Google Chrome

Normally I wouldn’t write about something so simple as this.  But I have grown a particular affinity for Google Chrome.

First let me say that It is by far the best experience you can get on the Internet.

Second. I’m a diehard Microsoft fan and really feel that they make a great overall experience on computers.  No. I will not buy anything / everything they make like the silly fan boys over at the fruity computer corp.  But then again I will not buy anything Apple makes.  So I guess that works out in the end.

On the controversial side I think Firefox is slow and pointless.  There are a bunch of Zealots who will totally disagree with me stating things like “it’s more secure” or whining that “I need my extensions”.

Whatever.

It has become no better than IE.  Slow, heavy and… Whatever.

Back to Chrome.  In my opinion I really think they did do the browser “right”.  They’ve answered things that (at the time) no one else had done. And the most important.  They made it BLISTERING fast.  It opens as fast as Notepad and surfs just about as fast!

These are my favorite features:

• Dynamic Tabs – The ability to undock, re-dock and reorder tabs as you see fit.  So cool!
• Crash Control – Isolated processes for each tab.  Why didn’t anyone do this sooner!
• Omi Box – Finally someone does an “auto-complete” that actually works!  Integrated search results, predictive auto-complete (even with a single character) based on your history.  Brilliant!
• V8 Java Engine – You can instantly tell how much faster this is versus other browsers.  It makes more modern web sites seems 5x faster.

With that I cant stress enough how much you need to try this on your own if you’re not using it yet.  It has become the VERY first application I install on my computers and is also my default browser on all my machines.  No questions asked.

If you’re a little more daring (okay… not really all that much more) then you can try the Beta Stream to get access to some of the newer features.

Google has recently come out with some new great videos on their YouTube channel promoting them.  This one is my favorite!

Download and enjoy the web again…

Over.

Getting Rid of Comcast – Finally!

Recently I made the move to drop my Comcast Cable.  I simply don’t watch enough TV these days and with the economy being the wonderful thing it is, saving some extra money each month is a much welcome thing.  On top of this, Netflix now offers more and more streaming movies and Amazon allowing you to rent movies and TV series for a low cost; it just makes it more and more practical to go “On Demand” for just about everything!

So.  I did it.  I finally took the plunge to get rid of the Cable TV bill that I really wasn’t using.

The Savings

Went from about $150 per month to about $60.

$90 / Month = $1,080 a year.

Wow!

What did I keep from Comcast? High Speed Internet (which I still think is the best out there) and something referred to as “Limited Basic” cable which I’ll talk about in a minute.

How does it all work?

So… There is no shortage of electronics; the good news is that I had much of this already running.  The core of the system is a Windows Vista Home Premium machine running Windows Media Center.  Media Center has just about the best DVR software I know.  They even combine the ability to look up data from the internet giving you a really rich browsing, searching and watching experience.  It also can play your music collection, do slide shows of pictures and other cool stuff.  Totally great. 

Now that you have something to record the TV, you need to get a signal to it.  This is the cool part! 

To do this I’m using a special networked TV Tuner called HDHomeRun from Silicon Dust.  This is an amazing little device that will decrypt the HD signals that are broadcast Over-the-Air (OTA or ClearQAM) and pump them into your network.  There are a number of “free” channels that available and have great fidelity.  Pure HD.  Most notably all the main networks: CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox.  There are a few more channels as well but this gets you quite a bit for free.  If you think about the great content that’s on network evenings these days, it really carries you a long way. 

In order to to actually get a signal to this little device you need to either use an antenna or you can do what I ended up doing.  Thanks to a user over at The Green Button I leant that you can get a service from Comcast called “Limited Basic Cable” for $16.50 a month.  This is pretty much just the network channels and doesn’t require any box from the cable company to run.  By simply hooking up the HDHomeRun to this cable signal it will decode the HD channels! Simple as that. After you hook this up to your network, Windows Media Center finds the channels and the two tuners on the HDHomeRun pretty easily.

The one tip I have after all this.  Make sure you have updated your network adapter drivers and the firmware of the HDHomeRun.  You’re asking it to push quite a bit of data over the network with the HD signals; worth making sure that you’re as optimized as you can be.

There are some other pieces of equipment I use to get this to all work together:  An XBOX 360 as a Media Center Extender (Also works as your Netflix Streaming front end) and a Linksys Media Center Extender for bedroom.

