Boxee Beta from boxee on Vimeo.

One of the things that I’ve learned so far is that even though I’m using fast wireless “N” and or a fast “power” Ethernet connection between the first and second floors, ripped DVDs stored on hard drives in their original Mpeg2 format won’t play across the network without lots of buffering or dropped frames. Unacceptable. I was anticipating using my PS3 as the movie/media player downstairs (still working on that), so I had previous converted some movies to mp4 and those videos seemed to play nicely across the network. So, even though I’m a firm believer in having access to all of the “extra features” that I look for with my DVDs (and how convenient they are to access using the DVD menu system), I’ll need to rip and convert my media to a more network friendly format, like mp4 (which makes each extra feature into it’s own separate video file). Grrr.

image by Joe Bustillos

I have a huge DVD and music collection and get most of my more daily news and entertainment via video and audio podcasts, so I need some kind of box attached to my TVs so that I can get my Internet/network media. I was hoping to use my PS3 as the player in my living room, but it has a crappy web-browser and doesn’t do RSS, so it can’t natively do podcasts. More work needed here. At the moment my mac mini is doing living room media duties. I love the Front Row interface, but it seems a bit confused that my episodes of StarTrek (classic and Next Gen) are not movies and won’t let me organize things. So maybe the updated Boxee interface will do the job.

I’ve played with Boxee previously, but couldn’t break away from my iTunes addiction. With the software upgrade and set-top box, I’m thinking that this might be the solution to my Internet TV/podcast thing, either the software or the set-top box. Depending on my success using the PS3 as a media player, I still might need another set-top box for the bedroom TV. I’m also thinking that I need to plug into the NetFlix thing (streaming and disc) so that I don’t find myself buying every movie I want to see. So whatever box I get needs to do Netflix, access my music and DVDs across the network and either grab podcasts off the net or the ones stored on my other computers. Having invested in the PS3, I’m aware of the problems of getting a box that isn’t as expandable to handle all of the twists and turns that tends to happen in the media market.

Sources:
* Boxee Demo. http://www.boxee.tv/box retrieved on 1/23/2010
* FrontRow image by Joe Bustillos
* Tekzilla » Episode 124: “Should I buy a Boxee Box or a Roku or Stick With My xbox?” http://revision3.com/tekzilla/veronicapc/should-i-buy-a-boxee-box-or-a-roku-or-stick-with-my-xbox-360- retrieved on 1/23/2010
* Tekzilla » Episode 121: Boxee Box. http://revision3.com/tekzilla/2010newyear/boxee-box retrieved on 1/23/2010

Here’s a video blast from the past that kind’a sums it all up:

“Griffin Evolve Wireless Sound System for iPod” (Griffin Technology)

bbp hampton hybrid

You can tell I’ve just gotten back from traveling because I seem to find myself on laptop bag websites trying to figure out what is going to work best for my next flight (in two weeks!). When I switched up from my little 12″ iBook to my current 15.4″ Macbook Pro I really started noticing the shoulder strain dragging my gear about in various backpack and messenger-style bags. Of course I’m one of those idiots who insists on carrying every bit of gear not only in-transit but also when cruising the convention floor. At Macworld expo two years ago I saw these funky hybrid messenger/backback bags that were designed to sit low on one’s “bum” to reduce shoulder strain from a New York design company called BBP (which stands for “Bum Back Pack”). I’ve loved my Hampton ever since. Alas, I’ve recently purchased a digital SLR camera and I now need to add the 35-mm style camera and lens to the carrying equation. Damn.

For this last trip I went minimalist and just used a sleeve with a strap from Tom Bihn for the computer and a very small generic Case Logic camera bag when on the Expo floor. That worked okay, but I didn’t have room for water or my 55-250mm lens. Damn. Thank god I was wearing my Internet cargo pants, so I had the pockets, but I wasn’t happy having my camera lens bouncing around in the thigh pockets (nor the bruises I was sure to get afterwards). Fortunately at one camera bag vendor I saw a reference to a camera/laptop hybrid bag from Tenba. Alas, by the expo’s first full day they’d sold out of this mysterious bag so I will have to see if this bag fits the bill when I get a chance to run down to my local “photography” store. Then in the course of my post-expo research I found out that one of my prior bag vendors, Tom Bihn, had produced an interesting TSA friendly computer bag. Camera/laptop bag… right. I need to stay on track. Thus the quest for the perfect laptop (/camera) bag continues.

