I Love Sushi

Yes, that's the restaurant's name - I Love Sushi. At first you'd think
it is some cheesey lame place but it is not.

As a matter of fact, they serve good Japanese food, specially sushi. It was my first time checking the place out with some friends, and I never knew such a Japanese restaurant was within Cedar Hills. It is kind of tucked away on the other side of the main mall area, and is not that obvious (unlike that 'Golden Arches' by the corner with its sign all high and bright). Another thing that is amazing is that they have been there for almost 20 years now. Now that's a testament to their good food and service already. And they're moving across the street to a better and bigger spot.

They even have friendly pets - large Kois in an indoor pond. And yes, you can feed them. They seem to have grown quite, ah, large already. Perhaps they've been with the restaurant since way back when it started?

In any case, if you're in the Cedar Hills mall area and thought of Japanese food, swing by I Love Sushi. It will be definitely worth your while. And give the Kois in their indoor pond some fish food before you leave - for good luck ;)

Koji lunch

Lunch @ Koji after a good 'house hunting' gig. Weather was perfect and the gig was worth it. Found two good units. Let's see how this pans out.

Bowl of Tanin Donburi with green tea. Good food and service at
Koji's. ;-)

Streaming Video on Consoles - Wii joins the fray

Of the three major consoles in the market, it's amazing that the one with the lowest resolution is on top (well, the other two aren't that far behind now, unlike a year or two ago).

Nintendo has always been on the cutting edge of console gaming, period. That is my opinion though, but I believe a lot of fellow gamers worldwide would agree.

And now Netflix is starting to beta test their streaming videos to the Wii. And why not? Like the PS3 (Netflix already supports the PS3), connecting the Wii online and playing online games does not cost you (unlike some other console out there that seems to have a built-in likeness for credit and debit cards...).

This is good news indeed, as there are a lot of Wii owners out there and with the availability of movie streaming from Netflix, it opens up opportunities.


What the Wii has in it's innovative motion sensing system, it traded off for lower resolution display (480p max)
The only drawback this time though, and it will be more prominent now, is the Wii's lack of HD capability. Up to now, the Wii runs standard 480p max on component video cables. Why Nintendo did not decide to put a HDMI output we don't know (but more likely to put down cost). Plus all of the games played with the Wii isn't for HD displaying anyways.

Now that video streaming is in the norm and the Wii is joining the fray, I believe that the 2nd gen Wii will be coming out soon and I bet that we will be seeing one of these in the new units:

- HDMI output
- possibly a SPDIF audio output
- SSD (solid state drive) or a standard SATA/SATA2 2.5" drive. SSD sounds more like what Nintendo will jump on, as it will be slimmer and with no moving parts (albeit,still costs more than a standard hard drive)

Definitely will drive the cost of the Wii up, but for all the followers and fans of Nintendo, that will be such a blessing and it will be embraced all out!

Looking forward to one of those features to be added to the 2nd Gen Wii.

For the meantime, I'll enjoy Tales of Symphonia and Wii Resort in "screamin'" 480p!
;-)

Crunch...

Does this look 'borked' to you? :-p

Post on-the-fly FTW!

Cheers to technology again!

Technology makes everything easy.

Even blogging, so there is no excuse to forget to update one's blog (ok, there's laziness still...). Now you can blog direct from your smart, just like that.

Formatting is just basic, but can be fixed once you get to the blog dashboard.

Otherwise, posting is now a breeze and literally...anywhere. As long as you have coverage for your smart phone and/or wifi hotspots nearby.

So if you see quick and small posts here with pics (not centered), that would be a mobile post from me. So cool!

Cheers!

Fail schedule

Are you open on Sundays?? ;-D

Tuna hand roll

Looks too good to eat! Good food at Umenoki. Itadakimasu!!

Canon lens FAIL!

Supposed to be an ad for a 70-300mm Canon Zoom Lens and what do they put...

A Canon Flash Unit!! ** FAIL ** ;D

PC Upgrade: Epilogue

PC is running strong and good. No issues, except that I wanted to make the system a little quiter. It currently has 7 cooling case fans; 3 intake, 4 exhaust. And not to mention the dual 120mm fans on the N620 and the video card's own 70mm fan.

I narrowed down the noise (at least the loudest) to the two front intake fans. These are 'loud' fans from the start, but they do push pretty good air (with noise being the compromise though).


Rin: "The noisy twins - variable speed 80mm fans installed as front intake units."
Went to the local electronics store and found a pretty nice (and cheap) silent fan solution. 14dba only, allegedly, which is pretty quiet. The current ones throw out at least 28-32db I think.

