The Life of Brian
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Nov. 27th, 2011
At this moment? An HDR photo of a pier, shot from the beach near it.
I actually have about a dozen wallpaper images that the computer cycles through, all HDR photos courtesy of Trey Ratcliff (www.stuckincustoms.com). I found out about him and his work on a photography podcast that I follow, and later started following him on Google+.
Jun. 9th, 2011
This won't interest all of you, but I know it'll interest at least some of you. If you'd like to take a look at what went across the internet as it was in 1981, check this out:
http://olduse.net/
There are 2 options for accessing it, either a web-based command-line interface, or a client program that speaks NNTP (Thunderbird is a good one for that, and is what I'll be using). The "command-line" interface on the main site isn't very stable at all, but there are mirrors that are better.
You can't post anything, as it's a one-way tunnel through time, but there's plenty there to read. They'll be doing this for the next 10 years, so it'll be interesting to see it as it develops (er, developed).
Current Mood: 
geeky
May. 24th, 2011
I've been using Skype for Asterisk (Digium's native Skype client for their PBX software) since it was in beta 2 years ago. Today, I received an email from Digium stating that Skype (read: Microsoft) has decided to end the agreement that made the integration possible, and Digium will stop selling the module on July 26th. Support for us existing users will be there for the next 2 years, with Skype's option to renew at that time, but I'll believe that when I see it.
So much for Microsoft's promise not to screw over the existing Skype user base.
Current Mood: 
disappointed
Jan. 23rd, 2011
I received the tuner card I was waiting for on Friday, and after installing it I called Comcast to get a CableCard for it. They gave me an appointment for the next day and, while I was hopeful, I wouldn't have been surprised if I were subjected to the same month-and-a-half wait that I had the last time I had this kind of thing done.
Imagine my surprise, then, when they actually showed up. An hour into the 3-hour window, but it could still be considered "on time". He didn't know anything about the tuner card, so he let me install the CableCard and take care of all of the other steps while he called in the numbers that Comcast needed. Once things were synced up, I was able to successfully tune a few channels, but not all that I expected to get (missing were mainly HD and premiums). He left, as we were both thinking that it might just take a bit of time for those to show up. They didn't, but a quick call to Comcast sorted things out and minutes later I had all of the channels that I was paying for.
My TiVo replacement is finally up and running!
Granted, a better choice for a screenshot might have been either X3 or The Two Towers, but I can't do a full-screen Windows Media Center screenshot and those channels won't display in a window... blasted DRM.
After getting that set up, I installed software for channel logos and web-based scheduling, neither of which would work without a TV tuner and guide data being set up first. The latter is currently disappointing in the fact that it doesn't honor WMC defaults for series recordings, but the developer is apparently looking into it.
If the next couple of weeks of testing go well, and at the moment I don't have any reason to believe they won't, I'll be wiping and deactivating the TiVo and returning the 2 CableCards currently in it. At that point, the HTPC upgrade should start paying for itself (aside from the part covered by my year-end bonus), to the tune of around $23/month in savings.
Having 4 tuners instead of 2? Icing on the cake :-)
Current Mood: 
happy
Dec. 30th, 2010
Last night, I started rebuilding my HTPC, almost from the ground up. One reason is to get some actual GPU acceleration involved, but another is to add DVR functionality to it.
The latter is prompted by my last couple of cable bills... I haven't cut the cable for a few reasons, but I can cut a little out of the bill by eliminating an "additional outlet" fee, which I still think is crazy. While my Tivo Series 3 requires 2 CableCards, they're both in the same box, so treating it as another box seems to be the result of greed on Comcast's part. I was debating getting one of the newer Tivo boxes, but after hearing reviews of a certain combination of hardware including a certain tuner card, I'm squarely in the DIY camp. Also, cutting out the Tivo service fee would help even more.
