Who is Sager?

First let’s talk about Clevo.  Clevo is a Taiwanese company that manufactures laptop chassis.  System builders all over the world source their chassis from Clevo and then customize them with their own components (CPU, memory, hard drive, etc).  The largest system builder in the US that uses Clevo chassis is Sager.  There are plenty of other Clevo system builders in the US though, including Malibal, Mythlogic, OriginPC, and Falcon Northwest.  It’s interesting to look at each builder’s site and see all the different customizations they make.  OriginPC and Falcon Northwest are both “boutique” builders and customize the look of their laptops with paint jobs and fancy shells.  In addition to Clevo system builders, there are also several Sager resellers which are generally cheaper than buying directly from Sager.  In the US these include Xotic PC, LPC Digital, and Power Notebooks.  For a more complete list of builders and resellers worldwide, check out the Clevo guide on Notebook Review.  System builders generally provide their own customer support while Sager resellers will likely have you send your machine in to Sager if you ever need warranty work.

What attracted me to Sager:

• Their gaming laptops don’t look like gaming laptops.  Do you really want to show up to a business meeting with a glowing red alien logo on the back of your laptop?  I don’t.
• They offer a lot of customization.  Have you tried customizing a Dell lately?  The configuration options on their XPS laptops are nearly non-existent.  Sager lets you select everything down to what thermal compound they use on the CPU and GPU.  You can also order your laptop without Windows installed which saves you money if you already own a license.
• They offer the latest tech.  Intel’s Ivy Bridge processors are just starting to show up in desktop machines, but nothing for notebooks.  I was able to get the latest Ivy Bridge chip from Sager months before the major laptop manufacturers had them.  They also had the latest gaming cards all the way up to the top of the line.
• They are very competitively priced.  For the money, it’s tough to beat a Sager.  I compared prices with many of the big name manufacturers and they didn’t come close on price.  Most Sager resellers offer free shipping and no tax as well as discounts if you pay by check or money order.

The NP9130

I wanted to stick with something relatively portable, so I went with a 15.6″ screen.  Besides the awesome graphics card on the 9130, I also liked that it had the fingerprint reader, the SD card reader, and that it supported nVidia’s Optimus technology which helps save on battery power. I also thought it was cool that the video and power ports were all on the back, which keeps a bunch of cables off of my desk when I have the laptop hooked up to my monitor.  The air vents for the CPU and GPU are also on the back, which seems like a good design.

This is the configuration I went with:

• 15.6″ Full HD LED backlit glossy screen (upgraded to the 95% color gamut screen)
• Intel i7-3610QM processor (Ivy Bridge, up to 3.30 GHz)
• 8GB DDR3 1600 MHz memory
• 120 GB Intel SSD hard drive
• nVidia GeForce GTX 670m 1.5 GB GPU

I also ordered the IC Diamond thermal compound, swapped out the CD/DVD drive with a secondary hard drive caddy, bought a second battery, and chose to remove all the Sager branding.  I purchased my Sager through LPC Digital and was able to get a discount code after contacting them by e-mail.  My order total came to about $1,400, but $100 of that was the spare battery, so it was only $1,300 for the laptop, which I thought was a really good price.  I used online bill pay to have my bank send the check directly to LPC Digital, so I got the cash discount and it really wasn’t that much trouble.

First Impressions

My order came within a week or so and everything was packaged nicely.  I love the look of this laptop!  It’s matte black all over and has no branding on the lid.  I even took off all the stickers, so the only branding left on it is the Onkyo logo on the keyboard deck.  The styling has a hint of stealth bomber going on, but overall it’s just a clean looking laptop.  I like how the touch pad is sort of integrated into the deck so that there are no hard edges to get dirt and goo stuck in.  I wasn’t sure how I’d like the chiclet style keyboard, but I really like it.  The keys have a solid feel to them, kind of like those old style mechanical keyboards.  The screen has a glossy bezel which I wish was matte like the rest of the laptop.  The glossy finish picks up smudges and scratches very easily.  It also came with fairly crappy carrying case, but I don’t really care about that.

