In Gaming: Battlefield 4 Updates, Pokemon, And Titanfall Beta

Lots going on in gaming for me over the past few weeks, including playing a fair bit of Team Fortress 2 and Counter Strike: Global Offensive. These are great games that are quick to pick up, easy to play a round or two, then put down. Nice for those nights where I want to play something, but I don't have a lot of time. I've also been playing Far Cry 3, but that's another post.

DICE has recently decided to make things better with the community and try to make up for the rocky release of Battlefield 4. They've declared February to be player appreciation month, and have been running events, doing open communication with the community, and getting feedback on balancing. I honestly thought the game wasn't really rocky to begin with, but this is coming from someone who played Battlefield 2142 for a number of years. It's nice to see DICE engaging the community, and balancing/fixing things. They've also announced that the Second Assault DLC will be available Tuesday, February 18th for premium players, and Naval Strike, the next DLC will be out sometime in March. With the release of Naval Strike, they're re-imagining titan mode from 2142 with the game mode carrier assault. This is pretty exciting. Along with this comes 5 new weapons and a few new gadgets. New weapons are always nice to see in game, and here's hoping DICE keeps it up for all of the future DLC releases.

I've also picked up a 3DS! Pokemon was just far too attractive a title to pass up, so along with the 3DS, I grabbed Pokemon Y. As for the handheld, the hardware feels well built, it's easy to use, and the battery life is very reasonable. Karyn has been using it for Nintendogs, however I've been going pretty hard on Pokemon. They've added a lot of new stuff in Y to make it a lot more user friendly, however there is still that sense of nostalgia when playing through the game. The online features are well implemented (Wonder Trade, anyone?), as is Pokebank (cloud storage for your Pokemon, AND a way to migrate Pokemon from older games to X/Y). I've put a fair bit of time in so far, and still haven't become bored with it. Hopefully it stays that way!

Titanfall beta is also out. Looks like a pretty solid game, hope to play some of that today. Ended up getting a beta key from a friend. The game is basically 6 vs 6 multiplayer deathmatch with bots. Players can call in "Titans" to fight in, which are giant mech suits. From what I can tell, controls look pretty tight, and it looks like a gorgeous game. Surprisingly, it's based on the Source engine too. Perhaps I'll post up my impressions.

New Coffee For February!

I may not have mentioned in previous posts, but I've become a bit of an enthusiast when it comes to specialty "third wave" coffee. This all started with beans from The Black Duck downtown, a Hario slim coffee mill, and an aeropress. It quickly snowballed, and now I have a bit more gear, including a Breville smart grinder, two french presses, a pour over, and a Bodum Santos vacuum pot. The Black Duck beans got a bit boring after a while, so in typical Jon fashion, I went to the internet. After a bit of searching, I came across Cafe Eureka out of Moncton NB. Denis, the roaster, has a wonderful collection of coffee oddities, ranging from Californian to stuff from the Canary Islands, along with all sorts of single origin beans from many different countries. I had a relative pick up a bag of his Columbian Flor de mi Tierra, and well, the rest was history. Denis roasts to order, sources quality beans, and is very passionate about his work. It definitely shows in his finished product.

This time around, I picked up a pound of Ethiopian, which was has been blowing my mind, along with half a pound of Chinese (This particular coffee is the first from China to obtain specialty designation), and half a pound of Sumatran. I tend to order a pound of what I know is good, along with half a pound of two other coffees to try. If you're at all interested in high end single origins, I'd highly recommend checking out Cafe Eureka and putting an order in today. It won't disappoint.

Dropbox Screenshot Sharing

Seriously, how did I not know about this earlier? This was apparently included in the Dropbox update in September of 2013, however I just noticed it last week. It's pretty darn easy to share screenshots now with Dropbox. You can now set it up under the Dropbox preferences import tab to automatically save any screenshots taken to your Dropbox folder when you press the print screen button. Holding down the ctrl key while pressing print screen will copy the link to that screenshot to your clip board for sharing. You can even add the alt key in there and it'll only screen shot the active window (as usual with Windows, of course). This makes things a lot easier in regards to sharing screen shots with friends.

If you're interested in signing up for Dropbox, and taking advantage of screenshot sharing, automatic photo upload, and just a good general purpose online file storage, use this link, and we'll both get some additional storage space!

