Showing posts with label laptop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label laptop. Show all posts
15 September 2013
Tactile Response Controls
29 March 2013
Month of Meh
For as much as I put the URL for my Blogger page out there in my work, it may well be the site I neglect updating the most (with the possible exception of my Gamespot profile, but that doesn't quite count). I'd debated simply posting some of my recent artwork, which hasn't been anything terribly good since I'm focused on writing right now. I even resorted to digging up something I'd made years ago which was left in a drawer until recently.
The problem is that a lot of my work is a bit scattered because I'm slowly transitioning to a new computer. This means I'm officially back to using Windows, specifically 7. Protip: if you're in the market for a new computer, especially a laptop, make office supply stores like Staples and OfficeMax priorities as they clearance things out all the time, making for some very good deals. I had considered going with 8, but I just couldn't get past the tile interface. I'll get a Windows Phone before I bother with the OS on a full PC. In fact, I'm working on putting together a bootable USB drive that will let me run Linux Mint on the laptop if I ever want to use my more familiar version of GIMP. The Windows edition has some serious drawbacks, mostly with regards to the text tool. Adding signatures and watermarks to my images should not be this tedious. In the grand scheme of things, about the only upshots Windows 7 gives me is access to Skype as well as the full and proper use of my new scanner. Other than that, unless I get back into editing videos, Mint was perfectly serviceable. Still, it's nice knowing I have genuine options and don't have to rely entirely on freeware to get things done. There's nothing wrong with freeware, mind, except that there's absolutely no real QA and upgrades and fixes depend almost entirely on the whims of volunteers. Some have donation options which could conceivably be a way of getting needed changes made, but it's ultimately a free service and therefore no one really has a right to complain.
Speaking of taking things for granted, I found out about a most curious phenomena called crossed letters. It's also called cross-hatching, but it's not referring to the sketching technique of using repeating and crossed lines to create shading. What it is, simply, is a means of saving on paper by turning the sheet 90 degrees and carrying on writing. The idea is that paper was not only expensive, but postage wasn't much better, so people made the most out of what they had and resorted to making their letters look a little something like this:
It's not the best example; most of the samples I found online were in cursive, which seems to work a little better than print (ironic considering how inefficient cursive actually gets when you try to make it legible). Still, it's said that with time your brain works out what it's supposed to focus on and you learn to adapt to the weird presentation. It's a neat little experiment worth trying sometime. It's like using a quill/dip/fountain pen or learning a simple magic trick or speed dating; something everyone should try at least once, if only for the character-building.
On a dour note, things around the place have been a bit strained. Tensions are high, and while discussions were had, they didn't leave much all that resolved. Let me put it this way: I know being disabled is a difficult condition, and it's important for others to be sensitive to it. However, there's a point where being "considerate" amounts to walking on eggshells and living a kind of "nurse's sleep" that you not only feel trapped in, but are practically told you're supposed to lie back and accept because... there's really no good reason given, the closest to "sort of reasonable" being "if you've never experienced (blank), then you won't understand." which is kind of like saying only people with cancer have any business doing cancer research.
It makes me think of why I absolutely hate certain movies. Requiem for a Dream, for instance, commits what I consider the cardinal sin of narrative by trying to make me feel sorry for people whom I not only don't care about, but really want to get their respective wake-up calls. In short, a bunch of druggies try to "make it big" so take giant risks that either cost them their lives, their self-respect, and/or their freedom. The idea is that I'm supposed to scoff at these people, only for a naysayer to ask, "Well, haven't you ever had a dream? Didn't you make stupid decisions?" and instill in me a great epiphany that moves me to tears. Trouble is, relating to something doesn't mean you automatically approve of it. To put it another way, the stupid things I may have done, aren't things I deserve sympathy for, and probably wouldn't want it. To quote Star Trek V, a movie I sometimes feel gets erroneously mistreated, I need my pain. I've inadvertently sabotaged my own life at times, but not only do I not want a second chance to undo those screw-ups, I don't want people to feel sorry for me for them. Sometimes things really are black and white, right and wrong. Circumstances may count for many things, but it's not always a free pass.