Just spent several cramped hours in economy class writing on my mbp. My laptop and I need to lose some weight. I could type but it was difficult using the track-pad. A privacy screen on the LCD might have been nice, but I couldn’t fully open the laptop because the passenger in front of me was tipped all the way back, so the privacy screen would have backfired on me. Something XO-1 sized would have worked. Or maybe a foldable Bluetooth keyboard with a detachable stand to prop my iphone on. Or maybe something Kindle-sized but less “Soviet” era in the style department. I’m tempted but I don’t want to go back to Windows. And I want to have my Zinio magazine subscriptions and my documents on the thing. I guess I need to put more of my ongoing work up in the cloud. But what do I do about the fact that my workflow in everything except my blog goes through a mac app from Circus Ponies called Notebook. Stuff that I want to be able to edit across platforms and on multiple machines is done on Evernote. Damn. I’m spoiled. jbb

P.s. Next time I pack goodies for the flight I need to transfer the goodies to a pocket I can easily reach. I mean why wear cargo pants if I’m not going to fill all the pockets? Camera bag under the seat might as well be with the checked in luggage. Lesson learned. I’m really hungry right now.

All errrorrs courtesy my iPhone

From the big screen to the small, the ad would have us believe that what was once shared (the big screen), was lost in the next two steps (TV & computers) but wonderfully recaptured in this latest iteration, specifically the N-Series Nokia devices. Um… bullshit.

The one constant across the fabled four screens is the shared nature of the experiences. Whereas the shared nature of the big screen is immediate, what worked for TV, the second screen, was talking about ones favorite TV series or episodes with fellow fans later. The success of the media itself was and is dependent on the number of eyeballs watching and the number of eyeballs watching is dependent, largely on the conversation surrounding the series. Whereas the shared experience is largely immediate with the big screen, it’s no less real for the small screen, just less immediate. The ad says that the experience is “Private.” Perhaps, but if the producers want to be successful it must, by nature, be communal on a massive scale.

So the third screen, the computer screen, bane of all that is good and human in the world; If all of your experiences of this screen is Excel spreadsheets and corporate email, God help you and we’re very sorry for you. But just like the TV experience, what is good and works is what connects us via this particular screen. IM (instant messaging), chat, social networking, webcams, email and gaming are all aspects that can connect us in a way that isn’t possible by any other means. With this third screen the connection is both in real time and “time-shifted.” And gaming, specifically listed in the ad, is successful because it is a shared experience, either in-real-time, or the same conversation had about favorite movies (1st screen) or TV shows (2nd screen). Contrary to popular belief and this ad, what works with gaming in particular and computers in general, is the common experience of the journey, struggle and triumph either as a clan or even as an observer. The storytelling and experience of the first screen, movies, is continued with this third screen in a powerful way that surpasses the passive experience of the first screen. Third screen, gaming and computers, FTW!

So, this fable fourth screen, the savior of all that is connected and good in the world, follows the same pattern: whatever works with the third screen applies to the fourth screen. The lie is that because it’s portable, where one can enjoy media in the presence of ones community then it must be more connected. Again, bullshit. It’s not the portability that makes it more connected, it’s the video conferencing, TM and IM, network gaming, apps that connect to all of the social networking. The portability makes it something that can be experienced away from the desktop or a set location, but it’s the activity, the shared experience, that makes it more connected, not the portability. The imagery that we’re all getting back together and reconnecting because of this fourth screen is largely fictional. We’ve always been connected but the potential and power is much much greater, and now, more portable.

The unspoken truth about gaming and technology is they can take connectedness to the next level, combining the shared experience with interactive participation and freedom from location or time limitations. Except for the fringe anti-social users, who would be anti-social regardless of the technology, the truth is that we are reaching an unprecedented level of meaningful human connection, not due to some portable device but because that is what humans do when the possibility of connectedness is realized. If your experience of technology is dehumanizing and disconnected perhaps you should examine your usage and not blame the technology but your own inability to look someone in the face and say, “Hi.” jbb

*Original source: http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2008/07/25/will-the-4th-screen-bring-us-together/

In the ISTE Keynote address that I heard Negroponte introduce the XO-1 he quipped that they must be doing something right to have raised the ire of Intel and Bill Gates. Alas, maybe the joke in the end was on Negroponte when Intel promised to play fair but couldn’t resist the temptation to undercut Negroponte’s “humanitarian cause” and sell their competing kid-size ultra-light laptop, the Classmate, to the same countries Negroponte was trying to reach. So the Gospel according to Negroponte fell on deaf ears because the Win/Tel hegemony couldn’t hear the words for the vastness, opportunities and profits presented in possibility of harvesting the Third World educational/government technology nickel.

