Two weeks ago the DVD drive in my HTPC/mediacenter bit the dusk and called it quits after almost 2 years of faithful service. It was made by NEC, and it was a noisy bugger.

So I was in the market for a DVD drive. I had two choices, buy another DVD drive or perhaps invest in a Blu-Ray one. For a while I actually considered a Blu-Ray drive, which would set me back around $100 for a playback-only unit. But then I read about all the fuss over playing Blu-Ray movies on a computer, compound that with the potential requirement for a new video card, and I aborted my short-lived pursuit for a high-def player.

I ordered a replacement DVD burner from newegg.com. The cheapest I could find was from Lite-On. Three day shipping was free, so I paid about $25 including tax. It arrived promptly via UPS on Wednesday. I swapped it in that evening and ran a quick movie test - I thought it was actually quieter than the NEC.

So there we have it, no Blu-Ray in the foreseeable future.

A few weeks ago the battery of my wife’s MacBook died. I could buy a new battery and continue my Mac journey, but I decided to put it up for sale on Craigslist. That was this morning at 1am.

The MacBook is now gone, and I don’t foresee another Mac in my home for a long while, unless I get another for free.

Yet another Apple-hostile blog post: Why Doesn’t Anyone Give a Crap About Freedom Zero?. Can’t say I disagree.

I like this one’s comparison of Macs to hardware dongles. I like the article even more (and Apple less) when I think of the tight controls Apple is going to place over iPhone applications.

Got myself a second HDTV tuner for my mediacenter. $79.99 - $30 + tax + free shipping, I’d say a pretty good deal. There is also a $10 rebate that I need to mail out soon.

The package arrived today. I installed and configured the PCI card without incident. I can now record or view two HD channels at the same time. Kewl!

[Update @ 2007-01-14T21:02-8:00] Visual inspections show that the picture quality of this AVerMedia tuner is not as good as that of VBOX Cat’s Eye DTA-150 ATSC Over-the-air HDTV Tuner.

[Update @ 2007-01-14T22:03-8:00] Strike that previous comment about poor picture quality. The disparity turned out to be the source, verified using my TV’s built-in tuner.

I have a MacBook as well as an iPhone, but that doesn’t mean I can stand the BS advertising campaign from Apple championing how superior the Mac is.

I have three Vista machines at home, and while they are not perfect, I am actually happier with them than with the MacBook running OS X. The Mac is not bad at all, but the Apple ads with their half-truth really turn me off towards Apple products.

And contrary to belief, Safari on my iPhone crashes periodically. True, overall iPhone is more stable than my previous Windows Mobile devices, but then iPhone is not a true smartphone, not until the SDK is released next year.

I am glad to reading about others who feel the same about Apple’s smugness:

• The brand promise of Apple
• Macs Crash Too

And here is a funny article about an iPhone ad:

• Ask the pilot

A few weeks ago a friend of mine got a good deal on a Gateway PC. He bought it to edit his photos, which coincidentally will also come from a Nikon D80. While my laptop offers ubiquitous surfing opportunities, it comes up short in the area of photo editing. My interests in the current state of PC hardware piqued once again.

I first thought about buying pre-built. Computers from Cyberpowerpc.com looked cheap enough but the customer reviews worried me. Dell computers weren’t that cheap once I loaded them up with my ideal configurations. And there was no way I were to spend thousands of dollars to buy from boutique dealers just to play games…oh wait, I do NOT play games. So I was to build one myself after all.

After some Googling and soul searching, I placed an order this past Monday on Newegg.com for the following parts to build my Desktop PC 2007.

Parts arrived on Thursday and Friday. The CPU thermal paste went AWOL however, so I canceled that item online and bought it locally.

This build went more smoothly than my HTPC from a year ago (posts one, two, and three), partly because this time around I was a tad more experienced and partly because the 2007 components were easier to work with.  The chassis of my choice, Sunbeam tool-less mini tower case, was far roomier than the Zalman HD160, the size of which was constrained by AV component standards. In addition, Zalman case required more hardware fidgeting that could have come pre-installed. I was also more pleased with Asus’ motherboard than last year’s Gigabyte board - Asus included little touches such as the Q-Connector that made wire connections less cumbersome.

By Friday evening I was done with the build. I am now going through the tedious process of installing and customizing software to my liking.

Nowadays when people comment that they rather get a MacBook than a Windows-based laptop, my response generally is “MacBook is overrated”. Here is why:

• MacBook’s glossy screen makes an unpleasant reading experience.
• Its lack of dedicated PgUp and PgDn keys means lots of two-handed combos - the Fn key is on the left while the arrows keys are on the right.
• In MacOS, I have yet to find a way to focus on a minimized windows just by using the keyboard.

There are some other reasons why I prefer my IBM T43 over the MacBook, but those may be because I am more used to Windows.

The MacBook is not a bad computer, it’s just that I find it overrated, especially when people believe that simply switching to it and its MacOS will automagically improve their computing experience. Personally I prefer my Vista-running IBM T43 more, and this is from a guy who had used Macs for years before moving to Windows.

Image from ThinkComputers.org.

My wife told me about a 15% off coupon on Lenovo laptops. Now I don’t need a laptop, but Lenovo’s Thinkpad x41t/x60t has always attracted me. Now the temptation is almost too irresistible, especially that model with the multi-touch screen!

Click here for a video tour from Lenovo. Here are some x60t reviews I managed to find online: TabletPCReview.com, ThinkComputing.org, XYZ Computing.