Things Smackie Thinks You Need to Know...

Originally posted by sweetcell:
a thing sweetcell is fairly certain smackie will want to know

Please, who hasn't been in love with a stripper at one time or another. I want to know what you did with that love.

slightly disappointing news about the HTC Dream: same price as iPhone. despite its potentially better features and software, it'll be hard to catch up to the iPhone's first-mover advantage. a lower price would have helped. i'm not convinced that the pricing on T-Mobile's data packages is going to be that much better than AT&T's.

Originally posted by vansmack:
Please, who hasn't been in love with a stripper at one time or another. I want to know what you did with that love.

according to the article, she did quite a bit… persued her, had a relationship with her. i'm not sure my brain can handle the full details. might explode.

Originally posted by vansmack:

Originally posted by sweetcell:
a thing sweetcell is fairly certain smackie will want to know

Please, who hasn't been in love with a stripper at one time or another. I want to know what you did with that love.

but what is one of smackie's rules about strippers? stay away from the russians.

Originally posted by sweetcell:
slightly disappointing news about the HTC Dream: same price as iPhone. despite its potentially better features and software, it'll be hard to catch up to the iPhone's first-mover advantage. a lower price would have helped. i'm not convinced that the pricing on T-Mobile's data packages is going to be that much better than AT&T's.

I've had my HTC Touch Diamond for less than 24 hours but I'm already really impressed - without a doubt the best WinMo I've ever used. I decided to not be part of first release software of Android as I'm now down to just one phone. Tough to debug when it's your only means of communication.

I couldn't hold out for the HTC Touch HD, but I'm quite certain that will be the next phone for Smackette.

Casual readers,

I have clearly been derelict of my duties to update and inform on all that is important in the world today. There have been incredible developments in Pakistan that I just havenâ??t found time to write aboutâ?¦

Time I would normally have spent putting my thoughts together for lectures or publications that I share here has been spent on the upcoming election, but I will no longer be spending my spare time on the election. I will spend every waking moment on the election.

Starting next week, I have been asked to join the Obama campaign full time and will soon take a 6 week leave from my job to work in Ohio. I wonâ??t be posting here during that time, but I look forward to sharing a lot of my experiences when I return November 6. If you wish to contact me to see how you can help out or get my thoughts on something, you can send me an email vansmack@msn.com.

And Most importantly â?? vote on Nov 4. Itâ??s none of my business who you vote for, but please take the time to research the issues and make an informed decision about who youâ??d like to have lead this country for the next 4 years. Weâ??re never going to all agree on the solutions, but if we all take the time to understand the issues and compare each candidates policies, weâ??ll find a lot more unity than we think.

Go Angels!

Smackie

woah good luck.

what part of ohio?

thats awesome smackie!! congrats - should we expect to see you as sec of education when Barry wins?

This is half a step above spending 6 weeks of your life rallying the Hitler Youth Army. I'm so glad I live in a "swing" state and you idiots don't.

i live in the same state as you

Originally posted by god's shoeshine:
i live in the same state as you

Yeah, but since you're an Obama supporter, I'm sure you'll be distracted by the November 3rd kegger and too hung over to vote. Or alternately, write in "Colbert/Stewart 08."

being so close to hunting season, wont all of you mccain supporters be distracted as well

are most mccain supporters literate enough to check the right box?

They're intelligent enough not to vote for a guy whose entire experience in national politics consists of showing up for approximately 140 days of Senate service and 550+ days of campaigning for office.

right then, now that the mud has been flung, can we get back to focusing on how cool it is that smackie is actually doing something to move democracy forward instead of just talking about it, like we are here on this bboard?

hope you have a good time, smax, and let's hope that ohio goes blue! can't wait to hear of your tales from the front lines.

Originally posted by sweetcell:
can we get back to focusing on how cool it is that smackie is actually doing something to move democracy forward

Trying to elect an unqualified celebrity who will ruin our nation and the Democratic Party isn't going to move democracy forward. In fact, its the greatest abuse to democracy a society can take part in. No one should be proud of him.

I sometimes wonder whether Julian's period is in-sync with Hillary's.

Either way, have fun smackie!

Originally posted by Julian, certified WEBLEBRITY:

Originally posted by sweetcell:
can we get back to focusing on how cool it is that smackie is actually doing something to move democracy forward

Trying to elect an unqualified celebrity who will ruin our nation and the Democratic Party isn't going to move democracy forward. In fact, its the greatest abuse to democracy a society can take part in. No one should be proud of him.

