I’ve got some “Sirius” concerns with satellite radio.

First, let’s start at the beginning. In the beginning, there was XM and Sirius (and WorldSpace, that’s only for Europe/Asia). XM has a diverse and solid playlist with great channels. Sirius had a less diverse playlist and has Howard Stern. XM always was a step ahead of Sirius, whether it be the technology, number of subscribers, or quality of music. One day Sirius managed to merge with XM, breaking the FCC ruling that the two couldn’t merge in the first place.

At first, all was well. Mel Karmazin, SiriusXM’s newly-appointed CEO, announced that the two entities would remain separate, and everyone would get to keep their own music. Then things got bloody.

October 13: At the XM Headquarters in D.C., someone logged into the timesheet application and realized that he had a termination date of October 15. Word of this spread like wildfire through the office, and by the end of the day, as many as 75 people from music programming got the boot.

From dcrtv.com, a small list of those who got canned:

Soul Street’s Bobby Bennett and Leigh Hamilton, Raw’s Mz Kitti, The City’s DJ Xclusive and Lisa Ivery, Viva’s Karla Rodriguez, and Aguila’s Mad Mexican. Plus Ken Smith of ’50s-On-5, Pat Clarke of ’60s-On-6, XM America’s Ray Knight, John Welch, and “Country Dan” Dixon, BK Kirkland of the Groove, plus Bill Evans, Brian Chamberlain, and Cathy Carter from XM Cafe. XM Gospel’s Jay Bryant and Suite 62’s Vic Clemens.

Since then, several channels have switched into “auto-pilot” with no DJ, but a mysterious robot playing just music all the time.

While the Sirius side of things has seen a couple losses, it’s been nothing like the XM side. This “merger of equals” is looking moreso like “hostile takeover.”

Just today we’ve learned that XM 82 (The System) is getting canned on November 4. It’s quite possible that it’s demise is directly related to WorldSpace’s Chapter 11 Bankruptcy filing, but the timing seems a tad bit suspicious.

While all of this is bad, the biggest issue at hand here is the threat of losing the entire lineup. Despite Mel saying the two services would remain separate (this might have even been a requirement of the merger), there’s whisperings of Sirius and XM to combine channels and broadcast the same lineup on both services come November 5.

Judging by how things have been going, I can only imagine that we’ll lose more XM stations and on-air talent. So far, they’re already killing one station I listened to a lot, and they’ve killed a couple other stations that I recently just “discovered” and was starting to enjoy. If they keep going down this track, they’ll be loosing a 4 year subscriber/fan…

(More as this develops)

~Jaker

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~Jaker

There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it’s only a hundred billion. It’s less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.

I don’t care how much crap Intel is going to give nVidia about it’s CUDA architecture. This is an example that using a graphics card to do number crunching is sometimes better than using a regular CPU.

Global Secure Systems has said that a Russian’s firm’s use of the latest NVidia graphics cards to accelerate WiFi ‘password recovery’ times by up to an astonishing 10,000 per cent proves that WiFi’s WPA and WPA2 encryption systems are no longer enough to protect wireless data.

 

David Hobson, managing director of GSS, claimed that companies can no longer view standards-based WiFi transmission as sufficiently secure against eavesdropping to be used with impunity. He also said that the use of VPNs is arguably now mandatory for companies wanting to comply with the Data Protection Act.

 

He said: “This breakthrough in brute force decryption of WiFi signals by Elcomsoft confirms our observations that firms can no longer rely on standards-based security to protect their data. As a result, we now advise clients using WiFi in their offices to move on up to a VPN encryption system as well.

 

“Brute force decryption of the WPA and WPA2 systems using parallel processing has been on the theoretical possibilities horizon for some time - and presumably employed by relevant government agencies in extreme situations - but the use of the latest NVidia cards to speedup decryption on a standard PC is extremely worrying.

 

“The $64,000 question, of course, is what happens when hackers secure a pecuniary advantage by gaining access to company data flowing across a WPA or WPA2-encrypted wireless connection. Will the Information Commissioner take action against the company concerned for an effective breach of the Data Protection Act.”

(Per SC Magazine)

Am I surprised? Not really. From a convenience standpoint, WiFi is great. From a security standpoint, how secure can one be when you’re freely broadcasting your network over wireless?

~Jaker

I think I’m suffering an appliance/electronic epidemic. About a week ago, my Pizzaz died (rest it’s soul). This hasn’t been too bad, since I really haven’t made pizza in awhile, and I have the oven as a backup.

Earlier this week, my xm2go tuner died. This was bad, because that was my only ticket to getting XM during my daily commute to work. I’m saddened by this, because that old tuner was pretty cool. It was the first portable tuner that XM released, and had the ability to record shows, pause live XM, and keep me entertained for hours on end. I knew that I had to get a new tuner, because my alternative (Milwaukee radio) still sucks.

