My new Logitech Harmony 670 remote

I'm not the kind of guy who cares about remotes really, although remote controls are very much a guy-thing. My wife would say that I'm not a guy-thing guy at all to start with anyway, except maybe for a few things (don't worry, I do put the toilet seat up before I pee... :o). Jokes aside, I was truly getting tired of manipulating all our remotes, even though we have only four of them - yeah it's not THAT much, some have up to 7 or 8. And also, not that I blame them, but my wife and kids tend to not know what to do with them when one setting is off from our regular settings. For example, I like to watch our recorded TV programs on the amplifier (or receiver, most call it I think) to get the surround sound, or simply a better sound overall even if surround was not available. I find that it is worth it just for the voices that come out much clearer through the amp. But to do that, I have to change a setting on the digital cable receiver, and if I forget to switch it back, then they won't know how (that setting in particular, you really have to know where it is as it's really not obvious to find).

For those reasons and more, I've been investigating Logitech's Harmony suite of remotes. Reading reviews here and there, looking at the different options of the different models available, and asking questions to people who already owned one. I had a pretty good feeling this was the remote I needed. It seemed to have enough compatibility and flexibility to accommodate anything and everything I would need it to do. The only thing stopping me every time I considered them was... the price! God they are pricey, for my taste anyway, for something that does things you already can do with what you have, but in a more convenient way. They go up to $600 for the most expensive one!!! Mind you, I don't think they have any worthy competitors. None that I have heard of anyway. So they have no incentive to bring the price down that much...

Came a special on the Dell web site: $90 off on the 670 model, to bring it down to just under $100. The best price I've seen yet, even compared to e-bay, where they almost always sell for an amount too close to the retail amount (factor in the shipping and the US to CAD conversion, and it's even less a deal). I decided to buy it. Here's how it looks like (yes, it Glows!!!):



Bottom line? I like it! Like many reviews say, it can be a bit of a hassle to set up, but not in every case. One thing is certain though: you HAVE to know in which input your components are plugged in your TV and in your amplifier. You pretty much have to know how everything is hooked up together. I hooked up my home system myself, so I knew. But I can easily imagine someone who does not know heck about this kind of system, having headaches trying to set up the remote. It does try though to make things as simple as possible, but there's only so much it can do.

The basic setting is pretty simple: write down all of your component's brand and model, and enter them in the interface (oh and, you have to set up an account because the setup software it's web-based, but that's not harder than any other web sign up). Then you set up the "activities" as it suggests you (it is actually pretty good at knowing what you can do with what you have - for instance, I did not remember I could actually listen to radio on my amp!). If you are lucky and all works perfectly, then you're already done, unless you want to add some custom activities. It gets more time consuming when you have to do adjustments. In my case, I had to adjust the time delay it should be using when switching from one video input to another on my television. Otherwise, it would perform the switch to quickly, and my TV would not register it, thus not switching input correctly. It would end up on the wrong input. But that's more my TVs fault, since it works that way, and fortunately, the Harmony remote allows such an adjustment. After that, all worked perfectly. Press on "Watch TV", and it opens only what is needed, puts everything on the right inputs, and the control buttons on the remote control the correct components (ex: the channel buttons changes channel on the digital receiver, but the volume buttons change the volume on the amp). Then press on "Watch a Movie", and it closes what needs to be closed, and opens what needs to be opened, etc. And of course, the "Off" button closes everything. It remembers what you were doing so that it knows what to perform next. All in all, I spent maybe an hour total to set it up. But once it's done, all works perfectly. It's a charm!

At the movies: 300

Boy am I glad I saw this one in the theaters!! For me, theaters are move for visually attractive movies, otherwise my home theater does a pretty good job for anything else. Mind you, I do not have the opportunity to see all the movies I think is worth seeing in the theaters. And for those, my home theater still does a pretty good job, but I often say "I can't imagine what that movie would've been like in the theaters!".



Anyway, 300 was worth going to the cinema for, because it delivered. The ultimate eye candy. Yes, basically it's simply the story of a battle, with a backgroud story of how the Spartans lived. But still, I think it gives just enough to pick your curiosity about Sparta. Me and MommyBabou afterwards went on the internet to read a bit about the story of the 300's. And it seems like Frank Miller remained faithful to the true story, as it is known. You would think he had exaggerated as some places, and he probably did. But in some parts, like for the first troops that were sent to fight the 300's, he actually understated the numbers.


