Corey Gouker's Machine Inside the Mind

Had yet another follow up a couple days ago. Sadly things haven't improved. Stopped taking any sleep aids during the week simply because I can't function. Though the past 3 weeks have been okay since no matter what I wake/stay awake at 7:30 to get by around 8:30 which is good. On the weekends I either take the prescribed stuff or the turkey pills, mmm turkey. Anyway, it's odd since while this seems to be working and I don't feel tired. I just feel like I'm not exactly all there, mind is off somewhere and I'm functioning as a zombie. Woke up this morning thinking it was September and a Sunday. Maybe it was the dream I was having or something. Short term memory keeps going up and down, mostly down.

On the plus side I managed to actually start three of the major projects I've been looking to start for a while. Oh and the extra one at work which I'll hopefully be able to finish in a month or so. Think it'll be good, plus we could probably use it at work, well if I can actually pull it off.

It's been a while since I was last writing daily. On the public blog think I probably should start up a bit more. Definitely learned a thing or two since being inside eHome that would make for good solution posts for random issues with WMP and MCE.

All else is good, it seems. I suppose I could use a bit more company sometimes on the weekends guess that'll get solved soonish. Oh and for the record, it's 12:30 and I'm not in the least bit interested going down to the cafeteria for lunch, what a shock.

After a short down time with Canon Repair, I finally got my 20D back yesterday. Really have missed it which is kind of odd. Think this weekend will be good for some more photography, been craving a nice relaxing weekend doing nothing but that. Annoyingly FedEx had this weird do not release thing going on with the package so I had to shift lunch a bit, get home right at one then get back to 50 by 1:25 so I could catch a meeting at 1:30 which ended up being cancelled. Still didn't feel like I could eat so I just sat outside a bit to relax and examine the camera a bit to check all the functionality again. Managed to grab some nice shallow DoF photos of some of the random plants around the building before the hour for lunch was up. I think I got lucky once again, they replaced a couple of the parts that I knocked out while cleaning the camera with new ones, cleaned the sensor and the entire camera. Then even replaced the battery grip with a brand new one. Got both in the same package and definitely wasn't expecting that. Especially when the entire repair only cost me the $4.90 to get it to them in the first place. Am hoping Dom will write that 30 lines of code I need so I can copy over his gallery software and start making it public. Of course then I might actually have to start filtering some of the crap photos I take.

Just replying back to Jeff's questions here:

1. HDTV Ready usually means it's capable of displaying one of the resolutions below (be careful to check it at least does 480p, 720p.

2. Simplifying... EDTV is 480p, HDTV is 720p, 1080i, and 1080p. I = interlaced which is every other line. P = progressive, every line in order.

3. I've put two on my credit cards for friends so I could get points. Both bought Samsung DLP's one a 46" another a 56". 46" was from Circuit City, it was the 4663W iirc, so DNIe 3, paid $2001 after tax and telling them we'd take it right then if they gave us $100 off. 56" was from Best Buy. CC delivered next day.

4. Depends on your devices. The Samsung's came with 2 component inputs, you'll need at least one for the Xbox. It also came with DVI for your MCE. Basically what you care about is DVI (which seems to be dying on TV's but is replaced by...) HDMI, basically the same as DVI but adds support for protected content. There are cables to convert HDMI to DVI. Component which are the red green and blue cables. The rest of the inputs S-Video, Composite, are usually a given. Not sure about your Comcast box. Am guessing it'll be Component, check for the RGB bits. At any rate, you may need a switch, can recommend one once I remember the name of the one the guy who bought the 56" purchased. It had support for 6 devices, via component and spdif.

Recommend reading something along the lines of
http://money.howstuffworks.com/tv-buying-guide.htm
before you buy. If you go to Best Buy ask to see an Xbox plugged into it from their break room before you buy it. Also find out if your DVD player is a progressive scan DVD player (they look better).

Most importantly it's highly advisable that you ask if the TV has a CableCard slot. These will be the future of DTV over cable for many as they replace the cable box giving you HDTV directly into your TV over cable. Comcast (especially in this area) is likely to be one of the first to provide the service.

When I was shopping with the two friends I generally found that LCD's were by far the sharpest and most brilliant to look at when watching movies, like DVD's, etc. Plasma's were equally nice, not quite as sharp, but much brighter. Problem with LCD's was when you had the Xbox on it, the refresh rate was poor and when comparing it to a DLP it really didn't seem as smooth. Problem with all of them is how well they upscale SDTV. This is something you'll definitely want to check. Go to Magnolia and ask them everything you can think of.

