« August 2006 | Main | October 2006 »

September 24, 2006

I bought an iPod video...

... and it's sweet as hell.

I had lunch with Kyle on Friday. During our general conversation regarding work, life, computers and such, he casually mentioned that he purchased a new 80GB iPod. He asked if I was interested in purchasing his old 60GB model, which he had only purchased a few months earlier. I asked him how much he wanted for it, and he said $150.

Now, if you haven't kept up with the prices of iPods these days, let me break it down for you:

Now, I'm no fool. I knew how much the 60GB video iPod was going for, and getting it for $150 was a steal. Even though it was used, Kyle is very picky about his personal items and goes to great lengths to keep them in extremely good condition. This iPod he wanted to sell was kept in a protective rubber housing since he first bought it in order to keep it from becoming scratched. This thing is practically brand new.

Marshall was with us at lunch. When Kyle told me how much he wanted for the iPod, his eyes got really really big. I jumped on it before he could say anything, because I knew after I saw that look that he was just as interested as I was. He later told me that if I had declined the offer, he would have taken Kyle up on the offer.

I don't blame him one bit.

I aquired the iPod from Kyle later that night after meeting up for dinner. The next day I formatted the unit, as it was configured to be used with a Mac instead of a PC. Unfortunately, this wiped off all of the items that Kyle had on the unit (there were some cool Final Fantasy songs on there), but I didn't mind as I knew I had enough content on my machine to fill it up.

I began transferring songs and videos to the iPod yesterday, and spent today collecting more movies to transfer onto the unit. As I knew that I would want to watch these movies on a TV sometime in the future, I determined that I would need a RCA audio/video cable. I pulled out the cable that was in the camcorder bag and hooked it up to the iPod and plugged the cable into our video receiver. I saw what looked like distorted video when I tried to play back a movie. I double checked the connections to make sure that I had everything connected right, which they were. After a few more unsuccessful attempts, I decided to go on the Internet and see if I could figure out what I was doing wrong.

Come to find out, Apple has crossed over the standard outputs when using a standard audio/video RCA cable. I think this has to do with them wanting people to purchase their A/V pack for $100.00. So, after reading up on it a bit, I found that you must connect the RCA jacks in the following order:

Once I had this information, I hooked up the video cable back up to the receiver, following the instructions that I found on the Internet. After hitting play on the iPod, sure enough I finally saw what I was wanting to see: video output on the TV. I sat and watched the movie for a bit to see what the quality was like. I was actually quite impressed on how good it looked. Yeah, it's not DVD quality, but for being able to take up to 60 or so movies with you wherever you go, not to mention music, it's not a bad deal at all.

The only thing that I need to buy now is the remote control and a USB power supply so that I can keep the unit powered while it plays on the TV.

~out...

Posted by ed at 09:35 PM | Comments (2)

September 23, 2006

It's baaaaaaaack

So the VG Cat's Web site has been updated recently...

I spent some time this evening going through all of the old comics and came across one that Scott had removed some time ago.

What a Twist! ... Not Really

I blogged about this comic waaaay back in February of this year. For some reason it was taken down from the old VG Cats Web site. I received a lot of hits on my site because I posted a smaller version of the comic. Several people e-mailed me, wondering if I kept a copy of the original. Unfortunately I didn't ... but it appears that point is moot now. The comic is back in all of it's original glory.

Hooray for the updated VG Cats site design and fixing missing comics.

~out...

Posted by ed at 10:26 PM | Comments (0)

September 15, 2006

Computer on the Fritz

So I go to use my desktop machine the other day and noticed that it was off. Since I run Linux, I keep my computer running at all times. Finding the machine turned off was something that I wasn't expecting. I hit the power button, but nothing happened. I've had this issue occur before just a few months prior .... the result of a dead PSU.

I pulled out my tester and plugged my PSU into the unit. I plugged the PSU up to a power source ... and sure enough, it was dead. I was concerned that I had lost another power supply after such a short period of time. I began to investigate the motherboard, looking for any weird things that might explain for this continued issue.

I discovered, much to my displeasure, that the capacitors on the board had begun to go bad. Capacitors, when they're working properly, should be flat on top and straight up and down from the board. The ones on my motherboard, I discovered, were leaning heavily and one was in a significant state of disarray. When these things start to go, you can experience all kinds of different problems.

