Silicon Dust HDHomeRun

For Christmas I bought myself an HDHomerun. This is a network connected dual tuner that works with many software products including Windows Media Center.
The HDHomerun is ethernet attached and as many computers as you like can use it to tune in and watch or record digital television. With two tuners two computers can each use one tuner or one computer could use both tuners at the same time.
The HDHomerun has required quite a bit of configuration but nothing technical. I've had to configure many of the digital cable channels but Silicon Dust offers great instructions and tech support to help in this process.
One of the issues that I have with the HDHomerun is that once you do all your configs for the channels you have to repeat them for every computer. I wish there was some way to move the config file from one computer to another.
Over all I am very happy with the HDHomerun and would recommend it to someone who is not afraid of some configuration work.

Back on Media Center Again

We moved the DVR back to the family room and I've setup a Media Center PC in our bedroom. While I'm not loving the selection of channels, many of our favorites are not available, we are loving watching downloaded video and some Media Center recorded shows.
I've installed the Silicon Dust HDHomerun and so far am pleased with it. It's been fun to work with and configure to get all the channels possible. I still don't quite have it setup completely but am probably 95% done.
Part of the issue that I have with my Media Center is that I don't want to leave the computer in the bedroom running all the time. I have a computer in my office that runs 7X24. I configure recordings from the HDHomerun on the office computer and then daily I power up the bedroom computer and move the recordings over.
The issue that comes up with this setup is that if I see a commercial for a show that I want to record I have to either try to remember it and schedule it when I get on the office computer or run to the office and schedule it right away. Remote access to the office computer would be cumbersome as it's awkward to use a wireless keyboard while sitting in bed ten feet from the television screen.
Media Center is not the perfect solution that I would like it to be but it's pretty good and I'm having fun playing with it.

I want an e-reader

The amount of reading that I do has dropped significantly lately.  At least the number of novels that I read has dropped.  I still read a ton of websites, blogs, rss feeds, and car magazines but I don't get around to my novels.  I've been working on reading The Atlantis Code for over a month now.

I think there are several reasons why my recreational reading has dropped off.  First, I read a ton of material on the web all day long.  Second, I'm busy working and taking care of things at home.  When I finally get some down time I either veg in front of the television or sleep.  The best chance for me to read a novel is in bed just before sleep.

I wonder if I would read more if I had an e-reader.  Would making reading more convenient lead to more reading?  I’d hate to go out and buy an e-book reader and then find out that I don’t read any more than I did with paperbacks but I am a tech hound and am dying to buy one.

There are several e-readers currently available, what differentiates them tends to be the size of the screen and the web access they provide.  Here is a list of the e-readers I’m currently looking at:

name	cost	screen size	screen resolution	color screen	wireless access	browser	size	weight in oz.
Amazon Kindle	$259	6"	600 X 800	16 shades of grey	3G	yes	8" x 5.3" x 0.36"	10.2
Amazon Kindle DX	$489	9.7"	1200 X 824	16 shades of grey	3G	yes	10.4" x 7.2" x 0.38"	18.9
Barnes & Noble Nook	$259	6"		16 shades of grey with color touchscreen	3G and Wi-Fi	??	7.7"4.9"X.5"	11.2
Sony Daily Edition	$399.99	7"	600 X 1024	16 shades of grey	3G	??	5"X8.2"X.6"	12.75
Sony Touch Edition	$299.99	6"	800 X 600	8 shades of grey	??	??	6.9"X4.8"X.4"	10.1
Sony Pocket Edition	$199.99	5"	800 X 600	8 shades of grey	??	??	6.25"x4.25" x.4"	7.76
ECTACO jetBook	$179	5"					6.02" x 4.33" x 0.51"	7.5

My dream e-reader would be a tablet computer with instant on, wi-fi and/or 3G internet access, a full color screen and a full qwerty keyboard like the Kindle has.  All of this for $259 would be ideal.  Perhaps the next Kindle will have a color screen.

