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UFC 116

They should have named this event “Clash of the Titans” because that’s what it is. Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin will be entering the octagon tipping well pass the heavyweight limit. This is the epitome of a heavyweight match. Carwin is known for his knockout power and crushing all his opponents in one round, and Brock is just as powerful if not more, and is  more athletic and superior in wrestling. Lesnar has been sideline for about one year due to illness and many would say that ring rust will play a role in the outcome of the fight. But some people forget that Lensar had his illness for several years and didn’t know about it. He was never able to train 100%. Lesnar was beating people up and won the heavyweight title while suffering from diverticulitis.  Now that he’s all healed up and training at 100% will we see an even more powerful and faster Brock Lesnar?

Carwin’s 12 wins are impressive but he hasn’t shown any other abilities other than knocking guys out (maybe he doesn’t need to). We’ve seen what Lesnar can do and he gets better every time he enters the cage. I don’t see Carwin defending Brock’s takedown, and unless he’s powerful enough to knock people out from his back and I don’t see him getting Brock off of him. With Fedor’s recent loss this match up will show who is the true heavyweight champ in MMA.

My Picks:

Brock Lesnar beats Shane Carwin

Chris Leben beats Yoshihiro Akiyama

Chris Lytle beats Matt Brown

Krzysztof Soszynski beats Stephan Bonnar

George Stiropoulos beats Kurt Pellegrino

Gerald Harris beats Dave Branch

Forrest Petz beats Daniel Roberts

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The King has fallen

June 26, 2010 will be marked as a moment in MMA to remember. Fabricio Werdum did the unthinkable and beat the Russian machine, Fedor Emelianenko. Going into the fight Fedor was unbeaten in 10 years and a living legend in MMA.

Fedor’s dominance in the sport led people to watch him fight not to see him win, but to see if his opponents had anything that could pose any kind of threat to the Russian. But in the sport of MMA everyone will eventually feel the sting of defeat. With this loss the mystique of the unbeatable warrior is gone forever, but it doesn’t take away that he is one of the best fighters in the world.  Fedor did make obvious mistakes that led to his loss, but Fabricio Werdum was the one that faced the sport’s best and slapped a wicked triangle to finish the fight and that, was no mistake. And with this win Werdum will be known as the first man to hand Fedor’s first legitimate loss.

MMA fans who believed Fedor’s title as the best Heavyweight fighter in the world was unjustified and will use this loss to prove their point. For the past few years Fedor has fought mediocre opponents, and those opponents weren’t worthy enough to make any fighter the best in the world. That, I agree, but beating them didn’t make him any less of one. It was in PrideFC where they had the best heavyweight fighters in the world Fedor proved undoubtedly that he was the #1. At that time he had beaten the two best fighters, Antonio Rodrigo Noguiera (twice) and Mirko Cro Cop. Any other heavyweight whether in PrideFC, UFC, or in any organization would just be cannon fodder for these two, but Fedor Emelianenko cemented himself as the best when he beat them convincingly. Unfortunately with the fall of PrideFC Fedor was left to fight in smaller organizations where competition was in short supply. A fight in the UFC never came to fruition (Fedor’s management mostly to blame).  It left many to wonder if he was still the best in the world since fighters like Brock Lesnar, Shane Carwin, Cain Velasquez, and Junior Dos Santos, who are all in the UFC, are making headway to the top of heavyweight mountain.

So where does Fedor stand in the rankings? It’s very difficult to tell, but one thing is for sure that he is no longer #1. Some people will say he is, and that this recent loss is just a fluke. But I say, “you’re only as good as your last fight.” And his last fight was a loss and it’s hard to argue about being the best when you’ve just been defeated. The king has fallen and the only way to get back his throne is to quickly get back in the cage (or ring).

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Knight and Day

Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz join up again, this time in a Romantic-Action movie. Cruise plays charming, funny, and well trained Jason Borne-style spy/assassin/Federal Agent who is being chased down by the government agency he works for and an international Black Arms dealer. Diaz is the unsuspecting girls that  gets caught up in the mix and is forced to tag along with Cruise in order to stay alive.

