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.

Last summer I shared my thoughts on biofuels, specifically E85. In short, yes they can offset our dependence on foreign oil, but because biofuels contain less energy per gallon than gasoline we’ll need more of it to keep up with our current consumption rates, and this solution completely neglects our need for more efficient cars.

There is a process that can produce E85 with the waste from other manufacturing processes that involve plants. This uses the plant material left over from other types of farming such as sugar or corn and uses the stalks, straw, wood, etc to make cellulosic ethanol. Cellulose is present in all plants, so there’s plenty of this material available, and humans can’t digest it, so this will never be a source of food for us. Plus, this uses the waste of other processes, so it wasn’t being used anyway. This negates the argument about growing for food versus fuel. Also, because this is a biofuel, it burns cleaner than petroleum based fuels. So far so good, right?

There are a couple of snags hidden in the details. First, the process of turning plant material into something you can burn in your car is not very efficient. With today’s technology we’d need A LOT of plant material to make enough E85 to make a dent in our foreign oil consumption, more than required to make corn ethanol. What this means is that if we’re going to look at this as a large scale source of energy, the waste from other manufacturing processes won’t provide enough raw material to work with. We’ll need to grow plants for the purpose of putting fuel in our cars. The food versus fuel argument is not solved.

And there’s more. Cellulosic ethanol is estimated to cost $2 per gallon, about the same as gasoline. Because its ethanol, a tank full of this fuel still won’t take you as far as a tank of gasoline, so the net cost to the consumer will still increase. The takeaway is that this has the potential to drive both food and fuel prices up. That’s not exactly what I have in mind when looking for alternative energies.

If you’re a die hard green energy proponent higher prices may not be enough to deter you, you want cleaner energy regardless of cost. Okay, lets look at this from another angle. Think of all the engergy required to grow, harvest and manufacture cellulosic ethanol. Tractors are needed, electricity to run the plant, fuel to distill the final product. Apart from the land devoted to grow the raw material, each of theses processes require energy. Today that energy is provided by petroleum based products. In other words, non-green energy is being used in the production of a green biofuel (what the???). If the manufacturers switched to burning ethanol in their processes so that this fuel were green from start to finish, they would still be burning fuel to make fuel, but because ethanol contains less energy per gallon they’d need to burn more of it and the cost of production would increase. Cellulosic ethanol would then become more expensive than gasoline. I’ve read that cellulosic ethanol burns clean enough that green house gases are reduced by 90% when compared with petroleum products. I question that stat, but even if true, because of the amount of energy required to produce the fuel it’s not enough. It would be more expensive and we’d still be polluting the atmosphere.

Keep in mind that there’s a good chance that your car is not capable of burning E85 as is. If you want to take advantage of E85 you’ll need to convert your engine which costs anywhere between $500 and $1,000. And, keep in mind that you’ll be spending more for fuel than you would if you chose to burn gasoline.

So lets put all of this together. If cellulosic ethanol becomes available in my neighborhood next year, I may be tempted to burn it instead of my regular gasoline. I’ll pay to convert my Nissan Maxima to burn E85. Then, I’ll fill my tank up. The cost will be about the same as what it costs me to fill up with gasoline, but instead of getting 300 miles per tank, I’ll only be able to drive about 250 miles. Plus, I’m buying a fuel that displaces land used for food production, and a lot of energy was used to make my E85.

I’m a strong proponent of alternative energies, for both political and environmental reasons. I think its smart for us to consider all kinds of solutions to our energy needs. Plus, as an engineer I appreciate that as a country we’re pursuing new technologies. There are two things that I object to about cellulosic ethanol. First, the media and biofuel evangelists tout this as the solution to all of our problems, and that’s just not the case. This doesn’t fully address our dependance on foreign oil, and it isn’t a boon for the environment either. At best, its trading one set of problems for another. And second, our government is pumping millions upon millions into this industry. I just don’t see this paying off. I’m in favor of smaller goverment, so honestly I wish they would leave this to the private sector, period. Since that isn’t a reality I wish they would at least shift some of the funds into other solutions, like nuclear fusion or geothermal energy, a smart power grid, improving wind energy storage… there are many other solutions more promising than biofuels.

