Given that the last one got to be a rather long-rambling post, I left off some details along with a few other things. So here goes. There is one very important item that hasn't been acquired for either of the computers that I "finished" last week. Really....are they ever finished?!? And that's vid-capture/TV Tuner cards. Since they generally come all together on one adapter they are pretty much the same thing, but really I just need one for the "workstation" and the other for the HTPC.
The very one remaining capability that I need to put into the workstation is the ability to capture video from older analog sources such as VHS tapes that we (like most folks) have squirreled away in various boxes and closets. That's one of my "honey-does" that I really need to take care of, so some of this stuff can be archived into a digital format. The "Blackbird" workstation rebuild that I described in the last post is more than powerful enough to take care of that kind of thing. In fact, other than digital photography, this is the exact thing that, that computer was built to handle....along with archiving music off of old formats as well. Really, all I need is an older capture only device, but the problem is that since I decided to use Windows 7, 64-Bit OS, for it's access to more RAM and security/stability, most of the older cards don't have driver support for it.
On the other hand, all I need for the HTPC is the ability to tune TV, but today's television is delivered in both the analog and the digital flavors, I'm again left with the need to get a newer card since they're the only ones that have ATSC plus Windows 7 support. So, what to do?
This is in fact one of those cases where simple frugality isn't of much help, since there is no viable solution other than new or relatively new products. On top of that, this is an area where my past experience has taught me that random no-name products can often be difficult to work with and the manufacturers provide little or no technical support.
So, here is a rare occasion that I'm going to go with the de-facto industry leader/standard in Hauppauge. The other plus of using a product from these guys is that they have an entire series of models that all have various features which will allow me to use the appropriate one for the application. In the case of the HTPC, I can simply use there model that has a NTSC (analog)/ATSC (digital) capable tuner that will allow me to use it in a PVR function which has relatively low requirements in vid-capture. However, in the workstation where I'm expecting to pull in lots of analog video and crunch it, I'll probably want to invest in something that does hardware decoding, but little or no need for a tuner since I won't be watching or capturing television. So really that I'm looking for is an older "high-end" capture card that has Windows 7 support. This is going to take some extra research if I want to save money, but it should be worth it.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Saturday, December 25, 2010
General Rebuild
I've been talking about this for a while now, but finally pulled the trigger after I did a major renovation of my "work area". Basically my work area layout was/is a computer desk with an old beat-up credenza that I bought from Texas Tech Surplus years ago for $10 as a "return" on the left side. It all work well (after a fashion) since I could keep my main computer on the desk part and do all my various projects on the 66" credenza. However, it was neither efficient nor asthetically pleasing, but since it was 66", and made of solid wood (its old remember), I was never terribly motivated to do much about the situation. About as energetic as I got was to rearrange the furniture in the office (at my wife's prompting) when we repainted the room, at which point I picked up the glass-topped computer desk off of Craig's List for $40.
The next motivating force ended up being the rather innocuous purchase of a 19" LCD TV to replace the little (13") old tube TV that we had mounted to the wall in the office. I bought the thing used at the First Saturday "computer flea market" for $85 a couple of months ago. That left me with 2 problems, plus one opportunity.
Step 1 through 5 were pretty straight-forward, although it did require me to do quite a bit of wood-working. I'll make more sense when I offer up pictures in the future. The hutch, although clearly not a work of art or much of an example of craftsmanship, does it's job. It has a section on one end that allows for the LCD TV to be mounted on an articulated arm, which in turn allows me to push it out of the way or pull it out to use as a monitor or watch TV while I've got something going on the main computer. It's already proven its worth yesterday by allowing me to work on my workstation while I was using it as a monitor for the HTPC build, then for the kids to watch TV on. It also has a 42" long shelf that allows a number of things to be put out of the way and a cork-board that I can use for notes and momentos. The main thing is that there was VERY little cost associated with it since it's made off left-overs from previous projects. Of course I bought the LCD mount, and a few bolts to attach it along with some paint, but that was it!
