If you’re using some LAMP type set up you could always just use mod_rewrite with .htaccess  and just do:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.example.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

IIS7 can actually import a .htaccess file and does a good job of converting them over. However if you just want to do the same thing from scratch the quickest way is to pop open the web.config for the website (you can create one if it doesn’t exist) and add the rewrite rules. Here’s my complete web.config as an example:

< ?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
    <system .webServer>
        <rewrite>
            <rules>
                <rule name="Redirect www." stopProcessing="true">
                    <match url="^(.*)" ignoreCase="false" />
                    <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll">
                        <add input="{HTTP_HOST}" negate="true" pattern="^$" ignoreCase="false" />
                        <add input="{HTTP_HOST}" negate="true" pattern="^coreygo.com" />
                    </conditions>
                    <action type="Redirect" url="http://coreygo.com/{R:1}" redirectType="Permanent" />
                </rule>
            </rules>
        </rewrite>
    </system>
</configuration>

Just replace coreygo.com with your own domain and that’s it. I’ve got the bindings set up for this site so there’s just www. but this would also redirect blogs. if that was included as a binding. There’s a way to make exceptions and such but for that head over to IIS.net .

I was browsing through my RSS feeds and noticed an Adamo video which was just horribly uncomfortably bad. I won’t even link to it. To see if it was just a fluke I went to the Adamo website. Unfortunately the same VP of design was in the video. To view it go to the Encounter bit then see how the story of lameness begins.

The odd thing was that while watching this video it totally reminded me of Apple’s MacBook design video. What really let me down about the Dell video was the tackiness. When you need lame models and stupid sets and crap to sell your laptop design, you’re on the path to failure. Apple’s video highlights the machine, the design, the engineering, pure and simple. The way Apple has done for ages.

As I watch the Apple video right now, I think it’s just dawned on me why Apple systems rock. This argument for me has nothing to do with Windows v. OSX, that’s irrelevant to me. Why my next system will be a Mac is because I get the feeling that their hardware has a tyrannical asshole genius dictating every minute detail.

When I watch the Dell video I get the feeling that attention to details wasn’t done because they’re insane about these things. It was done to play catch up to Apple, to say, see we can be cool and come out with good design if we want to.  That’s no way to convince me. Sure it’s Dell’s hottest machine ever, but the rest of it failed to deliver. Amusing to me as well is how the second best laptop Dell ever made, the X1, was actually a Samsung laptop rebranded but I digress.

Like the title suggests, I personally compared the Adamo to the 13″ MacBook. I’d get the MacBook. Now I know it’s actually being compared to the MacBook Air. This is definitely a good compare, while neither system have me wanting… if I were forced to pick one I almost think I’d still go with the Air. The Adamo’s only saving graces are the additional built in ports at the back (where ports should be imho). Otherwise the Air is cheaper, lighter, and faster. Whoa, *not* cheaper than a Mac?! WTF, ah, SSD, at this point in time – meh.

So with that, I guess I’m going to put my laptop up on Craigslist and hope I get somewhere. I think I’ll probably end up actually getting the 15″ MacBook Pro if only because I can’t be arsed to install my own 7200RPM drive into the MacBook. Plus the 15″ has a discrete nVidia GPU too. I just wish the display was 1920×1200.

I wish I were an asshole genius. Then I really would dictate the perfect system.

The first visit was the install, he didn’t even run a speed test to confirm everything. The second visit they tried swapping the modem but apparently that replacement was bad. The third visit they sent a home service guy who didn’t even know the login for the modem. The fourth visit was the only good visit but that was because he was an office technician, not some field dude. This guy clearly knew what he was talking about and we got to the bottom of the problem quickly. It was the modem. What’s sad though is this guy had the best customer interaction of any of them yet he’s the one that the customers never get to talk to or see.

Now I’m writing this during my 5th visit. This guy has been up since 3AM. But it’s hardly an excuse. What should’ve been a very simple modem replacement has turned into a 3 hour wait. He didn’t even bring the replacement modem that was noted in the service request. Instead he’s made about a dozen calls and we’ve been waiting for some other tech to actually bring the modem. I’m pretty sure the guy that just showed up isn’t him, I think it’s his manager. But they’re still trying to figure out how to get into this modem despite it working fine through my router. Why they can’t just replace my modem and leave I don’t know. Sigh…

10 minutes later… Yep I was right “three’s a party we’ve got another guy coming”. Great… Do they have no concept that customer’s time, especially business customer’s time is valuable!?

The main problem I have with this guy is that he keeps getting things wrong. Example, first thing he did was pull up the info to look at the down and upstream channel. Everything was fine, it was locked at 64QAM like it should be. He reset some stuff, then made a few calls after he couldn’t get in, then that person said it was locked to 16QAM. They do more crap and 64QAM again like it was before, retest directly through the modem and now it’s getting 30/8, great… 5 minutes later it’s 30/1. Bad…

I’m already upstairs now just leaving them to do their thing since it’s actually rather annoying not being at work waiting for them to really just sit there. On the possitive side I think I just figured out the buzz from my receiver was being caused by interference from the power cord on the TV. Go figure…

3rd guy has arrived right now. He apparently knows what he’s doing, somewhat… Now they’re saying they need my laptop because they can only seem to get to the modem through my router… Ruh roh.

