Needless to say the research was overwhelming and painful…far too many options with posts/tutorials that were often over my head and often misleading and at times completely wrong.

I narrowed my options down to the following:

• Set up Windows Media Center on a PC with a television tuner card and run that on the HDTV.
• Plug our existing cable into the Tivo and get the channels we already get for free (only possible because we have Comcast HiSpeed Internet)
• Purchase an HD Antenna to pull the OTA content into Tivo.

Option 1: Seemed like too much work based on the hardware required, having to somehow connect the computer to the HDTV and possibly having to get an HD Antenna if the tuner card didn’t understand the digital channel information coming through the cable.

Option 2: Seemed like the simple solution. Except that when I set it up, I found that Tivo doesn’t recognize the HD channels coming through the cable. SD on a HDTV just looks bad…

Option 3: Not an option either – won’t work because Tivo doesn’t have a channel guide that works for OTA channels – making it pointless to have Tivo service.

Because of this I went back to the drawing board to see what was possible. Sure enough – if I really wanted to use Tivo I was going to have to get a CableCARD so it would recognize digital and HD channels. And where do you get a CableCARD? Comcast of course… So I got online to see what my options were. I was hoping that since I had HiSpeed Internet through them that they would rent me a CableCARD for a couple dollars a month just to decode the Digital content coming through the cable (local channels). In my head, Comcast should jump at the chance to take my money for something that is technically free anyway (with the purchase of an HD Antenna of course). But they said no. Problem: apparently they can’t configure a CableCARD to just allow the local channels. So I would get extra channels for free. That can’t be good right?!

But then the light at the end of the tunnel…

Disclaimer!! This will only work for those paying full price for HiSpeed Internet.

Adding the lowest possible cable television package ($24.99) would get me and my local channels in HD and a CableCARD, thus making Tivo worth having because it has a channel guide for Comcast channels…

Problem: My monthly bill for HiSpeed Internet is close to $70, and adding another $25 for something I can technically get for free OTA didn’t make sense.

Temporary Solution: However, adding the $24.99 cable plan means that I now have “bundled services” which drops my HiSpeed Internet to $48. After the transaction I walked out of Comcast with a total monthly charge of $65 – actually saving me money by adding the cable television plan…

Of course I call it my “temporary” solution because it is for 12 months. After the year it will go up to around $80/month for the bundled services. Still only $10 more than what we were paying last week – but that’s $120/year for something that should be free! Guess we’ll be having this conversation again in 12 months…

Until then – here is our current monthly cable/entertainment bill:

• Cable/HiSpeed Internet: $65
• Netflix: $16 (Streaming + DVD option)
• NHL GameCenter Live: $10
• Xbox360 Live Account: $5
• Zune Pass (for music – may be getting rid of soon): $15
• Current Monthly Total: $111.00

Thoughts? Is around $100 a happy medium for in-house entertainment? At this point this includes music, video games, television/DVR, on demand tv/movies, all NHL games.

Two that really caught my eye so far:

Roku Streaming Stick

Sweet new adaptation of the popular Roku Box. Plug it into your TV and you have instant Smart TV without the proprietary software having to exist on your television.

Lytro Light Field Camera

Amazing new technology allowing the capture of full light spectrum images without the problematic shutter. Take images all day then when you get home you can change the focus on whatever subject you want. Put them online in the proprietary file format and the end user can actually adjust the focus on what they want to see. Pretty cool stuff. I’m hoping that someday they will make DSL-R type cameras with tech like this so I can capture sporting events and fix the focus after the fact.

View Lytro Living-Image Gallery

View Full Infographic Here

For me, nature was a HUGE part of that upbringing. We ditched Chicago in 1978 and took off on an exciting adventure through the wild west. We lived in Powell, Wyoming but saw the majority of the western states and provinces before returning to Chicago in 1985. This, coupled with my rich Canadian heritage made it heaven on earth.

I never got to live in Canada, but took many trips into the frozen north with my parents. Lethbridge, Calgary, Edmonton, Banff, Jasper, Fort Smith, Vernon and Vancouver – just to name a few of the places we visited…

So it isn’t hard to understand why this promotional video for Alberta brought a tear to my eye and made me long for days gone by.

I think if I were independently wealthy I would build a big log cabin back in the deep woods of Alberta and experience all it has to offer.

But for now I just watch the videos…

Watch it below or go immediately to HD Fullscreen Awesomesauce

Click here to view the embedded video.

