The Great Computer Build 2013 - HAL 4500 Jr Pt. 2

The process of choosing parts parts for the build began months ago. There were a few components I knew for sure I wanted that were pretty simple to decide on. A few other pieces, not so much. Come to think of it I'm still deciding on a video card! But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here's what I got and why.

Case: Fractal Designs Define R4

Looks like a mini Monolith. But Titanium Gray...

One of the prerequisites of the build was above all else the computer be as quiet as possible without overheating. Naturally a case with sound dampening material would be in the running. The R4 got the nod for a few reasons. First was the sound dampening materials built inside the case. With padding on the side panels, the front door and the top of the case, it cuts down on noise and vibrations from the inside. Second: fan options. There are 6 places to add fans, either of the 120mm or 140mm design, so there are plenty of places to add cooling. With that many cooling options, the fans wouldn't need to spin nearly as fast, thereby making less noise. Third: design. I've always been a fan of clean lines, symmetrical design, and general lack of gaudiness (I'm a huge Audi styling fan, for instance). Having a door to hide the drives and card reader, which blends into the clean side panels just works for me. Before I was serious about the build I was a fan of the old NZXT H2. After some research, I found that Fractal Designs had worked out a few kinks the H2 had with their R3. By time I started buying parts, the R3 was supplanted by the R4, which was available  with a side window. Now, admittedly, a side window wasn't completely necessary, as the case would be on the floor under the computer table, where nobody can really see it. But a little bit of flash never hurt anybody,  and I wanted a side window. It just says CUSTOM, even if nobody cares. So a trip to Microcenter netted one of these. As an aside, I had been debating on the Ti Gray version or the Pearl Black version (only the color of the front door is different; the rest of the case is black). When I went to the store I couldn't get anybody to grab the ladder and get the case for me (always hovering around when I don't need help, never around when I do. Like the cops...), so I jumped up, knocked it off the shelf and caught it. I swore I had the black, but when I got home it was the gray. In the end, I'm happy with that choice.

CPU: Intel Core i5 3570K

As with most electronics, there's always a 'sweet spot', a product that will give you the most bang for your buck. Not overpowered for your current or eventual needs (and likewise priced out of your budget), not underpowered now or later (and not bought to meat a lower price point). The i5 2500K was the Goldilocks pick of the Sandy Bridge chips: Faster than an i3, and could be overclocked to match some of the lower i7 numbers, at a price accessible to most builder's budgets. However, by the time I was ready to start buying parts, Ivy Bridge was rolling out en mass. So, it seemed right to pick up it's successor, the i5 3570K. I wouldn't need the hyper threading of the i7 3770, and if I wanted to overclock it I could get faster in most benchmarks than that chip, at a lower cost. Now, realistically, I didn't need the unlocked chip, as my current plans and needs don't warrant any overclocking. Honestly I probably could have been just fine with an i3 chip. But, if you're going to go through the trouble of building your own computer there's no need to gimp yourself from the jump. So the 3570K was a lock

Mobo: AsRock Z77 Extreme4

Unlike most of the choices I had to make, choosing a motherboard seemed like closing my eyes and throwing a dart at a list of names. Admittedly it's hard to get a crappy mobo these days; it pretty much comes down to featureset and UEFI/BIOS preference. None of which I really cared much about, to be honest. As long as I had enough SATA headers for any drives I want to add, as I didn't feel like getting a PCI adapter to add drives (as I did with the old computer), was able to accept 32GB of memory if I decided to go that route down the road, I was fine. Having an onboard wifi card would have been nice, but I'm running Gigabit LAN in the basement, so it was unnecessary at the time (and an add on card if needed down the road would be cheaper). So, it was up to Tom's Hardware for approval. I decided on the AsRock based on 3 things: the recommendation from the website, the fact that Microcenter had them in stock (and would knock $40 off the price if bought with the i5), and that the board was all black, which would match the aesthetic of the R4, with the black/white insides. Hey, if you're going to go custom, there has to be some vanity considerations after all...

PSU: SeaSonic X Series X650 Gold

Choosing a PSU was a headache. I knew I wanted one as quiet as possible. I knew I wanted one fully modular, if possible. I knew I didn't want to spend $200 in the PSU, which was more important than the first 2 demands, as realistically, I was never going to drive the computer to the point that I absolutely needed a $200+ PSU. So the research dragged on. For a while, the thought of a fanless PSU appealed to me, even with their higher price. However, the configuration of the R4 prevented that, as having the PSU mounted on the top of the case generally works better from a cooling perspective with a fanless GPU. So, that was out. Most of the boards, threads, and recommendations from builders gave SeaSonic and their line of PSUs high marks for silence and reliability. The problem was, those PSUs were expensive for a non-modular version. Fortunately, I kept my eye on them. Just before the new year, Newegg had this PSU on sale for $90, which was basically half price, with free shipping. It took 2 weeks to get sent to the house, but a deal like that just could not be passed up, even if I had to wait a month.

