I ended up researching this for more than two months. I had to stay within a budget of $500, and the completed solution had to handle four things:

• DVR to record TV (preferably with dual tuners)
• Play DVD’s (and eventually Blu-ray)
• Netflix streaming
• Internet TV (YouTube, Hulu, Boxee, etc)
• One single remote to handle everything

In other words, I want it all. If I’m going through the expense and trouble of setting this up, I want one box (and one remote) that handles everything.

Armed with my list of requirements, I started researching. I looked at everything, and I mean everything: a homebuilt PC running Linux and MythTV, a Mac Mini with Front Row and eyeTV, hacking an XBox 360 or PS3 to act as a DVR, Tivo, Windows running Sage TV or Windows Media Center… For each of these, I looked at capabilities and limitations, new and used prices, searching forums for common problems. My spreadsheet to keep track of all of this was becoming increasingly complex, and I was losing hope that this was possible.

For Christmas I got a gift certificate and a little bit of money, which made my budget a little higher. I’ve now ordered the components, put it all together, and it works. It. Is. Amazing. Here’s my setup.

• Gateway SX2802 running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• 6GB RAM
• 640 GB hard drive
• Integrated graphics accelerator with 512 MB shared memory
• HDMI output
• Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250 dual TV tuner w/ remote

The total cost of the hardware was $618 shipped, but the gift certificates and cash that we got for Christmas kept our out of pocket expenses below our $500 mark.

Installing the TV tuner was a snap, literally 20 minutes from start to watching TV via my computer. Add another 10 minutes to get Netflix downloaded and configured, and the entire process is done in less than an hour. Everything works.

Over the air TV: comes in HD quality, strong signal, no issues at all. We get 9 channels and they’re all great quality. Once in a while the screen gets pixelated while decoding the signal, but I haven’t seen this last more than 2 seconds, and its happening less than once a week. Recording one show while watching another, or recording two things at one time works perfectly. Media center handles the guide for us, so we can always see the show that we’re watching, what’s on next, etc.

Play DVDs: nothing to say here really, it works better than my 10 year old DVD player. Its flawless.

Netflix streaming: this is my favorite so far. We’re on the $16/mo plan, for which we get 2 DVD’s at a time, and we can watch all the streamed movies we want. I have about 75 movies or TV shows in our instant queue, which means that within 2 minutes I could be watching any one of them. The image quality and sound are excellent, and pause/forward/rewind works just as you’d expect. I love it. LOVE IT!

Internet TV: Hulu & YouTube work great, just as they do on your computer. I haven’t set up Boxee yet, but I plan to at some point.

Transitions: It is super easy to switch between live or recorded TV, Netflix or a DVD. The remote control makes it a snap. The menus are intuitive and the interface is attractive and easy to read.

I have to say, this project has turned out better than I expected. I have everything that I want, I haven’t sacrificed anything, other than a high cable or satellite bill.

My first experience with Google came in 1999 or 2000. I was working at Dell and one of my coworkers made the statement “Just Google it” in response to a question, and I didn’t know what that meant so I searched Yahoo!. It took several more years for them to become my primary search engine because at that point I was already very familiar with Yahoo!. Now they ARE my primary search engine.

In fact, there are a number of Google products that I use on a daily basis.

Search. This is what got them started, and its still their salient product. The search results found within Google are still better than those of the other major players, in my opinion. I also love the simplicity and white space. I never use the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button because I like seeing all the options and selecting myself. I don’t really know what else to say about search, it’s been my home page for years now, and I use it at least 30 times a day. Seriously. And even I don’t know all of the commands that can be used to make their search results more targeted. Define, site, omit, and, or… I know there’s a list, but I’m not sure I’d use them all so I never look them all up. And did you know that Google is also a calculator? 32,874 divided by 4.

