Digital Dad

Windows 7 on the Dell XPS One

I had a reader email in and ask about my experiences putting Windows 7 on my Dell XPS One.

Our XPS One serves as our kitchen PC, so it gets plenty of exercise for email, Webkinz, web research, and photo sharing. I also have loaded the Zune 4.0 software on there and use it to drive my kitchen sound system.

The XPS One has a coax tuner built-in, as well as a custom set of bezel buttons, so I must admit i approached the upgrade with caution.

To clarify, i am still running the RC. In spite of working at Microsoft I have not gotten off my behind to get the real copy yet. Dell doesn’t officially support the XPS One according to their website, but *spoiler alert* it works fine for me.

First, I decided to install clean. That means hooking up an external drive and doing a Windows Easy Transfer. It’s not hard. Stop complaining.

The XPS is not dual-core, so you’re going with the 32 bit version. The install is pretty quick and there are scant driver changes. Here are the ones you want to re-download (the 32 bit Vista versions) from the Dell driver support website:

AVerMedia TV Tuner – you’ll need this for enabling your TV Tuner in Windows 7. The new version of Media Center is worth it
ATI Video driver
Update your BIOS
Dell Touchpad/Pointing stick

That should do it. As always, your mileage may vary, see dealer for details. At some point soon I’ll install the retail version. Let me know if your XPS One/Windows 7 upgrade is working for you.

Florence Henderson Tech Support

You read that right. Florence Henderson of Brady Bunch fame has a tech support service. From the site:

America's favorite TV mom wants technology to be simple! Multitalented entertainer Florence Henderson recently guided older adults through the transition from analog to digital television. Now she's here to comfort, support, and inspire you as you make the most of computer technology!.

Only $.99 for the first month but $25 a month thereafter, or $250 for the year.

Sounds like an intriguing alternative to long distance tech support, stuff like:

Use e-mail, instant messaging, videoconferencing with Skype, or Facebook
Set up a device such as a printer, scanner, digital camera, or MP3 player to work with your computer
Tune up your system so it performs at its best
Set up a home network
Purchase airline tickets, gifts, books, or prescriptions safely over the Internet
Check financial news and stock performance online
More!

Makes sense to me.

Is That Your Friend In The Chipper?

I was looking forward to picking up a wood chipper this fall. We have a ton of branches around the property, and we use a ton of mulch, so i figured why not just cut out the middle man and just get one of those machines that turns branches into mulch?

I did a bit of web searching and i narrowed things down to a Troy Bilt model sold at Lowe’s. I am a big fan of Lowe’s so I figured since they are local, and this thing is super heavy (although it has wheels) i would be OK.

They helped me load it into the Green Machine and i carefully unloaded it and removed the box from the pallet. The neighborhood kids had started to gather to see the red metal monster.

I put in the oil, added the gas and carefully rolled it onto a level grassy area. I put on my goggles, had everyone stand FAR away, and pull the cord. It started right up. It has a large chute at the top for brush and a tube for larger branches power down. Unfortunately, as i was putting in the second branch, the engine slowed down and then just stopped.

I did some careful inspection and determined there was no clog. However, I could not pull the starter cord. The flywheel was locked. The Troy Bit help line was no help since it was closed on the weekends (good idea!). Eventually I called Lowe’s and they came out, picked up the non-working chipper and left me with a new replacement.

A few days went by and it was the weekend again. Same routine, rolled it onto the grass, started it up. It ate a few branches and yet again, the engine slowed down and stopped. This time I could pull the cord and the flywheel turned, but the engine would not spark. My neighbor came by to help but he was stumped as well.

Aargh!

Another phone call to Lowe’s and they picked it up and gave me a full refund. Final Score: Lowe’s = 1, Troy Bilt = 0. Now I am in search of another model.

Happy New Year

This seemed to be an odd post for today – how about an alarm clock that wakes you up with freshly cooked bacon?

Eeesh.

http://www.mathlete.com/portfolio/wakeNbacon.php

Where are the NY Giants?

I am suffering through another NY Giants season with Comcast. Apparently they have no way, no package, no service that enables me to watch NY Giants games here in Bellevue, WA.

DirecTV has Sunday Ticket, but Comcast has nothing. Zip. Nada.

Surprisingly, there still isn’t a package I am aware of on the web that let’s me see the games either. NBCSports has a bit here and there (good use of Silverlight), but I can’t seem to find anyone to take my money so I can watch these games on the web, live.

