I continue to be impressed with SnapStream’s PVR related software offerings. A couple weeks ago it dawned on me that, wait a minute, Beyond TV Link might be pretty useful to put on a laptop. I mean, what if I want to watch TV or a recorded show but I’m too lazy to walk downstairs? What if I want to watch a recently recorded episode of Mythbusters while Jolayne watches Grey’s Anatomy? That certainly was an intriguing concept and so I shelled out for a license to see what it could do. It turns out that the standard Beyond TV app is actually also a server, and all it takes is the Beyond TV Link client to connect to it and get full access to watch recorded shows and live TV remotely, all from an interface that feels identical to the full version of the app. One of the coolest things about it is how brain-dead simple it is to get it started. There’s no configuration required at all. I was expected at the very least to have to give it the address or name of the machine running the full Beyond TV but as soon as you start Beyond TV Link it finds the BTV server on your network automatically. Quality-wise it’s quite impressive as well. Running across a 54mpbs 802.11g network there’s no loss of quality or performance in the interface or in watching live or recorded TV. It feels exactly like the laptop has a TV tuner card and it’s own full copy of Beyond TV installed. Now the second tuner card I added to our PVR machine comes in extra handy since that allows Beyond TV Link to view a different channel than the main machine when watching live TV at the same time. It’s also impressive to note that it performs well enough that the PVR machine, a near ancient 1.2Mhz AMD with only 384MB RAM, can handle displaying its own show while streaming to the linked machine without any noticeable performance hit. It’s been a great addition so far.

The seven stages of a project:

Phase 1: Uncritical Acceptance

Phase 2: Wild enthusiasm

Phase 3: Dejected disillusionment

Phase 4: Total confusion

Phase 5: Search for the guilty

Phase 6: Punishment of the innocent

Phase 7: Promotion of nonparticipants

Comments

Comment by Tobin on 2007-01-25 22:54:15 +0000

Haha. That’s too familiar.

Here’s a fun fact: If you start to shut down Windows XP and then realize “Wait, no, I meant to Hibernate!” you may still have time to bring up the shut down menu again and select Hibernate. It will then appear that the system goes into hibernation instead of shutting down. However, when you restore from hibernation you will find that it didn’t go into hibernation instead of shutting down, it just went into hibernation while shutting down and will continue to complete the shut down process very shortly thereafter. I guess this technically makes sense as hibernation is supposed to restore your system to the exact state it was in at the time. It doesn’t necessarily seem to be the best way to handle this case though. I have a feeling that would fall into the “Well, we didn’t think any sane user would do that” class of design decisions/omissions, I’m choosing instead to attribute it as an act of malice directed specifically at me, as improbable as that may be. Do what I mean and not what I say, computer!

Comments

Comment by Dan Thill on 2007-01-22 21:21:55 +0000

Do what I mean and not what I say, computer!

For that, you need a Mac 😉

I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that mankind had a much greater fondness and appreciation for snow before the invention of driveways and sidewalks.

Just because Bawls Mints claim to be lightly carbonated does not mean that you can add several of them to a cup of water and end up with a fizzy recreation of the excellent code-fueling beverage from which the mints derive their name (but none of the quality). What you can end up with is a cup of mildly sweet, odd tasting blue water with chalky chunks of bloated, half-dissolved candy pieces. And no carbonation at all. This is but one of the ways that Bawls Mints manage to completely and utterly disappoint.

Comments

Comment by Ash Bhoopathy on 2007-01-20 15:44:25 +0000

HAHAHAH. And where, pray tell, did you get the inspiration to ummh try this?

I feel like this could have been you tubed pretty nicely… You shoulda done it!

Ash

Comment by Will on 2007-01-21 17:22:07 +0000

I would probably credit the inspiration to simple lack of common sense.

Well, I figured it was about time to upgrade my blogging technology from early 21st century to… um, slightly later 21st century and jump to MT 3.33 (at the same time that someone else decided to jump ship). Actually, I’d gone ahead and done the upgrade last month, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it left all my templates unchanged and mostly functional (my recent tracks display broke down due to some conflicts with plugins). It was a much smoother upgrade process than I’d anticipated overall. I just decided this past weekend I might as well chuck the old templates for good and start taking full advantage of the new features and plugins. Hence the new look, which will probably undergo a bit more tweaking. The main reason I broke down and decided to go for it was the problems I’d been having with MT-Blacklist lately, and MT 3.x promised the ultimate in spam fighting goodness. Sadly, that doesn’t seem to be my experience thus far. In theory, the SpamLookup plugin should be just as good as MT-Blacklist and then some, but unless I just haven’t figured something out yet it’s not quite panning out that way. I mean, yeah it can check IP addresses against some online spam clearinghouses but one of those seems to have gone down, and at any rate spammers have a pretty much inexhaustible supply of addresses to go through from the compromised machines they use to send the spam. SpamLookup can also do the same regex based scanning of comment text that MT-Blacklist did, but even though I fed it the same collection of regex-es that had been driving MT-Blacklist fairly well I was still getting a pretty constant stream of uncaught junk. I’ve had to resort again to changing the name of my comments script, but that only works for a couple days at a time anymore. There are still a few other plugins and tricks I might try, but so far MT 3.33 hasn’t delivered on its promise for out of the box spam blocking. Maybe I’ll just require authentication for comments and be done with it…

Other than the spam, I’m pretty happy with the new version so far. The widget manager and its ability to easily make sidebar widgets out of RSS feeds is nice, and I’m looking forward to playing around with the MediaManager plugin sometime soon. The built in system for managing installed plugins is pretty handy as well. If I can get the spam under control, I’ll be a happy camper.

