Blog Moved

I now have my own domain and my blog can now be found at http://blog.jthon.com/.

Enjoy.

Housing Found

I spent this last weekend out in the Bay area looking for an apartment. I was unpleasantly surprised to find housing had gone up about 20% since I did a brief survey about 6 months ago. One Bedroom apartments out there now start around $1,250 a month for a "decent" apartment. I found a few places similar to the worst Madison has to offer to students for ONLY $1,095 or so a month. On the other end of the spectrum are the "luxury" apartments aka new which run from $1,600 to over $2,000 a month for a one bedroom.

I've decided to go with a place which had a 850 square foot 1 bedroom for "only" $1,325 a month. As this complex only does month to month leases at least I have some flexibility to move if I find someplace else. As two and three bedroom apartments only cost a couple hundred more than a one bedroom, if I find a roommate I can always move into such a place to save some cash. Now I get to start the fun process of coordinating a move of my "room of junk", and car to CA.

Done with school

As of last week I've officially turned in my Thesis and finished my Masters degree. Now I have about two months off and then I start working full time. So far during my break I've been working on turning my Masters Thesis into a paper to be submitted to a conference, and relaxing a bit back at home.

Of the two the relaxing is the harder task as some members of my family think one shouldn't have freetime. As this is my last break before I start work full time I don't really want to do anything but sit around, read, play video games, watch movies, golf, and do whatever outside.

Disney, why do you hate consumers?

So I bought the new Pirates of the Carribean: The curse of the Black Pearl Blu-ray this last week. I just popped it in to watch it only to find out Disney has decided this new hi-def format needs to work just like their childrens DVD's. So what's this mean for the consumer. Previews, lots of previews before the movie. Did I mention that you cannot use the menu, or pop-up menu features to skip them?

At least Disney still let me use next chapter, so after pressing R1 about 20 times I finally got to the movie's top menu. Does anyone know why Disney makes their movies do this to you? Just about every other Blu-ray I've played so far drops you right to a menu after a very short Blu-ray trailer. The only other movie I saw with any more extensive previews let you hit menu to skip them at least.

All Disney's managed to accomplish is to ensure that I don't bother buying another movie from them again. I'm so much better off just finding whatever I want from them and downloading it. At least this way I don't have to deal with all their stupid previews.

Playstation 3 Just Got Better

As of this morning Sony released a new minor PS 3 Firmware, upgrading the PS 3 to version 1.80. While the increment was minor it packed a few new features including:

• 1080p output scaling for DVDs
• 1080i/p output scaling for PS1 and PS 2 games (yes that's hi-def PS 2)
• Support for DLNA media servers

So what is a DLNA media server you ask? The DLNA is a consortium of companies which sponsor a UPnP media server system. Programs such as Windows Media Connect, Nero HomeShow, Myth TV, and Xbox Media Center all support this protocol. Basically it's a way to stream media from one system and play it back on another.

What's this mean for the PS 3? I can stream movies over the network to it just like with my haxx0red Xbox. That's right the PS 3 is now a media center device you can use to for listening to streamed music, and watching streamed videos! The only downside of the whole thing is PS 3's limited support for different file formats. For some reason the PS 3 only supports the following video formats:

• MPEG4-SP
• MPEG4-AVC
• MPEG2

For those of you unfamiliar with the MPEG 4 spec you'll know MPEG4-SP as some very low bitrate mobile version of MPEG4, and MPEG4-AVC as h.264 . The problem with this is that I have very few h.264 media files. Most of my movies (that aren't just ISOs) are in the MPEG4-ASP format, also known as Xvid, or Divx. Of course this "Advanced Simple Profile" isn't supported directly by the PS 3 so I can't watch most of my videos.

