No wonder this book as been a best-seller for a long time. The book has a very good combination of academic and personal essay styles. Very easy to read and very convincing.
Dr. Robert Cialdini explains, out of curiosity from his personal experiences and his academic research, what makes people agree to the “compliance agent”, such as sales people.
It is definitely a great training material for sales people and con artists, but it also deals with how we, on the other side, can detect the tactics and avoid traps.
A very good and informative read.
A comment pointed me to another version of the Zotac IONITX board that is a bit more expensive, but also has a few more features.
The prices are based on November 24th, 2009.
- Case: Apex MI-008 ($39.99) – 250W is a bit overkill. I doubt this system will use more than 60W.
- Motherboard/Memory Combo: Zotac IONITX-F-E + 2×1GB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz SO-DIMM ($214.98) – The board has a 16x PCI-e and nVidia ION (GeForce 9400M) can enable Blu-ray playback. It also has an internal WiFi card (supposedly 802.11n) to make the network connection easy.
- Tuner: AVerTVHD Duet ($64.99) – Dual ATSC-only tuner.
- HDD: 1GB Western Digital Caviar Green ($84.99)
- OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit OEM ($104.99) – For Windows Media Center.
- Keyboard/Mouse: IOGear GKM561R Wireless RF mini keyboard/trackball ($48.99)
- Remote (optional): Anyware GP-IR01BK ($23.74)
- Optical Drive (optional): LITE-ON BD-ROM ($67.99) – I can do without this initially.
The total is
$558.93 (without optional stuff). With 2% cashback, you get about $11.18 back (or one can try to find a better deal with other sites since with NewEgg, I’d have to pay a CA sales tax).
This setup is slightly more expensive than #4 using Zotac IONITX-G-E. But IONITX-F-E has (at least) two advantages. 1) WiFi and 2) digital S/PDIF (one optical and one coaxial).
I decided I really don’t need 64-bit OS and I think I can live with 2GB. Also, I think a wireless keyboard/mouse is a better choice than a remote.
With the announcement of Adobe Flash 10.1 Beta, the nVidia ION system seems even more attractive as an HTPC. Also, it seems NewEgg is carrying the new Zotac ION board. Also, through Bing Shopping, NewEgg is offering some (2%) moneyback.
The prices are based on November 20th, 2009.
- Case: Apex MI-008 ($39.99) – 250W is a bit overkill. I doubt this system will use more than 60W.
- Motherboard: Zotac IONITX-G-E ($159.99) – has a 16x PCI-e (update: actually, just a 1x PCI-e) and nVidia ION (GeForce 9400M) can enable Blu-ray playback.
- Tuner: AVerTVHD Duet ($64.99) – Dual ATSC-only tuner.
- Memory: 2×2GB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz SO-DIMM ($85.99) – I believe 4GB is the max for the motherboard.
- HDD: 1GB Western Digital Caviar Green ($84.99)
- OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM ($104.99) – For Windows Media Center.
- Remote: Anyware GP-IR01BK ($23.74)
- Optical Drive (optional): LITE-ON BD-ROM ($67.99) – I can do without this initially.
The total is
$564.68 (or $632.67 with the optical drive). With 2% moneyback, it becomes $553.39.
The possible adjustable stuff is the memory and the hard disk drive. With 2GB, you can save about $45. With a 500GB drive, about $30. But I am not so sure if that’s worth it ($495 vs. $565).
Reading this book was more like reading a Ph.D paper. Besides, the idea seems interesting, but the arguments and evidence weren’t there to me. Quite disappointing.
Another attempt… Probably closer to what I would do. The prices are based on November 4th, 2009.
- Case: Apex MI-008 ($39.99) – 250W is a bit overkill. I doubt this system will use more than 60W.
- Motherboard: Pegatron IPX7A-ION 330 ($149.00, the same as POV ION330) or Zotac IONITX-G-E (MSRP seems to be $159.99, but not yet available in the U.S., it seems) – both have a 16x PCI-e (update: Zotac IONITX-G-E has only a 1x PCI-e) and nVidia ION (GeForce 9400M) can enable Blu-ray playback.
- Tuner: AVerTVHD Duet ($59.99) – Dual ATSC-only tuner.
- Memory: 1×2GB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz SO-DIMM ($42.99) – Just in case, I want to add an extra 2GB stick.
- HDD: 1GB Western Digital Caviar Green ($84.99)
- OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM ($109.99) – For Windows Media Center.
- Remote: Anyware GP-IR01BK ($24.99)
- Optical Drive (optional): LITE-ON BD-ROM ($67.99) – I can do without this initially.
The total is $511.94 (or $579.93 with the optical drive).
The only thing is my TV doesn’t have an HDMI port. I don’t know what the VGA quality will be like. Time to upgrade the TV (and the pre-amp)? :p
After searching around, I found a PCI-e dual ATSC tuner that has a Linux driver (not sure how reliable). The prices are as of October 30, 2009.
