Tag: Technology

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Review: PCT 4 port Coax Amplifier

I was having problems with my EyeTV recording digital channels and finally decided to give an amplifier a try. The EyeTV showed I had a signal strength of 20% which seemed low according to all the forums I read. After a bit of research I ended up with the PCT 4 Port amplifier.

It was fairly inexpensive from Amazon, but based on the reviews, I had high hopes for the little box. My only hesitation in getting any amplifier is that a cable tech had told me years ago that an amplifier put inline before my cable modem could cause problems. I received the amplifier about a week and a half ago and quickly plugged it in. EyeTV reported I had a signal strength of between 30 and 32%! That is about a 50% increase in signal strength; I had hoped for more, but that was a decent increase. So far, I have not had one recording that has been blocky and the EyeTV has been working quite well.

Pros

  • Inexpensive (a quality passive splitter costs about the same amount)
  • Easy to install
  • Excellent performance
  • Doesn’t seem to have affected my cable modem performance

Cons

  • I had to supply my own coax cable to connect the power supply to the amplifier; this would have been a problem, but I bought a few cheap coax cables recently

Overall

If you have to split a coax signal, I’d definitely recommend one of these. If you don’t have to split a coax signal and are having problems, this box is definitely worth a shot. However, as someone pointed out in a comment in another post, terminate all the ports that aren’t in use. In my case, all 4 ports are in use, so I didn’t have to terminate any ports.

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Acquiring a GPS signal

Lately, I’ve come to realize that certain GPS units (including the Garmin Forerunner 305 and the i-Got-U 120) really only acquire the initial GPS fix when the devices are stationary. This can be a problem if I walk out the door and want to start tracking. Despite giving the units ample time to acquire a signal, they just never get one. Both units, I believe, use the SIRFStar III chipset. Is this issue inherent in this low power chipset or does it happen in all GPS units?

I’ve seen this behavior in USB GPS sticks as well that I think use the same chipset. Does anyone know if there is a way to make these units acquire the initial signal while moving? Once they get the signal, these units all work fine moving.

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HD vs SD pictures

I’ve been using the EyeTV for recording and watching most of my TV in the last few weeks. This has given me the luxury of watching shows in HD and I just realized that I’m now spoiled.

After a bit of fighting with the EyeTV where the signal strength and signal quality aren’t great and missing shows, I had to revert back to the TiVo to watch some shows.

EyeTV.jpg

We started watching a show and the quality difference is quite amazing. I’m hopeful that I can solve my EyeTV problems pretty soon with a signal amplifier. I’ve been hesitant to get an amplifier and place it between the incoming cable and my cable modem (my cable modem is at the same place as my TV and EyeTV; I have to split the line to handle all the devices) as a cable guy several years ago warned me that my Internet connection could be degraded by an amplifier. This, however, may have been because of the particular amplifier and wiring in my house (I have RG59 in most of my house and an old amplifier in the garage).

Luckily, the cable connection to all my equipment is basically a straight connection from the outside with one splitter that was installed by the cable company. So, I’ll get an amplifier and give that a try.

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Review: Harmony 880 Remote

Never goto Costco when you’re hungry. The other day I went to Costco to pick something up and walked out with a Logitech Harmony 880 remote. I had a Harmony 520 remote before and wasn’t all that impressed with it, but it has been a few years, so I decided to give it another try. With my new media center and TV, I now have 4 remotes to deal with everything, so life is much more complicated. Prior to my new TV and media center, my TiVo remote controlled the TV and TiVo, so I wasn’t used to multiple remotes.

When I first started configuring the remote, I saw the awful desktop software that hadn’t really improved since the 520 I had before. After a lot of work, I managed to get the “Devices” configured and things seemed to work. Where I really got confused was the activities; I just wanted to replace multiple remotes with one and switch between them. After more beating my head against the computer, I finally grasped the “activities”. For me, the activities are pretty simple, Watch TV, Watch EyeTV, Watch TiVo. I wanted to use the TV volume and have the rest of the controls work for the TiVo or EyeTV. In my first full day of testing, I can say that everything is almost working, but I’ve had to tweak the settings a half dozen times.

Time will tell if this will work out for me and be a true replacement for the jumble of remotes. After I’m satisfied with it, the next test will be to see if my wife will accept the remote. She’s very reluctant to change and I still haven’t had her “run” the EyeTV.

Pros

  • Great physical feel; reminds me of the TiVo remote.
  • Handles multiple devices.
  • Nice color screen.
  • Rechargable battery.
  • Pretty much can be configured to work with any device.

Cons

  • Desktop software is horrendous to use. It tries to walk you through everything which makes it cumbersome. Furthermore, it is some type of web app and really only a shell.
  • I’m not quite used to the keys; they don’t quite map to my remotes so I have to use the “soft keys”.
  • Tweaking controls takes time. For instance, each time I hit one key for the EyeTV, it sent the command twice. I had to walk through the help to fix it.
  • Concept of activities is hard for me to grasp.

Overall impression

The jury is still out; since I bought it from Costco and it isn’t a TV/MP3 player, etc. I can return it when I’m done evaluating it and it doesn’t have to be within 90 days. I’m going to keep working with it and see if I can work through the quirks as it is highly configurable.

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Analog vs. Digital Multi Meter

I’ve had a few multi meters in my life; my father bought me an analog one that I have no idea where it ended up. A few years back, I replaced it with a smaller one that was also analog. Everything that I’ve read indicated that analog meters were faster than digital meters as the needle jumps quickly to the value. This past week when I was assembling a cable for the MacBook Pro, I had to set the voltage to the 150 V DC range as the lower range went from 0-15 V DC. The MacBook Pro uses 16.5-19.5 V DC. The problem is that it’s really hard to tell if the voltage is 16.5 or 19.5 when the full range is 150; the difference amounts to 2% of the scale.

