Big Dan’s Site

Lots of little things have been keep me away from my blog lately. From it just being spring time and me wanting to be outside with da bird and the bees, hopefully some fine ladies too. ( ), to exercise, to work and the frustration of lack of work, and the chasing around of people to pay there bills boy can that be frustrating. Let me give you quick run down of what’s been going on.

I last posted about my new TV, it’s great I really like it, I think it’s better than my old one albeit a 9 inches smaller, it’s still better. On the HD TV front I’m really dissatisfied the cable companies are marketing HD TV like it’s the holy grail meanwhile out of the 20 or so HDTV channels I get, I’m lucky if half of them show HD shows all the time, it’s like a bait and switch, IMHO…Anyway, I’ve got my RCA switch hooked up along with my ‘old school’ (PS 2, Game Cube, Xbox [original] ) game consoles they all look 110% better on this TV especially with the games that support 16:9 format. Ya know it’s funny I consider myself somewhat of a geek although I’m not much of a gamer, I think if I’ve played all my consoles combined for more than 6 hours in the last year that would be a lot. Well last year was a turbulent year for me BUT I only switch on my PS2 or xBox to watch a DVD, I only actually play when I’m bored out of my mind, Grand Theft Auto 3 (PS2) and the Sonic Mega Collection (GC) are my favorite games to kill an evening with hence my hesitance to upgrade. If I were to upgrade, I’d buy the PS 3 first as Playstation has always been *the* game console for me but if GTA 3 and Sonic Mega Collection, which is all the old sonic games from Sega rolled into one game cube game CD do it for me, why should I drop $400 on the PS 3?

Other than that I had my Mini Mac hooked to the new TV via it’s VGA (dated computer monitor) input it was nice for while but I decided I wasn’t using mini enough due to it being on the TV stand rather than my desk, so I moved it back over to my desk and switching between the Mini and my workhorse desktop via one monitor. I really like OS X’s presentation style and eye candy BUT OS X, contrary to what the I’m a Mac ads would have you believe isn’t without it’s drawbacks and need of maintenance just like any other OS, don’t be tricked into buying a computer with the Apple upcharge thinking it just works, it doesn’t. However I could use and adapt to OS X very easy if I had a more powerful Mac computer, I’m just not prepared to pay the apple tax for an iMac. For now my Mini is used primarily as my morning/before bed email/feeds/instant messenger checker and whenever I have any ‘heavy’ work to do I switch to my Windows desktop.

What else? Ubuntu 9.04 aka Jaunty Jackalope was released last month I upgraded both my desktop and laptop to it then was shocked!! to see that Intel graphics cards weren’t supported under the new kernel without the driver desktop effects don’t work.  I was shocked only because the community makes such big thing about proprietary, closed source drivers and Intel gave them them the whole source and they still couldn’t make it work. So, I boycotted Ubuntu for about a month but realized how silly it was to discount a whole operating system just because one thing doesn’t work and this weekend I reinstalled Ubuntu on both my desktop and laptop. So far, so good. I’m actually typing this in Ubuntu right now. Although Firefox is abysmally slow under Ubuntu compared to Windows or the Mac. I don’t get it and cannot understand why. It seems other people have this issue and no one has figured it out yet. Firefox still ’ships’ with the Great Britain English dictionary instead of giving the American users their own for some reason too, this makes build in spell checking a minefield of sorts.

Also on the OS front, Windows 7 RC 1 (release candidate) was release at the begining on of May. It’s awesome it’s really what Vista should have been. It’s so good that I’ve wiped Vista off both my Window’s machines and am using W7 RC 1 and Ubuntu (just this weekend) exclusively. Me running a non-stable version as a production machine because I like it so much over it’s predecessor is a major win for MS

Other than that I’ve upgraded to a premium dropbox account after playing with the free (2 GB) account for about a year. For $10 a month I get 50 GB of space which is more than enough for me. I’ve really fell head of heals for Dropbox. It’s not really a back up tool than it is a sync tool. Basically if you have two computers, you put files in your dropbox on one computer and when you turn on your other computer the file automatically updates. Or if you have the other computer on at the same time, it updates as fast as you can upload the file then have the other computer download it. It’s just a great tool, I have nothing bad to say about it. It also supports verisoning which for you non-geek types is where when you change a file the old file is still saved for restoration. It’s saved my kiester a couple of times, by having the auto-save feature of a text editor wipe out my TODO.txt file. one trip to dropbox’s website and the old file (version) is swapped out for the new one. A vast majority of my files are now stored in my dropbox. With dropbox being cross platform whenever I load a new OS, I just install dropbox and let all my files download for a couple of hours.. Presto most of my files are all accessible from the new OS.