RAM: Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB DDR3-1600

Memory was something I figured, after some internal debate, that I didn't necessarily have to go ALL OUT on. As long as the memory was made by a reputable manufacturer and it  fast enough I didn't really need heat spreaders or super fast timing to support any voltage overclocks (which I'm pretty sure would be a bridge too far for me. At least at this point). That said, I've always heard the mantra 'there's no such thing as too much memory', so at least 8GB would be going in the rig. Brand and exactly how much would depend on what was on sale when I went to the store to pick it up. Originally I was going to go with the Corsair Dominator series. Why? The heat spreaders looked cool. But the Crucial memory was $20 less, which money could be shifted to another part in the build. So, 16GB of Crucial 8x2 memory for $72? Sold. Will I ever NEED 16GB? Maybe not. But I can upgrade to 32GB to max out the board if I so choose too. One thing is for sure. I should never, EVER get a low memory warning, no matter what I have running.

CPU Cooler - Corsair H80i

This decision probably took longer than anything else. Depending on who you ask, the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo is all the cooler you need. It easily outperforms coolers 3 times it's price. But I didn't want it. It's too....plain. I could have gone something huge like the Noctua NH-D14. But that's a lot of weight hanging off the mobo I didn't necessarily want. So after a month of research and internal debate, I decided going with an AIO water cooled setup. Would it be as efficient as a home built water cooling loop? Nope. But I wasn't even about to invest the time and resources to map one of those out (especially when all I really need was that 212 Evo). Would the AOI setup be overkill? Yep, as there's not much need to overclock anything and what I currently do won't stress the processor out at all. But again, this was first my custom rig, and a water cooled solution would (in theory at least) be quieter than 2 or 3 huge fans blowing inside the case, hanging over the RAM and making installation a PITA. After another few weeks of research. the H80i won out. Between the ease of installation, the cooling efficiency, control of the Corsair Link2 and the ability to change the color of the LED on the pump (vanity has to be taken into consideration, you know...) it seemed to be the choice for me. When the local Microcenter had it in stock, I snagged it.

SSD: Samsung 840 Series, 250 GB

Going into the build, I knew I wanted a SSD for the boot drive. Mostly for speed, partially for vanity's sake. The beautiful thing about a SSD: read/write speeds that simply crush a regular HDD. To be able to go from a cold start to working in 20 seconds or less is fantastic. Programs pop open no sooner than you double click them. The biggest problem with a SSD is storage size and cost. Even with the HDD shortage last year (which is starting to stabilize now) you can get waaaaaaaay more storage for less with a standard HDD than going SSD. Which is why most people, yours truly included, will use the SSD as the  boot drive and supplement that with a bigger HDD for data and programs.It's hard to go absolutely wrong with whatever SSD you chose. Yes, some are faster than others, but the majority of the public really won't notice or care, especially if it's faster than they are used to. That being said, if you're going through the trouble of building your own computer, this is the kind of thing that would matter to you, whether you can ACTUALLY tell the difference or not. Samsung's 830 line of SSDs have been regularly praised in reviews for it's speed, so it seemed to be as good a choice as any. Just before I began to open my wallet to start buying stuff, the 840 was launched. So, 840 it was. The biggest question, however, was just how big a drive to get. While a 60GB drive would be more than enough to install Win7 on, anything else would fill the drive faster than it could boot. While you could install most programs on the HDD, some of them don't like to be anywhere but the C: drive. That wasn't worth the hassle for me. So the debate was between the 120GB, which hovered between $100-$120 depending on the store and the week, or the 240+ range, which went for $170-$190, again depending on the time of day and store. In the end I decided to save and go with the bigger drive. May as well have the ability to install whatever program to the SSD and not have to worry about it (considering I had a 320GB drive in the old setup with programs AND data and wasn't quite 3/4 full, the 250GB should be no problem, with a bit better data management). 

HDD: Segate Barracuda 2TB

Not really much to say here. 2TB of storage (7200RPM speeds, to boot) for under $100? Especially when 750GB, and some 500GB drives were as much a few months ago (and even now, if you want, say, a Caviar Black)? Even if most of my data is offloaded to the WHS2011 server, this much internal storage on the rig for this price? Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

ODD: LG 14x Blu-Ray Burner

Remember I said I swapped out the Corsair memory for the Crucial? That had a lot to do with this purchase. For the most part, any DVD burner will do for 98% of people. I mean, unless you're Mr. Bootleg, you're not burning that many movies at home to trade or sell. Most data is being downloaded from somewhere (either legit or grey market), meaning the few times you really need a physical drive would be to install some piece of hardware or to rip a CD you already own to iTunes (or MediaMonkey if you're smart). Likely you have a Blu-Ray player hooked to your TV or own a PS3 to watch your movies. So there isn't that much need for the majority of the public to install a Blu-Ray player in their desktop, other than because you CAN put a Blu-Ray player in your rig. Which was exactly the decision I had to make. In the end, I decided to get at least a Blu-Ray reader, just in case I wanted to archive the movies I have to my server. Looking at the prices on Microcenter, their Blu-Ray readers were somewhere in the $55 range. The Blu-Ray burners? Closer to $75. Not enough difference to kill my wallet. Plus, with the $25+ I saved switching from Dominator memory to Ballistix, well.... there you go.

