Networking the house

Our house came pre-wired and has data ports (+ POTS and coax cable) in each room. But up until recently we've only been able to use one data port at a time in the entire house. Why? Our broadband is on a fiber optic solution but with the inside wiring solution kind of incomplete. What I mean by this - we have fiber from the curb going into an Allied Telesyn fiber gateway ("U" shape device on floor) which acts as the router. Because a router itself only has a single LAN port, I am only able to plug a single cable from the router to one port at a time on our patch panel (top of picture). The patch panel is what is wired to each room in our house. And the patch panel port selected for use has primarily been the one that goes to our loft data port since that is where I work and also where Viks surfs online. Our PS3 is downstairs and I've been wanting to download more stuff but each time I downloaded content, I've had to bring the PS3 upstairs to the loft. Yes, the PS3 has built in Wi-Fi but I prefer using wired solutions. So with that said, I found a super cheap Netgear 5 port switch ($10! you can see it's on the carpet in front of router) to put in between the fiber gateway router and the patch panel. So now I can enable up to 4 data ports in the house. If I want to enable more ports in other rooms, I'll have to upgrade to a higher port density switch but 4 ports is more than enough for now. For $10, this solution has worked out extremely well.

Mash-up

Lately I've had this itch to blog about quite a few things but instead of multiple posts here's a SUPER SIZED post of random stuff ...

• Cholesterol results - I had my blood test last week and got the results today. Total cholestorol well below 200 and my Triglycerides finally went below 200. HDL went up and LDL about the same. Dude, diet and exercise actually works! It really does motivate me to stick to it. I am also more motivated because basketball season is in high gear. I was bummed the Bruins lost to USC this weekend but no excuses - we simply got outplayed. There are a lot of Lakers and Clippers games this week on KCAL9 and KTLA. More time to work out!
  

• And even more babies - Last week, I went to visit my cousin Ed and see his newborn son, Kenneth. 7 days old. Pretty amazing. I still have this fear of holding new borns. I also wonder how many men yearn to become fathers before their wives nudge them. I know at least one person who wanted to be a father before his wife wanted to be a mother but he seems to be the exception rather than the norm. For me, I think when it actually happens I know I will be very happy and excited but to be honest, I don't have that longing right now to push for a family right at this very moment. It's partly related to progressing my career but let's not kid ourselves here - it actually has more to do with my hobbies. In case it's not obvious by now, I really, really....really enjoy my hobbies - so much to an extent that most people probably do not / would not understand. And that's ok with me. I make no apologies for the above. Indeed I am lucky that Viks loves me just the way I am (and vice-versa). I think DINKY represents that small window of freedom & peacefulness that maybe I am content with at this time and just not quite ready to let go of yet. On the other hand, if I knew a baby was on the way I would not be disappointed either. Funny how that works.
  
• Bear market - Well, it looks like underlying fundamentals have finally caught up with the market. Check out these charts. I'm not even going to pretend like I know where the bottom is. Viks pretty much leaves the investing to me although I do run every decision by her to make sure she is comfortable. It DOES hurt to see the drop but I am not doing any panic sell off. It's too hard to predict when to get back in and you end up missing a great bull run. Everyone will have their own view but I am in the camp that believes if you have a quality, diversified holdings there's virtue in acquiring more when everyone else is running for the hills. So to avoid being a hypocrite I'm trying to muster up the courage to pick up more quality investments at "discounted prices." But man, talk about catching falling knives right now. I am thinking of reducing our exposure to emerging markets since it's been so hot for the past two years or so.
  
• New home theater - Ah, the grin that comes with putting together your own home theater. My friend Danny recently moved into his new pad and just got his home theater set up so of course I had to go check it out. It's a pretty sweet set up and it's amazing how much performance you can get nowadays for a very reasonable amount of money. I brought over my SPL meter and I calibrated his speakers. Much better post calibrated! I also brought over my PS3 and we demoed the scene in Spiderman 3 where Flint Marko falls into the experimental reactor and transforms into the Sandman. As I've said before, this scene has some of the best LFE of any movie soundtrack. Initially there was very little LFE but after some troubleshooting, I corrected his subwoofer out setting and the LFE goodness was finally there.
  
• Discovering multichannel audio / Rediscovering 2 channel audio - The PS3 continues to astonish me and surprise me with its abilities and it's quality. It turns out the PS3 is a fantastic sounding CD and SACD player (note: only non 40GB version supports SACD). With FW 2.10, Sony added "bitmapping type 3"which supposedly enhances CD and SACD playback. I've compared it with my old Toshiba SD-9200 (which is a former Stereophile class A machine) and no matter how I hooked up the Toshiba - toslink, coaxial, or 2 ch analog - the PS3 is less harsh and much smoother sounding via it's HDMI connection. I borrowed Jimmy's Norah Jones - Come Away with Me CD. Wow. I am at a loss for words in describing how great it sounded. I also just purchased my first SACD - Karajan's (1973?) recording of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. This is my first taste of hi-resolution multichannel audio and I'm diggin' it. I've always disliked listening to my classical music CDs because more often than not, they sound more like old recordings than live performances. In both instances above, I experienced that audiophile cliche of being "involved" with the music. But seriously I literally stopped what I was doing at the time (reading a magazine, cleaning, etc.) and felt compelled to just listen and not do anything else.
  
• Kick ass home theater seating - Over the weekend, Viks and I went to Costco and we sat in these cool black home theater chairs that were displayed on the floor. They come in a three pack and were actually very soft and comfortable. They also feature electronic reclining which I thought was very cool. Go ahead and flame me for being materialistic here but dude, I want these!
  
