Inside CNET Labs Podcast

Testing made more pleasant: HP's LP2275w

Eric Franklin — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:48:00 PST

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CBS Interactive)

If it were up to me, a new monitor would break CNET's performance record every week. When a display performs well, the actual testing is just a little less stressful, since I'm not considering putting my fist through it every five minutes (I tend to overreact).

A monitor hasn't impressed me since reviewing the Dell UltraSharp 2408WFP. The HP LP2275w is currently the top performer in our DisplayMate-based performance tests. I'm kind of a sucker for wide viewing angles, and the HP monitor has one of the best I've ever seen.

According to HP, the display has a 118 percent color gamut, which basically means it can do many more variances of color than a typical monitor could and it definitely proved to be more than a formidable competitor in our color tests.

Check out the review to find out where exactly it excelled in DisplayMate and how it fared in games and movies.

Originally posted at Crave

Organize your corner with ezGear's new power extender

Dong Ngo — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 11:36:00 PST

(Credit: The six-socket ezSpace UFO power expander.)

Trying to put more electronics in a tight corner and running out of power outlets? ezGear has a solution, and it comes in a compact package.

The company announced Monday at CES its newest wall mount power expander, called the ezSpace UFO.

Taking the shape of a flying object, the ezSpace UFO is a six-outlet plug expander with built-in 1050 Joule surge protection that provides space for a large plug or transformer on each outlet.

The ezSpace Wall Mount UFO plugs directly into the power outlet on your wall and provides the same six outlets standard on other models. The device features an LED indicator and a reset button on the front (to be used in case of a surge when the device shuts down).

In the middle, the ezSpace UFO also houses a screw for you to secure it to the wall. This way, it will stay in place even with multiple large transformers plugged in.

Personally, I'd like one of these for my home office so I can decommission the existing power extender that has a humongous cable. Unfortunately, the device is not available until the second quarter of 2009.

Originally posted at CES 2009

Batman motion comic impresses, but is it worth your 99 cents?

Eric Franklin — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 15:10:00 PST

The Joker takes over the Gotham underworld

I first mentioned the Batman: Black and White Motion Comic a couple weeks back and went on bit about how much I'm in love with ol' Bats and how we're getting married and planning our lives together. Hmmm, actually I may not have mentioned the whole marriage and lives together thing...until now.

Anyway, I finally got a chance to check out the first five episodes on iTunes and my initial reaction after watching all five is bring on more. Now.

Black and White is a motion comic developed by Warner Premiere, and is a direct translation of the Batman: Black and White comic book anthology from the 90's which featured superstar writers and artists, like Paul Dini, Alex Ross and Dave Gibbons. They've basically taken the art and added subtle and not so subtle animation here and there to mostly great affect.

My favorite episodes are "Good Evening, Midnight" (from episode four), which includes narration by Thomas Wayne (Batman's dad) and is juxtaposed with Batman's actions from that night. This episode makes me wonder if Blizzard was inspired by it to make the Wrath intro. Then there's "Two of a Kind" (from episode two) starring Two-Face in an interesting love triangle with twin sisters. Two-Face has always been one of my favorite Batman characters, and he's used brilliantly here. My favorite of all, though, was called "Case Study" (also from episode two) and focused on the Joker. It has a great back story and asked the question of whether he really is insane or not.

I have to put in the good word about the music here. Each story had its own score, and each does a great job at establishing the mood.

Each of the episode includes two stories and the episodes range from a little over 6 minutes to over 11. Unlike Watchmen, there are multiple voice actors used, including thankfully, real female actors. The voices are fitting for the most part, although Batman's voice did take some getting used to it as it sounded a bit too sinister at times. Also, I'm more a Kevin Conroy and Christian Bale man myself. It wasn't until another great episode, "Perpetual Mourning" (included with episode five) that the voice really started to grow on me.

Like I said, I can't wait for the next episodes. These are very well-done short pieces of entertainment. Perhaps a little too short, however. Some episodes are as short as 6 minutes, and although they include at least two stories, $0.99 may not be worth it for such a small morsel. Doing the math however, $0.99 per six minutes works out to be about the cost of a $20, two-hour DVD.

If you're a Batman fan, get them. All of them. Now. If you're just curious, I'd say the second episode is worth trying and if you like that, you'll at least like the others.

Originally posted at Crave

Chances are, you can't use Apple's new LED display yet

Eric Franklin — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:13:04 PST

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CBS Interactive)

After a little teasing, we finally have the full review of the Apple 24-inch LED Cinema Display.

