Windows Media Center Recording Settings Explained

Edit 01-15-2014: After rebuilding my htpc a couple times it's become clear that these settings are arbitrary at best. I just have to trial and error the settings every time.

Windows media center has cryptic terms for how recordings are set.

1. To record three episodes of a show, recording every time, keeping the most recently aired shows:

Show type: New & rerun
Channels: any
Airtime: Anytime
Keep: Until space needed
Keep up to: 3 recordings
Stop: 3 minutes after, when possible

2. To record three episodes of a show, only recording when one has been deleted.  So in effect, there will always be 3 shows available, but some might be old.  This is good for something like Wheel of Fortune that it's nice to have a couple, but you don't want the PC starting up all the time to record new episodes.  The "Latest recordings" setting seems opposite of what you want, but that's the setting to keep older shows and not have WMC discard a show to record a new one.

Show type: New
Channels: any
Airtime: Anytime
Keep: Latest recordings
Keep up to: 3 recordings
Stop: 3 minutes after, when possible

3. To keep as many as possible, and not discard any shows to record new ones (for your favorite show).

Show type: New & rerun
Channels: any
Airtime: Anytime
Keep: Until I delete
Keep up to: As many as possible
Stop: 3 minutes after, when possible

Dinosaurs, Rawr

I just fired up my old GX150 (small desktop form factor) after several years in hybernation.

Anyone else have an old machine in stasis?

A list of the coolest things that I've ever done with a computer

These are the ones that come to mind

Year	Deed
1985	Heard a computer play “La Cucaracha”
1997 1997	Sent an email Installed Winamp
2001	Created a Video Compact Disc (VCD)
2001 2002	Hooked up a computer to a television to play digital video discs (DVDs) Bought a digital camera
2005	Built a 1 TB hard drive using four 250GB drives, setup as a Raid 0
2006	Shared a computer’s Ethernet connection over Bluetooth to a Sony T637 phone
2006	Converted videos to play on a Sony W810i Walkman phone
2009	Put a new operating system on a HTC Shadow Windows Mobile phone
2009	Copied Xbox saved games to an Xbox 360
2010	Put a new operating system on a Sony W810i Walkman phone
2010	Rooted an LG Optimus V Android phone
	Routers 2011	Put DD-WRT and Tomato onto a router
	2011	Used Tomato for port forwarding
	2011	Setup Remote Potato to access Windows Media Center remotely
	2011	Used Tomato as a Print Server
	2011	Used Tomato to set up a Universal Serial Bus (USB) File Transfer Protocol (FTP) site
	2013	Used Tomato to Wake On LAN (WOL) computers
	2013	Used Tomato to update a dyndns.com Internet protocol (IP) address automatically
2011	Used a thumb drive and Clonezilla to bit for bit copy a hard drive (as pointed out by my wife: just like in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo)
2012 2013	Slipstreamed Windows XP Installed dual boot operating systems on a Kindle Fire
2013	Used Tasker to disable the blinding "100% charged" green light emitting diode (LED) notification on a HTC EvoV Android phone

Google Reader

Everyone is making a big deal about Google Reader disappearing. But Google Currents has an RSS reader built in, AND it's primed to take over your reader feeds. Enable them and you're ready to go.

Worlds greatest inventions, in order of importance

Rock and Roll
Barbecue
Root beer

Ice Cream Sandwich on the Optimus V

I I tried out ICS for the Optimus V. It's pretty good but not as complete as CM7. ICS seems to cut out infrastructure wireless tethering and some video functions.

I like feel overall, and the lock screen is nice. I like being able to launch applications straight from the lock screen. However that means my pocket could also launch the same applications!

Seems to me that there were a couple other reasons that I switched back to IHO, the camcorder doesn't work and when a data connection is lost or airplane mode is engaged data service must be toggled to regain a data connection. Maybe a couple other things as well.

I thought about trying an SD-EXT partition, and but I'm concerned about my phone not working properly if I don't have that exact SD card installed.

ICS is interesting, but it until it's better than CM7 there's no good reason to upgrade. I read an article about if upgrades really even mater. Very timely.

QuickCAD 8 and Internet Trolls

It never occurred to me to try installing QuickCAD 8 (circa 2001) on my Windows 7 computer.  I just assumed it wouldn't work.  After all, Nero 6 doesn't work (circa 2004), sad.

But it does!  I just installed it and it worked.  I'm back to the drawing board, in a good way!  I didn't even have to use the workarounds people used here: http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/QuickCAD/Windows-7/td-p/2726767/page/3

Although I did discover some of the most classic, ranting, internet trolling I've ever seen!  Wow.

This guy hits all the classic points.  There's a funny parallel between being a forum troll and giving a "thank you" speech after an athletic competition.  They both have must hit points:

An athlete must:

• Downplay their own accomplishments
• Compliment the opponent
• Thank the team
• Thank the coaches
• Thank the fans
• Thank the player's deity of choice

A troll must:

• Deliver insults phrased as praise
• Have at least one, unrelated, off topic rant
• Imply idiocy - Describe a complex concept as child's play to bolster the troll's own credibility (no credentials required), i.e. "it's as simple as splitting an atom (you idiot [implied])"
• Hopefully employing incorrect punctuation or spelling, that's the best!
• Compliment their own ability and experience (AKA bitterness)
• Assume no one could have possibly have lived as long as themselves, or have remotely similar experiences - "I remember when computers had green screens!"  Yeah, you and 200,000,000 other people.  Literally, 200 million people (just in the US) are old enough to remember that.

OK, I'm done trolling myself!