Hope that helps, any questions shoot me an email or look me up in the GAL :)

So you're having problems with play back of various DVD's, XviD/DivX/3ivX, MPEG-2, and other video formats on your system. What's the issue? Well if you're new to the world of audio and video on computers lets start with the basics. Pretty much all audio and video you'll encounter will be compressed in some way. When you want to play an audio or video file on your system it passes through a codec (most commonly known as COmpression/DECompression, some shorten it to COder-DECoder, either way, same thing). The codec is what uncompresses the file so that your computer can process it further. It's actually pretty complex and I won't get into how it exactly works by drawing it out and providing an example using GraphEdit . As an example, even if a video you're trying to play has a file extension of AVI it could require a codec that isn't on your system. Despite another AVI file playing just fine.

Unfortunately Windows Media Player and Media Center don't quite do a good job at reporting what codec you need to download to play a file. As a case in point see one of the best WMP FAQ's out there. It's made by a guy at Microsoft named Zach, it's great resource for almost any WMP issue. Luckily, most file types are already handled but if you're like many people around the planet downloading videos of the net then most likely you'll need a couple that Microsoft doesn't ship with built in. Many sites and sources realizing this have tried to solve the problem by creating codec packs. While most of them have good intentions, often times they do more harm than good. The reason being is that you may already have the required items to play back the media and either don't realize it because it's hidden or it's not installed properly.

The most common issue I've seen is that a user has tried installing one of these codec packs on their system to play back a DivX video that was downloaded off of Kazaa, BitTorrent, WinMX, etc. Usually it's quite easy to see the codec packs in the same search results as the video's themselves making it all to easy to download and install something that won't help your experience. Some common ones are the K-Lite, Nimo, and ACE codec packs. No matter what it's called it's probably got some stuff in their you don't want and definitely don't want. Uninstalling the codec packs doesn't always work right either. Sometimes they'll register a filter/codec on the system and won't remove it correctly, leaving you with junk and videos unplayable.

The codec packs will also change your audio experience as well. Especially when it comes to AC3 (Dolby Digital) and other 5.1 content, like that found on DVD's. Often times codec packs will install a decoder that takes priority over the one you want and should be using. Of course sometimes it might just be that you've not gone into the Audio Properties and set your speaker set up to 5.1  (Control Panel - Sounds and Audio Devices - Advanced under Speaker settings).

What do you do then? Well my personal advice is to stay far away from codec packs. Don't install them, period. If you've downloaded a file and you can't seem to play it your best bet is to check and see what type of codecs you'll need to install to make it play. Once you've done that search for the name of the codec using Google or MSN Search, try and find the original creator of the codec and install that codec and that codec alone. Installing them one at a time make problems easier to track down and makes it easier to fix any issues it may cause.

Even then unless you're really digging through the trenches chances are you won't need more than 2 or 3 extra codecs to play most of the content out there.

Trying to determine what codec you should use? You can try out Marc Lion's (MVP) Sherlock Codec Detector or use GSpot.

XviD, DivX, 3ivX? I recommend using Koepi's "latest stable" decoder. There's also ffdshow if you're comfortable with something a bit more complex. Though if you go with ffdshow compatibility with MCE and some issues with WMP may come up now and again depending on usage and configuration.

DVD's, DTS, AC3 content, ideally you'll want to use either of the big 2. InterVideo WinDVD and CyberLink's PowerDVD, or maybe the possible third... nVidia's DVD solution whose name seems to change constantly, and whose status is up in the air. While it may work with players like Media Player Classic (not to be confused with Windows Media Player 6.4), ffdshow is also capable of playing back DVD's but doesn't work too well with WMP or MCE. Personally I'd recommend using WinDVD, it'll work in WMP, MCE, it'll convert your TV to WMV for syncing your Portable Media Center without issue. If you're having issues playing back DVD's or having issues with the sound not coming out of the speakers right most likely you've got something mixed up with multiple decoders. Microsoft has a tool that'll help you determine what's going on, the Windows XP Video Decoder Checkup Utility, is plain and simple. It'll show you what you have installed, what's preferred (setting preferred doesn't always work), and whether it's WMP, MCE, PMC compatible. If you have more than one decoder (not counting the one that is sometimes installed with Nero and the one that's installed by Sonic) you should try and track down the extra's and uninstall them. Also, those InterActual DVD's, watch for those, often times they'll install their own DVD decoder which makes things worse, I'd personally stay away from anything InterActual.