Mobile. How often have you been out and wanted to know the start time of a movie, but couldn’t get to a computer? Or wanted the answer to a question right away? If you have a smart phone that’s no trouble. If you don’t there’s Google Mobile. Send a text message to their servers with your search query and they’ll reply via SMS with your answer. This is awesome. I don’t use it every day, but I do use it, and it works exactly as you expect.

Gmail. When Gmail was announced my feathers were ruffled because the media played up the fact that Google servers scan your inbox for keywords that prompt advertisements. Then the service was launched and you couldn’t get an account unless you were invited. I think I bought my invite on eBay for $1. I’ve never looked back. There is no other email application that can compare with Gmail. Threaded email history, categorizing via labels instead of folders, filters, IMAP/POP/SMTP support, ever increasing storage capacity, fantastic search capabilities, easy archival, excellent spam detection… no one else can hold a candle to Gmail. My Gmail account has been my primary email address since the summer of 2005, I very rarely delete anything (and I send myself files all the time), and today I’m only at 20% of my total storage capacity. And, every once in a while I learn of another feature that I’ve never heard of. This is definitely the product that sold me, I may have never become a Google fanboy were it not for this product.

Maps. Before Google Maps I used MapQuest. At first I didn’t think that there was a significant difference between the map providers, it was just a matter of who you were familiar with. Then I realized that you could switch between map, satellite and terrain views. And you can email maps to people as a link. Then they published their APIs and you can embed their maps in your own web pages. Their directions are super easy to work with, they give you a couple of routes to work with, and if you want to alter one (to avoid a toll road, for instance) you just drag the route and the travel time and distance update automatically. Whoa! With street view came the ability to look at the buildings you’ll see when you arrive, before you even leave. Just a month ago I realized that you can search within Maps and it’ll show businesses in your area. Type in Austin, TX pizza and you’ll get a number of dots on the map. I’m not a map expert by any means, but if anyone else has brought in this many features without bloating the application, I don’t know about it.

Reader. If you like reading blogs, there are a couple of services that make it a snap to handle the RSS feeds of all your favorite publishers. I used Bloglines for years, and then finally succombed to Google Reader. I can’t say that Reader is hands above any of the other online RSS readers, but the truth is that it works perfectly and is very easy to use.

Goog-411. Do you ever have to dial information? If you call the phone company it costs. If you call Google its free. I’ve been using it for a couple of years and there have maybe been only two times that it couldn’t find the number that I was looking for. Just like the phone company, once you find the number it’ll dial and connect you, and you even have the option of having the info texted to you.

Voice. This service is newer, but man did they get it right. Once you have a number (currently by invite only, and not all areas are being served) you can easily forward that number to any or all of your other numbers, home, office or cell. You can also send or receive text messages using that number. Here comes the good part, you can arrange your contacts just as you would with your email addresses, work, family, friends, etc, and route them accordingly. Want all work contacts sent to your work number and all friends sent to your cell? No problem, either way, they all dial the same number. This service also converts your voice messages to text, and you can either listen to them or read them (or both) online. Phone companies, please pay attention.

Analytics. If you have a website, and you like monitoring the traffic that it receives, Google Analytics is a fantastic service. How many visitors, how long they spend on your site, how they found your site, their geographic location, etc. Its advanced features allow you to filter out your own visits, create and track campaigns, segment the traffic any way you choose and more. I have tried many other traffic monitoring tools, and I would recommend this over all of the others, free or otherwise.

Documents. Ten years ago it was pretty tough to get by without having a copy of Microsoft Office on your computer. As much as I hate the way Microsoft treats their customers, Word and Excel are some of the most useful programs available, I use them daily for work and in my personal life. Today there are plenty of free options. Google Documents is one of the best. Through this tool you can create letters, spreadsheets and presentations. They don’t offer the same amount of features as their Microsoft counterparts, but that’s one of its salient points, they’re generally much easier to work with because they aren’t bloated with options that you never use. Plus, you can use this service to create PDF files. If you used Microsoft Office you should at least check this service out.