Comments

Comment by Neal on 2007-01-16 06:18:56 +0000

If you need to implement a login system, you should consider OpenID. There has got to be a way for Movable Type to support it.

Also, I like the new look.

Comment by Byrne Reese on 2007-01-16 10:02:59 +0000

There is an Movable Type Akismet plugin. It works like a charm I must say. In some respects you can get the best of both worlds: good spam fighting from Word Press and superior blogging software from Movable Type.

Although I know I am inviting people to disagree with me.

I am glad you decided to stick with Movable Type. You won’t be disappointed.

By the way, since you are using the default templates you should take a look at style catcher. You can get some pretty killer styles for your blog and it is as easy as point and click.

Comment by Will on 2007-01-16 21:19:57 +0000

Neal:

Yeah, it looks like there are a couple of different options for OpenID plugins for MT. I’m not too familiar with OpenID but that’s definitely something I’d consider upon exhausting other spam fighting options.

Byrne:

I’ve heard some good things about Akismet already and that’s probably going to be the next thing that I try. Thanks for the tip and for the work on all those useful MT plugins.

Comment by Ash on 2007-01-19 08:15:50 +0000

Woah!!! You’ve upgraded the latest MT, hehe. Awesome. Yeah man, sorry I jumped. I tried but the SPAM thing was just really annoying. Akismet does seem to work pretty well, but lo, its only been a day, so let’s give it some time.

I love how easy WP is to use.

Your new skin looks cool, did you design it? You could try a graphic element at the top instead of a blue bar, to make it more visually interesting. But, whaddo I know, I’m just a second semester design student.. 😉

MT2.X Flutter is dead. Long live the Flutter!

Comment by Will on 2007-01-19 22:18:33 +0000

Nope, this is just the default stylesheet, only modified a little to make it a bit wider for the 3 column layout. I’ve been messing around with the StyleCatcher plugin a little but haven’t settled on anything yet.

I recorded the OSU vs Florida national championship game tonight. What I intend to do is to loop Ted Ginn’s return of the opening kickoff for a touchdown over and over so that it fills the entire duration of the game, 30 glorious seconds at a time. In this game, we win by something like an unheard of 400 points. If nobody minds too much, I’d like for this to be considered the official version of the game, and for what the nation witnessed tonight to be dismissed as a humorous outtake, or perhaps a crazy alternate reality thought experiment. I do not feel this to be unreasonable.

Comments

Comment by Tobin on 2007-01-11 22:40:52 +0000

That game hurt me so much.

Comment by Ash on 2007-01-12 01:37:02 +0000

dude, its a big10 affliction man. don’t take it personally.

but, rotflmao about your PVR version of the game

New Year’s Resolutions for Coders

Comments

Comment by Neal on 2007-01-03 22:23:47 +0000

“I will not respond to requests for help by informing the questioner that they are not only asking the wrong question, but should change the language they program in and/or their Linux distribution.”

That’s going to be a tough one.

Asobi Seksu – Citrus

My Bloody Valentine-style swirly guitar squall with a more energetic, driving rhythm section and topped off with floaty Japanese female vocals. It may not be anything groundbreaking but it’s an excellent take on one of my favorite genres. Not a bad track on the album.

Calexico – Garden Ruin

At first it seems like a big departure from their trademark mariachi-tinged cinematic southwestern style, but the additions of alt-country and even rock are mixed in perfectly here, making this my favorite Calexico album to date. Also, this year I found that they give a great live performance so if you’ve got the chance you should definitely go see them.

Destroyer – Destroyer’s Rubies

I can never figure out exactly what Dan Bejar is going on about but the interesting and odd arrangements, intricate melodies, and tendency toward theatrics make this album feel like it’s always just about to go over the top but it’s a controlled chaos that makes for a great listening experience.

The Fiery Furnaces – Bitter Tea

For some reason, Blueberry Boat just didn’t really knock me over, but Bitter Tea is the perfect blend of catchy, quirky, and just plain weird.

Neko Case – Fox Confessor Brings the Flood

Neko Case can do no wrong in my book. Another solid album of haunting songs, cryptic lyrics, and that unbelievable voice.

Maritime – We the Vehicles

Davey von Bohlen’s voice is probably an acquired taste but I listened to a lot of The Promise Ring in college and I’m a sucker for catchy bass hooks, which D-Plan alumni Eric Axelson provides plenty of. This album delivers much better on that potential that Glass Floor showed.

Beirut – The Gulag Orkestar

It’s like Neutral Milk Hotel got ambushed by a band of gypsies and swept off to go carousing across eastern Europe. Awesome.

Awesome, it looks like Flickr added a pretty sweet Christmas easter egg (er… wait a minute. Christmas egg? Eggnog?), Just add a note to any photo with “ho ho ho hat” or “ho ho ho beard” as the text and add instant Festivus spirit to the picture.