This holiday season the OLPC foundation is repeating their give one/get one campaign that I participated in last year to get my own XO-1, only this time they’re working with Amazon.com to get the word out and do the distribution. The commercials are very cute. My own XO-1 sits on a top shelf in my bedroom, part of my shrine to sentimental technology I’ve previously invested in (I really wish I had kept one of my old Kaypros to put in the shrine). I hate to think that Dvorak and the others might have been right after all.

The humanitarian cause and hardware rational was sound. But I was hoping to use my XO-1 as some kind of netbook or ultra-light laptop. After a year I found the Sugar interface confusing and the hardware just too underpowered. Click, wait, find a webpage, click, wait, how the hell do I switch back and forth between pages? Seriously. Right size, great battery life, indestructible, a little weak with the tiny keyboard (kid-sized, right?). I really wish Apple would come out with a netbook/ultra-portable jbb

I can’t imagine what this means. Why would I bother installing this program? As much as it represents hundreds of dollars, I’ve certainly spent at least as much over the years just on beer (though that would be a hell of a lot of beer…). It’s not about the money. I mean, I’m 2,500 miles from everything I previously knew and I’m completely free to conduct my life however I choose. So at first I chose to not associate myself with any church or fellowship. Yet after five months I find that I cannot seem to ignore my previous spiritual experiences nor play the role of a real skeptical atheist. So what should I do about this? If anything, I’m feeling the need to “be real” and not spend another 15 years in the spiritual wilderness as I felt I had done from the time of my divorce until five years ago.

But at the same time I can’t see myself professing the Apostles’ Creed without editing it down to meaninglessness. Equally I can’t ignore the “Otherness” that I sense in my own thoughts with vague memories of a kind of spiritual intimacy that was perfectly at peace with ignoring all dogma and the entirely compromised lifestyle that I was living that was complete contradictory toward my faith’s traditions. I miss that, not the compromised part. I love the community that I’ve found with my coworkers, but there are even deeper places that I’ve shared with complete strangers I used to go to church with and I can’t seem to shake that drive in my life. And this pesky bible software reminds me of this part of my life.

Maybe this is something that will come into better clarity when I’ve found someone to intimately share the journey with. But even as I write these words I know that the tendency is to go in the opposite direction and devote less time and energy to finding center and more about managing life with the other. Damn. That was a nice thought, to share the journey with someone. Alas, my experience has been that one’s partner is either completely disinterested in spiritual things or is completely invested in one particular interpretation of dogma and would see my unwillingness to “sign up” with her interpretation as a weakness. Yeah, I don’t need that shit in my life. I guess with or without a partner this is my journey to embark on.

Thus, just as I am restoring data and deciding on what to include and what to exclude on this laptop, I’m also trying to determine what to include and exclude from my spiritual understanding. As long as it’s been taking me to do software re-install, it’s a hell of a lot easier to deal with than this spiritual quandary I seem to find myself in. But i’m just silly enough to believe that i will get a handle on it… and then do the next thing. jbb

Music: “I Wish I Was a Girl” by Counting Crows on the This Desert Life CD

Watching the landing of the Mars Phoenix probe was one wonderful geek highlight last Spring. Alas, I’ve gotten a bit busy and haven’t been paying as much attention as I should. Then I heard the following sad message on Monday:

From Gizmodo:

This is My Farewell Transmission From Mars

If you are reading this, then my mission is probably over.

This final entry is one that I asked be posted after my mission team announces they’ve lost contact with me. Today is that day and I must say good-bye, but I do it in triumph and not in grief.

As I’ve said before, there’s no other place I’d rather be than here. My mission lasted five months instead of three, and I’m content knowing that I worked hard and accomplished great things during that time. My work here is done, but I leave behind a legacy of images and data.

In that sense, you haven’t heard the end of me. Scientists will be releasing findings based on my data for months, possibly years, to come and today’s children will read of my discoveries in their textbooks. Engineers will use my experience during landing and surface operations to aid in designing future robotic missions.

But for now, it’s time for me to hunker down and brave what will be a long and cold autumn and winter. Temperatures should reach -199F (-128C) and a polar cap of carbon dioxide ice will envelop me in an icy tomb.

Seasons on Mars last about twice as long as seasons on Earth, so if you’re wondering when the next Martian spring in the northern hemisphere begins, it’s one Earth-year away—October 27, 2009. The next Martian summer solstice, when maximum sunlight would hit my solar arrays, falls on May 13, 2010.