• Warhammer 40K Soulstorm - Real time strategy fans rejoice! Relic / Iron Lore is releasing the third expansion pack for the DoW RTS game on March 4th . Warhammer 40K is truly my favorite RTS game. The SS demo has just been released and I'm impressed by what Iron Lore has done. The Dark Eldar race is pretty fun to play and have some really cool abilities. I can't wait for the full game release. Warhammer DoW and Valve's Team Fortress 2 have really breathed new life into my almost 4 year old PC. I had previously thought that cutting edge games like Crysis would make me want to build a new PC but that has turned out not to be the case. Both Relic and Valve have proven that great games that are truly FUN to play do not require significant investment in state of the art graphics. I am also hoping the highly anticipated StarCraft 2 that will be released later this year can run decent on my current rig.
  

Tom Mabe - Funny telemarketing phone call

This is hilarious. I almost fell out of my chair :-)

Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds: Live at Radio City (Blu Ray)

When I first read the rave reviews on the sound presentation of this Blu Ray I thought to myself, "Well I'm sure it's good, but it can't be THAT good." Well, hearing is believing. If you are even just a casual fan of Dave Matthews, you gotta experience this Blu Ray disc to understand what all the fuss is about. The video is very good - I'd give it a 4/5. But the sound takes the term "surround sound" to a whole new level. No question about it - 5/5. The Dolby True HD multichannel mix is surround sound nirvana! The sound mix is friggin' INCREDIBLE. It sounds so real with a sparkling clarity from the acoustic guitars that your speakers "disappear." You really do feel like your in the middle of it all and not simply watching a concert on DVD. This is also a great demo disc in comparing Dolby True HD vs legacy Dolby Digital . No placebo here. I toggled between the two tracks on the fly and the Dolby Digital track at 640kbps is obviously more anemic, thin sounding, and more veiled vs the Dolby True HD track.

"Stay or Leave," "Crush" and "Crash Into Me" are some of the more popular tracks but there are some really terrific gems here. I love the purity in these "unplugged" performances.

I could go on and on about the other goodies on this disc but I think I'd rather to go back and watch some more!

Should I go back for more?

Apparently inflation has caught up with soda. So whenever there is deal, I just have to stock up. Stater Bros had a sale for diet soda this weekend- 4 twelve packs for $11 ( non-diet soda was 3 twelve packs for $9.99 but I only drink zero cal soda so it's all good to me ). I just don't see 4 for $10 on the twelve packs anymore. I have two more days before the sale ends but it was pretty tiring lugging all those twelve packs back. Viks said our future kids are gonna be caramel colored ;-)

It ain't over til it's over but it sure does feel like it's over

Lot of emotions running high at this time among home theater enthusiasts with the Warner Bros announcement of only supporting Blu Ray after May 2008. Barring some miracle, it does look like HD DVD won't win the format war now. I'll admit that I was a bit sad over the weekend. While I own both HD DVD and Blu Ray, I have always slightly favored HD DVD more. I own a fair number of "reference quality" titles from both formats and to my eyes, HD DVD picture quality is a bit sharper and has a bit more 3D-like depth. Also, it's a fact that HD DVD is currently a more mature product (ie Blu Ray profile nonsense) . Pricing was never a point of contention for me as I put more priority on quality than getting the absolute cheapest player. Alas, I'm not here to re-ignite a format war discussion. No point in doing that. The above are just my personal opinions.

I have no plans to to sell my Toshiba XA2 or my HD DVDs. No, this isn't out of stubbornness or pride. This weekend I was watching a few HD DVDs and I was reminded again of why I bought into HD DVD in the first place. Jaw-dropping amazing picture and sound. Sure, the XA2 is a bit slower and a bit clunkier than the PS3 but for me the XA2 picture quality, sound quality, build quality, and upgradeability make up for any shortcoming. Also the XA2 is arguably one of the best SD DVD players made due to it's Reon video processing. Watching high quality SD DVDs like the original Star Wars trilogy and Pixar movies almost feels like you're watching HD. Damn, all the sudden I feel like I just wrote an obituary.

I was talking to a few friends very recently who had just purchased an HD DVD player or were about to re: what to do at this point. Again my personal opinions:

1) If you already have a sizeable investment in HD DVD and you know that you will not be bothered by the likely scenario that HD DVD is on it's way to the history books I would ask why not keep what you have and enjoy it for the years to come? It's not like HD DVDs are going to stop working after May 2008. There are 750,000+ HD DVD owners out there so at the worse case your HD DVD players stops working after the warranty period, the chances are good that there will be a player that can be purchased used. Seriously, you can even buy a laser disc player today! Time will tell but Toshiba might even release a dual format player so that early HD DVD adopters are taken care of.

2) If you had just bought a unit or are thinking of getting one - Unless you are an avid movie collector and have that huge itch to watch an exclusive HD DVD release right now, it may be prudent to return the recent purchase and/or wait it out . If/when in fact HD DVD is confirmed to be EOL'd, that might be the best time to swoop in and pick up an HD DVD player and quality HD DVD releases at rock bottom pricing.

Who knows... while I think it's unlikey due to the economics of this format war, maybe Universal and Paramount will stick to their guns and force dual format like DVD-R+/R-. But again, I think the chances of that are very low at this point. But even if all studios shift to Blu, as I said in June of last year I think it's more likely that there will be some offering of lower priced dual format players in 2009, if not in 2008. I'm no expert analyst but I think there is a good market for dual format players as there are 750,000+ HD DVD owners out there with a lot of HD DVDs.