RIP My Friend Ernie

I lost an old friend this week, and today I just came back from a very large memorial service for my friend. All three of the sitting rooms in the funeral home were filled and more chairs had to be brought in.

Ernie was one of my oldest friends in fact. Both in age as well as in the length that I knew him.

I've always been proud that my friends have come in all different packages. I have tried to make sure it has never mattered to me how young or old, male or female, fat or thin or anything in between, what their education or lack thereof was, how little or how much money they've had or make, what their disabilities are, what their nationality or color was, or their interests. Sometimes I've had to get past my own biases, sometimes I've been able to and sometimes ultimately I have not been able to. But I think usually I could.

There's been some (unforgettable) times when one of my friends has met another friend - only for one to look down on another. That's just not right. My friend is your friend, your friend is my friend - at least that's the way it should be. It's surprising sometimes how little you know people. And on the other hand it's surprising sometimes when you find out how well you CAN know someone, and how good people turn out to be; despite my cynical look upon the general population.

My friend Ernest Jeican was 77 years old; he had heart problems, bad diabetes, could barely see, and had lost a leg. But he still lived alone and even with his health problems held out hope for solutions and improvements and worked at improving himself every day.

I met Ernie at a Commodore User's Group meeting back in the 80's. At that time Commodore computers were all the rage, back before the Internet was called the Internet and the average person neither could nor would use it, when BBS's (Bulletin Board Systems - the precursor to the modern webboard or chat room) were big. The dinosaur days in computing terms, in other words.

We all shared software, techniques, bought and sold hardware and generally had a great time.

I've been a member of a number of clubs in my life, and never really developed a taste for the whole group/camaraderie thing.

But the exception to this was the Commodore club. I met a number of good people there, some became close friends and I've lost track of those people for the most part, except for Ernie.

We always kept in touch here and there and after he retired we'd get together and trade software and such. When we both got into PC's we did the same and I'd stop in once every few weeks or even once a week. After awhile my visits included fixing and helping him with things that his failing eyesight caused him trouble with. I also met a number of his family and friends and lots of people from his amateur radio club - which was a major interest of his.

Last week I stopped in and dropped off a DVD that I copied for him and checked out a piece of software I had recommended to him. Unfortunately he had been out with his daughter getting groceries so I didn't get a chance to see him that one last time - if I'd known it would have been the last chance I would have stopped over later in the day. Funny how you regret the things that you really can't blame yourself for, yet still do.

I called him later and we talked a bit. The last thing he said to me was to offer to lend me a movie he thought I might like. I told him I'd stop over this week and pick it up and show him how to use the software I had recommended to him a bit more.

Now, instead of stopping over on the day I probably would have to see him - I went to his memorial service instead.

Despite him being 77 and me 41 we had a lot in common. It's one of the greatest things in the world to be able to have a friend no matter their age deference. It's one of the few fundamental things about human nature that gives me hope for humankind - that there's some of us who can get past differences and become longtime friends.

As I said, we had a lot in common. Our interest in computers of course, but also electronics and airplanes and music and some other basic philosophies on life that span age and other dissimilarities.

There were a lot of older songs that he liked that we sometimes would listen to to try out a set of speaker or a conversion program or something, but one more modern song that I remember him liking was Prince's "When Doves Cry". A song I like fine too. A good example of how music can bridge the gap in ages. I'll forever associate this song with Ernie, in a sad way of course. But I am also going to try to think of it as a tribute to him and our friendship over the years.

Ernie; like anyone his age, had a lot of hardships and tragedies in his life; like when his wife died. He was a long-time engineer on the railroad as well as any number of other jobs that would have been whole careers to most people. He served in the military, learned another language, and even how to fly.

Hee was always a happy guy and always happy to see me and quick to welcome me into his home. He was the consummate gentleman, always offering me anything he had. There's a phrase - "A Scholar and a Gentleman" and this is probably the best description I could give to describe Ernie.