All-in-all I’m totally happy with the experience.  I’ve been recording shows like Lost, Heroes, Life, 30 Rock, The Office and others flawlessly for 2 months now.  Never a missed episode.  On top of Windows Media Center being simply a better experience, having a much reduced cost per month is the biggest advantage.  I can live without the cable channels for that!

The Sydney Marathon

Okay.  Bottom line is that I finished.  Let’s get that out of the way.

Next thing I want to get out of the way is that this is by far the hardest thing I’ve ever done when it comes to fitness.  I know that there are thousands of people every year that come out and run the full distance and I salute each and every one of them.  Just to show up to the game is a challenge never the less to finish it.  Great work all of you!

Now for the event.  I was presented with the opportunity to run the Sydney Marathon with a co-worker and friend of mine who works “down under”.  It just so happens that the event fell on the same weekend that I was already planning on traveling.  While initially I didn’t think I wanted to give it a try; in the end I succumb to the allure of running my first marathon while in a far away place.  Really? How could I pass this up?

The week before was packed with work events including a winery tour at Hope Estate.  This was a blast but of course it meant that we had a glass or two of their wine and stayed up just a little too late.  The weekend came and Saturday brought a relaxing day with a little photo tour of Manly Beach.  It was quite hot for September so there were hundreds of people enjoying the weather.  After strolling around a bit we headed back to the hotel to rest up; don’t want to wear yourself out before a big run.

Sunday came and I felt great! I have to admit that all the small things that were a little sore the week before (causing me to whine like a little baby) like my IT band, my shins and my toe… all were magically feeling good.

I was ready to run the event!

The race started at 07h15, precisely two minutes after the “wheelies”.  The Elite runners were up front including two super fast guys from Kenya.

After the gun went off we started up a small hill, turned the corner and headed across the Harbor Bridge.  This experience alone was worth the trip.  To run across this monster, closed off from traffic, put a totally different perspective on it’s amazing architecture and its massive size.

The next 15 miles or so were great!  They wound through Centennial Park and various beautiful parts of the city.  Around the half-way mark my spit time was about 1h49 which is pretty fast (for me at least).  This is on a pace for a 3h38 finish if it were possible to keep it up.

But… This isn’t possible…  And I experienced this first hand…

Starting around mile 18  I said to myself:

“Okay… every step beyond this is farther than I’ve ever run before…”

This pretty much set the tone for the rest of the event.  Around mile 19 I started to slow.  Mile 20 I said to myself:

“Okay… I’m just going to walk a little… Just to see how it feels…”

Two steps into that I decided walking was not so good actually.  So I kept running.  Kind of…

Then I got to the final “out and back” of the event.  We had to run from the city out on about a 6 or 7 mile stretch of road.  As I was going down this I couldn’t bear it any longer.  With each of the steps that passed they became increasingly harder.

I started to walk for the first time… A few minutes for the first one…  Just to take a break.  Upon running again the mental game of this went into full gear.  The things that were in my head were incredible:

“I have to stop… This is crazy…”

“I can’t stop! People will know I’m a failure!”

“Wow… It really does all start after 20 miles!”

“Oh man… Isn’t my hotel just down the street? I think I’ll just stop by and then head to the finish line… No one will know…”

“I just can’t take this any more!!!”

After 23 miles I was pretty much in done.  Physically.  Emotionally.  The only thing that kept me going were the countless times that I’ve run 5km (3.2 miles) and knew that it wasn’t that far till the end.

Along with the nearly 30 minutes of walking on-and-off for those last 6 miles I did end up finishing.  4 hours and 6 minutes was my official time.   All in all not bad.  But in the end I’m not happy.  The relentless pursuit of…

Well… More…

Below is a panoramic photo I took a day before the race… Capturing the begging in and the end of the event… The highs and lows and highs…

In the end I’m so glad I did this… I’m don’t know if I’m satisfied with the results… But isn’t that what keeps us pushing on?

Nespresso... What Else?

I recently upgraded my life... I mean my coffee machine to the Nespresso Latissima; also know as "George".  More on this later. 

