DTV is finally here

A moment of silence for analog TV …

… ok, that’s enough. If you didn’t realize it, today was the official (finally!) switchover from analog to digital TV broadcasting. If you’ll recall, the original February 17 deadline was delayed by Congress to give households more time to prepare. What’s strange is that back in early February, when the 17th was fast approaching, all of my local stations were running crawls and news stories reminding people of the upcoming transition. Then, after Congress delayed the switch, it fell out of the news. I don’t think I saw a single news story or crawl this week about today’s switchover. In fact, I had completely forgotten about it myself until the anchor on the morning news said “if you’re watching us right now you’ve successfully survived the switchover to digital television.”

From what I’ve read, about 6 million homes were unprepared for DTV back in February. Estimates are that 3 million homes are still unprepared today. I guess those people will figure it out pretty quick today when all they’re receiving over their rabbit ears is snow.

If you’re trying to sell me something …

… you really should know the product!

I just got cold-called at work by a gentleman with an Indian accent:

“Sir, I am calling on behalf of SAP because you are qualified to receive a free white paper about SAP and how …”

Since my primary focus is PeopleSoft system administration and development I am always getting calls like this, so that’s not unexpected. What prompted me to interrupt the guy earlier than I usually would was that he was pronouncing SAP (the company’s name) as the word “sap!” For those not in the industry, it’s pronounced S-A-P. You wouldn’t pronounce IBM as “eyebum” would you?

I’m sure SAP would be thrilled to know that their off-shored telemarketing firm is mispronouncing their name. 😮

Vizio VECO320L 32″ LCD HDTV

Vizio VECO32LWe’ve been transforming our guest bedroom into a combination guest bedroom/exercise/game room. The TV in that room was an old silver 13″ Magnavox tube that just wasn’t going to work for playing Rock Band 2 on the Wii, so I started shopping for a new flat screen television.

While I wasn’t specifically looking for a white display, once I found the Vizio VECO320L 32″ LCD HDTV it made perfect sense: it was a good size for the armoire and matched the white furniture in the room.

I couldn’t find the VECO320L locally in any store, so I ended up ordering it from target.com (with free shipping). It arrived earlier this week so I set it all up and then moved the Wii over from the family room. I don’t have a spare TiVo (yet?) to hook up to the new TV, but the built-in ATSC tuner is pulling in all the clear QAM HD channels over my Brighthouse cable service (and they look pretty good).

Vizio touts the VECO320L as an EnergyStar 3.0 compliant “green” display that uses 15% less energy. According to my Kill-a-Watt, the VECO320L uses about 65W while running (the manual states an 85W average). While I have no other 32″ LCD displays to compare that to, my Sony 23″ LCD uses 53 watts while powered on (110W max) and my Panasonic 42″ plasma gobbles a whopping 225W while running (with a listed max of 395W!). No surprise there, though, as plasmas are known to be power hogs. In standby mode the Panasonic uses 18W whereas the new Vizio uses 0.4W when “off” (which makes me wish the Panasonic had a true off mode).

It’s only been a few days, but so far I’m very happy with our new TV.

Mint-Eee fresh

How many more Eee puns can I come up with for my blog posts? 😀

The Windows 7 release candidate just wasn’t cutting it for me on my EeePC 900A. It looked nice, but Windows is just not meant to be crammed into 4gb of hard drive space. Even after vLite’ing the install I barely had 300mb free left on the SSD. Turning on drive compression (particularly for the WinSxS folder) just slowed everything down which really killed the whole netbook experience. So this weekend I decided to give Linux Mint a try.

Linux Mint 7 is based on Ubuntu 9.04 so it’s basically the same thing I am running on my other EeePC, just with a few differences. Like Ubuntu, Mint releases have version numbers and alphabetic code names. Whereas Ubuntu uses the adjective/noun alliterative combination (i.e., Jaunty Jackelope), Mint uses girls’ names that end in ‘a’ (hence the 7th version uses the 7th letter of the alphabet which gives us Gloria).

