Computer and Smartphone Stuff
This document last modified January 6, 2014.
Home Theater Personal Computer (HTPC) support.
Smartphone Stuff
Techie News and Product Reviews
Home Theater Personal Computer
My Home Theater Personal Computer (HTPC) is arguably my favorite techie-toy. A HTPC is basically a digital video recorder (or DVR, like TiVo) built around a common personal computer. Unlike TiVo or other commercial DVRs, though, I can save my movies and TV programs to any computer storage, or transfer it over a network to my laptop, or move it to a smartphone or portable video player, or back it up, or even transfer it over the internet to view while I'm away on business travel or vacation. I can watch whatever I want, whenever I want, and where-ever I want. At this point, the technology is mature and the system operates without fault, 24x7. I have this system hooked up my TV, and the record and playback quality is indistinguishable from the original broadcast.
My current system uses Snapstream's Beyond TV software. This application and the associated hardware have made for an absolutely rock-solid HTPC experience. Read about the features on their web site, and be assured from me that everything works. Still, though, this is not quite as straightforward as plugging a cable into the back of your TV, so there's occasionally a need for some configuration help. My preferred source is the forums section of Snapstream's web site.
I can transfer movies and news programs (or whatever else I want to record and watch) to my laptop computer
and play it back with either Windows Media Player or the DivX Player. The DivX player can play back DivX, AVI, MKV, MP4 and MOV videos. DivX seems to make for higher quality recordings than Microsoft's WMV format, so that's my preference for movies or anything else that I want to have the best possible picture quality.
I can even transfer the files to my smartphone and play them back while at the gym, or out for a walk, or I can even connect to the car stereo via Bluetooth to listen to news and commentary programs while I'm driving to work in the morning.
I have two Hauppauge HVR-2250 dual tuner cards in my HTPC, and I just recently added an external USB tuner, allowing me to record up to five programs at once. At present, this is in a home-built computer built around a motherboard from MSI, but these cards could go into any common desktop computer.
Android Smartphone Stuff
I'm currently using an HTC Desire 601 on Virgin Mobile. It's arguably the best value around in a multimedia phone, with much of the good stuff from the HTC One - including those amazing speakers - at about one-third the price. I think of it as an "HTC One Minus."
I'm paying $45 per month for 1200 minutes of voice calls, unlimited data and unlimited messaging.
Here's the deal with Virgin Mobile: you *buy* the phone at full price, as opposed to getting it for free or discounted with a contract, but the monthly rates are incredibly low. There's no contract, and no early termination fees. You're running on Sprint's network, so if you have good Sprint coverage in your area, this might be a great way to save a lot of money.
One nice benefit of having a no-contract service plan is that you can upgrade whenever you want. For my last two phones, I ended up selling them on E-bay for about $100, after buying a new one for about $200. That's a net of about $100 to upgrade to a new phone, with new features and a new battery and no scratches or dings or anything. If I upgrade every two years, it's way cheaper than the contract plans and pretty much negates the need to get phone insurance.
Still, I've never seen a phone that doesn't have some support issues, so every once in a while, I look for solutions on these sites:
Android Central
HTC Desire 601 Forum on Android Forums.
HTC Desire Series Forum on Android Central.
And because the HTC Desire 601 shares so many features and functions with the HTC One and HTC One Mini, I sometimes check those forums too:
HTC One Forum on Android Central.
HTC One Mini Forum on Android Central.
HTC One Forum on Android Forums.
HTC One Mini Forum on Android Forums.
Reviews
Tom's Hardware Guide is probably the premiere computer product review site on the web.
Anandtech is another great site.
Small Net Builder has current reviews and articles on Small Office/Home Office networking equipment.
Frostytech has reviews that are specific to computer builders/hobbyists that are looking for cooling systems and cases. This has direct relevance to my ongoing home theater PC project.