Tag Archives: Laptop

Gadget Review: Surface Pro 2

Posted by Steve on October 30, 2013 2 comments

Ok so one of the benefits of finding a job again is that I have income again! Which means I can afford to get some of the things that have been needing a refresh. My laptop, for instance, is my main system that I do most of my photo processing and ….pretty much everything else on. It’s an Asus republic of gamers behemoth laptop that I bought back in 2009. (hey, in computer years, that’s ancient!) It’s served me very well and I still use it for all sorts of home use. The problem with it is that it’s giant. Yeah I know it’s a laptop, but it’s big. Way too big to actually take places and be mobile. I have been planning to replace it as a home system with a full desktop that I can update as needed for gaming and general home use, but that means I still needed a laptop.

Today’s tech trends seem to be leaning towards the tablet types, and I love my iPad for it’s portability and ease of use…but I can’t run Lightroom on it. Yes, I know I can process pictures on it, to an extent, but I can’t really do all of the things LightRoom allows me to do. So running native Windows apps was very important to me, but I liked the idea of a portable tablet.

Enter the Surface Pro 2

I wish Microsoft knew how to market this device. It really is an amazing piece of tech, but it’s just not getting the market share it deserves. For starters, it’s not an iPad replacement. I still use my iPad all the time for general browsing at the couch or in bed. The iPad is lighter and much simpler to navigate. (Not to say that Windows 8 is complex, it’s just different, and I bet it would be easy to adjust). No, the Surface is a laptop replacement. Plain and simple. You can use it with or without the keyboard, but with is much easier, which just makes it a small laptop anyways.

I have had it for a week now and here is what I have been doing with it. For starters, I have left my iPad at home, to force myself to use the Surface for everything on the road. It fits nicely in my camera bag. I bought the 256gb version with 8gb ram and the i5-4200 “Haswell” CPU. I have installed LightRoom, Photoshop, Steam, and a few other “new computer essentials”. Most of my latest P365 shots were processed on the Surface, as well as the latest RnR Comics assembled there. So, that being said, here are the Pros and Cons I have found in the week of use.

Pros:

Windows 8 in touch screen format = Easy to use
Nice bright screen with good color
Stylus makes everything better
Small and Light enough to carry in the bag
Powerful enough to run everything I have thrown at it (it’s only been a week)
Battery life = Amazeballs for a laptop

Cons:

A little heavy for extended handheld use
Windows App library limited
Screen is still small for serious LightRoom use, but good for Portable
One more USB port would be good
Slight screen edge drift with the stylus.

Overall I am really happy with it. It does exactly what I bought it for and I hope to get a lot more use out of it. I am thinking of doing a future project (after P365 is done) where I sit in a coffee shop and do on the spot portraits, processing and all. More on that later though.

if you have any questions or want to know something specific about the Surface pro 2 that I didn’t cover here, please ask away in comments or via facebook or twitter!

On Holiday

Posted by Steve on June 27, 2012 No comments

Cheers mates!

Just a quick post to say that we are heading off to jolly ol’ England for a bit of a holiday! Many gadgets will be used and pictures will be taken. An interesting note, we are not planning on taking any laptops! This will be a little bit of an experiment. Sarah and I are only taking the iPads and our phones. I’ll stock up on Memory cards and clear off the iPad to use for storage for pictures, but yeah, no laptop.

We rented a flat in London and it is supposed to have Internet access. to spread this into WiFi I picked up a [amazon_link id=”B004T8FC66″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]ZuniConnect Travel Router[/amazon_link]. So far this thing is awesome. It will bridge the connection from a wired LAN to WiFi, or the reverse, Or echo an existing WiFi! This will work out great to share the connection with the iPads and phones. So far I have used it to extend my WiFi connection to a wired only machine and it worked great. More reports to come.

We have a huge list of things to see and fun to be had, including a day trip out to Stonehenge! Keep an eye on Twitter for some potential updates along the way!

Xbox Live online while at a Hotel

Posted by Steve on April 16, 2012 1 comment

So I ran into an interesting hurdle while here in Vegas this week. As you know I brought my Gaems Xbox case with me to get some gaming in while not at the conference. Well when I arrived at the hotel, I had unlimited Internet, both wired and wireless, (Thanks TI, you guys rock) but, to access it you have to fire up a browser and select the “I accept” option. This is usually the case with most free wifi locations. (Starbucks, Panara, etc.)

