Archives for the 'Entertainment' Category
HDTV to DVD
If you have an HDTV Tuner Card in your PC, you might be wondering how you can backup this content to DVD. HDBeat has posted about this very topic, and they couldn’t make it look more easy.
Side note: When I had my ATI HDTV Wonder I was asking myself this very question. How in the world can I make use of the .ts file that was holding my recorded HDTV shows?
Netflix class action
This morning I received an email from Netflix regarding a class action law suit settlement. Apparently someone thought Netflix reneged on their deal of ‘Unlimited DVD Rentals’ and not keeping to their ‘1 day turn around,’ which myself have experienced time and time again. Needless to say I took the deal with the option of one month free upgrade from 3-at-a-time to 4-at-a-time. I feel they’ve throttled my rentals too many times. Just a week ago, I turned in all 3 of my movies on a Monday. Tuesday morning they received them, and typically they would have sent the next set that afternoon for me to receive by Wednesday. This time, by noon (not the end of the day) I had 3 ‘Shipping Wednesday’ messages in my queue, which meant instead of receiving my movies on Wednesday, I would possibly receive them by Thursday, which pretty much eliminates all possibility for same week turn around.
Read more about the Settlement here.
Netflix Tools
NetFlix History Anazlyer - is your subscription worth it? I just found this tool that will analyze your Netflix rental history and basically tell you if you are getting your money’s worth. Here are my results:
Your results You’ve rented 276 DVDs over 21 months from January 27, 2004 to October 26, 2005. Your plan costs $17.99/month so you’ve paid $377.79 total. Your average price per rental was approximately $1.37 each. Average rental costs elsewhere are $3.75 each (not including late fees). You’ve saved approximately $657.21 over your membership lifetime or $31.30 per month. Here’s some more about your renting habits… You kept each rental for around 5 days on average. The longest you kept a single DVD was 20 days: Enemy at the Gates (2001). You rented about 13 DVDs each month. You’re not taking full advantage of your current plan. You could be renting 19 DVDs each month.
Check out NetFlix History Analzyer here.
Rental Statistics from tallrock.net - detailed statistics showing your rental history in detail you’ve never imagined. The initial summary is somewhat similar to the previous tool, but the tabs across the top of the page will show your true rental habits. Here is my summary as of now:
- You have rented 271 DVDs over 22 months. (That’s an average of 12 DVDs per month).
- On average, 22% of your rentals were delayed (i.e. ‘throttled’) by Netflix.
- In your most recent month of data (10/2005), your rentals were delayed 36% of the time.
- In processing the input data, the program found 3 problem rentals and 1 multiple rental.
- The direct link to your results is at ( link ). For fast access to your output, bookmark this link.
Philips GoGear and Linux
For those looking for a way to sync your music files with your Philips GoGear media player, you’ll likely find that MusicMatch is the officially supported tool. However, for those who wish to use this with Linux, MusicMatch is not an option. It only took me two minutes to find this set of tools available for the Linux community provided by the Linux community.
Linux Digital Media Manager (LDMM) has the ability to add and delete MP3s from the device, and manage the album and artist databases. It has a GUI front-end and a straightforward interface. It was written in Python specifically for the HDD060, but should work fine with the HDD070 as well.
openGogear is a suite of tools for working with Philips GoGear HDD0xx MP3 players. Though these devices can be mounted with the standard usb-storage module, these tools implement the file indexing required to hear MP3s. openGogear has a debian package available. JGoGear is the Java-based GUI front-end for openGogear.
PyGogear is obviously written in Python exchanges information about the tracks from a Sqlite database file, usually named MyDb. This program reads the ID3v1 tags from the MP3 files placed on the player and inserts the most important ones in the database. There is no GUI available yet, but it is in the works.
pymaj was rewritten from pyGogear 5.8.4 with some changes and folders support added. Program can read the ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags from the MP3 files placed on the player and inserts them in the database. M3U playlists are supported as well.
See my previous post regarding Philips GoGear here.
