Tablet Upgrade Time

My digital lifestyle has never really gotten tablet-centric. As much as I wanted to love them, I ended up being the lone holdout in our household. Yes, I would carry my ThinkPad "Slate", Android tablet around on occasion, but more times, than not, I wouldn't use it and even took to avoiding toting it altogether since it was so big and heavy. It turns out that getting the larger (10") class of tablet was a mistake for me. That made it too close to the "ultrabook" class of laptops that I was already using. 

 

At the time that I picked up the tablet, I was using the ThinkPad X300, and over the 3+ years since, I've gone on to the X301, followed by the X1. All of these machines are on, or close to the cutting edge in terms of "thin and light" for notebook computers...... which unfortunately, put the rather "heavy-weight" 10.1" ThinkPad Tablet too close in carry-load. And obviously, one of the very cool features of that tablet; that of the keyboard/folio, became a non-entity since it push the size and weight squarely into the notebook range! Don't get me wrong: the tablet was a very nice example of it's type and it's large IPS display made it and excellent reader and media display. ......But....... there was just not enough of a differentiation between it and my notebooks of choice!

Interestingly, it was the exact opposite usage model of my wife, who's notebook is a ThinkPad T500 with a 15" screen. This machine weighs between 5 and 6 pounds (maybe a little more since it has the extended 9-cell battery) making the difference between it and her iPad Air marked! For her, carrying around the laptop isn't an option, but the iPA really a none issue especially since she quite commonly lugs around a good sized bag with all manner of school teacher stuff in it. So it became pretty obvious to me that downsizing was going to a good answer for my tablet woes.

Now..... if I were a rich man..... (I'll save you the musical quote), I'd buy myself the Sony Xperia Z3 tablet and be done with it. It has a truly excellent (although, non-OLED) display and really nice metal construction giving it a nice thin profile and cutting the weight. It also has the ability to connect to and stream PS4 games from that console. Pretty cool if you own the console.

Think, somewhere between an iPad Air and Mini in size with similar feel. It's NICE!!! Somewhere between $450 and $500 worth of nice. Again, iPad Air comparisons are appropriate, but it runs Android. Yeah right..... now back to the real world of Frugal Propellerheads!

So, that's where this..... the nVidia Shield Tablet: he "poor man's" super-tablet comes into the picture. We can start with the list price being $300. That's not peanuts, but it's $200 less than the Sony for pretty much the same capabilities AND has a few tricks up it's sleeve. OK, I'll put you out of your misery and go ahead an tell you that I gave $185 for mine off of eBay. The seller stated that he was having trouble with WiFi connection, so I took the chance that he either had bad location on his access point location or didn't know what he was doing. I don't have any idea which is was, but I can say, I've had no issues with it at all. Is it the strongest at pulling in a signal? No, but neither is it terrible. I have to switch from one AP to the other when I move to opposite ends of my house, but I have to do with with most of my other devices as well. So yeah..... that's right...... $185!!! That's a pretty good deal in my book for arguably the #2 Android tablet on the market today after the Nexus 9! 

 

I did say "some tricks up it's sleeve" didn't I? A couple of posts ago, I talked about nVidia's Shield concept of being able to stream games. Over the course of the last 3 years, they've grown the concept and fleshed out the product line to include original Shield Portable running the Tegra 4, followed by the Shield Tablet the next year running the K1 processor and this year has seen the release of the Shield Console with the X1. All optimized for gaming with customized GPUs. So, not only do you have a device good at Android games, but the ability to play PC games from your gaming computer, but nVidia's Grid streaming service as well. That's a lot of capability. When you throw in Android emulation apps..... this device is literally "a game changer" (no pun intended)!

Most of you know that I'm not much of a gamer, but the fact is; I'm a sucker for interesting (cool) technology! And this family of products is definitely cool! Plus it's price-point makes it darn near irresistible! I do have another rationale in that I'm the sponsor of our school's computer club. Gaming and gamers are a big part of that. Shouldn't I be fully up to date on that part of the computing world!?!

When In Taipei......

So, last week; I was in Taipei..... OK, that's not the norm, but as it happened, I went to Taiwan earlier this month to see family. Not counting travel time, I was "on the ground" about a week. Minus the 2 days spent traveling around, I was in Taipei itself about 5 days. Of course, when a geek is in arguably the epicenter of geek-dom, you obviously do some "geek" things! During my last visit there about 4 years ago, I went over to the Guang Hua Digital Market...... with family in tow. In case I really need to tell you; this is NOT how one should do this!!!

