Tivo To Go, Well Almost

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So Tivo launched their Tivo To Go service Monday. Great. I downloaded the software Tuesday and installed it on my PC. Oh, wait a minute. I thought Tivo said this service was active. Well turns out the software is available, but since you need a software update on your Tivo device it may take several weeks for my (or anyone else’s) Tivo to get updated. That last piece of information I had to get from the Tivo support site.

I wait ready to try this service out. In the mean time I am getting happier with Beyond TV. It just creates MPEG-2 files so I can copy them to my laptop and watch the shows anywhere right now. Maybe by the time my Tivo can do that I might decide I don’t need to pay $12.99 a month and just use Beyond TV.

Turns out I am not the only one ticked off by how Tivo is doing this upgrade. News.com had this article. I understand why Tivo is staggering the upgrade, but if I want to get it, and know my risks why shouldn’t I be able to get the upgrade now?

FIghting A Cold, And It Is Winning

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I have been fighting a cold for a few days. It is winning for now, so that is why I have not posted. I am writing up a few things and hope to post more soon. I am contemplating taking tomorrow off since I feel a bit sick. I am not so bad that I want to take off, but I am borderline so I feel if I do goto work I might make myself worse. I am going to sleep in tomorrow and see how I feel when I wake up. That is the joy of living 20 minutes from the office. I can jump down there whenever I want! Or that could be a bad thing…

Free DNS And Bad Cable Modem’s

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Today I stumbled upon a free provider of DNS. I have seen a few before, but they have been really slow or unreliable. This one so far looks good. It is called xname.org. They were a snap to setup, and so far they seem to be working. My problem (until now) has been that I like godaddy.com, but they do not provide DNS for domains I register unless I pay a fee. If I want DNS included in my annual domain name fee I can continue to use Register.com but they are over 3 times as much as Godaddy. Other than the DNS options there is no real difference to me what registrar I use. So would you pay 3x the amount for just DNS? I don’t want to. If I had 1 domain name maybe I would pay. In fact I pay for dynamic DNS hosting of my Scott.ac domain. I just don’t want to pay for all the other domains I own. I have like 10 of them. If xname works I have no reason to continue using Register.com for any domain names. Other options for me would be to have friends host my DNS, etc. I just like being able to make changes to my zone files when I want to. And every so often I do make changes.

Another issue I came across today was that my cable modem provider RCN does not allow inbound access to port 80. That means I cannot host a website on my machine at home even if I wanted to. And I kind of wanted to. Miguel lets me host a site on his server, but until recently he did not have much space on it. I had a ton of photos that I wanted to host. I guess I will just have to use his box for it, or pay for hosting. Since I am paying for the blog (and I think it is worth the money) I don’t want to pay for web hosting when I have all the tools at my disposal to do hosting. If I had less morals I would just put up a web server in my companies DMZ and use that as my webserver, but I won’t. Dam morals!

Monday morning I have to get Miguel to fix some configuration issues on my site on his box so I can once again host a site on his box, or I need to find a cheap web hosting company. There are several out there that look good. I just need to do some research.

2004 Recap

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As most people do near the end of the year, I am looking back on 2004 the year that was. For me it was a year of change, and a year of some things staying just the same.

I moved (again) this year. I now live in the big city. Well I always did, but Manhattan is allot more city like than Queens. I took no vacation, but it wasn’t because of trying. My niece turned 1. I don’t see her as often as I would like, but she is so adorable. I can’t imagine the universe without her! Now my sister has to have another one!

On the technology front this year saw me buy my first store bought desktop (PC) since 1992. It also saw me get 1 Apple Power Book, and sell one iMac. Pretty normal year for me! Ebay has caused my gear to turn over quickly. I only bought 1 new cell phone this year (if you don’t count the extra # & phone that I got). I went from a Treo 270 to the new 600. That is down from the 3 or more phones I got in 2003. I saw a Tivo die, and another one get adopted.

At work I lost a boss, and of course gained a new one. I lost a colleague who I thought was a friend, only to have a long time friend surprise me and come work with me. My group went from a rag tag team of 4 to be a group of people I would trust to do anything (anything technical that is) that will grown to 8 in the next few weeks. I completed (with lots of help) moving 99% of our call center to its new home upstate. I lived through countless upgrades, and system changes. I traveled the east coast looking at ACD software in action. To date no decision made on that front. Began to work on building out phase 2 of our call center. That will start to happen in 2005.

As I look back on 2004 I remember something that is always in the back of my head. I may seem pessimistic allot of the time. I think I am just a realist, but it comes out as being pessimistic. But while looking back on 2004 the year that was I can safely say I am happier and better off today than I was 365 days ago. I hope everyone that is reading this can say the same thing?

New Years Eve

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I go back and forth on what I do on New Years Eve. This year I sat at home and just hung out. I haven’t felt that great this week. And to be honest I didn’t really want to do very much. In years past I have done parties, hung with friends, gone to Time Square (twice), done Bourbon Street in New Orleans, and traveled far and wide to ring in the new year with friends. It is nice to just relax at home sometimes. Why does everyone feel compelled to do “something” on new years. My family has been asking “what am I doing”? They don’t understand when I say I want to do nothing.

Here is to a low key (aka restful) new years eve!

What In The World Is Kwanzaa?