HTC Evo 4G

I love my phone – but I am quickly coming to realize one major limitation/design flaw. Google (Android) definitely hasn’t perfected the way Apps are stored on your device. What happens is that many Apps require they be stored on the hard drive instead of the SD card. Because of this, the main memory of the Evo 4G fills up very quickly and then can keep you from downloading new Apps – even ones that could be installed on the SD card. You wind up in a never-ending loop of “Storage space is limited” and having to delete Apps/clear data caches etc. just to add new Apps to your phone. And I have less than 50 Apps on my phone! I feel like newer Android devices have solved this problem – but yet I’m stuck with the device that had to expose the flaw

Internet Explorer

Amazing news today. IE has actually decided updating itself in real time is a good thing! Apparently in the next couple of months IE will implement this functionality in their browser just like Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox have [story here]. In related news, Google Chrome passes IE8 in overall usage to become the worlds favorite browser according to StatCounter.com [story here].

GoogleTV

I finally got my GoogleTV update after months of using it as a paperweight. It just wasn’t that cool – one more device to play Netflix on… So am I happy with the new update? Sorta. I mean it looks different, works better and has some cool new features. But I’m still not sure if it’s that cool. Maybe I just haven’t played with it enough. And maybe there just hasn’t been enough time for developers to crank out the cool Apps. For example, where is NFL 2011 or NHL Game Center? These are the sort of Apps that would kick butt – not some little purple dude trying to avoid falling pieces of space debris… And it still isn’t drop dead simple to get photos and video off a home computer onto the TV. All my video is AVCHD which means I’m out of luck right? So we’ll see – keeping an open mind – but wishing for so much more.

Nook Color

Probably the biggest disappointment of all time for me… To summarize: B&N puts out the Nook Color which runs on the slowest possible hardware – making rooting impossible (ok, not impossible – just plain dumb). Then Amazon comes out with the Kindle Fire which rocks. Then B&N puts out the Nook Tablet because they realize they are way out-gunned and need to make up ground. This leaves my daughter with a Nook Color that is nothing more than a slow book reader. Supposedly this week it will receive an update which will allow use of the Netflix App. I can’t imaging it has the power to play video on that level, but we’ll see…

WordPress 3.3

Fun update to WordPress this week. I’ve only upgraded my personal blog so I can test it out – but will soon roll it out to all my clients. Finally there is drag and drop image upload, flyout menus and even some cool tweaks so you can administer your site easily on the iPad (watch demo video). More to come but fun so far! [content from Mashable Article]

YouTube

I found an Easter Egg today courtesy of YouTube. I got an email from my dad with the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=ThFCg0tBDck

What the link does is put you right into a fullscreen viewing environment with stripped down player – just what I’ve always wanted from  YouTube – the video outlet that is known for it’s raw, dirty, cluttered look. But this is a thing of beauty! Now to investigate and figure out how this person got the link. I can easily recreate URL’s like this for any video on YouTube, but how cool would it be if this was the sort of “share” link that was easily accessible on YouTube? Anyone out there know?

Fun week – more to come!

Engadget posted today that according to StatCounter’s Global Report on Web Browser Usage – the following is now true:

• Google Chrome has moved past Mozilla Firefox for the first time since it’s launch.
• Internet Explorer continues its decline – although still in the top spot with a 40.6% global usage and 50.7% US usage rate.

One thing that is a little misleading is that there is really only one version of Chrome. When a person downloads Google Chrome it does an amazing job out automatically updating itself over time so that you are experiencing the best Chrome has to offer.

Firefox has moved to a similar format – although there are probably still people using a previous version of Firefox since the automatic updating only takes place on the newest version.

And then there is IE…the browser famous for having entire segments of the population still running on old and outdated versions of their browser. Which to me is the misleading part. Of the 40.6% / 50.7% statistic, there are people on at least three different versions of IE (7, 8 and now 9). Some may argue that it doesn’t matter – if they had all been automatically updated the percentage would still be the same!

True…but think about this…

The percentage of people using IE9 is really the only number that matters. Because they are the only people getting a web browsing experience similar to Chrome and Firefox. I say “similar to” because I still don’t think IE9 made enough changes to match the industry leading technology the other two employ.

Allow me to geek out a bit here…

I pulled the browser stats from this website just as an example.

