Tag Archives: PC

Gadget Review: Surface Pro 2

Posted by Steve on October 30, 2013 2 comments

Ok so one of the benefits of finding a job again is that I have income again! Which means I can afford to get some of the things that have been needing a refresh. My laptop, for instance, is my main system that I do most of my photo processing and ….pretty much everything else on. It’s an Asus republic of gamers behemoth laptop that I bought back in 2009. (hey, in computer years, that’s ancient!) It’s served me very well and I still use it for all sorts of home use. The problem with it is that it’s giant. Yeah I know it’s a laptop, but it’s big. Way too big to actually take places and be mobile. I have been planning to replace it as a home system with a full desktop that I can update as needed for gaming and general home use, but that means I still needed a laptop.

Today’s tech trends seem to be leaning towards the tablet types, and I love my iPad for it’s portability and ease of use…but I can’t run Lightroom on it. Yes, I know I can process pictures on it, to an extent, but I can’t really do all of the things LightRoom allows me to do. So running native Windows apps was very important to me, but I liked the idea of a portable tablet.

Enter the Surface Pro 2

I wish Microsoft knew how to market this device. It really is an amazing piece of tech, but it’s just not getting the market share it deserves. For starters, it’s not an iPad replacement. I still use my iPad all the time for general browsing at the couch or in bed. The iPad is lighter and much simpler to navigate. (Not to say that Windows 8 is complex, it’s just different, and I bet it would be easy to adjust). No, the Surface is a laptop replacement. Plain and simple. You can use it with or without the keyboard, but with is much easier, which just makes it a small laptop anyways.

I have had it for a week now and here is what I have been doing with it. For starters, I have left my iPad at home, to force myself to use the Surface for everything on the road. It fits nicely in my camera bag. I bought the 256gb version with 8gb ram and the i5-4200 “Haswell” CPU. I have installed LightRoom, Photoshop, Steam, and a few other “new computer essentials”. Most of my latest P365 shots were processed on the Surface, as well as the latest RnR Comics assembled there. So, that being said, here are the Pros and Cons I have found in the week of use.

Pros:

Windows 8 in touch screen format = Easy to use
Nice bright screen with good color
Stylus makes everything better
Small and Light enough to carry in the bag
Powerful enough to run everything I have thrown at it (it’s only been a week)
Battery life = Amazeballs for a laptop

Cons:

A little heavy for extended handheld use
Windows App library limited
Screen is still small for serious LightRoom use, but good for Portable
One more USB port would be good
Slight screen edge drift with the stylus.

Overall I am really happy with it. It does exactly what I bought it for and I hope to get a lot more use out of it. I am thinking of doing a future project (after P365 is done) where I sit in a coffee shop and do on the spot portraits, processing and all. More on that later though.

if you have any questions or want to know something specific about the Surface pro 2 that I didn’t cover here, please ask away in comments or via facebook or twitter!

What are you (Wanting) to play?!

Posted by Steve on October 16, 2012 No comments

It’s been awhile since I have done a good “What are you playing” post so I thought it was about time to bring it back. Now, you may notice the difference in the title, and with good cause. If you have been listening to the Retro-Nick podcast that we have been doing, you may have a feel for the types of games that I enjoy. One of those types of games is the Space-Sim. I have loved the space sim since space sim’s started to get big. The concept of flying around in open space, exploring, dogfighting, etc. It’s all awesome.

One of the biggest Space Sim’s out there was a series called Wing Commander. There is something about the story based saga that led me down the career path of Commander Blair that just made me feel like it was my story. When the Tigers Claw was destroyed, I was devastated. (if you played, you know).

So when I heard that Chris Roberts, the creator of the WC games, was working on a new game, I got excited. The best part about it is that it’s the game I have always wanted to play!

Wing Commander Cockpit

Let me explain that last bit. I love space games in general. the physics, the concept, everything. I love Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly, and nearly every other space adventure show/movie. (still struggling with Babylon 5) The idea that a game could allow me to experience that myself, instead of just watch it, is amazing. A great example of this was in the early beta of a game called Star Wars Galaxies. The beta was for the space combat portion of the game where you could pilot ships like the X-wing, and YT-1300 (look it up). My friends and I were in a YT-1300 and I was piloting. One friend was navigating, one in the Turret, and one running around the ship repairing damage that was happening in the fight we were in. The experience was outstanding.

Sadly, the actual game didn’t live up to the initial experience. Those of you who played SWG, know that Sony Online broke all the best parts of the game while emphasizing all the crap.

Chris Roberts is a gamer. He knows what we want because that’s what HE wants. I have faith that this will be the Go-To space sim game. Go check it out! http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/

In the meantime, I have been brushing up on my space skills by re-installing Freelancer on the PC, playing Galaxy On Fire on the iPad, and I just picked up Evochron Mercenary, on Steam. I am waiting for my Saitek X52 Flight Control System to arrive today.

Oh, and a little Borderlands 2 to mix it up.

What are YOU playing?

HTPC of Doom!

Posted by Steve on June 15, 2012 1 comment

Ok, it wasn’t really of doom, but I liked the title. This last week I have spent a lot of time building my new media PC to be hooked up to my TV. I canceled cable, and my Tivo service and am now relying on online services and rentals. I just got tired of missing things when they aired, the DVR not catching them for some reason and then not being able to see things.