 

This image doesn't fully give you an idea of what this place is like, but let me help with a description. Think of a miniature Galleria without the skating rink. There are about 6 levels each of which is laid out racetrack style with shops on each side of the walkway. 

Then imagine that the vast majority of shops looks something like this.....

 ...... or like this!!! Oh yeah; that's pretty much alike, but there are something in the order of 30-50 on each upper 5 levels. The ground level has some open areas with a food court. It's pretty much sensory overload, and that's without the intense crowds of people there! There are actually other smaller shop areas in the surrounding area around Guang Hua, but that's the main area. Plus; next door, they've recently built a similar sized building which the major tech manufacturers have their "show-case" area! I could have probably spent all 5 days there and not seen everything! And guess what I bought?

 Some braided lightning cables......

...... and a kinda generic wireless gaming mouse for my son...... really. BUT WHY!?! you ask? Well.... because at the end of the day, when you've done the $ vs. NT (Taiwan money) calculations, the majority of bigger ticket items or cheaper when bought in the U.S......really. It's actually the little items like these cables and mice that are cheaper there in Taipei! I think that mouse was like $6-7 and those cables were around $5 apiece, vs. twice that for the mouse and 3 times that for the cable at home. Everything else from memory to tablets can be found cheaper on Newegg or Amazon, and you don't have to worry about having to try and over-write the Chinese language firmware!

Was I disappointed with my excursion? Absolutely not! I like to look around. This was like shopping on the Internet, but having everything right there in front of me! And for a time, I enjoyed the hustle and bustle of Taipei as well. But I sure am glad to be back at home to the land of full-size vehicles and air conditioning everywhere!

Swing Through West Texas

Right in the middle of my "end of year" came an unexpected trip to the "panhandle" region of West Texas. This came as a result of my needing to represent the family at a funeral outside of Lubbock, which then led to a quick run up to Amarillo to visit my wife's family. For all of you who have been out there, all this home nostalgia resulted in many hours of driving down straight flat highways! You needn't feel too badly for me, as I used all those hours in a useful manner.

 

 Most of it was a "shake-down cruise" for the Tahoe. If any of you have ever lived in Texas (and driven around it) for any length of time; you'll understand why the Tahoe/Suburban is the national vehicle of Texas! They're even made right here in Arlington! Let me start by saying that it's absolutely the most comfortable highway cruiser I've ever driven, bar none! The wife and kids just love it. From a propellerhead standpoint, it's got everything guys like me would need. Although the kids watched movies on their tablets via the wifi enabled Lenovo F800 storage drive (which was and still is awesome), the in-vehicle entertainment system did come into play. 

That system has an external input, and so before we left, I swung by our storage unit and dug the Nintendo Gamecube out of my son's stuff. It was a hit! I also bought one of those prefab plastic storage consoles which not only held all their drinks, but the controllers and games as well. This complete with headphones made the rear of the vehicle an isolated "kid-zone" leaving me to enjoy the hours of stress-free driving while listening to the connected iPod! 

This led to my wife and I reminiscing about our youth spent traveling in vehicles with interiors like this! Ahhh.. the days of burning your thighs on the vinyl seats and hands on the door handles!

While we were out there, I of course picked up some work for myself. One of my friends who's Australian and obsessive (does this go together?), handed me 3 of his many laptop computers which have problems of one kind or another. Two of them are the 2 models of the no longer produced ThinkPad X30x series, but one was something new to me. A Sony Vaio SZ series ultra-portables. This one was the SZ650n which is really a very nice machine from the C2D (Core 2 Duo) generation and a very nice machine indeed (although a bit obscure). This series of machine were really feature rich and nicely engineered, but very expensive and sold poorly. It came with Vista which by now is a very old load. it needed a reload of something that wasn't Vista! Of course, Windows 7 is an obvious solution. However, lets just say that finding drivers for an unusual machine, for an operating system it was never designed to run, with slightly obscure hardware isn't straight forward! Yes, the graphics sub-system is a hybrid setup with onboard Intel G31 integrated GPU, coupled with an nVidia GS 8400m stand-alone chip as well. Of course, this weird set-up caused W7 to steadfastly refuse to load anything other than "standard XGA" drivers. The old drivers from Sony's site refused to load because it was for Vista, the W7-64 drivers from nVidia gave an error message for unknown reasons. This led to the use of Google to sort through the huge number of returns to find an acceptable drivers. Finally, this morning; success! I'd be sitting here doing a chair dance if this machine wasn't so dog-slow!!!

Back to the galley now, I suppose.....

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.

