I’ve temporarily disabled comments from the site because I’ve been getting spammed by some lame free casino site. 300+ spams so far today alone. I’m working to fix the problem right now so if you have any questions feel free to e-mail me directly until I can figure a reasonable solution for comments.
I just received my Sony VRD-VC10 DVD Recorder which is a curious device that had me interested when it was announced a few months ago. The reason why this device is neat is that it acts as a standalone unit. You can connect composite or s-video + LR audio inputs directly to the device and record video. So, you can connect your VCR, video cameras, etc. and record without the need for a computer.
You can also connect the device to your computer via the USB 2.0 port and it acts like a USB optical drive. Interestingly enough, it shows up as a DRU-710A drive. I’m in the process of burning my first DVD from a VHS source so we’ll see how it goes. Interestingly enough, you can only use DVD+R/RW discs in direct burn mode. Anyways, it’s brainlessly easy to use and hopefully the quality will good. More updates later.
It’s only been a few months since I had my Sony VAIO S series but I started to feel the 1GB ceiling. Yes, 1GB is a lot memory in general…but it’s not a lot of memory when you’re using Photoshop and Illustrator programs (and not even simultaneously). My latest photoshop projects are simply eating up memory like crazy and I start swapping pretty quickly. Below is an example of the my typical memory usage using my S. Swapping easily starts to happen on my increasingly complicated Photoshop projects so the upgrade was very welcome.
With that in mind, I found a company called Swissbit manufacturing the PC2700 172-pin microDIMMs in 1GB capacities. Another local company called Portable One that had them in stock so I decided to do the upgrade.
The RAM modules were curious since they have a black coating over the modules that I’ve never seen before. I wonder if they help to dissipate heat or block any sort of interference. At any rate, they work splendidly and my system is humming along very happily.
Even though Sony “says” that you can only put 1GB of memory in the S, it is possible to put in 2GB since the chipset supports it. The most likely reason they don’t advertise 2GB support (at least initially) was that the modules are very rare right now and not a mass produced item. At any rate, the price of these modules are less than the price of a Sony branded 512MB module so I’m pretty happy. I do have some other upgrades planned already for my notebook which include Seagate’s forthcoming 7200RPM 100GB 2.5” HDD. Yes, I already have 80GB but it’s filling up fast and that added speed boost will be nice. I’m still not sold on a CPU upgrade since my 1.7Ghz is more than fast enough now. They’re only at 2.1GHz at the top right now so I’m relatively close. I even toyed with the idea of finding a Pentium M 1.1GHz ULV chip to stick in my S so that it would run cooler and longer. Yes, it would be a couple steps down in performance but my needs aren’t that great…unless I’m playing games.
As I finish up my edited review of the VAIO Pocket I’ve also been playing around with Windows XP MCE which I installed on my HTPC. Previously, I was using Snapstream’s BeyondTV, BeyondMedia, and Firefly products to control my HTPC. They all work pretty well but I was looking for something more slick and integrated and MCE seems to be that. BeyondTV still has some killer features but I’m going to give MCE a fair test before deciding. Is still have to setup the TV tuner to see how well it works.
Of course, no sooner than I posted the VAIO Pocket review I came across some update on Sony Japan’s site which include a very major firmware update that solves a lot of the small issues I had with the VAIO Pocket and makes it much more easy to use.
I’m going to spend the next couple of evenings going over the changes and modifying the review to reflect these changes.
The firmware updating process was scary even though everything went as described in their documentation. I just get nervous during firmware updates because should something go wrong you will have a dead piece of hardware (in most cases) and require factory servicing. Once it was done…I was pleasantly surprised at how much better everything was. More updates on this later…
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