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Vantec NexStar MX enclosure review

So, when I bought my NAS I started transferring over everything I wanted to keep on it. But then I realized that 500 GB would not be enough room to store everything. Instead of returning the NAS and getting a bigger one, which I did not have money for, I decided to keep the 500 GB NAS for only the things that I really wanted to have available on my home network (pictures, music, and videos). The other stuff that was more just there for storage (program installs, backups) could be put on a external hard drive. So I headed back to Fry’s looking for a USB hard drive enclosure. Here is the one I ended up with.

I bought the Vantec NexStar MX HDD enclosure from Fry’s for 3 reasons.
1. The price: I got the unit for $30. Not sure if it was a sale or if they were making way for the new NexStar with eSATA. Either way I feel like it was a good price for the features.
2. Dual SATA enclosure. Most enclosures I found in this price range would either only hold 1 hard drive, or would only use IDE hard drives. I had 2 SATA drives sitting in my closet that I needed to use. So this would let me use both of them without buying two enclosures.
3. Build quality. The whole unit is brushed aluminum and the enclosure alone seemed thick enough to stop a bullet. Well maybe not bullet proof but it felt good enough to hold my monthly backups.

I don’t feel like re-inventing the wheel with the review so I am just going to link to a couple much more thorough reviews than I could have ever done and tell you my thoughts.
Here are a few reviews for you to read on your own time. Virtual-Hideout, thinkcomputers, and futurelooks.

Overall, I am completely satisfied with my purchase. The drive is a little bit loud but I rarely have it plugged in anyway because it is only for occasional backups and long time storage. If you are looking for something that you want on all the time I would spend the extra money for a unit with more than just USB and something quieter. But if you have a couple extra SATA hard drives and need some long time storage than this is probably the device for you. The software it comes with is Windows only so I didn’t care for it but I was surprised to get any software at all for $30. The price on amazon is $70 and that is probably more than what I would pay for this enclosure. I feel the enclosure is easily worth $50 though if you can find it in that price range.

Why the Mac Mini sucks for MythTV/PVR

I bought the mac mini for a few reasons:
1. It is very small and very quiet
2. It looks good with my AV equipment
3. There are a lot of accessories that match the looks of the mini
4. It came with good enough specs for video playback and recording

The main problem I had was dealing with the small/slow hard drive. So I wanted to upgrade that but here are some of the things I ran into.

First of all, the Mac Mini had almost everything I wanted (and some things I didn’t care about) built in. I wouldn’t need to add any features to the device unlike other small computers I was looking at. Most other small computers came with almost everything I needed except one or two thing, built in IR for a remote or firewire. These were requirements for me. I know I could have used a USB -> IR adapter but I wanted this computer to look a little less DIY than my last MythTV. And not having firewire seemed too complicated to try and add my own through expensive adapters.

My goal for the Mac Mini was to upgrade the internal hard drive and use an external 1 TB drive. The reason for this was storage and speed. The internal hard drive in the Mac Mini is only 5400 rpm and while that works fine for web pages and word documents, when reading and writing large media files all day it just would not be fast enough for the task. One option was to install the OS on the internal hard drive and use a external hard drive just for storage over USB but the CPU overhead of USB and the read/write speeds would just not cut it (internal SATA II is over 6 times faster than USB 2.0/Firewire 400). There also is no firewire 800 port so that wouldn’t work either. I tried following a walk through that someone else already did with a mini hard drive upgrade but apparently Apple has updated their device since this was done and adding a hard drive the same way is no longer possible. If this worked for you on a post Nov 2007 Mac Mini please let me know in the comments. The problem I had was the Mac Mini would never detect any hard drive outside of the chassis. I tried with multiple cables, hard drives (2.5″ and 3.5″) but never once was able to get OSX or Ubuntu installed on the bigger hard drive.

