tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5525272062187115232012-02-16T01:56:30.860-05:00Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.comBlogger301100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-29850982730169130992011-09-02T22:20:00.000-04:002011-09-02T22:20:09.314-04:00

For most of my life migraines have been a constant companion.  While their frequency has increased and decreased I've always gotten them on a fairly regular basis.  Some triggers like particular overcast days were so likely to be migraine days that the color of the sky to me isn't even a color at all, just a shifting, overbright pain that threatens to push me into a downward spiral of a migraine.

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-80680020686002681212011-07-11T23:38:00.003-04:002011-07-11T23:40:43.748-04:00

I've been playing around this week with a Nook Color that I modified to work as a regular Android tablet instead of an e-reader (technically CM7 so considerably more than regular Android). Its going to be a gift for my daughter when she comes home from vacation in two weeks. The goal is still for it to act as a book replacement for her when we go on trips but I've been underwhelmed by the options

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-58475681454699085412011-06-30T00:51:00.001-04:002011-06-30T14:35:42.226-04:00

Just got my invite to Google Plus. Don't really have time to mess around with it. If anyone wants an invite, shoot me an email. So had a bit more time to play with this over lunch. I'm really liking it. There are some very cool features considering its still only in Beta.  For one, you can organize everyone in your contacts by circles, basically easy mass mailing lists that can be used for more

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-77509743057927005642011-06-28T21:35:00.000-04:002011-06-28T21:35:42.709-04:00

Well, I got a new batch of green coffee beans in this week so I'm excited to start roasting again.  I'm going to try and keep a log of each batch with some comments on taste and hopefully get at least one espresso off of each bag.  I don't drink much espresso at home since its usually too late when I get back to make some. Anyway, above is a pic of some of the beans that came in including the

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-57309071593781013412011-06-27T23:08:00.001-04:002011-06-28T16:05:58.056-04:00

Another late blog post. Father's Day weekend was very busy for me and my family.  There was an added significance beyond it being a holiday because my wife and daughter left for several weeks vacation right after the weekend. The weekend started with an email from the DOE about my daughter's kindergarten. We'd been waiting to hear where she'd be going next year and were surprised to find out

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-17170665136845061782011-06-08T15:39:00.000-04:002011-06-08T15:39:50.245-04:00

I was playing around with Google Music the other day and I noticed that the song I was waiting to start playing had the little EQ bars next to it bouncing up and down but no music playing. Sure enough, the song was stuck loading.  Kinda weird, but it made me realize that the EQ bars were just a randomized icon with no link to the actual music being played.  As icons go, fake EQ bars rank very low

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-9599091291212664172011-06-07T17:49:00.000-04:002011-06-07T17:49:53.654-04:00

Today was Apple's announcement of its cloud music system. It was a pretty major one and it offered one feature that neither Google or Amazon have, the ability to scan and match any song in a user's library. This was originally a feature that mp3.com offered and was the reason they were sued out of existence.  Apple negotiated very carefully to get the rights and the payoff is big. Instead of

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-59054516333406553252011-05-27T11:21:00.000-04:002011-05-27T11:21:17.737-04:00

This past week was an interesting one in that two monster companies offered promotional downloads that made their sites slow or inaccessible.  Amazon offered a Lady Gaga album for 99 cents in a daily deal and HBO offered an episode of Game of Thrones a week early.  For Amazon, the promotion seemed linked to their new cloud music player.  For HBO, it seemed more of a test of how many people use

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-62452798852534447252011-05-16T00:19:00.001-04:002011-05-16T22:19:07.713-04:00

Ceton updated their InifiniTV CableCard software last week to allow for tuner sharing between computers. Basically one computer can now relinquish some of its four tuners and other computers on the network can take the signals. Setting it up wasn't too difficult but for some reason my video card was listed as non-compatible. The only workaround seems to be recording each show I want to watch and

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-50991494510197855382011-05-01T11:09:00.000-04:002011-05-01T11:09:50.494-04:00

Perhaps the most epic review of a metal song by a four year old ever. This past weekend, my daughter and I continued our tradition of driving to her favorite places in my home town while listening to loud and fast music.  Its a relatively new tradition but one that we both get a kick out of.  We don't get many chances to drive around and even at home don't get that many opportunities to listen to

