There are tons of great little appliances taking advantage of the fantastic miniaturization and HD video capabilities of the Intel Atom platform and its competitors – specifically, NAS appliances like the Synology Diskstation and HD media centers like the Western Digital Live HD and Asus O!Play.

For those of you, like me, who have tried to build media centers using Windows, Linux, and Mac platforms in the past, you know it sounds a lot better in theory then in practice.

There are a lot of tough details to work out so that your media center is more of a transparent pleasure in your entertainment center, and less of a klutzy hassle.

1. Form Factor.

You want it to look nice next to your other components. The last thing you want is a beige box in your living room.

2. Silence.

It shouldn’t make any noise, whether its busy or not. Nothing detracts from a superb but quiet moment in a Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound blockbuster then the scratching of a read head from a hard drive, or the sudden enabling of a fan.

3. Connectivity.

Ideally, its nice to have Ethernet, wireless, component, composite, and HDMI available , plus USB ports for external storage and an IR port for a remote.

4. Power.

It shouldn’t use much. A regular desktop PC can easily suck 200-250 watts. Appliances like the WD Live HD use about 10 watts!.

5. 10-ft Interface.

This is the toughest part of all, because while their are HTPC apps like Boxee which work fine while you are inside Boxee, if you want to switch to another app or if it crashes (which Boxee is want to do), you are stuck with a desktop and a remote. Plus, if you want to move between apps, like between Boxee and EyeTV, things get a little tougher.

6. Efficient design.

My Synology NAS does more things than I ever thought a NAS could do, and it does it in 128MB of RAM. That’s because the software and firmware are carefully designed known quantities. It’s extremely difficult for DIY’ers to get the same results from similar hardware.

7. Support.

I don’t mean calling a support line. I mean, one day your firmware in your media center pops up and offers to download a new version automatically and solve problems and add features very specific to its usability as a media center. Plus, being able to hang out on forums with other users with the same hardware and software as you makes debugging much easier.

8. Your Family.

OK, so you are a tech-head who actually gets excited about tweaking a home media center and doesn’t mind a bit about pulling out a keyboard to fix stuff. Guess what? Your wife hates that, and so does everyone else in your family.

All of this is incredibly expensive and difficult to get ‘just right’ and stay that way, compared to the lowly $120 of a great product like the Western Digital Live HD.

But there are some drawbacks to the WD Live too. It has no DVD/Blu-ray, TV tuner, DRM, Hulu, Netflix, or DVR capabilities, all of which you could enable with a homebrew setup.

So what CAN the WD Live do? In a nutshell, it allows you to navigate and play a wide variety of audio and video digital formats either locally on a USB drive or over the network to a shared folder or DLNA server, and it does this pretty well. I was surprised at how quickly and comprehensively it automatically found my network resources – it was better at this than my Windows 7 box.

The WD Live HD sports support for Pandora (yay), Flickr, Live365 (meh), and YouTube (which at this point my toaster supports). HD users should be aware that it seems YouTube is dropping support for HD in non-web browser appliances.

It’s a very solid, lightweight and seemingly reliable unit, that responds well to input, boots fast, and will alert you to firmware updates and install them instantly over the air with no fuss at all.

Setup should be straightforward, but for me it wasn’t as slick as I had hoped. Like a lot of HD devices, you need to hook it up to component or composite inputs to get access to the menu to change the settings to HDMI, which really takes out some of the fun and ease of setup promised by HDMI.

I have hooked about 5-6 network devices up to the switch in my entertainment center, and none of them have had problems with DHCP autoconfig. The WD Live did, but I’m not going to get down too much on them for this as to be fair, I have two networks on the switch that most people don’t have to worry about confusing the WD Live HD.

My HDMI cable was only partially inserted, which is always a fun debug. The WD Live HD is so small and light, a stiff HDMI or network cable can move it out of place very easily, which might jar other connections or adjust remote line-of-sight just enough to cause you trouble. Use the included rubber feet.

Once booted, you will find the WD Live HD easy to learn, but unnecessarily cumbersome to move through quickly.

A universal problem with video convergence appliances is that they don’t let you configure your own home menu to show only things you do 99% of the time. Imagine using a web browser without a bookmarks toolbar, Windows without a start menu or quicklaunch, or MacOS with no dock.