Another thing we were amazed about, is the movie production. It was shot entirely on green screen! Look here for more trivia info on the movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0416449/trivia . The visual effects people really did a good job. The texture of the image probably played a role in the seamlessness of it, but it was still amazing work.

iMac sold!

OK, it seems like I had to rant about it in order to get a buyer for the thing? The guy is going to enjoy it. I was also a little sad to see it go since we were losing money on it. And it was a very nice machine. But like I said before, it just wasn't cutting it, and since we're techno-geeks, something had to be done about it.

YAY!

New Rush single

From the forthcoming album, to be released on May 1st, listen to the new single here: http://www.rush.com

YAY!!!

Seriously interested buyers.. yeah right!

Why is it that when I put stuff for sale on newsgroups and online classified ads, there's always a bunch of people claiming that they are "seriously interested", and then end up being not interested after all? WTF is wrong with you people? Ask questions, that's fine, but don't say you are interested if you don't know yet! And there are those who offer you trades... my add does not say "for trade" or "for sale or trade", does it? It baffles me... I even got someone offering me puppies in exchange for a 51" TV I sold not long ago... o.O

I'm currently selling an iMac. I know it's a big purchase for a potential buyer, we're selling it for $1200. So I understand that people would have doubts about making that purchase. I know it's a good deal, I know it works flawlessly, but it is understandable that people would have doubts. I mean if the machine is so good, why do I sell it, right? (I previously wrote a blog about why, so I won't go into detail again, but simply put, it was just not cutting it for the use my wife was making of it - and you cannot upgrade an iMac unfortunately). So that's why asking questions and even coming to see it and try it out is a good idea. The last person being "seriously interested" was supposed to come last Saturday, and the way he talked, he was coming to pick it up. Then he called saying he was sorry but he could not come because he did not know that his bank was closed on Saturdays, and at the ATM, he has a daily limit. So he would come Sunday instead, with a second daily limit withdrawal. Understandable, and he seemed honest. I told him it was no trouble. Comes Sunday... he did not come by. He didn't even call to say he wasn't coming. Seriously interested? Yeah, maybe he was too embarrassed to call again to cancel or something, but then he did not think that maybe he was preventing us to do other things... which he did not, but that's beside the point.

Anyway, that was my rant for the day I guess. The iMac is still sitting on a desk, waiting for some new-owner love....

The happiness of getting a Wii

Although I was willing to pay more than the retail price for a new Wii from a private seller, it was still hard to find. The retail price plus taxes comes up to $320, so given the rarity of the console, you have to be willing to do one of two things: 1- be patient and shop around (in person, not by phone) and be at the right place at the right time, or 2- pay more to get it now.

The people that were selling it at a lower price, that's between $350 and $375 (lower than that I found was fishy, because why would you be selling it lower, when you can very easily sell it at a higher price?), were selling it very quickly. I had no chance there. But then we looked on e-Bay, for someone living close enough so that I could drive there to pick it up, given that the seller would not mind that (because sometimes they do mind). So we did find one, but it was a package comprised of the following:

• Wii hardware, sensor bar, cables and controllers (2 remotes and 2 nunchuks) with original packaging and manuals.
  
  
• Wii Sports (Tennis, Bowling, Golf, Baseball and Boxing)
  
  
• 4 additional Wii titles: The Legend of Zelda (Twilight Princess), Excite Truck, Dragonball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 2, and World Series of Poker 2007.
  
  
• 4 Wii 'Virtual Console' titles: Super Mario Bros, The Legend of Zelda, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Super Mario 64.
  
  
• 4 Gamecube titles: Spyro (Enter the Dragonfly BNIB), Zelda Four Swords, Zelda the WindWaker, Sonic Mega Collection.
  
  
• 1 Gamecube controller and Memory Card.

This came up to a whooping $600, but it was actually a very good deal since the seller invested over $800 for all of this. And also, there are going to be a few things we are going to sell from it, plus our old GameCube. And most of all, since we paid with PayPal, we were covered for the entire amount in case the seller was not honest. He was honest though, but it was all worth it.

And most of all, we are having a blast with it :-D

The trouble of getting a Wii

Now that we have decided to get our kids a Wii Nintendo game console, we can't find any, anywhere. Why is this so hard to find? I mean, why is Nintendo making so few of these? As far as I know, they don't have production problems, like Sony had with they Blue-Ray lasers for their PS3. So what's going on? Are they selling so many of these that even if they ship thousands per week, it's still not enough? Well, maybe it is the case. And I haven't been reading every piece of news about the Wii that's out there, so there probably is much more to this. I just hope it's not a marketing "tactic" to create some frenzy about getting the console, and that they have tons of them just waiting in a warehouse somewhere...