I don't have any religion to rely on for the whole "gone to a better place" concept and comfort, so sometimes I think it's harder for us Atheists. The memorial service was heavy with prayer and such, but the deacon who did the service knew Ernie for over forty years so he was able to lend the personal touch that sometimes is lacking in funerals with religious services. Afterward, a couple who manufacture musical instruments got up and played one of the beautifully handcrafted little string instruments and sung a song in tribute to him. It was touching, and a good ending to the memorial service as, like I said above; Ernie was a big music fan. He would have liked it.

I have beside me my electric guitar. I barely can bang on the thing, I'm not that good and the only way for me to read music is to use a converter program to make it shows the chords on the computer screen while I follow along. But I'm okay at listening to music and being able to copy it on the guitar after a bunch of tries. So I'm going to queue up "When Doves Cry" and do a goodbye of my own to Ernie. RIP Ernie.

Miscellaneous, Acer Drivers Extracting, WGA, Flock Blog Editor, Firefox Beta, Gimp, Jefferson County Wiki, Snow and the "Billy Bob Contractor"

Miscellaneous

Ummmm! We decided it was time to break out the home-made applesauce from last summer! Nothing quite like it.

A little tweaking on the blog template. I've got it to expand to fill your browser screen, no matter what size it is - though if you're using 800X600 it may be a bit squashed. Some of the graphic background need re-sizing or re-positioning, but the one that overlaps this text is kinda cool where it is, I think.

Acer Drivers Extracting, WGA

I continue to get feedback from people wanting help installing drivers for their Acer 5520-5334. Remember - if the install program for the driver doesn't work (like if it says it's for Vista and won't run) you can sometimes load up your trusty Winzip (or clone) and drag'n'drop the driver install program right into Winzip. If it's a compressed install file (I believe the ones I listed in previous blog entries are; the video one is for sure) you will see all of the raw parts of the drivers. So if nothing else works do the above, then extract all the files to a temporary directory, after that go into your Device Manager and DELETE or UNINSTALL the devices in error. Then click ACTION on Device Manager and "Scan for Hardware Changes". When a Windows' dialog box pops up click "Install from a list or specific location" and browse to where you extracted the files from the installer.

You might have to go through this process a couple times until you find the right errored device but likely it will work if you can't install it any other way.

We got it good though (relatively), compared to some of the cheaper models of Acer laptop. No having to mess with BIOS or harddrive settings.

If you're looking for a good fan/CPU temp monitoring program check out Notebook Hardware Control. It works pretty good, and I like it better then Speedfan and some others I've tried, I think. Shows remaining battery, lets you do power management better then the E-power program from Acer. Very configurable. Check it out.

And, of course, occasionally you may have problems with Windows Genuine Advantage and it's gang of programs - even if you have a legitimate copy. MuBlinder is the answer in that case, or if you just don't want all those WGA programs and quasi-spyware running.

Number one problem with installing MuBlinder on a brand new legitimate copy of XP? Not having .Net framework installed; at least version 2.0. (link here)

There seems to be some problems with the newer versions even with even with the .Net 2.0 installed. Sometimes it can be solved be using the .Net install program's repair function, sometimes you need to uninstall it completely and re-install it, sometimes you need to delete MuBlinder and it's corresponding KRX directory in \Documents and Settings\[username]\Local Settings\Application Data to get it to work. Or you may need to do a re-install of Windows even (usually it repairs whatever is wrong by just re-installing XP right over top of your old installation, thus negating you having to set everything up again).
Flock Blog Editor, Firefox Beta, GIMP 2.4.4 Install Problem

I really like this blog editor built into the Flock browser. The browser itself doesn't overmuch thrill me (being just Firefox in a wrapper), though if you're looking for a social networking-oriented browser it's probably for you. But the editor is nice, lets you save drafts even when offline, and uses the spell-checking of the browser. I think I like it better then the ScribeFire addon for Firefox.

"Share the wealth." Well, when it comes to my money I'm not sharing it with anyone; especially the crooked government. But I will share this with you - the new Firefox V3 Beta is looking pretty good. When I say "looking", well, it's not like MS's bells and whistles when a new browser or piece of software comes out. It's more under the hood. The Mozilla guys have really done some good stuff with resource- and leak-management, it seems. And comparing it to resources that V2 uses on the same computer gives you a real good idea of some of the changes they've made. Though a few of the options slowed it down, like the automatic scanning of your bookmarks when entering a website URL.