Instead, it uses the very predictable and ‘safe’ method of providing top-level menus for movies, music, and photos, then you drill down to the network share, USB storage, or online service you want to use, then perhaps folders within. This is made worse by the obligatory fade-in fade-out animations.

Ideally, my media center would start up and read ‘Movies on Diskstation’ ‘Music on Diskstation’ ‘Photos on Diskstation’ and ‘My Pandora Account’ – because those are the only network objects I ever intend to use. It really would be so easy to do, but no one does it.

About the best I could say about this is that there aren’t exactly a Boxee-hodgepodge of (mostly uninteresting) features in the WD Live HD, so its less annoying than Boxee’s drill-downs.

Text input with the remote is about the worst I have seen. I mean, they could have ripped off just about anyone’s technique and it would work better – especially for entering IP addresses – the numbers appear linearly – just using a phone dial layout would be more efficient. Luckily, it gets the job done and it mostly needed only for manual setup and account logins for services like YouTube (which, thankfully, it remembers).

The interface is obviously designed to scale down well and while it is rendered very nicely, does not take advantage of HD resolution to make navigation easier. Having a left-hand menu of bookmarks and recently accessed media with a drilldown or preview window on the right would make it twice as usable instantly.

I am a big fan of having a ‘now playing’ window that PIPs to the corner while you use menus, which Comcast and most other cable provider HD DVRs do. It amazes me that my TiVo HD does not – it just plops the guide down over whatever your watching, or completely leaves the video entirely to navigate menus. This would also be a nice interface feature for the WD HD Live. This is a minor gripe for this type of device however, where there is less need to do ‘other stuff’ while watching.

While we’re on the topic of TiVo HD – one of my favorite inventions of all time, I need to take a moment to punch them in the gut, because they are totally asleep at the switch.

Rather than use popular network sharing features like DLNA, TiVo has always gone with its horrifically slow and unreliable TiVo Desktop software. Although I have never had too much trouble downloading video off my TiVo with it, its rare I ever want to. The real problem is in the opposite direction – watching video files off the Windows box with TiVo. TiVo will ‘see’ my Windows box about 99% of the time, but I have probably only been able to get it to see any *media* shared by TiVo Desktop about 1% of the time.

Even if it did work, I have no interest in keeping my 250-watt Windows box up and running 24/7 – that’s why I have a NAS. TiVo Desktop does not support NAS devices.

The support for TiVo Desktop has historically been terrible as well.

The whole point of me bringing this up is that if TiVo would simply get off its butt and support DLNAB, there would really be no reason for me to need the WD Live HD box or change inputs on my TV to switch between TiVo and my digital media. To take it one step further, to have at least *the option* of a TiVo with a built-in DVD or Blu-Ray player would also reduce my need for additional devices and inputs.

When TiVo allowed third parties to make its hardware, Pioneer had an exceptional TiVo model with a built-in DVD *burner*/player, with 480P component out. It was my favorite TiVojust because I could switch between DVDs and DVR instantly with one box, one input, and one remote. How does TiVokeep stepping ‘back’?

To its credit, the inclusion of Amazon On Demand to TiVois an exceptional feature, especially since at this point in time HD Cablecards do not support On-Demand cable services.

I can hear the Playstation 3 and XBox 360 users clamoring ‘but we can do ALL of that!’ and its true – but at the same time, they aren’t HD DVRs either. The XBox 360 only has a DVD player, and the Playstation 3 sucks about as much power as a small refrigerator just to play back an MP3.

If you already own either one of these boxes, you really aren’t going to get much value out of a Western Digital Live HD, except for massive power savings and perhaps file format support (MKV?). I am not sure about Pandora/YouTube on < a type="amzn">XBox/< a type="amzn">PS3, but I know both also have downloadable movies and at least one if not both has Netflix support, neither of which are supported by the Western Digital Live HD.

When browsing DLNA on the Western Digital Live HD, I noticed that all of my DLNA media – photos, images, and video, would appear under each category, but it won’t play, for example, music files if you are drilled down into the video category of the menu. I don’t know if this was my NAS DLNA server not being specific about the content of each category to the media center, or the media center not caring, but it’s annoying and magnifies the fact that you have to ‘drill down’ to access different media types, even if they are on the same server.

Western Digital, being a hard drive maker, really wants you to use this device with an external hard drive. In fact, the setup documentation seems to infer its *required* for setup, ‘but you can turn it off later’. This is completely untrue, you can setup and use the box entirely over your network with no hard drive attached from the get-go.

