On the Finicky Nature of Antennae and Digital Television

I may never completely understand why my TiVo HDXL DVR works poorly, if at all, with any specially made Digital TV Antennae I have tried. I may also never fully understand why my TiVo works well with my ancient (30-year-old) rabbit ears (when they have been properly aligned). The most frustrating thing I may never entirely understand is why I can properly align those rabbit ears so that the TiVo says all the channels are getting 90% reception or above and then a few weeks later reception goes to pot on one or several channels.

I most recently had to realign the rabbit ears a week or two ago. Unfortunately, as I discovered last night, it was too late for the "Quartet" episode of "Endeavor" on PBS. About an hour into the program the picture degenerated into several streams of random-looking blocks and the sound disappeared entirely. I missed the last third of the episode.

My experience has been that when the alignment of the rabbit ears loses its charm, small disturbances in the surrounding space are enough to upset reception. It may be as simple as a person standing up and walking around. In this case I suspect the disruption occurred when I returned from dropping off our team's 48 Hour Film Project entry and reclined in my La-Z-Boy. Apparently in some configurations of the rabbit ears the reclined metal frame of the La-Z-Boy acts as a jamming mechanism for certain TV channels. They are rendered like so much smoothie whirling away in a blender. So, unless I see it in reruns, I guess I'll never know what happened in the case of the spy dressed in a Giant costume who shot a little boy.

GM

Coach Leather Handbags For Sale on eBay

My wife is selling a couple of Coach handbags on eBay.
There is a Coach Leather Parchment (White/Ivory) Madison Carrie style handbag and a Coach Leather Black Poppy style handbag.
For more information, click through to the eBay listings or view the photos below:
Parchment


Black

Smarthome Select Vstarcam T7838WIP Wireless HD IP Security Camera

When I got an offer from Smarthome for the Vstarcam (T7838WIP) wireless IP camera with HD (720p) video for $85 it seemed like a good deal. I previously purchased a Wansview wireless IP camera with SD (480) video for $60 and expected a similar product with a higher resolution.

The Vstarcam web-based interface is fairly standard, allowing you to enter wifi passwords, set up IP address and port and so on. Pan and tilt controls work as expected. The main reason I purchased this product was the HD video. You can apparently only get HD video in a few limited ways: 1) Using Internet Explorer with a special ActiveX control. 2) Using the manufacturer's proprietary smartphone app when connected to the same wifi router. 3) Using the manufacturer's proprietary Eye4 product when connected to the same wifi router.

I have been able to get HD video using Internet Explorer with the special ActiveX control from inside the house on my internal network. I have been able to get an HD image/video stream on my iPhone 4S using the app from inside the house, when connected to the same wifi router. I haven't been able to use the Eye4 software because my desktop computer is on a downstream router on a different subnet from the camera and that apparently prevents the Eye4 software from connecting.

When using any other browser the best video available is a very low quality down-sampled SD (480) stream. This video is substantially lower quality than the native SD video of the Wansview camera.

I use iSpy open source camera security software to monitor and record from my cameras. By trial and error I discovered a URL that allows me to get an MJPEG stream from the camera but the stream I get is the same low quality down-sampled SD (480) and does not allow me to monitor sound as I can on the Wansview. I can use the pan and tilt controls with iSpy.

The camera has a built-in email capability that sends a picture to a designated email address when motion is detected. Unfortunately the picture it sends is the same low quality down-sampled SD (480) image. The camera also only sends one picture when motion is detected (the Wansview sends several in a single message so you are more likely to see the motion that was detected).

The camera accepts a Micro SD card (up to 32GB) for on-board recording. Presumably this would record HD video. I have not tried this.

Since I purchased this camera for its HD capability and am unable to get an HD image in most of my preferred ways I can't recommend this camera for its HD image. Since the down-sampled SD image is poorer than my previous native SD camera I can't recommend this camera for its SD image. I'm hoping if I do get a Micro SD card and use it in this camera I will get good results that way.

Update (November 2014):
Another user on the iSpy software forum posted a URL that allows me to get HD video (http://[IPAddress:Port]/livestream.cgi?user=[USERNAME]&pwd=[PASSWORD]&streamid=0&audio=1&filename=). I still can't get sound, and iSpy crashes several times a day, particularly at night, but it's better.