After all the sawdust making and painting was done, it was moved back to the office and put into place (kudos to my brother-in-law Jim who provided the necessary muscle), it was time to deal with the desktop....well, actually the desktop PLUS the HTPC at the same time. Here's the deal; when I bought the parts for my desktop, I wanted certain parts, but couldn't quite afford the Gigabyte motherboard that I really wanted, so I settled for the lower spec'd version with the processor I wanted (Intel E8400/3.0Ghz Core 2 Duo). Along the way I added things such as 4Gb of faster RAM and a Blu-Ray optical drive. Then last time I was in Lubbock it was talking to my buddy Pat about building a HTPC since he had built a nice one. To my surprise he offered me the case to his along with the parts that were left in it after he scrapped the idea and pulled the HDD. So, of course I did a trade! My old X41 (replaced by the X300) went to my friend Kym for a camera lens and the $100 that went to Pat for the case.
Here's the kicker; when I opened up the HTPC, I found that although it had a low end (E4200) C2D processor, it was riding on the Gigabyte MB that I had originally wanted for my desktop. Soooo, when I went to rebuild my workstation, it involved both computers! I did a the MB swap, and the CPU swap, and the boot drive from my desktop when into the HTPC, while a SSD when into it's place.
So here's the rundown on the Desktop Workstation rebuild:
This does leave item #8 though, meaning I need to pull out the file server which currently has Windows 2000 Server on it, exchange the 40Gb boot drive for a 160Gb one that I have in the parts bin and hope the SATA RAID controller works with the Windows Home Sever load when I put that on in the next few days!
Let's add up the costs besides what we already owned:
The total ends up being about $300. So, all in all, a lot got done and very little money got spent which is the always the goal! Right in the middle of this, I ended up making another $50 or so, by flipping another one of those Dell Latitude D620 to a buyer.
Oh, can I just say that the desktop workstation (which has been renamed "Blackbird") is VERY FAST!!!
The next motivating force ended up being the rather innocuous purchase of a 19" LCD TV to replace the little (13") old tube TV that we had mounted to the wall in the office. I bought the thing used at the First Saturday "computer flea market" for $85 a couple of months ago. That left me with 2 problems, plus one opportunity.
- First I knew that the LCD wasn't going to fit on the old-style TV mount that was there.
- Secondly I didn't want to go back with another wall mount putting BIG holes in my drywall.
- Thirdly, virtually all "flat-panel" type TVs can be used as computer monitors as well as TVs.
- Take down the old mount, patch the hole and repaint, leading to-
- Build a "hutch" to go on top of my credenza that would have an area to attach the LCD mount, leading to-
- Taking the credenza out to facilitate the construction, leading to-
- Refinishing/rebuilding it so that it would better handle the equipment that goes into it (more on this later), leading to-
- Pulling all the equipment out of it, which included the: UPS, home File Server, Desktop Workstation, and Obsolete media archiving rig (again, more on this later), leading to-
- Rebuilding the desktop workstation, leading to-
- Building the Home Theater PC, leading to-
- Rebuilding the Home File Server to handle Windows Home Server OS, which I had traded for some old parts.
Step 1 through 5 were pretty straight-forward, although it did require me to do quite a bit of wood-working. I'll make more sense when I offer up pictures in the future. The hutch, although clearly not a work of art or much of an example of craftsmanship, does it's job. It has a section on one end that allows for the LCD TV to be mounted on an articulated arm, which in turn allows me to push it out of the way or pull it out to use as a monitor or watch TV while I've got something going on the main computer. It's already proven its worth yesterday by allowing me to work on my workstation while I was using it as a monitor for the HTPC build, then for the kids to watch TV on. It also has a 42" long shelf that allows a number of things to be put out of the way and a cork-board that I can use for notes and momentos. The main thing is that there was VERY little cost associated with it since it's made off left-overs from previous projects. Of course I bought the LCD mount, and a few bolts to attach it along with some paint, but that was it!
