I wanted to replace my old Logitech laptop speakers. I have recently started listening to Spotify a lot and I got a Netflix subscription, which I use on my Apple TV. So I needed some good 2.1 Speakers. Searching the Internet it looked like Edifier S730 where the best choice. It was a bit expensive around 300 euros.

It arrived in a heavy, solid box. I opened the box and the first items I removed was the controller with the cables and the remote. First thing I noticed: Many scratches on the screen of the device. It’s outrageous that they had a cover on the buttons of the thing, but not the screen! It seems that the cables and the plastic stand for the controller, which were in the same compartment in the box were scratching the screen all the way from China (or wherever they are made in) to Greece.  Apart from the scratches there was also a visible mark .

 

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I contacted the shop where I bought them from and they were very very helpful. I am expecting a new controller in 10 days, hopefully without any scratches. If you pay 300 Euros for speakers, you expect some quality, at least when they arrive brand new. If they are susceptible to scratches it’s your job to look after them once you start using them, but they first have to arrive in a good condition!

For the sound quality part/review, there are loads of reviews and youtube videos. Speakers come with a 3.5mm to RCA, RCA to RCA and coaxial cables. They do not come with optical audio cable though. What I can say is that I connected my Macbook pro headphones exit to the speakers using the 3.5 mm to RCA. The sound was not what I expected. Certainly better than my old speakers, but still it seemed to be missing something.

Then I thought that maybe the headphones exit of my soundcard is not a good choice. So, I used airplay to send only sound to my Apple TV, which I connected to the speakers using an optical cable. Not sure if it’s just my idea, but I have a feeling the sound is a bit better with this setup.

 

Update: As it turns out, the screen has a plastic protector and the scratches were against this plastic. The plastic cover is attached to the screen and doesn’t protrude. You need to use your fingernails on the edge of the screen to remove it.

The vast majority of the posts in this blog are about software development. A good part of most of my posts have some source code. My previous template was a three column one. Most of the code didn’t fit into the middle column of the template, so people had to scroll all the time and formatting was awful.

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I tried quite a few templates, but they didn’t match what I wanted. Finally I ended up Continue reading

I run into an investment advice book printed in 2002 (i.e. before the recession) and the preface starts like this: “(The US people should be) positive about buying or refinancing a home at historically low interest rates or buying a new car under new no-interest offers”. Obviously the recession came later on and everyone who invested in homes (and cars) lost a good deal of money.Moreover, many articles about the recession and its effect on the housing market mentioned that when interest rates are so low, there’s one way to…UP.

So..I was wondering whether I should spend my valuable time to read the rest 280 pages … I guess not… 🙂

When I saw the comic on the new google chrome browser I was very excited. It seems to promise that I will never have to restart the whole browser if just one of the 10 open tabs crashes. No more 100% utilisation for heavyweight javascript sites?

My first experiences (I’ve only been playing with it for 10 minutes):

1) Doesn’t import my huge firefox visited sites history. If during the installation I ask it to import the history it just doesn’t proceed, without any error. The third time I tried to import my firefox settings I unticked the “import history” and it worked.

2) It seems to take longer to initially load up a page (I guess because it spawns a new process each time a new tab is opened and because of the javascript VM).  But once Continue reading