Paul's Time Sink

New Xbox 360 Dashboard

Paul — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 06:14:29 +0000

I have played with the updated Xbox 360 dashboard for a few weeks, and really am enjoying several of the new features. The new additions that I like are better support for using an Xbox Live account on multiple Xboxes and improved support for new video content sources.

Multi-Xbox support

We have two Xboxes in our house. The second Xbox is upstairs, and has been used mainly as a Windows Media Extender and as a way to watch Netflix and Hulu content. We haven’t used it to play games because it was too much of a pain to either recover our Gamertags or copy the profile and saved games to a USB thumb stick.

With the new Dashboard update, Microsoft added two features that help with users with multiple Xboxes.

Roaming Profile

Microsoft renamed “recovering” profiles to “downloading” profiles. With this you can “download” a profile on multiple consoles, with specifying the live.com password. This allows you to use the same Xbox Live account on multiple consoles (though not at the same time.) With this functionality, I am able to play a game on the upstairs Xbox while my wife or kids are watching something else on the downstairs TV.

Cloud Storage

Along with Roaming profile support, the new Xbox update also includes support for storing game saves in the cloud. This allows you to either use the same game profile or continue a previously saved game on a different Xbox 360 consoles.

Thoughts

There are some things that I discovered in setting this up:

If you have a pass code on your profile on a Xbox 360 console, when you download it to a different console, it will not have a pass code. You will need to set each time the profile is downloaded.
Not all games support Cloud Storage. If a game supports Cloud Storage you will be prompted to choose either it or the hard drive for when the game tries to initiate access to storage.
It is annoying to be prompted to choose a storage device whenever you launch a game that supports Cloud Storage. It would be great to have the ability to specify a default storage location that should be used for each game that can be stored with a profile. (Or at least use the last chosen selection for each game)
The storage selection dialog, with cloud storage as an option, is shown even for non-Xbox Live local profiles. This is pointless, as it isn’t possible to log into these local accounts on other Xboxes.

Xbox video content sources

The other major feature that was added in the latest Xbox 460 dashboard update was support for new streaming video sources. Some of the video streaming services that the Xbox update currently supports are:

One of the best things about this implementation is that the Xbox allows you to search for content across all the content providers, using your remote or with voice recognition. This eliminates the need to search in each content provider when looking for a particular show or movie.

Issues

There are some issues with this new implementation

Poor support for parental controls, with search. If you do a search using the global search functionality, only content that falls within the parental control limits will be returned. This is a problem for us as we would like to enable parental controls to prevent our kids from watching inappropriate content. But if my wife and I wanted to watch a movie, we would like to have this content included in the search results, with the understanding that to play the content, the PIN would be required.
Poor implementations/lacking features of individual video applications
- Netflix – When selecting an item in the content list, from within the Netflix application, The video automatically starts playing. This is generally fine for movies, but for television series, this may not work for every user. The “next” episode starts to play in this case, but sometimes the user may want to have more control about which episode is played. (The previous version of the Netflix app would didn’t have this auto-play feature.)
- YouTube – Movies that are rented from YouTube are not playable on the Xbox

Final Thoughts

So far I am pretty impressed with the new Xbox update. Once the Comcast video on demand application becomes available on the Xbox, our Xbox could easily be the main way that we watch content.

Reducing power consumption of electronics

Paul — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 09:46:47 +0000

One of our network switches stopped working. While looking for replacements, I decided to look for a switch that would be more energy-efficient than the existing one. I was very interested in D-Link’s Green line of products. I bought the DSG-1024D 24-port network switch. I figured that I would be able to replace several switches with a single energy-efficient switch.

The D-Link Green series has several ways that it saves power:

It powers down port where it detects an idle link status.
The switch can detect the cable length of Gigabit Ethernet run, and will use less power for shorter runs.

Before I replaced the switch, I measured the combined energy usages of the switches and did the same after replacing the old ones with the new switch. By just replacing the two older switches, with the single new switch I saw some power savings. Since I have other switches that are always on, I decided to replace those as well.

Once I replaced these switches, I saw a savings of 8 watts.

