TechJam

Recently I was put in the precarious situation of having to purchase a smart device (iPhone, iPad, Android powered device and so on) for school due to testing security practices regarding mobile devices of the 21st century.

The teacher justified the expense by saying that most people already had a smart device of some kind so most students would not need to purchase anything, sadly I was not one of them.

I do not like the idea of being tethered to a smart phone constantly texting and using the phone so a smart phone was out of the question. I then looked at the remaining possibilities, iPad 2 (wifi only) , iPod touch or an Android device. I settled on getting an Android device, while certainly an 8gb iPod touch would have been cheaper, it would also have been significantly more restricted in terms of functionality.

Ultimately I settled on the ASUS Transformer because of the price coupled with it being packed with features, including the dock which gives it the name Transformer. This in itself has its own ups and downs.

With the reasoning behind my purchase out of the way lets get into the real meat and potatoes as it were of the post, the review itself.

Transformer (tablet only)

Generally speaking the experience you witness when setting up the transformer is not dissimilar to other Android device initial setups. You are asked to enter your google account credentials or to create a new account. With the recent migration of the Android and general google accounts you can easily use your GMail login to satisfy this request.

Doing this allows for several things to happen, first your device is then able to connect and use the Android market. Secondly the installed applications are stored in a list on Google’s servers so that next time you log into an Android device you have the option of instantly beginning the process of installing all your favorite apps. Lastly it ties in all the various Google services to your device such as Maps, Navigation and Youtube.

Immediately after setting up the tablet I was notified of an update to the OS and was asked to reboot the tablet in order to install the update. This was followed immediately by another update when it rebooted causing yet a second reboot. However, after this reboot I was pleased to see that the tablet had in fact been upgraded to Android 3.2.1 which was the last release of the Honeycomb line of Android updates. ASUS has promised that in the coming months we will get an upgrade to Android 4.0 which contains many improvements to both stability and performance.

Off the bat one thing I noticed that was a little disappointing was the laggy rotation of the screen, when I would turn the screen around it would sometimes take up to 10 seconds before the screen flipped. This I believe is due to the OS acting a bit badly with the hardware however and hope it will be fixed in 4.0.

The suite of apps and widgets that come pre-loaded by both ASUS and Google are useful but not the equivalent of the bloat ware some windows machines get upon getting them from the OEM. Included in these are the Google music and Gallery apps as well as both the Google GMail app and the ASUS email program, additionally several other smaller apps that are not as often used are installed like the Supernote, and the ASUS My Cloud apps. One very  cool App that comes pre-installed is the Polaris Office Suite, this offers a great means for reports or other office related tasks. The big feature that Polaris Office and the Transformer in general is missing out of the box is a Spell Checker! Most people like myself are not the best of spellers and with out a spell checker we would sound more like a caveman trying to speak then an intelligent person. It is not exactly flattering when your told quietly that your blog has some of the worst grammar and spelling they have seen.

I also have found it very confusing at times to realize which email app I have loaded (the Google Gmail or ASUS mail) it is clear that ASUS went through great lengths to try and match the style of the Gmail app, however aside from different logos in the App switcher it can be hard to tell them apart.

I eventually had to stop using the GMail app as it did not allow for me to set up my non Google related accounts, ASUS however allows you to add as many accounts from whoever you want in the app. So here ASUS mail (or whatever they call it officially) wins and the Google app takes second place (note if all you have is a gmail account this app will handle GMail much more efficiently then the ASUS app).

I am considering trying out K-9 Mail more intensively in the near future ( it is installed and have fiddled with it briefly) as was suggested by the host of the Android Buffet Podcast Gadget Wisdom Guru. The hold up here is that this is one of those apps that has a steep learning curve but is extremely powerful once you get used to and figure out the controls.

One other cool feature that the Transformer has that I have yet to see on other devices is screenshot support out of the box! You do have to go into settings and check a box to enable it but this is a feature that previously required rooting your phone or device. This feature when enabled allows you to hit the button that cycles through open apps and hold it down for a few seconds to take a screenshot of the screen ( all screen shots in this post were taken in this manner). I should note that Google plans to implement native screen shot support in Android 4.0, so if your device will be upgraded you can use that when the update hits. The annoying thing here is that every time the tablet successfully takes a screen shot it asks if you want it to stay in screenshot mode, saying no to this will un check that box i mentioned earlier in the post. As for what setting you need to check in order to enable the screenshot function, look at the sceenshots attached here for pictures of the correct categories in the settings menu.

