What’s Your Screen?
So… my TV has cracked the snots and doesn’t want to show a picture any more. Yes, like most others we have more than 1 TV but this is the one in the living area and the one that is usually always on.
So what happens next?
The kids still watch TV up stairs on the one in the bedroom. They don’t watch as much TV as they used to and I’ve seen them spend more time doing other activities – reading, playing, games etc and this is a really good thing that I want to encourage.
What’s the impact to me – well to be honest – it’s an inconvenience and annoying but not too much – I didn’t watch TV when it was actually on and I had my PVR take care of recording shows for me – but when I watch my pre-recorded shows I liked to watch them on the TV in the living area.
Now, what I find really surprising is that after a short while, I’m perfectly happy watching these shows on my laptop with my ear buds – why – (and I’m going to mess up my metrics here and I apologise in advance) because a 15″ laptop only 30cm away from your face is similar to a 50″ plasma 2.5metres away – the engagement is about the same.
So what’s my preferred screen – I prefer to not have to ware earphones, and have a laptop on my stomach but really – the overall experience you get once your involved in the content is about the same as a 50″ plasma 2.5 metres away. This correlates to the posts I have seen stating that an iPad at 10″ from your face is just as engaging as a movie on the big screen.
Do you agree? What’s your screen?
Don’t let your hats gather too much dust
Which of your hats have been gathering too much dust lately?
The last few weeks at work have been extremely hectic, lots of late nights / early mornings, project planning and re-planning, bubble diagrams, gantt charts and technical strategy along with the many other daily distractions that make life in Information Technology very interesting to say the least.
Finally, I’m sitting here at 11:00pm waiting to verify some new changes in production after midnight and I’ve finally found time to sit down, open Google Reader and start to catch up on the multitude of blogs and alerts I’ve been neglecting lately.
I came across this one post that really resonated with me.
- RIP Dr Seuss (Mark Cohen) – It’s not just about missing out on finishing your book – it’s also about making the most of the time you have.
That got me thinking about what I have been doing lately, how caught up in work I’ve been and then I remembered.
A wise mentor once told me that each day we all wear many hats – manager, employee, mentor, supplier, customer, educator, student, husband, father, son, and many, many more – some hats will always demand to be worn more often than others, some hats we don’t want to wear, and some hats we should wear more often than we do.
I still remember my mentors words of wisdom to this very day – “No matter how many hats you have, don’t let any of them be too demanding or gather too much dust – and pay special attention to the ones related to family”.
Time for me to dust off some of my less worn hats – how about you?
Just Google Wave Me
I’m lov’n Google Wave lately and being a relatively early adopter, I can honestly say the Wave platform is much more stable now and the additional new features have really enhanced the Wave experience.
I’ve been spreading the potential benefits of Wave since I first saw the preview in July 2009. Why? Well when was the last time you saw a real revolution in communication?
I see potential applications for Google Wave in a corporate environment many times per day – bring on federation and the ability to run Wave behind the firewall and the growth of Wave will be exponential – anyone that has ever used a forum or wiki will immediately gravitate towards wave.
Overall, the best way to think about Google Wave is in terms of a hosted conversations rather than fragmented emails – try your next real time discussion in Wave and I don’t think you will ever look back.
There are also some new rules to learn to get the most benefit from wave and it brings a whole new meaning to real time collaboration. The best way to learn is to jump in and start using it.
To make life a whole lot easier Google Wave have recently started sending email updates related to wave updates so if someone updates a wave you are following, you will also get an email letting you know the wave has been updated.
Personally, I’d like to be able to consolidate all my communication into Wave but I think it will take some time for others to catch on.
To discuss this on wave goto: http://bit.ly/auD0Lg (Just Google Wave Me – public wave)
If you not sure what Google Wave is check out this quick video – it does a good job at explaining the fundamentals of wave.
How are you using Google Wave?
Upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate RTM from Win7 RC1 without a re-install
For the last 2 weeks my laptop has been complaining that the Window7 RC1 OS I currently have installed is about to expire and I should upgrade. I have no problem with making the move to the Win7 RTM version (I’ve had the disk for about a month) it’s been a matter of finding the time to go through the process of a complete re-install of both the OS and all of my applications. Then there is the usual 1 to 2 days of tuning to get the apps and system settings back to the way I like them.
As of today, I only have about 5 days left so I thought I better fix it. I still don’t have time for a fresh install so I thought I would just perform an upgrade now and perform a fresh install when I have a bit more spare time.
After going through the options to get to the upgrade menu – I was bit frustrated to discover that Win7 RTM won’t let you perform an upgrade from RC1. What the…? Read more…
MythTV Ads, WDTV and ProjectX equals no more ads
Warning to all – this is a very long & somewhat technical post…
You know, I’m really not a programmer any more, I can’t remember the last time I wrote a piece of production code – and in my current role – believe me – that’s probably a good thing – I now leave that to the expert Java developers in my team. But, I came across my first MythTV recording that was from CH10 (Aus) and like all commercial channels it had ads…Argh!!!
To be honest – I don’t watch that much commercial TV anymore – so to be honest, this is rare, but it was a show that we regularly watch so – it became a priority 
Anyway, from my recent experience, MythTV does a really great job of recording anything you point it at and it’s also very good at finding and flagging most of the TV ads but it’s really not very good at finding the start & end of a show – and trust me if you record anything on CH10 unless you leave 5 mins before the scheduled start of the show and at least and 15 mins after the scheduled finish – you are going to miss it. To magnify issues somewhat – we were watching the show upstairs on a non MythTV player – SO THERE WAS NO AUTO AD SKIPPING – and at that point – it was game over – I needed to find something to fix the ad problem or next time… (you know the rest)…
Well, as always in IT, the answer is always more complicated that was originally envisioned… So there are two parts to this simple endeavor Read more…
WDTV plus B-Rad Firmware equals Many New Possibilities
I purchased the original WDTV (Western Digital HD Media Player) over 12 months ago – they are a fantastic little box that will play just about anything and have full 1080p HDMI output with 5.1 digital out – needless to say it has served me very well.
My only negative comment is that it required a lot of sneaker time (copying files from my torrent server onto USB drives and then plugging them into the WDTV player to view them on my HDTV).
Well, Western digital recently released a new version, the WDTV Live – the best new feature is that it includes is ethernet (on board) and wireless support (with selected adaptors). I’ve upgraded to the WDTV Live and I have to admit – I think it’s worth it.
Not only is the new WDTV Live faster than the original version it also supports DTS decoding and I’ve also found it’s Read more…
Tech posts to come…
I’ve had a few days to play and in that time I’ve built a MythTV player and started to understand a few things about setting up a Bose surround sound system – yes, speaker placement is evereything… I’ll post some more info soon – both are challenging topics and require unique posts… stay tuned…
The things that make you remember…
When I turned 21 my Nanna gave me a gift – I appreciated it but I didn’t think too much about it, at the time. She gave me a proper bottle opener – you know – the ones you need to use when they put a real cork in the bottle smiley because they are mostly screw tops now… but every time I open a bottle that has a real cork, I always use the bottle opener my Nanna gave me and I always remember her.
What do you remember?
Share – Christmas is the time for sharing
In each of our lives there are things we need to do every day, things we are required to do. It’s part of or lives, our jobs and who we are. It may keep the world turning, but doesn’t make it a better place.
Christmas is a time – in fact the best time – to challenge all of that – to take the opportunity to do one of the simplest things we can to make a difference… share.
Sharing is in our nature and it feels good to share. We enjoy a meal more when it is shared with others, an experience is more fulfilling when shared with others and we feel most fulfilled when sharing with others…
So far this post has written itself, I’ve really not had to think to much about it… the next part is more about what’s next, and to be honest – I don’t think I’m able to write that part on my own… it’s up to each of us to determine how we can best share.
I’ve put it out there – Christmas is about sharing, sharing with others and the joy of sharing.
How will you take the opportunity to share this Christmas?
