I've got a grab-bag of information to talk about, but none of the topics is enough to justify a full post.  So I'll just rapid-fire these tidbits of news in a single post...

• I've had my mid-year review at Corillian.  It was a positive experience, and I'm feeling much more comfortable in my role with the company.  Between this review and a fruitful meeting with a client, I'm really excited about the opportunities I have to accomplish some really cool things.  And telecommuting is getting easier, too.  I daresay I'm more productive than I've ever been.
  
  
• I picked up a Garmin nüvi 200 GPS.  For an entry-level GPS geared toward car navigation, I couldn't be happier with it.  My only complaint is it seems to make some weird route suggestions occasionally.  For example, I'll be driving to San Antonio later this spring.  Google Maps says the quickest route is I-35 all the way from KC to San Antonio, which seems pretty reasonable to me.  The nüvi disagrees, and has me taking a route that, while technically shorter in distance, is also an hour longer in terms of time according to Google Maps.  Meh, it'd still get me there eventually.  That's the most important part, I think.  I drove to Omaha, NE for business last week, and it performed beautifully in getting me to the hotel, around town, and then back home.
  
  
• I'm an ergonomics nut.  I love ergonomic keyboards and mice.  My current keyboard is the Microsoft Natural Keyboard 4000, which I think is the best MS Natural Keyboard since the original (which I still have in my closet).  I was using a Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 6000, which was mostly comfortable but was causing some  minor discomfort in my first and middle knuckles and my wrist.  When I was in Omaha last week, a colleague introduced me to the Microsoft Wireless Laser Natural Mouse 6000.  I ordered one for myself immediately.  While not as alien as a vertical mouse, your hand is elevated and rotated in a position that, while extremely natural and comfortable, is a little weird at first.  Give it a day and you'll never turn back.  I cannot recommend this mouse enough.
  
  
• If you have multiple IM clients running, you owe it to yourself to try a unified client.  I use Pidgin (nee Gaim) to log onto my Windows Live and Google Talk accounts, as well as CheckFree's internal Sametime server.  Very handy.
  
  
• My brother-in-law (and close friend), Bruce (aka Unknown Echo), started Basic Military Training for the US Air Force a couple weeks ago.  He's a remarkable young man, and we're all very proud of him.
  
  
• I wish my old friends at Commerce would quit blowing off my lunch invitations.  I'm looking at you, Joel.

We've had our Dish Network HD DVR for two days now, and overall, we're very happy with it.  It's very, very good, but it's not quite perfect.  Here are our observations so far.

The Good

I've got a whole list of good things to say.

• Dish has way more HD channels than Time Warner KC.  We've spent 80% of our time with National Geographic HD, which wasn't available on Time Warner.
• The DVR is reliable - Which is a huge advantage over Time Warner.
• No crappy analog channels.  Time Warner KC still has any channel below 99 on an analog signal, and it was very noticeable, and very sucky.
• The user interface is very friendly and very aesthetically pleasing.
• On-screen caller ID that works with any telephone service (we use Vonage).  Time Warner's caller ID only works with Time Warner's telephone service.
• The price is comparable to Time Warner.
• Built-in home distribution.  This is the slickest feature.  It actually has two output displays - The primary, which is high definition, and the secondary, which is a standard definition signal that it broadcasts to the rest of our house over the existing coax.  It comes with a second remote that operates via a UHF signal, so it doesn't have to be used line-of-sight.  This is great for our bedroom TV, a 32" standard TV that was our former living room TV.  It has all the channels and DVR stored programming available to it, and can watch any of it independently of what the primary TV is watching.  THIS. IS. AWESOME.  Connor can watch this morning's Blue's Clues in the bedroom while we watch last night's Heroes in the living room, or vice-versa.  And all of our high-def content is available either room, because it actually downscales HD programming for SD.  Wow.

The Bad

I found one issue worth complaining about.  I could do it on my old Series2 DirecTiVo, and I could do it on Time Warner's craptacular DVR, but I can't do it on Dish's DVR.  It's a little complicated, so bear with me...

