Open Elements

Home Theater PC parts

Mario — Sun, 31 May 2009 00:31:14 +0000

All the parts arrived last night via UPS. Here is a picture of hardware heaven.

Home Theater PC

Mario — Tue, 26 May 2009 01:15:59 +0000

I’ve been thinking about building a home theater pc to watch movies on the big screen and today I finally ordered the goods.

SILVERSTONE Silver Aluminum front panel, 1.0mm SECC body LC03S-V ATX Media Center / HTPC Case

GIGABYTE GA-MA770-UD3 AM2+/AM2 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard

GIGABYTE GV-R455D3-512I Radeon HD 4550 512MB 64-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card
Fanless Passive Screen Cooling

Hauppauge WinTV-HVR 1800 MCE Kit 1128 PCI-Express x1 Interface

Tuniq Potency PSU-POT550-BK 550W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply

AMD Athlon X2 4850e 2.5GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 45W Dual-Core Processor

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory

Western Digital Caviar Black WD5001AALS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5″ Internal Hard Drive

Pioneer Black 20X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 20X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 40X CD-R 32X CD-RW 2MB Cache SATA CD/DVD Burner

a new online hub

Mario — Fri, 15 May 2009 00:20:23 +0000

I am in the middle of creating an online hub for myself, the best way to describe it is this:

A clean page inspired by minimalism that automatically updates itself with my social media activity from sites like Twitter, Facebook, LastFM, Digg and many others.

You can preview this puppy at www.marioseijo.com

What do you think?

don’t mix business with personal stuff

Mario — Fri, 08 May 2009 05:41:58 +0000

my web strategy is changing and i’ve decided to focus my efforts on my business website and brand. I also don’t want to mix business with personal stuff, so i decided to buy another domain name for personal stuff.

if you follow this blog, get ready to see some changes real soon. stay tuned…

Mario Seijo

Ubuntu dual monitors with compiz and Nvidia 9600

Mario — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 05:20:07 +0000

Everyone knows that it’s a good idea to backup your data before doing a major upgrade, but what about your config files? Those are important too, trust me I’m about to upgrade to the latest Ubuntu distribution, (904) and thought I would post my dual monitor configuration file just in case I have to recreate it.

To edit your monitor configuration file, type the following command:

sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

# nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings
# nvidia-settings: version 1.0 (buildd@crested) Mon Nov 3 08:46:04 UTC 2008

# xorg.conf (X.Org X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf manual page.
# (Type “man xorg.conf” at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# Note that some configuration settings that could be done previously
# in this file, now are automatically configured by the server and settings
# here are ignored.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
#   sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Section “ServerLayout”
Identifier     “Layout0″
Screen      0 “Screen0″ 0 0
EndSection

Section “Module”
Load           “glx”
EndSection

Section “ServerFlags”
Option         “Xinerama” “0″
EndSection

Section “Monitor”
Identifier     “Configured Monitor”
EndSection

Section “Monitor”
Identifier     “Monitor0″
VendorName     “Unknown”
ModelName      “Acer AL2223W”
HorizSync       31.0 - 81.0
VertRefresh     56.0 - 75.0
EndSection

Section “Monitor”
Identifier     “Monitor1″
VendorName     “Unknown”
ModelName      “Acer AL2223W”
HorizSync       0.0 - 0.0
VertRefresh     0.0
EndSection

Section “Device”
Identifier     “Configured Video Device”
Driver         “nvidia”
Option         “NoLogo” “True”
EndSection

Section “Device”
Identifier     “Device0″
Driver         “nvidia”
VendorName     “NVIDIA Corporation”
BoardName      “GeForce 9600 GT”
EndSection

Section “Device”
Identifier     “Device1″
Driver         “nvidia”
VendorName     “NVIDIA Corporation”
BoardName      “GeForce 9600 GT”
BusID          “PCI:2:0:0″
Screen          1
EndSection

Section “Screen”
Identifier     “Default Screen”
Device         “Configured Video Device”
Monitor        “Configured Monitor”
DefaultDepth    24
Option         “RenderAccel” “true”
EndSection

Section “Screen”

# Removed Option “metamodes” “DFP-0: nvidia-auto-select +0+0″
Identifier     “Screen0″
Device         “Device0″
Monitor        “Monitor0″
DefaultDepth    24
Option         “Xinerama” “0″
Option         “TwinView” “1″
Option         “TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder” “DFP-0″
Option         “metamodes” “DFP-0: nvidia-auto-select +0+0, DFP-1: nvidia-auto-select +1680+0″
SubSection     “Display”
Depth       24
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section “Screen”
Identifier     “Screen1″
Device         “Device1″
Monitor        “Monitor1″
DefaultDepth    24
Option         “Xinerama” “0″
Option         “metamodes” “DFP-1: nvidia-auto-select +0+0″
SubSection     “Display”
Depth       24
EndSubSection
EndSection

web design mockup

Mario — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 05:51:02 +0000

I’m in the process of redesigning my business website, www.exposedelements.com; here is an early look at one of the designs done with Adobe Illustrator and PhotoShop.

My design philosophy has always been to keep it simple. how I’m i doing? I’d love to hear what you think in the comments.

(Click on image for a full view)

IE8 the history of the internet

Mario — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 15:36:08 +0000

Funny video about the history of the internet

Seattle Web Design Meetup

Mario — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 05:09:26 +0000

If you don’t know about Meetup yet, get this. It’s a chance for you to meet with other like-minded individuals to talk about those things that really interest you, like photography, game design or whatever. In my case, it’s web design and we meet once a month.

http://webdesign.meetup.com/390/

That said, we are looking for speakers to come and talk to the group about various web-related topics. contact me If you’re interested in participating or know someone who might be.

Mario Seijo

XamlFest in Redmond

Mario — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 06:08:18 +0000

I’m attending XamlFest at Microsoft today and tomorrow. XAML stands for Extensible Application Markup Language. Picture 50+ geeks in a room with laptops taking a close look at the XAML technology by way of walking through sample code, slides and videos.

Bonus: every attendie received a copy of Visual Studio 2008 and Expression Studio 2.

Android RC33

Mario — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 06:51:26 +0000

I received my Over The Air (OTA) system update from Google today. Let’s just say that it was a very exciting moment at my house (for me). My wife on the other hand is still waiting for RC33 to be pushed out to her phone.