So, after months of research, planning, saving, and buying (most of which came after the job's winter bonus), I had what I needed to replace the wind tunnel of a computer I was currently using:

Like Christmas for geeks

Since I had a number of crisis to deal with at the time, it would have been smart to wait until the weekend to get everything done. Unfortunately, I'm not that smart, which lead to staying up after 2:30 am two consecutive nights to get everything installed, and a third day to go in and clean up the wiring front and back. But in the end, it all came together

I now have a powerful, cool, quiet, color coordinated computer that should easily be able to handle whatever I throw at it now or months down the road. While the LGA1155 chipset may be supplanted by whatever Intel comes out with this year. my current setup should be able to last me for quite a while before I absolutely NEED to replace anything for being wither too slow or totally obsolete. My inner geek is thrilled.

You may notice that there is no mention of a GPU. Any self respecting builder would die before sticking solely with onboard graphics (even if the HD400 GPU on the 3570K is an improvement on past onboard graphics setups). The reason? I haven't chosen one yet. My OCD won't let me pick between a GTX 660, HD 7870, or the  recently released HD7870 LE (which should be faster than both, and probably faster than a GTX 660 Ti). Realistically, I could but a GTX 650 or a HD 7700 series card and be absolutely fine for what PC gaming I do (currently none), but that would seem to be a disservice to the rig I've built. Plus I still have to decide on what monitors I'm going with (after having a dual monitor setup at work, it's hard to go back to a single, even at home). Both, and whatever other peripheral I need to pick up, will be covered in a later blog.

In the end I managed to build a cross between the Baseline and Performance recommended setup from  MaximumPC, but slightly cheaper. I can't hear the computer upstairs, it boots up faster than I can fix a drink while waiting, it looks great, and I shouldn't have to replace anything for a few years unless I absolutely need the newest and best, which I don't. I haven't come up with an official name, so Hal Jr. it is for now. It's not sentient (nor will it be), nor the most powerful or best spec'd rig around. But it was designed and built from the ground up by me, so it's perfect for me. It's the sweet spot.

Maybe I should call it Goldilocks....

The Great Computer Build 2013 - HAL 4500 Jr Pt. 1

I am a geek. A geek with a bit of an OCD complex. And I am OK with that. That's the only way I can explain most of the things that interest me and how I approach them. Take my RC hobby for instance. The majority of people go with whatever Tyco product is shown on TV, or whatever is on sale at Radio Shack.

I'm sure somebody got this for Christmas. Not sure why though...

 Me? I've got maybe 8 vehicles, all of which were built from kits, which had to be ordered online or purchased from a hobby shop (and I have been to most of the shops and know some of the workers of said shops in a 50 mile radius of the house), and can tell you what rechargeable battery (moving to lipos), motor, engine (there is a difference), speed controller, servo, body, starter box, radio....

I can probably name each of those parts. Probably own most of them too,,,

You get my point. Video games. I've played SFII and it's ilk since the arcade scene was hot in the 90's. Most people would just play on their control pad, or, at best, but a controller from Madcatz or Hori (the fact I know the brands already gives the geek aura away). But how many people do you know have gone and built their own arcade stick to play at home? I own 3, all custom, all that needed to have buttons, joysticks, PCBs, LEDs purchased, installed, soldered, wired, and in some cases programmed to work?

El Guapo and El Jeffe. Yes I named them. Don't ask how much they cost...

Like I said, geek.

The one thing I hadn't really done, which seems to be a prerequisite of any geek or nerd, is build my own computer.Not that I hadn't ever grabbed the Phillips head screwdriver and went into a case before, mind you. Back in the days when I graduated, I had the choice of a car or a computer. You can guess which way I went. While I decided on an Amiga 2000 (probably on this side of being a nerd), I had to have extra memory, faster processor card, audio recording card, and a removable hard drive, all of which had to be ordered and installed by yours truly.

In the early '90s, this was a big deal. Just trust me...

Over the years, I've had to add hard drives, memory, or PCI cards to a number of computers for my friends and family depending on their needs. I even had to put together a computer on a $350 budget when my brother's Compaq gave out on him last year. But building one for my own personal use? Never got around to it.

