steve's remote clickr

Writer’s Block

2008-04-04T19:11:05Z

What we got here? Nothing but no thing to do. I’m thinking that the time around us just moves. We bob up and down. Weave through the orange cones. Move around. Dance or sit. Pick at scabs and dab at blood.

Think about things that we know or think we know. There’s a sense there’s something right to do or think or say or believe. There’s nothing about the life we “know” to be true or real or right. Waxing philosophical while we wane in our desire to figure anything out. We don’t realize that there’s not a lot heck of a lot to figure out but we strive to do it

What the hell? I’m just rambling. Thinking that I’m writing something profound and I’m eschewing the use of my delete key. Or highlighting and typing over. Just the spacebar. The spacebar. Highlight. Space. Highlight space.

Space. Space. Space.

3 spaces in the open field. A field of grass. Hay, dirt and leaves. Looking without seeing. Hearing withhout listening. Eating without tasting. Thinking without thinking.

“Acting without doing” or “doing without acting”?

Rambling.

Highlight. Space.

Noise on the net

2008-04-08T04:23:19Z

Installing a custom firmware on a Japanese PSP.

I was half-way around the world, but I had the internet at my fingertips. It seemed a daunting task, trying to separate the crap from the useful information. Any time you search for something that may be a little outside of what’s “allowed”, you get a lot of noise. A search for something like “encoding DVDs” on google will get you countless “tools” designed to help with the task - for a price. It’s really quite ridiculous. The problem’s magnified when you search for a Windows OS-based issue. Something like “free anti-virus program” will result in almost all of the hits either being a paid anti-virus program ¹ or a CNet review of an anti-virus program.

That said, I powered through the noise to stumble upon a decent thread on maxconsole.net. It had a fairly detailed explanation of the process to make Pandora’s battery with a phat PSP battery. I had a slim PSP battery. Several pages into that long thread, I found an explanation of how to make a slim PSP battery into one.

(Click for bigger)

It’s a pretty awful picture (seriously, how hard is it to use the macro function on your camera?!?), but it gets the job done. You’ve got to use an exacto knife or a razor to cut carefully around the sides of the battery. Just keep scratching at it until you can pry it open all the way. It takes some perseverance and patience, so don’t rush it. It took me about 15 minutes to get it open. Once you get it open, just scratch out that one little wire. Put the battery back together and you’re done.

The next step involved tracking down a program called 14749_TOTALNewbieasyInstallerPandorasmenu.rar. (Remember my previous mini-rant up above about noise? Well, I could have burst an ear-drum with all the noise that this search produced. I mean, if google searches were audible and the opportunistic websites screamed at me. Or something.)

Downloaded, un-RARed, copied to my brother-in-law’s Windows computer - preferably after a virus scan with the free software I tried to find earlier - and run.²

Done.

Put the battery in the PSP, put the memory stick in the PSP and pressed “X”. After 3 minutes, I had a CFW on my PSP.

Things you’ll need for this process:

A PSP
An extra PSP battery - slim or phat. If you use a slim battery, you can make it work as a normal battery again by using a pencil to fill in the line you cut, but I haven’t done that myself.
A razor or exacto knife
A memory stick you can format
A card reader (not required but nice to have)
Total Easy Newbie Installer - ~~google it~~. I decided to upload it myself since it is relatively hard to find. Please don’t hotlink this file! This file is virus-free.
A Windows-based computer. I hear Vista won’t work.

That’s it. Hit those links and make me some referral money! Just kidding. Happy CFW’ing!

Footnotes

I find it so ironic that my google adwords ads have “free anti-virus” programs listed there now. I would click on the ad to see if it’s actually free, but I don’t want to get accused of click-fraud. ↩
The instructions on the web say you need to format your memory stick in the PSP first, but the program formats it for you so I think that’s unnecessary. The only tricky thing is that you need to make sure you select “4″ from the menu choices. It’s really pretty self-explanatory. ↩

mini as HTPC

2007-11-06T05:43:12Z

I may have posted about this before but I can’t quite remember. If I have, you probably haven’t read it (you, of course, being the mythical “you” reading. Kinda like the mythical “they” we all know about.) so there’s no harm in my posting it again. Mostly because I think I’ve found a fantastic solution for really using a Mac to run your home theater.

I’ve been using a mac Mini to be a replacement for a stereo system and DVD player for some time. I have a base model mini hooked up to a large external hard drive and I put all my music and videos on the drive. Using FrontRow, which has been greatly improved in many ways (but is frustrating in others), and a Universal Remote (the RF20), I was able to make it completely painless to use.

But I still had to pay for expensive cable to get HD on the nice LCD my wife bought me for my birthday. So before I launch into that discussion, let me digress a bit into the wild and wooly world of digital and analog cable. Bear with me because I think the discussion will be worth it.

