Monthly Archives: February 2007

Would you buy a refurbished MacBook Pro?

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We get a discount from Apple through work (no, I don’t work for Apple) and that knocks a couple hundred dollars off the cost of a new 15″ MacBook Pro (2.33GHz/2GB RAM/120GB hard drive/Super Drive). I deal with a local Apple reseller that will honor that discount.

Apple has refurbished MacBook Pros for $500 off of list and free shipping. So I would save $300 if I went refurbished over new. Have others gone the refurbished route? Is it worth $300 bucks? I really like the reseller I deal with and would feel bad for him losing the sale, but I can think of a lot of things I can do with an extra 300 bucks.

What would you do?

New Aquarium Up And Running

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We moved from the 6 gallon tank to a 46 gallon bow front tank. What a difference. Lots of live plants with lots of room to grow. The filter is whisper quiet and we’re really happy with it. We moved from 6 to 25 fish. I think the Balloon Mollys are my favorite. I find myself just sitting in front of the tank and staring at the fish for hours. It’s very peaceful.

Resolving the Motorola 6412 performance issues

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I’ve written here more than once about how much I dislike the Motorola DVR that Comcast provides. I’ve been through more than one of them and my issues were never resolved.  Just use the search feature of the site or go to Google and search on the Motorola 6412 and see what kind of information you get back.

The first step in resolving the issue was to pick up the phone and call DirecTV. I was with them for over 9 years and loved the service, but they didn’t deliver HD locals so I took a deal from Comcast. It’s been almost 2 years with Comcast and the picture is fine, the HD is good, but the DVR is so bad that I was prepared to purchase my own Series 3 Tivo and the service that goes along with it for a lot of money. So I picked up the phone and DirecTV is supposed to be here to install everything late this week.

But that leaves me with a Comcast cable modem and no Comcast TV service. That means I will have to pay a lot more money per month just to keep their high speed Internet. I addressed this by picking up the phone again, but this time I called Verizon. They will be out later this week to install Fios. 15Mb down, 2 Mb up. I can live with that.

So I should end up with a better DVR, better picture quality across all of my channels, better audio, and faster internet performance with a much better upstream speed.  Everything will cost less for the first year as well, with the years after that costing almost the same.

We’ll see how it goes when all of the installations are complete.

Does Iraq wants us there or not?

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British troops are to start pulling out of Iraq soon and the move is welcomed by the Iraqi president.

I don’t get it.  The move is welcomed?  Really?  Haven’t we been told over and over that we will only stay in Iraq until they don’t want us there any longer?  Until they no longer need us?  If this is really a welcomed moved, let’s send everyone home and make sure Talabani feels nothing but love.

You can’t have it both ways.

Cranial Key Fob Extender

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While the kids and I were in the car waiting for Val to come out of WalMart, I watched a guy park his VW Jetta and start walking for the store. He was trying to lock his car from the key fob, but it wasn’t working. The closer he got to the store the more distance he put between him and his car, so it looked like he was out of range for the fob. Then it happened; he took the key fob and held it up to the side of his chin where the jaw starts and tried again. I could hear the chirp of his alarm as it set. It was a thing of beauty.

I have heard of this before today, as many of us have tried it at work, but this is one of the first times I actually saw it work. Apparently you can use your head to extend the range of your car’s key fob. Nice.

Hey, I wonder if Britney Spears gets even longer distances now that she shaved her head.

An open letter to the old Microsoft UltimateTV developers

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Dear former Microsoft UltimateTV developers,

Things used to be so good between us. I was a happy DirecTV customer using your UltimateTV DVR back when the only real competition was Tivo. I thought you had the product that would take Tivo down from number one, but you guys had other ideas. The small population of UTV users just wasn’t enough for you I guess.

Then came HD and all the amazing picture clarity that I could want. Life was going to be great. But you couldn’t record HD. I hoped, as did many, that you might have an upgrade to support HD, but it never happened. When DirecTV didn’t offer my local channels in HD I had to make a tough decision – either I stayed with DirecTV so I could keep using you at the expense of no HD, or leave DTV and go back to Comcast after 9 1/2 years. I followed the prettier picture, thinking that any DVR can do what you used to do. Boy was I wrong.

The Comcast DVR is a disaster, and the Tivo Series 3 that does HD is pretty expensive and I’m a little nervous about it handling the change in how Comcast may deliver channels later this year. So here I am, hoping that you’ll take me back. I’m sure you guys must have moved your interface somewhere that I can buy? What about the rumors of the XBox360 doing TV recording later this year? That sounds like something right up your alley.

So please former UTV developers. Please. Give me something that I can use that will give me what I had with UTV, but add the ability to handle HD. The shine has worn off the Comcast solution and I’m looking to make a move. Did I mention I make a great beta tester?