wednesday night / a site for sore eyes
choose one: a few recent posts; links to embarassing things; rss was for robots.

January 1, 2006
it's all... happening?

i've been trying to get my TiVo to boot from a toshiba laptop drive since they are so much quieter. unfortunately, it's not gone well so i've been reading a bunch of TiVo sites. one of them pointed to pulling HD video from a cable box.

since i happen to have the motorola dct-6200, and an ADC account, i gave it a try. i didn't see the r18 firewire SDK, so i just tried 19. installed, etc, and it seems to work fine. downloaded the VLC player, and it plays the files fine.

sadly, the firewire SDK software is pretty bare-bones, and isn't very usable for scheduling recordings. a few google searches later revealed iRecord, which can change channels on the cable box and therefore schedule recordings.

i tried to import one of these recordings into iMovie, but it complained that it couldn't read the file. someone on the internet said MPEG Streamclip could convert these files, but that complained that it didn't have the QuickTime MPEG 2 Playback Component, which is easy enough to get.

so, all the pieces are here, but i haven't found a mature one-stop solution yet. looking at what these pieces are (apple mpeg 2 and virtual dvhs software, firewire, and the motorola cable box) makes me wonder if this basically describes the new mac mini. is it just going to use this firewire connection?

while requiring a specific cable box may seem like it restricts the target users too much, they've done similar things before. the first iPods only worked with macs (that had firewire). iSync originally only worked with a few bluetooth phones, and there is only one phone that works with the iTMS (which is made by motorola).

fortunately, macworld expo is a little over a week away, and we'll soon know what's up. that is unless they don't announce it, and it can live on as a rumour for another year.

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January 8, 2006
mixed messages

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January 8, 2005
crossed signals

it turns out i can also connect my tv to the cable box over firewire. unfortunately, sony has made it a little difficult to just switch over to it and you can't do twin view (side-by-side picture-in-picture) with it either.

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January 10, 2006
not with a bang but a whimper

i guess this is what it's like to get old? over the weekend i saw nine inch nails' closer on vh1 classic, and last night i went to bed at 9:30 and had no problem sleeping until my alarm this morning.

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January 10, 2006
let music save your life

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January 10, 2006
nascar laptops

it's no surprise here that apple isn't shipping detritus like this. it will be sad to say goodbye to an old friend in a few weeks. actually... no, it won't. i can't wait either.

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January 12, 2006
screwed by big weather once again

yesterday morning i was promised thunderstorms. not just likely, or strong chance, but 100%. 100%! honestly. nothing of the sort actually happened. fool me once, noaa.gov, shame on you!

the even worse news is that i can't even take credit for coming up with "big weather". big ups to deb!

last night i found myself reading some web page spewing vitriol about the macbook pro. comment after comment railing about the lack of a modem or s-video, and then rambing about their old amigas. honestly.

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January 18, 2006
my life 2.0

i wonder if spending 13 hours at the office today makes up for the four day week? good thing i had that breakfast sandwich. oof.

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January 19, 2006
i'm so hungry.

apparently metric is/are playing on conan tonight. my tivo can't wait!

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January 23, 2006
hot dog, we have a weiner

a couple weeks ago i RMA'd 3 drives, and one replacement was finally delivered today, and sat outside in the rain/snow all day. i brought it in, put it on my desk, and immediately knocked it onto the floor.

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January 28, 2006
the saddest mac

after running linux for a week, my mac mini has decided to give up the ghost. i can't get it to boot to linux, from cd, or to an open firmware prompt, even after a PROM reset.

in other news, i went for my first run of the year. it was a nice day for it, and tons of people were out running up and down heartbreak hill. hopefully i will be too sore tomorrow to run again, because i probably ran a little longer than i should have, considering what happened last year.

possibly the only thing about running i actually like is being able to fall asleep at night, and, since i have to wake up early to get to the apple store tomorrow, i think i'll go try to do that right now.

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January 31, 2006
tonight's groceries

do with this what you will.

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