1. Torrent Tracking and Seeding: Amazon S3 can server as an ultra-reliable torrent tracker; share/seed the files from your local PC and let S3 act as the tracker. Or let S3 handle both the seeding and the tracking. Here are the details on how to do it.
2. Enable / Disable directory browsing: If you are sharing files of HTTP, you may or may not want people to be able to list the contents of a bucket (folder.) If you want the bucket contents to be listed when someone enters the bucket name (http://s3.amazonaws.com/bucket_name/), then edit the Access Control List and give the Everyone group the access level of Read (and do likewise with the contents of the bucket.) If you don't want the bucket contents list-able but do want to share the file within it, disable Read access for the Everyone group for the bucket itself, and then enable Read access for the individual files within the bucket.
3. Prevent the contents of a bucket from being indexed by a search engine: If you don't want the contents of a bucket to be indexed by Google and company, place a file named Robots.txt in the bucket and share it with Everyone. (This trick works for any webserver.) The file needs to contain the following two entries to prevent indexing:
   • User-agent: *
   • Disallow: /
4. Use your own domain name: You can use your own domain name (http://s3.carltonbale.com) instead of the default Amazon URL (http://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.carltonbale.com/). You just need to edit your DNS settings. Here are the details on how to do it. Bucket Explorer has an option to "Use bucket name as virtual host" to make sharing files in this manner even easier.
5. Temporarily share a file using an auto-expire link: You many want to allow someone to download a file but prevent them from sharing the link and having 100's of people download it as well. With S3, it's possible to create a link that expires after a defined period of time expires. The easiest way to do this using Bucket Explorer. First, make sure that the file has permission set so that it is not readable by everyone, since temporary access is what you're going after in the first place. Then select the file, right-click, and select Generate Web URL. Select Signed URL and specify the expiration date. Then send the URL to the person with which you are sharing the file

• 

6. Share your bucket with a someone - whether they're an S3 user or not. The Third-party bucket features allows you to share the contents of a bucket. In Bucket Explorer, right-click on the bucket and select "Update bucket's access control list…" and set the permissions and add the other persons email address. See this documentation page for more details.
   • 
7. Upload any file extension as an HTML file (to redirect to another location.) Say you have a picture shared on your account and it is being leeched by multiple, external sites. Instead of just deleting the picture, you can create a web page to replace it that directs people to your site. If you picture name was picture.jpg, create the HTML file and save it as it on your local computer. Then change the file name to be picture.jpg. Now if you just upload this file normally to S3, it will be treated as a jpg image and will not download properly. But you can use BucketExplorer to upload it as an HTML file, which specifically tells S3 to treat it as a HTML file and not a jpg file. Here is an example of picture that I converted to a HTML redirect: http://carltonbale.com.s3.amazonaws.com/distance_chart.png
   • 
8. Store your media on Amazon S3 while running your WordPress blog on a different server. If you're like me, your web host has overly limited storage space restriction. If you have a bunch of small pictures or just a few large videos, it can quickly consume your available disk space. To combat this, you can use the Amazon S3 plugin for WordPress. Instead of uploading files to your web server, it instead uploads them to your Amazon S3 account and automatically links to them, all within the WordPress admin interface.
9. Compare local and remote file versions using MD5 check sums. Wondering if version of a file on your local computer is the same as the one stored in your S3 account? Perform a MD5 check sum and see if the results match. On you local computer, you can use a program such as HkSFV to calculate the MD5 sum. To see the MD5 sum of the file on S3, right-click on it and select Properties within Bucket Explorer. If the sums match, the files are identical.
   • 

Those are all of the "hidden" features I've found, but I'm sure there are more. Please let me know of any features I've missed.

The easiest way to do this is to use My DVD Settings, a program created by Gelano over at TheGreenButton forums. Unfortunately, Gelano and his program have both disappeared. Fortunately, this software is still available from an alternative location: my_dvd_settings.rar.

You'll need to download, install, run My DVD Settings, put the DVD in your optical drive, and have My DVD Settings create the XML data. Finally, save the resulting xml file to the folder containing the movie backup. When you are finished creating/coping all of the files, your folder structure will look like this:

\Minority Report\ (parent folder for movie)
\Minority Report\folder.jpg (not necessary, but I like to manually save a cover art picture to the directory)
\Minority Report\MINORITY_REPORT.dvdid.xml (metadata file)
\Minority Report\VIDEO_TS\ (*.ifo, *.bup, *.vob files are in this sub-directory, created using DVD Fab, Slysoft, etc.)

Using this xml file, Windows Media Center will connect to the AMG library and download all of the available details on the movie.

Note 1: If you use DVD Profiler to catalog your movie collection, My DVD Settings can the DVD Profiler data to create the dvdid.xml file. Alternatively, you can go to dvdxml.com and search for and download the XML file.

Note 2: You'll need to enable DVD Library in Vista to access this feature. Once active, go to DVD Library and add the folder containing your backed-up movies. You can also install the MyMovies Media Center plug-in.

How is the DVDID.XML File Created?

I really wish the software I used to backup my movies would also create the DVDID.xml file. Unfortunately, there is very little documentation on how this file is generated. I did quite a bit of reading and some investigation using Process Monitor and have some preliminary details. The dvdid is a CRC64 number generated by scanning the *.IFO and *.BUP files in the VIDEO_TS folder, combining that with the VOLUME_ID from the DVD disk itself. The inclusion of the VOLUME_ID is what prevents Windows Media Center from being able to automatically generate this information for DVD that are backed-up to a media server; there is no VOLUME_ID for the individual folders.

Once this process is fully understood, it should be possible for programs like DVD Fab and Slysoft CloneDVD to create these files when the DVD is being backed-up. This would eliminate the need to use the additional program (My DVD Settings) all together. Here's hoping for inclusion in an upcoming release!

Update 2008-May-01: The version 5 of DVDFab Decrypter supports the automatic creation of dvdid.xml files!

