Daytona24.com

iPad

2010-01-28T00:33:00.004-05:00

Although it's late I felt perhaps I should get my own thoughts down as it pertains to Apple's announcement of the iPad.

Let me first say that I was not overwhelmed nor underwhelmed by the device I am simply interested. Maybe it's because I don't have many of the hangups that others have such as no multitasking or video conferencing and that it's not based on OSX. Right now I am more focused on what I can use it for and comparing it to other devices that do similar task such as the Zune HD and the Kindle. I bought a netbook and while I like it I agree it's underpowered and I don't use it for even browsing the web on the couch like I thought I would, actually I tend to use my iPhone instead.

I won't go much more in depth because after all I am typing this late and on my iPhone and sending it via email to my blog. So will I buy an iPad, the answer is simple, I am not contemplating if I should get one but which one should I get? I like the idea of 3G but not the monthly cost and I question if I'd ever really be using it outside of Wi Fi range (I do after all still have that iPhone). So at this point I just need to figure how it will work for me and be used in my technology world and take it from there.

I'll close by saying that while there is a lot of dislike out there I ask you to remember when the first iPhone was released for $600 without an app store. At that time it was hailed as the second coming and if I've learned anything since then it's that Apple makes cool stuff that's fun to use and right now that's good enough.

Why So Sirius?

2010-01-20T10:21:00.004-05:00

I love it when I mull over something (especially technology) forever and when I finally take the plunge and buy whatever it is I'm buying I realize that yes indeed it was the right decision. This time it is of course Sirius Satellite Radio.

My interest in Sirius began this summer, however by the time I figured out how much it was going to cost me I decided that I could probably pass on it. At the time it seemed like one of those things I just "wanted" which is often the case with me. Not set to just leave it be I found a way to enjoy Sirius without that major cost, Sirius Internet Radio. I used Sirius Internet Radio for most of the summer while outside and it was pretty good, a very good selection of music without commercials.

There are a variety of alternatives to a paid service like Sirius, two which come to mind are Pandora and Last.fm and of course your own mp3 collection is a pretty good alternative as well. While I use both Pandora and Last.fm they tend to play artists and songs that you know already and your own mp3 collection is songs that you already own. The bigger issue with your mp3 collection is that it can be pretty large and unless your going to spend time making all the right play lists you can spend allot of time skipping songs rather than listening to songs.

Listening to Sirius Internet Radio was a pleasure and the song selection on your channel of choice is usually good enough to keep you listening and enjoying it. When the summer was over I switched to listening at work and with football season in full swing began listening to ESPN and Sirius NFL radio.

Just last week while listening a banner popped up on the web player with "great deals on radios" so I decided to give it another look and it turns out I found a pretty good deal. Sirius was offering me a Stratus 6 with Vehicle Kit AND a Free Home Kit for about $65 so I took the bait. I figured at that point that the radio was pretty much free and if the home kit would work in my office at my work I could get Sirius NASCAR coverage (which you can't get online) just in time for the new season to kick off.

After just a few days of listening I can say that I'm hooked, you just can't listen to normal radio after listening to satellite radio. Thankfully the home kit install was easy and the one window in my office faced the right direction and the car install was pretty easy as well.

I already have my favorite channels and my daily listening schedule of CNN in the morning then off to ESPN with The Herd, then NASCAR around 1 p.m. and music after 3 p.m. As for the music channels, I'm still sampling the various channels (though I already have my favorites) and I just discovered "The Pulse" channel 12 tonight!

The radio that I bought is your basic starter model and I'm already planning to upgrade to the Starmate 5 so that I can get the ability to pause and rewind and program the radio to switch to programs at certain times.

Needless to say I am enjoying Sirius very much at this point and while I can't really say that I should have done this a long time ago, circumstances were different with it a few months ago, I kind of wish I did. If your contemplating Sirius check it out at the very least online to sample the channels and my guess is you'll get hooked just like I did.

2010 - The Year I Completely Abandon the CD.

2010-01-03T15:24:00.004-05:00

To be fair I can't remember the last time I actually USED a CD other than to rip it onto my hard drive and I can't remember the last CD I bought for myself, but up until now they've still kind of stayed around.

When I began to rip my CDs onto my hard drive I started putting them away, so most of my CDs have already been packed and placed out of the way. Yet a bunch still remained, mostly CDs of artists I don't listen to anymore or ones that I have 5 CDs that have been replaced happily by a Greatest Hits compilation, however up until today they were simply just taking up shelf space in the office (okay toy room).

This past weekend I packed up the balance of those CDs, leaving behind a small stack that needs to be ripped onto the hard drive and leaving out a few of those "collector" case CD's for display. One bane of existence remains however - my wife still uses CDs!

How is it that someone such as myself has allowed this to happen? Well to be fair we tried once to rectify it with one of those FM Transmitters but really do those ever work? So with no real way to connect an MP3 player to her car stereo she continued to use "gasp" CDs. This is evident with one of the remaining stacks of empty CD cases of which the CDs are in one of those cases that hold CDs on the go (really why do they even sell those anymore, actually do they?).

This year I am determined to change her life! I guess we'll need to look into replacing that stereo finally but at this point at least they don't cost as much anymore. We already have an available MP3 player for her to use, and of course she already has her phone as well.

So yes its about time to get this done.

It's much easier now to abandon CD's since most places you can get music digitally you can now get it without that pesky DRM. Both places I use which include Zune Marketplace and iTunes offer DRM free purchases so no matter which store I buy it at I can easily play it on the other stores player and/or software. I also really enjoy the convienence of the Zune Pass on the Zune Marketplace (but that's another blog post).

