So I took a chance and bought Buffalo Tech’s Ethernet Converter (despite their site’s lack of a defined background color). I’m not sure why they don’t call it a bridge, since that’s what it is, but hey, I’m not a marketing guy (at least not until the lobotomy). It worked perfectly, so I picked up another.

Of course, you’d think with the amazing speed of Pre-Draft Wireless N, I’d be living the high life. Not quite. Though I picked up D-Link’s Wireless N Notebook Adapter, it doesn’t work very reliably: my connection would drop constantly, and when my laptop would go into suspend mode, the card would never reconnect.

Anyhow, I’m pleased: so far, the router has been rock solid (though it does take a little time for it to reboot if it does have problems), and everything is working as it should.

Technorati Tags: networking, wireless, D-Link, Linksys, BuffaloTech

"Test yourself on the following questions. In each case, it is 1991 and I have removed from you all knowledge of the past 15 years.

"You have to design a global computer network. One group of scientists describes a system that is fundamentally open – open protocols and systems so anyone could connect to it and offer information or products to the world. Another group – scholars, businessmen, bureaucrats – points out the problems. Anyone could connect to it. They could do anything. There would be porn, piracy, viruses and spam. Terrorists could put up videos glorifying themselves. Your activist neighbour could compete with The New York Times in documenting the Iraq war. Better to have a well-managed system, in which official approval is required to put up a site; where only a few actions are permitted; where most of us are merely recipients of information; where spam, viruses, piracy (and innovation and anonymous speech) are impossible. Which would you have picked?"

Let’s see, in 1991, I would not have had to pick, since the Internet already existed at that time. I hate it when people think that the Internet did not exist until the World Wide Web came around. Sorry to break it to you, Financial Times, but folks were FTPing, Gophering, Telneting and the like long before the Web. The Internet != World Wide Web.

Time Machine

I can see the utility, but it isn’t something I’d use. I don’t tend to delete much, but when I do, it’s usually for a reason. But it seems useful for those folks who might be careless.

Mail

I like the integration with "To Do" lists and iCal, but I don’t use the Mail app currently, and I don’t see that changing. I’m not fond of giving users even more freedom to embed useless photos and HTML into email.

iChat

Again, another application I really don’t use, but looks like some solid improvements with file sharing and presentation abilities.

Spaces

Ah, a virtual window manager. This should be quite useful and is a long time coming. I’m sure to use this.

Dashboard

More widget making fun. I wasn’t a big fan of the Dashboard when I first bought a Mac, but it has been growing on me. The improvements in Leopard should make it even more useful.

Spotlight

I’d admit it right now: I don’t use Spotlight. I haven’t build up a lot of data yet, so it isn’t all that useful to me. Being able to search multiple machines, though, might make me actually fire it up.

iCal

Yet Another Application I Don’t Use. And I don’t see anything that will change my behavior.

Accessibility

Some good stuff here: new voice that sounds a little more human, some more hooks in to programs. Some solid advances here.

64-Bit Applications

Whoop-de-64-shit. Anyhow, it’s nice, but doesn’t do much for me.

Core Animation

Mmmm. Pretty. But just more eye-candy.

Overall, it’s sort of "eh" to me. Some nice improvements, to be sure, but nothing is really knocking my socks off.

Technorati Tags: apple, leopard

Now, I do have a Mac Mini that I’ve been using as a server for the past year: it’s a great little workhorse, pulling duty as a file server, the music server, the on-and-off Ventrilo server, etc. But I never really used it for much beyond that. But with the MacBook, I find that I can take it almost anywhere: it boots quickly and is fast and responsive.

Originally, I figured I’d have to spring for BBEdit to get a good text/HTML editor, but good old Joe told me about Textmate: an editor for Mac OS X written by a UNIX geek. And lo, it was good. I’ve only spent a short time with it, but it’s already one of my favorite editors. It’s got nifty “bundles” which allow users to extend the functionality of the editor. Currently, I’ve been playing with the blogging bundle, which let’s me create, edit and post blog entries via Textmate. Very useful for on the road blogging.

Unfortunately, it’s also rekindled my love for Nethack. I should probably install Larn, too, for even more dungeon crawling fun,

Technorati Tags: textmate, apple, macbook, blogging, nethack, larn

I don’t jump into new things without checking them out. I downloaded the product manuals for a few of the routers I was thinking about getting, reading online reviews, etc. I initially considered a Linksys router, but heard that it suffered from some speed problems. The path of least resistance seemed to be going with the D-Link DIR-625 N router. The DI-624 has been a good workhorse and quite reliable, so I felt good about going with its upgrade.

Installation was pretty easy: unplug everything old, replace, re-plug in everything. I had the wired portion of my network up and running pretty quickly. My wireless network, though, was a different story: I use WEP encryption (I know, it’s awful, but I have a large number of older B and G devices that can’t use WPA). And despite the fact that the DIR-625’s manual (page 60) gives pretty explicit information on setting up WEP encryption on the router, the router itself actually doesn’t do WEP. Nice disconnect there, D-Link.

Oh well, the upgrade will have to wait another day.

I am a mouse whore.

