Do you have a laptop with wireless Internet access?  Does its manufacturer sell a docking station for it?  If the answer to both these questions is “yes,” then say hello to Hulu!  I got a docking station for my HP laptop and plugged it in next to the TV.  From that station I ran audio and video cables to the TV, along with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.  Then I attached the docking station to the laptop.  That’s it!  Now you can use the TV as your monitor and control the PC to watch any streaming video through the Internet.   Since then between On Demand content from our canble provider and Hulu, we never miss most of our shows.  Now I just have to figure out how to watch shows recorded on my media PC in the den over the home network.

In addition to doing that, I added the Shared Pictures folder on my den PC to the watch list for Windows Media Center on the laptop to run slide shows on the family room TV.  Plugging in the USB infrared receptor  to the docking station also allowed me to use my Media Center remote to control the PC, rather than the mouse.  Now, at parties, we can both impress our friends and bore them to death at the same time!  The next big project is to figure out how to run audio from the laptop to the stereo system in the family room, so we can stream mp3s as well.

Give it a try!  You’ll never leave your family room again!

]]> http://sksteve.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/an-inexpensive-way-to-add-media-content-to-tv/feed/ 0 sjrlaw http://sksteve.wordpress.com/2008/12/31/my-favorite-relative-uncle-jay/ http://sksteve.wordpress.com/2008/12/31/my-favorite-relative-uncle-jay/#comments Wed, 31 Dec 2008 19:22:04 +0000 Steven Richardson http://knightblogger.com/?p=97 ]]> Yesterday I posted on a terrific video that a friend of mine put on his Facebook page spoofing the Christmas carol Silver Bells and talking about the bank bailout.   Well, this friend has come through once again and posted a terrific “year in review” video from one “Uncle Jay” from his video blog, UncleJayExplains.com.  This guy is very clever and worth watching.  Click on over to his web site after enjoying the sample video below.  With that, Happy New Year!

Unfortunately, historically, change hasn’t been easy for me.  I tend to be very set in my ways, and I resisted the change to XP for years!  I just didn’t like what I called the “Fisher Price” interface.   Susan even had it on her computer, and I only used it when I had to.  It wasn’t until I was forced to adopt it when I got a new desktop for my office two years ago that I finally decided to install it on my old Windows 2000 desktop (with a RAM upgrade, of course).  I was soon asking myself, where has this been all my life, and regretting having waited so long to change.

For this reason, I decided that, with Vista, I would jump in with both feet.  So far, I am pleased that I did.  Although changes in the interface are one thing I have been most resistent to, I love the way Vista looks.  The colors and effects are way cool, and the Taskbar looks much better than XP (so not Fisher Price).   I also like the way that Vista organizes user files.  One thing that annoyed me about XP was that it had an overall “My Documents” folder under which was “My Pictures,” “My Music,” and “My Videos.”  These are not documents, and there was no separate folder for those (“Let it go, OCD Boy,” I hear you say, but it mattered to me).  Vista has an overall master folder with your user name on it with subfolders for photos, music, documents, downloads, even saved games!  Much better!

The way the Start Menu lists programs is better too, as you are not navigating through lots of submenus to find what you want.   I do miss the “Filmstrip” view in Explorer for looking at my pictures, but a good photo viewer with that feature can take care of that.  I suppose we can’t expect the OS to do everything.  As to the UAC security feature, I just do not understand what all the fuss is about.  You are required to click on a button to confirm an action that might harm your computer if you do not know what you are doing (or are malware up to nefarious activities).  This is nothing compared to Ubuntu Linux, which requires you to type in a password.  One thing that I do agree with Vista critics on is that there is not nearly as much innovation in Vista over XP to justify its development time.  Vista is cool, but it took Microsoft six years to come up with this?  You have got to be kidding!

