What next? Porsche swallows closely-related VW, gets indigestion. And they expect govt-backed finance to help? http://ping.fm/itOrd

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Hyped-up me-too SMH article that fails to understand or define tech or social media terms. Will Facebook and twitter kill blogging? Aren't they just different styles of enhanced web-logging tools anyway? http://ping.fm/F94Tb

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What next? Porsche swallows closely-related VW, gets indigestion. And they expect govt-backed finance to help? http://ping.fm/itOrd

Hyped-up me-too SMH article that fails to understand or define tech or social media terms. Will Facebook and twitter kill blogging? Aren't they just different styles of enhanced web-logging tools anyway? http://ping.fm/F94Tb

Opening the lid - the XMS STB 250Gb PVR

Inside an XMS STB_0456
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

Well there you go, it looks just like a small PC inside, really. 4 screws on the back, 2 on the side, slide cover back and up. Presto, the guts of a set top box.

I had already diagnosed a bad HDD - it had begun to degrade, "forgetting" to record and slowly disappearing (in size) in the "info" screen. It would work one day and not the next.. and then nothing at all. Gone. No dice. Inside the settings you can reformat, but that failed to do anything either.

So out came the old WD 250Gb EIDE (ie PATA, not SATA - getting rarer by the day) drive and in went a new one. Bingo - it works again. The connections are straightforward a la PC and no changes were needed to the (otherwise identical) new drive. I did wonder if it would format a larger drive but didn't have one handy so I didn't try.

If you have one of these the pin code has just 8s in it, not 12345 or suchlike. You'll need that to reformat.

On the subject of "professional" media - MJ and the Goldblum "death"

On the subject of "professional" media - that part of the infomercial noise spectrum that portrays itself as of a higher quality, maintaining standards that mere bloggers could not sustain or even hope for, here is a pertinent quote:

The need of the professional media to be first with the news -- many did for a short time report the Goldblum rumor as fact -- adds further veracity. And, of course, the whole process is speeded up by the Web.

So we have a feedback loop, by which the people who say 'trust us' report a mistruth, which tends to reinforce belief and trust in the mistruth. Which is also to say that by 'professional' we mean 'prostituted and corrupted' by the need to feed their clientele, quickly. Of course everyone makes mistakes, once in a while.

Poor taste, I know, but bald, riddled with needle holes and only 51kg? MJ could have started Le Tour as a climber if he'd hung in there - http://ping.fm/ccIiL

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Convergence is so simple, why not try it?

from PC to TV_0486
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

Converge what, you ask? Well PC and TV, for starters. (FM radio gets thrown in as well, if you want). OK, it's hardly new (my home PC was always in the lounge room, at least until I got married!) but finally I have found a way to sell the idea to the family: it's more sociable in the lounge room, and we can see what they are seeing without prying (they are 10 yo and under and sometimes the Internet can be a wild place).

Problem: the kids are hogging the PCs to watch YouTube or do school research, but it's hard to monitor exactly what they are watching, tucked away in the study or wherever.

Solution: so let's move a PC into the lounge room and run it through the family-room audio and video gear. Let's converge the PC with the consumer AV gear.

The details: I hooked up the kid's PC (2006 vintage) to the old (1997 vintage) composite-only analog TV via the standard D-shell VGA. I also fed it through an existing analog PVR (with 250gb HDD). I fired the sound thru a Logitech 5.1 system via a 2-in 1-out switch to allow a swap between the DTV-B STB's audio and the PC audio-out.

But was it easy? Yes and no. The longer story is that I initially set it up to "clone" the PC monitor across to the TV, but the nVidia-chipped video card gave up the ghost, forcing me to load up the Intel drivers and revert to standard, integrated graphics. Instead of buying a new graphics card with cloning ability (either an ADD2 card or a new nVidia card) I bought a box that takes the VGA and makes it either composite or s-video. It works at least as well as cloning and gives me the option to go to higher refresh rates and resolutions whilst still using composite on the old analog TV. Yeah, it's unreadable at higher res and I'm only running 800x600 @75, but it does work better than expected.

The main "green" stereo 3.5mm audio out (of the PC) is split into two standard red and white female RCAs, then joined to the switch (so I can toggle between audio sources). The video is VGA D-shell to "PC-to-TV" converter, then by "yellow" RCA to composite-in on the analog PVR (which has a built-in source switch function, so I can toggle from PC to STB and back. (The STB is available on S-video.)

If your video card actually works, just use composite-out and use the graphics card settings to choose "clone". You may have to force the card to recognise the old TV (in Windows XP it'll be a "default monitor". Adjust PC display resolution to 800x600 for older, SD TVs and it should work fine.

Did I mention fully homomorphic encryption? The encrypted data you can seek and use without 'seeing' : http://ping.fm/3Mhfj

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More detail on how fear of Apple drove Nokia to a technology deal with Intel - http://ping.fm/HMWkj

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Tie-up between Nokia and Intel promises shiny new mobile internet devices and unexpected competition for Apple and Microsoft - http://ping.fm/eNKJ3

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Is a race-car driving president and 10 million new Toyota cars/year what the world needs? Toyota's overcapacity problem - http://ping.fm/mXlpi

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The promise of instant-on computing with phase-change memory - http://ping.fm/ZQzIp

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Central Coast blah blah blah

Aggro Chris Hartcher today on ABC Central Coast asserts that Liberal govts increase business activity "just because". Must be a magic wand.

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Valverde and his woes. More to come I'm sure...

Banned from racing in Italy but wins in France. Wonder what eternal 2nd Evans thought shaking Valverde's hand? http://ping.fm/V1tzJ

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Now I've been sucked into trying yet another stats tracker. I really don't need more tools, do I? http://ping.fm/NzmnM

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Cornell's viral meme tracker searches Google search stream for quotes over time - http://ping.fm/Fwy10

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A personal take on how old media is disrupted by the web - although I dispute that cave drawings are necessarily proof that journalism will endure http://ping.fm/MX55x

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NYT mans the paper lifeboats: why is your aged news better than real news? http://ping.fm/SoYIF

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Nice to see Lapthorne take a win, shame the Contador vs Evans Ventoux duel was a fizzer http://ping.fm/VXPRt

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