It's funny I alway's worried that my CD's wouldn't last forever, that something would happen to them and they'd become unplayable. Turns out something did happen to them, they became irrelevant.

iTunes DRM

2009-12-13T12:01:00.004-05:00

For the longest time I never used iTunes, yet after the last major upgrade to iTunes (version 9) I began to use it much more, and even started to really enjoy using it. Perhaps owning a Macbook and an iPhone (and all that time I spent getting apps from the app store) has helped.

Something else that has helped was an important change within iTunes to DRM associated with music. Previously you purchased music through iTunes and you played it on your iPod and iTunes, and nowhere else. As someone who's never been an iPod user that really never worked for me. Nowadays you can buy DRM Free music on iTunes and send it to whatever MP3 player you like, so now I can enjoy my music in iTunes but also send it over to my Zune as well. That small change makes deciding to purchase music on iTunes that much easier.

Although music has gone DRM free TV shows and movies still have not (along with Audiobooks). Adding to the fact that TV and Movies are not DRM free is another strong caveat, once you download a TV show or movie you can't download it again without REBUYING it. That is a pretty strong DRM agreement. Let's say you download a TV show and you accidentally delete it before watching it, in that case you will have to rebuy it! Since everything is tied to your account they should let you redownload it through a purchase history or something like Zune and Xbox allow (although thats not always a safe bet either) but in iTunes that is not the case.

So I thought about this long and hard, especially since I most recently decided to make a pretty extensive purchase through iTunes. On one hand I understand and appreciate the rules, on the other had I loathe them. At least you know, if you screw up, its your fault and this makes backing up your purchases THAT much more important. Homesharing (introduced in iTunes 9) makes that a little easier if you have two seperate computers running iTunes. In that situation you simply just make sure you duplicate your purchases; if you don't then at least back them up to an external hard drive.

So what if you don't back up? Well you should and if you're not your running at risk all the time. Simply put if you lose it, you lose it, don't bother calling. At first I didn't think that was right, but after I thought about it longer I realized that if you buy a DVD at Best Buy and throw it in the garbage Best Buy is not going to give you a new one, you need to BUY a new one. With iTunes its the same way. Understandably this is the digital age and we should at least have some protection against a failed hard drive or an accidental delete but with iTunes thats not the case. Now it could very well be that restrictions placed upon this content from the studios is what is forcing Apple's hand and after all we know that the studio's still don't get the whole DRM thing so that's probably not far from the truth.

The funniest part to all this DRM is that in the middle of this all is the app store, a place where if you do happen to delete a program you can redownload it again for FREE! Its nice to see that music has gone DRM free and we can redownload apps, if we could get video to adopt one of those things would be that much better.

In closing if you use iTunes you're probably happy with it and as long as you do your backups your purchases should be safe. Lets face it iTunes users and dedicated users and after all have you browsed the iTunes store recently, its SO much fun!

Zune and 360 Marketplaces – Just Dating

2009-11-17T21:16:00.001-05:00

One of the coolest things that was sort of flying under the radar with the new Xbox 360 update today was the convergence of the Zune Marketplace and the Xbox Live Marketplace. The past couple days I tried to find information about how this was going to work, because what little I knew had gotten me excited.

I have not bought much on the Zune Marketplace in the means of videos but I had bought a bit on the Xbox Video Marketplace so the idea of getting all that content to my PC sounded pretty cool, also the idea of streaming that content from the Xbox servers was also pretty cool, especially when you are a multiple 360 household. So it was with much excitement that I entered today.

What I’ve found is that these two marketplaces are far from being “converged”. I knew going in that the Xbox Live Marketplace had MUCH more content than that of the Zune Marketplace so I didn’t expect Microsoft to open up a world of content in a day. What I did expect was that at least the content that I had purchased on the Xbox Live Marketplace that was available on the Zune Marketplace and that shows in my purchase history would now be available for download, so far this has not been the case as it is not allowed.

After a little test purchase I made I did find out that it does work that way with new purchases for the most part. I made a purchase of Land of the Lost episode 1, downloaded it to my 360, then downloaded it to my PC afterwards. I have yet to test the sync to my Zune 80.

The content that I had purchased through Zune Marketplace however was available to download to my 360 without any trouble. So it does appear to at least work in one direction. Maybe Microsoft is still working out some of the kinks.

The other thing I thought would be nice would have been the ability to stream content I had purchased already to a different 360 with my account without downloading it, alas for much of my content this is not the case, it will work however for that Land of the Lost episode and the item that was purchased from the PC Zune Marketplace previously.

It does appear that making purchases on the 360 is the place to do it as before you make your purchase it will tell you exactly where your content will be allowed, if it can be streamed, downloaded to your Xbox and downloaded to your PC and Zune. Content that is not available on the PC Zune Marketplace is evident as it will only say you can download to your 360. I did not see this on the PC side but I didn’t really try to make a full purchase on that side either so it may be there.

I’m not complaining here as its day one of this convergence and its a big step in the right direction but after spending a little time with it tonight there’s quite a way to go. I will say that if this convergence comes together a bit better I will be much more willing to make more purchases.

One last thing I’ll say is that with the new Zune branding everything you ever downloaded shows up in your library now if its on your hard drive or not. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that and I didn’t think I’d like it but in a short time its growing on me.

I like that the Zune brand is now out there more, I’ve been a big Zune supporter for awhile and hope the brand can get more recognition this way as its well deserved. If Microsoft can continue to work on this it can really be a powerhouse in the future. No one is ever going to topple Apple and iTunes but today was a step in the right direction.

Maybe an engagement next year with a wedding to come soon after that. Until then these two are simply just dating.

Living in High Definition

2009-11-09T22:45:00.001-05:00

About five years ago my father in law was shopping for an HDTV. I helped him out, the deal was too good, and I bought one too. That was my first HDTV, it was a 42 inch rear projection LCD. Its a great TV, still is, but rear projection TV’s have fans in them and I could never get over hearing the one in mine. So a little over a year ago I replaced it with a 46 inch Vizio LCD. I had bought a smaller 32 inch for the bedroom prior, which was moved to the living room later, and really liked it. I really liked the upgrade, but of course it wasn’t perfect. It was becoming my “thing” with getting an HDTV, nothings perfect.