Update:
Ubuntu (Breezy Badger) mounted the HDD070 as ‘Philips MassStorage-Disc: 1.9GB Removable Volume’ available under ‘Computer’. Its actual location is /media/usbdisk/. Under this device, you’ll find the following structure:
/_system/
/firmware/
/FWimage.bak
/FWimage.oke
/media/
/audio/
all mp3 files here...
MyDb (the file that contains the ID3 index information)
/drmv1pm.tmp
HDTV
Okay, I’ve made it through some tough times. Okay, they weren’t so tough, but I thought I wasn’t going to get HDTV. It seems I failed to test my setup fully before giving up and calling support. Samsung Support was extremely helpful in getting me on track and I cannot praise them enough. Now onto the good stuff. I haven’t actually mounted my antenna yet, but my TV is large enough that I can rest it across the back side of the TV and only have about 8 inches sticking out of the front of the TV. It looks silly, but it’ll do for now, because I’m watching HDTV!! Several months ago, I purchased the ATI HDTV Wonder for my PC and hardly used it, but I think that was an crumb compared to the quality of this thing. Much of the quality comes from the strength of this antenna despite costing only 75% the other antennas I tried for the PC version. If you need a good high quality antenna for your HDTV, definitely go to AntennasDirect.
The picture quality on this TV is incredible in SD (Standard Digital) or HD (High Definition). This puts my current cable connection to shame. If it weren’t for Nip/Tuck, I’d probably drop the cable.
See my previous entry about equipment.
AntennaWeb.org can tell you what HD channels you have in your area.
HDTV equipment arrived
I purchased a Samsung SIR-T451 last week and it arrived today. Sadly, it’ll take some work to get the SR15 antenna I bought from AntennasDirect mounted and connected, so no HD for me tonight. I’m actually very busy with Core Web Technology stuff, so it may be a week or so before I can even consider getting on my roof (and holding on for dear life) to mount my antenna.
Philips GoGear: Large Technology in a Small Package
Philips has always been one of my favorite brands, but I don’t really care for the Philips/Magnavox branded products. I noticed this little camera (KEY010) about two months ago and I’ve found myself self tempted to buy one at least once per month. I think most of these things would be a ‘nice to have,’ but they might end up being more novelty than anything else. Philips’ GoGear line of consumer electronics has taken the bulky out of quality. They’ve taken products that we all know and love, and shrunk them into tiny devices that allow us to carry more of them around in one pocket. Most of these devices are the same size and shape as a pen drive. I’m impressed with the camcorder. More information About GoGear.
KEY010 : 2 Megapixel Digital Camera (Froogled at $69.96)
Ready to wear, Ready to go
- Fashionable neck-strap
- Ultra lightweight magnesium body
- Small and wearable - 45 grams
USB Plug & Play
- Direct USB for easy file transfers!
- Direct battery recharge via USB
Your pictures, your data on the go
- Store and carry your data files
- Snap up to 300 quality 2 Megapixel pictures
- 128MB internal flash memory
KEY014 : Up to 8 hours of music (Froogled at $89.55)
Ready to wear, Ready to go
- Small and wearable - 31 grams
- Ultra lightweight magnesium body
- External battery pack
- Intuitive neck-strap remote control
Easy, intuitive music experience
- SuperSkipâ„¢ navigation
- Direct USB for easy file transfer!
- Direct battery recharge via USB
- Backlit LCD display
Your music, your data - on the go
- 256MB: 8 hours of music
- MP3 WMA playback
- Store and carry your data files
KEY019 : MPEG4 Camcorder + photos + MP3 (Froogled at $149.99)
Ready to wear, Ready to go
- Small and wearable - 60 grams
- Ultra lightweight magnesium body
- External battery pack
Smart camcorder with direct USB
- Microdisplay Viewfinder
- Direct USB for easy file transfer!
- Direct battery recharge via USB
- 5-Key in-cord remote control to easily control your music
Multimedia anytime, anywhere
- Up to 25 minutes of MPEG4 video
- Snap up to 200 2 Megapixel pictures
- Enjoy MP3 playback
- 128MB internal flash memory
- Store and carry your data files
HDD077 : Up to 1000 songs and FM Radio (Froogled at $149.99)
Small and light makes it truly wearable
- Ultra lightweight and strong magnesium body
- Fashionable neck-strap - wear it everywhere!