QuickTime, well, despite Apple's best effort you don't actually have to install it with iTunes (which does more than it should to your system, even if you don't want or own an iPod). You can find the QuickTime stand-alone installer if you look carefully enough at their main download page. Just uncheck the two boxes and don't bother with the email address when you click the button. Doing the Typical install for QuickTime usually doesn't do any harm to the system. You might want to pay attention to the MIME types during setup. Making sure to uncheck playback for all but QuickTime's own content. For a while I had issues where QuickTime would try and play back all my MIDI files on various websites. So keep an eye on that.

RealPlayer, ideally you wouldn't install this . But if you do try and make sure you turn off any of the phone home features, all the extra content, etc. Otherwise you'll get a player that tries to overstep it's boundaries and push itself onto you.

OGG Vorbis, FLAC, a good codec source that seems to work pretty well for me is the illiminable ogg directshow codecs release.

So that realistically covers most file types you'll find casually browsing various sites and P2P apps. Have a problem getting an audio or video file to play, not sure what codec you need, etc? Just ask in the comments, I'd be happy to answer any questions. Or take it to the microsoft.public.windows.mediacenter or microsoft.public.mediaplayer newsgroups where any number of users and MVP's can answer your questions.

Been going on for the longest time now. Think it started for me really bad like this 4 years ago. I'm not a caffeine drinker, probably could use a bit more exercise, but I just can't seem to sleep at all. I can never shut my brain off at night, am always thinking and just plain restless. Even when I ran myself ragged I couldn't sleep right, would make up in the middle of the night and just lay in bed for 3 hours not being able to get back to sleep. When I had Sam here it was a bit better falling asleep but I'd still wake up and not feel rested. I've taken just about every damned sleeping solution out there. Chamomile tea, herbal solutions, ambien, sonata (which were horrible) melatonin, temazepan, etc. Am currently taking Estorra, it seems to be working in terms of sleep for me. But every time I do I feel sick in the morning, had a nose bleed this morning and really dry mouth. Other side affects which seem to be true of all the drugs or just from the lack of sleep, extreme waves of depression, migraine headaches, memory issues like short term memory loss/slowness. Don't seem to dream at all either, at least I don't remember it when I do. And I always use to, think that's partly because I'd wake up so much during them. It's all just bull shit really. I'm really getting sick of it, can't take it anymore, the doctors aren't helping, only trying different resolutions with no real solution or cause. I have a doctors appointment tomorrow evening, am thinking that I'll pretty much just tell him that nothing is working, side affects are too bad, and that I'll just try and force myself to sleep. Really not sure what else there is I can do. It seemed to almost start working for me a while back. I'd go to bed at 10pm sharp and no matter what would wake up at 7am, even on weekends. Managed to do that for two months (which some slight issues in the first few days) but it seemed to work pretty well. Just did whatever it took to get to sleep and stay asleep. Guess I just needed to put it down in writing to reaffirm the fact that I need to sort this out like yesterday. It's ruining my life.

So pretty much since I started hosting my server locally on my home Internet connection I've had a trusty Intel CS430 webcam (now CS431 as well) connected to the world. I've always used ConquerCam set up as a service and it's just worked.

For the longest time I honestly lived my entire life 24/7 on the net totally exposed. Hence the reason why the page is called the Naked Truth of... And it's honestly got nothing to do with the fact that on numerous occasions I forgot it was on after I walked out of the shower naked. Believe me when I say I immediately checked the IIS logs to make sure no one actually grabbed the blackmail worthy JPG's. It's also been the topic of many Messenger chat's as well. One resulted in this little site where Matt Coy just started saving random images and giving them ridiculous captions. And yes most of them I posed for, and all are totally innocent. I really didn't have any hang ups about just sitting in front of the stupid thing not even bothering to notice the camera on 24/7 even whilst I slept, even while I was sitting around in boxer briefs.

After searching eBay I purchased 4 Intel CS431's for about $40. I gave one to Sam just because it had a built in mic, and for the rare video chat. I had planned to use the other for my main system for Messenger use if needed. Then I had been dying to do a 3 webcam set up for my website. One would show me. One would show the room. One would show outside my window. Sadly it didn't quite work because ConquerCam couldn't recognize the 3 devices separately in the way I use it as a service. So anyway while I'm still working that out I figured I'd post up the most recent idea which is the 24/7 Money Tree cam. Now anytime day or night you too can watch money grow on trees . Enjoy.

UPDATE: Just had another idea... Jon, could you make a quick mod to that webcam app of yours and have it capture my webcam say, every 15 minutes (I think that's a good amount, but you might have a more logical idea about it). Since it'll be capturing once every 5 - 30 minutes I'll grab all those images after, I don't know, 3 months and then turn it into a fancy little time lapsed WMV . Anyway, bed time now...