The Vizio was where I watched most of my TV, the Sony was moved to the “toy” room but it also became where I started to watch a lot of football since September. About a week ago I got a great deal on a Panasonic 50 inch Plasma I had been eyeing. A year or two ago my dad got a 50 inch Panasonic Plasma on Black Friday and I’ve loved it ever since, it has such a great picture.

Needless to say I don’t have a lot of TV’s but they are all now High Def. That 32 is now back in the bedroom as well. On top of that, where the TV’s are now have lessened their deficiencies. I love the picture on the plasma, its like nothing I’ve ever seen before!

Its like the DVD player, eventually you knew you’d have one in every room. I’ll say that although I have a few the prices have always been the reason why. Of course my wife is still not happy with the much larger TV she has in her living room (and a TV on a TV stand even looks bigger than in an entertainment center) but she’s getting used to it.

Windows 7 and IE 8

2009-10-24T23:43:00.001-04:00

So the Windows 7 upgrade went smoothly for the most part, I had to locate my video card driver on my own (annoying) but the install was done in about a 1/2 hour.

Needless to say I am enjoying Windows 7 so far, there are little things that maybe don’t make things faster but just make things a bit easier and more fun.

The first thing is the taskbar and how it works with Windows 7 products like Internet Explorer 8 and Zune 3.0. It’s cool to be able to hover over the IE8 taskbar icon and see what web pages you have open and go right to them. Sure it’s similar to tab browsing but it just feels more fun to do it that way.

Actually the taskbar in and of itself feels more useful because of this little trick since you can easily and quickly see what any of your open programs are doing at any time.

Zune 3.0 for Windows 7 along with IE 8 also have “jump list” items attached to them so you can do things like jump right to a web page before IE 8 is open or resume playing or shuffle music in Zune quickly.

I’ve been a pretty dedicated user of Firefox for a long time, but I have to say using IE 8 (64 bit) and using things like web slices and suggested sights has been fun. IE 8 seems to crash a bit more than Firefox ever did but I switched to IE 8 64 bit now to see how that works.

Still early with both but so far really enjoying it. If your thinking of making the switch to Windows 7 and you’ve got the hardware to do it (pretty much any PC running Vista) I say go for it!

The Windows 7 Wait.

2009-10-18T23:04:00.003-04:00

Wow its been ages since I've posted on my blog, even I forgot about it (I know you didn't though). In any case for me the Windows 7 wait is almost over. I am very excited about the upgrade though I've never tested Windows 7 and I've only actually ever seen it once on someone else's underpowered machine for like a second. Nonetheless it launches this Thursday and I've been planning for that update on Thursday. That is until I realized I ordered it through Amazon (to get that cheap early price) and for some reason I thought it was going to be sent for a Thursday delivery. Well that's not the case, so I'll get a few extra days to get the current system all backed up and ready for Windows 7. I haven't done an operating system upgrade in so long. And no upgrading to Snow Leopard doesn't count, that was lame. Well back I guess next week with my thoughts, see you then.

Yes I Really Like Hulu

2009-05-28T17:04:00.000-04:00

Today Hulu announced it's new desktop application for both PC and
Mac. Now not that having to use the web browser was all that
difficult it's great to see an application that I can use especially
since I use it on my 42 inch TV. Although I just went and bought a
keyboard with touchpad support I'll gladly use my old media center
remote which the app now supports.

I'm looking forward to installing and checking the app out tonight,
much like my new DvR from DirectTV the problem becomes that I start to
watch more because of this when I should be watching less.

In any case Hulu is a great service that just keeps getting better,
now just bring on the iPhone app!

E3 Hopes and Predictions

2009-05-27T22:53:00.004-04:00

Wow its been quite some time since I last blogged, quite a long time. But anyway much has been going on in between. I finally moved back to Direct TV which I was going to blog about many times but still have not done. I've even signed up for Satellite radio with Sirius but I only get the Internet version of that which is pretty cool. Right now I'm still trying to get through all the television I've ignored throughout the TV season as well, but I had to take a quick moment to jot down some E3 thoughts.

E3 is a great time, its those couple days through all three big press conferences from Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo where we get to hear about all the cool stuff that's coming out. I'm really interested this year since this year is usually the year we'd be at least hearing about new hardware. While we certainly won't be hearing about new hardware that only leaves the software that's going to add the WOW factor this year. Of course for me by software I'm hoping OS level advances for the system's themselves.

I'll keep this brief, but here are my thoughts:

Microsoft: My biggest hopes lay with Microsoft and the 360, and to an extent the Zune. Microsoft has already announced a new Zune HD plus their already kicking off their 1 vs 100 game on live leading me to believe that they've got some pretty cool stuff lined up to announce. Moving the Zune Marketplace into the 360 will be cool especially if they make the ability to buy on 360 and transfer to Zune for on the go with TV shows and movies. I'm looking forward to some pretty cool Live Arcade announcements as well. Microsoft is gearing up to change entertainment at E3 and I'm sure they will. There is also always a few cool freebies they like to put out during these times as well.

Sony: Sony needs help AND FAST. There is the rumor of a new PS3 and PSP, while the PSP may sound cool I'm thinking a new PS3 may cause confusion in the marketplace (and piss off allot of people as well). The XMB needs a revamp and Sony needs to probably NOT talk about HOME during E3. I'd love for Sony to announce they actually have a web browser that will work (since they insist on having it there) and as a BIG stretch it would be cool for them to announce a native HULU app for the XMB or the ability for Netflix, Microsoft is killing them here.