After all the sawdust making and painting was done, it was moved back to the office and put into place (kudos to my brother-in-law Jim who provided the necessary muscle), it was time to deal with the desktop....well, actually the desktop PLUS the HTPC at the same time. Here's the deal; when I bought the parts for my desktop, I wanted certain parts, but couldn't quite afford the Gigabyte motherboard that I really wanted, so I settled for the lower spec'd version with the processor I wanted (Intel E8400/3.0Ghz Core 2 Duo). Along the way I added things such as 4Gb of faster RAM and a Blu-Ray optical drive. Then last time I was in Lubbock it was talking to my buddy Pat about building a HTPC since he had built a nice one. To my surprise he offered me the case to his along with the parts that were left in it after he scrapped the idea and pulled the HDD. So, of course I did a trade! My old X41 (replaced by the X300) went to my friend Kym for a camera lens and the $100 that went to Pat for the case.
Here's the kicker; when I opened up the HTPC, I found that although it had a low end (E4200) C2D processor, it was riding on the Gigabyte MB that I had originally wanted for my desktop. Soooo, when I went to rebuild my workstation, it involved both computers! I did a the MB swap, and the CPU swap, and the boot drive from my desktop when into the HTPC, while a SSD when into it's place.
So here's the rundown on the Desktop Workstation rebuild:
- Gigabyte GA-EP45-U3 Motherboard running an Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 cpu
- Mushkin 60Gb (Sandforce) SSD "boot drive", Seagate 1Tb "storage drive"
- Mushkin 4Gb "Blackline" RAM
- HIS Radeon 4650 Video Card
- DVD Burner, Blu-Ray drive, Magneto-Optical drive
- Windows 7 Home Premium
- Gigabyte GA-EP43-U3 motherboard running an Intel Core 2 Duo E4200 cpu
- Hitachi 500Gb HDD
- Mushkin 2Gb "Silverline" RAM
- nVidia GeForce 8400GS (passive cooled) Video Card
- Blu-Ray/DVD Burner combo drive
- Current XPP (because that was already loaded, but will get the last W7 license I own)
This does leave item #8 though, meaning I need to pull out the file server which currently has Windows 2000 Server on it, exchange the 40Gb boot drive for a 160Gb one that I have in the parts bin and hope the SATA RAID controller works with the Windows Home Sever load when I put that on in the next few days!
Let's add up the costs besides what we already owned:
- $50 for a 3 license load of Windows 7 Home Premium which works out to something short of $17 per computer (1 on my wife's Z61m, 1 on my Desktop Workstation, 1 on the HTPC).
- $100 for the HTPC parts package from Pat which yielded the motherboard upgrade for the desktop, as well as the rest of the HTPC build-up that will go into my A/V cabinet and handle streaming video plus anything else I can think of for it to do.
- $125 for the Mushkin 60Gb SSD boot drive for the desktop rebuild.
- $25 for the Sony Blu-Ray drive for the desktop rebuild which allowed me to move the Blu-Ray/DVD burner combo drive to the HTPC. That was $50 from Craig's List.
- $0 for the parts trade to get a copy of the Windows Home Server OS to go onto the file server.
The total ends up being about $300. So, all in all, a lot got done and very little money got spent which is the always the goal! Right in the middle of this, I ended up making another $50 or so, by flipping another one of those Dell Latitude D620 to a buyer.
Oh, can I just say that the desktop workstation (which has been renamed "Blackbird") is VERY FAST!!!
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Catchin' Up
Obviously, I've been remiss in keeping this blog up to date, but for those of you who know what's been going on in my life already, I'm sure you understand the impact of making the jump to teaching high school again which includes 2 sections of "Advanced Placement" World History, 1 of Psychology as well as 3 of regular World History. It's not that these things have left me without time to do anything, but it's that these things (as well as a boom in my computer "upgrade" business) has basically maxed out my consciousness. So, does this mean that I've fallen off of the technology treadmill?
Well, actually, I haven't even slowed down; I just haven't had time to WRITE ABOUT IT! So, in the interested of catching up; here goes.