Sure, there's going to be some people disappointed when the new Firefox doesn't look like a Ipod or something, but those who use it everyday are going to notice a difference.

I have to say I didn't do any extensive testing, just some preliminary tests. I did hack some of the addons that wouldn't work with the newest Beta version .

But if you are playing around with V3 betas then you can try making the extension work, like I did. I won't go into it here as there are many sites on the Internet to tell you how to do it. Basically, you need to extract the XPI file and crank up the highest version number the RDF file will tell the addon it can run on (but that's not any guarantee that the addon will work past that point, of course. Tab Mix Plus didn't work at all, even though it installed).

Weird problem with the new version of GIMP. (need link). After installing the newest version (2.4.4) I found that a bunch of the stock plugins and scripts as well as some I installed and modded didn't show up. Lots of installing, un-installing, and hacking around in the registry didn't help. A few quick checks online and I was starting to get an idea of the problem - apparently some of the earlier installs kept things in the GIMP sub-dir in Program Files while later ones kept them in an entry under Documents and Settings. I tried a few different ways; like doing a fresh install, installing an older one then a newer one, and going into GIMP and changing the preference settings that points to the scrip and plugins directory (they were correct but still wouldn't work right). So I moved the scripts and plugins to the location in Documents and Settings and out of their location in the GIMP dir in Program Files.

This doesn't seem to happen with very many people, but if you have this problem this is the solution that worked for me. At least until they fix this particular not-very-common bug.

If you need a nice (but slightly complex) graphics editor this is the one for you. Don't support Photoshop and it's evil familial spawns. ;)
Jefferson County Wiki

The Jefferson County Wiki is back up ! Yea, crappy, crappy server that we tried it on originally - cost me many weeks of (unpaid) work - fortunately I'm good at multi-tasking other things at the same time. But we went back to Wikispaces.com, and I found a bunch of hacks and codes for sprucing it up a lot. Looks quite nice. But I miss the Tikiwiki software. Gradually pages are being added to the wiki and we're all doing a little publicizing here and there. I also set up a photo album on the server to cover some of the features we lost by having to go to a hosted wiki. Oh well.

We still have a lot of hope that this will become THE resource for Jefferson County. A lot of people have been working on it, but we hope many more will get involved.
Snow and the "Billy Bob Contractor"

I'm a weather spotter for NOAA weather (no, not one of those geeks that go out an stick their finger in the snow for the local radio stations - I take it a bit more serious then that).

The last few months we've actually gotten a bit more snow then the last few Global Warming years. Remember - with Global Warming weather's going to be pretty random, as most of us probably know by now.

Anyway, I was out checking the snow and looking at the roofs. It's interesting how the wind patterns affect how much snow builds up. We live on top of a hill with lots of wind, almost always, blowing across the valley and open fields around us.

Your local "Billy Bob Contractor" is probably going to tell you that you need a certain pitch of roof for this area and while that's the case for most conditions; for people like us a flatter slope is much, much better. In fact, it's pretty easy to see how the snow usually builds up more against the roofs that have a higher pitch then our addition that has a much lower one. The wind sweeps it right off the lower pitch but packs it up, over, and on top of the roof with a more conventional pitch that's common for this area.

Just goes to show - it doesn't matter how much of a professional someone tells you they are, or how much they have told you they have done or learned or how much experience they may brag about - it doesn't mean they know everything there is about a particular field, especially when it comes to your own stuff.

Kinda like what I mentioned previously; there's always someone who thinks they're more of an "expert" on your pets, kids, house, finances, etc and you-name-it; then you are yourself.

No substitute for using your own head, even when someone who thinks they're "in the know" or is an "Expert" tells you the complete opposite. More people should live by this.

Blog Format Changes, More Acer 5520-5334 XP Drivers, Flock, Freecyle Addon, Netscape, The Artwork of David Edwards, Shout-Out/Get-Well To Jon

My Blog
I've messed with the table of contents a bit, you may or may not notice.  Well, a lot.