The tuner card in question is the Ceton InfiniTV 4. It takes 1 multi-stream CableCard, and gives the ability to tune up to 4(!) digital cable channels at once. That's one headache I've had occasionally with Tivo... only 2 tuners to go around, and sometimes that just wasn't enough, requiring a shuffling of priority in my series recordings. I'm in a waiting list at the moment for that part, as it's in such high demand right now, but I can continue with other parts of the project until it arrives.
At the machine's core now sits a Zotac IONITX-F-E motherboard. GPU acceleration? Check! It also has the PCI Express slot that the tuner card needs.
For an operating system, I'm using Windows 7. It was a bit of a pain to have to buy a copy of Home Premium for this box, but Windows 7 Media Center is currently the ONLY thing that is supported by the (apparently) ONLY multi-tuner digital cable tuner card available outside of paid system builders. Certainly the best card of its type that I've seen. WMC's Netflix support also gives me one more reason to get rid of the Roku Netflix box.
I'm still using Boxee, currently as an option in WMC's menu. It better handles the way that I keep up with podcasts these days, and I prefer its method of handling TV series episodes (on my media server and via internet streaming) to WMC's.
To control everything, I've written a proxy to translate network commands to keyboard input, something similar to what I did when the machine was running Boxee on Linux. A bit of scripting on my Pronto remote sends those commands to it. It's a work in progress, but I'll likely be releasing it after I'm satisfied with it.
I'd like to get Amazon's video download service working with it, but for some reason WMC can't read their video files. A couple things I've read suggest that a Microsoft update is what broke things, but unfortunately I haven't been able to uninstall it (likely part of a cumulative update, which might break more than it would fix in its removal). At this point, I still have Amazon's software installed, in the hopes that one side or the other will find a fix for it.
[Update @ 01/01/11 1... er, 4:39pm]
Thanks to a little info from Microsoft, the Amazon VOD problem is apparently fixed. Now, to use the $5 credit I have lying around for that.
Current Mood: geeky
Oct. 21st, 2010
Microsoft seems to be sending mixed messages about Windows Phone 7.
Out of one corner of the mouth, it's "Get in. Get out. Get on with life."
Out of the other corner, they're talking about video streaming deals with TV networks and other media-related things.
So, Steve... which is it? Set yourselves apart by being a utilitarian phone/PDA platform (which isn't changing a thing from previous versions, really), or become the very thing your ads are mocking?
Oct. 1st, 2010
Banned Books Week 2010: 10 Graphic Novels And The Shocking Reasons They Frequently Come Under Fire
What I don't get is the "Unsuited to Age Group" reason for removal. What age group would that be? People who think that all comic books and graphic novels are targeted toward children are seriously kidding themselves. I haven't personally read any of those in this list (yet), but I have at least seen the movie version of Watchmen (which is reportedly quite faithful to the novel), and that is no kid's movie. Once that's understood, most (if not all) of the other objections in this list become irrelevant.
In any case, I wholeheartedly agree with the quote in the article.
Jun. 17th, 2010
The money that BP owes the people of the Gulf Coast is a "bailout"? Really??
Sorry, Rush, but the economic repair work that BP is being forced to do isn't even in the same ballpark as the repair work that the Obama administration had to do. BP is being made to pay for its own colossal blunder. The Obama administration is having to do damage control for its predecessor. If we had to depend on the GOP to fix its own mess, we might not have an economy... instead, we might have been left with the remnants of one.
Current Mood: 
annoyed
May. 23rd, 2010
It's interesting to see how tunes can change.
Economic meltdown:
"Government, stay out of it!"
Environmental meltdown:
"Why isn't the government doing anything?"
The truth is, they can't, at least not directly. A federal law was passed after the Exxon Valdez accident in 1989 which gave the owner of the equipment the sole responsibility of oil spill cleanup, penalties and everything. The government can't do anything except provide oversight, which they've done (via the Coast Guard) since the day that the drilling rig blew up in April.
Who was President when that law was passed? Shrub Sr.