First, I'll have to admit that things have been slow on the photography front. Ever since I decided to sell the D200 and use my backup D70s until such time that I'm ready or in the financial position to upgrade to the D300, there's been no progress. .....well, actually that's not exactly true. I was making good progress till a travel trailer, the right travel trailer came between me and what I had accumulated towards the upgrade. Well anyway, we'll just say that the D70s does an adequate job for right now. I'll do another post on just the photography situation soon.
So, now to what I've been up to.... technologically speaking. There's actually been 3 areas: upgrading my phone, my desktop computer and laptop(s).
The simplest is the phone: after years of refusing to upgrade from my venerable RAZR used in tandom with my IBM WorkPad C505 (a Palm Pilot clone) for organization, I finally gave in and bought a "smartphone" which began a series of events that has changed everything about my communications set up. Let me start by saying that I don't care for that constantly tethered/on demand lifestyle that you see so many living where they are constantly looking at their phones. However, I REALLY wanted to not carry 2 separate devices any longer, so after much research I came to the conclusion that there was no way around paying AT&T for a "digital" package. Actually, the event that started me down the slippery-slope was that I kept receiving texts that I needed to answer and as you can imagine, this wasn't simple to do on a RAZR, plus it was costing me money for every one. This of course led to an unlimited family text plan since Camille already had it tacked on to her part of our plan anyway. You add this to my convergence desire and an increasing need to access my personal email while at work; it all adds up to a very good excuse to pay for a data plan and buy a "smartphone".
The tipping point came with the "smartphone" of choice appeared in "unlocked" form on a Newegg (they are the devil) special. I received an electronic flier listing the Motorola Q9h (2nd generation, global Q) for about $70. So, now here was the phone I wanted, at a decent price and "unlocked" so I didn't have to be beholden to AT&T for the next 2 years! I bit, and now I'm completely up-to-date communications-wise. The added bonus is that I can connect to it via Bluetooth from my ThinkPad and get on the internet via 3G virtually anywhere. Of course, now I'm on the hook to AT&T for that monthly data plan (there's a reason that their corporate symbol is the "Deathstar"), but it's been worth it so far.
Now, on to my latest forays into laptops. Personally, I've done precious little since I finally got my "pieced together" X40 up and running. Well...actually, that's not completely accurate, but I'll get back to that in a minute. Mostly my work into laptops in the last couple of months have been almost exclusively into Gateways, HPs, and Dells, meaning I've done a LOT of work for other people. That's awesome for the pocket money situation, but leaves little time to sleep and working on my own projects. The main plus is that I've found a very viable alternative to refurbishing and selling ThinkPads. The problem is that although, ThinkPads make excellent candidates for this sort of thing, they hold their value so well, that they leave little profit margin after costs.
Therefore, my new favorite for that use have become the Dell Latitude D620/630. They are very nice machines, easy and cheap to upgrade and can be found by the drove for a ridiculously low price since Dell sold tons of them to corporations around the world just 2 or 3 years ago. So now with thousands of them coming "off-lease" or surplused as a result of upgrades, there value is very depressed for there capabilities. They can routinely be picked up for between $200-250, reimaged, updated and sold off for a $50-75 profit while requiring little or no work. They can even run Windows 7 or Vista quite well for a minimum upgrade cost. I've handled 5 of them in the last 2 months and have yet to be disappointed.
As you guys know, I always keep an eye open for interesting machines or potentially under-valued computers to upgrade our household stable or as simple projects. The latest "apple-of-my-eye" have been the unusual Z Series that came and went very quickly in the IBM ThinkPad lineup. I'll give just a very basic description here since you know that the fact that they are relatively rare and a little odd is enough inducement for me!
