Lately, the INOi MH720 that we use in our living room to watch movies has been showing its age, having trouble with new audio/video codecs and subtitle formats. I had been considering getting a new media player, but after looking into, figured it might be a better deal to get a nettop to use as a media center and as an additional family computer.

I finally settled on the AspireRevo 3610 and got lucky picking up the last one from our local Fry’s. It came equipped with 2GB RAM (enough for basic needs), 160GB hard drive (no big deal since using externals for storage) and an NVIDIA ION chip for graphics (hardware acceleration for HD video), along with an HDMI port out for both audio and video (easy HD connectivity to home theater).

The nettop came installed with Windows 7, which has and once again turned out to be a good upgrade. At first the network folder sharing was throwing me off because I was used to the previous Windows method. But after I got the hang of using HomeGroup [how-to geek], everything came together nicely. No more long USB cable running along the floor to transfer shows

For the media player application, Boxee came out with their latest beta, which does a nifty job of integrating local and web content to make a more complete browsing and watching experience. Basically, Boxee scans local folders and then displays the multimedia files with additional descriptions from the web, along with web-based episodes. It can even grab subtitles directly from opensubtitles for both movies and TV shows. Also, to keep from drowning in kids’ cartoons, I created a separate Boxee account to manage their content.

As for the remote control, the nettop came with a wireless mouse and keyboard, but that’s not very user-friendly for regular media use. I wanted to stick with our trusty universal remote URC-200 which has worked fine all these years, even with the different component upgrades. Unfortunately, the nettop didn’t come with an IR port. So I got a cheap media center remote with an IR receiver included. I used the media center remote to program my universal remote with the basic functions. Then, I found a program called Intelliremote which allowed me to control multiple applications with customized functions for each.

On a side note, I got to try out AmazonBasics when I ordered an HDMI cable. It was a good deal, came quick with Prime, and nice not having to wrangle with clamshell plastic packaging.

Of course, not everything is perfect particularly when on the “bleeding edge”, so here is my list of issues with the current setup:

• Boxee’s latest version does not have the ability to manually add, correct or update media files and descriptions.
• There’s some occasional strange resolution behavior when turning on the HDTV with Boxee already running in background.
• Annoying ads on web episodes, but nothing to be done about that.
• Flickr App on Boxee has been running slow, hopefully just a beta glitch.
• BBC App limited by geo-location (what’s with cold-war era borders).
• Easier customization of Boxee Homepage.
• Latest Boxee beta broke support for embedded subtitles (i.e. anime not working)
• Stronger parental controls on Boxee to limit content access.
• The current remote setup has limited mouse and text input ability.
• Windows 7 Homegroup folder sharing not backwards compatible with previous Windows versions.

Related posts:

1. Xbox 360 ‘Media Center’
2. Going HDMI
3. Product Review: Canon HG10

In the earlier part of December, I went on another business trip to Asia. This time together with my dad. It was a meeting-packed couple of weeks, with a few Christmas parties, and even one wedding banquet. Suffice it to say, there was plenty of eating going around. As usual, most of the pictures that I grabbed with my phone were of tasty food items.

Keeping with my latest travel posts, here are some things I learned this time around:

• If your suite doesn’t have a wall/door partition, it doesn’t really make a difference (knew this already, just a reality reminder).
• Extra large binder clips work great to close curtains tight to avoid annoying light distractions (particularly when overcoming jetlag).
• Charismatic Methodist churches do exist, and yes, they do speak in tongues.
• When a morning meeting is scheduled, confirm if food is involved, otherwise, you WILL end up being a hobbit and eating two breakfasts.
• When shopping for clothes in Asia, try EVERYTHING on. You may be of Asian descent, but it doesn’t mean anything will fit like it is supposed to.
• Earthquakes in Taiwan are common. What’s annoying is when they disrupt the HSR schedule and you are stuck in another city away from your hotel room and luggage.
• I involuntarily (see previous point) confirmed that I still get violently dizzy when riding on Taiwan’s bus commuters. Next time, can we just get a room for the night.
• I may be wimpy, but Yong Kang’s beef noodles are too greasy and spicy for my taste.