While, yes, the blame for spills should be heaped on oil companies in spades, there should have been some sort of clause in there for more possible intervention from the government. Perhaps then, we could get these kind of things cleaned up quickly (as long as, based on historical evidence, one of the Bush clan isn't in office) instead of having to wait while the oil company at fault is putzing around.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-05-22-bp-obama-month-later_N.htm
Feb. 2nd, 2010
Did the groundhog actually see his shadow? How do you know? If the only evidence is that he ran back into his "burrow" (read: human-built stump with a door), then you shouldn't rule out alternate explanations.
Alternate 1 - The observer effect
It's a fact. Sometimes, the thing being observed will change its behavior due to the fact that it's being observed. If you woke up and stepped outside to see a crowd of 40,000 people staring at you, you'd run back inside too.
Alternate 2 - It's cooooooooold outside
'Nuff said.
In conclusion...
Critter shadow or not, we in the northern hemisphere still have around 6 weeks until winter officially ends. How cold it will be depends on where you live and which way the air is flowing.
Current Mood: 
amused
Dec. 31st, 2009
It seems like the travel bug was doing more biting in the last 10 years, but it wasn't until 2000 that I really had the means for a lot of it. My life is certainly all the richer for it, though. Some sad things happened as well, but overall the last 10 years were good for me.
2000 - Spent a summer week in Finland; Lost 2 grandparents, one on each side of the family
2001 - Made the move from renter to homeowner status; Started writing and selling Palm OS software; My half-sister was born; First trip to see NM family after they moved there, and some friends in southern California
2002 - Another trip to NM and SoCal
2003 - The geocaching and video editing bugs started biting me; Ordered a One Ring replica, received 2 swords (oops!)
2004 - Corporate buyout #1; Another trip to the American Southwest (NM/CA); Ordered my first new car ('05 Escape Hybrid), and paid off what it replaced shortly after
2005 - Received the new vehicle, ended up being on the evening news in the process, and broke it in with a road trip to FL
2006 - Corporate buyout #2; Spent St. Paddy's Day in Boston (only place to do it, really) with a couple of good friends, then moved to Georgia
2007 - Flew to Toronto, and covered most of the southernmost part of Ontario by car; Paid off the car and zeroed out my credit card balances
2008 - Corporate buyout #3, which left me working at home full-time; Spent Memorial Day weekend in NM with the family there; Upgraded to the '08 Escape Hybrid, which I'll be keeping for a while; Made my side business an official company
2009 - Memorial Day weekend in Seattle, visiting a number of old friends; Saw my brother tie the knot
2010 will be the year that I eliminate my consumer debt for a second time, a little more permanently this time around, and hopefully spend Memorial Day weekend in NM again with my family. I'm looking forward to all of that :-)
Current Mood: 
content
Dec. 28th, 2009
Sep. 22nd, 2009
When I dropped traditional phone service (and even Vonage) for a more DIY phone system, there was a sharp decrease in the number of fees added to the bill. I'm still paying monthly for E911, but that's only for one line... the PBX rewrites caller ID for the different lines in the house to one number for 911 calls, which works because they're all at the same physical location.
I always assumed that the others were covered somehow in the normal charges from my VoIP providers, or that they just didn't apply anymore. Well, I wasn't quite correct in that assumption.
My main VoIP provider, Vitelity, is starting to charge for the Universal Service Fund, and is doing it at payment time when people refill their prepaid balances with them. I pay enough to cover 3 months at a time, so that means I still have one more tax-free month. They're doing a credit for those with non-voice services on their account, but I don't know if I'll see any of that, as they give things like dedicated servers as examples. I do have a fax-to-email number on mine, though, so we shall see.
At the very least, it 1) is less than $40/year at the moment and 2) can be partially expensed as 2 of the lines are business related. It'll certainly make calculating those expenses more interesting, though.
Now I'm left wondering if the other provider I use, Gafachi, will be doing something similar at some point.