Basically, they were marketed as a full-on multi-media machine built off of the other T/R 60/61 design. Their motherboards were similar if not identical and of course their capabilities are comparable as well. As typical of the ThinkPad range, they can be "spec'd" down to Celeron CPUs with a low resolution WXGA screen (1280 x 800) or up to Core 2 Duo CPUs high res WUXGA screens (1680 x 1200) or just about anything in between. What this mean to me is this: I can get into this machine cheap (if I'm lucky and work hard at it) and put whatever I want in it. The price on them is typically high since they never sold in large numbers like the Rs and Ts, so most were sold to individuals who sped'd them pretty high. Other than the interest of them being different, there are a number of other factors that attracted me and might interest others as well. The chipset and motherboard allows the later Z61 machines to take dual core CPUs which in turn, allows them to run a 64-Bit operating system, besides being just down-right FAST for normal use. Then there's the magic specs for laptop upgrader; it supports both SATA hard drives as well as DDR2 RAM. This is key in that as compared to parallel HDDs and/or DDR RAM, the price of this stuff is so much cheaper, especially if you want large drives (or SSDs) and a lot of RAM (2Gb or more).
In my case, what happened was that I came across somebody on eBay who apparently had several of them that were replaced in their business and was selling them one by one. In addition, they were about as low spec'd as you could get them AND the bidding was coming due at an odd time....the perfect storm of high potential and low price. How low you ask? $138!!! To make this situation even more special, I happened to have a DVD burner for that series machine left from a previous project (no cost), 2 1Gb RAM modules of the correct spec....from a previous project (again, no cost). Oh and I had bought a 3 license copy of Windows 7 a month ago for $50 locally. My original intention was actually to make it a project computer for myself, but this machine came with the low-end, but very bright WXGA screen which has a resolution what's almost perfect for my optically challenged wife. I already owned a 320Gb/7200rpm SATA hard drive that I had previously purchased which went into this machine. And did I mention that I was able to sell her old computer (ThinkPad R52) for a very fair "market value" of $250?
So, with the the upgraded C2D CPU and the yet completed, WiFi "N" upgrade, I will have accomplished her computer upgrade for essentially a zero sum bottom line. Now she's set for the next 2 or 3 years.
Of course, my head is already working on upgrades for Josh and Katie some time in the next year, but that's for another post....along with what's going on for my desktop rig and upcoming home theater computer that sits awaiting attention.
Well, actually, I haven't even slowed down; I just haven't had time to WRITE ABOUT IT! So, in the interested of catching up; here goes.
First, I'll have to admit that things have been slow on the photography front. Ever since I decided to sell the D200 and use my backup D70s until such time that I'm ready or in the financial position to upgrade to the D300, there's been no progress. .....well, actually that's not exactly true. I was making good progress till a travel trailer, the right travel trailer came between me and what I had accumulated towards the upgrade. Well anyway, we'll just say that the D70s does an adequate job for right now. I'll do another post on just the photography situation soon.
So, now to what I've been up to.... technologically speaking. There's actually been 3 areas: upgrading my phone, my desktop computer and laptop(s).
The simplest is the phone: after years of refusing to upgrade from my venerable RAZR used in tandom with my IBM WorkPad C505 (a Palm Pilot clone) for organization, I finally gave in and bought a "smartphone" which began a series of events that has changed everything about my communications set up. Let me start by saying that I don't care for that constantly tethered/on demand lifestyle that you see so many living where they are constantly looking at their phones. However, I REALLY wanted to not carry 2 separate devices any longer, so after much research I came to the conclusion that there was no way around paying AT&T for a "digital" package. Actually, the event that started me down the slippery-slope was that I kept receiving texts that I needed to answer and as you can imagine, this wasn't simple to do on a RAZR, plus it was costing me money for every one. This of course led to an unlimited family text plan since Camille already had it tacked on to her part of our plan anyway. You add this to my convergence desire and an increasing need to access my personal email while at work; it all adds up to a very good excuse to pay for a data plan and buy a "smartphone".
The tipping point came with the "smartphone" of choice appeared in "unlocked" form on a Newegg (they are the devil) special. I received an electronic flier listing the Motorola Q9h (2nd generation, global Q) for about $70. So, now here was the phone I wanted, at a decent price and "unlocked" so I didn't have to be beholden to AT&T for the next 2 years! I bit, and now I'm completely up-to-date communications-wise. The added bonus is that I can connect to it via Bluetooth from my ThinkPad and get on the internet via 3G virtually anywhere. Of course, now I'm on the hook to AT&T for that monthly data plan (there's a reason that their corporate symbol is the "Deathstar"), but it's been worth it so far.
