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A good 2008 to you all. The first entry on my blog in many months. I'm writing this from my Asus eee-pc, the white, 4 gig model. I bought it at the local PC Club.
After 3 months of use, I like this little machine. The size is amazing. It weighs about 2 pounds. The screen size is 7 inches; About the size of the portable DVD player my family uses on long road trips. The screen size works okay. I wish it was a little bigger. Otherwise, it's very readable.
The keyboard is less-than the standard sized keyboard. I have a habit of hitting the right shift key instead of the Enter key. Yet, I've adjusted to it.
The Operating system is a variant of Debian called Xandros. The Easy Desktop is straight forward to navigate. The large icons were a pain. I switched to the Advanced Desktop, going with KDE 3.4.
The little features are very nice; Ethernet and wireless 802.11 B and G. Three USB ports, a SD card reader with SDHC capability. There is an external vga monitor port, audio in and out jacks, audio speakers and a webcam. This is a versatile laptop.
The software is all open source; Open Office 2.0, Firefox, Thunderbird and some games. I like Penguin Racer myself. I've added skype 2.0 beta. This version works with the webcam for video calls. I added VLC just recently (now I can access my DVR / media server at home via Orb.com to watch TV away from home).
At this juncture, installing new apps on Linux was a different world versus XP. I would suggest using the eeeuser.com website and their forums. Also, the eeewiki on the same site has been very useful. Go to the Arstechnica site (arstechnica.com) for an excellent article on installing Skype 2.0 beta.
I currently am using my eee pc at work for general web surfing and email access. After pundering around with KPilot (a Palm desktop wannabe) I decided to export my address book and contact list to my yahoo account.
There have been numerous articles and reviews on the eee pc. I'm not going to preach to the choir. If you need a lightweight laptop to travel around with working software, Asus eee pc is worth serious consideration.
Yes, it has been over 5 months since I posted ANYTHING here on my blog. Perhaps Thumper (of Bambi fame) says it best, "If you don't have anything good to say, don't say nothing at all". Good advice, especially for politicians.
I hope to get more into the groove for writing something worthwhile at some point. Getting some idea of what I want to do would be helpful as well. To coin the phrase, I have some ideas.
Let's hope I doesn't take this long.
To pickup from last December, I've been using Orb regularly to to view TV from the DVR setup I have at home in the office. The DVR system consist of a Hauppauge USB 2 Tuner (with the hardware mpeg2 encoder) and I'm using Snapstream's Beyond TV, Vers. 4.5. This combination makes for a heck of dvr setup which is better than the Charter Cable DVR we have in our master bedroom. I will discuss the DVR at a later date.
The broadband connection I have from Charter is about 6 mbits down and 384 kbits up. The upload number is the important figure. The actual upload speed I usually get is about 250 kbits/sec. The end result is the video appears at 320x240 pixels and the video stream runs at 210 Kbits/sec.
This makes for acceptable viewing quality, though there are a number compression artifacts present. However given the choice between pixelated video or no game, I'll take the the video.
The audio quality is respectable; Especially when I can stream the mp3 library I started encoding back about 3 month ago. I've encoded my mp3s at 256 Kbits/sec. The audio stream I get is about 192 ktbits,
The best quality I've managed to get is uploading from my work server at about 9 mbits/sec. This translates to a 1 mbit stream at 640 x 480. Nice, but who can afford the bandwidth?
I haven't tried the Share feature yet or being to access my documents yet. With being said, I will tell you if you it does work as advertised. The software is free and there isn't any charge for accessing the Orb system (yet). I'd say give it test drive and see what you think.
Please leave me any questions and comments on this or anything that suits your fancy.
-end-
At the beginning of the year, I heard about a service called Orb.com. It allows you to view media from your computer. Including TV if you have a tuner on your system.
I tried it out a couple of times. I was able to view my videos and photos but I could never get the tuner online. If necessity is the mother of invention, Monday Night Football on ESPN was catalyst. During the week I work in the evenings and at lunchtime, I like to catch a few minutes of the football game. Since our company has no cable or satellite (ironic since I work in a video post house) it looked like we were all going to have a perpetual blackout on MNF.
Then I thought about Orb again. Since the last time I used it back earlier in the year, the client software which you install on your media pc, has been updated and the interface has been radically changed. The proverbial Web 2.0 look. I reinstalled the new software and discovered I had to have my Beyond TV 4 (DVR software from Snapstream) up and running in order to get the mpeg2 video stream from my Hauppauge USB 2.0 TV turner to go to Orb.
