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.

The story in the new game hasn’t grabbed me in the same way. While elements seem to be “grabbed from the headlines” (particularly the news network stuff), it lacks the pathos and tragedy of the original. I also find myself lacking the patience to play the longer levels. Some seem to have been made longer by virtue of adding more of the same. Escort mission too short? Make it three escort missions. This philosophy seems to permeate many of the single player missions, which lack the punch and brevity of the missions in Relic’s Dawn of War 2.

Multiplayer is no better. As with the original, the major strategies seem to all revolve around griefing your opponents economy, rather than a dramatic clash of armies. On top of that, mulitplayer is so tightly tied to competitive online play that co-op seems to be almost a joke.

The one area I have enjoyed, somewhat, are user created maps. There are already a number of Defense of the Ancients and Tower Defense style maps. While many of them seem to be quick churns, we did play one that was great fun, if a little hard to understand at first. So if I continue to play Starcraft 2 at all, it will be to hunt out user created maps. Check out the map “Storm of the Imperial Sanctum” for a playable, if a little flawed, example.

Here’s what I’m currently thinking about goals and structure.

It’s Still a Work in Progress

I’m still nailing down hosting. I don’t want to use the same host as this blog, as I’ll exceed the bandwidth limits pretty quickly if the subscribers pick up. Right now, I’m looking a libsyn.

Also, I haven’t fully settled in on the technical side of production. I’m going to do a couple of solo one-offs, just to get comfortable. Those may or may not ever see the light of day, however.

Keep It Brief

The old ExtremeTech podcast ran between 30 and 40 minutes. I’d like to keep it at that length. What that means in a practical sense is that not a lot of time is spent talking about the restaurant we ate at last night, how my dogs are doing and the color of the autumn sky. Instead, we’ll have an agenda, and we’ll move through it fairly briskly. Which brings me to my next point.

Agenda

Each week, we’ll have an outline that will be our working agenda. As with most podcasts, there won’t be a script. Also, there’s no fixed time spent on any one topic – we’ll go with the flow. If the conversation is lively, we’ll roll with it. If not, we’ll move on to the next topic.

What It’s About

If you ever listened to the old ET podcast, you’ll know I like to cover a pretty broad range of topics. All of it falls within the general area of “tech.” But one week we might talk solar power, the next week, gaming middleware and the following week cool tech used for fitness workouts. However, I always plan on keeping core PC technology as the anchor for the podcast.

Getting Started

Given the number of people expressing interest, the first few podcasts may rotate among a number of different potential partners. That could evolve into having one or two regulars, or having  a rotating cast of characters. I’m pretty flexible, but I am looking for people who will be personable and compatible with my style.

It’s About Fun

This endeavor is about having a good time talking about geeky topics. While I have no idea where this will go, I always want to keep it loose and light, and not too heavy.

Timetable

I’m looking for a launch of around October 1st. Part of that is so I can get all the technical issues (including the hosting) set up. Part of it is to give me some time to experiment.

Still Interested?

Drop me email at loyd@improbableinsights.com and we’ll take the discussion from there.

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.

It’s interesting that these companies compete against each other on roughly equal footing, if you take into account all of the businesses in which they compete. You don’t see that elsewhere. There’s Intel and AMD on the PC processor side (with an occasional blip from Via), but Intel is the 900 pound gorilla in that game.

On the graphics front, AMD and Nvidia go back and forth, and depending on which press release and which analysts you read, Nvidia or AMD has the lead in market share in some key segment.

Despite the heated competition, and their impact on technology, you don’t see these companies mentioned in the tech press as often – and you certainly don’t see them lionized the way Apple and Google are.

Google owns search and search ads, Bing and Yahoo notwithstanding. Most of its revenues comes from search. They’re trying to get into the OS market, and the success of Android is a testament to their drive and talent. However, despite the recent cries of “Android has the number one share in smartphones”, sales of any one branded unit doesn’t approach the iPhone.

Microsoft still owns the PC desktop, Apple’s efforts with MacOS notwithstanding. Google has aspirations, but nothing significant yet, though it’s made some inroads on the office applications side of things.

