No connetion needed

I have two computers a laptop notebook and a Desktop, both connected to a D-Link router, it in turn connected to a DSL modem. Both of the computers can get on the web fine. The weird thing is that the modem, keep telling me I'm not connected!?

Here see for your self:

Apparently I do not have ADSL service, yet I can ping google.com and get a 10ish millisecond responce. All I can make of this is that I've transcended to the next level. Where I no longer need a physical connection or a connection at all! I am part of the ether that is the web. The modem provides a connection that is nothing that a formality.

Apple backup?

I was listening to the podcast of the Girl Gone Geek from MacWorld, where they were briefly talking about backup methods. They asked the audience to chose between Apple's Time Machine vs. Data Robotics Drobo. I don't think you have to chose, in fact they would work together very well.

For starters, Apple's Time Machine requires a second hard drive of equal or larger capacity then the one you'll be backing up. Time Machine will be constantly monitoring all the files in the drive for changes and make backup of anything it finds. If you happen to accidentally erase a file, you can use Time Machine to recover the file that was copied to the second hard drive. Just hope that second drive doesn't fail!

Drobo is at it's most basic function nothing else than an external hard drive. A hard drive that can easily be used with an Apple computer to implement the Time Machine feature of the lastest OS X. While it does cost more than an external hard drive alone, it provides a level of reliability associated with RAID-5, with out the hassles of setup and maintenance. Drobo by itself only ensures that if a drive dies, you don't lose your the data on it. Drobo automatically copies the files you send to it to at least a two of the drives you'll have installed in it's bays. If one drive fails, you don't lose your files. And if you need more storage, all you have to do is change a drive (I recommend the smallest one) with a larger capacity one, you don't even need to turn the drobo OFF.

Put this two technologies together and you get the best of both worlds. Automatic back-ups to a hard drive that will never fail and gives you room to grow as you need it. In fact even the folks at drobo have a page touting the advantage of using a drobo with Apple's Time machine.

iTunes music in an external disk

Recently someone asked me how to tell iTunes you moved your music to an external Hard Disk. I figure I make a post out of it. Disclaimer; the person that asked for this (and I) have Windows versions of iTunes.


First open the edit from the menu at the top of itunes, and select Preferences. (you can do the same by holding control and pressing ',')

Once you see the preference panel, you may be overwhelmed, by all the options and the many tabs. For our current concerns all we have to look at is the General sub-tab under the Advance tab. There you'll see the one option field that most interest us right now; "iTunes Music folder location". Here's what mine look like.

In the folder location box, I set iTunes to point to the second hard drive installed in my computer (which I use for all my media). To have it point to another location select Change, and give it the new location.
Keep iTunes Music folder organized gives iTunes control of the folder structure inside the directory listed selected above.
Copy files to iTunes... when iTunes finds music in my computer it makes a copy in the directory previously selected , to maintain everything together. (this does create duplicates file in your system if you don't delete the original file) I prefer all music in one location.
The rest of the options are not really important to us, since they don't affect the location of the files.

If you are setting up iTunes for the first time I recommend that you have it place it's music folder in a large hard drive music can add up fast (especially if you have subscriptions to podcast). Once you do this just import your music the usual way.

If you had iTunes setup and full of files already, make the changes mention in this post and then select Add Folder to Library from the File Menu. Point it to the folder you are using and let iTunes reindex your music.

Bad news for HD-DVD

I don't like the news that came out of CES, relating to the high definition format war
It may make it easy to select your player, but is not what I wanted to see.

Warner Bros. has jumped ship to the Blu-ray side. Bringing them to 75% of the movie titles available on blu-ray only. Now HD-DVD only has Paramount as it's biggest backer. The War, by many has been called in favor of Blu-ray but some say, it's just one battle.

Which ever it ends up being, if the price of Blu-ray players goes below $250.00 they'll win soon after. My recommendation is to wait and let it play out. If you are dieing for a High def player I recommend a PS3, that way if they lose you still have a good (not great yet) gaming system.