Everyone pretty much know that the High Definition Disc Format war would end one format would become obsolete. Which is why I'm surprised that Busy Buy and Circuit City are both compensating customer who choose the losing format. Best Buy will be giving a $50 giftcard to anyone who purchased a HD-DVD Player prior to February 23, 2008 (just go to BestBuyTradein.com and register.)

Circuit City has taken a different approach, extending the return period for player by "several months." So the customer can return the player for full credit, but obviously will be unable to play any HD-DVD movies they purchased as they will no longer have a player. It's interesting that Bust Buy officially announced this while Circuit City made this an unofficial policy.

Meanwhile, Wal-Mart, the low-cost advocate of HD-DVD, is offering their customers nothing.

Netflix, which whom I've been a customer for 8 years, had a massive outage last Monday, lasting about 12 hours. As a result, they were unable to ship the two movies I was to receive until Tuesday. A 1 day delay, not a big deal. I was just glad that they acknowledged and apologized for the the problem. But I was elated when they went above and beyond by offering a 10% discount on my fees for the month.

Since it's tax time, I feel the need to complain about Intuit TurboTax. The software is great, but the price gouging is terrible. They find every way possible to charge the customer more, right up to the unreasonable filing fees. I generally have faith in the free market, but the TurboTax / Tax Cut dual-opoly is not yielding the fruit competition should. I'm just hoping that these companies learn something from Bust Buy, Circuit City, and Netflix about doing what is right for their customers.

Here is the update notification:

6.4.0.0 2008-03-19

• New (Blu-ray): Removes the BD+ protection from Blu-ray discs! (for increased compatibility with titles released by Twentieth Century Fox )
• New (Blu-ray): Added option to enable / disable BD+ removal
• New (DVD): AnyDVD ripper no longer uses the Windows filesystem, it has now its own UDF parser / reader. Discs which cannot be read by Windows can now be copied with the AnyDVD ripper.
• Fix (Blu-ray): Black display with some BD discs, e.g., "Layer Cake", second release, "The Fugitive", "Wild Things" (all Region B)
• Fix (DVD): Small bugfix in "repairing defective disc structure" function of AnyDVD ripper
• Fix (DVD): Problems with some Arccos protected titles, e.g. "The Grudge", R1, US
• Some minor fixes and improvements
• Updated languages

The update is free for all registered customers, of course. Just install the new version on top of your current version, regardless which version you have installed: http://www.slysoft.com/download.html

I recently posted about automatically launching plugins within Vista Media Center. I just came across another improvement that allows editing the order and contents of the Vista Media Center start menu. This, combined with automatic plug-in launching, goes a long way toward giving whatever startup experience you desire.

Quoting bluebucket on The Green Button forums:

I've found a way to edit the standard start menu items in Vista Media Center, but its a hack.

Using this hack I've successfully removed items and even entire strips from the start menu. I suspect that its also possible to change the position of menu items, but I haven't tried yet.

You'll need a resource editor like ResourceTuner from HeavenTools.com.

1. Make a backup of the %SYSTEMROOT%\ehome\ehres.dll
2. Change the security settings of the %SYSTEMROOT%\ehome\ehres.dll to give yourself ownership of the dll. Afterwards change the file rights to full control. If you're running with UAC, then you might need to do some more steps here.
3. Open the ehres.dll in the ResourceTuner.
4. Expand the HTML node

Now the files we're interested in are among others:

STARTMENU.XML - defines the main start menu stripes
SM.ACTIVITIES.XML - defines the menu items under the Task menu
SM.MUSIC.XML - defines the menu items under the Music menu
SM.PICTURES.XML - defines the menu items under the Pictures & Video menu
SM.TV.XML - defines the menu under the Tv menu

5. Choose SM.MUSIC.XML for example, rightclick the node and select Edit Resource. The XML file opens.
6. Now remove the XML tags defining the menu items you do not want. Alternatively make the element into a comment by changing the tag to <!– old tag content –>. It might take a while to get an overview of the structure and maybe some trial and error before the logic of the xml file sinks in. Do not remove the <home:App /> elements though.
7. When you're happy with the changes, click Ok and accept the changes.
8. Select Save As and select the original file (overwriting the existing).
9. Open Vista Media Center and check that the changes work.

Now, since this is a hack, I take no responsibility of how you might break Vista Media Center, destroy your computer or otherwise corrupt the world using this hack.
Also note, that a software update might overwrite your hacked ehres.dll file effectively removing your changes.

I couldn't figure out how to do that, and this I came across this post on TheGreenButton forums. Here are the details on launching a Media Center plug-in from via the startup folder or from a key on your remote control.

Associate Media Center Plug ins with the Media Center Application:

• Open My Computer or Explorer and navigate to: C:\Program Files\MCE\My Movies\
• Right click on the file MyMovies.mcl
• From the menu choose Open With and choose Media Center.
  • Make sure the checkbox for "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file" is checked.

Option 1: Set the Plugin to Automatically Launch when the computer boots:

• Right click on the file C:\Program Files\MCE\My Movies\MyMovies.mcl and create a shortcut
• Copy that shortcut to the Startup folder in the Windows Start menu

Option 2: Have the asterisk key on the remote launch the plug-in:

• Down load a program called HotkeyP (free / open source)
• In the program add a new Hotkey:
  • Check the box for the Shift button
  • In the input box type: 8
  • In the Command input type or navigate to: C:\Program Files\MCE\My Movies\MyMovies.mcl
  • Click OK to save

HotkeyP will need to be running in the System tray, and Now when you press the Asterisks key it will open My Movies.

If you are using the Harmony 880 remote, you can add a button to the LCD display window and name it My Movies. This is necessary because these remotes do not have an Asterisk Key.

Option 3:  Have the Media Center Button or some other dedicated button lauch the plugin
The key c0mbination of Windows logo key+ALT+ENTER launches Windows Media Center. Assign this hotkey to launch the Media Center plugin file instead. For a list of all available keyboard shortcuts in Media Center, see the Microsoft article.

• You must provide proof that you sent your Treo 600 or 650 to Palm for repair and fill-out the claim forms.
• You wait for the settlement to be finalized.
• You then purchase a new Palm phone.
• You return your old Treo to Palm along with proof of purchase.
• You receive a $75 rebate.