Nintendo: I'm only going to say this once, Nintendo needs to announce the ability to buy games on the Wii then send them over to the DSi to play on the go. If they do this I will run out and buy a DSi. The Wii dash also needs an update as does the Wii Shopping Channels. They've got their new controller adapter launching this summer so that's already out there. I've noticed today at Gamestop that there are ALLOT of Wii games out there. Nintendo doesn't really need to announce anything new, they'll still sell a bunch of hardware and that's probably what they'll talk about most. Its a shame because they really need to excite this year.

Well like I said I'd make it quick, notice I really didn't talk games, mostly because I probably won't buy many. I'm interested to hear about some of the sports games especially the new Madden but these will most likely be lost in the shuffle.

I guess we'll find out soon enough, I can't wait!

iPhone Gaming

2009-03-22T13:42:00.000-04:00

It's silly for me to even pretend that I'm not a big fan of my iPhone, every day it continues to improve and surprise me in what I can do with it, with the announcement of the iPhone OS 3.0 which will arrive this summer it will only get better. However what has surprised me more than anything is just how good of a game system the iPhone has become.

I'm a gamer, I've been for as long as I can remember, these days though I'm more of a casual gamer due to the current complexity of some games and the fact that I just don't have as much time (in a sense I've become my father). The iPhone has become the perfect place to play

When I first started using the iPhone I thought I wouldn't be loading it up with games. The first choice of games were ones I figured I'd have as "staples" maybe one to show off (Crash Kart Racing), one to try out the accelerometor (dizzy bee) and of course a card game (Solebon Solitare). Games like Crash Kart and Dizzy Bee showed much promise but it was more an exception than a rule, even games like Super Monkey Ball were good but not great. Eventually I played the free version of Solitaire enough that I finally ponied up and got the full version. One thing I never wanted to do and still hold true is that I don't fill up the phone with trial and free versions of games, its nice to grab one to try out but then I either buy or delete.

That was nice early on, but the more I browsed the iTunes app store the more I veered towards the game section, more and more. What I started to find however surprised me more than I thought it would.

The first games I came across were the free i games, iBowl, iGolf, iBaseball etc. These games were like the Wii Sports of the iPhone, although the only one that resides on the phone currently is iBowl (which I love, but still that 300 game evades me). Other casual games started making thier way to my phone such as Wurdle, Tic Tac Free, and Bejeweled. The first really big game I bought after Crash Kart however was Spore Origins. Spore Origins was pretty simple and enjoyable, yet I remain stuck on the last level!

While the holidays brought great games to my iPhone like Tiki Towers, Virtual Pool and Crazy Tanks lately some really big games have made thier way to my iPhone. These are the games that are really started to set the iPhone into motion as a serious gaming device.

First and foremost Tap Tap Revenge 2 is free and its ALOT better than Tap Tap Revenge, I love having a Guitar Heroish type game on the iPhone. Days of Thunder is a great racing game and Aqua Moto Racing is one of the best if not the best jet ski racing game on the app store (okay it may be the only jet ski racing game on the app store). The thing that sets a game like Aqua Moto Racing apart is the level of polish! Talking about polish Let's Golf is absolutely amazing. I am a big Hot Shots Golf type golf game fan and Let's Golf is perfect, even at version one its amazing. Other games do thing that even the PSP can't do, iDracula uses dual sticks to move and shoot, a recent update to the game added more levels etc and it is literally a blast to play. Recently I picked up Metal Gear Solid Touch, while respectively its priced a bit high and you do pay for the Metal Gear name its a great "duck hunt" like shooter and shows that developers are taking this device very seriously.

I even have a plateformer series on the iPhone with the Toy Bot series, I managed to get all 3 for $3 (just .99 each on sale). If your a fan of Skeeball and shooting baskets at the arcade then both ArcadeBowl and ArcadeHoops should be on your list. One of the coolest apps is Aqua Baller, play it and you'll be pleasently surprised and taken back if your say over 30.

This is just the beginning, there are two big games on my watch list Real Racing and Galaxy on Fire are set to push the limits of what anyone thought possible on the iPhone. I simply can't wait!

One caveat in buying games is that generally for me I cap at $7, I have bought a handful of $10 apps yet its not the price that bugs me its the up and down "stock market" pricing of apps that does annoy me. If you browse everyday you can get some pretty good deals on games.

While maybe gaming on the iPhone will not leave you much time to talk its certainly become something I can't do without. The iPhone has already been a much better portable gaming device for me than the DS and PSP ever have.

Now if you'll excuse me I have some gaming to do.

The Canon PowerShot and the Kindle App

2009-03-08T00:32:00.002-05:00

I havn't blogged in a while but two recent tech things need to be blogged about, my new Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS, and the new Kindle iPhone application.

Although I have my main, big camera my Nikon D40 with all its photo taking power and multiple lenses I had a feeling that I needed something a bit more compact to have with me. Sure I have my iPhone and its great that it has a camera, but lets face it, its not a great camera. So I pretty much just checked Flickr to see what the best point and shoot camera was and low and behold the Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS was shooting up the charts, and lucky for me Best Buy had it on sale.

I took it for a test drive today and I'm liking it already. First of all I was glad to see it came with a lithium battery and I wasn't going to have to deal with batteries! Next up it was actually able to snap some of those moment shots and not the moments after the actual moment shots. The area I was most surprised with was the video capabilities, I was able to take some video with the camera and guess what not only does it capture audio but the video and audio came out pretty good. As a bonus the video is in AVI format so it'll transfer to Mac and PC alike, it won't stream to the 360 without some help being converted to WMV at least though there was a codec issue.

The next test is taking it on our trip this week, I really can't have the big Nikon with me and it may actually allow me to keep the video camera at home as well. So far its been a great camera and a great compliment to the D40.

