(You can skip the prologue if you’re not interested in the customer service story!)

For Christmas 2008 I received an Elgato EyeTV Hybrid TV tuner from my wife. Getting it set up properly was a nightmare, but I finally did it. Tech support wasn’t a help, and my own computer geekiness and a little extra free time over Christmas break was all I had to rely on. Turns out that it might have just been a defective tuner.

So when I recently moved and found more problems tuning channels, I had enough. I contact EyeTV’s support for a possible RMA (despite being out of warranty) and referenced the original support ticket I had created over a year and a half ago. I braced myself for a long fight….and got a huge surprise.

They sent me a cordial apology and a promise to replace my tuner. Just like that! Talk about stellar customer service.

 
If that weren’t good enough…here’s what I think about the tuner:

It tunes channels well. With QAM support since 2008, you can pull in free HD signals over just about any cable connection, or free HD channels from over-the-air sources. If you’ve got ultra-cheap basic analog cable still, it will pull that in too. Perhaps where it most shines is the integration with the EyeTV software.

EyeTV since version 3 has been awesome. It’s simple to pause, rewind, record, convert, and burn TV shows and movies. You can also grab an app and extend support to your iPhone or iPod Touch. Get yourself the free comskipper plugin and it will automatically remove commercials from your recordings. Download cyTV and you can stream your live TV to another computer on your network, or even across the web! (Think of it as a poor man’s slingbox)

I won’t run through all the features, but retailing at $80, EyeTV 3 is a tremendous value-add to buying the EyeTV Hybrid. Consider the great customer service mentioned above, and I’m sure you won’t be disappointed!

I set up a new blog today over at eustaceclarence.com to provide easy updates on my first kid, and it got me thinking: thankfully, the personal blogging craze has largely died.

To wit: of the 5 links in my blogroll as of the time of this writing, the last updates were written:

1. October 31, 2007
2. March 29, 2010 (Previous before that was Jan 2, 2009)
3. September 27, 2009
4. July 22, 2009
5. …and one blog is no longer available on the internet

All of these blogs were written by guys involved with technology at a higher-than-average level: they could all probably tell you what AJAX is, and why IE6 is the bane of all that is internet. Yet, like 99.9% of people who started blogging in the last 5 years, none of them blog anymore.

Why? Because no one has time to write (much less write well), and for those that do…nobody cares. The only posts on this blog than anyone reads are the ones written on how to fix annoying computer problems, not the ones about my thoughts on the latest political whatnot. The only personal blog I read anymore is my sister-in-law’s, because she puts up great pictures of her kids all the time. (Ideally, Eustace will get similar treatment from me).

What it really boils down to though is that no one has enough time for all of that. Myspace died when everyone realized that the cacaphony of colors, spam, ads, and random musings available there was an utter waste of time. Twitter’s in vogue, but I’m pretty sure most people use it for a month or two before they realize that, too, is a completely ridiculous way to waste every spare minute of peace and quiet you might stumble upon during your day. I’m moving on.

I think Facebook is the big thing with the best chance, but I’m hearing a lot of people who are sick of it and despise the time they waste on it (me included)–it’s an addiction though, like a crackberry, and will likely last a few years before the next big thing comes along. It’s darn handy for planning class reunions or the like, but for doing anything else worthwhile? Not so much.

Sooner or later we’ll all melt down from the stress and insanity that comes from being plugged into too many people, too many streams of info, and too many responsibilities 24/7. As for me, I’m just hoping that a move back to the Dakotas/Minnesota might bring a few more years of sanity…

For an actually well-thought perspective on this over-saturation phenomena, you could read the paper I wrote on it for a class I took (Like Butter Spread Over Too Much Bread: Multiphrenia in America 10 pages, .pdf)…or you could just ADHD your way back to your Twitter feed and forget I mentioned it (though, kudos for lasting this long if you made it to the end of my post!)

Compression

• Compression typically looks for patterns and stores references to them. So, imagine you’re storing the following text which is 151 characters long:
  

  He went to the store.  She bought a car.  He went to the bank.  She bought a plane.  He bought a turtle.

