Technology

My Home Theater PC - HTPC

Chris Jefferies — Mon, 20 Jun 2005 01:13:00 GMT

Over the weekend, I put together a Home Theater PC (aka HTPC). Basically it is a PC that emulates a TiVo device where you can record your TV programs into a computer hard drive. Only More!

Mike Green sent a computer that he had retired (PIII-700Mhz, 70G HD, DVD Player) and I added a TV tuner card and video card with video output (to view on a TV) and made the conversion.

The main function is a Personal Video Recorder (PVR). Like a TiVo device, it can record TV programs, schedule recordings, or record all episodes of a TV series. There is a service called Zap2It Labs that offers a free download of the programs offered by our local Comcast cable service. See below for an image of the program guide. It also refreshes a 14 day listing every morning at 3am.

Additionally it can manage audio and video archives, allows you to set up and listen to Internet radio programs, and to play and rip DVDs. There are a number of plugins (more...) available which I will eventually figure out how to implement.

I started out by trying Media Center on the Windows Media Center Edition, but, try as I might to load driver after driver, it simply does not support the remote control that came with the PVR card I had (Hauppauge PVR-150). So I switched over to a free application called GBPVR. It works quite well and the images you see on in the PVR Gallery are from that application.

I have estimated that I will be able to keep about 6000 songs (our entire CD collection) and about 30 hours of video on the current hard disk, but I can expand that later. I'll also want to get a DVD burner to archive special videos.

Shows the TV Guide listing. Click to see more.

So far so good...

Skype Me!

Chris Jefferies — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 18:22:00 GMT

OK, I've been using Skype for a while now and I see only one downside (mentioned later) to using it as a telephone replacement. I'm eager for all my friends to get on board so I can talk for free.

If you have a computer and an Internet connection, you can upload Skype onto your computer and we can talk for free. You may need to hook up speakers or a microphone, if you haven't already, but that's pretty easy to do.

I went to Radio Shack and bought a really inexpensive headset with a microphone for less than $3. I see that there is an online version for about $15, but look for the $3 version.

I have set up the SkypeOut service which allows me to call out from my computer to people who don't yet have Skype so I can talk to them on their regular phones. It costs me 2.3 cents a minute to use this service to anywhere in the continental US (land lines and mobile phones) and I have to pay in advance (in chunks of 10 Euros, or 25 Euros). I think that's still a better deal than most folks get on their home phone service. Overseas calls cost more. For example, calls to our friend, Zsuzsa, in Hungary, cost about 4.6 cents a minute. Still a good deal. Click here to look at the rates.

Downside: Outgoing (SkypeOut) long distance international calls to cell phones cost substantially more. A call to Pace's cell phone in Italy cost 33.5 cents a minute. Not such a good deal.

I have also set up a SkypeIn account. My number is: 415.578.3309

Notice I now have a 415 area code . The SkypeIn account allows my friends to call me at my computer. And as I AM very often at my computer, you'll be likely to catch me there. It includes an answering service as well so you can leave me a message that I can hear on my computer. The SkypeIn service costs me 30 Euros per year or 10 Euros for 3 months (including the voice mail service). It will cost my friends the same amount they would pay to call my house phone.

I may eventually disconnect my home service and settle on a mobile phone and Skype. If most of my friends get Skype, then most of my calls will be free.

I recommend that you check it out: www.skype.com

Talk to me at my computer for free; Skype to Skype: chrisjefferies
Talk to me at my computer via telephone: 415.578.3309

Finding Patterns in Corporate Chatter

Chris Jefferies — Thu, 26 May 2005 00:08:00 GMT

Email traffic - showing the patterns of email at Enron (click image)

Email keywords - showing what subjects were discussed at Enron (click image)

My co-worker, Terence, found this article in the New York Times about a statistical analysis of email traffic at Enron during the time the company was collapsing. One shows who was talking to whom and another shows, via common key words, what subjects were being discussed.

For example, the first chart shows the linkages between employees based on their email traffic. In this chart it shows how a new person pops up, who is a focus of a high number of emails, who's email address has changed. Investigators can use this kind of analysis to find relationships among employees.

In the HR world, the business I'm involved in, there have been discussions of using this kind of email analysis to understand the relationships among employees. While employees are normally organized around formal, hierarchical departments, it may be possible to understand the informal relationships within an organization and find ways to support naturally occurring collaborative groups.

With this kind of data, it would be interesting to combine this analytical approach with the TouchGraph interactive charts. See other references on this blog at:

Touch Graph Browser - http://jumano.com/blogs/chris/archive/2003/09/20/196.aspx
Mark Lombardi: Global Networks - http://jumano.com/blogs/chris/archive/2004/01/23/580.aspx
Mark Lombardi - Cartographies of Capital - http://jumano.com/blogs/chris/archive/2004/03/05/750.aspx

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/22/weekinreview/22kola.html?pagewanted=2

Local copy: http://jumano.com/blogs/chris/articles/1923.aspx

Got my GUID workin'

Chris Jefferies — Thu, 12 May 2005 15:56:00 GMT

Here's my GUID. I have decided that this number will be MY GUID from here on.

