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Another Dirty Harry quote? Yup....what I'm referring to is buying computers and Macs. I just experience Mac buying firsthand on behalf of a client (more correctly her daughter) who had to have a Mac. I've been accused of being anti-Mac at various times, but that is simply not true. I like them just fine, and I've bought a number of them over time, so let me take a little time and explain the "Frugal Propellerhead" philosophy as related to Macs.
Here are my points to consider:
- What do you do with a computer?
- What's your budget?
- How important are the intangibles (eg. build quality, design, cachet)?
If your main purpose is say Photography (professionally, or serious amateur), Music creation, Graphic Design or any of several tasks that the premier or industry standard software is Mac; by all means....go Mac. If you have a high-end budget (although, I'd be confused as to why you'd be reading this blog), then go ahead, "make my day". Or if you're an equipment snob (I'll admit that I'm kind of one myself), then there's lots to like about them as well.....but....there's always one of those isn't there.
What this post is about, is my recent experience with a machine identical to the above. As I said earlier, I needed to find a MacBook for the daughter of a client who had bought a Dell from me previously. She needed a replacement computer for college and had a budget between $500-700. Normally, in that situation, I'd have recommended a ThinkPad or Dell Latitude in the $250-350 range equipped with an Intel Core2Duo CPU, 14" screen, combo drive and a
hard drive in the 100-200Gb range. From a usability standpoint, we'd be talking about the same thing as the "early '09, 13" MacBook that I found for them. This machine was built very well, it was in good shape, and spec'd nicely with a 160Gb HDD, and 4Gb of RAM, plus 6 more months of AppleCare warranty left.
So, what's the problem? $200-300, that's the problem! The Dell D630s that I've been doing lately are spec'd almost identically to that Mac and I've been able to get them into a client's hands for between $225 and $275! They'll be just as functional as that MacBook and last pretty much just as long.
So, if you are OK to double your cost for those intangibles, then that's your call. ".....as long as the right people get shot"
A little nugget of wisdom from that great philosopher, Harry Callahan. Does this mean that I'm about to pump 44 Magnum rounds into somebody!?! No, not really, although the heat and the politicians are getting pretty tiresome. No, what I'm talking about is my "to do list" of propellerhead things that need to be done. Although, many things have been taken care of and others are "in process", there are some that there's been NO PROGRESS! Which is where Dirty Harry comes into play.
What it comes down to is that there is still some install things that need to be done with my A/V system. Specifically, the 3 rear-channel in-ceiling speakers that need to be go into the living room, plus the connection of the triple-gang jack panel behind the A/V cabinet. The reality is that I could probably do it, but it would take me a ridiculous amount of time by myself. On top of that, I'm not getting any younger and several of hours crawling around in the attic would do me no good. So, I've turned to my friend Pat who actually does this kind of thing professionally, meaning that he'd not only be much faster, but far less likely to make mistakes as well. So, I've arranged to make a manual labor exchange with him. If he'll come down one weekend this fall (after Oct.) and help with this install, I'll go to Lubbock at some point in the future to help him with his house. Yes, I know that it's still manual labor, but hey, its manual labor that I already know how to do!
On another front, the AVPC is finally in! It's up and running, connected to the network where the bulk of my photos and some music has been moved on to the server. That took quite some time in and of itself since I was moving a lot of data. There was all of our family pictures from the digital era beginning around 2002/3 and a growing cache of "lossless" music. I spent some time listening to it the other day and I must say that with a digital connection from the computer to the receiver pulling lossless file, it sounded very nice indeed. There is still lots of "setup" and tuning needs to be done. I'm committed to using XBMC as the "front-end" to access the files, but so far, I haven't been able to get it to see the server. I also need to set up the Hauppauge dual tuner to handle DVR work. It's all in there though and connected to everything that its supposed to. Oh yeah, we found a bonus yesterday when the wife and kids were going to Skype with sister and cousins in Germany. Yep, I set up the webcam on the AVPC and was able to Skype via the big TV in the living room. That's absolutely the way to go on this!
We're getting there, so at some point in the next few months, the A/V system will finally be "finished"!
You guys probably know that I'm a little bit of a software-phobe. I've always been able to get hardware to work and really quite enjoy the challenge of resolving their issues, but where software is concerned, I don't enjoy it near as much. This is why my projects quite often are technological successes after which it comes to a grinding halt until I get around to resolving the software problems to make it all work.