I got that new tuner, and now I sport the Inno. This new tuner hasn’t had much listening time on it yet, but I have figured out several pretty sweet features:

• The built-in antenna is amazing compared to the xm2go. I can pick up a signal when standing in certain areas in my apartment with just the built-in antenna.
• The TuneSelect feature lets me do really sweet stuff with recording music (which, by the way, we’ll never see again on another tuner because it was this feature that XM was sued by the RIAA for). TuneSelect lets me record automatically whenever a specific song or artist plays. It still stays locked on the device, so I can’t copy it elsewhere. But I can listen to it whenever I want.
• So I’m listening to a station. A song comes on that I don’t recognize, but after the first minute or so, I realize that I love this song and I want to record it. Once I hit record, the Inno will record from the beginning of the song (up to 10 minutes previous, and assuming you were on that channel the entire time) all the way to the end. That is just kickass.
• XM+Napster. I’m upset that the Inno is not Napster ToGo capable (and their marketing should make this clear, as I was fooled by this). It does still integrate with Napster in a different way though. On the xm2go, I’d press the “mem” button when I heard a song, which would keep a copy of the title and artist in memory (up to 20). Then, from time to time, I’d manually copy this list to a text file on my computer (the infamous “xm.txt” file). With the Inno, I press “Bookmark” and the Inno keeps the title and artist. The difference is when I plug the Inno in my computer, my bookmark list shows up in Napster, allowing me to copy the list, listen to songs right away, or download them. Napster also lets me manage records (and listen to them).
• Two words: color screen.

I love my Inno, and it’s amazing holding the two tuners side by side and seeing how they’ve progressed. My only complaint with the Inno is actually a complaint with the FCC. The FCC ordered XM and Sirius that their new tuners must find a new way to broadcast over FM, as their old tuners were too powerful. Sirius just lowered the power of the FM modulator, and XM released this thing called SureConnect. Basically you’re supposed to clip this little thing around your antenna so the FM signal broadcasts directly on your antenna. The problem is they only designed this little device with cars with front- or back- antennas. My antenna, the RC-car on-the-top style, was not officially supported by XM. At first, I didn’t find a good way to mount the SureConnect device, so I tried a couple alternatives:

1. Use the built-in FM modulator in the Inno. This worked barely. With the FM power turned up “all the way,” I still barely heard the signal over my radio.

2. Use my FM modulator. This sort of worked, except I heard a horrible humming noise in the background whenever the Inno was plugged in.

The fix? I little bit of “hacking” my car. While I couldn’t attach the SureConnect device to the antenna, I could attach it to the cable that leads to the antenna. After removing the dome light in my car and disconnecting the antenna, I was able to attach the SureConnect directly on the antenna cable. Then I put everything back together, did some wire running and hiding, and I was finished. I have SureConnect in my car, but you’d never know it

I’m still not completely convinced that using an FM modulator is the best solution, so I’ve still got my eyes on the AUX input adapter for my Focus. I just need to pay up the ~$70 for it, and dedicate an afternoon to doing some stereo work in my car.

While I’m sad to see the xm2go, well, go, I am happy to have my XM back. Rock on!

~Jaker

Well, it happened. The DSL (pronounced “D S Slow“) has been replaced with cable. Let me tell you–cable is fast. I went with the turbo deal, so it brings a smile to my face whenever I run a speed test and see how fast it goes (anywhere between 15MB to 18MB). I approve.

Since I’ve had a thing for watching TV on TV, I splurged and got digital cable. While it’s nice to get a lot of channels (over 9000), it’s not so nice that I’m stuck using the set-top box. I’d much rather use my Media Center, since it’s a nicer UI and I’m keeping the Media Center on anyway for sound. This prompted research..

Time Warner gave me the Scientific Atlanta 8300HDC. This little box gives me access to digital channels, outputs in 1080i HD, and includes two tuners and built-in DVR. For those keeping count, the DVR-o-meter in my entertainment center is now at 4. The “C” in the model indicates that it uses a CableCARD to authorize access, and to subscribe to OnDemand content.

The hardware seems solid enough. It’s got HDMI-out, Component out, two FireWire ports, a USB port (for “future use”), and an eSATA port to expand it’s storage capability. Impressive. The FireWire and USB gets my attention, but I’ll cover that in a bit.

The software is not very impressive. It’s quite sluggish and doesn’t feel responsive when doing seemingly simple operations like pulling up the channel guide or pausing live TV. It could be that I just have a bias towards Media Center, but the performance difference is quite noticable.

So, how could I make Media Center my tuner again, and not have to deal with this set top box? Sadly, unless I buy the ATi Digital Cable tuner card, there’s no way I’ll get rid of the box. I can, however, try to use the STB to my advantage without buying an input card for my Media Center to pick up HDMI or component.

Let’s go back to those firewire ports. Apparently they’re supposed to be used for some TV’s that accept firewire. I’d much rather use them as an input and control interface for my Media Center. I found that there are drivers out there in the wild that support this, but they’re quite outdated (2005) and don’t support Vista x64 (which is what I’m running). I tried to connect the STB to my laptop and the laptop attempted to install drivers for the “Scientific Atlanta 8300HDC,” but it couldn’t find any drivers. Sadly, I am at a loss for now.