Here are the reason I think the settlement is terrible:

• The rebate amount is market value for the old phone. Looking a prices of used Treos 650s on Ebay, $75 is somewhere near market value ($50 for a Treo 600). So basically, the settlement gives you market value for a used phone only if you purchase a new Palm phone. Where is the benefit to the consumer? Anyone can sell their used phone for market value, and you don't even have to purchase a new Palm Treo.

• Most repairs were a very long time ago; receipts aren't kept that long.  I had a terrible experience getting my Treo repaired: post 1, post 2. They fixed my screen but flashed an old version of firmware that locked-up the phone and then blamed me for water damage. That was 32 months ago; I don't still have a receipt.  Palm should be providing proof of repair, not the consumer.

• Most people get new phones every two years and won't have 4-year-old Treos to send back to Palm. Treo 600s came out much, much longer than 2 years ago. How many people are going to still have their old Treo 600s to send back to Palm? I replaced my first Treo 650 about 29 months ago and would have already gotten rid of my second one since my contract is up.

• Who wants to buy a new Palm phone anyway? I know I don't. Compensate me for the problems with the old phone; don't force a new one on me. Especially after the bad experiences people are apparently having. Most people want either a Blackberry or an iPhone to replace their Treo. Not a new Treo that looks and acts the same as their old Treo — it's not as if they have some new, compelling products.

Here's what we as consumers can do: Complain. We need a representative in court to complain about the fairness of this settlement. Here are the details from the official claim site:

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that the Final Fairness Hearing, previously scheduled for May
2, 2008, has been continued to May 23, 2008 at 9:30 a.m. at the United States District Court for
the Northern District of California, San Jose Division, 280 South First Street, Courtroom Number
6, San Jose, California 95113.

At this hearing the Court will consider whether the settlement is fair, reasonable, and
adequate. If there are objections, the Court will consider them. Judge Whyte will listen to people
who have asked to speak at the hearing. The Court may also consider how much to pay Co-Lead
Class Counsel. After the hearing, the Court will decide whether to approve the settlement.

1. Locate the two rubber pads on the bottom of the enclosure near the front, curved surface. Remove these two pads. Depress the two tabs below using a small flat-head screwdriver.

1a. With a couple of credit cards, pry the back edge of the casing apart and hold them open with the credit cards. There are some locking mechanisms there that need to be held apart. You can now slide the plastic casings apart.

2. Slide the clear plastic LED front panel conduit forward and remove.

3. Rotate the hard drive/carrier assembly sideways and then lift away from the case

4. Remove the two screws holding the metal connector casing. Slide it upwards and remove it

5. Slide the circuit board upwards (away from the drive), just like you did for the metal casing.

6. Remove the 4 screws holding the hard drive to the metal carrier. You'll see that it is a standard 3.5" desktop SATA drive.

You're done!

Repeat the steps in reverse order to re-assemble the enclosure.

At first I tried using TiVo Desktop (free download from TiVo.com) to download the programs and experienced the problem.  I figured it was an issue with that software, so I searched for a different method of downloading.  It turns out you can download shows directly from with your browser (details here.)  I tried downloading multiple shows from different browsers on 2 different computers and came up with the same result each time: a very short, partial, incomplete download.

I think this is a bug with the TiVo HD sofware not being able to properly generate the *.tivo file that is re-packaged as it is downloaded to your computer. Each shows bugged-out at the exact same spot regardless which download method was used.  In fact, the only show that downloaded fully was one that pulled from TiVo HD 1 -> TiVo HD 2 -> computer (using multi-room viewing, then downloading to PC.)

At this point, I don't know what the solution is.  It's probably going to require a new version of TiVo software.  I'm hoping they fixed it sooner rather than later.  I know it's not just me; I've seen a few other posts on TiVo Community Forum.  I'm guessing as more people play around with the feature, it will become more of an issue.

I'll post an update when I have one.  In the meantime, if you have any suggestions, please let me know.

For those not familiar with Hulu, it started out as a joint venture between NBC and Fox to showcase their primetime shows and has grown beyond that.

Here's what I like about Hulu:

• Great show selection.
• Simple, easy-to-use, uncluttered user interafce
• Automatically resume playing a show right where you left off (even recovers from browser crashes)
• Full-screen viewing option
• Descent video quality: you will notice macro-blocking and the lower frame rate in full screen mode, but it is by no means distracting, especially if you scoot back from your screen an extra foot or two
• HD Video: this will eliminate all quality complaints, but it's only available for a few movie trailers at this point
• Commercials: there is one 30 second commercial every 15 minutes. Not bad. And all of the commercials are for the same company, so you kinda know what to expect when it is commercial time, which makes them almost enjoyable. Yes, you read that correctly, I was actually enjoying that Toyota commercial by the end of the show.

You can catch episodes of Firefly, Heroes, The Office, Scrubs, Chuck, 30 Rock, House, Battlestar Galactica (new and classic), Rosewell, Arrested Development, Journeyman, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Mary Tyler Moore, and many, many more.

Conclusion

It's great entertainment when you need a break (such as from visiting your family over the holidays.) Sign-up for an invitation now; it took me about a week to receive mine. In the meantime, you can view shows on openhulu.com.

Just Playing Around

And finally, one of the coolest features is that you can embed your favorite shows into your own website. Instead of simply posting about how great a show is, show an episode. Here are some of my favorites:

Firefly: Perhaps one of the best science fiction TV shows ever shown on network TV. You can watch the entire series online; here is the first episode:

Roswell: I'd never watched a single episode but noticed its high rating on Hulu. I watched the pilot and decided that I missed out on a great series. This is definitely something I'll be watching via hulu. Here is the pilot:

Journeyman: NBC has apparently canceled this show (yet decided to keep the unwatchable Bionic Woman remake alive.) I think people found Journeyman too difficult to follow, especially if they missed an episode. Out of all current shows on TV, I thought it has/had the best theme song and background music. Maybe watching it online will cause a revival. Here's a clip from Episode 8:

Option 1: A Black Frame on a Painted Wall

You could just point your projector at a blank wall, but having a border makes a huge difference and doesn't cost all that much. This is what I did with my first home theater. The frame is simply 4 pieces of 3-inch wide baseboard molding, covered in black velvetine, held-together with 4 right-angle brackets, and hung on the wall. Please note that the black velvetine essential; see the second picture below for proof. There is a board in the middle of the screen in the second picture; there is velvetine draped over the very top and below it is painted flat black. Notice all of the reflected light from the flat black paint?

