Last Thursday my Hauppauge Dual Hybrid HDTV Tuner card came for my computer.  Until then I’d been using another dual tuner card to record and watch cable TV through Windows Media Center.  It was cool and all, but in that time we’ve gotten Netflix, and found out about Hulu.com, and I got a job working at bringing video and video search to the web from major studios and content producters.  So there’s a ton of digital media out there on the web (stuff you might actually want to watch…..stuff that you might normall have to have cable TV for).

Netflix On Demand is damn cool - I was watching HBO series and new movies through a nice Windows Media Center interface called MyNetflix.

Not only that - but the digital content from online looked a lot better than my cable signal did (I still have a normal non-HDTV by the way).  I think that they compress the content digitally before it comes through the cable wires - and then of course Windows Media Center compresses it again in a different way….and thats no good when you compress the same digital video twice under two different compression standards.

So - thus begins my experiment:  Bringing HDTV to my computer even if my TV doesn’t really support it.

Saturday morning, I installed the card.  I was sorta hoping that it would just magically pick up HDTV from the air without plugging in any antennas or anything.  Well that was a big fat no.

Then I went to Best Buy - I got an multidirectional amplified indoor antenna.  Basically, a big flat sqaure, probably with some wires inside, and you plug it into the wall.  So - I hooked that up….in my finished basement…where we watch TV.  OK, a big fat no.

“This is discouraging” I thought - but thought I’d keep trying, since I was in the basement after all.  I grabbed a roll of coax wire and ran the indoor antenna outside to my raised porch.  I tried again.  This time it was more promising.  I scanned through the channels, it said there were a few digital channels available - so I started flipping through.

It looked good but not great.  It was a little snowy, some bad pictures, definitely not looking like what I expected out of HD.   Oh but what’s this………there’s a WRAL-DT?  Umm….hey a whole bunch of DT channels in the low 1000’s.  So apparently, I wasn’t looking at HD, Windows Media Center just threw in the Analog channels into my guide for good measure at the beginning of my guide.  OK, lets flip to the HD stuff…….daaaaaaaaaamn.  It looked awesome.  Very crisp and clean on my computer monitor, I hadn’t even hooked it back into my TV yet.

So, I set out to see what channels I could get…….

ABC, check….NBC….check, CW….check, PBS….check, FOX….check, CBS…….where’s CBS?

I went to my local CBS affiliates website, and found that I’m about 15 miles outside of their range using an indoor antenna.

Sunday morning, I set out to the hardware store to see what else I could buy in antennas.  I sorta wanted an outdoor one, but the thought of me going up on the roof with my non-existent ladder and installing something - somewhere, somehow on my house seemed hazardous to my health.

I got to Lowes, saw they had rabbit ears and outdoor antennas.  Thats it.  But I picked up a 4 foot long outdoor antenna box and looked at the packaging - “Can be used in your attic”.  Hey!  Awesome, I hadn’t thought of that!  I can put this huge freaking thing in my attic and run a wire down 2 stories to my basement….somehow.

So I bought it at $60 - and a 100 foot roll of coax cabling.

I got it home, brought it into my attic, started unfurling it - and I won’t lie - its very unweildly.  Picture me, in an attic with no floor, standing on beams trying to shift around a 5 foot wide, 4 foot long antenna.  I dropped it in place eventually - didn’t bother bracketing it to anything, and connected the coax cable, and searched for a way to get it out of the attic.

And look….a vent, with a screen over it thats slightly unhinged at the bottom.  Perfect place to drop cable out.  So the cable was unreeled, and unreeled, and unreeled.  I brought it in around the window entrance for the cats into the basement and over to the TV.

At long last, I have all the channels I need!  CBS included, so now it’s just a matter of returning the indoor antenna to Best Buy and setting things back up on Windows Media Center.   Media Center tells me I have 21 channels - most don’t come in, but as I look up the call letters on the internet, I find that those are pretty far away like in Wilmington, Winston Salem, Greensboro, etc.

I settle on 8 channels - WUNC (PBS), WRAL (CBS), WTVD (ABC), WNCN (NBC), WRDC (CW), WUVC (Univision), and WRAZ (Fox).

Now the tricky part….for the short time I’m actually paying for cable still, I want to make use of it, and Windows Media Center (as far as I know) won’t let you have both over the air and cable channels together set up at the same time.  So, I’m installing Beyond TV as I write this (a different DVR software solution), and I plan to use that to record cable, and Media Center to record over the air.  But that’s just till we cancel cable.  I mean - I’ll record Battlestar as long as I can until I have to go to SciFi.com (or someone elses house) to watch it.

But at last count - the Daily Show and the Colbert Report are free at Comedy Central.com.  Monk and Psych are free at Hulu.com, my wife watches Ghost Hunters and both of us Battlestar which is free at Scifi.com.  I just can’t think of any other cable shows we watch really.  And if miss something, we’ll wait and get it on Netflix.  And hopefully I’ll get an invite for Boxee TV on Windows (please please please) since I filled out the request form on their website last week.