So far, the home server has been a pretty good example. It's been up and running (and well) for several months. It quietly sits in the corner of the office going about its business without nary a peep. We've enjoyed the ability to put files in there and have access to them from any machine as well as have it unobtrusively back up our stable of computers giving us peace of mind. However (and there's always one of those, right?) it hasn't nearly fulfilled it's potential. One of the main reasons I went with this software was that it would easily "server" media across a home network while keeping it in a safe (backed up) central location. We have a LOT of media, maybe not as much as some folks, but hundreds of CDs, thousands of photographs, and plans to add more once I get my archiving system up and running again. Like any family, there is tons of the stuff just waiting its turn to get digitized. Everything from old family photos that need to be scanned, to old high school choir VHS tapes that need to be captured, and even some vinyl records as well as cassettes to be saved. So the server has its work cut out for it.
So, where to start? For me, that was getting on Half.com and finding a copy of the Windows Home Server Bible book, by Greg Kettell, & Jennifer Ackerman Kettell, published by Wiley. I almost always look on Half.com first, then Amazon, then Half Priced Books for any published material. I found this book and had it shipped for less than a third of it's MSRP. I used this book to set up the server and learn about the more advanced functions of WHS. It's been indispensable!
There are a number of goals I have for this server in terms of sharing content in our home. The first, which as to give us peace of mind has already been achieved, as well as the second of creating a central shared place to store and access files. The next goal was to centralize, and hopefully eliminate duplication of media files so they can be accessed from anywhere, both internal and eventually external to our network.
What has started to drive this has been the completion of the Media Computer in the A/V stack. The concept with that machine is that it wouldn't contain any media files except on a temporary basis, but be able to access content and display it on the "big-screen", and/or play it through the main system. For our family, that's music; we have a lot of it and handling CDs is old, plus it will quite often create a situation where "you" play the same ones over and over again.
The ideal plan is to rip CDs losslessly into the music folder of WHS. The reason for lossless is obvious, but I chose to do this in WMP using WMA file format might not be. As would some of you, I'd say that iTunes is a better product and we are a multi-iPod family, but AAC isn't universal and IMHO, Apple products tend to be a little archane in terms of working with non-apple products. I just think, that iTunes will have no trouble pulling in the WMA files on the server, whereas the reverse isn't going to be true without a lot of hassles and work-arounds. I'm open to differing opinions and suggestions here. In order to get this done, I changed the rip settings in WMP to lossless then pointed the output folder to some folders I created in the W7 Libraries with are in fact residing on the server. The WMP couldn't see the server directly, through the desktop "shared folders" shortcut, but was able to see anything I put in the libraries of the machine. This allowed me to rip directly to the server and not have to move files after the fact.
I've been ripping a bunch of CDs this morning and now need to go test this out on the media computer and my laptop. If it doesn't work, I'm going to come back and commit the computing version of "sepukku".......stand by.......
OK, personal crisis averted; it worked! Now comes the grunt work. Culling through my files located in various computers, then moving the files, followed by the lossless ripping of many CDs! Then it'll be on to the photos followed by working out the kinks in setting up the DVR. Stay-tuned as they used to say: I suspect that it is going to be a long-running series.
OH YEAH! I almost forgot, I'm playing with XBMC (another free product) on the media computer, so of course that's going to be another episode of hardware addict vs. software!
People often say "it's the little things that count". I don't know whether it's true or not, but I'm going to add my own codicil to this old adage...."it's the little things that tie things together".
What I'm referring to on this is my home theater/audio-video system. The big pieces are there, have been there for a very long time. They work very well and do pretty much everything I want it to do. But the final touches have eluded it. Now, I don't mean that it's "finished"; it'll probably never be "finished", but now it's "function" is very close to being there. Let me start from the beginning.
I'm a child of the 70's, a young adult of the 80's, and a technological gear-head. As such, not only do I love the function of these systems, but love the equipment as well. The 70's was the era of big gear, shiny Japanese electronics with cool meters and big knobs, and BIG American speakers! Then it all came together in the 80's with slick magazines such as "Audio Video Interiors" showcasing huge built-in media systems that covered entire walls! Eventually, on to the 90's when the electronic realities made the interconnection of these pieces possible (and relatively affordable).
