Brian's Brain

The latest in a series...

Back in late October, I told you that I was planning on ordering my two DTV converter box coupons, with Prying Eyes dissection of the subsequent hardware acquisitions in mind. I requested my coupons the very next day, actually, they arrived in yesterday's mail, and I ordered my set-top boxes earlier today. I decided to order the two $0.01 (yes, one penny)-after-rebate STBs offered by CompUSA (as well as by TigerDirect, which now owns CompUSA), the ...Read More

One of the most important attributes of my job, as I mentioned a month ago, is to strive to maintain an open and flexible mind. With respect to the ongoing 'hot' topic of Internet- versus physical media-distributed video content, that job requirement means regularly testing content sources, delivery mechanisms and playback platforms. And specifically with respect to Netflix's Watch Instantly (aka Watch Now) service, that job requirement means that on the heels of testing Roku's Netflix Player and MediaMall Technologies' PlayOn, I've spent the past week-plus trying out ...Read More

I've just wrapped up the data collection portion of the hands-on project which will, in less than two months' time, appear in print as a cover story on performance- and power consumption-benchmarking 'value' x86 CPUs such as Intel's single- and dual-core Atom and Via's C7 and Nano. Many of the hardware platforms I leveraged for my testing took the form of mini-ITX boards, a fact which initiated remembrances in my noggin of the last time I heavily leveraged that particular form factor...for a two-part article series in EDN's ...Read More

This blog post references my feature article 'Solid-State Drives Challenge Hard Disks' in EDN's November 13, 2008 edition. It's one of a series of web addendums to the print writeup.

A bit over a month ago, I told you that for travel purposes, I was considering replacing my workhorse first-generation Apple MacBook with a newer, lighter and more compact descendant...and that instead of going with a MacBook Air, I was planning on hacking a MSI Wind netbook (now down to $350, and ...Read More

This blog post references my feature article 'Solid-State Drives Challenge Hard Disks' in EDN's November 13, 2008 edition. It's one of a series of web addendums to the print writeup.

As I mentioned last Thursday in the wrap-up of my initial three-part web addendum to the hands-on feature article, I'd received several 32 GByte SLC (single-level-cell) flash memory-based SSDs from Intel the prior day. I got the chance to run them through my testing suite last night, and below you'll find the results. ...Read More

Continued from 'Solid-State Drives Challenge Hard Disks: SiSoftware Speaks, And Testing Qualifiers'...

Some you might have been surprised to discover that I didn't tackle other tests in this study...off the top of my head, candidates include:

• System boot and application launch metrics, and
• Power consumption measurements (along with battery life estimates)

I'll first remind you, dear readers, that I am a staff of one here (the dog and cats aren't of any help with techie projects...if anything, they're counterproductive in this particular regard), that I have daily blog post and ...Read More

Continued from 'Solid-State Drives Challenge Hard Disks: Benchmark Observations And Background Statistics'...

As I mentioned in the print article's 'Head to the web for more hard-drive data' sidebar, I asked SiSoftware's lead programmer, C. Adrian Silasi, to provide additional information on various aspects of the particular Sandra tests I ran in this study. His feedback follows.

File Systems:

All tests use rounding functions (thus 10.5 becomes 11) and also low-limit, thus "1" would be lowest value if a value was measured, "0" meaning beyond the measurement limit. We can increase the [editor note: random access time] accurac...Read More

This blog post references my feature article 'Solid-State Drives Challenge Hard Disks' in EDN's November 13, 2008 edition. It's one of a series of web addendums to the print writeup.

Sometimes when I do a hands-on benchmarking project, I'm wracked with doubt because (being more of a technology generalist, versus a single-technology-focused content expert) I fear that I've overlooked a key characteristic (or few) in my testing. This time I'm again wracked with doubt, but for a different reason...given the technology 'deep dive' afforded by my employment background, I know that pragmatic resource and time constraints have precluded me f...Read More

By upgrading my HomePlug AV adapters to second-generation silicon coupled with newer firmware, along with updating my router to a newer 802.11n-compliant version, I'd hoped to subsequently be able to stream audio to my Apple TV in a trouble- and workaround-free fashion. And indeed I'm able to share the happy news with you that iTunes now handles my HomePlug AV-connected Apple TV as a Remote Speaker set...that is, when it can find the Apple TV. Another random issue has cropped up since my migration to the newer powerline networking adapters and router; sometimes (but, of course, not always) my computers are not able to find the Apple TV on the LAN, even though the route...Read More

Numerous times over the past few days here at Microsoft's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in Los Angeles, I've shaken my head. The online and print media (along with Microsoft blog troops') attention in the ramp-up to last week's Professional Developers Conference was extensive and intense, as was the coverage during the show. Conversely, the exposure of this week's conference has been comparatively muted, as is the press (and more general) attendance.

Granted, there's nothing incremental about the upcoming Windows 7 operating system being revealed this week as compared to last. And granted, given current economic condi...Read More

As I forecasted a week and a half ago, I've retired (at least for the moment) my Linksys WRT54GC IEEE 802.11g Wi-Fi-supportive router. Its successor (again, at least for the moment) is a second-generation Apple Airport Extreme 'N' model; I'd tested the first iteration of this particular design (model #MA073LL/A) more than a year ago, and the particular variant I'm now using (model #MB053LL/A) incorporates GbE-capable LAN and WAN ports.

The migration process was (...Read More

Greetings from Los Angeles. As I sit here watching the local, state and federal election results roll across my hotel room's television screen, I'm delighted to also learn via various RSS feeds rolling into my computer that the FCC unanimously (inclusive of a partial dissent by one commissioner) voted today in favor of unlicensed mobile 'white spaces' technology. Barring (inevitable?) lawsuits from detractors such as television broadcasters and wireless microphone sellers and users, implementations are approved to begin rolling out subsequent to next February's NTSC termination date.

...for this special announcement (and with particular apology to non-U.S. readers, for whom today's post isn't applicable)...

Get to work late. Head to the polls over lunch. Leave work early. Get in line on your way home. Do whatever it takes. Go vote. If you don't, you have no right to criticize the results.

The inspirational quote below, with which I completely concur, comes from a perhaps surprising source...Nine Inch Nails:

Tuesday we will elect the next President of the United States. The result will have great consequences for the nation.

This election offers a choice is between two men with dramatically different visions of the future. We have...Read More

I spent a substantial chunk of last weekend building up PCs, installing operating systems, driver suites and applications on them, and benchmarking them. Given today's released pricing and initial testing results on Intel's Core i7 (aka 'Nehalem') CPUs, you might think you know what hardware I was playing with. Alas, you'd be mistaken...although I do have Nehalem-based system components in hand, and although I do plan to test them soon, the first draft of my January 8, 2009 cover story is due on the 17^th of this month, and I'll be at Microsoft's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference beginning tomorrow through the end of this week.

As suc...Read More

WiMAX, specifically the 802.16e 'mobile' variant, has gotten lots of play in EDN so far this year both by yours truly and others on staff. As such, I thought you might be interested in reading some hands-on impressions of Sprint's recently-launched XOHM service (which I discussed in detail in a late-February feature article):

• Sprint's Xohm WiMax Network Debuts In Baltimore, Works Well