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-5628459887705728182011-05-01T00:26:00.017-04:002011-06-08T11:30:08.121-04:00

When Motorola and Google introduced the first Honeycomb tablet in the form of the Xoom, expectations were high and the initial delivery was underwhelming. The product that was delivered was, and still isn't fully formed, and the most awaited updates have yet to come.  With a few of the major standouts, native Netflix and Hulu, still not available, this guide isn't complete, however there is

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-80050743220578695642011-04-20T12:47:00.001-04:002011-04-23T12:09:08.489-04:00

I rooted my Xoom last night. After a fun weekend in D.C. where I managed to get a lot work done I had a minor setback when Launcher Pro rejected all of my widgets.  I had been planning to root the Xoom so this was a good a reason as any.  The process was fairly easy. A couple restarts but all in all, under half an hour.  I'm still not up to the latest version because there were some recent

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-18698338960176949382011-04-15T22:18:00.000-04:002011-04-15T22:18:27.950-04:00

Computing paradigms have shifted dramatically over the last thirty years.  From the battle for the desktop, to the battle for the browser, the battle for the phone and so on.  While these battles raged there were longer term wars that can better be termed wars over ecosystems.  Microsoft didn't just have the Windows OS, they had Office, DirectX for gaming, IE as the default and most support

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-7363959847255009182011-04-15T13:46:00.000-04:002011-04-15T13:46:35.836-04:00

http://www.avclub.com/articles/hbo-developing-neil-gaimans-american-gods-as-poten,54645/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=avclub_rss_daily This was a surprise.  I liked American Gods when it came out and on reflection its definitely better suited for an episodic format.  The company being pitched, Playtone, has a solid track record with HBO, Band of Brothers, John Adams, etc, so if

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-45942763517655521262011-04-13T23:45:00.004-04:002011-04-15T22:26:10.788-04:00

The Motorola Xoom is the Android answer to the iPad, or at least its supposed to be.  Its the first device to have Google's new Android 3.0 Honeycomb operating system optimized for tablets on it.  I've had the Motorola Xoom for a few weeks now, just long enough to have formed an opinion about it.  While in some ways its still far from being at the stage it should be in order to be competitive 

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-87263549438506435682011-04-13T22:43:00.001-04:002011-04-13T23:45:51.174-04:00

Pretty much since I started reading I've been a fan of science fiction and fantasy.  For the last few years, I've put together reading lists of the upcoming books I'm eager to read.  Sometimes they are part of a continuing series, other times they are just the latest from authors who have captured my interest.  Below is a short list of the SF+F books that have come out or will come out this year

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-73769939892397038902011-03-29T10:37:00.000-04:002011-03-29T10:37:54.133-04:00

This week has been a busy one for Amazon.  First they unveiled the Amazon App Store for Android Devices, which will probably ignite a trademark suit between Amazon and Apple over the App Store mark.  For now the App Store is US only and AT&T phones appear to have an issue installing the Amazon app.  For those who can get it to work, the App Store is offering one free app a day.  This has seen

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-88277203430072487962011-02-26T12:36:00.000-05:002011-02-26T12:36:04.926-05:00

So, this past Thursday I finally installed my Ceton TV card and got it up and running. It took about an hour and a half with a Verizon technician who had never seen that kind of thing before. Since then I've been tweaking the system and am now pretty much satisfied. Remotes One of the first things I was concerned with in switching over to a TV card from the cable box was how to deal with the old

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-21237083663993730302011-02-19T12:18:00.000-05:002011-02-19T12:18:11.276-05:00

Been a bit delayed in writing this up. I was hoping to write a post on setting up my HTPC with the Ceton Infiniti4 TV card but it didn't ship out until a few days ago. It seems there is a good bit of demand, it was almost a six month wait to get it. In the meantime there have been a couple of interesting developments in the tech world, particularly with regard to media centers.  I'll start with

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-74574468884347833772011-01-04T23:14:00.000-05:002011-01-04T23:14:15.800-05:00

It takes almost no time at all between when holiday sales hyping the latest and greatest electronics come to a close and a whole new slate of products starts being promoted.  Today was the start of CES, a major electronics industry event where the gadgets for the coming year get announced.  Lots of these products won't actually hit stores until late in the year, if ever.  Some are just vaporware

