After some thought, confusion, revelations and then more thinking, I have decided I need to organize, and better utilize my music and video collection.
I am in the process of ripping all the DVDs I own and storing the images on my NAS box. Now any computer on the network can navigate to the share where they are stored and start watching any title they double click on. That's handy, but I ned more. I need to blur the distinction between my computer network, and my TV, a modest 32" Vizio HD720p.
Apparently the "need" I just recently realized I had is something the rest of the world, Micrsoft included realized years ago. Hence, Windows Media Center, MythTV, Tivo and other such beasts. More specificlaly, what I need is a network streaming, multimedia home entertainment center, with secondary capabilities of a Digital video recorder.
Since Cable, Dish, or Satalite service is not in my near future, I mainly want to be able to call up and view, movies and music from my own collection of ripped CD's and DVD's. Preferably with a remote. A Media Extender is basically what this would be. A bridge, if you will, that lets my TV display what the extender sends it from what it can find on my network.
"Tivo" functionality that most of us are familiar with, requires a tuner, that actually picks up the signal, cable, antenna or whatever and allows live recording of that incoming signal. Even tough these capabilities would not be very useful for me now, as I only get about 5 channels.
More research is needed, but the days of popping in DVD's to watch a movie are numbered.
Might as well be fishing for whales...
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Thursday, July 24, 2008
VoIP
A couple of factors are hearding me toward the prospect of dropping traditional phone service in favor of Voice over IP. Not least of which is the lees money I put in Qwest's deep pockets, the better I sleep at night. A close second, however is the higher level of control I will have over another piece of my home's total data and communication solution.
The money I save after dropping the PSTS conection will be partially taken up by the added expense of a faster DSL connection and of cource the VOIP providers contract.
Viatalk will likely be the provider I go with, as a co-worker has had good experience with them and the feature/price ratio is attractive.
And oh Joy, the DSL speed options have jumped up for my area. 7MB as well as 12 MB are now avalible in addition to the 1.5 I have been "limping" along with the last several years. Funny...I didn't untill today realize how slow that is. Ho ever did I manage.
Curently, 38$ for phone service plus 28$ for 1.5M DSL will be replaced by 42$ for 7M DSL and 21$ for the VOIP. The latter also has a second year free which prorates out to a total bottom line of about 50$/mo vs about 67$ now. Hey, don't laugh. While that won't even buy me one "Double Tall 2-pump Mocha" per week, I'l' still take it.
2 "virtual lines" plus another phone number that can be in any area code I want (which will give family in Western WA a local number to call that will reach us will be sweet. Especially considering the fact that as 2 of our kids are in 5th and 7th grade respectively, total phone usage is going to likely sky-rocket. Tones of fun features are included like custom VM greetings for a given caller, a home number that follows you to nearly any internet connection, configurable forwarding of your phone number based on who is calling you, the list goes on.
The "geek" factor I will freely admit, is enticing. It is very "gadgetal"
As it is now, I have procured another DSL "modem" and configured it as a backup for hot-swap fail-over coverage as more than just surfing will depen on my Internet up-time, here shortly.
The money I save after dropping the PSTS conection will be partially taken up by the added expense of a faster DSL connection and of cource the VOIP providers contract.
Viatalk will likely be the provider I go with, as a co-worker has had good experience with them and the feature/price ratio is attractive.
And oh Joy, the DSL speed options have jumped up for my area. 7MB as well as 12 MB are now avalible in addition to the 1.5 I have been "limping" along with the last several years. Funny...I didn't untill today realize how slow that is. Ho ever did I manage.
Curently, 38$ for phone service plus 28$ for 1.5M DSL will be replaced by 42$ for 7M DSL and 21$ for the VOIP. The latter also has a second year free which prorates out to a total bottom line of about 50$/mo vs about 67$ now. Hey, don't laugh. While that won't even buy me one "Double Tall 2-pump Mocha" per week, I'l' still take it.
2 "virtual lines" plus another phone number that can be in any area code I want (which will give family in Western WA a local number to call that will reach us will be sweet. Especially considering the fact that as 2 of our kids are in 5th and 7th grade respectively, total phone usage is going to likely sky-rocket. Tones of fun features are included like custom VM greetings for a given caller, a home number that follows you to nearly any internet connection, configurable forwarding of your phone number based on who is calling you, the list goes on.
The "geek" factor I will freely admit, is enticing. It is very "gadgetal"
As it is now, I have procured another DSL "modem" and configured it as a backup for hot-swap fail-over coverage as more than just surfing will depen on my Internet up-time, here shortly.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Going "YARD"
After nearly 3 years, I have completely rebuilt the sprinkler system and am about ready to bring in new sod for the front yard. I have had the worst yard in the neighborhood for several months, but next week it will be the best.
