Thats right! I can only assume I won’t win the contest for a HTC Evo, so I went over to my local Best Buy and preordered it. If by some crazy Voodoo Magic I do win one then all I’m stuck with is a 50 dollar gift card.

By the way, that little circled number at the top says 15. Its my queue number for getting an EVO. My friend got 17. Apparently my local Best Buy is not a hot place for the EVO preorder. Thats fine. At least I know I’ll be getting one

I’ve always been somewhat of a nerd, I know I know hard to believe right? I usually have the latest gadgets, toys, and the occasional useless purchase. I started this cell phone epidemic before it was even one. I had a T68i as my first phone. I once watched that phone slide across a dance floor during a break dance move. Luckly I found it from the blinking bluetooth light. The the geek overdrive took over and a phone that didn’t have a touch screen was a thing of the past. I moved up to an Sony P800. Aww technology.

I’m that sort of guy who pushes things to the edge because well I need speed. I need things to be fast. If its too slow I’ve already moved on. I switched to Sprint about a year and a half ago. I eventually ended up with the phone I have now. The Palm Pre. Don’t get me wrong I love WebOS, but the phone is a piece of crap. I’ve had 4 now, its slow, its painful, and it randomly reboots. But it does a lot of things. One thing it does not do however is 4g.

I work near LAX airport. We’ve got a few cell towers on our roof here and one of them is Verizon, and the other is Sprint. I was on the verge of paying my early term fee, and switching to Verizon because I want android, and there was no end in sight for 4g coming to LA. That was until Some guys in a truck showed up to run fiber. You see I’m the guy who knows where all the fiber comes and goes in this building. First it was Verizon working with Timewarner to get a bunch of fiber. Then Sprint showed up. I had a chance to talk to them, see the inside of their sprint setup, and finally was told… “This is WiMax going in”.

So I hopped on a roof and snapped some photos which you can see here.

My heart jumped, I was so excited that we were getting WiMax here in LA, but when? There are no WiMax devices, I don’t really want an overdrive because well I have a cell phone and Wifi, and well fast internet everywhere except my pocket. Where are the WiMax phones?

Thats when Sprint, and HTC announced at CTIA that they had a new phone.

Meet the HTC Evo. This phone does it all. It runs Android, 4g, HDMI, mobile hotspot. Feature packed, amazing phone that I want now. This is the kind of the device I’ve been waiting for. Full 1ghz processor, plenty of storage, sd card, dual cameras. This phone takes it to the next level… my level.

I’ve been waiting for this kind of device. Something that can keep up with me.

You see as I said previously, I’m a geek. I rely on technology as its my day job, but also my hobby. I sync with multiple exchange accounts, google, yahoo, aim, and a bunch of other personal sites. I’m the Ninja of the internet, I deal with backbone, routers, and switches all day long. Not to mention coding, and forcing things to work the way I want them to work.

Thats how it has been with every phone I’ve ever had. I’ve had to push it to the edge to keep up with me. Hacking kernels, rooting, writing my own plugins. Just to get it to do what I need it to do. I don’t think I’m going to have that problem with the EVO.

I’m ready to switch from Palm to Android. I’ve almost always had an HTC phone, but Winmo sucks, and I’m never going back there.

So heres to you Evo, I hope that your cost is worth it, your OS works, the hardware is solid, and you can run voice and data at the same time. I don’t know when its going to be released, some say june 13th, other say end of May. Either way its not quick enough. If the nexus one was available on Sprint I’d probably have that by now, and then switch again when the Evo came out.

Palm, thank you for the good times. Hate you for the bad times, you’ve been fun to root, hack, and make my phone slave. I’ll miss you, but only in that foster care kind of way.

*Update*: You may visit the Nook project page that has additional screensavers. Nook Projects

I decided to throw together a pack of authors and their quotes.

Nook Screensavers19 picturesJan 5, 2010

You may download the entire pack here.

To load this onto your nook, just plug it into your computer and open the drive labeled nook, then extract the folder to the my screensavers folder.

You may have to reboot your nook in order for it to detect the new folder. To reboot your nook just hold down the power button for about 5-10 seconds until the screen turns off completely. Once its powered off, go ahead and hold down the power button for a few seconds. It will take about 2 minutes to start up.

You may skip this step however if your nook does detect the files, you can check this by going to the home screen, and then to the settings folder. Once you’re there go to display and then screen savers. Choose the one called Quotes.

