Surreality TV

After years of dealing with multiple remotes, I finally broke down and replaced the five separate remotes for our various bits of AV gear with a Logitech Harmony One. It also controls the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 2, conveniently enough. This makes watching movies via NetFlix streaming service on the 360 really easy too since it will pretend to be a controller and map controller functions the their logical equivalent on the remote's buttons.

The level of control and customization possible on this thing is amazing. I'm glad I bought it, and I've only had it since Tuesday. I'm still making tweaks and adjustments, but the initial setup was pretty easy and only took a few minutes. You plug it into a USB port on your computer, fire up the software to program it, tell it what devices you have, and it pulls down the latest info it has on them from Logitech over your net connection and walks you through getting the functions set up.

Highly recommended for those of you out there who are tired of dealing with a bundle of different remotes all the time.

EDIT: Oh, and let's not overlook the rechargeable Lithium ion battery, negating the need to buy and replace batteries.

After years of dealing with multiple remotes, I finally broke down and replaced the five separate remotes for our various bits of AV gear with a Logitech Harmony One. It also controls the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 2, conveniently enough. This makes watching movies via NetFlix streaming service on the 360 really easy too since it will pretend to be a controller and map controller functions the their logical equivalent on the remote's buttons.

The level of control and customization possible on this thing is amazing. I'm glad I bought it, and I've only had it since Tuesday. I'm still making tweaks and adjustments, but the initial setup was pretty easy and only took a few minutes. You plug it into a USB port on your computer, fire up the software to program it, tell it what devices you have, and it pulls down the latest info it has on them from Logitech over your net connection and walks you through getting the functions set up.

Highly recommended for those of you out there who are tired of dealing with a bundle of different remotes all the time.

EDIT: Oh, and let's not overlook the rechargeable Lithium ion battery, negating the need to buy and replace batteries.

Metropolis is now available via NetFlix streaming!

Whooo!

So, I've been carrying it for over a week now, and I seriously dig this phone.

http://xkcd.com/662/

Seriously, the screen is phenomenally crisp and renders beautifully. The performance of the phone is fine so far, and there are plenty of apps in the Market. I think my favorite might be Google Places Directory. It grabs your current location via GPS, and gives you a list of categories and gives you a list of places nearby. You can tell it to Navigate to it from current location and it'll give you verbal directions while it maps the route (or you can just view the map, or you can exit if you know the area but not specifically where something was, etc). Goodbye Garmin and TomTom, I'm sure someone, somewhere, will miss you.

There's a nifty app for the DC Metro system that shows in real time what trains are coming into the selected station, how many cars make up the train, and how many minutes from the station it is. Metro Center, Gallery Place, and L'Enfant Plaza are really cool to use to show this off, as they are the three major stations in the whole system. Those three stations are within a mile of each other, and between them, you can switch from from any line to any other line. Right now, Rosslyn, the Metro station about a block away, has an eight car orange line train east two minutes out, a six car blue line train east six minutes out, a six car orange line east train twelve minutes out, a six car blue line train south one minute out, a six car orange line train west nine minutes out, and a six car blue line south train thirteen minutes out (of course, those numbers have changed since I started typing this). It was free in the Market.

And of course, there are a bunch of games, news, weather, productivity, etc. apps all there too (for example, Documents to Go lets me read Word and Excel files with the free version, the pay version will let me edit them and adds PowerPoint and PDF (reading and editing) to the mix).

I'm very pleased so far.

So, I've been carrying it for over a week now, and I seriously dig this phone.

http://xkcd.com/662/

Seriously, the screen is phenomenally crisp and renders beautifully. The performance of the phone is fine so far, and there are plenty of apps in the Market. I think my favorite might be Google Places Directory. It grabs your current location via GPS, and gives you a list of categories and gives you a list of places nearby. You can tell it to Navigate to it from current location and it'll give you verbal directions while it maps the route (or you can just view the map, or you can exit if you know the area but not specifically where something was, etc). Goodbye Garmin and TomTom, I'm sure someone, somewhere, will miss you.

There's a nifty app for the DC Metro system that shows in real time what trains are coming into the selected station, how many cars make up the train, and how many minutes from the station it is. Metro Center, Gallery Place, and L'Enfant Plaza are really cool to use to show this off, as they are the three major stations in the whole system. Those three stations are within a mile of each other, and between them, you can switch from from any line to any other line. Right now, Rosslyn, the Metro station about a block away, has an eight car orange line train east two minutes out, a six car blue line train east six minutes out, a six car orange line east train twelve minutes out, a six car blue line train south one minute out, a six car orange line train west nine minutes out, and a six car blue line south train thirteen minutes out (of course, those numbers have changed since I started typing this). It was free in the Market.

And of course, there are a bunch of games, news, weather, productivity, etc. apps all there too (for example, Documents to Go lets me read Word and Excel files with the free version, the pay version will let me edit them and adds PowerPoint and PDF (reading and editing) to the mix).

I'm very pleased so far.

iTunes has been playing various tracks off the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtracks at me today, and I think I really like them a lot. I need to make another CD of MP3's for the car, and I think I'm gonna put these on it. Driving down with these up nice and loud with the top down should be awesome.

prince_eric is completely, utterly, and totally awesome.

Thanks for an awesome walking tour around the Common and for a great dinner.

prince_eric is completely, utterly, and totally awesome.

Thanks for an awesome walking tour around the Common and for a great dinner.

Werner von Braun's nephew is in our office today. I fixed his Damn Computer, but it's okay, we chatted while I was working on it. He's a rocket scientist too.

So, I'm here in the desert, and we're actually working on some very cool stuff. I can't really elaborate here, but prince_corwin would dig it.

The bad part is that most of the time, I'm incommunicado, but that's OK.

The Mojave is pretty, when it's not filled with the detritus of humanity. And human detritus for that matter. The empty parts are filled with wild desert flowers, Joshua Trees, and what will probably become tumble weeds.

Oh, and the church they filmed the opening scene of Kill Bill in? I drove by it today.