Calendar. When Google launched their calendar service in 2006 I thought it was janky at first. Now I like it very much. The only reason that I don’t use it on a daily basis is that I’m required to use Exchange at work and its just easier to handle everything there. When I had a Blackberry, Google Calendar was my main calendar. Its a snap to create appointments or recurring meetings and invite anyone. You can share your entire calendar or just certain portions of it, and you can even publish portions of it on the web. Its very easy to use.

I haven’t even covered all of the tools that I wanted to talk about and I’ve already gone longer than I thought I would. I’ve also used and recommend Picasa, Google Earth, Google Finance, Google Desktop, Android, SketchUp and others that elude me at the moment. I’m also very excited to play with Google Wave when it launches.

Each of the services that I’ve mentioned above isn’t just great, they’re best of class. I don’t want to handle email without Gmail anymore. Phone companies, I’m paying you, please give me all of the features that Voice gives me for free. Is there anyone on the planet that still prefers MapQuest to Google Maps? Google doesn’t offer services, each time they launch something new it changes the way people think about the service. When you bring them all together in one account, it changes the way you use the web. Seriously. Sergey and Larry certainly don’t get all the credit, but their commitment to excellence shines through in everything this company touches.

Dear Google, I love you. Keep giving us the good stuff.

When he wrote me back, he offered me more than I was asking. Just to jack with him, I raised the price even further, and of course he went for it (when you don’t plan to send any money at all, what’s another $30 or $40?). So first I get a spoofed email from Paypal, saying that my account has been credited. I have to say that its a pretty bad spoof. But then it gets more interesting, I’ve gotten a total of three spoof emails so far.

The first email was sent by pp305@ultimateemail.com, with the name showing as service@paypal.com. If you use gmail (or Google apps) then you’ll see right off that the email was not sent by Paypal. The email asks you to send the shipment tracking number to “Paypal” at the same pp305 email address. Any astute user will note right off that Paypal does not send their emails through any free email service, ultimate email or otherwise.

Paypal spoof email from scammers

Within minutes of receiving that email I got a second, again from pp305@ultimateemail.com. This one is a reminder of the safety measures that Paypal takes to ensure the security of my account. Once again, its pretty easy to identify it as a fake.

Fake Paypal Safety Email

At that point, I sent Banderos an email saying nice try, and I figured we were done. I forwarded both of those emails to Paypal so that they’re aware of them, and went about trying to sell my iPod. This morning when I woke up I had an email supposedly from the FBI, threatening that if I didn’t provide a tracking number within hours that I’d be facing legal consequences. This one was sent from f_b_i_crimeteam@ultimateemail.com.

Spoof FBI email

Each of these emails was obviously a fake. I’ve pointed out a couple of obvious errors, there are several others that I won’t mention here because I don’t want to make it easier for them to fool someone else. Lets just say that there is quite a bit of evidence suggesting that this is a scam, for anyone that has the inclination to look.

Seller beware. The fact that they’ve put so much thought into this scam indicates that they’re taking advantage of enough people to make it worth their while, which is pretty sad. I still prefer Craigslist to eBay because its free. I’m sure I’ll be dealing with more cretons like these soon enough.

• Its free.
• Its more secure.
• It works better.
• It is customizable.
• Website owners (like me) will love you.
• IE6 was released in 2001. That is ancient!

What else can I tell you? This is a no brainer. If you do it, I will personally extend a ‘thank you’. But, I’m willing to bet that if you try Firefox for two weeks, you’ll be willing to thank me. And if I’m wrong, you can always go back.

First, the blog The Baseline Scenario has a lot of great explanations and a healthy dialogue about what has happened and what will come of the stimulus package. I’ve become a daily reader.

I also just came across a video that does a great job of explaining how the banks came undone last fall. Crisis of Credit explains it visually and in easy terms.

