[Blogging Intensifies]

The Build Process

Ramen Junkie January 3, 2012 4Comments

I got a stack of boxes last Thursday, somewhat previously discussed.

I already owned the case. It’s this one here. It’s basic, holds a shitload of hard drives, and has several huge quiet 120mm fans. I also already had a 1TB SATA drive to use.

It’s been a while since I have built a PC, but, in general, it’s pretty simple. The hard part is picking out the components really, which obviously, I’ve already done. He was not around for the build but my son asked if I thought I would be done putting my computer together within a few months. He seemed surprised when I told him it would take maybe an hour, once I had all of the parts.

The only real key is making sure the heat sink on the processor makes good contact and works, since otherwise, you’re liable to burn up an expensive component.

The place to start is the Motherboard. Here it is, removed from the box and placed on its static bag.

This part is essentially the central nervous system of the computer. It connects all of the other parts together and lets them communicate. It does a few other things but at it’s core, that’s what it does. The Motherboard can’t do math for crap though, which is why the next step is to add the Processor, which more or less only does math… very very quickly.

It’s small, maybe an inch and a half square. This one runs at I believe 3.3 Ghz, with 4 cores, which essentially means it does 3.3 Billion calculations per second and can do four calculations at a time. This chip costs more than any other individual component in this computer. Because it works hard and runs everything, it also gets hot quickly. Which is why the next step is to add the heat sink.

Ok, so a little story on this humongous heatsink and fan. The last time i bought a processor, it did not include a heatsink of it’s own. Heatsinks, personally, a pretty generic and unless you’re overclocking the CPU, you really don’t need much. So I threw the “Number one selling CPU Heatsink on Amazon that was only like $20 anyway” on my order. The pictures on Amazon make it look like a standard chunk of metal that sits on the CPU with the fan on top.

Turns out the chip came with a heatsink and fan. It also turns out that the one I bought was like four times larger than expected. I decided that since it was cheap, I may aw well use it rather than return it.

Hence, gigantic heat sink. Fortunately, the case I’m using is pretty large.

The last step before bolting the Motherboard assembly into the case is to stick the RAM in. It’s nothing particularly exciting other than I had to consult the manual to figure out the optimal slot placement.

After the board is in the case, the power supply can be strapped in as well. The manual suggested putting the PS in first but my experience has been that often the PS obstructs access to the Mother Board. It didn’t in this case (pun intended) but I waited anyway. I also stuck the hard drive into the drive bay and reinserted it.

While the view is still relatively clear, I also wired in all of the front panel controls and lights. Just a side note, I ended up putting all of these in reverse, which meant opening the case later and flipping them all over. No biggie.

Finally, the Graphics card is inserted.

The desire to upgrade the GPU was a heavy driver in my decision to build a PC to begin with. This one can be expanded to a second card using some ATI technology that I forget the name of if I want to add a second one. It’s huge and pretty impressive to look at.

Finally, everything is assembled and it’s time to power things up.

I go through and describe the build Process for a home desktop PC.

Aside from the flipped button leads, I also had a bit of a worry when turning it on with the cooling. The PS fan doesn’t power up unless it’s needed, so it didn’t immediately spring to life as expected. This wasn’t helped by rear fan, which it turns out is dead. I’ve since bought a replacement for it though I have not installed it yet.

I also ran into a slight snag when I went to install the OS. I don’t own any SATA CD/DVD/BluRay/Disc drives. Fortunately, I have a USB DVD drive for my netbook, which functioned just fine for this use.

I also had to wait a day for my Monitor to come in and later realized I don’t own a second USB Keyboard or Mouse (no PS/2 Ports).

It’s been running just fine for several days now.

I can run all of my games on super uber graphics mode with no stutter or slow downs. It boots up very quickly, despite the non SSD hard drive. Basically, it’s everything it’s supposed to be.