Well, with my iPad and my laptop that’s not a big deal, but the Xbox doesn’t really have a web browser to allow you to accept that proxy! This was a problem. When I connected the Xbox, it pulled an IP address but, of course, it couldn’t get out. Without accepting that proxy, it’s a no-go.

Well, I poked around in the Xbox settings and noticed that in the advanced network settings I have the ability to switch to an alternate MAC address. (the MAC is a hardware address for the specific network card). The fact that this was there blew me away. They allow the Xbox to essentially spoof its MAC address

So I thought, If I accept the proxy and use my Laptops MAC address as an accepted address with the hotels server, then I should be able to tell my Xbox that it’s that MAC address. Sure enough, by “Borrowing” my laptops address, the Xbox popped right up on Live and I was good to go!

Seeing as how there is a good chance I will be in a hotel a lot through out the rest of the year, I figgured this was good info to know, and, who knows, maybe some of you might need to know it!

Workin for the Man

Posted by Steve on February 6, 2011 No comments

So here I am working on Super-bowl Sunday. I have a bit while I wait for some code to compile and figured I would write up an update to say what I have been doing for the last few weeks. I mean, that’s what the blog is for right? Lately it seems like my blog is more of a place where I forget to write things. I guess that’s what Twitter has done to me. I think ‘Oh I already updated folks on twitter so I don’t need to post to the blog as well”. The downside to that is that I really like writing. When I look back at all my posts from last year and beyond I realize that some of them get crazy long. I see other peoples blog posts and wonder how they can cram so much into so few paragraphs, then I realize that they have left out so much detail.

Perfect case in point for this, I have downloaded and started reading Stepto’s (Stephen Toulouse) new book, “A Microsoft Life”. It’s a compilation of a number of blog posts he wrote throughout his career at Microsoft. All of the stories are fascinating, but I am left wanting more details. Each chapter is a post from the blog but I read one and am left with the feeling that there could be so much more that could be fleshed out. I guess that could be seen as a complaint about the book, it was so good that I wanted to know more. If you are a geeky type of person and interested in the more inner workings of the MS world, I highly recommended it.

Meanwhile back on the gaming front, I mentioned last time that I picked up a new laptop. The ASUS beast, or Tumbler, has been an awesome addition to the house. I have found myself playing more PC based games in the last month, just because I could. Yeah, it could be a little more portable, but I love that it’s big and powerful. Because of this I picked up both Civilization V and Starcraft II. SCII is great for a quick 30min to 1 hour map, while Civ V is awesome if I want to kiss my weekend goodbye. It’s amazing, I feel like I have discovered time travel. Seriously! I start playing Civ V and suddenly I am teleported to 6 hours in the future where the dog is whining because he wants food and the plants are dying. I also realized how much I suck at SC II. I bought the game because I love the storyline and am I steeped in the single player game. I tried to play Multi-player though and was just swamped. I guess it’s because I love the building aspect and hate the idea of just fast building stuff to throw at the enemy. I want to build my troops up so they will survive the attack and that takes time!

On the photography side of the house, I am pining over a new camera. Unfortunately it doesn’t exist yet. I have seen lots of rumor reports of a Nikon 5100, and everything I see in the rumors lead me to believe that it’s the perfect camera for me. I really want to replace my D3000 before DragonCon, so while I still have a few months to figure it out. I love that the D5000 has the flip out screen and better everything than the D3000, but not as good as the 3100, the D90 is about the right price range, but lacks some of the newer features like an auto-focus while filming movies, the D7000 has all the best features (except the flip out screen) but is well over $1k. There is a great site that has been helping me compare models of cameras: http://snapsort.com/compare. There is some speculation that the February 9th press conference may bring an announcement, but even more rumors saying that the 5100 won’t be announced for a while still. Either way, I will be giving the D3000 a true test at PAXEast.

So for now, I sign off. I hope to finish up here soon and head home for some chili and Super-Bowl action. Not really a football fan, but I love watching the big game. Weird right?