Some terms to know before we continue:

Analog Cable: the old skool cable standard
Digital Cable: (wikipedia.) The good stuff. Digital signal broadcasts the channel. HD channels are all digital and many other stations are, as well.
Clear QAM: Digital channels that are broadcast “in the clear.” They are unencrypted, meaning you do not need a cable box to get them. All you need is a QAM tuner.
QAM tuner: (wikipedia.)

a device present in some digital televisions and similar devices which enables direct reception of digital cable channels without the use of a set-top box

With those definitions out of the way, we now have the groundwork of what we need to know to get our mini acting as a cable tuner and a DVR.

My interest was purely for the digital channels; those that broadcast in HD, mostly for our prime time shows like Heroes and House (and Lost, but that show is a lost cause - awful pun intended) and for college basketball when it goes to national television. As such, I’ll be focusing only on the digital channels.

I tried a couple of different solutions before I finally settled on the one I have now. First, I tried the Elgato EyeTV hybrid but it didn’t do QAM tuning, so there were no HD channels available. I then tried the Pinnacle HDTV Ultimate, because it promised to be “hardware ready for QAM.” Silly me. I thought “ready” meant “ready” but it actually meant “not quite ready, but it will be once we figure out how to do the software for it.”

Finally, I settled on a relatively new and untested product, the HDHomerun because it was actually ready for QAM tuning. If you buy it from Elgato, you get the EyeTV software, which is essential for making it worthwhile. The HDHomerun has 2 tuners, so if you’ve got 2 coaxial cables to connect to it, you can get 2 tuners working. In other words, you can watch and record different channels or you can connect an antenna and a cable line at the same time (or you can do variations on the theme). It works wonderfully! I use the EyeTV software to program and tune it. I’ve got my programs scheduled to record. EyeTV also encodes the saved recordings for either use in iTunes or via a slick web interface specifically for the iPhone and iPod touch. It’s very nice.

An unexpected benefit of the HDHomerun is that it’s a network device. Meaning that other computers on your network can connect and watch television using the tuners. It was nice to watch the MLB playoffs while I was studying at my iMac. If you’re savvy enough, and have enough upload speed on your internet connection, you can even access your cable from anywhere on the internet. You’ll need to figure out port mapping for your router, but that’s really a simple task. The reason I haven’t done it yet is because my upload speed stinks.

I had to upgrade my mini to 2 gigs of RAM for it to be able to handle the streams and I had to buy a new router to handle the wireless traffic. But it was worth it. Within 2 months, I’ll have saved enough to pay for the equipment.

There’s word that if you’ve got cable internet, unencrypted digital channels will come through without paying for cable, even basic, at all. I’m not brave enough to try and I like having the analog channels avaiable. It’s cheap enough to keep it around, but if you’re looking to save even more, you can cancel your cable entirely and just keep your cable internet around.

All in all, a worthy upgrade to my mini and home theater setup. I haven’t had a moment’s regret since I decided to do it. My wife misses her really easy DVR’ing, but she’s more than happy enough with the nearly $100/month we’ll be saving to make the hassle worth it.

TextMate and Blogging

2007-11-06T04:39:36Z

I’m just trying out the blogging bundle that comes with Textmate just to see how well it works. I’m also using Markdown to simplify my life even further. I know that I can just use one of my many other software tools to do this, but I’m a software whore and I like to know what I can do with all this fun stuff.

I just uploaded to see how it did and now I’m updating my post to see what this does. So far I’m very impressed with this software. Give it a try - they’ve got a 30-day trial available.

Paging Dr. SRC

2007-07-20T22:45:47Z

Or not. I got an iPhone 3 weeks ago and today, I uncovered the most disconcerting drawback yet - no numeric paging!

Some may ask, “why even bother with numeric paging?” (you like that set up for the rest of my post? I learned that strawman argument from watching good ol’ GW)

Well, I use my cell phone as my business line and my paging system. My current patients page me when they need a crisis call and new business or other calls leave a voicemail. It’s worked perfectly up until now. The number from which a patient called is automatically filled in as the call back number (they can, of course, leave a different number), it comes through as a free text message to my phone and I can just call directly from my SMS program. My other calls, I triage during business hours.

If my patients can’t leave me a numeric page, they have to leave me a voicemail, meaning I have to check my voicemail outside of business hours. Quite the pain.

Anyway, the point of this post has been met. Getting the word out about no numeric paging on the iPhone’s - or AT&T’s omission of them from the iPhone’s voicemail system. I even called to find out if I needed to set something up differently. AT&T told me to call Apple. Apple told me to call AT&T. Fun times.