Aug. 4th, 2009
This week is not starting out well. In the span of 2 days, I've lost not only a great uncle (at least I think that's how we were related), but also one of my best friends from high school. If there's a bright side, it's that they're both at peace now, after having been in pain for a while.
My heart goes out to Carl's family, as well as my own.
Current Mood: 
sad
Aug. 1st, 2009
If all goes well, a link to this entry will appear in my Twitter account. If things continue to go well, that appearance will not end up in one of my "Microbloggin'" posts. Time will tell how well this works.
Why am I doing that? Mainly, it's because the overlap of people following posts in both places isn't complete. Twitter feeding into LJ already covers that in one direction, and a couple of times I've posted links to my occasional LJ entries manually into Twitter. This just automates that, hence the lazy typist comment.
Jul. 30th, 2009
Every ad for the Palm Pre so far mainly touts it as being the first to run more than one application at the same time.
Ooooh.
Ahh.
What they don't mention is the fact that the only company that didn't beat them to that kind of functionality is Apple. Everyone else has... by years, in most cases (Android is still young, but it still came out of the gate with that before the Pre appeared).
Maybe that's why I don't pay that much attention to it. *shrug*
Current Mood: unimpressed
Jul. 8th, 2009
After a couple of calls today, I found out why I don't have the card yet. The guy who took the order put it in as an accessory-only order. Maybe that's the only way he could think of to do a pure hardware order, I don't know. Whoever manages the fulfillment of these orders saw an EVDO card in an accessory-only order and wouldn't let it go through.
It took a week of confusion to find out what the problem was, but it should be taken care of tomorrow. According to the last person I spoke to today, the person who took the order will be sorting things out first thing tomorrow morning, and the card should be overnighted to me :-)
Jun. 29th, 2009
To their credit, though, I was asking for something more on the unusual side for them for an end user.
I was looking for occasional-use mobile broadband, which didn't involve a monthly fee or contract, as I didn't want to pay every month for something I would only be using once or twice a year. After taking prices and reviews into consideration, Virgin Mobile (via the Sprint/Nextel network) and Verizon (via their own) became the top choices. Based on the kind of use I'd be making of it, coverage maps, and past experience with Sprint (granted, it's been a few years) and Verizon, I decided to go with the latter.
I started by trying to deal with a local store earlier today, but no one there was trained on dealing with their occasional use prepaid broadband service (known as DayPass). In place of real information, misinformation was offered instead. I knew from the website that both built-in and add-on EVDO modems would work, but according to one person there only the former was an option. The others I dealt with just didn't know.
I came back home and called up the number given on the DayPass page for placing an order. It took a while, and involved 2 call transfers, but I was finally able to place an order for the hardware. Apparently, once the hardware and software are installed, I activate it through the computer (that's the ideal, anyway) and then pay for time as I need it. The card should arrive later this week, and I'll set it up and pay for a session just to make sure that everything works.
The process could have been easier, but at least the result is what I was after.
Current Mood: 
accomplished
Jun. 1st, 2009
Based on my experience so far, the concept of integrated application stores (usually seen on smartphones) tends to be a double-edged sword.
On the up side, there are no support emails asking how to download and install such apps. This is especially true in the case of those that tend not to read published documentation and/or FAQs that address such questions before asking them.
On the down side, it's too easy to publicly judge and then dismiss an app. To a user, this might seem like a good thing, but to a developer it can be a headache... particularly when the user gives a relatively low rating due to the lack of a feature that is released only an hour or two later. In the case of the Android app store, a user has 24 hours to cancel an app purchase before their card is even charged... surely that's enough time to send an email to a developer and get a response back, especially if done during the week.
Interestingly enough, since adding said feature, not one purchase has been canceled.
May. 25th, 2009
( Here, have a look )
This was certainly a great vacation. Visiting a new place, meeting one old friend for the first time, and seeing others that I haven't seen in years, the number of which range roughly from 4 to 13. All in all, a very well spent Memorial Day weekend.
Current Mood: 
tired
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