OK Go sure knows how to make a cool music video.

You may remember some of their other great videos:

• A Million Ways
• Here it Goes Again

It’s been about about four years since the original Entertainment PC was put together. There have been quite a few small changes and upgrades made since then, but it finally reached the point where things were starting to go south a bit too often with this box. Looking at the current conversion of human years to computer years, this box was about 40 years old. So I harvested some of the computer organs (drives), and set to work on building a machine that would first of all, function, and secondly, last a bit longer with a bit more upgrade flexibility. The issue with the previous computer was the case it was built with. Don’t get me wrong, I loved that case (Aopen EPC945-m8), but it was just a bit too locked together to be upgraded. It was purchased as a bare-bones machine, so it would be very very difficulty to pull out the motherboard, or swap out any vial components. The main issue with this was support for newer operating systems. Vista support for this box was poor, and Windows 7 was even worse, and from what I can tell Aopen has basically stopped support for this product, so new drivers weren’t going to happen. No new drivers meant no new OS (I tried Windows 7, and it wasn’t pretty), so it’s time to upgrade to a more flexible Home Theater PC (HTPC).

The Case:
OK, enough about the old box, what’s in the new one? The first thing I chose was the case. I wanted something that didn’t look like a computer, since it sits out in the open right under the TV. I looked at a handful of slim HTPC cases, and ultimately landed on the Moneual Black Aluminum MonCaso 312S. It got pretty good reviews, and was simply a case, and not a bare-bones system. That means I got to pick my own motherboard (micro-atx), power supply (atx), and all the rest of the guts for the machine. I did not want to run into any sort of incompatibilities in the future, and not be able swap every piece out for something else, something I wasn’t able to do with the old Aopen case. The case doesn’t have a whole lot of bells and whistles. It’s got a card reader, and several USB/Firewire ports on the front panel, and included a remote and IR receiver built in (so I don’t need to hang some ugly USB receiver off of it). Outside of a little difficulty getting hardware installed (which is inevitable in a case this small), I’m pretty happy with how the MonoCase 312 looks and performs.

The Guts:
Several items moved over from the old machine, the LG DVD/Blu-ray drive, the hard drive, and the video capture cards. Everything else needed to be purchased new though to get this new box up and running. I spent the most time determining what motherboard to put into it. I went back and fourth on weather or not I needed to get a dedicated video card like I had in the previous box (ATI Radeon 2400 HD). I ended up going with integrated video on the motherboard. I made that choice for two reasons: 1.) space- I only have one slot, and for heat reasons, I wanted to keep it open if I could. 2.) I didn’t really need much more power than what the integrated video provided. The motherboard I chose actually had more power than the stand-alone card on the old system. All it really needs to do is handle HD video, and the built in video (equivalent to ATI Radeon 4200HD) should be able to do that without breaking a sweat. If I wanted to play high end video games, it might be and issue, but first and foremost, this is a TV computer. Alright, so what motherboard did I end up going with? I went with the Gigabyte MA785GMT-UD2H. It basically had everything I needed, integrated video, good audio chip, lots of ports, along with pretty good reviews and a good price. This is an AMD board, so I ended up with an older AMD processor. Normally I’d go with Intel since I think they make a better chip at this point in time, but I grabbed an AMD Phenom II X2 545 Callisto 3.0GHz chip this time around. It’s a much more powerful chip than what I’ve got in the old box (which handles just fine), and I liked what AMD offered for motherboard packages in the form factor I needed better. Everything went together pretty well with one issue (that I probably should have researched a bit more to begin with). The CPU cooler I bought (Scythe SCSK-1100 Shuriken CPU Cooler (Rev. B)), did not fit with my DVD drive in place. The drive was a bit long, and ran into the fan on top, so I had to scrap the cooler and go with the stock one that came with the chip. It is a tiny bit louder, but not something I’m worrying about at this time.