The most disappointing thing about the display is that unless you own a MacBook with a Mini DisplayPort connection, you won't be able to use it. That is until third parties release a Mini DisplayPort to DVI adapter for it.

Since we could only test it on a MacBook, you won't see any performance numbers here, since our DisplayMate-based performance scores are based on a specific configuration. We do try to give as much performance perspective as possible, however.

Check out the full review to see how it performed. However, I will say this, the speakers on this thing are some of the best sounding I've ever heard coming from a monitor.

At one point, I was in our small enclosed monitor test room and had the sound way up while testing it with Kill Bill Vol. 1. After I came out of the room, I got a couple of comments from co-workers like "We can here you playing your video games in there, so we know you're not really working." They said they could "hear the swords slicing through the air with distinct clarity."

Good for the speakers, bad for any hopes I had of keeping my ruse going.

Originally posted at Crave

Cool party favor or life-saving tool? You be the judge

Eric Franklin — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 10:21:00 PST

"Should I drive home or not? Luckily I have this useful tool that will make the decision for me."

(Credit: davidsteele.com)

So you're at a party late one night. You really hadn't planned on getting this drunk. Who knows, though, maybe you're not as drunk as you feel. Wouldn't it be great if there was some way to know just how drunk you are before you attempt to drive home?

OK, that was the basic setup right? I throw a hypothetical situation out there and then the next paragraph is supposed to read something like "Well Bob Loblaw feels the same way, and he has a solution for you called X". With this product, though, I feel so conflicted about its usefulness that I feel reluctant to give you the sell, but I guess you have to know what it is, so here goes.

It's actually David Steele (of davidsteele.com), not Bob Loblaw, who wants you to buy a personal breathalyzer called the iBreath. For about $80 it connects to and is powered by your iPhone or iPod and also doubles as an FM transmitter. This allows you to transmit your music to an FM tuner.

I don't know, I really don't know how to feel about a personal breathalyzer. Personally, I never put myself in a situation where I'm driving after drinking anything more than like two beers. For me, that just doesn't happen. I do know people however, who do put themselves in situations like this on a regular basis.

Yes, it could save lives, and any device that could easily save even one life is a device worth existing. My feeling though is if you're the type of person who would drive drunk, wouldn't you do it anyway, no matter what a breathalyzer told you? Most people I know who drive drunk usually "know" what they can handle, and some little device isn't gonna change their minds if it's already been made up.

Also, does it come with other mouthpeices? I mean, cause you know as soon as you whip this thing out at a party or bar, there's gonna be a line of drunk dudes like "dush, you gotta leth me thry sthat".

Could be a great party favor or could actually save lives. In the interest of the holiday spirit, here's hoping it's both.

Originally posted at Crave

Happy ending for computer disaster in Vietnam

Dong Ngo — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 09:00:00 PST

Technicians reassemble my broken Dell Inspiron 530s' parts into a new case with a working power supply.

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CBS Interactive)

Editor's note: CNET editor and Crave contributor Dong Ngo is spending part of December in his homeland of Vietnam. This is the last in his series of dispatches chronicling his impressions of how technology has permeated the culture there. Click here for more of Dong's stories from abroad.

HANOI, Vietnam--Prior to my trip to Vietnam, I bought a Dell Inspiron 530s desktop computer as a special American gift for my 11-year-old niece in Hanoi.

Despite the relatively light weight and small form factor of the PC, at San Francisco International Airport, I ended up having to pay a $60 overweight fee. This was mostly because the airline significantly lowered the allowed weight for checked-in luggage, and I wasn't aware of that.

Upon arriving in Hanoi, I personally delivered the gift and set it up for the little girl. Everybody gathered around with excitement as they waited for the moment of truth. As I plugged the power cord into the wall socket, we heard a "pop" sound and smoke came out of the tower. I was dumbfounded. "So much for American-standard quality!" I thought to myself.

But it was not America's fault, it was me. As it turned out, Vietnam uses a 220-voltage power standard, while America uses a 110-voltage one. Out of excitement and ignorance, I plugged the computer in without switching the power supply unit (PSU) of the computer to support 220 volts and, of course, it burned! It was pure physics.

What was hard to quantify was my niece's level of frustration and my own disappointment. I personally picked the specs and rebuilt the machine to run Windows XP (from its manufacturer-installed Windows Vista). Just one moment of negligence, and everything seemed ruined.

