Buying the ultimate video production PC from Dell

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 21:12:00 GMT

In making the decision to buy a PC that could be used for showing video from the PC to the TV and also bringing the TV to the PC, the first choice was a XPS 420 taking full advantage of Windows Media Center. The goal is to be able to create 64 bit applications with Visual Studio 2008. The other objective is to purchase this with 4 GB of memory and later add 4 GB more. So this meant ordering it with Windows Vista 64bit an option that was not available on the XPS 420.

After a few tweet with @LionelatDell and emails with my sales rep mo_peterson@dell.com , it was decided that we order out the Precision T3400 with a compatible Nividia card that is similar to what the XPS 420 has. Again we were assured that we would have the same experience as we would with the XPS 420. Since we received the Precision t 3400 last week, we installed the audio tuning card sent separately, a TV Wonder HD 650 PCIe Combo TV Tuner. But we could not find a way go from the PC to the TV which should have been on the video card. Expecting supreme video, the card we have has one output and uses a cable splitter to go to the two monitors; this card is a NIVIDIA NVS 290 unlike the one that is on the XPS 420 which is a ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO 128MB. On this machine we are also running; a Logitech 9000 for streaming and Skype and Maxtor hard drives on USB this is creating a issue. When we install the Logitech 9000 cam, it knocks out the hard drives; if you unplug the drives, install the Logitech 9000 and plug in the hard drive, it knocks out the Logitech 9000.

We have Dell support coming out on Wednesday, June 18 2008 to take a look at this to see what can be done. We also notice that the power supply is 375W; shouldn’t this be higher running the two monitors plus TV and the hard drives? Your thoughts -suggestions or do you use Windows Media Center or something else to watch videos, internet TV from your PC on your TV. If so, let’s discuss it over on http://twitter.com/tunis or http://friendfeed.com/kevintunis

Revisiting the Graffiti CMS Theme

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 22:33:00 GMT

After several attempts to start from scratch on the Graffiti CMS theme, I opted to modify the “Gulf Coasting” theme from Kevin Harder. Looking to make this theme more “social”, I would like to find a way to break down the walled gardens of the social networks and make my own site the principal that I work from. Based on an article I wrote back in 2003, I still feel that each person should have an application similar to instant messaging unlike the browsers we have today that you will access using a mobile or desktop device. Within this application you will be able to add your video, word processor, spreadsheet and you should be able to have conversations with others at random. Your data will be stored in offsite knowledge databases that will have the capacity to transfer video/audio to text to make these accessible in search. This is one of the reasons I have been looking at Silverlight; after some testing I think I can make it determine which video application I am on live: Ustream or Qik and it will show it on the site. I have also been looking at Windows Live Messenger as I can add it to the site to emulate the instant messenger experience through some workarounds; this lets me “tweet” to/from Twitter though sometimes this conversation is one sided which means it still needs some work. I am also looking for a widget that works with Graffiti CMS that is similar to Chris Pirillo’s “Social Me” page http://chris.pirillo.com/social-me/. Anyway this is an update on what I have been doing on the site using Graffiti CMS and this is very much a work-in-progress.

30 years in the making…

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 21:06:00 GMT

I was to graduate in 1977, in which school was hard for me. Let me go back to grade school in Satanta, Kansas, I was always having issues with reading and basic math and concentration on study was difficult. At the age of 10 or 11 (I am not sure as dates and times are still difficult even today), teachers said that I had dyslexia. It was at this time my parents found Calvert’s Academy, a school for dyslexia in Albuquerque, New Mexico; this school was named after it founder, James Calvert.. Being in a rural area at that time, Satanta Kansas grade school was not capable to handle or train dyslexia students as it is today. After 1977 I did take some college classes though I did not have a high school diploma. I simply told the colleges I was not concerned with the credits and they let me take the classes with the acknowledgment that I would not get any credits. Now let me bring you forward to 2006, while driving down the road I heard a advertisement on the radio about getting a high school diploma, not a GED, but a diploma. So I stopped and wrote down the phone number and the contacts name - Sublette Community Learning Center. After calling Irene Perez, I signed up to get my diploma on-line through Southwest Plains Regional Service Center. Though it took me two years, the first year was with Bill Nichols and the second year Tamina Fromme took over. I was actually done in December 2007 but graduation wasn’t till May. It took me 30 years but I did it and on May 11, 2008, I received my High School Diploma!

New Graffiti CMS Theme

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 18:05:00 GMT

After several attempts to get the theme the way I wanted. I emailed Scott Watermasysk in which he replied that it was the CSS I was working on. I finally ended up deleting the theme I was working on as it simply was not responding at all. I did however get my theme to basically look like I wanted by modifying the theme that Rich Mercer ported from Free CSS Templates designed by NodeThirtyThree. In retrospect I am finding it seems easier to convert or port a theme to Graffiti.