If you have more suggestions for additional authors you’d like to see let me know and I’ll be sure to add them to the collection, just either send me an email at m...@exstatica.net or leave a comment with the author you’d like to see. It doesn’t have to be a new one, or an old one, it could be any author.

If you have any other ideas for additional screensavers or backgrounds feel free to let me know, I’d be happy to throw some together.

Thanks.

I thought it would be a good idea to post a review of the first few days of using the Nook, that way I not only have a history of what bugs me and got fixed, but also things that I got used to.

I’m a new e-reader. I’ve never owned one, I used to read on a cell phone 4 or 5 years ago, and then just went to plain books.

I’m reading,  Makers by Cory Doctorow.

I describe as, “An industrial view of the broken culture that hackers and geeks alike rebuild from the ashes of a collapsed technology paradise.”.

I’m sure there are plenty of summaries out there, but to put it simply its about the new age dotcom bust, and the culture of hackers and gadget geeks making it on their own, taking old technology and reinventing it.

So far I’m about halfway through it. The book is seperated into parts. I’m in the middle of Part 2. Its a little weird starting part two as it has some of the same characters, and the its continuing on, but it leaves you with this sense of waiting for some characters to return.

So far though I’ve had trouble putting it down, and find it interesting to say the least. I downloaded it off his site as its free, If he had only charged for it, the book would have been sort of ironic with the content and then the commercialization. Either way I think more and more authors should do this. Not that I wouldn’t buy a book, but if he charged a few bucks for it. I’d have no problem buying it in a heart beat.

Onto the Nook, since this is the only book I’ve read so far, I’ve broken down a few issues I have with it.

Annoyances:

1. Jump to page

There is currently no way to jump to a page number, only chapters, some books do not have the chapters broken out, but there are page numbers (nook page numbers) that you can see, yet there is no way to jump to a specific page number.

2. Page turning buttons.

This whole bottom set to go right, and top set to go left is kind of stupid if you ask me. When I first held the device I thought to go back I’d just hit the other side on the bottom. Apparently I was wrong since it takes you forward a page, Its going to be the first hack I write for this thing. Just doesn’t seem very logical.

3. Cover Flow

Books you buy show up on the tiny display  when you hit Show Covers, but not books you loaded yourself, even if they have thumbnails and covers and all that.

4. Page Refresh

This one is not that bad, I’m not sure if I’ve gotten used to it, or its speading up as I get more and more in the book. But I think it could still use a little faster page refresh.

Likes:

1. Battery life

The battery life seems great, Although I’ve only had it a few days, I charged it over night. I’ve been reading a book pretty much 2-3 hours on the weekends, and during the week about 1 hour in the mornings, and an hour at night before going to bed. Its still at 86%. It hasn’t had a full charge since Saturday. Pretty good.

2. Readability

I was amazed at how easy the screen is to read. The pages are formatted correctly, the text is easy to see. Although I think I’ll need to invest in a reading light. I wish it was backlit.

3. Subscriptions

I subscribe to the Los Angeles Times, I can read the paper whenever I want. Go 3g!

4. Customization

Customizing this thing was a little fun. First I named by Nook “Breakfast”. Then I created a background for my favorite book, you can download it below. I’m still working on screensavers and I’ll get to it eventually.

Thats all for now, I’ll be sure to post another as time goes on.

In a previous post I discussed my Media Center setup. After some time with my Logitech Harmony 880 Remote Control, I’ve been frustrated, annoyed, and ultimately happy with my remote. I’ve had this remote for about 2 months now. I picked it up at Costco for about $119.00, and was very excited to rip it open and play. Since I got it mid day, and I’m an instant gratification kind of person I ripped the box open and wanted to play with it. I held back, especially since I was at work, Its not like I was going to control anything in my office. So I put it on the charger. Great choice so I could play with it at home without having that hidden concern of breaking the manuals rules of a full charge before using.

When I first set it up, I thought I’d have it configured, and done. Never having to touch it again. I spent some time thinking I knew exactly how I wanted the remote and what activities I want where. Boy was I wrong. Here is my advice to using this remote.

Think about all the devices you have, TV, Stereo, Game Consoles, Computers, DVD players, whatever you have that you may want to do with a touch of a button. for me, I have TV, TV w/ Stereo for surround sound, Media Center, DVDs, and XBox. I setup all my devices to turn on each component that was dependent on the other.