I may have to get this...

Not having bought a HDTV yet, I feel great every time a see prices drop and the technology get beter. This is Samsung's latest creation. The price as not been announced, but this TV will (by raising the bar) force prices down.
Even if it doesn't I like is specs. Longer lasting light source based on an LED light engine instead of a light bulb. LED engine that also provided better contrast compared to light bulb TV's and a lot of LCD TV's. Many input connections, for all the devices I'll want to get.
I not sure if I'll really buy this TV, but I feel better for waiting, the prospect keep looking better for when I actually get one!

Blu-ray and SONY, they both suck!

Sorry but I can not recommend a Sony product or technology (besides the CD).

Sony makes it really annoying to use their products.

• From proprietary connections for speakers in devices (stereos) that make it hard to replace components (speakers) when they fail. Let be generous and say that the speaker lasted as long as the stereo, make sure not to break (read accidentally step on) one of those adapters while moving the stereo. Good luck finding a replacement, better buy a NEW (make sure it's not SONY) stereo!
• Movie (DVD's) with impossible to skip trailers that take about 5 minutes to get through. Look and Transformers (NOT A SONY company) there were no trailers if you just press skip once, you won't see that from SONY.
• Digital Media Players (not mp3 mind you) that only play files encoded with Sony's proprietary software to a "ATRAC" file format, forcing you to buy Digital music from them or to rip all you CD's to that format (even if you already had them in MP3). Good thing no one liked it and now Sony had to abandon it after August of 2007, Sony's own music store does no support any version of the ATRAC formats.
• To the mother of all mistakes. SONY BMG publishing CD with a (wait for it) proprietary copy protection system called "Extended Copy Protection" that made the computers of those who paid for a CD vulnerable to attacks, from almost anyone. The software would install itself into the "costumer's" computer the moment the drive closed, never mind asking if this was ok? with the owner. Once installed it tracked what you listen to and limited the amount of copies one could make of it's CD's. Oh, by the way it also created a large set of security issues that forced SONY into legal battles and finally to pull those CD's from the market. Of course by that time many systems have already been compromised and are likely still affected and spreading viruses and other malware.

To me the Blu-ray format it another push by a company that only cares about making a profit without considering what it's consumers REALLY want. Like hiking up the price of the PS3 because they wanted to push the Blu-ray into the GAMING SYSTEM. Serves them right that Nintendo is eating their lunch by making a REAL gaming system, that does nothing else, but play games and is affordable.

GO HD-DVD!!

Something wrong with Host

I had been trying to make some changes to my adsence account and the ads on this blog. The main thing I wanted to do was to transfer the adsence account to my regular Gmail account from a Gmail account I rarely use.

But google does not allow transfer of accounts with in google services. I just wanted to consolidate my account into one to comply with their rule of "only having one account per person" Noe they are forcing me to keep TWO accounts at least! (I may have more - for work)

Getting back to the site issues. I visited my site to see how my adds looked? only to find my site looking like the capture at the bottom of this post(if my post shows up at all?). The post after the main page are fine, but the index file seems to have been deleted. Kind of annoying! It's almost a miracle when I get a visitor, I'd like to make sure they ACTUALLY see MY site. Is that too much to ask. Any way I'm hoping this posting forces the creation of another index file and solves my problem.


Edit - 12:50am 01.02.08
It wasn't that I didn't have a index file. My index file had the *.html extension and for some reason the host was redirecting to an old index file with a *.htm extension. Once I renamed that file the problem was solved. (now back to fixing adsence!

Happy New Year

Yes, I'm posting again, just after stating that I was not making any promises as to the regularity of my posts. Looks like I could have put something about posting regularly into my resolutions, (which I have not finished yet) that a side.

Happy New Year to everyone, hope you had a blast saying goodbye to 2007! I have many things to look forward and plan to make things happen.