To make the faux-screen look complete, I painted the wall with a slightly gray eggshell paint. The paint was nothing special, just a white base with a small amount of black pigment added to produce a light-gray paint color. (The Gray helps blacks look blacker on the screen, which was more of a problem a few years ago than it is with the newest projectors.)

Pros: Cheap ($50 total), relatively easy to assembly, and no one ever realized it wasn't a real screen. You can build it to any custom dimension.

Cons: It was hard to get/keep the frame perfectly square. Imperfections in the wall finish can show-up in bright scenes. The screen screen gain (brightness) is very low; I'm not sure, but it was probably about 0.70 (vs. 1.0 to 1.5 for most commercial fabric screens), which makes the image noticeably more dim than a "real" screen would. The color accuracy may be less than ideal.

Option 2: A Black Frame on a Screen Goo Painted Wall

This is essentially the same as option 1, but with a different screen (wall) paint. The paint is called Screen Goo and it's available from Goo Systems. The main advantage is that it has a higher gain and better color accuracy than standard wall paint. Figure on spending about $200 for the base coat + top coat for a home theater screen (1000 mL of each.)

Pros: Improved gain and color accuracy vs. standard wall paint.

Cons: According to Projector Central, the gains for Screen Goo aren't has high as they are claimed to be. The Cinema White provided a 1.0 gain (not 1.8) and the digital gray provided a 0.75 gain (not 1.4). The imperfections in the wall and the problems with with squareness of the frame still apply as in Option 1.

Option 3: Take screen material from a low-cost screen and put it in your own frame

You can purchase a great screen fabric and install it in your own frame. Surprisingly, it's actually cheaper to purchase a manual pull-down retractable screen (you know, the type that goes over a chalkboard) and cut the material from it than it is to buy the fabric alone. People have been doing this with 4:3 (1.33:1 aspect ratio) Da-Lite screens ordered from AVSforum for years. Next, you just cut the screen to size and staple the fabric to the 3" fabric frame mentioned in Options 1 and 2. Total Cost is about $550.

Pros: Same image quality as a "real" screen.

Cons: Same problems as mentioned above with the frame, plus the fabric can have ripples due to the frame not being completely sturdy. Requires quite a bit of work. Requires destroying a new retractable screen to make your new fixed screen, which is a big step to take.

Option 4: Purchase a Complete Screen: Material and Fixed Frame

There are many different screen materials, many different screen manufacturers, and many different price ranges. You can pick a lower-cost manufacturer and get outstanding results (Da-Lite, Carada) or spend more and perhaps get slightly better performance (Stewart.) I think the lower-priced manufacturers offer the best bang-for-the-buck. Just pick a wide, black, fabric-covered frame and either a white screen (for best color accuracy and contrast ratio) or a gray screen (for better black levels.) Price: $700-$2000.

Pros: Perfectly, smooth and flat image. Great color reproduction and contrast (compared to other options; varies somewhat by manufacturer.) Very easy to assemble the frame, snap-on the material, and hang the included brackets on the wall.

Cons: There are so many manufacturers and screen materials from which to choose. Price is slightly more expensive than do-it-yourself options. You generally have to order the screen and wait a few days for it to be delivered (no instant gratification.)

Notes:

• You'll want the frame to be the same aspect ratio as your projector, which will most likely be 16:9 (1.78:1; width = 1.78 * height)

I pre-read this excellent wiki article atThinkWiki.com. As the article mentioned, I did have problems with a blank screen when the CD booted, but the optional Safe Graphics boot option solved that. The installation was very easy. For the first time in the 20 or so times I've installed Linux, I wasn't worried about accidentally partition my hard drive incorrectly and deleting my existing Windows installation. The wizard took care of resizing existing and creating new partitions automatically.

Unfortunately, I ran into to way too many problems to use Ubuntu 7.10 on a daily basis. Some of these may be resolvable, but not without a lot of work. Truthfully, I don't care to devote that much time to it. Here are the issues that are making me stick to Windows Vista:

• The wireless will not connect. I'm using a Linksys WRT54G router with the Linux-based DD-WRT firmware the the plain old WEP encryption. I can see the wireless network, but I can't connect to it. There is no error message and indication how to resolve it. I connected via a wired network and downloaded all the updates, but it still wouldn't connect.
• If I reboot without powering off, the sound card "sticks" and repeats the first 2 seconds of any sound, over and over and over, until I shutdown.
• The sound card continually "chatters" in the background. It sounds like muted Morse Code, perhaps caused by some type of driver interference. Muting the speakers makes no difference. It doesn't do this in Windows.
• The display brightness can't be adjusted once the nVidia drivers were loaded. I can't use the advanced Compiz desktop without these drivers, so I'm missing out on a feature either way. There is a work-around to adjust brightness from a terminal window, but I'd really just rather use the hot keys.
• Tapping the upper right corner of the touchpad caused Ubuntu to switch to a different desktop. But I couldn't consistently pick the right or left desktop; it was random selection. Worst of all, it happened accidentally far too often. I'm guessing this would be a very easy setting to find, but there were too many other issues at this point for me to look into it.
• The Ubuntu boot menu gave me two identically-named options for Windows Vista. The first turned out to be the automated recovery partition and didn't really have anything to do with booting Windows. I know it's easy to edit the config file, but it would have been nice if this were correct from the beginning.

In the end, I'm beginning to feel like this is the best laptop hardware I've ever owned but I'm still is in search of a great operating system. The default Windows Vista Home Basic is OK, but I still have a couple of programs that need XP. And there is still the temporary freeze and "chuck-chuck" sound from the hard drive every 30 or so minutes. But still, it's much better than the Ubuntu install.