- Dress up your player with colorful groovy stickers
Easy, intuitive music experience on the go
- Simple and easy-to-use interface menus
- SuperPlayâ„¢ provides hassle-free one-touch jukebox playback
- SuperScrollâ„¢ navigation finds songs in a simple, fast way
Your music, your data - on the go, everyday
- 2GB (up to 1,000 wma songs) capacity for music and data on the go
- More music built-in FM radio
- USB mass storage to store and carry your data files
- 10 hour battery life
HDD120 : Direct MP3 Recording (Froogled at $183.60)
Capture all your favorite music
- Record directly to MP3 via analog or digital line-inputs
- Make voice memos in MP3
- High-Speed USB2.0
Easy, intuitive music experience
- Simple and easy-to-use menus
- SuperScrollâ„¢ navigation
Your music, your data - on the go, everyday
- 20GB: up to 10,000 songs
- Store and carry your data files
- 10 hour battery life
- Super-slim design fits perfectly in your pocket
World’s Smallest MP3 Player
About a month ago, I spotted this mp3 player mentioned on a blog and I couldn’t figure out why it hadn’t been marketed yet. I’m guessing this company spent most of their time securing a deal with Wal-Mart because they seem to be the only ones selling this little gem.
mobiBLU’s DAH1500i is now considered the world’s smallest mp3 player, which has a cube shape about the size of a quarter (USD). It comes in two different storage sizes (512MB and 1GB) and six different colors (Black, Pink, Blue, Silver, Orange and Red). For something so small and the technology being used here, you’d think you’d pay $200+, but that is not the case. Wal-Mart is selling the 512MB model for $99 and the 1GB for $129. Obviously the 1GB is the better deal and most everyone else thought so too because it is completely sold out now. Check out the line-up here at WalMart.com.
Bringing back the 80s
It seems the movie industry has taken a liking to cartoons and toys of the 1980s. Having grown up in the 80s, this is kind of cool. I was a big fan of most of these toons and toys, which oddly enough all came out of Japan. The movies I’m referring to are Transformers and Voltron. The Transformers movie will be a live action movie rather than animated and will be produced by none other than Steven Spielberg, a transformer collector from the beginning. I’m looking forward to seeing this movie, but I’m definitely dreading the amount of marketing (hype) they will do for it. Following the trend, they have just announced a project to make a Voltron movie. I haven’t seen whether or not the movie will be live action or animated, but I’m hoping for animated. Either way, I’ll probably watch it.
Some of my other favorites from the 80s are M.A.S.K., G.I. Joe, Thundercats, and He-Man.
Chicago Trip Daily Journal
Day 1 (June 27, 2005) We left the house at 6 AM and embarked on our journey. We stopped every 200 miles or so to fill up the tank maintaining a half or better tank of gas. We made it to Monett, MO by 5 PM and chatted with the family before going to eat at Lai Lai, one of Monett’s best Chinese Restaurants. It was pretty good standard American-style Chinese. We hit the sack around 9:30 PM, but that turned out to be our awakening. We hadn’t considered before that point, “what if the girls, primarily Alyssa, doesn’t sleep?†I think combined we all got around 4 hours total sleep. It was horrible. Since she usually sleeps alone, no one realized Alyssa could be such the midnight chatterbox.
Day 2 (June 28, 2005)
We left the motel at 5:50 AM and started for Chicago. Again, we stopped every 200 miles or so to keep the tank above the halfway mark. 