Perhaps TWC will start using the Motorola boxes. I hear they support QAM over the coax-out, which apparently lets VMC treat the output as a CableCard-like device…

~Jaker

So I was watching the news and the newscasters kept mentioning the completion of M-change. I didn’t think that sounded right, so I checked their website quick.

I guess it is done. Looks like I’ll have to take a drive down there some off-hours weekend day and check it out..

~Jaker

While my media center has seen a gradual upgrade from “spare parts” to “kicks ass,” the storage behind it has gotten a few upgrades as well. I have a media server that I call Icharus. He’s been on a slow transformation from a Server 2003-based Pentium 4 with a 320GB hard drive, to now a Server 2008-based Core 2 Duo with four 1TB drives in a RAID5 configuration. Yes, it means serious business. Losing data is bad, and losing a lot of data is worse.

I recently got a new case. This case has plenty of space for hard drives, so I was able to throw in the 4 1TB drives and set up the RAID5. The entire process was pretty weird. Here’s what happened:

Attempt 1: Via the Option ROM

I thought the best option would be through the Intel BIOS. So I press Ctrl+I and enter the Option ROM v7.5 and create my array. It created the array, so I then booted into Windows. I installed the latest RAID drivers (8.5) and opened up the Matrix console. There wasn’t any RAID. Worse, the drives I assigned to be a RAID were missing too. Disk Management reported no drives either. So I deleted the RAID and created it…

Attempt 2: Via the Matrix Console, Part 1

This process went pretty easily. I created the RAID, it appeared, and Windows formatted it. Easy? Almost. The disk size kept bothering me. Why was a RAID5 of 4 1TB drives only 1.99TB? Why did the Matrix utility show the array container as almost 3TB, but Windows refuse to go past 2TB? I did some research, and found that if you have version 7.5 or higher, Intel removes the previous 2TB limit that they used to have on their ICH chipsets for RAID. It also turns out that even though I installed version 8.5 of the RAID drivers, Windows still used it’s own version of the driver, which was a 6.X driver! Therefore I had to update the driver manually via Device Manager, reboot, and recreate the array…

Attempt 3: Via the Matrix Console, Part 2

After verifying that the driver version was 8.5, I recreated the array. Upon opening Disk Management, I was greeted with a much larger partition. After a quick format, my 1.99TB partition now reports as 2.72TB.

Lesson Learned?

Almost. If you look around in the Matrix utility and find the option to expand the array to fill the unused space, don’t do it! I tried that, and now I’m in the middle of a massive 700GB data recovery. That option seems to kill your partition, and doesn’t even resize it in the end.

~Jaker

Wrath of the Lich King™ Beta Test

You have been selected to participate in the beta test of World of Warcraft®: Wrath of the Lich King™. Welcome!

In the beta test you’ll get an opportunity to test the first zones of the new Northrend continent, and the new levels above 70. We look forward to your feedback on the overall experience, including quests, monsters, zones, aesthetics, and more. We would also appreciate reports on any bugs you may encounter. These can be logged using the /bug command explained below.

Getting started:

In order to participate in the beta test, you must upgrade an existing retail account that has been upgraded with The Burning Crusade®, allowing you to connect to the Wrath of the Lich King™ test realms. The World of Warcraft®: The Burning Crusade® game client that you use must be patched up to version 2.4.2 or later in order to install the beta test client.

Go to http://beta.worldofwarcraft.com and follow the detailed, step-by-step instructions to begin playing the Wrath of the Lich King beta.

Please be prepared to enter the current retail World of Warcraft account name and password you use, and the appropriate beta code listed below to authenticate your eligibility to connect to the Wrath of the Lich King test realms. To participate in the beta tests, you must have a valid retail World of Warcraft account active and in good standing as of August 25, 2008.

Below is a beta code that will allow you to upgrade a World of Warcraft account to be eligible for the Wrath of the Lich King beta test. Each beta code can be used only once to upgrade an active retail World of Warcraft account.

XXXXXX-XXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXXX-XXXXXX

Please retain this email for your records.  If you experience any issues setting up the beta account or accessing the test realms, please email Billing Support at wowbetabilling@blizzard.com.

Sending us feedback:

Typing /bug in chat will open an error reporting interface, and we encourage you to use it any time you encounter a problem or want to send us a suggestion.

Troubleshooting:

 

If you experience any difficulties installing the beta game client, or have problems connecting to the test realms, please contact Technical Support either by posting on the appropriate forum at http://beta.worldofwarcraft.com/forums or by email at wowbetatech@blizzard.com. Please remember that this software is still undergoing development, so any in-game issues should be reported using the /bug feature.

Looks like I’ve found an excellent way to spend my weekend not working…

~Jaker