Video Capture:
Video capture hasn’t changed too much with this new machine, but I still wanted to list what I’m using. I’ve got two Hauppauge Low Profile TV Tuner Cards (WINTV-PVR 150MCE-LP) that have been humming away without any problems for several years. These do the standard def. capture, and have been real work-horses. For HD capture, I’m still using the SiliconDust HDHomerun that I wrote about a couple years back. I did change how that box routes video to the HTPC though. Previously, I had a USB Ethernet adapter specifically for the HDHomerun (it delivers video via the network card). That USB adapter has always been a bit flaky, so I moved the HDHomerun up to one of our guest rooms and split the cable for both tuners in the HDHomerun. I plugged the device into our home network (we’ve got ports in every room), and now have two HD tuners where before there was one, and can access that HD video from any computer on our network, including the new HTPC down in the living room. The reason I didn’t have both tuners hooked up before was I couldn’t split the cable any more in the living room. It was already split four ways (TV, SD capture 1, SD capture 2, HDHomerun), and was already noticeably degraded. So by moving it up to an unused cable port in the bedroom, I’ve got higher quality SD in the living room, and now clean clear cable for HD coming from the bedroom. We can now record/view two HD channels at the same time.

Input:
There really isn’t anything new here with the recent build, outside of the new remote, but it’s really nothing special (just a generic windows media center remote). I did want to mention and upgrade I made in April to the keyboard though. I bought a Logitech diNovo Mini keyboard that I’m really happy with. I had issues with the previous MCE keyboard interfering with the TV (apparently they were both using the same IR signals). This new diNovo is bluetooth, and works really great! It also has a better, smaller form factor.

Software:
What on earth will this super-duper-TV-recording-video-watching beast run for software? That’s a good question, and one that probably should have been answers at the top of this article, since it is what prompted the hardware update to begin with. Quick answer: it’s running Windows 7 Media Center (for now). On the previous build, I had a somewhat clunky setup of Meedio, which has long since morphed into something totally different than what it was when I started (it has been sold, purchased by Yahoo, given up on by Yahoo, opened, and rewritten). For TV capture (the Tivo-like function), I was using an application called Stapstream BeyondTV previously, but that has recently been basically abandoned as well. Are you noticing a theme here? I took a look at the HTPC software landscape, and decided at this point in time, Windows 7 Media Center was the best way to go. It’s got a pretty big user community behind it, and works pretty well right out of the box. I also like that Microsoft has just opened up Media Center for CableCard use as well. That means I can hook it to HD cable from a provider without a cable box. Essentially the HTPC becomes the cable box with use of a CableCard from the cable company. Previously this was only available to computer manufacturers. I’m not using this feature now, but like the option for future upgrades. SiliconDust is working on a CableCard box, as well as a nice looking one from a company called Ceton. Some day I’ll be able to record shows in HD from channels other than the big networks. All in all, I’ve been happy with Media Center. It has a nice plug-in for Netflix streaming, as well as Internet TV. I’ve also worked Hulu Desktop into the mix, and connected Media Center to our SlingBox software as well. I still don’t like the proprietary format it records with, but haven’t run into any walls yet converting it to something more portable. They’ve done some nice interface things since the last time I played with it (XP Media Center), and it’s very easy to use without a lot of messing around. You shouldn’t need to read a manual to operate your TV. Generally I’ve been happy with Media Center, but if something better comes along, at least the machine itself is now flexible enough to run it.

Check out my HTPC (#2) Flickr Set for more images and information.

While flipping through some Palm Pre apps a little while back, I ran across a gem of an app (and a service) called Pixelpipe that has come in very handy. What I was looking for was a way to upload multiple photos to different sites all over the internet. My Palm Pre only allows you to upload one photo at a time to two photo services (Facebook or Photobucket) from inside their photo app. In additions to those to services, you can also email or text photos wherever you’d like. With those features, I can usually set up a way to get my photos where I need to since just about every photo/blogging service I use has some sort of interface to pick up a photo via email or mms. It’s just awkward sometimes to jump between multiple apps depending on where I need a photo to go. Luckily Pixelpipe makes none of that necessary.