Transformer w/Dock

I also purchased the dock as I mentioned above, this dock adds another 8 hours to the battery life and has the unique ability that it charges the tablet when it is plugged in while also powering the tablet for use at the same time.

There was only a few flaws I saw with the dock and an handful of advantages, the first flaw being the keyboard keys. While I can appreciate that ASUS put some tough keys on the board, it becomes a bit of an issue when the keys are so stiff that it requires more pressure to push them (to the point they make contact enough to type the letter) then a traditional Desktop Keyboard. I found myself frequently typing and the words would be missing letters because i did not exert enough force on the keys for it to actually type the letter, this is eventually circumvented by learning to apply a bit more pressure (though not to much) to the keys as you go. In any event the occasionally missing letter is still there but decreases the more you use the keyboard and the more you get used to the required pressure changes.

The other flaw with the dock was simply the connector that you use to dock the tablet to the keyboard. This requires you to place the tablet as precisely as possible over the keyboard and gently (but with a bit of light pressure) push the dock into the keyboard. A satisfying click can be heard to ensure you have it docked firmly.

Apparently the Dock has its own firmware because this was updated as well the first time i docked it with the tablet, the good news however is that it does not require a tablet reboot.

The keyboard is very spacious and almost as big as a full laptop keyboard! The buttons across the top are not function buttons as they are on most laptops, instead they have some useful commands programed to them for the tablet like volume control, one button locking, one button Wi-Fi on/off and Bluetooth on/off. For those features that are not mapped to a key you can still use the touch interface on the tablet while its docked allowing you to access something quickly if you do not feel like trying to find the keyboard equivocal command.

The dock also adds two USB 2.0 ports which I have not been able to get to read either of the two USB Sticks I Have. It may be that the sticks are not formatted in a file-system the tablet can understand. In addition to that the docks adds a full size SD card-slot so you can add extra storage that way. Couple that with the MicroSD slot on the tablet itself and you have the potential for a massive amount of storage. From what I can tell the Tablet can read both the MicroSD and regular SD slots at the same time meaning you could have a card in both slots and in essence triple the storage of the tablet itself or more.

As mentioned above the Dock is designed to charge the Tablet, this means if your dock has a full battery and your Tablet is low you can dock the tablet and then the dock will begin using its battery to re-charge the tablet while also providing enough current to run the tablet off the dock’s battery. If both the Dock and the tablet have a full battery (you charged the tablet from the wall while it was docked for example) the the Dock’s battery depletes first before the Tablet battery. This means that your Tablet will retain as much battery power as it can for as long as possible when connected to the dock. Additionally if you are docked and the dock’s battery dies the tablet will then power both the dock and the tablet but will NOT charge the dock.

ASUS designed the dock in this manner to ensure that your content would always be the priority when using the two devices instead of focusing on the conservation of the battery in the dock.

All together both the tablet and the tablet with the dock are excellent experiences but for what its worth the dock is so much more then just an keyboard with an extra battery, its the power to turn your tablet into a net-book with 16 hours of battery life!!

I only felt it proper to mention that in the spirit of the tablet this post was written and published entirely from my Transformer not once did I edit or change the post on my desktop. I call it an experiment to see how easy it is to create content on this thing others might call it common sense.

Thanks for reading this review and if you have any comments please leave them below or recommend this article to friends if you found it helpful or enjoyable to read.