In case you don't know, a GUID is a Global Unique ID. We use it for unique identification in progamming data applications. Whenever you need a unique ID there is a function that you can call that genertates this random number, that supposedly won't come up again for 700 years. It isn't perfect, but it is pretty unique.

Google definitions for GUID - WikiPedia definition of GUID

In the future, I suspect we'll all have some kind of unique ID and I figure I'll get mine early.

{C7FA509D-40CF-4da3-9FA2-4CBC6B93394E}

Read it and weep!

All Data is Dead

Chris Jefferies — Thu, 05 May 2005 16:50:00 GMT

I was having a conversation with my co-workers yesterday and we were discussing the idea that data, once collected into a database is, by the fact of having been moved from it's source, suspect and potentially out of date. That's When Chris Buscovich said,

“All data is dead.”

New computer systems

Chris Jefferies — Sat, 23 Apr 2005 14:20:00 GMT

So I've been very bad about blogging lately. I apologize for that and I promise I'll do better.

The main thing I've been dealing with lately is learning some new computer technologies; well, new to me. I have been primarily a Microsoft Windows person as a software designer of business applications developed with Microsoft technologies (Visual FoxPro database applications and lately ASP.NET/C# web applications) that run on Microsoft operating systems.

This new study is in the area of an alternative operating system known as Linux. Linux comes in many flavors but I am using one called Fedora; and the version is known as Fedora Core 3.

I have 2 older computers thast I have installed with Linux, one is a minimal installation of Linux and is operating as a firewall and the other has the full graphical user interface (GUI) that looks and feels much like the Microsoft Windows operating system.

The results of this can be seen on the new web server I installed on the Fedora based computer at: http://www.sparticles.net. It explains a little about the setup I'm working with.

What's interesting, I think, is that this setup is running on older computers, PII and earlier, that were headed for the garage (or worse) and they are running on totally free software. I've installed a blog, a wiki, and a database to store all the content and all are open source.

There's no magic about this stuff, it has a pretty large large learning curve and the development environments don't seem to be as sophisticated as those available on Windows. But it has come a long way and deserves some of my attention to keep up with this new appraoch to software development known as 'Open Source'.

Who's Looking Down On You?

Chris Jefferies — Sat, 19 Feb 2005 14:55:00 GMT

My friend, Ray Lear, sent me an image of Berkeley from space and I recalled that there is a web server called www.terraserver-usa.com. Click on the image to see an image I downloaded from the web of our house on Stanford Avenue in Kensington just North of Berkeley. You can zoom out and see the surrounding area on this page.

Here are some other locations you might want to visit. See if you can guess where they are.

Location	Longitude (E/W)	Latitude (N/S)
Bellaire	-95.46322	29.71955
California	-122.88421	38.47927
Brenham	-96.46366	30.14890
An Observatory	-110.77179	45.27747
Sixmile Creek	-110.74392	45.23781
Big Mesquite	-102.83257	29.40853
New Jersey	-74.30104	40.70246
Houston	-95.53934	29.78756
La Posada Hotel (more...)	-110.69637	35.02268
Soldier Meadow Hot Springs	-119.22488	41.36079
Black Rock Mystery	-119.19528	40.76147
Lake Catherine & Banner Peak (m ore...)	-119.19128	37.69640

I want my MTV… and my remote… and my iPod... and my TiVo

Chris Jefferies — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 01:14:00 GMT

Christine Rosen talks about what she calls Egocasting. It's a play on the concept of selective consumption of various media like what an iPod, or TiVo might provide. I'm clearly on the egocasting track and I like it, but she makes some good points against this attitude.

Excerpt:

“What is true of the television set is also true of its most important accessory, the device that forever altered our viewing habits, transformed television programming itself, and, more broadly, redefined our expectations of mastery over our everyday technologies: the remote control. The creation and near-universal adoption of the remote control arguably marks the beginning of the era of the personalization of technology. The remote control shifted power to the individual, and the technologies that have embraced this principle in its wake—the Walkman, the Video Cassette Recorder, Digital Video Recorders such as TiVo, and portable music devices like the iPod—have created a world where the individual’s control over the content, style, and timing of what he consumes is nearly absolute. Retailers and purveyors of entertainment increasingly know our buying history and the vagaries of our unique tastes. As consumers, we expect our television, our music, our movies, and our books “on demand.” We have created and embraced technologies that enable us to make a fetish of our preferences.”

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/7/rosen.htm

Eye of Science

Chris Jefferies — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 18:09:00 GMT

Here's a great site found by my friend Brooks Harris. It's called the Eye of Science and it features microscopic photography.

http://www.eyeofscience.de/eos2/index2.html

Here's a gallery site that hosts many of the Eye of Science images: http://db2.photoresearchers.com/cgi-bin/query.cgi?&api=MEC001

Mr Science takes a bag for a test drive...

Chris Jefferies — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 22:47:00 GMT

Check out our buddy, Jim Flowers, in a new commercial for golf bags. It's very cool.

http://www.jumano.com/uploads/cargo_agency_final.mov