Outside of the the tech front and geek stuff:

I’ve been dieting and exercising like crazy since the nice weather got here. I started off walking about a half mile a day with my long Johns on, in the begining of April and I could barely do that, now I’m up to 2.6 miles a day with some resting on the walk, a lot less resting than when I started. I push myself a little further every week, I’m hoping by July to be up to 5 miles a day. That’s probably what’s taken me away from blogging the most; I have to leave by 5p or else I’ll be walking in the dark on the way back and with the bears I just cannot do that. By the time I get home I’m wiped and really only have the energy to force myself to do what I have to.

On the eating front, I’ve drastically reduced my intake. There is still some stuff to cut like how much coffee I drink and late night snacks BUT overall I’m doing very well.

My birthday was two weeks ago. I was wished Happy Birthday many times over via email, forums, facebook, myspace, etc that always brings a smile to my face, so if you wished me a happy birthday and didn’t get a personal thank you, I’m sorry consider this your thank you.

Mother’s Day was nice, I was a little low on funds so it wound up just being flowers and a cake but we still had a nice time. My mom-a-lah is a great woman and treats me better than any man could ask for.. Why do we celebrate her gifts to us only 1 day a year?

Other than that the normally working on issues behind the scenes of my DJ forum and chasing after people for bills they owe me has been the norm lately. I realize this has been a long post covering several topics hopefully you stuck with me. As always, thanks for reading.

Lots of little things have been keep me away from my blog lately. From it just being spring time and me wanting to be outside with da bird and the bees, hopefully some fine ladies too. ( ), to exercise, to work and the frustration of lack of work, and the chasing around of people to pay there bills boy can that be frustrating. Let me give you quick run down of what’s been going on.

I last posted about my new TV, it’s great I really like it, I think it’s better than my old one albeit a 9 inches smaller, it’s still better. On the HD TV front I’m really dissatisfied the cable companies are marketing HD TV like it’s the holy grail meanwhile out of the 20 or so HDTV channels I get, I’m lucky if half of them show HD shows all the time, it’s like a bait and switch, IMHO…Anyway, I’ve got my RCA switch hooked up along with my ‘old school’ (PS 2, Game Cube, Xbox [original] ) game consoles they all look 110% better on this TV especially with the games that support 16:9 format. Ya know it’s funny I consider myself somewhat of a geek although I’m not much of a gamer, I think if I’ve played all my consoles combined for more than 6 hours in the last year that would be a lot. Well last year was a turbulent year for me BUT I only switch on my PS2 or xBox to watch a DVD, I only actually play when I’m bored out of my mind, Grand Theft Auto 3 (PS2) and the Sonic Mega Collection (GC) are my favorite games to kill an evening with hence my hesitance to upgrade. If I were to upgrade, I’d buy the PS 3 first as Playstation has always been *the* game console for me but if GTA 3 and Sonic Mega Collection, which is all the old sonic games from Sega rolled into one game cube game CD do it for me, why should I drop $400 on the PS 3?

Other than that I had my Mini Mac hooked to the new TV via it’s VGA (dated computer monitor) input it was nice for while but I decided I wasn’t using mini enough due to it being on the TV stand rather than my desk, so I moved it back over to my desk and switching between the Mini and my workhorse desktop via one monitor. I really like OS X’s presentation style and eye candy BUT OS X, contrary to what the I’m a Mac ads would have you believe isn’t without it’s drawbacks and need of maintenance just like any other OS, don’t be tricked into buying a computer with the Apple upcharge thinking it just works, it doesn’t. However I could use and adapt to OS X very easy if I had a more powerful Mac computer, I’m just not prepared to pay the apple tax for an iMac. For now my Mini is used primarily as my morning/before bed email/feeds/instant messenger checker and whenever I have any ‘heavy’ work to do I switch to my Windows desktop.