That’s a long time away. And it’s one of the reasons there isn’t much hope that I’ll ever contact home again.

For my mission teams on Earth, I bid a special farewell and thank you. For the thousands of you who joined me on this journey with your correspondence, I will miss you dearly. I hope you’ll look to my kindred robotic explorers as they seek to further humankind’s quest to learn and understand our place in the universe. The rovers, Spirit and Opportunity (@MarsRovers), are still operating in their sun belt locations closer to the Martian equator; Cassini (@CassiniSaturn) is sailing around Saturn and its rings; and the Mars Science Laboratory (@MarsScienceLab)—the biggest rover ever built for launch to another planet—is being carefully pieced together for launch next year.

My mission team has promised to update my Twitter feed as more of my science discoveries are announced. If I’m lucky, perhaps one of the orbiters will snap a photo of me when spring comes around.

So long Earth. I’ll be here to greet the next explorers to arrive, be they robot or human.

It’s been a great pleasure to have Mars Phoenix guest blogging for us, reminiscing back on a successful mission via its personality conjurer, the great Veronica McGregor at JPL—maintainer of Phoenix’s famous Twitter feed. Just as Doug McCuistion from NASA said on the news conference today, it’s certainly more of an Irish wake than a funeral today. We’re drinking to you tonight, little buddy. You can see all of Phoenix’s previous entries and the official press release announcing the end of Phoenix’s mission.

I’ve been building PCs and futzing with the guts of my computers literally for decades, going all the way back to my first Kaypros that used a long dead MFM hard disk interface (I think it was an upgrade up to 20MBs!). But those were PCs, held together by four screws and broken promises. The one computer model one normally does not do home upgrades is the laptop and the one company one could never do an upgrade to was Apple. At least that’s what we tell mom and dad when they’re thinking about which computer to get (laptops aren’t upgradable and Macs are only “Apple upgradable” if at all). But like I said, I’ve been doing this for over 20 years, so I’m relatively fearless when it comes to popping the top of any computer, including my tiny Sony Vaio laptop. What I tell mom and dad doesn’t apply to me.

All that being said, I have to say that the first time I opened up my Mac Mini I had a near geek-asmic moment. Having spent so many years trolling through the insides of countless PCs that all reminded me of someone’s neglected garage with cables and crap thrown all over the place, I was unprepared for the shear engineering elegance of the little device. I was literally taken aback, and seriously thought about leaving the outer case off because the design was so worth admiring. Did I mention that this was going to be a geek-fest? Alas, the reality of living with lots of dust and other flying things “encouraged” me to let all that engineering beauty hide under the pearl-white case. Damn. So I had no doubt that when I opened my macbook pro I’d find the same engineering beauty. First things first, I went out on the web and found a very well spelled out tutorial on how to do the deed. I found my guide at ifixit.com.

When I did the Mac Mini I also had the support of a tutorial video (see video on the bottom of the page). But for the macbook pro I decided to go just with the written tutorial. 30-minutes later my little beast had almost two times the disk space and twice the speed. Let’s just say that it went so smoothly and I’m so impressed with the performance boost that I took two days to write this blog entry to share my geek joy with you. Aren’t you glad that’s what I was doing while our nation was electing it’s first not-white president? It’s all good. jbb

So, with two new 30-second “I’m a PC/I’m a Mac” ads, Apple redirects the conversation back to Microsoft’s failed Vista OS and points out that throwing money at ads or choosing to banish the “V” word won’t change Microsoft’s uncoolness. Nothing flashy, no WTF factor, no “churros” or subplots, just a silly little observation that Microsoft continues to miss the point.

This has got to piss off someone at Microsoft. $700-million in advertising undercut by two simple 30-second spots. That’s gotta hurt. jbb

My twitter moment-by-moment assessment of the situation follows:

• awesome, my ext. 320GB HD isn’t mounting on my desktop. hopefullly just a cable glitch. Alas, all my music/podcasts are on the ext. HD. damn #
• Failed ext HD totally disrupted my normal morning routine, no podcasts or music. Damn #
• Things not looking good 4 lil’ ext 320GB HD, new cable, new hub, LEDs sweeping back & 4th but not mounting. Damn. “Not ‘if’ but ‘when’” Arch!!! #
• while I’m in the whining mood, 4 some reason I couldn’t pull down my podcasts from home yesterday b4 work, so that might still be down. ack #
• Important files on ext 320GB hd r backed up. need 2 backup the whole thing when i get home. thk god i ordered 320GB int hd 4 the mbp #