So, now that you know where I'm coming from and the A/V nirvana that I'm trying to get to, that sets the stage. I've always particularly loved the systems that had a big video monitor flanked on either side by stacks of component pieces, plus secondary monitors that allow the user to......well, monitor other things. Anyway, I've always had the equipment to one extent or another; sometimes better than the stuff that those installations in the magazines used. They of course always had to deal with high-strung trophy wives and high-dollar interior designers. It's been the tying it all together into a cohesive unit that has eluded me to some extent.
A few years ago when we lived somewhere else, I got a friend of mine to help me put together a modular cabinet that I had been doodling on for several years. Since I figured I'd never own one of those million dollar homes with everything built in, I thought that it'd be better to build something that could be moved, but looked "built-in". I had planned for this thing to hold media, audio, video and computing gear to run not only a home theater system, but a distributed A/V system as well. I designed it to have an "audio" side where the bulk of that reproduction equipment would live, and a video side where those "sources" would go. In between, would be the space to house a decent sized TV/Monitor. The lower sections would have drawers for the media and other storage, and above the stacks would be space for "secondary" monitors.
Which after this loooong lead-in is really the subject of this post. The concept of these monitors was always somewhat amorphous: meaning I wasn't really certain what exactly they would do. There were 2 glassed-in spaces built into the cabinet that have over time fluctuated between storage and holding actual monitors from previous aborted attempts to have an "A/V computer" Well, I finally finish the A/V computer (v.3.0) and really needed to install it. I had made the decision that I didn't want to just connect it to the TV. I wanted to have the ability to just turn it on and be able to work on it via a separate monitor, plus I wanted this monitor to be able access the regular TV channels so I can keep track of something like a baseball game.
Before we get into the monitors, I'd better explain the computer part first though. What the A/V computer is, is my old desktop's guts inside an Ahanix D-Vine HTPC case that I picked up from a buddy. Imagine a black version of the one from the above image. What I'll be able to do is to completely access a centralized library (as soon as I create it) of media (and files) that reside in our Windows Home Server, plus function as a web-surfing PC, as well as DVR. I have an old compact version of IBM's TrackPoint keyboard attached so I can control it without needing a mouse, in addition to a Logitech DiNovo Mini (below)that I can use across the room. I'm going to get more into what-all is in this thing and how I intend to use it in the future, but I'll have to say that its very cool!
As far as seeing what was going on in this computer presented another problem. I didn't want to turn on my big projection TV every time something needed to get done, so I needed an answer. The ideal solution turned out to be an inexpensive 19" wide-screen LCD TV. Here's the reasoning: The LCD TVs are really just LCD computer monitors with a tuner and a cheap little plastic foot for a stand. They not only have the tuner to pick up OTA (over the air) and cable signals, but usually a variety of other inputs as well, but most importantly, a HD15 (otherwise known as VGA or sub-D) computer input. The situation has gotten so that you can go to Wal-mart and pick up one of these things for $130-140 brand new. However, I've found that they show up in various places like pawn shops, Craig's List and eBay with no stands or remotes for as low as $50! Don't know for sure why, but I suspect that they had been mounted somewhere by a business or something, then eventually replaced with something bigger etc. As luck would have it, my spots in the cabinet is sized for that exact type with little room to spare (I actually sized it for the then current 13" CRT monitors with room on the side for a cable tuner), plus I had a computer monitor stand that would fit!
And since it has a bunch of inputs, I've also connected the Sony Mega-Changer to it so I could work with the DVDs in it without firing up the big TV.
On the other side of the stack is the "old man" of the system. Its an Amdek RGB, CRT type monitor. I know, I know....what the......! It's kind of an interesting story. I was in my first few months of working at Tulane at the time and they told me that one of my buildings was slated to be gutted and have a renovation done on it. So, at the end of the summer session, I needed to get into the office and get everything out that I didn't want to go into a dumpster. Along with some mid-century modern furniture that I saved, there were 2 Apple II computers which went into the dumpster, but attached to them were these 2 Amdek color montiors that took a regular composite input. So I kept those.....since 1995!
One of them which looks exactly like the image above is still up in the attic, but the other has on-and-off been used as a secondary monitor for keeping track of games and such back when I had a VCR with dual outputs. The other day, I connected this one to the glassed in cabinet cavity above the "audio stack" to the receivers composite "monitor out". That way, I can read the receiver's and the Griffen iPod docks on-screen menus without turning on the TV. So now, I have an almost ideal setup. There are 3 monitors; ones from which I can see and control what's going on with the audio side, one from which I can control the computing functions and doubles as a secondary source monitor, and the big display for actually watching things......and most of a day stringing cables to and from everything to make all this work!
