The FiOS install went great, but…
After turning in my cable box yesterday and cancelling my residential cable service through Cox, they came out this morning and disconnected my business internet service as well. Argh.
And just as I was getting packed to head to Los Angeles for TEC2010.
As you can see, though, all is back up and running. I did say that Cox customer service was great, didn’t I?
Two words: Awesome.
Well, that wasn’t two, so I’ll compensate by adding a few more.
Today, we ditched Cox cable for Verizon FiOS TV. Cox, the regular local cable provider, is actually not bad. They have great [for a cable company] customer service, but I’ve been disappointed with the service itself. The signals are low and I absolutely deplore the DVR. If you’ve been reading the blog [here, here, and here], you know that I have finally put together a media center PC.
What’s not listed there is that it’s all new. Over the past several months, in order to “make it right” I’ve been working on the computer to make it behave like it’s supposed to.
The old PC just wasn’t up to the task. I had been thinking about upgrading it when an opportunity fell into my lap. I mistakenly ordered the wrong CPU for my server and was unable to return it. So – I “repurposed” it. With the addition of a new motherboard, matching 4GB of RAM and a case, I was all set to build a media center out of a Quad-Core Xeon server processor. That’s total overkill for those not geeky out there.
The first problem, though, was that I ordered the wrong motherboard – it wouldn’t fit in the case. I returned it and ordered another one only to find out that I actually had the wrong case. I replaced the case and found out that I had the wrong power supply. I quick stop by the local computer store solved that problem. I assembled all the parts and it was working. Performance-wise, it’s the fastest “desktop” I’ve ever owned. Only, it’s not a desktop: it’s a server with a server case… which sounds like a jet engine.
So: to solve that problem, I replaced the power supply and it got a smidge quieter. Hmm… the case has 3 fans. I replaced those with whisper-quiet 120mm case fans and wow… Except: it was still very loud. All that was left was the CPU fan. This tiny little thing must have been making the most noise. It was spinning at 6000 RPM and so I replaced it with a large heatsink and fan combination that is now virtually silent.
Media Center “Server”: Awesome!
It’s VERY fast, responds very quickly, and I have about 1.2TB of storage. I think I can record several weeks of TV in HD without stopping. It all works just like it’s supposed to.
But…
All the problems didn’t go away. We used to get digital artifacting [little random squares on the screen] and noise which I thought was due to performance of the machine. It was still there. Come to find out, our signal with Cox was so bad, that some channels were just plain unwatchable. I couldn’t even eliminate the cable box like I wanted to. So much for saving money.
Now, along comes my friend Jack who tells me of his experience with Media Center, CableCARD and FiOS. Now, I was hooked. See, Cox requires a “tuning resolver” to allow you to change channels on their less-watched shows. That way, they can save bandwidth by not showing stations to a neighborhood that no one is watching. Only it doesn’t work all that well. There were many times that our shows wouldn’t record because of some switching error.
No more! I called and scheduled my FiOS appointment and I’m now free from the Cox prison [except for Internet]. The media center is working as it’s supposed to and the signal is strong and clear. Life is great!
The only thing left is to get an additional tuner. I have a Ceton tuner on order which has 4 tuners in it. That will solve the recording conflict problems and should be the final upgrade of the machine for some time to come.
I took the Cox equipment in to the store today. That alone should save us $20/month or more on our cable bill.
After the Snowpocalypse, we had suffered the Ice Dam leakage which turned our master bedroom window sheetrock into slush. The blinds fell off and we had to cut holes in the sheetrock to drain the water. It’s now been repaired [well, it has been for a while] and finally painted.
And not just “repainted” mind you, but we had to choose a new color since the old color was basically smoker’s dirty white. So, after much consternation over the exact shading of the various colors, we have completed the paint job on the house. Here’s the after pictures:
Choosing the right shade of green for the walls wasn’t hard since we’ve wanted that color for a while. What was hard was choosing the right ceiling color. It’s not white – it’s actually a faint shade of green, but you can’t tell from pictures.
Here’s some pictures of the process:
We still have to install new blinds and/or drapes.
Laura and I recently picked up a wonderful portrait lens to add to our collection: the Canon 50mm F1.2 L lens. It can do such a shallow depth of field, that the plane of focus is much less than an inch deep [0.84 inches, to be precise] even over a distance of several feet. To illustrate this, here is a sample picture of the inside of our Media Center PC, which I was repairing the evening the lens arrived:
If you look closely, you’ll notice that the one place I focused is the screw and tab right above it. Everything else in front or in back is out of focus.
Of course, this has some challenges, as well. The lens is great for low-light situations and shooting without artificial light – especially where we can get the shutter speed very high. However, using regular strobes it is a challenge – we can’t set the shutter very fast due to the fact that our strobe setup won’t allow us to fire any faster than 1/160. This means that in the studio, the largest aperture we can use even at ISO100 is f13. Oh, we can probably get away with f9 and push the exposure down in Lightroom, but adjusting exposure is tricky and we’d run the risk of the image not being properly exposed in some places due to some digital compression at the edges of the histogram [at the extreme ends of the dynamic light spectrum, that is either very light or very dark sections of the image] caused by the overexposure and resultant digital manipulation.
In other words, the picture wouldn’t quite be as good as it could be.