What I'm saying is, I don't have to stick my hand in a fire to know it's hot, but that doesn't mean I can't warn people who want to see for themselves what all the fuss is about. As for sympathizing with those who get burned, well: How sorry can you really feel for an alcoholic? Sure, they've clearly gone through some awful hardships that have driven them to find solace in the contents of a highball glass, but at the end of the day, no one's force-feeding them the stuff, and you can only commiserate so much before you have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, pick a path, and stick to it. That's more or less where I'm at, and one of those paths involves leaving someone to face the same challenge, and I never like to walk away from problems.
Good night, and good luck.
Speaking of taking things for granted, I found out about a most curious phenomena called crossed letters. It's also called cross-hatching, but it's not referring to the sketching technique of using repeating and crossed lines to create shading. What it is, simply, is a means of saving on paper by turning the sheet 90 degrees and carrying on writing. The idea is that paper was not only expensive, but postage wasn't much better, so people made the most out of what they had and resorted to making their letters look a little something like this:
It's not the best example; most of the samples I found online were in cursive, which seems to work a little better than print (ironic considering how inefficient cursive actually gets when you try to make it legible). Still, it's said that with time your brain works out what it's supposed to focus on and you learn to adapt to the weird presentation. It's a neat little experiment worth trying sometime. It's like using a quill/dip/fountain pen or learning a simple magic trick or speed dating; something everyone should try at least once, if only for the character-building.
On a dour note, things around the place have been a bit strained. Tensions are high, and while discussions were had, they didn't leave much all that resolved. Let me put it this way: I know being disabled is a difficult condition, and it's important for others to be sensitive to it. However, there's a point where being "considerate" amounts to walking on eggshells and living a kind of "nurse's sleep" that you not only feel trapped in, but are practically told you're supposed to lie back and accept because... there's really no good reason given, the closest to "sort of reasonable" being "if you've never experienced (blank), then you won't understand." which is kind of like saying only people with cancer have any business doing cancer research.
It makes me think of why I absolutely hate certain movies. Requiem for a Dream, for instance, commits what I consider the cardinal sin of narrative by trying to make me feel sorry for people whom I not only don't care about, but really want to get their respective wake-up calls. In short, a bunch of druggies try to "make it big" so take giant risks that either cost them their lives, their self-respect, and/or their freedom. The idea is that I'm supposed to scoff at these people, only for a naysayer to ask, "Well, haven't you ever had a dream? Didn't you make stupid decisions?" and instill in me a great epiphany that moves me to tears. Trouble is, relating to something doesn't mean you automatically approve of it. To put it another way, the stupid things I may have done, aren't things I deserve sympathy for, and probably wouldn't want it. To quote Star Trek V, a movie I sometimes feel gets erroneously mistreated, I need my pain. I've inadvertently sabotaged my own life at times, but not only do I not want a second chance to undo those screw-ups, I don't want people to feel sorry for me for them. Sometimes things really are black and white, right and wrong. Circumstances may count for many things, but it's not always a free pass.
What I'm saying is, I don't have to stick my hand in a fire to know it's hot, but that doesn't mean I can't warn people who want to see for themselves what all the fuss is about. As for sympathizing with those who get burned, well: How sorry can you really feel for an alcoholic? Sure, they've clearly gone through some awful hardships that have driven them to find solace in the contents of a highball glass, but at the end of the day, no one's force-feeding them the stuff, and you can only commiserate so much before you have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, pick a path, and stick to it. That's more or less where I'm at, and one of those paths involves leaving someone to face the same challenge, and I never like to walk away from problems.
Good night, and good luck.
16 February 2013
So Today...
OR: Barnes & Noble, I Am Done With You!
Tagline: Unfairly, I admit, but done, dammit!