To be honest, I'm starting to regret not going for a MacBook Pro. It could dual-boot to Windows when necessary, and I'd be able to run OS X the rest of the time. The purchase would have cost about $800 more, and that is a large price difference to justify, but I think I'd be more pleased with the overall experience.

Update (26-Feb-2008): I've spent more time messing with Ubuntu and am much more pleased with it than I was initially.

• Wireless Works: I was able to get the wireless working flawlessly, no script or configuration required. My problem was due to confusion with the Ubuntu network protocol naming (WEP Passkey vs. WEP HEX, etc.) Too bad it doesn't auto-detect the network type and then try the password you enter to figure out phasskey vs. hex vs. decimal. But at least I finally figured out what was needed and got it working.
• Screen Brightness works: Following the thinkwiki article, I installed ENVY (after multiple unavailable package problems were resolved) and got the latest nVidia drivers, which allows screen brightness to be adjusted.
• Sound Problems Disappeared: The sound problems went away after a few reboots / updates. I don't know what the deal was. I had to switch the default volume control (in the upper nav bar) to control the speaker volume instead of the microphone volume, per the think wiki article.
• System Dock: I installed the AWN (Avant Window Navigator) dock and highly recommend it.
• Touchpad Config & App Launcher: The advanced touchpad configuration tool QSynaptics and keyboard application launcher Gnome Do are two other must-haves.
• Unresolved: I installed Skype (after adding the skype repository) but it will not detect sound from the internal or an external microphone. I can make calls and hear people, but they can't hear me. I worked on this for an hour and gave up.
• Unresolved: Going into sleep mode or hibernate mode causes bad things to happen. It might resume the first time, but never the second time. I have to hold the power button down and reboot. Power management is terrible.
• Unresolved: There is no native AccurateRip compatible CD ripping software; dbPowerAmp Music Converter for Windows has no equal. There is no DVD ripping software that nears the reliability (every DVD protection scheme) and functionality (re-authoring) of AnyDVD and CloneDVD.
• Conclusion: If you have the time, you can get a pretty OS install from Ubuntu. But it's going to take time and I'd rather spend it other ways. Vista Basic is horrible. I'm going to switch to either Vista Ultimate or XP as both do more of what I need with less effort. In the end, I think a Mac hardware and OS is still the best option: great hardware, great software, less time messing with stuff, but at a higher monetary cost.

Network Programming

This year, I noticed how high the quality of prime time network television is. Nicole and I barely left the house due to our new addition to the family, so we set one of our TiVos to record every single season premier on the fall schedule. Without exception, every one of the prime time network premiers were pretty good and every non-prime time premier was somewhere between uninteresting and unwatchable. That' s when it dawned on me: about 90% of the shows we record to our HR10-250 satellite receivers are over-the-air local stations. The antenna in our attic was more valuable than the satellite dish on our house. So why pay DirecTV $70/month for free programming?

If you have strong reception, the HD signals from an over-the-air antenna are the highest quality available. Both satellite and cable compress all of the high definition channels they transmit/repeat, even the local networks.  The local networks do not compress their broadcast signal.  It's the original, highest-quality source you can get. And because it's digital, the snowy, washed-out signal is a thing of the past.

New TiVo Hardware and Software

The incentives that made the switch decision final were new features from TiVo. They launched the lower-priced TiVo HD, they enabled Multi-Room Viewing and TiVoToGo features for moving shows around, and they re-offered Lifetime subscriptions for the TiVo service.

I must say, it feels nice to have a TiVo that supports so many features, and feels like it's supported in general. There is no technical reason the DirecTV HR10-250 TiVo couldn't implement every feature the TiVo HD does; DirecTV just decided they didn't want to give customers those features. In the evolving world of technology, this is never a wise decision.  Since DirecTV launched the HR10-250, the only new feature that has been offered is folders for grouping shows. That's it.

What's Great About the TiVo HD:

• Improved Interface: A faster User Interface with updated graphics with crisp edges and pleasing gradients throughout; makes the DirecTV TiVo look and feel "1999" by comparison.
  •  
• Built-in Ethernet network port: no phone line required for activation or daily calls. I never again have to see this message I've seen every day for the past few years:
  • 
• Native resolution pass-through: the TiVo HD outputs the recorded show in its native resolution; this eliminates any image quality issues due to upscaling or down-converting or interlacing.
• eSATA expansion for additional Hard Disk Drive: Upgrading the recording space has been the most beneficial enhancement for a TiVo With an external port, this process is much easier. Easy enough for any non-technical user to do; minimal instructions required.
• Download free programs from the Internet: TiVoCast allows automatic downloading of a bunch of partner content. If you run the PyTiVo server program on a network computer, you can access every movie and videocast your hard drive can hold (PyTiVo transcodes them and sends them to the TiVo HD.)
  •    
• Rent movies: With the Amazon Unbox feature, you can find, purchase, download, and start watching about any movie you could want.
• No monthly fees: Not to DirecTV. Not to TiVo. (Thanks to TiVo for offering the lifetime service transfer; I wouldn't have gone for the deal otherwise)
• Digital Cable Option:  I can switch to any of the local cable services and use a cable card with my existing hardware (if for some reason I decide more channels.)
• Software Updates:  I'm positive TiVo will continue to release new software updates with great new features.