Say I set up an Event Timer to record new episodes of a show, say, The Simpsons, on the local Fox affiliate and assign it a high priority, so I always pick up new episodes of The Simpsons.  Great.

Now say I set up a Dish Pass (equivalent to TiVo's wishlist, basically a way to tell the DVR to keep an eye out for something you like) for The Simpsons, any time, any channel.  I want to pick up Simpsons reruns on the local Fox affiliate as well as in syndication.  I assign this a low priority because I don't want to give reruns any priority over new programming.

At this point, the Dish DVR will accept the new Dish Pass, but it will not schedule any recordings based on that, and it will not allow me to add ANY additional Event Timers or Dish Passes, claiming that I have reached the maximum number of timers and that I need to delete some before I can add any more.  This error is wrong, though.  If I delete that additional "Simpsons" Dish Pass, I can add more Dish Passes and Event Timers to my heart's content. 

I'm aware I could just set a Dish Pass to record the Simpsons on any channel at any time, but the point is that I want to give new episodes the priority, as well as set them to "preserve" (not delete automatically).  I've tried several permutations of this with Dish Passes and Event Timers, and it's always the same result.  The best I can figure is that it has something to do with trying to have multiple event timers/Dish Passes with the same name - It's as if the name has to be unique.  I have a hypothesis that I can work around this with manual timers (e.g., telling the DVR to record a specific channel at a specific time), but that's a pain.

I emailed Dish Network about this, but I imagine they won't thoroughly read what I wrote and will just send me a canned response to delete some event timers.  We'll see.  It's certainly not a deal breaker.  I probably waste too much time on reruns anyway.

(Note:  The Simpsons is just one example of a show I want to do this with.  Others include South Park, Family Guy, and Battlestar Galactica.)

The Ugly

• The local NBC affiliate, KSHB 41, has some kind of an issue with their HD feed to Dish.  The audio sounds like it's in a tin can, like someone turned on "stadium" mode on their receiver.  And I've heard of the video stream having some artifact issues.
• I wish there was a clock on the front.  That's about the only thing I really miss about Time Warner's DVR.

Update - 2/25/2007

I got a reply from Dish Network's tech support:

Dear Mr. Soper,

Thank you for your e-mail. We are aware of the issue with this receiver. It will not set up two different types of timers for the same show. It will either setup a dish pass, or a normal timer. To record all episodes at two different priorities is not available at this time.

We are always looking for ways to improve our service, and we appreciate your input. We will forward your comments and concerns to the proper department; however, we can not promise this will be implemented. Thank you again for choosing Dish Network and please feel free to contact us again with any future concerns.

I'm very pleased that someone actually read and understood what I wrote, but it doesn't appear that there's a way to do what I'm asking.  I still give this DVR high marks...  Say, 8 out of 10.

My wife and I lost yet more shows when our Time Warner DVR (SA 8300HD) suddenly decided to stop recording without warning.  And considering that popular opinion is that Time Warner's new Navigator software sucks even more than the software we've got, it became clear to us that it was time to jump ship.

So I logged onto Amazon and ordered the TiVo Series3.  Then I did some browsing around the TiVo community to congratulate myself.  I'm glad I did...  It turns out that there is a pretty serious issue with the TiVo Series3 boxes on certain cable providers.  You see, the TiVo Series3 uses the CableCARD 1.0 spec.  A lot of big cable providers are moving parts of their channel lineup to a new technology called Switched Digital Video (SDV).  SDV is not compatible with CableCARD 1.0.  So as a given cable provider moves channels to SDV, a CableCARD customer would lose those channels.  There's no way of knowing when or what channels would be affected - It all hinges on how Time Warner decides to maintain their network.

Today, I doubt it would impact us.  In all fairness, I would probably be very happy with the Series3 at first.  But what about in a few months?  Years?  How long would it be before my $660 TiVo (Amazon's price) became a boat anchor?  I'm a geek, and I enjoy being an early adopter, but not in this case.  The technology is already partially obsolete with a good potential of becoming further obsolete in the very near future.  I love you TiVo, and you're doing some cool things, but I can't accept that.  Give me a call when you roll out the Series4.

