Lonnie's Space

As part of setting our house up for stuff going on here, we’ve moved all of our media gear around.  I’m pretty stoked with how things have turned out.  I wanted things to be clean and simple in the living room where the new “home theater” would be.  My brother suggested a Harmony remote that works via RF.   The receiver, DVR, DVD player and new Media Center Extender all live in the closet upstairs from the TV.  The remote controls the devices up there just fine.  The wires are run in the walls and it looks great.  We got a new “sound bar” which simulates surround sound.  It sounds great and I’ll have some more fun dialing that in with the receiver in the coming weeks.  The Media Center Extender has been the most fun though.  It basically allows me to view pictures, listen to MP3s, or watch any videos that are stored on my PC or external hard drive on the TV.  It took me a LONG while and LOT of frustration to get the configuration right.  There were permissions issues and it turns out that the extender creates its own user profile on the PC.  I got it dialed in with the help of a couple of user forums.  I’m amazed that I can even watch live HDTV which is received over the air on an antennae on the PC and then sent via wi-fi to the extender.  The best part is access to all the thousands of photos and MP3s on the network storage.  Here’s what it looks like. 

I spent hours updating file names and adding details to “comments” and “subject” for our vacation pictures.  Hours.  I was working in Digital Image Suite, which is like a consumer version of something like PhotoShop- though much less powerful.  Anyway- Imagine my surprise (anger) when I realize that the metadata in Digital Image Suite is somehow not the same metadata that comes up in Windows Live Photo Gallery!  Windows Live Photo Gallery is the program that makes it easy to connect your photos to your online stuff.  I like it for that.  Digital Image Suite works much better for fixing things like exposure, cropping, stitching etc.  Wouldn’t you think they’d play nice together since they’re both Microsoft products?  Maybe it’s something I’ve done, but I’ve waited days now and the updates I made to metadata in DIS did diss me.  The photo updates- like cropping and editing etc- did show up in Windows Live Photo Gallery.   I really don’t get it. 

Maybe it’s time to give in to the monopoly that is Adobe and buy PhotoShop.  (smile)

I’m also having fun with Live Mesh.  After figuring out what I can count on Digital Image Suite to do and not do, I starting making my metadata updates in Windows Live Gallery.  I made that complicated by sharing the folder that the pictures is in through Mesh and updating metadata from two machines at different times.  It’s taking ages to get them in sync.  I’ll be ready for another vacation before these are posted…

Just after Santa delivered a Nintendo DS to me at the end of last year, I visited a game store and inquired about a crossword puzzle game for it.  J and me like to do crosswords together on my tablet pc and I thought this would be a very cool thing to have for the DS.  Surprisingly, one didn’t exist then.  This past weekend I saw an add for one in the paper and went and purchased it on a break from drum lessons.  It’s pretty cool.  I think we’ll have fun passing some of our bus time on our upcoming vacation. 

A year or so ago I picked up J’s copy of The Not So Big Life.  I read the first couple of chapters and then, ironically, got too busy or lost focus or something and quit reading it.  I found the title on the library site for audiobooks and thought I’d give it another try.  I started listening to it while running on the treadmill, monitoring my heart rate, watching NFL recaps on TV, and stressing about work during a short lunch break.  Here’s the description from Amazon so you can see why that’s funny:

Product Description
Have you ever found yourself asking, “How did my life get so out of control?” Or wondering if this bigger life you have created is actually a better life?
Most of us have lives that are as cluttered with unwanted obligations as our attics are cluttered with things. The bigger-is-better idea that triggered the explosion of McMansions has spilled over to give us McLives–leaving us with chaotic, overcommitted schedules and no time to do what we want to do.
In The Not So Big Life, architect Sarah Susanka expands her revolutionary philosophy on inhabiting space to show us how to better inhabit our lives. Through simple exercises and inspiring stories, Susanka reveals that all we need to do is make small shifts in our day–subtle movements that open our minds as if we were opening windows to let in fresh air. The result: We quickly discover that we have all the space and time we need for the things in our lives that really matter. These small changes can yield great rewards. In her elegant, clear style, Susanka convinces us that less is truly more–much more.

I like the ideas in the book and it’s neat to have the experience of living with an architect to go along with it. We’ll see if I make it through it this time.