I went to Fry’s (the store I goto when I know what I want and don’t expect to return anything) and picked up the cheapest digital multi meter I could fine; it cost $10. As I don’t use a meter all that often, this would be more than adequate. Here’s a case where the digital meter performs much better than an analog meter; you can tell the difference quite quickly. Am I convert to digital meters? We’ll see.

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Better battery cable

The other day I wrote about the cable I assembled to connect the XPAL Power to MacBook Pro. Well, it was ugly and had far too much room for failure. I decided to try again, but this time a cleaner route. I picked up a 5.5 mm OD/2.1 mm ID DC power jack at Radio Shack (Fry’s didn’t have any), connected up a MagSafe cable (one was given to me from a broken power adapter), and now I have a clean looking cable with very little room for issues. While this required sacrificing a power adapter, this is definitely the better way to go. This time I was sure that I didn’t mess anything up as my searching turned up an article on connecting a MacBook to an airline/car adapter.

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XPAL Power to MacBook Pro

I picked up an XPAL Power XP18000 from Woot.com to use when I travel which seems a bit more frequent lately. I knew that they couldn’t provide a tip for the MacBook Pro as the MagSafe connector is patented and doesn’t appear to have been licensed from Apple. They acknowledge this fact and have indicated that they’re working with Apple on it. Considering that the MagSafe connector has been out for about 3.5 years, I’m not holding my breath.

On my last trip I used a battery from BatteryGeek that I borrowed from work. The MagSafe connector is definitely not Apple quality, but it worked, so I thought that if they could hack together a cable, why couldn’t I?

I found some MagSafe cables off broken power adapters and will use those when I get them, but in the meantime, I wanted a solution. I read a lot of tips online and found one that said to use a circuit lighter adapter socket connected to the battery and then use a MagSafe airline adapter plugged into the socket. Well, I happened to already have the socket and the MagSafe airline adapter, so I was almost there. In a stroke of genius when I was trying to sleep, I remembered that I had a bunch of circuit boards in the garage slated to get trashed (by law, I have to dispose of them as hazardous waste which I haven’t gotten around to doing, so they sit in a metal bucket). Some of the circuit boards had power connectors on it. I took a power connector off one of the boards, soldered it to the circuit lighter adapter and presto, I had a connector. A little electrical tape and it looks pretty good. There is a bunch of extra cable and a few twists and turns, but it works. Once I get the MagSafe cables, I’m going to hop down to Fry’s (the store that has what I need, but I dread having to go there), get some connectors and give it another try.

While I hope that XPAL Power manages to get a licensed MagSafe tip, I have a solution in the meantime. My next trip is in about 1.5 weeks and I’ll give it a try.

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Love/Hate Relationship with Google

I use Google everyday for searching and switched my personal domain to Gmail using Google Apps for your Domain over to Google several years ago. Things work smoothly and are worth every penny I pay for it (it’s free). Recently we started using Google Apps Premier ($50/user/year) for one of our domains at work and it works reasonable well. However, we just tried to purchase 10 additional accounts last week and a week later, they still haven’t processed the order nor returned any of my several email messages to know what is the status. Was the problem a credit card problem? Did the order not go through? I have no idea and am not really sure what to do.

Anyone have any ideas how to get a human at Google to figure out why they don’t want to take my company’s $500 for additional accounts? Is it time to consider another provider? Our last email provider was awful and then we moved to doing our own email which works, but at some point in the future, I’d like to stop having to maintain servers.

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Review: Sprint MiFi 2200

41UYWRBTteL._SL160_.jpgA few months ago, I got a Sprint MiFi 2200 to test and use for work. When I first saw this device at CTIA Wireless back in April, my jaw just dropped because of the size and utility of the device. In case you don’t know what it is, it is a mobile WiFi hotspot.

For a number of years, I’ve written drivers/applications for various USB modems. While USB modems do have many uses, the lack of drivers drew me to the MiFi. The quality of drivers/applications ranges from good (the ones that are built into the OS are best) to not so good, so by eliminating the drivers, my main complaint about modems goes away. I also really like the ability to connect more than one device to it when I’m in a situation with co-workers without a broadband connection. In addition, having the modem separate from the computer lets you put the modem next to a window and you can sit somewhere else in say a hotel room. This is huge when you have trouble getting a signal; you no longer have to have sit next to the window.

Really my only complaint about the device is battery life; due to the small size, the battery doesn’t last as long as the battery on my Mac.

Pros

  • Small size
  • No drivers required
  • Can share to 5 devices
  • Fast connection for a wireless card
  • Sprint has a fairly large footprint with good coverage

Cons

  • Poor battery life
  • 5 GB/month data cap (may not be an issue for the casual user)
  • For a consumer, the monthly cost could be a barrier.

Overall, if you have a need for mobile broadband, I don’t think that you can go wrong with the MiFi.

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Mac Mini vs 1080p

Yesterday when I was playing back an HD show on the EyeTV, I heard the fan running like mad. The Mac Mini is a 1.66 GHz Core Duo Mac Mini. I thought that the problem was the processor being a Core Duo and not a Core 2 Duo machine, but then realized that the machine has integrated Intel graphics while the latest Mac Minis have separate NVIDIA graphics. My suspicion is that the new machines won’t have to work so hard to play HD video full screen.