I'm one of those lucky bastards who lives like a gazillion miles from a phone central. This means that the ADSL speed reduces dramatically on high speeds. My older ADSL subscription was an Ultra Fast subscription (20Mbps/1Mbps). Due to the distance I only got about 6Mbps (if the wind was blowing from the right direction).
The cheaper version (Basic, 8Mbps/1Mbps) is slower, but I get relatively more speed (around 5Mbps). So for me, the additional <1Mbps more costed about 20 euro's a month.....
Damn, it's about time that they start using different technologies to bring the Internet into peoples homes. How the hell will they be able to bring phone, Internet, and TV over the Internet? Currently, it would mean that downloads 'stop' if you pick up the phone, or that artifacts appear on the TV signal when browsing the Internet.
Scotty, the engineer from Star Trek, has returned to space (for a short time) to meet his maker Gene Roddenberry.
Yesterday, James Doohan's (better known as Scotty from the Sci-Fi series Star Trek) remains were launched in to space.
Currently, over a hundred people are 'buried' in space. One of the first was Gene Roddenberry. He was the creator of the Star Trek series.
I wonder who of the original Star Trek cast will be next to be 'buried' in space....
The Apple TV box is available at this moment. This devices allows you to stream music, and movies from iTunes on your TV. Downside is that you also need iTunes to host these files, since the Apple TV can only sync with iTunes. This also introduces a limitation. It's not possible to watch videos in a format like DivX, or XviD. iTunes doesn't support those (and therefor, the Apple TV won't support them either.
It is possible to hack the Apple TV and add DivX/XviD support (and lot's of other nifty features like installing a hacked version of OSX). To achieve this, you need to open the Apple TV (byebye warranty).
The other possibility is to get a Mac Mini, and strip it down mainly for media center purposes. Downside with the Mac Mini is that it's a bit more expensive.
Currently I use my MacBook Pro as a media center (whenever I need it). But this is kind of a hassle with power, audio and DVI connectors. So I need a (relatively cheap non Windows based) dedicated setup for watching content on my TV. *SIGH*
I've been a big fan of the TWiT podcasts. Especially the Apple, Windows and security related podcasts. But lately, the content of those podcasts seem to shift to too much off-topic talk.
Take the latest edition of Security Now! (Cross-Site-Scripting - Part II). The podcasts is about an hour in length, but the first half hour is nothing but talk about the Sony e-book reader, and favorite writers. What's that got to do with security?? I don't know.
Same goes for MacBreak Weekly. It's more about having a good time for the authors, than about bringing some news. I don't mind that the authors are having fun creating the content. Hell, I appreciate a good laugh as much as the next guy, but keep it on topic.
Too bad that only about 50% of the content has something to do with the actual title (Mac / Security).
If they keep this up, they will loose a listener (not that they might care).
Last night my server went down. There was a 'poof', and then nothing. The status LED on my motherboard was still in the green, so it could be either the motherboard, CPU or the power supply.
This morning I head out to the local computer dealer to get me a new motherboard, CPU, and a power supply. Thankfully, it was just the power supply that died.
This might actually be a good opportunity to upgrade my server to a Mac Mini.
I upgraded my version of Wordpress to version 2.1.2. This went the usual 'problems'.
First of all I 'forgot' to make a recent backup. Second, I used Transmit (an OSX FTP Client) to upload the new pages. Transmit has the possibility to overwrite files. No worries (I thought), I just renamed the files I editted, do I could rename them back when I had uploaded the new files. It seems that I didn't read the warning very well. When I overwrote the directories, Transmit removed them first and uploaded the new files afterwards. This meant that all my uploads, and customized files were gone..... aaaaargh.
Fortunatelly, I had a backup from two weeks ago, so I could get the old files.
This reminds me to make a decent backup before doing anything about my Wordpress installation in the future....
It's been a couple of days since I got my new home cinema set, and there are several annoyances with remote controls.
My old home cinema components were also from Pioneer, so I guessed that the new remotes would be similar, but boy I was wrong. The new remote for the AV receiver has about 10 times as many buttons, with every at least 2 functions per button. The remote for the Pioneer DVR-545 lacks several key buttons on the remote;
numeric keys for zapping
buttons for going fast forward and reverse
Audio and subtitle selection
If you need those controls (and I need them a lot), you have to slide the remote open, and use a SHIFT button to alter in movie settings (like the subtitles). Why not place these buttons on the surface? So newer doesn't mean better IMO
My latest DVD Harddisk recorder is a Pioneer DVR-545H. Since these things are still region locked I needed to do some searching on how to get the thing region free. In my early DVD years (when a simple DVD player costed about 700 euro), I bought lots of DVD's from Amazon in the USA. The reason for buying them at Amazon was that the prices were much lower, and they had a bigger collection to choose from.
Every DVD player I bought afterwards had the possibility of making it region free. Mostly by a hardware modification, or with a hacked firmware. My latest acquisition had the possibility to make it region free by sending an infrared (IR) signal to the player/recorder
All you need is a PC/Laptop with an IR out. On this page, you can get a 'kit' which makes your DVR-545H region free without hacking the firmware or making hardware modifications. Just one click on your laptop, and your Pioneer DVR reboots, and is region free.
Note that the page is about another DVR from Pioneer. The nice part is that Pioneer standardizes their recorders, so it works on most of them.
So again, no need to 'backup' my DVD collection to remove the region coding.
And before I forget to mention it.... Use it at your own risk!!.
My new home cinema set arrived today. Earlier I mentioned that I'd probably get me the Philips 42 inch TFT, but after seeing lot's of those screens work, I decided to get a Sony Bravia KDL-40W2000 (1080p). With a new screen, I also needed a new Home Cinema Receiver. This became the Pioneer VSX-2016AV-S. Together with a nice KEF iQ7 speakerset, and an active Klipsch subwoofer.
Oh my god, this setup rocks....