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-6946499996764671272010-12-28T21:30:00.000-05:002010-12-28T21:30:36.565-05:00

The terms VPN (Virtual Private Network) and VNC (Virtual Network Computing) are usually associated with businesses and the act of working from home.  However, there are some free (and not free) tools that can be used to extend these concepts to home use. VPN's are networks that allow computers from different locations to act as if they are all on the same network.  Most home computers aren't

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-3377155424738826242010-12-22T18:15:00.001-05:002010-12-24T22:34:19.584-05:00

My primary source of music recently has been a Subsonic server that I set up on my HTPC. While I originally learned about Subsonic through the Android app market, I haven't really used it on my phone as most of the time  when I was using the phone to listen to music I was riding the subway and unable to stream.  I did notice that performance was laggy but as I was using Subsonic to stream to my

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-28776769590396862122010-12-21T12:15:00.000-05:002010-12-21T12:15:16.118-05:00

XBMC.org recently announced that the latest version of XBMC has been officially released.  I've been using the beta and release candidates for some months now and the software has been significantly streamlined from earlier versions.  For anyone who's interested in building a media center, now would be a great time to download XBMC and try it out.

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-60514766840370857562010-12-16T10:31:00.000-05:002010-12-16T10:31:35.322-05:00

There was a great post today on Lifehacker about using Gmail as a hub for all your communications.  Its something I'll be looking into over the weekend, although its a little overkill for my needs. For anyone using an Android phone Gmail, Google Voice and Gmail's contacts list are well worth tweaking out. In particular, it isn't too hard to consolidate all of your contacts into Google Contacts.

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-25477662973043118632010-12-14T20:55:00.000-05:002010-12-14T20:55:17.720-05:00

When it comes to home theater equipment the A/V receiver is a gadget lovers dream and a technophobes nightmare.  With a back panel featuring dozens of different jacks, massive remotes and a manual littered with arcane acronyms just figuring out how to get it hooked up properly can be a daunting task.   HDMILuckily, the last couple generations of equipment have made things much easier with the

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-56888633891479534922010-12-10T18:39:00.000-05:002010-12-10T18:39:03.482-05:00

For many years now coffee has been an integral part of my morning routine.  While I've always liked the taste what put me over the edge was getting involved in home roasting.  In this post I will go over home roasting, where to get the equipment and green coffee beans and some of the more interesting ways of brewing up a good cup. Going Green Roasting coffee at home is nowhere near as daunting as

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-65531097035460323982010-12-09T21:11:00.000-05:002010-12-09T21:11:05.266-05:00

Anyone who's ripped their CD or DVD collection knows that its a time consuming process and not something they'd want to repeat because of a hard drive failure.  There are several options for adding extra storage to a computer or network of computers.  The simplest of these is an external hard drive.  There aren't too many considerations to take into account for a single drive solution.  The real

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-87966823071481341612010-12-07T17:54:00.000-05:002010-12-07T17:54:17.636-05:00

Looks like Google is going all out in its support for Chrome as a platform rather than just a browser.  The big announcement today was Chrome OS but more immediately of interest is the Chrome Web Store. The Chrome browser has been expandable via all sorts of extensions for a while but the new store adds apps, both paid and free to the mix.  Its still in the babysteps stage and already has the

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-88547437815244560402010-12-06T19:19:00.001-05:002010-12-16T10:37:28.602-05:00

I've had a computer hooked up to my TV for many years, starting back from around 2003 or so when I was still living in a studio and decided to make use of some spare parts left over from upgrades. However, it isn't until the last year or so that I've really turned it into what could be called an HTPC or home theater PC. Up until then it was a just computer hooked up to a TV, with a mouse and

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552527206218711523.post-80616641541129647752010-12-02T14:28:00.000-05:002010-12-02T14:42:18.366-05:00

Just trying out this blogging thing. For a while now I've wanted an outlet to discuss some of my varied interests, particularly in the technology area, but also literature, music, patent law, parenting, cuisine and whatever else grabs my attention.

Assortment of Things Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11339577063647491095noreply@blogger.com0