NTSC->PAL, 110-220, other questions

[Phillip Lamb]

Hi everybody,

The wife and I are having a baby (hooray!) but healthcare in the US
sucks, so we're moving to France, where her parents live (hooray?).
Like most of you, I have a lot of 110 volt detritus lying around, as
well as a soldering irons, power tools (Lithium Ion batteries, EXCEPT
for the circular saw), TV, Xbox360, computer monitors, etc. What I'm
wondering is, what's worth taking? Will step-down converters work, or
will they fry everything to little crispy silicon bits? Keep in mind
our list of 110v things also includes kitchen stuff like a kitchenaid,
blender, that sort of thing.

Is it worth buying converters? For AV, my understanding of HDMI is
that it's neither NTSC nor PAL, but it still outputs in those flavors
and can't really be changed. Is this the case? How will those battery
recharging stations hold out under a converter?

Thanks!
-pl

[Matt Kime]

a lot of electronics will work in both places with simple plug
adapters. look at the device or its power adapter and it should state
what the power requirements are. 110-220v power adapters are very
common.

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[Phillip Lamb]

The only trouble there is that, for my macbook at least, the last time
I went over to Europe and plugged in the simple wall adapter, the wall
plug sparked and then the power brick caught on fire. It definitely
said "110-220," so that's where my hesitation/confusion comes from :-)

-pl

[Alpay Kasal]

you know, that's the 3rd time i've heard of a macbook sparking when
plugged in oversees. i killed my old ibook in France this way. and
you're right, it was 110-220.

[Phillip Lamb]

Ah, vindication! Is Apple acknowledging the issue, and have you heard
if it's a problem on the newer bricks?

-pl

[michaeldepasquale]

well the new power converters for the mac's work just fine over there
i was just in Sweden and the converter is only for the plug i got it
free at a junk store

[Alpay Kasal]

they blamed my power source way-back-when. i'm sure the others who i've
heard this happen to got the same story but i don't know for sure.

Quoting Phillip Lamb <philli...@gmail.com>:
> Ah, vindication! Is Apple acknowledging the issue, and have you heard
> if it's a problem on the newer bricks?
>

> -pl

[Ryan Micallef]

This is impossible. Apple products are flawless and just work for
everyone in all situations. Haven't you seen the commercials? :)

Seriously, though, I love that you phrased it as "Is Apple
acknowledging the issue". Speaks volumes about their product design
and customer service.

[Phillip Lamb]

Hey, I've had zero trouble with mac laptops and iphones. The
peripherals, now, that's another thing entirely...

-pl

[Bradley Laboe]

That's what I am always told about Apple products ... (and I spend most of my time at work proving that ALL computers suck... apologies to all who are part of the Steve Jobs cult and to ALL computer users)

Brad

Dyslexics Untie

[c f]

As a computer architect, I can confirm that all computers are evil.

[Bradley Laboe]

Or are they just programed that way???? 

[c f]

Nope, it gets etched into them.

[Alpay Kasal]

I personally stopped buying apple products some time ago... i keep a macbook around for when I occasionally do demo for companies i suspected as being fanboy's. i won't hijack the thread with my stories or start a flame war... it does seem to me though that as apple grew in the last handful of years (from 7% market share of computers to 14% after the ipod's popularity) QC issues among my friends (total apple fans) rose. best thing they did was dump the old os for a unix variant. anyway, competition is always good, i hope they keep growing.

Alpay Kasal
Artist/Engineer
blog: http://blog.LitStudios.com
twitter: @alpaykasal

[Ryan Micallef]

Wasn't trying to start a flame war. I actually agree with Chris that
they're all evil, from their evil silicon hearts to their evil plastic
tentacles. But I think it's funny that Apple managed to convince
people their machines are made out of unobtanium and pixie dust. I
also like that they're around to keep MS on its toes. I just wish
they weren't so self-righteous about it.

[Alpay Kasal]

right on... being an old and crotchity Commodore Amiga fanboy myself,
i've learned that a tool is a tool and i'll use whatever's the most
efficient for my dollar. the demise of that really good platform got me
to stop romanticizing tech. oh how i did love it though, being a
superloyal follower was fun, i eagerly anticipated every issue of
amigaworld magazine and enjoyed spending my money and turbocharging my
little renderfarm regardless of much faster (read blazingly) pentium's
made pc's using the same software tools. ha, unobtanium, love it!

[Matt Kime]

after shopping for a 13" laptop for my girlfriend and having it arrive
a month late _and_ smashed, lets just say i failed to leave the fanboy
compound.

seriously though, have you tried to find a 13" laptop that can take
more than 4gb of ram, has a dvi connector and led backlight? apple
makes good hardware.

and the magic mouse...multitouch on a mouse! oooooh....

[Phillip Lamb]

Does apple make a stepdown converter? How well will it handle a load
from a kitchen appliance or an LED TV?