Some of the items that still need work;

After you click on a post the title is not linked and shows up as gray in color supposed to be white
Need a RSS icon or text to link to my feeds
Sort order of my feed needs to be reversed – newest to the oldest

Creating a Graffiti Theme from Scratch

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 20:34:00 GMT

This the second in a series for Graffiti CMS (graffiticms.com); after migrating my blog from Community Server to Graffiti CMS, I decided to create a theme from scratch instead of using the ones that are available or converting a WordPress theme. I thought I would start by going over to Visual Studio and create the theme there so I can get the look I wanted. My general idea is that I want both the left and right side bar on the left side of my content so I can take advantage of Graffiti’s widgets. I have managed to do this with one of the prepackaged themes that came with Graffiti – so I kind of got an idea of how to do that. First I just wanted to show the title and make it a link back for home – here is the basic idea http://www.screencast.com/t/a1Wj8bii . Now here is where I ran into some issues with CSS, when copied the html I had to make some changes. Below are the style.css page and the view layout.view page that Graffiti uses. When using the html the page looks like I want it with the title position but in the layout.view page, the title is not in the location I wanted; it is in the top left and it seem that no matter what changes I make it does not affect the title. I have emailed this to Graffiti-Beta@Telligent.com and I am moving this over to the forums http://support.graffiticms.com/p/104/305.aspx#305 I will keep you updated here. I’m sure this is something simple and the guys at Teligent can help me get my thoughts around this.

Style.css

body

{

margin: 0px;

background-color: #000000;

font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;

font-size: medium;

font-weight: normal;

color: #FFFFFF;

}

#header

{

margin: 0px;

height: 150px;

}

#logo

{

margin: 40px 50px 10px 50px;

font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;

font-size: x-large;

color: #FFFFFF;

}

Layout.view

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<head>

<title>$title</title>

$macros.Style("style.css","screen")

$macros.Head()

</head>

<body>

<a href="$urls.Home" title="$data.Site.Title">$data.Site.Title</a>

</div>

</body>

</html>

Graffiti CMS – Migrating your post from a Community Server Database

Sat, 08 Dec 2007 20:14:00 GMT

After downloading GraffitiCMS, I had decided that I would like to keep my post from Community Server blog.

Backup your Community Server SQL Database (just in case)

Create a new SQL database for your Graffiti site

Run the SQL Query's - Graffiti_SQL_Schema.sql and Graffiti_SQL_Data.sql in this order

Go to _config/settings.config file and change the AppSetting Key "DataBuddy::Provider" value to "DataBuddy.SQLDataProvider

Download and install Jayme Davis alpha migration tool http://ndepth.net/blog/graffiti-beta-is-launched

Copied the connectionString from my Community Server connectionString.config file and pasted into the Connection String field; then entered my Application Key and User Name. After you press the get data button you should be able to select all your posts or just the ones you want to imported into your Grafitti blog from your Community Server blog.

Creating Silverlight Ads

Sat, 15 Sep 2007 06:57:00 GMT

In the last two or three weeks I have been working onSilverlight ads and how to add them to your website. I had emailed or left comments to other developers using Silverlight how to do this in which I have had very few answers. One answer was to use it to display it in an iframe; to me this takes away the effect and personally I am not fond of iframe’s.Today while reading my feeds at reader.google.com, I discovered that Ronan Geraghty's has written a post and provided a download sample at http://tinyurl.com/youyv7 I will begin reviewing it this weekend.

Proud of both my girls

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 06:41:00 GMT

At the Haskell County fair at Sublette Kansas, both my daughters brought home some ribbons. My oldest Tiffany, age 10, won division champion for her self-determine project on weather and my youngest Ashley, age7, got third in showmanship and third for obedience for showing her dog –a Jack Russell terrier in which I very much liked the comment of the judge for her effort: “Good job with a challenging dog. Did not get frustrated or upset.” My oldest has always wanted and is “the weathergirl” in which she is always telling people about the weather. She is using the money she has saved up to buy her own weather station which will let her publish to a web page which I think is cool, I think I might just throw in a little self-promotion: anyone wanting to sponsor her site, please email me at Kevin@knowledgemgmtsolutions.com.My youngest Ashley wants to be a veterinary and have a farm with all types of animals. I am glad my daughters have these ambitions and I want to give them every chance to chase their dreams. This is what I like about 4 – H, it gives them the skills to get up in front of people and talk about their projects and it also teaches them about the costs that go into those projects.Just like an entrepreneur with their first start-up.

Building and Hosting Knowledge Networks

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 11:41:00 GMT

Building applications that talk to one another creating networks which is what we have been doing and why I have been interested in knowledge networks. One of my objectives was to build this with Microsoft technologies;the tools are there but making them work as a knowledge network and gettingthem to talk to each other… This is one of the reasons I have been following Nova Spivack with his Radar Networks – his post the other day Knowledge Networking - a great roadmap to where the social should be heading and is.

Commerce Starter Kit Changes Owner

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 08:42:00 GMT

RobConery hands over control of CommerceStarter Kit to Chris Cyvas of Mettle Systems. Hey Chris,congratulations – I will be look forward to where Commerce Starter Kit goes from here. If anybody needs a host for testing Commerce Starter Kit, email me Kevin@knowledgemgmtsolutions.com