I was concerned that the hard drive caddy wouldn’t look stock since I had read that the CD/DVD drive plate was re-used, but I was relieved to find that the plate is just plain black and looks great.

Everything feels pretty solid, but I did notice that when I set the laptop down you can hear the thin plastic of the vents on the bottom kind of slap against the internals of the laptop.  I think they could have thrown some padding in there to take care of that.  Other than that, everything is top notch.

The glossy screen looks really nice, but right off the bat I noticed a stuck pixel.  A bright red pixel smack dab in the center.  I contacted LPC Digital and they provided a pre-paid UPS label to use for returning the laptop to Sager.  Sager had it back to me within about 1 week and the new screen looks fantastic.  I wanted to mention that I did not purchase the additional dead/stuck pixel insurance and LPC Digital/Sager still took care of me.  In my opinion the optional insurance is not worth it.  If you do end up with a stuck pixel and they won’t replace the screen, then you can still just return the laptop within 30 days to get your money back (minus return shipping).

After Using it for a Couple Weeks

I have no regrets after buying this laptop.  I installed a second hard drive (500 GB) into the caddy and that worked out great.  Installing Windows and the drivers was fairly painless, the only hitch I ran into was that sometimes I’d get an error when trying to boot from a USB drive.  If someone runs into a boot error, just try another USB port.

I love that this thing doesn’t cook my lap.  I can comfortably work for hours from my couch and the bottom of the laptop is barely warm.  In fact, the warmth is probably from my lap, not the laptop.  Of course if you’re gaming, it’s probably going to heat up a bit, but I game at my desk.

The fingerprint reader works great, no problems logging into Windows with the swipe of my finger.

The touch pad supports gestures like two finger touch and drag to scroll up or down, but it doesn’t really work.  I fiddled with it for a while, but it just seams flaky, not as good as Apple’s.  The integrated touch scroll bar works great though, and I actually prefer using that anyway because you don’t have to lift your finger off the pad to continue scrolling, you just move your finger in a circle either clockwise or counter-clockwise to continue scrolling.

The speakers are not fantastic.  I think they are actually a little off center, so everything seams a bit weighted to the right.  What they call a “subwoofer” really isn’t going to push out any low tones…but I didn’t really expect much from the speaker system anyway.  I uninstalled the THX software too…I don’t think any amount of software is going to improve the sound on crappy little laptop speakers.

Battery life has actually been pretty dang good.  I can easily get 2-3 hours of battery time when using the laptop for every day tasks.  I haven’t really timed it closely, but I can definitely tell that I get much more life out of it than on my old laptop.  To be fair, the battery life probably isn’t stellar when compared to other modern laptops, but this thing is a powerhouse, so I don’t expect the battery to last as long as an ultrabook.

I love the SSD drive.  It is super fast and silent.  Photoshop launches within a few seconds and nearly every other application comes up nearly instantly.  This thing is fast.  I loaded up Skyrim and it automatically set itself up for “ultra high” settings and the game plays at 1080p without a hiccup.  While playing games I will say that the fans do get a bit noisy…I have open back headphones I can hear the fans going during quiet scenes.  Fortunately the GPU fan only kicks on when you’re playing games that need that extra power and you really can’t expect the thing to be silent when you have a higher end GPU.

Conclusion

Besides having to have the screen swapped out, I have been very satisfied with this laptop.  You really get a lot of computer for your money and there are tons of configuration options.  I would definitely check out Sager or any of the other Clevo builders if you’re looking for a high-end gaming notebook or just a quality laptop.

Warning: spoilers ahead.  I don’t give away anything, but I do mention certain scenes.

Last Saturday night my wife Michelle and I headed out to the theatre to watch The Hunger Games.  I had already read a review of the movie that said it was good, but I also heard/read that a lot of people didn’t like the whole shaky cam effect.  My wife loathes the shaky cam.  I think she nearly tossed her biscuits when we watched Cloverfield.  I don’t mind the shaky cam too much, as long as it isn’t distracting.  15 minutes into the movie and the shaky cam thing was definitely becoming a problem.  The camera is bouncing all over the place even when there is no action happening.  Thankfully the camera does calm down a bit as the movie progresses.

