Archive for the Category: ' Computers '
Meet Synth-Studio Tower!
I finished building my newest PC a little while ago. Just the other day (at time of writing) I replaced the motherboard due to a bug in the Intel Sandy Bridge motherboard chipset Serial ATA Controller with it’s new, bug-free version.
Long ago, for the first time, I built my own PC. Then, I built another. Then another, and another. This is one of them.
Surprisingly, that went through with zero issues I’m happy to report! I thought at least I would have to re-create my RAID 10 array, and re-image the machine from a backup. However, it found my array and booted right up! Way to go Intel/Asus!
I decided to take some photos of it, they came out alright, as the lighting in my room is not great. Check them out below.
What, you don’t want to look at stupid pictures you’re a computer expert? What are “specs”? Why do you want to know about what kind of glasses I have???
System Specs:
Chassis: Silverstone Fortress (FT02 in Black)
Power Supply: Silverstone Strider 1200 Watt PSU (ST1200)
Motherboard: Asus P8P67 Deluxe (B3 Revision)
CPU: Intel Core i7 2600k Quad Core CPU (2nd Generation Core i7 “Sandy Bridge”)
CPU Heatsink: Prolimatech Super Mega Twin Tower CPU Cooler
Memory: 2x G.Skill Ripjaws Series DDR3 1600 8GB 2x4GB Kit
GPU: 2x Gigabyte NVIDIA GeForce GTX570
HDD: 4x 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 SATA3Gb/s (in a RAID 10 array)
Optical Drive: LG 10x Blu-Ray BurnerOn Back-Order: MOTU 24I/O Recording System with PCI Express interface card (still waiting for this beastie at time of writing.)
Now, the photos!
Apple’s 2011 MacBook Pro Refresh: I am Disappointed!
I currently have a, now aging, First Generation Style, Core 2 Duo, 15inch MacBook Pro, and expect my next laptop to be in that same area as far as size goes. I also use Boot Camp with Windows 7, lately, more often than OSX.
I have been anxiously waiting to see what Apple was going to do with the move to Intel’s new Sandy Bridge mobile hardware. I was also hopeful for an NVIDIA GTX400M series GPU, preferably the GTX460M. At the time, I knew my GPU expectations were likely too high.
Well the time is here, and Apple has updated the MacBook Pro product line…
Having now looked over the specs of the latest refresh of the MacBook Pro for 2011, I have to say, it’s quite a disappointing sight to see! Now keep in mind, I only care about the 15 inch model. I was really hoping they would get with the times on some key issues. At least, they are key issues to me:
Issue 1: Poor “High Res” Screen Resolution option of 1680×1050
No 1920×1080 option? Any noteworthy 15inch laptop in the “PC” market for the same price, has a “Full HD” (1920×1080) screen as an option, or even standard. This is inexcusable!
Issue 2: Graphics Performance
They switched to AMD; and I don’t buy anything with an AMD logo on it. It’s that simple, personal reasons. Every time I have ever bought an AMD product, it has failed me miserably. If it was still ATI branded, I would maybe consider it. I know it sounds stupid but hey, it’s my choice. Oh, and from what I’m seeing, the NVIDIA mobile GPU’s are still faster.
Issue 3: Blu-Ray, where is it?
Again, any noteworthy “PC” laptop has a Blu-Ray option, even Blu-Ray WRITERS! This also ties into the 1920×1080 resolution requirement of mine. Remember, the native resolution of “Full HD” Blu-Ray content is 1920×1080.
Issue 4: The Mac Tax is bad this time around!
I spec’ed out two laptops today: a 15inch MacBook Pro and a 15.6inch laptop made by Sager (a leader in high-end “PC” laptops), the NP8150. See Below:
2.3GHZ Core i7 CPU 2nd Gen. “Sandy Bridge”
8gb RAM
AMD Radeon 6750M GPU
500GB 7200rpm unknown HDD
15 Inch Screen (1680×1050)
DVD,CD – Reader/Writer
Price: $2,749
2.3GHZ Core i7 CPU 2nd Gen. “Sandy Bridge”
16GB RAM
NVIDIA GTX485M GPU
500GB Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid HDD
15.6 Inch Screen (1920×1080)
Blu-Ray,DVD,CD – Reader/Writer
Price: $2,672
Seems pretty clear, for basically the same price, you get a lot more computer by going with the “PC” this time around. The GTX485M, Seagate’s Hybrid HDD, and Blu-Ray really make that machine the winner in the entertainment category. That’s a bit disappointing, because I have liked my MacBook Pro and OSX, but for this much performance difference (at least from my perspective) the Mac is just not worth the extra cash.
