scott

Tivo & PVR Trouble

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Sunday and Monday I spent time working on my Tivo. I have (had) a 40 hour original Phillips Tivo that I had hacked to a 160 hours. Well as I said earlier it died. My online searching said that the problem I was having could be the hard drive or the unit itself. I went out and downloaded InstantCake from PTVUpgrade. I originally had PTVUpgrade do the hacking for my Tivo so I figured I would check them out. IntantCake allowed me to prepare a new hard drive for the Tivo in hopes that the original drive was dead.

After spending most of monday trying to get 3 old computers to get drives working in the exact way InstantCake wanted I was finally able to get instantcake to build a drive. I don’t really blame instantcake for my woes there. They had strict requirements that I just had trouble getting to work with some old PIII 700’s. Once the drive was built I plugged it in to the old Tivo. No dice. The same problem happened again. It looked like my old Tivo finally died. We had a little more than 3 years together. I am upset that our relationship is over early, but I will get by.

I went to Best Buy near my apartment and picked up a new Tivo Series 2 80 hour DVR. I got it home and Jayson brought over a USB nic card that he had (I bribed him with Pizzeria Uno). The Tivo for some reason keep rebooting itself. The online community didn’t say very much about this problem other than it is very bad and I should bring back the unit. So after only 3 hours with it, my Series 2 Tivo went back and I got another shinny new one. This time the setup was a snap and I have been happy (or kind of happy, I did have to blow $299 before rebate on tech I already had but it broke)

At the same time on Monday I decided that the ATI All In Wonder video capture system was not doing it for me. I did some research on a product that looked like a good Digital Video Recorder (DVR) for the PC. Beyond TV from Snapstream got my interest. the problem was the demo sucked on my ATI card since the ATI card did software MPEG-2 encoding. If I knew that I would never have bought the card. The software itself looked awesome. So I took the plunge and bought a bundle of Beyond TV 3.5 and a Hauppauge USB2 video capture device. I got it yesterday and it rocks so far. I am now just programing it up, but it looks like most of the Tivo functionality on my PC. and I have full access to the MPEG-2 files it creates. The bundle even came with its own remote that actually works. It is nice.

These new hardware investments are now funded by the sale of all that old gear I got rid of over the past 2 months. Easy come, easy go I guess. I am at least using this gear. I am addicted to video capture recently, what can I say.

Home Reorg

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I took the day off today (Monday). Unlike normal people I didn’t relax or do anything special. I slept in. Then I proceded to attempt to fix my Tivo. After hours of agrivating over it, and messing up my apartment in the processes I gave up.

I was able to move my desktop computer from one half of my computer table to the other. Now it is closer to the TV wall unit so I can run cable to it. Most of the day was busy working on my Tivo. See post on Tivo & PVR Trouble.

The Long Travel Day

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I woke up at 6AM today.  Almost a good 2 hours earlier than normal.  Am I stupid you may be asking?  Well, yes in a way.  I went up to our Kingston office today.  I had 4 things to take care of.  As with any Kingston trip I am lucky to get anything I plan on doing done, since other stuff always comes up.  This trip I wanted to get 2 interviews done.  I wanted to sit with Kai and Brian about DNS modifications.  Then I wanted to work out some on call paging issues.  Lastly I wanted to meet with Craig and Kai about some email issues.  Actually when I look at all the stuff I needed to do I got 3 out of 4 of them done.  I cannot really count meeting with Craig since when I was in Kingston he was in NYC.  The other tasks were actually completed.  So I feel good that I had a productive day, even though I don‚Äôt feel productive.

The trip up was longer than expected.  Track work slowed the train trip down.  Then I got to the station and there was no taxi‚Äôs.  Kai had to come get me.  At least I rate enough to have someone come get me

I am offline now writing this entry on my way back home.  This trip is going slow also.  I assume track work.  To guarantee a seat I paid the extra $9 for a business class seat.  I got lucky.  This train has newly renovated seats.  These seats rock.  They have leg and foot rests.  Almost as nice as the automatic seats on Delta Biz elite.   If my treo could take low light photos I would have gotten a shot of them.

The interviews went well.  I was (still am) looking for a good support candidate in Kingston.  Both guys I spoke with seemed smart, but had very limited experience.  Now I find out that someone I know very well is looking to relocate and is very interested in the position.  I think this person would be perfect for the job.  The only problem is he would not be able to start till January.  I need to have Kai tech him out and see how smart he thinks he is.  This is another case of someone I would never believe would be willing to move, stand up and say I would do that.  Hey I want to move.  If jayson can surprise me, why can‚Äôt other people?  I want to be impartial so I will send Kai the resume and see if things work out.

The Jets Game

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Today I met up with Jay and Gretchen and headed over to Dan’s to watch the game.  Well I didn’t really watch the game, but that was the reason why everyone was over.  He had a good appetizer spread.  Jay and I took off and went to J&R Computer World.  I was looking for a laptop. The Sony Vaio I wanted to see did not impress me that much, so I am back to square one on my laptop search.