What I'll miss about DirecTV:

• The Discovery Channel
• Food Network
• HBO: Inside the NFL and Entourage
  

My TiVo HD Wishlist:

As great as the TiVo HD is, there are still a couple of things it could do better. Here's my wishlist:

• Series Premier/Series Finale Data in Program Guide: DirecTV offered this as part of their guide data. This made it very easy to find and record all of the new shows each season. The program data on the TiVo (from TV Guide) does not have this extra information. Shame on you for being 1-upped by DirecTV. The online fall TV guide is not adequate compensation.
• Automatic e-mail or SMS message if there are recording conflicts: If a show is not going to record, I'd like to know about it. I never look through the TiVo menu for conflicts and often have to do a CSI-style reconstruction to figure out why a show is missing. Please TiVo, just send me a weekly e-mail listing the conflicts.
• Multi-room coordination of recording conflicts: if you have 2 TiVos and one TiVo is unable to record a program, I would like to see it hand-off the recording responsibility to the other TiVo.
• Add Video Podcasts by RSS URL: To allow the downloading of online videos that are not currently indexed by the TiVo service
• TiVo Desktop replication of the TiVo User Interface: When creating a bunch of season passes, it sure would be a lot faster doing that through TiVo Desktop on your computer. I would like to see portions of the TiVo UI replicated in TiVo Desktop, giving easier data entry and searching via the keyboard and mouse.
• Backup Season Pass List: If your TiVo crashes, it is a pain to recreate all of your Season Passes. I would like my season pass list to be automatically backed-up to the TiVo server every month or so. Or at least give an option to create and print a list of season passes through TiVo Desktop. (Note: there is a partial implementation of this feature if you activate the TiVo KidZone feature on a Series2 or Series3 non-DirecTV TiVo.)
• Automatically scan the Unencrypted QAM channels: Cable companies seem to want to charge for cable cards. They use random channels for local HD, such as ABC 6-1 showing up 116-1 one week, 97-2 the next. I'd like TiVo to scan those station and use the PSIP information to identify channels.
• Automatic padding: if there isn't a show on after the one being recording, record an extra few minutes just in case the show runs a bit long. You can currently specify end padding, but that can cause a recording conflict if there is another recording immediately afterwards.
• Unlabeled lights on the front panel: There are green, red, amber, and blue lights on the front panel. I have no idea what they mean. It looks like amber is remote control signal acknowledgment. I'm assuming red means there is a recording. But it would be nice to have some silk-screened labels on the front to clarify this.

Do you have some suggestions as to how TiVo can improve their service? Let them know!

http://research.tivo.com/suggestions/2web519.htm

Bucket Explorer is a Java-based GUI for managing, uploading to, and downloading from buckets on Amazon S3. It is not designed to backup local computers (Jungle Disk and S3 Backup do this); it's designed for those sharing and managing web content. So if you plan to use Amazon S3 as a Content Distribution Network, Bucket Explorer is targeted at you. For those not familiar with Amazon S3, the attraction is inexpensive and unlimited storage, inexpensive and unlimited download bandwidth, and ultra-high reliability.

Because it is written in Java, it runs on Windows, Linux, and (currently in private beta) Macintosh. I'm generally skeptical of Java application stability, but I've been using it for a few weeks and it has been 100% reliable. It includes the basic features you'd expect, such as bucket creation and access control list modification (for public sharing of files.)

What impressed me most about Bucket Explorer is support for advanced features, such as:

• Enable logging for buckets and store logs in a different bucket
• Retrieve the public URL of files
• Temporarily share private files publicly with a link that auto-expires after a specified time
• Create virtual folders within buckets

The more I used Bucket Explorer, the more I learned about the capabilities of Amazon S3. I did identify a few addition features I'd like to see. Here is a summary of my suggestions:

• Refresh local file listing (without switching to one directory and back to the original)
• Ability to rename local files (currently have to do this in Windows Explorer)
• Have the option to auto re-connect to the last bucket on startup (instead of re-entering it each time)
• When right-clicking a file, have the option to copy the torrent address to the clipboard (just like you can with the Public URL)
• I have my own domain pointing to an S3 bucket; it would be nice if these buckets could be flagged to return the custom domain URL instead of the default Amazon URL. Not sure if this "use different URL info" might be a setting stored on the local PC or a config file stored in the bucket itself. Either way, it would be a useful feature to have if you plan on using the custom domain name.

I sent these suggestions to the developers. I wasn't sure if they'd acknowlege my suggestions or not, but I almost immediately received an e-mail back from them:

THANKS for the feedback. Its the feedback from users which keeps us motivated to work on the product. All of your suggestions are excellent. We collected all the feedback provided till August 30th, and we are trying to release one version with that feedback by end of this month or latest by Monday / Tuesday. Once that release is out for public beta, we will start working on all the change requests that we got in the month of September.

With this type of response, the future of Bucket Explorer appears to be very promising. To see it in use, you can go to their site and view the demo. If you use Amazon S3 for sharing content, I think you'll want to give it a try. According to a forum post, if you provide them with design/feature feedback during the beta period, you'll receive a free copy of the initial release.

The Gotham G231 has two 13.5-inch drivers that each have 4 inches of total travel. The case is made from super-thick (1.1+ inches) fiberglass and houses a Class D 3800 watt amplifier. Of particular interest to me is the Automatic Room Optimization (A.R.O.) system, which equalizes output to match the room. Place a microphone in the in the primary listening position and it automatically measures and corrects for the room’s low-frequency acoustic properties. Of course, this will not compensate for a lack of acoustic treatments, but every little bit helps.

There are a few downsides to this subwoofer. First of all, it's huge (standing almost 3 feet tall) and it's very heavy (360 pounds.) Also, it is quite expensive: $11,000 MSPR.

Do I want one of these in my home theater? Absolutely. Am I going to get one? No. It's too big and too expensive. My Velodyne HGS 15 provides plenty of bass for my home theater and I plan to eventually add a Velodyne SMS-1 Room Correction Processor to my equipment rack to equalize the bass output. Even if I were to purchase a new subwoofer, I'd probably pick a JL Audio Fathom f113 over the G213, since it is "only" $3,200 MSRP.

But I do still remember waiting in line outside the JL Audio demo room, feeling the bass and being impressed by how it could be heard throughout much of the RCA Dome (where the demo room was located.) It's that impressive of a product and clearly set the bar, in my mind, for ultimate subwoofer performance.

[press release via cepro]

First of all, I enabled the WordPress CSS-Compress plug-in, which compressed the CSS file and all of the images referenced within it, which reduced the number of HTTP requests. Secondly, I enabled GZIP compression (through the Options -> Reading -> "WordPress should compress articles (gzip) if browsers ask for them" option.) I noticed that the new Contact Form plugin, which I hadn't even implemented on any page, was also causing a bunch of HTTP requests, so I deactivated it. I made some substantial improvements; I noticed pages loading substantially faster on my cable connection and was very pleased. A test showed 14.4 kbps download times were reduced from 130 seconds to 40 seconds!