I liked having them off on the right column but over time there have gotten to be way too many.  

I experimented a bit with using some HTML and JavaScript to create a drop-down box with all of them in it, but the titles were too long to fit.

So I just moved the whole thing to the bottom of the page so it could take up the whole width.  And then I created an anchor link in place of the old table of contents (right under my contact link) so clicking that link shoots you down to the bottom of the page.  QED.

I also took off my Flickr slideshow script (which will speed up the blogger pages a bit on dial-up and slow computers).  My free trial ran out anyway.  Flickr's a great site, but I don't want to pay to host my pics there when I can do it myself.  You can still find a bunch of my pictures there.

Next, I need to tweak the template so that it automatically expands to fit the visitor's browser window, whatever size they have their screen/browser set at.  This also will make my quote hack look better.  I also need to add an easy SUBSCRIBE button and RSS feed button somewhere - not that either will get much use but I like to be thorough.  Maybe a better or additional search too; people always miss the blog search because it's at the top of the page above the title logo.



More Acer 5520-5334 XP Drivers
A few notes.  I found a few more drivers.  Uhm, I wish I had kept the webpage address I got them off from now...  I've went through so many sites since I've installed XP.

One I found is the correct driver for the wired Ethernet card (Nvidia Nforce networking controller), the other was some drivers for a few more of the internal chipset devices, like for the SMU and SMBus.  I had to re-install the Atheros Wireless adapter driver after I installed the former two things.  One of them (probably the Ethernet device) screwed the wireless driver up.  Install order again.

And remember: the wrong install order (especially if it has to do with the video driver, can really screw things up.  You may even need to use Safe mode to recover, or manually change settings or use a LINUX utilities disk, or even re-install Windows at the extreme if you happen upon the incorrect catastrophe order when installing drivers).

So, there's a few more things down.  The laptop works great, but there are a few more minor drivers I need; nothing major just a few system devices.

At some point I'm going to post these all somewhere so people can download them.  Unfortunately I did so much experimenting and re-installing I can't list the exact order that things should be installed in; but see my previous blog entry for a general idea.

I found out my Box.net account doesn't allow a file as large as the Nvidia driver is (they packaged a whole group of drivers together to cover their whole line in that series, so the file is 36+ meg).

It occurred to me also - if you have some devices that aren't showing up as anything but errors in your Device Manager, or are showing up as what they're supposed to be but with errors try getting online and doing a driver update through the Device Manager.  

If that still doesn't work try going to Windows Update - I'm talking through Internet Explorer, not the little taskbar icon - and selecting Custom and then going to the devices to see if any drivers show up there that you can't find or can't install manually.  Worth a try, I think.

BTW, a common problem with some computers - hibernate not working.  Had this happen with laptop I was working on right after it happened to my Acer.  No rhyme or reason, it seems (there's an MS bulletin on this but I didn't bother to read it, blah).  Go to a Command Prompt window (make sure you have admin access) and type "powercfg -h on".



Flock, Freecyle Addon, Netscape
Flock.  Maybe you've heard of it, maybe not, or maybe you're using it right now.

Basically, it's the Gecko rendering engine (the same one Firefox and Netscape use) wrapped in a social networking-oriented browser.  It's got account setups that let you stay logged into popular sites like Flickr, Twitter, Blogger, Youtube, Photobucket, Wordpress, Xanga, del.icio.us, etc.  There's a photo uploader, blog editor, multimedia bar, a better feed reader then Firefox, a people sidebar that lets you see who's online various services, etc.

In fact, just for fun - I'm writing this on the blog editor.  Nothing special, maybe no better or no worse then the Scribefire Blog editor one for Firefox (search my previous entries for more info on Scribefire).

It also does everything but take you by the hand and push buttons for you when you first run it or try something new, with popup info and help at the top of the screen.

If you're looking for this sort of browser and you do a lot with social networking/community sort of sites; then this might be for you.