We headed back to Dan’s and played a round of trivial pursuit.  I learned that Jayson gets bored at games quick. Cari has tons of useless knowledge (and I want her on my team next time). Gretchen also has good trivia skills, and would be someone I want on my team.  I should have listened to her when she asked for me to be on her team in the first place.  Dam guys vs. girls game.  Jennifer should not be playing trivia, let alone be on my team every…  Dan was hot and cold.  I think near the end he was just tired.  We had a good time.  We ordered food and hung out for a while.

Halo 2 Day Redux

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Saturday was another all Halo 2 day. I met up at Johns and played Halo 2 for most of the day and evening. We had 6 people so it was a good game. John, Jayson, Dave, myself and 2 of John’s friends from work came over. In general I still sucked, but surprisingly I was not in last place for a good portion of the games. We played capture the flag and just shoot them up rounds.

I always have fun playing, but my eyes start to hurt after a while. John wanted to play poker at night. I was not into it. I was tired and I am not a fan of playing poker which requires concentration after playing a video game for 7 hours that requires concentration. We ended up going for Italian food around the corner from his place and then he drove Jay and I to the F train. I was thankful for that because by the time we got to the train it was already late and I didn’t want to wait for the 7 and then the 6. I just took a cab from the F train stop by jayson home. I admit I was lazy…

Thursday Night Out, Man I Drank Allot

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Thursday night a bunch of us went out after work to drink with Gus for one last time (at least as an employee of our company). We went to our typical bar No Idea? We drank. Some more than others. I may have drank more than others, or at least felt that I did. Yes, I got a bit drunk. I am happy to say I made it to work on Friday relatively on time (only an hour late). I didn’t even have hang over. That of course is because I couldn’t sleep and I drank about a gallon of water over the course of the night.

All in all we had a good time. Glenn picked up the tab for allot of the night. We drank, played pool, etc. I threw a drink at Jim. The usual stuff. Glenn said I was drunk and that I should probably not drink more. Then of course we held a conversation related to a big purchase we are in the middle of, so either I was not really drunk or I am just confused…

A good time had by all. I think Jim is dry now so that is good too…

Friday, Gus’ Last Day So Where Is He?

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Friday was the last day at work for Gus. So where was he? I actually knew he would not be in.  He gave me his key cards for the office on Thursday when we were drinking.  Will we ever see him again?  The jury is still out, even though he lives 3 blocks from Jayson…

Friday Night Team Dinner

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Friday night my team and I went out for the holidays.  Kai and Brian came down for the dinner.  We went to a Angelo & Maxie’s.  We like that place.  Cari tagged along since Bob could not make it.  All in all we had a good time.  Because of what we do, we never all get together.  Kai and Brian left the call center early and came down.  Thankfully nothing broke after they left.

We didn’t drink that much since most of us drank the night before at the Gus goodbye "party".  I had a filet, and the cheese cake for desert.  It was good as always.  Jayson was not happy with his food, but he was getting sick.  Danny had 2 potato’s and that was it.  I can’t see going to a nice steakhouse and ordering two plain baked potatoes, but he was happy so I guess it is ok.

I am so blacklogged on writting that I am going to cut this post short.  More happened, bla, bla, bla.  Fun had by all, etc.  You get the picture.

Tivo May Be Dead

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I have plenty to write about today, but the only thing on my mind right this second is that my Tivo may be dead. I came home and it was crashed. So I rebooted it. it is after all linux, so I was like a reboot will make it all better. Well 30 minutes later, it is still sitting at the please wait while I startup screen. that is not good. This thing always comes back in like 5 minutes. I don’t know what to do. It is like a good friend is sick. Is life worth living if Tivo doesn’t work? Yeah, probably. But it will suck that much more:(

I just turned it off, and I will let it sit idle for a while before I try to bring it back up. Honestly I think it is toast. I have an original 40 hour unit that I have hacked to 160 hours with a network card. No way I can get “support” on it. The unit was also purchased in September of 2001. So it has got some years on it. The thing is I have thought about upgrading and realized I had no reason to. This 3 year old device still does everything I want it to. Now only if it worked…

More news as it develops…

UPDATE: Well a 2 hours have passed and the Tivo is still not coming back online. According to the message boards I have read, the drive is bad, or the unit is totally fried. Not sure what I am going to do. I can try a different hard drive that I can prepare with a $20 piece of software from the people I originally upgraded my unit from, PTVUpgrade. Or I can upgrade to a new Tivo, or a different device. Either way I am out of commission for a few days. For now I am getting my shows on my ATI capture card. it is not perfect, but I have tv…

Zire 72

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I finally broke down and bought a Palmone Zire 72.  I have eyed it since August.  I had it for a day now.  it rocks, but I am returning it.  I found that I love the screen, I love the bluetooth, the camera, etc.  The simple fact is I want to try using a smaller phone, but always end up wishing I had my Treo with me.  Having my SE T610 in my pocket was a dream.  I didn’t realize it was there 90% of the time.  of course I wanted to check a contact or check a task and I couldn’t:(

So the impulse buy is going back (hopefully).  According to Best Buy’s return policy they should take it with no problems.  I am taking it back tomorrow.  I will take my eBay sales money (how else did you think I was paying for a technically unneeded piece of tech) and save it for something else.