But then I realized why I hadn't enabled Gzip compression previously: some of my WordPress plug-ins won't work with Gzip compression enabled. According to Denis de Bernardy:

The gzip is enabled before the output buffers are actually processed, so using it prevents plugins that use output buffers (external links, admin menu, ad spaces, etc.) to work properly. The gzip option in itself should never be active anyway. Apache can do this by default, and in the cases where it does you can end up with double-gzip'ed content.

So I worked to enable compression within Apache by modifying my .htaccess file, but that just brought my site down. Mod_gzip and mod_deflate aren't supported and I'm on a shared server, so I don't have full control. So I made the call, and axed the plug-ins that weren't working, namely the plug-in that identifies external links and another that places an administrative menu bar across the top of my site (for me only.) I really like those plugins, but they are not worth the performance hit. Until I find a way to enable Apache (server-controlled) compression, I'm going to go without them.

Total HTTP Requests: 30 | after: 11

Download Times*
Connection Rate Download Times (before | after)
14.4K 130.70 seconds | after: 40.22 seconds
28.8K 68.35 seconds | after: 21.51 seconds
33.6K 59.44 seconds | after: 18.84 seconds
56K 38.07 seconds | after: 12.42 seconds
ISDN 128K 15.82 seconds | after: 5.75 seconds
T1 1.44Mbps 6.85 seconds | after: 3.06 seconds
*Note that these download times are based on the full connection rate for ISDN and T1 connections. Modem connections (56Kbps or less) are corrected by a packet loss factor of 0.7. All download times include delays due to round-trip latency with an average of 0.2 seconds per object. With 30 total objects for this page, that computes to a total lag time due to latency of 6 seconds. Note also that this download time calculation does not take into account delays due to XHTML parsing and rendering.

Introductory Steps for new Amazon S3 Users:

1. First of all, obviously, you need your own domain name and your own Amazon S3 account
2. Secondly, you need a way to create/manage Amazon S3 buckets, so you'll need to install a client on your PC.
   • I recommend using Bucket Explorer, which is a full-featured and easy-to-use client that runs on Windows and Linux; (a Mac version is in private beta and should be available Oct 2007). A free, less-featured alternative is the S3 Organizer add-on for the Mozilla Firefox web browser.
   • Install your application of choice and either:
     • Open Bucket Explorer -or-
     • Open Firefox and go to Tools menu -> S3 organizer, and click the Manage Accounts button
   • Enter your AmazonAWS Access Key and Secret Key
     • These are available by going to http://aws.amazon.com, mousing-over the "Your Web Services Account" in the upper right-hand corner, and selecting "AWS Access Identifiers"
     • 

How to Alias your Subdomain to an Amazon S3 Bucket:

1. Identify the exact domain name you want to forward to Amazon S3. S3 is not a web server, so I would not recommend forwarding your entire domain there, but rather a sub-domain. The sub-domain I'm going to use is the actual one I setup: s3.carltonbale.com
2. Create a new "bucket" (a.k.a. folder) by clicking the "create folder/bucket" icon. Name the bucket exactly what your sub-domain name is.
   • Example bucket name: s3.carltonbale.com
   • Note: you must use a unique bucket name; you won't be able to create bucket if the name is already being used by someone else.
3. Now comes the tricky part: modifying your DNS server settings. The procedures on how to do this vary by host and software system, but are the general steps:
   • Logon to your web host control panel and select "Manage DNS Server Settings" or similar
   • Create a new CNAME entry for your domain. For my example of s3.carltonbale.com, the entry was:
     • Name: s3
     • Type: CNAME
     • Value: s3.amazonaws.com.
   • And yes, the dot at the end of "s3.amazonaws.com." is correct, at least for me. Look at your other entries to figure out what your should enter.
4. Now comes the hardest part: waiting. It took about 2 hours for my subdomain to be recognized by AmazonAWS.
5. Open the subdomain name in your browser. You should now be able to access your files through any of 3 urls:
   1. subdomain.domain.com (which is also the bucket name)
   2. your_bucket_name.s3.amazonaws.com
   3. s3.amazonaws.com/your_bucket_name

Final Steps

1. You'll need to set permissions on your bucket and the files within using your favorite bucket management tool. I recommend setting the bucket permission to "full control by owner" only and setting the permissions of the files within the bucket to "full control by owner, read access for everyone". This will prevent people from being able to browse/list the files in your bucket.
2. If you don't want Google (or Google Images) to index the files in your subdomain, create a file named robots.txt containing the following and copy it into your bucket:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

That's it, my start-to-finish guide on how to use your own domain name with Amazon S3. If I missed something or if something isn't clear, let me know in the comments and I'll fix it.

To be clear, this is the older Stacker 810 case, not the newer Stacker 830 Evolution. I think the 810 offers many for features for a much lower price; I'm not sure why the 830 is even around.

Th Stacker 810 is a great case if you have a bunch of drives and need a large, well cooled case. If you purchase 2 additional 4-in-3 modules, this case has 14 5.25" drive bays, so it can handle 12 hard drives plus a DVD and a floppy drive. It is extremely large inside and can easily handle pretty much any motherbaord, plus there is a removable motherboard tray. There is a 120mm fan on the top as well as one on the front of each drive bay and the case has provision for two power supplies (one above and one below the motherboard tray.)

My DVD drive was very easy to install in the case, just place a plastic guide rail on the side and slide it into the locking drive bay.

The 4-in-3 drive bay (which fits four 3.5" hard drives in three 5.25" bays and includes a 120mm cooling fan) was not so easy. The drives are secured using screws, but there are 2 panels and 4 rails that must be held in place before sliding it into the front of the case. And if you take it out, it completely fall apart. I would prefer these snap together somehow, but I guess I won't be removing the drives all that often.