I don’t use a whole lot of photo services, but did want the ability to sent multiple photos to multiple services at once with one fell swoop. The Pixelpipe app for the Pre does just that. First I set up an account on their site, and then add pipes. Pipes are connections to other other sites and services where you’d like to send your photos. For me, that just means Flickr, Facebook, and my blog (the “latest mobile photo” section in the upper right). If you’re looking for services beyond what I use, chances are Pixelpipe provides support for it. They’ve got a GIANT list of blogging and photo platforms to add pipes from. So once I’ve added my pipes and fired up the application, I can select multiple photos to send out to all my pipes, or just pick and choose which pipes I want to send the current set of photos to. I can then add a title and/or caption, hit send, and the images move their way through the pipes around the internets to all the places I’ve specified. It’s as easy as that.

So let’s say you don’t have a Palm Pre to install the app onto… no worries, they have tools for a large number of platforms (iPhone, Android, Nokia, IM, Windows, Linux, Mac). I’ve been really happy with this little app, and it’s taken a multiple step, multiple app process down to one simple app.

I ran across an interesting collection of facts and figures about things that happened with the Internet in 2009. It reminded me a bit about the Karl Fisch “Did You Know?/Shift Happens” videos that have been floating around for a few years (worth a watch if you haven’t seen it).

Some of my favorite stats:

• 126 million – The number of blogs on the Internet (as tracked by BlogPulse).
• 4 billion – Photos hosted by Flickr (October 2009).
• 12.2 billion – Videos viewed per month on YouTube in the US (November 2009).
• 234 million – The number of websites as of December 2009.

Ahhhh, our little internet is finally growing up.

It’s a shame I didn’t see this before taking our Christmas tree to the treecycle pile on Sunday… I think this would have been a lot more fun.

Now these are some Christmas lights!
This is another one of my favorites in the Christmas light department (be sure to dig into the making-of videos).

What started a few years ago as a collection of helpful gift guides for my own gift giving has turned into a yearly endeavor. Here is the 2009 list. Most of these are geared more towards geeks and gadgets, but there are several for more general gift giving. If I run across more, I’ll keep this post up to date. Or if you know any that I missed, leave me a comment, and I’ll add ‘em to the list.

• CNET Holiday Gift Guide
• Ars Technica Holiday Gift Guide 2009
• 2009 Uncle Mark Gift Guide and Almanac
• ThinkGeek Holiday Gift Center 2009
• iLounge iPod + iPhone Buyer’s Guide 2010
• Gifts.com
• TreeHugger Holiday Gift Guide 2009
• Engadget’s Holiday Gift Guide, 2009
• NOTCOT Holiday Gift Guide
• MAKE Magazine Gift Guide 2009
• CrunchGear’s 2009 Holiday Gift Guide
• GizMine
• PC Magazine Holiday Gift Guide 2009
• ZDNet’s 2009 Holiday Tech Gift Guide
• Photo.net 2009 Holiday Gift Guide (photography gifts)
• 77 Righteous Gifts Under $77 from Core77 (warning: plays music)
• 2009 GeekDad Holiday Gift Guide
• Digital Trends Holiday Gift Guide 2009
• InfoWorld’s 2009 geek gadget gift guide
• New York Times ‘09 Holiday Gift Guide
• Ain’t It Cool News Quint’s Holiday Gift Guide 2009 (added 11/30/09)
  • Part 1: Books! Comics! Music! Electronics!
  • Part 2: DVDs! Blu-Rays! Toys! Video Games!
  • Part 3: Collectibles! Art! Shirts and Apparel! Rich Stuff! And Food!?!
• PC World Holiday Gift Guide 2009 (added 11/30/09)
• GeekSugar Gift Guides (added 11/30/09)
• Connected Reviews Holiday Gift Guide 2009 (added 11/30/09)
• BoingBoing Gift Guide 2009 (added 11/30/09)
  • Kids, Fiction, Gadgets & Stuff, Comics, Nonfiction, Comics Art/Books
• 2009 Holiday Smart Phone Gift Guide (12/3/09)
• Tom’s Hardware Gadget Gift Guide (12/3/09)
• Lifehacker’s 2009 Gift Guide, for the Lifehacker-Type in your Life (12/4/09)

After a recent computer upgrade (hardware and Windows 7), I decided to reevaluate what I was using for a remote backup solution. I’ve looked at a handful of solutions, and think I’ve found one that fits my needs quite nicely.