- Case: Apex MI-008 ($39.99) – 250W is a bit overkill. I doubt this system will use more than 60W.
- Motherboard: Pegatron IPX7A-ION 330 ($149.00) – the same as POV ION330, has a 16x PCI-e and nVidia ION (GeForce 9400M) can enable Blu-ray playback. There seems to be a linux driver (look at the second and third messages).
- Tuner: Hauppauge WinTV-DVR-2250 ($99.94) – Dual ATSC tuner with Linux support.
- Memory: 2×1GB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz SO-DIMM ($39.99)
- HDD: 1GB Western Digital Caviar Green ($84.99)
- OS: Mythubuntu (+ XBMC or boxee) ($0.00, but to get guide information, it’s $20.00/year)
- Remote (optional): Anyware GP-IR01BK ($24.99)
- Optical Drive (optional): LG BD-ROM ($109.99) – I can do without this initially.
So, that’s $413.91 + $20/year (or $548.89 with optional stuff).
The real difference without the subscription fee is the tuner and the OS, so that difference is about $60 between a Linux build and a Windows build. However, considering that Linux can run with a slightly lower spec (RAM, for example), it could actually be close to $100.
I think the guide data used to be free, but now it’s not. So, with $100, that’s 5-year’s worth of guide data… Not so sure about that…
Update: It seems Zotac announced a new ION board with a PCI-e 1x slot, IONITX-G-E “Synergy”. It’s MSRP is $139.99 and supposedly, it’s already released in Europe. This would be a good alternative.
I’ve talked about ideas for Atom-based DVR / HTPC before.
Now, it seems we have all the parts needed to build one. Here is an example. The prices were taken as of October 27th, 2009.
- Case: Apex MI-008 ($39.99) – 250W is a bit overkill. I doubt this system will use more than 60W.
- Motherboard: Pegatron IPX7A-ION 330 ($149.00) – the same as POV ION330, has a 16x PCI-e and nVidia ION (GeForce 9400M) can enable Blu-ray playback.
- Tuner: AVerTVHD Duet ($59.99) – Dual ATSC-only tuner. Too bad there isn’t a Linux driver.
- Memory: 2×2GB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz SO-DIMM ($74.99) – Less should be okay.
- HDD: 1GB Western Digital Caviar Green ($84.99)
- Optical Drive (optional): LG BD-ROM ($129.99) – I can do without this initially.
- Remote (optional): Adesso ARC-1100 ($21.99)
- OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM ($109.99) – For Windows Media Center.
So, the total is $670.93 (or $518.95 without “optional” stuff). I would have loved to use MythTV and XBMC on Ubuntu, but the Linux driver support for internal dual ATSC tuners are non-existent.
Not sure, if I will get to working on it right away (I still have one more year of TiVo subscription), but it seems to be a good start.
Dr. Kessler talks about a subject that I have been struggling with for my entire life. While some of the biological research results he talked about were interesting and enlightening, I am not sure if his proposed solutions are anything new (and they are quite generic). I doubt we’ll see “The End of Overeating” anytime soon.
The organization of the book was a bit odd. It consisted of many short chapters and to me, it felt like some of the chapters were concluded prematurely.
Anyway, it is an interesting read for sure. Just don’t expect to solve your overeating problems after reading it.
Some time ago, I talked about my wish to build an Intel Atom-based HD DVR, and it turns out I am not the only one.
Engadget is reporting that Intel just announced CE4100 at IDF2009. It’s an Intel Atom-based media processor that can decode two 1080p streams. It has a brother called CE3100 which has Pentium M as the core instead.
Of course, it’s a different matter for a DIY’er like me to get a hold of CE4100 since it is marketed as a media processor for cable boxes and Blu-ray players. It’s probably sold in volume, mainly to consumer electronics manufacturers.
Intel is trying to push itself and its PC manufacturers into the consumer electronics market, and CE4100 and CE3100 seem to be good attempts at it. I believe it’s going to be relatively new manufacturers (instead of the established consumer electronics companies such as Samsung and Sony) who will bring out products based on these media processors. And a lot of them will be traditionally PC hardware/OEM manufacturers.
And that’s where my hope is. I am hoping that manufacturers such as Zotac (which makes ION motherboards), ASUS (which makes ION motherboards and desktops), ASRock (which makes ION desktops) and Acer (which makes ION desktops), would come out with a CE4100-based motherboard or a desktop (with a PCIe slot for ATSC tuners).
I think Intel’s intent is to run Moblin on CE4100/CE3100. However, since the core is an x86 one, I am sure Windows 7 can be made to run.
It’s going to be very interesting…
I thought the organization of the chapters were interesting. Some stories were interesting. However, ultimately, this book by Stephen Baker felt too light on details for me.