Previous to this magical device, I owned another fully automatic coffee machine that was quite nice; the Jura-Capresso E8.  The E8 would make a great espresso (depending on your beans of course) and would make an Americano if you like as well.  It did however lack any real ability to make anything with milk.  While the E8 did have a milk frother, it didn't have the power needed to get you a great foam.  On top of this, the arduous journey of cleaning this contraption was terrible.  You had to disassemble the nozzle as if you were pulling apart a small V8 engine just to get the milk out of it.  If you failed to comply with these rules, you would end up with a bit of sour milk.  And as we know, sour milk is not good... No, no it's not...

The Latissima on the other hand is the Perfect design.  Simple, elegant, very few moving parts and of course really, really easy to clean.  The culmination of this lies within milk container and frother.  It sits externally to the device and like all it's other parts are completely dishwasher safe.  This is key my friends.  On a day to day basis you simply remove the milk container (no waste) and put it in your refrigerator.  Finally, once a week just stick all the parts in the dishwasher.  It is clean as a kitten after a good tongue bath.

The beauty of this all? It makes a near perfect Latte and Cappuccino in about 45 seconds and to top it all off.  It's probably the least expensive "top of the line" machine out there.

Next we have the coffee.  I have long been opposed to the capsule culture of coffee.  I never really believed in it and never thought that you could get a decent cup.   There are many "American" brands out there that try to produce a good cup.  The reality with most of these... They are simply coffee grounds wrapped in a small coffee filter.  Not espresso, not even coffee.  Not even worthy of ingestion.

After trying out the Nespresso line of capsules, I can truly say that their coffee will rival just about anything out there, short of a Italian bar in Florence.   They come in about 12 different blends all designated a range from 2-10, where the higher the number the stronger.  I like the 9's and 10's, of course.

Each of them have different characteristics that are built to suit even the most demanding pallets; you can even get decaffeinated versions, although I'm not sure why.

Back to George.  George Clooney happens to be the spokesperson for Nespresso in Europe.   What I didn't mention yet is anything about this company and it's reputation.  Nespresso was originally a joint partnership between the Swiss Nestlé company and the German Krups company.  The Swiss set out to perfect the capsule manufacturing process while the Germans made the machine to go alone with it.  Could anyone imagine a better combination?  The engineering and the quality of the Germans along with the absolute precision of the Swiss keeping your coffee perfectly tucked into it's aluminum foil capsule.

With introducion of the Nespresso line it has grown to become a standard for home espresso machines in Europe.  They have boutiques where people can go and enjoy a Nespresso and purchase refills for their machines.  I've been to the one in Munich, it's quite the experience.

Just see for yourself. 

Nespresso... What Else?

What's the catch? The downside? Well... Americans haven't quite figured this out yet.  I understand... It took me a bit as well.  Granted Starbucks has really brought up the quality of American's coffee drinking habits, but I fear in the home, many of us are still stuck in the 1950's with our instant coffee and our percolators.

Not me... Never... I have George.

The 2nd Gen Zune and the Zune Marketplace

The new Zune is here! The new Zune is here!

I'm a happy puppy now.

Last week I got my new Zune 8GB and finally replaced the Samsung YP-1 that I'd been using for running and working out.  I abused that poor little player so badly that it was no longer syncing and the headphone jack was corroded badly enough that most of the time I would only play one of the two stereo channels.

Needless to say; November 13th couldn't have come any sooner.

After playing with the new Zune UI I'm totally convinced that this is just about "perfect" - of course there are other more full featured players out there like the (lame) iPod Touch; however for the money, purpose and size - the Zune 4/8 is fantastic.

You've probably all heard of the neat features they've (finally) added like Podcasting but they've also added some best in class items like Wireless Sync.  This one has proven to be an awesome addition to the mix.  Think of it this way.  You're just about to got to work for the day and you don't want to go plug the thing into your computer.  Simply sync wirelessly and all your latest downloads and Podcasts are there in just a minute or two.

Awesome.

Last but not least, today I bit the bullet and purchased the Zune Pass.  The Zune Pass is a all knowing all singing ticket to download as many songs as you want and as long as you keep your subscription you can play them on your computer or Zune as much as you want (put that in your iPod and smoke it!)  Couple this with the ability to share tracks with other Zune users and it really opens up the world of new music. 

I've already downloaded about 100 tracks in the first few minutes - I'll let you know later what I think of it. Chances are it is what it is... More music variety without dumping loads of money into songs you probably wont listen to forever.

So far so good.