Archive for June 25th, 2009

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Hulu coming to the Roku?

June 25th, 2009 by stuffaboutlife | Comments Off | Filed in Life, Technology

C|Net has an article about Hulu coming to the Roku. Whether or not it will ever happen, I don’t know, but it certainly makes sense. We have a Roku device here and we’ve been very happy with it. It’s Netflix’s streaming selection that has been lacking. Certain movies expire off of the queue, and there is more and more childrens programming all the time but very few new release movies.

See? The “New Releases” list is constantly filled with cartoons for toddlers. Not entirely useful when you don’t have a child to occupy with the television. The Discovery Channel shows are great, though. I am also not happy about the fact that Netflix will expire shows from my streaming queue. I had “Spider Man 3″ in my queue, and suddenly it’s unavailable for streaming. I understand their reasoning behind it (copyrights, licensing, etc) but it’s still annoying and makes me frustrated with the service.

Hulu and Boxee have had a tumultuous relationship too. I had installed Boxee on my Apple TV for the sole purpose of watching Hulu content. It was removed (thanks to ‘content providers’) but it’s back again… sort of. I would be very happy to see Hulu content added to the Roku device. I can even put up with the short advertisements that Hulu has. Heck, I’d be happy with TWO ads per ad break if I could have Hulu content on my Roku device in HD. It sure beats paying for cable or satellite television service.

Hulu on the Roku would be a very welcome addition to our household. So, what do you say, guys? Make it happen?

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Moving on the cheap: 6 tips for cutting costs.

June 25th, 2009 by stuffaboutlife | Comments Off | Filed in Life

This article has some excellent tips. Another way to save money when moving without renting a U-Haul truck is to pack a truck yourself but let someone else drive. ABF’s U-Pack service does just that. They will show up at your residence with an empty 28′ trailer that you start filling up with your belongings. When you’re done, you put up the bulkhead that’s in the trailer and they only bill you for the space that you use. ABF fills the rest of the trailer with freight, and it’s taken to your final destination, where they unload their freight and drop off the trailer with your stuff at your new residence. It’s as easy as can be. We moved 7′ worth of stuff from California to Texas and it cost $800. Renting a U-Haul truck alone would have been $1300, and we would have had to drive the thing. ABF was a much better way to go. We got a better rate because we took our stuff to the local ABF depot and loaded the trailer right there and we were close enough to the ABF dealer in Dallas that they just swung by with the trailer and let us unload really quick. It only took about 2 hours to load the trailer and maybe 30 minutes to unload everything.

ABF U-Pack Trailer

While your stuff is in transit, you can track the progress of your trailer on their website. They showed up right when they said they would, there was no damage to any of our stuff, and we were very pleased with the service we received at every step along the way.

Most dangerous Wii accessory ever?

June 25th, 2009 by stuffaboutlife | Comments Off | Filed in Technology

A rather realistic bowling ball controller from CTA Digital.

Wii Bowling Ball

It’s actually a very clever idea. You open it up and put the wii-mote inside, and hit the virtual lanes. People are just as likely to chuck the wii-mote as they are this thing. This ball has a rather obvious strap that you’re supposed to use. (C’mon, admit it… you don’t always use the strap on the wii-more, do you?) If used properly, your big screen TV should be safe. It should also be safe if you’re now swinging the Wii Bowling Ball around like a lunatic, since bowling balls are supposed to travel along the ground and not through the air at a high rate of speed.

No word on price or how much the thing will weigh. Until there’s a controller for the yet-unannounced Wii Lumberjack & Chainsaw Games, this could hold the title for the Most Dangerous Wii Accessory Ever.

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It’s much cleaner.

June 25th, 2009 by stuffaboutlife | Comments Off | Filed in Technology

The user interface in Windows 7 really does seem a lot cleaner and more well organized. Right in the main Windows Explorer window, they’ve made huge improvements. In Vista, it seems to take 25 clicks to even get to your wireless network. In Windows 7, it’s right there in the Network & Sharing window. Common tasks associated with the window show up near the title bar. If you click on “Computer” it will show common tasks like Properties, Map Network Drive, Control Panel, and Uninstall/Change programs. If you click Videos, options are Play All, Burn, and New Folder. It’s a lot more intuitive than Vista was, that’s for sure.

Windows 7 Explorer window

My main operating system is actually Mac OS X, but I have had few problems navigating around Windows 7 so far. When I used to bring up a new Windows XP machine, I would turn off the new interface and enable “Windows Classic” and would change the Start Menu back to Classic as well. I haven’t needed to do that in Windows 7. That’s probably a good thing, because the “Classic” start menu option is gone anyway.

Drobo!

June 25th, 2009 by stuffaboutlife | 1 Comment | Filed in Life, Technology

I recently purchased a Drobo from Data Robotics. It’s a 4 bay unit which will accept any 3.5″ SATA hard drives. Just insert the hard drives and you’re ready to go. I have 3 500gb Maxtor hard drives and 1 80gb Maxtor drive in mine. I had 4 500gb Maxtor drives but one of them failed already. Performance is not bad at all. It took 2 minutes & 54 seconds to copy a 4.36gb disc image from my internal hard drive over to the Drobo, which is connected via Firewire 800. The Drobo unit uses what they call “BeyondRAID” to protect your data. Managing Your Digital Life has a good post explaining how the Drobo protects your data.
The unit itself looks nice and doesn’t take up a whole lot of room. I have mine sitting on my G5. Here’s what it looks like with its front cover on:

Drobo with cover on

And with the front cover off:

Drobo without front cover.

So far, the Drobo has made my life a little bit easier by allowing me to eliminate two very unreliable Maxtor OneTouch III units and consolidating storage into one unit. The Drobo has been plenty fast for my purposes so far. I like the fact that I can go to Wal-Mart at 2am (hey, Fry’s isn’t open 24/7) and buy any SATA drive and the Drobo will happily shuffle data around and use the new drive immediately.

You can purchase a Drobo directly from Data Robotics at the Drobo Store.

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