one of those things I deal with during case-openings for other reasons; next opportunity, I'll move the card to a different slot and see if the drivers work). I tried to force the hardware recognition by doing a manual install and pointing the Add Hardware Wizard at the drivers from the download. I got a BSOD and restart; nothing heart-stopping at that point; until I realized that my optical drives had uninstalled themselves and Windows refused to load the drivers, claiming that they had been erased or were corrupted.

Fortunately (hint!!!hint!!!) I had several systems restore points during the install so I just rolled back to a state before having tried to install the Montego drivers. The optical drives came back, and I decided to re-enable and use the onboard sound instead.

A few other things I do in the course of bringing a new system online:

In addition to loading all of my desired applications and hardware drivers, I also load some monitoring and diagnostic software, namely Speedfan and CPU Burn-In. I use Speedfan to dis-spell my biggest fear when I put a system together myself; namely that I incorrectly applied the thermal paste between the CPU and Heat-Sink and Fan and that CPU is down there burning itself to a crisp. I also run CPU Burn-In for 3-4 hours to validate system integrity and endurance. I then load all of my games. I figure if a system can stay up during the Windows install, Drivers install, software load, burn-in, and gameload, it should be considered checked out and approved for normal use.

The burn-in is what finally seals the layer between the heat-sink and the CPU; any air between the two in that layer is a place where no cooling is occurring for the CPU, potentially leading to a thermal failure of the processor. After a three or four hour burn in, you should see the Speedfan temps you were originally seeing drop another 5 degrees or so as everything settles in. (Next Day Update: My idle temps were around the mid-40's and have since dropped to the high-30s after burn-in.)

After the overnight burn-in and the following day's game loadout, my final requirement is that the machine go through three sessions of normal use and initial benchmarks. Tonight is the first of those sessions. I've done two hours of gaming, typed this article, made an iTunes library backup, downloaded the GRAW 2 demo, and played two hours of iTunes with the visualizer on, as well as run the system through 3dMark06. A couple more days of this and I'll be prepared to give this machine its operating license.

I reckon everyone wants to know what I upgraded to so here's the list of new components added:

Asus P5NE-SLI Motherboard, Intel E6700 Core 2 Duo 2.66GHz CPU, 2 x 1GB DDR2 800MHz Mushkin Enhanced Performance RAM, ZEROtherm BTF90 92mm CPU Cooler, eVGA GeForce 8800GTS 320MB Video Card.

While it was not intended to be part of this upgrade, I could not consciously hook all of those good components into the mediocre monitor and other topside components I was running at the time. So those also got replaced with:

LG 19" Widescreen LCD Monitor, Bose Companion II 2.0 Speaker System, Logitech G5 3200dPI Laser Mouse.

Last thing on temps is my typical idle to normal operating temps following burn-in and the first night of typical use are in the really low-40's. I'm talking 40 or 41 under the multi-tasking scenario I described up above. Under gaming, temps are only getting into the mid-to high 40's. Looks like we have a good seal. (Next Day Update: Core 0 and Core 1 are now idling (and idle for me is typing this article and running iTunes in the background) at 34 and 35 degrees respectively...guess I can't complain anymore. Gaming temps are in the mid-40's, so I guess all's good.

In some 8 years of being a techno-geek, I have suffered few financial setbacks...ok, not in the global sense, but in terms of money blown or lost on a particular gadget or upgrade. I've had one bad processor-motherboard-memory combo, two bad video cards, and one bad PMP (personal media player). In all cases except one (the one bad video card), I have recouped my money and received a replacement component. I have never had anything of significant value lost, stolen, or broken...until now.

On the flight to Mobile, I left my 5G iPod 80GB on the plane, still snuggeld in its BodyGlove case. A phone call the next day to the airline did not yield a postive response that anyone had turned it in. I have to admit that stumbling upon such a find while cleaning the aircraft would have been a hard temptation to resist.

So, I am pretty ingrained with my music; have been since my prevalaent option to attending the Naval Academy was to go to an Atlanta-based college on a music scholarship. I have my headphones on almost anytime that I am at my desk at work, I listen to music whenever I am in the computer room doing anything other than gaming, and I take my iPod with me during my writing or working stints at the local bookstores and coffee shops. Doing without the iPod, particular on this trip, was a non-starter.

Arrrgh...to be an Apple product user...the prices on the 80GB iPods have not moved one dollar since I bought mine last November at Circuit City. Further, a decent case will still run you $20, even at Wal-Mart. A minor additional fudge was that I did not bring my MacBook on this trip, which is what I normally sync my iPod and iPod Shuffle to. Fortunately, just before I left, I copied my iTunes archive from the MacBook, to its external USB backup drive, to my USB portable hard drive for work, to my gaming laptop, the latter two of which I did bring with me on this trip.