Here are the browser usage stats from darylmcmullen.com as of today:

And here is the breakdown of IE versions that make up the IE percentage:

Allow me to summarize:

• Of the people visiting my website, it is much more even. Firefox wins with 28%, next is Chrome with 22%, then there is IE with 20% and finally Safari with 19%.
• BUT! When you break down IE into the various versions you find that of the 20% they own – only  26% of them are on the latest version of IE! The bulk of them (over half) are still playing around in IE8 land…

I know it really doesn’t matter. To each his own. Variety makes the world go around.

But I think it helps to understand the numbers a bit more than we do. In reality, IE doesn’t have the apparent stranglehold on the browser wars. And with the declining IE numbers we’ve seen over the past few years, I’m afraid Microsoft’s browser just might be on the way out. Unless of course they are willing to accept that people want standardization. Only then will they put out a browser that can hang with the others.

The way I look at it, there doesn’t need to be a clear winner. There could be 5 browsers to choose from and each could have the same percentage of the market. The truth is, there is plenty of room out there for even more good, solid browsers. The difference is that people are getting smarter and can tell when there is one that doesn’t belong in the running…

I attempted to switch to WordPress a few times, but it never seemed to offer what I was looking for. This was about the time many of my friends were sucked into the Typepad vortex. I can’t tell you how happy I am that I avoided that disaster.

So I stuck with Blogger until 2010 when I finally made the switch to WordPress, and I haven’t looked back. With the ability to create multi-page sites, dynamic menus, create multiple sidebars, and choose from massive libraries of themes, widgets and plugins, I was sold. Not only did it offer me a new blog platform, but it became the CMS upon which I could develop websites for freelance clients – a problem I often solved with Adobe Contribute (well sorta solved…never really worked like I wanted it to).

So my next dilemma became:

• Do I build websites for people on the WordPress CMS completely from scratch? In other words – start with a “naked theme” like the ones described here?
• Or do I use a pre-designed theme that the client likes and tweak it in terms of logo, color scheme and layout?

After trying both I came to this stunning conclusion:

• The site I built entirely from scratch took me forever and broke the minute I upgraded the WordPress platform the first time.
• The sites I built using pre-designed themes felt too cookie-cutter. I couldn’t scratch the itch to do more in terms of the design process.

Enter Headway Themes
When I read up on the Headway Themes development platform I was immediately interested because it seems to offer something right smack dab in the middle. The best of both worlds so to speak.

It looks like you can do full blown layouts by simply dragging regions for your page elements and then I’m assuming add your css to flesh out the actual design after that.

I haven’t ever played with it but hope to give it a whirl as soon as Version 3.0 comes out on November 25th.

Anyone out there using Headway Themes already? Anyone as interested as me?

Mom: Here, I loosened your skates. Go ahead and take them off.

Son: Okay.

Mom: So how did they feel?

Son: Fine, why?

Mom: I had them sharpened for you today. Did they feel any better?

Son: I didn’t notice.

Mom: So you didn’t feel like you could skate faster?

Son: Not really, I just played…

Now keep in mind – these are seven year olds. An older child may notice the ability to carve better and stop faster. But the way this kid acted brings up a good point:

When something is working correctly, you shouldn’t even notice it.

Here are some examples:

• Your car. When it is working you don’t think about the transmission.
• Your phone. When it’s working you don’t sit and think about the 3G towers and how the signal is making it to you.
• Your well. When it is working you don’t stop to think where the water is coming from and how the pump gets it out of the ground and into your house.

However, if any of these things isn’t woking correctly, you immediately start thinking about them in more detail.

So in part, what the kid was saying to his mom made sense. “I didn’t notice… …I just played.”

The truth is, if his edges were really dinged up and dull – he may have actually asked his mom to have them sharpened. But since they were working as normal, he didn’t notice.

Great Illustration
And so it is with our websites. We can give people one of two experiences when they visit:

1. We can give them the “I didn’t even notice” experience.
• In this case the person finds exactly what they were looking for and leaves – never once wondering what technology was used or how the page was created.
2. Or we can give them the “What the heck is wrong with this website” experience.
• In this case the person is overwhelmed with the technology. It takes too long to load, is too complicated to find or simply doesn’t work as expected. The visitor can’t find what they are looking for and leaves frustrated.

And they were right.

I’m not sure how it came to this, but I’ve slowly become “The Grumpster.”