As for the problems it has had, Vista has been out for almost two years now, and has resolved most of the driver issues.  In fact, it told me for more than one device that I was trying to install an old driver and directed me to the proper subpage of the manufacturer’s web site to download an updated one (and one for a 64 bit OS, so I had to be even more particular).  Another issue is that, although people acknowledge that Microsoft sells bloatware that requires more and more computer resources, some insist on trying to install it on hardware that can’t handle it.  From what I have read (and from my personal experience so far) Vista works just fine if you have: at least 2 Gb of system RAM, a dedicated video board with at least 256Mb of RAM, and at least a dual core CPU.  I would recommend getting the 64 bit version of the OS for three reasons: 1) it is forward looking in technology, so your system will last longer; 2) it allows you to address more than 3 Gb of RAM, so you can add more later and your system will last longer; and 3) there is no price differential.  Just be careful what drivers you install.  They must be for 64 bit Vista.  As for the publicized lack of adoption of Vista, and the cries for Microsoft to keep supporting XP, people forget that XP went through the same thing when it came out in 2001.  Businesses also have traditionally taken a long time to upgrade: it wasn’t that long ago that I was in my local bank and saw that they were still running Windows 98SE!  I guess I’m not the only one resistent to change.

So far, Vista only has a small foothold in our household.  My wife’s desktop and my laptop still run XP (as does my office machine) and my old laptop, and an old desktop, run Linux.  However, I must say that I am glad I was not resistent to change this time around, and jumped in with both feet on Vista.  The only problem is, Windows 7 will probably be out before I am ready to upgrade any of our other machines!  Oh well!

]]> http://sksteve.wordpress.com/2008/12/23/starting-to-love-vista/feed/ 0 sjrlaw http://sksteve.wordpress.com/2008/11/04/not-so-lonely-on-the-social-network/ http://sksteve.wordpress.com/2008/11/04/not-so-lonely-on-the-social-network/#comments Tue, 04 Nov 2008 04:50:56 +0000 Steven Richardson http://sksteve.wordpress.com/?p=79 ]]> In August of last year I posted on how social networking just wasn’t working out for me.  I had signed up for Facebook, Plaxo, and Orkut, yet virtually no one I knew was using them.  Unfortunately, these sites become useful in direct proportion to how many people you know are on it.  To my amazement, however, this all changed over the summer.  Suddenly all sorts of people that I knew from high school, college, and the Knights of Columbus, are on Facebook.  Alumni from both schools have Groups, as well as one for the Knights’ Supreme Council.  Some friends are taking to it more than others, updating their statuses, sharing pictures, links, etc., and keeping in touch.  Even with those that don’t, there is that potential there to reach out if I want to.

Social networking has now become fun for me, and I have become quite the “Facebook junkie,” checking the site several times per day.  If you look to the left margin of this blog, you can even see a Facebook widget that gives my status and the Events I am attending.  Feel free to use it to click on over to my Profile (just become my Friend first; I have a thing about online privacy).  People can go crazy with this stuff, and so I am probably going to stick with just Facebook, canceling my Orkut account.  Plaxo has my Universal Address Book and is my “cloud” for various information that I sync with Outlook, so I’ll stick with that.  However, I will most likely not keep up with their “Pulse” social network.  I have only so much time to spend when I should be working <grin>.

If we know each other, and you have an account, send me a Facebook Friend request.  If you don’t have an account, consider getting one; give it a try.  Then send me a Friend request.  It’s great fun, and a wonderful use of technology.