Since I could not afford to make the jump to the black MacBook, and therefore have a white one, I changed out the lost black iPod for the white version. It should go nicely fashion-wise with my white MacBook, and yes, part of being a computer geek is looking as chic as possible with regards to the aesthetic design of your chosen mobile gear.

On this trip, I brought my iPod Shuffle for workouts, both the Razr and Blackberry, the aforementioned Asus Z96J Gaming Laptop, my Samsung Q1 and its work-related accessories, my Sony MDR-V700 headphones, and 3 DVDs of encoded video.

The iPod got left on the plane because I was not prepared for not being able to place my Booq Python backpack under the seat in front of me. Due to size restrictions I had to planeside check it, leaving me to carry my book (Book One of the Prince of Nothing, The Darkness That Comes Before, by R. Scott Bakker) which is a huge 577 page tome, even in paperback, the Samsung Q1 in its carrying case, and my headphones (also huge) in my hand. The iPod I stuffed in my pocket. Placing it in the often feared back-seat pocket in front of me during take-off and landing, it remained there when I departed the aircraft since I was in a rush to make a 1 o'clock meeting that was at a location an hour away.

This will of course make me paranoid for the remainder of my obsessive-compulsive life.

In lighter news, I have put in some significant time on Company of Heroes. As the 2006 PC game of the year, I reckon that if I play anything, this should be one of the titles that I get around to. Hopefully, with two weeks to go down here, I might even finish it.

I'm in the market for a new [gaming] laptop, since my buddy is interested in buying this one. There are a few models on the market now with the latest nVidia 8000-series mobile graphics chips. I am weighing the tradeoffs in getting the slightly higher spec'd but much better looking Asus G1, or its slightly slower and more stoic little brother, the Asus F3. Newegg has Open Box units of the cheaper F3, so if there is still one available in about a week-and-a-half, that will be the route I take, since I can not pass up the current markdown. If I am faced with getting an F3 at its regular price versus jumping up to a G1, I'll likely make the jump, since I forsee justifying the extra cost with a lot of time spent on the laptop during the next 5 months while I cycle down to the Gulf Coast for more time than I will spend at home. Fortunately, I didn't have to dig into the money I have been putting away for the new laptop in order to replace the iPod, although I may have to put off the upgrade to the main tower that I had planned (to the point that I actually went ahead and broke that system down before I left, removing the motherboard, processor, and memory). No big loss, since I won't be at home that much...there's a good chance that I may not have ever even lit it off until November.

My final comment tonight is an assessment of the Booq Python, a bag I have been wanting for several years and finally bought a few months ago. In addition to going through a complete fiasco to get the thing, it has not turned out to be a great fit. It is great when I'm on the ground. It's an awesome LAN bag for carrying my gaming laptop and accessories to someone's house, or for making PC maintenance house calls. But its bulk has prevented me, on a couple of occassions, from storing it in front of me on the plane, and I hate having to wait for the fasten seat belt light to go out to get to my stuff in the overhead, which usually does not happen for a good amount of time after you are authorized to use electronic devices on the plane. I'm definitely in the market for another backpack; one more up-to-date than my alternate Targus backpack that every gear-head and his mother seems to have now.

I recently watched Hugo Ortega's video blog of him picking up his latest UMPC, the Raon Everun. Although I do not care for this particular device (more on that another day), one of his comments caused me to reflect over my past 8 years as a tech enthusiast. Not only will geeks stretch their financial resources to get their hands on the latest tech, we will also pull a Planes, Trains, and Automobiles to get it.

I have been reluctant to travel too far or go ridiculously out of my way to get my hands on certain devices. But that does not mean that I will not do it...it just means I loathe getting ready to do it. It is one of those activities like working out, where I hate the idea of doing it while I'm getting dressed or when the alarm goes off, but once I'm into the event, I have a pretty good time. In the case of going after rare devices, I typically have fond memories.

It is not unusual for even the casual enthusiast to hit several local stores on a Saturday in search of a TV or a particular video card. Yet there are those times when you have to go to higher extremes to get the gear you need (ok...want). It started while I was in grad school an hour and a half south of San Jose. Since I did not have the confidence to buy motherboards and processors online, a typical event was to mount an expedition up to Fry's in San Jose to peruse components first hand. It was also the day of CRT's, which cost a bundle to have shipped, so that required a road trip as well.