The first 45 minutes of the movie are spent providing back story to the games and developing the characters.  The first thing that struck me as strange is how District 12 is so much more realistic than what I imagined while reading the books, realistic as in “normal”, not science-fictiony like I thought it would be.  I imagined that the city of District 12 was enclosed by this huge wall and that you’d see peacekeepers dressed in black with visors covering their eyes.  If you’ve ever played Half Life 2…that’s what I imagined.  When you see the movie it seems more like a regular ol’ run down city surrounded by a regular ol’ electric fence with peacekeepers in really white outfits just standing around.  I think the movie could have done a better job of portraying a city that has endured many, many years of persecution and struggles.  That being said, Katniss is believable as the older sister trying to keep her family alive in a city that is closely monitored and controlled by the government.

One of my favorite scenes early on is the reaping where all the citizens of District 12 have to gather to watch the tributes from their district be selected.  Everyone is dressed in their finest clothes with their hair neatly done, as if they were actually looking forward to the occasion (which of course they are not).  The reaping does seem rushed, but I’m sure it seemed rushed to those who have read the book.  Those who hadn’t read the book are probably wondering when the heck the games are going to start.

Following the reaping the tributes from District 12 are whisked off to the capital.  On the way we meet Haymitch played by Woody Harrelson.  I had a hard time picturing Woody Harrelson as Haymitch, but I have to admit that he played the part really well.  We also meet Effie Trinket played by Elizabeth Banks.  She did well, but I think it would have been cool to see someone like Imelda Staunton (Dolores Umbridge from the Harry Potter movies) play the part.  The interviews with Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci) were great.  They got his smile just right .  The lead up to the games was actually really well done and for the most part stayed true to the book.

The Hunger Games event itself was interesting.  The movie review I had read complained that the fight scenes were nearly removed from the movie in order to keep the rating at PG-13.  There were a couple somewhat graphic scenes, but you really didn’t see much blood and definitely no gore.  What was really annoying was how the fight scenes were super blurry and zoomed in.  Most of the time you couldn’t tell what was happening during the close-ups.

There is a pretty involved love story in The Hunger Games books that was likely very hard to adapt for the movie.  The movie hints at what is going on, but I imagine that the second movie is going to go into the whole love story much more.

Overall the movie was very well done.  The pacing felt a bit fast…I kind of wish there was another 30 minutes to the movie.  Jennifer Lawrence was absolutely fantastic and the rest of the cast was very good as well.  I assume they’ll make movies around the other 2 books as well…as long as Jennifer stays on as Katniss, they’ll be on my “must watch” list.

Wicked_edge is a sub-reddit made for people like my old friend that like to go and geek out over shaving.  People post pictures of their shaving set-ups, talk about all these fancy balms and aftershaves…I’m surprised I haven’t come across unboxing videos.  These guys are really into shaving.  Call me weird, but this stuff is fascinating.  I’m enthralled with the idea of using an old style razor and lathering up my face with some nice warm cream.  I’m imagining how refreshing it will feel to get that awesome shave in the morning and how good I’ll smell all day after using some fancy aftershave.  Now that I’ve got that sweet, sweet tax return money in my hot little hands I’ve decided to place my order for my double edged safety razor shaving set-up.  This is the stuff I ended up buying:

Razor

I went with the Edwin Jagger De89bl.  This particular model comes highly recommended by the community and a reasonable price ($32).  The other razor I looked at was the Merkur 180 which is also very well regarded and basically the same price.

Amazon also has the De89lbl, the only difference being that the handle on the lbl has vertical lines running up it to provide more grip.  If the lbl was in stock I would have grabbed that one instead.  By the way, the “bl” at the end just means that it comes with a pack of blades and isn’t really part of the razor model number.  You can also get the De86/87 which I think just have shorter handles and the handles come in finishes like ivory or black.  All of the models I mentioned have the same head.

Blades

I decided to get a sampler pack of blades so that I could try out a few different types to see what worked best with my face.  There is a wide variety of sampler packs on Amazon, but I decided to buy this sample pack from West Coast Shaving since the pack included the brands of blades that most people seem to like.  Feather brand blades in particular seem to be a favorite and this pack includes 10 to try out.  At $10 for 35 blades, I think it’s a great deal.