So, one of my New Year's resolutions was that I wanted to get into tabletop gaming, something I've always skirted the edges of, but never fully dived into apart from some gateway drugs like Hero Quest, Magic: The Gathering, owning a lot of Palladium books (mostly Robotech), & playing a single game of Battletech. To rectify this, I bought the Red Box from Thinkgeek and looked through its materials. Also, for reasons I don't recall at the moment, I wanted to play as a Tiefling. I had an idea for a character, but I didn't have any technical data to play as one. I did a lot of sloppy research and worked out that I was going to need the Essentials Rules Compendium and the Race Handbook for Tieflings. The former is a condensed version of the 4th Edition Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide, the other is basically a magazine (that will become important later).
I got a coupon from Barnes & Noble or, as I like to call them, Not Borders, and thought this would be the perfect chance to pick them up without waiting for them in the mail & potentially getting burned by finding out they're not what I need after all. I'm normally weary about "in-store pickups" but I've got that kind of luck where I could be after the most obscure thing in the world and get beaten to it by someone more offbeat than I pretend to be. I put in the reserve for the Tiefling race book (the magazine, a point I'll explain in a moment) and waited. This was Friday night, so I didn't get the message until morning. The message said that despite being listed as "in stock" it could not be found and put on reserve. No biggie, I thought; most of the reviews said it was only an art book of sorts. I tried to reserve the Compendium and had better luck. One 30-minute drive and a missed turn later, I got to the store with the coupon in my pocket.
It turns out there was more than one copy of the Compendium in stock, so I didn't have to do the potentially awkward thing of picking up the book at the desk and asking to look through it before purchasing it (that probably happens all the time, but it just feels awkward to reserve something and then DEMAND to inspect it--I'm the sort of guy who will go down the other aisle in a grocery store and double-back to where I need to go rather than simply excuse myself as I squeeze past someone's cart). Anyway, my research revealed the book was a bit vague on how much of a "condensing" of the two aforementioned books it was, with some of the races and player classes being relegated to a pair of companion volumes, which we'll just call Purple and Orange because I don't remember their names and don't feel like looking them up right now. It turns out Tieflings aren't in the Compendium, but in the Purple book. Fine, I thought, but I ended up deciding against getting the book anyway as it didn't really offer me any real information I hadn't already gathered (legitimately, I might add, no piracy or scans or downloads like that).
I should mention now that the Compendium, along with Purple and Orange, are thick paperbacks with very wide spines, distinctly standing out from the other books that usually crowd the gaming section of a bookstore. Meanwhile, the Tiefling race book is a pithy, staple-bound affair that can be fairly easily hidden between two larger books or campaign modules or DM screens or any such shelf-stretchers. As I was looking through the other books, including a Pathfinder book which actually had a lot of cool information about Tieflings I won't bore you with (except to say, they were really neutered between D&D 3.0/.5 and 4th Ed.), I came across the Tiefling race book. Apparently, no one had bothered to look any harder than simply glancing at the spines. I doubt they'd even actually set aside the Compendium, just leaving it there, figuring no one else would pick it up.
After pacing back and forth between there and the Moleskine stand (where they had one pocket-sized watercolor book left that I almost got instead), I resolved, "Screw this crap." and stormed out, even throwing my coupon in the trash outside.
I went next door to the Best Buy to look at laptops, and made an ass of myself as I tried to figure out how Windows 8 is supposed to work. I still can't get around the fact that the "desktop" is an application tile. That's insane, like having to call 411 to get your own number. Plus, is it just me, or are more desktop apps designed like mobile apps in that there's no real way to quit them? If it wasn't for Skype and better hardware compatibility (namely webcams) I wouldn't even be looking at Windows devices. Still, found a really cool Vaio. We'll see what happens there.
Some other crap happened, but it's more minor inconveniences amplified by all preceding events, so I won't go into it here.
Good night, and good luck.
Tagline: Unfairly, I admit, but done, dammit!
