I'm finally off the Moxi DVR that Adelphia originally gave me for my HD DVR. It apparently won all kinds of awards for best UI design, etc. ... but it's total crap. The lack of a listings guide (instead have a scroll vertical to channel, then horizontal to shows on that channel) and the general slowness of the UI are horrible.

Anyway, Time Warner has taken over for Adelphia in this area, so I finally got the Motorola DCT 6416 from Time Warner last week. Here are some links and info about the DVR.

Remote Control - Info
I have either this one, or this one (cant tell the difference)

Program the remote - add 30 second advance.
30-second advance is available on the device, but the universal remote they provide with it doesn't have a button assigned to it. Based on this article, I entered the magical code to assign an unused button to the appropriate command.

In case it's gone, here's the dirt:

The following technique can be used to map an unused or unneeded button on the "silver" remote to the 30-second skip command. Current versions of the i-Guide software will skip forward 30 seconds into a recording when this command is sent. A good choice is the 'A / Lock' button since many users don't need that function; you can feel both the '15-second-back' and '30-second-skip' buttons with one finger and move between them without looking. Another option is to reprogram the '15-second back' button, since PgDn already provides that functionality.

1. Press the "Cable" button at the top of the remote to put it into Cable Box control mode.
2. Press and hold the "Setup" button until the "Cable" button blinks twice.
3. Type in the code 994. The "Cable" button will blink twice.
4. Press (do not hold) the "Setup" button.
5. Type in the code 00173.
6. Press whatever button you want to map the 30-second skip command to (ex: A / Lock). The "Cable" button will blink twice if successful.

Note: This now works on boxes with the Microsoft TV Foundation Interface (currently Washington State). As of firmware version 12.22 Insight Cable has disabled this feature. Comcast software Version 73.44 disabled this feature, but the latest software, Version 74.53-3321, re-enables it (this has been confirmed on the 3416 w/ 16.20 firmware). See software for more info.

Program the Remote - Volume Controls Receiver
(from here - page 17)

1. Hold SETUP, last selected device button blinks twice.
2. Enter 993, last device button blinks twice.
3. Select the device you want to control volume (i.e. AUD ). That device button will blink twice.
   

Good starting point for info on the DVR (from AVSFORUM). Discusses the ports (Firewire, SATA, Ethernet) available and video connectivity (DVI / HDMI).







Posted 9:55 PM    |    0 comments    |    Permalink   

I have toyed for a while with the idea of building a timeline of life events, but have never figured out how I want to attack it. This would contain events like vacations, where I worked, various kid milestones, etc. that would seem to be fun to look back on many years down the road.

A couple months ago I built out a rudimentary Excel spreadsheet, and it kind of gets the job done, but it's very manual. As time goes on, I have to "extend" the currently ongoing items, add new months / years, etc.

My buddy Intern suggested Flickr, and using their timeline in the Organizr, but that's heavily based on the date taken data of uploaded pictures - I'm not sure I will always have at least one pic for every milestone / event I want to track. (I could create a bogus placeholder I guess).

Poking around the web - I ran into Drupal. Check out this timeline. Timeline | drupal.org
Bummer is, the Drupal environment that it runs on is a PHP / MySQL world, so I don't know one thing about getting that up and running. Intern will have to help me there.

Another alternative is to write one myself as a pet project in WPF. Maybe throw some LINQ in there - just for good measure. :)

Update (07/29/07): Here is another timeline tool from xtimeline (thanks LifeHacker for the tip). Looks like it's an online tool, with free subscription. So far I think I like the drupal version a little better, since it's under my control (after I hijack the .js files of course) :)

Posted 3:46 PM    |    0 comments    |    Permalink   

Just saw this today (time shifted from yesterday's) on the Today Show. A solar powered charger for the iPod (I'm assuming it would work for the Zune).

Company is called Solio - here.

Posted 11:47 AM    |    0 comments    |    Permalink