The Spam Thread!

[RAMChYLD]

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.

Well, my big beef with this is PCs are supposed to be region-free systems. Valve has just desecrated on holy grounds like Microsoft did with Windows 8 and it's stupid XBox Games and Zune dependencies. As for modding drives, this is why I insist on Lite-On drives. Lite-On keeps the Australian and Hong Kong markets in mind and making a drive region-free involves just sending the correct ATA string to it, for which there's a program to do so. Heck, one can even fully reset the vendor change limits. Sure, back in 1998 Lite-On drives were giving me trouble, but now I practically swear by them.

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.

Well, the reason is DVI implements HDCP. Again, HDCP is the main cause of the price hike (and is there because the MPAA mandates that all digital signal transport must be copy protected. And they get a cut of the license fee, plus a cut of the royalty for every device sold).

You want to know how much my 4-port DVI-USB KVM cost me? RM650, or around US$200. All just because of HDCP. On the other hand my 4-port VGA+PS2 KVM only cost me RM80, or around US$25

[cpd2009]

Wow... I forgotten how wide the HP S2031 LCD was. It's amazing, and the text is sharper than ever. I wonder why I even cycled through several LCD monitors this year. Impulse buys perhaps?

Anyway, I noticed the HP monitor has the ability to switch between VGA or DVI on the fly. That means I could connect Lilly via the DVI input and I won't have to acquire a potentially costly MiniDP-to-VGA adapter. I already have that HDMI to DVI adapter that worked great. I could still get the KVM, but I could see myself only using it to share Audrey's keyboard and mouse with Lilly.

In order to switch inputs, I would have to manually bring up the monitor's menu and switch input that way, and it may become rather cumbersome.

[RAMChYLD]

In order to switch inputs, I would have to manually bring up the monitor's menu and switch input that way, and it may become rather cumbersome.

That's why it's easier to just use the KVM for everything. Makes more sense to do so.

[cpd2009]

In order to switch inputs, I would have to manually bring up the monitor's menu and switch input that way, and it may become rather cumbersome.

That's why it's easier to just use the KVM for everything. Makes more sense to do so.

I'm just nitpicking at this point, but I seem to notice the edges of text under VGA seem to have a slight fuzziness that DVI didn't have. I think I can get used to it over time, but it just seems DVI is far better over VGA. despite DVI being plagued with HDCP, which is the entire reason why DVI KVMs are so expensive. It only seems to affect text though.

Perhaps it's just the font rendering under Windows 8.1 though, so I could be just worried about nothing.

[Stella Grapes]

Thank goodness the nightmare of becoming Delta Dawn did not come true for me.

[RAMChYLD]

Thank goodness the nightmare of becoming Delta Dawn did not come true for me.

But the point stands, two great authors passed away this year :'(

[cpd2009]

Thank goodness the nightmare of becoming Delta Dawn did not come true for me.

But the point stands, two great authors passed away this year :'(

I was also shocked to hear about Norman Bridwell's passing too. No more traditional Clifford books, but just those based on the TV shows and the upcoming CGI film I guess.

[cpd2009]

Alas, my HP S2031 monitor is back in service. On screen I'm testing an old version of Canon Photo, mainly for the purpose of making JPEG compression far easier.

[RAMChYLD]

Bear with me. I was trying to keep my depression at bay.

Anyways, well, The cheapest 2-port DVI+USB KVM is US$46.99 - technically almost the same as a MiniDP-to-VGA adapter and 2-port VGA+USB KVM combined. So you can have a choice and the price is not much different (although these cheaper KVMs seem to be garnering bad reviews...) - either two port DVI, or two port VGA with a VGA adapter on the Mac. Pick whichever you see fit.

[cpd2009]

Bear with me. I was trying to keep my depression at bay.

Anyways, well, The cheapest 2-port DVI+USB KVM is US$46.99 - technically almost the same as a MiniDP-to-VGA adapter and 2-port VGA+USB KVM combined. So you can have a choice and the price is not much different (although these cheaper KVMs seem to be garnering bad reviews...) - either two port DVI, or two port VGA with a VGA adapter on the Mac. Pick whichever you see fit.

To be safe, I'll just get the VGA one as I determined it's the font rendering causing the fuzziness.

In other news, I may have to re-install Windows 8.1 on Greta simply because something happened to her ability to install Windows Store Updates. Audrey can still install them fine, but with Greta, any attempt to update apps leads to the downloads getting stuck on "Pending", or "Downloading". I left her sit for an hour on the update screen, and nothing happened.

I am going to try one more thing, but if that doesn't work, the only option is to reinstall Windows 8.1.

I am even thinking of reverting her back to Windows 7, but then she wouldn't be in line with Audrey and I would have a spare copy of Windows 8.1 laying around.

EDIT: Fixed it. I had to do the following at this MS forum... <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://tinyurl.com/ntabz8t">http://tinyurl.com/ntabz8t</a><!-- m --> In my case though, I had to boot Greta in Safe Mode as I was unable to stop the Windows Update service otherwise. I had to rename the Windows Update "SoftwareDistribution" folder, and it worked.

I use few Metro apps myself, but I still prefer to keep them updated.