So, one of my New Year's resolutions was that I wanted to get into tabletop gaming, something I've always skirted the edges of, but never fully dived into apart from some gateway drugs like Hero Quest, Magic: The Gathering, owning a lot of Palladium books (mostly Robotech), & playing a single game of Battletech. To rectify this, I bought the Red Box from Thinkgeek and looked through its materials. Also, for reasons I don't recall at the moment, I wanted to play as a Tiefling. I had an idea for a character, but I didn't have any technical data to play as one. I did a lot of sloppy research and worked out that I was going to need the Essentials Rules Compendium and the Race Handbook for Tieflings. The former is a condensed version of the 4th Edition Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide, the other is basically a magazine (that will become important later).
I got a coupon from Barnes & Noble or, as I like to call them, Not Borders, and thought this would be the perfect chance to pick them up without waiting for them in the mail & potentially getting burned by finding out they're not what I need after all. I'm normally weary about "in-store pickups" but I've got that kind of luck where I could be after the most obscure thing in the world and get beaten to it by someone more offbeat than I pretend to be. I put in the reserve for the Tiefling race book (the magazine, a point I'll explain in a moment) and waited. This was Friday night, so I didn't get the message until morning. The message said that despite being listed as "in stock" it could not be found and put on reserve. No biggie, I thought; most of the reviews said it was only an art book of sorts. I tried to reserve the Compendium and had better luck. One 30-minute drive and a missed turn later, I got to the store with the coupon in my pocket.
It turns out there was more than one copy of the Compendium in stock, so I didn't have to do the potentially awkward thing of picking up the book at the desk and asking to look through it before purchasing it (that probably happens all the time, but it just feels awkward to reserve something and then DEMAND to inspect it--I'm the sort of guy who will go down the other aisle in a grocery store and double-back to where I need to go rather than simply excuse myself as I squeeze past someone's cart). Anyway, my research revealed the book was a bit vague on how much of a "condensing" of the two aforementioned books it was, with some of the races and player classes being relegated to a pair of companion volumes, which we'll just call Purple and Orange because I don't remember their names and don't feel like looking them up right now. It turns out Tieflings aren't in the Compendium, but in the Purple book. Fine, I thought, but I ended up deciding against getting the book anyway as it didn't really offer me any real information I hadn't already gathered (legitimately, I might add, no piracy or scans or downloads like that).
I should mention now that the Compendium, along with Purple and Orange, are thick paperbacks with very wide spines, distinctly standing out from the other books that usually crowd the gaming section of a bookstore. Meanwhile, the Tiefling race book is a pithy, staple-bound affair that can be fairly easily hidden between two larger books or campaign modules or DM screens or any such shelf-stretchers. As I was looking through the other books, including a Pathfinder book which actually had a lot of cool information about Tieflings I won't bore you with (except to say, they were really neutered between D&D 3.0/.5 and 4th Ed.), I came across the Tiefling race book. Apparently, no one had bothered to look any harder than simply glancing at the spines. I doubt they'd even actually set aside the Compendium, just leaving it there, figuring no one else would pick it up.
After pacing back and forth between there and the Moleskine stand (where they had one pocket-sized watercolor book left that I almost got instead), I resolved, "Screw this crap." and stormed out, even throwing my coupon in the trash outside.
I went next door to the Best Buy to look at laptops, and made an ass of myself as I tried to figure out how Windows 8 is supposed to work. I still can't get around the fact that the "desktop" is an application tile. That's insane, like having to call 411 to get your own number. Plus, is it just me, or are more desktop apps designed like mobile apps in that there's no real way to quit them? If it wasn't for Skype and better hardware compatibility (namely webcams) I wouldn't even be looking at Windows devices. Still, found a really cool Vaio. We'll see what happens there.
Some other crap happened, but it's more minor inconveniences amplified by all preceding events, so I won't go into it here.
Good night, and good luck.