We passed the arch in St. Louis at 10 AM. It was very impressive although I was driving so I didn’t get a good look at it. Around 11 AM, we decided to stop and let the kiddos walk around. We ate a Burger King in a very small town in Illinois. This was a typical BK, with the exception of not accepting credit cards and being surrounded by corn fields. We finally arrived in Chicago, Southside, only to be greeted by one of our favorite things, traffic. We pushed our way through the traffic for an hour before reaching our lodging on the Northside. We choose the ExtendedStay America for one reason. They were the cheapest available lodging near Chicago during this period. This period being the Tastes of Chicago and many other events. The room is so-so, but I don’t think we expected much since this room was half the price we expected to pay for a room in Chicago. Since we are all tired of driving we choose something close and easy for dinner. Evanston is only 10 minutes away from Skokie, we were staying, and it has a Carmen’s Pizzeria, which is one of my favorites. The pizzeria was just as impressive as I remembered. Despite having remodeled and changing the atmosphere from a college-hangout to more of a uppity-type, the pizza was still the same excellent pizza. After dinner we walked around Evanston for 20 minutes to see what new things had been put there, and we had 20 minutes left on our meter. Before heading back to the motel we stopped at two places everyone would recognize, Target and Walgreens for some basic shopping to get us through the next couple of days. Dreading another night of 99 night couldn’t have been more polar. After Alyssa gave us her rendition of the Birthday Song, all was peaceful.
Day 3 (June 29, 2005)
Everyone slept until 7:30 AM without any interruption. We went to Walker Bros. For breakfast and it was some of the best breakfast I had ever had. I had a Belgian waffle and Cheri had Chocolate Chippie Pancakes. Cheri’s friend, Meg, offered some of her Eggs Benedict which had spinach, mushrooms, bacon and cheese as well as the typical Hollandaise Sauce. All-in-all, we had a great experience. I spent midday with my eldest daughter cheering on the Cubbies to yet another victory. This was her very first Cubs game and my 3rd consecutive trip-with-game visit to Chicago. 
She couldn’t have cared less about the game as long as she had a handful of cotton candy, which cost a whopping $5.00 a bag. Wow!! Near the end of the game, I had Cheri pick me up from Wrigley Field, and we headed straight over to Lincoln Park Zoo, one of the few free attractions in Chicago. We met up with another of Cheri’s friends there and spent the rest of the afternoon peering through glass and fence to see wild animals, being not-so-wild. The weather here really shows its benefits in the middle of Summer with it still cool enough to go to the zoo. After this exhausting walk around the zoo, we decided to meet up with our friends at Leona’s, an Italian restaurant, and home of Extraordinary Junk Food. This is the name they’ve given to their huge mozzarella cheese sticks that measure 1 x 1 x 5 inches. These things are so awesome, they make you order them by the single stick. We ordered 4, and that was plenty. We also split the Romano Crusted Chicken Sandwich with a marinara sauce. The kiddos had a cracker crust (thin, very thin) cheese pizza. After dinner, we walked around Belmont a bit to get digestion of the cheese kick started, then headed back to the motel.
Day 4 (June 30, 2005) This was an easy day for breakfast. We went to what is the most popular donut shop here in Chicago, Dunkin Donuts, and had what else… donuts. After that we made our way to the Museum Campus to see how the parking situation was. To our amazement, we found a metered spot without any effort. As we walked to the Adler Planetarium, it occurred to me that our girls would never sit through a planetarium show where a bunch of adults tell you about stars and constellations named after Greek and Roman mythology. Maybe in a few more years. We went straight over to the Shedd Aquarium we saw a ton of fish and watched a Dolphin show before Alyssa began a crackhead-like rampage. This was the first sign of our children’s zero tolerance of museum environments. We promptly left to not subject any tourists to such a display. We made our way to Ed Debevic’s, a diner restaurant with a reputation of being outstandingly rude. This ambiance was carried out beautifully as I could see it was only an act, but they did a very good job of being convincing. After consuming some typical diner food, we decided to trek across downtown Chicago over to the Hancock Observatory. It was approximately 20 blocks away, which with children might as well have been 200. We made it in good time and shot up North America’s fastest elevator moving approximately 30 feet per second to their observation deck. The view was breathtaking. This is the sort of view you dream of having if you could afford a million dollar condominium in downtown Chicago, or New York. In other words, it won’t happen in this lifetime. To snap us back to reality, we trekked back across downtown to where we had parked. We drove back to Old Orchard, where our motel is located and visited the mall there, Westfield at Old Orchard. This mall is very cool because it has a indoor mall layout, but maintains an outdoor architecture. In other words, the stores are site-by-side, the walkways are close, and the roof only exists on top of the stores. A nice cool breeze blew through the entire time. This would be very nice to have in Houston, but the heat could make it a miserable experience. The girls ate a couple of New York style (thin crust) pizza slices. Cheri and I split a gyro and a Vienna Beef hot dog. They were decent, but still considered mall food. We finished out the day sharing a waffle cone of Fat Free Dreamsicle Frozen Yogurt. YUMM.