Patience Will Win The Day

It's not the most popular of positions, but my stance on doing things technology-wise is to be patient and plan. Now, that doesn't mean that I don't do anything "spur of the moment". Buying that Minolta Rokkor-X 50mm lens is a good example. But really, even that thing is part of a greater picture of something I've been wanting to do for some time, but waited till the opportune moment.

I guess you could characterize me as a pouncing cat, waiting for it's prey. Lucky for me, that didn't equate to be an errant rabbit or squirrel!

Not too long ago, I wrote about finding a Drobo Mini at an excellent price. However, not only was the price good, but this one was pre-populated with 4 Western Digital 320Gb drives and a 256Gb Crucial M4 mSATA SSD. This item actually created an entire series of sub-moves within the original deal. Although, I have yet to sell off those 4 drives which I think are too small, but the SSD has already been installed into my ThinkPad X1, upgrading it from a 160Gb Intel 320. It also frees up the 2.5" drive bay for me to put in a 7mm drive for purely storage purposes. I've also put in some of my random stack of SATA drives in that Mini to both upgrade it's storage (one of the replacements is a 500Gb), but that frees up the WD 320Gb for sale. My plan was to slowly replace the installed drives (3 320Gb, 1 500Gb) with 1Tb Hitachi drives which I think are the best combination of price and reliability. Note the WAS.....

Then this happened. You've probably noted that the label on this drive is a little odd. Basically, all the current high capacity (1.5Tb & 2Tb) 2.5" drives have a little bulge on their covers. This necessitates that the label have a cut-out to accommodate it. This trend started with the 1.5Tb drives of which, this is one, then on to the current king of capacity, the 2Tb Samsung/Seagate drives. Well....actually, that's not completely accurate, in that most of the 1.5Tb drives which are 12.5mm in thickness don't have to have the bulge; only the ones that conform to the standard 9mm drive height. In fact, it's a bit more complex than that: there are 3 drive heights for the 2.5" (often called laptop) drives. The 9mm being the most common and therefore considered "standard", the 7mm as extra-thin (which perversely is "standard" for SSDs), and the 12.5mm which are considered non-standard as very few notebook computers have a drive bay that will accommodated a drive of that thickness. Generally, these are made to go into those external "portable" external drives that you see out there. If you see one that's 1.5-2Tb in capacity (and it's not a Seagate or Samsung), then chances are good that it's of that thickness. So there!

Why am I going on and on about this minutia regarding 2.5" drives, you ask? Well, these little bits of information mean something and can impact your purchasing decisions. Obviously, I'd like to outfit my Drobo Mini with as big of drives as I can for as little money as possible. Also, you throw in there, my little personal bias against using Seagate drives as a rule. This leaves out the current capacity champ of 2Tb. But, what about the 1.5Tb non-Seagate drives on the market? Well..... the majority of them are like the Toshiba you see above; 750Gb at the standard thickness, and 12.5mm (which does not fit the Drobo Mini) at the 1.5Tb capacity! The only exception being the VERY difficult to find Hitachi Travelstar 5K1500. I had resigned myself to using the 1Tb Hitachi which are common and can typically be found at about $50 a-pop, when my routine of checking ads bore fruit!. On Thursday, I came across an eBay listing for a Hitachi, 3.5" "Desktop". I wasn't very surprised by this since I actually have 2 of those things in my main workstation, but I decided to open the link anyway and look at it. Yes, the description was for the 3.5" "DeskStar", but the photos were of the 2.5" TravelStar! So I messaged the seller immediately and when he replied that the description was wrong, but the photos were right; I bought the thing at the $45 after-shipping price IMMEDIATELY!!!

So yeah...... this is what I was doing..... inside that is, since it'd have been a little weird for me to do this at work!

The 35 Year Reunion: Camera Style

Roughly 35 years ago, Yashica (which is actually the Yashima Seiki Company founded in Nagano, Japan in 1949), introduced the Contax RTS; it turned the photographic world on it's ear. Not only was it a tour de force of industrial design with none other than F.A. Porsche handling the ergonomic and styling aspect, but the ultimate coup, which as the collaboration of Carl Zeiss for the optical end of this amazing product. It was the ultimate marriage of Japanese electronic know-how with German optical and design engineering. As a 15 year-old aspiring photographer, the feeling it gave as indescribable! I remember being in a camera store the first time I saw one "in the flesh" and not even asking to "see" it. Merely standing there and staring at it on the glass shelf was enough.

Around that same time (1974), Minolta, which had started cooperating with the other German optical giant, Leitz, introduced the XE-7. This camera would be the basis of which Leitz/Leica would create the R3 SLR camera which it sold into the 80's.