Linux Server Golden Image

As stated in my previous posts, for my lab and internal network infrastructure, I'm using mostly Linux bases servers. They're pretty reliable, low maintenance, low footprint, and they do the job without a GUI. Of course when I'm spinning up a new server every day or two for testing purposes, configuration can get a bit repetitive. To make my life easier, I've decided to create a "golden image" of my currently preferred server distro, Ubuntu Server 12.04 64 bit.

To create this base server, I've thrown together a virtual machine in VMWare Workstation. Standard version 9 virtual machine, 1 core, 512MB of RAM, and a 20GB hard drive. The next snapshot will include the removal of non essentials like sound card, USB, etc. Once the machine is created, Ubuntu Server 12.04.3 64 bit is installed, and configured with a default username and password, along with the SSH service. I don't set a static IP at this point, as I've created a script to take care of that and placed it in the home directory, along with a script to check memory usage.

Once the base install was complete, I installed VMWare tools and Webmin, and called it a day. Once it's shut down, I created a snapshot in Workstation and made notes as to what was done to the virtual machine, which basically prepped it for upload or cloning. To actually upload to my ESXi box, I just use the VMWare Standalone Converter, and make sure to adjust RAM amounts depending on the tasks the VM will be handling, and also set the disk to thin provisioned depending on what disk it will be sitting on.

This whole process takes a lot of the work out of creating/deploying scenarios and new labs, which is great. This, along with my golden image of Server 2012 R2, and I can have labs up within half an hour. Minus the configuration of course.

Youtube Uploads

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gBLrcBrC6s

Thanks to the magic of ShadowPlay from Nvidia, I've been recording most of my rounds of Battlefield 4. The file size is nice and small thanks to the H.264 MP4 render, and playback is generally pretty smooth. Editing and uploading to Youtube is another story though. After playing for hours with Sony Vegas, I finally found my ideal render settings. First step is disabling smart resampling on the base footage. After I finish my edits, i add a bit of sharpening and some brightness/contrast adjustments, then I'll do a render. Main Concept H.264 wasn't working with CUDA all that well, so I tried Sony AVC. This worked great. I set my bit rate to 16 mbps, my frame rate at 30, and made sure my render qualities were set to best. After a (slow) upload to Youtube, you get the above! You can possibly expect more uploads, perhaps with some commentary!

Desktop Update!

If you’re in touch with the gaming world, you’ll know that Battlefield 4 was released at the end of October. If you know me at all, you’ll know I’m a pretty big fan of the Battlefield series. With previous blog posts, you can see that the release of a new Battlefield title almost requires a new hardware update. This release was really no exception.

From my post on my ESXi host, I listed my desktop specifications. Now, the HD6850 I had was an absolute trooper. I was able to play Skyrim and BF3 with few issues, and the overall desktop experience with the Catalyst drivers was actually really good. Honestly, both Nvidia and AMD have very mature drivers with few issues (that I can see). I figured I’d be able to carry my HD6850 over into Battlefield 4 and maintain a similar performance level without having to upgrade. How wrong I was…

I fired up the open beta, and was instantly disappointed. I was running at 1920x1080, ALL low, and barely maintaining 45 frames per second average. Even playing with resolution scaling didn’t work too much. I struggled through maybe 2 to 3 rounds, before deciding to just set it aside for now and look at it once launch day came. (Silly me, I should have updated my drivers). I preordered, the night before updated my video drivers, and was up at 6AM for some launch day fun.

The performance difference was astounding. It’s almost like that short beta worked out a lot of the frame rate issues, and suddenly I could play on all low, with 95% resolution scaling, and maintain a fluid, playable, 60 frames per second. However on the larger maps, I was getting some frame drops during large “Leveloution events”, or when there was a ton of action on screen. This really wouldn’t do for a more performance oriented player, and dropping the resolution scaling any further would result in an extremely poor picture, and put me at a huge disadvantage. So, naturally, I decided to upgrade.

My processor was fine, my RAM and hard drives were fine, it was just the video card. Buying new was out of the question. I don’t need a cutting edge r9 or 7xx series card, so I took to the Hardware Canucks forums as usual. After browsing for a few days, I settled on a really good deal for a GTX 670 FTW Signature 2, by EVGA. The install was easy, and after a clean driver install, I was up and running and good to go.