:-p

[Matt Kime]

Apple doesn't make a blender so you don't need one.

[Matt Joyce]

The apple pc war is played out.... but having worked it in a largely mac ( a couple thousand system footprint )...  macs are poorly built.  Apple goes with cheap materials and even cheaper manufacturers.  Thus the incredibly high rate of failure in apple power supply units across the entire family.  And the several of the imacs were prone to catching fire.  Ppc xserves had a greater than 50% rate of failure... and they despise their customers.

So I vehemently disagree with the argument that apple makes decent hardware.

On Nov 17, 2009 5:11 PM, "Matt Kime" <matt...@gmail.com> wrote:

after shopping for a 13" laptop for my girlfriend and having it arrive
a month late _and_ smashed, lets just say i failed to leave the fanboy
compound.

seriously though, have you tried to find a 13" laptop that can take
more than 4gb of ram, has a dvi connector and led backlight? apple
makes good hardware.

and the magic mouse...multitouch on a mouse! oooooh....

On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 4:59 PM, Alpay Kasal <al...@litstudios.com> wrote: > right on... being an o...

[Matt Kime]

>>So I vehemently disagree with the argument that apple makes decent hardware.

who's better?

(honestly curious, i did a lot of research and failed to come up with
a good answer)

[Ryan Micallef]

IBM. Possibly Lenovo, but that is yet to be seen.

[Alpay Kasal]

i agree, great hardware design and glitz, they seem to change the game
so effortlessly with new products. but horrible horrible build quality,
i've seen it enough times to stay away. i figure it's growing pains. to
be clear, i'm not bashing apple, just speaking from my experience.

i guess this thread did end up hijacked kinda. sorry.

Alpay Kasal
Artist/Engineer
blog: http://blog.LitStudios.com
twitter: @alpaykasal

Quoting Matt Kime <matt...@gmail.com>:
> after shopping for a 13" laptop for my girlfriend and having it arrive
> a month late _and_ smashed, lets just say i failed to leave the fanboy
> compound.
>
> seriously though, have you tried to find a 13" laptop that can take
> more than 4gb of ram, has a dvi connector and led backlight? apple
> makes good hardware.
>
> and the magic mouse...multitouch on a mouse! oooooh....
>
> On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 4:59 PM, Alpay Kasal <al...@litstudios.com> wrote:

[Bradley Laboe]

If computers didn't suck there'd be no IT jobs!!!!!! the User to admin ratio for Mac's is too high because Mac users need lot's of hand holding in spite of the easy to use GUI... don't get me wrong... MS stuff isn't any better... you only need less admins cause you can limit the choices... the Mac IT guys spend hours and hours fixing apple mail and peoples i-tunes i-pods i-phones etc as well as a major amount of hand holding... once my PC's and Unix/Linux boxes are setup and debugged I never hear from my users unless there are upgrades or they blow up.
Brad

Dyslexics Untie

[Matt Kime]

they failed to send the order to the warehouse for a month, took
another week to ship after that, and then the machine arrived with a
large crack in it.

i'm beginning to wonder if i should overlook that next time i'm in the
market for a pc even though its pretty much unforgivable.

[Alpay Kasal]

to try and answer "who's better"... I read a magazine on a flight last
week, forgot which, either popular mech, discovery... hmm, one of the
sciencey mags. they had a "breakdown" of laptop reliability over 3
years.

I remember Asus and Toshiba got the highest honors (because i own 2
asus laptops i use for outdoor events now and have an ancient toshiba
in the house that refuses to die after drops and spills). Lowest
honors, i believe, was gateway and hp, i was surprised about HP
personally. Apple was around the middle somewhere. my experiences with
bigbox companies like dell and hp has been one centered around repair
and hardware swaps whereas my experience with the genius bar has always
been about replacement. obsolescence means different things to
different companies.

[Alpay Kasal]

oh wow, asus and toshiba, the top two... well i just read on engadget
that asus is bidding to buy toshiba which would make it jump past dell
in global marketshare.

[mhenstell]

Ha, thanks for the Core reference. Also, interesting to see so many
people stuck in the past. Besides, this is
NYCResistor:Microcontrollers, and EAGLE is cross-platform, so who
cares? :)

> >>>>>> On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 12:39, Phillip Lamb <phillip.l...@gmail.com

>
> >>>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>>> Ah, vindication! Is Apple acknowledging the issue, and have you
> >>>>>>> heard
> >>>>>>> if it's a problem on the newer bricks?
>
> >>>>>>> -pl
>
> >>>>>>> On Nov 17, 2009, at 11:37 AM, Alpay Kasal wrote:
>
> >>>>>>>> you know, that's the 3rd time i've heard of a macbook sparking
> >>>>>>>> when
> >>>>>>>> plugged in oversees. i killed my old ibook in France this way.
> >>>>>>>> and
> >>>>>>>> you're right, it was 110-220.
>

> ...
>
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