Background

I’m running Windows 7 Ultimate with a Diamond Wonder 750 USB TV Tuner Card. I have an ATI HD5570 HDMI video card which outputs to my AV amp, which in turns goes to my surround sound system and my TV. Because I’m cheap and live in Vancouver, I hooked my tuner card up to an antenna to take advantage of the 7 high-definition over-the-air digital channels that are available.

I was previously using TotalMedia to watch and record TV, but the program was slow and was unable to pull the TV listings from the internet. Couple that with a couple other issues, and I wanted to reformat the computer, starting from a fresh Windows 7 install.

Windows Media Center does not like ATSC in Canada

Canada completed the switch to digital signals last year. This means all antenna broadcasts are in crystal clear digital high-definition.

The downside is that Microsoft has never tried to offer support for digital television in Canada (which comes through the same ATSC standard as in the USA). This is why I previously had to use TotalMedia to watch TV – Windows Media Centre refused to recognize my digital tuner because I said I lived in Canada.

Luckily, there’s a workaround, which is compiled into a simple batch file available on the Microsoft Experts forum. Just download the file there, run the ATSC support, and it should work.

As an added bonus, you can run the other batch file they wrote to enable guide support, which they have even automated for the major markets in Canada.

Windows Media Center does not like HDMI Audio

With that working, I managed to run into my next error.

Whenever I clicked on LiveTV, I would get a couple seconds of TV with no sound before an error message popped up saying:

Video Error

Files needed to display video are not installed or are not working correctly. Restart Windows Media Center or restart the computer.

Additionally, when I ran the WMC Set Up Audio system and selected HDMI audio, it would not produce any sound. Videos and menus would make sounds until I tried to watch TV, and then WMC would quit making any noise.

After some Googling, some suggested running WMC as an Administrator, but this didn’t work for me.

What did work was opening my Playback devices under sound settings, opening the properties of my HDMI audio device, and unselecting “Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device” under Advanced.

Everything seems to be working now. Hopefully something in here helps you set up your own HTPC / free-PVR system.

So here’s some news (in no particular order or even semblance of relatedness other than that it all interests me):

• Obama is doing a better job defending our medicare system then most (but not all) Canadian politicians
• On the CFI and accountability issue, I had received an informal response from CFI Transnational a few weeks ago (essentially saying the system works so why fix it), but they have yet to release anything official. I’ll likely come back to this next week.
• In Malaysia, they’re going to cane a Muslim woman for drinking a beer. She’ll be the first woman in Malaysia to be caned for drinking under the Sharia Law there that only applies to Muslims (for now). It’s supposed to be a “ceremonial” caning as opposed to anything painful, but I still don’t think that cuts it. We don’t “ceremonially” spank children because it’s nearly as bad as actually spanking a child.
• I got a new Netbook, and it kicks ass. I also got an external DVD burner and used it to put Windows XP on my old netbook which I plan to give to my girlfriend (so she no longer has to lug around her 10 lb “laptop”). The funds for this were provided by the UofA ECE department for me having the top presentation of the 2009 EE 495 research project.
• If you’re interested in what my research career is shaping up to look like for the next couple years, and don’t want to wait for my inevitable posts that attempt to boil it down for easier consumption, you can try to get through this guy’s thesis [pdf] which somewhat relates to what I might be doing (I’m still not 100% sure since our lab’s not fully operational yet). Short form: measuring exotic micron-scale forces with Bose-Einstein Condensates.
• Finally, North Vancouver is considering an obscure piece of technology to make getting up the steep hills easier on bicycles. See the video below:

1. Microsoft Zune software – while it closes and stays closed, its still the main/only way to transfer stuff to the Zune. It’s not as bad as iTunes.
2. No Marketplace in Canada – I had to change my computer to say that I live in the USA to get access to the free podcasts from the Zune Marketplace, but without a US credit card I won’t be buying any DRM-free music from there (Apple’s music store wasn’t available in Canada right away either, this is more of a time issue).
3. Still a proprietary USB/docking connection – this is even better because there’s very few accessories for the Zune yet.
4. Useless Wifi – I guess it’s good at draining your battery life, but does anyone actually use it to share music between Zunes or to Sync (when the cable is faster)
5. Apple Fanboys/girls (more so the Anti-Micro$ofters) – this time they simply dismiss the product because it’s made by Microsoft. Great scepticism children.