Apple owns mobile. By “mobile”, I mean the iPhone and, to a lesser extend, the iPad and Macbook line.

By this time, you’re thinking: wait just a minute fella – there are more than three companies competing in those businesses. RIM does pretty well in smartphones – maybe better overall than both Google (Android) and Apple.

That’s all well and good, but I’m curious as to why Apple and Google in particular get so much attention from the tech press. Recently, Ed Bott noted in his Twitter feed that 49 stories popped up around the web regarding Google’s announcement about shutting down Google Wave development. Meanwhile, he could find zero stories covering Microsoft’s latest IE9 preview, which demonstrated impressive speed and hit 95/100 on the Acid3 test.

Intel recently garnered some attention when it announced its milestone for optical interconnects. Of course, the company got even more press when the FTC settlement was announced.

All these stories paled in comparison to the vast amount of press surrounding Apple’s perceived failure with the iPhone 4 antenna. The amount of attention paid to what’s really a relatively minor flow was incredible – it was almost as if no other technology news happened. If I were a PR rep for any other company, I’d just postpone all my product announcements whenever a wave (ouch, sorry) of Apple stories floods the web.

I’m also curious about reader behavior. Given the nature of the web, these stories wouldn’t gain traction of the page traffic was absent. Clearly, stories about Apple and Google generate traffic. Maybe it’s understandable, given the strong feelings people have about both companies. But the media herd mentality means that other interesting and cool stuff gets overlooked. And that’s a loss for all of us.

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.

Right now, I’m looking at a spreadsheet I built comparing four different touring bikes. I’ve got the primary list of components, much like you’d list components for a potential PC I might build. However, that’s not the geekiest part.

Another part of the spreadsheet is the geometry data. Head angles, effective top tube lengths, wheelbase, chainstay angles, etc.

As with PCs, bikes are purpose built for certain types of applications. In my case, I’m looking for a steel frame touring bike. Right now, I own an five year old Giant OCR3. It’s a sport road bike with an aluminum frame and a 98-inch wheelbase. It’s very responsive, handles well but this middle-aged body of mine can feel every bump and bit of pea gravel the bike encounters.

Also, the OCR3 lacks good braze-ons for racks. I don’t plan on doing any long distance touring, but I’d like to haul stuff around town. That means I want a rack (or racks), panniers and the ability to attach all manner of gear. It’s not necessarily true that steel bikes are more forgiving. What is true is that most touring bikes have geometries that result in a more forgiving, if slightly less responsive, ride. I had a steel touring bike when I was in college, and loved the way it rode and handled.

What’s really interesting is that when I hit the various bike forums, like bikeforums.net and cyclingforums.com, I find myself reading some of the geekiest, most opinionated posts I’ve ever read. These guys make the people over at AVS Forums look pedestrian by comparison.

What’s really fun is how some of these guys are really into modding their bikes, or even taking a bare frame and building a bike from scratch. It appeals to the part of me that likes building my own PCs.

I won’t be building a bike up from scratch soon. But I plan on getting a decent, steel frame touring bike and gradually upgrading components on my own. That’s how I got started building PCs – getting a generic, white box system and eventually replacing every single component inside.

Right now, the choices are between a Trek 520 and a Surly Long Haul Trucker. The local dealer, Bicycle Outfitter, carry Treks and can get Surlys, but don’t carry them in the shop. What’s great about this store is that all the folks I’ve talked to are more the touring or commuter type of rider, rather than would-be racers. And they’re willing to listen to my neophyte questions. At this point, a really good dealer is worth more than going out of my way to find a different bike.

As for my two choices: the Trek 520 seems to be well liked, but no one seems to have particularly strong opinions about them. On the other hand, the Surlys seem to attract the same type of following you see with Apple products on the tech side. It’s fascinating to read through a thread, find someone talking about a particular bike they might be considering, only to have a hard core Surly fan pop up and talk about how a Long Haul Trucker is really the only possible choice.

This all brings me back to my initial point: being a passionate geek is really a state of mind. It’s not about tech, gaming or any one activity.

Now, excuse me, I have to go back and stare at my spreadsheet for a bit.

