WOW!

I only thought that I felt dumb, now I feel like an idiot. No excuse for me at all on this one. If you're bored look closely at the link I spelled my own name wrong!
www.igotnotime.com/blog

Wrong link

I feel dumb I posted the wrong link. My new blog address is www.ignotnotime.com/blog and I hope to see you all there, even if it isn't blogger.

Why am I changing? I feel limited with Blogger. You know sometimes I want to share a free illegal movie or mp3 and I just can't do that with blogger. LOL

Changing and delaying

Well I am off to the Air Force museum in a couple hours and I am sure we will hundreds of great photos. I bought about 30 AA batteries for the trip. They were cheaper than the CR-V3 batteries I wanted. I am done buying CR-V3 until I can find a good high power Lithium-Ion Rechargable battery to go with. When I find it I will buy several, I mistakingly thought that all CR-V3 batteries were rechargable. Costly ($36) mistake.

Anyway, I am bored with Blogger, so I am installing WordPress on my server and will post to both blogs, but gradually the one on my website will be by primary. So you can stick around here if you like but I will be moving on eventually and only be updating this blog once in a while.

Obviously nothing is on there quite yet, but if you would like to bookmark my website for future reading, the link is www.igotnotime.com. For those few who refuse to read anything other than Blogger, I feel for you and bid you farewell. To those who know me and follow my ramblings good things are coming. I intend to use the blog on my own website for hosting torrent files that I seed. So if anyone is looking for Tom Yum Goong.....55555

Wooo hoo another week!

It's been so long since I have worked a full 40 hour week doing physical labor, I didn't think I would make it! Two weeks now are done, and you know... The last two nights have not been so bad. My back doesn't hurt the way it did the first week, and I am finally feeling energetic at work again!

I feel like I am 16 years old again. I really didn't think I would make it through the initial break in period. I did, it was miserable but it was worth it. Now I actually enjoy going to work again. If only I could get used to this sleep schedule working nights and all. I am just grateful there is no madatory overtime right now. Just a few more weeks and I will be ready for that. Speaking of sleep schedules, I am due for a shower and bed.

More for the HTPC

I have learned a bit more with the little time I had for reading in between work and sleep. The TiVo features will work with my video card. It does not require a seperate DVR (Digital Video Recorder) unit! So that is great news, using the computer for a feature that is native to computers. For those who not familiar TiVO DVR units are basically lower powered computers running Linux with a HTPC frontend. Kinda nifty to know that.

Anyway on with the other news I figured out. The IR remote I have will not simply work with a plugin. The plugin existing is for a device that appears to be designed in someone's garage. It is an infrared transmitter and reciever unit that is USB powered. It plugs into the computer and after being configured will accept remote commands, and when the remote tells the HTPC frontend to change the satellite channel it then will re-transmit the signal for the satellite reciever. The Bad news is the device costs extra money, not much only about $50 but it will will need to be bought before the case.

I have decided that the case can and will wait untill it is all running perfectly and configured on my main computer, once it is flawless, I will then set it in it's own case and as a single display PC.

More HTPC Front End Screenshots

This is the start-up screen for the default skin on the Xlobby front end. Sorry about the MSN junk scattered at the top, right after I hit the PRNT SCR button, they disappeared. Again I really despise this ugly skin and am going to try making one of my own. Since I am a boring person I will probably blog about it too.

Below is the weather option, it is localized. The snow did come today. :(

On the weather screen I click Current and I got all the current weather conditions pop up in the window just as you see below.

There are also 3 or 4 different weather maps available. I clicked the secondone, the doppler radar. Worked perfect after I set my location.

Playing some MP3's from a Thai CD. It does display Thai font, something that the Intervideo front end could not do!

More tomorrow after I learn how to use this thing. 'Till next time, take care everyone.

Home Theater Front End

The software that HTPC's run are called front ends. The first front end I tried playing with was from Intervideo and was just called Home Theater. It came bundled with an infrared remote control and a USB IR reciever. I really disliked the software, so decided to try another front end. I am hoping I can use a plugin so the remote control will work with the new front end. It is a very nice remote with incredible range and sensitivity.

So the front end I decided to use is called Xlobby, it is very advanced or more advanced than most would need for a HTPC anyway. I will show a few screenshots of it in action. Keep in mind that these images are being viewed on a 43" 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio DVI monitor/television. Too the images shown in this blog post are using the Burlwood skin, I will be making a custom skin to fit our mood very soon if I can get most of the settings configured the way I would like to use the system.

This is the front end while playing streaming music from the net. Any net source will work perfectly on it. I have tested 6 Thai radio stations from WMA, Real, and Shoutcast sources. Very nice with the 1,000 watt sound system!

I have not yet tested or even read on the TiVo system yet, but it is very cool to see that I will soon have my TiVo features back again. I really miss pausing live TV.

The music player technically needs some sort of engine to run in the background and I think it can be set as a service so you do not have it cluttering up your taskbar if you use a dual monitor system. Either way it works very well, and shows the album covers as the files from each respective album is played.

I have not read about this feature yet either. It looks like it can control my television and satellite channels with the front end interface, meaning the front end would not be used solely for playing media from my computer hard drives alone.

Making it even more cool it will control X-10 devices meaning it can control any power outlet or light switch right from the computer, or in the case of a HTPC -- right from the television remote control. It also has timers that can be controlled by the computer. More cool things I know nothing about yet. I have alot of reading to do on these systems and how to install. I will let you all know what they run. So far excluding the television, any home built computer will do. This is running on a barebones kit ordered online, and case that was ordered online. Running WinBorg (a downloaded pirated copy of XP), Winamp and XLobby. The latter two being free.

I do not run this full-time yet. My television is usually on thye satellite source, not the HTPC source. But when I want to watch movies, karaoke or listen to net music, so far I am using this system flawlessly. I just need more time to learn how to setup the other stuff yet.

More cool features and the default skin will be tomorrow's blog.