Category Archives: Hardware

Your Shader Model And You

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As technology moves ever onward, getting more and more complex, it becomes more and more important to know what you have and what it can do.  In this case I am talking about graphics cards and figuring out what Shader Model it supports.  I am seeing more and more games that have not only memory and processor requirements listed, but also things like what Shader Model and DirectX version your hardware supports.

I ran into this recently and although the DirectX version is easy enough to find out, the Shader Model was a bit tougher.  So, after working through the problem and gathering some information from around the ‘net, I have put together some instructions and a handy reference chart for you that should make figuring this out a bit easier. Continue reading →

Love the iPhone, but not the battery life?

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That’s me!  I love my iPhone, but I don’t consider myself to be one of those blinder wearing fanbois either.  I have had various and sundry mobile phones over the years, with one of the best being my Motorola Timeport.  That thing lasted me five years and could still get better reception than anything else around it.  To bad it finally came apart one too many times for me to put back together, gravity is a bitch lemme tell ya.  Anyway, I made the move into “smart” phones with a Blackberry (didn’t everyone else when they came out? LOL).  I had, had PDAs before, but this was my first adventure with a PDA/phone combination and I was hooked, I mean I loved it.  I went through several Blackberry models both at work and with my personal ones.  Including a stint with a Blackberry storm at work, man did that thing suck, it was awful.  I had wanted an iPhone and had almost gotten one back in my Blackberry days, but I really figured that they were all pretty much the same.  Boy was I wrong!  I finally switched from a Blackberry to an iPhone (3GS) and I am never going back.  It is an amazing work of art, both the hardware and the software that goes with it, although I am not a big fan of iTunes (not on a PC anyway).  Even when I compare it to the Droid side by side, I just don’t see the iPhone killer that everyone talks about.  However, that discussion is for another day.

I said all that to say this, the one thing that does bring me down a bit about the iPhone is the battery life.  I know, you thought I was gonna say AT&T but that’s not a bad thing either, I already had AT&T and the service is great, way better than Verizon, and the prices are nice too.  No, the only thing weak on my iPhone is the maybe 24 hour lifespan of the battery.  My Blackberry Curve that I had could go a freakin’ week on a charge, it was awesome!  So, to help this, I just ordered a nifty little product called a Mophie Juice Pack Air.  It’s essentially a hard shell case for the iPhone with a battery incorporated inside that is supposed to double my battery life.  While not a week, I’ll take 48 versus 24 hours any day.  Once I get the little rascal, I’ll put up a proper review for anyone who might be interested.  If you have one, or have used one, drop a comment and let me know what you thing about it.  There are a few options available nowadays, but this one seemed like the best fit for me, and the prices have come down a lot compared to when they first hit the street.

So, check back in a  few days, and hopefully I’ll have a cool review and maybe some pics too for ya.  Later …

IDE/SATA/Notebook hard drive to USB

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Oh yeah, this tool is awesome.  It works wonders for connecting drives to your computers USB port, it even provides power to them as well separate from the USB connection, so you  don’t have to worry about it.  All in all this is a great too, and it works even better than I expected.  It’s been so useful to me I thought I would be remiss if I didn’t share it with everyone else.  I got mine from Amazon, check it out …

Acer Aspire Battery Not Charging

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Greetings all, I’d like to share with you an interesting tidbit of information that I ran across recently.  I have several customers that have purchased and been very happy with the Acer Aspire series of Netbooks.  I liked them so much I even got one for myself, and I too am very pleased with this little dynamo.  I’ll post a review later maybe, it really is a great machine. Especially considering the price, but now I will get back to the topic at hand.

One of these customers suddenly had a problem with the battery not charging.  In fact, the battery was non-existant, it wouldn’t charge or give an error light or really … anything.  Now, the little netbook ran fine when plugged into the AC adapter, so that ruled that out as being bad.  The logical assumption of course was that this customer simply had a dud for a battery.  You know, a bad cell, and open connection, whatever it is it rendered the battery useless much quicker than it should have.

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