As far as picture quality goes, no complaints here, playing back big DiVx movies on the Western Digital Live HD was quick and looked nice, fast forwarding working better than average.

Conclusion

The Western Digital Live HD is an exceptionally affordable, tidy, professionally made, and extremely efficient and adorable little device for what it does – but what it does is somewhat limited and while I hear its interface is more professional than its competitors, its not going to win any usability awards for its navigation.

If you have an XBox 360 or PS3, or anything connected to your TV with decent DLNA and file format support, you probably do not need or want a Western Digital Live HD.

But in a world of 55-inch 1500-watt 1080p Plasmas, always-on HD DVRs and 400-watt gaming systems, the little $120, 10-watt (!!) Western Digital Live HD will fill many peoples needs in an adorably affordable and efficient package.

Western Digital Live HD

File Formats Supported

Video – AVI (Xvid, AVC, MPEG1/2/4), MPG/MPEG, VOB, MKV (h.264, x.264, AVC, MPEG1/2/4, VC-1), TS/TP/M2T (MPEG1/2/4, AVC, VC-1), MP4/MOV (MPEG4, h.264), M2TS, WMV9

Photo – JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG

Audio – MP3, WAV/PCM/LPCM, WMA, AAC, FLAC, MKA, AIF/AIFF, OGG, Dolby Digital, DTS

Playlist – PLS, M3U, WPL

Subtitle – SRT, ASS, SSA, SUB, SMI

Note:

- MPEG2 MP@HL up to 1920x1080p24, 1920x1080i30 or 1280x720p60 resolution.
- MPEG4.2 ASP@L5 up to 1280x720p30 resolution and no support for global motion compensation.
- WMV9/VC-1 MP@HL up to 1280x720p60 or 1920x1080p24 resolution. VC-1 AP@L3 up to 1920x1080i30, 1920x1080p24 or 1280x720p60 resolution.
- H.264 BP@L3 up to 720x480p30 or 720x576p25 resolution.
- H.264 MP@L4.1 and HP@4.1 up to 1920x1080p24, 1920x1080i30, or 1280x720p60 resolution.
- An audio receiver is required for multi-channel surround sound digital output.
- Compressed RGB JPEG formats only and progressive JPEG up to 2048×2048.
- Single layer TIFF files only.
- Uncompressed BMP only.

For details, please refer to the user manual.

File Formats Not Supported
Does not support protected premium content such as movies or music from the iTunes® Store, Cinema Now, Movielink®, Amazon Unbox™, and Vongo®

Connectivity
Interface Ethernet, HDMI, Composite A/V, Component video, USB 2.0

Originally appeared on: StationStops - Metro-North Train Schedules and NYC Commuting Blog See the original post here: Western Digital Live HD Media Player Review [WD Live HD Review]

I am not a coffee snob.

Seriously.

I will drink anything that delivers caffeine into my system.

• I will drink the poker-cup vending machine coffee – black if need be, with a smile on my face.
• When I am out of drip, I will suck down microwaved Folger’s instant.
• I let the pot warm all day and will absolutely drink a cup from a 5-hour-old pot (if its too old I will make iced coffee out of it).
• When I share coffee with a friend somewhere, and they say ‘ugh, this coffee sucks’ – I don’t know what they mean.

I am even more perplexed when people say ‘Starbucks’ coffee sucks’ – I don’t know what that means either, its much better than what I’m making at home I would guess – and most people are drinking it in flavored milk drinks at Starbucks – how do they even know what the actual coffee tastes like?

So how does a guy like me wind up owning a top automatic espresso maker, much less making it his only coffee maker? read on….

Recently, my Cuisinart coffeemaker broke. I didn’t buy a Cuisinart for the quality, I bought it for the unusually large 14-cup carafe and timer – you don’t want to speak to me if I actually have to MAKE my drip coffee in the morning. That’s ugly.

It’s bad enough I have to walk to the kitchen decaffeinated.
Someone could get hurt on the way.

Not willing to do without a maker for one day, I picked up a $17 Mr. Coffee at the local CVS.

But I realized I would have to get a large coffee maker with a timer to replace the Cuisinart.

I jumped on Amazon, browsed and browsed, and started to get interested in these single-serving machines. I had used a commercial Keurig machine at an office I consulted for, and was duly impressed.