I started Battlefield 4, jumped in game, and pushed my settings to a mix of high/ultra. Frame rate was definitely better, but I was still getting these really stupid frame drops. I tried pushing my processor from stock to 3.6GHz. Still the same results. Tried running on low, vsync’d, etc. Same problem. I tried practically every fix I could find on the internet, and still the same results. I wasn’t pleased. My last ditch option was Windows 8.1. So, Sunday afternoon, I spent the 2-3 hours pushing the update to my desktop. And you know what? Problem solved.

I run a current mix of ultra/medium settings, with my frame rate capped at 70. I see occasional dips into the 60s, but beyond that, it’s almost always pinned at 70 frames per second. And to be quite honest, Windows 8.1 is pretty awesome too. Resource usage is lower, the task manager is considerably better, being able to pause file transfers is a nice feature, built in Hyper-V will be awesome to play with, and the interface is a bit more mature feeling. Everything can be configured so you rarely have to see “Metro” apps too. I’m really glad I made the jump.

Lab update

Just dropping a quick post to say everything has been running great! A few hiccups, but it's been a learning process!

The base infrastructure of my network includes Linux based virtual machines, all running on Ubuntu server 12.04 LTS. These lovely little virtual machines let me do more on my main rig without tying up resources. Currently for my main, every day virtual machines I'm running:

• One BIND based DNS server for internal name resolution


• One Serviio streaming server with a web interface (I can also control this from an app on my phone/tablet - Sweet!)


• One web server running with a LAMP stack. This currently hosts my mediawiki install where I keep track of any configuration I do for future reference.


• One server running the Deluge daemon for downloads. Has a 500GB virtual drive dedicated to it. I access this via either web client or desktop client. (Desktop client actually feels completely local)


• One Minecraft server running Minecraft My Admin. This can be a bit flaky, but I learned that a custom built one was much better than the turnkey appliance I downloaded initally.

I also have two other resource pools dedicated to testing and labbing. In the test pool I'm just playing around with Server 2012 R2 as a home domain controller (Thinking of moving both my DNS and DHCP to it), along with a couple other random virutal machines. In my lab pool, I have a full suite of Server 2012 R2 machines running various features in the same domain. All of the Server 2012 virtual machines run off the file server, which has provided exceptional performance.

As for the hiccups, I ran into some instability once in a while with Backtrack and USB pass through. The host would go completely unresponsive from time to time with nothing in the logs. After moving Backtrack to my desktop and running it with USB pass through in Workstation 9, the instabilities went away completely. There was also the issue with Deluge constantly crashing after downloading for a few minutes, but it ended up being a bad file.

The Minecraft server is another issue flat out. I was running it as a turnkey virtual appliance for a while, as I didn't want to bother with the configuration at that moment. That was until it broke. Luckily I was able to mount the drive in another virtual machine and recover the data. Once the data was recovered, I hand built the next instance of the server, which has so far been a lot more stable. (Issue this morning with an MCMA update, however it was resolved rather quickly by killing and rerunning the process, and accepting the upgrade.)

In the future I have plans on implementing Puppet or Chef, however that won't be for a little while. I hope if I do that I'll be able to document it!

Initial File Server Build Complete!

I got drives on drives! This being said, the 3TB drives arrived on a Wednesday, 2 days before expected arrival. I didn't even have to walk down to the post office to get them, as they were waiting in the mail box. After a quick install, including moving the 40GB Intel SSD from the ESXI host to the file server, we were up and running Open Indiana. I configured for static (after struggling with the BSD way of things) and installed Napp-It. Once that was done, I logged into the web console and started configuring the disks and setting up the shares, which took all of 10 minutes. My single pool consists of two striped mirrors currently, with half the SSD for use as an L2ARC (Basically a read cache). A quick test of transferring an ISO from my desktop to the server showed that I could definitely pin gigabit speeds with sequential writes, which was what I was looking for.

The fun part was moving the data from the old file server to the new. Although it was on a gigabit line/NIC, it still struggled due to the fact that the NIC was Realtek based, and the disks were a Western Digital Green JBOD. It took 7 hours to move 2TB of data, but it's finally done. I quickly decommissioned the old server, recycling the 1TB and 2TB Western Digital Greens for use in the ESXI host. I know, I should have fast local storage for the ESXI box, but these two drives will make good datastores for low IO/mass storage virtual machines. The drives will do until the next phase is eventually rolled out. Honestly, I'm surprised the old file server was still working. I should have taken it offline a couple of times to get it dusted out. It was an old mATX Acer case with a single 120mm fan jury rigged onto the side panel. This intake led to more dust than necessary being brought into the case, and it was pretty evident; the heatsink was absolutely caked. I feel it would have operated fine for a while longer, but I'm glad our data is off the JBOD and onto something a bit more safe.

