I actually knew that I’d become bored with Starcraft 2 in fairly short order, but I bought it anyway.
You see, I’m an eternal optimist. I’d read most of the previews who said it was a much more polished version of the original, with only a few new features. But it would still be a game about managing peons, attacking your opponent’s economy (rather than engaging in battles) and clicking your mouse button a vast number of times during a game, despite the hotkeys.
Of course, I have fond memories of the original Starcraft, mostly because – and I want to emphasize this – I loved the story in the single player game.
Read More »
I put out a Twitter plus Facebook post, telling the world I was looking for a podcast partner. I received quite a few responses, which made me realize that I need to be more specific about what I want to cover in a podcast and the kind of person I’d want to share a Skype connection with.
Here’s what I’m currently thinking about goals and structure.
Read More »
Microsoft. Apple. Google.
Three companies staring at each other over the barrel of a gun. Sounds a little like a Tarantino movie, eh?
Okay, so that’s a little hyperbolic. Still, these three companies compete against each other in more than one market. Each is more successful than the other in some key niche. Despite their successes in those niches, they all want a larger piece of those other pies.
What I’m trying to figure out is why these three companies get the lion’s share of attention from the technology press.
Read More »
I’ve written boatloads of articles over the years about PC tech, building PCs, hardware specs, benchmarks and other topics that PC enthusiasts (read: PC geeks) care about. Geeks obsess over details. How many shader cores? What’s the latency? Bandwidth between interconnects. And so it goes.
I’m also a fairly serious amateur photographer. I obsess over which lenses would be ideal, how fast they should be, ISO settings, which noise reduction app works best. I suppose you could call me a digital photo geek, but I’m a pale shade of some of the real pros out there.
Then there’s bicycles.
Read More »
I’ve been reviewing quite a few laptops for PC World. Recently, I brought home a laptop from a manufacturer I won’t name here, because the brand isn’t relevant to the problem I encountered.
It started out as a simple laptop review, and quickly devolved into an exercise in frustration. And as it turned out, it was all because of overly aggressive security imposed by an outside application.
Read More »
I’ve been anguishing over lenses lately.
Right now, my kit consists of a Nikon D300s plus the following lenses, all Nikon-made Nikkor lenses:
- 16-85 f/3.5-5.6G ED VR. This is my walking around lens. I used it during my European vacation last summer, and got some terrific shots of Venice and Florence. Although with my latest purchase, this might become redundant.
- 24-70 f2.8G ED. This lens seems to be getting a little long in the tooth (no VR, for example.) But it’s a sharp lens, and I’ve gotten some great shots, like these shots of San Francisco at dusk shot from the deck of the USS Hornet. In fact, it was the relative sharpness of this lens, as compared to the more DX-oriented 17-55mm f2.8 that made me choose the 24-70.
- 70-200 f2.8G ED VR. This is the older version, not the latest VRII version. It’s fine for what I’m doing on DX sized sensors, so I didn’t feel driven to upgrade.
- AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED. I got this particular lens for a fairly dumb reason. I was shooting indoor color guard competitions (aka Winter Guard) last winter. Some of the tournaments had exlcusive deals with professional photographers, so lenses “longer than 8-inches” were prohibited. That meant the 70-200 f2.8 was out, so I picked up this lens. As it turns out, this is a fabulous lens for a variety of work, and is now one of my favorites.
What’s missing from this picture?
Read More »
It’s late Friday afternoon. By my count, I’ve written three reviews, one news story and most of a 2,000 word feature article this week. I’ve also built or re-built four PCs – more on those at a later date. But with regards to system building, I have to note that I’m getting tired of cases that require me to remove four screws just to remove the drive cage just so I can use four more screws to attach a hard drive. I’m looking at you, Antec and Zalman!
One of my favorite cases currently is the Coolermaster CM 690 II. It’s roomy on the inside. You can route cables behind the motherboard tray and still attach the back panel without difficulty. All the drive bays use tool-free mounting. It’s reasonably priced – I’ve seen the basic version for under $75. It’s not perfect – the cutout on the motherboard tray for CPU cooler backplates isn’t well positioned for LGA1156 motherboards, for example. But it’s a great example of a modern PC case more manufacturers should emulate.
Now, on to dinner and the weekly Friday Night Follies LAN party!
I don’t know if this is a sign that I have to turn in my PC geek badge or not, but I now own a Macbook. True, it’s the latest entry level Macbook. And I did take a screwdriver to it first thing. And it is running Windows 7 Professional x64 in addition to MacOS.
It pains me to think that I’ve contributed to Apple’s stellar quarter not once, not twice, but three times. I picked up an iPad (just a Wi-Fi version, but 64GB), bought the Macbook and recently upgraded to an iPhone 4.
Read More »
Once a year or so, I get the crazy idea that I want to build a small form factor PC.
It’s not the actual small form factor system that’s crazy. It’s what I want it to do. What I typically want is to build a high performance gaming system using a micro ATX motherboard, building it into a micro ATX chassis. I’m typically lured in by some cool looking micro ATX case. That happened to me with a couple of Silverstone SUGO models (SG01 and SG03). Most recently, it was the NZXT Vulcan, which I reviewed for Maximum PC. The Vulcan is actually a good looking case with an attractive feature set that makes it sound like a badass, high end case.
Read More »
Posted in All Topics, Gaming, General Tech, Hardware, How To
|
Tagged Asus, DP55WB, GA-H57M-UD3, Gigabyte, Intel, NZXT, P7H55D-M, Vulcan
|
I’ve been heads down on a number of freelance writing projects, many of which are finally reaching fruition.
I had fun writing an article on new graphics technology as it affects games. That ran in the August issue of Maximum PC, and is online now at MaximumPC.com. The real bummer is that I had lots of cool screen shots, most of which the magazine ran. But the need to reduce size for both print and online makes them less effective. Still, I think DirectX 11 will have the biggest impact on PC gaming since DX8.
Also up on Maximum PC is a review of Bigfoot’s Killer 2100 network interface card for gamers. It’s an interesting product, in that it works as advertised, reducing lag and ping times… but most people won’t notice any benefit. I’d class it as a luxury product, maybe useful to the 0.5% of gamers who compete online, care about winning and have the insanely fast reflexes to notice the small differences.
More stuff after the jump.
Read More »
Posted in All Topics, Digital Media, Gaming, General Tech, Hardware, Photography
|
Tagged Gaming, Graphics, Lightroom, Maximum PC, PC World, photography, quiet PC, Tekzilla, Three Moves Ahead
|
Recent Comments