Related posts:

1. Asia Business Trip 0909
2. My First Business Trip – Day 1
3. Asia Trip 0703 – Day 1

In response to recent accusations that I do not like any romantic movies, here is a list of ones I do like and the “reasons” why (in no particular order):

• Heat
  Both Al Pacino AND Robert DeNiro with love interests!
• Shrek
  He may be an ogre, but he still has feelings.
• Bicentennial Man
  So what if he’s a robot, he has feelings too.
• WALL-E
  He’s a robot too, is there a theme coming through here?
• The Princess Bride
  Fred Savage was right, they could have skipped some of the  “mushy, kissing parts”.
• Sabrina
  Who doesn’t like Audrey Hepburn.
• Atonement
  This may be the only true romance in the list, but I think it’s a good one.
• Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
  Kings and warriors have love interests too.
• The Story of Us
  Must have been the soundtrack by Eric Clapton.
• So I Married an Axe Murderer
  Sure, it’s a comedy, but how many serious movies do you see Mike Meyers in.

No related posts.

After complaining for over a year about IX Web Hosting, I finally got off my butt and did something about it. Over the course of a couple of months, I have consolidated most of my domains over to GoDaddy and have transferred all my blogs over to DreamHost. I am hoping that this serves as a more reliable and stable setup than IX, which had constant security and stability problems.

Of course, all these changes are in the background, so if it worked (unlike last time), you guys shouldn’t notice anything except hopefully faster load times and perhaps less downtime.

Here’s a list of reminder notes for the next time:

• One-click Installs are cool, except when they forget to tell you that they use customized database prefixes which don’t match previously backed-up database pointers.
• Mirrored domain pointers and temporary database hostnames are helpful in transition but have to remember to clean them up and not leave any broken “links” once you go live.
• Webshell on IX turned out to be a blessing, saved time on backing up the complete blog directories.
• Apps used: Filezilla for FTP and PSPad for code editing.

Related posts:

1. Philomyth.us moved (and nobody noticed)

I have had my Thinkpad T61 for over 2 years, and for the first year Windows Vista worked just fine. But in the last few months, I have been having annoying performance freezes. At first, I thought it was the battery going bad, then I tried changing the hard drive (thanks, Chik) which worked great for a while but then it started to hang again.

With all the hype about Windows 7, I was looking forward to making the switch. After running for a week now, everything is working great, even with the “unclean” install (more on that below). Almost all my applications installed without any problems, there were only a few that had to be run in “Compatibility” mode.

Here are some some lessons learned:

• “Clean Install” in Windows 7 does not include formatting the old partition [technet]. This was a bit of a shock when I found my original TEMP directory intact and after rooting around a bit found a folder called WINDOWS.OLD that kept the data from the previous install. Next time, choose “Custom Installation” and re-create the drive partition [engadget].
• Using Google Docs as an online notepad works great when re-installing systems. I could pull-up my documentation from any system without having to look for the actual file on disk. Gotta love the cloud.
• With more apps and files based off the web, there is less junk to install and backup/restore on a new system.
• Sometimes, Microsoft can still make good software .

And a list of leftovers:

• Videolan has a known driver bug in Windows 7 which causes pixelation (not limited to 64 bit installs). [Update 11/13/2009: VideoLan came out with fix in 1.0.3]
• Not sure if this is because of my “unclean install”, but folders and drives that I have renamed will revert after a restart. [Update 11/13/2009: I suspect this was SongBird over-aggressively managing external drive names and folders]
• Some programs with the option to launch at startup have to be manually added to the STARTUP folder.
• Old screensavers don’t seem to work properly.

Related posts:

1. Returning to the “Dark Side”
2. Upgrading to Firefox 3

This latest business trip lasted 12 days and was a little different from past trips. Instead of conducting meetings in multiple cities in each country, we had centralized training camps in Malaysia and Taiwan. The result was that I did not have to spend as much time traveling from city to city and still got to meet with our managers and top sales people from each country.

Here are some things I learned:

• Take a picture of your hotel room number, because you WILL forget after a day of meetings.
• Laksa in Malaysia is not the same as in Singapore.
• Google Maps, especially Street View, is your friend. I saved so much time by looking up locations ahead of time and not having to wander around.
• Meeting up with friends (outside of work) keeps me grounded and accountable.
• Sulfur hot springs smell like durian, and now I know I don’t care for either.
• Traditional Taiwanese breakfast places are disappearing from Taipei Downtown.
• Google Translate can’t help you translate offline documents (at least not yet), particularly restaurant menus and subway maps.
• Next time I go to Yangmingshan, I bring a bike! Whether it’s paved or dirt, it’s bound to be a good ride all the way down.
• Ximending is worth checking out, especially for hard-to-find Japanese mecha models.
• New favorite dessert place, MeetFresh, tasty old-style shaved ice.
• Jetlag is more than just the physiological adjustment, there’s also the social, emotional and psychological.

Related posts:

1. Asia Trip 0703 – Day 5
2. Asia Trip 0703 – Days 8-11
3. Asia.0710 – Day 5

Recently, I have found myself using origami to give my mind a break from whatever it is that I am working on. I am able to focus on the physical task of folding the lines carefully and coming up with an immediate result.