I have believed for a long time that high energy prices would ultimately be good for the American economy. I generally keep an ear to the ground for new developments in renewable energy technology, and new products that take advantage of alternative energy sources. I recently learned of a small town that has gotten in front of the alternative energy movement, Sweetwater, Texas. This has completely changed the outlook of the community. Ten years ago this was a town that teens left as soon as they could because Sweetwater offered no future for them. The town decided to install wind turbines. Today Sweetwater Texas is running on green energy.

This did more than just revitalize their economy. They needed workers to install and maintain the turbines, so in 2007 the community college in Sweetwater launched the first two-year program on wind energy technology (now there are several around the country). They still have more jobs than they can fill, so people are moving there to find work. Home prices have gone up and new homes are being built, which means more construction jobs. America’s premier wind energy legal seminar, which provides continuing legal education to attorneys, is held each year in Sweetwater. The mayor has been interviewed by the Discovery Channel.

Do you see what this did for them? Sweetwater didn’t just revitalize their community or economy. By whole heartedly embracing a new technology this tiny town has become one of the focal points of the industry. Nolan county, home to Sweetwater, is the number one market for wind energy in America. This has raised the heads, the civic pride of not just Sweetwater, but all of west Texas. They have hope. This is the perfect example of what I had in mind when I wrote that high gas prices would be good for America.

I believe this is a good plan for America. We’ve done this before. Many times. We’re kind of known for it, in fact. Our economy is in a slump and people are angry about jobs going overseas. The reality is that we can do something about it. I happen to be a proponent of renewable energy, but the point I’m trying to make is larger than that. Let’s not sit and stew about jobs going overseas. Stop trying to bail out companies that can’t produce a profit. That’s just prolonging the pain. The way to produce great jobs for decades is to create new industries and dominate them. Just like we did with telephones, and cars, and aircraft, and photocopiers, and computers, etc. We’re innovators.

That’s the point I want to make. New technologies have the potential to turn our economy around. Alternative energy is probably the strongest candidate, because the need is significant. But, our hope does not have to be pinned on energy. There are literally dozens of industries capable of this. Financial planning is probably low on the list.

What are the choices? Within energy generation there’s wind, hydropower, solar, geothermal, nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, and biofuels. Once all of this energy is generated it’ll have to be either stored or transferred, which leads to jobs in battery technology and smart power grids. As we transition away from oil our cars, trucks, trains, busses, boats, planes and factories will need to be transformed. It’ll help the effort if our homes, offices and municipal buildings consume less energy.

If we go in this direction, every sector of the economy will be positively affected. There is so much opportunity that its just crazy that we’re crying about unemployment. Yes, it will require changing, we’ll have to reeducate ourselves in order to take advantage of this, but that has always been inevitable. We were going to have to change no matter what, it was folly to think otherwise. Once again, I submit that we as Americans have reinvented ourselves many times in the past.

Sweetwater is an example worthy of consideration because they have chosen to get in front of new technology. They aren’t bailing out companies that can’t find a way to be profitable, they’re building schools to educate new workers and new homes for them to live in. I applaud you Sweetwater, thanks for giving us an example to follow.

To: Chris Leonard

Date: Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 6:03pm

Subject: Important Degree Candidate Information

AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE TO SPRING 2009 DEGREE CANDIDATES

Our records indicate that you are a degree candidate for graduation at the
conclusion of this semester. Please review the following information that
appears on your record and report corrections as indicated.

You are a candidate for the following degree/major:

Degree: BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN AEROSPACE ENGINEERING
Major : AEROSPACE ENGINEERING

Contact your dean’s office if you have questions regarding your degree, major, remaining requirements or commencement ceremonies.