I also have Frontline’s Inside the Meltdown on my Tivo, I plan to watch it sometime this week. I may post more thoughts here after I’ve had a chance to watch it.

Another concept that I found revealing was that the market moves up and down every day. There are many opportunities for profit on a daily basis. As a trader, you earn from the market exactly what you think you’re worth. If you aren’t earning much, or worse, if you’re losing, then you probably need to spend some time study the market, AND determine what’s going on within you that prevents you from seeing the opportunities. In other words, you have exactly what you want to have. And if you want to change the outcome of your trading, then you need to change something about your trading habits. Introspection will help.

He then moves into explaining his view of psychology, showing his view of how past experiences reinforce some behaviors and discourage others. This is the section where he becomes hard to follow, but its useful for understanding the last section of the book.

Finally, the third section is the smallest, but I thought this was the best of the book. Douglas encourages new traders to begin with a small amount of money, and just expect to lose. Don’t focus on the amount of money in your margin account, focus on learning how to read the market. And document everything. If you win, write why you believe you were right. If you lose, analyze the signals you were looking at and determine if there was something that you overlooked or misinterpreted. Take the mystery out of the market by taking the time to learn.

In just about every endeavor you undertake, you set aside a time to learn. For some reason, when it comes to the stock market, many traders expect to earn money right away and yet become discouraged when they lose money. By taking a disciplined approach and taking the time to actually study the market, they can learn how to read the market and profit from it.

I’m not to the point of trading in the market. Between school and work I have my hands full, so now is not the time for me. But, I did enjoy this book, and I hope to put some of these concepts into practice in the months after my graduation. If you’re also interested in trading in the stock market, I recommend that you read this book.

That’s pretty interesting to me. Is the kid playing GTA alive??

Image by lenwood via Flickr

So, I gotta start by saying that this year’s ACL festival has taken it up to a new level. It was our fifth year in a row to attend (fourth year together), and Liz and I both had a blast. If you live in Austin and you like music, then you need to be here.

Once again the day started later than planned, partly because I had stuff to do, and partly because we wanted to pace ourselves to be there for the entire Foo Fighters show. By Saturday night the dust was getting to me, and I knew that being there all day Sunday would drive me nuts. We intended for the afternoon to start with the Stars, but we bumped it back to Silversun Pickups. We heard Stars as we were walking in and they sounded good, I was bummed that we missed them.

Silversun Pickups were great. I was afraid that the guy was going to sound like a girl, because I think he does on their radio tracks, but they sounded awesome. The lead guitarist got a few nice solos in, too. That guy can rock. I didn’t pay as much attention to the last few songs because we bumped into some old friends. It was pretty fun to catch up with them, even if only for a moment.

We then walked to the other side of Zilker to get a good position for the Raconteurs. We heard Okkerville River playing, which was a bonus. They were also great, and it looked like they had a fun interaction going with the crowd, too. I’m interested in hearing more of them.

Then, oh-my-freaking-gosh The Raconteurs came out. LOUD. Like, Dinosaur Jr loud. Holy cow was it fun. Jack White told the crowd a couple of times that he was suffering from a slipped disc. Before he told us I hadn’t noticed anything. After I realized that Brendan was singing a few of his parts, and the band was picking up some of his guitar parts. Wow. I never would have noticed if White hadn’t said something. I have a new respect for this band. I’ve liked them since I heard the first track, now I like them more. Plus, they freaking rocked. They did a 12 minute version of Top Yourself, leading right into Broken Boy Soldier.

Everyone in my group loved the show. A few of them even said it was the best performance of ACL 2008. I couldn’t agree with them at the time, we hadn’t seen Foo Fighters yet. I was thinking Dave Grohl is a rock legend, he’s gotta have something good in store for us.

We walked back across the park, and listened to Band of Horses while staking out a good spot. While walking we ran into one of Joe’s college buddies, so we visited for a few minutes. Band of Horses sounded great. If they hadn’t played just before Foo Fighters I probably would have moved closer so I could hear them better. I want to hear more.

