I just thought I'd take a moment to share a short list of the websites I visit daily, in case you are like so many who find themselves with a few minutes of downtime each day and nothing to do to fill them.

http://www.engadget.com
http://www.techbargains.com
http://www.woot.com
http://www.xbox360fanboy.com
http://www.explosm.net/comics

Additionally, since some may not know, let me make you aware of http://www.achieve360points.com. It's the one-shop-stop for all you need to know about Xbox360 achievements. Check out "Achievement List" from the menu.

What sites can you add that I should know about?

I spoiled myself a few weeks ago & ordered a new 16GB iPod Touch, my way of consoling myself during my break from work I guess. I fell in love with the UI, form factor and feature set of the iPhone when we got one at work. At that time I told myself I'd have to buy an iPod if they ever made one in that vein.

My new iPod arrived, hand delivered by an American friend who lives here & travels to the States every couple months, on Tuesday. It has so far exceeded my expectations. The form factor is great, it's even smaller than the iPhone if memory serves, and the resolution of the touch screen is fabulous for its size. My favorite feature though is the built-in wi-fi, which works great with my wireless router at home. My only complaints are that it lacks a few features, which I think Apple would have been wise to leave in, like Google Maps and an e-mail client, which the iPhone boasts. These seem, though, to be the complaints every reviewer has had, so no surprises there really.

The surprising fatality in the past couple days has been Halo 3, which arrived on the same day as the iPod. I have played it for a few hours, but the iPod has commanded way more of my time. I never would have guessed it...

By the way, if you're in Finland and you want a brand new 16GB iPod Touch, let me know, I have an extra that I'm selling on Huuto.

The fiber was hooked up in my apartment earlier this week and I must say that I'm really digging the new speeds. I can't put my finger on why exactly, only that there's some great satisfaction that comes out of seeing big numbers when they mean fast speeds. It's not the same as cruising down the freeway doing 90, certainly not the same as weaving through traffic on a motorcycle, but it must come from the same instincts built into man that makes us seek speed.

Anyway, I thought I'd give it a test and started downloading some very well seeded public domain software *cough* from a torrent site to see what it would look like. I know I don't see the real big speed increase on single torrents but I know the overall speed should increase by almost 10 times. I haven't seen 12.5 MB/s download speeds yet, but I haven't tried yet really either. I have capped out the upload speed though and seen over 1.25 MB/s. Yippee!

In the end, I bit the bullet & ran a cable from behind the TV to my main computer. I ran it under the metal bit that goes under the door, the unfortunate side effect being that it raised the level of it by a few millimeters & now the door rubs on it when it shuts. I've seen some flat Cat5 so I may end up going that route if the door thing really starts to bug me. For a few days I ran the 2 computers/Xbox on the Vonage VOIP router I have, but I knew in the future I would want wireless again. One thing about the Linksys VOIP router is it doesn't seem to handle lots of data transfers well. I found that if I had a download or two going and tried to make a voice call at the same time, the whole router would die. Besides, wireless comes in handy when friends come over for network gaming, or I want to browse the web from the Nintendo DS (ok it has never happened, but it could). Mostly though, I'm getting a new toy in a couple weeks that benefits from having wireless network around so I wanted to make sure I had it in place before that came.

After a trip today to the hardware store (on my way home from the doctor) I picked up a new wireless router. I swore off D-Link years ago & swore I would only buy Linksys, but the 20€ cheaper price tag for the same product got me again, and I bought D-Link. In contrast with other D-Link purchases I've made in the past, the setup of this one actually went really well. Not only that, but it seems to do everything I need it to. Now I'm running my main machine with both wired & wireless connections active. Vista seems to handle that really well and it almost makes me think that it has advantages over just using wired connection. After all, there's a wireless card in there so I might as well use it right?

I've already talked about my problems with technological advancements in digital television and the impact it has on my television watching habits, specifically as it pertains to Windows Media Center. I exchanged the DVB-T PCI tuner/antenna last week for a DVB-C set top box, though I haven't hooked it up yet. It seems the scare was over-hyped because we only lost 3 of our current 12 channels (Swedish channel SVT, French channel TV5 & BBC). BBC excluded, big freaking whoop. Apparently the other channels (at least the 5 most important ones) will continue to be broadcast over analog cable through February. The 5 most important ones being the 5 of the 6 national Finnish channels, which happen to be the only ones that air English speaking programs. I'll have to order some IR emitters to hook into the Media Center, so that it can change the channels on the set top box, but until those come, our lives are mostly unaffected by the September 1st end of analog television broadcasts.

The next problem which will affect me very soon, our apartment building is being upgraded in about 2-3 weeks time to fiber optics. For me that means my DSL will change from 12Mb/1Mb to 100Mb/10Mb. That's right, 100 megabit download speed & 10 megabit upload speed, all for the same low price of my current DSL package of ~45€ (60 USD). So where's the problem? Well the line into my apartment is behind my TV. That means my Xbox & Media Center computer can benefit fully from the new speeds as they're hooked up straight to the router, but my main machine has only wireless connectivity to the router.

This was never a problem since my internet speed could have never exceeded the 54Mb speed of the wireless radio but what now? I guess there's probably some new wireless standard that exceeds 100Mb speeds but I haven't done enough looking into it yet. I'll look into it for sure, but in the meanwhile, let me know what you think. What would you do if you were in my shoes?

P.S. A wire running across the living room to the router isn't really an option now, even though the distance is probably around 15 feet, the wire would just be in the way.

I bought a DVB-T (terrestrial, aka antenna) card the other day from a local computer store along with an antenna. I hooked it up today & learned a few new things about Media Center that upset me.

First of all, I realized with the concrete walls in my apartment, DVB-T is not for me. With the antenna I got, which I believe is probably a pretty good antenna, I can receive 4 out of the 27 available channels and 3 of those 4 have plenty of stuttering & other digital "static". Since there is no DVB-C (cable) card support in Vista, and is none planned anytime in the near future, I will have to bite the bullet & buy a set top box and use IR emitters once again. I remember how it felt like I had shackles removed when I switched from Dish to cable a few years ago and got rid of the IR blasters.

Second, while testing it it occurred to me that because the broadcasts are digital, the subtitles aren't "typed" onto the picture. That is, the digital set-top box would have menu options to turn on/off subtitles, and perhaps even offer subtitles in different languages. MCE does not have this feature (please enlighten me if I'm mistaken) so letting MCE tune the channels is never going to happen.

With the impending release of Windows Vista, I'm getting ready to upgrade my Media Center machine. I've already decided on the hardware, except for the video card. Since that's a fairly important piece of equipment in an OS that takes advantage of hardware acceleration in the shell, I was hoping for some opinions.

Please, leave a comment & tell me which video card you'd buy for your Vista Media Center machine that will get to take advantage of all the visual goodies Vista has to offer, while not being overkill for a machine that won't be used for gaming or any other graphic intensive applications.

This was just too ridiculous to not share out.  On the bright side, maybe we'll now see some serious advancements in storage capacity.

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/research/recording_head/pr/PerpendicularAnimation.html