I want a Chumby

I tend to agree with the proponents of technology free bedrooms. But this Chumby thing looks really neat, and the most useful place for me to have one would be the bedroom, since I have a laptop in the living room along with a handful of gaming consoles.

I really just want this thing for wantings’ sake, but it would be an excellent gift for someone who isn’t all that tech savvy. Imagine a digital picture frame that you could send little e-cards and messages to. The downside is that the perfect recipient of the Chumby as a gift would most likely not have a computer, or be very computer illiterate and unlikely to check email regularly. Which would also mean that they likely wouldn’t have a wifi network in place. Which kills the usefullness of the Chumby.

So it’s a bit of a niche piece of hardware. Not as useful as a small laptop, but infinitely better than many single use piece of hardware such as a digital photo frame or an internet radio player like the Grace Digital box.

I’ve got a few questions as to its usability. First, can it use services like Orb or TVersity to stream my personal music collection? Second, how does it go about displaying Flickr photos, does it just use a persons RSS feed, missing anything marked private, or does it log into the service and actually display private/friends/family marked images?

If I do get one or figure out answers to these questions through a forum or faq I’ll be sure to post up.

*update – The Flickr widget for the Chumby does allow you to “approve” the chumby via Flickr and allow it to display personal photos.  Unfortunately some people are reporting that the Flickr widget also tends to freeze up.  Nothing so far on whether it works with tversity and/or orb

Updated the paintball gun weights

The 06 Remains is still the lightest, beating out the Angel A1 by .09lbs.  Of course, I haven’t gotten my hands on a newer ego yet…

Here’s the link if you don’t feel like searching for the post.

Making big video files smaller, or encoding the easy way

I just mentioned a neat site that allows you to share videos without letting the whole internet see them. But there’s a problem, the videos have to be under 50mb. I know that the majority of my videos are done on my digital camera or my cellphone, and even at the poor resolutions these devices use file sizes can quickly grow well beyond the 50mb limit set by Vox.

Here’s an easy solution. Video encoding is taking a video file and changing the resolution, bit-rate, or even file type so that it can be played with certain “decoders” or media players. There are several applications available for doing this, but one of the best (read free) and easiest I’ve found is MediaCoder. Even with the default settings MediaCoder took a 50mb video and converted it into a 2.5mb file for uploading to Vox. The only downside I can find with MediaCoder is that it is updated pretty regularly and if you want the best results you’ll need to check the website for updates pretty often. And that’s just nit-picking, I actually prefer updates and improvements over a product that gets released and then is never touched again.

So, if you’re looking to share videos online, or just want to save some room on that hard drive, get working on encoding those video files to a more efficient type of file. Just remember, while you can and will lose some quality if your settings aren’t set right or you try to compress them too small, you can never improve the quality above what the original file had. This is off the subject, but I’ve had some people come to me complaining that they didn’t hear any improvements when they converted their mp3 collection to lossless audio… well of course not, you started with mp3’s, the information that was lost when creating the mp3’s isn’t going to magically reappear! You need good source to get good finished product.

Sharing videos privately

Ever want to share a personal video clip, but just with a few people?  Afraid of putting it up on youtube?  Want to be able to use the same site for sharing pictures, videos, and blog posts?

Ok, that intro sounds like a bad late night paid commercial, but Vox is a neat little blogging site that can handle all the above as well as allowing you to setup friends and family groups so your private moments stay private.  It’s a little awkward setting up friends at first, but definitely worth it when you’re able to easily share the things you want with the people you want.  I’ve been using flickr for sharing pictures and it’s pretty easy to think of Vox as flickr for videos, with blogging thrown in for fun.  At least that’s primarily how I’ve been using it.

I mentioned that adding people as a friend or as family is a bit difficult.  Basically what you have to do is have them sign up, then find their page, click on their profile link, and then from their profile you can add them as a friend or family or both.  Not the most intuitive process, and it’s actually kept me from getting a couple of the less tech savvy family members setup.

Yahoo Go! Mobile update

After about a month of playing with the Yahoo Go! Mobile app on my T-Mobile Dash, it turns out to be a neat little piece of software.  It has sped up quite a bit after the first couple of initial uses.  I assume it had to do some caching before it was finally able to get up to speed.