Brush

This one was a hard decision.  The prices range anywhere from $10 on up to $150+.  Brushes can be made with boar hair, badger hair, horse hair, unicorn hair…there’s just a lot to choose from.  I almost pulled the trigger on the Tweezerman shaving brush since a lot of people seem to like it and it’s only $12, but I didn’t want to waste any money on a brush that might end up being crappy.  The Tweezerman brush is made with badger hair, but the hair is cut to create the fan shape unlike better brushes that leave the hair uncut.  It’s the ends of the hair that are nice and soft on your face, which is why the better brushes aren’t cut.  Generally badger brushes that say “pure” or “black” are the crappier ones, the ones that say “finest” or “best” are mid-grade, and the ones that say “silvertip” are the best (softest).

Apparently all the badger hair comes from China where badgers are considered to be vermin.  I came across some posts talking about Frank Shaving, some badger brush manufacturer in China that has a few resellers on eBay.  Quite a few people had commented that their brushes had a tremendous bang for the buck.  I decided to order the Finest Badger hair Shaving Brush #Kenilworth Faux Ebony from Ian Tang’s eBay store.  With shipping the brush cost me about $30.  These brushes used to be cheaper on eBay, but apparently changes in the exchange rate and rising costs for badger hair have pushed the price up a bit.  Still, the “finest” brushes from Frank Shaving are supposed to be on par with brushes from other brands that cost twice as much.  The pictures on eBay also don’t show that the brush comes with a nice little stand, which is pretty cool and saves you a few bucks.  The only downside is that it ships from China, so I’ll probably have to wait 2-3 weeks before it shows up.

Shaving Cream

I saw the name Proraso come up a lot when looking at shaving creams.  They make a wide variety of creams and soaps and have been in business for a loooong time.  I decided to try out the Proraso cream that comes in a tube instead of the stuff that comes in a tub.  I see a lot of people using the tub stuff, but I think you’ll probably get more mileage out of the tube.  Someone mentioned in a review that the tube lasted them 8 months and they shaved frequently.  I bought the re-branded Proraso that is sold under the C.O. Bigelow brand which is generally sold at Bath & Body Works.  It’s the same exact product, but $1 cheaper.

Aftershave

I bought two types of aftershave: alum and bay rum.

According to the interwebs, alum is a compound that occurs naturally in nature.  You usually buy it in block form and when you’re done with your shave, you wet the block with cold water and run it over your face.  The alum helps soothe razor burn and tighten up the skin (in a good way).  I bought the RazoRock Alum in Case because it seems easier to handle than a block and I don’t have to keep it out on a soap dish or anything.

I bought some bay rum because I want to smell good.  I chose the Ogallala bonanza pack which comes with samples of their top 5 bay rum products: 4 aftershaves and 1 cologne.  I wanted to give them each a good sniff before I invested in a bigger bottle.  It was about $16 plus shipping, not too bad.

Bowl

I almost bought the Colonel Ichabod Conk Stainless Steel Shave Cup, but I decided I wanted something ceramic that might hold heat better and keep the shaving cream warm. My plan is to fill the sink with hot water and keep the shaving bowl in the hot water to keep the cream warm.  I went down to the Goodwill and bought the bowl shown above for $1, can’t beat that.

Stand/Case

I really wanted to buy a cool looking stand, like the Colonel Conk Evernice Model 775 Chrome Safety Razor Stand, but I decided against it since I don’t want the kids seeing the razor out and decide to shave off half of their face.  I’ll probably end up getting this leather razor case just so that I have something to store the razor in.

This kit ended up costing me a total of about $110, not exactly cheap…but not really that expensive either considering how much I was paying for cartridge refills for the Mach III.  I haven’t bought the razor case yet and I’ll probably end up trying some other shaving stuffs, but for now it seems like I have everything I’ll need to get that nice comfortable shave .  I’ll post again once I’ve given everything a try.

