I recently pickep up a Dazzle Video Creator Platinum from Woot. My idea was that I’d take the last few videotapes I own, convert them to MPEG-4, then toss the tapes and the VCR. I had a bit of an adventure getting the software installed and working under Vista. This blog entry helped out a bit. It would be nice if Pinnacle would just allow you to download the full install for their Vista-compatible software, but instead you have to stumble through the install of the XP version, then run a patch install. Once you’ve got that done, and you’ve got the Vista driver for the device installed, it works fine. I’m in the middle of converting an old anime VHS tape to MPEG-4 right now. I’m hoping it’ll be watchable on my Apple TV when I’m done with it. If it all works out OK, I have a few other random tapes to convert, then I’m done with VHS forever.
Month: November 2008
defunct tech magazines
Related to my post about PC Mag yesterday, here’s an article about defunct tech magazines. I have fond memories of a few of the magazines on his list — Byte, in particular. That was a great tech magazine. Looking through the comments after the article, I see mention of Amiga World, which was another great magazine, about a great computer. On a somewhat related topic, the NY Times just started a new gadget blog.
no more PC Mag
I just found out that PC Magazine is going to stop publishing their hard copy, and go “100% digital.” I haven’t picked up a copy of PC Mag in a while, but it’s still sad to see it go. I had a subscription at one point a few years back, and it was one of the more useful magazines out there. Aside from continuing their web site, they will also continue to publish a digital version via Zinio. That’s kind of disappointing, since I’m not a big fan of Zinio’s reader. I’d really like to see them offer a Kindle version, but I haven’t seen any indication that they might do that. Looking at the Kindle magazine list, there actually aren’t any computer magazines in there at all. There are a bunch of computer-related blogs in the Kindle blog list, though. It is, of course, not hard to find tech news on the web, or on the Kindle, really, but it would be nice if even one general-audience computer magazine could survive in “dead tree” form.
good books
Google Books is a good thing. I came across a reference to an anthology of poetry in a newspaper article today, and I wanted to track down the book. It’s an old anthology, published in 1917 or thereabouts. It does look like I could get a used copy on Amazon, but it’s old enough that I can download it in PDF format from Google. Their copy seems to have come from Harvard’s library, and looks to be pretty well beat up, which is kind of cool. This book includes one of my favorite poems, “Mending Wall” by Robert Frost: “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall…”
financial stuff
I decided to be Mr. Responsible today, and catch up on all my financial stuff. I entered my last three quarterly 401(k) statements into Quicken, along with my last eight monthly Merrill Lynch statements. It was pretty depressing, seeing how much value has been lost over the last few months. I just have to assume it’ll bounce back before I retire.
I also opened a new CD with NJM Bank. They have pretty good rates, and they’re a pretty stable company. I really don’t know what the best place to put my money is right now, but a 12-month CD is a nice safe place to stash a few bucks, I guess.
Chance
New Chance album came out this week. I haven’t listened to Chance in about a year, but I’m pretty enthusiastic about the new album. I’m listening to his cover of “Milkshake” right now. Good stuff.
new hardware
I just got the new hardware I ordered from Newegg a few days back. I got 2GB of Corsair RAM and an ASUS EAH3450/DI/256M Radeon HD 3450 video card. Both were on sale for $20 each, after rebates.
The RAM brings me up to 4GB total, of which only 3GB is usable, but that’s still better than 2GB. There’s a thread at Channel 9 about the whole 4GB thing that’s pretty useful, if you can slog through it. I notice that the memory score in my Windows Experience Index went down, from 5.3 to 4.8, after I installed the new RAM. The original 2GB that I had in my machine was Corsair XMS, while the new memory is Corsair Value Select. I guess the cheap new stuff is a little slower than the fancy old stuff.
The new video card gets a 3.5 on the Aero score, and 3.9 on the gaming score. The old card got 4.1 for Aero and 3.7 for gaming. I’m a little confused on how this card can score lower than the old one on Aero, but I guess there’s a reason. I’m going to update the drivers and see if that changes anything.
Overall, I don’t really see any difference in the way the machine’s running now compared to how it was before the new memory and video card. I’m assuming that the extra RAM will help me out in Virtual PC, but I haven’t tried that yet. Ditto for SQL Server. I haven’t really tried anything fancy with SQL on this machine yet, but it’s always good to throw RAM at SQL Server.
election
Talking Points Memo is a good place to follow the election. Lots of stuff going on at Twitter too. (Obviously, that depends on who you’re following.) Oh, and the NY Times and the Washington Post are free on the Kindle today and tomorrow, per the Kindle Blog. I’m sure there will be plenty of detail on the results in those papers tomorrow.
gradual Vista upgrade
I’m still slowly working on switching over to Vista on my home desktop machine. I just ordered a cheap new video card that should be a bit more Vista-compatible than my old one. I also ordered 2 gigs of RAM, so I can bring my machine up to 4 GB. (And, yes, I know 32-bit Vista won’t be able to use all of it.) I think this will leave me with a reasonably fast machine, capable of handling anything I’m likely to do with it.