I also got a Micro SD card. The recording uses a weird codec that I haven't bothered to install yet. I mostly just use what I can get with iSpy.

Instant Video

I finally got around to trying "Redbox Instant by Verizon" on my PS3 this weekend. We were looking for Groundhog Day (1993) last weekend and I was trying to explore all options. It was not available on Redbox Instant, and not very movies were, so we ended up not trying the new service until this weekend.

The first thing that struck me was how old fashioned the Redbox app is on the PS3. It requires you to use an official PS3 controller and only recognizes controller number 1. Other services (e.g. Netflix, Amazon, Vudu) let you use any controller and multiple controllers at the same time. The Redbox app also uses its own proprietary, unintuitive control scheme rather than the scheme used by the PS3's native Blu-Ray and DVD and other streaming services.

Not only is the selection limited, but the selections are not well organized. Perhaps they don't think extensive organization is necessary because of that limited selection. You also get disc-only and pay-per-view selections when you are looking for movies.

We ended up watching My Blue Heaven (1990). The picture was clear enough but seemed to have a bad frame rate making the action very jerky.

If you're willing to play high prices for your video selections Vudu has a nice instant viewing experience. Amazon Instant Video has a good service and somewhat better prices, and a number of their offerings are available at no additional charge if you are a Prime member. Netflix is decently priced, has a pretty wide selection, and a very good service. I know Hulu is out there as are some other less mainstream services, but I haven't tried any of them yet.

P.S. We ended up "buying" Groundhog Day (1993) on Amazon Instant Video, so we'll be able to watch it any time we want. Or will we?

SOLD : 1999 Beetle for sale : SOLD

$3200 or best offer

2.0 liter engine	Manual, 5-speed
Front wheel drive	ABS (4-wheel)
Air conditioning	Power door locks
Power steering	Tilt wheel
Dual front and side air bags
AM/FM stereo cassette/multi-disc CD
Cloth seats 120,600 miles	Steel wheels
All recommended service and maintenance performed by Cable Volkswagen service department

Click photos for larger images

Fix: Steam thinks it's running in compatibility mode

When I tried to run Steam tonight on my Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit system it said this for the first time: "Running Steam in Windows compatibility mode is not recommended. Please remove any Windows compatibility settings for all users under file properties for Steam.exe and restart Steam. Press 'Cancel' to premanently ignore this warning and continue." I found the fix below posted by ZeroHour on edugeek.net so I decided to put it here for my own convenience.

Follow the link for the original post: Post by ZeroHour

Hi Just thought I would post a solution to a problem I had with Steam on Windows 7 RC x64 (but I believe it can happen in vista as well) Everything was working in steam for weeks until I went to close it down last night, when I exited steam windows poped up with a message stating it was going to apply compatility settings to steam as it detected a problem (no cancel or way to stop it doing this)

When I relaunched steam it poped up with a message telling me: Running Steam in Windows compatibility mode is not recommended. Please remove any Windows compatibility settings for all users under file properties for Steam.exe and restart Steam. Press 'Cancel' to premanently ignore this warning and continue.

Reinstalling steam made no difference as well as trying to set compatibility settings under the shortcut. I eventually had a go of the application compatibility tool microsoft gives out to see that the settings saved on the machines local database and that triggering when I ran steam. I had a hunt through the registry and found the area where the keys are kept and deleted the key and my problems were gone.

To fix the issue:
1.Hit start->run->regedit
2.Go to key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers
3.Look for a entry with your path to steam.exe
4.Delete that entry
5.If you dont find it there try HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers

Hope this helps if you get the issue.

TiVo/network scheduling fail

On Thursday night my TiVo disappointed me. I know it wasn't all TiVo's fault, but I hoped for more than I got. There was a storm, and the storm coverage (mostly) stayed during the commercials where it belongs. My Uninterruptible Power Supplies kept my TV, TiVo, and computer all running. Unfortunately a collision of scheduling quirks kept me from getting the season finale of The Mentalist.