Remote Desktop

Finally!  I wanted this since the day that the PlayBook was announced.  I have two machines that I access remotely, one being a file server and the other is dedicated to playing music.  Why do I have a dedicated music machine?  Because when I’m working over VPN the company doesn’t like me wasting their bandwidth on streaming music, so I have a small PC that is only for delivering sweet sweet sounds to my headphones.

Remote Desktop works great because I don’t have to install anything special, I just use regular ol’ remote desktop built into Windows.  There are other remote desktop applications for the PlayBook, but they all require that you install their server software.

The first time I ran the app it was acting really wonky…but I restarted it and since then it has worked really well.  It is nice and fast, scales perfectly to the PlayBook’s screen, and selecting items with your finger works great.  The only problem I currently have is that there is no option to turn off audio re-direction, so I can’t remote control my music machine without it re-directing the audio to my PlayBook.  I e-mailed the app author about it and he said the next version will have the option to turn off audio re-direction, so once that’s done the app will be perfect!

Book Reader

Since Amazon never followed through on their promise to create a version of the Kindle app for PlayBook, we were stuck without a decent eBook reader that could access side loaded eBook files.  Thankfully Book Reader came out and it is fantastic!  It supports both ePub and mobi (Kindle) formats.  The Adobe Reader app that comes with the PlayBook already does PDF pretty well, so between the two apps you have all your format bases covered.  Book Reader is updated frequently and has all the nice display options you’d find in something like the Kindle app for Android.

Mongoose

Mongoose is a free app that lets you read comic books saved in cbz or zip file format.  There is another app called Comics that supports cbr and seems to have a nicer interface and more features, but they want $3 for it and so far Mongoose is gettin’ the job done for me.  The only problem with Mongoose is that you have to use tiny swipes to turn pages…once you get used to that it works pretty well.

AIR Browser

If you want a free, simple app for managing the files on your PlayBook, AIR Browser is your app.  It has a nice clean interface and works pretty well.  I’ve had it hang up on me when moving largish files between folders, but other than that it has worked fine.

BlueBox

If you have a Dropbox account, have a look at BlueBox.  I like using Dropbox’s web site, but BlueBox is better formatted for a tablet’s screen and works better when using your finger to navigate instead of a mouse.  With BlueBox you can upload files, download them, and move them around within your Dropbox account.  What the Dropbox site has that BlueBox doesn’t is a way to view files without actually downloading them, so sometimes I prefer to just use the site to pull up a text document, but BlueBox is better suited for downloading or uploading multiple files.

Epistle

Now that PlayBook supports re-packaged Android applications, I’m starting to see some of the apps I use on my Android phone make their way over to PlayBook.  Epistle is one of those apps.  Epistle is a simple note taking tool that syncs up with your Dropbox account.  Your notes are saved as plain txt files so that you an open them up on your computer.  It’s a very simple app and does exactly what you want it to do, nothing more.

The story in BioShock: Rapture starts somewhere around the time that Andrew Ryan decides to construct an underwater city to escape the rules and regulations of the government.  Early on you also meet some of the key characters who eventually come to occupy Rapture and learn about their motivations for coming to Ryan’s city under the ocean.  Once Rapture is constructed and people begin living in the city things start to get really interesting.  Ryan’s vision of a Utopian society built on free thinkers, free markets, and free from government control begins to fall apart.  Those who helped construct Rapture find themselves out of work, living in poverty, and forcefully prevented from leaving the city.  Scientists have come to Rapture to conduct experiments that society topside considers unethical.  Plasmids, a sort of highly addictive drug, are invented which give a person supernatural powers like the ability throw lightning or teleport.  These new plasmids combined with the trapped and suffering people ignites a bloody revolt.

As you’re reading all this craziness, the story from the first game starts to make a lot more sense.  Scenes from the game start to reappear in your mind.  I remember killing the crazy surgeon dude who liked to carve women’s faces up to show their “inner beauty”.  I remember Sofia Lamb trapping me in a room trying to mess with my mind with her incessant psychobabble.  I remember seeing all the weird tributes to Lamb with the butterflies and candles.  I remember walking by all the “Who is Atlas?” posters.  All this imagery comes flooding back as you’re reading the book.