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Background

Thermaltake has made a name for themselves in the computer industry for creating innovative cases and other computer components. What I was looking to upgrade the motherboard for my desktop theater I started looking at cases and stumbled across the Thermaltake level X GT, thermal takes idea behind this case was to create cost-effective but still good looking alternative to their $700 are original level X case.
In my personal opinion I think that the GT version of the level X case series offers much more than the original, for one it certainly looks a lot sturdier and appears to have more room inside the case for bigger components. Without actually having got my hands on the original level X I cannot accurately compare the two other than what I have read and of course the price.
To give you little bit of background and to what led me to choose in this case I will briefly state what I was looking for in a case. It’s important to note that the motherboard was already decided on and set in stone when I began looking for case, so naturally I began looking for case the can utilize all of the technologies that the motherboard had to offer in terms of onboard headers. One particular technology that interested me was USB revision 3 support, now other cases offered USB 3.0 ports but required cables to be strung out the back of the case and connected to the I/O panel on the back of the motherboard, needless to say this looks bad and was rather a bad idea in my opinion. As the specification for USB 3.0 progressed and onboard header was designed similar to the USB 2.0 header that would allow cases to simply plug the cord into the motherboard ensuring that no cords were trailing out the back of the case from the inside of the case. With that in mind I began to narrow my search down for cases that supported USB 3.0 ports connected via motherboard header, surprisingly not too many of these existed at least on Newegg which is where I purchased my equipment from.Having you a USB 3.0 header connection as one of my requirements when searching for case I began to explore the other options on the motherboard. The particular motherboard that I chose which I will be reviewing in a related blog entry also supported a great number of PCI express ports. In order to utilize all of the ports on the motherboard for PCI express I would need a case that was capable of supporting the same amount of expansion cards that meant that my computer cases were limited to no smaller than a mid-tower case. However, none of the mid-tower cases I saw a particularly grabbed my attention and almost none of them had a USB 3.0 header connection. This left me with having to go with a full tower configuration encompassing a much larger case then I had originally anticipated, again surprisingly this narrow down my choices to basically two cases both of which were Thermaltake. Out of the two that were left the level X GT appealed more to me because of the amount of firm as well as the semi-hot-swappable drive bays.
That about sums up the general premise behind why I chose this particular case, now comes the good part the actual review.
Review

Firstly let me re-emphasize will probably every review you’ve ever read on this case as pointed out, this thing is HUGE!
The case itself is a pretty solid construction, composed of steel with a thin layer of hard plastic fused to the outside of the steel to give it a white finish. At first glance the case looks remarkably well-designed complete with a carrying handle which is very functional and with a fully loaded case. From what I have read the purpose of the handle is so that the case can be made portable or at the very least easier to move. When nothing is mounted to the case the back panel is removed and the front panel is taken off the hinges the cases remarkably light able to be picked up with one hand fairly easily. However, fully loaded with all compartments sealed and shut lifting the case with one hand for very long would be inconceivable.
As mentioned in the previous paragraph the front panel door can easily be removed from the hinges simply by opening the door and lifting it up right off the hinges, this is particularly useful when mounting the motherboard and is strongly recommended as the door will flap and continuously situate in the arm otherwise. The front panel door consists of a rather large intake fan which comes complete with an error direction switch similar to how the air vents in your car work to redirect air. Probably one of the coolest features about this case is that the intake fan on the door connects to a special contact point that allows the door to be removed without a cord hanging out the back of the door, the contact point on the door has to meet the contact point on the case in order for the fan to power up. This is brilliant engineering if you ask me in something that should be standard on all cases that have fans on the removable cover.
The rear exhaust fan on the case connects to a motherboard fan header; this is particularly useful to help you minimize cords hanging in the middle of the case trying to connect it to a Molex connector. There is also a spot at the bottom of the case for an additional intake fan, myself being a stickler for airflow decided to buy an additional fan to put in that spot. This leads me to another tip which might save you an extra 10 to 15 min. The bottom intake fan lies directly in the path that you have to slide the power supply through. In other words meld the power supply before installing the fan! In addition to the generous amount of fans there sprinkled throughout the case, all intake fans have removable filters to help reduce the amount of dust that actually makes inside the case. The one drawback to this however is that all the filters have to be removed from the back of the case, as mentioned above when everything is installed in this case it is heavy and difficult to move. But make more sense to put the filters on the front of the case, even the front panel intake fan has a filter that has to be removed from the back of the case. While this is in the showstopper for me at least it can be particularly annoying, however I haven’t yet had to clean any of the filters yet.
As mentioned above the case has two main panels one that is removed by simply unlocking it and hitting a button on the bottom of the case, this allows the door to swing open so that you can install expansion cards and other components. The other panel has three thumbscrews they have to be removed in order to take the panel off, behind the panel is where you would access the cable management as well as connected data cables and the one power connection for the semi-hot-swappable drive bays. The cable management features on this case are remarkably well-designed, there are small strips of steel have been pulled out and rounded off allowing you to slide cables behind them to keep them flush against the case. One drawback however to the cable management system of this case is that once all the cables are run, reinstalling the back panel is one giant pain in the butt. I’m sure there was a much more efficient way to do it but I even dented slightly the door trying to get it put back on, though it was such a small dance almost unnoticeable. My advice would be leave the panel off and tell you ensure that all the records are set up the way you want them and everything is plugged in and seated properly before reattaching the panel.

