Samsung LN32A550 - The monitor debacle

I wound up being too busy to post this the other night. It looks great on film, not so much in person.

Samsung LN32A550 LCD TV as a PC monitor

Sometimes too much of a good thing really is too much. I decided that since I have had my 24" Dell monitor for going on 3 years, that a size update would be in order. After checking reviews and such online, the LCD TV route seemed to be the best compromise between price and performance.

I drove my wife nuts this weekend checking out all the TVs and specs, and finally settled on the Samsung LN32A550. It's a 32" LCD TV with a 1080p resolution, which is 1920x1080 in monitor resolution terms. That's close enough to the 1920x1200 resolution on my Dell monitor to make me feel good about not losing picture definition. The 32" should just be a bigger picture, so I can turn the size down on UI elements in games for more game real-estate.

Well, it turns out that 3' of desktop space between me and a 32" LCD TV is not enough to overcome the TV's shortcomings. I guess they don't list the dot-pitch anywhere on purpose, because it is huge, and it becomes distracting. World of Warcraft blurred a lot while playing, and Call of Duty 4 made my eyes cross if I tried to turn fast. Text on web pages was nice and clear, after I figured out how to calibrate the TV to a PC mode, but one doesn't usually buy a 32" LCD for web surfing. Colors were also pretty washed out. I managed to get them to look pretty decent, but since I couldn't play games without my eyes watering, I guess that didn't make much of a difference.

On the upside, it looked damn cool on my desk. (I'll post pics later.)

I think that after I return it, I am going to look into finding a deal on a 27" Dell 2709w LCD monitor.

Reserved

Use the Force, children!

Why, oh why, couldn't they have invented these when I was a child?

STORY

Toy trains 'Star Wars' fans to use The Force

By Mike
Snider, USA TODAY

Could The Force be with you? A toy due in stores this fall will let you
test and hone your Jedi-like abilities.
The Force Trainer (expected to be
priced at $90 to $100) comes with a headset that uses brain waves to allow
players to manipulate a sphere within a clear 10-inch-tall training tower,
analogous to Yoda and Luke Skywalker's abilities in the Star Wars films.
No,
you're not tapping into some "all-powerful force controlling everything," as Han
Solo said in the movies. But you are reaching out with mind power via one of the
first mass-market brain-to-computer products. "It's been a fantasy everyone has
had, using The Force," says Howard Roffman, president of Lucas Licensing.
Mind-control games may be the coming thing: Mattel plans to demonstrate a
Mind Flex game (also due this fall), which uses brain-wave activity to move a
ball through a tabletop obstacle course, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las
Vegas on Thursday.
In the Force Trainer, a wireless headset reads your brain
activity, in a simplified version of EEG medical tests, and the circuitry
translates it to physical action. If you focus well enough, the training sphere,
which looks like a ping-pong ball, will rise in the tower.
A state of deep
concentration is needed to achieve a Force-full effect. "When you concentrate,
it activates the training remote," says Frank Adler of toymaker Uncle Milton
Industries, which is creating the Trainer. "There is a flow of air that will
move the (ball). You can actually feel like you are in a zone."
Star Wars
sound effects and audio clips emitted from the base unit "cue you in to progress
to the next level (from Padawan to Jedi) or when to move the sphere up or down
to keep challenging yourself," Adler says.
"Until today, EEG technology has
been designed for rigorous medical and clinical applications with little regard
to price (and) ease of use," says Greg Hyver of NeuroSky, which developed the
brain-wave technology for both games. "We are putting this exciting technology
into everyone's living room."

Of work and phones

I just started working at a site that has military contracts and a fair share of classified material floating about, so I wasn't allowed to have a phone with a camera. No problem, I thought, I will just get a different phone.

Yeah. It turns out, they don't make too many phones without cameras anymore. I ended up with a Blackberry 8830. This way I can check my email from work as well, since most internet sites are blocked.



It's not that I'm so addicted to my phone that I can't go without it, but I don't really visit my own office too much, so I really have no way of getting emergency calls in any sort of timely manner unless I have a phone on me.

A PC made of corn!

STORY

It's not 100% corn, in fact, it's mostly plastic. But it is cool that they are starting to use materials that pollute less.

The TV show Eureka used a case made mostly out of potatoes when it released on DVD in 2007.

My only concern with the use of biodegradable materials is whether or not my DVD case or PC will still be around in 10 or 20 years. I mean, it's degradable.

Gibson making self tuning guitars

WIRED

How cool is that?

SanDisk Sansa, what a piece of crap...

So, I bought my wife an MP3 player for her birthday. It was a SanDisk Sansa 4GB. I decide don this one due to numerous positive reviews on many websites, and the fact that I refuse to buy an iPod due to the restrictions of the format. (A co-worked assures me it is easy to convert MP3s to the iPod format. I don't care, I don't want to convert something that works everywhere else just so it works on a damn iPod.)

Anyway, I got the player, gave it to my wife for her birthday, and everything was OK.

Or not.

The thing worked once. My wife plugged it in to a USB port to recharge it, and it basically got hot enough to burn me when I tried to unplug it. It also would not turn on anymore.

Newegg RMAd it for me. Goody. However, it took them 3 weeks to get me a replacement, which didn't work correctly straight out of the package. The right arrow key doesn't work at all, and the dial and middle button stick. Ok, so I try for another RMA. Nope, Newegg says it is now past the 30 day RMA period. WTF? I just got the replacement. Oh, sorry, we count the time since you purchased the original unit. Contact the manufacturer for support.

Great. So, I try to get an RMA from SanDisk. Your concern is important to us.
My ass it is. It's been over two days now and I haven't heard a thing about it. I'm starting to get very annoyed. I spent about $150 on this piece of junk, and my wife can't even use it. One unit having a problem I can handle. 2 in a row being bad? That tells me that I am having really bad luck with these, or that they are just a complete piece of garbage. It's also very annoying that Newegg could get back to me in a matter or hours, but the manufacturer can't be bothered for days.

Someone is going to eat the cost of this broken piece of junk, and it sure as hell isn't going to be me.