WEP and the iPhone

2007-07-16T15:34:52Z

I had trouble connecting to my new favorite coffee shop’s WEP encrypted network, though the iPhone didn’t tell me there was any sort of a problem with my connection or password. I did some research and it turns out I needed to make a change to the way the iPhone was taking my password.

Clicking on the “lock” icon next to the name of the network took me to a screen that allowed me to change the type of password it is. I changed it to “Hex or ASCII” and entered in the plain text password, et voila!, it worked!

I found this tip on MacRumors.com. Hope this helps someone. Remember to support your local coffee shops! Keep independent roasters alive.

Circumcision

2007-07-04T19:41:12Z

I got my iPhone on launch day. It’s been great. I love it more than any other piece of kit I’ve got. But I’ve got one ongoing problem with it: the recessed headphone port.

I had to resort to just using the packed-in iPhone earbuds and I didn’t like it. I tried alternate methods of inserting them and while they sounded better, they still fell out more than I’d like. That left me with 2 solutions: use the god-awful Belkin adapter or figure out how to make my current headphones work.

So I pulled out my Exacto knife and my cutting mat and went to work. I had a spare set of Koss KSC-75’s since I lost the metal clip to one of the headphones, so I practiced on that.

At first, it looked like it might be messy, shaving back the rubber around the plug.

Then I found that there was a harder rubber over the part I didn’t want to cut!

Having discovered that, I felt confident that I could just circumcise the plug and be ok.

The end result:

It works perfectly!

How to get an iPhone for $300. Or: How to get AT&T to subsidize it.

2007-12-29T13:51:01Z

Think the iPhone is too pricey and you’re getting screwed by AT&T for being required to agree to a contract just for the privilege of owning one? If you’re not a current AT&T customer, you may be in luck! Just don’t run out and get the iPhone just yet.

According to this thread, even current AT&T customers are “allowed” to buy an iPhone, they just need to re-up for 2 more years. That is, even if they’re not eligible for a subsidized upgrade, they can get one because, as some sites have reminded us (1) the iPhone’s not subsidized.

“But, SRC, why does that matter to me? Didn’t I just tell you I’m not an AT&T customer?”

So, become an AT&T customer before you buy an iPhone! You can sign up, get a phone free or cheap (or ~~make money~~ make $50) and then get the iPhone on Friday as a “current customer”. Send in relevant rebates, sell the old phone and profit. Cha-ching! iPhone for $300 less.¹

Directly from AT&T’s own faq:

Q. I just upgraded my phone recently. Are there any penalties or restrictions for upgrading to iPhone right away? A. No. Everyone can upgrade to iPhone right away.

A couple caveats with the amazon link above: make sure you read the terms of the agreement. Specifically make sure your iPhone plan is priced higher than the one you sign up for or you may get stuck with a $250 charge. Send in your rebates and be diligent in tracking them. I’ve had great success with my amazon rebates, but it never hurts to be sure.

In the end, I’m going to make $175 on that w810i from rebates. I’m planning on selling it on eBay for around $150 or so.² This process should net me $325 at the end of it all. Taxes included, the iPhone will cost me $320. Not too shabby.

Update: A few months later, and I’ve got all my rebates back. All told, I made about $475 on the deal. $275 in rebates and $200 on the phone sale. Considering my iPhone was only $499, not too shabby.

Footnotes

Don’t blame me if this doesn’t work for some reason. I’m taking the same risk you all are taking by trying this. It pays to be diligent if you’re met with resistance. Know your facts, have documentation of rebates and make sure you don’t give up. I’m 99% sure this will work for me. I’ll post back with reports of success. Or failure.↩
Or you can choose to keep it and just have it as your “beater” phone for when you don’t want to take your iPhone out. That’s the best thing about GSM phones, IMHO. Just move the SIM card to another phone and you’re set.↩

NATIONAL JOURNAL: Internal Affairs (03/15/07)

2007-05-16T19:42:01Z

NATIONAL JOURNAL: Internal Affairs (03/15/07): ” May 16, 2007 DOMESTIC SURVEILLANCE Internal Affairs Aborted DOJ Probe Probably Would Have Targeted Gonzales By Murray Waas, National Journal © National Journal Group Inc. Thursday, March 15, 2007 Shortly before Attorney General Alberto Gonzales advised President Bush last year on whether to shut down a Justice Department inquiry regarding the administration’s warrantless domestic eavesdropping program, Gonzales learned that his own conduct would likely be a focus of the investigation, according to government reco”

Spread This Number. Again.

2007-05-01T02:26:22Z

Spread This Number. Again.: “09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0.” I don’t know what this is but it looks interesting. Like a couple MAC addresses or something.

(Via digg.)