After finishing with the file transfer, I quickly rewired the home network, and took advantage of the multiple NICs on my many devices to segregate traffic until I can get a managed switch. A quick trip to the dollar store downtown netted me four 25 foot lengths of CAT5e cable with ends for $3.50 a roll. They had longer rolls too, which I'm definitely keeping in mind for future projects. I used my existing gigabit switch  for the management and storage network. This gives my workstation and the ESXI host direct access to a single gigabit port on the file server, and allows me to make management unavailable to general traffic.

I ran into a few problems with the file server along the way. The first was installing the drives. I really should have used right angle cables and thinner SATA power adapters, but I unfortunately didn't have enough on hand. This made it a bit of a pain to close the side panel. The cable management inside the case wasn't great either, as the SATA cables are too long. My plans are to eventually swap the current SATA data/power cables for better options. The other issue with the file server was when it was powered on right after rewiring the network, the static configuration didn't stick, and my brand new pool was missing. I redid the static configuration, and was able to import the existing zpool in Napp-It, all was well, but a mild panic attack. Overall, Open Indiana and ZFS are a learning experience, and so far it's been fun learning along the way.

The next few phases are going to be both easy and difficult. We should have enough remaining storage to get us through for the rest of the year, however beyond that we're looking a bit cramped. With storage currently being a non-issue however, I'll more than likely be investing in increasing speed and infrastructure. For the file server, I have plans on adding a ZIL cache, most likely a 20+GB SLC flash based SSD, more RAM, and a dual port Intel NIC in the near future. This will fill the existing SATA port and pave the road to the next set of drives and adding the 8 port HBA. I have eventual plans on adding four more 3TB drives and four 2.5" drives, most likely SSDs or 1TB+ HDDs. As for infrastructure, I think I'm going to try to consolidate my networking with a nice managed switch. By then I should have another dual gigabit NIC in the ESXI host, which should allow me to aggregate the links on the desktop, file server, and ESXI host.

I'll be sure to keep the blog updated on any changes I do or issues I may have.

File Server Update!

The case finally arrived for the file server, which me get it up and running in a test capacity. Still waiting on the hard drives, but hopefully soon! 4x 3TB Toshibas are on their way as of today. The case ordered was a Lian Li PC-A04B, mATX case with loads of drive bays, 3 included 120mm fans, and overall a really good build quality. I had everything installed the night it arrived, along with a 320GB hard drive to test out ZFS and Napp-It.

As you can see in the above picture, the test system is a bit messy. Unfortunately it's going to be a bit difficult to make it look pretty, as the 24 pin power is placed in a really bad spot. It doesn't really interfere with anything, but it does make hiding that one cable a bit tough. I removed the USB/eSATA/audio panel from the top, as the cables were super long, and I wasn't going to be using those features anyway. Once the new drives arrive, I'll be swapping the hard drive cages around and tidying the cables. Hopefully I'll have some new pictures to show off, as I'm really proud of this little machine. Also, after getting it reset back to defaults, IPMI is amazing. I only have 2 network cables and a power cable attached, but I don't even need to touch the physical machine for anything. Power up/down, KVM, etc... All handled by the IPMI chip.  Anyway, final initial specs below!

Intel Core i3 2120T
SuperMicro X9SCL+-F
4GB Kingston ECC DDR3
Lian Li PC-A04B
Corsair CX430 430w PSU
4x Toshiba DT01ABA300 3TB drives in RAID10 equivalent (Striped mirrors, 6TB usable)

I'm considering adding a 40GB Intel SSD as a ZIL, but I'm not sure how the read/write performance would be with it. The main purpose of this will be as a file server, even though the ESXI box will have a direct link to it, and will probably use some of the storage space for low I/O virtual machines. Some are going to find it a little weird that I'm using striped mirrors for a basic file server instead of RAIDZ or RAIDZ2, but I have my reasons. First off, it makes adding drives slightly cheaper. Although it's less storage space, I only have to purchase 2 drives to increase capacity instead of 3. If I were to fill the server to capacity (3 3.5" drives in the 5.25" bays), it would limit me to 15TB of usable space, which is a considerable chunk, and I'm happy with that. The other reason is raw performance. RAIDZ and RAIDZ2 have limited random IO vs a mirror. This will be great if I do decide to host some more intensive virtual machines on it, or stream multiple things from it.