All the characters are in the book too, Dr. Suchong, Brigid Tenenbaum, Frank Fontaine, Sander Cohen…I think nearly every character from the games makes an appearance in the book.  You get to know these people and experience all the calamities that brought Rapture to ruin.  You learn about all the evil plots and backstabbing that drove the people of Rapture into madness.

I really enjoyed this book and it has completely renewed my interest in the games.  Most books written around game plots have a lot of story to fill in since most games have a pretty shallow plot, but with this book I got the sense that the author really studied the games and worked with the studio to write a story that stayed true to the original vision.  There was already a lot of story to work with, it just needed to be pulled together into something cohesive and I think the author did a great job.

When I was done with the book I was glad that I had the games to replay and enjoy again, but I was pretty bummed when I started thinking about how the next BioShock game will take place in an entirely new setting with an entirely new cast of characters.  I’m sure the game will be fantastic, but I hope they return to Rapture some day because I feel like there is more story to be told there.  Let’s hope they come out with more books

BTW – Amazon has the book “bargain priced” at $6 currently.  I guess they didn’t sell a ton of copies.  Their loss, your gain!

So why would you want a tool like this?  If you’ve ever worked with HTML you know that every browser interprets the HTML specification differently and each browser has varying degrees of support for some of the more recent standards.  If you’re going to get serious about creating an HTML based mobile app, you need to test the app on real devices.  I imagine this can get very tedious when you’re targeting multiple mobile platforms and multiple form factors (tablet and phone).  Shadow aims to ease some of that pain by enabling you to instantly preview how your changes will look on the actual devices you’re targeting.

Remember when Firebug came out?  That one tool revolutionized how I did web design and development.  Instead of spending hours fiddling with CSS code, I could tweak a few things right in the browser and immediately see the results.  I could select an element from within the DOM and see exactly where it’s boundaries were and how the margin and padding were working out.  It seems like Shadow could fill a similar niche providing immediate visual feedback on the changes you’re making.  Definitely worth checking out.

He presented it today and his teacher and class loved it!

Reddit is Fun

Reddit is Fun has a simple and straightforward interface.  It supports browsing sub-reddits, sorting by what’s hot, new, etc, and posting new links.  It’s a single celled protein combined with synthetic aminos, vitamins, and minerals. Everything the body needs.  Ok, so I stole that line from The Matrix, but like the goop they eat in the movie Reddit is Fun is just bland and flavorless.

BaconReader

BaconReader has a very nice interface.  They’ve done a great job of making the interface easy to read.  The navigation works really well and I like how you can select the sub-reddit and sort at the top.  Lots of polish on this interface.  The only negative is that the free version is ad supported .

Reddionic

This app is in beta, but you can still download it from the Android Market.  The interface is clean and has a nice modern design.  The app allows you to swipe left/right to select different sub-reddits which is cool, but I actually prefer the selector in BaconReader since I can jump to a particular sub-reddit quicker.  Reddionic also has an interesting preview window that pops up if you select the thumbnail next to the post. It looks nice, but on my tiny cell phone screen I’d prefer that it just jump to the actual item so that I can see it full screen.  I think they are adding that as an option since I see it mentioned in the settings.

Conclusion

Of the three I prefer BaconReader.  However, Reddionic is still in beta and looks really nice as well.  If they leave the ads out, I’ll probably end up using Reddionic.

Eventually I came across dnGREP which is an open source GREP tool built with .NET.  The interface is really nice and the best feature of all: multi-line support!  It also has a nice little window that lets you test out your regular expression against some text that you provide.  Sadly it doesn’t provide a way to export the results, but it does have a lot of features considering it is free.

Criminal is a movie about two con artists who team up for a big score.  The story was plausible, but just not believable.  There are some twists in the movie that you might not see coming simply because it’s hard to keep track of who’s conning who half the time.

In addition to Reilly, the film stars Diego Luna and Maggie Gyllenhaal.  They both did a great job, Gyllenhaal in particular was very believable playing her character.  I’d love to see more movies with Maggie in them, I really liked her in Stranger Than Fiction.

The YouTube trailer explains the whole plot pretty well:

Worth watching, but not something I’d watch again and I’ll probably completely forget about  this movie within the next two seconds…aaaaaand….done.