One thing to keep in mind is to make sure you face the fan in the direction you want the air blowing to (i.e., intake or exhaust). This is easy, since all case fans have directional arrows that show both rotation of the blades and direction of airflow.

Also ensure you have equal amounts of intake and exhaust fans. Last thing you want to happen is no air movement in your case (vacuum). You want hot air from the inside to be pushed out, as much as you want the cooler, ambient air to flow in your system.


The fan's rotation and air direction is clearly marked on the side of its case.
The quiet fan installed nicely on the case, and it ran as advertised. Really quiet and worth the buy indeed. I might get two more for the other two exhaust fans this time.


Rin: "One of the new 'silent' intake fans installed. For this particular one, it also doubles as a hard drive cooler!"
So there you have it, system upgrade complete.


New fans in place and running a-ok. Really, really quiet (and has blue LED lighting too).
Looking back at the finalized system up and running, the first question that came to my mind is, "Is it fast?". It is not quite super-duper fast, but fast enough to handle the multimedia applications that I have planned for it (e.g., picture and video edits/transfers, HD video and audio streaming). Plus there is more to discover on the CMOS overclock setting which I will surely tweak and adjust to squeeze out some more power in this system.

The overall build was fun. It always is - that's why I avoid getting prebuilt systems as it takes away the actual 'building' fun part. I do have a prebuilt desktop (HTPC setup) and eyeing some NetTops. But system building will alway be my priority. :)

Speaking of system building, now I also have the leftover parts from the upgrade, and it is enough to build another decent PC. I will probably put it together again, and it will be more likely an Ubuntu-based system. But that's for another time though.

For now, I'll sit back and enjoy the latest upgrade. Until the next project!

Cheers! :D

PC Upgrade: Chapter 6 - Will it post? Will it po-ost?

All items seated in place - check.
Ventilation system power lines hooked up - check.
Optical and HD drives installed, data and power cables included - check
Mainboard power supply hooked up - check.
HD monitor hooked up and powered on - check.

Let's turn this baby on!


Rin: 'Wahoooo!! It posted fine! CPU is running like a champ!"
It works! Nice! The pin-straightening project was worth it!

Everything else worked ok, no issues so far. OS was installed and updated and all is kosher!


All systems running. Look at those LEDs (and those bunch of wires, ack!). ;)
Now I'd like to say that the project is done, but not just yet. I was also aiming for a quiter system and the two front intake fans are making quite a racket.

So I'm headed out to get a silent fan solution.

Let's see how this one goes!

PC Upgrade: Chapter 5 - Final Countdown

Now on the homestretch for the PC upgrade. We gear up and proceed with the PC internals setup!


It's now Rin for the final phase of the upgrade. Here's the ASUS motherboard ready and unpacked.
Got the AMD CPU out and crossing my fingers that all that pin straightening is not for naught. I lift the CPU socket release/lock lever and very carefully and slowly push down on the CPU. It needs to 'click' into place and lay flat on the socket. And guess what....it did!

Next up is the 4gb (2x2GB) DDR2 PC1066 memory. Again, it snapped in place without any incident.


CPU and DDR2 snapped in place - perfect fit!
Time to 'slather' some thermal grease on the CPU. Take note when putting on the thermal grease - only apply a very thin and even layer. No 'cake icing' style here. I used an old membership card (plastic) to even and smooth out the thermal grease.


Thermal goop on. Rin wasn't in the last few pics as these steps are the 'critical' steps in the phase.
And now to install the N620 heatsink on. The heatsink came with it's own mobo support brackets (top and bottom) so we screwed these on (after taking off the stock black plastic bracket first), and then put on the N620. Way too easy to install.


Rin: 'N620 bracket for the AM2/2+/AM3 socket application. This one goes on the topside. Another bracket goes on the back side of the motherboard."

Rin: 'Ta-dah! N620 installed, very nice!"

After that, we put the motherboard with all the 'trimmings' in the case. Thank goodness the heatsink cleared the case!


Rin: 'It fits in the case, yatta!!"
Next we put on the PCIe video card. This one has 1GB of DDR3 memory onboard - perfect for multimedia apps. The card snapped in without any issues either.


Rin: '1GB DDR3 goodness in a HD video card."

When I was putting the side panel on, I found out that the side panel fan is hitting the heatsink, ack! But easy solution there...install the fan on the oustide part of the panel!


Rin: 'Side panel 80mm fan (intake) installed on the outside, as it was hitting the heatsink when the cover was put on."

Finally, we add the drives and fan controller, hooked up the corresponding power connectors, and closed the case.

Time to flip the switch...what will happen?

Stay tuned!

Mmmm... Unagi

And cheap too!

