Back With A Tech-Vengence!!!

Inside my head, this is what my world has been like for about the last month! Of course, this all started when we left in a huge hurry (to beat a winter storm) for Disney back in March. I had just thought that getting that trip out of the way would be a relief..... Yeah; it didn't turn out that way. Naturally, there's the usual end of the school year stuff, such as state testing for the "end of course", then there was my AP class's "national exam", then other stuff such as prom, UIL Academic competition for which we qualified for regionals this year, our own kids' end of year stuff, all capped by yesterday's annual "International Food" day and the Computer Club's last game night! Makes me tired just thinking about it!

Oh..... Did I forget to mention that we are selling our house...... and obviously trying to find a new one right in the middle of all this? Yeah! We are! Which of course means that we are living in a house recently cleared of all the normal things that people have in their houses so that we can make believe that we normally live in a half-furnished house. 

As if that wasn't enough; the last two months have been a constant flow of computer jobs for people with broken PCs, or needing new machines. At any given time, there are anywhere from 1 to 3 computers sitting here waiting for me to find time to fix or the arrival of parts.

Then, a month ago, we decided it was time to replace our 13 year old SUV. The old Trailblazer had served us well, but it was pretty much "fish or cut bait" time. Meaning that we either needed to spend a few thousand dollars to keep it for a another few years, or sell it to buy another vehicle. Obviously, by the picture, you can see that we sold it and bought a Tahoe instead. While you are scratching your head in wonder, let me give you my rationale on buying this land-yacht. We can start with, it's bigger and has way more capability, move on to that it gets several miles per gallon better than the Trailblazer (!!!) and only costs $2000-3000 more than the mid-sized SUV of today such as the Traverse/Acadia/Expedition. Yes indeed, these things do/did sticker at around $50K (about $55K for this one), but I bought this 2012 for just south of $30,000 with about 50,000 miles on it. I will at some point, write an entire post on this topic. Just not today! Pretty big deal, right? Why not go ahead and write on it?

I got a little distracted along the way! For those who don't recognize it immediate; this is nVidia's family of "Shield" products.

You might remember a couple of years ago that virtually any place that sold consumer electronics was overrun with advertisement material on this thing..... the nVidia Shield "Portable". I'll have to admit that it took me some time to even figure out that it was, although it was undeniably cool looking! At it's core, it's a full Android device; optimized for gaming with some really cool tricks, but still pretty much a tablet.... with an analog controller attached..... and a giant battery (28.8wh). Granted, the screen's only 5", but hey. Why this from an admitted "non-gamer"? Several things really. The technology is very cool! Not only, is it clearly a "game-changer" for Android gaming, but it's a premo multi-use device which I have a true weakness for and WOW: WHAT an amazing set of features! OK; so there's the Android stuff, then there's the gaming controller, but that's not even the really interesting part! If you have a certain level of nVidia graphics processor (GTX 650) and up, you can stream your games from a PC through your wireless network to this device and pretty much play full-on PC level games on it's 720p screen. Oh, and it doesn't end there! The current updates allow the machine to stream this content over the internet as well. nVidia also has a game content streaming system in Beta that will allow you to game, "netflix" style as well! All this capability was too much to resist, so when I was able to find one at $178, I bought it. I'll have to admit, that in some ways, I'm a bit like a stereotypical woman in that I will often respond to stress by shopping! More?

 

 "As you wish" Well..... earlier in the week, I actually picked up a controller. What!?! You thought that it was already a controller? That's the gamepad looking thing next to that tablet...... the Shield Tablet that is. Yes, their is in fact more to this story. That, is my tablet upgrade target for the summer. Sadly, my ThinkPad Tablet (gen 1) is getting "long in the tooth", and even regular apps are behaving sluggishly on it. The battery life it really becoming a bit of a problem as well. So now, after 3+ years of service, it's time for it to be replaced. My original thought was to walk "into-the-light" and pick up an iPad Mini and become integrated into the Borg, but this whole Shield thing has given the "Rebel Alliance" side of me new life. The year after introducing the Shield "Portable", nVidia released the Shield Tablet. Mostly the same concept, but instead of being game-centric, this one is at least equally tablet. Allbiet a very powerful one with the K1 processor (vs. the Tegra 4). As reference, my ThinkPad Tablet has a Tegra 2. However, being an nVidia Shield device, it's optimized for games and set up to integrate the "Shield Controller" which has even better useability than the "Portable". 

There's even more cool stuff to this as these devices as they can be put in a "console mode", attached through HDMI to a larger screen (real large TV) and used as a...... well...... console system! Those of you who know me (either personally or through my blogging) have probably concluded that there's a bigger picture here somewhere. Why yes..... now that you ask! You might remember that for my son's birthday, I built him a small gaming computer. Well.... I'm about to replaced the graphics card in it for an nVidia GTX 650! The Shield Portable will ultimately become his as well; probably for Christmas this year. I will ultimately move myself on to the Shield Tablet and we'll be all set to move on to the next level of digital nirvana.