So we started thinking outside the box, and we decided to drop our terrestrial cable (except for RoadRunner)  in favor of Dish Network and their very well received HD DVR.  The installer comes Thursday.

Scott Hanselman wrote an online diary of his upgrade to Vista RC1 a few weeks ago, and I have to admit, I felt for a short period like I would have to trade in my geek card for not having tried it myself. Then yesterday, I caught on Slashdot that Microsoft had released RC2, so I figured what the heck. I downloaded the 64-bit version and installed it over the course of about 3 hours this morning.

Scott's experiences with RC1 had me dreading hardware compatibility issues, but so far, the only problem I've really noticed is that my cheap Logitech web cam wasn't recognized.  Besides that, it was a very smooth install (I installed clean).  I'm still exploring the new interface, but my first impression is that I totally dig it.

I did notice one weird thing with the guest account.  It looks like web access controls for the guest account are enabled by default with no way to disable it.  So, when my mom is here and wants to check her Ebay auctions, she'd actually have to ask me for permission.  Meh.  So as a workaround I created a standard user account name "Visitor," denied it access to any sensitive info anywhere on my system, and gave it full web access rights.

If anyone's curious, my Windows Experience Index is 3.0. Apparently, my integrated video card sucks (well, duh!).

Just got back from seeing Superman Returns.  That movie ROCKS.

It's not a remake.  It's a sequel to the Christopher Reeve movies, taking place 5 years after the events of Superman 2.  I mean, you have to suspend disbelief in that Superman 2 was filmed (and obstensibly takes place) in 1980, yet this movie clearly takes place in modern times.  That said, director Brian Singer (the dude that did X-men 1 and 2) was totally respectful of the original movies, including the theme music (John Williams) and the opening credits (the 3D "whoosh" captions).  Plot points from the original movies figure in as well, including Lois and Superman's interview at Lois' apartment in the the first movie, as well as Lex Luthor finding Superman's Fortress of Solitude in the second movie.  Thankfully, nothing from the third or fourth movies was mentioned, and they seem to be ignored.  :)

The guy they got as Supes (Brandon Routh) is really good, and Kevin Spacey was born to play Lex Luthor.  They even used archive footage of Marlon Brando as Jor-el, Superman's dad.  Wow.  

I just cannot say enough good things about this movie.  I was really afraid that Hollywood would screw it up, but I was wrong.

Go see it.  Now.  Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

For Christmas, my wife had me buy myself an MP3 player.  I ended up picking up the Sandisk Sansa m140.  Rather than go into the long, boring story of it all, let's just say I'm less than thrilled about its playlist limitation of 270 items and the totally clueless outsourced tech support who couldn't tell me why the playlists were limited to 270 items.  In fact, they didn't even know you could put playlists on the device via Windows Media Player.  I love it when I know more than the tech support drones.

While we're on the subject of less-than-stellar Media Player/Sandisk Sansa experiences, let's talk about syncing the device with Media Player.  Media Player actually copies new content to the device before it deletes old content.  That's right, it can't finish syncing up-to-date podcasts and random auto playlists because it runs out of space. Is this a Media Player thing? Can I expect the same thing to happen with any MTP (Plays for Sure) device?

I'm beginning to think I should have followed the crowd on this one - It looks like the iPod people have got it figured out.

Oh, and Scott Hanselman's podcast rocks.

My 13-month-old son, Connor, managed to lose my remote to my Netgear MP101, and, like all really great gizmos, it's completely useless without the remote.  My wife Michelle called Netgear, and the customer service rep claimed that they won't sell replacements (I later found this to be untrue, but that's another story).  After doing a little research, it seemed that Netgear apparently couldn't be buggered to use anything resembling a common remote scheme, and short of getting a JP1-compatible remote and hacking it myself, I was going to have to either retire my MP101 or purchase a new one off of eBay just for the remote.