Are We Posting to Facebook?
As most of my friends know, I don’t really care for Facebook all that much. I have an account sure, but I hardly ever look at it. I prefer the simplicity of Twitter, the control of running my own website, and WordPress. So, hopefully with this new WordPress plugin called Wordbook the few people that I have “friended” on Facebook will be able to better see what I’m up to. We’ll see how it goes…
I’ve been doing some back-end changes to the site lately, mostly in the spam removal area. I use the Akismet plugin which catches pretty much everything, and now I also let the spam folder build up a week or two, check for IP’s that tried to post spam more than once, and ban them from accessing the site at all. I will have to add a new HTTP 403 error page with email address or something just in case a legitimate person gets blocked. Though I might do better to just clear the ban list every few months.
I also removed the glossary plugin, it was causing some php warnings and I don’t feel like trying to correct it. I might go back to the idea when a newer suitable plugin is developed.
What else? I am also still working on some new audio material to post and I’ve started work an a Roland Sound Canvas page, I’m just waiting to arrange all my SC’s on a nice table and take some neat pictures first. I suppose I should also take some photos of the inside of my XV-5080 with RAM and it’s new expansion board and my Fantom XR also.
I made my first WordPress plugin!
Woohoo!
Kind of neat. I made myself a simple admin-only plugin that should make debugging the site a bit easier for me. Simply put, I can now view some of my log files securely from within WordPress. This is good for me because now I don’t have to login via SSH to my webhost to view them.
Why did I make my own plugin? The main reason is that a quick search on wordpress.org yielded me nothing comparable, or at least as simple as my needs are.
Once I give it a few more features, maybe I’ll submit it to wordpress.org. Though, that would probably be a long way down the road…
Technical Site Update: Theme Updated.
Also, it looks like we have got nice image containers now! I’ve wanted this for this theme since I switched to it, so that’s great!
Inanis has done a great job with his theme in this version.
Other Changes: I have rearranged the sidebar in the hopes that it makes navigating the site a bit easier.
Here’s some images for example of the nice new borders…
Better caption borders...
One of my Roland D-550 Synths.
My bird Herman.
Technical Site Update: Permalinks Have Changed.
Just a note:
I have changed the structure of ‘permalinks’ throughout the site. So, if you have links to any specific posts, please update them.
Restricted Public Post Test…
This post should be visible by members only… ? Is it? Or, did I mess up?
SynthStudio Has Moved To A New Web Host!
Update your links!
I have finally given in and bought some new webspace with Dreamhost via a recommendation from a friend who says they are good. My only hope, is that their claim of unlimited space is actually true. I looked at a lot of webhosts, and many claim to have unlimited storage, but always have a clause reguarding actual content that takes up space, like MP3’s in my case. I wasn’t able to pinpoint anything with dreamhost on that issue. So we’ll see!
Why did I do it? I’ve done this for a few reasons:
- First, It’s less maintenance for me and more secure in the backup/disaster recovery area.
- Second, I was running my site off a first generation Apple Mac Mini! LOL! That thing is slow, the new host is much more powerful.
- Third, because I was running the site out of my home, I was unable to host on the default TCP/IP Port 80. So this solves that long lasting issue for those of you that were not able to see my site.
So, what does this mean for you? My very few but faithful readers? The site will be better than ever moving forward!
Now, why not celebrate the new with somthing old? The following are some old recordings of mine that go back to the ‘FruityLoops 3.0‘ era:
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Download Links to tracks above, in playlist order.:
All new theme for the site!
Installed and slightly customized a really cool Windows Vista-esque theme for the site called Inanis-Glass. What do you think of it?
It took me a while to get the background in the banner at the top to look right belive it or not. I still need to optomize the style code for it from inline css into the real stylesheets, but it works for now.
Next, I need to figure out a way to have the Twitter widget not pause the loading of the rest of the site. I could use an iframe but I really don’t want to. Any ideas?
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