So I built an HTPC (Home Theater PC) to pull in my DVD’s, and play videos straight off the web. I was using my Xbox for this, but, while the Xbox has been coming out with more and more apps to cover everything, it’s still not perfect. So I balanced it out with the HTPC.

Sorry for the low-rez, I was excited

Thankfully, I am friends with an HTPC expert, my friend Louis. The one I built is based on the one he owns. He helped spec out the parts and guided me through the setup. See, I haven’t exactly built a desktop PC in around 8 years. Apparently, a lot has changed since then! All of the parts arrived on Monday afternoon. This was bad. See, I a the type that wants to open and play as soon as I get stuff. So that evening I dove in to start building.

Huge Mistake.

I was up till 1am before I finally got everything installed and running. WIndows was fully patched and ready to go. Then, Tuesday, Louis had me check the mode the Hard drives was running in. Turns out they were defaulted to IDE and needed to be in ACHI. Yeah, when I made the switch (even after following instructions to ensure it wouldn’t happen) the OS was wiped out. I had to do the software portion all over again.

Long story made short, I spent the last few evenings tweaking and configuring. I am now running the following:

[amazon_link id=”B004EBUXHQ” target=”_blank” ]Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost)[/amazon_link]
[amazon_link id=”B002X578GE” target=”_blank” ]G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333[/amazon_link]
[amazon_link id=”B004Q81CKY” target=”_blank” ]OCZ Vertex 3 VTX3-25SAT3-120G 2.5″ 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive[/amazon_link] (SSD) (Boot Drive)
2 x [amazon_link id=”B0042SGDVG” target=”_blank” ]SAMSUNG EcoGreen F4 HD204UI 2TB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5″ Internal Hard Drive[/amazon_link] (for 4TB Total)
[amazon_link id=”B0048D7AD0″ target=”_blank” ]SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card[/amazon_link]
[amazon_link id=”B005FE52X6″ target=”_blank” ]ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard[/amazon_link]
[amazon_link id=”B005HGPPG6″ target=”_blank” ]LIAN LI Black Aluminum PC-C60B ATX Media Center / HTPC Case[/amazon_link]

Needless to say, I may have gone a bit overboard on the hardware for something as simple as a Media Box. However, playing Civ-V on the 47” tv is pretty damn cool.

Downside, I am exhausted. Sleep soon!

What I am playing

Posted by Steve on April 4, 2011 No comments

Wanted to toss up a quick “What I am playing” Since I haven’t done one in a long while. My gaming has been a lot sporadic and varied over the last few months. With the new job I, of course, lost a little bit of free time with the commute and new taskings so I have had to modify the gaming schedule to fit. Because of this, my iPad has become very valuable to me as a gaming platform. So I will break it down via platform….

iPad:

Angry Birds Seasons – Who doesn’t play this, really.
Carcassone – This is a great little board style game that we love playing while waiting for food at a restaurant or wherever. The scoring being done by the system is a huge plus.
Catan HD – Same as above, we recently wanted to try playing Settlers of Catan and I found the iPad version. It’s a great translation, but could use some updates.
Zombie Dice – It’s an iPad Version of Steve Jackson’s dice game about Zombies! what’s not to like! If you enjoy dice games, and playing with statistics, you should check it out.
Words With Friends – It’s Scrabble. Sarah loves playing and keeps getting mad at me because I am beating her.
Galactic Empires – GE is a iOS port of the classing O-Game which is a Space Based conquest game. It’s kind of addicting and fun in a weird project management kind of way. You get a planet and you mine for resources, but the tasks can take hours to complete. The draw is the investment that you put into it and climbing the ladders to research the best ships and build a great fleet. The downside is that it’s kind of an MMO. All of the other planets in the game are other players and they all can either help you…..or attack you. As with John Gabriel’s “Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory”, there are internet assholes everywhere. If you can get past that, it’s a fun game.

Next up, XBOX 360!

Dead Space 2 – This is currently in the Tray and being played. It’s creepy as heck and I am still just starting. So far…. Love it!
Rock Band 3 – Picked this up at launch (of course) and managed to get teh MIDI adapter for the drum kit with it. No more swapping of cables, my drum brain is wired into the 360 now for real feel of rocking!
Kinect, Your Shape Fitness – So when my schedule got re-arranged, I kind of lost my workout time as well. I get down to use the Your Shape every now and then, When I do, I feel great, but I need to do it more.

Android Phone

CyanogenMod – ok, so it’s not a game so much as ROM replacement on my phone. I recently upgraded my rooted Droid to the latest CyanogenMod running Android’s Gingerbread. At first I was having all sorts of sluggish problems, then realized that I had some redundancy with SetCPU running. It was bogging my phone down a lot. After un-installing it, the phone runs amazingly now.

Lastly, PC.

StarCraft II – Working my way slowly through the campaign. I love the SC games, but only the Single player side of it. As a friend proved when we teamed up in a match, I suck at Multiplayer.
Civilization V – I haven’t really played many of the Civ games but I picked this one up as a fun game to start on my new laptop. I was so sucked into the first match that I think I lost a full weekend.
World Of Warcraft – Yeah yeah, I guess a lot of people could have seen this one coming. I have re-joined the collective and re-activated my WoW account. A number of my friends went back for Cataclysm and I caved to the peer pressure. I have been impressed in many of the changes. I like the phasing that happens on some of the quests too. It really makes you feel like you are doing something in the game and not just grinding out an area.

So there ya go. Now….what are you playing?