Month: November 2010

SageTV – Up and running

Posted By: SKPosted On:

UPS delivered SageTV in the evening. I was surprised to see how small it is compared to HTPC I’m currently running!. It is actually tiny bit bigger than iPhone 4, as the accompanying photo shows. For the last few years I’ve come to the realization that I don’t watch any of the cable channels. The only programs I watch are “Office”, “Outsource”, “Chase”, “The Middle” and sometimes “America Got Talent”. My current dish network subscription has been local channels only for this reason. HTPC was supposed to replace my Dish Receiver, but the maintenance and power consumption was a big concern for me. My efforts to switch to HTPC with network based OTA tuner (HDHomeRun) ran into several issues, HTPC hardware fails (HDD failed, graphic card died, Windows 7 corruption etc). It was a constant battle to keep this setup running.

I was looking at SageTV HD200 and SageMC setup for sometime, it looked like a good option. but I wasn’t sold on HD200 it looked ugly both hardware and software. Then recently Sage released souped up HD 300 with more capabilities, new hardware design and SageTV MC 7.0. There was no reason not to get this puppy now.

Last Updated on November 18, 2010 by SK

Why is Jimmy Wales staring at you?

Posted By: SKPosted On:

Have you noticed wikipedia in the past couple of weeks? You cannot escape founder of wikipedia staring at you with a “personal appeal”. I use wikipedia almost everyday for everything from learning about “four loco” to “L’Avion”. His stare makes me uncomfortable, I scroll down as soon as I hit wiki page to avoid making eye contact!!. This is the first time I’ve seen something like this in Wikipedia and did a little digging to find out the reason behind using his face and stare for raising money. There is a fascinating reason behind his stare. Read it here. Now I wonder how can other public services, such as NPR, use this marketing tactic? Is there anyway I can tell Jimmy Wales to stop staring, I did my contribution already? Please?

Last Updated on November 17, 2010 by SK

NetNeutrality – a bad omen for congressmen

Posted By: SKPosted On:

There were 95 Democrats in Congress who pledged public support for net neutrality:
http://www.netcompetition.org/Electiontally.pdf
http://www.netneutralityprotectors.com/

http://www.netcompetition.org/Electiontally.pdf

http://www.netneutralityprotectors.com/

Apparently, every single one of them lost in last week’s election!
Clearly, net neutrality was not one of the top issues for the election but it did become one of the casualties nevertheless.

Last Updated on November 8, 2010 by SK