Having worked at several startups, I realized that coffee solutions for the office are tricky. You can do the pot and honor-system jar, but its not ideal. People don’t pay, they don’t clean up, and you never know how long that pots been on. Its a mess.

The Keurig solves the mess problem by distributing the coffee in single-serving, sealed pods of different flavors. The user puts the pod of their choice in the machine, presses a button, and in about 60 seconds a coffee is expressed through high-pressure hot water through the pod and into the cup. The used coffee pod falls into a disposal bin.

It’s not instant coffee, its real coffee expressed through high pressure.

So, in 60 seconds, any employee can choose his own coffee, have it fresh-brewed for him, and walk away with no mess or waste. Its a great solution to a tough problem.

While I was pondering these home single-serving systems, I stopped by for a birthday party for my friends’ one-year-old. They offered me a coffee from their Keurig home brewing system, which I grilled them about in detail. In general they were happy with it, but the husband felt the coffee was a little weak. I tasted it, and although we have established I am not a coffee snob, I wasn’t impressed. To be fair, there are a lot of different blends available for the system, and I only tried one.

So, back to the drawing board and back to Amazon to check for single-serving machines that people actually like the coffee out of. Not because I am a snob, but because I am a good shopper.

This is what led me to the Nespresso Cube.

The Nespresso Cube, like the Keurig, is a pod-based single-serving machine – but not designed for coffee, designed for espresso.

This intrigued me, as, given the choice between a regular cup of coffee and a latte or cappuccino, I would certainly choose the latter two- if it was just as easy as a Keurig, than I’d rather have the espresso machine.

Also, if you just want regular coffee, you can just add hot water to an espresso – this is known as a Caffè Americano.

Having an espresso machine in no way limits you to drinking an insanely strong thimbleful of coffee (although I like to do that now once in a while) – it sets you free to have any kind of coffee you want.

The machine was very popular and got rave reviews over competing products, especially for the coffee quality. The price was a bit steep compared to a Keurig, but I wanted to give it a shot.

The machine and coffee arrived just in time for 4 house guests coming over for the weekend, including my mom.

The machine is incredibly easy to use.

Plug it in.
Turn it on.
About 60s later, the lights indicate it is ready.
You push the button for regular or lungo (large).
About 30s later, you have a fresh, steaming cup of espresso.

No cleanup.
The discarded pods collect into a pull-out for disposal later. The water reservoir only needs to be refilled after several espressos. The cup holder pulls out for an easy rinse, if necessary. It also folds up if you wanted to put a larger cup in – sometimes I will use a pint glass for my lattes!

You can drink it as is, with some sugar, or (as I prefer), with some microwaved hot milk frothed with a milk frother (not included – I’ve used steam frothers before – its nice because they heat the milk, but a hand frother is cheaper and works much better.)

From what I understand, the only difference between a cappuccino and a latte is how much milk is used and how much it is frothed, so don’t get hung up on it. As long as you don’t weaken the coffee too much with milk (and this will vary based on what blend of coffee you are using), the amount of milk is entirely up to you – its almost impossible to screw it up.

For example, I can make a short shot of espresso, top it with equal parts milk in a lungo glass, and that proportion has its own special charm. But usually, I will top a pint glass of 2 lungo shots with the milk so the drink lasts longer. Sometimes I will even just drink an unadulterated cup of pure espresso, to better differentiate between the different blends.

Experimenting is the fun part, I haven’t been disappointed with any of the Nespresso blends yet.

We experimented with several different drinks, but my favorite was my special latte – a couple of shots of Risetto topped off with hot frothed milk and a layer of Bailey’s to taste.

What a great way to start a weekend morning that drink is!

Some had laughed at the machine when they got there, but these same folks were lining up for drinks later and truly enjoying them – for entertaining it simply can’t be beat. Usually these guests will only want coffee in the morning – but they came back for afternoon coffee drinks as well – all of them!

I am still not a coffee snob, but I love my Nespresso and doubt I will ever go back to a regular coffee machine – if this machine is so easy, why make drip? Seems silly.

There is the mild drawback that when entertaining, you must make each drink individually, which can be time consuming (especially for doubles) – but what you should do is show your guests how to make their own drinks – everyone loves using it.

You could get around this by just putting a drip coffee maker next to the Nespresso, but it wouldn’t matter – no one would want to drink the drip anyway!