PC Hardware

Building a New PC

Ramen Junkie December 26, 2011 0Comment

I am extremely familiar with the insides and mechanics behind build a PC from scratch. I’ve put together several machines for both personal use and at (my old) work. I also have done numerous upgrades to hard drives, RAM, GPUs, etc over the years. I’ve wired up cases for better cooling and upgraded a PC so much that I rebuilt the original PC with all of it’s original parts.

I’ve never ever bought all the parts at once to put them together as a cohesive whole at the same time.

In the recent move, I’ve gained an office space. Part of my desire for this office space is that it’s not going to be where the kids hang out to play on the computer. Unfortunately, I can’t just stick them with one of my extra older PCs, it’ll never work out. So I’m using the opportunity to build myself a new gaming rig. Computer components have gotten so ridiculously confusing these days. The last time I seriously build a PC it was simple. If the processor speed was higher, it was better. A 2 GHZ PC was pretty much always going to be better than a 1.8ghz PC. Unless it’s a Celeron, then it just sucked no matter what.

Now it’s all Cores and i7s, and i3s and Phenom IIs and crazy numbers that are mostly just ePeen related. Fortunately I am aware than GPU means more to a PC than CPU. That’s why I started with GPU. My old machine actually performs much better than I would ever expect considering it’s only Dual core and it’s a stock Dell machine with a new GPU and some RAM. The key was, I picked out a good GPU when I bought it.

So I did some research on benchmarks and performance and came up with a Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 6850. It’s not a top of the line card but it ranks very highly and costs about half as much as the cards ranking similarly. I’m still being budget conscious with my choices and trying to get the best value I can.

I then did move on to processor. As I said, modern processors confuse me, so I started off looking into the AMD chip recommended by Amazon to go with the GPU. It was a place to start more than anything. I’ve had a lot of AMD CPUs and always liked them. They used to be the top dog but I was pretty sure Intel had come back to the lead.

Some Google searching suggested that it’s not real great unless it’s overclocked and I’m not really interested in trying to overclock anything. It’s not that I don’t think I could do it, it’s more than I don’t want to have to buy another $150 processor when I fuck it up. One thread I found on this chip had several recommendations for the Intel i5 2500 3.3Ghz. It’s a Quad Core chip. I did a bit more research and decided to go for this chip. Mostly my research was into i5 vs i7, but this i5 is supposed to be pretty decent. Besides, CPU is less important and I’m going to better value with a good punch.

On a side note, I also am hazy on the details but I also know that more cores doesn’t always mean better. 4 cores doesn’t make this a 12 Ghz processor, not every application uses multiple cores. However I do a fair amount of Photo editing with Photoshop and I do a fair amount of editing with Adobe Premier, BOTH programs I know benefit from using multiple cores.

At this point I threw on a compatible fan nothing fancy, it was cheap and ranked 1st in fans on Amazon so I bought it. I also threw on a 500W power supply to run it all. I have a 500W power supply but it’s got some bad bearings in the fans and runs loud. I could probably fix it but electricity scares me and I am pretty sure power supplies can be dangerous even when un plugged.

all that was left was to tie it together with a motherboard. I picked up one from the list of recommended ones, it’s listed as Gigabyte Intel Z68 ATX DDR3 2133 LGA 1155 Motherboard GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 and is very Blue.

So, because it coordinates, I picked up 8 GB of Blue RAM with flashy cooling fins to go in it.

I didn’t need to get a case, I have a very large and nice case I bought last time I built a machine. it is absolutely boring as hell in it’s designs but that was what I wanted, something that “wasn’t curvy and swoopy and neon and looked like a Riced up Honda PC”.

I’m not showing this thing off for looks.

I also already have some hard drives. I have a 1 TB that I’ll probably stick in it out of my current machine. It keeps disappearing from the OS, but I am 90% sure it’s because that stock Dell Power supply sucks and can’t handle running 3 hard drives and a GPU.

I also don’t need a Monitor. I ordered a decently large LCD a week ago when I thought I was going to be running a different older machine in the office.

