Tetsuo Time

I was looking at apple's web site and the highest they offer for a build to order option for the current Mac Mini is 160GB... I actually have a bigger hard drive now than Apple offers for its high end option for the Mini (I have 250GB). When\if they update the mini I hope they up the max size they offer on their site for build to order otherwise I'll have to get a 3rd party upgrade again. I'd want at least a 500GB hard drive as an upgrade to what I have now.... everything has to be faster\more capacity when I upgrade. =P

My family is getting an AppleTV and I plan on upgrading its hard drive later on....

Or better yet.... I'm going to get a 1TB NAS with iTunes server support. Then I would rip all our DVDs to it and they would be on demand accessible on the AppleTV or any computer that has iTunes. That way they no longer have to handle DVDs which is good because my dad in particular isn't good about putting the DVDs back into the case right away and is known to leave them laying around collecting dust and getting scratched. I will also install applications such as boxee so we can access the online video services there such as hulu, youtube, netflix online, etc. With that setup and DTV we will be kind of like, "Who needs cable?"

It turns out I was correct about their computer. It pretty much was the hard drive that was in need of replacement. That hard drive they had had been dying for years. The new hard drive came in the post on Friday. I transferred all the screws from the old drive that latch onto the brackets in the case into the new drive. I slapped it in.. plugged all the cords and powered on the computer. The computer detected the drive right away and I was able to format it and get it started installing the operating system.

So yeah their computer is now fully functional again after me having spent hours reinstalling everything from scratch. Plus they have an extra 20GB to boot. The old drive was 60GB and the new drive is 80GB. We have no use for that other drive anymore though since it's not even accepting power anymore.

It should be almost like nothing happened when they sit down at the computer although they do know about the old hard drive dying since I had to tell them so they could authorize me ordering a new one.

It turns out I was correct about their computer. It pretty much was the hard drive that was in need of replacement. That hard drive they had had been dying for years. The new hard drive came in the post on Friday. I transferred all the screws from the old drive that latch onto the brackets in the case into the new drive. I slapped it in.. plugged all the cords and powered on the computer. The computer detected the drive right away and I was able to format it and get it started installing the operating system.

So yeah their computer is now fully functional again after me having spent hours reinstalling everything from scratch. Plus they have an extra 20GB to boot. The old drive was 60GB and the new drive is 80GB. We have no use for that other drive anymore though since it's not even accepting power anymore.

It should be almost like nothing happened when they sit down at the computer although they do know about the old hard drive dying since I had to tell them so they could authorize me ordering a new one.

I ended up figuring out how to add\remove hard drives on that computer I posted about earlier. Like I said, the side panel to access the motherboard was easy to open. It has a tool-less screw that you can unscrew with your fingers. However the rest of the case's cover is a one piece deal that is riveted to the case many times.

However I noticed that there is a green plastic bracket covering the drive cage. The drive screws which usually attach the drive to the drive cage go into some catches there with one screw to firmly secure the drive. Well, I had to remove the front panel of the computer with its latches and slightly pull the catches for the drive and slide it out.

I slid out the hard drive and found out it's an Ultra ATA Seagate U Series 7 60GB hard drive. I can find an 80GB 7200RPM one that should be compatible for about $34 bucks or less. So I have bad news for my family but I also have potential good news. Much better than the $80 one I found before when not knowing the exact kind of hard drive it had.

If that doesn't work there's something more serious wrong with the computer such as a bad hard disk controller. If that's the case that computer is ready for the junk pile I'm afraid. I don't think I'd want to have them buy other parts such as a new motherboard, CPU, RAM, etc.

It's a good thing that they don't have anything terribly important on there. Everything in there is going to be lost unless we have a data recovery service performed on it which is probably not worth it.

By the way HP swallowed up Compaq a few years ago and they only have basic support on their site for the Compaq computers from before the acquisition. Things such as archived drivers from the last time they where revised for that computer. The only documentation they have to download is a list of support numbers. There isn't anyplace where I could find specific information like specs so I can find out what type of hard drive it uses. So this was the only way I could find out.

( Video inside )

It's "presented" by John Woo and it's called "Stranglehold". I might have told a few friends reading this about this game before but today I found some footage of what the game is going to be like and I think it's going to be great. It's almost like it takes Max Payne and bumps it up to the next level. Besides the typical moves which I do in most first and third person shooters that control similarly and that is running and shooting independently (For example, circle around a person while keeping your gun trained on them) and dodge around using those techniques and jumping.

Max Payne added diving to any side while shooting in another direction and being able to slow it down with bullet time to get the drop on other characters this adds even more to that. In Stranglehold as you can see in the video I'm embedding you can for example do a combo move by running sideways.. kicking off a wall, sliding on a rail.. falling onto a cart and having it slide across the floor from your momentum all while shooting in the desired direction. Those are the types of moves that I'd be excited to make use of in gameplay especially when the weapons will also destroy the environment so it's like you are controlling a hong kong action flick. I can already tell this game will be hellah fun for me.

If the controls are good I can see me wanting to get as creative as I can with the combo moves in the game.. and that's because I used to be so into playing certain fighting games over and over trying to discover new combo moves.

Plus the graphics are going to look very good because they run on the same engine as Unreal Tournament 2007 although this video obviously doesn't do it justice.. especially to how good Chow Yun Fat looks in the game. Only thing I'm not so sure about is whether or not Stranglehold will have multiplayer because I wonder how the bullet time would work in multiplayer. Multiplayer was not in either Max Payne games which had similar gameplay. This is one of those games that I get really excited about because I feel it brings something new to a tried and true genre just like how I got excited over Prey.

They say Chow Yun Fat is reprising his role from the John Woo movie "Hardboiled" which I don't remember seeing so I'm going to want to watch it.

You know what.. an 80GB hard drive is definitely not enough space for someone like me. When\if I get a new computer I'm going to want at least 120GB although even that may not be enough when you consider growing video, music and game libraries and that the space that videos and especially games are getting bigger and bigger. For example compare how much space the original Unreal Tournament took up to how much 2004 takes up. Even Lego Star Wars takes up a GB or two. Then imagine how much space I will chew through if I go with a TV tuner card and start taking advantage of DVR and HD video! Even though I do end up burning my videos to discs and removing them from the hard drive the still get stored on there until I'm ready to burn them.