The Tale of the Forsaken. (Buffalo HD-PXU2 Portable HDD Review)

I happen to be an early adopter of this certain drive by Buffalo, and  let me break it to you guys before i begin this futile review that it has now been abandoned. Just like that. Still interested? Then read on.

Released on Jan last year, it had impressive features like hardware encryption, flex USB cable and turboUSB driver.I was sold on the hardware encryption alone as it offered hassle free password protection of your data, a feature overlooked in almost all the brands available here.

Portable data security has been considered a niche segment and its only the manual methods which are available to those aware of the risks of carrying 500-odd-GBs which anyone can 'plug n pry'. In that regards its a welcome move by Buffalo to introduce such innovations in the stagnant storage market.
But for all its worth, it's certainly pitched wrong. First up is the high price, an MRP of 15k is clearly too much premium charged for features which the industry decided against including in their products just because they think the gloss-loving crowd wouldn't know better. And that, apart from being patronizing, doesn't justifies its price tag.
For the sake of review i'll include some benchmark captures, which isn't exceptional, and an overview of the aesthetics. The purpose however isn't the review, instead i wanted to share my misadventure with this particular product and discuss why its a disaster if you choose to buy it!


Build Quality

Hands-on feeling is good with a slight weight and matte texture on the back along with rubber outlining for better surface grip.Then there's the  integrated flex cable; a feature which just contradicts its positive first impressions over time due to usability issue. It scores on mobility but maybe this picture will suffice why you'd rather carry the extension cable along than risk it being loose at its joint (thus undoing the whole point of its inception), desktops usage will further confirm this BIG fail.
The drive has two indicator (red,blue) for disk activity and encryption status.
Overall the build & ergonomics is kinda meh. 


Performance

In short, everyday usage feels snappy enough to ensure its one of the better performing drives around. But is this performance unscathed? You bet not!
A part of the premium this product charges is due to implementation of TurboUSB, basically a tweaked driver which provides some speed gains when installed on the host computer (you have to install it on every other computer you want it to work on). Now i don't mind installing stuffs if it means a tangible speed improvement, but 64-bit incompatibility makes it a dud. Then there's the bigger issue that if a premium is being charged, why offer some lame, incompatible tweaked drivers instead of latest standards like USB 3 or even power E-SATA?

HDTach benchmarks with and without TurboUSB -

Issues & Conclusion

 
The firmware's incompatibility with 64-bit Windows (Linux/MacOSX not supported at all) is itself a serious flaw for a premium product, add to that the fact that no kind of support is provided in the website and you know why i have been crying foul the whole post. I tried contacting them to no avail and now that it has been abandoned in less than a year's time, i realize even this review is a waste of time.

The new product (HD-PXTU2) fixes incompatibility, retains the TurboUSB (you no longer have to install it), is still devoid of USB 3 and charges a similar premium in the same enclosure as its half-baked older brother. Somehow the company felt releasing the same thing with some polish is better than issuing a firmware upgrade and not ditch its customers as lab rats.
In conclusion, if there has to be one, steer clear of it or its successor (short and spiteful!).

The Facebook Like Button.

Facebook recently launched its 'like' plugin for blogger and of the various sites i checked for the HTML code, only this one seems to work. Instructions given are lucid and its great way to socialize your blog, so try it out.

Skin Care ( Creating MediaMonkey and Foobar themes)

It's redundant and probably inane but if you wonder what goes behind themes/skins creation, here's my $0.02.



MediaMonkey  -

Now this skin itself is a mash up of these two (1 2) and as an add-on I've minilyrics (freeware) which displays synced lyrics as an overlay for many players and has a pretty extensive online database.
The editing part - which I'm learning still - is done by a dedicated theme editor. Now it felt quite novel compared to component/script based method of foobar, and once i figured out how to tweak every aspect of its look with masked bitmaps and other user created graphical elements, it was clear it will offer more 'facelift' for the UI.

Theme editor demo -

Foobar2K -

For more advance tweaking or the 'functionality' aspect of the UI, mediamonkey just doesn't have the headroom and that's where Foobar2K makes a swooping entry as the Big Daddy.
Just to show how much you can mutilate it, here's the 'before' version -

Now compared to skins by these guys mine has 'noob' written all over it, but behind their slick faces I've hit several usability flaws. Some are definitely better and would suit most of you, so look around.
Scripting has an integral role here, it controls many features in the program and even some components (or plug-ins).

 And that's the fun part!

