Night one of 1TB TiVo upgrade,

Night one of TiVo upgrade went, well it didn’t go. I came home, wife was at the store, my son was with me and I pulled out the torx #10, and opened the TiVo. I removed the bracket from the frame and found my SATA cables. I opened up the computer and plugged the cables in, changed the bracket to the new hard drive and left it all “ready” to do the transfer.

Had dinner and when I was done I rushed to get it ready. I wanted to make sure I recorded the KCTS show Nova, about the revival of the Hubble Telescope. As I got ready to connect all the parts and start the data transfer I realized my power supply inside my PC only has one SATA connection. I looked in other computers I had for an adapter, with no luck.

In the end I put it back together and put the hard drive back in the TiVo without the bracket, I set a square piece of cardboard in between the motherboard and the drive to avoid shock and damaging the components. This morning, I took out the cardboard and mounted it in the bracket again to make sure it doesn’t catch on fire. I brought the adapter to work so I can go during my lunch and find one to continue my project tonight.

I will post the pictures when I’m done.

Still TiVo upgrading

In continuation to my previous post:
I ordered the hard drive this morning from New Egg. I got the WD10EADS. I was going to order the SATA cable but 1.99 would increase the shipping another $6.99, not worth the extra cash. There is a recycle computer down the street from the office, I will check with them. I can’t be over $1.00 but an extra $2 or $3 still reasonable as opposed to $10.00 extra.
About the Western Digital Drive:
The company (WD) markets this as a “green” hard drive. They emphasize in their marketing the energy efficiency to give you about 40% reduction. This works for me, or at least according to several postings on the internet, TiVo doesn’t require a high speed drive to run HD programming. The hard drive runs quietly, and slows itself down when not heavily used.
Now there are some things I have to find out, the first one:
How do I set the jumper to 3.0Gb/s?
When copying my data, will the already recorded shows transfer over?
Does this void my warranty permanently?

I will post the whole process when I get my hard drive delivered, I presume this should be next weekend.

When copying my data, will the already recorded shows transfer over?
Does this void my warranty permanently?

I will post the whole process when I get my hard drive delivered, I presume this should be next weekend.

My TiVo

Have had my TiVo for almost a month. So far so good and I like it. I am not sure why I didn’t have one before. And my geek nature tells me that I have to hack it. I has plenty of room for what I record and watch but now I want to increase the capacity to 1TB of storage.

I found some tutorials and as hard as it looks i will definitely spend a couple of hours and about $90.00 to upgrade the hard drive. Im thinking to get the Western Digital Green hard drive.

I can see myself using the extra space for full seasons of shows. Right now I want to catch up with Heroes, for that I have to buy the season previous to this one and on the mean time have to record every episode so I can catch up. Next I would like to catch up with Fringe, I have recorded the first two episodes of season two.

Cat5 crimping diagram

I have to keep this handy in case I need it again.

The unofficial tech support guy

http://wp.me/pvg1U-L
This weekend, I will be setting up Google Apps for my Wife’s Family’s Business, I have become the “unofficial” IT for the family business .
Anyway, the reason for that is just to bring the business up to date with technology, to give them the help from the unchanged 30 year old business. We are planning on helping the old folks retire faster and still see their dream come true. Automating most of the tedious repetitive things they do during the time they should be using as leisure time. Give them time to enjoy their grand children, and perhaps time to travel to their beautiful home towns. They have so much in their heads and we are easing the headaches trough technology. Google Apps is only a part of the overhaul the company will see this year. We are helping to digitize files, organize documents, and create a backup plan for the data. The work is going from hand written forms and administrative items to computerized data entry. Finally we will have a website with information about the company for customers to see, and a contact page. The officers of the company will get company emails for a more professional environment and to compliment the respect they already get from their loyal clients. All in all I’m excited to help them with their business and look forward to having an even better system for them by the end of the year.

The Trouble with Green Tea on Yahoo! Health

The Trouble with Green Tea on Yahoo! Health.

N0t thech related but interesting.