First, as always, I used the great eeebackup utility to make a backup image of the Windows 7 setup just in case I feel like going back at some point. I then used UNetbootin (the universal netboot installer) to “burn” the downloaded Mint ISO image onto a 2gb thumb drive and then booted my Eee from that to start the installation. The process was quick and painless and soon I was tweaking away (having gone through installs of Ubuntu Eee, Easy Peasy, Ubuntu NBR, and now Mint in the past six months, I am getting to be quite the expert at quickly configuring a Linux distro just the way I like it on my netbooks 🙂 ).

Just for fun, here’s a video I took of the 900A (white on left) booting Mint next to the 4G Surf (black on right) booting Ubuntu NBR. As expected, the 900A boots slightly faster due to its better Atom processor. Both are ready to go in just about 30 seconds though, which isn’t too bad.

WIJFR: The Bellmaker

Vicious Foxwolf, Urgan Nagru–a fox who long ago discovered the body of a wolf and skinned it to wear as his own–is holding the young Mariel and Dandin captive. The pair are at the mercy of the evil despot and have only one hope of survival. But can they really count on the legendary freedom fighter, Martin the Warrior, to come to their rescue?

On my flight to New York the other week I finished the next of Brian Jacuqes’ Redwall novels, “The Bellmaker.”

Mariel and Dandin, who were the central characters in “Mariel of Redwall,” along with Mariel’s father Joseph (the titular Bellmaker) make a re-appearance in this book, along with some other characters from that story. Whereas the previous book, “Martin the Warrior” took place in the farth north of Jacques’ world, most of this one takes place in a new area to the south known as Southsward.

Some seasons have passed since Mariel and Dandin left Redwall in search of adventure and Joseph is worried about what has become of them. In a dream, Martin the Warrior instructs Joseph (through the typical set of riddles) to leave the Abbey with a few companions and search them out to the south.

Meanwhile, Mariel and Dandin have become entangled in a siege of Castle Floret. Once ruled by the squirrel king Gael, it has been taken over by the foxwolf Urgan Nagru and his vermin horde (sound familiar?). Mariel, Dandin, and the usual cast of hares, shrews, mice, otters, moles, etc. etc. attempt to drive the horde from the castle … but will Joseph and his crew arrive in time to help them?

I have to admit now that I’m seven books deep into this series that it’s starting to get a little tiresome and repetitive. As mentioned in the wiki article on the Redwall series (which closely mirrors what I have said before):

Many reviewers have also criticized the Redwall series for repetition and predictability, citing “recycled” plot lines and Jacques’ tendency to follow a “pattern to the dot.” Of course, other reviewers note that such predictable “ingredients” may be what “makes the Redwall recipe so consistently popular.” Although the series does not continue to break new ground, it does provide satisfying adventures with “comforting, predictable conclusions for its fans.”

J.K. Rowling did the same thing with her Harry Potter books, but they were a lot more intriguing for some reason. I started reading the series with my daughter just over a year ago and continued reading it so we had something shared to do. We don’t read them together out loud anymore, and she hasn’t really waited for me to catch up any longer, so by the time I finish a book she’s already read a few more beyond it. It’s still fun to discuss them with her (and she still loves reading them over and over), but I’m feeling less of a desire to continue reading them myself (we’re not even halfway through the entire series!). I’ve already started “Outcast of Redwall” but I think that might be my last foray into the world of Redwall for a time.

Hurricane prep

hurricane supply closetThe 2009 hurricane season starts on Monday so we spent some time today re-stocking our hurricane closet. What, you don’t have a closet in your house dedicated to hurricane supplies? 😉 Well, you can’t be too prepared here on the Gulf coast. Should we ever need to evacuate all we need to do is throw all of those bags into the car, grab ourselves and the dogs, and get out of town.

No plywood needed this season either, since we got the windows replaced last fall. Still, let’s hope this season is a quiet one.

Star Trekkin’, JJ Abrams style

We wrapped up work a bit early today (Memorial Day) so I decided to walk over to Times Square and catch the new Star Trek movie. I’m a fan of the original series and I have to say I was skeptical of what this “90210” version of Star Trek was going to be like.