PC Upgrade: Chapter 4 - Drive by...

Continuing on our piecemeal PC upgrade - we take on prepping the new DVD writer and HDD.


Nagi's off this time, and Miku Hatsune steps up to the plate.
First we switch the drive mounting rails from the old DVD writer (NEC 16x ND3540A EIDE; love this DVD writer, flawless performance, never had any issues) and mount them to the sides of the new DVD writer (LiteON HAS124 24x SATA). I had a choice between the Sony OptiArc and the LiteON. The latter won me over.


Miku: "Note the difference in length, with the SATA drive being shorter."
Having the drive rails is such a convenience!


Miku: "These drive rails allow the drives to just slide in or out with ease, without the need for mounting screws
Now that we've got the drive rails on the LiteON HAS124 SATA DVD writer, let's turn our attention to the 3.5" drive cage. We remove the 2 drives that it houses (1 x 120gb, 1 x 200gb), and replace them with a Hitachi 1TB SATA HDD. 1 Terabyte...schweet!!


Miku: "Another cool feature of this 'older' case is this removable drive bay/cage. Makes it easier too install/uninstall hard drives."
The case employs two of these removable drive cages, and each can hold three HDDs.


Miku: "1 TB SATA HDD installed in cage!"
I have to be honest - this is my first PC build using SATA drives. And SATA has been around for quite some time now. So it just shows how 'Jurassic' my system was. But now my storage system is all caught up with the trend. ;)


Miku: "EIDE/PATA cable on the left...SATA cable on the right. See the difference?"
With that, we're done with the initial prep for the HDD and DVD writer. We've cleared out the 'old' and prepped the 'new'.


Miku: "Off with the old drives, including this primitive thing I'm sitting on...they say it's called a floppy disk drive...did I get that name right?"
I will be re-using another optical drive from the old system, an EIDE DVD ROM drive - this will serve as a boot device and backup optical drive.


Miku: "And on with the new drives!"
Next up, we will tackle the motherboard install - and finally get to put everything together.

Getting warmer! Stay tuned! ;D

Boneless wings or not?

Go with the standard - skip the boneless (what was I thinking...or better yet...was i even 'thinking'...).

'Nuff said. ;D

PC Upgrade: Chapter 3 - Case closed?

Time to re-assemble part of the PC case this time around.

As I mentioned, I'm using the same case I originally upgraded with from 2002/03. It's a perfectly good full tower case, so why not re-use. Just a little upgrade here and there and it's good to go.


Nagi: "Let's put these panels together, ne?"
We re-assemble the newly painted top panel first: re-attach the case handles and the 'blowhole' fan grill.


Nagi: "Aluminum handles and fan grill secured."
Next up, replacing the old front panel with a newer front panel. I bought that front panel as a backup around 6 years ago that I ended up not using and just storing. Who knew I would be cracking it open now and actually use it. It is pretty much the same as the older panel, the differences being the newer panel has a different color and has a flip cover that reveals front USB and Firewire connectors.


Nagi: "New face on...eh sorta looks the same..."
And finally, the side panels we put together. Note the 120mm fan on the right side (hidden side) of the case. This mod I did back in 2002/03, to help exhaust heat from the backplane.


Nagi: "All buttoned-up...only to be opened up again soon for the internal components install."
So that's how the case will look like :)

Closing in on the installation of the internals, and the much awaited 'power-on' event. I am hoping that the CPU works ok *cross-fingers*!

'Til next!

PC Upgrade: Chapter 2 - Heatsink Dejavu

Postal service came through and finally, the CPU-critical accessory arrived - the Cooler Master Hyper N620!

A little history on the heatsinks I used...

Processors come with stock heatsinks. Silly little buggers made of aluminum, quite small, and with a stock fan. Works well for standard applications.


Nagi: "A stock AMD (Athlon) heatsink of old."
Then when the 'PC modding craze' came, copper became the new 'aluminum'. Copper is a better thermal conductor (albeit, more expensive) than aluminum so it is more efficient at transferring heat from the processor.

Some go hybrid and combine both copper and aluminum, usually a copper base, combined with aluminum fins. You get the best of both worlds.


Nagi: "Copper base and aluminum fins for better heat dissipation, like this Swiftech heatsink."
Now, let's see what's in the box. The box itself is big, but sometimes it's just the box.


Nagi: "Support for current processor models, nice!"
However, with the heatsink out, and it's huge twin 120mm fans (that are LED lighted blue), we see how big this awesome piece of hardware really is.


Nagi: "Uwaaahh! HUGE!"
The N620 towers (over Nagi) close to 6.5". A tall and massive heatsink indeed (although there are others out there that are larger...). Good thing is that it isn't that heavy, considering its size.