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.

Most laptops I’ve encountered have various forms of trialware installed – a 60 day trial for Microsoft Office is quite typical. In the good old days, you also used to get a one year subscription to some form of security software, most often just a simple antivirus program.

So I fired up the laptop, and was asked if I wanted to activate the 30-day trial for Trend Micro’s antivirus software. So I said yes, thinking nothing of it. If it had been my own laptop, I would have declined, since I have my own preferences for security apps. When I’m reviewing one, though, I usually say yes, wanting to check out how performance is affected.

Thinking nothing of that, I booted into the account I’d created. This particular laptop was running 32-bit Windows 7 Professional, so I diden’t expect any problems. Next up was to install applications from the Windows Home Server on the network. I brought up a window, typed the name of the server, preceded by double backslashes, and waited.

And waited.

Then the error popped up: Windows couldn’t find the system with that name. I checked a variety of things:

• Is file and print sharing turned on? Yes.
• Is the Windows firewall enabled? No.
• Did the system think it was on a domain instead of a workgroup? No.

I also checked the networking device control panel, and disabled IPv6. While most of my own systems have IPv6 enabled, I’ve found that some systems I bring into my lab don’t seem to connect if they have IPv6 enabled, for whatever reason. However, that didn’t  help.

After a few email exchanges with support techs, they suggested that the problem might be a DNS issue. I had OpenDNS configured in my Netgear WNDR 3700, so I switched back to Comcast’s DNS. I also added a line to the HOSTS file on the laptop to specifically point to the Windows Home Server.

Still no connection to the WHS system.

The laptop did see other systems on my network. So I double-clicked on the icon that represented my production system, and got the same error. Just like the WHS system (which wasn’t seen at all by the laptop), my production system name wasn’t resolved.

Finally, I brought up the network device property panel one more time. That’s when I saw it: Trend Micro NDIS 6.0 Filter Driver.

Facepalm.

I had completely missed that in my first pass through the property sheet, since I was focused like a laser on disabling IPv6. When I did notice it this last time, it was instantly obvious to me that this was the problem. Call it an epiphany.

I uninstalled the Trend Micro filter driver and voila! My network was now completely accessible.

So thanks, Trend Micro, for causing me to waste an entire afternoon on a trivial problem! Now I can happily recommend that no one ever use your crappy application – or at least, never install the NDIS filter driver.

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?

Shooting with a Nikon D300s means that the 16mm end of the 16-85mm isn’t particularly wide. The 24-70 f2.8 is worse. In other words, I don’t really have a good wide solution.

One of the common denominators you might notice is that most of these lenses are fast. While I’d been shooting digital for a few years, I jumped back into more serious photography with both feet when I started shooting indoor volleyball. Lighting is terrible at those venues, so fast glass becomes an imperative. I kicked around getting something like the 85mm f/1.4, but in the end, settled on the two fast zooms.

The 16-85mm came later, when I wanted something for the European trip that was light and flexible. I also carried a 50mm f/1.4, but rapidly discovered that I rarely used it, so I eventually sold it when I returned from vacation.

Recently, another fall marching band season is upon us. I started shooting color guard and marching band two years ago, but really got into it last year. I’ve got quite a few different sets up on Flickr o fmarching band and winter guard.

Going Wide or Going Long?

One aspect of shooting on a football field is that the 70-200mm f/2.8 sometimes isn’t long enough, particularly if I’m trying to pick up one one or two people on the other side of the field.  On the other hand, there were times when I wanted something wider – I was never able to get a shot of the entire band on the field in a single photo.

I figured I had the budget to get one of the two lenses: a wide zoom, or a long, fixed focus lens. Something like the Nikkor 200-400mm f/4 was out of reach of my budget. Sigma makes an interesting 120-300mm f/2.8 and a 100-300mm f/4. On the wide end, the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8’s been getting some good buzz.

In the end, though, I went for versatility over lens speed. Outside of marching band, I’d rarely use something like a 120-300mm – and that wouldn’t do me any good  with winter guard, which was all indoors. So I ordered a Nikkor 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5. It’s not as fast as I’d like, but it’s not abysmally slow (it’s not f/5.6 or 6.3 at the extreme end.) And it complements my other lenses.