Foo Fighters started 4 minutes early. The totally trumped Band of Horses, and they started loud, too. I don’t know if Band of Horses went long or not, but either way, once the Foo Fighters started there was no point in continuing. I’ve said it so many times this weekend that I’m almost getting tired of saying myself, but Foo Fighters were awesome. Dave Grohl was funny, they played songs from each of their releases, some were full band and some were just Dave and a guitar, everything they played sounded great, there were a few awesome solos, and on and on. They had a long, pregnant pause in the middle of Everlong, long enough that I was like, you can’t just not play the rest of the song. Even the encore was great, they came back out and played for twenty minutes, going well past the 10pm cutoff. I screamed a lot during this show, as did everyone else in the crowd, which I’m sure is one reason why I sound awful right now.

Image by demandsw via Flickr

Day two of the Austin City Limits music festival. Today was a very good day. We didn’t get there as early as expected because I had schoolwork to do. The first show that we planned to see was the Fratellis at 1:30, and it actually worked out because we heard two songs while we were walking in, and several of our friends told us that those were the best two songs of the show. The first full show that we saw was Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, and wow. Just wow. The band is tight, and just fun to watch. And Sharon Jones is a great performer. She really knows how to get the crowd into it. We connected with Simoneau for a few minutes, too, which was cool.

While we were watching them I saw a few people carting around trashbags, and learned that if you fill a bag with cans and bottles, you get a free shirt. I decided to go for it, so I went to get a bag. We split up from our group to see Man Man. I was done in about 3 songs. The percussion was great, but the vocals were kind of annoying to me. So we walked over to see CSS. I worked the crowd for cans & bottles while we walked between stages. CSS was good, I really enjoyed them. They wore pretty audacious jumpsuits, and one of the girls had some pretty wild hair, but the music was great, and from what I saw they really gave a great performance.

Right after CSS Robert Earl Keen started, and he was of course great. Liz joined our friends, I walked a bit more, getting cans & bottles from the crowd. I got my t-shirt about half way through the show. I’m glad I did it, and I don’t want to do it again. Keen played most of the songs I knew, though I was hoping for Five Pound Bass or Merry Christmas from the Family, but didn’t hear them. It was still a great performance.

Next up was MGMT and I really enjoyed them, too. We were pretty far from the stage, but could hear them well enough. This was kind of a lull in the afternoon, so our group visited pretty much, but it was still a lot of fun. We decided not to move until Beck, so we stayed put for Jon Fogerty. Man, that dude still has it. I had very low expectations for that performance, but he was great. Lots of energy, and a good mix of old and new. Plus, the whole crowd got into it when he played classic CCR tunes. It was a very fun show.

After Fogerty we walked across the park to the AT&T stage, to be in a good position for Beck, and we heard Iron & Wine playing. I own Our Endless Numbered Days and love it, but he didn’t sound very good live. I assume this is because we were too far from the stage.

And then… Beck came out. He opened with Loser and the crowd loved it. Plus, he was freaking loud. Awesome. He played songs from every CD that he’s done, which I enjoyed. And, he mixed it up on a few songs, too. The songs from Guero were Black Tambourine, I Think I’m in Love, Nausea, and most of them were done as a rap with a beat track. From Sea Change he played The Golden Age and Lost Cause, those were played with just him and his guitar. All of the others were full band. Hands down, Beck has been my favorite performance so far this year.

The dirt wasn’t as bad as on day 1, but its still bad enough that you know its there. Oh, and an update on the chair check, they stayed open until 10pm, so people could actually use it. Brilliant.

I have to agree with Simoneau, who said that this year is more awesome than in the past. Though I can’t understand why he’d choose Robert Plant and Allison Krouse over Beck. For day three I’m looking forward to Silversun Pickups, Raconteurs, Band of Horses and, of course, Foo Fighters. Rock On!