For Media Center I had to turn on the TV, and the Stereo. After about 2 months of this setup I started to realize the fustrations I had with this remote. First I enjoy switching between tv and the media center all the time, mainly because sometimes I like to check on a download, or search a webpage. Using an activity for this was not really acceptable. My media PC Is always on, and having the activity turn everything off to turn other things on was just kind of time consuming. So on every single activity I modified the display screens left side buttons. They were the devices attached to the TV. HDMI1 HDMI2 and so on, but labeled a little smarter like TV, XBOX, PC, and well thats it. This way no matter which activity I was in, I could switch between inputs. I also didn’t like the fact that the remote turned off my PC. So I modified the Media center activity and Device options and set it never turn off this device. That has made things much much better.

The software is great. Its a mesh of an application and web based. You can tell it uses a lot of syncing with the web, which is good so you never loose your settings, however if the site fails or goes away I’m not sure how this will affect the remote in the long run. Being such a technology whore however, I’ll probably have replaced it by then.

Pros: Great battery life, syncs with PC, has a help button for GF’s who offer to make you some water for breakfast. Rechargeable, and is backlit based on movement.

Cons: I wish the Display was an OLED, and it had RF. Audio feedback would be nice. I would love to have a row of hardware device buttons, like TV, PC, and Stereo that change the soft buttons at the top, instead of having to hit devices.

Bottom line? I love the device, its a perfect fit for my technology driven home. I recommend it.

I’ll be the first to admit I’m a total nerd, I would say geek, but something about biting the heads off chickens just doesn’t do it for me. But ya never know I’m always up for trying new things. This post is going to get semi nerdy and if you can’t follow along I’ve gone ahead and sectioned off the extreme nerd part, so just skip over it if you like, or not, frankly you probably will read it anyway so I don’t care and is mainly for my own personal amusement.

# Extreme Nerd Alert #

A few months ago I bought a new TV. My first HDTV. I’ve had Verizon Fios for years but just never plugged in the HD service because I was waiting for the right tv. I have this huge storage array I call Tiger, its a server that runs gentoo, with about 4tbs of storage. I keep all my music, and ripped movies on it for easy access. My old media PC wasn’t cutting it anymore. It was an old Athlon 1.6, and only had S Video out on it. I wanted HDMI and 1080P streaming. So I built a new Media PC or HTPC. After a bunch of research I landed on the ZOTAC GF9300-D-E. I loaded it with the following specs

• Pentium E5300 2.6ghz Dual core processor
• Corsair 4gb ram
• 250gb 7200 rpm Sata drive

Apex MI-008 Case

All in a APEX MI-008 case. Although the stock CPU would not fit which I read was going to be a problem, was not an issue since we have a stock of them at the office for servers and usually its not hard to find a low profile one. Problem Solved. I loaded Windows 7, because I wanted the full Media Center experience. I used to be a MythTV person, but it just took too much work to keep it running, and updates and everything were just out of control. Plus with MyMovies, now my movie collection is organized and it looks amazing.

Screenshot of Movie Screen

It has a built in collection management, It can handle seasons of TV shows which is a big deal for me since if I really like a TV show I’ll save it.

I have not however hooked it up to the Cable. Verizon Fios DVR is just too good to let go. Plus I hate dealing with compatibility of the IR and crap.

Anyway, I’m very happy with my setup, I had a full keyboard and mouse setup. It worked great but was a little big to manage especially for casual browsing and making changes. So yesterday I went on a new keyboard hunt. I searched all over to find a new one and finally settled on a Logitech diNovo Mini. The thing is beautiful, tiny, and rechargeable. It will go perfectly with my Logitech Harmony 880.  I’ll post a proper review of the Mini keyboard after I’ve used it for a while. The remote is nice, I have to spend some more time with it since I need to make adjustments here and there so things do what I want when I hit an activity. We’ll see. But its all coming together nicely.

# End of Nerd Alert #

So onto the Home Security Section. A recent episode due to a friend of a friend of a friend caused my house to be broken into. While they took nothing of mine, except some pillow cases, a few laundry baskets, they took his turn tables, mixer, and a few other things. Either way it could have been much worse. Said friend is no longer living with me, and I have my house to myself again. But who says they won’t be back to take the really good stuff.

I came across a post on LifeHacker the other day. Vitamin D turns your webcam into a security cam. You see I have lots of old webcams, and network cameras that just are too much of a pain to always watch. Thats where Vitamin D comes in handy. Its currently free and I’ll probably buy it if they add remove viewing ability, but its a feature it currently lacks.