The package comes with all the extra hardware, like thermal paste, screws, and corresponding motherboard brackets for support during the installation.

I did check the sizing and looks like it clears my case ok. There's always 'Mr. Dremel' to help anyways should I need to trim some parts of the case. ;)

Ok, that's all for this section. We'll get to the start of the actual install in the next blog.

Stay tuned!!

PC Upgrade: Chapter 1 - Rallying the Parts

With the project's heatsink/fan in 'mailing limbo' it appears that the upgrade schedule has been pushed back a bit from the original plan. But in any case, the upgrade must go on!

There are lots more things that can be started and prepped for the upgrade, so let's get started.

All the rest of the upgrade parts arrived:
- Asus M4A77D (AM2/AM2+/AM3) mobo
- G.Skill 4GB PC1066 DDR2 RAM
- 1GB DDR3 PCI-e 2.0 HD video card
- LiteOn 24x DVD burner


Nagi will 'assist' in this endeavor :)
Started off by dismantling everything in the current case, an Antec full-tower case. All of the old parts removed, down to the skeletal frame and power supply.


The current PC case, sans the externals. It's always fun trying to figure out all the wires.
I wanted to get a new Power Supply, but the current 550 watt unit is more than enough for the upgrade. I just got 4-pin molex to SATA power adapters for the new hard drive and optical drive (and future HDD/optical drives).


Nagi: "550-watt power supply FTW!!"
Also repainted the top cover, changing it from black to gunmetal grey.


Nagi: "This is actual wheel spray paint - three coats plus 1 clear coat finish. Nice and shiny!"

I'm trying to figure out how the cabling layout will be. I plan on keeping my DigiDoc 5 thermal monitor and fan controller. It's the 1st gen DD5, but with 8 fan headers and 12 thermal sensors, with a thermostat option so that the fans can come on/off at particular temperature settings.

Not sure about the floppy drive though - that I might not install anymore.

More to come, so stay tuned! ;)

Package blues...

I waited patiently for 3/4 to arrive in hopes that my heatsink/fan for my upgrade gets in the mail.

I chose USPS priority mail, as I have always had good service with them - up until 3/4.

I get the key for one of the parcel/package boxes in our mailbox, and I tried opening it to no avail. Key wouldn't even budge. I tried on the other boxes (labeled P1 as per the key's instructions) and nada.

So buzzkill again there, and I decide to leave a note for my mail carrier and I wrote that I tried the key in the P1 boxes but was not able to open any one of them, and if he/she can move my package to another box with the right key.

Come 3/5, the note was gone, but no key left in my mailbox. Why? I thought I'd give them a day since mail is delivered on Saturdays too, so I leave it at that for a while.

3/6 Saturday. Nothing in my mailbox. No key or anything. I checked and re-verified my order and the USPS tracking number and it clearly states 'delivered 3/4'. So what on earth is going on here? And of all items, the heatsink/cooler too. There's no way I can proceed without that as that is a critical part of my upgrade.

I'm giving them another day tomorrow, and may even wait for the mailman. I will call in the morning to verify with them too.

I guess there's always a first time....

Upgrade delayed.

Upgrade Time: Prologue

Ah, that word that gets gadget blokes like me all giddy - 'upgrade'! It also spells 'doom' for one's wallet most of the time. :-D

I was lucky to get a free CPU from a co-worker. He made a mistake when inserting the CPU to his motherboard, and bent a couple of the pins. He was gracious enough and just gave it to me for free when I asked.

The pins that were bent weren't that bad, so back home and 30 minutes later with a mechanical pencil (metal tip) and an old plastic membership card - I got all the pins straightened out. And luckily I did not break one off...whew...

The CPU is an AMD 64x2 (Kuma) rated at 2.7 GHZ. And this is the fun part - it is the 'Black Edition'.

The 'Black Edition' is a series of AMD CPUs that are designed for the enthusiast and overclocker crowd. It has an unlocked multiplier, that allows for easy overclocking of the CPU (i.e., if it is 2.7ghz, can easily move it to say, 3.3ghz by just increasing the multiplier value in the motherboard's CMOS). And it doesn't come with a heatsink, since AMD is assuming you will overclock (more heat) and the stock heatsink and fan just won't cut it.

I never did use stock heatsinks ever anyways. Aftermarket FTW!

So I spec'd out my upgrade path, lined up the candidate hardware, and pulled the trigger on it last Sunday.

I'll post how the upgrade and assembly goes, including details/specs on the hardware used (and yes, with pics for sure).

Giddy-giddy indeed! :D Stay tuned!