NBC likes to run snippets of their shows at the very end of their timeslots, butting them against the opening of the following show. Unfortunately these snippets frequently go up to a minute past the official scheduled time. I compensate for this by telling TiVo to extend the end time by one minute when recording The Office. This usually works fine. My TiVo records all of The Office, sometimes using its second tuner to tune to the same channel and record Parks and Recreation which may follow it. When another program I watch is on at the same time but a different channel, that program or Parks and Recreation may be clipped by a minute depending on their relative priority in my season pass manager.

This time CBS scheduled the season finale for The Mentalist as a two hour block overlapping the end of The Office and the beginning of Parks and Recreation. Since The Mentalist was a lower priority than either The Office or Parks and Recreation, my TiVo decided to skip recording The Mentalist all together.

Of all the things my TiVo could have done, this is my least favorite. So, what would I have preferred?

1. Seeing that it would miss one minute at the beginning of The Mentalist and one minute in the middle, go ahead and make two recordings of 59 minutes each.
2. Send me a conflict message, telling me that one of my programs would not be recorded so I could fix the conflict manually.
3. If a conflict occurs for a channel that is already being recorded on one tuner, clip the program and let the other tuner be used for a channel that's not being recorded.

TiVo engineers, how soon can you get that fixed for me?

Windows 7 networking problems

I've had this particular SMC Barricade G wifi router (SMC2804WBR) for several years. In November I bought a new HP PC from Sam's Club. It came with Windows 7 Home Premium. Once I connected it to my network it started causing problems. Every time a wireless device would connect to the network the Windows 7 machine would report no connectivity. The only solution appeared to be restarting the wifi router (by unplugging and replugging). I eventually reconfigured some of my devices to be hardwired and repeated the restart process with each of my remaining wifi devices. Things seemed to settle down until my daughter and her husband came home. Now, once again, every time she turns on her laptop or he turns on his (wifi) desktop the network is killed and I have to restart the wifi router. I've tried looking this up but all the articles that I can find in this vein are old and refer to the beta version of Windows 7. Now that they have been home a couple of days the problem appears to be getting more infrequent but it still bothers me. Shouldn't Microsoft give some explanation and a better solution than restarting my wifi router for every new wifi device?

Macy's new definition for inappropriate language?

I got an email from macys.com on Monday that said "your statement is ready for viewing." For some reason I thought that meant I could look at my statement so I went to the macys.com website. I found the current month at the top of the drop-down list and clicked on the button marked "View Statement." Instead of a statement I got this error message:

statement not found

The statement you requested cannot be retrieved right now.

We apologize for the incovenience. Please try again later.

If you’d like to speak with one of our Customer Service

representatives, please call 1-877-493-9207.

I decided to try again on Tuesday in case there was some delay getting the statements generated, but on Tuesday I got the same message. I decided I would report this problem in case the Macy's staff was not aware of it. I went to the "contact us" form, chose "general billing problem" and tried to report the problem like so:

I tried to look at my statement this morning after getting an email yesterday that it was available for viewing.

I chose the current month from the drop down list and clicked the button for View Statement but instead of my statement I got "statement not found" -- The statement you requested cannot be retrieved right now.

We apologize for the incovenience. Please try again later.

If you'd like to speak with one of our Customer Service representatives please call 1-877-493-9207.

Unfortunately the "contact us" form did not like this message. I got another error message:

We're sorry. The text you entered may contain language deemed inappropriate for use on macys.com. Please try again.

I tried deleting the punctuation. I tried deleting the numbers. I tried sending the message from a different macys.com "contact us" form. For some reason this message is inappropriate.

Finally I called the number in the message. I entered the account number. I entered the last four digits of the number that's not supposed to be used for identification purposes. I navigated the Interactive Voice Response tree -- "other options" -- "agent". After waiting several minutes during which they told me there were high call volumes, that later in the week was better and that I should use the website, the phone rang a couple of times then cut off.

I called the number again, navigated the IVR again, and finally I talked to a customer service person. I told her about not being able to view my statement. She told me she would have to transfer my call to another agent. Finally the new agent told me there was a problem with the statements and they won't be ready until tomorrow, or maybe Thursday. I also told her about the problem reporting the original error using their website "contact us" form. She apologized and told me she was making a record of my complaint.

The last time I checked, it was cheaper for a company to handle complaints using automated systems and electronic reports. Perhaps Macy's thinks if it redefines complaints as "language deemed inappropriate" it won't have to deal with them at all. Maybe that's part of the thinking that made them decide their standard credit card rate should be 25%. And that's why I closed my account. Now if I could just get my statement and pay the darn thing off.