Okay so they’ve factory reset the modem and can now get into it finally. Getting the right speeds via dynamic IP so that’s good. He’s on the phone with a guy to push down a brand new created from scratch config file. Fingers crossed as it flashes and reboots. I really just want to go to work (surprising since it’s Friday and I should just say WFH at this point since it’s now 2:15).

Downstream Channel
Downstream Frequency 603.001465 MHz  597.000122 MHz
Lock Status    Locked    Locked
Modulation     256 QAM    256 QAM
Symbol Rate    5.360537Msym/sec  5.360537Msym/sec
Downstream Power   5.066157 dBmV   4.432274 dBmV
SNR      36.844 dB    37.093 dB   

Upstream Channel
Upstream Frequency   37000000 Hz
Lock Status    Locked
Modulation     64QAM
Symbol Rate    5120 KSym/sec
Upstream Power    41.1800 dBmV
Channel ID     3

Yay, good speeds with a static IP!!!

Why on Earth did this take 5 visits!? Why on Earth did I have to miss 20 hours of work? And why couldn’t they have just solved this directly from their office?

The signals all looked good from the start, they could’ve tested from my box with a test modem to confirm everything. And most importantly they could’ve just created a brand new config file from the office!

How totally lame

Within 10 seconds it became apparent why the warranty was only 1 year and not 3 or 5. The first 5 threads on the forum were all for dead SoundBridge Radio’s, total view count on these threads is about 50K. The root cause of the problem? Faulty PSU’s which were inadequately designed. What’s amazing is just how many people really truly loved this product, including me. So much so that when they all started failing people tried fixing the units themselves and tried helping others figure out the problems. Some hardcore electrical engineering geekiness too. Hell, one guy even provided a Flickr page showing the fault capacitor. What’s depressing is that this WiFi network audio alarm radio costs a full $300, and yet they couldn’t even spare an extra 20 cents of profit per unit to use higher quality components to ensure customer satisfaction and product longevity. WTF!?

As a professional engineer with many years experience I consider that the Soundbridge radio is a unit where the power supply is bound to fail on a regular basis. Because of the total lack of thermal management which is mainly due to the plastic box and tape around the box the components on the PSU, which is always on, run at an excessive temperature. Back of the envelope calculations suggest the mean time to failure will be in the order of 7 months! Even with the higher rated replacements I have only improved this figure by about a factor of three.

I really loved my Roku, in fact I used to say how it was the one piece of technology in my life that “just worked”. It did exactly what I wanted and worked perfectly, sounded great too. Then this… What a shame. I’m guessing the little Roku’s aren’t as susceptible to this kind of failure, mainly because they’re much simpler in design and don’t require the same power. But I’m sure they’re just as poorly engineered none the less.

With that, let me say, I will never recommend or buy a Roku product again. I highly suggest you don’t either. Even if that $100 Roku Player looks tempting.

FWIW, I honestly think a lot of the sales this quarter were thanks to Boxee Alpha/Beta which quite frankly rocks on the Apple TV. I wouldn’t buy an Apple TV, but would now thanks to Boxee even in its early stages.

While Apple TV may only have ~400-500K units, I’m pretty sure every one of those users is using it as intended with a TV. On the other hand, Media Center has shipped what? 20M+ units last I remember seeing from the banners… But that’s just counting SKU’s that contained Media Center correct? Microsoft shouldn’t be concerned with that number when comparing, Microsoft should be looking at the number of users actually using the app and using TV. Usage data for the number of WMC PC’s connected to TV’s? Data for the number of unique guide downloads… IIRC it’s a heck of a lot closer to 500K than 20M .

Personally, when I moved to West Seattle I completely dropped all cable services and vowed not to pay Comcast again [except for my business Internet]. OCUR was great, it really was. Despite the royal pain the setup process was, thanks to Comcast’s inexperience with the technology, afterwards it was great and ran smoothly for me. At the end of the day though it just wasn’t worth the monthly service fees. And heck, I could only do OCUR because I was internal, not because I spent another $1K+ on a brand new PC. So the fallback would then become a tuner with NTSC/ATSC/QAM… Like many OEM’s are doing, I personally skipped over the TV Pack and went right to 7 so it’s only now that I could get digital content easily. Up until now though if I wanted to use Media Center as my TV source, as a normal consumer, I’d have to be using two clunky STB’s in combo with a dual tuner and the IR blasters and all that other junk. Not very elegant…

So like the growing few, I dumped the cable and bumped up my business Internet service speeds. $65/mo for 12/2Mbps… I use Hulu, Netflix, Joost, network sites, MTV, you name it. Combine that with P2P and there’s really no need to ever go back to cable. The one thing that makes me sad, really sad, is that Media Center doesn’t fit into this new TV ecosystem. It’s only now with 7 that it’s becoming a bit more compelling for users who don’t use tuners. Internet content through MSN and such is great but where’s the MCML from Hulu, Netflix, and all those? Where’s the rich metadata for my downloaded content? Where’s the social aspects as well?

