1)  Just use an old VCR!
2)  Just use an old computer!

End of thread…  End of post… That is where the story ends and it leaves a lot to be desired.  I have problems with both of these solutions.

1)  The VCR is archaic
2)  I don’t want to leave a computer running in a room that will be used sparingly
3)  I don’t want to wait for a computer to boot up

This can be negated if you have a cable box that already does that.  But there are still people out there without cable boxes.  Or don’t want a cable box in every room or on every device; I’m sure the cable companies want you to.  I can’t seem to justify the extra $30 + fees for the box to move away from basic cable.  Renting a cable box seems like a dirty tactic to me; in the long run they have to make a killing.

I have NetFlix so if I want to watch a movie I can just get it off of there.  Also, there is NetFlix streaming which is awesome.  I do not want to give the cable companies more money – it’s already highway robbery.

The problem with this is that projectors do not have a TV tuner.  It doesn’t know what to do with the coax connection.  Projectors cannot tune (most of them that are out there anyway).  But I believe there is a happy medium… a product by Ambery.com -> Super Video to WXGA Converter.  This device works much like a cable box expect that you can buy it and use it how you like.

It takes a coax connection (Clear QAM), it won’t decrypt any of the pay channels like a real cable box, and converts it to composite, VGA, or S-Video.  Composite will most likely be your best choice for a projector.  I believe they also have one with component connections.  If you are looking for HDMI I’m not sure what will be needed – I’m guessing an upconverter of some sort.

Clear QAM is important.  If the device is not Clear QAM then it will not be able to tune to the cable frequencies.  If you have been looking at the Analog-to-Digital most of the ones that I have found do not have clear QAM meaning they will not work with cable; you will need an antenna to retrieve the signals.

My coax cable runs into the Super Video to WXGA Converter and from there the S-Video runs into my projector.  I also have component cables for in the future.  There is also some HDMI lurking behind the panel, but I don’t think it will be needed for awhile.

This face plate comes from, LibertyCable, an interesting cable that does orders by the phone, but none-the-less has a really great product; not too many other choices out there.

So composite into the wall that runs up to the projector that is mounted on the ceiling.  It’s really that simple.

I hope that can add some clarity to a problem that can be over/under thought.  This is my geeky trade-off do-the-job kind of way of doing things.

Have you used Vista? It is like a foreign alien or something and the stupid pop-up, “Windows needs your permission”. What is pretty funny, is yes, the Mac commercial with the security guy is an accurate depiction. Yes, Windows, I would like to install flipping Adobe Reader please leave me alone, that’s why I double-clicked on the damn file! Granted, using Linux to do system wide changes you’re going to get a similar pop-up asking for your root password; like going into synaptic. Basically Linux isn’t so needy, Windows you need to calm down.

“To mess up a Linux box, you need to work at it; to mess up your Windows box, you just have to work on it.” ~ Professor from Washington University.

While this rings true, I think companies are still going to use Windows XP. XP is the easiest OS to setup in the world, just my opinion, I’ve done it so many times I could do it with my eyes closed. I’ve installed Vista a few times and I’ve always had a problem with drivers; this was the same when XP first came out. Also, I don’t think Linux has become easy to install drivers on, NVIDIA is pretty easy to install drivers for, and ATI has released some drivers recently, but companies have been slow to adapt for the Linux community. There are some programs like Automatix for Linux that simplify the process. but usually have mixed results for people.

“…But Linux can only go up, and its growth potential is enormous. While Linux only has 1 percent of share on the desktop versus Microsoft’s more than 90 percent, that is changing, and the Linux desktop is expected to gain some share over the next two years” ~ Cole Crawford

We are currently in an interesting time for the Linux desktop. I ditched Windows XP earlier this year, because I had no desire to switch to Vista. My experience has been nothing but great. Everything that I did on Windows, I can do on Linux, Ubuntu is a great distro.

Also, it seems Vista updates have been leaked to the net and are coming soon! August 14th it seems. The most surprising thing that I have found, since I start using Linux, is that Ubuntu pushes down a lot of updates. Not just kernel patches and so forth, but actual security updates to programs. They are released much faster than Windows updates and these people aren’t being paid! Well some are I would imagine. It looks like Vista has a lot of work to do to become relative.

How the market reacts and businesses adapt to Vista should have a direct effect on the Linux desktop. At my work I don’t see us switching over to Linux, but I don’t see us switching over to Vista either; has Vista and Linux become synonymous?

Related: Ubuntu, Windows

According to the government’s best estimates, energy usage at data centers has doubled between 2000 and 2006, and it’s poised to double again by 2011.

That means our wonderful data centers will cost twice as much to run as they do today, which is a bad thing. I can definitely see our government leading us to greener pastures. Hopefully, Solid State Disks (SSD) will become more aggressively created and better power saving devices will come about.

Software will also play a crucial role in the deployment of future systems. Windows is a power hog in the essence that it needs beefier hardware requirements. And as just about everyone knows our nice friend Linux can run on much lower system requirements and give you the same or better performance.

Are we entering the age of solar powered server farms? I don’t think so, but that would be pretty sweet.

