If you’re bored of your single-point input already, do check these MT stuff out. Ignore if am too late and the train has already left

After realizing the board had leaked and was the reason of random boot issues even after replacing the SMPS that very day, I started to decide which is of more value to me – a laptop or a PC itself? The desire for a large screen, plus the cost of a properly customized Dell Studio 15 helped push a PC as the winner.

A round of inquiry later I had my configuration ready to be purchased.

• Intel Core 2 Duo 2.93 GHz (E7500, Wolfdale) Processor
• Intel DG41RQI Essential Desktop Board
• Transcend 2 GB DDR2 800 MHz RAM
• Seagate 500 GB 7200rpm SATA II HDD
• Samsung DVD-RAM 22x ODD
• Zotac Nvidia GeForce 9600GT PCI-E 2.0 Graphics Card
• Zebronics 500W Platinum PSU
• Logitech Internet Desktop KB/Mouse Combo
• Numeric 600 KVA UPS and a black cabinet to engulf all of the above with style.

Got the PC assembled by the dealer, since they had a policy to test the products you buy before they bill it. The total damage was 24,000 INR. Ironically, I haven’t bought a good display yet. Though the budget was extensible to around 35k, I decided to give a two or three month gap before buying a large 22″ or 24″ display, in hopes of better specs and price. For now, its back to the good ol’ SyncMaster 793DF from Samsung. Funnily, the market had only two C2Ds to choose from – E7400 or E7500 (Price difference of 200 INR).

Now am off to try out 64 bit stuff, a desire I’ve had for 3 long years! Ain’t gonna benchmark this, since the results will only be average

Now what if the game were open source, to the fullest extent rather than just the “Extend”. You don’t like the character’s tail, you contribute an idea in form of a feature-request or by getting into the development yourself. So do million others. Together you can, over time, form a completely different game than the one you were being unsatisfied with!

Yo Frankie! - An open source game in active development.

The usual way of extending a game would be to add in map and skin packs while letting the functionality of the entire game remain constant. What if the game evolves with time, adding in new moves, more pick-ups and extras, and more elements to the game, such as weapons or collectibles?

Though these are present in some of the games alive today, it would be greater if the game were or went open-source, opening the game’s code to a world of never-before imagined possibilities and also getting in tons of optimization over time. Of course, building a game big enough like the heavyweights we have today requires the work of a large active team behind it, but once done with its release, getting in additions to the code would we amazingly easy were it supported by a good version-tracking system!

Playing such a game would mean endless hours of fun, repeated every couple of months for a completely different experience while still remaining the old charms that a player liked. New innovative concepts implemented by avid code-enabled gamers would add in more and more goodies, much like how Compiz-Fusion is today, an idea being born a day and implemented almost as fast.

Yes there would be a point where it would hit a roadblock and this is where the next game development has to begin. Ideas found in the older version could be tried out across a multitude of other genres, and what a learning experience would it be for creating that “ultimate” game many always dreamed about!

I hope some biggie in gaming gets onto this OSS bandwagon, with atleast a half-baked title cracked open, and pretty soon, since the game market is losing out on ideas really, and thats cause ideas are limited to them in the closed confines they live in.

You’d say what of the OSS games we have today, and I’d point at their evergrowing success till date. No game has ever been given a cold shoulder and kicked out of existence, right from Nethack to Nezuiz. Though this post was inspired by a particular game known as Yo Frankie!.

Was gaming early at around 12:30 yesterday with Karthik and suddenly my Zebronics SMPS (400W PSU) goes *Bang*. Just like a balloon bang under a water tank, yeah that kind of a resonating noise. No sparks, no fire but it definitely blew up! Oh I did have the very irritating burning smell though.

06:00 AM – I didn’t pay much attention then as I was feeling sleepy and had college to go to but my dreams, they already started showing me the new rigs I might get if this one conked out entirely.

05:00 PM (After College) – A friend of mine, Jayahari, agreed to help see whats wrong and dissected the SMPS (He does this pretty fast for any hardware ) and noticed some capacitors bulged and some stains on the circuit. Ok, so its definitely SMPS’s fault we thought and moved to Richie Street and got a new 500W PSU (The former was 400W).

07:30 PM – Hooked up the new SMPS and it still didn’t boot. Ok this is wrong, very wrong Then I noticed that none of the devices connected to my spike strip were functioning so I checked its fuse and it was kaput too. Damn, so it wasn’t my SMPS’s fault all the way, it was TNEB’s!

08:00 PM – Pulled out a newer spike strip from my electrical repository and used it to boot the PC, and it did fine. Jayahari couldn’t seem to forgive himself for not checking the power first rather than the SMPS. But he hooked the old SMPS to the main power, and it sparked out again, which made him quite content.