CapitalOne Finance Charge Overlimit Fee Generator

If you are a CapitalOne credit card user there is a trick they use that you should know about. Unlike many other credit card companies who apply their finance charge immediately after your payment is applied, they save the finance charge until the day of the next statement. If the user spends up to his credit limit during the month, the finance charge is then guaranteed to generate an overlimit charge. Here is an example:

My credit limit is $5000.

On December 28 my balance is $4995.

On January 15 I make a payment of $78, balance = $4917, available credit = $83.

On January 24 I check my available credit and make a purchase of $61, balance = $4978, available credit = $22.

On January 27 CapitalOne charges me finance charges of $29, balance = $5007, plus an overlimit fee of $39.

On February 15 CapitalOne will get my payment, at which time my account will have been overlimit by $7 for 19 days so that $39 fee works out to an annual percentage rate of over ten thousand percent.

This kind of practice will likely become more widespread as some of the other shady practices of credit card companies have been eliminated by recently enacted legislation.

Toward Blockbuster Online Rental Queue Perfection

Those who have used Blockbuster Online on a regular basis are familiar with the various Availability values:

Available: Title is currently in stock, and we anticipate that it will be available for shipment when requested.

Unavailable: We don't currently have any copies of this title in stock.

Unknown: Motion picture was released theatrically and the studios have not yet announced a DVD release date.
Coming Soon: Title is either on order or is not currently available for rent. Please check the Release Date on the product detail page for title specific information.

Short Wait: Title currently has a few more requests than copies available for shipment. We anticipate that the title will ship within the next 2 weeks.

Long Wait: Title currently has a high number of requests compared to the number of copies available for shipment. It may take 2-4 weeks before we can ship you the title.
Very Long Wait: Title either has a limited number of copies or an unusually high number of requests. It may take 6 weeks or longer before we are able to ship you the title.

This is fine as far as it goes, but if you're like me you'd like a little more specific information. I have a suggestion. It's not an original idea, but is based partly on the system used by my local library and uses information Blockbuster already has. I think it would give welcome new information to users and give them a better feeling about how Blockbuster is treating them:

I'm on the 3-at-a-time plan. This means potentially I could have 3 simultaneous requests for new titles from my queue. Any item in the top 3 in my queue with one of the "wait" statuses should have a special status that's just for me and that particular item. As soon as an item enters the top 3 it should go into a specific queue for that title. For an item in the top 3, I could click on the Availability of that item to get the special status. The special status would tell me where my item is in the special queue, how many copies of that title exist, how long other people have been waiting and an estimate of when my item will get to the head of the queue. If my item is not at the head of the queue, Blockbuster should go ahead and send me an available item while I'm waiting. If I take the item out of the top 3 then put it back in I would get a new place in line.

For example, in my queue I would see:

[ 1] The IT Crowd: The Complete First Series (2006) TVY7 DVD Very Long Wait

If I clicked on the status (Very Long Wait) I would see:

165 are before you for: The IT Crowd: The Complete First Series (2006).

Blockbuster has 22 copies to satisfy the request(s).

This item has been waiting at the top of your queue since 1/15/2010

Total waiting 342; next request has been waiting since: 12/17/2009

By telling me my place in line, even if I am far down on the list, at least I have the impression that I am being treated fairly.

Knowing the number of copies that Blockbuster has gives me more information and adds to my perception of fairness.

Telling me how long my item has been counted as waiting lets me compare my wait time to others who are waiting for the same title. This date would be when my item entered the top 3 (or number of titles I have out at a time).

Knowing the total size of the queue shows me that others are behind me in line and again adds to my perception of fairness.

Telling me when the next person in line started waiting allows me to anticipate when I will get the title without explicitly making me a promise. In the example, the next person in line has been waiting since 12/17/2009. I have been waiting since 1/15/2010. If today is 2/3/2010 I may calculate that it has taken 7 weeks to get to the front of the line and I can anticipate getting to the front on 3/5/2010. I have not been promised that I will get this title on 3/5/2010 but at least I have some idea of when I may get it.

So, Blockbuster, now it's up to you. Make it so.