Well, this motherboard is pretty old by today's standards. I purchased it several years back. It has a Socket A processor ... ancient by today's standards, so getting a replacement board is just a bit of a hassle. I'm looking to just upgrade the board and processor together and purchasing a new power supply as well. Of course, if I purchase a new board, odds are that I'm going to have to purchase a new stick of RAM as well. This sucks because I just purchased the current stick about 6 months ago.

I gues I could just eBay the darn thing and get back some cash off of it ...

I've also been contemplating replacing the whole computer as well. Instead of spending a small fortune on the components mentioned above, maybe buying a new computer would make more sense. I've been wanting an Intel-based Mac Mini for a while now. I've been wanting a computer with OS X on it for ages ... and it would give me my third operating system here at home (Windows and Linux being the other two). Or perhaps I can just get another Wintel-based box for my gaming needs?

I'm very indecisive at this point in time. Maybe by the end of the weekend I will have thought about it some more and will have a clear vision of what I want to do.

~out...

Posted by ed at 08:44 PM | Comments (6)

September 04, 2006

My new car

I made a rather big purchase this weekend. After debating about the issue for months, I finally came to the decision that I needed a new car. My old Honda, which I have had for 7 years, was finally getting to the point where it was becoming too expensive to repair. The final nail in the coffin was when the ac compressor went out on my way home from work. I noticed that the car was slowly becoming warmer, and when I looked behind me, there was a cloud of white smoke coming from behind the vehicle.

Amanda took Chewie (that's the name of the Honda) to the repair shop, and we received a bit of a sticker shock. To repair the ac unit, it was going to cost us at least $700.00. Considering that we just replaced the blower motor just two weeks prior for $160.00, we were approaching a thousand dollars very fast. Keep up these kinds of repairs, and before you know it you've spent enough for a new car in a vehicle that is 14+ years old.

After talking with Amanda about the climbing costs, we decided to start looking around for a new auto. The problem that we have is that we don't have a lot of cash to put towards a new car, especially when we are in the process of buying a new home. The replacement vehicle needed to be cheap, in very good condition, less than 5 years old and get great gas mileage. There were very few cars out there that fit this need when we looked ... but I had an idea of what it was that I wanted.

About a year ago, Michael and I went out test driving cars. I knew that the time was coming close to when I would have to consider replacing Chewie, so I wanted to get an idea of what was on the market. I test drove several cars, but was very impressed with the Chevy Aveo. It had a lot of get-up and go, was very roomy for being a compact car and fit my needs for a new car. I didn't purchase the Aveo when I test drove it with Michael, but I knew that when the time came that I would seriously consider an Aveo.

Fast forward about a year, and here I am needing a car. I've never been big on purchasing a brand new car, so I tend to look for used vehicles that have under 60K miles on them. As luck would have it, I found an Aveo for under $10K that had all of the things that I was looking for. After taking the vehicle for a test drive, Amanda and I decided that we found the car that I wanted and proceeded to put everything together for a purchase.


This is what my Aveo looks like.

As of Saturday afternoon, I became the owner of a 2004 Chevy Aveo. It's a bright red color, has four doors, has a manual transmission, a MP3/CD player and gets great gas mileage. It has under 60K miles, and the body is in very good condition. The interior of the vehicle is also in good condition, with a few minor things that need to be cleaned to my satisfaction.

On Sunday, Amanda and I made a trip to a store called The Neutral Zone, which has things to purchase for UK and UofL fans. Being UofL fans, we purchased a new front plate for my car. It's black with the Cardinal logo centered in the middle. I wanted to replace the temp front plate that came with the car, which was a trashy looking plate that came from the car lot that I purchased the vehicle from. We also purchased a window sticker for my back window ... so that people will know that I'm a Cards fan regardless if I'm coming or going.

Now, I just need to get used to the clutch on my new car. It's a bit different than Chewie's ... very sensitive in comparison. The breaks on the car are also very touchy ... and I have stopped the car a bit faster than I planned a few different times. The really weird thing that is taking a while to learn is the power stearing. Chewie didn't have power stearing, and I was very used to not having it. When driving the Aveo, I find myself over correcting my turns because I'm used to having more resistance at the wheel.

It's all just a matter of time...

~out...

Posted by ed at 11:09 PM | Comments (2)