Next up is the iPhone Kindle app. My biggest issue with the Kindle is the price, its way too expensive. I am pretty impressed and surprised that Amazon released the app for the iPhone and its free. Sure it doesn't have all the features the Kindle has and you can't order books directly from the app but its not bad to have to go to the Amazon web site and send the book to the iPhone. Although I'm guessing its MUCH easier on the eyes to use the Kindle than the iPhone for me right now I have an iPhone and a pretty good eBook reader! At this point I sent some sample books to the app to try it out, see how it goes. All in all after knocking the Kindle so much I'm glad Amazon gave me a free one!

Both of these little reviews are a bit early in both product lifecycles but I'm pretty confident that both will be used in the future, the camera probably ALOT more! Time will tell, for now its time to enjoy.

New Life for Old Friends

2009-02-18T22:18:00.003-05:00

I'll admit when I first got my Media Center PC I thought that Media Center was the coolest thing around. Here was a great way to finally watch AND record TV on my computer, something for some reason I always wanted to do. There was also a pretty cool program I picked up along the way called MyTVtoGO and started using it a little to record shows and drop them onto my PSP. That wasn't really a long lived thing. Eventually the 360 dashboard picked up and I pretty much put Media Center to the side, not really having a need for it. As a matter of fact when I did some cable cleanup I even disconnected that cable from the PC, TV to PC disconnected.

Fast forward to the present and boy that has changed. I am always on the search for ways to do more with technology and media and in a sense make my media world better and easier (which always means more work and complicated). I came across a program I once used called Pocket DVD Wizard and it reopened some doors. Initially it was a way to start putting some more movies on the iPhone but then I realized it worked with the PSP as well. Well for some reason it didn't want to work well with all the files I was throwing at it for the PSP (the iPhone was fine) but that led me to updating to the PRO version of the PSP Media Manager and I started to convert and send movies to my PSP with ease once again.

Of course this was movies and my kid likes allot of his cartoons. Luckily the latest version of the PSP Media Manager works with dvr-ms files, you know the ones that Media Center creates, and as it goes PBS and the Disney Channel don't put commercials during their shows!

So tonight I hooked back up that cable to the PC and once again I'm recording a bunch of TV shows that will soon make their way to the PSP. It does help that I picked up an 8 gig memory card for $35 (they originally retailed for $300!!!).

I like iTunes but lets face it at $2 a show and a finite amount of storage anyway I can't really keep that up, and once the kids get to a certain age these shows go away so their not long term keeps. This way I can alternate new shows in once in awhile since the good thing about kids is they can watch the same episode over and over.

So Media Center and PSP welcome back to the world of media, glad you stuck around and were willing to come back and join us!

A Tale of (3) 360's!

2009-02-07T21:28:00.002-05:00

For the first year of the Xbox 360's lifespan I ignored it, didn't see a reason to own it, I was happy with my current Xbox. Actually at some point I bought a second Xbox to use as a Media Center extender. For the original Xbox there was a rarely sold disc that you put in the Xbox and it played the Media Center extender software and connected to your computer. For the longest time I didnt update my computer anyway so I couldn't use the actual Media Center software included with the 360.

But time would pass and I would update my computer (the whole daylight savings time issue kinda forced me to do it) and eventually I'd add a 360. As time passed though the 360 dashboard sort of made the Media Center portion of the dash obsolete. The dashboard was easier to get to and it finally would support Divx and Xvid as well as many other codecs for video.

I really enjoyed using the 360 as a media player so much that I really wanted a second for the upstairs parlour. Turns out a friend would get the red lights and couldn't wait for his return so he bought a new one, when his old one arrived I traded a PDA for the 360 and just like that I had a second 360. Then as time would pass I would start to need yet another for the toy/computer room and as would have it my brother in law would get ther red lights (for like the 3rd time) and he didnt wait either. So $60 and two weeks later just like that I have a 3rd.

My 2nd 360 gets used all the time to stream movies that my kid loves to watch, its great to not have to constantly pull out DVD's all the time. The 3rd location gets used the same way and even more as a DVD player. I use the 2nd sometimes for games for the family but the 3rd hasn't been used yet. Ironically the 1st gets used little for media streaming as I tend to use the PS3 for that in the main location.

Its kind of weird that I have 3 gaming systems and 2 in particular that don't even play games to use as media streaming devices but they work and they work very well. If you said I'd have 3 360's at one point I'd say you were crazy, but its kind of really cool to have them now and that's not crazy at all!

The Twitter Bowl

2009-02-01T23:54:00.003-05:00

The Steelers have defeated The Cardinals in the Super Bowl, the event is over. So how much fun was it? Turns out it was a lot of fun, because of Twitter!

Sure everyone hopes for a great and close game and of course the commercials and many people get together with friends and family to party. This year I didn't have a party and I didn't attend a party, well any actual parties. I stayed home and ate a barrage of food with my wife and two kids, but realized the party came to me via Twitter.

Whether it was thoughts on the game itself or the commercials or thoughts on movie trailers everyone had something to say via Twitter. Of course with responses that helped bring the party together. I have not twittered so much in such little time since I started my twitter account but tonight I had a blast and I twittered A LOT!

So thanks to social networking and twitter I didn't attend a party per say tonight but I partied for the entire game. For the record I was routing for the Cardinals, thought the G.I. Joe trailer rocked. laughed more times than I can remember, and thought Bruce and the E. Street Band ROCKED the half time show.

But if you follow me on Twitter, you already knew that.

Photo Addictive

2009-01-28T22:32:00.002-05:00

I have had a Flickr account now for probably a few years, never really did anything with it. Over the last few months I bought a new camera and started taking more photos, then I started backing up all my photos, then I needed a place to share my photos. Enter Flickr once again, I had a normal free account, sure this was okay for awhile but I did a bit of thinking and decided to go Pro.

