The Spam Thread!

[cpd2009]

Aaand... lights have come back on.

Let's hope they don't go out again as the weather is still rather crappy here.

[cpd2009]

Lilly is officially revived. OSX Yosemite installed and running and seems to be okay now. I just need to get all the Mac'in Talk voices and some of my AppStore games.


Also, I brought Max out of retirement, though he needed a cleaning since he was so dusty. Disinfectant wipes or similar come in handy for such things.

Anyway, I have a 1366x768 display that works, but though he is 720p, his actual LCD dimension is slightly smaller horizontally than the standard 1366x768 specification. Thus, the image is slightly compressed. But the color reproduction is far better than the garage sale Gateway monitor and seeing Lilly's display output in 720p at one point, screen space shouldn't be an issue once I finish acquiring the rest of my KVM setup.

[RAMChYLD]

Once your KVM is hooked up, you should be able to do 1366x768 no problem.

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PS: I forgot to mention, but once you have the MiniDP to VGA converter you can use your CRT after all. The drawback is that a lot of Mac apps aren't optimized for extra height screens and are instead optimized for widescreen (ie my biggest complain regarding XCode).

[cpd2009]

Once your KVM is hooked up, you should be able to do 1366x768 no problem.

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PS: I forgot to mention, but once you have the MiniDP to VGA converter you can use your CRT after all. The drawback is that a lot of Mac apps aren't optimized for extra height screens and are instead optimized for widescreen (ie my biggest complain regarding XCode).

The old Gateway monitor wasn't a CRT, but a flat panel LCD. It looks huge since it's an early LCD monitor from 2003, and quite hefty. Max weighs far less than that, and he will do great for the KVM setup.

I noticed that OSX Yosemite has an underscan/overscan settings in the display options, and I couldn't find any option under Windows or the AMD control panel. I had to use Max's setup menus to get the image centered right.

[RAMChYLD]

noted.

[RAMChYLD]

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<sarcasm>Gee, I wonder what's next. Alyssa Satin Capucilli? Hans Wilhelm? Mick Inkpen?</sarcasm>

*sigh* If I need another reason to be depressed this season, this is it.

I will now play the funeral dirge of my people, the People of DavidReka.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1ZWwsvohKE[/youtube]
Although from where I come from, this song is normally performed using bagpipes with organ backing.

[RAMChYLD]

And now, just got word that Steam is now fully region-locked. Stupid, stupid, stupid Valve! Hope they suffer botched sales accordingly.

*sigh* I thought my day can't get any worse. How wrong I was...

[cpd2009]

And now, just got word that Steam is now fully region-locked. Stupid, stupid, stupid Valve! Hope they suffer botched sales accordingly.

*sigh* I thought my day can't get any worse. How wrong I was...

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/17/steam-region-locking/">http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/17/stea ... n-locking/</a><!-- m -->
Blame Russia for this, not Valve. And since this is very recent, the extent of the locking isn't very many countries at least based on what I got from Google News. Please correct me if I'm wrong since I'm not entirely sure myself.

In retrospect, instead of Valve region-coding stuff, perhaps they should have just pulled out of Russia altogether since who knows how long Putin will be in power? He has a cult of personality surrounding him and the state media practically blames the USA for their collapsing ruble. If their economy is collapsing past their profit margins or whatever, they should just pull out.

[RAMChYLD]

It's definitely not just Russia. I tested as soon as I heard the news and confirmed that Malaysia is not only also affected, but can only gift to other Southeast Asian countries now. This comes as I was planning go gift a friend in the US a game on Christmas morning, pouring wet water on my plans. But my bigger concern is this: console makers are moving away from region locking- even Nintendo, the biggest proponent of region locking, has announced that they're evaluating removing region-locking from their future consoles. But PCs, which are historically region-free devices, are starting to see the cancer that is region locking. And yet Sony repetitively earns venom and yet Valve gets away scot free. For that I am unhappy. Sure, Sony is no angel either, but they do deserve an applause for discouraging the use of region-locking on their systems and even pressuring Japanese game companies to release games in English for their consoles in Asia.

In fact, I'm particularly angry at Valve for two things now- first for removing PayPal as a payment option in Southeast Asia, and now the cancer that is region coding.

[cpd2009]

Region coding affects me sometimes, mostly attempting to play certain R2 discs on my computers. Part of the reason why I backed off on making Lilly a media PC is that VLC is unable to play certain R2 discs that I have, especially those that have Macrovision copy protection. R1 Macrovision discs such as Disney titles strangely do play fine with VLC. Only way to get a truly region free drive is to modify the drive's firmware, but I am uncomfortable about doing that since there is risk you could brick the drive. I managed to get my no-name Chinese region-free DVD player from a home improvement store on Black Friday in 2011, and despite some quirks, it plays my PAL/R2 discs well.

In other news, I decided that later this evening, I am going to go back to my old HP S2031 widescreen monitor. Max works, but his image is not as clear and sharp as it should be since his actual LCD dimension is slightly smaller than it should be. Text is slightly blurry, even at 1366x768 which is the maximum resolution he supports. The HP monitor has VGA as well as DVI, and I would like to switch back to DVI. But I seen DVI KVMs on eBay, and you're right... they aren't cheap. May as well stick with VGA and continue to acquire the remainder of my setup next month.