Trips, Gadgets and Upgrades
Come to think of it, I’ll tackle these three items in the title in reverse order:
The reason that it has been so long since I’ve posted anything to this blog was because of the new-and-improved release of WordPress, version 2.1 (referred to as Ella, as in Fitzgerald), which is the software that I use to publish this blog. I needed a block of time of about 3 hours, I thought. The first step to doing the upgrade was to download both a backup of the database that WordPress uses (SQL), as well as all of the files that made up the initial blog, taking care to insure that if anything went wrong, I could partially or even completely reconstitute the roughly 200 postings from just the text. I did this once, but then saw some comments. So I put off the upgrade, and therefore, put off any new posts. Finally, yesterday evening I had enough time to very carefully back everything up, delete all of the old blog files (except for the content), and then upload the new version and run the upgrade script. To my surprise, everything worked perfectly. Either I’m better at this than I thought, or the many people who have reported going through an ordeal moving to the new version had more complex sites than I did; I really can’t say.
At any rate, the blog is back, upgraded and improved, and despite deleting and uploading all of those files and performing a few other tasks extremely slowly and carefully, it didn’t take 3 hours; More like 90 minutes. The changes to Loud Murmurs are invisible to you, dear reader. It does serve the pages far faster, and the editor for doing posts has been dramatically improved. There are a few other administrative screens and security rewrites, etc., but again, it’s all behind the scenes. Take it from me, on the other side of the site, we’ve all got new furniture. So welcome to Loud Murmurs 2.1. Long time, no see.
One reason (among many) that I wasn’t able to find time for the upgrade (or posting) was a new gadget. Our newest piece of technology is a gift from my brother and his family, a TiVo. After a long wait, we’ve finally gotten it set up and recording away. It was no small task, because getting Canadian listings require a network connection if you don’t want the box making weekly long-distance phone calls to the states, because the setting for retrieving Canadian listings is — and I swear I’m not making this up — Leo, Wyoming. So, after getting a wireless adapter so that we can use the TiVo with our home network, and after a few other electronic, hardware and software hoops, I’m pleased that I no longer have to choose between catching an episode of Heroes or writing an entry here. Let’s hear it for time-shifting! I should mention that the other advantage to having this PVR (Personal Video Recorder) on the home network is that I can copy any recorded show from the TiVo to my computer, and after some compression and conversion, to my iPod. Too cool.
After my trips to Buffalo and San Francisco, our little drive down to Seattle felt quite short. We visited for a brunch and afternoon with my brother and his family. We had a terrific meal at Monsoon, an upscale Vietnamese restaurant where you can not only get that wonderful classic, Banh Xeo (pronounced Bann-show, it’s a sort of crepe/omelette that actually contains no eggs; the ‘crepe batter’ is a mixture of water, coconut milk and rice flour with a trace of tumeric and folded around handfuls of beansprouts, shrimp and lean pork), but also a terrific Vanilla French Toast made with brioche (which my niece ordered and many of us tasted). We only visited for a short time, but managed to fit in a chilly walk on Seattle’s new Olympic Sculpture Park. We also picked up that afformentioned wireless adaptor for the TiVo, and were back in Vancouver before midnight (but not that much before, due to a stop in Bellingham to do some minor shopping at Target).
There’s lots more to add; when you don’t take note of things right away they pile up. I’ll try and catch up in future posts.
7 Comments to “Trips, Gadgets and Upgrades”
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West End Bound
Posted: Jan 30th, 2007 at 7:46 am1Your home TiVo network sounds way cool — When my partner and I eventually get to Vancouver permanently, we’ll have to get you to come over and configure something similar for us! My goal is to have all internet content available to be viewable on a television — sounds like you’re just the guy to set that up.
On a culinary note, the Banh Xeo sounds incredible … Is there a recipe you can share?
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Jen
Posted: Jan 30th, 2007 at 12:26 pm2When I got my TiVo, the instructions for Canadian users (on the tivo.com site) were to start with the Leo setting to download the service pack upgrade, which would then allow it to enter a canadian postal code. I ran the TiVo off the telephone cable for a good month before I got a wireless adapter, and it always dialed a local 604 number to retrieve program listings.