My Previous Solution
Before getting into what system I ended up with, I’ll got into a little detail on how I was backing things up before. First, what I back up is probably pretty common. I keep recent copies of my music, photos, and documents, as well as my e-mail in-boxes up in the cloud. I do this with a great little app called Alway Sync and Amazon S3. I set up three profiles in Alway Sync, one for documents, one for music and photos, and a third for email. I should probably clarify that my music collection is currently living on a separate machine serving music to all the computers in the house. That small piece was a bit of a sticking point for some solutions that I’ll outline below. Alway Sync watches certain directories (or mapped drives) for changes and then uploads those changes to my S3 account on a weekly basis. This solution has been working well for the past two or so years, and would probably have continued to work minus one small thing… price. Turns out I added too much stuff, and S3 charges by storage and transfer. Constantly adding to my music library, and taking photos (many times very large images saved in RAW format) has bumped up the storage I need to a level where it’s cheaper to go with another provider. Amazon S3 works great, but after getting my invoice for S3 last month, I decided to see if there was anything out there that was a little less expensive and provided the same level of backup and storage. Fortunately, I was able to find something, that worked just as well, and maybe even a little better than my previous solution.

Crashplan (my choice)
Crashplan is the service I ultimately decided to use. Feature wise, it was very close to  many of the other services I evaluated, but had a few things that put it over the top. Crashplan has a nice multi-platform application that doesn’t seem to be a resource hog. It also seems to give me a bit more control of the directories that I want to upload. It backs up your home directory by default, and lets you pick any other directories you want to add to that. The one thing that Crashplan doesn’t allow (outside of a somewhat messy hack) is the ability to select a mapped drive for backup. Initially I thought this would be a deal-killer, and ultimately ended up being the one piece missing from from all the other solutions I tried. It turns out I just wasn’t looking in the right place. Crashplan offers two types of backup plans. Once is individual – one computer, the other is a family plan that provides backup for several computers. With the family option, I didn’t need to figure out a way to back up the mapped drive from my primary machine, I could just set up an instance of Crashplan on the media server itself, as well as any other computer in the house. Storage-wise, Crashplan provides unlimited space, and doesn’t charge for throughput like S3 does. And pricing for Chashplan isn’t really any higher than any of the other solutions I looked at, and more importantly, it costs less per month than what I was paying for all my data on Amazon S3. Another nice feature in Crashplan in addition to backing up data to their servers, is the ability to backup to another computer somewhere else. So if you’re running the Crashplan app, and I’m running the Chrasplan app, we can select and approve each other’s machines as backup locations for the other (I’m not taking advantage of that feature, but it’s nice to have as an option). All those things put together made the choice easy.

Carbonite
Carbonite Backup is actually one of the first backup solutions I tried. They advertise on TWiT regularly, so I figured I’d give them a try. Features and price are just about the same as the other solutions I tried. They charge a little under $5/month, and have unlimited storage space. Where Carbonite fell a little short for my needs was in their software. The backup application seemed a little clunky, and as I mentioned above, didn’t give me the option to backup a mapped drive. They also don’t offer the family plan that Crashplan offers. Also, I felt their the software was a bit intrusive. It really gets it tentacles into your OS. It adds a little colored dot to folder icons in Windows showing the status of the update. Some people may thing this is a feature, but to me it took over a little bit too much of the OS. I guess I want the backup program to do it’s thing, and get out of the way. Carbonite looks to be a good solution, and seems to get good reviews around the ‘net, but it just didn’t quite work out for my needs.