To break it down, the reasons the Mac Mini actually sucks for building your own PVR are these.
1. Slow (low storage) hard drive
2. Expensive features that are not needed but you don’t have a option but pay for. (OSX, iLife, Apple tax, etc.)
3. Hard to upgrade processor and memory

And these are the reasons I picked the AOpen over the Mac Mini.
Mac Mini uses a older 945GM chipset with 667 Mhz vs. GM45 chipset with 1066 Mhz, it uses a more power hungry 65nm (T5600/T7200) processor vs. 45nm (T8100 or any socket p processor you want), and GMA950 GPU vs. GMA X3100. Not really big deals considering both should have the ability to play back most 1080p content. But having updated specs just make things a little easier, and the ability to upgrade helps make the PVR future proof…well almost.

For anyone interested, here are some pictures of the steps I took to make the Mac Mini NOT work with an external eSATA 1 TB hard drive.

	Sata to eSATA adapter. I was sent the wrong adapter and Microbarn would not accept the fact that this was a female SATA to male eSATA cable when I needed male to male. Even after sending them this picture. P.S. don’t order this, order this.
	Adapter plugged into the Mac Mini SATA riser card with a male to male sata adapter I had to buy extra thanks to Microbarn. Maybe I just don’t understand male and female connectors.
	SATA cable run inside the case. This wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. See the picture above for what it looked like coming out of a slightly modified Kensington lock hole.

Let me know how a Mac Mini is working out for you as a PVR or what other machine you bought as a substitute in the comments.

Buying a NAS part III

Ok, it has been quite a while since my first two articles on this (Part 1 and Part 2) and I wanted to post a little update on my situation. I haven’t worked on my linkstation hard drive because I decided to go a slightly different route. Ultimately, I want something that has some sort of RAID set up for backup purposes but at this time I don’t have the time, money, or space for such a device. Instead I decided to use my MythTV computer as my network storage device on top of its current PVR functions. Because MythTV will be a full computer it will have a lot more features and options I can use to configure and set up the NAS exactly as I want. This will also mean that I only have to have one device on at all times instead of my originally planned 2 devices which will save a bit of money in power bills. I finally have a computer that is going to work for my new MythTV setup (more on that to come) so as I get that configured I hope to post some more how-to’s on my quest for the perfect cheap NAS solution.
Just so I get some of my goals in place here are my current needs for the NAS setup.

1. Separate users to allow read only access to certain folders and write permissions to others.
2. At least 500 GB.
3. Upnp server to allow easy playback on my PS3, XBMC, WMP, etc.
4. Under $300. While this is still a goal it is going to be quite skewed with my budget for my MythTV computer. I will try to add all the cost up correctly though.

Two more items were on my list from my first posting so I will echo them here as well.

5. Be able to connect to a ethernet network without adapters. This won’t be a problem at all because my MythTV computer will be plugged into the network at all times.
6. Low power consumption. While the MythTV computer will draw more power than my original Linkstation, the ability to get rid of the Linkstation in favor for just having one device will defiantly save power over having both devices turned on at all times.

So I haven’t given up on getting my NAS up and running but my plans changed a little. For now the Linkstation still gets used every day and it is helping a lot with temporary storage. I will keep the site update with my install notes and what has worked for me.

Some more root beers

I had the chance to have a few more root beers this week and I thoroughly enjoyed them. The first root beer I tried was Red Ribbon. I must say it tasted pretty plain. Nothing really stood out about it and it had a very generic IBC/Barq’s root taste. If I hadn’t taken a picture I probably would have completely forgotten about it. Beth pointed out that Red Ribbon had almost zero aftertaste. It was almost like you forgot you took a drink of anything. Then I had the Americana root beer.
This one was fantastic. It wasn’t too sweet, had a very good aftertaste and actually tasted like I was drinking something. It wasn’t quite as sweet as Virgil’s but with the food I was having that was a very good thing.I would have to say at this point this is my second favorite root beer, and depending on what I am eating at the time I would probably go for one of these over a Virgil’s.
Finally, I had Boylan Bottleworks. This was probably the sweetest tasting root beer I have ever had but that made it taste a bit more like liquid candy than a drink of bitter, brewed root. The label said it is sweetened with pure cane sugar and it was very tasty. I wouldn’t say I didn’t like it, but when drinking it the sweetness got in the way of the taste. Beth on the other hand loved this one and kept asking for more.
Overall Boylan Bottleworks was a great change from traditional root beers and I will keep it in mind when I want something to sip on while watching a movie. But I probably wouldn’t drink this one on a regular basis while eating my dinner. Unless of course my dinner is licorice.

