I recently spotted the Hauppauge 2250 on Newegg.com and decided that it was time that I upgrade my media center with a tuner that was Clear QAM capable. If your unfamiliar with Clear QAM it is essentially unencrypted HD channels that are sent to every cable subscriber. If you have a TV with a QAM tuner (Alot of Sony’s do) then you can browse these channels without the use of a set-top box and the HD is just as beautiful. 

I picked up one of these tuners and started installing on my HP a1720n when I realized that I’d have to remove my graphics card in order to have a spot for it as the PC only comes equiped with one PCI Express slot. I’m alright with that though, I don’t have a problem using the onboard video or an older PCI based video card. So I remove the PCI Express video card,  put in the tuner card, and power the machine up…..Nothing….no video….what follows is an evening of swearing, moving and removing cards, and rebooting about 50 times!

As it turns out the motherboard of my media center doesn’t allow anything other than a graphics card in the PCI Express slot. It actually goes as far as deactivating the onboard and PCI based video options in the BIOS when you put anything in that slot. UGH…

My next thought is that I can either upgrade my motherboard or upgrade machines. I poked around online and decide that a QUAD core upgrade wouldn’t be a bad thing. So I ordered up a Quad Core Dell w/ 6GB of RAM from bestbuy.com and I went in and pick it up last night.

Within 3 hours of playing with this new machine I decided I didn’t like it and that it was going back for a few reasons:

• Seemed to run slower than my Core 2 Duo
• Video seemed laggy
• Sounded like a lawn mower or weed-whacker as things spun up and down

I love my toys! Recently I have gotten a few new toys. Here is a quick rundown.

• iPhone 3g – LOVE IT …only wish battery life was longer so I could use apps all day long.
• LG Dare – SUCKED….got this as a line for OWL Computing and instead I cancelled the line with Verizon and went with ATT and a second iPhone instead.
• Garmin nuvi® 200 Portable GPS Navigator which I got free from http://www.mygpsoffer.com/ this device has an amazing user interface.
• EEEPC 2G – Just picked this one up. Review to come…
• Flip Mino – Amazing little 640×480 video camera that records on hour at a time on solid state flash memory. Even has a nice little built in program that allows you to do direct uploads to youtube and such.

I have tried a number of different solutions for getting my iTunes library on my remote machine(s). Within my local network iTunes takes just a few seconds using Zeroconf / Bonjour technology to find my library and then a few more seconds to load the XML file containing the definitions my 60GB + of music. Until now the easiest and most reliable method I have found is to run Hamachi on my main mac as well as on my laptop(s). Hamachi if you aren’t familiar simply creates adhoc vpn networks. This works pretty well and it can be used for a number of things. One of which is allowing my iTunes clients to see each other and share libraries. However….since OSX 10.5 Leopard Hamachi had (has) been having issues. Sucking up all kinds of memory/crashing, etc…. That led me to my discovery today. I was actually working to find a way to push dns-sd commands to my .mac account using back to my mac. While doing some googling I ran into this: Reach local iTunes library over the net which basically outlines nearly exact what I was trying to do.  Now I have to execute 2 simple commands which I’ve saved and then enter my password and within 15-20 secs it loads up my big XML file and almost instantly I have all of my music at my finger tips…On my connection here where I am currently working I can switch songs and it takes less than 1 second. I was expecting some additional lag when running the data through an SSH pipe. If you have any questions or don’t understand a word of what you just read you can either ask questions in the comments or move along to the next post Also…if anyone has any ideas on how I can get that XML file to cache and then update every few days or when I manually delete it that would be cool. I have been thinking that with my 3G card in my carputer this may be a viable solution for always having the latest music on my home machine.

One of the downsides to having a more complex home network is that when you have multiple PC’s all hitting the web for various reasons and suddenly things slow down it can be hard to troubleshoot. Sometimes a slowdown can simply mean that there is excessive traffic on the network. Figuring out how much internet I/O is being utilized can be achieved in OSX with a few simple steps.

First make sure you have an SNMP router and that it is enabled. (Airport Extreme is enabled by default for local access)

Next download iEyeNet from MacUpdate (link)

Lastly add any number of interface widgets to your dashboard. I have added 3 important interfaces from my Airport Extreme . Gec0-Wired Ath0-Wireless and Vlan1-Internet Traffic

Currently the carputer sits below the head unit…Right now I am working on locating cables to extend my factory head unit so that I can relocate that under a seat or something. I have steering wheel controls and a heads up display so I really have no need for it. Once this is complete I will be placing the carputer screen in front of it.

In other news I’ve got a great way of controlling my music now. More on that in a later video post detailing the whole system.

Carputer hardware installed and functional! I’m working on installing software and the additional peripherals now and then it is demo time!

Had an issue with some css, div’s and tables tonight so Adrian and I went up to Starbucks and did some reverse pair programming. Generally pair programming involves one computer for 2 dudes. We had Adrian rocking on both Macbook Pro’s while I was on my Macbook Air.

I’m going to try to pick up a mac mini new or used before the weekend so I can wrap this project up. I got a replacement macpac very promptly from the good people over at mp3car.com since my leadwire for the ignition switch seemed to fall right out of the connector.

I guess the problem with dealing with used/old technology is that you never really know the cause of failure. My mac mini seems to have taken a puke for the moment and I’m not sure if it was me overloading it with power, powering it on and off too many times in a row, or the hardware just plain failed because it is 4 years old now and sometimes shit breaks. Anyways…I am a bit frustrated and looking at used Mini’s as well as alternatives to the mini…::SIGH:: 

Last night I went up to best buy and with the remainder of my HD-DVD giftcard and some cash I picked up an XBox Arcade for our bedroom so that we can watch TV in there instead of having to go downstairs to the bigscreen or into my office every time we want to watch our recorded television. I also picked up a copy of GTA4 and without even realizing it I got myself another $50 gift card back for buying a system and the game at the same time.

As sweet as the short bit of gameplay I got in last night on GTA4 I was a bit frustrated because my xbox locked up 2 times. I’ve read this has been a problem for others with GTA4 so I hope there is a resolution soon.

In other news 3 of my carputer parts are out for delivery on UPS.com today! Besides figuring out how I want the Lilliput LCD mounted this should be everything I need for the install. I may attempt to start this tonight or at least lay things out exactly where I want them in the car.