Luckily I purchased Nero 6 a couple years ago and it comes with a Nero HomeShow which can do on the fly transcoding of some videos. As I'm using this as my Media Server it can transcode all my Xvid files to MPEG2 on the fly. The only downside is that for most Xvid files this doesn't look good as the Xvid source is to low of a bitrate/resolution which doesn't transcode very well on the fly. In any case the better encoded stuff still looks pretty good, and while it's not quite as pretty as the Xbox it's good enough for most things (then again I'm not testing my Xbox on a 1080i capable display). Now I just need to find myself a good transcoding Linux server so I setup a Linux file server.

Looking for a Domain Name

Since I'm soon to be completely done with school (silly Thesis). Because of this I'll be losing the wisc.edu address that I've been using for the last SIX years. Rather than send everything to gmail I'd like to get myself a domain name for e-mail and hosting. The problem is that most of the good names are already taken.

So I ask this dear readers, do you have any suggestions on a domain name I might register?

VIM why didn't I use you before

I've been doing quite a bit of file editing at the command line recently. Rather than using the my good old standby editor pico, I've been forcing myself to use vim for the last 6 months. After doing a bunch of command line editing recently I think it's finally paid off. Plus, I recently discovered a new trick!

Those of you who may be familiar with this little program know a search and replace can be conducted using the following command :

%s/thing to find/thing to replace/g

Usually when I do this there's something in my editing buffer I want to search for and replace so I dutifully retype what I want to search for and replace and hit enter. Then realize oops typo, and have to hit u to undo and repeat the process.

Now I've finally learned how to paste into the command buffer. Simply start your command, then when you want to paste type ctrl-r then hit " to paste the last thing you yanked. Even better you can paste from any of the numbered or named vi registers. For example you can yank something into the a" register by typing a"y rather than just hitting y. Now when you use ctrl-r hit a and bam your thing in a gets pasted into place.

You can combine this with any of the 26 a-z registers to juggle up to 26 things at once! BTW, to paste normally from the special registers you just type x"p where x is your register name (a in previous example).

The only downside of my newfound vim skills is that I now find myself typing :w in Word to try and save my work.

Vista why are you so slow?

So I ended up putting XP x64 back on my desktop as I wasn't ready to go Linux full time yet (I should probably test duel-booting + games). I did find some amazing things out. When I said Vista was dog slow in my last post, I didn't quite capture how slow. See a fresh cruftless xp install flys on my hardware. We're talking 15 seconds from post to desktop.

Running WoW I'm seeing a solid 60 FPS while running around even in Shattrath or Ironforge. As a comparison Vista liked to average 20 FPS in the same areas. That's right I go from a nice solidly playable framerate to 20 FPS by switching from the ohh so slow 64 bit XP, to the horrible bloat that is Vista 32 bit (yes 32 bit Vista == slower than 64 bit XP).

What I'd really like to run on my desktop is OS X except that only works on Apple systems. Unfortunately they don't have an non-uber workstation tower, and even in that case they don't support the latest graphics cards. I really wish Apple would just sell Tiger as a separate product and let it work on other hardware. At that point I think MS would be crushed.

Vista + XP + Hibernate = Dead Computer

Well it finally happened, dual booting Vista and XP has now hosed my desktop. It appears that at one point when I was using XP it got hibernated instead of properly shutdown. Turns out that if you do anything to XP's disk when it is busy hibernating, such as run a program from the disk it doesn't wake up very well.

Rather it boots, then explorer just keeps restarting every 10 seconds until you shutdown. But that's not all! If you manage to shut the system down during a brief moment when explorer is up it marks all your disk as dirty. Then on the next boot it runs chkdsk, which somehow goes through your OS file system and does some magic. So that when XP tries to boot again you're left with a mouse cursor, and a giant black desktop until force a restart. Ohh did I mention that safemode also gives you a giant black desktop?

Well at least XP didn't eat Vista so my computer isn't totally dead. Only Vista is a giant dog on system resources and so doing anything, like gaming really sucks on it. I guess it's about time I reinstalled XP 64 anyway. I just hadn't planned on doing a big backup/reinstall this week.

