I didn’t really want a new phone but my HTC One M9 was starting to really irritate me. Specifically the battery and power usage. It got to the point where I was having to charge it at least 3 times a day or I would run out of power. I was able to watch the battery tick down… Read More »
Media players are a interesting topic. Over the past couple of years, we’ve tried a variety of them. The first one was back in 2007 and was the D-Link MediaLounge DSM-520 that got its media from a UPNP Media server. It was designed to fit into a home entertainment unit, the typical ~19 inches wide and looked a… Read More »
After I purchased the new ASUS ZenBook, I went looking for another power supply for it, one to keep plugged in at my desk at the office, and another one for my backpack. One would think that would be easy to do, right? Not so. ASUS decided to do something very odd, and rather stupid. They changed the… Read More »
Over the last couple of years, the entire media landscape has changed. We were quite happy with MythTV, but its pretty limited in its scope, it can only handle TV, Recorded TV, Videos, Music and Pictures that are on its local drives. Now, add in the fact that we’ve had a Roku now for a while, as well… Read More »
With Jessica not being nearly as mobile any more, we decided it was time to start looking into a little bit of home automation. To start, we decided to just add a couple of controls for our lights. The TP-LINK HS100 WiFi Smart Plug seemed like a good way to get started as TP-LINK makes fairly decent products… Read More »
So back in December, Amazon was running a promo for Prime members to purchase the new Fire TV Stick for 50% off, making it just about $21 after tax. I couldn’t pass up that offer. After using it for a little while now, I figured I would give a review of it. Before getting started, though, I’ll point out… Read More »
A couple months ago, my parents finally replaced their old Sony console TV (a tube TV) with a bright shiny new Samsung 60″ Smart TV. Its a thing of beauty. The picture is crisp and sharp and has excellent color. Being one of Samsung’s Smart TV’s, it also has networking capabilities and can stream things from the Internet.… Read More »
So last week for my birthday, Jessica told me that I had to buy myself a present to open up in front of our oldest son. She wants to stress the importance that all birthdays aren’t about him (he’s three). I’d been looking at a new headset with microphone to use at the office for a few months… Read More »
With this week’s announcement of the Amazon Fire TV, I thought it would be a good time to review our Chromecast. Though I don’t see myself purchasing a Fire TV box, as we already have a Roku, there are quite a few comparisons against the Chromecast and the Roku both, so I thought I’d share our experiences with… Read More »
I’ve been working heavily with VoIP for the last couple of years, and every few months I find myself looking at SIP soft phones again. I haven’t really used them at all under Linux in a long time because none of them quite fit my needs or are as good as the ones available under Windows. Because of… Read More »