PlayerPro for Android and AE2i

I have always been one that thought the price of the Bose headphones was insane- $150 for a pair of headphone?  They must be crazy!  But lately I have been seeing the ‘Beats by Dr. Dre’ headphones- and those are just fucking stupid in price- $500 for a set of headphones?  Kids these days…

Long story short, I actually tried on a pair of the Bose AE2i headphones- and I was pretty impressed with the sound.  Since it is return season (xMas holidays have an extended return period) I decided to purchase a pair of the Bose AE2is- and I am now actually considering keeping them...

Over the past few days, I have spent many hours re-ripping all of my music in FLAC format and then converting to Apple Lossless so I can play on my iPod.  After wasting a bit of time doing this, I realized that my Samsung Droid Charge can play FLAC music natively with the built-in Samsung music player (also works with PlayerPro and PowerAmp)…

I purchased a 32GB MicroSD a few months ago, and I believe I will be able to fit a bit more than 1/2 of my music library when most of it has been converted to FLAC format.

I really started using PlayerPro- and I am very impressed with this software; this makes my phone one of the best MP3 (and FLAC) players I have ever used- iPod Touch/Zune/Sony/Sansa has nothing on this App.  If you download this software, make sure you play with all the settings- specifically the lock screen settings/widgets- and the headphone controls/volume button overrides…

I think what I really like about this program is that is can change any/all of the functionality of the Android OS- something that Apple and others strictly forbid when working on their hardware.  :)

Ya Gotta love technology!

Kinect and Move USB Extensions

I don’t think I am alone in the way I have my TV mounted to one wall and my game console not just sitting on the floor beneath it- in fact, my game consoles are in the other corner of the room (in my stereo rack).  Having the TV mounted about 12’ away from the consoles can make the newer accessories for either a bit hard to connect.

Wii is easy- there are numerous wireless sensor bars that can be put anywhere; but the Microsoft Kinect and the Sony PS3 Eye (used with the Playstation Move controllers) can be a bit more challenging. 

Monoprice has a 10M USB 2.0 active extension cable for $8.46- which is considerably longer and less expensive than the Microsoft official 10’ Kinect Extension cable that is going for about $50.  The big difference is that the Kinect cable is designed to plug into the special port on the back of the xBox 360 slim and provide additional power.  If you (like me) purchased the Kinect separate from an xBox bundle, you also received a USB to Kinect power injector- and this when used with the 10M USB extension cable works perfectly!  :)

The PS3 Eye worked with the 10M extension cable- no problem.

I now have both USB cables ran in my walls and through my attic- so there are no cables to see save for the power plug for the Kinect power injector. 

Life is great when shit works!

'Tis the Season for Inexpensive Games!

I posted a few days ago about some uber-cheap closeout game deals at Target.  Black Friday came and several other places have sals started selling games at near-crazy prices; make sure to check out:

Steam's Autumn Sale - Deals change daily at 1PM EST.
I picked up Portal 2 for $10.79 (sale has expired), the Oddworld Box for $3.74 (expired), Orcs Must Die for $3.74 (expired) and Two Worlds 2 for $13.74 (yep- also expired).   Check back after lunch to se if there are any deals you can't pass up... :)

Amazon's Black Friday Sale - Deals on all kinds of games and accessories for the three day weekend:
So far, I found Duke Nuke'm Forever for $6.79 and The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings Digital Premium edition for $16.00; these deals are still rolling as I write this... :)

Kindle Fire

I received my Kindle Fire today (I missed the UPS driver yesterday).  It is a fairly nice device: very responsive virtual keyboard, friendly interface and fairly responsive.  The Kindle Fire plays a decent game of Plants vs. Zomies as well…
It is, however, pretty thick- I assume this is to allow for a larger battery- but this can be over looked.
One feature that really annoys the Hell out of me is the lack of physical volume control buttons; I do not like scrambling to find the soft menu volume controls when an app/game volume is much too loud.
I can definitely say that this device will NOT be a suitable replacement for me as an e-book e-ink device; scrolling down a zoomed in page in a magazine is way too jerky- the image tearing reminds me of a video game that has v-sync turned off.
For some reason the Kindle Fire is a 16x9 screen format- and none of the books or magazines in the market are natively this size; makes me wonder why Amazon didn’t go with a 4x3 screen format… I mean this was primarily designed to be an ebook/magazine reader, right?
About an hour after I opened the box, I became bored and figured out how to root it…
After that I installed the Google Apps and fixed the Android Market, I installed ADW launcher to replace the Kindle Desktop.
Just for the irony, I also installed the Nook reader…
In summary, the Kindle fire is a decent Android tablet, good for games and web browsing, terrible as a book/magazine reader.  For the $200 price, you will be hard pressed to find a similar device- unless you look to the Pandigital devices. 
Personally I am seriously considering returning my Kindle fire and picking up a HTC Flyer from BestBuy for $100 more…

Apple Airport Express and Comcast

I have been using a D-Link DGL-4500 for a few years as my home router.  I have tried many different models from Cisco, NetGear, D-Link, Buffalo, Belkin and Asus looking for a better router, but the DGL-4500 has been a very solid performer and has features that I want/need- such as DHCP reservations, specific port forwarding and port translations.  Tonight I gave the Apple Airport Express a try- and so far it looks pretty good.

One issue with the Airport Express is that it does not do MAC address cloning- which is fairly useful for carriers such as Comcast that cache the MAC address and tie it to to the provided Internet IP address.

I have a Motorola Surfboard SB6120 cable modem and I found that it has a standard IP address of 192.168.100.1.  Putting this address into a web browser brings up some interesting information about my cable connection- including a ‘Reset All Defaults’ option that should clear the MAC address that is bound to the CPE (Customer Premise Equipment) info for the modem.  I say ‘should’ as it did not appear to actually reset when I tried it.  Instead I found a way to have the modem recognize a new MAC address.

• Unplug power from the cable modem and the router (Airport Express)
• Disconnect the Ethernet cable between the modem and the router
• Plug in both devices, letting them boot independently and complete their startup (look at the lights on the modem/router to see when it is done).
• After the Cable modem is done, wait another full minute.
• Plug in the Ethernet cable between the cable modem and the router broadband connection

If all works like it did for me, the cable modem should recognize the new device and use its MAC address for the new CPE.  It takes about a minute to reconnect to the internet, but it should complete.  If not, then you will probably need to call Comcast tech support and tell them you have a new router and they can clear the CPE info remotely.

To setup the AirPort Express, you will need an iPod/iPad or a Mac with the AirPort Utility.  This will be detected in network settings on an iOS device, or it is under Applications –> Utilities under MacOS.  If you are using a PC, you will need to download the Windows Airport Utility from Apple before you start trying to configure this new Internet connection.

I have been fairly impressed; the AirPort Extreme allows for separate private & guest networks, has a decent DHCP reservation system and has a pretty intuitive port forwarding setup.  Fore example, I was able to create a forwarding rule that forwards TCP 80, 21, 3550, 4550, 5550, 5511 and 8866 in one statement (these are used for GeoVision remote monitoring). 

Range seems pretty nice on the Apple device; I will try it out for a few days and see if it is really worth the $180 Apple is asking for it… :)

Closeout Game Deals at Target in Buckhead…

The Target store in Buckhead (on Peachtree) is having another awesome blow-out sale on games they are discontinuing- such as:

• PS3 – Aragon’s Quest for $7.48
• PS3 – Hunted: The Demon’s Forge for $7.48
• PS3 – Iron Man 2 for $4.98
• xBox 360: Create for $4.98

Several others around the same prices; these are just the ones I picked up.