For me, it was pretty much like having Farrah Fawcett, in your class, but you're not being in her class! They were absolutely the most beautiful cameras of their time. Sure the Nikon F2 and Canon F1 were amazing and to be lusted after, but where as those were 4-Wheel drive military vehicles, these were Ferraris and Porsches. 

So, 35 years or so later, even the most stunning girls turn into twice divorced middle-agers with some mileage on them. Virtually the entire Contax line ended up struggling with a covering that didn't wear very well! And what I came across a few months ago was the "little sister" of that Prom Queen. The Contax 139 Quartz. Same genes, same looks, more compact body. Actually what happened was this: of course I've always wanted to add an RTS into my collection of old film cameras, and to that end, I'd periodically look at them on eBay and other places.

What I came across was this; the Contax 139 Winder, complete with the little vinyl case for just a few dollars. Obviously, you can imagine what happened: I bought it, then proceeded to find a Contax 139. For around $15, I picked up a condition "untested", but of course, ugly (skin blight) Contax 139. After new batteries, it turned out that the camera worked fine. It felt great, but a quick survey of Contax/Zeiss lenses showed that they were still ridiculously expensive (at least for me)! So, for the last several months, the 139 has adorned my office bookcase lens-less, while my digital life went on with computers and digital cameras.

Then last weekend happened. If you've been following this blog, you're already aware that I found a Minolta MC Rokkor-X 50mm/f1.4 lens for around $10 bucks at the computer flea side-walk sale. You may ask yourself; what does that have to do with the Contax 139!?! Well, it started me down into the analog photography rabbit-trail.... that's what! First came, the search for a suitable Minolta body for that lens, and of course, this awakened the distant memory of my high school crush on the XE-7. While in pursuit of that, I realized that maybe I should chase down an Adaptall 2 mount for my Tamron lenses. Then, while doing that, it occurred to me that maybe I should go ahead and pick up an Adaptall mount for the Contax as well. A trip to the KEH Cameras website netted me both of those at a very reasonable $11-12 apiece. On Thursday, they arrived on my doorstep while I was away for a school function. But that night, for the very first time, I was able to handle my Contax the right way, complete with a lens attached! Wow!!! It was an epiphany. The sound of it even got my 8 year-old daughters attention, who wanted to know what "that was"! I think I'm going to take her out with me to shoot some photos with it, this weekend. 

This afternoon, the XE-7 is going to be delivered, and for the first time, after a 35 year wait; I'm going to take that girl out for a dance.

 

Hope Springs Eternal..... At the April Flea Market

Even though the Dallas 1st Saturday Computer Flea Market no longer looks like this (times 10) and is reduced to one section of the area under Woodall Rogers Freeway, I still like to go every now and then. The fact is, you never know what you will find there!

This time, checking a "junk vendor's" tables turned this up. Yup; it's a MInolta MC Rokkor-X, 50mm/f1.4! One of the Holy Grails of old glass. Yes; I'm aware that it's not one of the uber-rare f1.2 lenses, but I'm not sure what I'd do if I came across one of those! Back to the f1.4. For those who care about such things, this chunk of glass is well know for not just being fast, but ultra-sharp as well. Of course, being from a "dead" system makes it all the more mythological, however with the current crop of short back-spacing mirrorless cameras, virtually ALL lenses of this type have become highly sought after and the prices have gone up accordingly. What do I want with it since I have the Nikkor version, "chipped" for my current Nikon DSLR system? Uhhhh......a week of carrying it around Disney World has caused me to consider down-sizing. NO; this is not the same as my long-running series of wanting a smaller/lighter secondary camera to go with the main D300. I'm considering completely changing out of the big heavy Nikon system all-together. This will become a separate post (possibly a series) by itself. Anyway; to cut to the chase, I got this lens for $15 total including a ThinkPad power adapter!
Anything else interesting at the Flea Market? 

This..... What is it? That is a Sony Vaio PCG-N505VX of 2003/4 (there-abouts). Yes, that'd be a smoking hot PII/333 running with 128Mb of RAM on a 6Gb PATA hard drive. It's also one of the thinest notebook computers ever made....still. The case is completely of magnesium. It was complete including the floppy drive, power adapter AND dock. The only thing it didn't come with was the optional PCMCIA external CD-ROM drive. Yes; it does indeed power up, although there's no OS on it. What are my intentions for it? Mostly just to let it sit there and look at it for now, but I might get around to putting some version of Linux on it like Puppy. It was $10. It was a pretty nice morning!