Hey guys!
So yea... Its been quite some time, mainly because I haven't had much of a social life recently. Didn't get anything, didn't do anything, didn't shoot anything (for personal enjoyment) so I've been quiet lately. Also been planning my finances to get stuff and for the future and well, a month and a half more and I'll have my Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 VRII lens! So excited! Then very soon, I'll have my final theory test and then start my driving lessons, hopefully I'll be able to get my driver's license at the end of the year, that would be the best Christmas present to myself! And I might travel overseas, but that remains to be decided though.
So anyway! Yesterday some of my packages came, I ordered quite a bit of stuff mainly because I need them. I'll update as they come but yea, on to this group of stuff!
My packages
What's inside
So yea... First things first! I got a replacement Seal Lead Acid Battery (SLAB) for my Quantum Turbo Battery pack since the cell inside is pretty old and needs to be replaced. That's what I was told anyway. I've replaced it and now it works! In fact, as I'm typing this entry, its charging at home!
Basically unscrewed the thing, shake it a little and out it came, I opened it 3 times when changing the battery and a small plastic piece came out each time, I still have no idea what that plastic piece is for or which part it came from, but it didn't affect the usage of my battery pack so I don't really bother. As long as it works without any issues
The internals from the front
The internals from the top, look at that battery! IT'S HUGE!
The wire connecting to the battery, not really easy to slide onto the new battery, and a little hard to pull on one of the connectors on the old battery
Top view of the new and old batteries side by side
Front View of the new and old batteries side by side, looks exactly the same! Other than the sticker of course
So... Next thing... The Crucial Adrenaline Cache SSD. I backed up my desktop the moment I got home, I didn't even take photos and etc, I just backed up first as I've read some stuff that the cache SSD can cause corruption. So anyway... I backed up, then at the same time I changed the battery pack and took photos of everything in this entry, and well, I was reading the box and the contents as well, very interesting and awesome!
Top of the box
Back of the box, idea of cache SSDs, pair an SSD with a hard drive and use aoftware like Dataplex and some other stuff is printed on the back
One side of the box, I find it interesting cause I thought it was going to be like, a lid or open from the side, but nope. Its pretty much like Apple, so you slide it out then open it, I quite like it cause it makes packing neater, but unnecessary but really nice of Crucial to do that
Bottom of the box, I blacked out some stuff as I've no idea if its important but I just did it in case it was
Smaller boxes slid out, nice eh?
Crucial Adrenaline Cache SSD box, inside its anti static bag, in one of the box
SATA Cable, bracket and screws, located in the other box, one thing about the bracket, I remember Linus on NCIX Tech Tips on Youtube saying that some are flimsy, so I tried this, it isn't, it's solid!
Out of the anti static bag, nice looking SSD I must say, though I think I like Corsair's Accelerator design a little more, but for the same price, the Crucial called out louder with SATA III standard (a little more future proof for me, coupled with good reps for SSD though Corsair ain't bad either)
Closeup of the SSD, interestingly, its a product of Singapore, so if that were the case, it made a round trip
In its bracket ready for installation using the 2.5" bracket that came with my computer case
After backing up, I had to shut down, opened my computer and navigate through a mess of wires (not exaggerating) and plug in the power and data. I had to sacrifice my optical disc drive temporarily until my PCIe card comes. My new computer is planned such that it will be bigger and use a higher end mainboard to support the technology at that point int time. After everything was plugged in, I turn on, initialize the SSD, install the Dataplex and restart. I know that it supposedly starts caching the moment it restarts after installing the Dataplex software, so I timed it using my watch and put into a tablet below.
| Hard Drive | 1st Boot | 2nd Boot | 3rd Boot | 4th Boot |
| Without Cache SSD | 8 mins 30 secs | Not tested | Not tested | Not tested |
| With Crucial Adrenaline Cache SSD | Approx 3 mins 35 secs | Approx 1 mins 02 secs | Approx 1 mins 03 secs | Approx 1 mins 34 secs |
| Laptop's Corsair Force 3 | Approx 40-45 | Not tested | Not tested | Not tested |
Its timed from the time I see the boot logo (Gigabyte and ASUS) until MSN Messenger, Firefox, iTunes and Outlook were loaded up which is what I normally do when I start my computer up. I didn't use the Corsair in my desktop simply because it was in my laptop, I don't have a test work bench and I'm not required to do reviews to that extent. But I digress so back to the matter at hand! 1 boot after everything has been installed for my ASUS G73jh, it took approx 40-45 secs to bootup, type my password, login and start up. One factor could be that my laptop might be using SATA 3 but I'm unsure. For my desktop just based on hard disk alone, with a Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 64mb cache, it took about 8mins 30 secs to be able to scroll in a useable manner, and it isn't even smooth. With the Crucial Adrenaline, it was cut down to approx 3mins 35 secs, 2nd and 3rd boot slightly over a min. Not sure why 4th boot is slower but I did leave it on over night for about 7 hours? Shut down and plug in my cables and drives because my mother spilled some water last night and hence I cannot plug in the cables after installing the Crucial Adrenaline in. I rebooted by shutting down, waiting a few seconds and turning it on again. Regardless, its still extremely fast! One thing though, they say about power outage will cause issues. I did that unintentionally because I accidentally turned off the main power, but its still working fine! One thing I really have to say, good job on providing the Dataplex key on a separate card, apparently, OCZ prints the key on the drive itself, if I copied wrongly, I'll have to remove, check and reinsert in that case, but Cruicial provided an external one so yay!
Anyway, moving on! I also got a Manfrotto Super clamp for my DIY light panel as well as Joe McNally and David Hobby's Flash Bus Tour DVD which I couldn't attend because they only toured within the U.S.
Manfrotto Super Clamp, looks cheap in its original packaging
Apparently the real deal according to the design of the sticker, beats the Justin Clamp, it came in a box and doesn't have anything else, looked like someone just took theirs, threw it in a box and mailed it, no matter!
The Flash Bus DVD
So yea, that's all the stuff for now, I'm still waiting for some stuff to arrive at the forwarding service and will have them shipped over ASAP. Also, I recently did this in the office, a 3D rendering of the light panel I'm planning on building, still sourcing the materials though...
It's suppose to be somewhat modular, by using different joins and lengths of PVC pipes, can make 1m by 1m, 1m by 2m or 2m by 2m. I've seen some DIYs but theirs are mainly one fixed size or meant to be very fast to setup, I've got time so I'm more concern with expandability. Since I'm most likely the only person using, it doesn't really have to be simple, in fact, anyone with common sense will be able to assemble the one I'm planning on assembling. Only the 1m by 1m and 1m by 2m will have a cross bar to be used in conjunction with a boom arm and I noticed the 2m by 2m is so big, no one uses 2 boom arm to support it. If you have space to set a 2 by, most likely will have space to just just straight up light stands so no point getting boom arms for it. I'm still deciding how many boom arms to get though. Decided to get C stands if I ever use monolights, else, the boom arms will work fine with my current light stands and Speedlights though I do need sand bags... So that's all for now! Will try to update more often but due to the lack of a proper social life, might be a little difficult, have a good day everyone!