Tesla Roadster

For my birthday this past weekend I treated myself to something I wouldn’t normally do. I went for a test ride in a super car. It is something I have always wanted to do, and now that I am 25 I feel like I should be able to go do it. Lucky for me there is a start-up super car company that happens to have 1 of 3 dealerships about 30 minutes away from my house. So I gave them a call and scheduled a ride in one of their fabulous cars.
I wanted to give a quick review of what I thought about the car. First of all the obvious, this car is gorgeous! It is based off the Lotus Elise and it shows. It is a pretty small car with 100% carbon fiber body panels. For being such a small car it looks fairly heavy sitting on the street, but when the trunk/hood were open I could see all of the unpainted carbon fiber (including the carbon fiber trunk “tub”). All of the carbon fiber really makes this car stand out from just another Solstice/Sky and into the super car category. I asked if it came unpainted but I just got a weird look and was told there probably wouldn’t be a market for that. They were probably right but I still think it would look sweet.
One of the first things I noticed when I got in the car was how hard it is to get in. The side sill was extremely high when compared to the seat, and the seat I sat in was quite uncomfortable. I asked and found out the car I was actually sitting in was only the eighth Tesla Roadster ever made. When I finally got into a production car with swede seats it felt significantly better but I still wouldn’t want to sit in the seat for more than a hundred miles or so. Of course in this car, those hundred miles would go really quick. The side support was also a bit lacking for how fast the car can corner.
Also from just sitting in the car I found a few things very strange. First was the fact that the car uses a traditional key. I know this may not sound strange but even basic cars now use a wireless key and push start buttons. Second was the RPM gauge. Sure the electric engine spins around 13,000 RPM but the current transmission is only one speed. That means the RPM gauge and speedometer mirror each other. Tesla did finally fix the problems with their two speed transmission so maybe this will make the RPM gauge a bit more useful but I still find it a bit strange. Lastly was how small the car was inside. I currently drive a Toyota MR2 so I know what small cars are like, but with a driver sitting next to me I found that I had to lean slightly to the right just to keep rubbing shoulders the whole time.
On the plus side, this car is quick! I have been in some quick cars (the fastest was probably the ‘07 Corvette Z06) but now this takes the cake. It was very deceptive how fast we were even going because there is no engine noise, but I could feel my gut collapsing on my spine whenever the “gas” pedal was pushed. Not only was it fast in a straight line, everything in the car is so low that it moved around a corner just as fast as it did going straight. I think my lower intestine tied into a knot going around a freeway offramp. Another big plus was how simple the interior is. There is no glove box (more of a shelf), no center console, and only about 6 buttons and 2 knobs including the AC, heater, and radio. Most things were controlled with a touchscreen on the lower left side. I asked what you could do with the touch screen and besides the boring charge level and air pressure the valet mode was really cool. You can put in a pin number and it limits the car to a lower speed and RPM. Just something to make sure no one else is having too much fun in your car.
Overall the car looks fantastic, goes like stink, and is so unique I can almost guarantee you won’t know anyone else that has one for the next 3 years. But overall some of the car felt very “version 1.0″ car quality and made me want to see how much better the second version of the car is going to be. For now the car is too expensive, starting at $110,000, and doesn’t offer enough to make it usable as a daily driver. Not that I would turn one down, but obviously I don’t have the money to buy one either.
Thanks to everyone at the dealership for taking time to show me around and let me ride in the car. I had a blast!
Let me know if you have any questions about the car in the comments.