You can find addons for Firefox that do similar things, but of course they are not integrated into one browser, nor are they set up for the beginner or casual user like this is.

BTW, I mentioned Netscape above.  If you like Netscape get your last version before the site is shut down (maybe it is by now, I haven't checked lately and forget the shutdown date).  Netscape's certainly become an under-rated browser for all of the stuff it can do and has integrated into it, and it has the ability to use the addons for Firefox.

Leave it to AOL to run it into the ground…

And speaking of Firefox.  If you run or help to run a Freecycle group check out the addon a British Freecycle group made to help moderating Freecycle groups.    It may not interest most people but it is pretty amazing what this plugin, er, addon, does.  It can access your Yahoogroups member database and tell you how many "OFFERS" people have made, how many "WANTED" they've posted, etc., as well as do a query to see if they belong to any other Freecycle groups (I don't care myself; as we have many people who do belong to many groups and I have no problem with that - but the idea is to catch spammers who join a bunch of unrelated Freecycle groups).  It does a bunch of other things, like adding colors to the types of messages and alerting you to improper formats, etc.

It goes to show what an addon can do.  Most of your addons barely scratch the potential of what can be done.

BTW, if you're looking for a Freecycle group in your area go to Freecycle.org.  Our local Jefferson County/Watertown one is at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FreecycleWatertownNY  From Freecycle's main site: "The Freecycle Network™ is made up of 4,235 groups with 4,456,000 members across the globe. It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It's all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. Each local group is moderated by a local volunteer (them's good people). Membership is free." 

Great idea, and we have around 1700 members here in Jefferson County on my group.  Rich, poor, and everyone in between are members.



The Artwork of David Edwards
Some of the artwork, even great artwork, that has been considered the pentacle of human achievement sometimes makes me say "Oh, that's okay", or just "bla."  Or even - "WTF".  I won't give examples; I'll get hate mail.  

Anyway, here's some stuff that's just incredible.  At least to me.  

David Edwards is the author's name.  He uses Photoshop and rotoscoping and rendering programs and a bunch of other software to make some matte artistry  (like what many movies use for realistic backgrounds, etc) that just makes me go "wow".

I won't post any thumbnails here, so as not to violate anyone's copyright, but I really want to.  If you like artwork - both stills and rendered video - definitely check out this guy's site and his demo stills and demo vid.  Even if you don't particularly appreciate art or care much for it, I think you'll appreciate his works.  David Edward's CaptureFX Studio.

My favorites: "Sky Castle" and "Fallen Beauty".  "Lost City" and "Rescue" come in next.

I could study these pics for hours.  I could probably write a novel around each, a couple in fact.  Each one can tell a number of stories; many different ones to many different people.  At least those with imagination, I suppose.

Every time I look at them for any period of time I see more.  I wish I had more time to ponder them, I guess.

Works like "Fallen Beauty" make you feel as if you could walk right in to it and set out exploring it for a month or so.  "Sky Castle" - maybe the ultimate get-away spot, heh?

When I was young I used to love to go to the second hand store and get those "coffee table art" books that had science fiction sort of paintings, fanciful (but not fantasy) perspectives of interesting planets and science fiction-inspired locations.  Some were artist's conceptions and visualizations of scenes from various famous science fiction stories like Larry Niven's Future History series (one of my favorite authors, among many).

Good stuff, and these remind me of those books (I still have those science fiction oriented "coffee table" art books).


Shout-Out/Get-Well To Jon B.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who finds any eye-related problems to be scary indeed.  We rely so much on sight.  I had an acquaintance who was blind and I have an old friend who is very visually handicapped, and working with some older people in my biz I get to see how hard it is to lose even partial sight.

So just a quick mention and get-well wish to Jon, who's had a scary eye-related medical problem and is still recovering.  Hope all goes well, and that he has a full recovery.

Anyway, I'm sure everything will work out for Jon and I wish him well and a good recovery.

Blogged with Flock

Acer XP Drivers, HD Confusion, Laziness - Contactify

Acer XP Drivers

Wow, a lot of feedback from people wanting to switch from Vista to XP on this laptop, and similar models. I guess that tells you something.

