BrandonB.ORG » computers

My Christmas Present: The Roku XR

Brandon — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 05:28:28 +0000

I have been a Netflix subscriber for some time now. I have the plan where I get 3 DVDs at a time, unlimited DVDs a month and unlimited Instant Play. I love the DVDs by mail but I was not taking advantage of the Instant Play. For those of you who don’t know Instant Play is a service Netflix offers that allows you to stream movies over the Internet instantly to your computer or a device that supports this service.

I could easily sit in my chair and watch the movies on our Macbook. The problem is what if I wanted to watch a movie with my family or friends? We couldn’t all huddle around the Macbook’s 15″ display. I wanted the movies streamed to the living room tv. Before some of you get ahead of me I know very well I could use a computer to stream these movies to my tv and I happen to have a late model dell that would do it well. But, I do not have a new tv with a PC/RGB input. Our tv is a 27″ CRT with composite and component inputs. We have bought our first house this year and have had our first child so more important things need to be purchased before a $500 televison.

However, I wanted to take advantage of the streaming movies so I put the Roku XR in my amazon.com wish-list. A $129.00 device that can save you money on entertainment is a justifiable purchase to us. More so than a $500 tv.

The Roku XR is small and has component, composite, s-video and HDMI outputs. So when we finally get that glorious HD TV the Roku will be ready for it. The XR has 802.11n networking so when the day comes that I can upgrade the trusty Linksys WRT54G to an N-router of some sort it will be ready for that as well. I have an 8Mb download speed from my Internet Service Provider so the movies are of quality resolution and play smoothly. I like the additional channels that are available through the device such as Revision3 and Twit. I am sure the few channels they have are just the beginning of what is to come.

I give the device two thumbs up. It works, gets the job done, low power consumption (6 watts) and it’s small form factor is a big plus. Need a Netflix device? Check out the Roku.

Numb3rs describes IRC

Brandon — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 18:34:30 +0000

Numb3rs describes the Internet Relay Chat protocol, a “pretty primitive chat program”. It’s how hackers talk when they don’t want to be overheard. :P

Thanks to @hak5darren for posting this on twitter.
Thanks to mircea2s for posting it on YouTube.

Robot festival in Tokyo

Brandon — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 05:05:43 +0000

An international robot exhibition in Tokyo showcases the changing face of robotics.

Full Reuters News Story here.

Google Chrome OS Demo.

Brandon — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:59:02 +0000

Google Chrome OS is an open source operating system for people who spend most of their time on the web built around the core tenets of speed, simplicity and security. This is a demo video to give you a feel for the Google Chrome OS user experience.

My Project Made The Local News!

Brandon — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:06:48 +0000

In my last post I told you about my new job. Well the project that I am working on made the local news.The news spot was short and they left a lot of details out but it was exposure none the less.

New Job In IT. (Finally!)

Brandon — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 17:52:32 +0000

I started my new job this week as a Technology Specialist at Northeast Arkansas Educational Coopertive. I am in charge of maintaining a new video website for EETT. EETT stands for Enhancing Education Through Technology. We are in the beginning stages of posting videos of our Power Point math lessons. The lessons are focused in Algebra and Geometry. We are hoping the site will be a great resource for teachers, students and parents to view and download our lessons. The videos will be streamed from the site in Adobe Flash format. Also, we will have down-loadable versions of each lesson in .wmv for Windows and .m4v for iPods. It is going to be a lot of work but I am very excited and motivated to make this a success!

Fellow friends of Linux.

Brandon — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 17:50:39 +0000

Thanks to a tweet by @linuxalert I have stumbled onto a blog by a person who is a great friend to Linux. He goes by Helios on the blog. It sounds like Heal the OS to me. Ok all joking aside, He has a nonprofit organization in Central Texas which gets Linux computers in the hands of children who can’t afford the technology. I support his efforts and I wanted to spread the word about what he is doing. His blog can be found here.