My favorite new show is Fringe, and one of the best parts of the show so far is the lead-in. There’s always some goretastic premise that sucks you in, and this week, an airplane passenger turns into a crazed giant hedgehog.
Motorola Surfboard SB5101 and Comcast
The main reason I purchased the Motorola Surfboard SB5101 was because I kept getting “connection lost” while playing Horde mode on public XBox Live. There is nothing more frustrating than progressing many levels on Horde mode and then suddenly losing connection to the game. My other Internet services were all working fine, but I decided to upgrade per the advice of my brother who noted much greater performance when he installed the SB5101 for himself and my parents.
The key to initiating the new modem with your Comcast high speed Internet service is to call their customer service line and choose upgrade or change in service. This will get you a rep very quickly. Then tell that rep immediately that you need help with your high speed internet service or they may think you’re asking for their cable service. Once you get a rep, they’ll verify your contact info, and then all you need to give them is the MAC id for the modem. This is printed on the modem, on the box, and stickers included with the box. Then, all you have to do is hook up the new SB5101. You should have full Internet access within 10 to 30 minutes. If you don’t have full access in that time frame, you may have to call back again to make sure the new MAC id has been “pushed” through all their backend systems for the new modem to work.
After installation of the SB5101, gameplay on XBox live seemed a lot crisper, and I didn’t suffer any drops in connectivity. I did some speed tests too, and the modem has increased the speed of both downloads and especially uploads.
Categories: Politics, Technology
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Gore Windstopper really blocks the wind
It’s been in the low to mid-40s when I ride to work this morning. I’ve been wearing a jersey, light-weight thermal top, and a light windbreaker jacket or vest. This kept me warm, but I could still feel the wind go through all my layers. Yesterday, I wore a jersey, arm warmers and a vest with Gore Windstopper on the front. Although the Gore Windstopper is little heavier than a light plastic shell, it did a much better job of keeping the biting cold away from my core.
Categories: Bicycling
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Missing ifstate file caused twiki debian virtual appliance not to boot up in VMware
After a reboot of VMware, the twiki debian virtual appliance wouldn’t come up for me. After a lot of research and troubleshooting, I found out that the ifstate file at /etc/network/run/ifstate was corrupted or missing. After adding recreating the file and adding the two lines:
lo=lo
eth0=eth0
the virtual appliance booted up without a problem. Fortunately, I had a fresh virtual appliance to reference. This was for a system with a static ip and bridged network.
Categories: Technology
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Use QAM Remap to set up HDHomerun for Beyond TV 4.9
Beyond TV stopped recording for me last week, and I couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t bringing in any channels. The Beyond TV 4.9 upgrade seemed to go smoothly, but then it suddenly stopped tuning. I went through a lot of reinstalls of both HDHomerun and Beyond TV, but the channel tuning still wasn’t working. I then decided to rescan with the HDHomerun setup just to start fresh with the channel lineup.
I went through a lot of frustration trying to get the Major and Minor Channels to show up on the Snapstream.net set up for Beyond TV 4.9. I would choose Beyond TV as the application in the HDHomerun set up, but nothing would show up on Major or Minor channels when I imported the Digital Cable XML file into Snapstream.net. I took a look at the file with a text editor, and there was no Major or Minor channels, so the problem was with the XML file. I then chose QAM Remap, and the XML file generated had the Major and Minor Channels that I needed.
The nice thing about all my reinstalls of HDHomerun, BeyondTV, .Net, and Visual C++ is it looks like ShowSqueeze and SmartSkip now work again since they were borked on my system a few upgrades back.
Categories: Technology
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Using GWS Rubber Propeller Adapters as a Wheel Collar
I’ve started using GWS Rubber Propeller Adapters as a wheel collar since they seem to do a good job of keeping wheels on the landing gear, are relatively light, and are easy to install. I had no idea what the part was when it arrived with my Slow Stick kit, and it was only later that I saw what they were mainly used for. I figured they had something to do with a propeller since they were stock in the propeller area at Aero Micro. One requirement of using the propeller adapters as a wheel collar is that it’s easier with a wheel with a thinner hub since the adapters are a little bit thicker than a normal wheel collar.
Categories: RC Airplanes
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Apple using H.264 codec to play YouTube videos
Much has been made of the fact that Flash won’t work on the iPhone or iPod Touch. I was wondering how these two devices were playing YouTube videos since YouTube uses Flash technology to display videos on personal computers. After some googling, it turns out Google also converts uploaded video to the H.264 codec in addition to Flash video. Here are two links detailing the H.264 addition to YouTube:
YouTube goes H.264, Thanks to Apple.
YouTube Adding H.264 Format
Categories: Technology
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In a Year, 6 Years of Market Gains Are Lost – NYTimes.com
All told, about $7 trillion of shareholders’ wealth — the gains of the last six years — will be wiped out in a year marked by violent market swings.
via NYTimes.com.
I thought I would be diversified with international and emerging markets funds, but the decline of the U.S. markets also spread around the world. Even “safe” bonds may be in trouble. I can only imagine the nervousness of those holding bonds with GM.
Categories: Investing
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Light, fluffy for the last day of the year
About 6 inches of light, fluffy snow should fall here in Georgetown, Massachusetts for the last day of the year. We all did a bit of shoveling today, and Ally and Evan made snow angels. Marion, Jen, and Ally went to pick up the new Toyota Corolla, but the traffic was so bad, they decided to turn back.
Categories: Day to Day
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Ran 4 miles in 55 degree weather
I tried to run down the abandoned railroad track trail today, but it was too wet, so I ran 4 miles on the road.
Categories: Running
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