One thing Boxee has done and done really well is create an experience around the way people use downloaded and online media making it incredibly easy to dump the wire. What really got me was when I loaded up Boxee the second day. I went in to watch some of the Arrested Development that auto downloaded via RSS. It parsed the share and sorted each show, then under that each season, then under that each episode. What’s more the thumb for every episode is perfect (see screenshot). Going to more for the episode pulls up complete metadata. All it had to go on was TVArrested Development310 – Fakin’ It.avi there’s no other metadata, no XML files, no album art in the folder. It does this for my MKV movies too, MoviesWALL-EWALL-E.mkv and sure enough it has the art and metadata, no DVDID.xml, no pain.

Yes Boxee is Alpha, no, it doesn’t have any of the amazingly hard work that went into making it compatible with the multitude of tuners. It has a lot of usability and stability issues, it’s not gone through as many iterations as Media Center so it’s not as refined. But man, for an Alpha it’s bloody awesome, I highly suggest getting the Windows Alpha asap and give it a honest go, set up uTorrent with RSS, see if you could make the switch to a cableless life and live on the bleeding edge.

Honestly, I’ve loved Media Center since the days when it was only Freestyle. I supported it as a MVP for 6 years, 3 years on the eHome beta team, and will continue to support it. I’m just a bit bummed out by the fact that Media Center has failed to deliver on features that have been asked for since 2002. What is Microsoft going to do to remain competitive when Boxee goes mainstream and releases STB devices like the Apple TV? I’m happy to see the start of Internet content via MSN but where are the third party deals with the providers that people use now?

When I was sitting for 4 hours in Las Vegas International for Snowpocalypse 2008 to allow my plane to arrive; I busted out the iPhone, connected to the free WiFi, downloaded Joost and started watching The Fifth Element for free. It wasn’t a big TV and it wasn’t HD, but honestly it didn’t matter. I had the content and the experience was awesome and easy. How is Media Center going to deliver that same grin on people’s faces when the predominant source of content is the Internet and third party services?

So there you have it… My little rant about why Media Center doesn’t fit me anymore. Writing this and discussing it further later made me realize that there’s actually nothing really wrong with Media Center at all, for your every day average person it’s great. Sure it could be a little simpler to get going like TiVo but as far as the ultimate experience, Media Center is definitely it. This will continue to be true so long as TV and movies continue to be delivered the way everyone has received this content for years. However I personally believe that as more people realize that dumping the wire is easy the trend to only use the Internet will continue. Plus to make things more interesting, analog broadcasts won’t necessarily continue from all the cable providers. They could very well move them over to encrypted QAM as far as I know. If this were to happen you’d need to rent a fugly STB for each tuner you planned on using. Even less elegant.

I realized that I’m just way ahead of the curve. I was watching TV on my PC with an old BT848 Hauppauge tuner back in 1997 then tried but failed to use WinTV. Then I used Media Center before it was Media Center, then OCUR came and went. Now I’ve completely ditched TV altogether and only stream with the Internet. If the past is any indication the wave should finally catch up with me in another 3 to 5 years, what I’ll be doing at that point is anybody’s guess.

Then I actually started thinking. Why on Earth is this lady driving to work or wherever she’s driving. Why is she telling people ot pray for the doomsday? Why does anyone tell someone to pray for some supposed doomsday event that’s going to occur? I mean fuck, if I knew for certain that on 12/21/2012 the world were going to end, I’d just say screw it and have a blast. I’d quit work, travel the world, have the best 2 years of my life. Then towards the end in the last year, depending on what this apocalypse entails I’d probably just try and find an isolated corner of the planet to sit it out and be away from all the idiots who will be causing insanity. So seriously. WTF purpose is there for telling people to pray for 2012?

Of course the fact this lady printed out a sign for everyone to see and still left it saying 2000-12 must mean she’s lacking some basic mental faculties. So I suppose like praying, making this sign to let everyone else know that they should pray gives her a good feeling inside. More power to her I guess.

For me, I’ve just realized that this sort of thought process that I go through on my way in to work really does tell me there is no God and that I’ll never believe otherwise. I constantly try and put myelf in the other persons shoes and try to imagine their thought process and think like they do. But I can’t. No matter how hard I try I can’t fathom having this belief in a supreme being. Nor can I fathom having complete faith in some religion that likely didn’t even exist 200 years ago. Or a religion that’s based on interpretations of a book that’s based on beliefs and general understanding that comes from a time before the Earth wasn’t flat.

I’m not saying believing in God is a bad thing, by all means some people need that. I start becoming frustrated when people tie that belief to a religion. Why can’t people take a little more responsbility for themselves and decide religion is just taking that comfort level a step further.

