TechoLiO
A plethora of all things technical.

Sony PSP Pixels, They're Dead Jim

Well three strikes your out anyway. I picked up a Playstation Portable PSP to compare with the Nintendo DS at the local Wal-Mart (no review units for a small site with truthful reviews!). I'm on my third and yes it has pixels that appear when the scene is dark. Looks like little holes in your screen. I can just imaging watching movies on this, just like a real holy theater screen!

Is it that bad? Well yes for $250 it is, and the reports on the web of this are high enough to take notice. So now I'll wait to see who discovers what serial number ranges are good if/when they fix this issue. Also the door for the disc doesn't close very well on one side on all the units. Other than that the unit impresses! But don't buy one now unless you enjoy processing returns. I'm surprised at users willing to accept any number of pixels buying the story that this is a normal trait of lcd's. True that defects appear, but that's true with many products, but you don't go shipping them!

DVR and DVD recorders

Things aren't always better with a "Laser"

I had my intellimouse exporer start to act up and picked up a new logitech mx1000 laser mouse. High dpi, wireless, can be used on shiney surfaces etc. Me, I was just wanting it to be as good as wired speed wise. Anyway, don't bother! After comparing the old mouse and new one, I found this mouse to be too sensitive for my taste, just something odd about the acceleration , regardless of the software settings. Maybe that's why it was so jittery. I tried to draw smooth lines in paint and I couldn't. The wireless unit was moved around, and although the range is short, I was close enough to not have that be an issue.

But second killer, it has this flaw that I am glad I found afterward to confirm. If you pick it up to reposition, it takes a little while to start tracking again. A great pair of videos show this. Now I'm not talking games, I do this all the time on my normal screen and now I know why the timing was off. Video one shows a normal acting mx700 mouse, video two shows the mx1000 one. So back to the store it goes and I just opened up and fixed the wiring in my old faithful! I'm convinced it's not the wireless at fault, but the laser sensor.

DRM and why I am a convert

... A convert to hating it! I was one of the few willing to give DRM a chance, especially if it got us legal downloads. I've never wanted to be a pirate and I think most people don't either. But read my rant about what happened when I decided to change my CPU. This is not the way to go.

The Mother of all Mp3 Sites

I had passed on this one as illegal, but AllOfMp3.com seems to be legitimate and legal, at least so far. I decided to review it since it's out there and works. It has songs for download at the format at rate of your choosing for only .01 per meg. I've found it very difficult to find legal comment on these russian sites, but the silence about them is odd, especially none from the RIAA. Check out the review in the online music area.

Now Wal-Mart!

Now we're getting crowded. Walmart has their downloadable music site up now at musicdownloads.walmart.com. Their spin is price (surprise), each song is 88 cents, and albums tend to be cheaper. A quick once over tells me you are allowed just 10 burns, unlimited portable player exporting, but can play songs only on one computer. They use media player 9 and just have a web interface and standard downloading. If you plan on burning to CD anyway, they are well in the price lead, especially good for double albums.

BestBuy Music Downloads

What a slacker I am. I went to best buy to look for the Napster gift cards (turns out to be best overall service generally, good gift for the young'uns). There I see best buy is selling just their card for MusicNow, I was totally unaware of it! You have to go to www.bestbuy.com/digitalmusic to get there. I will review it soon, I let it slip by. First glance it's pretty crude and what rights you get for the music is unclear. Lots of work they have ahead.

PVR vs PVR

Normando has just finished his PVP Showdown: RCA RD2780 vs. Archos AV300, check it out and see what personal video recorder is the one to get.

Karma marma

The new Rio Karma 20gb mp3/ogg/wma/flac player is a nice little toy, just the thing I've been waiting for. It met all my expectations and more. Read the review to see if you agree if it's the feline's night apparel.

Fatten up your RD2780

Normando has dared to expand his RCA Lyra AV Jukebox past the 20gb by installing a bigger drive. If you do things yourself and don't mind the risk, take a look at Lyra AV Jukebox Hard Drive Upgrade.

Out with the lyra, what's next?

I returned the Lyra, just not cutting it for me with the mp3 performance, ah well. My hankering for a good sounding jukebox is still there, I think I'm going to pick up a rio karma and see how that goes.

Let's Talk!

I didn't think I would need to put up message boards for a while, but for the new Lyra RD2780, it might help to have it. Better than me just getting feedback all to myself. This is one high interest product! Check the forums here.

Got the Lyra AV

I've got my first crack at a review of the RCA Lyra Audio/Video Jukebox. I just got it so I'll be filling in more as I use it. A very nice toy, but beta wary beware.... Read it here. Updated: Tried recording from video source. Update2: Sound distortion for quiet passages, bah! If it's not good at mp3 playback that kills it for me, none of my other players had a problem with my encoded material.

Napster Premium

I joined napster premium for the purpose of reviewing it here and found out my past assumptions were wrong. Oddly, until you join premium, you won't see all the songs that are available for streaming only (non purchaseable), and also that some of the purchasable songs are not streamable! They really should remedy that, the selection is a lot different than appears in the free service. I've updated the chart to reflect this.

Finally a JukeBox that made me jump

I held off a long time looking for a mp3 jukebox. Archos too big, iPod too expensive bla bla bla. Now it appears the new RCA Lyra Audio/Video Jukebox RCA Lyra Audio/Video Jukebox (RD2780) is out! I hope so anyway. It has a 3.5 inch screen and can play video! It appears to be reasonably small.

Mine is still on order, but since it says in stock, I am hoping to review it soon! The price at this link is the cheapest you'll find, so you can get it there if you are taking a leap of hopeful speculation like I am.

UPDATE: That link will show not shipping. According to RCA, they have not shipped any yet, but will likely ship within days.

Oops

I fixed the feedback link at the page top, sorry!

Online Music Exploding, sort of...

I had been waiting for a legitimate way to get songs from the net, and here comes a bunch. Not being a mac user, I had to wait. Now we have a bunch of choices, including ITunes from mac itself. As a guide, check out the fledgling Online Music Central page where a quick table of features, and eventually more detailed reviews will live. I've tried them all and it's a bit more confusing that it should be!

Now, Now, Zen

Creative has all those nifty Nomad Zen players, and added a new one recently. They basically enlarged the screen and made it blue again. I don't own any hard drive based player myself yet, I have been hedging for a long time. It's confusing to know what's really available since creative says only 60gb model, but if you look on the web, 30gb and 40gb models are listed. Check it out at NomadWorld.

Wires are Overrated!

I've been using 802.11b wireless for my laptop for a while now and recently went to 802.11g. So here are a few articles to get started. First, a deciphering of what all the 802's are and why they make no sense to proper humans, see the poop sheet on 802. Second, some chatter on how you might set up your wireless net, see wi-fi hubbub. Finally, what to use in a laptop. You can easily

add an internal card instead to some laptops instead of jamming in a pc card, see wi-fi laptop ramblings.

Buy Smart

To get yelled at by your spouse for buying tech toys, you have to buy tech toys. Perhaps you'll get one less smack of the rolling pin if you get a real bargain! See buy smart for ideas on where to get stuff cheap, and when not to buy at all.