So now, I’m just waiting for Beyond TV to install, and then go hit a superbowl party even though I hate football.

No its probably not very funny - but I got bored with code tonight and the RNC was on with Fred Thompson talking about how McCain POW camp stay….

The 2008 Codie Awards have been announced.  Little did I know that a project I played a major part in was at least nominated for a couple Codies, we actually WON the award for “Best Instructional Solution for Students at Home”.  Pretty nifty, and its just the latest in a series of awards for the Pokemon Learning League.

So far the awards have been the Codie, a 2007 Outstanding Products Award from iParenting, a 2007 Best Educational Software Award, and we were a finalist for Distinguished Achievement from the Association of Educational Publishers.

I won’t go into the “making of” in the least, cause you know, it’s safe to assume that most clients don’t appreciate any ups and downs of working with them made available in a public forum.  But…..pretty nifty anyway right?

The project is:
http://www.pokemonlearningleague.com/

And of course, yes I played a good part in it, but there were plenty more people involved at the company I work for 360KID.

Check ot our Vegas Photos here…

We’ve been back from our nice Christmas trip to Las Vegas for around a week now, and I just posted our photos on my website. Becca and I arrived on Christmas morning, and the nice receptionist at our hotel let us check in at 11, which I great, cause we didn’t feel like lugging our bags around for another hour. We got the top floor, you can see our nice view here.

Of course we were a little tired coming in - we took the red eye leaving at 3am or so. So, we had a relaxing Christmas after we checked in. We promptly hit the hot tub and ordered a couple of Bloody Mary’s.

Speaking of the hot tub, it was right next to the pool of course - which was surrounded by a shark tank! On our last day there we took the elevator up to the 3rd floor to take the water slide which passed straight through the tank.

Becca’s sister Christa came to join us on the 26th - and we wandered all over the city visiting the new Wynn and a few other hotels.

And yes, there was gambling. We probably blew $100 on those video blackjack and roulette machines. Not so good. Christa and I also blew $60 or so when we hit the blackjack tables oh well.

While I was feeling discouraged, I think she won some of that money back. The next day though when Christa was gone - team Gomez Farrell hit the tables. Becca armed with $60 and I with $20. We each walked away earning over $120 from the Blackjack and Roulette tables. Becca hit the jackpot on some penny slots as she put in a dollar and came out with $20. So all in all, we came out pretty even - though it was pretty fun to win all that cash in the end.

And of course we both came down with stomach bugs that took us a week to get over. I think we’re done with Vegas for now. Maybe we’ll take advantage of our passports next trip.

I’ve had yellow5labs.com for awhile, probably since 2001 or so. It’s always been a portfolio site, so I can direct potential employers to view my work. Though, I’ve recently decided to change the focus of the site.

You see, I’ve been working at the same place for four and a half years now, which is quite insane since the longest job I ever had was a year. It’s just my bad luck I guess, and the nature of the career I’m in. The places I work at keep going under (and this includes the grocery store in Spencer, MA that I worked at in junior high school).

Anyway, I’m really not planning on quitting or getting fired anytime soon, soooooo I don’t really have much need to find a new job. I’ll still keep my portfolio and resume current because you really never know, but as is, there really wasn’t much point of me keeping a website going.

So, with no need for a new job, I realize that I am doing a lot of cool things at my job and in my free time. I also realized that my old site didn’t lend itself to being updated very often with new goings ons. So I’m switching my front page to a blog. The blog will be half personal stuff and half professional stuff. The personal stuff, well…you know, all that stuff my family and friends wanna see - like new photos and life in general. The professional stuff will be a mix of technical articles, projects that were finished at work, and side-projects I’m working on now.

As an expert in Adobe software products, and as the Raleigh Durham Adobe User Group manager, I hope to offer some informative posts. Anyway it’ll be a mix.

My interests for 2008 are shaping up to be a mix of web comic creation, photo managing software in Flex/AIR, interactive music experimentation, and a social networking type idea. More or less on these as they do or don’t pan out (translation: if I do or don’t get bored of the ideas in my head).

Anyway, that’s where I’m taking this site. I’m sorry to be so trendy and have a blog, but that’s what happened. I also happen to have a decent Photo album here. I’ll be adding lots more photos soon, and I’ll make my wife do the same. I’ll also be organizing my portfolio in the same way so that I can ditch the “Coming Soon” page. But that’s a lot of organization - I just finished the fun work of learning XHTML/CSS design for the website, and Flex 3/AIR for my photo album management. The rest of the work will just be boring stuff, so hopefully I don’t slack off.

I expect to have some posts in January on some cool stuff I’m working on, as well as some photos of me and my wife’s trip to Vegas over the Holiday.