Cruise and Diaz are fun to watch and their chemistry plays out well on screen. Though a little over the top in some scenes this is a fun summer action flick you would expect from a Tom Cruise movie, but I must say that Knight and Day is not as polished as his previous films.

Rating: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆

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D-Link DNS-323 NAS Review

Believe it or not this is my first NAS device. I’ve used many different kinds for work but never really bothered buying one for myself. My previous storage methods were with several USB external hard drives and a server with multiple drives. They all have been working fine and luckily they haven’t failed on me. The issue with my current setup is the amount of space they take up and the amount of power it consumes.

I needed an efficient and effective way of consolidating my storage. With over 800 GB of music, movies, pictures, and files the D-Link DNS-323 fits the bill. The DNS-323 is a 3 year old model and its one of the more popular NAS solutions available. This device is a 2-bay enclosure and the drives are sold separately. The DNS-323 supports RAID 1, 0, and JBOD. It can also be set up as an ftp server so you can access your files remotely.

The device can be used with one drive, but using two drives is best if you want to take advantage of RAID. When paired with Western Digital Green drives it will keep your NAS cool, quiet, and power consumption to a minimum.

What is RAID? It stands for redundant array of independent disks. The DNS-323 supports two types of RAID. RAID 0 is referred to stripping. It means data is written to both drives. Half of the data goes to one and the other half goes to the other drive. When data is being accessed both drives can send each half of the data so it provides better read performance compared to using just a single drive. The draw back of RAID 0 is that if one drive fails all your data is hosed.

RAID 1 is referred to mirroring. Data is written to both drives since the drive” mirror” each other. In the case with the DNS-323 RAID 1 provides the same read performance as RAID 0, but at the cost of reducing the storage capacity by half. This setup is best (and recommended) if you require data protection. Even if one drive fails you can still access your data. When you replace the failed drive the NAS can rebuilt the new drive automatically to ensure your RAID 1 configuration.

JBOD stands for “just a bunch of disks.” Each manufactures have different meanings for it. JBOD can be referred to having separate independent drives that can be visible from the NAS or it can be represented as one volume where the storage is spanned across the two drives. As for the DNS-323 it uses the latter meaning. Data is written to the first drive until it is full then data will be written to the send drive. The difference between JBOD and RAID 0 is that JBOD read performance is not as fast, and if one drive fails in a JBOD setup only data on that drive is lost.

My current setup consist of 2 x 2TB WD Green drives with a RAID 1 configuration. My laptop has a mapped drive to the NAS with certain folders set for offline syncing. It works great and does what I need it to do. This device supports a gigabit connection and if you’re looking to transfer a large amount of files be sure you’re network supports it. Those looking for a NAS solution should check out this D-Link DNS-323. It’s inexpensive and easy to setup. It supports the large 2 TB drives that are available and it’s firmware has been updated frequently to add better stability and more features. Since the device is popular there are a ton of end-user support through official and unofficial forums.

Rating: ★★★★★★★★☆☆

Pros:
Inexpensive
Support 1000Mbps networks
Easy to use Admin interface
Small and quiet design

Cons:
User and Groups creation and network access setup is archaic
RAID 0 & 1 vs JBOD read performace difference is minimal
Can’t be used as an external (USB) disk drive. (But there are available hacks to allow it)

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The Karate Kid (2010)

I was a fan of the original movie and when I heard they were doing a remake I was convinced that Hollywood has ran out of ideas.  After watching the trailer and following some reviews I decided to catch a showing at the mall. For those who are unfamiliar with martial arts the movie title is a misnomer. The movie has nothing to do with Karate, which is a Japanese martial art, and everything to do with Kung fu, a Chinese martial art.  Will Smith’s son, Jaden Smith, plays Dre, a 12 year old kid who moves to China because his mother’s job has been relocated. Unfamiliar with its culture Dre gets beat up and bullied. And then come Mr. Han, played by Jackie, to teach Dre Kung Fu and compete against those bullies in a martial arts tournament.

This movie is exciting, funny, and emotional that carries a serious tone to it. One would expect over the top slap stick comedy from Jack Chan, but his stoic character is anything but. Jaden, even at this young of age has serious acting talent, did a great job in The Pursuit of Happyness, and he does an even better job in this movie. He plays a very believable 12 year old kid loss in a world much different than his own, but does everything he can to fit in. It’s always the case when there’s a girl involved. Whether or not you’ve seen the original go see this movie. It runs a little long than it should, but it doesn’t disappoint.