It does make the 16-85mm a little redundant. But I’ll probably keep it around because it’s light and versatile for daylight use.

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!

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.

No, I haven’t given up on PCs. As I noted, the first thing I did when the Macbook arrived was to open it up and upgrade the system to 4GB of RAM and a 500GB, 7,200RPM hard drive. That allowed me to fire it up, run Boot Camp and install Windows 7 Professional. And I’m still building gaming rigs. Honest.

Getting the Macbook was a culmination of a long process of finding a good laptop with long battery life that was light and not terribly expensive. I briefly owned an HP Envy 15, which I returned because I realized I didn’t really want a 16-inch notebook to lug around, even a thin and light one.

In the end, Apple’s hardware chops finally convinced me to pick up a laptop that doesn’t have a replaceable battery, doesn’t use the latest Intel processors and still runs at a somewhat anemic 1280×800 pixels. But it’s light, thin and has impressive battery life. After installing Windows 7, the Macbook would run for six plus hours (normal usage, not watching movies or other continuously running tasks.) In the back of my mind, I’m thinking I might spend some time learning MacOS, but in reality, I’ll probably be running Windows 7, particularly when I’m on the road and working.

The iPad is another matter. I find myself using it less and less, despite some cool games and apps. I’m on the cusp of unloading it, but I may keep it around to stay current.

Finally, I did jump in and upgraded my old iPhone 3G to the iPhone 4. It was time for an upgrade anyway, and for various reasons I won’t discuss here, I’m currently wedded to AT&T. Since I use a case, the brouhaha over the antenna problems isn’t an issue. The screen isn’t quite as magical as it’s been made out to be, but it is very good. And it’s certainly speedy.

Now that I’ve made my confession, I have to go do some penance. I just picked up another Coolermaster CM 690 II, so I’m going to go and build a P55 system running an Intel 875K. Then maybe I’ll feel a little less dirty.

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.

As I discovered, the Vulcan is really a normal micro-tower in the skin of a high end, badass case. I don’t want to talk about the Vulcan itself much, though. Go read the review if you want more detail on the Vulcan. I want to talk about the process of building a true micro ATX system.

The idea of building a small, powerful rig that can take on most modern PC games is an attractive idea, and when you see a good looking case like the Vulcan, it’s easy to be seduced.

What you can’t do is build a small form factor system the same way you build a typical mid or full tower PC. For one thing, the order of installation is critical. In some SFF cases, for example, you can’t install the power supply until everything else is in. In addition, the interior of these cases is often very, very cramped, so you’ll need to double-and triple-check that some stray wire or cable hasn’t crept underneath the motherboard. Routing wiring is also important, as its easier for wiring to drop onto a fan, resulting in a horrible sound and possible CPU overheating if it’s the CPU cooling fan.

At any rate, I had an early Gigabyte GA-H57M-UD3 motherboard. Given its layout and use of USB 3.0, I thought it would be an ideal motherboard for building a gaming rig.

Gigabyte's GA-H57M-UD3

The CPU would be a Core i7 870 I had leftover from an old test system, a Seagate 1TB 7200.12 hard drive would handle storage and a Radeon HD 5850 would take care of GPU chores. Installation was the usual painfully slow process (it always is with these tiny systems), but the system booted up just fine. Installing Windows 7 went swimmingly.

Then the stability problems began cropping up. Initially, warm reboots would always hang — I’d have to disconnect power before the system would boot. After installing all the drivers, the system would periodically crash with ugly blue screens. I tried different DDR3 modules and memory settings, but the crashes still occurred.

Even BIOS updates didn’t fix the problems,. What I suspect is that this board is actually an engineering sample, not a retail release, since Gigabyte had shipped it to me within days of its announcement. Note that this board had never been used, and is curiously lacking in markings, though it does have a serial number.

So I thought I’d try another board, an Asus P7H55D-M EVO.

Asus P7H55D-M EVO

I actually had this board working in a another small form factor system that I’d partially disassembled, so I thought it would be pretty simple to rip it out of the other case and slap it into the Vulcan.