If I can’t get my dream system then I want a basic e-reader.  Basic means it opens and reads many types of files, works great.  It would have no wireless access at all and no keyboard.  Just a basic reader and I want to pay about $100 for it.

If I had my choice of any of these e-readers, cost not being an issue I’d go with the Sony Daily Edition.  I like the size and format of the screen and the device looks great.  That being said I’ve hinted heavily that I’d like a Kindle, we’ll see if I get one for x-mas, I doubt it and kind of don’t want it as I’d like to wait and see what is coming next.  If I do get one I’ll write up my experience with it and whether I am reading more or not.

I hate losing pictures

I hate losing pictures, I've been taking digital pictures for almost as long as you have and I hate losing them. I can't readily locate the pictures from my honeymoon ten years ago. It would be a terrible loss if I never find those pictures again.  To help ensure that I never lose another picture I employ a variety of backup systems.

Systems and services that I am going to discuss in this post:

Jungledisk from jungledisk.com

Amazon S3 from aws.amazon.com/s3/

Windows Home Server from microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver

Disclaimer:

I do not work for or own any of the companies that I am discussing today.  I use the products but that is the only relationship I have with these companies.

To backup my pictures I bought the jungledisk program, it cost a one time fee of $15.  This program is used to access Amazon S3 to use as a storage system.  Jungledisk maps a local drive letter to Amazon S3 on each computer that I have it loaded.  Amazon S3 stores my data.

I have Jungledisk configured to nightly backup my pictures folder on my main computer to Amazon S3.  I don't backup all of my data, just the pictures folder.  Only changed or new files are moved up to Amazon S3 so the upload is usually small and fast.

I get billed by Amazon for my S3 useage monthly, most of my bills are between $.17 and $.27 for the month.  I played around and moved several gigabytes of data through S3 last month and my bill was an eye watering $1. something.  Not too bad for storing all of my pictures.

I also use Amazon S3 to help me move files and data between work and home.  If there is something I don't want to forget I'll upload (drag and drop into the jungledisk drive) the files to S3 and then download them at home.  Speeds are as fast as your network connection and the storage is resonably price.

In the past couple of months I've added a Windows Home Server (WHS) to my network.  I use the WHS to backup all of my PCs in my home and sometimes to share files between systems.  Microsoft offers a six month free trial of WHS and so far that's what I've been using.

I took an old PC that I wasn't going to use again, added some hard drives and loaded WHS on it.  Over the period of the last couple of months I've migrated the data off of the old smaller hard drives I'd initially set it up with onto two new terabyte sized drives.  The migration of drives is handled by WHS and was very easy to do.

Most of the time I leave my WHS server off, I tend to turn it on over the weekends to let it get a current backup of my workstations.  I'd leave it on all of the time but I don't want to burn the electricity for the server when I'm not using it.

WHS supports add-ins to help with the administration of the server and to add capabilities.  One of the add-ins that I've installed is the Jungledisk add-in.  Because I am already a Jungledisk user this add-in was free.  I have Jungledisk scheduled to backup my WHS server to my Amazon S3 storage on a weekly basis.

So, to recap my backups:

1) Jungledisk backs up the pictures on my main PC

2) WHS backs up all of my PCs to it's drives

3) Jungledisk backs up WHS

I'm getting multiple backups of my data, 1 on my WHS and 2 copies on Amazon S3.  Eventually I'll clean this up so that I am only getting two backups, the local WHS and the remote Amazon S3, but for the mean time Amazon S3 storage is cheap so I don't mind the duplication.

Westinghouse 42" 1080p at Costco for $699

In store Costco has the Westinghouse 42" 1080p LCD television model number VK-42F240S for $699.  I picked one up last night for my bedroom and am extremely pleased.