Here's a few things to help you in case you're not dual-booting with Vista and need your computer's specs (and/or you can download a freeware system info program like the last free version of AIDA):

Acer 5520-5334
Nvidia GeForce 7000M/nForce 610M
Atheros AR5007EG (Wireless adapter)
Nvidia nforce networking controller (wired network adapter)
Realtek HD digital audio (Audio)
HDaudio soft data fax modem with SmartCP (modem)
Phoenix BIOS

Some of the drivers I found said that they were for Vista with no mention of XP. Some worked, some didn't, some still worked by manually using the drivers. The latter I had to extract and then manually update the drivers from the extracted files.

So, below is a list of the drivers themselves that worked for me. You can find these, for the most part, at this site (this dude is doing similar for his laptop but it's a slightly different model) and this site. If you still can't find them do a search for the filenames or driver names or device names in Google or at one of the free driver download sites, like Driverguide.com.

Here's the driver filenames, in the order I think it best for installing them:

Foxconn Modem Driver 7.62.00 or foxconn_modem_driver.zip
Modem driver. Unzip to a directory and run the SETUP, I had a few problems getting this installed because, I think, I installed it after the audio driver. I'd recommend installing this first or second.

15655 nvidia video drivers.exe
This was for the video primarily. It installed and worked great, no problems.

realtek_hd_audio_driver.zip
Unzip this and run the exe. Installed fine.

Chipset_MCP67M_1313_vista_x64_x86.zip
This was trickier. You need to extract this to a directory. Then go into your Control Panel, click System, then Device Manager. Find the system devices that are in error, like the coprocessor and some fo the unnamed ones. Right-click on them and select Update. Click the second option (Install from a list or specific location) and navigate to where you extracted the file. Go through all the sub-directories, eventually you will find that it updates the coprocessor and the MCU. It takes a few tries of the above process.

TouchPad_ALPS(PNP0F13)_V7.0.1101.11_Vistax32_WHQL.zip
Installed fine. I wouldn't normally install this as the default mouse driver works fine for the touchpad on this and other laptops. But I couldn't get the settings for the mouse driver to be exactly the way I wanted. The " increase accuracy" made it pause too long before moving. The ALPS software fixed this, and the nice edge scrolling and tap-right-click is nice too.

There are some more drivers list at the second site above available for the webcam, webcam software, smartcard reader, etc. I didn't install these as mine worked fine after installing WinXP.

You can also find the other miscellaneous software for the extra buttons and Acer's e software, none of which I installed. If anyone else tries these and they work in XP let me know. In fact, please drop me a note or feedback if you find any better methods, better order to install the drivers, more drivers for this laptop, or whatever. I'll post it here.

HD Confusion

There's certainly a lot of confusion when people are discussing HD TV, Blu-Ray DVD, HD DVD, whether people need to do anything before the shut-off of the analog TV signals comes along next early next year. Then throw in HDMI cables and all the different kinds of TV's and you triple the confusion, at least.

One thing people get confused about right off the bat is the difference between "digital" and "HD" TV.

All HD TV is digital, but not all digital TV is HD. Digital is a way to transmit the signal, HD is the format of the signal itself. Just plain digital is usually a lower quality picture then HD, but higher then analog (low quality). Plus, digital can carry a number of channels on one frequency in the same bandwidth as analog carries one channel.

HD TV is capable of resolutions up to 1080 of vertical resolution (1920 horizontal), progressive or interlaced. But right now you probably won't see a whole lot of them at that high of a resolution. Most will be the 720 or so. Consider your old analog TV signals - 250 lines of resolution or so.

Blu-Ray and HD DVD are also capable of 1080. Even though there are two difference formats with very different methods of presenting the data on the DVD; they are similar in what you see and their use. Blu-Ray DVD's do hold a slight amount more data then HD DVD's, but to you; the consumer, they are going to look the same on your HD TV - whichever one you use. Some DVD players are coming out that play both formats.

And it should be mentioned that your regular, run-of-the-mill DVD's have great picture quality as is (depending on the studio and release of course). An HD DVD or Blu-Ray DVD is only going to be a portion better then an "old" style DVD, visually.

