Build Your Own PC 2013

It's that time of year where I like to breakdown what I think a great budget gaming PC will cost you. I've gone and done up some estimates on how much a casual, budget gamer, and rich gamer would spend and choose for their components. I've ordered them by priority, so if you already have a monitor, then you don't need to buy a new one. Keep in mind, that keyboard and mouse are not included. Have a peak after the break.

PlayStation 4: Initial Thoughts

Sony had their PlayStation Event last night. Sony had live streams going; CNET and many others were doing the same. Hell, even Sony had some live (all be it horrible) live streaming on PlayStation Home. This was going to be a pretty big event.

Why I Switched from Sprint to T-Mobile

Introduction

When I first heard that T-Mobile was introducing unlimited data, I got curious about their offerings. I was with Sprint strictly because they offered unlimited data. I did have my issues with Sprint, but that got all smoothed out. But checking out the data plans that T-Mobile offered, I was surprised at how much cheaper they were. And thus began my look into T-Mobile. The biggest catch was that I was going to have to buy a new phone, and the LG Nexus 4 was perfect.

I'm writing this up to help explain why I went about going the route I did. Not only did I discover that T-Mobile was cheaper, but their data was at least 5 times faster than Sprint's! Why pay more for lower speeds?

Samba Home Shares and Windows 7 Home Edition

Alright, I've been tracking to rack my brain on figuring out how to share my /home directory in Samba and have it work correctly with Windows 7 Home. If you know or know someone who knows how to get to this to work, please contact me.

I have a user on linux called sigrejas and my Windows 7 user is called Steve. Whenever I try to log into \\mediaserver\sigrejas I get login credentials. I pass my sigrejas username and password, and it doesn't let me log into it! Here's the relevant smb.conf file.

Why I No Longer Listen to the Radio

Dear Broadcast Radio,

It's been a while since I've heard your voice (roughly about 2 years). Last night I wanted to reconnect and try to understand why I left you so long ago. After trivia night at a bar with some friends, I got in the car and tuned in to a radio station (who will remain nameless for now). I immediately was greeted by your commercial. Thinking I have bad timing, I waited for the show to return.

My Experience with Vudu Disc to Digital

So, I've been reading up on Disc to Digital, and I thought to myself, "How awesome would it be to be able to watch my movies from anywhere?" It would be pretty awesome. So, I decided to give this a try with my typical new format process. Get the ninja turtle movies in the new format. I do this every time, so I continued with it.

I took my 3 ninja turtle movies to Walmart after making my conversion list. They had to look me up, but they couldn't find me in the system. That was a pain. I went home, emailed Vudu, and they said since I'm an existing customer they should look me up via account (email) only and no by my number. The next day I went back and did just that. I got my ninja turtle movies on Vudu.

How does it look? Pretty good actually. HDX is pretty good. After this experience, I was going to convert all my movies to Vudu... but then I thought about it. Why not just put these movies on my media server and access them from anywhere? Saves me a couple of bucks since I already own the movies.

So, I've decided to start using DVD Copy and Handbrake to convert my DVDs to MP4 on my media server keeping the same quality (both video and sound). I'm still in the process, but I'll let you know how to do this in the next post.

My Painting Tips

I'm in the planning stages of selling my home, so there are a few things I'm doing to add life to the house. The easiest way to do this is to paint it. A fresh coat of paint can add a clean and refreshing look to any boring colored house.

I'm currently doing this throughout the house, and this post is in regards to lessons learned. Here are some tips as I go about doing this. Expect updates along the way.

Good Painter's Tape

I've been using some painter's tape that is used for sensitive surfaces. This wasn't done on purpose and I don't recommend using it for basic taping. It lets paint drip through, which is not an ideal thing to have. I've had to go back and repaint the trim as I see issues appear.

Wet Paper Towel

Keep a wet paper towel handy at all times while painting. Nobody's perfect and a drop or two of paint will hit the floor or drip onto something you didn't want painted. As soon as this happens, clean it up. It'll save you a lot of paint later on.

Newspaper and Tape

Most people know to apply newspaper to the floor to prevent painting the floor. But one thing I like to do is use painter's tape to tape the newspaper to the edge of the trip. That way if paint does drip, it drips onto the tape/newspaper and not onto your trim or other important areas.