As I mentioned behind that same panel is where the power connections and data connections are for the semi-hot-swappable drive bays, I say semi-hot-swappable because they are not traditional hot-swappable bays. All of the power connections or daisy chained together using one set up our connection to power off five hard drives, five different SATA cables will need to be run as there is no fixed set of data cables. This is another time when I would strongly suggest leaving that back panel off, due to the sheer amount of cables that I had running through the back of the case several times I had to take the back panel off again and reattach a power connector to one of the drive bays. Yes you heard me right had to reconnect a power cable to one of the drive bays, they are all daisy chained together but only in the sense that there is one long cable with five power ports that you can connect to each bay. Once you boot your computer and ensure that everything powers up and that the cables are run the way that you want them, then it is safe to close the back panel.
The front side of the drive bays consists of five drive trays to which you install each hard drive, each inside this tray into each slot and tell it’s firmly in place. Once all the drives are in place you can lock the drive bays to prevent them from accidentally ejecting. All Thermaltake is traditionally a great company their owner’s manuals always leave you guessing as to just what exactly are the steps for doing specific things. An example of this would be when shutting the front panel it does not always catch and often times I found myself having to hold it closed by locking it; it was until a few days later that I discovered pushing the same button used open while shutting it will ensure that it latches properly. After you manage to get the door to shut securely I still would recommend locking it, if for no other reason than to ensure you don’t accidentally hit the button to release the latch.

In addition to core functionality there are several additional features that are there specifically for convenience, like the headphone holder. On the front of the case towards the bezel there is event that has a small rubber gasket, lifting this gasket up exposes two holes using the included headphone rack you can utilize these holes to be able to hang your headphones on the side of the case. While entirely for convenience purposes, this is still a nice feature to have though not at all practical for somebody who would be using this case for a server or high-end workstation.

 
On the top front of the case there is also a set of controls for adjusting fan speed between low and high settings, in addition there is also a fan LED control button allowing you to change between three different colors into color cycling patterns or simply turning them off altogether. I can appreciate this feature being fed there are some individuals that have no use for LED lighted fans. There is a drawback to this of course when the case goes into a low-power mode or shut down the LED control reverts back to the default setting of solid blue, this is not so much an issue for me being that I prefer the blue LED but I could see it annoying some people.

 
As with most high-end Thermaltake cases, this particular case is a liquid cooling ready. The top of the case just behind the bezel can be removed allowing you to take the top exhaust fan out and install the reservoir for a liquid cooling system. I personally did not invest in a liquid cooling option so I can’t attest for how well its liquid cooling readiness stands. I can tell you however that there are two holes towards the back of the case with rubber grommets that would allow for liquid cooling hoses to be used inside the case.
Possibly a vanity addition to the case would be a small window on the side of the case allowing you to peer down at the motherboard and it’s usually centered over top where the CPU will be located. I have yet to find any practical use for this I can only imagine it was put in place simply for aesthetic purposes. Admittedly however it is rather cool to be able to look in the window just to make sure that the CPU cooler is working properly, this is greatly due to the excellent sound dampening capabilities of the case.

I should probably make a specific note to mention that several reviews claim that this case is 100% quiet unless you put the fans on high. Out-of-the-box without any kind of fan control by the motherboard assuming every fan in the case is going 100%, the sound difference between the low and high settings probably only changes about 20%. Now take a motherboard manufacturers of fan management software such as Asus and you can potentially have a case that almost 100% silent on the low setting but this is a combination of the motherboard powering the fan down to the low voltage and speed as well as the cases low fan setting. So if you’re confused by reading reviews were some say that the fans are incredibly loud and others say that their whisper quiet, then most likely the ones who claim the cases are allowed are the ones who were not using any kind of fan management. Part of the reason for the loud noise when there is no fan management used is because these fans are incredibly powerful pushing an impressive amount of air through the case when set on the highest setting. Unfortunately I don’t have the numbers to give you as far as how much air they push at max settings, though I imagine such information exists one only needs to Google it.