1. iTunes – Why should I have to download firmware cracks to use a device to its full potential? Perhaps I don’t want to give Steve Jobs any more money than I already did for the iPod. Finally, why can’t iTunes at least just turn off and not want to sit in my tray hogging resources that don’t belong to it?
2. Overpriced – Still $50 more than Zunes on average, and roughly double what any other competitor charges.
3. The fanboys/girls – Seriously, it’s just a freaking piece of plastic and electronics. Let’s not all be tools to a “hip” marketing campaign. Apple didn’t invent the mp3 player anymore than Microsoft invented the GUI operating system.
4. AAC – Maybe, just maybe, I want a useful format that the rest of the world uses to listen to music with.
5. Standards? – Why screw the entire MP3 accessory market the same way that cell phone accessories are screwed by making your plug proprietary? I shouldn’t expect more from the company that likes to control every aspect of its computer line, but still, imagine if one stereo dock ran Zunes, iPods and other less common brands, and all with one plug. This is your fault Apple, being the company that launched the MP3 player to primetime

DRM almost made the list, and is an honourable mention since it took until March of this year for Apple to cut it out of iTunes. Another honourable mention is the lack of card expandability, some flash mp3 players offer SD card expansion, it’s rare though, so I won’t hold it against Apple.

And to be fair, some of these points are shared with other mp3 players, but Apple receives far more credit and good press than it likely deserves.

Just remember: What’s popular is not always what’s best or what’s right – look at Islam/Christianity (or all religions), or the numbers that vote Conservative (or don’t vote at all).

(Don’t worry, a return to regularly-scheduled blogging topics is coming).

The player requires the Zune software to transfer music (although when you close the software it actually goes away, unlike someone else’s software). And unfortunately, the Marketplace (MS’s answer to the iTunes store) is unavailable outside the US for now. However, by setting your computer’s region to US, you can at least access the Marketplace and download the free podcasts that are available (you can’t buy points without a US credit card though, unless you eBay them).

So far the player is worth it’s $100 price tag, besides the first DOA one that crapped out. It should keep me entertained for at least a little while longer (and especially on long Vancouver commutes that I expect in the fall).

And not just everyday, “where’d I leave my keys” stupid, but going to get themselves into real trouble stupid. Especially when they get behind the fake anonymity of a computer.

Or should I spell it Annonymous:

I ripped one down Faggets.

I ripped one down, and i will rip more. Get ready to have no more posters, waste your money F A G G O T S

You are not anonymous when you post online. Your IP address is logged dipshit.

So I know you posted from a University of Alberta computer. This means you logged on, and even luckier for me your bigoted comment is timestamped.

When you are given a CCID on campus, it doesn’t give you unlimited rights on campus computers like you can do at home. There is a Campus Computing Conditions of Use which specifically states:

5. Within the broad context of free academic discussion and debate, all forms of electronic communication are expected to reflect high ethical standards and mutual respect and civility. Users will be sensitive to the public nature of shared facilities and take care not to display in such public locations images, sounds or messages which could create an atmosphere of discomfort or harassment for others. Users will refrain from transmitting to others in any location inappropriate images, sounds or messages which might reasonably be considered harassing, offensive, or defamatory.

And further as an example of unacceptable use:

H) Objectionable content: The use of obscene, racist or sexist language, public display of pornography, and similar actions clearly violate the ethical standards of the University community and is as inappropriate for electronic communications as it is for other forms of University discourse. Such use contravenes section 5) and often section 1) of this policy. [emphasis added]

Now, I’m all for free speech, and I’ll typically leave obscene comments up (mainly because it makes the commenter look stupid), but if you are stupid, I’m going to call you on it.

Annonymous has been reported to [email protected] and as will most cowards who act the same. If you’re behind your home computer, I’m not going to send the thought police after you, because as far as I’m concerned you can be as obnoxious as you want from home.

But if you’re using public computers (or public wireless), you are required to follow their terms of service because you are using their equipment. You don’t own the University’s computers or internet connection, everyone does.

So here’s my simple rule for comments, and I’m ripping this off Bad Astronomy, Don’t be a jerk and don’t be stupid.

The internet isn’t as “annonymous” as you cowards would like to believe.

Finally, if you ever have that moment of regret and want a stupid, angry, whatever comment removed, I have that power and will do it provided you email me.

Anyways, while I’ve been waiting on setup to reformat the drive and reinstall windows, I’ve been fiddling around with Google Chrome on my dad’s PC.
Good:

 It has a recent tabs thing with is basically amazing. And its beautiful. as much as a browser can be i suppose…
It has all the wonderful things firefox can do like tabs and actually saving passwords!

Not so Good:

It seems to be ridiculously slow. Part of that may be due to the generation gap and my dad choosing the internet speed. However, even IE runs faster on this machine.

