September 14, 2005

Media Center PC

After several years of fooling around with TV to PC and such, I have finally gotten a decent system up and running, that Stephanie and the kids can use. Some of the features I think that they actually prefer now.

I am running Homeseer 2.0 in the background. It is very rare to interacte with it now, except using the web interface. I have it controlling a shitload of X-10 devices, one Z-wave lamp interface, which I cannot decide if I like or not. I originally had the Z-Wave beginners kit, or something like that. Came with a Z-Wave handheld controller, a USB interface, and two lamp modules. One of the lamp modules went belly up after about a month and has been sitting in a drawer ever since. The Handheld controller works, and I have used it to program the devices, but as a remote it blows chunks. It is nowhere even close to being intuitive, hard to use, and a general pain in the ass. As far as the USB controller and remaining lamp module, they work, but there is an issue with either Homeseer 2.0, or the interface is going bad, because I have to restart Homeseer sometimes three or four times a day because it loses communication with the controller. All in all, I will probably ditch Z-Wave in the very near future. I have heard lots of good things about it, but in my experience it sucks. If the shit doesn’t work out of the box for a dumbass, then noone will buy it or take it seriously down the road.
I use the ADI Ocelot as my X-10 controller, as well as (less often) IR control. The Ocelot kicks ass. I have had it for a year or two, and have never had a problem with it. No software for me to bungle up (except for the rare cases when I use CMAX to program events in it) and it works great with HS. I am using a 3rd party plugin for it, rather than the stock Ocelot plugin.
I also have a Temp05 temperature interface. I have about 15 temperature sensors around the house, inside and out, as well as a humidity sensor. I have most of them disconnected pending a rewiring project that I have not gotten around to yet.
I have two RF sensors, the MR-26a, and the W800RF for my remote control. Works very well, and I can use Homeseer with a girder interface to translate commands to the rest of my programs.

For remotes, I have two. I would like to go down to only one, but have not had the time to fool with the needed configuration for that. The main one is the Snapstream Firefly. I use it to control just about EVERYTHING on the HTPC. Unfortunately it is strictly RF, so I have to use my programmable IR remote for everything else.

On the front end, I am using Meedio as my main interface. I really like the menuing system, and it is very extensible. I have a rudimentary plugin that uses Homeseer and Girder to control my lighting from Meedio, although my remote is faster and I normally use that. It uses libraries to catalogue all of my music, movies and pictures, in addition to information downloaded from the web. I am able to use it as a My Pictures slideshow (with music playing if I want it). DVD rips, in addition to movies record with my PVR software are also available. I don’t use the internal music software, as there is NO support for music downloaded from iTunes, and not likely to be any time in the near future. I do use a plugin the runs winamp in the background, which works great. Near seamless, I never see winamp.

As far as TV, I own Meedio Pro, which includes a PVR interface, but support for TV tuner cards sucks, and overall, it is very inferior to Snapstreams product, BeyondTV. I have three TV tuners, one is USB, the other two PCI cards. One of the PCI cards is hooked to my cable box, the other two, just to regular cable. BeyondTV also offers me the capability to use a serial cable from my cable box to the PC, so it changes the channels when I need it to. In the past I used girder and the Oceleot, and if I ever have my cable box upgraded, will probably end up doing that again, but it is much slower than the serial hookup. The PVR is great. I can record two shows siultaneously while watching a 3rd. I schedule it to record stuff that I really want to watch, very rarely do I watch live TV anymore. When I do watch it live, I am able to pause, rewind, set it to record even though I am in the middle of the show. The Beta version that I was running earlier this summer also offers FM tuner support, I am very much looking forward to that being added back in.

In comparison to alot of systems that I have seen pictures of and described, I have a pretty damn basic system, but it works great for me. I would hate to have to go back to regular TV. I have about 30 gigs of music that I recorded from my CDs, LPs and Cassettes. Much better than taking up all of that damn room. I do still get the occasional CD, but I prefer to use iTunes, as it is cheaper, and I don’t even have to leave the house for it.

Pledge of Allegiance Unconstitutional?

Still not sure what to make of this ruling. It is bound to go back before the supreme court at some point. It is not actually the entire pledge, but the phrase “under god” that is the center of the contreversy. If I recally correctly, that phrase was not even in the Pledge of Allegiance until the anti-communist days of the 1950’s. I can see both sides of the argument, and really don’t give a shit either way, but there is always going to be someone who can find ANYTHING that offends them.
CNN.com – Judge?declares Pledge?unconstitutional – Sep 14, 2005

Dreams

I have noticed the last few days that various people all seem to be writing about their dreams. I am sure that I dream, everyone does, but it is extremely rare that I remember having dreamed. I sleep like the dead. When Hurricane Opal roared through West Georgia-Easter Alabama back in the 90’s, I slept through the shit. The only reason I knew that it was happening was that one of my bosses called me and told me to get my ass to work :>. Hell, we even had a HUGE oak tree come down about 15-20 feet from the bedroom window.
Once I slept through a tornado that ripped up trees and various items right by the house. I guess oblivion does = happiness.

Sleeping in

I am normally up by 4:30 or 5:00am every day. On my days off I get up between 5 and 6. Damn, I knew it had been a long week. I didn’t crawl out of bed until 9am this morning. Stephanie said the kids woke me up, but I damn sure don’t remember it. Kind of nice to do that once in awhile. I have puttered around a bit the last hour. Watered my flowers and vegetables, had a couple of cups of coffee. Had to add a couple of inches of water to the pond, since it has been so hot this week.
It’s weird. I have had four koi die this week. Not real sure what to make of it. They were ones that I got from the other pond, but they have been fine where they are for a couple of months. Hopefully nothing is wrong with the pond. The rest of the fish seem ok though. It may be that I am just not feeding them enough. I never fed the goldfish, except for every great once in awhile.