Category: Gadgetology

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Gadgetology

Randomly blithering platitudes unto the heavens

After all the hubbub a few days ago about “OMG, I’m gonna buy/build a media center PC!”, I finally realized that if I tweaked the settings on my wife’s slightly decrepit laptop, it would happily be the hub of that operation. There are a few kinks yet to be worked out with this system, but thus far it’s working…kinda okay. As Flack pointed out, streaming is not gonna happen over a wireless network, especially not one with as much activity as mine sees at any given moment, so video files have to be copied to the laptop’s hard drive…which takes about as much time. It’s not quite the instant access thing I was envisioning – this is more like having to prepare food that’ll take an hour to cook. Probably still going to put Nero on there though – it’s just my favorite video app for a variety of reasons. And I think we’ll still be wanting, at the very least, an IR add-on mouse. As it is right now, if you even so much as need to pause the thing, you virtually have to hug the entertainment center to reach the laptop to do that. The running joke around the house is that I’m the most reliable remote control that my wife has, but for now, that’ll do – I remember some saying about beggars and choosers, or maybe it was a saying about po’ folks, that seems to apply here.

If only all of my “I’m gonna do this someday” goals fell together this quickly.… Read more

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Gadgetology

Media monster…or…mobster…or…lobster. Or somethin’.

Tuning in, turning on, and logging outAfter hearing about Flack’s PIVO experiment, and having seen a similar setup of Kent’s working for the past year and a half or so, I’ve decided that we really need something similar here. With all the UK shows that I download, and having sucked all of the music in the house onto my hard drive, this whole business of hauling shiny round things from room to room is a bit of a dinosaur’s game. So I’ve started laying out in my head what I need for the living room media PC: … Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Gadgetology

Dad’s day off

Tuesdays are my wife’s day off, so about half the time they wind up being my day off from Evan. I feel like a bit of a heel for looking forward to Tuesdays. My wife has the baby most of any given Sunday, but that’s because I’m off at the farm working my butt off – not much of a day off for daddy. I love my kid, but it’s kinda nice having a day to myself once a week. His mom has hauled him into town for a pediatrician’s visit (normal) and his first round of shots (which I don’t think he’s gonna like). Then she’s got some other stops to make – and quite frankly, I think those have everything to do with showing the little guy off. 😆

In today’s “this day X years ago” posts, this topic cropped up, and I thought I’d go and take a look at what my music directory is like now, two years later. Survey says…about 120 gigabytes! Of nothing but music/audio! That’s almost exactly 1/3 of my main PC’s hard drive. Good Lord. This is part of why, the last time I was at Kent’s place and saw his Western Digital external drive, I’ll admit I popped a bit of a woody. That thing is nice, and it’s a RAID drive to boot (pitiful pun intended). Needless to say, that’s gone right onto the old wish list (right up there with the Wii I’m never gonna get at this rate :-P). Here’s hoping Santa think I’ve been a really good daddy this year. 😯

That’s all I’ve got in my brain right now. (Ain’t much, I know.)… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Critters Gadgetology Home Base

The Baby Monitor and other tales

After much complaining about our complete and utter lack of one, my wife finally got a baby monitor Sunday, and I immediately set about plugging it in and putting all the pieces in place. This has been incredibly handy to have around because, as I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned a time or two, having the Avid gear up and running is like having an airplane idling right next to you. If Evan’s down for a nap between feedings, and starts getting fidgety, I’m not going to hear it until he’s at a full-bore wail. Which probably means he’s woken his mom and I’m in really deep trouble. So a baby monitor isn’t an “oh, that would be nice” for me; it’s an “I need this.”

Abou the only drawback is that I get to listen to Evan FM all night – the aforementioned mix CD of baby music that I made for him. Good thing I like most of that stuff. But so far, it’s worked great. There’s just one little drawback. 1 night = 1 9-volt battery. Ugh.

Evan in the hood
Fig. 1 – Evan in the hood. … Read more

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Critters Gadgetology Home Base Should We Talk About The Weather? Television & Movies

Of dogs, storms, and really amateurish artwork

We had a pretty loud storm tonight, but there was more fanfare about it on TV than there was actual storm. (It had raised all kinds of hell in Tulsa, though, so it was worth at least watching the TV coverage to keep an eye on it.) One big clap of thunder woke Evan up. This was also one of the first times in months that Xena came into the house. I’ve gotten to where I let her sit out rainstorms out on the side deck, but when we’re talking hail and worse, yeah, I’m a softie, the dog gets to come in. Naturally, she crashed out, Olivia played with her tail, Obi slept next to her, and she stood guard over Evan. Everybody loves the little guy.

Today was one of those days where I just didn’t have the brainpower to do anything useful, and was leaving the Avid powered down for the whole day (the first tornado watch was popped on us before noon), so I did a little bit of just-for-the-sheer-heck of it design work, and joined the ranks of those who do fan-made Doctor Who DVD covers. Rather than do the 37th cover for some well-known episode that hasn’t even officially been released yet, however, or a “fantasy football” cover for a lost story, I decided to go way off the beaten path: I thought I’d do a DVD cover for a fan film. I altered the basic template a bit and added the now-standard “From the world of BBC-TV’s Doctor Who…” wording that accompanies spinoff productions like Big Finish’s Dalek Empire audios, and came up with this:

Daemos Rising DVD cover

(You can download the full-res printable version here. The nifty 3-D mockup abo0ve was generated by an insanely useful program called Imandix Cover, which you can download free here.) While I’m happy with the intent of the artwork, the actual execution is just a bit crap – since it was all done with screencaps from the DVD itself, the main artwork, when you look at it really close up, is very pixellated. Still, I’d like to think I wasn’t a zillion miles off stylistically; I’ve posted it to the forums at Outpost Gallifrey, where I’m sure that my assessment of “crap” may be confirmed very quickly. 😆 But not to be dissuaded, I’m already working on another cover, this time for a series of irreverent “I Love The ’80s”-style documentary segments that aired in 2003. So if I want to burn these to DVD, I can put a cover on the DVD that’ll look something like:

Who @ 40 Weekend DVD cover

I tried to be a little more…well…artistic with this one. K-9 and the time vortex are screen grabs, while the TARDIS is a 3-D model that I rendered myself. I’d like to tackle Shakedown: Return Of The Sontarans soon, just because…well…it’d be kinda relevant at the moment. 😉 For giggles, I ran my old Countdown To Looking Glass cover through Imandix, which didn’t like the dimensions and chopped some of the artwork off:

Countdown To Looking Glass DVD cover

…oops. Guess I need to take that one back to the drawing board before I go too far into Who territory. Though ironically, I still like the CTLG artwork better than either of the Who pieces.

Also on my to-do list: an official Doctor Who DVD cover for Olivia vs. the Dalek. 😆… Read more

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Critters Gadgetology ToyBox

Video production, diaper changes, weddings, parties, anything

We’re diverse around here like that. I have a humorous gadget story to tell, on the day after the latest Mid South Gaming Get Together up at Brian’s (icbrkr) place. On the occasion of the first such get-together, in December 2004, Flack festooned us both with copious garage sale and thrift store finds. One of the goodies he gave me was this Radio Shack sound FX generator, complete in the box with instructions, AC adapter and everything. In fact…let me check the ol’ server…yep, here’s the original picture I took at the time:

Sound FX generator

I distinctly remember him saying that he had snagged this for a buck at a yard sale, had no use for it, and so here it was, mine for the taking. The really funny thing about it? This bought-for-a-buck-at-a-yard-sale piece of electronic fun, given to me for nothing, is now a vital cog in the video production wheel around here:

Sound FX generator … Read more