21 July 2010
Return of the Tech Weblog
A recent incident involving a hacker on Deviantart (and the journal entry I wrote regarding that matter) has got me thinking about computers, so I just want to give a brief overview of computers as they pertain to me, my daily life, and my various creative activities.
*I hate computers. I really do. I'm not even being ironic. It may seem ironic given I use one near-daily, I've built at least two and performed upgrades on at least two others, not to mention also learning the three main operating systems of Mac, Windows, and Debian-based Linux. My favorite line from the Patrick Troughton era of Doctor Who is always, "I hate computers and refuse to be bullied by them!" hence my apparent immersion and relatively extensive know-how of them.
*I do not own a laptop, and I probably never will. The biggest reason for this is essentially two-fold: the cost and what I get for said cost. Desktops can be upgraded essentially forever; every component can be swapped out and upgraded, the only major headache being either the processor (which typically requires swapping out the whole motherboard) or the case (in which everything gets moved around). In the end, laptops sacrifice viability for portability, which is a bit detrimental to me because of the video and audio editing I like to do. I have edited a few short films on my Dad's old Vaio in the past, but it doesn't exactly suit them all the same.
*Another reason I won't get a laptop is, because of said lack of versatility and viability, the things I would do with a laptop can (and have been) approximated by the various mobile devices I've used, especially my old Blackberry. Reading e-mails, Instant Messaging, simple web-browsing, and updating weblogs can all be done with any decent smartphone capable of running a mobile version of Opera. Hell, I even used to use my PSP's wi-fi to update my old Yahoo!360 page once upon a time. I get a little sickened by people's dependency on their laptops, the way they take them virtually everywhere and ask it to do damn near everything for them. I figure, "I've already got an assortment of devices like a cell phone, a few cameras, and quite a few digital voice recorders that a laptop would be bulky and inefficient versus a few dedicated devices." It's a meditation on the whole philosophy of never doing two things at once because one will never do justice to either. Why learn Audacity or Pro Tools when Tascam makes the PortaStudio?
*The cost thing is a bit of a lie because I currently have two desktops with a third in a kind of limbo. It's a bit of a long story, the short version of which is I have a computer I bought when I graduated college in 2005 (named Pres), a computer I built last year as a project to build a small, cheap computer (named Sophia), and a computer a friend of the family gave to my roommate to use while I built her a gaming rig. The temporary computer (named Big Black) used while I selected parts for the gaming rig (named Big Blue) is presently in pieces on an entertainment center's lower shelf due to what can best be described as a "cursed case," one that ventilates poorly and holds up to being turned off and on about half as well. Still, it's light-years ahead of Pres (which has recently developed a weird habit of randomly resetting itself for no apparent reason), and all it really needs is a good case, which I'm still shopping for. I've got a thing against towers and wanted to get one of those Home Theater PC cases that lies flat and looks like something you put on an entertainment center next to your various game consoles. The one I got, unfortunately, did not allow me to use the original power supply and the graphics card at the same time, which went totally against my intention, so the case had to be sent back and the parts returned to the shelf.
*I am platform agnostic, though I predominantly use Windows. I grew up in a Mac household, however, and used an iMac all through college. I learned to use Windows machines through school and my Dad's office. I got used to how both systems work and learned Linux about a year ago by dual-booting Ubuntu on Pres and equipping Sophia with Linux Mint exclusively. Despite these various exposures, I have ultimately found myself leaning towards the Windows side of things for a small handful of reasons:
1) Windows XP fixed every complaint I ever had about 95/98.
2) Mac OS is a good operating system with a lot of really good applications. The problem is it's wedded to the hardware and the hardware is overpriced, over-engineered, and borderline inaccessible to even the most skilled modder.
3) Linux is good, but fundamentally flawed in that, because everything is produced gratis by volunteers outside the big businesses, there's no quality assurance of any kind and, despite Linux being around for over 20 years, it has yet to offer a video editing application that can rise to the level of iMovie or MovieMaker.