Day 5 (July 1, 2005) This morning started off with a hearty breakfast at Alexander’s with Meg. This restaurant is the epitome of hole-in-the-wall breakfast joints. This food really hit the spot (a couple of times). After breakfast, we drove to the Palmer House Hilton to pick up our Gray Line Trolley passes, that come with our Chicago Go Cards. We then parked at the Museum Campus again because we were so impressed with the parking over there. Again, we were able to find parking right away. The Field Museum was our next stop. This museum is home of the largest Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton, named Sue. From the maps provided by the museum, all we saw was a small T-Rex, that in no way looked large. Don’t get me wrong, it would still eat a human whole, but this was not a Chrysler-chomping beast. When we spoke to a group in the elevator, they mentioned that the head of Sue was too heavy to have mounted it with the skeleton, so Cheri and I are assuming we missed the real Sue. The second sign of the Cranson Kids dislike of museums occurred here. Only 35 minutes had passed when Alyssa began her typical tantrum, which at the point made us realize that taking our kids to a museum was a bad idea. Once we figured out where the trolley would pick up, we got on the Gray Line Trolley to be carried over to Navy Pier. The trip, despite being only 10 minutes, was the most humorous 10 minutes I have had in a long time. This trolley driver really knew how to ‘bring it.’ Navy Pier was a success with the kids. Loaded with food and carnival type attractions, we were able to keep them entertained for a while. We all rode the ferris wheel together, then Alexandria rode the Wave Swinger, much like the Gunslinger at Six Flags Astroworld, twice (once with each parent). The time to go back to the van had arrived (meter would run out in about an hour), and we just got word that the trolley would be running 10 minutes late and it would actually take an hour and a half to make its way back to the Museum Campus. This would put us 30 minutes past our meter and if caught, $75 in the whole for a parking ticket. If you haven’t guessed yet, we hiked our way back from Navy Pier to the Museum Campus, which is approximately 2 miles. This pretty much took care of the breakfast I was feeling guilty about. Another point to mention here is that while it was 99 degrees in Houston, the temperature had dropped to a cool 75 degrees here in Chicago, and with the strong winds coming right off of the lake, it felt like 65 for the entire hike. We made the hike, with strollers and all, in about 45 minutes. That is not bad if I don’t say so myself. For dinner, we choose Zephyr’s Cafe, an average food restaurant with a super lineup up desserts. This restaurant is best known for their desserts, in fact, they are at the Taste of Chicago with only desserts from their menu. Now we must rest. By the way, Alyssa fell twice on her knees and drew blood the second time. She needs to slow down to a trot or walk, because running everywhere is just not cutting it.