It would be rather easy to call Dell and get the part replaced in America, but over here it's an entirely different story. There's no Dell support office in Vietnam and it would take weeks, if not months, to have the particular PSU shipped here from America. The scary notion of having to haul the broken computer back to the States entered my mind.

The computer's PSU is Dell-proprietary for a small form factor computer, and therefore it would be very hard to find a generic replacement. After weeks of periodically trying to get help from the States to no avail, just a day before leaving Vietnam, I decided to bring the computer to a local repair shop as a last resort. I didn't harbor much hope.

It was a small shop with a design that showed the owner's effort to look professional. There was a reception desk, glass cases that hold different types of computer accessories, a few staffers wearing ties, and a few desks with chairs where customers could sit and wait. Nonetheless, the place somehow seemed rather disorganized and semi-pro at best.

But the look was misleading.

After hearing me explain my problem, a man named Duy removed the PSU from the PC to inspect. He then told me what I was afraid to hear: the unit was toasted beyond repair and there was no replacement for it in Hanoi. "But you can move the working parts of the computer into a new case with a new working power supply," Duy suggested.

I personally had thought of this but knew it would be a hassle, if even possible at all, to find a case and a PSU that support Dell's proprietary motherboard. "Don't worry, we'll take care of that!" Duy assured me. He then told me it would take only 30 minutes to get the job done and that I was welcome to wait.

I did a lot more than waiting; I decided to watch and time the work with my iPhone. Two technicians came up and tried out different PSUs with the motherboard, and they found one that worked after a few tries. They then started to dismantle the Dell and reassemble its guts into another computer case. Exactly 24 minutes later, the Inspiron 530s had been transformed into a new generic-looking computer, booting up into the system I built a while ago.

While what happened wasn't hard, it took a lot of patience and willingness. More importantly, it was a job well done. And I admired the helpful attitude of the people at the shop.

I couldn't help comparing this to our CNET Labs' intern Sharon Vaknin's experience at Best Buy when she tried to get her unbootable laptop fixed just prior to my trip. Best Buy didn't even try to help her save her documents (which I ended up doing for her) and told her that the process of getting the computer fixed would take weeks.

There's one thing that Best Buy and the local repair shop I visited have in common, however. Both charge in dollars. It was $24 for the job, parts and labor. And it was $24 well spent.

It's too bad the computer is no longer American-looking, but personally, I think it's worth much more. The best part is that if it breaks again, I know it will be properly and quickly taken care of.

Welcome to Vietnam. Unfortunately, I have to say goodbye already.

The PSU that I accidentally toasted; it will stay in Vietnam.

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CBS Interactive)

Originally posted at Crave

Gmail gets one-button dump option

Eric Franklin — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 09:31:00 PST

(Credit: Eric Franklin/CBS Interactive)

Turning your Gmail into an editable document used to be as simple as one, two, three clicks. Thanks to a new Gmail feature, however, it's now as simple as, well, one click.

Created by Jeremie LE and David K, the new feature, when activated, lets you turn the contents of an e-mail into a Google document with the click of a button.

To activate this feature, from your Gmail account click on Settings, then click on the Labs link. Scroll down to the Create a Document section. Check Enable and click Save changes. Now, you'll see a Create a Document option to the right of whatever thread you're viewing. Clicking on it will dump the entire thread into a Google document. Simple, easy.

When I first read about this, I thought "Wow, how lazy do you have to be that you can't just copy and paste your e-mail into Google doc?" Well, you are very lazy if you can't just do that. However ,if dumping your e-mail into a doc is something you do on a regular basis, this feature makes this process much more convenient. I'm a person that makes Google Docs constantly and many of them are based on an e-mail--usually an idea I've sent myself, so for me a one button option makes idea dumping that much more efficient.

Originally posted at Webware

Vietnam: Where pirated apps match personal budgets

Dong Ngo — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 08:00:00 PST

The bootlegging in operation at a store in Hanoi, one of many such shops that sell pirated goods.

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CBS Interactive)

Editor's note: CNET editor and Crave contributor Dong Ngo is spending part of December in his homeland of Vietnam and is filing occasional dispatches chronicling his impressions of how technology has permeated the culture there. Click here for more of Dong's stories from abroad.

HANOI, Vietnam--You say you can't afford the $699 price tag on Adobe Photoshop CS4? How about a $698 discount?

That's the kind of deal you'll get here in Hanoi, where pirated software--and virtually any other kind of digital content--is sold indiscriminately at many local shops for about $15,000 dong (90 cents) per DVD, or half of that for a CD.