Come to think of it though, this reminds me of Elizabeth Gilbert’s talk at TED on a different way to think about creative genius. Perhaps the reason why people adopt a faith in God and rely on religion is because they can’t deal with the disappointment of their own failure or the lack of their moral judgement. Or look to those beliefs as a way out of having to think about these things to which they really can never have the answer. Maybe this weight is too much to bear. I’ve certainly tried imagining the big bang and the begining of the Universe as well as a belief in God. Yet neither solution to the question really provides me with an answer I can say is fact. I guess I just have a problem with nothingness. I try and visualize this because I’m a visual person. It just doesn’t work for me. I try imagining the entire thing as a linear timeline, then non-linear. It just doesn’t work. Shit. How can there be something from nothing? What was before the bang or God? If it’s it’s non-linear than how did this even happen? If someone snapped their fingers than what started it all for them?

I fucking hate logic loops. Screw the chicken and that damn egg it came in.

Yay, more space.

UPS just delivered the 4 * 1.5TB Seagate 7200.11’s today and I’m busily using robocopy to mirror all the data onto 1 of the 1.5TB drives and 1 spare 1.5TB I had spare. The scary thing is that the music content is over 600GB and the video content is over 1.2TB.

My plan is to hold the migrated data on the two separate drives and create the new RAID5 array with 3 drives then move the IIS data and the rest of the data back. Then adding the 4th 1.5TB to expand the entire set out to 6TB total, total amount of space should be 4.5TB or about 4.08TB formatted with NTFS. The extra .91TB of space should hopefully last long enough for me to be able to add 4 more 1.5TB drives next year.

Here’s hoping for a data loss free transition and little down time tomorrow while I create the new RAID volume. And here’s hoping I don’t use up the new drives as quickly not to mention have any issues with 7200.11 firmware .

Microsoft is really playing catch-up now. How the mobile team got so stagnant is beyond me. It really seems like nothing major has changed in their product for years. Unlike the Internet Explorer stagnation though this one goes way beyond that. Why? Well Windows Mobile has sold millions upon millions of units and gained a lot of market share. But for some crazy reason they’ve just let that go to waste and have let Apple jump ahead and lead the innovation party. Heck, it’s gotten so bad HTC has had to come up with UI to hide Windows to make the phone desirable. Of course there’s also Google now with Android, but I doubt they’re too worried about it. You know, at least not until more manufacturers jump from Windows Mobile to Android then Netbooks start shipping with WiFi and 3g with Android, then thin desktop clients…

Apple really does the entire end to end solution really well. Sure they force the Apple way or the highway but usually Apple’s way is pretty damn good. Google really does cloud services amazingly well. Sure they only really make money on the advertising but they’re not stupid. They’re building each piece of the puzzle little by little. At some point soon, they’ll be set to complete the picture and deliver something amazing that could potentially deliver a massive blow to Windows, Office, and Microsoft cloud services. Google has been combining pieces that’s just amazing.

The key difference between Apple, Google, and Microsoft? Honestly, I’m not sure, culture maybe, age in the case of Microsoft and Google. A dictator in the case of Microsoft and Apple. Who knows.

The thing I notice about Apple and Google though is that while Microsoft may have better business models to make more money on more things. Apple and Google are necessarily spreading themselves thin. Apple delivers a small product line really well and concentrates on a few things it can really deliver 100% on. Google makes strategic choices on where to concentrate resources to connect things. Neither company seems concerned with delivering products and services it really has no need to.

I mean I don’t see Apple going out to make their own maps service for the iPhone or their own stock service or their own search. Instead they partner with Google and Yahoo. When searching Google you’ll get links to 6 different services when searching for “stock MSFT“, you’ll get linked to a third party flight tracking service when searching for “BA49“. Or when you search for Led Zeppelin you’ll get an album listing with ways to purchase from multiple online stores and when you go to the song listing you’ll get linked to multiple lyrics websites.

When Microsoft does the latter what happens? Well first you go to live.com and get normal search results, if you click the first link for xRank you get to see some useful information and some search volume indicator thingy. Next if you want to dig further you click on the album but now you’re no longer on Live Search (or is it Windows Live Search), you’re on MSN Music (hello Mr. Butterfly). The option is presented to buy and download from Microsoft Zune which is good and multiple options are given to buy the CD from various online stores, also good. There’s even an option to compare prices. If you go to the track listing you can even hear samples, sweet… So what’s so bad about this?

Well, immediately this tells me there’s a lack of focus and execution. There’s a total of 3 products and services involved with that entire process, Live, MSN, and Zune. They all feel different and don’t share a seamless experience. Why is MSN Music delivering content that should be delivered directly by Zune?

There are so many places where efforts are duplicated, clear vision is lacking, and the execution is 20% off target. It’s frustrating to me as someone who really honestly cares and desires elegant perfection.

Microsoft has every piece of the puzzle needed. It can do amazing things when it needs to and definitely isn’t dead. What’s needed is a bit of a reset really. Time to refocus, clear the air, and start executing and connecting everything together in the right ways. I really just hope that it’ll happen soon.

MSFT has been flat for 10 years. What the company needs is a real renaissance and to deliver 100% on its innovations. Microsoft has been ahead of the curve thanks to many products that were ahead of their time and thanks to MSR. Microsoft has many times entered new markets and gained popularity only to lose them later by the lack of follow through and evolution.

The software Microsoft makes is amazing, there’s no reason why that can’t continue.

