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	Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Real Rumblin' and Bumblin' So, Mt. Augustine erupted twice early this morning - both eruptions were small, but ash clouds were generated. The Alaska Volcano Observatory has upgraded the concern code from Orange to Red. Late this afternoon, the ashfall advisory from this morning's eruptions was cancelled. However, with the concern code being Red, an explosive eruption is highly likely. So, all the various infrastructure agencies and utilities (such as ourselves (GCI)) are now in the process of preparing for signicant ashfall. The last major ashfall was from Mt. Spurr in 1991 - it was ugly. Volcanic Ash is way no fun. 6:00:44 PM    comment []

Slingin' Around This week, I'm continuing to evaluate way cool things on the technology front - I definitely have a very nifty job. And of course, all this techie investigation allows me to increase my geek-a-tude rating. My hands down favorite device I've evaluated is the Slingbox. The Slingbox is a nifty little "place shifting" tv viewing device. It streams the output from a TiVo, Cable Box, DVR, or TV to your computer - wherever your computer is located - in another room in the house or halfway across the world in Hong Kong. The Slingbox is perfectly executed - on all levels. I haven't found any negatives - it is soooo sweet. The Good Stuff Very small footprint- about 3 inches wide by 10 inches long by about 2 inches tall. And very light. Also spiffy looking. Extremely easy setup. It only took me 45 minutes to get the Slingbox running and streaming video to my computer. We have a very complicated A/V center - HD cable box, TiVo, DVD player, VCR (yes we still have one of those), A/V Receiver, LCD TV, and a wireless bridge. The setup process included inserting the Slingbox into our A/V configuration, loading and configuring the software on my laptop, and repositioning the wireless bridge. All in a mere 45 minutes. If the wireless bridge hadn't been so flaky, I could have been probably up and running in 25 minutes. Works like a champ with TiVo. It is totally seamless - all the way to the point of a perfect online representation and emulation of the TiVo remote control. It's so perfect, it's a jaw dropper. The Slingbox software even emulates the TiVo sound effects. The video quality is quite good. Your TV does not need to be on - the Slingbox takes the feed directly from the TiVo box, Cable Box, or DVR. The Iffy Stuff To ensure good video quality, the segment of your home network that carries the Slingbox signal needs to be rock solid and have reasonable performance. I'm going upgrade our wireless segment that carries the Slingbox signal. TiVo requires a network connection, as does the Slingbox. Unfortunately our router is in a room far away from the media area. So, as a part of the upgrade, I'm going to need to dig up a wireless switch/hub with multiple ethernet ports. I had some difficulties upgrading to the current software rev on my PC. The installer kept getting confused. But, that is very minor. The Bad Stuff NOTHING!!!!! The Slingbox is absolutely amazing! I think that TiVo and Slingbox should do a deal where they develop a combo TiVo-Slingbox unit. It would be killer. 5:52:04 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2006 Stephanie A. Kesler. Last update: 2/1/2006; 4:25:08 PM.