 
Probably the last thing I can think of to mention is that the feet on the bottom of the case can be articulated in one of two positions, they can either be perpendicular with the case in effect hiding the feet under the case or you can fold the legs out for more stability showing them on either side of the case. I personally don’t have any reason to fold the legs out, if you’re using a liquid cooling system that causes a lot of vibration (again I have no experience with liquid cooling so not sure if they vibrate the case or not) then it might be beneficial to fold the legs out.
On a side note the show for which this site was originally created (remember we started as a fan site for them) Category5.TV is using the same case in their new server. When Robbie Ferguson gets all the parts for the case in he is going to build the server live on the air, so keep your eye on that and you can see the case in action. I myself was going to record this review via video however things didn’t work out and I had some technical difficulties that rendered the little bit of video I had useless. Anyway I hope this written review will serve to answer as many of your questions as I can regarding this case.
If you have any specific questions about this case I will try my best to answer them feel free to ask them in the comments below. If you yourself use the case as well, post some pictures of it (you have to use a third-party picture service like Twitter pick) below. Additionally if you use liquid cooling with this case please take a few minutes the comment about how well it works and how easy it was to implement liquid cooling into this case. Liquid cooling is something I’m strongly considering for the future I would like to get more information on it some always willing to hear what others have to say about it.

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While our particular site may not be known enough in the tech community to be able to get demo units from vendors for a review, that doesn’t stop us from wanting to give our community quality content and reviews.

Coming very soon we are going to have a review of the new revision of the Thermaltake Level 10 case named the Level 10 GT! It just so happens this is a case that I am personally going to use to upgrade my computer system, so I figured I would take the opportunity to review the case, which will also be our first official YouTube video.

Also in conjunction with that case we will be reviewing the Asus Crosshair V Formula, a relatively high-end motherboard specifically designed for gamers and over-clockers. This is an AMD AM3+/FX socket board, I’ll be using a Phenom II 1090T with this board.

Due to the fact that each one of these products has a lot to review, each one will be in a separate video followed by a written transcription of the video complete with pictures. Since this will be the first time that I have attempted to do any kind of video review or any review for that matter it may seem a little raw, but hopefully it will look somewhat professional.

Unfortunately, the high definition camera that I have does not have a port for hooking up an external microphone so I will be relying on the microphone integrated into the camera, which out of honesty is not the best in the world. Depending on when I can actually record the video I might use a method that I learned from watching Category 5 TV regarding overlaying a secondary audio track on top of the video.

So that’s it that’s the exciting news that I had to share, I hope you guys will check it out when I get it posted and be sure to give me feedback and let me know how I can improve future videos.

Feel free to respond to this post with ideas, if you have them. It’s going to be a few weeks before the first review shows up, I’ll probably be recording the video in the next three weeks or so, but I want to make sure I take the time to edit it properly.

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If you follow the show category5.tv at all you’ll most likely by now know that a recent lightning strike took out Robbie’s server, as well as frying several of his lapel microphones. However, what you might not know is that thanks to community contributions and donations. He was able to raise the funds necessary to replace both the server as well as the lapel microphones.

This says a lot about the people that follow the show and their desire to see the show continue. While there is still quite a bit of tweaking to do to get the set up perfect Robbie busted his butt to try to get it to a somewhat functional state for this week show. When you consider that all the time devoted to the show is purely voluntary and that aside from advertisers. No money is generated from the show. It helps to put into perspective the monumental task that Robbie has to keep the show running. It does need to include the sacrifices he estimate what this family to devote one hour for broadcasting and several hours after that for encoding and editing to make the show happen.

Some might ask why he continues to do the show if it’s such a masochistic endeavor. I would like to think it’s because Robbie enjoys helping people. More importantly the show has become much more than just a task to him as it has too many people watch it. In an ideal world we would find support for technology and devices freely, however most people do not have the resources or the patience to undergo any kind of troubleshooting without some kind of monetary support. Robbie found a way to offer free support and bring together large communities of people that span the globe to talk about technology and computers.

Being a somewhat technical enabled person myself, I can sympathize with the plight of the community tech support person; in fact, if you search the Internet you can find articles were Robbie has specifically outlined the original reason for starting category5. It very much had to do with offering free support to his clients without them interrupting his personal life or family time.