Day 6 (July 2, 2005) We decided to hit a local spot for breakfast named Bakers Square, which is very similar to Denny’s, but a tad better. We went to our usual spot for parking only to find the City had blocked off this whole area for metered parking, either for the Holiday Weekend or because they do it every weekend. Either way, no parking. We found a garage close to the Taste of Chicago, so that made it very convenient to everything we had planned to do for the day. We proceeded to walk half of the same 2 mile hike we did previously to get back to Navy Pier in time for a Shoreline Architectural Tour on their riverboat. This was an hour long boat ride through Chicago River which covered just about every aspect and era of Chicago building design. Apparently this was exhaustion time for Alyssa because should wouldn’t sit still. I took her to the lower deck of the boat, which no one likes because you can’t see anything past the first floor of every building. Anyway, Alyssa started her first nap of the day, which carried us along until our first Trolley transfer, from the typical Trolley to the ‘Big Banana,’ a double-decker tour bus. We took the ‘Big Banana’ around its tour route and jumped off at The Sears Tower, which disappointingly had a two-hour wait to get into the Skydeck. That type of wait is fine for adults, but with children, forgetaboutit! We picked up the standard Trolley again and took it to The Art Institute of Chicago, which was also the entrance to Taste of Chicago. The Taste of Chicago is a food festival with many local restaurants selling their most popular items for tickets in an attempt to get people to come to their locations. For some reason, we waited until the weekend to go, which may have been a mistake. This event was so full of people that you could walk from one end of the street to the other in a straight line. There were people everywhere. The food was very tasty and worthwhile, but the whole experience could have been a little better if we had room to walk. Those people without strollers, seemed to make their way through the crowd with ease, but I noticed everyone else with strollers was having the same issues we were. Just after chowing on some good food, we trotted back over to Navy Pier and rode the Ferris Wheel and Carousel again. Back to the parking garage we went and I drove back to Old Orchard taking the scenic Evanston route. The temperature was in the low 70s for most of the day. Very nice for July.
Day 7 (July 3, 2005) For breakfast, we scarfed the better part of a box of Entenmann’s Devils Food Crumb Donuts. These are Cheri’s favorite Entenmann’s donuts and they are not available in Houston. Shortly after breakfast, we drove downtown and found Rannali’s, a very nicely located Italian restaurant with a huge outdoor patio for dining. Cheri’s favorite thing about this place is their calzone, which they call a Panzerotti and deep fry instead of bake. This thing was a monster and equally as tasty. We both split one while the girls had another cheese pizza between them. Rannali’s is located in Lincoln Park so we decided to go see the parts of Lincoln Park Zoo we hadn’t seen before (because we were previously there at closing time). The girls loved seeing the rest of the Zoo because it included several bears and giraffes. Locating parking downtown was kind of tricky because you had to keep an eye on what is legal parking, and what is available as well as not getting too far off your plan while searching. We were lucky that we found a spot that could have easily been missed by others because of its location. It only put us one block passed where we intended on parking. This was the beginning of our lucky streak. Next we walked those that one block only to find a Free Navy Pier Trolley stopping to pick us up. We were headed back to Navy Pier to go on Shoreline’s Skyline Tour, which departs every 30 minutes from Navy Pier. After the short, but fun, Trolley ride, we got our tickets for the Skyline Tour and found it loading as we walked up. Once we boarded, we took the skyline scenic cruise around the harbor, which included an automated tour guide. The guide was very informative, but the skipper of this vessel had mistimed the start of the guide because it began with the John Hancock building, which at this time was at our backs. No one else seemed bothered by this and since we had already toured the John Hancock Building, we were fine without hearing about it again. We had some McDonald’s soft serve ice creams for a snack, then visited the Navy Pier’s Children’s Museum, a very cool educational museum that is completely hands-on. This is one of the few times kids can be hands-on without getting in trouble. We walked back to the trolley pick up zone to find a ton of people there and not enough trolleys coming by. Another item to note is that these trolley drivers had no consistent pattern as to where in the zone they would stop, so what you think is the beginning of the line ends up being the end of a split line feeding from two directions. Most of the people found this very irritating. The second trolley drove up and he was apparently packed full, but had enough room for two people to stand in the stairs of the trolley, very safe, I’m sure. We decided to walk the 6 blocks in to get to the car, which was compared to previous hikes, not bad at all. After a forty-five minute drive all over the northern suburbs of Chicago, we stopped at Hecky’s Barbecue to pick up some dinner, then we drove to Evanston Park to have a little picnic. After dinner, we strolled over to the pier at Evanston Park and waited for the Grant Park fireworks show. This effort was foiled by the Park Police who ordered everyone to leave because the fireworks were to be shown the next night. I have a feeling, this guy didn’t realize we were using their facility to view down the lake, because as he was telling us about the schedule of fireworks, we could here ‘bombs bursting in air,’ which more than invalidated what he was telling us. Anyway, the girls were tired and we headed back to our motel to get some rest. If I haven’t mentioned this already, downtown Chicago has a McDonald’s on every corner. Maybe the movie Super Size Me hasn’t had an impact here.
