Mega-Update
February 8th, 2004
I haven?t posted in so long, here is goes.
Non-Smoking:
I did fall down once and had one cigarette in the last 29 days. I lost the bet to the wife, which hurt, but I am going strong again. I consider breaking down after 17 days “not bad”.
Computers:
I upgrade my machine with 2 WD 10K rpm Raptor drives, 36 GB each. SATA drives are amazingly fast, especially in RAID 0.
While planning for my HTPC, I picked up an ATI TV Wonder Card. It works rather well and I am interested in how it will do plugged in to a cable box.
I think I am going to upgrade my CPU to a 3200+, granted I will lose 200 MHz from my current chip, but I will gain a 400 MHz bus.
I am eagerly awaiting a second Dell 1800fp 18″ LCD, hurry up birthday!!!
Both Grover and Elmo received fresh installs of Windows XP in the last week, it was long overdue and they are both very fast again.
Sites:
I haven?t done too much to them for a while. I need to work on the new version of this site and get Monk’s site done also. I just don’t have the time to spend on those right now.
I need to add some more photos to out pictures site, but I will need time to scan a few hundred pictures, so it will be awhile.
I think I actually received a piece of fan mail about the site. Kind of blew me away that someone reads my drivel. Anyway Hi to you, Matt!
Vacations:
Monk will be going to Jamaica with all her nursing buddies in April, and we need to plan for a trip to Scotland in September or October.
Work:
Tomorrow I start my first day in the Legal Dept. It has been a long and hard road but I can’t wait. While it’s nice to get an office and all the extra’s that come with the job, I am simply happy that I will have a team that supports what I am doing.
I never got the feeling that the Internet Security Team ever thought of what I was doing as anything more then a great “political” position to have. It was mainly used to bolster money and good reviews in my department. I don’t think that the job should be used that way.

February 9th, 2004 at 7:41 pm
For the HTPC, I have one of those as well. I recommend you use Snapstream Beyond TV, and use a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-250. I used to use an ATI Radeon All-In-Wonder and you would not believe the picture quality of the Hauppauge until you see it. Even if you don’t use Snapstream software, the PVR250 is just a superior card. It also does hardware MPEG2 encoding. I have heard that authoring DVDs from it is not the easiest task in the world though.