My point in all this rambling is that, by the community banding together and providing the resources necessary for Robbie to continue the show, shows the and taking his free time to provide free tech support is appreciated (not that he didn’t know that already). If you’re tech savvy person than you know what I’m talking about,  Just think about all the times you’ve helped family members or friends with the technical problem and got very little recognition or appreciation for it, it was almost as if you were expected to do it. I can’t speak personally for how things panned out for Robbie early on, I can try to related to my own experiences which gives me that much more appreciation for the time he takes to run the show, and while my financial situation did not allow for me to contribute financially, I am ever grateful for those that are able to.

I know this blog post may sound like it’s devoted to building up Robbie’s ego, but the real reason is so that people who read it will get a real understanding or appreciation for what it is that he does every week. Far too many times have I seen geeks go out of their way to help people only for those people to underestimate just how difficult it is sometimes integrate that in with everything else that’s going on in their life? Another example of a person who devotes a majority of their free time helping the community would be Chris Pirillo, while his resources are little more plentiful. I would imagine it still doesn’t take away from the fact that he chooses to devote a majority of his free time to helping, educating and enabling the community.

Since anybody reading this is in a similar situation occurs under-appreciated for what it is they do. My hats off to you!

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When Microsoft released the Kinect for the Xbox 360 I was a little skeptical of its use and practicality. The general idea of using yourself as a controller for a video game just seems a little far-fetched to me, not to mention the negative press going on about Microsoft using the Kinect scan the surroundings in your room as a way to target advertising.

As time went on and that Kinect became more popular I began to see some cool things done with it, still nothing that would sway me into actually buying a 360 let alone a Kinect.

Flash forward to present day, and I came across this video on YouTube recorded by Kevin Connolly for the lockergnome channel which blew my mind away and opened me up to the possibilities that the Kinect could bring. Using Microsoft’s source distribution kit (SDK) Kevin was able to create an interface for Microsoft Windows that allows you to use gestures to navigate around your computer. While the interface is still in the very early stages quite buggy at this point, it is still some of the coolest community driven Microsoft centric stuff I have seen in the past few years. I do not currently own a Kinect so I couldn’t test it personally but based on the video which I’ve embedded below, it looks promising and shows a lot of potential.

In the video, Kevin talks about getting his inspiration for this idea from the movie the Minority Report which featured a similar computer set up using gestures to control and navigate the computer. Because of this movie being an inspiration towards creating this interface, some of the gestures incorporated into the interface are the same as the ones used in the movie.

Keep in mind when you watch the video that this is still as I said in the very early stages of development, some of the gestures he attempts to use do not work the way he planned or at all. The project however is open source so if you’re good with programming, particularly .NET programming then you may want to look at the source code and see if you can help Kevin out. I myself am no programmer, so other than constructive criticism I can’t exactly provide direct help on this project, as much as I would like to.

The video truly is amazing what some of the things that he’s accomplished, looking forward a very lightly see the interface becoming an extremely popular Windows add-on for Microsoft Xbox 360 and Kinect owners.

Still, this makes me wonder here is somebody who clearly does not work for Microsoft, but is passionate enough about their products to try to incorporate the device made by Microsoft to interface with another Microsoft product. Question is why Microsoft hasn’t done this already itself. Being that it owns both the hardware and the software that the hardware is trying to interface with it will be a lot easier for a Microsoft developer to incorporate this kind of technology into Windows.

Watch the video embedded below let me know what you think and if you like what you see then be sure to let Kevin know or better yet help with the programming if you’re able.

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For the past 10 years, I have gone to retail stores, and have purchased electronic devices, or any other products costing more than $100.  If you are anything like me, you probably asked yourself numerous times if the extended warranties that are advertised alongside those products are really worth the extra money.  The answer will vary depending on what the warranties offer and how difficult they are to utilize.

Coming from a retail background myself, both as an employee, and as the son of a retail store owner, I can say that for a majority of the time, the retail establishments that you shop at, are counting on you to lose your paperwork, and therefore not being able to cash in on a warranty should you need it.  The reason I say this is that if you actually examine the fine print, a lot of those extended warranties require a great deal of work on your part in order to make them work.  Most employees of retail stores are not properly trained enough to be able to explain how to apply for and receive warranty coverage for the products that they sell.

You might be asking yourself, then, how can you make sure that you understand how the warranty that is being advertised works before you purchase it.  The simplest way to find out about a particular warranty is to ask the employee to show you the pamphlet that explains how the warranty works.  Make sure you bring a magnifying glass, since the text is usually so small that even if you have 20/20 vision, you’ll have trouble seeing it!  If the salespeople are trained well enough, you should be able to ask them specific questions about the warranty after reading the pamphlet and actually receive a useful response from them.