The biggest winner from the Nespresso purchase is probably my wife, who only gets her coffee – as Kramer once put it – ‘on the outside’. This usually means a latte at Starbucks. I don’t think I have ever seen her drink a cup of drip coffee.

From a caffeination standpoint, I do not understand how she gets on the train and rides 45 minutes into the city, then walks 2 blocks, BEFORE having her first cup of the day. That’s just wrong.

My wife had a lot of reservations about my ability to produce a decent latte at home, but I think she’s sold on the Nespresso version. At $.50 a shot, I hope I will be able to wean her off Starbucks and save us a little money.

According to my calculations, if my wife were to switch to a double Nespresso latte in the morning from a Starbucks grande latte, we could save up to $1000 a year on coffee. That’s huge.

Even better, she will no longer need to put me through the hell of stopping at Starbucks before doing ANYTHING on the weekends. I hate it. Our Starbucks is busy and has a tiny parking lot that results in way too many cases of parking rage. Coffee does not go with lines and conflict in my book, so I will be happy to bid this ritual adieu.

Flavored drinks are covered too – you can get the famous Torani Syrups online – I suggest getting the Variety Pack – Vanilla, Caramel & Hazelnut – that covers all the bases. Just a quick shot in the bottom of the cup before you fill it is all that’s required to duplicate or outdo drinks that cost $7 or more ‘on the outside’. There is no barista magic required.

If there is one complaint I have about the Nespresso system, it is that you can only order the capsules online directly from the manufacturer or from one of the few boutiques (see map below for the Upper East Side Nespresso Boutique). I don’t think anyone will have a problem with the quality or selection from Nespresso.com – its outstanding coffee with over 16 blends – and the price is reasonable at $.55-$.62 a cup.

View Larger Map

If you live in NYC, you should definitely check out a Nespresso Boutique before buying at either the Upper East Side or SoHo Bloomingdale’slocations. Make sure you wear a jacket and smirk alot like George Clooney.

It would be unfortunate if Nespresso were to go out of business without third parties supporting the capsules. I also don’t like the idea of not being able to run to the store for coffee.

However, these are minor concessions I am happy to live with. There is nothing stopping me from taking the Mr Coffee out while I wait for a Nespresso delivery due to lack of planning.

As for the blends, I think that the Risetto is really all I will ever need. Its very strong and robust, and a favorite amongst Nespresso users, as is the milder Cosi. It’s difficult to find good reviews of the Nespresso capsules.

After all, when you order a latte from Starbucks, most people don’t indicate the blend anyway. The variety is just ‘nice to have’ – especially if you are a connoisseur.

Originally appeared on: StationStops - Metro-North Train Schedules and NYC Commuting Blog See the original post here: Nespresso Coffee Machine Review [Nespresso Cube Espresso Review]

So, how did I use it to help with my Snow Leopard problems?

Well, first is backup. I always keep spare drives around, so I snapped a 500GB hard drive in the unit to backup my MacOS install (no, I dont do regular backups, I know its criminal).

After I had updated my MacBook’s SSD Drive in-place, I ran into troubles and it wouldn’t boot.

So I snapped the 500GB backup back in, stuck my MacBook’s OEM drive in the MacBook, and did a fresh snow leopard install, restoring my old stuff from the backup.

When I had worked out my issues and was sure my install was solid, I just popped my SSD back in the dock and cloned the install with SuperDuper.

It is so much easier then climbing into a case to swap SATA cables – which you cant even do with a MacBook, since it has no external SATA ports anyway.

Even when you’re not trouble shooting, the dock can serve as external storage for whatever you would ever need external storage for.

The one problem is with Apple’s OEM MacBook drives – they have these infuriating little Torx screws on the edges that make the drives impossible to dock, and removing them isn’t easy.

I’m not blaming the dock on that one though – that’s just Apple being Apple.

Originally appeared on: StationStops - Metro-North Train Schedules and NYC Commuting Blog See the original post here: Startech USB 2.0 Hard Drive Dock is a Godsend for OS Upgrades

About 5 years ago I played guitar in a garage band in Northern California, and we were always trying out new ways to record our practices. It’s a difficult problem and we went through a lot of different solutions.

I think we started off with an old-school Tascam 4-Track Cassette Recorder with a lameass mic plugged into it. It sounded about as bad as you would expect. Then I invested in a Multitrack digital recorder. Although the sound was very good, the setup and babysitting was not worth the effort – it was taking all the fun out of practice.