A Laura Monroe video – Staring Dr. Chris

Music: “Can’t Find My Way Home” by Blind Faith from the “Blind Faith“ CD

Damn. Looking at the picture I knew I was missing something. Then when I opened up the tiny little 2.5 hard drive I knew that great big power cord wasn’t going to work. Then I remember a bunch of other cables that I’d never used before. Ta da, I figured it out and can proceed with the upgrade. I can be so stupid sometimes. Of course, now I’m worries that I got wrong kind of hard drive for my mac mini. Ugh. One crisis at a time. jbb

Music/Podcast: The Totally Rad Show – Episode 77 “Candy Bag” by TRS - Revision3

One thing I was really looking forward to when I moved here was setting up my Mac Mini in my living room as a Media Center connected to a big ass* HD LCD/TV. Because of the limited HD space on the Mac Mini I have a horde of external USB hard disks lashed to it where the music, podcasts and movies are stored. It didn’t take me too long to realize that the heat of a typical Florida afternoon…

*NOTE: “big ass” for me means 42″… I don’t really make enough dough to justify a 60″ plasma rig.

… was forcing the army of external hard drives to spin up their little internal fans like no ones business, especially the noisy fan on the big black Drobo which houses 4 burning hard drives. Then I got that month’s electricity bill. Yeah, I love the lovely blue glow of all of those LEDs on the front of the external HDs as much as the next geek, but it seems that I can extend their lifespan and maybe afford a few more LED-laden-devices if I just turn the damn things off when I’m not there. Problem is that I like having my podcasts ready to view or listen to when I get home after work and that requires that I leave the Mac Mini on. Hmmm.

So, the first thing that I thought was to beef up the Mac Mini’s HD** and then be able to turn off everything except the Mac Mini, Time Capsule router and cable modem. Cool. Then the printer started acting all flaky and started getting all kinds of hiss and noisy from the speakers when playing anything from the Mac Mini through the stereo. Argh. That got me thinking that maybe I need to move all of the gear further away from the TV and stereo, making me thing contemplate moving the router, modem, printer and NAS hard disk to the bedroom work area. Then it got bad enough that I started thinking that I should replace the whole Mac Mini media center thing with a Playstation3. I mean, when it comes time to upgrade my video playing from DVD to Blu-ray a Playstation3 is still the best player/media center. Then when I looked into it further the Playstation 3 as media center was usually dependent on being connected to some media server where all the media would be stored (like my mac mini…). So what would be the point?

So, it’s clear to me that I need to climb behind the “entertainment unit” and straighten out all of the cabling that’s contributing to the noisiness and eliminate as many unneeded devices as possible. I also looked up how difficult it might be to upgrade the HD in the mac book pro to something like 320GBs so that I could untether it from the external HD where I have all of my music. We’ll see. Of course all of this is going to have to wait until I have a chunk of time to be crawling into the guts of things and disassembling things. Ack. And don’t even ask me about the cool Harmony universal remote that keeps turning on the wrong setting on the stereo when I go to listen to my podcasts. Sigh… jbb

Music: “De-Evolving” by Jonathan Coulton on the “Smoking Monkey” CD

**NOTE: 320GB 7200rpm drives from OWC for less than $200

At the conference DisplayLink displayed a USB-to-Monitor connector (UGA – USB Graphics Adapter) that promised to allow for the connection of as many as 16 external monitors. And here I thought that I was being decadent for wanting to connect two external LCDs to my MacBook Pro. The caveat, which I should have remembered from previous MacWorld Expos, was that what the vendors often showed on the floor were closer to “proof-of-concept” status than available-now status. Such was the case with DisplayLink. They had the boxes and LCDs but no mac-ready drivers. Damn. Way to tease, DisplayLink.

So here we are eight months later. In my new place here in Orlando I’ve replaced my two mismatched 19″ LCDs with a single 32″ Vizio HD TV and things are pretty good. Pretty good. But now I have two LCDs just hanging around. And as much as the Vizio is a huge improvement over my former 36″ SD tube TV (which used to be connected to the media-server mac mini) I actually lose some resolution running with the Vizio. So I’ve ordered a connecter from Gefen that’s based on the DisplayLink technology. Long story short, the damn thing works! I’m thinking of buying a second one to either connect a fourth LCD monitor at home (the 2nd extra LCD) or third LCD monitor at work. Ha!. jbb

Podcast: Episode 162 – Girls Are Stupid by Diggnation from Revision3

p.s., bought the 2nd USB connector…