Now, admittedly, very few people NEED to build their own computer. If you think about it, computers, as with everything else, are getting smaller and more portable. Most people can get along just fine with a low to mid-spec laptop. Tablets like the Nexus 7 and the ubiquitous iPad are expanding because they provide access to the things most people use a computer for (e-mail, messaging, web surfing, Netflix and the occasional game of Angry Birds or Words With Friends) in an easy to use portable device. Smartphones are getting faster with bigger and brighter displays (watch how many 5 inch phones come out this year), with better cameras front and rear to truly become all in one devices (which, ironically, are used less for making phone calls than ever).

Sorry Apple fanboys....

Even if you need a traditional desktop (and if sales and stocks are any indication, more people than ever don't), you can pop into your local Best Buy or hit Dell's website and get more computer than you need for your daily tasks. So why on earth build one yourself?

Simple answer: Because You Can. Even if you go through Dell or HP and customize one of their computers and have it shipped to you, there's always going to be a level of choice that you can't get unless you build it yourself. Say you're heavy into gaming on your PC. You may want more onboard memory and a separate video card to make sure you can get the highest graphics level on any given game. If you do music production, you may need a discrete audio card that will allow greater control and cleaner sound than your onboard audio from the motherboard. If you do video editing you may need a much faster processor and tons of memory. While your choices may be limited with a mass market seller, if you build your own each specific part cam be chosen based on your individual need. Then there's the customization factor. Want a case with plenty of vents for your cooling fans? Need one with a side window to show off your handiwork? Need multicolor lights in your fans or in the case to match your mood or your lighted keyboard? Feel like building a water cooling loop to keep the CPU chilly while you overclock the mess out of it? You've got to go custom. Do you NEED to do any of this? Nope. But you CAN do it, so why not?

Doubt you can buy this at HH Gregg....

Like I said, geek...

So, that being said, I decided I wanted to build my own computer. The current desktop I had was given to my from my IT manager at my job. He had ordered a mobo replacement for one of our servers, and got a whitebox desktop setup instead. Go figure. It was old, but serviceable  Athlon X2 processor, 4GB memory, DVD burner. A step up over the old Dell P4 I had been using (another decommissioned job from my office). The thing was, the computer was LOUD AS F$^K.  With no front fan and only a 80mm rear fan, it had to spin as fast as it could to keep the inside cool, even with a vented side panel and my aftermarket cooler I bought (with another 80mm fan, meaning it was still spinning ultra fast). Add to that a no name, barely vented power supply and you have a noisy, but underpowered, setup. I could hear the fans spinning from the upper landing before heading down the steps to the basement. My WHS2011 server, which I had cobbled together from another decommissioned computer (Lenovo something-or-other P4, which I simply added memory, bigger HDD and Gigabit LAN), and stays on 24-7, was nearly silent. This had to stop. I thought about simply replacing the case with something that could take bigger, quieter fans, and maybe the power supply and CPU cooler to make sure I could keep the sound down. But if I was going to go through the trouble of moving a mix of old and new parts to another case, I may as well take the time and just go from scratch all the way and build up a rig that is at least in the current cycle of parts (pretty sure the CPU and the mobo of the other rig had been discontinued years ago). The process of choosing parts, it turned out, was more difficult than I expected.

I get a lot from my father. My name. My eclectic taste in music. The benefits of good audio equipment (if you only knew how many headphones and high end walkmen I went through as a youth...).

One word: SuperBass

The benefits of good video equipment (which is why I'll go plasma over LCD if I'm paying for it). And the incurable need to research any and every electronic purchase for at least 4 months before buying anything, and even after making the purchase fretting over your decision for weeks afterward, even if you love the purchase. It's horrible. My dad obsessed so long over whether or not to get his Pioneer plasma TV (the one that was a step down from the legendary Kuro line) that my mother threatened to order it, have it installed in the den, and dare him to say anything about it. There were articles, reviews, price comparisons, etc around his house for months. He may have printed out close to a ream of paper on the TV and it's comparisons before finally pulling the trigger and buying it. It was frustrating, even for me, since he would e-mail me stuff on his TV. But in the end, he got it, he's happy, and it looks fantastic (I already told my mother when he passes I'm taking his TV). Sadly, he passed that same affliction on to me. Anything I buy has to be researched, reviewed, double checked, cross referenced, vetted by 2nd and 3rd parties, compared, seen, touched, debated, slept on and price matched before my wallet opens. I annoy my friends. I annoy my wife, I annoy myself. I hate it. I can't help it. So I blame my OCD on my father and keep it moving.

Now that we have the prelude out of the way, I can get to the actual build in the nest post. Which, hopefully, won't take another year, unlike any of the other projects I've got to finish (or start) a writeup on...

Forced Upgrades (or Why I Left WebOS for the Overlords at Google)-Part 3

The second major issue with Palm was one they never, ever came close to figuring out: hardware. Let's start with aesthetics. As many reasons as I have for not wanting an iPhone, the physical phone itself isn't one of them. Apple has always has a very clean, very modern, minimalist design in their products, and the iPhone doesn't disappoint. HTC has been putting in work for years, combining soft touch plastics, brushed aluminum, and various flourishes to make highly attractive phones no matter what carrier or OS. Samsung has done big things with its Galaxy lineup. What did Palm do? They went with a small, plastic, pebble shaped phone. It had the minimalist thing going for it, true. But with the hard, glossy plastic it never felt substantial, premium, when you held it. It would never win many votes in a beauty pagent.