Well going Pro was a great thing, I love making sets, collections, adding favorites, groups and on and on. I have uploaded at least 5 photos a day since I got my pro account, its great to be able to comment on other photos and have people give me feedback. Now not that this is anything that anyone who uses Flickr doesnt know but for me its been enlighting and its been a force behind wanting to take more photos and continue to express my creative side.

Some people ask, "is going pro worth it" and yes it absolutely is. I've never had so much fun with photos, its been more addicting for me than twitter and Facebook combined (okay Facebook isn't that addicting to me).

Check out my Flickr feed on this site to see just how addicting it has been for me, and if your a Flickr user look me up, make a few comments and pick at least one of my pics as a favorite. Then stay and browse and be inspired, because for me that's what Flickr has been, an inspiration.

Me and my PSP

2009-01-11T19:32:00.002-05:00

My time with Sony's PSP has been interesting, I originally bought it more because it was something I wanted since it was a handheld game system and portable media device at a time I didn't really have a portable media device. Yet over the years I bought very few games for it and it kinda just gathered dust as devices like Zunes, iPhones and laptops became much more useful in the jobs the PSP could be used for. I travled with the PSP a few times and a program I had called TVtoGO which was a plug in for Media Center allowed me to catch up on some shows.

The web browser in the PSP kinda stinks, at least I could never get it to do much and the iPhones is much better and I can't really remember the last game I played on it although I did get some digital downloads to play on the go if needed (they have never been needed). The latest addition was the addition of the Playstation Store accessible directly from the PSP which was a nice addition.

Yet after all this time I finally used one of the neatest features, the ability to stream from the PS3. Although I have tried to do this before it was more of a novelty the last time I used it and not much of a useful thing. I realize the PS3 can be left in standby mode and you can try to access your media while away from home but I don't really care to have my PS3 on standby all the time and accidentally able to be turned on while I'm away.

However last night I used the PSP to stream video from my PS3 which was streaming from my PC to catch up on some shows while lying in bed. In fact the PSP is much easier to sit in bed with than my laptop which can get a little warm on the lap and cumbersome to get comfortable with. I will admit it also streamed easily and the quality was very good, no issues or hicups during play and I banged out two shows before bed. The ability to turn off the PS3 before your done is also nice. I have a feeling that I will actually be using this feature more and more in the future. I just need to make sure I put the PS3 in Remote mode before I'm done and its nice and accessible before bed.

So imagine that something I found useful on both the PSP and the PS3 and something I can speak nicely about for Sony. It also allows me to get yet more use out of my technology and thats the key thing, if you've got the technology and you've paid for it, use it!

2009 Tech Resolutions!

2009-01-05T20:45:00.002-05:00

I spent a good portion of 2008 acquiring pieces of tech to help make things work a little bit better and or efficient. For 2009 I plan to use that stuff a bit more and wrap up some work on getting more media up and running. So for 2009 here's the plan.

1. For one the don't buy allot of games and finish the ones I have is back on the list, I think that one needs to be put up top this year to remind me to keep the spending on the low side.

2. One thing I wanted to put on the list and its already being worked on is using the new MacBook and iWeb together with my MobileMe account and get a website up and running. You can find the early parts of www.artlevandoski.com already growing.

3. Add a Harmony Remote for the upstairs room. Although there is only the Cablebox and Xbox 360 I think its time to simplify a little more and add a second Harmony remote to the family room.

4. Last year I dared add a second 360, this year I may dare add a third. That is something I never EVER thought I'd say but we have a third room (the toy room) that is quickly becoming a viable media room and the kid likes to have his media available wherever he wants it. (By kid I'm trying to reference my child, but mostly its really me!

5. Finish adding my movies to the network! A project I started last year and in true fashion to me really ripped through it (no pun intended), originally I thought it would take me into 2010 to fisnish it up, but with a little bit of work and a bunch of movies not making the cut I think I can wrap it up this year.

And that's where I'm going to keep it at, just a short list. Mostly again this year it'll be about the continuing issue of trying to minimize the work involved and maximize the enjoyment of the media in my family's life. Last year I was really surprised at how my wife adapted to it and my son really started to enjoy it, and in the end it's really allot of fun for me as well.

Here's to a great 2009!

Children of the Tech

2009-01-02T23:55:00.002-05:00

Okay apparently I am putting off my New Years Tech Resolutions, but I wanted to touch on something real quick. While my son is only 3 years old he has already learned something that is definitely his generation of kids, he can watch anything, anywhere. Through the magic of On Demand and my home network my son has already learned that no matter where he is in the house, if there is a TV he should be able to watch anything he has seen anywhere else. Now for the moment this is true yet there are holes that need to be filled this year. Its almost sad when I have to tell him "no not in this room" since he kind of looks at me with that "why" look. For him (and my own selfish tech reasons) I'll fill that hole for him this tax season.

What am I using to move all this media around, well there's a few backbone programs and such but for the most part the Xbox 360 makes a great little media center and its pretty easy to use, even for my wife.

I'm very much proud that my son has learned to enjoy his TV wherever he wants, of course in a few days he'll have to deal with the in laws home during the day where the tech is a little less prevalent, sooner or later I'm going to have to outfit the grandparents with all this technology as well!

Of course as soon as the warmer weather hits there will be one place where there is no TV or 360 and that's outside, where kids can still be kids and actually PLAY!

Last Years Tech Resolutions Recap!

2008-12-31T22:58:00.002-05:00

So as we are about to ring in the new year I thought I'd recap last years tech resolutions before I post 2009's resolutions tomorrow. So here we go a quick recap.

1. Get a Laptop - have this one covered, first I picked up a Dell XPS on sale which is basically my new go to computer, then I picked up a MacBook later which now serves as a nice companion laptop and also my wife's Facebook machine.