There, I’ve admitted my problem. I should be well on the road to recovery soon. I really am a mouse whore, though: I can’t resist buying a new mouse, even if the old one works perfectly fine. Indeed, I’ve never had a Logitech mouse fail on me (wish I could say the same for Microsoft ones). So when Logitech announces a new mouse, my brain starts producing butt-loads of endorphins, forcing me to find out when where and how I can get said mouse.

The Logitech G5 Laser Mouse is the best mouse I’ve ever used. Recently, at least. It hits all the major things a mouse should really do, while adding a variety of extremely cool new features that I’ll probably never use.

First off, the mouse is extremely light. I’ve been using one of Logitech’s cordless mice (the MX900) and find it to be way to heavy for daily use. I shouldn’t have to try and push my mouse around. The G5, in contrast, glides alone as if nearly weightless (part of that, of course, is that the G5 is a corded mouse). In fact, this mouse is so light, Logitech ships it with a set of weights for you to put into a clip that slides into the mouse, making the weight quite adjustable. It’s such a weird feature, but it works perfectly: want a heavier mouse, you adjust it.

Since this is a gaming mouse, another set of adjustments you can make on the fly is the sensitivity of the mouse’s laser sensor: you can dial the sensitivity up or down. Need fine control in an action game? Want the pointer to fly across the screen? You can fine tune the sensitivity, store it, then recall those settings with the press of a button.

The bad news? Well, I’m not fond of the form factor: it uses the same form factor as some of the other Logitech mice (the 500 series, for example). I wish it used the superior MX1000 form factor: it’s much more comfortable for my hand. The thumb button on the G5 is badly placed: when I hold a mouse, my thumb is near to the bottom of the mouse, yet the thumb button is higher up and uncomfortable to reach. I prefer the old placement of the thumb button on mice from a few years back. The scroll wheel is stiff to use: click it for use as a button takes a lot more effort than it should. It’s got the wheel that allows scrolling right and left as well: cool, but I really haven’t found a good use for that yet (though it should be nice in Photoshop).

Even with those shortcomings, though, I totally recommend this mouse. It’s clearly the best mouse that you can buy, currently. At least until the G7 starts shipping.

I’m also whoring for Amazon.com now: Buy a Logitech G5 Laser Mouse at Amazon.com. You know you want it!

Technorati Tags: mouse, Logitech, gaming

With a working unit, the connection and setup was quite painless (though I knew what to expect this time through). The SlingPlayer is rather nice: it asks what type of device you hooked up (in my case, an old Series 1 Tivo) and it provides a set of controls appropriate to the device.

Video quality is good (considering I’m streaming via a 802.11b wireless bridge: I might try my G bridge if I can get it working reliably). You get options for optimizing the stream (for Low, Medium or High action, as well as even more precise controls for the tweakers). I’m currently using a Medium Action encoding and it seems to be just fine: I can see some compression artifacts, but nothing I didn’t expect.

So far, I’m pleased. Rough start, but good end.

Original post follows:

Well that’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back.

This evening, I ran out and picked up a Slingbox, a media distribution tool. The idea is that you hook the Slingbox up to your cable/satellite box, your Tivo, or even your DVD player, and it can stream the video to any computer with Windows XP installed. So, for example, I could hook it up to my Tivo and watch an episode of Justice League I might have recorded and control the playback from my PC. It basically acts like a pass-through box: the Tivo hooks up to it, then it hooks up to your television. There’s an ethernet port on the back that connects you to your home network and streams the video. By punching a hole or two in your firewall, you can also connect to it remotely and watch shows from any network-connected Windows XP computer.

So, I picked up a Slingbox at CompUSA and connected it to my Tivo. Things were going somewhat fine: the packaging looks cool, but it’s one of those origami-like boxes: getting the thing out took longer than hooking it up. One big plus is that it comes with all the cables you need to get it in place: normally, I end up having to make a trip for cables for half the things I buy, so it was a nice surprise to have it all in the box.

Had some difficulty with the wireless ethernet bridge I had, so I cannibalized one I had elsewhere. Took about 15 minutes to get everything in place. Then I went upstairs to my PC and downloaded and installed the software. Pretty painless: it downloaded new firmware into the Slingbox, configured the video, then voila, it was streaming the video signal. Only one problem: the sound was non-existent. I could get sound by cranking up my speaker volume, but then normal Windows sounds were deafening. The video quality wasn’t too bad, though, considering I was using an 802.11b wireless bridge for it. There was some compression artifacts, but nothing I couldn’t live with. But sound is also sorta important. So back downstairs to take a look.

The Slingbox itself looks like a giant silver candy bar, and the cables all plug into clearly marked places on the back. However, the build quality is a little suspect; downstairs, it wasn’t doing a great pass-through job to the television: jostle the Slingbox and watch the signal appear and disappear. Eventually, there was no way I could get an image on either the TV or the PC. I attempted using the composite connection, rather than S-video, but with no joy. Reluctantly, I repackaged the device.

Tomorrow, I think I’ll exchange it for a different unit and see if I’m just unlucky.

Some other people have had better luck:

• Live Digitally’s Review
• Slingbox 411
• SlingBox, Comes Out Slinging