markgroves

I have recently setup some new gadgets at home and had not had a chance to give a little write-up on my current media/computing setup.

I just had enough of the horrible Comcast DVR that I finally went out and orders a Tivo HD. I have to say it was a great buy, sure I had to buy the hardware, and there is a monthly service cost, but as the math worked out it was not much more per month than the DVR from Comcast. And it works, I can transfer un-encrypted shows from the Tivo HD to my computer using TivoToGo, I have yet to miss a show, get it cut off, have it reboot, or have the device be unresponsive to remote commands (all features of the Comcast DVR).

It did take a few days to get the CableCards working correctly, but Comcast was great and helped get it fixed pretty quickly. It turns out the Motorola dual-tuner card does not play nice, so we had to go with two single tuner cards. Not a big deal Comcast did not charge me for either card. Btw, I know I have been slamming Comcast’s DVR, but their customer service is great, they just need better hardware solutions, or buy Tivo.

A more recent upgrade was my purchase of a HP MediaSmart – Windows Home Server. I have had NAS for the last couple of years but had been wanting what WHS was offering since I heard about in internal beta at Microsoft. My first NAS was a old white-box computer I purchased for $60 from my last company, I installed Window 2k3 put 3 120 GB hard drives in a RAID-5 configuration and things were good. Of course things were also complicated, I was administrating a server, technically not a big issue for me but still not the thing I want to be dealing with at home. Next I decided to go with a Buffalo Technology LinkStation 500 GB NAS. I attached two additional 500 GB USB drives and life was good, for awhile. The LinkStation solution worked pretty well, the things I did not like about it was that I was maxed out on hard drive space, and I did not feel all that comfortable with the weekly backups between the LinkStation and the USB drives.

I could have built my own Windows Home Server, but decided that based on the price of the HP MediaSmart Server it would be worth it to have someone to call if it fails. I ordered the 500 GB HP server from Buy.com surprisingly they had some in stock. Currently I have two 500 GB drives in the installed within the server and two 500 GB USB drives attached, that gives me 1.82 TB, with 2 internal drive slots, two USB connections and a eSATA connection available. How I configured my server seems better left to another post.

Here is an interesting article from CNET on color spaces, I have to admit I did not fully understand the differences between all of the choices within Lightroom. I have been using Lightroom for several months now and really love this application, it is not cheap but then you do get what you pay for.

Adobe Lightroom and color spaces | The Pervasive Datacenter – CNET Blogs

That was my problem. I was exporting to JPEGs with an Adobe RGB color space. Lightroom (like Photoshop and other higher-end imaging programs) understand how to properly display images using that color space on an sRGB monitor. However, neither Firefox nor IrfanView do.

Moral of the story? Although Apple's Safari and the Firefox 3 beta can display non-sRGB color spaces correctly, Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Firefox 2.x don't. Nor do most basic file viewers. Therefore, for most purposes–and certainly for Web display–it's best to use JPEGs with an sRGB color space or the results probably won't be what you expect.

On an additional Lightroom note, with version 1.3 and the new SDK, and thanks to Jeffrey Friedl you can now export directly to SmugMug. Jeffrey is still working through some bugs, but recent versions are starting to work pretty well. Thanks Jeffrey!

Anymore Val and I have gotten into the practice of getting our own gifts for Birthday's / Christmas. It seems to work out better, not that we don't talk about what we want, etc. But based on my need to research the hell out of everything I buy it is much better that I make the purchase that I really want.

So for my birthday this year, yes, another year older, I decided to get a real professional lens for my Canon 20D. I read all the reviews and decided to go with the Canon 24-105mm f/4L lens. I was looking for a lens that would be an good “walking around” lens. So far I think this was a great purchase, I still carry my 50mm 1.8 lens when I know I will be indoors, but the 24-105mm has been a great lens. There is a big difference is quality once you get into the Canon professional series lens, and the price shows that.

Val has been wanting a new flash based music player, and of course me being the gadget guy that I am I had to see if we were going to jump the Zune given it finally has a flash player. So on Friday before I left for my leave I decided to stop by the Microsoft Company store and pickup a couple new 8GB flash Zunes. I have to say I am pretty impressed, the devices is much lighter than I expected and the screen is great to look at. I actually like the new Zune software, the big issue I have right now is no ability to build auto playlists. What I am looking for is the ability to customize what I put on my player based on how much I like the music and how many times I have played a given track. I understand that the Zune team pulled the Auto Playlists in this version since they did research that most normal users just never understood how they worked. Well I hope they bring them back, and better than in WMP.

Today is my first day home being Mr. Mom. Yeah, that is right, Val is back to work I am home with Evelyn for the next 6 weeks. So far so good, 9:40 and the baby is still alive. I do have a some help the next two weeks, my Mom is out from Pittsburgh, so there is little chance I will even get to hold my daughter.