By this time, I was in what may be charitably described as a “system building fugue.” You know the drill — you’re so into solving problems with a new build, so into getting it completed, that you start taking shortcut, and start getting careless.

The process of removing the P7H55D-M EVO was less gentle than it should have been. I also encountered several issues when trying to get it into the NZXT case. First, several of the mounting nuts had slipped out, and I didn’t notice them until I’d wiggled the motherboard into the case. So I wiggled the Asus board back out, and reinstalled the nuts.

In my haste, I’d replaced one of the nuts in the wrong hole. Out came the motherboard, then back it went. Oops, a piece of flashing on the ATX I/O plate had been pushed back down, blocking the Ethernet port. Out came the board again, and back in it went.

Somewhere in the process, I’m sure I killed the board. Note that the P7H55D-M EVO had been working perfectly when I removed it from its original case. When I got everything installed, the board wouldn’t POST. Fans would spin up, but no video would appear. I attached an external beeper to the speaker connector, and no beeps could be heard. The memory diagnostic light would stay bright red, no matter what DDR3 modules were installed. The board seemed completely hosed.

Out came the board one more time.

I had one more micro ATX board, an Intel DP55WB. This is by no means a high end board, but it was what I had available.

Intel DP55WB

This time, I realized I had just one more try at this. So I walked away from the whole affair until the following day. When I returned, I exercised extreme care during the installation — something I should have done with the Asus board. I made sure all the cables were cleared out of the way, all the mounting hardware properly installed and that the ATX I/O shield was pristine. The board went in as easily as it could — the interior is still pretty cramped, after all — but in it went.

The system POSTed just fine. Driver installation went smoothly, as did the BIOS update. The system burn-in tests completed without a hiccup.

In the end, what I had was still a pretty powerful system for gaming, but it won’t be particularly overclockable. But then, a small case with restricted airflow precludes any serious overclocking anyway.

There are lessons to be learned. One is to be sure to use actual retail gear, not engineering samples. Most users won’t run into this anyway, but it’s still worth stating. The second lesson is more important: if you find yourself frustrated and tempted to rush the building process, STOP. Walk away. Come back later, after the fever has abated. You should always approach the actual act of building as dispassionately as possible. Celebrate after everything is up and running, and get excited about how you plan on using the system. If you get too wound up during the building process, you’ll likely do something dumb, or overlook something obvious. It’s a lesson I need to re-learn once a year or so. I just wish the price this time wasn’t two motherboards.

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.

Another Maximum PC review: the MSI R5870 Lightning. It’s one of the latest generation of factory overclocked Radeon HD 5870 cards meant to be tweaked. I find these sorts of cards interesting as engineering exercises, but ultimately too expensive with too little performance gain for most users.

Over at PC World, I wrote an article on painless motherboard upgrades — how to upgrade your motherboard without reinstalling Windows. I’ve also written a number of laptop reviews, including the Micro Express NBL60, a surprisingly good unit from a manufacturer that doesn’t get a lot of buzz. Also at PC World is the Clevo X8100 gaming notebook. Alas, that’s an earlier model, and lacks the new GeForce GTX 480 mobile GPUs.

I also had some fun appearing on a couple of Tekzilla episodes with Patrick Norton. I appeared on Episode 147, where I talk about Puget Systems Serenity quiet gaming system. It’s a reasonably high performance box, but only generates around 20dBA even under load. Patrick and I also go back and forth on how you might mod your system to make it less noisy.

In addition, I got to do a bit on their fifth anniversary show, where I doff my PC hardware cap and put on my geeky photographer hat and talk a bit about Adobe’s Lightroom 3 release.

Last, but not least (and maybe the most fun), was making a guest appearance on Troy Goodfellow’s Three Moves Ahead, a podcast focusing on strategy gaming (mostly PC, but Troy also delves into board games occasionally, and his regulars –Rob Zacny, Julian Murdoch and others — also take on console and handheld strategy games. We talked about the impact technology has had on strategy games.

So that’s what’s been going on inside and outside the basement lab recently. Hope you find it as much fun to read, watch and hear as I had working on them.