Sep 29, 2006 - 15:37 | + 4 - 4 PVR on the cheap

Why spend thousands of dollars on a Windows Media Center PC or on a Tivo/Comcast/whatever-provided PVR (personal video recorder) when you can build an awesome linux-based PVR for a fraction of the price (~$300):

• $75 hardware TV capture/encoder card (Hauppage PVR 150)
• $50 less than cutting edge CPU+MB combo deal (AMD Athlon)
• $50 case and power supply (Antec?)
• $25 ram
• $25 video card with tv-out (geforce 4 mx works well)
• $70 hard drive (as big as you can get)
• $5 cheap DVD drive
• FREE linux + mythtv or freevo
• FREE tv listings provided by xmltv with zap2it.com

Total = $300 (no subscription fees)
Actual Cost = lots of your spare time, but you get an awesome sense of accomplishment :)

Benefits = Tivo-like PVR functionality. Additionally you can share music, movies, pictures and even games (roms) between your home pc and this device without any DRM or other restrictions (so you can copy the video to your iPod, Laptop, PDA, Phone, etc...). Plus you get experience working on Linux, so you may actually learn something new about computers.

On a related note, I finally got my freevo-based PVR to work the way I wanted it to. I'm now recording a full schedule of TV shows for viewing whenever and wherever I want!

Sep 25, 2006 - 17:21 | + 6 - 1 First draft of GPG howto online

This may be a little geeky, but I went ahead and posted the first draft of my simple GPG encryption guide. Basically it's a way to keep a file secure when accessing it on two different computers... this comes in very handy when you're dealing with passwords. Comments welcome :)

Sep 18, 2006 - 15:58 | + 4 - 2 Webber Q!

Suzanne and I have recently gotten a Webber Q 200 for our condo. We wanted to be able to cook up some burgers and steaks on our balcony. We ended up also getting the premium stand so that we could hook up a full size gas bottle to the grill. In addition to that, I can remove the grill and take it tail-gating or camping with a smaller size bottle... best of both worlds!



We tried out the grill this weekend, and so far, the results have been good. At one point, I had 5 burgers and 2 brats along with some buns on the grill. The cooking was even and the clean up was fast. Webber really did a good job with their product, here's a thumbs up from one happy customer!

Sep 06, 2006 - 14:17 | + 1 - 6 Added Netflix Queue + Site Updates

I've added my netflix queue to the web 2.0 page on the site. I love how most modern web companies allow you to keep track of and share relevant information via rss feeds. It makes sharing and keeping track of everything so much easier!

On another note, am I the only one who likes the new features facebook added to their site?

Update: I've also updated the content page with some of the nwclug presentations that I've given recently.

Sep 01, 2006 - 17:02 | + 3 - 2 No dream team this time

I've been following the USA men's basketball team at the FIBA World Basketball champoinships for the past few weeks. Despite having a great lineup on paper which was full of NBA stars, the US team showed that teamwork is the most important quality of a good team when they ended up losing to a Greek team with no NBA stars... in their semi-final game. Back to the drawing board fellas, just having Coach K draw up some fancy plays is not good enough. Fill the roster with good team-players instead of prima-donnas like Carmelo Anthony! Let Coach K go back to doing Chevy ads or whatever else he does to fill his time. How about having Bruce Webber coach the team next time around? :)