Later, we tried a single mic going into an iPod-like device – that worked better. Eventually we used a really nice Rode NT4 Stereo Condenser Microphone into a PreSonus FIREPOD into a laptop – which turned out to be the best balance of simplicity and quality.

What I really wanted, however, was a Sony Digital Field Recorder, which was basically a recordable iPod-like device with a high-quality stereo mic fixed on top, but it was like $2000. Just put it in the sweet spot and press ‘record’. When you get it home, just drag and drop the files onto your computer. Perfect. No cables, no lugging, great quality.

Like any good gadget, the design of the Sony Digital Field recorder was copied and now you can get a very similar product from Tascam that only costs $150. Every band should own one.

These devices are not designed to help you make a CD – for that, you really need to mic each instrument and vocalist separately and mix the track together – a colossal task. However, if you want a decent ‘live’ recording of your band for any reason, this is by far the best way to do that.

I purchased this unit for my aunt, who takes voice lessons. She records on cassette now but needed something her instructor could copy to her computer, this is just the ticket.

With the DR07, the instructor can either plug the device in via its mini-USB jack, or take the included 2GB SD card out of the side and plug it into her laptop. Mac, PC, whatever, it’ll work.

The Tascam DR07 runs on two AA batteries (included), or uses an optional AC adapter.

On the right hand side of the unit are line in/out, input and output level adjustments. On the left, power and control hold switches,a compartment for the SD card and mini-USB port, and DC jack. The main controls are probably my only gripe with the device. Pressing play + record starts recording, that was intuitive enough, but it took me a while to figure out (without reading the manual) how to browse and delete files, which is fairly simple but not as intuitive as I would have liked.

The back of the unit has a tripod mount, which is kind of weird, because you don’t mount microphones on tripods, you mount them on mic stands, which have a different threading. A great accessory would have been a simple piece of plastic which screwed into the tripod with a fake mic shaft underneath, which would allow you to pop the unit into a mic stand. It would be even better if the adapter had a little vibration damping.

The top of the unit houses the stereo microphone and a 1/8″ mic-in jack.

Thoughtfully, Tascam also includes a windscreen for the mic and the USB-mini-USB cable.

In my brief tests I found the sound quality to be very good, but I am in no way a sonic expert. I was also impressed with the range of recording level input adjustment – definitely the hardest manual part of getting a good live recording is recording it as loud as possible without it ever going into the red – if in doubt, always record it lower and amp it up in post.

Of course, if you want you can plug your own mic into the Tascam for better results. I plugged in my Rode NT4 using its 9V phantom power and 1/8″ adapter into the mic jack, and the results were excellent as I expected. Sound was much less harsh, more transparent, deeper, and natural.

A great feature for a recorder like this would be a swivelable display for the input meter. If you are facing the mic from the top as it is designed, you cannot see the input meter, which is important.

Similarly, it would be nice if it had a big red light that an entire band could see when they go into the red. A lot of recordings get scrapped because the band got hotter than the mic check and no one knew it until playback.

The Tascam DR07 really is one of those devices which has finally replaced a lot of expensive, cumbersome, or sonically inferior alternatives that musicians have had to deal with over the long history of sound recording in a perfect little package.

One note: I didn’t get the optional AC Adapter, but after seeing the battery meter drop after not a lot of usage, I definitely recommend it!

Originally appeared on: StationStops - Metro-North Train Schedules and NYC Commuting Blog See the original post here: Tascam DR07 Portable Digital Recorder Review [Tascam DR07 Review]

OCZ Z-Drive

I am a huge fan of high-performance solid state drives. My first was an MTRON, which had about 100 MB/s reads – now I use a OCZ Vertex in my MacBook, which probably 50% faster than the MTRON.

These new desktop SSD drives skip the limitations of IDE and SATA connections by connecting directly to the PCI-Express bus. The downside is that you need a spare PCIe slot not being occupied by a video card – oh, and the price.

Inside, the Z-Drive is basically using a RAID setup to get more performance out of the flash memory chips.

On my MacBook, bootup takes about 24 seconds with my OCZ Vertex , and the system wakes from sleep immediately. Apps launch in no time at all, and it uses less power than the default 5400 RPM drive.

They have no moving parts, so SSD drives are more resistant to shock, make no noise, and very little heat. Although you can wear out the cells in an SSD, wear-leveling technology has gotten to a point where the MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) can be significantly lower than a traditional mechanical hard drive (although this varies model to model).