BackBlaze
BackBlaze is very similar to Carbonite in terms of features and price. The service is $5/month for unlimited storage. It also does not back up mapped drives or network storage. They do at least provide an option for multiple computers, but they charge an additional $5/month for each computer. The other thing about BackBlaze (similar to Carbonite) that isn’t quite right for my purposes is the software. The software by default determines what it’s going to backup, and you have to go through and deselect the things you want removed. Again, this could be seen as a feature, it’s quick and easy right out of the box, but I didn’t want to deal with digging through the default directories. I think BackBlaze looks to be a good solution, just not for me. I’ve actually recommended BackBlaze to a couple people already.

Mozy
Mozy is the last solution on my list, and probably my least favorite. Mozy offers the same song and dance on price and features, $4.95/month for unlimited storage. Their software is OK, really not any better or worse than the others I tested. They are also lacking a multiple computer solution, or an option for network storage. Mozy was looking promising until I started reading some reviews. Apparently several people have had issues with restoring data from Mozy. One would think the restore (heaven forbid you need it) is the most important part of backing up your data. After reading these review, I gave up on exploring Mozy as a backup solution.

Since Apple released their official App Store in July of ‘08, everyone has been jumping on the App Store Bandwagon. Every couple of weeks you see some new company releasing an App Store for whatever platform they represent. Some make sense, and some are a little far-fetched.

LG Applicatoin Store
They’re selling apps for LG phones

HP Touchsmart App Store
HP is selling apps for their Touchsmart line of printers.

Android Market
Very similar to the iPhone App Store, Google sells apps for phone running their Android OS.

Samsung App Store
Samsung sells apps for their phones

Twitter App Store
A company called oneforty started an app store for all the applications out that interact with Twitter.

Blackberry App World
Of course Blackberry needs an app store to compete with the iPhone

Java App Store
This is an app store for applications written in Java

Palm WebOS App Catalog
If everyone else has one, then Palm needs an app store (excuse me, catalog) to sell WebOS apps.

Palm Software Store
Before the launch of the Palm Pre, Palm also had a “Software Store” for selling PalmOS Apps.

Windows Marketplace for Mobile
Not to be confused with Windows Marketplace (silly MS Marketing), Microsoft jumped into the game with an app store to sell apps for Windows Mobile devices.

Ovi Store
Ovi must mean “app” in Nokia

Archos AppsLib
Archos is distributing Apps for its (non-phone) Android devices.

Squeezebox App Gallery
This app store distributes apps for Logitech’s Squeezebox media player.

Sony Ericsson App Store
Selling apps for Sony Ericsson Phones

San Francisco App Store
That’s right, even the city of San Francisco is getting in on the action with an app showcase for apps using their city data.

Apps.gov
The federal government is also jumping on the bandwagon with apps.gov. They’re providing government data in the cloud and a place for apps that access and analyze that data in interesting ways.

I recently made a sale on ebay, and needed to figure out shipping charges when I ran across a cool new app from the good ole United States Postal Service. It’s called Virtual Box Simulator, and will help you determine which priority mail box is the best size for your items. All you have to do is print out a small indicator on piece of paper, which tells the app where to superimpose a priority mail box. You can then set your item on top of the paper to see if it fits into the virtual box. It is actually a pretty handy tool, and a nice use of technology. Way to go USPS

How well does the Internet know you? I’m sure we’ve all googled ourselves at one time or another. The results from search engines can be a bit messy. If you want a more elegant depiction of how you’re represented on the Interwebs, give Personas a try.

Personas is a component of the Metropath(ologies) exhibit, currently on display until Sept 09 at the MIT Museum by the Sociable Media Group from the MIT Media Lab (Please contact us if you want to show it next!). It uses sophisticated natural language processing and the Internet to create a data portrait of one’s aggregated online identity. In short, Personas shows you how the Internet sees you.

Here are my Persona results.

It doesn’t tell you where the results come from, so it’s kind of a fun game to guess what your persona is based on.

• Books – probably from a recording I did of Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture book, as well as work I did for The University of Iowa Libraries
• Sports – I’m no sports hero, but maybe this is from SCUBA sites?
• Committees – I’ve served on my fair share
• Education – I’ve been working for higher eduction off an on for quite a few years
• Movies – I like movies (?)
• News – I read news (?)
• Legal – not sure
• Social – I guess I’m social.
• Art – I have an art minor, and have done work on art web projects in the past.

