paulyblog

Warning: The following post includes material that some people might classify as “geeky”.

Here is one reason why I don’t think I could totally get rid of my PC and get a Mac, Windows Media Center Edition.

I was at my cousins last week and he’s got digital cable. His receiver for his digital cable is also a PVR (Personal Video Recorder). I didn’t realize how awesome that feature was until we started watching TV. I’m not one to stay home and watch TV, so I usually end up missing anything that is good on TV. With a PVR or Media Center Edition you can schedule them to record automatically. So that got me thinking…. I could do that with my computer. One thing I was missing was an IR blaster to control my satellite receiver. Microsoft had the perfect thing for that. The Microsoft Media Center remote control. The remote control comes with 2 IR emitters to control pretty any type of set-top box (receivers). So I ordered it from NCIX.com on Tuesday night. Friday afternoon the remote control came in. It took a little playing around and configuration but I finally have everything setup. I’ve been recording all kinds of crap, it’s great. The best part is you can schedule something to record through http://tv.msn.com even if your not at home.

Windows Media Center Edition’s best features include, cheaper than buying a PVR, pause live tv, schedule recordings through the internet, delete when you’re done watching it, and you get to fast forward through commercials of previously recorded shows.

Gadgets, Geek, Technology

Google has released version 4 of its famous Google Toolbar today. The toolbar includes many new features such as Enhanced Search Box, Bookmarks, Custom Buttons, Send To, and Google Account Sign-In. The only downside is it’s not available for FireFox yet. I’m not sure if they will be releasing it soon or what. For more information about all these new features you can visit the Google Toolbar Help page.

To add paulyblog.com as a button on your Google Toolbar, click here.

Geek, Technology

Wow, I watched Ashton Kutcher’s Beauty and the Geek for the first time tonight. I think the title is pretty self explanatory but those that don’t get the obvious, it’s a bunch of geeks paired up with some hotties. You can just imagine how funny it is. If you haven’t seen the show yet you can check it out at 9pm EST on Wednesday nights. You can also check it out on the web here. I thought I was a geek but I don’t even come close to these guys.

Geek, Useless

I’m not sure if you’ve ever had to troubleshoot something without any clues…let me tell you, it’s not fun. My main server keeps crashing on me. Just out of the blue, everyone on the network can’t access any network drives, applications, and their Outlook tells them they are offline. Nothing works, the only thing they can do is surf the internet, which is weird because ISA is configured to go through that same server. So technically, they are going though that server to get to the internet. The worse part is the event viewer doesn’t tell me what the problem is. There are no errors or nothing. In the next few days we will be installing some diagnostic software to try and find the problem. I think it has to be a software issue.

Geek, Technology, Unclassified

Apple released the new Intel based iMac and MacBook Pro today.

This is the first Mac notebook built upon the revolutionary new Intel Core Duo — which is actually two processors (up to 1.83GHz) engineered onto a single chip. It provides 2MB of Smart Cache, L2 cache that can be shared between both cores as needed. It delivers higher performance in 2D and 3D graphics, video editing, and music encoding. And the new engine is only part of the story. MacBook Pro has a frontside bus and memory that, at 667MHz, runs faster than any previous Mac notebook. It’s the first Mac notebook with PCI Express, a Serial ATA hard drive and the ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 for superfast graphics performance.

The new MacBook Pro has the iSight built in, which is kind of cool. It also has a new power connection called MagSafe, which is magnetic so when you get the wire caught on something it doesn’t break. The Intel iMac is pretty much the same as the G5 iMac except you will find it bundled with iLife 06 which was also released today. The new iLife 06 includes a new addition called iWeb which allows you to create a blog or webpage and upload it to .mac. The new iLife allows you to make updates to your blog with ease. I guess this is extremely helpful for the newbie blogger that wants something simple.

Myself, I think I would wait to purchase the new Intel Apple since it’s new. Wait until the second generation so they can get the bugs out of it. They will only get better and faster.

Gadgets, Geek, Technology

A critical Windows update has been release by Microsoft on January 5th, 2006 to patch a vulnerability which allows hackers to embed malicious software into image files. The malware can infect your computer with viruses, worms, spyware and steal sensitive information or seriously mess up your computer. Without the patch, you can infect your computer by simply visiting a website and clicking on these images.

