Maxson Central

I don’t think this has made the news in the US; however, several news sites have articles here.  It appears that Siri (software in the new iPhone 4s that processes speech commands) has issues at times with a Scottish Accent.  Here’s a video:

Full disclosure here….I had to hear the guy twice before I figured out he was asking the phone to create a reminder (I couldn’t figure out what a remainder was…well, I knew but it didn’t make sense).

Now, if you don’t live in the UK, you may not realize, but the UK has TONS and TONS of different accents.  What we Americans typically think of a a British accent is really limited to the South East of England.  The best suggestion I saw (which I can’t find out) was to have English (Scottish) in addition to English (International), English (US), English (Australian), and English (UK).  It makes sense to me

…yesterday (october 25, 2001), Windows XP was released.  Wow!

Image from NJ Tech Teacher via flickr

A few years ago, I wrote this article on why I decided I wasn’t going to use Skype anymore.  A few months later, there were articles out about the Chinese Government monitoring Skype.  Today, I see this article on Fox News about a security flaw in Skype that hasn’t been fixed in over a year.

Now, do I think it is that big of a deal?  No…simply knowing your IP address isn’t that bad (heck, if you can see the packets on the wire you can find that out) but it is still a flaw.  A flaw that may have been discovered if their code were open for peer review.

So, I will continue my practice of not using skype for important conversations.  We’ll still us it do Lydia and Isaac can talk to their grandparents…but not much more.

Oh, before it comes up…you may be thinking that you don’t do anything bad so what does it matter.  Well, would you write a love letter on a post-card?  Read this article on why you should care.

Image from patrick haney via flickr

I just wanter to let everyone know I’m still around.  I had to travel abroad for work and have been working 12 hour days. My hotel doesn’ have internet in the rooms so it is difficult for me to get time to blog when I have access to the internet.

posted from my 3G kindle

Today at work, I had someone ask me about an update that wouldn’t install.  It kept downloading and trying to install from Windows Update but always failed. The update was for KB2539636.

After searching, I came across this MS post describing the same problem.  So, I downloaded the update manually and tried to install it.  When I did this, I got told it did not apply.  ARG….if it didn’t apply, why did WU download the goofy thing.

I went searching again….I went searching again.  Found this MS post where people suggested uninstalling and re-installing.  No sweat.  Head to Add/Remove programs and try to remove the app.  HUGE ERROR!  I got told that this update couldn’t run on a 64bit system.  So how did the stupid thing get installed in the first place?!?!  So now I can’t uninstall the thing.

I went searching again and found this MS tool to remove .Net. Download it and force the uninstall.  That worked.  Reboot and try Windows Update.  No updates found.

I head over to MS Silverlight’s site to check.  WOW….it was already installed.

Root cause:  Somehow a 32bit ONLY app was installed on this 64 bit system and was causing conflicts.  The installer checked for this when I tried to uninstall it but not when it was installed.  Ok…that is really goofy but whatever.

And people wonder why I don’t think normal people should have 64bit OSes on their computers.  There are too many problems that can happen when people don’t know and don’t understand what is going on.

Image from Chris Fritz via flickr

The last time we came overseas, we saved space by simply ripping DVDs and putting them on a hard drive.  This time, I didn’t want to have to either watch the movies on a computer or figure out how to hook the computer up to a TV.  So I went looking for alternatives.

At first, I stumbled across Roku.  I was going to do it just for the online functionality; however, then I saw the Western Digital WD TV Live Hub in a store.  In addition to the online functionality, it included a hard drive.  Ahh!  It even has 2 USB ports you can hook other hard drives up to.  My initial thought was to get it and use it for online streaming as well as a backup hub (it comes with a 1 TB hard drive).

After being here and using it for a bit, I thought I would write about it.  The quality is excellent.  I have it hooked up with an HDMI cable and it looks good.  The movies I’ve put on it…no so good.  Some of them are encoded in a low quality so this isn’t the fault of the WD box.  In fact, the one movie I have that is decent quality looks really good.  The remote is simple and easy to figure out.  You can rate your movies and do tons more I haven’t figured out yet.

There are two things I don’t like about it.  First, it doesn’t have wireless built-in.  That isn’t a problem in our temporary home now; however, it means that I will have to make sure the ADSL modem is installed close to the TV.  Second, the built-in categories (movies, pictures, etc…) don’t seem to actually filter anything.  When I pick movies, I have to browse on the device to where my movies are located.  Either I haven’t figured something out or it doesn’t do it.

I haven’t yet hooked another hard drive up to it.  I think this will be a task for once we move into our permanent house in a few weeks.  Once I do that, I’ll update this post with information about that.

I can’t speak for things like the Roku or Apple TV, but I would recommend the Western Digital WD TV Live Hub to anyone looking for an IPTV solution.  The hard drive is a good bonus and comes in quite handy too.

Full disclosure:  The links in this article are through my Amazon Affiliate account.  if you order the device from that page, I’ll get credit and a small kickback from Amazon.