so i have finally decided what my media center solution is going to be after much head and heartache. it’s a little more complicated than i was really hoping for, but i guess that’s just the way that it goes.

at the heart of the media center is the PS3. and what really pushed me over the edge was really just the simplicity in the UI for the media center. to get to this point, i have tried:
1) windows media center
2) windows media center w/ media browser as the front end
3) xbmc
4) mediaportal
5) boxee

i had issues with all of the above. the grand idea was that the windows media center would be great to drive my content, but at the end of the day, i didn’t like the default video view of the media files and media browser was just too buggy for my tastes.

xbmc was familiar, but the UI experience in that and mediaportal (a derivative of xbmc) really just fell flat.

boxee actually looks fantastic. it’s alpha quality code, though, so i had a lot of crashes or other playback issues which ultimately made me shy away from it. it’s almost worth getting a mac for it.

in hindsight, the only other solution i wish i had tried out a bit is plex for mac.

but my complete solution is now:
PS3 + Windows-based Media Server.

i’m using ps3 media server available for linux, mac, or windows as my DLNA server. it is the most feature-rich DLNA server i’ve found to date and i absolutely love it. it makes using the PS3 a joy to use and is very easy to setup.

the windows media server will transcode content on the fly for you to handle those pesky .mkv files that the ps3 doesn’t know how to play.

after all is said and done, i’m really happy with the solution, it’s easy to setup, easy to use, and now there is no confusion on how to use the TV at home.

• One piece down, two more to go. http://twitpic.com/9kcj1 #
• Parts for the new computer are slowly coming in. http://twitpic.com/9n373 #
• Piece 2 of 3 done. Changing table is higher than I remember it but it's nice. #
• baby changing table/drawers for the nursery is set up. Felt a lot more tedious to assemble than the crib. http://twitpic.com/9nsv4 #
• the last piece of the trifecta is done! http://twitpic.com/9rmlg #
• are day old krispy kremes worth eating? Have I become a donut snob? http://twitpic.com/9tvwk #
• Stupid woman in front of me forgot something at counter and made us wait 5 minutes while she looked for it in the grocery store. #

• Just fixed an issue in production after being woken up way too early in the morning. #
• you know you are working too hard when you try to google "deadliest catch" but end up typing "deadliest captcha". #
• Didn't know the bachelorette was already airing. Really would have liked to have seen Melissa Rycroft on it but hear she's engaged now. #
• I somehow always manage to make healthy cereal unhealthy. Raisin bran crunch looked healthy, I can't help it if the crunch is sugar coated. #
• Mailman at work told mehiw he was on vietnam's national ping pong team & his father went to the olympics to compete. #
• Ugh, girl in front of me just placed an order for 7 pearl tea drinks. I'm never getting my pearl tea. #
• finally! http://twitpic.com/8z7yf #
• brought koda to work and all he wanted was to sleep under my desk. http://twitpic.com/93tqy #
• Getting ready to watch spamalot. #

i just placed the big order. parts for a computer, a camera, and it’s now time to wait for everything to come.

the parts?

intel core i7 920 2.66GHz dual quad cpu
asus p6t se mother board
12GB corsair pc12800 ddr3 ram
antec three hundred case
evga geforce 9800 gtx+ 512MB
corsair 850W 80 plus

should be a screamer!

oh yeah! i totally forgot to mention that i went to seattle this weekend. pictures from seattle are posted as well. it’s been a while since i took pictures, so it’s nice to know that i haven’t forgotten how to do it.

we drove out to tacoma on our trip and i have to say that tacoma is pretty disappointing. there are some museums and the museum of glass, the chihuly bridge, and the lunch we had there was great, but aside from that, not a whole lot out there. downtown was pretty dead and pretty small. we kept getting lost trying to find the city center because we didn’t realize we were already in it. so we kept following signs that took us to the port of seattle and eventually back to where we started again. it was then we realized that we were in downtown tacoma.

there’s krispy kreme in the office again.

i’ve already taken one because the call of the maple glazed donut is too strong, but i haven’t eaten it yet. i’m trying to hold out so that i won’t have the urge to eat more of them.

but it is taunting me. beckoning me to eat all of its delicious glory. beckoning? did i say beckoning? i meant mocking.