Dog n Suds root beer

So first of all I want to say thank you Ken and Jeanne for my birthday gift. Second, I wanted to start a series of posts reviewing some of the root beers I have tried. I’m not as big of a fan of root beer as I used to be, mainly because of a bad experience my freshman year at college, but I do enjoy the occasional break from Dr. Pepper, Cherry Coke, and Vitamin waters. And when that break calls, it is nice to have a good cold root beer at hand. On top of that I love trying new things.
I have tried just about every big brand root beer I can think of (IBC, Stewart’s, Henry Winehard’s, Virgil’s) and I would have to say so far Virgil’s in my favorite. I don’t plan this root beer log to get fancy with reviews or even have a rating system like this awesome site. But I just want to keep track of what I have tried and what I thought of it as I go.
So first up is Dog n Suds. I tried it last night with a Italian sub and it reminded me a lot of Stewart’s root beer. It had a bit of a creamy taste at first and then dulled away with almost 0 after taste. It was kind of strange because I was waiting for the after taste blow that would make me not like it but it just went right into my stomach making me forget that I took a drink of anything. This is not a bad thing but at the same time it is not a good thing. It is just a dull existence for a root beer to go into your mouth and right through your body without so much as a flavorful burp.
Overall I would say it was good but you can probably do better with something that will leave a more lasting impression.
Please let me know in the comments if you have a root beer you think I should try.

Do you need Blu-ray?

So I recently watched Live Free or Die Hard on Blu-ray with some people that have never seen a Blu-ray movie before. I know it may surprise you but they were unimpressed. That got me thinking, what is it that people are looking for in Blu-ray? The most obvious thing is better video quality. I mean Blu-ray has the ability to hold 720p/1080p video where standard DVD can only hold 480p video. Honestly though, if your TV is not going to display the difference (or you can’t see the difference) what is the point? I thought I would point out a few more things that make up the Blu-ray puzzle.

Menu

While this may not seem like a cool feature or worth any money I have really become accustomed to having a menu available whenever I want. If I want to skip to a new chapter, turn on commentary, or use any other special feature I don’t have to exit the movie to go to the menu. I just hit the pop up menu button and there are all my menu items.

Sound quality

I have to admit, I do not have a receiver that can decode uncompressed DTS-HD and I have never even heard what it sounds like but I know that if you have a great TV and a crappy sound system, or a improperly set up sound system, you are missing half the movie. I can only imagine that having great sound would have the same affect as having improved image quality. Even more so, having good speakers and a properly set-up room will make your Blu-ray experience even more enjoyable.

Bonus features

Of couse regular DVD’s have bonus features too but not like Blu-ray. Of course Blu-ray has all the normal features like deleted scenes, language selection, and alternate endings, but newer Blu-ray movies are starting to come out with what is called BD-live. BD-live is really just a fancy way of saying that the Blu-ray player you are using is connected to the internet and can provide for temporary storage for a movie. Things like web trailers, updated movie information and stats, and even multiplayer games.

So does all these extra features mean you should run out and get a Blu-ray player? Absolutly not. If you don’t feel like you need a Blu-ray player or if you don’t think you will use any of the extra features, you probably shouldn’t spend the money on one (unless of course you want a awesome game system in the meantime). If your TV can’t display 1080p (or is under 42″) you probably won’t tell the visual difference, especially if you bought a Visio, and you should just stick with regular DVD’s. If your sound system came in a kit and cost you less than $200 or your speakers are from the 80’s,  you probably can’t hear the difference and therefore you don’t need Blu-ray. And if you don’t have internet access you can’t read this blog and will listen to whatever the Best Buy employee tells you anyway so it doesn’t matter.

To rap up, the next time you come across a first time Blu-ray watcher please just let them know that Blu-ray is more than just a pretty picture. I will admit, The first time I watched a Blu-ray movie I was less than stunned. As time goes on though expect the transition to be just like DVD’s. The very first DVD (Twister) didn’t even have surround sound for goodness sakes! If you have any features I missed or a first time Blu-ray experience you would like to share please feel free to leave a comment.

TomTom 920 review

So after my ????????iPaq 310 experience I was pretty set on not getting burned on another GPS device. The easiest way I knew not to get burned was to buy the best available device. Obviously the two options that come to mind are either a TomTom or a Garmin. Garmins are known for being very customizable, almost too customizable for some, and the TomTom’s are just crazy easy to use. I was mainly looking at the TomTom One XL, 720, or the 920 for the TomTom options and the Garmin 650, 750, and 880 for the Garmins.  I ended up buying the TomTom for a couple of reasons.