These shops are open, just like any legitimate business. I checked one out and was impressed by the number of software titles it carried. While there, I also learned a thing or two about the piracy industry here in Vietnam.

The store I visited is a small shop facing a busy street, with walls covered in CD and DVD sleeves--all black and white copies of those found in the original software package.

"I hate having to use some sort of hack for them to work, but it's worth it. It's a no-brainer, really."

--Trung, college student,
Vietnam

Virtually any PC software application I've ever heard of can be found here: Windows operating systems, popular Office suites, and high-end professional software such as Photoshop, AudoCad, and Corel Draw, are available in any versions. I even found different builds of Windows 7, which is currently still in pre-beta and is supposedly available to only a limited few.

These software applications, of course, come with "crack"--a hacking application that allows for bypassing the vendors' antipiracy mechanism. All are guaranteed to work; if not, you'll get another copy that does or get your money back.

Out of curiosity, I asked one of the shop's two operators, Nam--a friendly 24-year-old man--where this copious amount of software comes from. He said there's somebody who gets his shop the "master" copy of any titles he wants, and the master copy costs just about $5.

I made up a fancy name of a nonexistent software title and asked for it. After searching his large database to no avail, Nam indeed picked up the phone and made a quick call. After that he told me to come back the next day. "They don't have it now, but they probably will soon, don't worry!" he said, sounding very sure.

Of course, not everything in this shop is bootlegged. There is also stuff you can legally download for free, such as OpenOffice, Linux distros, and service packs. It's a good way to save time and Internet bandwidth at home.

The shop's business is going very well. Nam said it sells about $100 worth of discs a day, which comes to about $3,000 a month. However, Nam himself gets paid only $150 a month, which is a little above average for a Hanoian.

A short list of what you can get at one Hanoi store for less than $1 per DVD.

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CBS Interactive)

It's interesting to note that Nam, if he ever wanted Photoshop SC4, would have to save for months before he could afford it at the full retail price. Maybe that's the main reason bootlegging is so rampant here in Vietnam.

I talked to Trung, a college student, who stopped by the shop to fetch the latest revision of Medal of Honor. Trung is an avid gamer whose knowledge of video games could easily land him a job at GameSpot, even in these tough economic times.

He told me there's no way he could afford any of the games he's played--and he's played a lot of them--at the retail price. "I hate having to use some sort of hack for them to work, but it's worth it. It's a no-brainer, really," he said. The truth is that getting even one game legally could easily cost a student like him a whole month of food and rent.

According to the Business Software Alliance's and International Data Corporation's Fifth Annual Global Software Piracy Study (PDF), 85 percent of all software currently used in Vietnam is pirated. In 2007, piracy in Vietnam accounted for $200 million in losses for copyright owners.

I wonder how they came up with that number, however, as it is hard to calculate what the real "loss" would be if antipiracy laws were strictly enforced. Most people here would stop using a lot of software applications at all. They simply could not afford them.

The truth is the law doesn't seem to be strictly enforced here. Asked what would happen if the police found out, Nam said that he knows all the officers in the local unit and that they know what the shop does. He hinted that there was some sort of arrangement and the shop would close on those days, several times a year, when antipiracy inspectors head out to clean up bootlegged software.

In the event that the owners get caught and their equipment is confiscated, it's not hard to start anew. All a software shop needs are a couple of computers equipped with fast burners and large hard drives.

It seems bootlegging and using bootlegged software have become so common that nobody here considers those practices illegal or even "bad." They don't even seem aware of the fact that the software might come with malicious code designed to compromise their computer's security. It's going to take a long time for people here to change this mentality, if that's even possible.

In the meantime, it would probably be helpful to price the software differently for low-income parts of the world, such as Vietnam. After all, it's better for software vendors to have their products used for less than for nothing. And I would think that it's still better to have them used for nothing than not used at all.

The good news is that there are vendors that are making just such price adjustments. BitDefender, for example, has been using separate pricing for the Vietnamese market. Its Total Security 2009 suite, for example, costs $59.95 in the U.S. but only 399,000 dong ($24) in Vietnam. Kaspersky is doing the same thing.

While these two won't change much about the piracy landscape in Vietnam for now (and I think their prices could still go a little lower), they will hopefully raise awareness that legitimate software can be affordable, help create jobs, and come with benefits that are worth the price. Now that's a start.