The kids have been nice, they have been patient, and now it just breaks my heart not being able to make them a surprise. I would have liked to offer them the Wii in time for the March break, but that did not happen. And on top of that, CRA (the Canada Revenue Agency) is having system problems, and there will be delays for processing the tax returns, so I will not be getting my return as soon as expected. Although I can probably find the credit to buy the Wii, but it still sucks...

Router post #3

OK, my previous router (the D-link) was obviously defective. The new one (the Linksys) was flying out of the box. But... (there's always a "but")

Yesterday I was working from home. So in total there were three PCs connected to the Internet. First thing is that the "work" PC kept on getting disconnected. Not frequently like the D-link was doing, but it happened maybe 5 times during the "work day". Also, later in that evening, using either one of the home PCs, some web pages would take very long to load, or would not load at all. A rare page would load normally. This and the work PC disconnections were probably related. I tried resetting the router with the small reset button on its back. That seemed to fix the problem since any page would now load fine. But that only lasted for a short period, as the slow loads came back. Oddly though, my MSN was working, as well as the torrent that was active at that moment (downloading at 60kb/s, which is pretty decent). Just before the end of the evening, I decided to update the firmware or the router. Again, this seemed to fix it until we got to bed... A few minutes ago I asked my wife how was the Internet, and she said it was not so good. She did not seem to think it was as bad as yesterday evening, but still not very good.

There isn't seem to be any consistency to this whole thing. At this point, I'm not sure if it's the router again, or our Internet provider (this does happen when they are in the process of upgrading something), or the Internet in general (it does also happen that sometime the Internet just is not as snappy as other days). But I'm going to let it run for a few more days, and if the problem remains, I think I'm gonna try another damn router. Someone on a message board said "with routers, it's hit or miss". I now believe him.

My router was broken after all

Just to put a closing note on this issue, the router was broken after all. The way that I found out is that I bought a Linksys WRT54G (a very popular model), installed it, and the disconnections stopped. Not only that, but our downloads are now much faster! So not only the D-link was disconnecting us, but even when it was connected, the speed was not good.

Anyway, a good $70 spent and all is back to normal :-D

My Router's acting up!

I've had this wireless router, a D-Link DI-624, for over a year now. It's wireless, but like many alike, there are also 4 ports for wired connections. For a major part of this year, actually all up until about a month ago, it worked very well. Not sure if the speed was the best, but it suited our needs. But recently, it's been acting up.

At first, I did not know what was going on. We were losing the network connection from all our computers (2 wired, 1 wireless) at the same time. A popup message from the Windows tray said "A network cable has been unplugged" or similar, and then not more than a few seconds would reconnect, and another popup would say "Now connected to network". There could be a gap of many hours between two disconnections, but often, we would get disconnected every 5 to 10 minutes. When sufing the web, this goes almost un-noticed, except from the popup. But internet radio would be interrupted, as well as online games, downloads would have to reconnect, and also, when I work from home using a VPN, that of course would disconnect also. That is unacceptable. It wasn't that bad even bake in dial-up time.

I decided to call our ISP. The tech guy suggested it might be the cable between the modem and the router. Makes sens, so I changed the cable, and it seemed fine since we talked for a bit, and he made me do a couple of tests, and I did not get disconnected. So I hang up, but sure enough, shortly after, it happened again. I called them back, and this time, a level-2 tech suggested that if my router is close to the modem, it interferes/confuses the modem - mine was about a foot away, which would seem to be much too close. So I believe him and put the router 5-6 feet away from the modem. No luck - it happens again. The other thing the level-2 tech suggested is to connect one PC directly to the modem, and see how this goes. That's the next thing I tried, and what would you know... Everything worked fine, making the culprit... the router!

I went and read reviews for this router, and it seems like A LOT of people are having the same problem. Even a few using the router with no problem for a period of time, and then the disconnections started. Also, I posted this to the TechReport forums, and it seems like people have different experiences with different routers. Some switched to Linksys or Netgear because D-Link sucked and are now satisfied, and some switched to D-Link for the same reason, and are satisfied too o.O

Oh well, I guess I will have to guess and try something from a store where I can bring it back if the problem is still there...