Now – Back online and need a new UPS to avoid another one of these *Bangs*

More:

Not one shop in Richie Street had any of the foreign brands Kalpik and others had recommended me to get. I had the budget and will to buy it while I had gone there but I just didn’t find any.

All seemed to be selling “Premium” Zebronics when asked about higher range stuff.

According to Reuters, rumours are circulating that Microsoft will launch a takeover bid for Logitech at 48 Francs ($43) per share, representing a premium of 38 per cent.

Such a move would leave Microsoft the largest peripherals manufacturer in the world.

Reuters

I hope the brand and quality both remain intact post takeover (if any), cause Logitech’s totally unbeatable. Microsoft keyboards are well styled but lack the joy in typing smoothly, which a Logitech would provide.

But of course, nothing beats a TVS mechanical keyboard. Only if it had some multimedia keys on it

Some day, some day soon, I’ll get you Optimus Maximus. You’re all mine

P.s. Just heard that MySQL is too gonna be bought by Sun Microsystems. Acquisitions, they not good.

Now Transcend has given it a complete looks overhaul and has released the newer Transcend T.sonic 650 players!

Here’s how they look: (Very delicious looking, and curvy compared to my 630!)

If you ask me, its just the same 630 in features, with a 610 style 2-Color OLED screen. All the other features as seen in this Press Release by Transcend are exactly the same as the T.sonic 630 except an additional memory for 10 FM stations. (The 630 has 10 slots, the 650 has 20)

Comes only in 2 GB (The White one) and 4 GB (The Black one) variants.

Transcend’s T.sonic 650 is designed to be ultra portable and easy to use. It slips effortlessly into your pocket or bag, with its measurements of only 75 mm x 31 mm x 13 mm. Weighing in at a mere 30g (with Li-ion battery), the T.sonic 650 is light enough that you may forget it’s in your pocket, and you can even wear it around your neck. Thanks to the ingenuity of Transcend’s designers, you won’t find a single screw on the outer shell of T.sonic 650 to negatively impact the player’s aesthetics. The high-gloss front face is attractive and blends well with any fashion. T.sonic 650 has a brilliant dual-color OLED display that can easily be viewed at any angle, even in broad daylight. The easy-to-read display is also great for singing along with the T.sonic 650’s karaoke-style Lyrics Sync function. To increase ease-of-use and intuitive interface navigation, a convenient 4-way button is built into the face of the T.sonic – making access to your MP3s easier than ever.

A versatile MP3 player, the T.sonic 650 also has a built-in FM radio that can be quickly recorded whenever you hear something you like. Other functions like A-B repeat and variable playback speeds are excellent tools for students and professionals alike, allowing easy review of important class lectures, meetings or foreign language lessons. The one-touch recording function with Voice Activity Detection lets you make high quality gapless voice recordings and personal memos. Above all, the T.sonic 650 is a great music player with support for MP3, WMA, WAV, and even WMA-DRM10 subscription music. With 4GB of storage space, you can easily store up to 1000 of your favorite songs for endless hours of music entertainment. Also provided are seven different equalizer modes to choose from — Normal, POP, Rock, Classical, Jazz, Bass and a special USER EQ, which lets you make personal adjustments to create your own music style.

Product Features

• Supports MP3, WMA, WMA-DRM10 (subscription music) and WAV music formats
• FM Radio with 20 station presets and recording options
• Digital voice recorder with VAD (Voice Activity Detection) for gapless recordings
• Bright dual-color 4-line OLED display with power-saving screen savers
• Variable track playback speeds and A-B repeat for reviewing important parts of songs, meetings, lectures and more
• Displays 13 languages including song title, artist, and synchronized lyrics
• 7 Equalizer effects: Normal, POP, Rock, Classical, Jazz, Bass and USER EQ
• Real Time Clock (RTC) displays local and world times
• Internal rechargeable Li-ion battery provides over 15 hours playback
• Sleep timer can be set to automatically power-off after 15, 30 or 60 minutes
• High-speed USB 2.0 interface with USB flash drive and security functions
• 2 year warranty

T.sonic 650

Visit Transcend’s Website for more information. (Should be available soon)

Well here’s another to that, a Halo 3 ultra mega special limited edition ‘Game Fuel’ drink. Yeah, right.

Its a Mountain Dew which pretty much looks like ugly orange fuel in itself (The default is cow pee, as we usually say), and has the Master Chief printed across its curves. You can look at its pictures and the IGN people’s reactions to it here.

While it isn’t the drink that surprises me, its the ‘Limited Edition‘ thing going on that is.