Anyway, I’m pretty stoked. I also went in for the Amazon Prime trial so everything should be here by Thursday.

Opinion/Editorial/Life

Copyright, SOPA, Why You Should Care

Ramen Junkie November 17, 2011 0Comment

So yesterday was “American Censorship Day”. This was to… commemorate really REALLY is not the right word, maybe acknowledge or point out that yesterday Congress had a hearing about SOPA, the “Stop Online Piracy Act”. There are plenty of sites out there talking about this better than I probably can explain but the general gist of the bill is that it would give the movie and music industry, the MPAA and the RIAA, the ability to have a website blocked by DNS servers if it contains infringing or protected copyrighted works.

Now, this is all feel good and great on paper. If it passes we can block sites like the PirateBay or MegaUpload which are often used to distribute infringing materials. But then, people often use Bittorrent to download infringing materials, it should probably get clocked too. Then you have folks uploading TV shows and clips to Youtube, it should probably be blocked too, besides, that gives the secondary benefit of removing all of those entertaining cat videos people seem to prefer to watch instead of crappy sitcoms. There is also that Facebook thing, where people like to post those videos, which infringe on IP, let’s block it too.

Granted, this is the whole “worst case scenario” mindset and I really doubt Facebook would be blocked.

At least not initially.

Before we get too off track, let’s point out that many people use ThePirateBay and MegaUpload and similar sites to distribute legitimate content. Even if that’s pushing it, Bittorrent is definitely used for legitimate content. Download bandwidth is relatively cheap but upload bandwidth is not. Being able to distribute the file hosting system across hundreds and thousands of hosts with Bittorrent is excellent technology.

Back to the “major players” of Google (with Youtube) and Facebook, yeah, it is probably unlikely they would get blocked. However, there is a greed mindset that comes in with unchecked power where Youtube could easily be a candidate to be blocked. As I mentioned, people are increasingly growing interested in independently produced media, be it heavily produced independent films, video bloggers in their bedrooms and offices or even just some guy who filmed his cat for 8 hours and cut together a 30 second string of the best moments.

The movement towards disintermediated user generated content away from the big business models of expensive shows and movies and music is the true “enemy” of the music and record industry. It’s just not real Politically Correct for the big bad media industry to blame the obvious because there isn’t anything they can really do about it in the end. The internet revolution for lack of a better term is quickly killing the middleman economy of the past. I’m not going to get too far off on this tangent though because it would make this even longer than it already is and it’s a topic I’d like to touch on in a separate post.

The point is… the big media giants can use SOPA to essentially close Youtube preventing a lot of independents from even getting exposure in the first place. The desired and expected outcome would be that everyone comes crawling back to buying albums at $17 each that have 2 almost decent songs on them so they can make money hand over fist ripping off their customers like they did up until 10 years or so ago.

I should point out that I’m using Youtube pretty generically here as it’s interchangeable with pretty much any website centered around user generated content.

Now you might ask, “why would they shut down Youtube, why not just shut down the infringing channel/person?” This is an excellent point, why can’t they do that? Doesn’t shutting down a whole website seem a little extreme? Here’s the punch line for ya, they ALREADY HAVE THIS ABILITY. It’s called the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act”. Under the DMCA, if someone starts posting a bunch of episodes of Glee to Youtube, Fox can issue a DMCA takedown notice to Youtube and have those videos removed. Simple, easy, somewhat effective. The problem of course is that there is more Youtube content uploaded every minute (maybe it’s second) than there are hours in the day. Policing all of the content for infringing videos is essentially impossible. Youtube already has several systems scanners and algorithms in place that scan new uploads as they arrive but they aren’t 100% effective.

They can’t be. People are clever. They’ll slow the music down slightly so it doesn’t get caught. They’ll flip the video of a scene so it doesn’t match.

