Pulp Free

Its been about 16 months since the last major computer purchase arrived at my house. That being said, I long debated on what the next addition to the family would be. First it was an internal discussion on the merits of PS3 versus HTPC (that would be Home Theater Personal Computer). That lasted for about 2 days and went something like this:

“I already have a Wii and an XBOX360… Do I need to pick up a PS3 as well?”

“You really like putting computers together… What would be the challenge of simply plugging something in and having it just work?”

“Do you even need anything at all?”

Essentially, C & I picked up a new Sony XBR4 52″ LCD Flat Panel television as part of our 1-year anniversary. Well, more like… I finally was able to sell my Mitsubishi 65″ rear-projection HDTV which seemingly was the only requirement needed to get a new flat panel. After that, the rest of the room just needed to be, ahem… “finished”. Except for making a decision on what stand our mount to pick up (I’m really leaning on a Whalen 52″ Tiered TV Console from, yes… Best Buy - and it’s on sale right now) - the last piece of the puzzle was to find a way to really good HD player without sounding like a cyclone was in the room. (Sorry XBOX360, you’re just too loud for our fancy TV…)

So yes, while we’ve been dazzled with HDTV for some 6 years or so, it was time to tidy up the cables and make a presentable showcase for our Home Theater efforts. So over the next few days (or so, hopefully) - I’ll detail out my efforts to complete a fairly reasonable HTPC equipped enough to handle playback of 1080p Blu ray or just about any other format known to man (I did pickup an HD-DVD drive for my XBOX360 - first time being on the wrong format for sure….)

For the components, I headed to my trusted friend, NewEgg (the best ever…) and placed my order today. What did I choose?

• CPU - AMD Athlon X2 4850e 2.5GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 45W Dual-Core Processor
• Memory - OCZ SLI-Ready Edition 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory
• Optical Drive - LG GGC-H20L 16X Blu-ray/HD DVD drive
• Hard Drive - Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM
• HTPC Case - Antec Aluminum Veris Fusion Black 430 Micro ATX Media Center / HTPC Case with IR receiver
• Motherboard - GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-S2H AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI Micro ATX AMD

There’s been a lot of great reviews posted about this great motherboard/CPU combination so I’m hoping for some great HDTV performance. No need to any fancy gaming as I leave that to my consoles or my older Dell 9100. I’m just looking at creating a nice, build-to-order Home Theater appliance that is fairly quiet (like my HD TiVo) and works (yes - I’m hoping that HDMI & HDCP just work flawlessly… They better!!) It’s also my first foray into AMD territory… But I’m liking the low power consumption and the quietness that should go along with it…

Stay tuned for more updates… And feel free to comment on your own experiences…

There have been a few new additions to the family clan that I've been needing to talk about… It's been a long time coming, but we're now parents to a brand new Wii.

Now already being a long time XBOX camp member, the Wii was a nice addition for C and I to play some fun games together… (It was rather stressful playing racing car games with her!) Funny part of the story being that I asked a few of my friends to keep my eye out for them during their travels. It happens to be that two of them found them on the same weekend and purchased one for me. What would the odds be of that happening again knowing how hard they've been able to find? (They seem to be coming into their own again… being a bit more available now…)

C		D
		(I don't usually have my mouth hanging open like that!)

I've now spent enough time with WiiSports to become a pro at Bowling (just barely) and I'm making my way pretty well with Tennis… I just need to get C to put in some more time practicing!

Second up has been a real "Life Changer" - a shiny 16GB iPhone has also made it's way into my life.

Since starting my new job at HP I needed to become more connected with e-mail and it's works really well. Add the ability to sync my Microsoft Outlook information, a gorgeous screen for watching videos and a being a pretty decent phone it looks like I couldn't go wrong. (Notice I didn't say anything about how pitiful the EDGE network with AT&T is… - oh wait - I just did… ugh…) Of course, I'm sure that an even shinier 3G phone is just on the horizon but in reality - I'm not that much of a mobile network user… It works great with our home Wi-Fi which is where I use that kind of functionality the most…

With the introduction of my iPulp phone (yeah - I named it iPulp) - that meant it was time to let a few of my older iPods go… I've had my first few experiences with Craigslist and I have to say I've made out pretty well. My 30 GB black Video iPod went for a respectable $125 (of course - $300 new!) and I know that they're actually selling for more than that now. But it went to a better home! A few of my sound modules have also headed out to some other musicians and if I'm lucky - my 65" Mitsubishi HDTV might have a new home as well! Cross your fingers!

Well - that's my story for now (and I'm sticking to it!) We do have a big milestone coming up next post… That's right - #100 is coming up next… Oh whatever will I write about?