  | New Toy (big time impulse buy) |
posted by smirnoff at 4:26 pm on Aug 19, 2008
Just order this, the Optoma DV10
At first I thought it looked pretty gimmicky, but after looking at the specs and reading some reviews (which were written when the thing cost 4 or 5 times as much) I was sold. 250 bucks after tax and shipping, it seemed like "why not?". I've been rolling around the idea of setting up a home theatre but was having a hard time justifying it, because the high cost and unsatisfactory nature of my apartment (in home theatre terms). This little guy lets me get my feet wet for cheap, and then if I decide to upgrade I'll have some point of reference. Now I'll be able to plunk this thing down on my coffee table, throw on a pair of headphones and enjoy. All I ever watch is dvd's so this is perfect. Whoever dreamed this thing up had me in mind when they made it 
When it arrives I'll post my impressions. At least if it's snake oil, it's only 250 bucks worth right?  | | Sacred Gold: It's $10 worth of good! |
posted by Goofus Maximus at 1:07 pm on Aug 19, 2008
I splurged, and blew $10 (9.99 actually) on Sacred Gold, through Steam.
This includes Sacred, the Plus Pack, and Sacred:Underworld. This game is HUGE! I liked the sacred demo, but it didn't prepare me for how large the map is. And every town/village has at least three subquests in them (though some are really stupid) for easy loot-binges.
This game doesn't stop you from going places you don't have the ability to survive either! I accidentally portal'd in to an area with a freakin' HUGE dragon that (literally) toasted me in 1/10th of a second flat.
It may not be as good a Diablo clone as Diablo 2, but it sure is $10 worth of good!
Just remember to save often!
With that, I'm off, to my level 21 daemon, to fight the Ice Elven Priestesses! | | Googles upcoming phone... iPhone killer? |
posted by Torx at 5:48 am on Aug 19, 2008
dunno if we have any here that care, but the latest android sdk 0.9 was released yesterday... and tidbits of info about "googles" upcoming phone, (presumably built by HTC), are being leaked out...
cliff notes, get this,
- possible t-mobile app store attraction, which is like the apple app store, but with less restrictions.
- opt into google advertising (must be embedded ads everywhere on the phone, lol) to save on phone cost and bill
- the screen will be bigger than the iphones.. GAH!! ive heard 3"x5", vga or more.
- a fucking TRACKBALL. LMAO.. whadda think about that!
- a possible fast november release
- can only use gmail for push
EDIT: LATEST NEWS, new pics and fcc video of first android phone, First Android Phone Approved By FCC - ReadWriteWeb
this looks flippin awesome. YouTube - Demo-Video Di Android Con Google Maps Street View  Google's Upcoming Phone: More Details - BusinessWeek Android Developers Blog: Announcing a beta release of the Android SDK
possible phone right here, though the screen isnt big as some say.. could just be a future htc phone with android nothing "google official" YouTube - HTC Dream Google Android Phone 2008  | | Thinking about canceling my insurance. | |
posted by Torx at 4:48 am on Aug 19, 2008
im paying $147 for full coverage and bunch of benefits for my lincoln with farmers insurance.
considering im 26, that to me is still a huge chunk of change for what it is..
so im thinking about going without insurance for a while until i can find a better coverage.
someone told me that since im still paying the car loan, if i cancel my insurance the bank is gonna come and get it. Is that true? That sounds like some bullshit. And bullshit if its true.
can anyone give me some advice on this? | | Streaming video & audio |
posted by fornik8her at 4:45 am on Aug 19, 2008
What's the best way to wirelessly stream video & audio to my stereo and 50" hi-def.  I have looked at a few wireless devices, but a lot of folks are saying to use the PS3. Now I'm not a gamer but if I can stream video & audio from my 'puter in the other room to my stereo & tv in the living room using a PS3, I'll see about getting one. I think it is approximately the same price as some of these units specifically built for streaming vids.
thanx for any input | | Building a VMWare ESX lab |
posted by ShabazKillaX at 12:09 am on Aug 19, 2008
Since virtualization is all the rage right now (and rightfully so) I'm planning on building an ESX lab at home to prepare for the VMWare Certified Professional exam. If anyone is unfamiliar with ESX, it is VMWare's bare metal hypervisor - i.e. it runs directly on the system hardware, not on top of another OS. If you want to know more check out the Wikipedia article: VMware ESX Server - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The thing with ESX is that it has very limited driver support. Luckily there are several sites that list unofficial hardware that works with ESX. Also for some of the more advanced features like VMotion and HA you need a SAN (storage area network). Thankfully there are open source solutions for this. I'm planning on using Openfiler which is based on rpath linux. It allows you to configure local storage as iSCSI SAN storage.
Overall I'm planning on spending about $3k for the lab. It should be able to run about 20 VMs concurrently without breaking a sweat. The VM Hosts will have quad core cpus and 8 gigs of ram. The Openfiler box will have 1tb of storage for VMs (4 x 500gb in RAID 10). The other advantage to the lab is that I can use it to create VMs to study for other certifications as well. I can create an Exchange 2007 cluster, Windows 2008 domain, etc. without needing to drop any additional coin on hardware. 
Does anyone else on here work with VMWare products or any other virtualization software (Xen, Hyper-V, etc)? | | |