This got me thinking about the other devices that we have around our house, that are always on, when they don’t need to be. Most of these things are connected to power strips and the power strips are in locations that are not easily accessible. Belkin has power strips that can help this situation. Belkin’s Conserve Switch is a power switch where two of the power outlets are always on, and the 6 or 8 remaining outlets are switched. These power switches include an RF remote which controls the switchable outlets.

I purchased several of these for use on our entertainment center, and for the computer in our office. Once I attached the devices to it, and measured the steady-state power usage with the switched outlets on and off. With the outlets switched off, we see a savings of 80 watts.

I now need to find a new Windows Media Center PC that is more energy-efficient, that can also support full HD video, or replace it with a different device that play our movies from our ReadyNAS.

Travel accessories

Paul — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 05:58:35 +0000

My wife and I traveled to Chicago this past weekend. There were two accessories that made the trip easier.

AmazonBasics Universal Travel Case

The AmazonBasics Travel Case allowed us to keep our assorted cables and accessories in a compact form. For this trip, we used it to store:

2 cell phone chargers
USB cable & power adapter for our kindles
USB cable for phone
ethernet cable
charger for Motorola Xoom
USB thumb drive
extra sdcard
Charger for Samsung Series 5 Chromebook

All of these items fit in a 10″ x 6″ case. One good thing about this is that having these items contained in one case made it easy to find each of these items. Also, my backback wasn’t loaded with a rats nest of wires.

I did put this case inside my checked bag, as I was sure that such a densely packed container of wires might have looked suspicious to the TSA agent watching the X-ray images.

ZuniConnect Travel IV

The ZuniConnect is a great travel router. It lets you connect to a wired or wireless network, and share that with multiple computers. It will share the network connection either via Ethernet or a 802.11g/n network. One our trip, my wife and I used the ZuniConnect to share the the hotel wired network connection with our two phones, our laptop, and our tablet.

There are some other nice features of the ZuniConnect:

Two USB ports to charge portable devices
The ZuniConnect can be used for a wireless network bridge to connect devices that only have an Ethernet port to connect to a wireless network.

Downgraded Netflix Account

Paul — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 07:15:52 +0000

Netflix recently changed their account pricing for their accounts that include streaming and DVDs. Here is a snippet from the email that I received:

Your current $17.99 a month membership for unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs (including Blu-ray access) will be split into 2 distinct plans:

Plan 1: Unlimited Streaming (no DVDs) for $7.99 a month
Plan 2: Unlimited DVDs (including Blu-ray), 2 out at-a-time (no streaming)
for $14.99 a month

Your price for getting both of these plans will be $22.98 a month ($7.99 + $14.99). You don’t need to do anything to continue your memberships for both unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs.

This got me thinking about how we have been using the Netflix service. We love Netflix streaming, especially since we cancelled our cable television service. Our kids can always find a kids show that they will like, and generally my wife and I can find something that we enjoy. But we haven’t been using the disc part of our service.

We have had the same two Blue-Ray discs sitting in our entertainment center for several months. Obviously, this is the type of customer that Netflix like, as they don’t have to pay for mailing costs, but are still receiving our monthly payment.

Often if we want to watch a recent movie, we will rent a movie through Amazon Video on Demand through our Roku box. The selection through Amazon is pretty good, especially for newer releases.

With the change in plan, I have taken the opportunity to downgrade our Netflix account to streaming only. Since we have been using Amazon Video on Demand for recent release, we won’t miss the discs. And in the cases that we want to get a movie on disc, we can always go to our nearest Redbox.

Summify

Paul — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 07:39:58 +0000

I have been using my6sense for a while to find content that I am interested in. my6sense does a very good job ranking content, and it is easily accessible when using the application on my phone or when viewing the Twitter site, with the my6sense extension. One downside is that I need to actively perform steps to view this content.

Summify is a service that will periodically send you an email with a summary of some stories that you are interested in. When you create an account, you associate your Twitter, Google Reader, and/or your Facebook account. Summify uses the data from those accounts to determine your interests.

Then periodically Summify sends you an email with articles that you may be interested in. You have the ability to further refine your interests when you receive the emails.

What is Summify? from Team Summify on Vimeo.

