Tag: PC

Hulu a Better Deal for Advertisers?

There’s some talk in online communities about the state of Hulu and whether they’re limited number of advertisers is a bad sign for the company.

My personal opinion is that advertising on Hulu has some serious advantages over regular broadcast television, at least if you discount the difference in the number of viewers.

As a viewer, I’m far more likely to sit through the shorter commercials on Hulu, even if they’re unskippable, simply because the interruptions aren’t long and frequent. Also, I’m noticing that I’m paying far more attention to the commercials simply because there’s less of them. There isn’t a “wall of advertising” that ends up blurring the messages into noise.

I don’t think Hulu will entirely kill broadcast or even cable television, at least not for the current generation of viewers who have grown used to it, but it’s certainly another sign that digital distribution channels like iTunes, Xbox Marketplace and Netflix streaming video are here for the duration.

Seagate Hard Drive Dies Firmware Death

I experienced the worst feeling a computer owner can have this week. I had turned on my computer and waited for the usual tones of the Windows Vista startup chimes, but was instead greeted with an error message from the motherboard stating that no startup disc could be found. A quick check through my system showed that the hard drive was powered on, but couldn’t be accessed by the motherboard.

Of course, later that day, I heard about the Seagate firmware bug that’s killing hard drives. Had I gotten word of this prior to the failure, I might have been able to load an update to resolve the issue, but currently my data is locked in the drive without access.

I tried contacting Seagate through their support line, but only ran into a message stating that there was a technical issue with their call system and to look at their website for support. Unfortunately, the support website was down as well.

Honestly, this incident, and the lack of information and support has turned me away from being a steady customer of Seagate drives.

Another Motherboard to Add to the Pile

AMD ATX Motherboard versus Atom Mini ITX Motherboard
Old AMD ATX Motherboard vs New Atom Mini ITX Motherboard

The old AMD socket 939 motherboard that my Ubuntu Linux file server was running on finally gave up the ghost last week. Because replacements are harder to find for older processors, I decided to try a different router and went with an Intel mini ITX motherboard and Atom 330 processor.

What’s neat is that the heat sink with the fan isn’t cooling the processor, but the northbridge chipset. The actual Atom 330 processor is underneath the fanless heatsink next to it, which tells you just how little power it’s using in comparison.

The Atom Mini ITX motherboard inside the case
Mini ITX Motherboard Inside Case — Lots of Room to Grow

It’s amazing how small this little guy is, especially when compared to the motherboard it’s going to replace. I’d almost go as far as calling it “Mac mini” small. It’s pretty comical to see how much space there is surrounding it in the Rocketfish tower case I had for the box.

So far performance has been good, both from a file serving perspective, as well as trying out general desktop performance under Ubuntu.

Homeworld Revisited

Homeworld

Some feelings of gaming nostalgia over the holidays led me to reinstall the PC game Homeworld on my system this week.

For a game that’s nearly 10 years old, it holds up very well, and ran with little issue on my Vista 64-bit system.

The game has a great, epic feel, with haunting music and cinematic cut scenes, which made for a very satisfying play through. Although some critics originally complained about the slow pace of the game, I always loved the tension that came from huge space battleships firing volleys of laser death across the void at each other.

Ultra-Compact Laptop Market: Small, but Growing

If you’ve been keeping up with currently available notebooks and laptop PCs, you may have noticed the new phenomenon that is netbooks, such as the Asus Eee PC or the Acer Aspire One. Also, Lenovo and Dell have both recently made announcements about their plans for ultra-compact notebooks. “Netbook” is a term often used to describe the new class of ultra-portable and inexpensive subnotebook computers that trade features such as DVD drives for reduced price and size.

I first came across this new class of portable computer when I began to look for a smaller form factor to take with me out into the field.

The idea of a reduced functionality laptop isn’t new, and dates back to
portables such as 1983’s Tandy Model 100. In the 20 years since then, a number of ultaportables have been released, though few caught on due to the premium prices that came with them.

Much of the current interest in netbooks comes from the excitement generated by the One Laptop per Child project’s goals to create a $100 laptop. While the project wasn’t as successful as it hoped, it did compel manufacturers to work on their own inexpensive and ultraportable devices.

The first of these attempts to take off came from ASUS in the form of their Eee PC netbooks released in 2007. The Eee 4G Surf series first came to the US in late 2007, with a sub $400 price point for most variants. Although there were complaints about the tiny keyboard and reduced-resolution screen, the paperback sized device sold better than anyone expected, prompting others to quickly begin work on their own entries.

Current competitors include the MSI Wind PC and the Acer Aspire One, which features the Intel Atom processor and is available at Best Buy for around $350.

While the price and size of netbooks are tempting, it’s still important to consider how you will use the device. If you often use your laptop to watch DVD movies, for example, you’re going to need to invest in an external USB DVD drive. And while the keyboards are improving, they do take some time to get used to and aren’t always the most productivity for long periods of word processing.

From my own experience as an owner of an Asus Eee PC, I’ve come to really like how portable the device is. Instead of a full-sized laptop bag, I can carry the system, complete with charger, USB hard drive and tools, in a portable DVD bag nearly half the size. While the Eee PC works great for most of the on-site troubleshooting tasks I need it for, the small keyboard does slow down my typing speed. I’ve also found the reduced 800 x 480 resolution LCD screen can also sometimes be a problem when surfing web sites for technical information.

Still, having a ultracompact and inexpensive device as a secondary PC does make it an easier decision on whether to take a PC with you when you’re away from the office or off to school. With the number of services available on the Internet, such as Google Docs, using that netbook as an on-the-go machine has really made the devices a solid option for the modern, highly mobile person.