To get the absolute highest resolution on your TV you need HDMI cables at this time. If your TV doesn't have an HDMI jack there are probably going to be other connections that are going to give you a good or great picture, maybe even components jacks that will still give you 1080.

One thing to remember about HDMI cables - they're all pretty much the same. As long as they are built correctly and don't break on you or fall apart; it just doesn't matter whether you bought them for $15 or for $100. Of course, the guys in the electronics stores are going to tell you differently.

It's just like these stereo shops that try to sell you gold-plated, super-thick monster cables. Unless you plan on running your Dolby Surround Sound speakers a mile away from your receiver you're wasting your money. Hate to tell some of you audiophiles but copper's copper and aluminum's aluminum.

As to the whole switch-over to HD...I'll leave the "why's" and "whatfor's" to others; the reasons and conflicts and justifications by the FCC and television networks and such (I already ranted a bit about this in a previous message).

Firstly, technically (and contrary to popular belief) the shutdown doesn't mean specifically that everything broadcast over the air must be HD, but it MUST be digital. And it doesn't cover low-powered TV stations. And some specific-purpose ones will still be transmitting in analog a bit longer then the official deadline - February 17, 2009.

If you get your TV off an antenna then you definitely need either a TV with an HD tuner built-in (everything you buy from now on) or an external tuner/receiver that will receive and convert the signal from HD to either plain analog or a high definition signal your existing TV can interpret. You can sign up for the voucher from the government that will help you get a cheapo HD converter box.

If you have an older TV without HD you can still get a good HD picture by getting a converter box that outputs with RCA cables, S-Video, Component, or HDMI. With an HDMI output you'll get a high quality HD picture, same with Component if your TV supports it. With S-Video and RCA cables it won't be as good, but still very nice. If you have an old television with just a composite plug (the thing the big thick cable sticks into) then the best you'll get is an analog picture (though it likely will be better then your TV without the HD converter box).

This switch-over doesn't directly affect cable or satellite providers. Notice I said "directly" because it's more complicated.

Your cable provider may want you to get a box if you don't have one, or switch to digital or even to HD. They probably don't need to, but they may anyway.

Most people with cable get their local channels through the cable, so this all won't affect them for the most part (again, depends on your company and possibly their equipment to some extent).

Satellite signals have been digital for years. You don't need to do anything differently either - unless you happen to get your local channels off an antenna in addition to getting your other channels off the dish.

So this is where it gets tricky.

I heard a guy at Wal-Mart a few weeks ago explaining this whole thing to a co-worker. He did a great job at going through the whole concept and who needs to do what until he got to the satellite part. He told his co-worker that those with satellite wouldn't have to worry about switching over either.

Wrong. Incorrect. But, it depends...

If you have a dish and get your local channels off the dish (like if you're in a good-sized market) then you have nothing to switch over or worry about. You're digital, you're golden, no worries.

But not all local stations in all parts of the country are on the satellite dish. Basically, the local station has to send their local content to the dish company, who then re-transmits it to their satellite transmitters, which then gets sent to the satellites, which in turn rebroadcasts it back to the people in that market who want to watch the local channels. It's round-about, but those people don't need an outdoor antenna or the aggravation of having it and maintaining it, switching back and forth, lack of signal, etc.

As you can imagine it's not always fiscally possible for smaller local TV stations to do this, or at least not at this time.

So some people with satellite dishes get their local stations off an 'old-school' antenna, or not at all; which puts them right in the same boat as the people who ONLY get their TV off an antenna.

So you may have a nice dish sending you high quality digital signals or even HD signals, yet if you're in the boonies your only local TV stations (like if you want local news, local programs, etc) come off a pair of rabbit ears or a roof-mount antenna and in crap-a-vision analog.

Speaking of antennas; there's absolutely no difference between an analog antenna and an HD antenna. But it's another rip-off by some of the electronics stores, both big chains and small shops - because they'll tell you that you need a new antenna for HD. Yes, a "special" HD antenna. A good rip-off for them, right up there with "monster cables".

