Revival and a new path

I have decided upon something. I want to revisit and reimagine an old series I photographed, Still. I never truely finished it. The series of images was based off the relatively quiet release of the Still, the second part of All That Could Have Been. Each song evokes an emotional response and I want to recapture that. I have also decided to try an experiment. I have the supplies to make digital negatives. But I want to see what happens when I print straight images on the clear sheets. I have an idea of what I want to happen and then the second part is up in the air. I hope what I am imagining is what occurs. 

Take a sad song and make it better..

Wow. It has been well over a year since my last post. A lot of things have happened in that year. For one I got married to my best friend and my soul mate , Miranda. Then roughly seven months after our amazing day I come home to find out that I am going to be a daddy. It changes everything in my life. I begin thinking about names. Which then makes me think of where I got my names from. Which then leads me to think of what are my ten favorite songs. (My future son's name comes from one.) So here we go! 

1. The Beatles- Hey Jude
2. The Beatles- Let It Be
3. Nine Inch Nails- We're In This Together
4. Senses Fail- Calling All Cars
5. Nirvana- You Know You're Right
6. Puddle Of Judd- Blurry
7. Nine Inch Nails- Something I Can Never Have
8. Nine Inch Nails- The Day The World Went Away
9. The Beatles- I Want You (She's So Heavy)
10. Senses Fail- Everyday Is A Struggle

So there it is. It is a varied list that has helped me through some hard times in my life. And it has also inspired me for the future (Jude Ainsley Thissen). Let me know what you think.

Why yes, my tablet can do this.

First off, Happy New Year! Every new year, we all make a resolution. I made one last year, and I think that I lived up to it. This year, I’m making another one: I want to be more in control of my digital life. And it is off to a good start. Let me explain.

My wonderful fiancé gifted me a 32” HDTV and paired it with a Roku streaming player. My mother joined in and gifted me an antennae so I can watch the local OTA [Over The Air] channels in HD. Well, with the new television and Roku in my room, it added two remotes. Which, in my opinion, sucks majorly. And they are both small, and get lost easily. So here is my solution:

Yes. My trusty Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus. It is my best tech purchase of the past year or two. It is the perfect size for at 7 inches, and I love the Android interface over iOS. But the best feature that I was unaware of when I bought it: the IR blaster; coupled with Smart Remote by Peel. This program lets me control my TV, A/V system, Blu-Ray Player, among others. [Here is some more info: http://www.samsung.com/us/article/smart-remote-discover-tap-watch] Being the smart person my fiance is, she bought me a Vizio television. High quality, lower price. Saweet. But Vizio appears in the list for supported televisions in the Smart Remote App.

		Super Tablet! VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

So there are a few photos of what I have set up with my tablet. Here are the photo descriptions:

1-My Tablet home screen. I have the Roku, Xbox Smart Glass, and Smart Remote shortcuts at the top.

2-The available channels listing in the Roku app.

3-The Smart Remote app looking at the devices/inputs drop down.

4-Xbox Smart Glass isn’t being very smart.

5-The main window of the Smart View app that shows me what is available to watch with my antennae.

6-The remote section of the Roku app.

7-The Smart Remote app looking at the volume/channel panel open.

8-The currently installed channels on my Roku.

So as you can see, I can control my television and Roku with my tablet. The Smart Remote app lets me power on/off my television, switch inputs to where my Roku resides, change channels, pick shows by selection them, change the volume, and more. Then when I switch to my Roku, I switch to the Roku app. I use this to select what I want to watch, and it obeys! Like magic! This 1-2 punch gives me all the control I need in a way better remote than the small plastic ones that were provided. The best part about it is that when I add the HTPC to the mix, I can use my Unified Remote app to control the HTPC. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus is the best universal remote that anyone nerd can ask for.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President.

Congrats to President Obama on winning the election and moving us forward for another four years. I think we are heading in the right direction. And this is my first, last, and only political post of this election season. I have a few issues with our election process though, and some of those shone through this particularly nasty campaign. Here is what I want the political system to change and how the season should go in my eyes.

1. Political Ads.

I was happy that I didn’t have cable or satellite channels in my household this year. It lessened the blow and bombardment of all the political ads. But then Hulu+ decided to let campaigns buy ad space and it was everywhere. And the ads are all attacks; based on fact and fiction. Here is what I want: I want facts and plans. The election is over, and I still don’t know what the candidate’s plans for the country were. All I know that jobs will be created and blah blah blah. I would let each candidate have an hour long spot on national television EARLY in the campaign, and again with a few weeks left. In this hour long special, they would be given the chance to outline their plans for our country. No attacks, no questions [unless the candidate allowed them], in an auditorium with a projection setup so they can given visuals to their plans. It would help inform the voters. In the second one, they would be given the same chance, this one is to amend any plans to fit the changing world politics in the time in between. I want to be informed, and I feel that as part of our right to vote, we all should be informed to choose the BEST candidate for our country.