Probably the most amazing difference I have seen with an SSD is when using it as an SQL data drive. I had a fairly large and complex database which, despite ongoing optimization, had some queries which were taking 30-40s. When I switched the data drive from a Fujitsu MAS 15k SCSI to an MTRON SSD, these same queries were sped up by a factor of 10.

Most of the reason for this is not the throughput speed of an SSD, but that the access time is typically less than 1ms, and does not vary depending on how far apart physically on the disk one read is from another, like a traditional hard drive.

Originally appeared on: StationStops - Metro-North Train Schedules and NYC Commuting Blog See the original post here: OCZ Z-Drive PCIe-SSD Now on Amazon! [OCZSSDPCIE-1ZDRV250G]

Video Glasses

Historically, they have been very expensive, bulky, offered a negligible viewing experience, and make you look like a freak in public. However, they are evolving, and the MyVu Crystal Amber Video Glasses for iPod are a milestone in this evolution, solving 4 of these 5 major complaints handily.

I think this review will be of special significance to Metro-North commuters, as train and air commuting are the two of the most practical scenarios for using this product.

I have complained before that, although I feel watching video on my iPhone or iPod Touch to be one of the best ways to kill time on a train commute, it can be a pain in the neck, as you have to hold the iPhone and look down at it.

Depending on the weather and direction of travel, it can also get kind of bright in the car and make it hard to see the screen.

The MyVu Crystal Amber Video Glasses solve both of these problems. The brightness of the screen is not affected by ambient light, as it is in a covered box in front of your nose, and the screen is always front-and center no matter what position your head is in, which is fantastic.

As for quality – these are the first 640×480 resolution video glasses, and I can attest that the quality is excellent – very, very watchable. The iPhone screen itself probably has better color rendition and might appear a bit ‘smoother’ – but this is completely trumped by the fact that the MyVu screen looks much larger, brighter, and has better contrast.

When I first put these video glasses on, I was expecting to see ‘how bad it would be’ – I was, instead, instantly impressed, and before I knew it, I forgot what I was doing and was 20 minutes into the movie!

I think this is the best testimonial a pair of video glasses can get – you just forget you are using some new gadget and are simply enjoying the movie.

The weight of the glasses is not a problem, I could easily watch a 2-hour movie with these on.

I was expecting to kind of see two screens and maybe need to cross my eyes or something to make them one, but this wasn’t the case – you put them on your nose and there is magically ONE screen dead center in your field of view.

The glasses only take up your top half of your field of view – you can look down and see a lot of the outside world, and even walk around the house if you needed to just by looking down.

There are two earphones which dangle off the side of the glasses, which are made by Ultimate Ears – the makers of some of the best consumer earsets around, so the audio is just great.

Charging is accomplished by plugging the included USB cable into the attached control pendant, and the unit is rated for 3 hours.

Now, for the downsides…

First off, the 800-lb gorilla in the room – although the MyVu’s are surprisingly small and light, they still make you look like Geordi LaForge from Star Trek. There is yellow-colored see-through plastic on the sides, which allows you to have some awareness of the outside world while you are watching video (like when the conductor laughs at you while asking for your ticket) – a good idea, but the colored glass is probably the most kooky-looking part of the design.

Annoyingly, if you buy the iPod version of these glasses, you get the Amber tint – if you buy the ‘generic video interface’ version, you get the dark tint, which is less freakish. However, if you buy the generic video version, I am pretty sure you can buy an add-on iPod adapter to use with it.

I would have preferred to just get the dark tint version for iPod – why MyVu doesn’t offer it I don’t know.

The fact that you can see through either side of the video screen is also a little less immersive, even if it is practical. It would be great if these glasses came with a black clip-on visor which put you in complete darkness when desired.

With the iPhone, you will probably want to put it in Airplane mode when watching video so you don’t get GSM noise through the earphones. In addition, you can only watch stored videos on your iPhone, you cannot watch YouTube videos or use other applications with the MyVu’s as the display.

If I still lived in Silicon Valley, I would have no problem wearing these on the train, except that everyone would insist I let them try them on. On Metro-North, you are going to have to commit to the fact that you are going to get some funny looks.

On an airplane, I would not hesitate to use these at all, as I could care less what they look like in that scenario, although some airplane users have noted that people still ask about them alot.

