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Paul's Time Sink

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Parrot 3200-LS

Paul Westbrook | 11 July, 2008 02:24

Parrot 3200-LSSince is is now a requirement to use hands-free devices for use in cars, I started to look for a solution for our van.  I wanted to find something that would connect to the main headunit, where it would automatically mute the audio, to allow the call audio to be heard.  Also, I wanted the device, when installed, to look releatively stock. The Parrot 3200-LS looked like it would work perfectly.  

I had it installed a few weeks ago, and the install looks nice.  It was easy to configure with my Samsung iSCH-760.  On the Parrot, I went into the setting menu for pairing, and selected Windows CE, and the Parrot displayed a password.  Then on my phone, I searched for Bluetooth devices, and then selected the Parrot 3200-LS.  Once paired, the phone numbers on my phone automatically appeared on the Parrot 3200-LS, so I could select phone numbers directly from the Parrot's interface.

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HTC Touch Dual

Paul Westbrook | 01 June, 2008 03:10

My wife and I are thinking of switching to AT&T for cell phone service, when the 3G iPhones come out.  When we switch, I was thinking about getting the HTC Touch Dual.  This looks like a pretty nice phone.

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MSN Direct

Paul Westbrook | 06 April, 2008 22:17

I have been using the Nuvi 680 for several months.  One of the reasons that I bought it was for the traffic information provided by MSN Direct.  I have been unimpressed with the quality of the data.  There are several problems:

  1. There are many areas that don't have coverage.  For example, when driving from San Jose to Sacramento, as soon as we left the local area there was no coverage. Unfortunately, we encountered a traffic delay that we could have been routed around.
  2. Many of the roads that I travel on to and from work are not included in the MSN Direct data.  I only have seen information on interstates and state and US highways.
  3. The data seems to be stale. I have had many occasions when the Nuvi stated that there was a delay, when the delay had already cleared up.

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Problem with SqueezeBox / SqeezeNetwork

Paul Westbrook | 07 March, 2008 22:44

We have been having a problem with our SqueezeBox.  We normally leave it connected to SqueezeNetwork so we can listen to our Pandora station.  For the past couple of weeks whenever we attempt to play a station, we would get prompted to install a new firmware upgrade. 

Even though the install went successfully, the SqueezeBox keeps prompting to update the software again.  

I just noticed that Logitech released verion 7.0 of SqueezeCenter (which had been called SlimServer)  This version integrates the content that is available on SqueezeNetwork into the local server, so you don't have to switch servers.

Hopefully this will solve the firmware upgrade prompting. 

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DVR revisited

Paul Westbrook | 11 February, 2008 21:19

In this post, I mentioned some problems that I was having with my Comcast DVR.  Comcast has come out an replaced the DVR, and everything thing seems fine.

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Recordings on Comcast DVR

Paul Westbrook | 06 February, 2008 22:42

We havent looked at the recording on one of our Comcast DVRs for several months.  Last week, I decided to watch one of the shows on the dvr, but there were no recording in the recording list.  Also, the list of scheduled recordings was empty.  For some reason, the DVR decided to erase all of its settings.

I am annoyed, especially since we are paying Comcast for this box.  Since our Series3 works downstairs, maybe I will look in to replacing the Comcast DVR with a SlingBox/SlingCatcher or a Media Center/Extender combination

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Connect 360

Paul Westbrook | 26 January, 2008 20:11

Connect 360 is a Mac OS X preference pane that lets your play/view content from your Mac OS X computer on your Xbox 360.  It uses iTunes to get the list of tracks and playlist, and iPhoto for photos.  You specify a directory to indicate what videos should be shared.

The demo worked for me, though I only used it to view videos.  The demo will let you view a good number of files.

I would love to use this to view all of my content on my TV.  This would allow me to remove the Mac mini from the AV rack and keep it in the closet.  Unfortunately, the Xbox doesn't support all of the video formats that the Mac mini can, so I would have to transcode many of my videos. 

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Squeezebox for kids bedrooms

Paul Westbrook | 07 January, 2008 23:25

Tonight, I was sitting downstairs working on the computer, listening to the baby monitor.  Then the CD in baby's room started to skip, and it woke her up.  This made me think about this post that I wrote a while ago.

The kids have a tendency to scratch CDs and break CD and tape players (cassettes can not be played in one of their radios any more).  I started to think of the ideal solution.  I like the way that the SqueezeBox is able to play my whole colection of music, and I am able to control it remotely (to turn it off after the kids go to sleep, or turn down the volume). And that is without the media being damaged.

SoundBridge Radio The one problem with the SqueezeBox is that it doesn't have built-in speakers.  Ideally Logitech would come out with a SqueezeBox that integrates speakers and an amplifier.  Something like the Roku SoundBridge Radio would be great. Unfortunately the SoundBridge Radio doesn't support the latest version of  SlimServer.

