My Three Monitor Setup

I haven't updated my blog in awhile, but I recently started thinking about how I might add a third monitor to my system. I've had a Dell 1703FP swivel monitor in portrait mode next to an Acer AL2216W widescreen monitor for a long time. This allows me to load web-pages on a nice tall screen while watching videos, editing photos etc on a widescreen desktop. I thought about simply plugging a monitor into my motherboard's VGA port but through trial and error realized this wouldn't work on my system. I just came across a PNY GeForce 8400GS on clearance that I placed in an empty PCI slot. Having two video boards with an Nvidia chipset works great. I initially used a spare Dell monitor but my preference was for a second Dell 1703FP monitor to flank my Acer. I found one on Ebay a few days ago and it arrived today. The next challenge in this setup is matching color settings between the different monitors.

Odyssey Of My Dell Dimension 4700

As I may have mentioned, my current main computer is in fact a Dell Dimension 4700. Yes I know..how could anyone still be using one of those things. Well, there are a couple of reasons. One, I was given it. And two, I just can't stand the idea of throwing something in the dump that still works..quite well actually.

Originally it was a 2.5ghz Pentium 4 with only 512MB of ram and a 250GB hard drive. I first upgraded the ram to 2GB. I later added a 76GB 10,000rpm Raptor hard drive which really made a difference in perceived performance. Next, I installed a new video card. More recently I replaced the Raptor with an SSD drive because while it was fast, it was also noisy. I added 2 more sticks of ram for a full 4GB. Finally I just upgraded the CPU to a 3.8ghz Pentium 4 model 670 which I got off Ebay for $43 shipped. I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate (32bit) on it but I'm debating installing Windows 7 64bit just to try out a 64bit software environment. I've probably maxed out the upgrades for the system, so the next step would be to finally build a new one. I mentioned in an earlier post I was going to build a system for myself instead of a RAID, but I ended up building the RAID anyway.

My New Hard Drive

I just got a Corsair 64GB Solid State Hard Drive for Christmas. The exact model is CSSD-V64GB2-BRKT. This unit was well reviewed and is meeting my expectations. I used Paragon Backup & Recovery 2010 to backup the existing partition from my Western Digital 74GB Raptor (fast but noisy). I then booted with the Paragon CD and recovered the image. The only hiccup I encountered was not initially being able to shrink my partition below 68GB even though there was less than 30GB of visible data. It turned out I needed to turn off the Windows Restore option (under Control Panel --> System Protection). This is my first experience with SSD. It's very fast and has no compatibility issues with my current system.

Mylène Farmer - Avant Que L'ombre... live

Trailer For Complete Metropolis

PUMZI Trailer

This reminds me of THX1138. It looks like the difference is that in THX1138 the movie ends with him escaping to the outside while this one seems to concentrate more on the main character being outside.

Moon (2009)

Mandy and I just watched this movie which stars Sam Rockwell and the voice of Kevin Spacey (really sounds HAL like). We enjoyed it, although at first I thought it was more of a psychological thriller than evil corporation's plot exposed. Recommended.

Blade Meets Neuromancer Meets...