In the little free time I have gotten I’ve been listening to twit and diggnation; my favorite podcasts netcasts; I am definitely for changing podcast to netcast. I digress. Twit is really cool. I would really like to do a netcast one day with my views on technology and the world around us.

So here are some links on how to make your own PODCAST/NETCAST

A nice beginner tutorial
Cnet Guide In-depth
Podcast Alley podcasters
Little overview of podcasting

Audacity seems to be the program of choice for podcasting/netcasting in the Windows/Linux world. I have used this program before to record music off a PA system and it works really well. Open source is great. I will look into this more. Again I think a podcast/netcast would be a very fun thing to do.

Fortunately, Ubuntu comes with a built-in VNC support. It’s easy to implement:

System -> Preferences -> Remote Desktop

Under sharing select:

• Allow other users to view your desktop
• Allow other users to control your desktop

Under security select:

• Require users to enter this password:
• Password: PICK A DIFFICULT PASSWORD

This is not the most secure method of having remote desktop on your linux box, but this is the easiest way. Since ubuntu is utilizing VNC it will use ports 5900 – 590x depending on how you have it setup. 5900 will be the port you want.

To access my linux box remotely from an XP box I use a free web-based VNC viewer from s-code.com, which I believe is open sourced.  It is much like logmein.com, except logmein.com also supports java, but not linux.

http://www.s-code.com/products/viewerx/webvnc.aspx

This lovely little site will allow you to access your VNC at home on whatever port via http port 80. Firewalls control what ports you can access, but as long as a port is open you can get to anything.

Overall in the class I developed a much greater appreciation for the command line, GUI is nice, but the command line is more powerful. So here is my list of helpful command line… commands…

CAL

Displays a simple calendar of the current month of the screen. Great for a quick lookup for dates. I usually go into the clock on the desktop, which requires a few clicks. Simply type, cal

CAT

What a great command, especially useful if you are working with a lot of TXT files. Simply displays the contents of a file to the screen. cat file.txt

CLEAR

Clears the screen, simple yet elegant. clear

LOCATE

Finding things is one of the more difficult things to do on Linux systems. Directories are cryptically named and stored in many locations. The locate command can save you a great deal of time. locate file.txt

ECHO

Echo command will echo things to the screen, this is definitely a great tool. Say you want to know your working directory echo $PWD , or lets say your home directory echo $HOME , or the type of shell you are using echo $SHELL

TAR

When working with Linux you will, without a doubt, run into TAR archives. The easily to untar them is to use the TAR command. The easiest way: tar -xzvf file.tar

HOSTNAME

Need to know the name of the computer you are using? HOSTNAME will give you that information. This also works in the Windows world and is very useful. hostname

HEAD/TAIL

The head and tail commands are similar to CAT as they let you see inside of files. Head, by default, gives you the first 10 lines of a file. Tail, by default, gives you the last 10 lines of a file. This is especially useful for log files and things of that natural. head file.log

SHUTDOWN

The shutdown commands, well, shuts down your computer. You can halt the system with the -h flag, the system can be rebooted with the -r, or you can cancel the shutdown with -c flag. The really great thing about this command is the ability to specify when the shutdown occurs… You can do it now (really use the word now) or specify the number of minutes +N, or you can specify the precise time hh:mm to shutdown the system. shutdown -h now

UPTIME

I really like the uptime command because it is so simple, yet so informative. It displays the current time, length of time the user has been logged in, how many users are logged in, and system usage over the last 1, 5, and 15 minutes. A lot of desklets (desktop goodies) incorporate this type of display and this command is where it all came from. uptime

TOP

Top is a lot like Window’s Task Manager, or Gnome’s Task Manager (if you have that installed). This will tell you what’s going on in your system processor usage, memory usage, and as well, Process IDs, which can also be killed via the command line using the kill <PID(Process ID)>. top

This is only a small fraction of the many, many, many different command-line commands that are offered in today’s distros. These are among some of the widely used ones and most useful.

The command-line is such a great tool. Many high profile companies still use UNIX scripts to automate many processes that are used today. The future is looking bright for Linux/UNIX. It is a lot of work to use, but it is also a lot of fun.

Since I got Windows Vista from School for free I decided to install it in VirtualBox. Installation was uneventful, VirtualBox said support for Vista was experimental, but it went off without a hitch. Vista ran very smoothly which was surprising, but it is Windows Vista Business, so it doesn’t have all the eye candy. Vista is very strange, Microsoft made some weird choices for UI presentation. I mean I guess it’s cool, but it is such a departure from Windows 95-XP. I guess that is what they were going for but I think it is going to confuse a lot of people. It is scrolling menus and such, but I will give it a try and see how it works. The default Windows icons and wallpapers are nice though? Quit tugging on my heart Microsoft, *END SARCASM* hehe.

Oh yeah back to VirtualBox. The UI face is easy and intuitive and there are no surprises – straight forward. Such a great concept. I love virtualization it makes moving things much easier when everything is combined into one image. Also it helps make systems less hardware dependent, Linux will run on anything, but Windows will not and that is life.

My next project is to VMware convert my main XP box and install feisty on it. I can’t wait for the semester to be over! 2 weeks to go woo.