1. E-mail
2. Web Surfing
3. Word processing and spreadsheets
4. Organizing and editing photos
5. Listening to my music
6. Watching Movies
7. Maintaining my calendar
8. Maintaining my contacts and cell phone info

The first two were easy because I use Mozilla Thunderbird for e-mail and Firefox for browsing the web.  Since these apps run on both Windows and Linux, there was no learning curve.   In fact, I am writing this post on the Linux machine through the WordPress web site and Firefox.  The third item was handily covered by OpenOffice, which can read and write to Microsoft Word and Excel formats. As for #4, Linux comes with photo viewing and editing software either bundled with Ubuntu or available for free download from their repositories.  As an extra bonus, the machine recognized my SanDisk memory card reader and was able to import photos I had taken with my digital camera.  Cool!  For #5, I can listen to music using vlc, an open source app available for download from the Ubuntu repositories that handily plays mp3s.  #6 is a bit of a problem, though, as I like to use my laptop as a portable DVD player.  It has a DVD drive, but open source software to play the movies can be difficult without downloading restricted codecs.

The only other problem comes in with the last two.  I like to be able to access my calendar and contacts from anywhere, and had finally been able to do that using Outlook and Plaxo to keep everything sync’d with an online server.  Unfortunately, the PIM that comes with Ubuntu, Evolution, does not, to my knowledge, have that capability.  It might be able to sync with another online service, but unless all my machines sync with the same server, it is pretty much useless.  I will have to look into that.  As for cell phone info, my phone does not have a SIMM card, so I must use a USB cable and phone software to get this done, and I don’t think DataPilot is available for Linux, but I am looking into it (or a possible open source alternative).

Right now I am just doing stuff on the laptop and seeing if it works (like plugging in that USB card reader).  Yesterday I ordered more RAM for the machine (it has been running slow) and wanted to print the order confirmation.  I was on my office network and wanted to see if it would allow me to look for the network printer.  Instead, it asked if I wanted to save it as a PDF using a built-in driver!  So I was able to have confirmation of the order and remain paperless!  Who knows what else I’ll discover as I tool around.  For example, I really didn’t like the default look and feel of the GUI.  Then I discovered that I can download and install free themes from the Internet.  Now my desktop looks like a Mac!

I guess the bottom line is, you shouldn’t write off Linux as something that won’t work for you.  Sit down and figure out exactly what you use your computer for and then see whether Linux will meet that need.  It is fast, stable, flexible, highly customizeable, and – this is the best part – free!  You owe it to yourself to try it out.  Download a LiveCD and play with it on your Windows machine; you may find that you like it!

I, on the other hand, am not ready to upgrade my phone, and not just because it is barely two years old and still holds a charge.  The real reason is that they don’t make the phone I want yet.  We are currently heading to a convergence of portable technologies that will combine the cell phone with the PDA, mp3 player, and camera.  However, the implementation of this convergence is not yet complete.  Once that happens, I will get a new phone.

Smart phones give us portable access to the net, but I hate the tiny little keyboards they have, and I don’t want to ruin my back (and my thumbs) doing the “BlackBerry Hunch.”  They also don’t give you the large screen needed to make good use of the web, and for the same reason, they don’t make very good mp3 players.  Phone companies have, for years, tried to force this convergence by cramming a whole bunch of devices into one, small one.  The result has been  these tiny keyboards and screens.  In order for this convergence to be complete, there must be a way to make the device more flexible, so it can assume these many  roles smoothly.

The future, therefore, is in the touchscreen interface.  In this, Apple’s iPhone has shown us what this phone will be like, but the problem is that it is restricted to the AT&T network, and I am committed to Verizon Wireless.  It may be awhile before companies like LG, Motorola, or Samsung come out with an effective “iPhone Killer “  that  will run on any network.  Judging by the failed efforts of other companies to come out with an “iPod Killer,” this may take some time.  That’s okay; I can wait.  My LG phone does what I need it to do, has a great battery life, and looks great.  I don’t have a burning need to have the next greatest thing; my experience in tech has taught me to be patient and wait until things shake out.  I figure that, the way things are going, in two years my next phone will be on the market by the time I am ready to buy it.  I just hope I can afford it when it does.

