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In: Home Theater
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Last week, I received an e-mail from a friend asking about a home theater quote. I looked over the component list and was impressed with the quality components and the reasonable prices — until I saw the following line item: HDMI Cable – 5 meters – $129 I pointed to him to an equivalent $8 HDMI cable from MonoPrice.com – and that was for the “premium” version. Since HDMI is a digital specification and the specifications for the electronics that produce the signal are quite high, the cable resistance and shielding have very little impact. However, I’ve never been able to quantify this. I justRead More →

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In: Web
With: 99 Comments

I just received an unsolicited commercial e-mail from a company named, ironically, PermissionEmailCorp.com. They did not receive my permission before sending me the e-mail. Their site states that they provide “choice / opt-out” for recipients. Funny, the spam message they sent me didn’t contain any such option. Apparently they provide “free advertising for charities.” They also promise not to collect any customer information. Wow, how nice of them. But if they really cared about your charity, they wouldn’t use “third-parties” to “advertise and collect information about customers.” The company appears to be based out of China and related to AdvertisingEmailCorporation.com. PermissionEmailCorp.com retrieved the e-mail addressRead More →

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In: Tech
With: 92 Comments

Edit: MoScroll is a great, free, open source alternative: http://codescribes.blogspot.com/2007/02/moscroll.html I’ve recently found myself using nothing but point devices with no scroll wheel: my Mogo Bluetooth Wireless Mouse, my 3M Renaissance Ergonomic Mouse, my Dell Latitude laptop. One thing is missing: the ability to scroll. That is, until now. History: About 10 years ago, when Steve Jenkins was running Windows95.com shareware site (which become download.com), he would select the best software each year and give it a “WINner Award.” One of the software products that deservedly earned that designation was Pointix Scroll ++, a handy little app that sits in the Windows tray and allowsRead More →

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In: Home Theater
With: 18 Comments

I’ve long championed the use of AccurateRip for bit-perfect audio extraction from CDs. Exact Audio Copy (EAC) has been my program of choice for years because it offered the best extraction quality and the largest feature set. Unfortunately, it’s also pretty difficult to configure, which lead me to create my EAC configuration guide. The only other option was dBpoweramp Music Converter, but it was not as accurate as EAC, it didn’t handle Compilation CDs (i.e. Various Artists CDs) well, and it didn’t handle queued ripping very well. But now things have changed. Spoon over at Illustrate has just released dBpoweramp Music Converter version 12. ItRead More →

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In: Automotive
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As Nicole mentioned mentioned in a post today, we were completely snowed-in until a entrepreneurial BobCat operator cleared our driveway (see her blog entry for pictures.) I was thankful for the modern mechanical marvel, especially given the fact that I spent an hour-and-a-half clearing the driveway last night only to have my work completely erased by snow drifts during the night. Seeing all the snow and the machinery makes me think of a pretty amazing piece of equipment designed to function in a similar environment, the Antarctic Snow Cruiser. I first learned of the novel approach to polar exploration about 4 years ago when someoneRead More →

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In: Life Reflections
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Nicole visited the doctor again today. It was just a quick check-up and not a big deal. They made sure speck is still growing and checked the heart beat. Everything is just fine. Nicole got a bit worried when the nurse couldn’t find the heartbeat, but the doctor was much more skilled and found it within a few seconds. Too bad she had to endure 5 minutes of stress and uncertainty. Anyway, all is well. Looking forward to the next checkup.Read More →

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In: Home Theater
With: 3 Comments

My wife and I had a group of friends over last Monday night to watch the latest episode of Heroes in our HD home theater. We were all looking forward to watching the newest episode of our favorite show. But it was cold that evening and many of the local schools were on a two hour delay the next morning. The local NBC affiliate decided that a cancellation crawl at the bottom of the screen was necessary to communicate this information. But they can’t overlay a HD broadcast, so the showed a letterboxed standard def version on the HD channel. Our guests were disappointed andRead More →

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In: Events & Travel, Life Reflections
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In 2004, the Colts were red hot but I watched them to the New England Patriots (after a long, cold drive home after the heater in my car quit.) It was a long, cold, miserable terrible night. In 2005, the Colts were on fire but I watched them lose to the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Colts were rusty and disappointing. Before each of these post seasons, my wife and I agreed that we’d get a flat screen TV in our family room (in addition to the front projector in the home theater room) to watch the Super Bowl if the Colts made it. But they didn’t.Read More →

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In: Home Theater
With: 5 Comments

With the Super Bowl just hours away, I finished mounting my new Mitsubishi LT-46131 Flat Panel LCD TV. I’m only watching off-the-air HD right now as I have yet order a second HD satellite receiver. As is my history for all things related to home theater, I couldn’t simply sit it on the table or even mount it flat against the wall — I went all-out with a Chief PNR articulating arm mount with an in-wall PAC500 housing. Since those model numbers mean nothing to pretty much everyone (including myself a week ago) here are some pictures. Please note: I still have some drywall workRead More →