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I am told it is Kwanzaa. When thinking about this “holiday” I can’t stop thinking about an episode of Futurama. Bender is talking to “Kwanzaabot” about what gift he is giving out to all the children that year. Kwanzabot’s reply is the traditional Kwanzaa gift. he holds up a book with two kids looking at each other with a bewildered look on their faces. The title of the book is What in the world is Kwanzaa. It was very funny. That whole show is very funny, but I remember that scene. Tried a little while ago to find that scene on the internet and I was unable to. Futurama’s entire X-Mas theme’d episodes are really funny. You should check them out.

So after thinking about the book reference above, Jayson showed me the Official Kwanzaa website. After checking it out for a minute I have come to a conclusion about holiday’s I will observe. First I will say that I respect other people’s believes, and their right to celebrate any holiday they want. I for one am a fan of Festivus. What I have come to believe is that I don’t think I will observe any holiday founded by someone who is still alive. Furthermore if that person was alive at any time in my lifetime I have to question a holiday’s integrity, unless that person was killed and the holiday was formed in his or her honor. For example Martin Luther King day to me is a legit holiday. Mothers & Fathers day’s, not so much. So I guess another rule is if some company somewhere made up the holiday it is just as bad as some guy somewhere doing it. A holiday that the founder has a message on his website (aka Kwanzaa) does not convey to me the long standing legitimacy. But that is just me. I am 30 and I still believe in Santa Clause.

Now anyone that may stumble upon this posting when searching the internet should hopefully realize that any writing like this one that refers to commentary from a cartoon when talking about a holiday should not be taken very seriously. But if you are a whack job, you can feel free to be offended.

Allergy Med’s and Good Food!

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Today I felt horrible. I ran out of my allergy medication Zirtec. I ended up going out and buying over the counter Clariton D, but it will take a while to get in my system. I feel like I have a cold, but it is all due to allergy’s and the dry heat in my apartment. Yesterday was no better. I had a head ache right when I woke up. That is never a good thing. I ended up taking 2 doses of Butabitol to get me through the day and night. At least I was feeling better enough to go out and meet some friends.

Joe was in from Baton Rouge for the a few days visiting his girl friend. Jay, Joe, John, myself and Joe & John’s girlfriends all got together last night for dinner. We hit City Crab. It is right by my office so I didn’t complain. I wasn’t feeling so great so I didn’t splurge on the King Crab legs. They looked good, but I stuck with the cheaper (still very expensive) Crab Cakes. They were great. Most everyone else got the surf n turf. Jay had a salad! We had a good time catching up. Joe went to the Christmas show at radio city tonight. he was then going over to John’s for some Halo. Jay and like 6 other people also went over there. I still wasn’t feeling so great, and I was tired from the craziness all week so I bowed out. I had no good excuse, but I was just tired. Everyone will have to get by fragging others.

Rebuilt My Laptop

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I rebuilt my work issued IBM Thinkpad T40 on Christmas eve. Gus finally returned his old laptop. Since he wiped his hard drive I took the opportunity to upgrade mine. I needed more drive space, and I really needed to wipe my laptop. I had tons of issues with it freezing up on me. It was driving me crazy.

Now that it is rebuilt (well almost) I am still having some issues. I am frustrated with windows, even though I use it almost every day. I haven’t even put on the more obscure software that I have on the Thinkpad so I could see if the system worked fine without them. The answer I got was it works better than before, but not by much.

At least I have double the drive space now. That will keep me in business with VMWare images. With all my Virtual Machines I have stored on my laptop now I still don’t have room for any MP3’s, but this is a work machine anyway:)

Home Entertainment System

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I have been pondering updating my Home Entertainment System for some time now. What that means is getting a new TV. I have a regular Sharp 27″ CRT TV. I have been thinking about taking some money and getting a Plasma or some type of HD TV. Part of me (and Jayson coaxing me) is saying go get a big TV. The realistic side of me is saying that I don’t want to spend the amount needed to get the system I want at todays prices. I also don’t really utilize Digital TV yet so a HD TV may be a waste for me. So for now I am in wait and see mode.

What I have done is got my Tivo Series 2 up and working. I also tinkered with my new desktop computer and am now very happy with my Hauppauge WinTV USB2 Capture Device, and Snapstream’s Beyond TV. I have my ATI remote wonder working so I can sit on my couch and use my TV just like I would use Tivo. At this point I could seriously think about replacing the Tivo with this new solution, but I wont just yet. I also like the ability to capture shows on two different TV’s. The only down side is that I have to change the video resolution on my computer whenever I want to watch TV with Beyond TV. I run my monitor at 1280×1024. The TV can only properly display 1024×768. Not that big a deal, but it is a pain.

What is also good is that my TV Capture system on my computer can save a ton more stuff than my Tivo and I can burn stuff to DVD if I want to archive it. I cannot offload MPEG-2 files of my Tivoed shows now that I have an un-hacked Series 2.

It’s Snowing Outside

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As I sit here writing my Blog I notice it is still snowing. It started snowing a little before we left the movie theater. Now about an hour later there is a sizable dusting of snow on the ground. The sidewalks are covered in snow. The roads are being used enough that no snow has accumulated on them yet. They say there will be up to 2 inches tonight.

I love snow. Being in it, not so much. But watching it snow is cool. Coming in from the snow was always a nice experience. Hot Chocolate, Mmmm. Commuting in snow or other bad weather, not so good. We shall see how living in Manhattan and relying on mass transit that is entirely underground for me goes tomorrow. Should not be a problem, but since I am a realist I am prepared for problems! For now I am finishing up this entry and going to look out the window some more…