Low and behold, we got Monday Night Football along with FSN, Clippers, Lakers, etc. The world was now safe for Democracy. The video quality is okay. Considering the video resolution is 320x240, streaming at about 192 kbits/sec. My cable broadband is rated at most 384K and its more like 200K most of the time.
In the last week or two, I've taken to ripping several of my CDs to 256K mp3s and streaming them over Orb. They sound pretty good. Beats carrying CDs around. The photo feature has always worked solidly. I can access all 5200 photos I have on my home network.
The best part of Orb is it's free. Unlike Slingbox which does the same thing but you have to buy the box for about $149 to $199. Slingbox is for those who don't have a tuner working in concert on their PC at home. I will go more into detail on a later entry about setting up Orb.
There's 6 days to Christmas and the tree isn't up yet. The gifts are at least bought. Wrapping, that's another issue. I keep saying I'll be ready and better prepared next year. Right!
At least my wife and daughter are happy and healthy. Which is more important than all of the holiday hub-bub. Please have a Merry Christmas, or whatever winter holiday you celebrate and a Happy New Year.
I had decided to write down something about technology earlier. However with the latest news of the rescue of James Kim's family in Oregon this afternoon, I thought it could wait.
Sometimes when I'm on the computer at home or at work, I forget what real life can be like. It maybe as simple as a hug from my daughter or worrying over someone whose missing like the Kim family these last 9 days. I spoke to Leo Laporte last Friday morning after I had heard the news about James and his family. I've gotten to know Leo over the last year, beyond just being a radio and podcasting personality. I could tell in his voice how worried he was. The TWiT.TV network could take a back seat for the moment. Leo's thoughts were with his missing friends.
I suppose its only human to be concerned or worried, even over someone you don't know personally. The inevitable what if it was my family out there. The next emotion is I wish I could help with the search. But all I could really do is send out my thoughts and prays for their safe return to the people who love them.
We've had one miracle today. Please let's have another.
I got in my email last night an upgrade notice from Snapstream, which sells Beyond TV 4, a pvr software package. A new version, 4.5 has come out as free upgrade.
Along with the usual bug fixes, the most prominent feature is the DVD Burning option (which you have pay for; $29.95 for the plug in). Now you can burn a DVD of any of the shows in the Recorded Show library without having to get close the PVR interface and load a separate DVD authoring app. More details later.
I've been using Orb for about a month and a half. For those who aren't familiar with, it think of it as software version the Slingbox. DLTV did a story on one of there shows. Go to dl.tv and type in "Orb" in the episodic archive search to find the show.
To be honest, I use it to watch Monday Night Football on ESPN. I'm at work and we don't have cable or satellite (ironic considering we're video post facility). Occasionally we check out the Clippers and Lakers games on Prime Ticket. It provides a certain relief from the stress of work.
I just upgraded to Orb 2.0 beta software, which I installed on my home pvr pc system. The web interface looks nice enough, however the client software on my pc isn't the most stable. I'm going to have to see if there are any bugfixes available. Besides, I have to have it ready for next Monday night's game.
I got in my email last night an upgrade notice from Snapstream, which sells Beyond TV 4, a pvr software package. A new version, 4.5 has come out as free upgrade.
Along with the usual bug fixes, the most prominent feature is the DVD Burning option (which you have pay for; $29.95 for the plug in). Now you can burn a DVD of any of the shows in the Recorded Show library without having to get close the PVR interface and load a separate DVD authoring app. More details later.
I've been using Orb for about a month and a half. For those who aren't familiar with, it think of it as software version the Slingbox. DLTV did a story on one of there shows. Go to dl.tv and type in "Orb" in the episodic archive search to find the show.
To be honest, I use it to watch Monday Night Football on ESPN. I'm at work and we don't have cable or satellite (ironic considering we're video post facility). Occasionally we check out the Clippers and Lakers games on Prime Ticket. It provides a certain relief from the stress of work.
I just upgraded to Orb 2.0 beta software, which I installed on my home pvr pc system. The web interface looks nice enough, however the client software on my pc isn't the most stable. I'm going to have to see if there are any bugfixes available. Besides, I have to have it ready for next Monday night's game.
I've heard about the head of Universal Music Group calling persons who own IPods and maybe the so to be released Zune crimminals for owning such devices. I guess he never heard of the ITunes Store.
Today I read this story today, http://gigaom.com/2006/11/13/just-say-no-to-umg/ , on the GigOM blog. He suggests a 1 week boycott against buying Universal Music. I guess its time to give UMG and a few other of the Music Mafia the Bird. After all we did to the Republicans.
I've finally finished editing the video I shot of Twit 71 from the Podcast Expo on Sept. 29th. Leo will be posting the downloadable versions on the Twit.tv website. I'm posting this version here on my blog. Enjoy.