After serious consideration of a special hybrid composed of Bluegrass, Kentucky bluegrass, featherbed bent, and northern California sinsemilla, I decided instead to go with a new variety of Fescue called RTF
After serious consideration of a special hybrid composed of Bluegrass, Kentucky bluegrass, featherbed bent, and northern California sinsemilla, I decided instead to go with a new variety of Fescue called RTF
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Scirocco
My VW restoration project is sadly neglected. It is a full 16V conversion of a '79 Scirocco. Originaly sold to me in completely stock trip by my uncle in 1992, I bought a "doner" '86 16v Scirocco in 2003 and transfered as much of the important parts as I could. Being that both models were built around the same chasis, everything is a clean bolt on swap. Particularly the engine/trans. Going from a 78hp 1.6 to a 123 hp 1.8 16v on a car that barely weighs 2000# with
15" Borbet Type C's and a 1" lowered H&R/Koni suspension, will make a nice little giddy-up.
Anyway, it is put together, now I just need a couple grand of disposable $$$ to get it painted.
(Can you say "Economic Stimulus check")
I am going with a close reproduction of the original "Indiana Red" metalic.
Maybe this summer/fall. That will be it's 30 year aniversary.
Here is my inspiration, Craig Williams' '81 that he built several years ago.
BTW those are the exact same wheels that I have.
Here is an excellent example of what it lookd like stock...and like new.
15" Borbet Type C's and a 1" lowered H&R/Koni suspension, will make a nice little giddy-up.
Anyway, it is put together, now I just need a couple grand of disposable $$$ to get it painted.
(Can you say "Economic Stimulus check")
I am going with a close reproduction of the original "Indiana Red" metalic.
Maybe this summer/fall. That will be it's 30 year aniversary.
Here is my inspiration, Craig Williams' '81 that he built several years ago.
BTW those are the exact same wheels that I have.
Here is an excellent example of what it lookd like stock...and like new.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Sniff...Sniff...
Well, due to what I consider an abnormal level of LAN traffic, I feel compelled to install and utilize some packet analysers on my network. Wireshark is what I will be using, or rather, learning to use. With a webserver, an FTP server and a PTP client running, with merely an actiontec router/firewall, I suppose I was a bit naieve to wait this long.
Pacet sniffers like wireshark, look interesting and can be very usefull. Before long even my kids IM chat will be subject to random checking for inapropriate conversations. That is, after I can figure out what all that gobblety-gook is that wireshark is telling me is inside each packet on my network.
Pacet sniffers like wireshark, look interesting and can be very usefull. Before long even my kids IM chat will be subject to random checking for inapropriate conversations. That is, after I can figure out what all that gobblety-gook is that wireshark is telling me is inside each packet on my network.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
NAS
While looking for a much better long term solution to my ever expanding library of Music and video, I decided finally on a NAS device. While external HDs are nice, I needed something more permanant and robust and a "Network Attached Storage" device seemed the best option.
I went with a product called FreeNas. FreeNAS is a very basic Linux (BDS actually) OS that does really nothing but manage and serve a configuration of harddrives on even very old slow computers. As a PC hardware junkie I always have a few in various states of repair/upgrade, and so the bare bones PC configuration was not hard to put together.
I currently have it installed on a P3-800 w/ 256MB of ram and a couple of new 500GB WD Hds.
While it is possible to load and run the "OS" (about 60MB is needed) on a flash card or even a USB thumb drive, I went with the "stock" 10G HD as my BIOS did not offer these other exotic boot options w/o a special adapter ot two.
As I expand the storage capacity, (an undoubtable eventuality) I will go with a gadget that converts 2 of the 5.25" bays up top to a 3 bay HD "cartridge. Probably this one.
Included FTP server, RAID optins (which I do not use), Logical WEB interface and best of all, an included dynamic DNS updater for my zoneedit account.
Now I don't have to call home and have my wife run a whatismyip.com every time I want to remote access something on my home network. Now I can instead just go to amazingpowerplunger.com.
I went with a product called FreeNas. FreeNAS is a very basic Linux (BDS actually) OS that does really nothing but manage and serve a configuration of harddrives on even very old slow computers. As a PC hardware junkie I always have a few in various states of repair/upgrade, and so the bare bones PC configuration was not hard to put together.
I currently have it installed on a P3-800 w/ 256MB of ram and a couple of new 500GB WD Hds.
While it is possible to load and run the "OS" (about 60MB is needed) on a flash card or even a USB thumb drive, I went with the "stock" 10G HD as my BIOS did not offer these other exotic boot options w/o a special adapter ot two.
As I expand the storage capacity, (an undoubtable eventuality) I will go with a gadget that converts 2 of the 5.25" bays up top to a 3 bay HD "cartridge. Probably this one.
Included FTP server, RAID optins (which I do not use), Logical WEB interface and best of all, an included dynamic DNS updater for my zoneedit account.
Now I don't have to call home and have my wife run a whatismyip.com every time I want to remote access something on my home network. Now I can instead just go to amazingpowerplunger.com.
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