While in Washington State, I used to make trips 45 minutes down the road to get to the really high-tech stores to get new components. In the last couple of years, my efforts have not waned in the face of supply adversity.

We drove 2.5 hours over to Richmond to get my MacBook. I think I iterated in a recent post about my swindle to get my hands on my Samsung Q1b UMPC (which I am typing this post on)...having my bank change my billing address to the hotel I was going to be staying at, and then faxing forms to the online vendor I was purchasing from to authorize them to deliver the computer to the hotel.

A buddy of mine and I camped out for the Nintendo Wii on launch day, coordinating efforts and logistics via cell phone, and bringing PSPs to the launch to while our time away until the store opened.

I have also, on multiple occasions, coordinated delivery of packages during my (now brief) returns home so that the package arrives on a specific day that I can be at home to pick it up.

While each of these events has produced at a minimum a cool blog post or two, with each iteration, I hope that I do not have to do it for that particular device when it comes time to upgrade. I do not want to camp out for a console ever again. It was fun to do it one time and participate in the culture and witness the launch. I hope that I do not have to jump through hoops the next time I buy an UMPC. I really hope that the market has advanced enough by the time I upgrade that they are in sufficient supply that the extreme effort will not be necessary.

Of course, I will not put myself in the position of having to eat future crow by saying that if the above conditions are not the case that I won't be jumping in a car, searching store inventories in advance of a potential business trip in the location I am traveling to, or paying for a Saturday delivery so I get something in my hands before I have to travel again. Such is the life, I guess.

Strange things happen on travel. I have a friend, a real computer genius as opposed to my poser status, who frequently comments that he does not see how I get much return on investment from my gadgets since I have so many that I could not possibly get much use out of any single device. I have to admit that I frequently see his point. Case in point is my Nintendo DS Lite Onyx. I picked it up after I bought my Wii last year, trading in my PSP out of disgust for Sony's poor pre-launch handling of the PS3. These are the first Nintendo products I have ever bought in some 32 years of gaming. I was going to abandon Sony and totally buy into the Nintendo experience.

OK, poor decision. I trolled eBay as PS3 auction prices plummeted and picked up a PS3 over the Thanksgiving holiday while everyone else was eating turkey. After a few trips with the DS I realized that despite the form factor redesign of the Lite and {relatively} cool look of the Onyx model, I was still too self-conscious to whip it out in the airport gate lobby and play. So a few months later I picked up a PSP {again}, whose design I am not too embarrassed to play in public. All of this somewhat relative, as I am sure a lot of people think I should just be embarrassed to play games in p [public at my age anyway/ Whatever; I'm not. Anyway, the end result is that when I travel with my DS I tend not to play in transit, and only in the hotel room, so it has not received much use. Further resulting in the fact that, until today, I only owned 4 games. The fact that there are action oriented {more "mature" titles?} are few and far between on the system also contributes to my low revisit time on the system.

The one fact that has always caused me to disagree with my buddy's sentiment above is that travel frequently causes me to get high usage out of a lot of gadgets that otherwise sit on the shelf when I am operating out of my home base. For the next 5 months of my life, I will be operating out of glorious Pascagoula, MS, returning home for brief one-week stints just long enough to fill out expense reports and get some face time in the building so that people realize that I still work there. I choose a load out for each trip before departure, and so some gadgets wind up getting some use by simply making the trip. I only take one gaming device per trip, either my gaming laptop, the PSP, or the DS. This two-week stint the DS got to go. I brought along Need for Speed Carbon and Starfox Command. Today, I went and picked up Final Fantasy III for the DS since I was concerned that two games may not be enough to keep me busy for the full trip.

In addition to my new investment in the Nintendo culture, this represents my first foray into the Final Fantasy universe. Yeah, I know, almost anyone on the planet who has ever played a game has played at least one FF title, if not more. Not me. I recently wrote about how I have never understood Japanese RPGs. I have always defaulted to RPG's with a D&D feel when it comes to fantasy-based games. Anything remotely resembling the same sub-genre as the FF games, cartoony, child-like player characters and artwork, I have never finished. But, I'm playing Zelda on the Wii, so an attempt at an FF title was not outside the realm of possibility.

30 minutes into the game and I am enjoying it. In fact, I can easily see how the game could be addictive, since I had to force myself to put it down at the 30-minute point and could have easily played on. Maybe this FF thing is not so bad after all.

