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.

Building a 2012 Gaming Computer

Want to build yourself a kick ass gaming machine, but not spend too much money? Well, for about a grand you can build yourself a decent gaming machine that will run any game today. It may not run them at the highest quality, but you do get to pretty good results. I know only because my current setup is not as good as this, but I can still play games at Medium settings.


For about $1,100, you get a decent gaming machine that will run most games in decent quality. You get a 3.1 GHz Quad-core AMD Athlon II, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti graphics card, a LG 23" 3D monitor, 8 GB of RAM, a 60 GB SDD, and a 500 GB HDD. You also get some basics like DVD drive, Windows 7 Home 64-bit, keyboard, mouse, case, etc.

Like I mentioned for the casual computer, this is just a starting point. Want SLI instead of a single card, switch it up. Don't want a 3D monitor, switch it up. Do what your heart desires.

Newegg.com: Gaming PC

Building a 2012 Casual Computer

Got a family member, friend, or just a casual acquaintance who's looking to get a computer, but doesn't want to spend too much on it? I've taken the time to spec out a computer (via Newegg.com) that will meet any casual person's needs.

What do I mean by casual? I mean someone who uses it primarily to browse the internet, listen to music, play a few Facebook games, make Power Point Presentations, etc. Nothing too serious, but enough to handle some basic needs.

Newegg.com: My Casual Computer
For about $500, you get a very basic computer with its basic elements. You get 3.0 GHz dual-core CPU with an ATI Radeon 3000 motherboard GPU, a 19" Acer monitor, 2 GB of RAM, and a Western Digital 160 GB hard drive. You'll also get the basics such as case, keyboard, mouse, 2.0 speakers, and Windows 7 Home 64-bit.

This is just a starting point for building a casual computer. If you don't like the style of the case, then change it up. If you want a bigger monitor, go ahead. Already have a hard drive or monitor, don't include it in the total.

VUDU: Disc to Digital

I just got an email from VUDU saying that they can convert your physical disks to digital media available for streaming. Here's how it works.

You'll have to create a VUDU and UltraViolet account.
Search for the movies that you already own and add it to your list.
Print the list and head to Walmart to turn in your discs.

From the description, it sounds like they keep your disc, but from the hands-on it appears they just stamp the disc so that no one else will trade it in. If anyone tries this out, let me know what you think. I'm willing to do this for a small fee ($2.00 to direct conversion and $5.00 to upgrade from SD to HD).

Sources
VUDU: Disc to Digital
Hands-on

3D Gaming: WipEout HD

In my spare time, I've been playing WipEout HD to firstly get back into the game and secondly to try out the 3D. I've played the game many times and have yet to beat the game. With the 3D, it adds a nice touch and the 3D is done very well. The pop-out is subtle and the depth is superb.

Overall: ***** (5/5)

3D Gaming: Shadow of the Colossus

I've spent a good amount of time playing Shadow of the Colossus in 3D trying to get all the trophies for the game. With my past experience with Jak and Daxter's 3D, I wasn't very hopeful with this transition. However, the developers did a great job with the 3D! From my understanding, Team ICO had developed the engine with 3D in mind, so it may have been a bit easier to do the conversion. But regardless, the 3D is spectacular!

The game runs smoothly in 3D and the pop-out seems to adjust based on where your character is compared to the camera. You heard me right. There's pop-out in this game. It's a subtle pop-out that gives the character and the Colossus more depth. I would totally recommend purchasing this title if you have a 3D TV.

Overall: ***** (5/5)

3DTV Gaming

Well, I finally got around to getting a 3D TV. More of an experiment, because the ideal TV still doesn't exist. I'll talk about the games I tried and how good the 3D is in today's blog post.

Before I get into all the games, I'll talk a bit about what my ideal 3D TV is and how this one stacks up to that vision. My ideal 3D TV is a passive glasses TV, with high contrast ratios, and doesn't lose my Full HD. All passive TVs have every other row reserved for each other eye. So, a 1080p image is really 540p for each eye. So, you lose the full HD quality. I want a 3D TV that does passive where the resolution isn't lost. Now, the TV I got is Vizio E3D320VX. It's pretty good and I only paid $400 for it. So, is it worth it?

I've had my bit of experience with 3D games back in the early 2000's. I had 3D glasses for my computer of which I played Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike, Half-Life, and Unreal Tournament in 3D. It was awesome then, and I can't wait for the graphics now.

The first thing I put in was a game I was already playing, Jak and Daxter. I forced my TV into 3D mode, and that didn't make the game 3D. I was starting to get confused. I didn't see any settings for 3D, but I know the game supports it. Well, I went back to the XMB and changed my video output settings to automatic. Well, surprise surprise, I saw 720p (3D) and 1080p (3D) now listed. I loaded up Jak and Daxter again, and boom it had 3D settings now, but everything was still 2D. The reason for this? The 3D depth was set to 0. I changed it to 100, and it was awesome.

Jak and Daxter looked good in 3D, but wasn't as amazing as I thought it would have been. Maybe because it was added in afterwards, or the simplicity of the charters. I dunno. But the game ran smoothly, and gave a little sense of depth. I didn't really help much with jumping between platforms, but it is good.

The next game I put in, was Pain. Pain is amazing in 3D! I was surprised. I was expecting the same detail as Jax and Daxter, but this was far better. The depth perception was wonderful. You could see and believe your character missed a target. But there are only a few modes that you can play in 3D, which was very disappointing.

Then I looked through my XMB and saw Super Stardust HD. Started that up, and the title screen alone was beautiful! The 3D doesn't add much to gameplay as the entire game is pretty much 2D, but the depth of the asteroids, and the roundness of the planet is just plain pretty. And when you die, because you will die in the game, the exposion has bits and pieces flying out of the screen. Even when you destroy asterooids, the bits come out at you. You can see asteroids over the horizon come up. This is the best use of 3D, yet.

And then I remembered I have WipEout HD. I only pulled off one quick race while I was on the phone, so I can't say much to this one, but the game is just beautiful in 3D. I'm craving more!

Below is a list of the games and the quality of the 3D.

Jak and Daxter Collection: 3/5
Some depth exists, but I wish it was done better. Jak II does a bit better, but it's still generally the same. Rarely will you see things pop out.

Pain: 4/5 
Not many modes in 3D, but the ones that are look great!

Super Stardust HD: 5/5 
By far the best experience I've had with 3D games!

Tune in for more games to come! Like WipEout HD, ICO, Shadow of the Colossus, and Uncharted 3.