New NIC For The Server

Picked up an HP360T dual port Intel based NIC on the cheap. This will give me a few extra ports to work with when it comes down to adding the file server. Installation was simple, just pop it in and it's recognized as an Intel 82571EB ethernet controller with two vmnics available.  The server has a total of four ports now, three being Intel based, and one Realtek based. I'll probably end up using one port for a direct connection to the file server, the another for management, another for internal virtual machines, and another for web-facing virtual machines.

Moving From Thick To Thin Provisioning Without vCenter

The great thing about SSDs is the performance. You can run multiple virtual machines off a single drive and they don’t skip a beat. The only downfall to SSDs is the capacity. 256GB on the Crucial M4 in my ESXI box isn’t a whole lot to play with.

When I initially setup the virtual machines on my box, I threw them onto spinning disks. I had the extra space, and a thick provisioned disk generally performs better than thin. Moving these disks to an SSD would result in only being able to spin up a few machines before reaching capacity. I really didn’t want to walk through creating new VMs and reconfiguring as well, so I started researching.

With vCenter, all you really have to do is migrate the VM to a new disk, and when migrating, select the provisioning option of thin. Without vCenter however, that option isn’t available with the free standalone product. There are two workarounds however, the first being to SSH into the machine and use the VMKFSTools to convert the disks. That’s great, but there’s room for some error. The second way is the way I chose, which is to use the VMWare Standalone Converter. It allows me to basically clone the machine from spinning disk onto the new SSD datastore, thin provision in the process, then delete the old machine.

 I’m going to be converting my Backtrack install from the server to the server, and here’s a step by step.

Step one is to load up the vCenter standalone converter, and select the convert option. You’ll get a wizard pop up that lets you start. Select VMWare Infrastructure Virtual Machine from the drop down, then log into your ESXI box.

Step two is to select from the list the machine you want to convert. I’m going to select my Backtrack4 virtual machine.

Step three is to select your destination. From the drop down, select VMWare Infrastructure Virtual Machine, the log into your ESXI box.

Step four is to create a name for your converted machine. I’m using Backtrack4_thin

Step five is to select your location. In this case, from the datastore dropdown, I selected CrucialSSD, which is where I want this machine to go.

Step six is to edit the data to copy field. From the type dropdown, select thin. Then select next, or edit any other settings, like memory or vCPU count.

Step seven is to review and select finish. Depending on how fast the datastore is, and how large the conversion will be, it can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours.

After the conversion is finished, log into your ESXI box and verify the new virtual machine is functional. Once you’ve verified functionality, delete the original from disk.

The Teardown And Finally A Virtual Playground!

I finally decided to actually go through with the project of tearing down my two machines and reconfiguring. Almost all my watercooling gear has been sold, and I’ve downsized from the HAF932 to the HAF912. So, my new system? Pretty similar to what I was running about 2 years ago.

i5 750 w/ Noctua NH-U12P (Single fan)
16GB Mushkin Blackline DDR3 (Finally sent the bad RAM for RMA!)
EVGA P55 FTW
Gigabyte HD6850 Windforce
HT Omega Striker 7.1 sound card
120GB OCZ Vertex 2 Extended
640GB Western Digital Black
2x1TB Seagate Barracuda (RAID0)
Corsair TX650
HAF912

Not too shabby. I also moved away from my 2x Acer 23” LCDs to a Single Samsung 21.5” LCD. The desk looks a little more empty now, but it’s nice to have the breathing room. I still kept my headphones and speakers, and my Blue Yeti.

Everything else went into creating an ESXI box. A bit of trading and selling left me with a fairly capable machine that I’m pretty happy with. The top picture is the new case, a Silverstone PS08B. It’s by far the nicest little 30 dollar case I’ve played with. Specs below:

i7 860 w/ Stock i5/i7 LGA1156 heatsink
16GB GSKILL DDR3
Gigabyte P55M-UD2
Intel Pro 1000 PT Gigabit NIC
150GB Velociraptor 10KRPM 2.5”
500GB Seagate 7200RPM 3.5”
320GB Toshiba 5400RPM 2.5”
256GB Crucial M4 SSD 2.5”
40GB Intel SSD 2.5”
Antec Earthwatts 430w
Silverstone PS08B

It was living in the HAF932 before, but that just looked foolish. At 30 dollars from Memory Express, the PS08B was really a no brainer. The 16GB of GSKILL DDR3 came from the HardwareCanucks forums, as well as the Pro 1000 PT, the 40GB SSD, and the 256GB Crucial M4. There’s a dual port HP NC360T on the way for another couple NICs. I’ll go over the configuration a bit more in a future post, but so far things are awesome.