Nikon Service advisory D70

My D70 just died! It started the day we went to the tulip festival in northern Washington this past spring, I noticed it was giving me an error when I was taking pictures and it would say, no images in this card. It was corrupting the card. I figured it was the card itself that was going bad. I changed it and re formatted it, but every other card I used was giving the same problem at some point. I kept shooting despite the problem and soon some files were getting bad. Anyway, last weekend, my wife took it to the pool so she can shoot my son and I swimming, she couldn’t use, that did it for me. I checked the firmware, and updated it. After following update instructions to the letter, and having upgraded several firmware updates on various Nikon cameras before I was ready for the real test. Finished the upgrade, changed the card for a freshly formatted one and…. Yes! It turned on… Noooo!, didn’t recognize the card. Now I’m left with a camera that doesn’t like cards, and the screen will not even turn on. The monochrome display on top works fine but nothing else. Shutter works, but has nowhere to save the shots to.

This morning, I went to the Nikon website hoping to get information on a repair, and I stumbled upon the “D70 Service Advisory” I downloaded the form and went to a few other forums and Nikon’s FAQs, and finally called Nikon to make sure I am covered under this Advisory. The agent told me to send it in to have it evaluated, nothing else to do.

I will be sending my camera tomorrow after filling out the paperwork and I hope to get it back soon. I can’t be without it during the summer.

If anyone’s had this problem I’d like to know your story.

My new Google phone number

Got my Google Voice invite, I have been using it for a few days and I like it!

I got the second invite for my wife and set it up, now I have a problem, I can’t have my number added to my wife’s I had envisioned to use one for business and as our home. I tried to cancel one but I cannot cancel and cannot get the forwarding number off. Google will not allow to have the same forwarding number on two Google numbers. Now I have to figure out how to get my number off the other one. and add it to the main one I want to keep.

My suggestion to Google, let us delete the number, so you can get more numbers back when they aren’t being used. Or allow more than one Google number to forward to the same cell phone/land line. Let’s all win.

On the other hand. I love all the features, dialing online, texting, and call recording, not to mention being able to make notes on calls, especially when calling customer services, or 800 numbers. Typing order numbers, confirmation numbers, instructions, directions, etc. Too many good things not to mention but want to keep this short.

Two month review with @mozy

See initial review here:
About a month and some weeks ago I realized my computer data was a ticking bomb, I had backups and redundant backups, that would protect it if one of the backups went bad, but what if my appartment caught on fire, would I have time to bring all my 3 250GB backup hardrives? what about my computer? well that is when I went to do some research.
Here are the results so far:
Customer service: 10+
Software interface: 8
Software reliability: 5
Usability:8
Service value: 10
Bottom line: If your data is more valuable than the price of a Grande Latte (per month) Mozy is the perfect solution. The problems of the interface are minor compared to the benefit, the piece of mind.

Don’t let them steal your credit

Two days ago, when I got to my computer that I left on overnight, with VNC enabled, I noticed Safari was at a “check out” page where my email address was populated, nothing else. The back page had a ToysRus.com URL but nothing to do with the second open window. My first thought, my wife was shopping and stopped mid transaction, when I looked closer, I saw that the page had a 3.99 instant access. At this point I was suspicious, so I clicked on the back arrow on the browser menu, to my surprise, it took me to “whatsmyip.com” which tells what my IP address is, I am not sure why this would be necessary, I know my wife would not need that information, unless she’s geekier than I believe she is. Anyway, I turned off my VNC, I changed the password to my wireless network, and added security items on the Firewall menu. Turned off all access to that computer and finally turned it off. I asked my wife about it and she didn’t know anything about it. I told her, not to ever accept to save billing information on the check out forms, and I turned off the option on Safari. Lesson, there is people out there closer to your computer than you think, virtually speaking, and they will not hesitate to steal your information and use it to their benefit.
Some steps to a more secure shopping:

• Always shop from a “wired” computer, and as little as possible from Wi-Fi.
• Turn off “Save passwords” and “auto fill” options on your browser.
• If for some reason you forget to secure before you shop, “clear your private data” (Firefox) and the same on Safari.
• If for some reason you don’t click the “buy” button, don’t leave your info on the screen. Clear the form and exit the browser even if it is inconvenient, trust me it is more inconvenient to have to call the bank to cancel credit cards and to try to file a claim with your “online fraud protection” customer service on the phone.

That been said, use common sense, and protect your information.