1. The TomTom’s had all the features I needed. There were a few extra features the Garmin had, for example the parking locator, that the TomTom did not have but the basic functionality was all I needed. And in my experience the more features you have the more things are just bound to go wrong.

2. The TomTom’s were cheaper. And I don’t mean like $100 cheaper. The top of the line TomTom was $500 cheaper than the top Garmin.

3. I would probably have less tendency to break the TomTom. Being slightly less customizable I won’t be tempted to play with every button and make things more difficult to use. I don’t know why but this tends to happen with me.

So I got the TomTom 920 (obviously). I got this over the other two because it was still free, it has a FM transmitter, and it has the ability to get live traffic information through a special antenna or my phone data connection.

The first time I turned on the TomTom I knew already that this was going to be a good experience. Not only did the device get a GPS lock almost immediately but it did it while I was inside my apartment. I knew the device needed to charge so I was going to leave it plugged in its charger over night and play with it the next morning, but I noticed that it came with a car charger and a computer dock but no stand alone charger. While that was really odd I just went ahead and plugged in the dock to my computer and let it charge over USB. Since it was already plugged in, I thought I would install the software and see what it has to offer.

At first the software seemed pretty basic but one thing that I wasn’t expecting was how easy it was to use. As soon as I plugged in the TomTom with the software running I was it asked if I wanted to connect to the computer. I said yes and the device installed drivers and updated the maps. Hey that was cool! I didn’t have to do anything to get the most up to date maps. I also turned on the user maps corrections so I could get updated more frequently when there is construction or a road closed. This all was easy and I expected it from a top of the line GPS device. The parts I didn’t expect were the customizations.

I spent the next 3-4 hours customizing the voice on the device, changing the car icon, and setting up map colors. The voices were really cool. They had everything from user created voices and generic accented voices to Darth Vader and John Cleese. Some of the voices cost money however, John Cleese being the most expensive at $20. One thing to note about the voices is that the computer vocies will say street names but the human voices will say more generic things like street or motorway (the device has European maps so they say fun things like motorway instead of freeway or highway). The car icons was pretty fun too. Right now I fly around in the Starship Enterprise. The colors were pretty basic, along with the ability to make you own. I knew beforhand that most of these items existed because I did a lot of research on the TomTom website, but I didn’t realize how easy it would be to download and install the items or create any of my own voices, icons, colors, or maps. I still want to venture into making my own maps but I haven’t had the time. You are able to make a map of a area and then label areas for certian buildings/seating chart etc.

After all my customizations and actually taking it on the road a few times I found that using the device is a little less intuitive than I would have thought. I am able to get around in the device without problems but if I want to drive to a new location I am supposed to touch the map. While I understand that now, at first I was a bit confused by this. There also wasn’t any quick menu while navigating without setting it up in the options. I was able to add a few things to the quick menu but I can only add a handful of options that are already built into the device. One good sign is I have not had problems with people that have never used the device figuring it out with just a couple of taps on the screen. There have been a few occasions where I was driving and I had someone in the passenger seat find directions to a destination and they have been able to do so in just a few minutes.

Another great thing on the device is the route re-calculations. I was never able to get the iPaq to do that for me and the TomTom does it almost instantly. I do find that I need to use re-calculations more often than I did before. I think the TomTom isn’t quite as good at telling me exactly when I need to turn, but turning on one of the computer voices with street name announcements does help.

I have had 3 minor problems with the TomTom that I also thought I would share.

First is the SD card reader. All of my research said that you could put in a SD memory card with music on it and the TomTom would be able to play the music from there. I tried this multiple times and was unable to get the TomTom to even recognize there was a card plugged in. I may be doing something wrong, I still have yet to read the manual, but on the iPaq the music detection was instant when opening the music player.

The second thing is the FM transmitter. This is a fantastic feature that can broadcast turn-by-turn directions or music through your radio. The main problem I have had is the transmitter is not strong enough to make the audio come through without static. I have tried different stations and adjusting some of the power options but on my 2001 Civic and 1987 Mr2 the option is pretty unusable. The TomTom does still have a line out to plug it directly into my Civic which has a audio input, so this isn’t a big deal but it is somewhat of a bummer.