Oh, and just for the size comparison between the PS08 and the HAF932, just take a look below.

How About Some More Pictures?

Still playing around with the camera a lot, just thought I'd post up some of the images and give a few comments on them. Hoping to have a full review in about a month. Maybe some new lenses by then too! I'm pretty much decided on my two lenses, going to be going with a Sony SEL35f18 prime with optical steady shot, and an SEL55210 telephoto, also with optical steady shot. These should give me the perfect range for shooting lowlight, and longer range!

I find the depth of field effect is really nice. The large sensor really helps in slightly lower light situations. The white balance isn't the auto white balance isn't the greatest, but I think that's more of a limitation of the kit lens. Setting the white balance for incandescent gives a much better effect. I think this image turned out really well though.

This was a nice daylight shot, inside. I think it was just slightly cloudy outdoors. This was shot with auto white balance. The camera performs really well in natural light. The nuts ended up very well detailed.

Again, the camera performs great in natural light. the level of detail is astounding. The cat is normally a tough shot, just because he moves around so much. We can hardly keep him still, but the ISO performance of this camera is great. You can bump up the shutter speed and the ISO a bit, and resizing, you wouldn't even notice it. It's very low noise up to about ISO 3200.

This was shot using the speed priority mode. It was really, really sunny out, so unfortunately most of the detail was lost in the original, however after cropping and some playing with contrast/levels, it turned out to be an alright picture. My mistake was leaving the aperture wide open at f/3.5. I should have stopped down a bit, while keeping the same 1/4000 shutter speed. Overall though, the camera does really well with motion, and even though the original image was completely blown out, it was recoverable.

This is the seat from the girlfriend's bike. It was shot on a nice sunny morning, and unfortunately I forgot to change the white balance back to auto. I think it turned out pretty good though. The composition ended up nice. It also reminds me I need to dust. I played with the exposure compensation on this one too, dropping to to -0.7.

Age Of Empires 2 HD Is Now Available On Steam

This brings back a lot of childhood memories. Age Of Empires 2 has been remastered in HD and released on Steam. It's essentially the same old Age Of Empires, but it supports higher screen resolutions, and they've redone a bunch of the effects. It also supports joining multiplayer games in Steam, Steam workshop, and achievements. I've been playing it a bit on my own and with some friends, and I must say it's just as fun as the original!

Grab it today for around 20 dollars on Steam. [Link]

Daft Punk SNL Advertisement

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMJwcOiBoZE

Teaser ad for the new Daft Punk album coming out in May. I'm just a little bit excited.

Walk In The Waterfowl Park

Here's some sample shots from the NEX-F3. Was pretty low light conditions on the walk with the girlfriend, and I think it performed great.

New Camera

That background blur. Expect better photos on the blog starting with whatever comes next for a post! Hope to have a full, non-professional review of this awesome camera up in the near future.

M-Audio AV-30: My Review

Heading back to an apartment, I knew that the Logitech X-530 speaker set I had for years wasn’t going to be cutting it any more. It wasn’t just the extra noise factor from the subwoofer, it was also the extra speakers that just weren’t being used, and the audio quality wasn’t up to par with my headphones.

My search for affordable speakers started in August of 2012. I knew I wanted something that was a lot more flat than what the bass heavy X-530s were, and also something that was a bit more space saving. I didn’t want to spend an arm and a leg, so AudioEngines were out of the question. I had looked at the M-Audio AV series for a while, and after deciding the extra bulk of the AV-40s wasn’t worth the extra cash, and the fact that the AV-30s were available in store, I purchased them in Moncton.

The Hardware:Overview And Opinions

The speakers are a nice solid wood cabinet, with a 3” woofer and a 1” tweeter. On the front of the left speaker (where the amp is housed) is the volume knob, which is illuminated with blue light when the speaker is on for easily identifying power state. Also located on the front is a 3.5mm headphone jack, and 3.5mm line in. The sides and tops are bare, however, the back houses the bass reflex port, the speaker wire terminators for linking the speakers, the power on/off switch, and also the standard ⅛” RCA jacks. On the bottom of each speaker is a thin foam pad that absorbs any vibrations.