To tell you the truth i had NO clue what scripting was, apart from my elementary C++ and Java knowledge i had little to begin with (infact that IS the prerequisite if you want to make sense out of it), but the beauty of Foobar is that you can look deep into any code, tweak it and see what has changed (or screwed up!) in the player in real-time, that way you get a know-how of what each line of code does. Just respect the syntax at least and you'll learn quickly.
Now to take it a step further make portable copies of the program (it has that option during installation), try out different skins from the site mentioned (in foobar, Skins are a zipped package/exported configs and may require additional components so be sure to check the description), fiddle around their with scripts and make your own Franken-Creation like i did!
Foobar has an active community and great 3rd party plug-ins (and here) support which can make your music experience a whole lot of fun (you may stop listening music altogether after all that tedious scripting).
The forums over at HydrogenAudio is a great place to learn scripting and other nifty stuffs. Some basic syntax/function is also included in 'Help>Title formatting'.


Now i can go on about how i made several little changes to my skin (sic) but that would be just worthless rants as you can do things in many different ways. Instead, if customizing how your music player looks and works is your idea of foolin' around on a lazy weekend, then try them out by yourself, spend some time with it and ask your doubts in the comments section, I've proved how jobless I'm so be sure that you'll get a response!

That does it.

Late Night Jam Session (Ultrasone Hfi-450 Review)

Been playing with the 79$ Ultrasone Hfi-450 headphones i talked 'bout, and after a 2hrs continuous session with my customized Foobar2K, here's my little review on it.
First up on the whine list are my sore ears. There's some extra resistance from the band and the pleather paddings are just not deep/large enough to prevent your ear from being slammed into the hard plastic beneath so after a stretch things get real stiff for those with melons like mine!
And thats it.
These cans are pretty fresh and li'l short on the recommended 100hrs burn-in but so far it sounds really balanced. On comparison, Creative's budget plugs EP-630 sounds like a cheap radio (not a fair comparison by a long shot, but that's an easy reference!).
Listening to some Allman Brothers, CCR, Slayer & Dylan revealed a great frequency output. Bass notes were well-defined, although a bit lacking and boomy, warm mids and clear, sibilance free highs.

The headphones have what the company calls 'S-Logic' (gimmick alert!) technology for some '3D' effects, if anything they've fantastic instrument separation/soundstage for a closed cans and I'll give credits to this s-logic-thingy for that!
Superb experience overall.

Ratings 8/10, with points being struck mainly for its build quality. They sound good for the sub 100$ price,offers great portability due to rotating/collapsing design but has comfort issues, making them unsuitable for prolonged listening.








Update: The test was done un-amped on a portable source and although they're pretty easy to drive, one might see some improvements with a good amp.

What's happening? (" Hello World ";)

End sems are not happening. Heck, i'm just indifferent.
Acer Aspire 5740G...hmm quite a star among forums i'd say. Tempting too.
See, i get all psyched when it comes to making choices. Starts with 'no back-lit keyboards?' to 'where's the extra HDD slot? Sandforce's new SSD's been scorching the benches, now where am i gonna put those'. And then Anandtech says build is an issue and display sucks.
Gloss just bugs me more than i know why, and they all are lapping it up. Like them iPads, looks just nasty to me - you type on those with an add-on keyboard?Just why. I'd rather buy a notebook, or heck even the indigenous Adam does a better job, say what? And then the way apple is, 'never give more than what they cant complain much than they think its needed to buy'...yes, you don't reason with Mr.Jobs.
But manufacturers offer superior builds on business products don't they? So, why not an enthusiast build too? Been checking out Dell frequently, some great deals overall but they wont offer better GPU. No. See that's where Acer and others shines, 5650 is potent if not blazing.
What else..i'd say 7200rpm vs 5400rpm don't make much of a difference though, 10mbps more at your luckiest. And owning a SSD beyond 100gb is just cruel. So unless its an Asus G73jh-X1 to stick both of 'em in - speed & space, sulk.

Logitech Anywhere mouse MX is cute. And that awesome 'unified' receiver - the deal maker for me. See how it comes off like a cheap toy.
'Bout to make my first import, so lets see if KMD is for real. I love USofA.

Ultrasones Hfi450 are pretty good as my first 'audiophille' headphone experience. Not mine, so plan on buying the better ATH-M50 for its killer VFM (140$ shipped).
What's this blog about? Stuffs you'd find by truckloads online and then some you won't, are all here, like a RSS feed of feeds which matters (see how i came up with the blog title?). I'm a beginner myself but that's relative you know, so its a wannabe venture for some and too techy for others; i ain't playing popular here. If you must ask what really will be covered, i'd say reviews, internet & general tech would be my topics of choice.
Its a tall order and i haven't planned it all so don't hold your breath, I'm at liberty here!
End sems. Sigh.