Don't forget your audio too. Who wants incredible video without at least good sound? Even a cheap Dolby Surround Sound Systems can sound real good. Bug a good one sounds REAL good!

And course if you don't want to run wires there's alternatives.

Wireless speakers come in both RF and IR but they don't always have enough bandwidth for a full frequency range, and there can be timing and interference problems. The new (and expensive) "psychoacoustics" sound bars use a bank of speakers in a kind of "audio trickery" to make it sound like you have speakers all over your room. This idea has been around for many years but never quite perfected until now. I remember experimenting with it as a kid.

There are, of course, multitudes of kinds of TV's. The most common:

Plasmas - the best pictures, but prone to fading and burn-in and a definite lifespan - 5-7 years. These can theoretically be extremely large.

LCD's - usually your blacks aren't so much black as dark gray and there can be long response times so you see pixilation and compression artifacts in scenes with lots of motion, this is getting better and better. Plus dead pixels are fairly common.

Rear projection - these can be CRT projectors where the picture is bounced off a large mirror onto a display screen (good picture but prone to fading, burn-in, etc) or DLP where micro-mirrors, a high-powered lamp, and spinning color wheels or prisms are used to project the picture onto the tiny mirrors, many times one to a pixel. Drawbacks can be long response times and the possibility of certain people being able to see the prismatic "rainbow" effects (and sometimes subsequent headaches and such). Another major con is the lamps have a definite lifetime, some say a few years (would depend on your usage of course). Some new ones use an LED in place of a high-powered arc lamp, increasing the lifetime of the TV (likely it will last as long as you have the TV, or at least as long as another component fails). But sometimes this can be at the expense of a higher response time, causing the possibility of an increased "rainbow" effect and more compression artifacts when there's lots of motion.

And lastly good old CRT's. Big, heavy, but tried-and-true. Limited to 'smaller' size screens.

Sorry there's no reference links above. Wikipedia is your friend.

LaZy/Burned Out - Easy Feedback Box

I've been working on a couple big projects this week. One person wanted a "small" eCommerce system set up. He had bought a whole package through his hosting company quite some time ago but he could never figure out. He finally admitted defeat and contacted me, I set it up (though it turned into much more then a "small" system once he saw all that could be done with it, no complaints from me) but I have to say, the ease that the package brought to the whole process was refreshing, though it still was a lot of work involved.

The other project didn't come out so well. I had mentioned in a previous blog about setting up a wiki for Jefferson County.

I've set up a number of wiki's for fun, for learning, for testing, and also for a few customers. They all worked great and still do.

But none of them had the traffic that this Jefferson County one caught once it was opened to the public. Unfortunately the hosting company we set it up on sucks. Ipowerweb. Sucks. Badly.

I'm sure you'll find lots of bad reviews for them, especially their limits on database query access. Ugh. I've put SOOOOO much work into this, just for the fun of it - no pay for this one.

So now the database won't work, I know the temporary fix for it as well as the permanent one (which requires some hacking into the wiki's code) but now the database is corrupted - AFTER USING Ipowerweb's database fix.

What a pisser.

Anyway, I'm just finishing up a few things on another website. But previously I had received some responses here along the lines of not being able to contact me.

There's a contact link at the bottom of this blog, as well as the ability to leave comments.

So I decided to go ahead and add a little contact box for the blog.

On blogs, websites, and other sites on the Internet a lot of times people jsut add their e-mail in a link. VERY VERY VERY BAD! Spam robots will eat this up, especially if your site is linked well to others and in search engines. Over time you'll have so much crap in your mailbox you won't know what to do with it, even with spam filters.

I use either a little Javascript applet that encrypts this from direct harvesting, or a form.

The latter is probably the best method. But I'm lazy today, and got too much I still need to do today. Not to mention a bunch of snow coming down that I'll have to shovel/snowblow at some point on top (Wow, it's really coming down).

So I'm going to use this nice little free service that does the contact box for me. It's called "Contactify" and creates a little form box for you, complete with anti-automation anti-spam verification. Very nice.