To find some origami tutorials (without buying books), I looked to the web and found some good sites including a whole category under instructables. I have gotten to the point of collecting designs faster than I can make them, so I just post them all to del.icio.us for later reference.

The neat thing is that the girls have gotten into origami after Rebecca’s mom taught them how to make some different objects, like a house, a piano and a turtle. This could turn into a great family activity that we can do together on a rainy day (not that we get very many of those in SoCal). We could even make a project of “a thousand origami cranes”!

Related posts:

1. Del.icio.us Updated
2. Del.icio.us
3. I’m back.

Time for another design update for the ol’ blog. It’s been almost 2 years since the last makeover, which along with less frequent blog posts is a likely result of increased facebook / twitter usage.

Wordpress, the back-end to this site, has made some significant progress and is now at version 2.8.x. The developers and community have done a great job making it more user-friendly in posting, managing and maintaining. Version updates are now one-click as well as plugin installs and updates. No more fiddling around with zip files and FTP.

For this latest re-design, I went with a theme called Carrington that I’ve been keeping an eye on and wanting to learn more about. It is developed as a complete CMS theme framework, which is way beyond what I need, but interesting to look into (at least for me).

The layout of the front page is pretty similar to the previous version. The biggest change is moving the moblog pics to the top bar. I have also jazzed up the Archives page to make it more visual.

There are more changes to the secondary pages due to the new theme, such as Tag, Category and Date Archive pages, which can be accessed in the sidebar. And partly with the new theme, I have made some of the page elements context sensitive depending on what type of pages you are on. For example, when you are on a post page, you can see a list of Related Posts in the sidebar, along with the clutter of front page badges hidden.

So far, this re-design looks to be pretty functional and stable. As always, if you see something that isn’t working, please let me know.

P.S. I meant to publish this post last week, but I got distracted trying to do some integration of posts and comments with Facebook, but the coding is just not quite there yet as a workable solution.

Related posts:

1. Blog Makeover
2. Social Networking Boundaries
3. Spring Cleaning

As in everything that the internet touches, both good and bad, it makes the “worlds colliding”  feeling accelerate quickly into the unmanageable. I think that whatever we put on the internet is inherently public, but with so much content out there it used to be virtually trivial. However, with the increasing ubiquity of social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter, connecting web content to real life identities has become a bit too obvious.

Facebook does a decent job of controlling the visibility of personal content. But twitter by design does not. So in an effort to establish my social networking boundaries, I have made the first step of protecting my twitter updates. This has the primary effect of privatizing my tweets (through which I have started to announce different blog posts) so that I am not publicly visible on twitter, and thus shutting it down as a public conduit to my web content.

However, Facebook is not off the hook. After having lived on Facebook for a couple of years now, I am reviewing how I want to use it in managing my personal connections. I am moving towards being more conservative with the people that I connect with through Facebook. I also like the idea of keeping work connections on a separate site like LinkedIn, but it does take extra effort, which may be worthwhile once it is all setup.

This issue of social networking boundaries is an evolving one, and more than likely, this post will be irrelevant or at least outdated in the very near future. But, I just wanted to get my thoughts down so that it gets me to act on them, and gives me the opportunity to review them down the line.

P.S. In a further blurring of boundaries, I tried to integrate the comments on this blog with Facebook, but haven’t been able to get it to work, which may or not be a good thing.

Related posts:

1. I’m on Facebook
2. Stuck in “Drive”
3. Book Report – Freakonomics

We have also tried combining biking with geocaching which makes both activities more enjoyable, since biking makes the transportation part of hunting easier and geocaching gives purpose to our exercise. We have even recruited cousin Toby to join us in our Biking + Geocaching events.

When we first dabbled in geocaching about five years ago, we used a big black and white GPS unit and had to print out the geocache info ahead of time, which made it difficult to be a “spur of the moment” activity. In the intervening years, GPS and data technology has advanced to the point that paperless geocaching is readily accomplished.

Now, our Windows Mobile-based phones are equipped with GPS and mapping software via Google Maps. Couple that with a nifty geocaching software called GCz, we are able to download geocache entries and even do a simple search of caches nearby our current GPS location, wherever we are.

Here’s a geocaching.com badge link of what we have found so far:

We still need to work up to hiding our own caches. That will be the next level in our geocaching adventure.

Let us know if you ever want to go hunting with us. Who knows, there might be a cache right near where you are now.

Related posts:

1. Mountain Biking Tracks
2. Ride to Work
3. Riding Pilot Rock