Crashless Aspirations — Vince Anido

Meekell 0.4.5 Release!

Okay, so it turned out to be a slightly bigger release than I had planned, but here we go.

Release Notes:

Meekell 0.4.5

Features:

Added Nielm's Info Popup

UI Changes:

Added setup for Data Import (Adcanced->External->Choose Collection.xml file)
Removed "Smart Folders" legend button to remove confusion. (it never did anything…)
Added icons to recording menu, option in "settings->advanced->enhancements->icons" - requested by multiple users (Thanks for the icons Iain!)
Manual/Favorite/Don't Like indication in media player
All menus should show current menu title in title bar
System asks if you want to import metadata for newly imported files automatically (uses DVD Profiler data import)

Bug Fixes:

Programs to Record - keyboard now has highlights for focus
Library Import - deleting directory now readable
Now warns before changing channel while watching live tv
Now catches channel change requests before canceling favorites recordings
Setup menu now shows if options exist out of view
Favorite Options now are fully functional and readable
Data Import now asks for .xml file if none set
A couple of other things I forgot about…

You can find the SageTV forum thread by clicking here. The new SageTV section of this site can be reached by clicking the "SageTV" link on the title bar of this page, or by clicking here.

HTPCVince AnidoOctober 17, 2005Comment

Crashless Aspirations #1

Crashless Aspirations Episode #1 (MP3 - 4.9MB - 10:27) Download it here! Subscribe via RSS

The inaugural Crashless Aspirations Podcast! More of an experiment than anything. After writing my latest article about my experiences trying to get rid of paper in my life, I realized there is so much more to talk about. Instead of writing a novel on the subject, I thought it would be fun to talk about it.

In this first show, I talk about the concepts surrounding digital notetaking; the current implementations, limitations, and considerations. If you're after more of a 'how-to' or a review, check out the companion article here.

00:00 - Welcome

00:27 - Thanks to Great Glass Elevator for their song.

01:42 - Problems with paper.

03:28 - Issues with replacing ole' faithful.

04:15 - Things OneNote does well.

05:50 - What Microsoft needs to do to get it mainstream.

07:27 - Who should take a look at Tablet PCs, and my conclusions.

09:11 - "Drugstore Cowboy" - by Great Glass Elevator.

For more specific details, read the accompanying article.

TRT: 10:27

Please let me know what you think of this first attempt. I'm looking forward to hearing what you all think of the format. If you have ideas for a future podcast and article, or questions, comments or whatever, please either post them, or email them and I'll try and incorporate them into the next show.

Podcasts, TabletPCVince AnidoOctober 10, 2005 Comments

Ditching the Legal Pad

One of the main reasons I originally was intrigued by the idea of a Tablet PC was that I take notes into a legal pad on a regular basis. A lot of my job entails listening to someone's ideas about what should be changed in a show, then executing those ideas. My system up until last month included a legal pad or small spiral notebook, a pen and a couple of colors of highlighters. Here's a picture of my last paper notebook:

I take the notes with the pen in this format while I talked with a client about the show. Then after they left, I would implement the changes and highlight them as I completed each point. When my page was neon I knew that I had completed everything, I could refer back to the notes in our next meeting and remind the client about each change that was made, and I could talk about how it was addressed. This system not only makes sure I don't forget anything, but also helps the client feel like everything was covered in the follow up meeting. Sometimes it's difficult for my clients to remember each and every mundane change they requested, so being able to read them their list back is extremely comforting to them - they know every detail has been attended to.

TabletPCVince AnidoOctober 10, 2005Comment

Death to Spammers!

I have been completely inundated with comment spam over the last few weeks, which I suppose is a good thing because it means I'm getting enough exposure to become a target. It's a bad thing because it means WordPress has sent me roughly 200 emails telling me I might have been spammed. So I've had enough. In an effort to keep things as invisible as possible, I've installed Bad Behavior and Spam Karma 2. Please, please, PLEASE tell me if you have ANY issues posting to my blog as a result of these measures. Hopefully most of you won't even notice them, but I wanted to let everyone know, just in case.

I'm not a fan of captchas, but some of you might get presented with one if you trigger the filters. I would really appriciate feedback on how many people are having to fill those in. If you get one, please let me know in your comment, or email me.