The third thing that doesn’t seem to work for me is my bluetooth headset. This could totally be a compatibility issue with just my headset but for some reason I cannot sync my Motorola H700 headset with the TomTom. There are two reasons I wanted to be able to do this. The first is the TomTom has the option to send different audio outputs to different devices. For example I want my music to play through the audio out and I want the turn-by-turn directions to go through my headset. While this option exists in the device, I cannot sync my headset to try it out.

Another a minor problem, still dealing with bluetooth, is that the TomTom has not been able to use my phone to get traffic information. I think this is mainly functionallity limitation of my phone (xv6800 with windows mobile 6.1) and not the TomTom and I still need to play with the settings to see if I am doing something wrong. One way or another I think I can get it to work I just need to set aside time to read the manual.

Overall I have been completely satisfyed with the TomTom. I have had two occations when it did not sucessfully get me to my destination but in both cases it was user error when I put in the address and not the device. I will be taking the TomTom on a road trip this summer to Colorado so we will see how it does on a long trip but I have no doubts it will continue to be my prefered way to get places I have never been before.

I would highly recommend a TomTom to anyone looking for a GPS device. And if you are looking to save a bit of money you can check out the One XL. It has the nice big screen but doesn’t have the traffic or FM transmitter.

HP iPaq 310 Travel Companion Review

I was recently given a HP iPaq 310 Travel Companion as a gift so I thought I would explain my experience with the device. I wanted the device because one of our HP representatives bought one and I was very impressed with what I was able to do in the few minutes I played with the device. It also happened to be on sale because HP was clearing out their remaining stock. I didn’t do any navigation, but I assumed the device is designed for navigation so I thought it would have no problems dishing up turn by turn directions for me and Beth. But we all know what happens when you assume…

I am going to start with what I really liked about the device. The iPaq looked great! Internal antenna, 10.9 cm screen, 800×480 resolution, slick looking 3D maps, and 3D building renderings were all the things that just blew me away. The processor was a 600 Mhz dual-core Titan that could render 3D maps faster than I can spot a Ferrari in a four car parking lot. The device even came with a car mount, car charger, wall charger, 2 usb cables, and a carrying case. The buttons on screen were easy to use and the menu system was intuitive enough to never have to pick up the manual.

With built in bluetooth, mp3 playback, jpeg image viewer, and games what could possibly be wrong?

I think the first problem of the iPaq is the name. I know it isn’t a real “problem” but it is still a negative in my book. I know HP has used it for a long time but I think they really need to stop using it, especially because this iPaq, although running Windows CE, has no PDA functionality as the name suggests. I guess I got my wish on this though because this is the last dedicated GPS device that HP is going to be making. Although they will still be using the “i” prefix on their Paq’s, at least they will be sticking with PDA functionality.

The second thing that was really noticeable when using the device was the internal speakers were never loud enough.  This being my first GPS device I just thought it would be normal and I would get used to it. I made sure the “increase volume with speed” option was clicked and assumed I would hear it enough.

??????

The first weekend I got the device I wanted to put it through it’s paces. I took it to a few places to see how it would do and what routes it would choose. The first stop was my local Fry’s. I loaded up my SD card with some music, BTW it has a SD card reader which was a plus for music and pictures, started some driving music, and synced the iPaq with my LG VX9800 in hopes that I would get a phone call. On my way to Fry’s, about 3/4 of the way, I got a “memory execution” error on the screen. The device froze and I had to wait until I could stop the car to use the jaws of life to extract the device from its car mount to poke the soft reset button on the bottom. I was familiar with this kind of error because I have used Windows Mobile enough in the past to know when the OS runs out of memory. As soon as I got to Fry’s I pulled the device from the windshield and hit the soft reset. Not a big deal to me, seeing as the iPaq was still free. I waited the excruciating long time for the device to fully reboot and went into Fry’s to get what I came for.

The next stop was the hospital to pick up a prescription. On the way I decided to not sync my phone with the iPaq to hopefully free up some memory. While this seemed to work I instead had the music stop on me for no reason. In the middle of a song it just quit. Now I was starting to get concerned. After picking up the prescription I headed home and the device just lost all satellites about 5 miles south of the 210 freeway on the 605. If you have been on the 605 freeway, you will know there is nothing blocking the view of the sky. So I pulled off, restarted the device again, and finished driving home.

