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Technology & Gadgets

Roku M500 review

This review is a little late coming, but here goes. I am on my third (yes) M500 after replacing two previous ones. The Roku M500 is a streaming audio box that allows you to stream internet radio, music from a NAS box, computer, iTunes, etc. It comes with a nice remote and it has a built-in display that’s bright and displays the time while off (via NTP update). I use (or used) the Roku because AM and FM reception are sketchy up here in the mountains, and also I like to listen to radio from Canada (CBC, etc.) from time to time. Most of the time I do not use it because I use my new Yamaha RX-V2700 to stream audio.

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Technology & Gadgets

Xbox Media Center

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Kind of kicking myself for not having done this early, but I soft-modded my Xbox (using MechAssault), and installed the XBMC 2.0.0 package this weekend. With a 0.0 build, it’s a bit buggy, but for the mere cost of an Action Replay 8MB memory card and a $2.29 used copy of MechAssault from Gamespot (not to mention about 3 hours to get it working…. my bad) I have a super-powerful media center PC, which can play movies PROPERLY off my NAS box, Youtubs, whatever. The interface is slick and fast, and supports FF and RW at various speeds, unlike my DSM-520.

Only 1 downside, the thing is LOUD when on (and cannot be turned on or off with the remote).

With some smart shopping on eBay, you could get this High Definition platform up and working for under
$150 + $30+$3 = $183, a bargain compared to the competition and the power of this platform.

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Technology & Gadgets

Speedy internet

Here’s what I’m getting out of Qwest these days for $40/month:

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It’s sweet. I suppose technically I’m paying for 7 Mbps down 1.5 Mbit/s up, but I may have been uploading a frame to my timelapse (every minute, two cameras) during this test.

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Technology & Gadgets

Hard drive abuse….

I have no connection to any of these videos, stumbled upon them at YouTube:

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Technology & Gadgets

Logitech Harmony 890 review

This is an awesome remote with a huge HAF and WAF (Husband Acceptance Factor and Wife Acceptance Factor). I’m really please with it after using it for a week. I really don’t have any remotes hanging around anymore, and not have to point the remote at the device is huge, especially with multi-device macros and sequences. Looking at my pros and cons, it looks like I don’t like it, but it really is one of the best recent gadgets I’ve bought!

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Technology & Gadgets

Ditching the E61

Here’s why I ordered myself a BlackBerry 8707v from eBay (3G, quad GSM) and am ditching the E61.

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Technology & Gadgets

Finally, PlayFair and iTunes 7.xx cracked again

My old favorite, iOpener, stopped working as of iTunes 6. With all the hubbub about the cracks, someone actually put a decent user interface it, called MyFairTunes6 . It’s really slow, and doesn’t work as well as iOpener, but it does work to convert .m4p’s to .m4a’s.

Still needs work:

  1. Better than real time conversion like iOpener would be nice.
  2. Conversion to same compression ratio (lossiness) would be nice.
  3. Telling iTunes where to find the new cut would be nice. 
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Technology & Gadgets

Air chair

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Technology & Gadgets

Top 10 BitTorrent sites

Blogged here .

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Technology & Gadgets

Ordered Canon Rebel XTi

As I suspected, Canon is bringing its 10 Megapixel CMOS sensor to the Digital Rebel line . I preordered mine from Amazon .

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Despite the many rebates Canon has been offering in the past couple of months (down to $500 for the Rebel XT body-only), I could not bring myself to buy an SLR to move up from 7.1 Megapixels (SD550) to 8 Megapixels, and I didn’t want the size of the 5D or its price.

This is ideal!