Xbox 360 “slim”
My wife and kids bought me a new Xbox 360 “slim” for Father’s Day. So far, I like the hardware, especially how much quieter it is when compared to my older Xbox 360.
The setup/transfer went pretty easy, especially since the software to transfer data from the old hard drive is included on the new Xbox. (You do need to purchase the Xbox 360 transfer cable.) All content was transferred, except for the games that had been installed on the hard drive. Even though the content was transferred, it was still licensed to my old Xbox. (The DRM on the Xbox licenses content to the Xbox where the content was purchased, and the Xbox Live account.)
Since I want the content to be playable when my Xbox Live account is not logged in, I needed to transfer the licenses to the new Xbox. Microsoft has a tool where you can transfer the licenses for your content to a different Xbox. Unfortunately, after you transfer the licenses, you need to redownload the content. The download manager on the Xbox only allows 30 items to be added to the queue. So I re-downloaded the games, but haven’t redownloaded the Rock Band tracks that I had purchased.
I do like the hardware on the new Xbox, for reasons other than how silent it runs. Since HDMI and toslink optical are on board, I can now use HDMI and digital audio. (There wasn’t room with the placement of the ports to use both before.)
Recordings on Comcast DVR
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
links for 2008-01-29
TV Wall Mount accessories
Today, I saw these two posts (1, 2)that mention two helpful items when wall mounting a TV.
The PowerBridge is a kit that makes it easy to add a recessed outlet behind a wall mounted TV. The kit includes all of the items needed, except for the romex wire.
APC offers a wall mounted power filter. This offers surge protection and noise filtering for tvs. The cool thing about is that it is hidden by the TV.
INSTEON SwitchLinc Relay Countdown Timer
We are trying to conserve electricity where ever we can. We have switched all of our light bulbs, that aren’t contolled by dimmer, to compact florescent bulbs. We also turn off all unnecessary lights.
The lights that have been usually left on, are the one down to and in the garage. Since we normally keep the garage door closed, I tend to not notice that the light is on, so the light gets left on. The other problem is that when we are rushing out in the morning, the lights get left on
I wanted to find a solution that would automatically turn off these lights, but I also wanted the light switch to look like a regular light switch. Unfortunatelly, the motion sensing light switch that we used in our previous house wouldn’t work with florescent light bulbs. Also, many of the timer light switches aren’t as easy to use as regular switches.
links for 2007-07-11
links for 2007-06-22
links for 2007-05-29
Linksys firmware upgrades with tftp
I have been having problems upgrading our Linksys BEFSX41 to the latest version of the firmware. While in the process of flashing the new version of the software, the web page refreshes to a missing page. Once that happens, the web interface of the router doesn’t respond. This happens with Firefox and Safari on the Mac, and with Firefox and Internet Explorer on Windows
The instructions on this page worked perfectly. The command line tftp tool on Mac OS X upgraded the router seamlessly. I used the instructions were the password is specified on the command line. (There is a space between the end of the file name and “octet”.)
iBoot
Today my server became unresponsive. It looks like apache was eating all of the memory on my computer, as I saw before. Luckily, my wife was home so she was able to reboot the computer.
I wanted to find an easier way to reboot the computer remotely. I found the Dataprobe iBoot is a device that can cut power to any device that is connected to the electrical outlet. It also looks like you can configure it so that a it will cut power and restore it if this devices doesn’t receive any network pings.
It looks like this will be available at the end of August for around $250.
Technorati Tags: apache, Dataprobe iBoot, Software