What else? Ubuntu 9.04 aka Jaunty Jackalope was released last month I upgraded both my desktop and laptop to it then was shocked!! to see that Intel graphics cards weren’t supported under the new kernel without the driver desktop effects don’t work.  I was shocked only because the community makes such big thing about proprietary, closed source drivers and Intel gave them them the whole source and they still couldn’t make it work. So, I boycotted Ubuntu for about a month but realized how silly it was to discount a whole operating system just because one thing doesn’t work and this weekend I reinstalled Ubuntu on both my desktop and laptop. So far, so good. I’m actually typing this in Ubuntu right now. Although Firefox is abysmally slow under Ubuntu compared to Windows or the Mac. I don’t get it and cannot understand why. It seems other people have this issue and no one has figured it out yet. Firefox still ’ships’ with the Great Britain English dictionary instead of giving the American users their own for some reason too, this makes build in spell checking a minefield of sorts.

Also on the OS front, Windows 7 RC 1 (release candidate) was release at the begining on of May. It’s awesome it’s really what Vista should have been. It’s so good that I’ve wiped Vista off both my Window’s machines and am using W7 RC 1 and Ubuntu (just this weekend) exclusively. Me running a non-stable version as a production machine because I like it so much over it’s predecessor is a major win for MS

Other than that I’ve upgraded to a premium dropbox account after playing with the free (2 GB) account for about a year. For $10 a month I get 50 GB of space which is more than enough for me. I’ve really fell head of heals for Dropbox. It’s not really a back up tool than it is a sync tool. Basically if you have two computers, you put files in your dropbox on one computer and when you turn on your other computer the file automatically updates. Or if you have the other computer on at the same time, it updates as fast as you can upload the file then have the other computer download it. It’s just a great tool, I have nothing bad to say about it. It also supports verisoning which for you non-geek types is where when you change a file the old file is still saved for restoration. It’s saved my kiester a couple of times, by having the auto-save feature of a text editor wipe out my TODO.txt file. one trip to dropbox’s website and the old file (version) is swapped out for the new one. A vast majority of my files are now stored in my dropbox. With dropbox being cross platform whenever I load a new OS, I just install dropbox and let all my files download for a couple of hours.. Presto most of my files are all accessible from the new OS.

Outside of the the tech front and geek stuff:

I’ve been dieting and exercising like crazy since the nice weather got here. I started off walking about a half mile a day with my long Johns on, in the begining of April and I could barely do that, now I’m up to 2.6 miles a day with some resting on the walk, a lot less resting than when I started. I push myself a little further every week, I’m hoping by July to be up to 5 miles a day. That’s probably what’s taken me away from blogging the most; I have to leave by 5p or else I’ll be walking in the dark on the way back and with the bears I just cannot do that. By the time I get home I’m wiped and really only have the energy to force myself to do what I have to.

On the eating front, I’ve drastically reduced my intake. There is still some stuff to cut like how much coffee I drink and late night snacks BUT overall I’m doing very well.

My birthday was two weeks ago. I was wished Happy Birthday many times over via email, forums, facebook, myspace, etc that always brings a smile to my face, so if you wished me a happy birthday and didn’t get a personal thank you, I’m sorry consider this your thank you.

Mother’s Day was nice, I was a little low on funds so it wound up just being flowers and a cake but we still had a nice time. My mom-a-lah is a great woman and treats me better than any man could ask for.. Why do we celebrate her gifts to us only 1 day a year?

Other than that the normally working on issues behind the scenes of my DJ forum and chasing after people for bills they owe me has been the norm lately. I realize this has been a long post covering several topics hopefully you stuck with me. As always, thanks for reading.

TWC Hit's a wall

The cable guy came out today, showed up with only one cable box, the box for my sisters room. I haggled with him a bit explaining that we called 3 times to confirm the order. First time to change the appointment time, second time to change the order to a new room install plus a DVR swap for an HD-DVR, the operator the second time sounded flighty so we called back to confirm the order. All was well, supposedly until the guy showed up.