Then I happened to find Logitech's line of remotes.   Convinced it was the best way I could again be able to use my beloved networked MP3 player, I decided to go ahead and get their slightly-better-than-entry-level offering, the H659.   At a price of less than $100 at Amazon, it wasn't an impulse buy, but I'd been craving a new gadget to play with, and this fit the bill.

Setup is easy.  The remote attaches to your PC by way of USB.  You then browse to Logitech's wizard-based configuration site that walks you through the setup process.

The slowest part of the setup was the first step (after creating an account on the website), entering the device information.  The wizard requires make and model of all of your devices.  Not that it's hard to come up with model numbers, it's just time-consuming.  We had to get a flashlight to inspect our 10-year-old Sanyo bookshelf stereo (left over from college), and we had to write all of these model numbers down and transcribe them faithfully into the wizard.

Once equipped with a knowledge of what devices you own, the wizard sets up some default activities.  By activities, it means what you do with the devices and how they relate to each other.  For instance, when we want to watch a DVD, we need the TV on, the DVD player on, and the TV set to Input 3.  When we want to listen to music, we need the MP101 on, the stereo on, and the stereo set to VIDEO input.  I tried as hard as I could to be creative and outline every possible activity we perform with the living room entertainment center, but in the end, I could only come up with 3:

1. Watch Cable DVR

2. Watch a DVD
   

3. Listen to MP3s

For each activity, you set the devices for that activity and any settings they require.  When you think you're ready to go, you click a button that generates a small binary file which is opened by Logitech's client software on your PC.  After about 3 minutes, the remote reboots itself with its new configuration.

After playing with my new toy for five minutes, I was in love.  The remote keeps track of what activity you're doing and what each system's state is.  For example, if I'm watching Cable DVR, then the TV is on and tuned to Input 1, the DVR is on, but everything else is off.  If I were to select the "Watch a DVD" activity, the DVR would shut off, the DVD player would turn on, and the TV would switch from Input 1 to Input 3.  If any of the devices should be in a state contrary to the remote's belief (like the TV is off when the remote thinks it should be on), just press the help button and a step-by-step troubleshooting guide corrects the issue.  Even Michelle, who isn't afraid of technology but balked at spending $100 on a remote, was impressed at the intuitiveness of it all.

If there's a limit to the customization of the device and activity configurations, I haven't found it yet.  The interface allows you to map any function to any button, as well as creating text-based custom buttons at both the device and activity level.  The approach I've taken is to have a simple list of necessity custom buttons for activities, and then set up the device menu with every function I could ever need.  The result is that most of my usage is activity-oriented, and only occasionally do I need to browse through all the commands for a given device.  I have yet to need to get out any of my original remotes.

Not everything is positive, though.  The remote has some other less-interesting features, like the ability to load some channel guide and program information for display through the LCD screen.  I tried to use it, but it's ultimately useless in the face of the DVR's GUI interface.  And my first H659's LCD screen died after 2 weeks, but, on the up-side, this gave me a chance to enjoy Logitech's awesome customer service.  They gave me my RMA number and dispatched another remote immediately, without requiring me to send in the broken one first.  It showed up via DHL five business days later.  (I actually still have the broken one on my desk...  Note to self:  send it back to Logitech ASAP!).

Overall, I have to recommend it whole-heartedly.  It's not exactly cheap, but it's not their most expensive model either (Scott Hanselman recently reviewed the Harmony 880, which is significantly more expensive).  I'm so enamoured with it, I'm thinking of buying one for my den, in which resides my DLP projector and Xbox 360.

Pros:

• Intuitive interface

• Easy to setup and customize

• Pretty backlit display and buttons

• It works with my MP101

• Awesome Logitech customer service

Cons:

• What's the point in the on-remote program guide?  Doesn't everyone who would buy one of these have some sort of on-screen guide?

• What happens when Logitech decides to no longer provide setup via their website?  Will they provide an offline solution?  Or will I just be expected to retire the remote?

• Casual consumers may be put off by the price