It is simple push-button gameplay, with turn-based combat. While the in-game modeling is cartoonish, the opening sequence, which seemed an amazing feat for a cartridge-based medium on a platform with the DS' anemic specs, reminded me that the cartoon modeling is a representation of more serious storyline. This is one of the few DS titles that does not extensively use the second screen or the touch-screen interface. It meets my minimum requirements of quickly leveling you to a point in the early gameplay where you are taking on more complex enemies and fighting with more than a billy-club. Right at the 30-minute point I encountered a boss creature that was not overpowered for a low-level character, but required more than poking him with a knife. Fortunately, although the game only starts you off with a knife and a vest for armor, I had appropriately gained a long-sword and a shield before I encountered this thing. The 30-minute point is the exact area in an RPG that I demand to not be bored by grinding low-level enemies and want the ability to vary my attacks and options in combat. It is almost as if these guys had read my design requirements for RPGs.

So, I expect over the remainder of this trip, that I will delve some more into this title. And that I may just get over my airport embarrassment to get in some gameplay on the plane voyage home. We'll see.

I'm in for a quick 3-day stop over the weekend before I hit the road again. A lot has changed in my equipment loadout over the last couple of weeks, coupled with some, somewhat quirky, but in the end, good, consumer experiences.

My initial attempt to score a Samsung Q1b UMPC failed due to my account failing address verification. So that's what forced the previsouly blogged pickup of a MAcBook, which had been my backup plan. The following week, I found that the complany had charged me for the Q1b, despite the fact that we had talked and had both agreed to have the order cancelled. So, with some fanagling, arguing, beligerence, and compromise, the bank, PCUniverse, and myself, all scrambled to arrange to have the Q1b shipped to the hotel I stayed at the last couple of weeks, since I had already been charged for it.

So, on my most recent trip, my mobile loadout consisted of the following:

Macbook, Samsung Q1b, PSP (w/Daxter and MGS:PO), Portable DVD Player, DVDs (Blackhawk Down, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Buffy Seasons 1 and 2), Canon Sureshot S50 Digital Camera, iPod, iPod Shuffle, Blackberry 8700c, and Motorola Razr.

Sad to say, the following items went unused: Portable DVD Player (the Bram Stoker DVD would not play, and the MacBook was right there so...), Buffy Seasons 1 and 2 (not enough time to watch them), Canon Sureshot S50 (was not allowed to take photos where I was working), iPod Shuffle (didn't work out....shame), Motorola Razr (never went out, so I was on the Blackberry the whole time).

The other great consumer experience I had, after the Samsung arrived was calling Cingular (which I refuse to call the New AT&T) to see how much they would charge me to change-out my Option GT MAX 3.6 Wireless Card. Since neither the MacBook or Q1 have PCMCIA lots, I originally started looking for a PCMCIA-to-USB adapter. They were expensive and very stringent on what cards they claimed compatibility with, and full of disclaimers that the manufacturer and vendor would not assume any responsibility if your card was incompatible. A little further digging for a compatible adapter that firmaly stated accomodation for my card, revealed that Cingular had recently rolled out the Sierra 875u, which is a USB version of their aircard. I searched the Cingular site for the card, and finally found it in the business section. A call in to the customer service center confirmed that the card was available. The big surprise was that Cingular agreed to send me the card at no additional cost if I would just send my PCMCIA card back. OK, twist my arm. So the card was waiting on my doorstep when I got home. Some digging this morning revealed the Sierra WatcherLite application, which allows the card to work in OS X and connect to your Cingular account. Hence, this Saturday morning blog entry done on my MacBook from Barnes and Noble (which amazingly still does not offer free wireless access while all of their competitors do).

So, I picked up some new gear, and had a week-and-a-half for initial field tests. Next week, my loadout will be as follows:

Samsung Q1, MacBook, PSP, Memory Stick, JVC Headphones, Encoded Videos (MacBook), Digital Camera, iPod, iPod Shuffle, Blackberry

My main goals will be continuing to validate my ability to use the UMPC as my work laptop from here on. Tests were excellent over the last two weeks, including my one day optest in the office. I originaly planned on bringing a Memory Stick when I was planning this loadout a couple of weeks ago, but now that I have the Q1 and know it does not have a flash-memory card reader, it may be back to USB thumb-drives. I may also give some thought to picking up noise-cancelling headphones for this trip if I can get them in the next day or two. It will be my first dropping of encoded video to the MacBook to see how it handles various formats. I guess that means I actually better do the testing before I take off and then load it with appropriate files. I'll be able to take photos this time, and will probably need to take some pics of us executing the test sequence and the setup we run through next week. Maybe I'll get some workouts in and can use the Shuffle? It will not be an outdoor job next week, so maybe I'll have more energy. It is a week only trip, so no need to bring the RazR this time.

Reports on how the gear works out when I get back.