I kind of felt bad for the guy, you could see he was tired and frustrated by yet another screw up at the central office but he was nice enough to track down another cable installer in the area and try to get a box for me. It turns out he got the same DVR I already have not the HD-DVR. Not his fault the boxes look identical. So, I didn’t get my the HDTV package in time for my birthday. All in all it’s no big deal but I’m still not happy with Time Warner Cable.

While the tech was here I explained that I’m not receiving a few channels I should be receiving, this is strange because just a few months ago we had a tech out here and he ran us a new drop from the pole. He plugged my cable into his tester and seen that I’m getting a very weak signal but he couldn’t fix it as he’s just a contractor for installs.

So, we call the cable company and gripe about not getting the box plus we need our line fixed, probably all we need is an in line amplifier, I could go buy one and install it however that’s not my job. The rep on the phone decides he wants to charge us another service charge for them to come out and install the box. This makes no sense as it was the companies fault we didn’t get the right box in the first place. Long story short,  we talk to a supervisor and get that straightened out. Now, Monday we got a guy coming to fix the line and Wednesday we have someone coming to install the correct box. This makes no sense and we wonder why companies are going bankrupt? They waste resources. I know for a fact that the tech to fix the line comes out of the office in Liberty (45 mins away) where I can go pick up the HD-DVR myself, why cannot he grab that box? Installing it is nothing, plug in a few plugs and you’re done. I don’t get it.

Then I asked about digital phone, it’s cheaper than our landline through the telco and I’ve been interested it I was all set to order it until they told me it was a $22 activation charge. WTF? TWC charges $15/mo more than Vonage and other VIOP providers, why are they charging me an “activation charge? Sounds like a money grab, so I declined to get the digital phone service.

Now next week I have to be home two days for the cable company that’s just plain assine.

This afternoon I got an early birthday gift, a new TV!! I’m not much of a TV watcher, I just like to have it on when I’m falling asleep and for the music choice channels when I’m working on the computer. Long story short Mom’s TV crapped out last summer so I gave her my old 27″ because mom loves her TV. I took my sister’s 19″ TV that she never watches. As sisters are and they like to be a pain in the ass, she aggravates mom to watch what she wants on the living room TV, so earlier this week I told her to take her TV back and have the cable guy come and install cable in her room. We called the cable company to schedule an installer to come out on Saturday to take my DVR back and give my PITA sister a regular cable box.

Now, For the past month or so I’ve been playing with both Boxee and Hulu. Boxee is a program that lets you stream all kinds of internet video direct to your computer, it winds up that your computer acts like a TV with this program running. Hulu is a website that lets you stream many popular shows over the internet on to you computer. I figure since I already have a 22″ computer monitor I can just use that to watch TV when I want to via Hulu and Boxee.

On Wednesday I broke apart my computer desk figuring I can put both my computer in my entertainment center where the TV used to be, and use it as both a computer station and TV spot. Turns out the screen was to far away for me to use it for computer work. I wound up moving the computers back onto my computer tables and leaving it as is.

Big Dan's new TV

This afternoon I woke up, mom had gone shopping she said I don’t know if I can wait until Sunday (my birthday) to give you your gift. So, I said well it’s only a couple of days away and I really cannot wait anyhow.. I love gifts. She brought it out, it’s a new TV, I kind of had an idea but didn’t want to spoil it. I wound up with an 18.5″ Sanyo HD TV. It’s a really neat little TV it’s got all kinds of inputs and outputs, more than I’ll ever use. I was estacic sure the screen is a little small but for as much as I use it, it’s perfect.

Since I got a new TV I figured I should hook up my surround sound, so I took a little trip to Wally-World, bought speaker wire, a VGA cable and an audio cable. This TV has a VGA input, you know what I’m doing with that right? Hooking up my Mac Mini to it. I got home, hooked up surround sound, all my video games (which I rarely play), and put the Mac Mini in over on the TV stand.

So far so good, the Mac mini seems not to support this TV’s resolution but it’s close enough. Now I can use the Mini to watch movies, and stream internet content right to my TV. Tomorrow I’ve got the cable guy coming with a new HD DVR. I don’t hold much hope for that, my friend has one and it’s interface sucks but we’ll see how it works out.