Still wanting to beat the West Seattle Bridge to 5 north to 90 east traffic I just showed her instead how to use Google Maps on the phone. Quickly set the starting point as the current location, the end to her salon on California Ave. Swapping the directions to public transit, it showed the bus she’d normally take first thing. Then hitting the load more times showed all the times for the morning and the best time for her to catch the bus to arrive at work by 9:45.

Awesome, just awesome.

For the second time in the last 4 years I’ve gone without TV. Since June I’ve only used online services to gather my TV content. Hulu, combined with Netflix, and a little EZTV has made it an extremely easy transition. Because of this and because of frustration getting Media Center to *fit the way I* consume and want to view all this content.

Since I’m no longer using a TV tuner there’s really no need to use it at all. As I said before, despite being Alpha, Boxee shows a lot of promise and is deliverying on things I’ve been waiting for in Media Center for the past 6 years. Example, thumbnails that actually work from the TV and movie content, integration with almost every online service I use, magical absorbition of my organized content despite the lack of any real metadata in the files, and so much more…

Even in Windows 7 I’m still wishing for most of the features boxee offers. It’s really something else. For now though it’s kind of nice using Boxee with Media Center after adding Mike’s app.

Though when I brought the totes in I realized something, they weren’t heavy at all and I barely ordered anything so why was I bringing in 4 totes? Well turns out Amazon is really paranoid about hurting any of your goods. I only ordered 8 items in this shipment with a total of $33.88 yet they managed to bring it all in 4 totes. One contained a foam core with two dry ice packs inside, this tote contained my frozen fake meat and frozen veg. Then another contained an ice pack inside this keep temp bag, that contained my tikka masala sauce, cucumber, and red leaf lettuce. Then the dry containers contained a bag of chips and a 12 pack of ginger ale respectively.

Totally insane… Everything was in plastic bags, 5 in total. Oh and the chips were by themselves in a paper bag inside a tote. I don’t get it, how is this environmentally friendly and more importantly to Amazon how is this economical for them? The items I purchased were all at the normal cost I buy stuff at in a QFC, Safeway, or Metropolitan Market… so how is this profitable for Amazon?

I understand they don’t want my bag of chips getting crushed by the Canada Dry but surely they could just use some divider thing to keep things in place. 4 totes seems insane for 8 items. If I were going to metro market I would’ve fit all of these things into a single reusable bag and carried the ginger ale in another hand.

Anyway, overall I’m really impressed, they delivered the next morning without me even hearing them and they have things that normally would require multiple trips to actually find and pick up. Oh and I special ordered some matcha green tea powder which is also shipping free in a separate order, I’ve not been able to find this stuff anywhere so that was pretty sweet as well. The lettuce and cucumber seem better than any of the crappy stuff I’d find at Safeway and is on par with the produce from Whole Foods.

So for people in the right zip code, I really don’t see a reason not to use Amazon Fresh. I guess just use it while it still exists since I’m really curious how on Earth they actually make money.

Does this work? Yes. Is it perfect? No. However it’s exactly what I’ve been feeling like I’ve been missing from Media Center. I gave it every network path to all my media and it’s all in there and it’s all quite fast. Every movie has album art and reviews and more. Every TV series shows all the episodes I have along with the art, the episode name, synopsis and more.

Going to the Internet content for Music or Videos that’s even more amazing. It has access to most of  the sites I use, Hulu, MTV, Joost, NPR,  Last.fm. Content is actually easy to find and obtain the experience is pretty damned seemless between each service. I don’t even know where or how it gets all this, in the first 30 minutes I don’t even care, it just works.

I need to get to bed now, but let me just say this. Boxee isn’t perfect, it lacks the Microsoft and Apple quality and management control, however this also opens and frees it from those controls and allows it to be so much more than either company could allow. The fact it works with so many online services and works with P2P content natively is a testament to this fact. The downside is that there are bugs left and right at least while running the client on build 7000 of Win 7. The user interface controls are clumsy and nowhere near as refined or intituitive as Media Center in 7. That being said it’d be a toss up between the two as for which one I’d use on a 10′ level. Why? Despite the effortless use of WMC it doesn’t work entertain me the way Boxee does. I installed Boxee and only Boxee, gave it my paths and it works with 100% of my content the way it already existed. I didn’t need to conform to its standards.

Now the part the folks in WMC should be worried about… Boxee may only be Alpha  and is super buggy, but it delivers on many fronts. And get this, it’s based on XBMC. XBMC was included in  Google’s summer of code for 2008, it may be a stretch, but Google is indirectly helping fund the progression of this project.

In my personal view it is a leap ahead of WMC. Why? IMHO, broadcast TV services like Blu-Ray will succumb online distribution. It won’t happen in the next 3 years, maybe not even in the next 5 but combined with online advertising and the continued shifts in the marketplace it will become more and more mainstream. Sites like Hulu, NetFlix streaming, and YouTube all show people care less about the HDness of their content and more about the ease of access to the content they care about. Not to mention the fact I doubt many people could tell NetFlix and a SD DVD apart viewing it side by side on a 40″ LCD. At any rate, I digress. The point of this paragraph is to say that TV tuners and the technological understanding required by WMC thanks to TV standards and digital TV requirements make it difficult choice for any geek requiring that GFAF/WAF.