If you really want to stretch the capacity of the case, you can use three SuperMicro CSE-M35T-1B 5-in-3 hot-swap SATA enclosures and fit 15 hard drives plus two more 5.25" drives. Personally, I think spending more on drive enclosures than you do on a case is a waste of money. I seen no need to hot-swap drives in a home server, but it is an option if you need the space and can tolerate the loud, high-pitched fan of these SuperMicro enclosures.

This case is designed for a bunch of airflow. The downside of this is that it creates more noise as compared to my almost-completely-sealed-and-silent Antec P180 case. The perforated covers on front of each of the Stacker 810 drive bays are great for airflow, not so great for sound blocking. Luckily, due to the large 120mm fans and super-quiet Samsung drives, the noise is a soft, background noise rather than a higher-pitched, shrill, annoying noise. But hey, this is a server case, and servers should be hidden away in a back room, and not in your living room or home theater. Cooling trumps noise for a server case, and this one has great cooling. I monitored my hard drive temps, and all were at or below 26-degrees C.

Conclusion

Pros:  This is a great case because it is very simple to work with, supports multiple motherboard sizes, has great cooling, and has a large number of drive bays. For the price, it is a very well-made server case.

Cons:  The disadvantages are that it is not super-quiet and it takes up quite a bit of space (more than it really needs to due to so much unused space inside.) Unfortunately, it does not come with a power supply and it only includes one 4-in-3 hard drive module.

Extra Info: Part Number Detail

Unfortunately, there are a bunch of different Stacker 810 cases and the differences are not clear. After some research, I figured out which is which. Here are the details and the part numbers:

• STC-T01-UW - Silver; Dual Power Supply Locations (top & bottom); ATX, mATX, BTX, mBTX motherboards
• STC-T01-UWK - Black; Dual Power Supply Locations (top & bottom; ATX, mATX, BTX, mBTX motherboards
• RC-810-SSN1 - Silver; Single Power Supply Location (bottom); ATX, mATX motherboards
• RC-810-SKN1 - Black; Single Power Supply Location (bottom); ATX, mATX motherboards

If you are looking for accessories, here are some part numbers:

• STB-3T4-E1-GP - 4-in-3 drive bay adapter with fan (case comes with 1 of these)
• RC-880-FKR1 - 3.5" drive bay cover (case comes with 1 of these)
• SPB-S01-E1 - PlexiGlass side window - Silver
• STF-B01-E1-GP - Cross-flow fan

If you're new to Amazon S3, read on for more info and detailed instructions.

Why would you want to distribute a file using BitTorrent?

I wanted to do this because, when sharing a file via a torrent, you use less of your Amazon S3 bandwidth and lower your monthly expense. To be more accurate, according the S3 documentation:

The difference is that if a lot of clients are requesting the same object simultaneously via BitTorrent, then the amount of data S3 must serve to satisfy those clients will be lower than with client/server delivery.

I knew it was possible to host a torrent on S3, but wasn't quite sure how to do it. After quite a bit of searching and reading, I found that it was actually pretty easy to do.

Here are the details on how to copy a file to your Amazon S3 account, make it public, create the torrent seed / tracker, and have Amazon S3 share both the .torrent file and seed the download.

Preliminary Steps for new Amazon S3 Users:

1. You must first have an Amazon S3 account
2. Secondly, you need a way to create/manage Amazon S3 buckets, so you'll need to install a client on your PC.
   • I recommend using Bucket Explorer, which is a full-featured and easy-to-use client that runs on Windows and Linux; (a Mac version is in private beta and should be available Oct 2007). A free, less-featured alternative is the S3 Organizer add-on for the Mozilla Firefox web browser.
   • Install your application of choice and either:
     • Open Bucket Explorer -or-
     • Open Firefox and go to Tools menu -> S3 organizer, and click the Manage Accounts button
   • Enter your AmazonAWS Access Key and Secret Key
   • These are available by going to http://aws.amazon.com, mousing-over the "Your Web Services Account" in the upper right-hand corner, and selecting "AWS Access Identifiers"
   • 

How to Create and Seed a Torrent Download on Amazon S3:

1. Create a new "bucket" (a.k.a. folder) by clicking the "create folder" icon in the right-hand panel of S3 Organizer. Note: you must use a unique bucket name; you won't be able to create bucket if the name is already being used by someone else.
2. Upload the file which will be shared into the desired bucket using S3 Organizer
3. Make the bucket public read by right-clicking on the bucket name and selecting "Edit ACL". Select "Read" access for "Everyone". Note: you may also have to repeat the read access step for each file that is uploaded to the bucket.
4. Now that the file is uploaded and shared, it can be downloaded via standard http from the following location: http://s3.amazonaws.com/your_bucket_name/your_file_name .
   • Note 1: You can also find the URL by right-clicking the file in S3 organizer and selecting Copy URL to Clipboard.
   • Note 2: Unfortunately, the file will always be available via http download, which can be faster than BitTorrent download, but will use more of your S3 bandwidth.)
5. Now you want to create the torrent file itself. Just enter the following URL: http://s3.amazonaws.com/your_bucket_name/your_file_name?torrent and the torrent file will be created and you will be able to download it the *.torrent file to your computer.
6. You can share this downloaded *.torrent file with others via e-mail, webpage download, etc.

According to this article, you can use Amazon S3 as the torrent tracker only by following the steps above, opening the torrent file on your local PC, start seeding from your local PC, and then remove the original file. S3 will continue to be the (ultra reliable) tracker for the file but you don't have to use S3 bandwidth to share the file. To save bandwidth usage and prevent someone from going directly to the http download of the file instead of using the torrent download, it's probably best to download the small *.torrent file and share that with others instead publishing the URL to the torrent file on the Amazon S3 server.

Assuming you have the file being shared stored on your local computer, you can download the *.torrent and start seeding from your local PC without re-downloading (the shared file) from S3, further reducing your S3 bandwidth.That's it, my start-to-finish guide on how to take a file and share/seed/tracker it via BitTorrent and Amazon S3. If I missed something or if something isn't clear, let me know in the comments and I'll fix it.