When I sold warranties on electronics items, I would frequently ask customers what steps they followed to register and use the warranty for the items that they bought.  You would be surprised at how willing the customers were to share this type of information.  By asking them these questions, I accomplished two things: I established rapport with the customers, showing them that I cared enough about them to ask them about their experiences, and I also found out how the warranty process works, so that when I sold the same warranties to customers in the future, I could explain in detail what the process was for making a claim.

This brings me back to the core question of “are extended warranties worth it?”  I would have to say that whether a warranty is worth it or not depends on the product that is being covered.  Apple Computer sells an extended warranty called “AppleCare,” and while I personally have never had to use this warranty, everyone I have talked to had nothing but good things to say about their experiences with it.  Online tech personality Chris Pirillo is one notable commenter (see what he says about AppleCare in the embedded video below).  Another factor to consider is the price of the warranty versus the cost of the covered device.  Make sure the extra money you are spending on the warranty covers any event that may arise during your use of the device.  The worst thing you can do is to spend an additional $80 for an extended warranty only to find out that the warranty does not cover drops or other accidental damage caused.  These types of accidents are the most common cause of damage to cell phones, causing people the most warranty troubles.  If accidents are not covered, the customer will not benefit as much from an extended warranty, as they will have to pay for repairing or replacing their device themselves.

Retail employees are put under tremendous amounts of pressure by their supervisors to sell a specific number of extended warranties in a fixed amount of time.  This is important to remember, since when store employees are faced with this much stress, they may try to sell you an extended warranty that you cannot afford, or worse that may not cover the device that you are buying.  Kmart, in particular, has been guilty of this for years.  I know this because I worked at Kmart, and I was put under a lot of stress as I was making sales.  However, I did not sell these “assurance plans” to my customers if they did not actually need the extra coverage.

So you might now consider whether the warranty that is advertised for a product is actually worth it.  Generally speaking, if you are buying a device that costs less than $100, do not even think about getting an extended warranty for it.  On the other hand, if a device is extremely expensive, being anywhere from $700 to more than $2,000, examine the advertised warranty carefully to ensure that it covers any type of damage that may be caused by your use of the product.  As a rule of thumb, if a device is expensive, and the extended warranty looks like it is worth the extra cost, I will go ahead and purchase it, if for no other reason, than to get peace of mind.

I think Chris Pirillo does a very good job in explaining extended warranties and how they work in the video that he recently recorded.  While the video does not go into as much detail as this blog post does, it will give you a general overview of the way that extended warranties work, and will explain a little bit about how Apple Computer’s extended warranty, AppleCare, protects the investment that customers make in Apple’s products, and why it is worth buying.

Comments are welcome. Please keep them constructive or at the very least non offensive.

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Today we made a huge stride towards finishing our reorganization, and migration from fan site to tech site.. We’ve acquired a new domain name which are currently at, as well as trying out a new theme that will work at least until we pick up some steam.

We still have a long way to go before were completely migrated over, but things seem to be going relatively smoothly so far. We currently have two interviews under our belt, one with Robbie Ferguson (Category5.tv) , and the other with Steve Heywood (the Tech Buzz). As we continue to grow. We hope to get more interviews under her belt, if you have suggestions for people we can interview, please send them to us via Twitter, or the upcoming contact form which should be up soon.

We are excited about the progress we’ve made, and were looking forward to making even more progress as time goes on. I would like to also mention that eventually our twitter account, we either be migrated over to a new name representing the name change for the website, or an entirely new twitter account will have to be made. We will make sure to let you know before this happens, as well as with the new twitter addresses, in addition, we plan to open up a Facebook fan page as well.

Some people that would like to interview in the future, though our chances look kind of grim at the moment, are Chris Pirillo, and Leo Laporte, our chances of interviewing these two is not as good as others, mainly because of how busy they are. But we will keep trying.

Again thank you for your patience and your continued support. While we make this transition, also starting this week we’re going to be working on making blog entries about technology or entertainment in general. Look for the first blog post of this series to be up sometime tomorrow, possibly, Monday. The tech community has such a wealth of knowledge and talented individuals, to do not be surprised if one of our blog entries is followed up by an embedded video from YouTube.