Originally posted at Crave

From regret to redemption: My experience with 'Midnight Club LA'

Eric Franklin — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 13:12:00 PST

Wayne Cunningham is an evil, evil man who obviously takes pleasure in the suffering of others. Case in point: Midnight Club Los Angeles. A few weeks ago Wayne offered me a copy of the game on the Xbox 360.

I went down to Wayne's ~~lair~~ office and asked for the game. When dealing with the devil there are always strings attached, and before I could leave his office he asked me to make sure I write something up on the game. Damn. OK, playing games is one thing, but the pressure to actually have to write something up on it afterward changes the experience. Now I actually have to play it sometime soon and pay attention.

Motorcycles?!! Wow, i haven't gotten that far yet.

(Credit: Rockstar Games)

This won't be a review of the game. I haven't spent nearly enough time with it for that. No, this will be more of an assessment of how seemingly pathetic my gaming skills have gotten since I began playing World of Warcraft.

I've always considered my myself a good gamer as far as skill goes. I was never at the level of the savants who come into an arcade and beat you silly while hardly looking at the screen. My skill was always at a level where I could beat most players that I encountered, no matter the game, and I finished most games (at normal difficulty) the same day I started playing them.

So imagine my surprise when Midnight Club Los Angeles proceeded to chew me up and spit me out in the first few hours of play. The game is a street racer. You basically drive around L.A., looking for computer-controlled opponents to race.

In those first few hours, I could not for the life of me win a single race. Not even the first race, which in games is usually a freebie designed to teach you the basic concept and make you feel better about yourself by making it very easy to win.

This game required skills I apparently no longer had. Most of the races took place at night or dusk and there were times when I'd be in the lead, only to have a pedestrian car seemingly come out of nowhere and WAM! Back in fifth. Me, screaming at the TV with obscenities that would make the late, great George Carlin proud.

This would not have been nearly as frustrating if one, my gaming ego wasn't so low, and two, the computer-controlled players didn't proceed to lay into me every time I lost or made a mistake. I guess Rockstar Games did a good job on immersion as I immediately felt like I was in this world and had to prove myself as a racer.

OK, this blog was supposed to end soon after that last paragraph, with me in a virtual fetal position sobbing about my lost glory days. Then, a funny thing happened. I started to win. Easily.

I got used to the slipstreaming system--which allows you to slingshot around cars after spending a moment directly behind them. I could see parked cars in the middle of the street a mile away (well, a block away at least), and all of a sudden the comments from the AI cars were less, "Last place?! You'll have to do way better than that sucka!" and more, "It's not about being in first place during the race, it's about finishing."

And I did finish. In first place. Again and again. So forget all that emo crap I spouted in almost every paragraph before this one. Oh, and also Wayne Cunningham is a good man with good values and should be an inspiration to us all.

What did I learn? Winning is everything and losing is dumb, cause as a great man once said, "If you ain't first, you're last."

Originally posted at The Car Tech blog

Wits, tech, and a bit of luck locate stolen Xbox

Eric Franklin — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 11:30:00 PST

Hey kids. You know how your parents tell you you're never going to learn anything if you keep playing video games? Well, they're wrong.

You can at least learn how to find your game system if it's ever stolen...by someone stupid enough to keep it relatively close to you. Also, it has to be an Xbox 360. Yeah, so as long as you meet those criteria, then you can learn something. Otherwise, no. Nothing to learn, at all.

That little controller saves lives. Well maybe not lives per se, but at least money, which can equal lives. Yeah, that's it.

(Credit: Microsoft)

According to The Standard Online, Missouri State University student Ryan Ketsenburg had his Xbox 360 stolen after he and his roommate neglected to lock the door to their dorm room.

Once he saw that the thieves had failed to also steal the 360's wireless controller, he also realized that the controller was still in contact with the Xbox. After that, through the process of elimination, he was able to find the console.

A controller that's registered to an Xbox 360 has a range of about 30 feet. If the controller is further than that from the system, the LEDs will begin to flash. Knowing this, Ketsenburg determined that his system was on the fifth floor of his dorm. He got the fifth floor attendant to open the door of the room he'd narrowed it down to, found his system, and was able to prove it was his by using the controller to turn the system on. The Xbox was then given back to him.

There are obviously two morals here. The first, know your tech. If you're just playing games without understanding how the technology behind your systems is working, then start doing that. Current-generation consoles have really cool technology running them, both on the software and hardware fronts.

The second moral obviously: if you're going to steal an Xbox, make sure you steal the controller as well.

Originally posted at Crave