Of course, there have been a few changes, but nothing particularly optimistic:
A) Vista and 7 are a joke and unnecessary, respectively, and I'm almost convinced Microsoft is sabotaging XP through updates as part of some planned obsolescence paradigm.
B) I've been reading more and more about Hackintoshes and companies like Psystar, but everything is a gamble and Apple is defending its "hardware/software" marriage with a rabid fervor that betrays their otherwise friendly image.
C) I did learn recently that Blender, a 3D animation program, actually has a rather good video editing component that's gone strangely unheralded by Linux users who otherwise insist on programs like KinoDV or KDEnLive.
I've probably re-tread more old ground than new, but hopefully it's shed some light on some of my computer habits, especially regarding laptops, which quite a few people like to ask me about as they think it's rather strange I've never owned one and don't care all that much for them.
Okay, now it's time for bed. I'm not going to bother reading over this again, so it's probably full of typos and run-on sentences and maybe even a few fragments.
*I hate computers. I really do. I'm not even being ironic. It may seem ironic given I use one near-daily, I've built at least two and performed upgrades on at least two others, not to mention also learning the three main operating systems of Mac, Windows, and Debian-based Linux. My favorite line from the Patrick Troughton era of Doctor Who is always, "I hate computers and refuse to be bullied by them!" hence my apparent immersion and relatively extensive know-how of them.
*I do not own a laptop, and I probably never will. The biggest reason for this is essentially two-fold: the cost and what I get for said cost. Desktops can be upgraded essentially forever; every component can be swapped out and upgraded, the only major headache being either the processor (which typically requires swapping out the whole motherboard) or the case (in which everything gets moved around). In the end, laptops sacrifice viability for portability, which is a bit detrimental to me because of the video and audio editing I like to do. I have edited a few short films on my Dad's old Vaio in the past, but it doesn't exactly suit them all the same.
*Another reason I won't get a laptop is, because of said lack of versatility and viability, the things I would do with a laptop can (and have been) approximated by the various mobile devices I've used, especially my old Blackberry. Reading e-mails, Instant Messaging, simple web-browsing, and updating weblogs can all be done with any decent smartphone capable of running a mobile version of Opera. Hell, I even used to use my PSP's wi-fi to update my old Yahoo!360 page once upon a time. I get a little sickened by people's dependency on their laptops, the way they take them virtually everywhere and ask it to do damn near everything for them. I figure, "I've already got an assortment of devices like a cell phone, a few cameras, and quite a few digital voice recorders that a laptop would be bulky and inefficient versus a few dedicated devices." It's a meditation on the whole philosophy of never doing two things at once because one will never do justice to either. Why learn Audacity or Pro Tools when Tascam makes the PortaStudio?
*The cost thing is a bit of a lie because I currently have two desktops with a third in a kind of limbo. It's a bit of a long story, the short version of which is I have a computer I bought when I graduated college in 2005 (named Pres), a computer I built last year as a project to build a small, cheap computer (named Sophia), and a computer a friend of the family gave to my roommate to use while I built her a gaming rig. The temporary computer (named Big Black) used while I selected parts for the gaming rig (named Big Blue) is presently in pieces on an entertainment center's lower shelf due to what can best be described as a "cursed case," one that ventilates poorly and holds up to being turned off and on about half as well. Still, it's light-years ahead of Pres (which has recently developed a weird habit of randomly resetting itself for no apparent reason), and all it really needs is a good case, which I'm still shopping for. I've got a thing against towers and wanted to get one of those Home Theater PC cases that lies flat and looks like something you put on an entertainment center next to your various game consoles. The one I got, unfortunately, did not allow me to use the original power supply and the graphics card at the same time, which went totally against my intention, so the case had to be sent back and the parts returned to the shelf.