Overall the speakers sound great. They’re similar in response to my HD555s, which is what I was looking for in a speaker. The crossover between the woofer and tweeter was engineered great, with little discernable crossover. Lows fade really well into highs. In listening to my daily playlists, which can consist of anything from rock to pop to dance, the speakers performed admirably, and I was pleased with the reproduction of audio in comparison to my headphones. They perform awesomely for games as well, specifically real time strategies where I don’t want to wear headphones for an extended period.  I also like the fact that there is a headphone out and a line in on the front for easy access. The standard ⅛” RCA jacks on the back mean I can connect these to many different pieces of equipment if necessary. The magnetic shielding ensures they don’t interfere with my monitors and other electronics in the room.

One thing I don’t really like about them is the power switch is located in the back. This isn’t a huge deal if you’re just leaving them on, and it’s nice to have a physical switch to turn them off. I believe better positioning may have been combining power with the volume knob, or instead a separate button on the front. Another thing would be that they don’t handle vocals quite as nicely as I’d like them to. I’d like to be able to keep youtube videos at a lower volume while still having the voices clear, however, I find I need to turn the volume up. This is more than likely just the way they set the audio channels on the videos, but I do wish these would handle vocals better without the need to turn them up. EQing may solve this problem, however I haven’t played with it yet. It could also be fixed with proper positioning, but my desk doesn’t currently support it.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for an affordable pair of balanced studio monitors that still pack a decent punch, the AV-30s may satisfy you. Expect them to fill a small to medium room with decent sound, but don’t expect much beyond that. The size makes them semi-portable as well, so it wouldn’t be a huge deal bringing them to a hotel room if travelling.

Stuff I Like: Global Knives

I really enjoy cooking. Not only do I enjoy cooking, but I also enjoy the science behind it, and the gear involved. If someone asked me about the one thing in the kitchen that is the most important to me, the one thing I couldn’t live without, I’d have to say it would be a good knife.

I’ve always had a few different knives in my kitchen, but never anything considered high end or “good” to most. I’d always wanted something a bit better, and after looking at a bunch of different options, I settled on the brand Global. Global is a Japanese knife brand from the company Yoshikin, and tends to come in a bit cheaper than knives by the likes of Shun or MAC. Overall the knives have a very handsome look to them, and are sure to catch eyes when you have guests over. The knife is all stainless steel with a dimpled, hollow, sand filled handle for balance, and a razor sharp blade set at 15 degrees. This makes for a knife that is comfortable and balanced for extended use in fine tasks like mincing or dicing, but can also be used for heavier tasks like breaking down meat and large root vegetables.

The edge keeps rather admirably, as I’ve only had to run it over the fine stone of my Minosharp+ once to restore the edge to it’s original condition. This is partly due to the custom steel they use, called Cromova 18. The steel is apparently ridiculously hard, which is evident from my usage. Even though the blade is stamped, it still feels like a forged blade in use. I personally believe that in this day and age, as long as it’s manufactured at a high enough level it really doesn’t matter if it’s forged or stamped, either blade will perform the same.

Overall, Global blades come highly recommended from myself, a lot of professionals. Reading through Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain (again), I noticed he recommends Global knives due to the price point and high quality. I can completely agree. If you’re in the market for a new knife, consider a Global blade.

Check out the Global Knives website here [Link], and Kitchen Confidental on Google Play here [Link].

Minecraft: Pocket Edition

Minecraft: Pocket Edition is quite possibly the best 10 cent app I purchased during the 10 cent sale on Google Play. The worst part is, I didn't even know. I let it sit doing nothing for months, until I finally picked up the game, after spinning up a server for some friends. I never saw the draw of Minecraft. During college, all of my friends were playing it pretty heavily, back during the Alpha/Beta stages. I personally thought it was a pretty big tech demo, just to show a little bit more of what Java could do. Boy was I wrong. This is like a digital version of Lego, letting you build whatever you want, and I'm hooked. Well, at least on the mobile side.

The app is coded really well, it seems to run smoothly, not skipping many frames, even at 720x1184 on my phone, or 800x1184 on my tablet. I'd love to see how it ran on the Nexus 10 however. Features are a bit sparse compared to the full version, but each release gets better, even though they seem to be pretty far between.

Check out Minecraft: Pocket Edition on Google Play.