Originally posted by Julian, certified WEBLEBRITY:
Trying to elect an unqualified celebrity who will ruin our nation and the Democratic Party isn't going to move democracy forward. In fact, its the greatest abuse to democracy a society can take part in. No one should be proud of him.

you mean palin? i think shes a girl, mr weblebrity

smackie–

so i'm looking into more home networking / media extender stuff, although i don't think i'm ready yet for the network-attached storage option that you've gone with

here's my basic setup:

in an upstairs den i have a desktop with vista home premium (windows media center-capable) and 19" and 22" widescreen monitors (the 22" will also be hooked up to an HD directv receiver) … i also just bought this d-link wireless-n/gigabit router to sit in that den

so in the living room downstairs i'll have my DLP and home theater system hooked up to a directv HD-DVR, and i'd like to be able to stream video/music/photos/etc to this system from my desktop upstairs … i haven't looked that much into the directv DVR capabilities, but it doesn't look like it will handle everything i need (specifically video)

i know you've recommmended the popcorn hour and xbox360 … my friend is giving me a really hard sell on PS3, says that using it as a media extender with a program like tversity is just as good as the xbox experience

it's going to come down for me to getting the most bang for my buck … it seems like basic media extenders like popcorn hour and others are in the $200-300 range, while i can get an xbox360 for $299 and a PS3 for $399 … while i'm not a hardcore gamer, i have ~20 old PS2 games and i tool around on PC games sometimes, i'd definitely make use of a gaming system … so i'd probably end up getting an xbox360 or ps3 over a dedicated media extender

one big question i have about xbox360 is its lack of wireless connectivity … i may end up going with a wired connection with my desktop anyway to better stream HD content, but i'm a bit put off that i would have to buy an $80 wireless adapter for the xbox … are there cheaper xbox wireless options? could i add a gigabit card to the xbox?

the main thing holding me back from the PS3 is price ($100 more than xbox), and concern that the media extender experience may not be as smooth as the xbox … do you or anyone else have any experience with using the PS3 as a media extender?

one thing that i do like about xbox v. ps3 is that you can play your own music in-game on the xbox, not so with ps3 … but you obviously get blu-ray with PS3 … i'm not totally sold yet on blu-ray, but it will be nice to have going forward

not apropos to the networking issue … i'm also thinking about selling the 22" upstairs and getting this 28" beast (it's amazing how much the cost of big monitors has come down), but i'll probably wait until x-mas sales to do something drastic like that

Hoya, I'll get to your's in a little while.

For those of you in Baltimore:

<img src="http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/09/9-24-08-baltimore-wimax.jpg" alt=" - " />

http://www.xohm.com/xohm_signup.html

Hoya,

Welcome back to DirecTV. Before you buy anything, test your HR20. Improvements are being made weekly and it also works with Tversity. If you'd like to be part of the community improving tversity on the HR20, send me a PM/email. The interface is not very slick, but it might meet your needs. For the record, I don't use my HR20 but for beta-testing for DirecTV, and not because of limitations - it's just not as user friendly or as slick as the 360. All the music we listen to in our main room is now from the server and it has to be user-friendly for smackette…

I have yet to have a good experience with wireless HD, so if that's the hang up, I'd be more concerned about your network then your media device. If you are unable to hookup your home theater system to a wired network, expect a decent amount of headache. How far from the router is your system? Even an N router one room over can be trouble - it sounds like yours is upstairs/downstairs so music should be fine, but HD movies are going to be tough. Now, when I say HD, it all depneds on your source and if your source files are small (for example, most bit torrent under 4 GB is not full HD), then the G vs. N won't matter much.

The Xbox vs. Ps3 debate is really a preference of games - nothing more, nothing less. There are pros and cons to both systems, but I'll tell you my thoughts on both.

First, the wireless in the PS3 is G and I don't recommend it for streaming HD, though it should be fine for most video content. But for $70 you can get a wireless N and still pay less for a wireless 360 than the PS3. The user interfaces for both are about to be updated, so I wouldn't pay much attention to that right now - wait a month if you can and see what they come up with. I can tell you this, the current Vista Media Center PC on the 360 is the best I've seen though (even smackette likes to use it, and she's not much of a techie at all). If your source computer for most of your media is going to be a Vista MC PC, you should do yourself a favor and at least look at the Vista MC experience on the 360. Who knows what they'll do to it next…

I've discounted all tangible media in my equations, so I won't pay a premium for Blu-Ray (or HD-DVD). I haven't purchased a DVD or CD in over a year, maybe two, relying solely on rental models and downloads. The first company to allow for a $20 license for unlimited downloadable movies that expire (a Netflix meets Xbox Live Marketplace model) has my allegiance for the next 5 years…I agree with Sony, Blu-Ray's dead in 5 years. It's already dead to me.

You cannot add a gigabit card to the 360, but I stream HD to the 360 from my server and it's fine with the 10/100 card (althoguh strangely, adding a gig router made a huge improvement). Yes, I'd like the gig card for faster reading of large Db's (like 40K songs), but it's been fine without.

As for the monitor, sweet. Monitors are getting cheaper because TV's with tuners are now accepting PC's creating competition (and touch screens are the future in the 2009 Operating Systems so the price of non-touch monitors will continue to plummet). It's nice, and as long as you have a digital source like cable or satellite, those are the way to go. It should meet my $400 threashold shortly which means HD for the bedroom (I'm also holding out for Multi-room viewing with DirecTV before going HD in the bedroom).