I might as well throw this out there. Should I bother putting XP back on or should I switch my desktop over to Linux?

Reasons to use Linux:

• Works well as a desktop
• Could maybe actually do work related to my research on Linux
• Can play UT 2004
• Not Windows

Reasons to use Windows:

• I can play games other than UT 2004
• Desktop is primarily used for gaming
• Really all I can think of is I like gaming
  

Cooking at Home

After eating out most of last week, or eating whatever was easy to cook (like hotdogs). I decided today to make some good food. So tonight is Indian food night. Of course I'm making Chicken Tikka Masala which is about as Indian as General Tso's is Chinese. That doesn't stop it from being good.

Chicken Tikka Masala

Serves : 4

Ingredients

6 Chicken thigh pieces (boneless) (Or use some boneless skinless chicken breasts)

Marinade

• 6 tbsp. Yogurt
• 1 tsp red chili powder
• 1 tbsp Garlic paste
• 1 tsp red chili powder
• 1 tbsp Garlic paste
• 2 tbsp Ginger paste
• 1 tsp Cumin Powder
• 1 tsp Curry Powder (Garam Masala)
• 4-5 tsp lemon juice
• Salt to taste

For Gravy

• 2 Tomatoes(chopped)
• 1 Onion
• 1 tsp Ginger-garlic paste
• ½ tsp. Cumin powder
• ½ tsp. Coriander powder
• ¼ cup Milk
• 1 tsp Sugar
• Salt to taste

Directions

Chicken tikka masala is a two step process, Tikka and Gravy. Grilling the chicken definitely flavors this dish but if you do not have a grill, you could use any oven too. Once you have your chicken grilling, you could start the gravy process in parallel. (I usually just cook the chicken in a pan)

1. Cut chicken into smaller pieces. Drain any water.
2. Mix all ingredients for the marinade and add chicken into it. Set aside for at least 1 hour
3. Grill chicken on hot grill (barbecue) to golden brown. Baste butter (or oil) frequently to ensure that chicken remains tender and moist. Do not overcook.
4. Heat oil and add ginger, garlic paste. Fry a little and add chopped onions.
5. Keep heat on high to slightly caramelize the onions. Caramelizing onions enhances its flavors for this dish.
6. When onions turn golden, add chopped tomatoes and keep frying on medium heat until the oil separates.
7. Add cumin and coriander powder. Mix
8. Add salt and sugar and drop the chicken tikka pieces in it.
9. Let it simmer for 5 minutes on low heat and let the flavors mingle a little.
10. Increase heat to high and incorporate milk slowly. Stirring continously.
11. Once the gravy is of right consistency, reduce heat to low. Prepare any garnish
12. Serve with basmati rice. In the event you don't have basmati rice, white rice will do.
    

(Another hint, if you decide to cook basmati rice you should rinse it as it's a very starchy rice. Rinse it with cold water until the water stops being cloudy.)

I'd have a photo of the food, but my one camera has a dead battery, and my good camera's busted.

Podcasts

Today I thought I'd mention a couple of interesting Podcasts.

The first is the MPR's "The Current" Song of the Day podcast. They feature a variety of music from both local (MN) and other artists. The music tends to be pretty good and given they release one song every day it doesn't take long to accumulate a nice collection of free tunes from them.

I also enjoy listening to the Irish and Celtic Music Podcast. This podcast features well Irish and Celtic music and comes out once or twice a month. Unlike the MPR podcast it's usually about a one hour solid block of music. Doesn't work as well as MPR for fitting in with the rest of my music, but it's still fun to listen to.

On a less musical note I enjoy listening to NPR's weekly radio news quiz show Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. This radio show features current events, and special guests along with some wacky news. Where else would you ever learn about the Burqini, or scented tires so you can burn some lavender rubber? Plus special guests such as "Elmo", Tony Snow, and Associate Justice Stephen Breyer always have something interesting to say.