Boxee does cater towards those that don’t bother with Comcast or DirecTV and instead choose free and legal Internet sources along with legally questionable P2P sources. This is something that Microsoft will never do at least with regards to the latter option. I think usage statistics will show the latter option is important to the masses including Mom’s and Pop’s.

Anyway, I guess that’s it for now. There’s more digging to be done. And damn it, I keep hitting the key and Boxee keeps pissing me off. Where’s Win 7 WMC usage when I need it.

Yay, finally monitors at the right height, elbows and knees at a 90° angle. This is great. I grabbed the 6.5″ Capita legs from Ikea and the biggest Järpen shelf I could get my hands on. I think the cost was $15 for the shelf and $10 for the feet. Nothing like a quick 15 minute solution to hours of back and neck pain…

The result? My Mom gets a nice new website at GoStainedGlass.com. Now the really amazing thing here isn’t that WordPress took only 5 minutes for me to set up for her. It’s that I literally took ALL the content that was on her previous static website and converted it over to a dynamic RSS enabled site with about 4 hours worth of work.

Pages were created for the static content, and posts were created for the actual items. Categories serve as navigation points. The tag served as a way to quickly import all her previous photos and have them linked correctly. While she still needs to go back in and provide a title and description for all the images, the important thing was that 100% of the content was moved and the new site went live in under 48 hours from when I first installed.

The only real caveat was the titles actually. I’m sure there’s probably some Plugin to do this, but it was a minor annoyance having to import photos with the actual post so they’d be attached right, oh I couldn’t figure out how to change the photos’ attachment status either to switch to a different post.

I suppose the real test will be to see whether my Mom can now manage her own website, it should be easy enough. If not now that it’s not a total pain in the ass to add content to her site I might not be so lazy about it.

It seems as long as the Zune isn’t sync’d again with the software open it should function. I’m still in the process of testing this but I’m guessing jumping the clock forward to Jan 1, 2009 may let things pass over fine. But then again I don’t really suggest doing this after you get it working .

Of course, I don’t suggest voiding the warranty by opening up your Zune either. Hopefully you won’t.

UPDATE: Now that we’re in good old 2009 the Zune has righted itself thanks to the infinite loop ending. All is right in the world and the final FAQ regarding the Zune resurrection has been posted on the proper Zune support site.

UPDATE: Gizmodo posting first on the reseat fix though I don’t believe you need to unplug the hard drive so I advise against that. I also suggest waiting for the official solution to come from Zune support.

UPDATE: From the Zune forums:

Early this morning we were alerted by our customers that there was a widespread issue affecting our 2006 model Zune 30GB devices (a large number of which are still actively being used).  The technical team jumped on the problem immediately and isolated the issue: a bug in the internal clock driver related to the way the device handles a leap year.  The issue should be resolved over the next 24 hours as the time change moves to January 1, 2009.   We expect the internal clock on the Zune 30GB devices will automatically reset tomorrow (noon, GMT). By tomorrow you should allow the battery to fully run out of power before the unit can restart successfully then simply ensure that your device is recharged, then turn it back on.  If you’re a Zune Pass subscriber, you may need to sync your device with your PC to refresh the rights to the subscription content you have downloaded to your device.

Customers can continue to stay informed via the support page on zune.net (zune.net/support).

We know this has been a big inconvenience to our customers and we are sorry for that, and want to thank them for their patience.

Q:  Why is this issue isolated to the Zune 30 device?

It is a bug in a driver for a part that is only used in the Zune 30 device.

Q:  What fixes or patches are you putting in place to resolve this situation?

This situation should remedy itself over the next 24 hours as the time flips to January 1st.

Q:  What’s the timeline on a fix?

The issue Zune 30GB customers are experiencing today will self resolve as time changes to January 1.

Q:  Why did this occur at precisely 12:01 a.m. on December 31, 2008?

There is a bug in the internal clock driver causing the 30GB device to improperly handle the last day of a leap year.

Q:  What is Zune doing to fix this issue?

The issue should resolve itself.

Q:  Are you sure that this won’t happen to all 80, 120 or other flash devices?

This issue is related to a part that is only used in Zune 30 devices.

Q:  How many 30GB Zune devices are affected? How many Zune 30GB devices were sold?

All 30GB devices are potentially affected.

UPDATE: Over at ZuneBoards.com, a moderator has posted up the source and analysis for the cause of the bug on the Zune 30’s. Pretty interesting. In the end a minor mistake and a missed test case causing a major headache. Likely a simple firmware update will prevent the problem again next leap year. Granted I doubt any Zune 30’s will even be able to hold a charge by then:

year = ORIGINYEAR; /* = 1980 */

while (days > 365)
{
    if (IsLeapYear(year))
    {
        if (days > 366)
        {
            days -= 366;
            year += 1;
        }
    }
    else
    {
        days -= 365;
        year += 1;
    }
}

Well not quite. It’s the first post via WordPress for me. I’m not quite done migrating crap over and certainly haven’t picked a decent theme yet. There are just way way too many to pick from and sadly there’s no way to easily spot those that work with 2.7 so it’s been trial and error for me. I think ultimately I’ll just end up designing and creating my own theme. For now though this will do.