Thanks so much for understanding, and for helping me implement these new plugins. I hope they don't get in the way of good conversation.

GeneralVince AnidoSeptember 24, 2005 Comment

An Unintentional look at IBM's Rescue and Recovery Software

As I posted a week or so ago, an errant uninstaller corrupted my new tablet's registry. While this was extremely unfortunate for me, because I was forced to work the rest of the day with a pen and paper, I did have a fairly good experience with both IBM's support, and the IBM Rescue and Recovery (RnR) Software. First, the bad news: RnR was not able to recover my registry. This is not entirely the fault of the system however, as I had not yet created backup discs or created an image of the system to directly restore to - that was my fault. I ended up having to restore to the factory state of the system.

TabletPCVince AnidoSeptember 19, 2005 Comments

Registry Corrupted - Reinstall Windows

Well, after reading about Eric Mack's issues about not having a true Windows XP Tablet PC Edition disc to recover his system, it seems I'm going through my own saga on the subject. I've found some intersting things about the IBM X41 Tablet's Rescue and Recovery system though that have been fairly promising, and I'll write up my experiences in full once I'm back up and running.

This is the part where I was going to tell you to go sign the petition on this subject, but it seems to have been pulled down. I might have to ressurrect it.

TabletPCVince AnidoSeptember 8, 2005Comment

X41 Tablet - First Impressions

While I received my X41 Tablet (model 18666SU) a couple of weeks ago now, I've only had a couple of days to play with it. I'm currently filling the system with my primary programs, and things have been mostly enjoyable. I thought that now would be a good time to share my out of box experience with you all, along with some kinks that I've run into. I'm also going to try out a new way to write my posts - the 'Geek Note', which will simply be a link in brackets like this: [GN1]. This will be an attempt to keep my articles more readable, while still providing my more technically inclined readers with the information they desire. So let me know what you all think about this, I hope it works.

Podcasting, TabletPCVince AnidoAugust 27, 2005 Comments

I'm back!

I'm back baby! If anyone's looking for heaven on earth, I've found it. It's called Bora Bora and it's in the South Pacific.

Bora Bora

I'm easing back into things slowly, and I've written up a 'First Impressions' post on my X41 Tablet, so that will be up tomorrow hopefully.

GeneralVince AnidoAugust 22, 2005 Comments

My X41 Tablet has shipped!

Well it's about frickin' time! Lenovo has finally gotten around to shipping my tablet - nearly 2 months after I ordered it and 3 weeks later than the 'latest' ship date I was originally given. Here's the fun part - I'm not going to be here to recieve it. HA!

I'm getting married this Saturday, and we are immediately jetting off to Tahiti for two weeks. So needless to say I won't be posting for a little while.

I'm not going to miss my tablet - but it better miss me. Serves it right for taking so long to get here. ;)

General, Real-Life, TabletPCVince AnidoAugust 2, 2005 Comments

Meekell v0.4 Released!

I've been very busy over the past few months, but I have found some time to pick up development of the Meekell STV for SageTV and have finally reached the point where I can release a new version! Read more...

HTPCVince AnidoAugust 1, 2005Comment

P.P.M. (Personal Podcast Management)

As I was going through my weekly routine of synching my new podcasts onto my mp3 player, deleting old ones, and listening to them on the way to work today, I thought: Why can't my mp3 player act like my PVR? I realize that podcasting is still in it's infancy, and big companies like Apple have really helped spread the idea and community, but there are some really rough edges that I think can be smoothed out. I'm not sure how most of you deal with your podcasts, but I currently listen to about 5 regularly, which isn't very many at all, but it has already become unwieldy. As a result I have some ideas that I've borrowed from the PVR space that I think would be a perfect fit for podcasting.

PodcastingVince AnidoJuly 13, 2005 Comments

Lenovo is cruel, but will get my money anyway

Look what came via UPS today:

Guess when my tablet is slated to ship…July 21st. What am I supposed to do with this? Lenovo has found a new way to torture people, they announce that they have created the best convertible sub-notebook Tablet PC ever, take orders, then ship the batteries a month ahead of the computer that uses them. Now I have to sit and stare at this brick and think about how cool it will be when it actually is useful. I CAN'T EVEN CHARGE IT!