“Several resources can tell you whether an e-mail claim you’re interested in is a hoax. One is Hoax-Busters.org, which describes itself as the Big List of Internet Hoaxes; another is Snopes.com, which specializes in urban legends and hoaxes, and a third is Hoax-Slayer.com. Check out any of these sites before you forward that next petition, chain letter, or crazy photo.”

But how do you tell whether that e-mail you received is a hoax?  The article shows a Hoax-Busters list of the “5 Telltale Signs of an Internet Hoax”:

“* The e-mail will have a sense of urgency about it, and probably a lot of exclamation points in it.

* The e-mail will insist that you tell all your friends.

* The text is adamant that this is “NOT a hoax.”

* It will earnestly inform you that there are dire consequences for not participating.

* It probably is full of >>>> marks, showing that it has fooled a lot of people before you, and has been forwarded all over the planet. Don’t add any more! If you must forward something, try this: The Federal Communications Commission’s list of the Top 10 Spam Scams.”

Let’s be intelligent about this and look at these things before we forward them.  I am sure everyone in your address book will thank you for it!

“The cost could be your own personal time, the cost of a license for a piece of software, the cost of training, or the cost of hiring a developer to write a program to do what you need.”

Since Windows is so familiar in the PC world, cost other than the price of the operating system itself is lower than Linux for more routine tasks. He graphs the cost v. task complexity on an XY axis and dubs the gap between the two lines the “Difficulty Divide.” However, posits the author, this cost flattens out for Linux the more complex and specialized the computer tasks become due to the greater selection of applications in the open source world, as compared to the commercial one for Windows. This eliminates the Divide and, theoretically, may lead to an adoption of Linux in those instances where more complex tasks are commonplace. One of the commenters to that post posits the reason for this “Difficulty Divide”:

“[It] appears because of the Windows presence out there. People learn Windows at first. This induces an association like Computer = Windows in their mind. So, changing their way of thinking induces the divide.”

This is an interesting point, and one to test as Linux continues to develop and, hopefully, is embraced more by the computing world. However, it is also important to bear in mind that the author characterizes this as a “Theory in Progress.” I look forward to his next post in which he will discuss the recent modification to his theory.

The news media has certainly zeroed in on this story and given it, perhaps, more play than it deserves. I have seen the picture that has raised the most fuss, and although I do not think it is pornographic, I do believe that it is an entirely inappropriate pose for a 15 year old girl. I certainly would not have let my daughter pose in that way. Many angry writers in the blogosphere have blamed Miley, Vanity Fair, and the photographer, Annie Leibovitz. They shake their heads over the ruining of the “Disney kid” and what this can do to her career. Unfortunately, this all just typifies one of the things that is going wrong in this country. People, including the parents, want to blame everyone for something that goes wrong, except the parents! The blog The Huffington Post quotes Disney as saying:

“A Disney spokeswoman, Patti McTeague, faulted Vanity Fair for the photo. ‘Unfortunately, as the article suggests, a situation was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines,’ she said.”

Let’s face it, folks: Annie Leibovitz and Vanity Fair put a nude, pregnant Demi Moore on the front cover of that publication. Here, a 15 year old kid, was allowed to place herself, and her career, in the hands of these people, because her parents signed off on it! What did they think was going to happen? The Huffington Post quotes a spokesperson for the magazine and the photographer:

“Beth Kseniak, a spokeswoman for both Vanity Fair magazine and Ms. Leibovitz said, ‘Miley’s parents and/or minders were on the set all day. Since the photo was taken digitally, they saw it on the shoot and everyone thought it was a beautiful and natural portrait of Miley.’”

Now this girl is horribly embarrassed and facing a low point in her life because of a bad call by Mom and Dad. She was counting on them to help her in this, and they let her down. As the parents of our children, it is our responsibility to make the right decisions for them and to teach them to recognize bad ideas for when they become adults. I feel bad for her that she has had to learn this the hard way. Maybe some good will come of this for her. I can only hope. Hang in there, Miley! Maybe your parents will have learned something from this too.