So, Bethany posts every so often and I post only every so often. It's my turn to post evidently.
One thing that I've been doing the past little while is tinkering with the network and computing devices at my house in an effort to consolidate and awesome-ate. Here are the (minor) problems I've been trying to solve:
- different computers having different documents on them
- no backup being done
- A DVD player, a separate Blu-Ray player, and an Xbox 360 which we stream Hulu through
- a couple hundred DVD, HD DVD and Blu-Ray movie boxes and discs
- a change in furniture arrangement that moved the TV and associated network-connected devices to a location with no network jack
So, with these issues, I've been working on an overall solution.
My first desire was to consolidate our media libraries in one place. I killed a few birds with one large stone in the form of a Home Server. I chose a product made by HP that has space for 4 internal hard drives and runs Windows Home Server software. I put four 1.5 terrabyte drives in this baby for a total of 6 terrabytes of unadulterated space and it runs great. This is plugged into the wireless router that you can see in the photo, and that hard drive space is shared with any computer connected to the network.
From the picture, you can see that it isn't a large computer. It's just over a foot high. You can see the four hard drive enclosures on the front of it. It's size is misleading as there's a lot of birds that this little computer kills. The software included out of the box manages all of that hard drive space, it automates the scheduled backup of any computer that's connected to the network, it automatically copies and sorts any files (documents, videos, pictures, etc.) from locations on computers I specify, and it has a built in web service that lets me log in from a any remote location to grab a file, watch a movie, etc.
It's a nice, compact solution to a few of the problems I described. My plan is to back up all of the movies on DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-Ray we have to this central server. That will let us eliminate two pieces of equipment we currently have: a dedicated Blu-Ray player and a 400-disc DVD player. I should mention that the 400-disc DVD player is awesome in that it took care of one of my aforementioned problems, that of a bunch of movies and a bunch of unsightly cases. We actually have had all of our DVD movies in this one device for awhile now and it's been great. Moving the discs into digital format is the next step. So, the 400-disc DVD player and the Blu-Ray player are up for sale! So is the 60" TV!
So, my house was built with ethernet cabling running from a central location in the basement to each room in the other two upper floors (except the bathrooms...). For some cases, that works great since, in general, a hard line is better than a wireless signal. However, for a long time now I've had a wireless router broadcasting a wireless signal all over my house. But for the TV we had a networking jack right behind the TV stand up until recently when we decided to try something new with the furniture arrangment in our living room. We moved things around and the TV is now on the opposite wall where there is no jack to speak of. Here enters a problem for solving, and a problem which had posed the greatest challenge until yesterday.
As already mentioned, we've had a wireless networking signal in our house for a long, long time, but the devices connected to our television have always been hardwired through a simple hub connected to the wall jack (which ultimately connects to the router in the basement). With the TV having moved across the room it may as well have moved to the other side of the world. We could run wires behind the floorboards or up through the wall from the basement. I didn't want to do either of those. It would be way cooler to do it the hard way. So, I bought another wireless router exactly like the one in the basement. There is a feature of this router that lets it act as a repeater when paired with another router. This is meant to essentially extend the range of your existing network. Sounds good, eh? Not so much. I wrestled with that for a few days trying to get the functionality work. It did work... kind of. It had really bad hiccups, it burped all the time, and it was always saying that other devices couldn't come in its room to play. It just wasn't solid.
So, yesterday I took it back and got a dedicated networking Bridge device to take its place. Now this was a pleasant experience! It was up and running in 15 or so minutes without all the mess.
This is a snap of the wireless bridge on the left and a simple hub on the right. The bridge connects wirelessly to the router in the basement. The hub connects to the wireless bridge, and the Xbox 360, the Blu-Ray player and another so-far-unannounced device all connect through the hub. And it all works! Woot!
The other device is a new addition to the McLean computer family; it's a computer I assembled over the last few weeks that doesn't serve quite the same purpose as the traditional server or home computer. It's a home theater PC whose primary function is to pull all this together.
You see, the dream is to sit down on the couch, turn on the TV, select a movie or TV show to watch and have it go. No fussing with different TV input settings, no fussing with DVD cases and discs, no searching for *something* to be on -- none of that. And even better, to be able to pull up a browser if something comes to mind -- all without *having* to get up. There's a few other nifty things that one can do with a computer connected to their TV which is connected to all your media and a fountain of knowledge over the internet, but the consolidation is what I've been after with this solution. A universal remote goes a long way, but this is better.
As you can see, this doesn't look like a traditional computer. That's the point I think. We're looking for a good stand that fits with our other furniture, but the goal is that you don't walk into the room and see your desktop next to your TV. It's meant to blend in (a little bit at least). It's still a computer and you can do everything you do with a computer. The difference is that this computer has an HDMI port and is capable of outputting 7.1 surround sound and HD video in addition to everything else your desktop is capable of.
So, with the current setup I can sit down and browse my music and movie collections, see what shows are available for watching on Hulu or other internet sites, stream any of the movies from Netflix, go and do anything else on the internet, and so on.
Other things that have been going on for me are mostly work related. There's a promotion in the works, although I still don't know the timing. And the elephant in the room right now is the announcement that the software/media corporation Adobe has offered to purchase Omniture, the company I work for. That's interesting for us because we haven't had this experience before -- where a bigger fish comes and swallows you up. And it was out of the blue for most of us lay employees. If all goes according to plan, that transaction will be complete during the upcoming week. Perhaps I'll post again with an update after the supposed day.
Bethany bought Matthew a tie yesterday which he has sported with aplomb most of the day today. he even posed for some shots.
This picture totally cracks me up. I don't know if it's the grumpy face or the Star Trek shirt.
Matt "in the zone" while playing xbox.
This is an outtake from the taco night post. I have ended up using the timer on my camera a lot so I can be in the photo. This was a long exposure shot, and it took a couple of tries because the kids had a hard time holding still long enough!
Anna loves playing with the pink lego set she got for Christmas.
This is another outtake, trying to get everyone in place before the camera takes the picture.