That is my best guess on interpreting how the results. How does the Internet see you?

The new school year is just about upon us -classes start here on Monday. With the influx of new students (and the departure of good parking places), your mind starts to drift back to the time when you were a scared freshman, out in the world for the first time. Beloit College has been putting together a mindset list since the class of 2002 arrived on campus. It’s interesting to see what experiences these new students have had up to this point, and how they know (and don’t know) the world.

Each August since 1998, Beloit College has released the Beloit College Mindset List. It provides a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college. It is the creation of Beloit’s Keefer Professor of the Humanities Tom McBride and Emeritus Public Affairs Director Ron Nief.  It is used around the world as the school year begins, as a reminder of the rapidly changing frame of reference for this new generation.

Mindset list for the class of 2013

Here are some of my favorites:

• 4. They have never used a card catalog to find a book.
• 9. They have been preparing for the arrival of HDTV all their lives.
• 14. Text has always been hyper.
• 31. There has always been a Cartoon Network.
• 52. They have never been Saved by the Bell
• 72. Migration of once independent media like radio, TV, videos and compact discs to the computer has never amazed them.
• 73. Nobody has ever responded to “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”

Last week, word hit the Internets that Radio Shack was rumored to be re-branding themselves simply as “The Shack.” Since that rumor first hit, they have confirmed that it’s not just a rumor, and they will, in fact be changing their name to”The Shack” in the coming months. That doesn’t really make much sense to me given Radio Shack is a known brand that’s been around since 1921. I understand that the “Radio” portion of their name might be a bit dated, but it’s been dated for the past 30 years. Why make the change now to a brand that is so well known?

This re-brand follows on the heels of several other questionable re-branding efforts of late. Pizza Hut threw around the idea of becoming simply, “The Hut” back in June before changing their tune, and leaving the word “Pizza” intact. There is also SciFi Channel’s re-branding that switched back in July. SciFi Channel is now officially called “SyFy” (pronounced Siffee?). I understand the need to update your brand, and update your image, but this one just makes you scratch your head. Apparently it is pronounced the exact same way, just spelled differently. This one in particular only seems like it will confuse and turn off the channel’s core audience (SciFi lovers), and makes you wonder if it’s really worth the time and money (lots!) that it takes to carry out a re-brand like this.

What are we going to see next? Will Best Buy become The Buy? How about Mart for Wal-Mart? Or just The King for Burger King? Didn’t Circuit City try doing this a few years back, changing their name to “The City?” It didn’t seem to work out that great for them.

I wish our band did things like this in high school. Vestavia Hills High School attempted to break the Coke and Mentos fountain world record yesterday at their high school football stadium. The existing record was set on June 19, 2008, by 1,911 students in Latvia. Unfortunately they weren’t able to break the record. The event looked to be a fund raiser ($5 to participate) for the band’s trip to London later this year. They only had about 500 participants with two soda bottles apiece. You have to give it to them, it is definitely a unique way to raise money for their band trip. I would have totally participate in this when I was in high school band. Heck, if it weren’t 1500 miles away, I would have paid my $5 and participated in this attempt. You can see more photos of the attempt on the Band’s Facebook Page, and from The Birmingham News. Maybe I need to put together my own Mentos fountain world record attempt.

I noticed Windows toolbar UI elements were disappearing a while ago. I think it started with the release of Internet Explorer 7, but was reminded of it again with the first preview shots of Firefox ver. 4.0 that came out last week. Is this now a trend? Have we seen the death of the standard windows toolbar? Where is my File, Edit, View menu?

The first to kill the toolbar was IE7

Quickly on the heels of IE7 was Office 2007 and the "ribbon" interface.

The Adobe CS4 Suite didn't kill the toolbar, the just bumped it up, removing the toolbar header.

If IE7 doesn't have a toolbar, neither does IE8

The most recent to join the trend is this preview shot of Firefox 4.0

Is the familiar UI we’ve known for years evolving… for better or worse?