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Ok so I have been going on about new features for this site for a while now, I am now happy to elaborate on a few of them. First off let me say that this has and still is a grueling process and will be finalized as soon as possible.

I am going to break this post into 3 categories, Completed features, possible features, planned but not yet fully implemented features

Completed Features

• Move the word-press instance to my single unified WP master install. (increase performance due to reduced resource load on the server)

Planned Features

• Allow users to create a blog on this instance of WP
• Restoration of the screen capture feature (revamped and very much less chaotic)
• Domain name change (old domain will continue to work and be renewed) to support the upcoming features pertaining to non Category5 content (see below)
• Forum for fan-site users
• Latest tech trends (links and summaries of the buzz around the tech realm) – not the same as the Cat5 news room
• Gamers Advocacy section (will contain real legit email addresses to forward spam to for games like WoW so the devs can shut the spammers down)
• New more appropriate theme for the changes

Possible Features

• A music player that will allow you to listen to music while you browse, including Robbie Ferguson’s Bands music (provided he gives permission)
• A list of indy musicians I found on Jamendo that are worth checking out (some of those artists are fantastic).
• Product reviews
• Quote of the week poll (vote on your favorite Tech quote of the week either from the show or not)

• Interviews with popular Tech community members such as Robbie, Chris Pirillo and more (provided i can line them up) – this is the reason for the site domain change

All that and much more planned which is still to sketchy to talk about now.

So basically let me put it this way folks, Category5 Fansite will become much more then a fansite. My hope is to make this site not only a companion site to Category5 but a source of some unique information as well. If you have any comments, suggestions let me know.

Keep in mind the only features that are definite are those in the Planned Features section. If I can manage the logistics I will try to incorporate them all.

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While we have moved sites the blog should look almost identical to the previous location.

This is but one step in our direction to stream line the site even more, new features are coming stay tuned while we fine tune things here.

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Well this is a whole week late yikes!

Due to finals coming up last week for my class I was pre-occupied with those to write this but I sit here tonight on January 18th at 11:18pm pulling double duty with episode 173 and 174 reviews, so if it ends up late in the afternoon of the 19th when these post you will know why

This episode was focused a program called Hydrogen which allows you to easily program a drum beat that can be used many different things including just having fun. While talking about the program, Eric trys to lay down a cool guitar track for Robbie to code to.  By the end of the feature segment it was clear that Robbie and Eric were having fun, which really is what this shows about at least in part.  While hydrogen is primarily a linux application, an older version does exists for windows.  Fair warning however this program can become extremely addicting, consuming most of your time.

Hydrogen also includes a variety of features, most of which Robbie did not have time to talk about, the biggest feature on Hydrogen however the ability to download drum kits. While downloading trumpets may not sound like a very big feature, it allows the user to extend the sound of the program by offering different types of drums, and even mixing and matching different drum kits together.  I should also note that Robbie made it look extremely easy to lay down a basic song and hydrogen, however I have found somebody that lacks in music experience such as myself might find a little more challenging.  Also you have the ability to export songs achieve made on hydrogen, allowing you to share them with other people that have the program.

Hillary also made an in studio appearance on the show this week, as usual she did the news segment on the show other than that though surprisingly she was relatively quiet.

Robbie also mentions his favorite audio editing program Goldwave which to unlock the full feature set costs a small amount of money.  I’ve never use the program and personally, so I can’t say how easy it is to use I have to go based on what I can see, which looks pretty easy.

Also mentioned on the show was the fact that the sequel to Wolfienstein, Enemy Territory, was three and available for linux.  After watching this show I tried to run that program on my linux machine, and found that it doesn’t seem to play well with a lot of the newer versions of linux.  To this day a week later I still haven’t been able to get to work, I’m not sure if it’s just my machine or if it’s just that the binaries are old.

Also Cedega was announced to be shutting down their service, they are offering refunds for those currently under a active subscription. If you wish for an alternative to Cedega you can try Crossover by Codeweavers which is also a paid program but offers similar functionality to Cedega also running on WINE.

Once again un-raid was mentioned for an easy way to manage a backup server, or just a general files are.  All in all the show was of great show packed full of useful information, and is always a little bit of humor thrown in, as always the banter between Robbie, Eric, Hillary helped break up the technical parts of the show, this makes it feel like you’re chatting with a friend and not watching somebody telling you how to do stuff.

Watch at the Episode 173 now

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