*I am platform agnostic, though I predominantly use Windows. I grew up in a Mac household, however, and used an iMac all through college. I learned to use Windows machines through school and my Dad's office. I got used to how both systems work and learned Linux about a year ago by dual-booting Ubuntu on Pres and equipping Sophia with Linux Mint exclusively. Despite these various exposures, I have ultimately found myself leaning towards the Windows side of things for a small handful of reasons:
1) Windows XP fixed every complaint I ever had about 95/98.
2) Mac OS is a good operating system with a lot of really good applications. The problem is it's wedded to the hardware and the hardware is overpriced, over-engineered, and borderline inaccessible to even the most skilled modder.
3) Linux is good, but fundamentally flawed in that, because everything is produced gratis by volunteers outside the big businesses, there's no quality assurance of any kind and, despite Linux being around for over 20 years, it has yet to offer a video editing application that can rise to the level of iMovie or MovieMaker.
Of course, there have been a few changes, but nothing particularly optimistic:
A) Vista and 7 are a joke and unnecessary, respectively, and I'm almost convinced Microsoft is sabotaging XP through updates as part of some planned obsolescence paradigm.
B) I've been reading more and more about Hackintoshes and companies like Psystar, but everything is a gamble and Apple is defending its "hardware/software" marriage with a rabid fervor that betrays their otherwise friendly image.
C) I did learn recently that Blender, a 3D animation program, actually has a rather good video editing component that's gone strangely unheralded by Linux users who otherwise insist on programs like KinoDV or KDEnLive.
I've probably re-tread more old ground than new, but hopefully it's shed some light on some of my computer habits, especially regarding laptops, which quite a few people like to ask me about as they think it's rather strange I've never owned one and don't care all that much for them.
Okay, now it's time for bed. I'm not going to bother reading over this again, so it's probably full of typos and run-on sentences and maybe even a few fragments.
18 January 2010
Two Webcams for the Price of One
Apart from occasionally begging my dad to let me look through the viewfinder of the VHS camcorder he'd bring home from work, and the Christmas video we shot one year, my first real experience working with video was a webcam. My Dad got it through work for videoconferencing. It was only in monochrome, but it delivered a very solid 30 frames per second, or at least above 15. Of course, that was the frame rate when the video was saved directly to a hard-drive; the frames dropped well below 10 per second during an actual video chat session (DSL was maybe being whispered about, but high-speed was pretty much nonexistent). Now, here we are, over ten years later, and I've learned many things about webcams, the most important thing being that color is a failure mechanism. Seriously, it's sad when a monochrome webcam from the mid-to-late 90s looked better than most webcams I've seen today.
I bought one once circa 2002, but I took it back after one day, citing its failure to get me a full 30 frames per second despite the iMac being well above the minimum system requirements. Again, the old monochrome webcam could get consistently higher than 15 frames per second, but this newer and more modern camera couldn't muster more than 10. Granted, the newer one was a lot cheaper compared to the monochrome one, which I think cost about 130USD at the time.
More recently I was reading a Cyberguys catalog and came across this little IPEVO number and was intrigued by its ergonomics. Later, I found a packaged deal on Amazon where I could get two for the price of one, and thought I'd give it a shot. I mean, surely there must be a lot of progress made between 2002 and today in the way of webcams.
I was wrong... mostly.
When I record directly to the hard-drive, I was really disappointed to see it not even rise to the level of a now-decades-old webcam despite the advances in technology in those intervening years. My PC, which has literally 5 times the processing power and RAM of the iMac, is still apparently not powerful enough to get this camera running anywhere close to 30 frames per second. Instead, it averages about 8.
That said, I'm not going to take it back.
Why? Because I like its quirky design, I like the fact that I got two of them for the same price, and, best of all, I like the picture effects. The picture effects include a black-and-white mode (which immediately earned its staying power on my desk) and something called "TV effect" which adds horizontal lines to make it look like an old security camera. Put simply, I love it. I can't explain it, somehow 8fps doesn't look so contrived or ugly when the video is in monochrome than color.
So, the IPEVO PoV is the newest implement in my lens-based arsenal.
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