Which brings up another point. SOPA will do nothing to stop Internet piracy. People will find a way if they want to pirate copyrighted materials. DNS can be blocked but people will just start using the IP address of the websites being blocked. People will use TOR Networks, people will use proxies that are out of the country (like they do in China which firewalls itself out of the rest of the world). People will find a way. PC games started getting ridiculous with their DRM yet there is always a crack available, often before the game is released. Music on iTunes and other MP3 stores used to have DRM preventing unauthorized play and people figured out how to use the “analogue hole” or just burned them to CD then re-ripped them. People will find a way.

The people who suffer from all of this tend to be the honest folks. The guy who didn’t realize he could only authorize iTunes on 5 computers or devices or whatever and now he’s got a new machine and can’t play his songs. Or the person who wants to play their new PC game on their laptop without having to carry the CD around but the game requires the CD for authorization. Or worse, the game requires an internet connection to be played at all, which BTW, there are still many people WITHOUT regular internet access who still like to use PCs and play games and use software.

To stop what? Pirates? They downloaded an ISO that included a hacked EXE that breaks the encryption or DRM or need for the disc a week before the game was in stores.

The other side of this bill which is quite sinister is the lack of due process involved. DMCA takedowns are bad enough as they don’t always require proof. They also get issued against websites which use copyright materials under the Fair Use clause. Fair use most often involves a copyrighted work being less than a certain length and used for parody or criticism purposes. Like if a person has a music blog where they review songs, under fair use (I think, I’m not a lawyer) they would be allowed to embed 30 second clips of the tracks into the review. This takes down entire websites without any due process and barely requires any actual proof of infringement. Essentially if they say “take it down”, it goes.

The really terrible angle here, as they say, power corrupts and this bill gives too much power to people that don’t deserve it, is, for example, that hypothetical music review blog I mentioned. Let’s say they are fairly harsh and don’t give too many positive reviews. We can’t have this negativity floating around getting readers now, negative reviews affect our bottom line. So the site gets a SOPA notice and disappears.

Criticism out of site, out of mind.

Devices (Phones and Tablets)

The First Full Day of Android…

Ramen Junkie February 14, 2011 0Comment

I think I’ve finally got something I like after rearranging my little icons all over the place back and forth. I still have not figured out how and if I can rename the single folder I’ve placed on the screen. Thankfully the pre-installed apps, while not uninstallable, are removable from the main screens.

Of note on tests and discoveries. At one point I accidentally triggered something called “Car Mode”. I’ll have to look into how this happened and it took me a second to figure out how to get OUT of “Car Mode”. This mode is a simplified interface with larger icons for things like voice dial and Maps. Essentially the idea is you’d put the phone on some mount and interact with it minimally while driving.

As for battery life, I removed it from the charger this morning at around 6:30 when I woke up and plugged it in to charge off my laptop at around 2:30 PM when it alerted me that it was getting low. Eight hours isn’t too bad though It looks like I’ll want to invest (eventually) in a second charger for the desk at work.

I’ve been getting notifications about tying together “friend accounts”. Irritatingly it seems to have doubled up my twitter followers. i wish it would just take the obvious ones and pair them for me. Guess what phone, Twitter.com/XXXX is the same person as Twitter.com/XXXX.

The music player works so far. I had little trouble with everything it played on random except for MP3s from an Allison Iraheta album I got from Amazon. Everything else came from Amazon so I’m not real sure what the malfunction is. I’ll probably just recopy these tracks and see if that fixes it. The last.fm scrobbling works great.

I’m not real sure I like the built in FriendStream app. It combines Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr together. I like the Idea but I find it a bit cluttered and hard to follow. Also I can’t open links directly in it without going to a secondary screen. Finally I wish it would “remember” where I had left off instead of jumping to the newest items every time it comes up. I’d rather scroll up into new stuff then scroll down and figure out where I left off.

Today’s installed apps… (I plan to get more detailed on a lot of these later)

Amazon.com – In case i feel the need to shop while mobile. not that i couldn’t go to the website.