I’m sure some of it has to do with stress – the daily grind, the to-do lists, the fix-er-upper projects that never end. And I’m sure having a lower back that does nothing but nag at me doesn’t help much either. But really? Do I need to become The Grinch?

No. It really doesn’t matter what is going on in your life, you still have the option to deal with it well or poorly…

So I’ve decided to become more positive. Not sure where to start, but I’m sure I’ll think of something.

Actually, can I just get a few more things off my chest first? Then I’ll start my positive streak. Sweet! Okay, here it goes:

• Is it just me or does it feel like mobile technology just hit a major wall? I mean for a while there technology was leaping forward every few months. Now it is standing still. In fact, some of the new HTC phones coming out look like Blackberry phones from 3 years ago and they do less than my Evo 4G does!
• Speaking of 4G… Sprint has soaked us for an extra $20/month just to have 4G phones that we can’t take advantage of. Why? Because there is no 4G here. And now I’m finding out there won’t be 4G at all! At least not the 4G WiMax they promised. Instead we will eventually get 4G LTE like Verizon has. Possibly sometime in 2013…
• And what’s up with GoogleTV? It appears I spent over $200 just to have another Netflix-enabled device… Google has promised an upgrade for months and yet keeps missing their promised release dates one after the other. By the time it is upgraded, the hardware will no longer be supported…
• And what’s with the moles? I haven’t had moles in the lawn since we moved in. Then, this year I decided to pay Scott’s Lawn Service to fertilize it so it would look the best it possibly can. And what happens? We get moles so bad you can’t even walk on it without spraining an ankle…

Ahhh….that’s better. So glad I was able to get a few more off my chest before becoming positive.

Now the transition into positivity…

Actually – it isn’t hard. I mean I have been blessed beyond what I deserve. Here are just a few:

• God – hasn’t let me down yet.
• Tammy – couldn’t have asked for a more perfect life partner.
• My Kids – truly wonderful little life-forms. With them around you’ll never get bored.
• Extended Family – we have great parents, siblings, aunts and uncles that love us and are for us.
• My Job – still can’t believe I get paid to do what I do and be part of something so inspiring. We truly are changing the world.
• The Basics – we live in a nice house with two cars and more “stuff” than a small country could inventory and manage.
• Safety – we live in a part of the world where there is little to no fear of getting demolished by earthquakes, hurricanes, fires, landslides, tsunamis, etc. We have the occasional tornado – but they are often so small Oklahoma wouldn’t label them a tornado…
• And the list just keeps going.

Please help me in my quest to be more positive. You can start by being more positive yourself. And if you hear me bemoaning my life or in any way complaining about other people or the way they live their lives, or the way they run their businesses, or the way they drive – feel free to slap me upside the head and keep me on track.

Thanks ahead of time!

Reason for my question: I find myself thinking I should be able to do my entire job on my phone. I mean it is a smartphone – and does everything my computer does (basically)…

I manage email, texts, voicemail, projects and tasks. But am I managing them as well as I can when sitting in front of my big monitor?

For me – the answer is NO! In fact, I think I’m less organized and less productive when you throw the smartphone into the mix. For me it all comes down to real estate. If something is open and visible, there is a better chance I’m seeing it throughout the day and that I’ll remember it. On my computer there is a greater chance I will have something visible. On my phone – everything is closed. The only way I will see something is to open programs and look through them.

This is why I actually make paper lists when my task list gets out of control. I can carry it around and look at it throughout the day to make sure I’m working on the things that matter.

On electronic devices, it’s too easy to close the program, file things away and lose track of them. Unfortunately for me, out of sight is out of mind…

I understand this is just my opinion. There are probably people out there that do everything on their phones. More power to them.

But for me, I think organization and productivity get more problematic in the following way:

1. Paper: Helps me stay the most organized and productive.
2. Laptop with large monitor: I’m getting better at keeping stuff organized with Outlook, Excel and other project management software.
3. Tablets: Mainly a distraction at this point. Fun for multi-media and games. And I check my email every now and then.
4. Smartphone: Information comes and goes. If I don’t address it immediately its gone (texts and voicemails). Luckily if it is an email, it’s still in my Inbox and gets taken care of when I get back to my laptop. Excellent device for keeping up on Twitter and allows for real-time searching for directions, food, products, etc. when you aren’t at your laptop. Makes me much less bored in lines at stores and at long red lights…

I find it amazing that as smaller and smaller devices come out, my ability to stay organized and be productive actually decreases.

Is it just me?