I never managed to crank out another entry last night. Sorry.
As cool as the DVR is, there have been a few annoyances. For instance, my universal remote refuses to learn the DVR-specific functions when I try to add them to the VCR buttons in the Cable device mode. I had to actually clear out the VCR commands in VCR mode (since I don’t really use my VCR anymore anyway), and put them in there. It’s annoying that I can’t have the complete functionality of the DVR remote in one mode.
The other annoyance is the fact that in 24 hours it still hasn’t downloaded the program guide. It doesn’t even have the channel line-up: everything just shows up as “To Be Announced.”
This is especially annoying because without the programming guide I can’t program it to record anything.
I called the cable company and they said there was a signal outage that had just been resolved and that it would just be a while longer before the information started coming in.
That was around seven hours ago, so I’m thinking there’s something else going on.
Still, I’m not going to bother calling again until Monday. I don’t really need to record anything this weekend, and that gives it plenty of time to just miraculously start working, as often seems to happen for me with problems like this.
Not much is new or exciting today.
I got up, went for a walk, came back, called the cable company, took a shower, and then headed in to work for a departmental training that ran longer than it was supposed to and which consisted of information about networks and telephone signaling that was way beyond my skillset, so I probably absorbed very little from it.
After that I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things, came home, ate, and now here I am writing this…after dealing with yet another issue with my wireless network.
Apparently whenever other people get home from work or whatever and turn their routers on my computers drop the existing connection, which is strong, and for which they have the correct security information to log onto, in favor of trying in vain to connect to the much weaker signal for the network for which they don’t have the correct security information to log onto.
I have to say that it’s pretty damned irritating, but from what I’ve been able to find there doesn’t appear to be any way to fix it.
It would help if there were some sort of setting to tell my computers not to try to connect to any other network, but I haven’t been able to find one.
One thing that I did to try to make resolving future issues a little easier, though, is re-enable broadcast of my SSID.
The SSID is the name of my network. If the SSID is being broadcast anyone with a wireless connection can see that there is a network named “X” broadcasting within range. Whether or not said person can connect to “X” is another issue entirely, but he or she can at least see that it exists and is available.
To add to the illusion of security, since it really doesn’t do anything to actually make your network more secure, you can choose not to broadcast your SSID. Presumably that would prevent anyone who doesn’t know that it’s there from finding the network.
As I said, this doesn’t really do much to add security (and I’m not familiar enough with network security, or insecurity, to explain why), and really, it’s been presenting a bit of a problem for me.
My computers are set up to know that my network exists, and because they know to look for it, they can find it and connect. However, because the SSID isn’t broadcast, if my connection drops and doesn’t automatically reconnect, I can’t easily tell my computers to reconnect to it manually because it’s not in the list of available networks.
Presumably, since it’s the only network listed in the “Preferred Networks” setting, it should automatically try to connect to my network when I tell Windows to repair the connection.
However, since I’m not seeing my network listed, and since it can’t seem to connect to it even when I have the router’s antenna actually touching my wireless adapter, it seems that it’s trying to connect to one of the other networks that is listed as being available.
By choosing to broadcast the SSID again my network shows up in the list of available networks so I can more easily go in and manually tell my computer to connect to it.
We’ll see if that actually makes things easier.
Of course, that’s assuming that the dropping of the connection is actually tied to someone else turning on a router. It’s possible that something else (a cordless phone, a microwave, etc.) is interfering with the signal, but the drops always happen at the same time that a different network appears in the list of available networks, and the signal strength indicator always shows that my network has a full signal.
So like I said, we’ll see.
Back to the topic of my DVR, it seems that, by using the Firewire connection it may be possible to copy recorded programs over to my computer.
This is almost entirely dependent, though, on whether or not the show that’s been recorded has been copy-protected. It seems that some are and some aren’t, and the ones that are probably can’t be copied over. In the future, broadcasters may make software available for the DVR that would allow the transfer of copy-protected content, but that’s still up in the air.
The other issue is the conflicting information I’ve read about the DVR itself. The DVR actually has several output ports along with Firewire, including an Ethernet port and a USB port. According to everything I’ve read the Ethernet and USB do not work, period. They may in the future, but for right now they are entirely non-functional.
The Firewire port definitely works for connecting to HDTVs that have Firewire input, and, though the information is conflicting, it probably works for connecting to a computer.
As I said, the information is conflicting, but most reports seem to indicate that it does work and that the only caveat involves the aforementioned copy-protection issue.
You may wonder why it’s so important to me to be able to transfer recorded content over to my computer.
Well, one reason I would want to be able to is simply that I should be able to. There’s no legitimate reason to prevent people from one hard drive to another. It’s the same technology; it should necessarily be compatible.
For another, it would allow me to maintain a library of content without having to clutter up the DVR’s hard drive, as I would be able to burn it off to DVD.
And finally it would give me the ability to record HD content, even though I wouldn’t be able to watch it in HD on my TV, and move it over to my computer where I would be able to watch it in HD. Sure, I could do that by running the S-Video or DVI connection over to my monitor, but this way I would be able to edit it, which would open up a bunch of possibilities, such as, for example, getting HD still captures of the various women I use as models for drawings. I’ve learned from downloading them off the Web that HD still captures make great source material.
So far I haven’t been able to test out the Firewire thing, as, for one thing, I can’t really access any of the DVR features (other than pausing live TV) because it hasn’t downloaded the program guide, which you actually need to access any recorded content.
For another, while my computer two ports, I don’t have a Firewire cable as I’ve never picked up any Firewire devices.
Maybe I’ll pick one up next week after I’ve gotten program guide thing straightened out. I’m sure that, as with most things in my life, I’ll keep you posted on my progress on that score.