The next day I decided to drive somewhere I had never been, meeting someone at a movie theater, and I didn’t print any directions. I put in my address, got in the car and put the device in the holder. Five minutes into the drive the iPaq still did not have a lock on any satellites. Luckily I had Beth with me so I gave the device to her to restart. She restarted the device, it locked onto satellites, and she put in our address. Great, now we are 20 minutes into our trip but at least we know where we are going. I put the device back in the holder and *snap* the top piece breaks off.

The next week I took the iPaq out to go look at some homes. I printed directions this time just in case. It was a good thing I did because the device never got a lock on any satellites. At least not until I found our destination and put the car in park. Then all of a sudden the GPS said, “Oh Hey! You have arrived.”

So at this point I just didn’t trust the device. If I needed to go somewhere I still printed directions. Oh and I never once got the device to re-route me when I turned off course, which happened regularly. I gave the iPaq one more shot at not leaving me high and dry.  I went out to look at some more homes the next week but had the exact same problem as before. No satellite lock on until the device was restarted.

I called HP and told them I had a faulty GPS unit. They were more than happy to return the device and fully refund the purchase price to the person who bought it for me.

I also forgot to mention that someone else at my work got the same iPaq and they didn’t have nearly as many problems as I did. They did mention that the battery doesn’t last long at all (maybe 2 hours) and it takes a excruciating long time to charge.  They have had slow lock ons for satellites but nothing as bad as I was experiencing. They also mentioned that their iPaq was able to re-route them without any problems when they went off course.

So, I would steer clear of the iPaq 310 not because it doesn’t look nice and you probably will have better luck than I did, but because there are better devices out there. Speaking of which, my next review will be of my lovely tomtom 920.

Digsby and Pidgin

I have been using Digsby for my IM client for a few weeks now. This is after a long time using Pidgin (previously Gaim). I have switched back to Pidgin for a couple different reasons but I wanted to give a quick run down of what I thought of Digsby vs. Pidgin.

While Digsby is based on Pidgin (the back end at least) developed in house and pidgin is open source there are some additional things that stand out that really set it apart from what Pidgin can do. First of all is the fact that Digsby is a server based application.  What does that mean? It means you have a single login for Digsby and that is all you ever need to remember (once you are set up at least). Digsby will keep tract of what accounts you have set up, what the settings for each account are, and even your chat history. If you lose your computer and need to install Digsby on a completely different machine, or even a different OS, it doesn’t matter.  All of your settings, logs, and connections will carry with you to your next machine.  This also means that if there is a update to the software, you don’t have to track it down to find out what the latest version is or remember to download and install it.  All of the updates are server based so all you have to do is start the program to get all of the new features, and possibly the new bugs as well. The last big thing that Digsby incorporates that Pidgin does not have is social networking sites. While I don’t use any social networking sites I hear they are quite the place to be.

On the negative side, Digsby was missing a few things that I really enjoy in Pidgin. Although they are all plugins and could easily be incorporated into Digsby they are missing in Digsby’s current beta form (2858 I think). The main plugins I miss are text replacement and psychic mode. If you don’t know what either of those are you should really check them out for Pigin. The killer that made me switch back to Pidgin was email checking in Digsby.  Although the options you have with email are far superior to what Pidgin can do I had a problem with Digsby not checking my sub folders in Yahoo and using the non-beta version of Yahoo mail which is just plain ugly. While that may not seem to be a deal breaker for some, I realized a week late that I had some important ebay, amazon, and personal emails that I was relying on Digsby to alert me when they came. Because Digsby let me down for those things (and because there isn’t currently a Linux installer) I have switched back to Pidgin. As soon as Digsby is out of beta I will probably give it another try. But for now Pidgin allows me to chat and check my email to my hearts content. I must admit I will miss the “report spam”, archive, and chat popups of Digsby in the meantime.

I updated a few things thanks to the comments I was sent clarifying a few things that I was incorrect about in my original article.