2. Music Server in the Garage - Well the Linux box got kicked with the news of a new baby (my daughter was born in October) which sent Media Two to the garage and become a great music server, added better speakers in the garage and speakers for outside as well. Later I'd add XBMC and an iPhone remote app for better control, there is a DVD changer attached to the reciver but the projector project got axed. Will have to upgrade the reciever this year as the current one is on loan.

3. A second 360 - Yep covered, and I got it for a great price, FREE!

4. New Digital Camera - Oh yeah, picked up a Nikon DSLR and I love it, been taking great pictures ever since!

5. Don't buy allot of games, finish ones I have - Eh, this one is touchy, can't say I bought A LOT of games this year but I didn't seem to finish as many as I'd hoped. I blame Rock Band for that though. We'll see how 2009 goes, this one will be on the list again.

6. Get a GPS - You know this is one area I realized I really didnt need to get into, if you count the GPS on the iPhone I guess I got one, but I was really talking dedicated GPS here, still not sure if this is something I really need, we'll have to see in 2009 if prices come down. I guess sooner or later.

Well thats it, a great year over all, next year though I'm planning to spend less than in 2008 but as it stand I seem to have everything I need, but in the world of technology we all know that doesn't last that long.

Happy New Year!

Orb and XBMC Help Solve Problems!

2008-12-14T21:50:00.003-05:00

I love my tech but I especially love my tech when it costs nothing. I'll admit sometimes it seems I spend more time managing my media than actually using it but that's part of the fun for me I guess. I see it when I try to share things with family and friends and they look at me with crossed eyes thinking "you want me to do what?"

Anyway this weekend I added two more services to my tech home that help make things a little more fun and helped solve some problems in the meantime.

One of the issues I had was after I discovered the "remote" app for the iPhone I loved that I could control my music remotely from the iPhone, problem was it used iTunes and iTunes didnt like wma files which is what half my music collection was made up of. However I really liked that concept of remotly controling music since this summer I not only started using music off an older PC to listen in the garage but I added speakers outside in the backyard. I was bound and determined to fix this problem one way or another.

The one way I could have done it was to convert the files, that would take both too long and I would have run out of hard drive space in the meantime, I could have re ripped the CD's but again way too long. I looked into maybe finding an RF keyboard or something and even found some unofficial programs that may have been able to control Media Player. Yet it was last week that I discoverd another app in the app store that may have helped. That particluar app was the new VLC remote that connected to the VLC media player. This app would have worked perhaps but both VLC and the VLC app were god awful looking! In looking a bit more though I found the XBMC remote app that controlled the XBMC Media Center which was exactly what I was looking for.

While XBMC is free for Windows the app was $2.99, well worth it mind you for what I accomplished this weekend. After installing XBMC and updating my video drivers for OpenGL support I was up and running and can now control ALL of my music via my iPhone!

It amazes me what this seemingly ancient PC continues to do for my media world. But I didnt stop there this weekend.

I updated Orb and thought of a new way to use that program. I don't have all my music on my MacBook, I don't have really any of it on there, but now using Orb and the Orb Cast web site I can now use it to stream music upstairs where the MacBook usually sits and thats in the kitchen. Its an odd way to use Orb to get music to that particular place it is a way I can do it now. There is no real reason to use that computer to stream music elsewhere right now but thats right now who knows what the future holds.

The fact is I am always looking for ways to make media more fun and more easy for me, I'm getting there slowly but surely. Sure many people don't go through the trouble that I do to use media in there homes and thier worlds, but I do and damn it keeps things fun!

Home?

2008-12-12T00:28:00.002-05:00

Hey its no secret I love to rag on Sony, I own a PS2, PSP and a PS3 but I'm an Xbox fanboy lets face it. Its not that I HATE Sony or anything but its just that they have laughed at and mocked Xbox and 360 at every turn, then turned around and have done the same exact or worse thing they just mocked about.

However at the heart I'm a tech guy and I do enjoy a good piece of equipment and some new features. The PS3 is a great Blu-ray player and a very nice media device but I'm not into it for games much. Yet today the promise of Playstation HOME drew me to my PS3 to check it out, afterall this is the big bru ha ha for Sony, the be all end all of social features. I'd love to share my review and thoughts on it but sadly I haven't been able to get to it?

Right now all HOME is doing is apparently hogging up 3 gigs of hard drive space (storing it for later use apparently) and not much else. I did get to a character design screen but after I spent some time making ME for HOME as I was about to save my character I was disconnected from the servers. So I've never really seen HOME.

Listen I'm sure its pretty cool but Sony if your going to launch something like this be ready for it, I'll keep going back out of curiosity but right now if I have to wait through loading screens etc like this all the time I won't be spending that much time there. There is a MUCH better and bigger World of Warcraft I'll be returning to in the upcoming months so I'm not really looking to spend that much time in your Second Life world.

Hopefully in the next few days I'll be able to get in and check things out.

Sony's online service may be free, but really at what cost?

Weapons of Choice - Tools of the Trade

2008-12-06T00:54:00.002-05:00

Occasionally I'll have a week like this week where I revisit the tools I am using, usually due to something new added or something old updated. This week the Windows Live set of online programs got an update and in that an old friends Windows Skydrive got a bump in storage and usefulness. Well it turned out that the usefulness was short lived after I found out that you could only upload 500 photos a month, since I was trying to use this as "offsite" backup for photos that wasn't going to work, it would take me over 8 months to upload all my photos! That got me using something I've had for awhile, iDisk as part of MobileMe, now I know many people don't like MobileMe but its okay for me.

