Technical toys
Once again, a long delay between journal posts. Not that anyone actually reads my posts. Most of the time, I don't even read them. Another "blogger" (gods I hate that term) amongst the millions already on the net. The vast majority of blogs are just a waste of space. Bits stored on someone elses server. Taking up space. A tribute to someone or another's ego. It's not that most of what bloggers write is crap, no. It's that most of what's written anywhere is crap - and blogging has made it trivially easy for everyone and their brother to try and carve out their own little slice of the Net's collective attention.
This, of course, isn't about ranting against bloggers or bemoaning the fact that no one reads mine. It's about the new tech toys I mentioned in the last post - a replacement for my damaged Rio Karma and the new DirecTV system.
First, the Karma replacement: A Coby MPC951.I looked around a lot before I picked this thing out. I didn't want an iPod. I'm not really an iPerson, and the pod doesn't play .ogg vorbis files, which is what a lot of my collection is in. A Diamond Zen or Atheros portable would have been sweet, but they also omit ogg support. Ultimately, it came down to the Coby, which has ogg support, acts like a USB hard drive, can display text files and QCIF format AVI's, and can act as a usb storage host. Pretty slick, actually. The software that comes with it is limited, but it's all open source and includes the sources. In my book, that's a good thing. Only downsides are less than stellar battery life and it being really slow to boot up. It's also a little large for its capacity, but that's not an issue since tiny size wasn't a major issue for me.
The other big deal was finally replacing cable (which, in our neighborhood, frankly sucked) with a satellite system. Took DirecTV over Dish Network because it was less expensive and had a better channel lineup. They finally got out of the backlog with the HD Tuner / DVR combos, so we were able to get it all set up in a single hit. HD is simply awesome. I've been getting the Planet Earth series from Discovery HD and it's incredible. Saving it for my daughter in case she ever comes back down to visit. My Son might like it too, so there's reason to keep it. We've caught some fun concerts (Styx, Sammy Hagar and the Wabaritas), some movies, shows we couldn't normally watch because of the time, and skipped through several hours of commercials. That alone is worth it. I hate commercials. "Smilin' Bob" needs to be shot. Several times. In the nads. Hopefully with the "I'm theeeenking of a number" guy catching the backscatter. But I digress.
I understand why SatTV has taken off so much. So far, it's proven less expensive and more reliable than cable. The down side is that you need the separate tuner (same as digital cable) which renders Picture in Picture kind of useless on TV's that support it. Read, most TV's over 25" built in the last 8 years.
Anyway, I've rambled enough for no one to read.
This, of course, isn't about ranting against bloggers or bemoaning the fact that no one reads mine. It's about the new tech toys I mentioned in the last post - a replacement for my damaged Rio Karma and the new DirecTV system.
First, the Karma replacement: A Coby MPC951.I looked around a lot before I picked this thing out. I didn't want an iPod. I'm not really an iPerson, and the pod doesn't play .ogg vorbis files, which is what a lot of my collection is in. A Diamond Zen or Atheros portable would have been sweet, but they also omit ogg support. Ultimately, it came down to the Coby, which has ogg support, acts like a USB hard drive, can display text files and QCIF format AVI's, and can act as a usb storage host. Pretty slick, actually. The software that comes with it is limited, but it's all open source and includes the sources. In my book, that's a good thing. Only downsides are less than stellar battery life and it being really slow to boot up. It's also a little large for its capacity, but that's not an issue since tiny size wasn't a major issue for me.
The other big deal was finally replacing cable (which, in our neighborhood, frankly sucked) with a satellite system. Took DirecTV over Dish Network because it was less expensive and had a better channel lineup. They finally got out of the backlog with the HD Tuner / DVR combos, so we were able to get it all set up in a single hit. HD is simply awesome. I've been getting the Planet Earth series from Discovery HD and it's incredible. Saving it for my daughter in case she ever comes back down to visit. My Son might like it too, so there's reason to keep it. We've caught some fun concerts (Styx, Sammy Hagar and the Wabaritas), some movies, shows we couldn't normally watch because of the time, and skipped through several hours of commercials. That alone is worth it. I hate commercials. "Smilin' Bob" needs to be shot. Several times. In the nads. Hopefully with the "I'm theeeenking of a number" guy catching the backscatter. But I digress.
I understand why SatTV has taken off so much. So far, it's proven less expensive and more reliable than cable. The down side is that you need the separate tuner (same as digital cable) which renders Picture in Picture kind of useless on TV's that support it. Read, most TV's over 25" built in the last 8 years.
Anyway, I've rambled enough for no one to read.