Pretty easy choice for millions of people...

But it was more than the looks. The hardware specs were also an issue. The processor and screen size were fine in January 2009 at CES. By the time it dropped in the summer, other phones were surpassing those specs offering bigger screens, more memory, and faster processors. This wouldn't have been a problem if the hardware was upgraded, as most every other company does. HTC seems to have a new or remixed phone every 3 weeks, with specs that either keep up with the latest trends in technology or push them farther (like they did with the EVO 4G). Apple upgrades their phone on a yearly basis, with a huge event to mark the occasion. Motorola, which rode the RAZR popularity entirely too long and nearly took themselves out of the smartphone game, had cranked out some quality pieces of hardware.

And to think, this is the same company that makes Nextel phones...

Heck, even RIM has managed to tweak their crackberry to keep business and social types happy. What did Palm do? Well, depends on your carrier. If you were on Verizon or AT&T, you got a crack at the Pre Plus. The big changes between it and the original Pre on Sprint? More internal RAM and the removal of the physical button in the gesture area. That's all. No screen size or resolution increases, no processor bump, no change of form factor, not even a special edition color. In February 2011 Verizon did release the oft delayed Pre 2, which finally brought a faster 1mhz processor and WebOS 2.0, which brought out some enhancements, but no other changes to speak of. Now, for die hard Palm fans or lovers of WebOS, the change was notable, even if the hardware changes were nowhere near the upgrade they had rallied for. But for the average person coming into Verizon for a phone, the Pre2 never stood a chance.

It's all new! Really, it is! What, it doesn't look new?

First off, Verizon store employees did a horrible job in promoting the phone in store. When the Plus dropped, there were stories of some stores steering people away from the Pre to one of their Android offerings. Verizon had decided that, without the all conquering iPhone, it stood a better chance getting customers by pushing their 'Droid' lineup of phones by Motorola and HTC. At that point, WebOS was still a more polished offering than whichever of the multiple flavors of Android that were out. But on the same looking, same spec hardware, and with employees that weren't exactly encouraged to push it, the Pre Plus was barely noticed. By time the Pre2 hit, Big Red was offering a glut of 4 inch, super fast Android phones  and a little thing called the iPhone 4, which finally came to the network. There was no way a phone that had physically changed very little in 2 years would stand a chance getting noticed, even if Verizon gave them away for free.

But what about Sprint? Their customers (like myself) were the first to buy into Palm's new OS, and often were the most vocal and loyal bunch of WebOS users. Surely they would have enjoyed some new hardware. Nope. Sprint, feeling it got burned by Palm when the Pre failed to meet sales expectation, decided not to carry any further iteration of the Pre. Sprint users were never offered the Pre Plus, instead having to deal with the annoying 'too many cards' memory leak.

There was PLENTY of this to go around for Sprint customers...

The Pre2? Not a chance. The thing is, WebOS users, like myself, would have snapped them up without thinking if Sprint offered them, even with the plethora of Android offerings, simply because the OS was great. To make matters worse, the aforementioned WebOS 2.0, which was promised to all Palm Pre owners, never made it to owners of the Sprint Palm Pre. Lack of memory and processor speed meant the OS would not run properly, further insulating those loyal customers.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the other offering Palm had: the Pixi. In an effort to win back the few hundred people still holding on to their Centros, Palm released what was essentially a smaller Pre with a slower processor and, depending on your carrier, lack of WiFi.

Somebody had to think this would sell. Not sure who...

True, WebOS was coded in a way that the vast majority of programs written for it would scale down to work on the lesser hardware with no problem showing the versatility of the software. But most people didn't want a smaller, slower phone than what they had. Why Palm gave Pre users, especially those on Sprint, a way to downgrade, but absolutely no way to upgrade is beyond me. And the name. Pixi. What grown person is going to buy any product with a name like Pixi?

Now, many thought the issue with the lack of new hardware was Palm's relative lack of funding. And to a point, that could be argued. They simply didn't have the funds to R&D new product like any of the larger manufacturers. So when it was announced that HP was buying them for a few billion, many thought it could work. I mean, this is HP. They have TONS of cash from pushing desktops, laptops, and printers for years.

Every office known to man had to fight with one of these....

Money should have been no problem. All the planned product that had been hinted at and whispered about could now be put out to the public, and WebOS could be seen for the great OS it is. Right?

Wrong. So very, very wrong.

While the HP and Palm guys promised a slew of new products in the coming months, only 3 were confirmed: a tablet, which thanks to the iPad was all the rage, and 2 new phones.