Barcode Scanner – This seems useful and it seemed to sort of work on the only barcode I found handy on some granola bars, though it said they cost 40 bucks a box, which is WAAAAY off.

Google Earth – Mostly a novelty.

Google Sky Maps – Because stars are fun.

WCIA’s Mobile App – I saw a short clip promoting this on a local television channel and figured hey, sure. I have not tested it a ton but if the School closings tab works it’s worth keeping around. Too bad we’re probably beyond school closing season.

A Handful of Games – I’ll get into this aspect another time.

I also installed another NoAgenda app then proceeded to completely uninstall all three of the apps. None of them do the most basic thing desired of playing the most recent episode of the show. I also exported my iTunes Podcast list to the Podcatcher App I’[d installed yesterday. Basically, now i can download the show (among others) direct to the phone, who needs some lame program.

Devices (Phones and Tablets)

HTC Inspire – Day Zero

Ramen Junkie February 13, 2011 0Comment

After much debating on which Android phone would be the one i wanted for my carrier (AT&T), I had finally narrowed it down to the Captivate, which my brother has and enjoys, or the iPhone 3GS, which many people have. Then it was announced that AT&T was getting a second Droid phone that was worthwhile (the first being the Captivate), with the HTC Inspire. The price was right between my two dilemma price points and it was “newer” than the captivate, though i have not yet compared the actual specs. Anyway, it was getting a lot of positive buzz up tot he launch so I went with it. I went with it on it’s launch day, February 13th, 2011.

Unlike any iPhone launch, there was not a line outside the store. In fact no one seemed to be promoting the device device in the stores though I’m not sure any of the other customers I overheard were looking for this style of device to begin with. The store where I had mine had the display model unceremoniously dumped on the counter near the other Droids since the display was only designed to hold 3 phones. According to the store clerk i was the first person in the area to own one” which is probably true considering what a bustling center of technological activity Central Illinois is, This is ESPECIALLY true in the manufacturing town of Decatur, home of Mark Whitacre.

Anyway, after 3 hours in the phone store, i had my new phone? Why 3 hours? Well, that’s a longer story but basically, my wife and I were getting upgrades for her and the kids’ phones. Also we made some adjustments to our minutes that I’ll probably touch on in a later blog post.

I’m not going to do a full review or anything yet, I’m sure I’ll get to that eventually. I’m satisfied with it a lot at the moment. We’ll leave it at that.

Zero day App Installs:

Angry Birds – i know nothing of this game other than it’s name, I figured I should see what the hype is all about.

Final Fantasy VII Soundboard – There didn’t seem to be a real Final Fantasy game available but I did find this nifty musical soundboard.

Foursquare – Because I really should get around to annoying my friends online with pointless “check ins” constantly.

Google Goggles – Take a picture, do a search, I tested it with a book cover with good results, I’ll try it out more and give more thoughts later.

last.fm – i think i can play music off of this but mostly I want it to Scrobble what I am playing. I’ll have to get back on how that works out.

NoAgenda App – I was hoping I could get the shows with this but it doesn’t seem to do that. Mostly it’s just a sound board (In the Morning!).

Nook – So i can read my nookbooks when my Nook it’s available/convenient.

Pandora – Because I like music.

Portal Soundboard – The Cake is a LIE!

Posterous – So i can get my mobile photo blog back in gear. Also my FoodBlog.

Remember the Milk – So I don’t forget… something….. I can’t remember now….

Skype – because it seems useful but i never use it.

SSH Droid – Because SSH is for Nerdy Linux hacking and whatnot.

Team Fortress 2 Soundboards for all 9 Classes – Because ENTIRE TEAM IS BABIES!

TWiT.TV – So I can get all my TWiT.tv shows in one place.

Google Voice – voice transcribed voice mails sent to my emailbox are better than regular voicemails.

Wardrive – I plan to map out all of the wifi hotspots I come across.

Yelp! – I like this service and figured this will make using it easier.