Since all I have is the battery, here are my thoughts:

TabletPCVince AnidoJune 28, 2005 Comments

Site issues & X41 Tablet update

I apologize. My site has been experiencing some issues with it's database server. I'm currently talking with my web host to get these problems ironed out, as it seems that my database server is the same as their own database server, so I'm inclined to think they want to fix it soon. In the mean-time, I'm taking a look into some wordpress caching plugins to take the load off the server and to keep the site working without the database connection. The downside of this is that I won't be able to keep track of how my site is performing with my stats program. Any wordpress gurus out there have suggestions? With that out of the way, I thought I'd post an update about my X41 Tablet PC order - it's back-ordered, and currently showing a July 19th ship date. This is getting dangerously close to my wedding date of August 6th, so unless I get it about a week before I leave for Tahiti, odds are I won't be able to play with it until the end of August - which would be torture.

I'm also working on some posts about Orb.com and using it to stream your TV recordings to anywhere in the world, using Meedio and DVD Profiler to setup a cool database for your DVD collection, and compressing your recordings for consumption on your Palm OS device using MMPlayer. The first of these should be finished in a couple of days, so keep an eye out.

General, HTPC, SmartPhones, TabletPCVince AnidoJune 19, 2005Comment

Ordered, not Shaken

So my Lenovo customer service rep thinks I'm insane. He had just called me back when there was an incident in Yucaipa, CA.

Me: Uh, hold on a sec. Rep: Oh, okay. rattling Me: Yup, it's a quake. Rep: What? Me: An earthquake. Hold on I need to go outside.

Real-Life, TabletPCVince AnidoJune 16, 2005 Comments

OneNote - First Impressions

Writing a blog post about OneNote, in OneNote…that's what I'm doing right now. Kinda circular isn't it? I decided to go out and purchase Microsoft's OneNote now, instead of waiting until I got my Tablet (the delivery of which Lenovo keeps pushing back) because I wanted to get used to the metaphor that OneNote uses before I really jumped into replacing my spiral notebook. What follows, are my thoughts after 24 hours with OneNote:

TabletPCVince AnidoJune 15, 2005 Comment

Dead powersupplies suck

If you've never had a powersupply die on you - consider yourself lucky. I must have the touch of death for powersupplies, because my Avid's PS is dead, my HTPC's just died, and my Mac at work has been acting up too. Here's what I've learned about powersupplies on their death bed: You'll never think it's the powersupply until you've done everything else. Because seriously, who has extra powersupplies laying around?

HTPCVince AnidoJune 12, 2005 Comments

X41 Tablet ORDERED! Back-Ordered that is.

Well, I've gotten it ordered finally! YAY! Now comes the waiting. I thought I was so cool getting it so quickly, but even with the help of the great CS rep, it's going to be 3-4 weeks before I get my tablet! 3-4 weeks! Are you serious? Anyways, here are the specs:

TabletPCVince AnidoJune 8, 2005 Comments

...and an RSS to go

RSS - pretty much anybody who reads more than 1 or 2 blogs regularly uses RSS religously along with their favorite aggregator. Up until last week, I was one of the few left who were hopelessly drawn to my web browser, clicking through bookmarks to see if there were any new posts, and I'll tell you why: Read More...

SmartPhonesVince AnidoJune 7, 2005Comment

IBM X41T: June 14th; Webcast: Now

I'm bummed, no 'add to cart' link on their site today, June 14th will be the release date. There is a nice webcast though - running roughly 23 minutes. I've roughly transcribed the thing below. It's pretty interesting and you get the feeling that IBM/Lenovo knows what they're doing here. Waiting to make a tablet until now has allowed them to learn from mistakes others have made, and it looks like their first Tablet PC will be a home run. Read More...

TabletPCVince AnidoJune 6, 2005 Comments

IBM X41T on Monday?

via TabletPCReviewSpot It looks as though CNET has some inside info that IBM is either announcing or releasing their tablet PC on Monday! This article coupled with a leak on the Lenovo site paint a picture of me with my credit card in hand on Monday.

Everyone seems pretty excited about IBM's (Lenovo?) entry into the Tablet PC arena, and I have to agree. IBM's notebook track record is very good with business users, and I think this will really add credibility to the platform as a whole.

TabletPCVince AnidoJune 3, 2005Comment