However, if you are brave enough to wear these on Metro-North, I would suggest that you are going to be having the best commute experience of anyone on the train, because I cannot think of any better way to kill time on Metro-North than watching a movie with these video glasses.

Originally appeared on: StationStops - Metro-North Train Schedules and NYC Commuting Blog See the original post here: Video Glasses – [MyVu Crystal Amber Video Glasses for iPod - Review]

Like any good Hong Kong-early-adopter-must-have, it took over 2 weeks to arrive, via registered mail so I could wait in line at the post office, and the manuals were just as Engrish-y as one would expect.

Fortunately there isn’t much you need to know about the iPower.

The iPower came in a very iPhone-like box and is well packaged. I was also surprised at the workmanship and finish, it holds up nicely attached to my 3G iPhone. Installing the iPhone into the iPower was very simple, it is spring-loaded and holds the iPhone very securely.

Once in the iPower, the unit is obviously heavier and larger than the iPhone alone, but it has a good feel – in fact, it feels more like using a real telephone. I would absolutely bring this with me anytime I needed more power on the train or in the car. Walking around with it in your pocket might be a little much for some people – I am a big guy with big pockets, so it fits ok for me.

iPower functionality – the supplemental battery and the speaker.

Let’s get this out of the way first: the speaker is lame and poorly designed.

1. It is tinny and mono-ish – rather than adding decent sound, it really just offers a louder speaker than the iPhone’s built-in speaker.

2. The speaker is on the back of the unit, and the unit cannot stand upright, so you can either hear the speaker well with the iphone face-down, or hear it very poorly with it face-up. This was a very poor design choice.

3. I have sometimes heard GSM noise over the speakers, which would indicate to me that they are not properly shielded. This is inexcusable. To totally avoid this, you would need to run the iPhone in airplane mode, which would obviously make calls or listening to internet radio impossible (iPhone should have a wifi-only setting imho).

4. The speaker volume controls are a bit hard to press and there is no volume indicator. This could be a problem if the speaker was inadvertently turned way up and you didn’t know it.

5. If you ‘mute’ the speakers by downing the volume all the way, but your iPod is still producing sound, the speaker will produce noise. ARGH!

In short, I would not use this speaker for small get-togethers with friends, as I do with my other speakers, and I don’t suspect I will be using it much in general.

I have not had the opportunity to do a full test on the supplemental battery, but I do like the way the battery is designed to work.

Think of it as the external fuel tanks on the space shuttle – the shuttle uses these for launch, then discards them when done and runs on its internal engines. This is exactly how I wanted to use it – take it on the train in the morning in the iPower, run the iPower down, then take it out and use it the rest of the day without the iPower.

The iPower has a 3-led indicator on the front to indicate charging status. Unfortunately, they are blue LEDs, which I dislike because they are too bright on the nightstand.

When plugged into the standard iPhone charger, the iPower will always charge the phone first, then it will charge itself – the iPhone’s battery always gets precedence. When in use, the reverse is true – the iPower will run and charge the iPhone until it is at 5% power, then it will switch over to the iPhones’s internal battery.

The iPower saves the last 5% so that the speaker can continue to be used – the speaker can run for 7 hours with this small charge. Since the speaker is pretty worthless, I would have suggested they give the iPhone everything it’s got.

Of course, you can certainly use it the other way, and click the iPhone into the iPower when your iPhone is out of juice – the iPower will charge the weak iPhone battery.

In short, I cannot recommend buying the iPower for the speaker, have not tested the battery yet, but am happy with the form factor overall.

Most supplementary batteries are about 1000 mh or less, and jut out precariously underneath the phone. The iPower holds the phone securely, with nothing jutting out, with a 2400 Mha battery.

In my opinion, every little bit helps, so I doubt I will be disappointed with the battery performance – it is rated for 3 hours. I could test it, but as we all know, testing the iPhones battery is pretty ambiguous – it can do so many things, on EVDO, 3G, and WiFi (or none) – and all of the possible combinations of usage will result in wildly different battery life results.

You can buy the Brando iPower here. They also have a version with no speaker and smaller battery, as well as a surprisingly affordable ‘traditional’ iPhone add-on battery.

Originally appeared on: StationStops - Metro-North Train Schedules and NYC Commuting Blog See the original post here: Brando iPhone 3G “iPower” Review (First Impressions)