My favorite line from Weyland is “Its fun being the only [electric car] at the strip, but I wish it wasn’t so.” I’ve known that there were people working on things like this, but this is the first time I’m seeing it. I did a quick search and found a few others as well. Enough that there’s now a National Electric Drag Racing Association. Don’t you just love American gear heads trying new things?

Here’s my question. If garage mechanics can turn an old beater into a record breaking racer, then what is wrong with Detroit? This isn’t pie in the sky wishful thinking or a hypothetical what if, I mean this as a serious question. The White Zombie has no radical new technology, Weyland just found the parts that he needed and made them fit his car. I don’t mean to discount Weyland’s work, of course he’s accomplished something here. This demonstrates that an electric car is not only possible, it works. This is no longer an experiment. What I mean is that Detroit wants us to help them stay in business while they keep producing trucks and SUVs.

Like most Americans (all of them that I’ve spoken to, actually), the recent talk of bailouts pisses me off. If the knuckleheads that are running these companies can’t keep it together then let them fail. If management can’t see what people want and produce it, then why on earth would we want them running the company?

As a sidenote, if we help out Dodge, this will be the second time that the government has lent them a hand. Lee Iacocca coaxed the government to guarantee loans for them back in 1979. It blows my mind that amid all of the high gas prices, they’re still coming out with new muscle cars. I say this is not a company worth saving.

This practice of lending a hand to struggling companies is not good. At some point they’ll have to stand up on their own, apart from any assistance, otherwise we’ll end up with a country full of companies that aren’t sustainable apart from handouts. It just sends me through the roof.

Weyland shows us just one method of energy efficient transportation, and he does it by breaking records at the race track, which is brilliant. I love it that he’s killing Corvettes. I hope America is paying attention. While Detroit is working to fit navigation systems and DVD players in their trucks, there are guys in garages coming up with creative solutions to America’s energy prices.

• Dell Inspiron B130
• Celeron M processor
• Integrated video processor
• 2GB RAM
• 60GB hard drive
• 15.4″ display (1280×800)
• CD/DVD writer
• Dell 1370 wireless adapter

The install process was smooth and painless, nothing to note there. Once Ubuntu was installed and running I connected it to my router so it could get the updates. That took about two and a half hours to complete, but it didn’t require any attention from me so I watched TV and worked on a web project and just let it run.

Once the update was complete I rebooted. When it started again it picked up the wireless adapter and recommended a driver. Once again, no interaction required, just let it do its thing. One more reboot and wifi was working. Screen resolution was determined and set during the install process, its been running at 1280×800 since I completed the install. At that point I started grabbing the software that I want through Synaptic, and the system was ready to use.

It took about four hours start to finish. The function keys (screen brightness, volume control, CRT/LCD, etc) all work as advertised. The touchpad works flawlessly, including tap to select and drag up/down, left/right to scroll when appropriate. Battery indicator seems to work properly.

I’ll probably be using this system more now. Its actually quite a bit faster than my Vostro with a dual core processor, 256MB video card and 4GB RAM. Take that Window XP. That’s a pretty good argument for ditching Windows.

One other comment, Dvorak on this system is awesome. On Windows, you log in using QWERTY and once the desktop loads the keyboard switches over to Dvorak. I’ve always thought that was kind of lame. With Ubuntu, if you select Dvorak the system is Dvorak, period. That’s pretty awesome.

I don’t mean to sound like a fanboy, there are still shortcomings, primarily in hardware compatibility. I’m not quite brave enough to try connecting it with my HP wifi printer or Western Digital NetCenter (NAS drive) just yet, maybe next weekend. Linux does a lot of things right though, and it is continually moved forward by a team of committed developers. You gotta respect that.

For the record, I still want a Mac. Macs are $2,000 though, and this old system is rockin fast and cost me exactly zilch. Its not brushed aluminum, but if it really starts to bug me I’ll spray paint it. Ha!

Americans are buying fuel efficient cars from Japan, and selling cars with even higher fuel efficiency in Europe. I’m losing hope.