This will be short and sweet since it’s time to go outside and play in the snow . Please update your RSS feeds to point to http://feeds.coreygo.com/coreygo, I’ll be setting a 301 redirect there shortly.

Yay, WordPress FTW.

So yep, I’m now going to use Server 2008, IIS7, FastCGI with PHP, and mySQL. Hey, at least it’s not LAMP, doubt it will ever be unless I stop hosting.

I do have the blog running and it’s great. But I did hit a few snags and found a bunch of resources that really helped. If I do everything right it should end up being seamless. URL Rewritting should hopefully have permalinks working fine along with existing RSS feeds and all that junk. We’ll see. I’m finally getting around to dumping all my domains and moving everything to coreygo.com so feel free to head there now and subscribe there if you want.

Here’s the list of pages I used to get me going:

• Installing WordPress
  http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress
• Installing Multiple Blogs (just in case I need to)
  http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_Multiple_Blogs
  http://wordpress.org/support/topic/174688
• WordPress on IIS
  http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/280/wordpress-on-iis/
• Setting Up a Database for a PHP Application on IIS
  http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/300/setting-up-a-database-for-a-php-application-on-iis/
• Enabling Pretty Permalinks when hosting WordPress on IIS7
  http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/466/enabling-pretty-permalinks-in-wordpress/
• Using FastCGI to Host PHP Applications on IIS 7.0
  http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/246/using-fastcgi-to-host-php-applications-on-iis-70/
• Remember to set the PHP registry settings if you extract PHP from the ZIP
  http://www.thewebhostinghero.com/tutorials/windows2008-iis7-fastcgi-php.html

• Solved my 503 Service Unavailable issues by making sure to set this registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\PHP\IniFilePath = C:\PHP

Other than that normal troubleshooting and a lot more than 5 minutes. I also grabbed a bunch of plugins and a bunch of different themes to try out but that’s for another post. I am going to try the NextGen gallery plugin since it does EXIF and RSS but I need to make sure it’ll support just feeding it a directory of images for bulk additions. Oh and finally I need to update all my bloody categories since they’re lame. Plus finally 100 other things that I’m sure I’m forgetting.

That’s all for now, see you via WordPress shortly.

So here’s how to disable the Beep, yes that’s actually what it’s called.

1. Press WIN+R
2. Type in devmgmt.msc and press Enter.
3. Click the View menu then click Show hidden devices.
4. Expand the Non-Plug and Play Drivers branch out.
5. Look for Beep and double-click the device to bring up the properties window.
6. Click on the Driver tab.
7. Under Current status, click Stop.
8. Under Startup type drop down switch the driver to Disabled.
9. Click OK

You’ll now have true silence from your desktop or laptop PC regardless of whatever crazy error messages pop up or however much spam gets delivered to your Inbox. Though this won’t help if you if you’ve got a bunch of 80mm fans running at 8000RPM still . But that’s for another post… Tip though, voltage converters for fans or fans with a high CFM and low dB rating work amazingly well as do rubber grommets for fans and HDD’s and not to mention that Dynamat isn’t half bad for noise absorption as well.

So click here to download it.
Note it is provided free without warranty or support.

I’ve been playing around with other ideas as well for new and modified gadgets so will post updates as they become available. Oh and while you’re downloading this 24 hour clock, also download the uTorrent Gadget… Works great, only thing missing it seems is the ability to set Labels for your torrents.

UPDATE: This gadget has also been tested against Windows 7 and there are no issues to report.

FlashBang is a very simple application. Upon installation it adds an icon to your standard toolbar in Internet Explorer. Clicking the icon then toggles Flash on and off. The application accomplishes this by simply adding or removing a registry key. This is pretty much the same thing the new Manage Add-ons does in Internet Explorer with SP2 except it requires that you refresh the page for the changes to take affect. The plus is that it doesn’t require more than two clicks so enabling and disabling Flash is quick and easy. When you disable Flash you’ll see an icon in the lower right hand corner of the window as seen here.

The system requirements are that you are running XP with Service Pack 2 OR Vista and have the .NET Framework 1.1 or later installed and of course that you’re using Internet Explorer. The application is provided on a free of charge and free to distribute basis. I will gladly accept donations of any amount via PayPal.

Download: FlashBang (updated 4/27/2007 12:01AM, please uninstall previous versions first)

If you have any questions or comments feel free.

UPDATE: Renamed from TorchFlash to FlashBang thanks to Dylan Greene.

Also, it looks like there is a minor bug in that if you have IE open while you’re installing FlashBang the icon won’t be activated in IE by default. Please be sure to close all IE windows before installing FlashBang. If you run into this little bug go to View then Toolbars then Customize, scroll the list and Add FlashBang to the toolbar.