• what time is it? Hot o'clock. http://twitpic.com/89fbs #
• Playing flight control while waiting for flight… #
• At SEA Avis preferred booth only to find out it's closed and now having to wait in a line at garge longer than the one at the terminal. FAIL #
• There's a guy in line trying to rent a car w/o a credit card. I didn't even think you could..neither do the Avis guys, but he insists he can #
• Turns out that Seattle is hosting the rock n roll marathon this weekend. No wonder it was so hard to get hotel reservations. #
• Can't get over how much downtown Seattle looks like downtown San Francisco. #
• Dinner at six-seven at the waterfront in Seattle. Waitress gave us wrong meal but gave us free dessert. http://twitpic.com/8nnbc #
• Coolest host(ess) table at a restaurant I've ever seen. http://twitpic.com/8nngx #
• bathroom sign at the science fiction museum tries to cover all the bases. http://twitpic.com/8pv64 #

this weekend i found out that a tree’s roots have grown around a sprinkler in my front yard and has finally cracked the pipe to cause a massive flood whenever in use. i’m hoping i can trench further down the pipe and add a new sprinkler head, but we’ll see.

this weekend we also went to celebrate father’s day with christi’s dad and family and my family. my family ended up going to the club for a father’s day buffet dinner that was only so-so.

paul and leeya’s baby shower was this weekend too. there was a lot of games and some incriminating photos of me sucking milk out of a baby bottle. i haven’t looked at them yet, but i remember the photos being taken of me. *sigh*

we are also dogsitting, kiara, koda’s sister, and man those two just love playing with each other. they love playing with each other so much that they pretty much ignore anything that i try to say to them.

it felt like a packed weekend and i still feel like i haven’t really fully rested yet. but tonight i will be playing volleyball, subbing for cheryl’s team. i’m looking forward to that as today has been a semi-stressful day at work.

• for refunds for great american food festival in mountain view this weekend, call livenation.com at 1.888.598.4299 with order id. #
• saw wicked last night and am listening to the music again tonight. #
• quietly trying to get the dog to stop sniffing my dinner while i am on a conference call. #
• At yoyo sushi waiting for leeya who was gonna be here in 2 minutes 8 minutes ago http://twitpic.com/7tp9q #
• wants the weekend to start already, but has a busy weekend ahead of me. two father's day meals, a baby shower, and maybe a little work. #
• anxiously awaiting quickpwn 3.0 release… #

so far i’ve been pretty happy with using fedora as my primary OS for my laptop. it sure has come a long way since the days that i first used it. trying to find the right tools for linux for everyday use has not been as hard as i had thought. i have been able to successfully download images from my camera with no problems. i don’t think that i can really use linux as my primary OS for processing photos, but in a pinch, it seems to work ok.

the thing is that i installed fedora 10 just days before the fedora 11 launch. i’ve always been nervous with installing new releases of fedora, but i have been chastised heavily about believing the propaganda that fedora is an unstable distribution. apparently fedora has come a long way since the days of FC1-3. man, those distros just hurt.

i’m also a believer of the packaging system. so far pretty much everything that i wanted has been found in some RPM so i’m pretty happy about the maintenance of the machine.

the big thing now is upgrading from fedora core 10 to 11. it seems like so long as your system is up to date, the process actually isn’t that hard. you run a command “preupgrade” and it appears to download everything that you need to run the install. i’m running it now and it looks like it is download FC11 right now. that’s sort of a long download for me, i need to find a faster internet connection.

the machine is still usable though, so that’s great. firefox works great in linux as does vmware. i’ve been using wine for a couple of applications so i don’t incur the overhead costs of vmware, but even in a pinch, vmware still performs reasonably.