Category: Tech

Coaxing Coax for FiOS

Six months ago I talked about my options for TV on the remodeled porch. I was going to string coaxial cable with the assumption that the analog channels on Verizon FiOS TV weren’t going away. Well, they went away. But now I have something much better. Free FiOS TV.

Verizon provided two free digital converters. They don’t control the HD DVR like a full-featured set top box can, but they give me everything I want. The converter needed to be small for the porch, and I was frustrated that I couldn’t find a picture of one online. So here one is.

It’s the Motorola DCT-700, and as you can see it’s plenty small. It’s sitting on top of a Magnavox DP100MW8 DVD player, made by Funai, that I bought at Wal*Mart for $27.88. I think this is the best inexpensive DVD player, partly because it has an S-video output, which is something other super-cheapie models have been dropping. The picture is excellent on the old Sony XBR 32-inch set, but on the Panasonic video projector its progressive component video image can’t compare to my Panasonic DVD-recorder.

My friend tastewar lent me his well-stocked tool kit, and after my contractor drilled a hole in the floor of the porch, Eric and I strung new RG-6 coaxial cable. Eric got the hang of using the stripper and crimper, and soon I was ready to activate the boxes online. The process took about 20 minutes, and when it was done everything worked. Thanks again for the parts and loan of the tools, tastewar!

Happy as I was with having FiOS TV on the porch so I can watch The Colbert Report up there, I’m even happier now that downstairs I have all of the HD channels I was supposed to be getting. My friend across the street and my buddy Bismo followed my lead and got FiOS, but both had many more HD channels than the meager five I was getting. A phone call to Verizon fixed that in a matter of minutes. What a difference! I now have over 20 HD channels. I also now have access to free Video on Demand HD programs, about which I’ll be saying more in my next post.

Am I mad Verizon didn’t set the HD service up right in the first place? Not really. Did I hassle them for a credit? Nah, not after getting two free digital converters. What’s the second converter doing? It’s set to Comedy Central and patched into the DVD recorder. Its sole purpose is for recording The Colbert Report for my friend Morris, who doesn’t have cable TV.

More Downtime

Sorry, but iPower was down again. I’m not happy and I’ll make preparations to switch web site hosting services. I have a big secret project coming up, and although it may not happen for some months I can’t afford to have the site down every week for hours on end. At the moment BlueHost seems like the most likely candidate.

Wait! I’ve got it. Petula’s “Downtown” but called “Downtime”! Ooh, I like it.

Google Goof

At the moment, none of the Google hosted Blogspot blogs I look at are working. It’s error 502, and that’s a bad gateway. Bad gateway! Bad!

This site is WordPress running on Web host iPower. They moved my site from Phoenix to Burlington, MA, not far from from here, and it’s home of iPower’s merger partner Endurance International. The latency times are a fraction of what they were, but throughput sucks. Often it takes 30-60 seconds after clicking log on, or save, for anything to happen. And FTP upload speed is now 150 KB/sec, compared to the consistent 550 KB/sec it had been (yes, that’s bytes, not bits, per second — I have FiOS!).

So either the line into the data center in Burlington doesn’t have enough capacity, or the server I’m on doesn’t have enough CPU for the sites it’s hosting. Maybe it needs TCP offloading. Whatever the cause, I won’t let this continue, and if I have to switch hosting services to see an improvement that’s what I’ll do.

Congrats, Thanks, and Goodbye to Larissa Kelly!

Well, it sure was fun while it lasted! Larissa Kelly gave it a good run, but her reign as Jeopardy! champion has come to an end. Larissa is the first female to win more than five games, and she’s the #1 woman for money won in regular games. As my friend SamJay has pointed out elsewhere, she will undoubtedly be back for the Tournament of Champions. We look forward to seeing Larissa then. Here she is winning Tuesday’s show, and tomorrow I’ll wrap-up with her loss.

[flv:/Video/2008/MAY/Jeopardy3.flv 480 360]

This video is from an SD recording. The previous two videos were taken from Verizon FiOS HD. Even in this greatly reduced format I think the difference in brightness and color quality is apparent. The picture below is a cropped snapshot of my HD screen, as taken with a digital camera. Click to enlarge.

Larissa Kelly on Jeopardy!

Best wishes to Larissa and her husband Jeff! With the real estate market the way it is for the foreseeable future, they should have no trouble making the most of turning Larissa’s winnings into a down payment on a home.

Another Major Meltdown

You may have noticed earlier that the homepage was rolled back in time. The exact point, no surprise to me, was the last post before iPower switched me over to the new platform. This notice was posted on iPower’s support page:

DNS issues potentially affecting your Website and E-mail An unforeseen issue with our DNS system caused us to have to restore a backup from 3/16/2008.If your site has been transitioned to the new platform since 3/16/2008, or you have created your account since that date, your website and e-mail may be affected.

Transitioned customers may notice that your website is displaying an older version. We will be correcting this during the course of the day today (Mon 5/26/2008), as we restore our DNS.

New customers that have created their account since 3/16/2008 may notice that their website is offline completely. This will also be corrected over the next few hours.

We deeply apologize for this service interruption, we know that you count on us, and our team is working as quickly as possible to restore full service for all customers.

Everything seems to be back the way it was when I went to bed last night, but I’ll be on the lookout for further trouble. Needless to say, iPower’s shaky reputation can’t withstand any more incidents such as this one.