• To compress that, you might replace repeating patterns with a number. Our new text can be stored with references and a “key”, and now it’s 135 characters long:
  

  \1 store. Sh\2 car. \1 bank. Sh\2 plane. H\2 turtle.[1=He went to the, 2=e bought a]

• When uncompressing the data, you replace the numbers with those patterns again:
  

  He went to the store. She bought a car. He went to thebank. She bought a plane. He bought a turtle.

• Every time a repeating chunk of data shows up, you just store a reference to the original definition, which is shorter and thus saves space. (In this case, it saves you a total of 16 characters, or 10%.) Compression is actually a bit more mathematically complex than this, but that’s the basic concept. What’s important to know is that the more repeated strings you find, the more savings you get.

Lossy Compression

• .jpg files use something called “lossy” compression, which means that in order to find more repeated strings it will smooth out some of the data. (For music, .mp3 files also use “lossy” compression)
• Imagine the string 123456123456123456124456 If you used our old method, you’d only save 2 characters, or 8%:
  \1\1\1124456[1=123456]

• If you could afford to change one number in the last set (4>3) you would then have the same pattern repeated four times, making compression more efficient (6 characters, 25%). However, you would lose 4% of the data (1 character out of 24.)
  

  \1\1\1\1[1=123456]

• As you can see, the more data you’re willing to lose, the more you can artificially create repeating patterns, and the more space you can save.

How much compression to use?

• When you’re saving a .jpg, you set the compression level to tell the computer how much of the file you’re willing to “lose” in order to get smaller file sizes. The lower the number, the more data you lose. If you look at highly-compressed .jpg images you’ll see blotchy places called “compression artifacts” that are the result of the computer changing data in the file to make it match patterns better.
• For most web design, I typically set compression at 79 or 80. For smaller thumbnails where compression artifacts are less visible, I’ll often drop down to 75 to save more space. Any higher than 80 and your images get really big really fast for little quality difference. Any lower than 75 and images start to look really bad.
• Important: Recompressing images might amplify the effect. Let’s say you compress an image at 80, and lose 20% of the data in the file. If you open the image again, make a small change, and recompress it again at 80, you might lose up to 20% again, leaving you with 64% of your original file. Ouch! When editing images, you should always start from an uncompressed, high-resolution image file if at all possible.

Other file formats

• Sometimes, different types of compression save more space with less quality loss.
  • JPEG: best for images with lots of complexity and colors. Usually photos are best compressed as .jpg files.
  • PNG 8: images with text, straight lines, and few different colors. Graphic design elements are often best compressed as PNG 8 files.
  • GIF: similar to PNG 8, except not as efficient in most cases. Usually, unless .png files are not supported, you should save images as PNG 8 instead of .gif
  • There are other image formats, but these are the most common. .gif files support simple transparencies, and PNG 8 and PNG 32 can handle more complex transparencies.

How to do in Fireworks

• In Fireworks, use the “Optimize” panel to set the compression TYPE and Settings (screenshot). For .jpg files, usually all you want to adjust is the “Quality” setting: again, for web you will usually set it at around 75 for thumbnails and 79 for other site images.
• When you have this set, use the File > Export command. This will save the file with your selected compression setting AND it will use minimal metadata, which can also bloat the size of your files. If you use “Save As…” it will save all your meta data and might mess up your compression settings.

Using 4-Up

• Also in Fireworks, click the 4-Up button near the top of your editor. This will show you how the image will actually look once it’s been exported.
• Click on each box and set different compression settings in each one. This was you can compare what each setting would look like as well as what the final image size will be. You can often make a better decision based on this. (screenshot)

It’s a bit disturbing to me that NBC’s solution to Heroes’ rapidly falling ratings was to introduce a lesbian love story. Why?

First off, it’s an indicator that we’ve reached such a level of political correctness that “tolerance” has become one of our society’s greatest virtue. By this I do not mean that tolerance (in itself) is a bad thing, but I do mean that what we now term tolerance goes far beyond that. Tolerance means “I will not prohibit you from doing something,” and typically understands the action/belief in question to be one that contradicts what the tolerating person believes. Tolerance does not equate to agreement or support, nor does it entail unilateral pluralistic license.