Now, on to my latest forays into laptops. Personally, I've done precious little since I finally got my "pieced together" X40 up and running. Well...actually, that's not completely accurate, but I'll get back to that in a minute. Mostly my work into laptops in the last couple of months have been almost exclusively into Gateways, HPs, and Dells, meaning I've done a LOT of work for other people. That's awesome for the pocket money situation, but leaves little time to sleep and working on my own projects. The main plus is that I've found a very viable alternative to refurbishing and selling ThinkPads. The problem is that although, ThinkPads make excellent candidates for this sort of thing, they hold their value so well, that they leave little profit margin after costs.Therefore, my new favorite for that use have become the Dell Latitude D620/630. They are very nice machines, easy and cheap to upgrade and can be found by the drove for a ridiculously low price since Dell sold tons of them to corporations around the world just 2 or 3 years ago. So now with thousands of them coming "off-lease" or surplused as a result of upgrades, there value is very depressed for there capabilities. They can routinely be picked up for between $200-250, reimaged, updated and sold off for a $50-75 profit while requiring little or no work. They can even run Windows 7 or Vista quite well for a minimum upgrade cost. I've handled 5 of them in the last 2 months and have yet to be disappointed.
As you guys know, I always keep an eye open for interesting machines or potentially under-valued computers to upgrade our household stable or as simple projects. The latest "apple-of-my-eye" have been the unusual Z Series that came and went very quickly in the IBM ThinkPad lineup. I'll give just a very basic description here since you know that the fact that they are relatively rare and a little odd is enough inducement for me!
Basically, they were marketed as a full-on multi-media machine built off of the other T/R 60/61 design. Their motherboards were similar if not identical and of course their capabilities are comparable as well. As typical of the ThinkPad range, they can be "spec'd" down to Celeron CPUs with a low resolution WXGA screen (1280 x 800) or up to Core 2 Duo CPUs high res WUXGA screens (1680 x 1200) or just about anything in between. What this mean to me is this: I can get into this machine cheap (if I'm lucky and work hard at it) and put whatever I want in it. The price on them is typically high since they never sold in large numbers like the Rs and Ts, so most were sold to individuals who sped'd them pretty high. Other than the interest of them being different, there are a number of other factors that attracted me and might interest others as well. The chipset and motherboard allows the later Z61 machines to take dual core CPUs which in turn, allows them to run a 64-Bit operating system, besides being just down-right FAST for normal use. Then there's the magic specs for laptop upgrader; it supports both SATA hard drives as well as DDR2 RAM. This is key in that as compared to parallel HDDs and/or DDR RAM, the price of this stuff is so much cheaper, especially if you want large drives (or SSDs) and a lot of RAM (2Gb or more).In my case, what happened was that I came across somebody on eBay who apparently had several of them that were replaced in their business and was selling them one by one. In addition, they were about as low spec'd as you could get them AND the bidding was coming due at an odd time....the perfect storm of high potential and low price. How low you ask? $138!!! To make this situation even more special, I happened to have a DVD burner for that series machine left from a previous project (no cost), 2 1Gb RAM modules of the correct spec....from a previous project (again, no cost). Oh and I had bought a 3 license copy of Windows 7 a month ago for $50 locally. My original intention was actually to make it a project computer for myself, but this machine came with the low-end, but very bright WXGA screen which has a resolution what's almost perfect for my optically challenged wife. I already owned a 320Gb/7200rpm SATA hard drive that I had previously purchased which went into this machine. And did I mention that I was able to sell her old computer (ThinkPad R52) for a very fair "market value" of $250?
So, with the the upgraded C2D CPU and the yet completed, WiFi "N" upgrade, I will have accomplished her computer upgrade for essentially a zero sum bottom line. Now she's set for the next 2 or 3 years.
Of course, my head is already working on upgrades for Josh and Katie some time in the next year, but that's for another post....along with what's going on for my desktop rig and upcoming home theater computer that sits awaiting attention.
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