Weird!

Fisher Paykel R.I.P.

It’s been a love/hate relationship with our Fisher Paykel washing machine. No wait, it’s been just a hate relationship.

We bought it in 2002, the first new washer/dryer we ever bought since our first house came with one. I blogged about how it died on us in 2007, just outside of the five year extended warranty. It took two weeks to fix the panel (two weeks, three kids and no laundry machine?). Last year it kind of died, sort of had a stroke, such that it would start beeping about three-quarters through the cycle and required you to power it off and on again to actually finish the job.

We lived with that for about a year until we came back from a camping trip this past weekend (to Birch Bay, highly recommended) and the washer just refused to turn on. Tested the outlet, it was good, the washer was bad. I figured I was looking at a $300+ repair.

We had committed to getting our new laundry room done by the end of the year so this seemed to be a good time to do my patriotic duty and help the economy by buying a new washer/dryer. More on that later – it’s being delivered tomorrow.

So the Fisher Paykel is dead after seven years, the folks from Lowe’s will cart it away tomorrow. I might get a few kicks in before it heads out the door.

More Beertender Fun

Word out of The Netherlands that Heineken International has made Newcastle Brown Ale available in their Draught Keg format. That adds a new twist to the current crop of Heiney/Heiney-light options to the Beertender.

Bummer is that it is in “pilot mode” in Chicago, Minneapolis and SoCal. What’s wrong with Bellevue, WA?

Now that Newcastle is out, Zagorka cannot be far behind!

WSJ has an interesting coverage of this news, Beertender, and the general trend of “innovation” for beer packaging here.

New Sonos Controller

I received an email notification of the new Sonos controller. Sonos creates a proprietary wireless network in your house to create a music streaming environment that can be the same in multiple rooms or different per room, depending on the modules you buy.

Question for the readers – does Sonos support Zune subscription content?

The email showed off the new controller, which at $349 is not cheap. In fact, it’s expensive. Sonos made a mark by emulating Apple’s wheel interface way back when and by using real album artwork in the remote UI (the latter is my favorite).

However, this one is off the mark. As I mentioned, it’s too expensive. Second, it looks . . . ummm . . . anyone ever own a Casio Cassiopeia? Like the bigger screen but it’s too Soviet-era for me. I’d like to see the remote get smaller, cheaper, and use touch innovation.

From Washington to Maine - on a bike?

I've documented my family travels on this blog for the past five years, but a tip of the ol' Digital Dad cap to Keith, Ann and their son Nick as Ann and her friends bike across the country this summer.

Keith and his son Nick, now known as "Cookie and The Kid" are driving the support van and blogging it up at http://wame09wame09.spaces.live.com/blog/

Getting off the grid

I landed in Boston last week and made it out to Cape Cod for a two week respite. This year we had just two booster seats, which were curbside checked along with the rest of the luggage, a far cry from the multiple baby seat/stroller scenarios of yesteryear. Dads in the airport – I see you and I feel for you – hang in there.

In my role as “Pack Mule and ATM” on these vacations I took a few steps to ease the travel. First, I printed the boarding passes at home, securing two and three seats together online. Next, I curbside checked the luggage. Then, I booked a car with Avis, where I am a preferred member, so the shuttle at Logan (nice refurb!) took us right to the vehicle.

I went for the “small SUV” class this year, saved a bunch on the full SUV. It’s a Ford Edge, which has plenty of luggage room, Sirius radio, AUX IN, and roomy for five (with the two boosters).

There is scant cell phone coverage where I stay on the Cape and a variable internet connection (now cable based but intermittent and VERY slow), therefore I basically don’t use my cell, don’t check my work email, don’t play with Facebook and such. I suspect I will survive just fine.

More good Keurig news

I’m a big fan of my Keurig coffee maker. Still works great, no cleaning required, coffee is always fresh and the right temp – one cup at a time.

Now Mr. Coffee and Cuisinart are coming out with Keurig compatible coffee makers. That should help create a wider variety of K-cups (Peet’s please?).

How do i know this? i subscribe to the Single Serve Coffee blog!

Digital Dad Days

I had a pretty mellow Father’s Day this year, enjoying a range of homemade gifts, reading the NYT, even hitting a bucket of golf balls at the nearby driving range.

I did get a kick out of this post on the worst TV Dads of All Time.

Father’s Day is a pretty analog event, but I did think about how things have changed since I started this blog in 2004 – hard to believe it’s been over five years.