Also:

I’ve Gotten  used to all the awesome addons in firefox, particularly the adblock (I get surprised to see ad’s) and the previews (utterly amazing for quickly following links on blogs and such).

the verdict:
Not half bad. Its pretty (which is a selling point for me, theres a disco ball on my desk that makes almost everything progress slower) and really easy to use (although I haven’t found all the usual ‘file’ and ‘edit’ ect menus yet). But it is a little slow and doesn’t block ads(which is understandable, thats how google makes money after all) or have all the extravagance that I’m used to. Its definitely a step up from the evil blue ‘e’.

Will Wright, creator of the Sim games, is releasing a new game entitled Spore later this year, in which gamers will be able to play god for a world, developing life from single-celled organisms, to space-faring civilizations.

Religion can even develop in the game, which according to Wright, has only been criticized by ‘militant atheists.’ Wright describes himself as an atheist.

No reactions have hit the blogosphere yet regarding religion in Spore, but I personally don’t see how ‘militant’ atheists could have an issue with religion in a game. This story seems like Wright may disagree with people like Dawkins and Hitchens who argue that we don’t need to be friendly anymore.

This really annoys me, since there’s this perception that people like Dawkins, PZ Myers, etc. are these angry, hot-headed rage-a-holics out to eat babies and destroy religious belief at any and all costs. When in fact they are described as generally nice people, most married, who live productive and happy lives. When they do talk about religion, they don’t “preach” intolerance, they don’t physically attack (as the word militant would imply), they merely suggest that there shall be no sacred cows, and that everything should be up for debate. How horrible it is that someone says something about the validity of your belief, he must be a vicious, angry lowlife.

I used to play a lot of Sim games (I don’t play many video games anymore due to time), and likely will play again in the future, but these comments do push me to a bit more annoyance with Will Wright.

In earlier news, Wright declard that Spore was performing at 38% the capacity of God, since it acheived 1,589,000 species in 18 days, which took God 7 (according to Wright, several commenters correctly pointed out God created all the animals in two days).

However, AICT only supports Windows XP and Vista, and OSX 10.4 and 10.5.  So what do you do if you have an Eee PC running a custom version of Xandros Linux?  Google search until its fixed.

The best run through is outlined here, and for anyone running a Linux Eee PC on campus, follow these steps.  These should also translate simply to other distros, but don’t quote me on that.  Just make sure you change the name of their wireless network to “UWS.”

The pro side is that you will successfully get UWS working on your Eee PC, the con is that it will take a large number of complicated steps that involve modifying files key to your computer and its ability to surf wirelessly.

The Eee PC is a line of ultra-portable low end laptops that range from $300-$600 CAD. After further investigation I figured I didn’t want to go for the crippled 2G model (even though it has more colour options), since I found out that they give you a weakened processor and very little hard drive space (just enough for the OS and apps), however the high end 900 series and 8Gs were out of my ideal range ($550-$600). So I looked between the 4G and 4G Surf.

The only differences are that the surf doesn’t have the 0.3 MP webcam and has a 4400 mAh battery as opposed to a 5200 mAh battery (and the surf has no hard reset button). The price difference is also $50. I decided upon the Surf since I couldn’t justify the junky sounding webcam and may spring for a larger battery later.

However, when I got to memory express (a local retailer who had these babies in stock), they had a 4G and 4G surf on clearance! I stuck with the surf and saved an extra $60. So for $289.95 and tax I got my new laptop. I avoided the 4G since it was the XP version, and I wanted to try out the custom Linux install it came with.

The reviews online cover the laptop pretty well. I have to say that the keyboard isn’t that bad, mainly since I only type with two or three fingers per hand anyway, so the size isn’t that bad. The resolution is a bit rough to work with, however, it is enough to fit the width of Facebook. I did download the littlefox theme for firefox though so that I could gain a little space on the web. The sound is okay, and I wouldn’t expect anything better. Overall the system is responsive, although you can easily bog down the 512 MB of ram pretty quickly. The extra advantage of the 4G is that it supposedly has upgradeable ram (which I may investigate in the future).

My plan now is to use google documents, gmail, and google reader to essentially integrate the majority of my computer work online at one source.

So if you’re looking for a small (it’s slightly bigger than a DVD case and weighs only a kg) and cheap laptop the ASUS Eee PC is a pretty sweet deal (note that the 900 series gets a larger screen and a better touchpad).

I also bought another gig of ram for my desktop (total of 2 GB now), which makes Vista run so smoothly.