Yes, those are two BRAND NEW phones. We've gone over this before...

First was the Veer (the one on the left), a 2.6 inch slider phone that was SMALLER than even the Pixi and sporting WebOS 2.0. HP tryed to hype the phone the best it could. Palm guru John Rubenstein actually started using it as his main phone (although I'm not sure how many other business execs would be squinting at that tiny screen or trying to tap out e-mails in the boardroom with that). AT&T released the phone in May 2011. Nobody cared. It seems that nobody was really that interested in a slider phone the size of an egg (and looked like an egg if you ordered the Veer in white). Considering most every other phone in the market were going for BIGGER screens, and most Palm fans had been begging for a bigger, better phone, not releasing the Pre 3 had to be one of the dumbest decisions HP could have made.

But...but.. iCarley thinks its sooooooooo cute!

So after crapping the bed with that phone decision, HP decided to put their full might on the HP Touchpad. With the iPad setting the stage, everybody was trying to get a piece of the tablet pie, fielding tablets to compete against the all conquering Apple slab. This time, HP figured they had a shot. With WebOS 3.0 running on some decent hardware (1.2 Ghz Snapdragon with 1Gb RAM), it had the muscle to fight with the Galaxy Tab and iPad 2. WebOs was still a slicker, more refined interface than Honeycomb (which was almost a stop-gap OS designed for tablets but never really got traction) and was ready to show the world just what was possible on more capable hardware. A big ad campain was run, dedicated space was set up in Best Buy and Staples to set it apart from the other tablets and special training was given to salespeople so they know the benefits of the Touchpad and why someone would want one over that pesky iPad. So how did it fare?

Put it like this: Harry couldn't even save them...

Bad. Very, very bad. First, the reviews weren't exactly kind to it. Where most tablets in it's price range went with some sort of soft touch or aluminum casing, the Touchpad looked...like a supersized Pre. Same hard touch, shiny plastic, same rounded pebble look. It's one thing to keep the family resemblence going, but when nobody is really impressed by it, it's going to be hard to get people to give you much of a look. Once you got past the looks, there was the performance. Even with a competetive processor, the tablet often felt sluggish when doing web browsing and other tasks. This was fixed by subsequent OTA updates (one of which went out not long after the Touchpad hit the shelves), but it would seem that for a product that had been in development for so long, these issues should have been sorted out. Couple that with the dirth of apps (which I'll get to in anothe entry) and the fact that it sold for the same price as the Tab and iPad, and it was a very, VERY hard sell for a company that simply had to make this work if WebOS had any chance of survival in a world where Apple was still king in mind share and Android was taking the lead in market share. In August, less than 2 months after the Touchpad went on sale, HP announced it that it would discontinue all current hardware devices running WebOS. The remaining stock of Touchpads would be sold off at ridiculous discount. How ridiculous? At launch, a 16GB Touchpad went for $499. During the fire sale that followed HP's discontinuation, you could have that same touchpad for the low low price of $99. The Touchpads then sold like hotcakes. In a bit of irony, HP now had the second most popular tablet on the market, and they weren't even making them anymore.

Who wants orphaned tech? WE DO!!!

With the death of all WebOS hardware, the Pre3 was dead before it even had a chance. Any hope of a competetive (or any, at this point) phone running an OS other than Android or iOS with true multitasking was over. Just to add salt in the wound of the Palm faithful, a few websites managed to get a hold of one of the few Pre3 phones that actually made it out into the wild. The reviews were pretty much what most people thought: The best Palm phone yet, but looks too similar to every other Pre and just not enough there to sway most people to buy it over a similar Android or Apple product, even if the OS rocks. Sprint could easily have sold them to every Pre owner they still had with no problem. But that would never happen now.

As depressing as this was, there was still one more reason the Pre and WebOS failed.

So much to do, so little time

This really is pathetic. I've got so many half done posts or barely started posts it's not even funny. That's going to change. The plan is to post something, ANYTHING, every Saturday at the latest from here on out. My NBA story is a season and a half late, my International Slumber worklog is a year behind, and I haven't even started El Guapo and El Jeffe yet. But I will. By hook or by crook, I will.

And who knows. You may even see some grilling stories here.

Stay classy DMV

Spenzalii

Forced Upgrades (or Why I Left WebOS for the Overlords at Google)-Part 2

So, Palm has a new phone, new OS, healthy buzz, and a carrier in Sprint that would feature the Pre as their exclusive premier phone, much like AT&T was doing with the iPhone. In the first month, the uptake on it was record breaking for Sprint. How could they go wrong?

First off: terrible marketing. You could have the best product in the world, something that stands thoroughly and unequivocally above anything else in it's class. If nobody knows about it, it's not going to sell. Multitasking and notifications worked better than anything Apple or Android could offer, and the swiping interface was well thought out and implemented. You would think focusing on some of these things would be a good idea in your marketing blitz, right? Apparently, the marketing heads at Palm thought otherwise.