 

 

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Nuvi 680 update

Paul Westbrook | 07 January, 2008 20:25

I have been using the Garmin Nuvi 680 for a while now, and I do like it.  There are some things that I don't like about it. 

  1. You can't specify a number destinations and have the Nuvi calculate the best route to all of them.  You can only specify a destination and a single "via point"
  2. You can't specify a road to avoid when routing.  For example, there is no way for you to specify that you want to avoid a particular highway on your route
  3. The traffic alerts do not indicate the time that they were last updated.  It is impossible for you to determine how likely a alert is to still be a problem.
  4. The microphone on the unit, when mounted on the dash is near the windshield.  So, when it is raining out side, it is hard for the other person on the line to hear you.

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Garmin Nuvi 680

Paul Westbrook | 31 December, 2007 21:37

For a little while, I have been looking for a GPS unit for my car.  I didn't want to buy a new stereo, so I was mainly interested in a portable unit.  I also was interested in one that had traffic information available, as our current one in our van doesn't, and it doesn't help when the route takes you through a traffic jam.

I settled on the Garmin Nuvi 680 because it has some key features:

  • Handsfree bluetooth profile (including displaying phone address book
  • traffic information. (The Nuvi 680 using MSN Direct for this information.  This allows the expected time delay to be displayed on the unit.)
  • MP3 player

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Cancelled Blockbuster

Paul Westbrook | 27 December, 2007 00:24

We have just cancelled our BlockBuster.com account.  We weren't watching the movies fast enough to make the membership worth it.  Now when we want to watch a movie, we can either download HD movies on Xbox live or with On Demand on cable.

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More MP3tunes clients

Paul Westbrook | 06 December, 2007 12:34

In September, MP3tunes announed a contest for developers to create clients to play content hosted in MP3tunes lockers.  Today some of the resulting applications were announced. Now you can listen to the music in your locker on a Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation 3, Windows Mobile devices, Chumbys, and in Eclipse.

 I am looking forward to try this on my new phone.

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Squeezebox

Paul Westbrook | 21 November, 2007 18:20

We have had a iPod in our kitchen for a while.  The iHome IH36 keeps the iPod off the counter, while providing amplified speakers.  Unfortunately, I haven't been completly happy with this solution.  The problem is with the iPod it self, and not the iHome.

The iPod only presents a static view of your music.  In order to refresh it, you need to connect it to your computer.  The staleness problem isn't the only issue that I have.  

I don't have time to create playlists for the iPod, so most often, I just play all of the content in shuffled order.  But this has the problem of playing music that I have no interest in (i.e. Holiday or Children's music).  But even if I avoided that content the mixes are random, so it is hard to get into the music.

I have been looking at the Sqeezebox for a while as a way to solve this problem.  In addition to playing our whole library of content, it can connect to the network for other sources of music.  For example, through their SqueezeNetwork, it can play (and create) Pandora radio streams.  Pandora stations are very good collections of music that relate to one of your songs or artists.
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PowerBridge

Paul Westbrook | 04 November, 2007 22:37

In this post, I mentioned the PowerBridge.  We ordered two of them for our TVs. The package includes pretty much everything that you need:

  1. 2 old work electical boxes
  2. 1 recessed electical outlet w/ cover
  3. 1 recessed power inlet
  4. extension cord

The only think that you need to supply yourself is romex wire.

The installation was very straight forward and easy.  The only problem that we had was the installation of the old work boxes.  Normally these boxes attach by compressing on both sizes of a sheet of drywall.  Unfortunately, in our house, there is a layer of plywood on the other size of the drywall, so the thickness is too much for the old work box.  Once I worked though that problem the installation worked well.

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Harmony 890

Paul Westbrook | 02 November, 2007 04:19

We just rearranged our living room, so now the TV is on a different wall than our AV equipment. Normally an IR remote , like the Harmony 880, would work find, as the IR signal would just bounce off the walls.  But we also moved the couches so, there is no direct line of sight to the AV equipment, unless you point the remote over the side of the couch.

The Harmony 890 solves this problem.  It has the same functionality as the 880, but it also a RF remote.  The box also includes a "remote extender" which converts the RF signal to IR.

The setup of the remote was as easy as the Harmony 880, but in the application, you can configure the remote extender, and specify the devices that should be controlled with it.

The one strange thing is the steps that are required to update the remote.  The update process requires you to connect the remote first, then the remote extender, and then the remote again. Those steps don't even to the pairing, and that is a separate process.  I don't know why it is even necessary to connect to the remote extender anyway,  Ideally you would still specify what devices are controlled by the extender, and which IR blaster port should be used, and the remote should just encode the IR signal in the RF signal.  This way you could send any IR signal through the extender without any special configuration.

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