E3 Xbox Announcements

Paul — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 07:47:23 +0000

Microsoft announced several things at the opening keynote for the 2011 E3 conference and in a release. Personally, I am interested in some of the announcements:

Xbox Live Cloud Storage
Integrated search
Live TV features

Xbox Live Cloud Storage

With Xbox Live Cloud Storage, you should be able to keep your profile, and some game saves on the Xbox Live servers. This should allow you to go to any network connected Xbox, and log into your profile. This is better than the Gamertag recovery that you have to go through now. For users that choose to keep their profile online, I wonder what happens if the user tries to use the account when they aren’t online.

Integrated Search

I have mentioned before that it is hard to find a particular piece of content that you are interested in, especially with the various content provider. For example, if my kids wants to watch a movie, I currently look on Netflix, then Hulu, then in the Zune Marketplace. The new integrated search should make this easier.

Live TV

Microsoft is supposed to be providing access to live TV content. I don’t know which content partner they will be working with, but I am more interested in how open they allow this to be. For example, I want to be able to plug in the following sources into my Xbox

UPnP ATSC tuners
Windows Media Centers

Microsoft was promoting Kinect control of the Live TV experience. I hope that they also improve the experience when using an Xbox media remote control. This would reduce the barrier for switching to the Xbox in our house.

L.A. Noire

Paul — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 08:30:12 +0000

I just finished the main story in L.A. Noire this week. This is a great game. I have liked other Rockstar games like GTA4 and Red Dead Redemption, and L.A. Noire has some of the same qualities. The main thing that I like about these games is the story in the games. With each of these games, I want to continue playing to find out what happens in the store. Also, each of these games have worlds that are great to explore.

L.A. Noire is not as much of an open world game as GTA4 or Red Dead Redemption. While playing the game, you can either work on the main case, or respond to various street crimes. You can also find various things hidden around the map. The fact that L.A. Noire isn’t as much of an open world game isn’t a negative for the game. In fact, it works well, as it keep the player more focused on the main story.

Here are some tips that I discovered while playing the game:

Before deciding to respond to a street crime call, check where it is on the map. I have driven 5 minutes across the city to respond to a call.
After finishing the last case in the story, select resume will do the last part of the case. I was assuming that it would start free roam mode. Instead, you need to use the Cases menu to start free roam.
If you purchase the L.A. Noire Rockstar Pass, you need to go into the download menu, within the game to download all of the things that are part of the pack.

Backupify

Paul — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 07:07:58 +0000

Backupify is a service that allows you to backup the data in many online services. A couple of months ago, I tried the 30 day free trial for the service, but I decided not to continue after the free trial. I figured that I didn’t need to backup my data, as the various services back up the data.

About a month later, my wife mentioned that she was missing some contacts from her address book. This is the perfect situation that Backupify solves. If I had set up Backupify for our domain, we would have been able to restore the contacts from the backup.

Once I upgraded my account, I was easily able to add my wife’s account, and have it backed up. I had more trouble with my account through. Since there was a period between when I used the free trial, and when I upgraded the account, the authorizatiokn tokens had expired or had been revoked. Unfortunately, there isn’t a way to manually reauthorize access for Backupify. Working with Backupify’s support, I was able to get things working.

There are several things that I would like to see added to Backupify’s service:

Ability to backup WordPress blogs
For the Backupify Pro plans, it would be good to have the option to allow the other Google Apps users to backup their Social Media services
When restoring data, it would be nice to be able to search through the archives to find he particular entry that you are looking to restore.

Hands-free call volume with KVT-516

Paul — Mon, 09 May 2011 02:06:40 +0000

A few months ago, we replaced the head unit in our car with a Kenwood KVT-516. One problem that we have been having is that the in call volume is too low for phone calls. We would need to turn up the volume to hear the caller. Unfortunately, this would affect the volume of music, which would be pretty loud at the end of the call.

It looks like the latest firmware update solves this problem. Now the KVT-516 has separate volume settings for hands-free calls, and other audio sources.

Squeezebox for Android

Paul — Mon, 09 May 2011 01:06:34 +0000

I have used several third-party applications for to control my Squeezebox radios from my phones. They each have varying support for the different Squeezebox applications.

It looks like Logitech released their own controller application for Android. This is one of the nicest applications for controlling Squeezebox players. If you have configured applications, you can play content from them.

I do wish that you could add or change alarms from the application.