If you’ve uninstalled FlashBang you can still Disable and Enable Flash using the Manage Add-ons feature of Internet Explorer found under the Tools menu. You may need to visit a site which normally has Flash to see Flash pop into the list. Really though, this is all the app actually does to block Flash ads. Sadly it means disabling all other Flash and not just the ads. Other options include a nice big hosts file, or also use FireFox which has some other ways of blocking ads through CSS and such.

UPDATE: I’m releasing a minor update to FlashBang which will fix any issues regarding installation on a machine with only the .NET Framework 2.0 installed. At this point if you have 1.1.4322, 2.0.50727.0, or later installed, FlashBang should work without any issues. To check which version of the .NET Framework that you have installed run the following at a command prompt ” reg query hklm\software\microsoft\asp.net “.

UPDATE: Now installing on Windows Vista! I had to update the Visual Studio installer to recognize Windows v6, aka Vista. FlashBang will now install on Vista without any known issues… well, other than the UAC stuff. I do NOT have $125 to get a cert to code sign these free apps since well, I’ve only had $5 donated thus far. Until I can get the app code signed anyone running UAC will be bugged while installing FlashBang, and bugged again when they go to toggle Flash on and off in IE. On the plus side, there is a check box in the Protected Mode prompt in IE to quit prompting about the app in the future. I suggest people check that box till I can get a cert and code sign my apps.

The application is provided on a free of charge and free to distribute basis. I will gladly accept donations of any amount via PayPal, and please note I do need the donations as both LightSwitch and FlashBang are both unsigned apps users of Vista will see unwarranted and nasty messages till I can afford a cert and get the apps code signed. So any funds that I receive will go towards the $125/yr that’s required to maintain the cert.

Download: LightSwitch (updated 4/27/2007 12:01AM, please uninstall previous versions first)

If you have any questions or comments feel free.

Note also, it looks like there is a minor bug in that if you have IE open while you’re installing FlashBang or LightSwitch the icon won’t be activated in IE by default. Please be sure to close all IE windows before installing either app. If you run into this little bug go to View then Toolbars then Customize, scroll the list and Add FlashBang / LightSwitch to the toolbar.

If you’ve uninstalled either of the apps you can still Disable and Enable Flash  and Silverlight using the Manage Add-ons feature of Internet Explorer found under the Tools menu. Really though, this is all the app actually does to block the content. Sadly it means disabling all other good content and not just the ads. Other options include a nice big hosts file, or also use FireFox which has some other ways of blocking ads through CSS and such.

The search ended up revealing this bit of review:

“Returns a King” brings in the first appearance of the powerful choral pieces Bates wrote for the film, though fans will note similarities to Elliott Goldenthal’s Titus score. The choir cues are impressive, sung in a phonetic language and epic on scale.

Ya think!? I mean “note similarities”? You mean other than the few extra notes and more up to date recording? ROFL. Please. Rather than think that Bates’ is copying Goldenthal’s score as well as using similar musical tactics as Zimmer, I’d rather think or hope I guess, that he’s paying homage to Titus and Gladiator. The former of which I happen to think was an underappreciated yet awesome film.

All that being said, see 300 in a theater, it was great.

UPDATE: Looks like Warner Bros. has released an official statement saying sorry for their knowledge that the music was taken from Elliot’s Titus score… “Warner Bros. Pictures acknowledges and regrets that a number of the music cues for the score of “300″ were derived from music composed by Academy Award winning composer Elliot Goldenthal for the motion picture “Titus.” Warner Bros. Pictures has great respect for Elliot, our longtime collaborator, and is pleased to have amicably resolved this matter.”

My honest advice though is that if your system is 2 years old you might as well just retire the system to the kids rig or spare PC and buy a new Dell or the like with Vista preloaded. You’ll have less to worry about with drivers and you’ll definitely have a better experience. Plus you should be able to buy an extra license for the home as well which is relatively cheap.

Finally, it really will be at least till the end of the year before Vista truly meets the XP quality levels, patches, real RTM drivers, super glue, super massive black holes, whatever it takes, but until the end of the year I probably won’t be surprised to hear quite a few horror stories and pain points. But you know if XP can really get up to snuff with SP2 there’s no reason Vista can’t either.

Enjoy your goods, and get ready for that “wow”…

I’m quite scared about how much electronic equipment we’ll have in that “central hub” alone. There’s already over 1.3TB worth of hard disk storage. Within the next 3 – 6 months it’ll probably hit 3TB, plus whatever Andy brings. That’s a heck of a lot of storage. Anyway, last night really wasn’t that bad. Moved the 9′ desk into the room where it’s nicely positioned in front of the fireplace, set up the Klipsch 5.1′s with the Creative DDTS-100′s with oh so gorgeous S/PDIF sound and stereo to 5.1 upmixing. At that point it hit 3AM and I hadn’t even finished setting up the Gateway 901x.

There’s been a lot of physical labour the past days here at work and I’m kind of not looking forward to doing all the cable management that is seriously required when one has this much equipment and doesn’t want things looking like a jungle. When I last did this, in San Jose, it took over 6 hours to complete. I get the feeling this will take longer, plus there is a certain little requirement of ambient lighting that one must take care to complete the set up. I think once I get done I’ll post the photos to my gallery along with Sean’s Media Center Flickr Pool.