What we have here is a lady that looks like the cross between the Pre-Cogs in Minority Report and the Borg Queen's cousin doing some nonsensical drivel about.... Reincarnation. Huh? This one was even worse:

Now we have a mind reading phone. And we can barely see what she's doing with said clairvoyant technology. What gives? People had no idea the commercials was even about a phone, let alone why they would want to leave their Android, Blackberry or beloved iPhone for a Pre. When the phone finally made its way to Verizon, the marketing wasn't much better.

Smart enough to keep up with MOM?. For reference, my mother rocks a purple crackberry. Definitely NOT the phone I want to be seen with. So if mom rolls up with a Pre....It did slightly better at showing what the phone could do, but considering previous efforts, that wasn't saying much. Verizon really could care less, as they were full steam behind their Droid line of phones (more on this later). By the time AT&T started carrying the phone, they didn't even bother with marketing. It just sort of showed up, overshadowed by the iPhone. Just before Palm got bought by HP they actually put out the kind of commercials they should have started with all along, actually showing what you could do with WebOS.

But at this point, it was too little, too late.

Forced Upgrades (or Why I Left WebOS for the Overlords at Google)-Part 1

Options are great. When you have an option, you can choose what works for YOU, not what the masses say should work for you. You can proudly say you made your choice without giving in to the mob mentality, with the knowledge that your decision will fit your individual needs. Scan Different (c) Ecko. However, that doesn't work with everything, especially electronics. And it certainly didn't work with my phone...

First, some disclosure. I rarely ever change phones or carriers. I was with Nextel back with the OG i1000. I switched to the i90 (one of the greatest phones ever)  when the hinge on the i1000 broke and could not be fixed.

Greatest. Nextel. EVER

The i90 gave way to the i580, only because I wanted to make my own .wav ringtones and have a color screen (a mistake, as the i90 was such a better phone). The i580 soldiered on long past its prime, as none of the crop of phones Sprint carried made me want to spend $300 to upgrade. Sure the Moguls and the Touch Diamonds were nice, but I wanted no parts of Windows Mobile.

No way was I going to deal with THIS...

I wasn't the right clientele for a Blackberry, so that was a no go. Android was at its infancy. And while many bought the kool-aide  that was the Instinct, thinking that was an iPhone killer, I wasn't going to be duped.

I still laugh at everyone that bought this crap...

Then came CES 2009. Palm, who had been rapidly losing market share pushing Treos and Centros with craptacular Windows Mobile or woefully outdated PalmOS, showed off what it had been working on for the past few months. The Palm Pre. 

Ooooooooohhhhhhhhhh (at the time, anyway)

It seemed to tick all the right boxes for what I wanted in a new phone: capacitive touch screen, wi-fi, bluetooth, physical keyboard, not Windows based. WebOS was new and exiting, and seemed different enough from iOS, Android, whatever version of Windows Mobile was out, etc. The preview of the OS was intriguing, with multitouch input (something Apple seemed to hold the monopoly on at the time) and all forms of on screen swipes (something slightly different). The launch, unfortunately for many, wouldn't happen until early summer. This worked out perfectly for me. My contract would be up for renewal about the same time my job issued their summer bonuses, meaning I would have the funds to actually buy a new phone the same time it was available after launch. I took a lunch break, hopped on the train to the nearest Sprint store and had brand spanking new Palm Pre up and running in less than 15 minutes.


Now, coming from an ancient Nextel to the realm of a smartphone, anything would have been a revelation. But WebOS? It really was something special. The Synergy feature made it extremely easy to get my att.net and gmail accounts synced up with minimum fuss. Facebook and Photobucket were also as easy to get rolling on the phone. After a quick tutorial, the whole 'gesture' language mad complete sense. Being able to 'swipe' forward and backward to open files, close programs, delete e-mails, move around web pages was amazing. Being able to have multiple applications running at the same time (web browser, e-mail, Facebook and Pandora, for instance) was fantastic, and being able to swipe between any program and keep the others up and running was absolutely unheard of, but wonderful. From a software development outlook, Palm walked a line between Android and Apple. Since the OS wasn’t licensed to other phone manufactures, the specs for what hardware you were developing a program for were pretty much set, a la the iPhone (at least until the Pixi came along). However, unlike Apple, Palm left the OS pretty open, allowing those with Linux experience and a bit of moxie to develop their own programs and tweaks to the OS, like Android. With PreWare (one of the many programs written by the WebOS Internals crew) any number of tweaks and apps were available to add whatever functionality Palm didn’t have (and often Palm would add to their OTA updates). It felt like a small community banded together to fight the good fight against the 800 pound gorilla that is he iPhone. At one point, they even had an iTunes spoof that made the Pre look like an iPod when iTunes was running (Apple was far from pleased, and subsequent updates eliminated it). This was the phone for me.