First a huge set of Halo 3 : Legendary Edition game [x] which comes with a fully blown Spartan Mjolnir Mark VI Helmet!
Next, real time weapon toys [x].
Next, a real Warthog [x]. Then, a Halo 3 themed Zune [x].
And then a Halo 3 themed XBOX 360 [x].
The list goes on to Accessories and even more!

Did I mention an armor suit? What next? A real life Halo multi-player map of course.

I still got to lay my hands on Halo 2 PC-Game DVD .. Apparently, the original version comes with 2 months of trial LIVE subscription, that too Gold. Worth a buy I suppose

Technorati Tags: halo 3, microsoft, mountain dew, drinks, game fuel, halo, xbox, xbox 360, games, software, windows

I knew about the Transcend T.sonic 610, which came in 1 GB and 2 GB variants, but I needed 4 GB and it didn’t look so good, it looked like a packed up box rather. Then, Xubz at Techspot answered a similar doubt posted there and pointed at another model of Transcend T.sonic, the 630. This one looked a lot better and smaller than the 610 and had a 4 GB variant too, and that too in Black. My search ended there

Anyway, off to physical features, the 630 is VERY light at 30g including the Li-ion battery which is rechargable only via USB. Battery lasts for around 15 hours of music playback on minimal conditions. Dimensions are (73 mm x 33 mm x 12.5 mm) which is significantly less than the 610′s (70 mm x 34.5 mm x 15.5 mm). I don’t know the exact measure of the screen, but its much wider than the 610 though lesser in height. Its more like a side scroll screen than the down-up scroll screen the 610 possesses. A Line-In port is present along with the standard headphone port. There was no Line-In cable bundled along, though the website mentions so. The box packaging didn’t mention it either.

On the music front, formats supported by 630 are MP3, WMA and WMA-DRM10 (32 kbps to 320 kbps) music. Ack, am no way getting DRM stuff into my player, but its a good feature for those who subscribe a lot to online stores and so on. But WMA is the ONLY format supported for it, so be careful if you’re gonna buy that for use with most iTunes tracks, etc. Has an FM (20 Channel Storage) and voice recorder built-in but I wouldn’t be needing either of them cause all FM plays in Chennai are tamil songs and am not an interviewer or a bathroom singer to make use of the V-Rec.

The settings and miscellaneous features of the T.sonic 630 are the ones that really rock. It’s got 7 Equalizer settings with a user-defined option available too. And there’s the best thing about 630 over 610, the Playlist feature. You can create a playlist ON the player (Not .pls/.m3u). This feature is cool in such a cheap and small player V-Rec has an auto-time recording feature too, so that you don’t miss your favorite programs over FM, etc. And the screen’s OLED display contrast is just too bright even at the lowest possible level! Has lyrics sync feature too, which would be a sure battery drainer. Oh well, it has loads more stuff, all of which can be found in the Manual that came along.

The music quality is decent, but doesn’t sound good on the bundled earphones. Instead, I tested it out by fixing it up to my Creative SBS 2.1 and the results were pretty clear. Though on full volume it starts to get a little noisy. Coupled with a good earphone, it might be decent enough for all audiophiles alike. What I mean is, its more than decent for music on the road where external noise is very high anyway.

Getting used to the interface is very easy and you hardly need to read the manual to perform basic functions like change Repeat settings, or browse through your music, add files to playlist and so on.

Quick tip: (To add a song to the in-built playlist in the Transcend T.sonic 630, first enable the Playlist Editor via Settings and then while browsing the collection, press the REC button to add the file to the playlist)

All in all, a good budget buy if you want a lot of storage for very little amount, packed into a good stylish casing. The Transcend T.sonic 630 is worth the Rs. 3000 price for its 4 GB variant.

And this was when I’d just started the PC today morning and entered the BIOS directly. It started off at 68 and smoothly went on till 81. (Reboots at 81, couldn’t take a shot there).

Now its back to 60-62 (Thats normal for my Prescott) after a lot of dust cleaning in the cabinet…

Now that you all know iPhone has launched finally, after days of catching your breaths and saving up for it. Here, cool yourself down by watching some of this.

Oh, no worries, its pure Swedish too. Click the box below to begin the unwrapping of the mighty iPhone. Much to a purchaser’s dismay.

Ps. Actual link was at – http://stream.ifixit.com/

Note that the actual post was about the unwrapping of an iPhone itself! To see what all chips it had used, its real value and other things. Things like the locked bluetooth chip, and other things which made the iPhone even more exciting. It was technical porno, inlcuding disassembly, scratching and all, heh.

Edited for fun