So that got me thinking, what else am I using, what do I turn to daily or weekly or monthly as more and more things head to the web. Well for one I am using Google Reader and Twitter daily and Google Documents is where I do all of my personal and home based spreadsheets and wordprocessing (nowhere near useability for work). I use Facebook (but mostly just on the iPhone) and I try to keep things on Flickr (again a new iPhone friendly mobile website will help that until the Flickr app shows up) but I don't really have a IM home. As far as IM goes I use MSN, AIM and Skype but it seems that Twitter has really most of the control in the IM department for me.

Two new things I am using are the Zune Pass and Netflix Instant Streaming and both are very nice for adding movies and music to your collection, sure you don't own them but who can knock an endless stream of great music and movies!

I never really thought a day would arrive when more and more we would move toward offsite programs and storage but it appears to be here and here in full force.

Finally it needs to be said that my biggest tool right now is the iPhone, I am beginning to rely on the iPhone almost as much as my main PC's, it is literally the mini PC that is with me all the time and has simply amazed me at what it can do.

So thats my little rant on my tools of the trade, guess in hindsight I forgot to mention one thing, but you already know what it is if your reading this post!

Netflix vs. Blockbuster - The New Choice

2008-12-01T09:15:00.003-05:00

So I have been a Blockbuster movie subscriber for quite some time now but that is all coming to an end in just 10 days, I have decided to go back to Netflix full time. Not that Blockbuster hasn't served me well in the past but its just not keeping pace with the changing times. Blockbuster is the big corporate machine that doesn't quite change as fast with the times and Netflix is like the old dog who learned how to be cool again.

I picked up Netflix a few months ago when Microsoft announced they'd be adding Netflix Streaming video to the new NXE update, I needed to try it out ahead of time (I'm really impatient) but I decided to wait on cancelling my Blockbuster account until I tried out the service on the Xbox to see if it would be worth it. Well after spending some time with the service its more than adequet for streaming and I'm enjoying it very much.

I hesitated to cancel my Blockbuster account since I am grandfathered in to a great deal, I still have my in store movie/game coupon and I still get unlimited in store exchanges which are things that Blockbuster either did away with or charges alot more for these days, so quite frankly if I leave they'll be no going back. That's the problem with Blockbuster, they offer great things then either realize they offered too much and take it away or charge much more than every one else.

The other problem with the deals I'm getting with Blockbuster is I'm not using them, I finally used a coupon to rent Little Big Planet but thats the first game in ages I've rented and I mostly don't in store exchange becuase I often forget they are due back what seems to be very quickly. The idea of the mailing service is in fact to get away from having to go to the store anyway isn't it. I figured this would be a nice way to let the kids go to the store to pick out a video but now with all thats available on Netflix thats a moot point.

Blockbuster has come on the scene with movie streaming of thier own but the model is much different in that its pay as you go for each movie and from what I understand more current movies, which is all fine and good if my 360 didn't already offer that kind of service as well as the Netflix stuff. I like the Netflix streaming for things like older movies and television series, things I don't want to waste my Blu-ray rental in the mail rental on.

Lastly i.TV for the iPhone has Netflix queue management in it and soon I'll have non beta streaming to my Macbook as well as my PC laptop. Less not forget about Friends on Netflix, I like seeing what my friends are watching and renting and rating and taking little quizes on what they thought of movies, its all about the social aspect, again something Blockbuster is missing.

I guess in retrospect its not that Blockbuster is all bad, it's not really bad at all, but maybe its because of the deal I had also. I guess I feel I'm leaving something good for something better. Now I just need to get all my friends on Netflix too!

The World of iPhone Apps

2008-10-27T12:41:00.003-04:00

I was really excited about getting the iPhone 3G, so excited I bought one for my wife as well. However I never realized how much fun and how much a part of my life the iPhone would become. I used a PDA for years, keeping my contacts and calendar and notes and tasks in order but never really strayed outside those applicates except for maybe a game of BeJeweled or Bookworm here and there. Now with the iPhone the calendar and contact applications take a back seat to a whole new world of fun and useful applications.

Browsing the 1,000s of applications on the iTunes store is so much fun its crazy addicting yet the greatest part of the whole concept is that you can often get ALOT of fun and cool apps without spending a dime and even more great apps for just .99 cents. Once I realized I could get a new application for my iPhone for less than the cost of picking up a candy bar at work I started eating a lot less candy.

Yet for all the great apps out there you do have to weed through a ton of crap apps to get to the cream of the crop, luckily the iTunes store offers up sections for top apps and staff favorites and new releases which helps and checking out the various iPhone Application reviews will often help you find the diamonds in the rough!

So at the end of the day you can really fill up your iPhone with tons of apps, but keeping a bunch of great apps on the iPhone that are actually worthy, fun and top notch is much more rewarding. Sometimes you have to put an app on and test it out to see if its worth it and sometimes it's not, but there's no harm in deleting and app thats not up to snuff.

If there is one downfall to the store its that there is no "demos" for many of the apps although some games tend to offer "lite" versions they are really just limited versions of the full games which isn't neccesarily a bad thing but I tend not to collect "lite" versions of games.

In closing here is a list of the apps that as of right now I have installed on my iPhone, they weren't all free, many were either free or just .99 cents but a few of the bigger games like Spore and Crash cost me a whopping $10 but they were well worth it! (of course I'm not including apps that are built in to the iPhone):

White Pages
Yellow Pages
Around Me
Twitterific
AIM
Facebook
NYTimes
Bloomberg
Mobile Zodiac
WikiMe
Showtimes
i.TV
Sportacular
Pro Football
Shazam
Remote
Pandora
AOL Radio
Stitcher
IGN Reviews
1337pwn
Lightsaber
Young Painter
Easy Relax
Google Earth
Dizzy Bee
Crash Kart
Spore
de Blob
Solebon
iBowl
Tap Tap Revenge
Space Monkey
Line Rider
Trace
Mouse About
Topple
Jelly Car
ESPN Cameraman
Everest
RhinoBall