TechProsaic

Jay tried to get me to get a Tivo (again) today. He did a pretty good job, actually. Supposedly, you can get a time-shifting VCR-like device for $95 $0/monthly. That’s all I’d use it for anyways. I haven’t seen that deal online, maybe he’s talking about a DirecTV bundle or something. But I don’t need or want a satellite. My more tv-addicted friends don’t understand me. I have digital cable through Bellsouth (a baby bell), and it’s alright. It’s better than analog cable, I have a program guide, a straightforward remote control, music, PPV, etc. Just like what the conventional cable companies are offering for a competitive price. The thing is.. Read the rest of this entry »

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• CSS Crib Sheet, a good place to start, or come back to, when designing sites. A list of basic rules to follow.
• CSS Vault, “A collection of CSS resources and CSS sites that help to inspire and teach every designer.”
• Sleight, by Youngpup, an excellent javascript snippet to take advantage of PNG alpha transparency across browsers (even IE) without adding the messy hacks in your code. His site is a work of art too, very progressive.

Enjoy.

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The wife and I went out for a big date last night and wanted to see a movie. We sent the kids to her mother’s house so we could “stay out late”. Haven’t done that in a while. We had a nie dinner at Rafferty’s, then grabbed tickets to see Matrix 3 at 8:15pm.

I liked the movie. Not a lot, but it was good and definitely worth seeing. I guess after seeing Matrix 1 and being blown away by the special-effects, then seeing a couple of new things in Matrix 2 (like the virii), Matrix 3 didn’t add a whole lot but to complete the storyline. Read the rest of this entry »

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Here is my brief look at two new toys; the Hauppauge MediaMVP and the Canon Digital Rebel. The sponsor of this review is my good friend Erick, the local man-of-many-toys. He has more Xbox games than most Wal-Marts.

First, the MediaMVP. Hauppauge is well known for their wide line of tv tuner & video capture cards and lately, their PVR solutions. I’ve never owned any of their stuff personally, but I’ve heard good things. The MediaMVP is a small box, about the size of a DSL router. For input/output it has video out (composite and S-Video), audio out (stereo), and RJ-45 in. After installing a small server component on your desktop PC and hooking the unit up, you are able to browse the data on your PC from the MediaMVP, and select media files to play. It supports a decent list of file types for pictures (GIF, JPG), video (MPEG-1 and 2) and audio (MP3). I’m told the software is being updated frequently…it would be nice to view PNGs and listen to OGGs (or even better some of the newer multi-channel formats) and watch MPEG-4 DIVXs. P.S. It runs Linux. Maybe we’ll see some third-party hacking. *grin*

Anyways, the interface is a little on the simplistic side but functional. There are a couple of quirks that I’d like to see ironed out. For example, if you browse 8 levels deep to find a particular folder of pictures to add to your playlist; once you click the Add button it pops you back to the root. Very annoying. The remote control is ok, nothing special. Some buttons are unused or generic because its the same remote that Hauppauge ships with some of their other TV products, so there’s confusion sometimes when trying to find the right button for something. For example, it took me a while to find the page down button, turns out it’s the “next track” button, which is way at the bottom and not convenient to the “down” button.

Aside from those negatives, the thing is just plain COOL. Of course the picture quality when showing stills is godawful compared to any digicam on the market, but there is actually some value in doing a slideshow on the TV. Say you have friends or family over and you wanted to show them some family pictures–doing so in the living room beats trying to fit everyone into your office around the smaller monitor. The MP3 feature is a great way to move your music to the home stereo, and since everything is stored in one place (your computer), there is no manipulation of multiple sets of data or playlists. Video playback was flawless and better looking than I expected. I can’t quote stats to you, but watching a “medium quality” MPG looked just fine on my buddy’s TV.

Unfortunately, I did not have a chance to play much with the Canon Digital Rebel. But I saw enough to say this–and it means A LOT:

It’s a TTL (through-the-lens) SLR (single-lens-reflex) 6MP camera. Note I didn’t use the word digital. That would imply somehow that this camera, while cool, is simply a lower-class cousin of the conventional SLRs that the pros use. Not so. It looks, feels, and functions like an SLR. It has a hotshoe for the external flash, it accepts EOS lenses, the same format that all of the other Canon’s use, you focus and zoom on the lens barrel, and what-you-see-is-what-you-get when you look through the lens. On a lot of digicams (and film cameras), the eyepiece you sight through is worthless. On an SLR, the eyepiece is showing you exactly what the film will receive. You know what is being focused, and you know how the apeture will affect your focal length.

Needless to say, I’m jealous.

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Let’s start with the example this time. Check that out! Not only is the menu extremely pretty, including embedded images and backgrounds, it’s ALL CSS. It’s explained here in the latest ALA.

The premise is just some cleverly arranged elements positioned absolutely, then a :hover element to change the display: from none to block. The problem with IE is that it only recognizes :hover elements for anchors. For example, a:hover {color: gray;}. To get it to work in IE, some javascript is used to automatically parse through the list items and give them appropriate onmouseover actions that will do in effect the same thing. The drawback to this of course is that visitors who are running IE who have disabled javascript will not see your fancy work.

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My wife and I check up on my younger son Chandler before we go to sleep to make sure that he’s covered up. Often, he’s not covered up, or he’s about to fall off of the bed and we tuck him back in. This is the first time we had to run to grab the camera!

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I went to the “hundred-dollar depot” twice this weekend. Therefore, I had a good weekend. Too bad everybody else in the family is sick…that did kinda drag things down a bit. The illnesses range from a head cold to pneumonia + fever & ear infections.

Saw U-571 today, starring Matthew McConaughey (thanks Netflix). Very good movie. Sorry it took me so long to watch the darn thing. It sat on my entertainment center forever. I am definitely one of Netflix’s best customers in that respect. I’ve only seen McConaughey in comedies before, well no I guess he was in Contact too. Anyways, he’s an excellent drama/action actor. The movie was really solid and quite believable I thought. At no point did I look down at my watch wondering how much was left, it was pretty engrossing. I opted to watch it on my computer downstairs instead on the TV upstairs and that worked well. I’m nearly blind so I have to sit so close to the TV to enjoy a movie it’s not even funny. Sitting with my eyes about 10″ from the monitor is much easier to do.

I give U-571 an 8/10 and would have said 9 if there was a little more plot development.

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