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ddrucker
Posted: Jan 30th, 2007 at 5:09 pm3Hi Bob, although I’m a geek (and fully admit it), I’ve gotten a lot more experience lately moving things the other way (i.e., from TV to Internet) than from Internet to TV. Nevertheless, nearly anything is possible, with enough know-how and/or hardware…
As for a recipe for Banh Xeo, I think I saw one at:
http://tinyurl.com/2n7gez as well as http://tinyurl.com/33g5lx
They are a treat.Hi Jen (and I’m thrilled that there is another TiVo user in Vancouver — I think I remember when you got yours and was pretty envious), this Series 2 box actually automatically downloaded the service upgrade after I activated it, and I hooked up the wireless before there was any dialing going on. I assumed with Leo, WY in the address fields that it would dial their local number, but it sounds like an even more bizarre setup. I haven’t a clue how they managed to have them dial a 604 number (the instructions were actually on the screen to put Leo, WY in the city and state fields, but put the Canadian info in the address fields — Ok…), but I’ll stick with the network connection to avoid the also inexpensive but definitely annoying situation of having a telephone cord draped across the living room.
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Gene
Posted: Feb 2nd, 2007 at 12:46 pm4Well now there just might be a reason to subscribe to a cable TV service. We haven’t had TV for years because it always dictated our time (The dictator of time). With this gadget you still maintain control. So to be completely honest you don’t watch any ‘live’ TV now?
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ddrucker
Posted: Feb 2nd, 2007 at 1:12 pm5From the day we got it going, we have not watched more than a minute of ‘live’ TV. We are probably not typical, in that we had one of these when we lived in Boston and so already had made the mental adjustment, so the change in habits might take a bit longer for others. There’s also one habit we haven’t repeated (yet) from our first period of using one, and I really don’t have a good word for it: it’s starting a TV program between 15 and 20 minutes late (if it’s an hour long program), so the recorder is recording ahead of where we are watching. We then fast-forward past the commercials, and end up in real time just at the end . I’m sure the advertisers just love that one.
I’m thinking that we won’t have enough time to watch everything that we record, so some (much?) of it will eventually get erased as newer material takes it’s place (you can control how something is deleted — even setting it to never delete, but then you fill up the hard drive). There’s room for about 80 hours though, so we’ve got a while to go before we reach that point.
I just moved an episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus to my iPod, and despite some washed out colour, it’s perfect!
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Amanda
Posted: Jul 19th, 2007 at 3:51 pm6Hi! My hubby and I are moving to Vancouver in August and are contemplating buying a TiVo (we have DirecTV w/ TiVo in the States) before we leave the US. Hope you don’t mind, but I would like to ask you a few questions . Are you using the TiVo with Shaw? My husband will die if we don’t have NFL Sunday Ticket, so we have to go with Shaw. What were some of those hoops you had to jump through? Last, any suggestions for a Vancouver newbie?
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ddrucker
Posted: Jul 19th, 2007 at 11:32 pm7Hi Amanda -
Yes, I use the TiVo with Shaw and it works fine. The only real hoop you have to jump through is a somewhat odd setup procedure that TiVo helps with this on their own site:You’ll notice this bit:
Canadian residents will be given special instructions to follow when activating service. Please look for the link “Instructions for Canadian residents,” under Step 2 during the activation process at tivo.com.
- Enter your actual Canadian street address in Field 1 of the Street Address
- Enter your actual Canadian Postal Code in Field 2 of the Street Address
- Enter Leo, WY 82327 in the City, State, and ZIP Code fields
As Jen noticed, even though Leo is where the initial setup goes (and who knows why it’s there of all places), the TiVo does eventually use a local (604) number to retrieve the program guide. If you have Shaw’s Internet as well (which I’d recommend), then I’d recommend you use that (with a router) to connect your TiVo to the Internet. It will mean that it doesn’t have to dial out in order to get the program listings. I don’t know about NFL Sunday Ticket, but if it’s available on Shaw, it should be recordable by your TiVo.
There are a few limitations about using your TiVo in Canada: Some of the fancy new stuff that TiVo has added (Amazon Unbox, which lets you order movies with your TiVo) and a few others like their Showcases for programming on premium channels don’t work in Canada. Actually, I think the Amazon Unbox may work, but only with the American Amazon store (not Amazon.ca), so if you already have an account with that store, see if you can keep it, although this is one of the few times where it will be useful to you.