Day 8 (July 4, 2005) For breakfast, we ended up nibbling around the motel room and then went to Clarke’s in Evanston for brunch. I had a potato dish called North Shore Potatoes (Mexican Style). The kids had eggs and pancakes, rather basic and Cheri had a German (pancake). This pancake was enormous and shaped like a deep-dish pizza crust. Everything tasted very good. On a side note, this is one place Cheri worked when she lived here. We left Evanston and made our way south to Downtown Chicago to make a pit stop at Fannie May Candies to grab a load (2 lbs) of Cheri’s favorite chocolates. After this quick stop, I dropped Cheri off at Taste of Chicago again to cash in our remaining tickets on some of the goodies we liked to previous visit. As I drove around the block a couple of times, Cheri picked up an Italian Beef sandwich, and a boneless barbecue rib sandwich, which resembled a nice sized McRib sandwich, but tasted much better. Since it was a little damp due to the rain in the area (the first of our visit), we headed back to the motel to do some laundry and pack our belongs in preparation of the trip the next day.
Day 9 (July 5, 2005) We left first thing in the morning, and with minimal stopping we made decent time to Monett, Missouri. We spent the evening with my wife’s family, then returned to our motel for the evening.
Day 10 (July 6, 2005) We ate breakfast at the motel, continental style, then went back to her parents to figure out what the plans were for the day. We all decided to go to Springfield to eat lunch and play at Incredible Pizza, a cross between Chuck E Cheese and Dave & Busters. This place was very impressive with rides/games for all ages. After a four hour visit, it was time to go back to Monett. My wife’s brother and I went to the local batting cages, which were very nice and had only been there 3 months. I did surprisingly well since I hadn’t hit a ball in like 8 years. The whole day was great.
Day 11 (July 7, 2005) We left very early in the AM to head back home. The drive was pretty uneventful with the exception of time spent in Dallas. It had rained slightly and an eighteen wheeler collided with the wall of the freeway causing his rig to get twisted up blocking 3 of 4 lanes just before our exit. While everyone in the car was sleeping, I stared at the bumper in front of at 5mph for about an hour. Once we were free of the accident we made good time and were home by 7:30 PM. Sleeping in our own beds never felt so good.
SlimServer: Streaming Music Server
SlimServer is a nicely developed (Perl) piece of software that was designed for use with their own device called the SqueezeBox. I don’t own a SqueezeBox, but you can get some good use out of this server. If you want to get full functionality, it is recommended you download their ‘emulator’ called SoftSqueeze, which I’m guessing is the very source code that is use on their device.
Another option is to only use this as your streaming server and connect to it via WinAMP or iTunes. This application is very similar to ShoutCast. I haven’t configured a ShoutCast server in about 3 years, but I’m sure it is as easy as this server was to configure. For those who never have configured ShoutCast, you basically setup your playlist and hit Play, using your nicely designed Web Interface. After that you server is broadcasting your playlist to the port specified to the entire network for anyone to connect to. This is fundamental Internet Radio, and you have just setup your own radio station. To listen to your music, point your music software of choice (XMMS, WinAMP, iTunes, etc) to http://[computername]:9000/stream.mp3 and shazaam, tunes!
This server does seem to handle most types of music files and converts them to mp3 on the fly using perl libraries.
For More Information: http://www.slimdevices.com/pi_features.html
Chicago Trip
Only 2 and half weeks until my Chicago Road Trip. I’ll be driving from Houston to Chicago to enjoy all that is Chicago. We been planning this trip for a year now and we wanted to be there for the annual Taste of Chicago, a festival of food where 60+ restaurants features items from their menu. We will also be in Chicago for the 4th of July, so that should be kind of neat to see the fireworks on Lake Michigan rather than my cul-de-sac back home.
This trip is one of the major reasons we decided to get the minivan and a portable DVD system. We figured both would make the long drive more comfortable.