Mainly, this is due to the fact that our lights are “budget” lights – fairly inexpensive in the grand scheme of things. They’re not adjustable for output like the more expensive units, but we bought these for the “constant light” capabilities that allow us to plug in some [now] huge 50-watt daylight balanced fluorescent bulbs to replicate window light. The problem with this end, however, is that these are too dim. We have to use ISO400, f4.5 and 1/160 to properly expose. This has the positive effect of completely blurring the background, but the negative one of making the focal plane too narrow for more than one person’s portrait, or more especially a moving child [and they move a lot!]. This is much better than it used to be when we were using the 27-watt bulbs which forced us at ISO400, f4 to use 1/60.
In summary, our constant lights are too dim, but not as bad as they used to be and the strobes are too bright. After a shoot with a mother and child in the constant lights with the baby squinting into the soft box [which I had previously thought might be better for the baby since it wouldn’t “explode” with light when we took a picture], I’m much more inclined to use the strobes on people and the constant light on objects.
Although, the strobes work great on objects, too [ISO100, 50mm f13, 1/160]:
[I guess that dust on the helmet means I need to go for a ride…]
It looks like we’re in for it again. The snows have begun and they say it could be another 20 inches. Wow. You know, after what happened over the weekend, I’m not exactly sure where we’re going to put the extra snow. Our sidewalks and shoulders are already full.
This is our street:
20 MORE inches? I don’t think so. I may not get to work until Friday at this rate.
I’m sure there will be even more snow tomorrow… And we’re already ahead of Buffalo, NY in total inches of snow for the year. Now, THAT’S sayin’ something.
I have to say that this year has been the most snow I’ve ever seen in my life. That’s really not saying much since I spent my formative and most of my adult life living in Houston, but I’ve been in winter storms before. I’ve even been in one in Wyoming that had more snow overall than this, but I didn’t stay for the whole thing.
This, however, is the most I’ve ever had to shovel from the driveway by far!
There were over two feet in the driveway – possibly more, since by the time I got around to shoveling, it had packed itself down quite a bit.
We did have a brief power outage, but I’m sure none of you noticed since it was in the wee hours of the morning and only lasted a couple of hours.
We’re all right here now, but my back will suffer for several days. Snow is heavy. Very heavy.
But not as bad as last year!
We spent part of the second week of January this year in Nashville for the annual Imaging USA event for PPA [Professional Photographers of America]. We drove the whole way there from Virginia, and while it’s only one state over, it was about a 10 hour drive.
This year, we opted to go to some pre-convention training and it was very good, except that there seemed to be too many people. Once the main event started, it was clear there were WAY too many people – 3000 or so more than there should have been in fact. Almost 10,000 people attended this year, or so we were told. It was incredibly crowded, but even so, there were some gems to be gathered.
This year, unlike last year, we actually fared fairly well in both the Expo and the sessions – not getting overwhelmed by too much information, or buying too much [well, not TOO too much] stuff we didn’t need.
The most important things we picked up this year were several pieces of advice and new flash units for our lights. Oh – and we got a couple of new backdrops for a great price.
The most important piece of advice was “practice, practice, practice”. And I intend to do so with the new lights. If anyone wants to model, just let me know!
Of course, the best part of the conference for us was the chance to reconnect with someone who not only has very quickly become a dear friend to us, but now a mentor who we hope to learn as much as we can from: Angela Carson. In fact, we spent so much time with her on Wednesday morning, that is wasn’t morning anymore – we were supposed to leave at 10AM, but ended up leaving close to 1PM. It was well worth the time, though.
On the last stop of our journey, we were to stop in Key West for a day of shopping and touring, which I was looking forward to. The coffee on the boat was substandard and I wanted to pick up some good coffee on land. We also wanted to wander the streets and possibly go shopping.
This turned out not to be the case.
When we pulled into dock, it started raining. And not just a little drizzle, but a full-on Gulf rainstorm. We attempted to leave the boat three times but were diverted or blocked each time.
We found out later that the people who made it off the boat ended up wandering in town in knee-high water in what was probably a 100-year flood.
It seems we didn’t miss much. Well, except Key West. Argh.
We then proceeded to head back to Galveston [joy] at full throttle.
Late Wednesday night of our cruise, we arrived in Nassau, Bahamas – our first shore experience began shortly after. We docked around 9PM and were able to push our way out of the boat a half hour or so later.
Everything was closed.
Well, not everything. The Atlantis resort was open. We all piled in a taxi and went to go see it. I have to say that it is an amazing place and the aquarium is … well, amazing.
After that evening, we got up very early the next morning [breakfast at 5AM is early, yes?] and met our dive boat owner at the front of the docks. She drove us to the other side of the island and we hopped on the boat and went out to sea.
I have to say I don’t think I’ve had another dive as relaxing and fun as this boat trip was. We originally asked for a two-tank dive, but they arranged it so that we had one deep dive and one shallow dive which used up only half of our air. There were quite a few lion fish in the water there – not natively, but accidentally introduced there.
Then, they took us to a spot where we could swim with sharks.
A previous boat had fed the sharks and they were clustered around the boats when we got there. That boat left and we dove in – well, I dove in, while the rest of the team followed slowly.
Some of the sharks came quite close.
I wanted to pet them… well, maybe not, but it was tempting to reach out and touch them.
The dive master said that there were about 30 sharks around us, but only a few were close at any given time.
I really like this one of Laura and our friends. Notice how they are tightly clinging to the rope while the sharks circle behind them… 🙂
This was a dive that I will likely never forget.
Then, we got out of the water and back on the boat. If the rest of the trip could have only been so good!
I hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas Day!
Enjoy!
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