Now, it's not to say the phone was perfect. Some early phones had the serious 'oreo' effect going wherein the slider would twist like a cookie. Not very good. The USB cover was just waiting to disappear into nothingness after it broke a few of your fingernails trying to open it the first few times. The physical button in the gesture area was a bit redundant (a fact made clear when the Pre Plus got rid of it all together). Battery life, as with many smartphones, was less than impressive. And while some liked the 'pebble' aesthetic, compared to other phones it may have looked and felt cheap. The biggest problems with Sprint's Pre were the underclocked processor (supposedly to keep things stable and keep the battery from wasting away too quickly) and the lack of memory. 8GB of storage (no SD slot, natch) was livable, but only 256mb of RAM was a huge problem. Various memory leaks from programs that were running would use up what RAM was available, making it impossible to open another program or card without closing some of what you were working on. This could happen even if you didn't have any cards on the screen! The Pre Plus doubled the RAM to 512mb, pretty much eliminating it. At least if you were on Big Red or AT&T anyway. (more on that in a bit.) Even with these issues, Palm had a winner on it's hands. The OS was fresh, user friendly, and just flat out worked. It really could have taken off to compete with RIM and Android (nobody is taking iOS out any time soon; that's just the reality). Sadly, this was not to be…

Project: International Slumber – Part 3: Get In Where You Fit In

It was now time to figure out the best way to get all the PCBs in the case. As shown in Art’s Tek-Case video, there are 2 plexiglass pieces that the PCBs can mount to: one with holes drilled to fit a MCC and the other designed to zip tie a PCB to.  With the case assembled, there’s just enough space to mount a PCB above and below the mount, provided you’re creative with your wire connections. The PCB mounts that attach to the support case are offset from the center line, meaning there is more space for the PCB and it’s wiring than the other side, which comes closer to the top panel of the case. Since the MCC and the Sparky Jr. would end up with the majority of the wiring, I decided to place them where they had the most room on the PCB holder. The Master$trike would only have a few wires attaching to it, so placing that one on the bottom seemed reasonable. The MadCatz Fightpad PCB, while wide, is pretty flat since it doesn’t have any analog pots to worry about. It would go on the bottom of one of the PCB holders, but I would have to figure out how to mount it to the plexiglass holder. After some mental gymnastics to figure out what would work best where, I decided to go, from left to right, top to bottom: MCC, Sparky Jr, Master$trike, Madcatz PCB.

After figuring out where to place them it was time to figure out how to mount them. While one of the PCB holders has holes drilled for the MCC, you still need to provide your own post and screws to attach the PCB to the holder. I headed down to Lowes and picked up a pack of ½” and ¾” 4-40 screws and a variety of plastic screw posts that I thought would be long enough to keep the PCB from directly touching the plexiglass holder and allow enough thread for the nut to screw on the other side. For the other PCBs, I’d need to get a bit creative. With the MCC mounted to its holder, I placed the Master$trike on the other side of the PCB holder and traces the outline of the board and it’s screw holes. Then, I removed the MCC and drilled and countersunk the holes under the MCC. That way, I could insert the screws for the Master$trike under the MCC and not worry about the screw toughing or shorting any of the MCC’s connections. I used 2 nuts on the screws: one to secure the screw to the PCB to make sure it wouldn’t get loose and as a spacer to keep the Master$trike off the plexiglass holder, and another nut to secure the Master$trike to the screw post. That setup gave me just enough clearance to attach the assembly to the top and bottom case support brackets.

The other 2 PCBs were a little trickier. Since the other PCB holder had no holes drilled at all, I would need to drill all the holes needed. I started with the Sparky Jr., tracing the board, marking the screwholes, then drilling and countersinking the holes on the opposite side of the PCB holder. The screws were mounted the same way I did for the Master$trike.  The Madcatz PCB would need to have some holes drilled in the PCB, since the holes that were present weren’t spaced in a way I could use them with the plexiglass mount. I measured the width of the mount, then calculated how far apart the holes needed t be drilled on the PCB. Fortunately there is enough space on the PCB where there are no electrical traces running through it that making the holes wasn’t a huge issue. I then drilled and countersunk the holes in the plexiglass holder as I did with the other PCBs.

With the boards mounted and dry-fitted in the case, it was time to work on the buttons. To get the arc eyes to fit in the Seimitsu buttons, I whipped out the trusty dremel and ground out notches in the button casing to allow room to fit the pin headers that would be soldered to the arc eyes. Once that was done, I took the dremel to the sides of the switch where the pin headers would be. That way, once assembled, the headers could protrude from under the button and allow the wiring harness to plug in. I probably could have just drilled holes in the button casing and ran wires from the arc eyes and hardwired everything. But I like to be able to unplug things in case anything goes wrong, so the extra work making the pin headers fit was worth it.

Once the buttons were modified I placed them back in the case to start the arduous task of wiring everything.