A while back I came up with an idea for a non-fiction book.
Because I pretty much never do, I didn’t bother writing it down, but normally that wouldn’t be an issue anyway, as I can usually rely on my memory.
The book was something that would require significant research, so about a week after I’d come up with the idea I decided to set some time aside to start doing some preliminary research. I ran into a problem: for the life of me I couldn’t remember what the book was going to be about.
Over the past weekend, after letting it tumble around in my subconscious, I was able to recover the idea.
This time I wrote it down.
Today while I was in that training it occurred to me that the book is something that could, conceivably, have enough associated costs that I might want to consider applying for some kind of grant.
I’m going to have to think about this a little more, but the process of planning and writing a grant proposal, in addition to working on the book itself, could be a pretty involved (and involving) project, giving me some sort of useful purpose towards which I could apply my time for quite some time to come.
That’s assuming, of course, that I don’t just get bored (or lazy) and toss the idea.
I’m not going to get into what the book is about yet, as I am still tossing around some ideas for variations on the original concept.
However, at some point I may actually appeal to you, my loyal Threshold readers, for assistance.
Actually, it’s not so much my loyal readers, as I know who most of you are, but rather the random, unknown readers who stumble across the thing and may happen to have some information that I want.
Most of the people I know wouldn’t really be of much assistance for this, as they just wouldn’t be likely to have what I need.
Is this my subtle way of saying that everyone I know is useless to me? No, not at all. After all, if I were of a mind to say such a thing I think you all know I would just come out and say “You are all useless to me.”
Honestly, it’s just that this project would rely on people with a very specialized knowledge, something that, as mentioned, most of the people I know simply don’t have.
That’s certainly not a slam; after all, I don’t have it either, which is why I’m going to have to go out in search of it.
I think there’s an extremely good chance that I’ll find that the idea can’t keep my interest, and that it’s too much work, and end up just scrapping the whole thing.
Still, you never know, I guess, and I’m bound to surprise myself one of these decades…
In any case, with the exception of Monday’s belated celebration of my birthday and getting the DVR yesterday, this week has been pretty uneventful.
I did a little bit of drawing, but I didn’t manage to finish anything, and now, even though the sun remains pretty high in the sky, it’s getting close to “that time” for me.
I hope you all have a good weekend and I’ll see you back here on Monday.
2 comments:
Jon, in order to write a book you first have to understand what it is that makes you want to write. Telling a story of any kind can be boiled down to a simple need to let others know what you “see”. Take what is already in your head floating about, you need to take what you feel and envision and apply that to what you want others to feel and understand. Think of it as if your readers were blind men, you, as a writer must be their eyes. You have to give them details, paint a picture in their imagination. Then you capture their attention with your own creativity do not be afraid to write what YOU see. Use colorful characters ones who can force a reader to adore and admire them or hate and despise them (if you are a really good writer you could do all four with the same character). I have had problems in my own works trying to simply create these characters so I use the colorful characters in my own life as inspiration. In fact, not long ago I used you as a scribe in a story Casey are currently working together on. When Casey and I decided to start our latest story s few days ago, we also determined that the world we live in is not suitable to also be the world in which our characters reside. Since the story is entirely our vision we began construction on a world built in the image of what we thought suited the plot and the diverse personas of our various characters (who are more or less exaggerated visions of those we know and those we would like to know) as well as our own personas as storytellers. You work is a reflection of you. The main thing you need to remember is to be bold, to hell with how someone else writes or how a certain genre is normally done. Cause your readers to ask big questions like what if the prince stays a frog and the princess joins a band of gypsy dancers? What is the sheriff of Nottingham decides to steal from Robin for a change? What if Wendy doesn’t go with Peter pan what if she only views him as a lustful adolescent at her bedroom window? I can only speak for myself here but the stories I, as a reader enjoy the most are the ones that require me to imagine myself inside a character in the story. Something that pulls me in. Writing isn’t something you can truly learn, by that same token it is also not a talent a select few high-borns have from birth. No, it is something a writer simply has a need to do, that need is there in you otherwise you would have written your last blog. Take that need and discover why it is there. This world is filled with so many different styles of writers, you cannot possibly go wrong. In truth it doesn’t matter if everyone likes your story, because it WILL appeal to someone somewhere and those my friend are who you are you are reaching out too. A tale’s texture is something that a reader can only reach out and touch if a writer is willing to extend it to the readers themselves. So do not give up on writing your book, you can do it and I am confident it will be a good one.
I do not know if this is the kind of information, you were looking for but I thought I would give it a shot.
Normally to get a book grant (this is how a friend of mine did it ) you have to write out a very detailed plot line and take it to a book publisher. In my friend’s case it was his upcoming SPIDERMAN novel. He wrote out a description of the book he had in mind then he contacted MARVEL set up a meeting with them and his name was then put on a list to be considered. Three weeks later he got a call from the Marvel publishing office giving their okay to go on with the book. Two weeks after that a press release came out saying the book would in fact hit the shelves in August. If you give me a list of questions you have I can take it to some of my Editor and writer friends and get a few answers for you.
Actually, no, that wasn't the kind of information I was looking for, but thanks for sharing your thoughts anyway.
I was actually talking about specific information on the actual topic for the book, which would be non-fiction piece with elements of biography, historical analysis, and social commentary.
I'm not ready to reveal the topic at this point, so I was deliberately vague about it.
However, that's why I stated that most of my readers wouldn't be able to help me, as I would be looking for information from people who are knowledgeable on that particular topic, people who have lived through what I'm writing about and were actually "there."
As for the grant...I've found a few avenues that I'll investigate. It's not really essential, just something that I think could help me out a little.
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