It’s too bad none of these viruses did something productive like speed up your computer, clean up the house, or make you supper. If that was the case, I guess I woudn’t have a job

Fore more info on this critical Windows update (KB912919) click here or go to the Microsoft Update site.

MAKE SURE YOU INSTALL THIS UPDATE.

Geek, Technology, Web

As you probably already know Microsoft has released its newest gaming console, the Xbox 360. For those who didn’t pre-order it you probably don’t have it (because they are sold out) or paid a shit load of money for it. Myself, I am not really into video games. I had a regular Xbox but ended up selling because I didn’t use it.

So Friday, I was at the mall with some friends and just for fun we walk into Electronic Boutique to see if we could see the new Xbox. They had it on display but it was turned off. The guy said that they don’t turn it on because people just come in to play it then they leave. I was thinking, isn’t that the point?!! But he said that they didn’t have any in stock so it didn’t really matter. He did mention however that Zellers had gotten 3 in stock that same morning. So we decide to go to Zellers to check it out. Sure enough when we get there they had 2 left. One lady was looking at one so I told the clerk that I wanted the other one. As I was at the cash, paying $575 for this Xbox, Jenn walks up… She wasn’t too impressed that I was buying this thing since I am pretty much broke. After a few minutes of explaining she understood that I was buying it to sell it. Either way, it had a 30 day return policy.

So when I got home I went on a local trading board online. I called one guy who was looking for one. He was debating on whether he wanted it or not. I was asking $800 and he was going to buy one for $750 from another guy but never heard back from him. So I called the next guy that was looking for one. He said yes right away. So I brought it over to him not even 10 minutes after I got off the phone. He had the cash and everthing. So I made $225 profit in less than an hour with the new Xbox 360. Thanks Microsoft! and Zellers!

The funniest part, 5 minutes after I drop off the Xbox, the first guy calls back. He said that he talked it over with his girlfriend and he wanted to buy it. I felt kind of bad for the guy but told him that I had just sold it. If I would of had 2 of them, I could have made $450 in just over an hour. That made my day.

Blog, Geek, Life, Technology

Well it’s been six reboots now and no more blue screens of death. Tonight I installed Symantec Mail Security for Exchange 4.6 and the new version of Prism Deploy version 7 without any problem. The reboot went well and everything. The first time I installed Prism was when the problems started with that server. I can’t believe it’s almost been a year already. The MSDE clobbered everything on the server, a raid drive failed and another had errors. I still remember the chkdsk running by for 4 core business hours saying “Deleting Orphaned Files”. That was hell. Hopefully that doesn’t happen again.

After all, no server rebuild happening this weekend. Just a lot of drinking (staff party). Who know’s, I might even post some pictures.

Geek, Life, Technology, Unclassified

I was looking at this months edition of Time at work yesterday. This month they are featuring the “Most Amazing Inventions of 2005″. Something that really caught my eye was the Slingbox by Sling Media. This thing is amazing. It allows you to watch and control your TV from anywhere. So you could be stuck at the airport and still catch the game from your laptop. All you have to do is plug the Slingbox to your cable TV or your satellite receiver and to the internet. Then you install the software on your laptop and you can access whatever is playing on your Slingbox. The nice part is it comes with an IR controller. What this means is you can change the channels on your satellite receiver from the software that is installed on your laptop. The only thing with this is that it’s only compatible for Windows at the moment. So you die hard Mac fans will have to wait for Sling Media to release Mac software. Then again, I think that you are used to waiting.

Click here to check out the Slingbox from Sling Media

Fun, Geek, Technology

Registered www.paulyblogger.com today. I wanted something that was easy to remember.

Right now, I have it setup to do forwarding. The shitty thing is setting it up with Wordpress. I can’t set my site url to www.paulyblogger.com because it’s just setup as a forward at the ISP (yahoo in this case).

One of the things that I noticed that didn’t work when going to www.paulyblogger.com is the login. If you enter your username and password correctly in Internet Explorer it will just bring you back to the login screen. This works fine in Firefox though.

Firefox it is! you can get it here

Blog, Geek, Life, Technology, Unclassified