Digitial Commercial Transition Video
This is pretty funny.
[via EngadgetHD]
Continue Reading November 6th, 2008
Posts filed under 'Electronics'
Squeezebox Boom
The two Squeezebox Booms that I ordered arrived a few days ago, and I have to say that they have lived up to my expectations.
When you open the box, the first thing you see is a velvet-like bag, containing the Squeezebox Boom, that has the Logitech logo on it, and an orange tag that states Sqeezebox. When you take the Squeezebox Boom out of the bag, I noticed that it has a solid feel to it.
The setup of this is exactly the same as the other Sqeezebox devices. Once configured for our wireless network, it automatically saw the install of SqueezeCenter running on our Windows Home Server, and was able to play the music.
The sound from the Squeezebox Boom is pretty good. I was suprized about how much bass comes out of this little device, at the default setting. There are some other features, that I am currently not taking advantage of.
- There is a line-in jack to connect to a different source
- A jack, that can be used for headphone, or to connect to a subwoofer.
There are two things that I would have loved to see different about this player.
- The screen size. The screen size is significantly smaller than that on the Squeezbox. So, you need to adjust the font size, and text will scroll a lot more.
- The AC/DC adapter. The power brick is huge. This is the largest power brick that I have, were the bulk of the size is at the plug. It is larger than the adapter for my laptop. On other devices, when dealing with a brick of this size, they seperate the brick from the outlet with a cord.
But I really do like this player. I am thinking that I will get another one. Since I was planning on putting these in the kids rooms, I may want one for my office.
Continue Reading September 7th, 2008
iPhone
So my wife and I joined the crowd and got iPhone 3Gs. Now that we have them, we are enjoying them, but it was a pretty big hassle to get them.
I got to the Apple Store pretty early in the morning, and there wasn’t a line for iPhones. An Apple Store employees got the two iPhones and started activating the first. The Symbian device lost connection to the service, but after the AT&T Wireless account was created, and after the phone number port started, but before the number was added to the account.
When he got another Symbian device, further attempts to continue the setup kept failing. It looks like Apple’s system to register iPhones will only work if the device actually does the registration, and will not work if the phone is configured via the phone with AT&T support. We were on hold with AT&T for over 2 hours, talking to 7 different people at AT&T.
Finally we got the phones registered. What we had to do was add the iPhones to the account with new phone numbers. Then with the AT&T support rep on the phone, the numbers were switched to the numbers that were were attempting to port.
I do appreciate the time that the Apple Store rep spent with settiing this up.
One other problem arose. The microphone on my wife’s iPhone didn’t work so I took it back to the Apple Store and they did replace it, without too much hassle.
Continue Reading September 1st, 2008
Squeezebox Boom
A while ago, I wrote about how I would love a Squeezebox that is integrated with speakers. This would make it a perfect solution for our kids rooms.
Squeezebox/Logitech just announced the Squeezbox Boom, which is exactly what I want. With this, we don’t have to deal with playing cds that skip because the kids have scratched them. I am definitely ordering one of these.
Continue Reading August 30th, 2008
Windows Media Center
I am thinking about installing Microsoft Windows Vista Media Center on our Mac mini, espcially since our Xbox 360 is doing everything that the Mac mini used to do. I am planning on keeping the Mac mini in the closet, near our Windows Home Server, and then I would view this content on the Xbox 360 through Windows Media Extender.
There are several things that I would be able to do with this setup:
- Install TVTonic to have access to “Internet TV” and video podcasts (The 2008 Olympics is available this way)
- Play ripped DVDs that are hosted on the Windows Home Server (1, 2)
When I get this set up, this would allow me to remove our 300 disk DVD changer, as I can select any of the movies that we have through a nicer UI.
Also, potentially this would allow us to get rid of our cable TV. This would save us a lot of money. I think that the vidoes available over TVTonic will be fine, when the kids want to watch something. If there are current TV shows that we want to watch, we can buy them through the Xbox Live Marketplace. Buying each episode individually would still be cheaper that paying for our monthly cable bill (especially since we wouldn’t have to rent the extra cable boxes)
Continue Reading August 23rd, 2008