Rating: ★★★★★★★★½☆

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UFC 115

It’s been a while since I’ve posted my UFC event picks. With work and remodeling and moving into my new house I didn’t have any time to post. Now that I have internet at my new place the website is now back up.

Anyways here are my quick picks. Sorry no analysis this time.

My Picks:

Chuck Liddell  beats Rich Franklin
Mirko Filipovic beats Pat Barry
Paulo Thiago beats Kampmann
Ben Rothwell beats Gilbert Yvel
Carlos Condit beats Rory MacDonald

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iPad Review

The iPad is a great looking piece of hardware, and there’s no doubt that Apple has pushed the tablet onto consumer minds. Now everyone and their grandmother is trying to push out a tablet device to compete with it.  

For those who haven’t gotten their hands on an iPad it’s basically an oversized iPod Touch. Besides its size the device has a larger resolution and a faster processor that makes navigating and browsing the internet on it very smooth. There really isn’t a solid reason to go out an buy one if you already have an iPhone or iPod Touch. The iPad is meant for content consumption rather than content creation. If you’re a news and media junkie like me then the iPad is a great device. Don’t expect the iPad to replace you laptop or even your netbook. Typing a lengthy email or a document on this tablet is not as comfortable as one might think.

I bought the iPad knowing what it was capable and incapable of doing. I knew exactly what I was going to do with it when I got it; play with my iPhone apps, casual web browsing, Netflix, and checking personal/work email. I have some friends who bought an iPad then tried to find a way to use it only ended up returning it. Those buying the device based on hype and no knowledge about it will no doubt have buyer’s remorse. Throwing $600+ at a gadget you don’t know what you want to do with it is idiotic. If you can’t see yourself using it regularly then just skip it.

One of the few disappointments with the iPad is not the device itself, but rather the apps. If you bought an app on the iPhone or iPod Touch it will work with your iPad, but if you want the app that supports the higher resolution you’ll have to pay full price. Some of the iPad version of apps are just an upscaled in resolution, no additional content, no additional function and I can’t justify paying full price for an app you already have. You can still use your iPhone/iPod Touch apps but you’ll have to settle for a lower res version which looks very pixelated. Some developers have apps that support both, and the apps automatically scale to the device you have. In the iPad app store there is a designation on the app that shows that is supports both the devices. These are the apps I tend to download and buy. Some of the iPad specific apps are fantastic. The developers really took advantage of the additional pixels and crammed as much content as they could on that screen. I can definitely see it being used as a teaching/studying tool. The iPad is still relatively new and great apps for it is far and few in between at least for the moment.

At the D8 Conference this week Steve Jobs stated that the tablets are like cars and desktops/laptops are like trucks. They’ll always be around, but not many will use them. I have to disagree. I would compare tablets to motorcycles and desktops/laptops to cars and trucks. Your first computing device will most likely be a desktop/laptop because, like a car, it’s more utilitarian. And like the iPad, motorcycles are cool and fun to try and it’s not very comfortable on long rides or very useful when you need to carry a load or even a light load. With Apple’s help the tablet is here to stay, but whether it’ll be mainstream only time will tell.

Rating: ★★★★★★★½☆☆

Pros:
Great form factor and build quality
Decent battery life (9-10 hours)
Can access all your iPhone/iPod Touch apps
Simple and familiar UI

Cons:
No Adobe Flash support
No Camera
No Multitasking
Very expensive

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Iron Man 2

Tony Stark and his suit of armor is back. This time he’s fighting more than just a villain who possess the same technology he does. Stark fights to stay alive from his arc reactor that keeps him going. The palladium poisoning is the side effect of that arc reactor and until he finds an alternative fuel source Stark gives up control of his company to his assistant and lives his life recklessly.

Iron Man 2 is not as polished as the first movie, but it’s fun and exciting with a few indirect cameos of other hero’s in the Marvel universe. We all know the Avengers movie is coming and it can’t come soon enough.

Rating: ★★★★★★★½☆☆