This television looked small in the store when compared with the 50 and 52" sets but once I got it home and mounted on the wall it looked humongous.  The tv features 4 HDMI ports (the box says 2 but there really are 4), a VGA port,  a couple of Component inputs and a composite input.

The picture and color appear to be as good as my old 47" Westinghouse.  The inclusion of tuners in this, as opposed to my 47 which is a monitor only, really makes this thing shine.  The system picked up all of the SD channels that my cable company offers as well as a bunch of Clear QAM unencrypted HD channels.

Channels that are related like ABC and ABC HD are located next to each other in the channel numbers.  ABC is channel 2 and the TV puts ABC HD as channel 2.1 which means that when you hit channel up from 2 you go to 2 HD then 3 then 4 then 4 HD etc etc.  Channels without an HD equivalent sit by themselves like 3 does in my example.

This TV looks huge but I was able to mount it to the wall with a Peerless mount that is rated for 40" and small sets.  The mount is rated for 80 pounds and this TV weighs in at about 46 pounds so should have no issues with the mount.

I'm not planning to hook a computer to this set, at least not now but I bet it would make an incredible monitor.

I talked to one of the TV guys at Costco, he said they had recieved 38 sets that morning and expects them all to be gone by the end of the weekend.  Hurry if you want one.

High Speed Wireless N in the home

I was looking to setup a high speed network in my new home but I don't want to run cables.  My office is in an upstairs room above the garage, this is where the cable modem is located.  My XP MCE computer is in the family room, ground floor and at the far end of the house.

While living in my apartment (we moved a week and a half ago) I tried using 802.11g wireless to pull files from one MCE computer to watch on another.  The transfer rate was so poor that the video would be choppy and the sound out of sync. To resolve this issue I started looking for a high speed connection solution.

I did my research through online reviews/articles as well as consumer reviews on sites like Amazon and Newegg.  I looked at Ethernet over Powerline devices, they didn't provide the throughput I was looking for.  After several weeks of browsing I happened across the Netgear Wireless N HD/Gaming solution.



This solution provides two wireless nodes, an AP (access point) and a bridge.  The AP sits near and plugs into your Internet Router, the bridge goes whereever you want access.  In my case the AP sits in my office and the bridge goes downstairs in the family room next to the XP MCE computer.  Both the AP and the bridge have two ethernet ports, this allows me to either plug in two devices to the bridge or plug in a switch/hub off the bridge and plug in more than two devices to the switch/hub.

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I've had this up and running for a full day now and am loving it.  The Netgear boxes (the kit has model number WNHDEB111) report that they are talking to each other at 300 mbs.  I copied a file from my XP MCE computer connected to the bridge to a laptop connected to the AP and got a throughput averaging 50 mbs.  I believe that the difference between the routers reporting communications at 300 mbs and my throughput at 50 mbs leaves plenty of room for multiple computers to be talking over the routers.

With a cost of ~$175 this is not the cheapest wireless solution available but I hope it to be fast and stable.

I'll try some streaming video soon and report back with the results.

MCE is alive again!

We just moved, we moved from the Los Angeles area to an outlying Los Angeles area.  This move has helped my MCE box in a huge way.  We are no longer with the Los Angeles chapter of Time Warner but now with Time Warner Central or something like that.

At the old location a cable box was required to see even SD cable signals.  At our new home channels 99 and down are unencrypted and available to my HD/SD tuner card.  Wow, the MCE box is excellent when it can see and record from 65+ channels.

One issue I am finding is that at my new location I do not receive any broadcast signals OTA (over the air) so I have lost my OTA HD.  Giving up seven channels of OTA HD for 65+ SD channels seems like a fair trade.  I'm still working on getting back my OTA HD, I'll try moving the antenna around the house a bit to see if I can get a signal.

I also need to look into a Clear QAM tuner as I expect many of the HD channels will be unencrypted.

I'm not sure why my new Time Warner is different from my previous Time Warner but it sure is making my life easier.  I prefer XP MCE over a cable box for tv watching.