I’ve been using the heck out of the Flickr module.  Despite compressing the photos almost beyond recognition it is one of the best ways to look at your photos on a cellphone.  Much much better than the Flickr mobile site.

The only issue I’ve had in the month of playing around with it is that occasionally, if I have the Yahoo Go! app up and let the phone dim the screen, or turn the screen off completely, half the time it won’t come back on.  It tends to freeze and I’m forced to remove the battery to restart the phone.

All in all I’ve ended up using this more than I expected and feel that it’s a worthwhile download, especially if you have a flickr account.

Yahoo Go 2.0 available for T-Mobile Dash

I downloaded and played with Yahoo! Go for the Dash. It’s only been available for the Dash since sometime yesterday and I gotta say the interface is very nice. Great layout with easy to read text. The downside is that it is slow. Not just slow, but sloooooow. Frequently not responding to inputs for 5 or 10 seconds. I counted. Slowly.

The whole experience is hit or miss, like the nice but slow interface. The Flickr widget is probably the best layout and easiest to navigate flickr experience I’ve had on a mobile phone. Giving quick and easy access to your contact’s photos as well as your own. The problem being when viewed full screen the photos are so compressed there’s noticeable banding and other artifacts.

I’ve only looked at the map and email sections. After about 30 minutes of the awful slow, sometimes not responsive interface I couldn’t force myself to actually try them out. I will at some point, and I’ll post up my experiences with them in the future, but my first knee jerk reaction to Yahoo! Go 2.0 on the Dash is… put it back in the oven, it’s not done yet.

*edit* That’s the problem with knee jerk reactions… this thing is in beta, so it is, in fact, still in the oven.

360 Redux

I picked up the 360 at the UPS center today. The guy working the counter brought the box out and said “Getting the xbox back eh?” They must see a lot of these things in order to recognize the box and shipping addresses on sight.

I’ve got it hooked up and running, and so far so good. Of course, it worked great last time they fixed it. We shall see…

Paintball Gun Weights

Tonton SFT Shocker: w/ sp-srail, new designz asa, hybrid grips, cp long reg = 2.49lbs

Naughty Dogs NXT Shocker: Evil bleeding on/off asa, blackheart board, hybrid bolt guide = 2.43lbs

FS7: straight out of box, installed battery = 2.51lbs

FS7: CP trigger, q-lock feedneck, planet eclipse rail/asa, hybrid wrap grips = 2.50lbs

FS7 Naughty Dog: Shorty CP reg, sp-srail, new designz asa, CK Grips = 2.40 lbs

PM5: w/ orange bolt, sp s-rail, ndz asa, hybrid grips = 2.75lbs

PM6: stock except for cp trigger = 2.37lbs

05Ego: w/ Nexus Bolt, new Planet Eclipse non purge rail/asa, trinity locking feedneck = 2.17lbs

Ego7 PEV’s: Zick kit, stock asa, bolt, etc = 1.76lbs

2k5 Naughty Dogs Timmy: Hard shell bolt, sp s-rail, ndz asa, hybrid panel grips, cp trigger = 2.44lbs

06 Infamous Timmy: CP Directmount ASA, Kila detents = 2.34lbs

Marq7 Rapper: CP Direct mount ASA, kila detents, tadao, 4-eyes = 2.33lbs

o6 Alien Remains: sp s-rail, ndz asa = 2.06lbs

WDP Angel 06 The Gat: CP no rise feedneck, CP venting asa, tadao board = 2.56lbs

Joy Division A1: all stock = 2.15lbs

all weighings were done on the same digital scale with no barrels

Dead 360 Redux update

Well, it took much, much longer than the first time around, but my dead 360 has returned.  Or almost, as I have to go pick it up at UPS.  This time they are requiring a “Signature in person”

I’ll post up when I’ve got it hooked up and working.

In game adds in R6:Vegas

Anyone else seeing in game adds when playing Rainbow 6:Vegas on the 360? My buddy was hosting a game and was able to see several adds posted up on the bulletin boards (or cork boards) on the LVU Campus map. I couldn’t see them on my machine, so it looks like some of the bugs are still being worked out. They weren’t obtrusive and were in a spot where you’d probably find something similar in real life, so it was pretty neat. There were ads for “Superbad” which you can see above, as well as some Comedy DVD with P. Diddy in it, Shark Week, and a poster that reminded you to “buckle up for safety”

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