That's it for now, I might have some more podcast fun later. All the podcasts are available on iTunes along with through the links I've posted here.

The Light It Burns

Well apparently I've finished my transformation into a creature of the night. It appears that spending a couple hours outside in the morning is enough sunlight to cause a large amount of sunburn on my arms and face. Apparently, our ozone layer has shrunk a bit compared to when I was younger as it used to take a lot more sun before I'd burn, that or I'm now a Vampire.

Free TV Online!

AOL now has a free online tv service available at http://video.aol.com/video-category/in2tv/2120 called In2TV. This service bring free and full TV shows to you via the 'net. You can even download high quality versions if you happen to have Windows XP (Mac OS X and XP 64 not supported of course). This service has some high quality shows for free and isn't just full of a bunch of junk.

They have Babylon 5, the old Batman Cartoons, Silverhawks, Thundercats (Ok, these two aren't great but I liked them as a kid), The Adventures of Brisco County Junior, The Fugitive and more. I've only played with it a little bit but so far I'm impressed with the selection given that it's AOL.

High-Def Gaming

My PS 3 component cable has arrived, and I spent last night playing around with high-def. While doing this I learned the following.

1. My Dell 24" LCD doesn't support 1080P over component.
2. High-Def Harry Potter trailers are cool.
3. High-Def games look really nice.
4. PS 2 games look really crappy in comparison.

I tested my one PS 3 game Resistance: The Fall of Man first. This game looks great in high-def. The graphics are crisp, with no noticeable slowdown. While playing online matches it's much easier to pick out your targets compared to on a normal SD TV. Only negatives is that I could actually notice some poor mipmapping on some chain bridges in one of the maps. The quality of the standard def TV makes this completely unnoticeable.

I also gave GTHD a spin. The cars and track all look great. They're all very crisp and the detail amazing. Especially as I fired up GT 4 right afterwards. Comparing GT4 to GTHD in HD makes GT 4 look like complete crap. Doesn't help that the 1080i output setting for GT4 seems busted. Setting it to 1080i makes some stuff look crisper but really does some weird stuff to the graphics. I'm not sure if this a PS 3 bug or just something with GT4. The 480p setting does look ok, but is super chunky and doesn't compare to GTHD. I'm not sure if I can stand the graphics of the game now that I've seen a high def version.

I'll post a few comparison pictures of the what the various games look like in high def later today.

Cable on the Way

My PS 3 Component cable has finally started its journey from Amazon.com. More info on the awesomeness of HD once it gets here.

A New Year

Once again a giant chunk of time has passed since my last post. It's been about 2 months since posted anything here. Nothing to interesting has happened in this time. Mostly I was just busy with schoolwork which is probably not to interesting for others to read about.

So what exciting things have happened in the last couple weeks since break started? I backed my car into a tree causing about $1000 in damages to it. So my car has been at a body shop since the 26th. Apparently, a broken tail light and some small damage to the rear left quarter panel add up quickly. It also appears that the body shop may have broken a door lock while doing their repairs. I'll find out more about that when I pickup my car tomorrow.

In addition to breaking my car, I played some video games (no WoW!) with my family, did some homework, and picked up a 60 GB PS 3 from a local EB Games store the Wed after Christmas. I'll probably put up a review of the PS 3 later. So far I like most of the interface but they do need to add some more features before its media capabilities catch up to that of my hacked Xbox. I also might take a stab of setting up linux on it once I get back to school and can play with it on my 24" LCD monitor.

The one accessory I still need to pick up is a component video cable as they didn't include one in the box. The official Sony one is only about $20 and other offbrands can be had for about the same price. My local Best Buy only carries a $62.99 PsyCable super monster component cable which is way over priced. They also had a $99.99 HDMI cable for the PS 3 which is the same as a $5 cable available online. Since no sanely priced cables were available in my area I need to pick one up in Madison or online.