Some things have stayed the same – changing the ink in a printer, home networking issues, moving media around the home – perhaps these are the “classics” that we will always deal with.

But some things have changed – wiring a portable music player into your car isn’t as hard as it used to be, cell phones have become much more capable, digital cameras are way better. I have to now think about social networks as much as surfing the web safely.

I painted a rock with red paint when I was a kid and gave it to my Dad as a Father’s Day gift – a paperweight! I think it’s still on his desk. I suspect the handmade frame with my daughter’s picture will be on my desk for a long time as well, and I suspect there will always be plenty of Digital Dad stuff out there waiting to be discussed.

Fingerprints

I’ve had the Dell m1330 now for almost two years and one of the things that I found handy about it was the built-in fingerprint reader. It’s an easy way to log on and kind of cool.

Our kitchen PC, the Dell XPS One with Windows 7 RC, has a multi-logon, one for each family member. I looked around and found a unit on Amazon from Eikon (about $40)that has a nice slim silver profile, rubber backing and a decent length USB cord.

It comes with the Upek software suite (Upek? Eikon?). The install is very easy and then it’s time to enroll your fingers. The creepy part is when it asks you to enroll two fingers in case “one gets damaged.” Five swipes and you’re done.

You can still type in your password, but the cool thing is that whenever you swipe your finger, the PC logs out of whoever’s account is up and logs you in automatically. Very convenient and pretty cool.

This item enables you to keep your password private, away from your kids prying eyes, and makes it super-easy for kids to log into their own space.

Tidying up the widescreen

I have been using a widescreen display on my notebook for a couple years now. I paired that with a 24” widescreen Dell LCD and Samsung 4:3 I use as a secondary display. The Dell display is connected via HDMI and the Samsung display via plain ol’ VGA. The Kitchen PC, as well all know, is a Dell XPS One with a 20” widescreen display.

I switched to Windows 7 and started to adjust some thing to take advantage of the new layout. One big change was moving my taskbar to the far right side. It makes little sense to have a taskbar at the bottom when you have a wide display and moving it to the side clear out your y-axis nicely. I also auto-hide it as well, personal preference, and it’s on the right because my second display, the Samsung, is to the left. Otherwise your taskbar is in the “middle” of your viewing window.

I peg my gadgets to the left with an opacity of 40%. It’s great that in 7 you can have them anywhere but I tend to like a clean organized desktop with virtually no icons except Recycle and these see-through gadgets.

Speaking of, I just upgraded my Facebook gadget to one made by BuildAGadget.com. It’s miles ahead of this one and light years ahead of this.

What’s your desktop preference?

End of the Softball Season

I blogged here back on March 27 about my new role as the coach of my daughter’s softball team.

She’s seven and this was her first year playing in the Bellevue East Little League. I volunteered to help and quickly realized that I was in for a full season of practices, clinics, games, schedules, and everything associated with Little League.

It was a very rewarding experience. We had a great set of kids, involved parents, and a good supportive attitude. There’s a fine line with seven to nine year olds where you want to push them to try their best and at the same time be very encouraging. We had our share of strikeouts, grounders between the legs, errant throws to first, but they were all learning experiences.

It was also a great opportunity for me to practice my patience, my empathy, and reconnect with a game I loved to play as a kid.

A few of takeaways for me:

Invest in a good schedule up front; I sent a doc out early with every practice and games, location and time
Make sure parents have assignments – snacks, base coaches, practice coaches, organizing end of season parties and trophies – these all should be assigned early.
Write out your practice drills – there are plenty of resources on the web but keep them short, well organized and diverse.
Get to games early to get a short practice in – between the game schedules we didn’t get enough practices in. Getting to the game 30 min early gives the girls a good way to warm up with fundamentals
Schedule your make up games as soon as the happen and don’t pile them up at the end of the season
Have parents’ cell # on your phone
Write out a consistent batting order and who plays what position inning to inning. Avoids arguments and pleadings. I kept the same batting order all season, so the girls got the hang of who is up next. In a more competitive league i may have switched it up a bit, but not much.
Rotate the girls through all of the positions so they get the feel for each position. Not everyone wants to catch but some REALLY do.

At the end, I was the only one who used the Windows Live Group I created. Maybe it was the sign in, but there was no “digital community” around the team. I used it to keep master copies of the line up and stuff there.

Looking forward to next year.