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In: Home Theater
With: 8 Comments

After 5 years as a loyal DirecTV subscriber, I’m canceling my account and switching to TiVo HDs using *gasp* an over-the-air antenna! I never would have guessed I’d be doing this; I remember when I was a kid in rural Kentucky and all we received were 4 grainy stations out of Louisville. Cable TV, and later Satellite, made the poor reception and selection a thing of the past. But several things have changed since then and digital makes all the difference. Here’s why I’m switching and my thoughts on my new TiVo HD. Network Programming This year, I noticed how high the quality of primeRead More →

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In: Reviews
With: 10 Comments

I’ve tried several different Amazon S3 file managers and had settled on the free S3 Firefox Organizer. But then I tried Bucket Explorer. Not only did it do everything I needed it to do, it introduced to me new features I didn’t know Amazon S3 supported. If you’re like me, you love free and open source software. Bucket Explorer, once out of beta, will be a commercial program. I’m not sure what the final price will be, but assuming it costs less than $40, it is a program worth purchasing. Here’s why I’m recommending it. Bucket Explorer is a Java-based GUI for managing, uploading to,Read More →

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In: Home Theater
With: 4 Comments

If you want the ultimate subwoofer for your home theater, this is probably it: the JL Audio Gotham. JL Audio, long known for their car stereo subwoofers, started to make a move into home theater a few years ago. I had the opportunity to hear this subwoofer a couple of years ago at CEDIA. Let me tell you, the bass from demo room sounded awesome outside of the demo room, and even better within. The sound was low, solid, and hard-hitting. I was impressed by how unbelievably smooth the sustained bass passages were (but I’m sure that’s in no small part due to a veryRead More →

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In: Wordpress
With: 3 Comments

I happened upon the site WebSiteOptimization.com and started testing the performance of my site. I was astounded by how long it would take to load the front page of my site over a 14.4 kbps modem connection. True, not many people use a modem connection anymore, but still, 130 seconds is a long time to wait! Now this the time required to load every last image, not the the time required before the page starts to render and become readable, but still there is room for improvement. So I started playing around with performance settings and quickly made some substantial gains. First of all, IRead More →

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In: Web
With: 85 Comments

A few months ago, I noticed I was approaching my bandwidth limits on my hosting account. Switching hosting providers is a pain, so I decided to move some high-bandwidth graphics to Amazon S3, where the bandwidth is cheap and unlimited. All was well until I realized that Google was returning search results pointing to my bucket on s3.amazonaws.com instead of carltonbale.com. Luckily, AmazonAWS has a work-around. You can use your own domain name in an Amazon S3 bucket. Here are the instructions on how to do it, from beginning to end. Introductory Steps for new Amazon S3 Users: First of all, obviously, you need yourRead More →

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In: Home Theater
With: 4 Comments

I needed a new server case due to Antec P180 case becoming much to cramped. After reading many positive forums posts about the Cooler Master Stacker cases, I made my purchase. Here are my thoughts. To be clear, this is the older Stacker 810 case, not the newer Stacker 830 Evolution. I think the 810 offers many for features for a much lower price; I’m not sure why the 830 is even around. Th Stacker 810 is a great case if you have a bunch of drives and need a large, well cooled case. If you purchase 2 additional 4-in-3 modules, this case has 14Read More →

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In: Web
With: 31 Comments

I recently needed to share some open source files via BitTorrent and wanted to host them on my Amazon S3 account.  For those of you familiar with S3, here is the short-answer: add ?torrent to the end of the URL of a public-shared file to get the *.torrent file, so the link would be http://s3.amazonaws.com/your_bucket_name/your_file_name?torrent If you’re new to Amazon S3, read on for more info and detailed instructions. Why would you want to distribute a file using BitTorrent? I wanted to do this because, when sharing a file via a torrent, you use less of your Amazon S3 bandwidth and lower your monthly expense.Read More →

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In: Web
With: 0 Comments

I noticed a weird charge on my credit card from “Mnesvc Inc Seattle” on 9/1. I initially thought it was a fradulent charge, but it was for less than $2, so I was a little confused. After a little more research, I found that Mnesvc is really Amazon.com and this is how they are now billing their monthly Amazon Web Services, such as S3 backup. Why they made this change, I don’t know, but it probably signals a move to integrate TextPayMe in some fashion. I just wish they had provided me with a more clear warning of what to expect on my credit cardRead More →

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In: Tech
With: 1 Comment

After two years of use, it’s time to say farewell to my Palm Treo 650 and start looking for a new phone; this is my longterm wrap-up review. I’ve used a Palm OS device for the past 8 years. The OS is ancient and hasn’t received any significant updates in years, but even so, the Palm Treo line could be so much more they just put some effort into what the consider the status quo. Palm has a new executive chairman (Jonathan Rubinstein of iPod fame), and their new Treo 500 is the first significant step forward in years. Hopefully they will continue to makeRead More →

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In: Reviews
With: 5 Comments

As I stated in an earlier post, Google Reader is the best RSS Feed Reader on the Internet. However, it is not perfect. And the more I use it, the more potential for improvement I see. Here is my list of what I’d like to see changed with Google Reader: Lack of Different Default Views for Sites: Some websites (such as Digg.com) have hundreds of posts each day. For them, I’d like the default videw to be the List View, where it shows only the post title and the first 20 or so words from the entry. This is a much more space-efficient view andRead More →