2. Hate.

I don’t understand what it is about election time, but the hate comes out from everyone. People from different political parties are dropping hate on the other and it isn’t good. Candidates attack each other based on past votes in Congress and for being inexperienced and such. First off, we are all inexperienced at one point. We don’t all just start out with 10 years experience of being in office. Secondly, we all vote one of two ways on any given issue. Congress Member A votes for the Health Care Reform, AKA “Obamacare”. Congress Member B votes to oppose the reform. So when election time comes, the new candidate for Congress attacks the incumbent member for his/her decision. And to me, it is just spewing hate. To add to it, you try to talk to friends/co workers/family about it, and people end up in arguments. Social Media spews even more hate. I know that everyone has their opinions, and is entitled to their opinion. But there is no reason to attack another person’s opinion on said matter. Not everyone will be happy with the end result. But there are couple things we can all agree upon: We all want a better country to live in; we all know that it will get worse before it gets better; and that there is a reason that certain people are voted in to lead us.

3. Money.

I agree with Brian Williams. He stated that over 1 million political ads were aired this season. He went on to state that he wonders what medical or science breakthrough could have occurred with that money. I know that running a campaign requires full coffers. I also know that a majority of it is donated from supporters. I want to know how much money is used on political ads throughout a given season. That could be used elsewhere to help our country. Enough said.

4. “Debates”.

I don’t think that they are helpful in any way. Here is my issue with them. It just gives the candidates a nationally televised stage to attack the other. It gets heated and isn’t productive to their campaigns or to the American people. It is a hate spewing stage. Changing the debates into a question and answer format would be better. And the questions will come from the citizens from the host city. I don’t want pre-planned questions from the party officials. They can be submitted before and read to the candidates by the moderator. This can give the citizens the chance who can’t make it to the forum the chance to ask their questions and/or air their grievances.

5. History.

The call for change every election is based upon the incumbent president’s four years in office. But that shouldn’t be the case. The president’s performance should be based on where we were in the years before their term. People seem to forget about the state of things before their 4 years of running our great nation. And don’t just base it on gas prices either, people. Gas prices have steadily risen since gas stations and gas companies were started. The cost of living has risen. So these things shouldn’t be the basis of this. We should be informed on unemployment, job creation, national debt, taxes, and other factors that affect every person in this nation.

I could go on, but this is my 5 point list of politics. We could change the way we look at politics. And in this, we need to change the way we vote. Our voting system needs to be modernized. Polls in Ohio ran out of paper ballots. Seriously? We have needed to modernize the system since the “Hanging Chad” incident in Florida. We have the technology to do so. Gas stations swipe our driver’s license or state id card if we want to buy cigarettes or beer. Why can’t we implement this at the polls? Swipe the ID, your info pops up on the screen and we are given our booth to cast our vote. In the booth, instead of the old book with the punch tool, we see a touch screen. He we have photos of the candidates along with their names, party, years in office, and other info. The placement should be that the photos are on polar opposites of the screen. We touch the candidate’s photo to cast our vote. The polar placement makes it impossible to accidently touch the other candidate’s photo. Data is easily encrypted and the votes could be automatically updated to a county server, which then uploads them to a statewide server set in the capital when the polls close. This would give us a faster and much more accurate count. Let’s move ourselves into the future with technology that we already have in our lives. It might be a little expensive to implement, but it help prevent fiascos like the one of running out of paper.

This ends my one and only political post and talk from this election season.

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

So here is the plan. I am going to be building a whole new system for the home server. This system is going to be utilizing an AMD A6 Quad-Core APU. This is a 2.6 GHz chip with integrated graphics. The integrated graphics will be needed for the initial setup, but then will run headless. I will be pairing this with either 4GB or 8GB of DDR3 RAM. I plan on starting out with a 32GB SSD for the Ubuntu OS. A SSD is lower power, and lasts longer than a mechanical drive. The storage will be handled with two 2TB drives to start out with; I will have the option to add another 3 large capacity drives. One will be dedicated to tv shows, and another to movies. Music isn’t really a concern with services like Spotify and Pandora. Maybe a small portion will allow us to stream music if there is a large enough base to be worth the trouble of ripping CDs. All of this will be housed inside a case, and currently the front runner is the Rosewill R5 Mid-Tower case. This case holds 6 hard drives, with the capacity for 10 fans. I like the option of having fans that blow air directly over the hard drives. This will keep the hard drives cool under pressure. To keep the CPU cool, I am looking into the Cooler Master Hyper 212 [+ or EVO]. $30, high performance. Sold.

On the software side, Ubuntu 12 is the OS of choice. In here, Plex will be running 24/7. Why Plex? The Media Server side is compatible with Ubuntu. And the client software can be installed and stream media on Windows, OS X, Linux, Android, iOS, Windows Phone, and the Roku player. That covers everything in my planned future house. Sold. For the networking, I am going to be setting up a media network. I believe that the internet is coming with us, and I want to build off this. The main can be used for guests, and general browsing. I want to use a separate router, switches, and boat loads of cables to set it up. I want to dedicate this for the media server to minimize usage, and to maximize the bandwidth available for streaming. Plan is set.

I want to test out the combo of Ubuntu and Plex on a old system to work out all the bugs, and to learn about the setup and performance. This will make the final build and setup easy as ever.

Crashplan

Crashplan is answer #2!!!

PLEX!

PLEX IS THE ANSWER!