I will tolerate it if the neighbors’ music is a little too loud up until a certain time of night. If asked, I would prefer that they keep the noise to a reasonable level, and I will even state that it is disrespectful, selfish, and unkind for them to violate my need for restful sleep. Nevertheless, I might tolerate it up to certain levels in order to maintain a more amicable relationship with my neighbors. However, there is a point at which tolerance is no longer a virtue: if I cannot sleep at 3AM because of the noise next door, or have chronic headaches from their chronic partying, I will demand that they stop and involve the police if necessary. You wouldn’t call me intolerant for that, you’d say I was standing up for my rights, my beliefs that I need sleep to function properly at school, work, etc.

So, I will tolerate homosexual couples and beliefs to a certain degree. Homosexual activity (as opposed to temptation) is a sin per God’s judgement as revealed in Scripture, but I also recognize that humans have free will and there is only one Lawgiver and Judge, and that said Lawgiver is not me. However, when Heroes (or anyone else, for that matter) attempts to equate homosexual relationships with heterosexual ones, they are preaching a morality against Scripture that unfortunately has deceived many. Wrapping it in the attractive context of trust and love makes the moral precepts being pitched that much more dangerous. Satan masquerades as an angel of light. For the sake of current and future believers, I must resist this wholeheartedly.

Lest you miss it, I am also highly disgusted by how Hollywood does this with heterosexual relationships as well: takes extramarital sexual relationships, couches them in “devoted love,” and portrays them as a good, desirable thing. This too is opposed to Scripture and deserves our censure. Why the “double standard?” It’s partially due to the compounding nature of homosexual activity (not only is it illicit in it’s nature, but it is also further sinful in its typical extra-marital context), and partially due to the fact that the extramarital relationships battle has been largely lost in our culture and avoiding all references to such activity would likely shut us out from the media entirely. The homosexual topic still has enough of a taboo and minority status attached to it that prevention of its popularization may still be feasible.

So, here we are. Heroes was starting to be lame, but I was still hooked. I just won’t support a homosexual agenda in my viewing habits.

You might have read the reviews, you’ve probably seen the commercials. They’re all true: New Super Mario Bros Wii is one of the best Wii games ever made, and absolutely superb for multiplayer. Here’s why:

The graphics are pretty, the controls work like they’re intended to–it’s a very polished game. The game goes out of its way to make sure newbs aren’t totally lost or frustrated, and it’s challenging and deep enough to satisfy any gamer who ever enjoyed a Super Mario Bros game on any system. Other than being the most fun Mario title to date (and the truest evolution of Super Mario Bros for the 21st century), this true-to-its-roots 2D scroller has a few features to keep the non-hardcore-gamer from pulling their hair out.

• multi-player capability is guaranteed hilarity. most fun i’ve had in a LONG time playing a video game, even with people who are very bad at the game. why? if you’re about to die, or can’t get past a particularly difficult jumping sequence, you can put yourself in a “bubble” and safely float forward to join your more skilled friends. no more crying that you can’t make it past that part–as long as there’s at least one person alive and not in a bubble, you’re ok. if everyone “bubbles” or dies at the same time, you’ve got to start over. this gets to be quite funny when you all start bubbling and the last guy panics and bubbles, or jumps off a cliff!
• throwing people and jumping off their heads can lead to some very, very fun and competitive gameplay, or if properly done, teamwork doing these same things can make some difficult unlocks or sequences much easier.
• if you die too many times on multiplayer, you can watch a video to show you how to do the level.
• as you earn large coins, you can spend them to watch videos that show you how to find secret goals and powerups. then you don’t feel like you cheated when you search the internet for the same info, because you earned it!
• as you play through the game, you don’t have to always use the same number of players. that is, if you beat 4 worlds alone and save the game, the next time you turn on the game you can pick up where you left off with 1, 2, 3, or even 4 people! if you’ve cooperatively beat most of the game with a friend, you can come back and earn all the extra stuff you missed alone later.
• Penguin suit and propeller hats rock

this game is a total win. you simply MUST buy it.

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