Well, I really enjoyed it. You can’t have a good Trek movie without lots of space battles, explosions on the bridge, and some sort of time travel. Luckily, this movie has all of that and more. Some random thoughts (warning, possible spoilers ahead):

  • nice opening sequence! off to a good start …
  • Vulcan bullies? Bullying doesn’t seem logical.
  • why don’t Romulans ever look consistent in any of the movies or shows?
  • love the look of the Enterprise: classic and yet updated and modern
  • the audience is cheering and applauding at every classic line
  • umm, Spock and Uhura … WTF? 😮
  • Spock’s Sylar moment

And some final, longer, thoughts.

On the matter of red matter: anyone who was a fan of JJ Abram’s “Alias” television series must have about choked on their popcorn like I did when Nero’s red matter turned out to be nothing other than a Mueller device! At that point I just about expected Sydney Bristow to show up (dressed as a Romulan agent of course) and start kicking ass. Maybe the smoke monster from “Lost” should have had a cameo as well! 😀

As for the reboot: I haven’t read a lot about this (and I don’t want to put in any blatant spoilers) but it seems clear to me that this is a reboot of the franchise and obviously the vehicle for more sequels to come. The methods they used to achieve this will probably anger or alienate some classic Trek fans, but I think it was a neat way to do it. It probably helps that I already went through this kind of anxiety with Ronald D. Moore’s re-imagining of Battlestar Galactica. I loved the original series as a kid and really hated the pilot movie for the new series when it aired in 2003. The Cylons look like humans? Special effects cop-out! Starbuck and Boomer are girls!? I don’t think so. I almost didn’t watch the series at all (in fact, I was right here in New York, on a similar business trip when I watched the first three episodes on my laptop because I had nothing else to do!). I’m glad I did, though, because it turned out to be a fantastic, gripping show (well, except for the end). I can see the same thing happening to this new series of Trek movies. And as long as they’re still fun and exciting, I’ll keep going to see them … the even-numbered ones, anyway. 😉

The Statue of Libery and Ellis Island

The system upgrade was going well so the team decided to take today (Sunday) off and resume work on Monday (Memorial Day). That was a nice surprise because I got to spend the day with my wife and daughter in Manhattan.

Since the ladies had already visited a lot of places in the city while I was working on Saturday (American Girl Place, Central Park, Times Square, etc). we walked down Lexington Avenue to Grand Central Station and took the subway down to Battery Park. After purchasing our tickets and waiting in an extremely long line, we boarded the ferry to the Statue of Liberty.  I remember climbing those twisty steps to the top of Lady Liberty’s crown with my dad when I was about my daughter’s age, but my hopes of sharing that same moment with my her were unrealized because the monument is currently not open to visitors (except for the pedestal). We still had a great time walking around Liberty Island, taking in the views of Manhattan across the harbor, and of course the statue herself.

After a light lunch, we boarded the ferry again and headed over to Ellis Island, to which none of us had ever been. It’s a really amazing museum and has some great exhibits about our country’s immigration history. We spent some time in the American Family Immigration History Center researching our respective families, trying to see if we could find any records there. They have scans of passenger manifests, ship images, etc. It’s incredible. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to find any definite family links, but it was a spur of the moment thing and had we been better prepared with data we might have had better success.

By then it was getting on late-afternoon so we took the subway back to Grand Central and then walked back to the hotel to rest up before heading out for dinner. All-in-all, it was a perfect little family vacation day in the big city. My wife and daughter head back to Florida early tomorrow morning and I still have five days to go here in New York.

Mmmmm … gnocchi!

Today I spent most of the day in the office here in Manhattan working on the fixed assets system upgrade. My wife and daughter came by (after flying into JFK that morning) to pick up the hotel key and then ran off to spend a day in the city.

This evening, I met up with my family and my colleagues from the office working on the upgrade and we all headed to dinner at Nino’s Positano, one of Nino Selimaj‘s six restaurants in the city. My favorite Italian dish is gnocchi so of course when I saw that on the menu I had to order it. That was a good choice because it was fantastic.

After dinner my wife and daughter headed back to the hotel and I went back to work to do some more coding. So far, though, the upgrade is progressing smoothly.