Random thoughts, organized and categorized for your consumption.
Archive for November, 2004
Roku Update
Nov 27th
After about 12 hours of grinding away, my server finally finished its scan of all my music and made itself ready for streaming. For about 5 hours yesterday I had everything working great, searching and streaming songs, playlists, and the like. Great, this is just what I was looking for.
Then I noticed that my laptop couldn’t go to any web sites. And my router appeared to be dead. Hmm, that’s not right.
I discovered that at least twice an hour, for some reason, my router, a Linksys, goes all wonky and stops responding to anyone but the server and Roku client. More >
Holiday Online Ordering
Nov 27th
I spent a good part of today doing some online shopping for Christmas gifts. Much to my surprise, after doing research this past week, capturing prices and URLs, I go back and find that most of the prices change quite dramatically. A combination of local taxes (thanks California!) shipping costs that aren’t known, and just plain bait-and-switch tactics by the web sites have conspired to raise just about every price.
So when you do your shopping and you see a price that is just too good to be true, be sure you verify it by going down the purchase path until More >
A Photo Experiment
Nov 27th
It’s a P-51 fighter converted to racing form at the Reno Air Races. If it works as it should, there should be a thumbnail image and the ability to see the full thing. Hopefully you will see it as well.
Why Pizza Hut Sucks
Nov 26th
I tried for a third time in as many months to find a Pizza Hut, any location, at any amount of purchase price, to deliver a pizza to my door. They simply won’t do it. The closest one is just 3 miles away, I could probably see it if I stood on the roof of the house. No, they would rather refer me to two other locations that are even further away. And of course, neither of them will drive here, either.
So I’m left with some local shops that do an OK job for pizza and charge through the nose, More >
Post Spam Sucks
Nov 25th
Just after I posted that last story I went to look at comments. I found that I have been spammed about 200 times since I last checked, basically once for every time the blog gets updated. This really bites, so I’ve turned off unmoderated comments again until I can find a better way to do things.
That is just poor behavior and I find it difficult to believe it does anything more than upset people. I certainly won’t be going to any casino mortgage gaming web site for my favorite interest rates again.
EDIT: I have found an excellent site that has many More >
Roku SoundBridge 1000
Nov 25th
I just picke up one of these Roku SoundBridge 1000 boxes to fiddle with. So far, I’ve found it to be pretty cool and relatively easy to setup. This version is WiFi (b) enabled, so I just find some speakers and a power plug and I’m up and running anywhere. It is reasonably easy to go, now with the Windows UPNP functions working.
The downside, as it always is for me, is that none of the server software that talks to the Roku can handle the volume of music I want to play. Simply put: they choke. Currently the Windows Media More >
Podcast = Poor Man's Audible?
Nov 20th
Because I have nothing better to do than poke around on the web during the mornings on weekends, I found this small but growing phenomenon: podcasting. For those who are uninformed (including me, evidently) this is the ability for the common man (and some more special folks) to create their own audio broadcasts to go along with their blog.
I have to say that its still pretty early days, but it seems to me that this is the poor mans solution to Audible, with more uneven talent. There is some interesting stuff out there to listen to, but if I need More >
As the world turns
Nov 3rd
As I woke up this morning on the far side of the planet (Taiwan) I am saddened to see that 51% of Americans put Bush back in office. The international reaction was predictably muted, but it is obvious we haven’t made many friends around the world with this president.
I look forward to returning home and hearing how it is we ended up with the same guy in charge as when I left.