I have it currently setup in the only access point of my house. The front door and the large windows pretty much cover the major area of where all my toys are. I have 3 views. One from the TV in, One from the Back to the TV, and One from the Side to the front door. Pretty much there is no way you can walk into my house and not be caught by a camera.

Yes I own a rocking chair, why would you not want one? and Yes its a little bit of a mess because I was up late last night coding so eat me. I do want to do a side project with more cameras. I want to record the movements of the cats over a time lapse of a few days. I have a feeling that there are patterns that they use when they go place to place. I have 3 cats and I have a feeling they take turns in different areas. Although I don’t think the rotation is every 3 days, I think its more like a few weeks, I’m not sure I can record that much. I’m gonna see if its possible with some sort of camcorder and external drive. If I can get 2 weeks worth of sunrise to sunset. I think I can have some awesome video. If you know of a good way to do this let me know.

On another note, I did finally get a Couch (yes I was couch-less. we can blame the last breakup. I also replaced my entertainment center with the one you see pictured. Its very nice, and much more organized. The old entertainment center was more of two end tables pushed together and a board on the top. Yes it was ghetto, but it worked until I found something I really wanted.

The next big purchase is a new TV for the bedroom. Thankfully the Bed has already been purchased. I had to cancel and order and cancel it a few times to get it right, but the new Select Comfort is coming soon. I know its expensive. Like 2k expensive but if you think about it you spend about half your life in bed. I don’t know about you, but I love sleeping (not that I get to do much of it).  On that note, I’m going to make like a baby and head out.

I’ve been in the market for an e-reader. I love reading books, but what do you do with them when you’re done? This is pretty much the entire point of this post. Its about sharing books the huge downfall of this LendMe technology. I’ll get into it all in just a minute, but when I’m done reading a book usually I give it away to someone. The sad part is once I do, I no longer own this book. So when someone else I’ve negotiated verbal warfare with has not read a book that I have. I would love to plant said ammunition and get them to join my side. I already gave my book away. I used the word lend in the beginning of this post. No one really lends anyone a book. You usually give it away in the hopes that its going to get passed down to someone else. So onto this new reader I have preordered, the Barnes & Noble Nook.

This device looks fantastic. I’ve been scouting lots of different readers. The kindle looks like something apple made in 1981. The Sony reader looks pretty good, but I played with one in Best Buy and it just was way to big.

So Here is the Nook. Full 3G + Wifi. Not to mention its backed by B&N. Now let me make something clear. I don’t work for B&N, nor have they given me anything. ( I wish they would).

Its not too big, Its not too small. Its got a small color screen at the bottom you can use mostly for navigation. The best thing I think is it runs on android, which means they will issue over the air updates for this device. I’ll be honest I buy books. I know what a concept right? I can’t read them on my computer, nor on my phone.

Navigation seems pretty neat. Includes an onscreen keyboard. I would actually pay a premium if I could use a web browser on this device. I know its not color, in the upper part, but the lower part might be just good enough to browse some pages and read up on Google reader.

Rumor also has it that this thing will be able to get books from Google Books. Thats suppose to be a massive library. I’m not sure how realistic that is since Google wants to do its own book store. Which would directly compete with Barnes & Noble.

The nook has this fantastic feature called LendMe

With our new LendMe™ technology, you can now share from nook to nook. But it doesn’t stop there. Starting Nov. 30th, you can lend to and from any device with the Barnes & Noble eReader app, including PC, Mac OS®, BlackBerry®, iPhone™ and iPod® touch. All you need to know is your friend’s email address. You can lend many of your eBooks one time for a maximum of 14 days. When you use our LendMe™ technology, you will not be able to read your eBook while it is on loan, but you always get it back.

This is a fantastic idea, but severely limited. 14 days? Why not 30? Oh and you can only share a book once. What kind of crap is that? Here is how I think they should change the LendMe service.

1. 30 day lending period
2. Lend the book as many times as you want, with only one lend at a time
3. You can take the book back at any time.
4. If someone lends me a book, Then they take it back. I get notified that I no longer have the book and have the option to buy it right there.
5. The ability to gift a digital book to someone
6. the ability to purchase a book and have it shipped to someone.

I personally would be not only buying books for myself, but I would sometimes buy a book for someone else. I can’t see how publishers are concerned about this. I mean the book is DRM, you can’t copy it. If I lend it to someone I think its only fair that they can use the book. I mean what is the difference if I go purchase a book and give it to someone after I’m done reading it. In the end. I really really hope they change the LendMe program. I think it would be in there best interest to do so. Not to mention I think it would have the same effect that piracy has on music.